Political differences keep intruding on badly needed reforms

This year President Donald Trump’s administration and the Republican majority in Congress identified areas of government needing reform. The tax code is huge, complicated and full of negative elements. The health insurance marketplace is collapsing, thanks to the (so-called) Affordable Care Act, under which insurers dropped out of the market and prices continue to grow beyond the ability of millions of Americans to afford them. And the nation’s border security and immigration systems are so bad as to be dangerous.

Efforts to fix the tax code and health insurance ran into political problems, and the immigration and border problem most likely will, too. But we have an opportunity for reform, and we need it.

In our sharply divided society, the political right and left have very different ideas about immigration. One side takes a dim view of controlled immigration, while the other side prefers a strong immigration system.

Generally speaking, why should America not apply the same common sense rules to immigration as its citizens do regarding whom they allow into their homes?

  ** How many of us would leave our doors and windows unlocked all the time?

  ** If one or a few people knock on our front door and say, “I really like your house, and want to live here,” how many of us would invite them in, just because they want to come in?

  ** How many of us, if we found a small group of strangers living in our garage, basement or spare bedroom would merely ask them to leave, instead of calling the police and having them arrested?

  ** How many of us would happily feed and clothe those intruders and allow them to stay without knowing whether they are violent or can be trusted?

  ** How many would allow one of their family members to hide and protect the intruders?

These situations actually exist in our immigration system today.

Most of us insist that we decide if anyone comes into our home, who we allow in and under what circumstances we allow them to come in. But somehow, many Americans don’t see the need to apply the same logical and strict standards to who enters our country.

America has porous borders that have allowed millions of people to come into the country illegally, and it has policies that make life pretty easy for illegal aliens.

But the country is under no obligation to allow immigration, and depending upon several factors, immigration may sometimes not be desirable. We frequently hear people say that immigrants built America, and that is true. But America has already been built; so that factor all by itself does not make the case for more immigration.

No one has a right to come into our country. We get to decide whether to allow immigration, or not; it is our choice. The government has the right and the duty to decide if people come in, and under what circumstances. And we need to choose those immigrants by what the country needs and desires; we do not allow immigration just because people want to come here.

We should choose to allow only those to immigrate that can contribute positively to the country, and keep out those who have little or nothing positive to contribute. We must make sure that those we permit to immigrate understand and agree to assimilate into the existing culture, and bar those who do not agree to assimilate, or who want to change our culture.

Our problems with immigration and border security are many. Despite a federal Border Patrol force determined to prevent illegal entry, the borders are insufficiently protected to accomplish that goal. Trump famously supports a “wall,” which actually means erecting and utilizing many different elements to stop illegal border crossings, not just a huge wall along the southern border.

Certain jurisdictions in the country, known as “sanctuary” jurisdictions, refuse to follow the law and alert federal officials to the presence of illegal aliens so federal authorities can deal with them. Efforts by the Trump administration to “encourage” these sanctuaries to obey the law by withholding federal funding have been thwarted by a federal judge, who ruled Trump cannot change how money approved by Congress is used. So these sanctuary jurisdictions can continue their lawless behavior with this judge’s blessing.

When illegals are caught, they are deported. However, many return and are deported again, repeatedly, and without penalty, other than deportation. Some of them commit criminal acts, often in sanctuaries.

Whether it’s called “political correctness,” or “foolishness,” the fact remains that our country is not being protected from illegal entry and the costs, pain and harm to citizens resulting from illegal entry.

The border must be secured, illegal aliens must be gotten under control, and deported, or perhaps in some cases put on a path to citizenship that includes assimilation or deportation if they do not satisfactorily assimilate, and jailing those who commit crimes.

If America is going to allow immigration, immigrants need to come here for the right reasons: to respect and honor our country and its culture; to possess desirable skills and intentions; and to become honest and productive citizens.

Nothing less is acceptable.

Passing laws is not always the best solution to our problems

The Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, addresses rights that are secured in the body of the Constitution, but in general, less specific terms. The Bill of Rights came to be because the rights it detailed were considered so important that they should be specifically acknowledged, so that there will be no doubt as to their importance, and to make it crystal clear those rights are guaranteed to the people.

The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution solidifies the right of the people to own firearms. Today, this is the most controversial of the ten. There is an on-going effort to pass more restrictive gun control laws, and every time a gun is used in a crime the loud protests crank up again.

Emotions or bad reasoning, and sometimes-ill motives, are behind this movement. Somehow, many or most of the anti-gunners blame not the shooter’s evil intent and illegal acts, but the gun. They not only disbelieve, but ridicule the oft-used expression, “a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun,” which gives a strong clue to their actual intention: to rid the country of all guns. Given the laws that already exist that make killing illegal, just like the laws against illegal drug use that are routinely ignored, more gun laws will fail to achieve their goal.

The NRA and its members are the favored boogeymen. These folks are often blamed for the actual gun violence as well as for opposing more stringent gun restrictions, despite the fact that none of them have ever actually been the ones responsible for any of these atrocities.

It is not irrelevant that in the case of the evil cretin who killed and injured some 50 church goers recently, was not an NRA member, but it is important that it was a former NRA instructor that intervened after the attack, shooting and disabling the killer, and likely saving a few lives. A good guy with a gun DID stop a bad guy with a gun.

The real problem that we have is not that the Second Amendment needs to be rewritten, reinterpreted or repealed, but that the impulse to attack, maim and kill be controlled.

Similar problems exist with the First Amendment’s protection of free speech.

There are some restrictions on free speech. For example, you can’t yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater, as the age-old saying goes. And some speech is illegal because it harms individuals. Libel is one: a published false statement that is damaging to a person's reputation; a written defamation. Slander is another: making a false spoken statement damaging to a person's reputation. And inciting violence is illegal, and so-called “fighting words” may be illegal.

The First Amendment protects most speech, especially unpopular speech. So-called “hate speech” is not illegal, unless it incites violence. Political comments challenging the government or government officials is also protected speech.

And it protects freedom of the press, which is a long-standing and important function of the First Amendment. It is crucial that news media be free to provide important information to the people so that they can be well informed and prepared to make knowledgeable decisions. It is particularly important that the press be free to publish factual information about government and those who serve the people in government, no matter how much they may dislike it.

But that protection presupposes the media will discharge its critical duty honestly, following the principles of accuracy, fair play and impartiality.

The First Amendment guarantees freedom of the press, but does it also guarantee that the people and organizations that provide the news will behave themselves? Unfortunately, as does the Second Amendment, it assumes honest and upright behavior, but it cannot guarantee that people will do the right thing.

What about those episodes when media organizations and their employees fail in their duty to the people and instead produce distortions, exaggerations, and errors that are not adequately corrected, as well as sometimes providing outright false information? The First Amendment protects the people who commit these wrongs, unlike those private individuals who commit libel and slander? But there is a reason for that.

Both the First Amendment and the Second Amendment represent our Founders recognition of principles of freedom. We are bound to honor the Constitution, making changes very infrequently, and only in response to a great need that does not weaken the founding principles. Changes must not be made merely to achieve some supposed current need that may fade away in a few years.

We can pass laws against guns to keep them out of the hands of bad guys, and at the same time keep them out of the hands of good guys who won’t kill anyone, but will use them for legal purposes, including self-defense.

And we can pass laws to punish news people who abandon ethical standards, but will also cast a pall on the dissemination of important information, as news folk carefully walk a thin line.

More laws will not correct the character flaws of killers and incompetent news people, so let’s focus on that problem.

The knee-jerk and bandwagon are two things America can do without

Things have really gotten strange lately. Much of this is traceable to reactions to the 2016 election, and a lot of it is a response to things that individuals simply disagree with, but take their dislike to a too-high level.

President Donald Trump’s enemies think their dissatisfaction with him is more important than his work as president.

They rise in Congress to express hopefulness that Trump will be impeached before Christmas for his imagined collusion (collusion, by the way, is not a crime) with Russians to defeat Hillary Clinton. Yet after a year of complaining about it and investigating it, and six months of investigation by a Special Counsel, so far three indictments for alleged crimes that occurred years ago is all that has been found, none of which have much if anything to do with Donald Trump.

Clinton supporters screamed at the sky in observance of the first anniversary of Trump’s election, just like they screamed when Clinton lost the election that she was guaranteed to win and felt she was entitled to, on that dark night of November 8, 2016.

They regard the recent Democrat victories for governor in two blue states as a sign that America now rejects Trump. However, not only was Trump not on the ballot this year, but these two blue states did not vote for him for president last year, so this is an argument without supporting evidence, and they ought to be embarrassed by it.

In every line of work, some practitioners are better at it than others. News journalism has always had some who did not always, or ever, follow ethical standards, but these days, the latter type seems to dominate the field. The Japanese Fish Food Fiasco provides a recent example of either journalistic incompetence or agenda journalism.

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President Trump were shown standing at the edge of a Koi pond, ready to feed the fish. Abe and Trump use a spoon to sprinkle the food from a box, at first, then Abe dumps the contents of his box in the pond. Having seen his host dump his food, Trump dumps his food, too.

Here are some examples of what passes for news these days:

* New York Magazine: “Trump Under Fire for Improper Fish-Feeding Technique”

* CNN’s headline said, “Trump feeds fish, winds up pouring entire box of food into koi pond,” while showing an edited video of the event.

* A tweet by Justin Sink of Bloomberg said Abe and Trump were “spooning fish food into the pond” when Trump “decided to just dump the whole box in for the fish.”

* “Trump and Japanese PM Shinzo Abe were scheduled to feed koi spoonfuls of food. Until Trump poured his entire box of fish food into the pond,” tweeted CNBC’s Christina Wilkie, who then later deleted the tweet.

If many in the media feel led to falsify something so insignificant as feeding fish to make the president look bad, imagine how they might handle really important news items.

And then there are the numerous allegations of sexual criminal behavior from years ago involving Hollywood personalities and others. What is surprising about this is the eagerness with which these allegations frequently are accepted as truth. Yes, they all may be completely true. Or possibly, some are true and some are not.

Anyone can allege anything against anyone else at any time. An allegation is only an allegation, and in America people are innocent until proved guilty. These allegations may be cases of she-said/he-said, with no evidentiary support. This situation is not made easier when the complaints are years or decades old.

It is under these circumstances that Alabama Republican Roy Moore, candidate for the U.S. Senate, has been accused of unspeakable things from 30+ years ago. They may be true, but they are at this point only allegations. Yet the timing and the over-eager belief of these allegations may doom a candidate before any proof is offered.

People want to remove/destroy statues of Confederates and residents of the south, without knowing anything more about them than that they owned slaves, or perhaps just lived at the wrong time. They also want to do away with the Star Spangled Banner as the National Anthem because the word “slave” appears in the third verse, a verse many or most people have never heard of before.

University of Michigan musicologist Marc Clague, who is board chairman of the Star Spangled Music Foundation, offers this: “The social context of the song comes from the age of slavery, but the song itself isn’t about slavery, and it doesn’t treat whites differently from blacks.”

“The reference to slaves is about the use, and in some sense the manipulation, of black Americans to fight for the British, with the promise of freedom,” he said. “The American forces included African-Americans as well as whites. The term ‘freemen,’ whose heroism is celebrated in the fourth stanza, would have encompassed both.”

Our country is weakened when people react too quickly and without due consideration of things, even horrible things like sexual assault. The atmosphere becomes needlessly controversial and even dangerous. Restraint and thoughtfulness are hereby recommended.

Tax plan provides needed reform and increased economic activity

President Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans have a tax plan up for consideration. Tax relief is badly needed, as is a budgetary overhaul that addresses and works to reduce the annual deficits and the insane national debt.

Analysts say that many good things are proposed but, of course, it is not – and cannot be – perfect, or even acceptable, for everyone.

The following three takeaways come from an analysis by the Heritage Foundation:

1. Simplification - The proposed plan would vastly simplify the tax code by eliminating a host of unnecessary and inefficient provisions designed to benefit special interests; would also simplify the process of tax filing by doubling the size of the standard deduction, which would cut in half the number of taxpayers who need to itemize their deductions; collapses seven different tax rates into four and simplifies the tax code.

2. Lower Rates - The proposed plan would drastically lower tax rates for lower-to-moderate-income individuals and families, small businesses, and corporations. The new 20 percent corporate tax rate would help make the U.S. competitive with the rest of the world, and the top 25 percent small business or pass-through tax rate would go a long way toward stimulating entrepreneurship, job creation, and income growth across all income groups in America.

3. Business Taxes - The combination of business tax reforms — including five years’ worth of full expensing, and a modernized international tax system — would provide a huge boost to the U.S. economy and its workers; have the potential to bring trillions of dollars back into the United States and to significantly boost economic output, jobs, and incomes within the U.S.

Heritage notes an area that is popular with liberals, but that is an economic negative: “By maintaining the top marginal tax rate on individuals, however, the plan would fail to achieve optimal economic growth, as it leaves a significant portion of economic activity subject to a 39.6 percent federal tax rate (43.4 percent including the Obamacare surtax).”

In this crazed Congressional atmosphere, the special interests and fact-twisters will interfere with the tax plan’s efforts at reforming the current tax system from the chaotic monster that it has become into a simplified and manageable one. This environment means progress will be slow, but we must take what we can get.

Naturally, those pro and con are putting forth their assessments to rally the troops, and the truth often gets trampled beneath the stomping feet of the partisans.

"The more people find out about it, the less they'll like," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, said. "This bill is like a dead fish. The more it's in sunlight, the more it stinks, and that's what's going to happen." Thanks for the graphic description, Senator, and for providing no details.

Not to be outdone, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said, "The American people deserve real, bipartisan tax reform that puts the middle class first. This Republican plan doesn't do any of that. In fact, it's a giveaway to corporations and the wealthiest." More blather that slings general concepts, but provides no substance, and is at odds with reality.

The idea of America’s Founders was a limited government, one that didn’t overly intrude on the lives of its citizens, and therefore would ideally be relatively small, relatively inexpensive and quite efficient. Obviously, through the decades our elected officials have been unfaithful to that design.

Over time government has grown in virtually every way that it should not have. The power of the IRS and the bulk and complexity of the tax code are good examples. The U.S. Tax Code consists of 82,000 pages. It contains a long list of taxes, including one that taxes people for the privilege of dying. Change is unarguably needed.

A major criticism is that the Republican plan will add to deficits and the national debt. But this depends upon which scoring analysis you use.

Simply put, static scoring considers that tax cuts reduce tax revenue, and raise the deficit. Dynamic scoring, on the other hand, takes other factors into account, such as the economic boost from tax cuts and reduced regulatory restraints on economic activity.

Tax cuts and regulation reduction are the mother’s milk of economic growth. Businesses respond to them like plants do to sunshine, rain and fertilizer; they grow, producing jobs and raising tax collections.

Tax cuts obviously put more money at play, as people buy more of the things they want and need, and businesses then must increase the available supplies of the things people are buying in greater quantities, and grow to meet the demand.

Everyone benefits from measures that drive economy activity. While it is unlikely that the economic activity produced by the plan will completely erase the deficit created by tax cuts, it will erase some of it, and it produces other benefits that cannot be ignored. And needed spending restraint will make up the difference.

A perfect bill, one that everyone in Congress likes, is virtually impossible. However, this plan is a good start on needed improvement, and it must be viewed for the good it accomplishes rather than for the few less-than-perfect elements it contains.