Liberals' Tax Problems

The NJ Republican Party came out full throttle today, attacking Democratic Congressional Candidate Linda Stender for failure to timely pay her taxes. She responded – implausibly attacking Leonard Lance, who, apparently, had nothing whatsoever to do with the story – contending that the business belonged to her mother and sister.

While such matters are clearly "fair game" in the bare-knuckles world of partisan politics, I confess to a degree of sympathy, having found myself in much the same situation. During the last campaign, my opponents "got personal", making an issue of my own, perpetual financial difficulties. From this experience, well can I appreciate both sides of the equation.

The irony of a tax happy liberal failing to pay her own taxes should not be lost on the electorate – if true. The sorry state of the New Jersey economy finds it genesis precisely in the policies foisted upon our unhappy state by such tax-happy liberals. If, as Stender says, her family’s business suffered these last few years, she should immediately apologize to them for her actions and change parties. Under the stewardship of her party, business taxes doubled and New Jersey citizens secured the dubious honor of a taxation threepeat: three consecutive years as the most oppressed taxpayers in the entire nation. Anything less than an abject apology and plea for forgiveness on the part of a participant in this debacle insults the electorate’s intelligence.

Then again, the NJ Democratic Party consistently insults the electorate’s intelligence and, bearing out Twain’s observation, seems to prosper nicely.

Stender blames the family business problems on the failed economic policies in DC, an assertion with some little merit, but not in the way she asserts. President Bush – like other (fiscally) liberal Republicans – spent us into bankruptcy, with the active complicity of a "Republican" (but certainly not conservative) Congress addicted to pork and corporate welfare. Unfortunately, the Democrats who took office in 2006 proved exponentially worse, spending even more money than their profligate "Republican" predecessors. Belatedly discovering that he owns a veto pen, President Bush stayed some of the worst proposals, but to assert that his first term was not an unmitigated, fiscal disaster, would be to tell an untruth.

But the abysmal state of NJ fiscal policy makes the feds look good, demonstrating the dire consequences of unified, "progressive" government. The policies Stender supported here in NJ are precisely those which made the State into an economic basket case: skyrocketing taxes, exploding spending and massive deficits. Now, she wants to take them national, apparently figuring that New Jersey residents should not suffer alone.

A little sympathy for the struggling businessman is well in order. I know how easy it is (as a self employed) to get behind in tax payments when faced with hard times and competing priorities. Start with an adjustable rate mortgage, stir in tuition payments, fold in a family illness, and, suddenly, the government’s priorities don’t seem all that important. Faced with the choice between keeping one’s own kid in school or underwriting someone else’s kids through tax payments, any rational soul would put his own family first.

The difficulty is not so much with Stender’s asserted family financial problems as with her public policies. Her campaign ads lament the fact that "health care, gas prices, everything costs more", (omitting, tellingly, tax payments) but in each case, her party’s policies caused those problems. Gas prices? I abide Stender’s thoughts on off-shore drilling and oil development in ANWR. Health care? Governmental involvement – such as insurance mandates – drives prices ever higher.

Stender advocates for "quality, affordable health care"; from government? Ain’t no such beast. The governmental programs which provide health insurance are both bankrupt and beset with fraud and mismanagement. "Middle class tax cuts"? Her presidential candidate opined that folks making $150K per annum are "rich"; he, obviously, never set foot in New Jersey. But we can bet his promise to raise taxes on us "rich" folks is one that he and his Party will inevitably keep.

Most ironic, Stender avers that "working hard should mean getting ahead". Not in New Jersey. Anyone who attempts to "get ahead" finds himself accused by the mavens of the Left of refusing to do his "fair share" and taxed until he flees to PA. Indeed, that slogan positively reeks of Republicanism.

We’ve tried Stender’s policies; they produce the kind of economic misery which leads to being forced to choose between paying one’s taxes and paying college tuition. That her family business suffered under the tax, borrow, and spend regime of the Trenton Democrats comes as no surprise. We should feel great sympathy for her family, and express understanding. The left has made falling behind on one’s taxes in NJ easy.

Taxes constitute a first claim against one’s income or property, and – in a frugal society with a small, efficient government – justifiably so. A government which restricts itself to its appropriate sphere, doing only those things absolutely necessary to defend freedom and secure liberty, can justly claim that first position. Where would any of us be without a sufficient military to defend freedom or the police necessary to enforce the law? Individual desires must be subordinated to the exactions necessary to preserve and defend the society which makes earning an income, and the preservation of property, possible.

But when government puts the asserted needs and desires of other people ahead of those of the person who earns an income or owns property, it runs into grave difficulty. By what right do people place their desire for subsidies ahead of the needs and desires of those who actually earn the money or own the property?

Take a concrete example: college tuition subsidies. Advocates routinely complain that NJ does too little to assist young people seeking a college education; oh? By what right does one demand that one’s neighbor subsidize one’s own college education? Perhaps said neighbor has kids of his own, preferring to satisfy their needs and desires rather than those of strangers. Is he not so entitled? The employment of the coercive authority of government to exact from a worker gifts to folks whose only claim to a share of his income is their political power constitutes the very definition of corruption. One’s income or property – indeed, one’s very life – can be properly held to answer for the collective defense. But once same is secure, a worker’s right to the fruit of his own labor is essentially absolute. Neither an individual, nor government acting on his behalf, possesses any authority to exact a personal benefit from he who earns the income or owns the property.

Put simply, the Stender family tax difficulties are entirely predictable in the economy the Stender tax policies produced. A society in which "working hard means getting ahead" requires fewer liberals passing expensive laws. The electorate could help solve the Stender family tax problems by electing someone other than Stender to Congress.

The Democrats vs. Morris Township

Growing up on Symor Drive, one of my family’s first recollections of Township life, after moving here in 1960, was awakening to an invasion of cows straying from the Moore Farm on Woodland Avenue.

The Moore Estate now bears little resemblance to the sprawling farm and stately, hilltop mansion I remember from my childhood.

While land development is both inevitable and desirable, one can lament the fact that the State seized the right to determine a vision for the Township from Township residents. Instead of more environmentally friendly, less intense residential development, State government insisted upon high-density housing, with all of the costs – environmental and economic – such construction brings. Today, we suffer the consequences of ill-considered State decisions, including infrastructure costs, traffic, and the other banes of inappropriately dense development. Only Republican Township government kept our taxes modest in the face of these illogical State mandates.

Last session, though, the Democratic Majority and the Corzine Administration presented the Township (and the State) will a new set of construction mandates which threaten to severely undercut our quality of life and hugely increase taxes. This represents the Democrats’ gift to Morris Township.

Morris Township now faces a state mandate to construct an additional 224 units of low and moderate income housing. Under prevailing practices, that will require 1000 units of market-rate housing. Unless Township residents somehow find a location for more than 1,200 units of high density housing, that state may step in and dictate a location, throwing local wishes, zoning, and quality of life to the wind.

Each so-called "affordable" unit carries a price tag of more than $250,000; most of that cost will now be borne by the unfortunate property tax payers in the Township. Assuming that each one of these units produces just one new school-age child, at a cost of more than $16,000 per student, that adds almost $20 million each year to property taxes. Factor in millions more for additional infrastructure, police and local services, and the inevitable consequence will be massive property tax increases on present residents.

Meanwhile, the state imposed an additional tax on non-residential construction, depriving the Township of a possible source of revenue to offset the state-mandated costs. And it continues to provide all Morris County districts combined will less school aid than it provides to just one, Democratic town: Union City. (Never mind Newark, Jersey City, etc.)

My family moved here – as, perhaps, did yours – to enjoy a suburban style of living, free from the congestion, traffic, pollution, and other problems that urban-life inevitably produces, while foregoing the myriad benefits of urban living. Morris Township erects no barriers; anyone wishing to move here is welcome. Now, the Democrats tell us, in effect, that it’s morally wrong to escape poverty, congestion, traffic, crime, etc.; that we labor under a moral imperative to bring these urban problems with us into the suburbs. The Democrats assert that every single town must create a few pockets of urbanization within its borders.

Treating existing suburban residents as criminals, as if they owe urban residents a massive subsidy to relocate here, is simply nonsense. Turning Morris Township into an extension of Irvington – or, even, an extension of Morristown – totally undermines the reason the Township exists in the first place. Instead of improving cities (which, given the huge amount of public dollars spent there, should have happened long ago), the Democrats continue to attempt to destroy the suburbs.

Statewide, the Democrats’ recent foray into "fairness" will cost local property taxpayers at least $25 billion in direct construction costs, plus tens of billions more in infrastructure and services. All based upon the patently silly proposition that it’s somehow unfair that housing prices in Newark tend to be lower than those in Morris County.

Morris Township voters should consider these massive costs and ridiculous social policies at the polls. Not a single Republican legislator supported this monstrous, expensive mandate; every Democrat voting – except for one (cowardly or cautious) congressional candidate – supported it.

Our local officeholders should do all they can to fight this Democratic monstrosity. Every year of delay is another year of grace to the Township taxpayers, another year of preserving the quality of life against this Democratic assault.

Why So Serious?

The Capitol Steps – hardly known as a front for conservative activism – perform a running gag, sending forth an appropriately frumpily dressed member of the cast to intone in a professorial monotone: "we shall now recite all of the jokes which feminists consider funny", followed by a prolonged silence.

One wonders if membership in leftist circles is contingent upon securing a humorectomy. Consider, for instance, the treatment The New Yorker – a reliably cobalt publication – received when it satirized the right’s treatment of the Obamas on its cover. The campaign of the aforementioned Messiah-presumptive responded by excluding one of the offending publication’s reporters from the European coronation celebration tour. Jeeze; lighten up; remember, like most of the media, they’re on your side.

And, now, a playful commercial by McCain, comparing Paris Hilton and Britney Spears with Obama – folks who enjoy celebrity status without having actually accomplished anything (or, in the expression of the moment, people who are famous for being famous) – produced a huge backlash from the professionally perpetually offended. It’s racist, don’t you know, to portray a black man in the same commercial with white girls.

Ah.

In the blogosphere, the usual suspects are apoplectic. One writes that the ad is "... clearly a racist ploy/play on the old ‘black man with pretty young sexy white girl’ trope.’ As OpinionJournal points out, thought, that ‘trope’ involved black man corrupting innocent white girl, and neither of the aforementioned "ladies" will be mistaken for an innocent any time soon. Were such a relationship actually to exist, "corruption" would clearly flow the other way.

And, of course, Himself plays the race card for all it’s worth – while denying that he’s doing it – noting that such ads arise only because he ‘...doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills". If, by that, he means that he lacks a powdered wig or a beard, point taken. But that’s not what he meant.

(For the overwhelming majority of the folks who intend to vote against Obama, his race makes precisely no difference; they would have been just as happy to vote against Hillairy, and for pretty much the same reasons. For a significant portion of those who intend to support him, though, his race is crucial.)

What explains this humor-deficit of the modern left? Conservatives – even "rednecks" – have no difficulty whatsoever laughing at themselves; consider Jeff Foxworthy, Bill Engvall, et al. Even George Bush pokes fun at himself, parodying his own lack of articulateness. But most leftist attempts at "humor" involve aren’t-we-superior inside-jokes about the idiocy of the president, Republican penchants for going to war, etc. And the condescending leftist audience dutifully cackles at its own erudition.

On a lark, I googled leftist humor, and came up with these gems: "I voted for Kerry and all I got was this lousy government"; "wake up and smell the coffins"; "black driver, don’t shoot". "Annoy a conservative; believe in science". Har, har, har. Oh, boy, these leftists, what a side-splitting bunch!!

But try, just try, to poke a little fun at Obama and POW, you’re a racist. Heck, if you’re even a tad niggardly in your praise, that suffices to convict you. (God forbid that you refer to the government as a "black hole"; indeed, one of the perpetually aggrieved even complained about bias in the bakery: angel’s food cake is white, devil’s food cake is black. I kid you not.) A Times correspondent referred to Obama as "well-spoken"; the auto-replace feature probably automatically deleted "articulate". Spoofing Obama’s "rock star" treatment, another writer asserts, is a "shameful attack with no basis". And the Grand High Pooh Bah of Perpetual Offendedness, Bob Herbert, informs us that the ads are "slimy" and a "gross insult".

Please.

Herbert describes the point of this ad: "It’s driving the idea that Barack Obama is somehow presumptuous, too arrogant, too big for his britches — a man who obviously does not know his place."

After a fashion, he’s right. The point of the ad was to show that Obama has no apparent qualifications for the office to which he aspires. That, like these two celebrities, he’s accorded treatment wholly divorced from any perceptible achievement. It said, in effect, he attracts the media spotlight akin to the likes of Paris Hilton, yet neither of them has done anything whatsoever to warrant the attention. Clearly, he’s the Democratic nominee for a reason having nothing at all to do with accomplishments, as he has accomplished precisely nothing.

For the humor-impaired, identity-obsessed denizens of the far left – and The New York Times, to the extent there’s a difference – a simple thought: get a life. Poking fun at Obama – making light of his matinee idol media reception while pointing out the fact that he’s never actually played a starring role – is not only completely fair, it’s wholly innocuous. If he had the slightest sense of humor himself – instead of taking himself as seriously as he apparently does – he’d turn it around, make light of it, make mock: show up at a campaign event with a sequined jacket, dark glasses, and a guitar. Like Reagan’s self deprecating joke about his age. "I knew Thomas Jefferson ..." "I will not use my opponent’s youth and inexperience...". Or Jack Kennedy’s easy use of a self-deprecating quip.

Would the "right wing attack machine" use that image? OF COURSE! (One of the first things political advisors warn candidates about is "never get photographed wearing a silly hat".) But so what? If the worst that conservatives can do is convict Obama of possessing a sense of humor, they’re dead. It’s precisely the complete lack of a sense of humor – both by Obama and his hyperventilating media lapdogs – which continues to drive the story.

C’mon, leftists, let’s put a smile on that face.