Victims Of Government Part II
— DrewM

I blogged about Sen. Ron Johnson’s “Victims of Government” when the project was first announced. I’m returning to it for two reasons:

1. ItÂ’s one of the few good ideas actually coming out of the GOP these days

2. I had the chance to speak with Sen. Johnson about it and other things last week. Due to some technical problems, I canÂ’t post the audio but I wanted to relay the gist of the conversation.

One good bit of news…Johnson gets it. He’s really the embodiment of the “citizen legislator” spirit of 2010. Having spent most of his life building a business and making payrolls he sees the federal government from a different perspective than a professional politician. Instead of taking about the DOOM! of the sequester he spoke about it being a chance for people to understand the sky won't fall if the government spends a little less than it planed to.

Something else Johnson gets that not enough Republicans seem to these daysÂ…the way people consume information has changed. HeÂ’s big on the power of video and keeping messages short and powerful. ItÂ’s one thing to say that but itÂ’s another to do it.

A lot of conservatives object to Obama’s use of “human props” at his events and raw appeals to emotions. Well, they work. Changing people’s minds usually beings with changing their heart. People react better to other people than they do to abstract concepts.

Think back to the presidential campaign and how many times Republicans railed against Dodd-Frank. But how many times did they show a concrete example of the bad out comes from it or a “real person” hurt by them.

“Victims” is a strong word. It’s one we tend to shy away from but the left uses it all the time. I’m glad Johnson uses it here. Not having things go your way all the time or not being as successful as someone else doesn’t make you a “victim”. Having an arbitrary and extremely powerful government crush you certainly can qualify you as a victim.

Johnson didnÂ’t want to get into details about the submissions they are getting for the project saying they need to be vetted (and he wants to make sure the people are helped and not just used as part of the campaign) but if they pan out he says weÂ’ll be in for some real horror stories.

IÂ’ve liked Johnson for a long time and getting to chat with him did nothing to change that. But being the glass half-empty guy that I am, I am worried that heÂ’s one of the few guys worth supporting. The real problem is that there may not be many more on the way. I asked him about the adjustment from private citizen to Senator and he admitted itÂ’s rough to give up your privacy and take stage like this. I couldnÂ’t help but think of Bruce Carroll and wonder if there will ever be enough Ron JohnsonÂ’s to really matter.

If you havenÂ’t already, take a look at the video below. Share it with friends and family even if, especially if, they arenÂ’t very political. And if you have a story to share, visit the Victims of Government site and let them know about it.
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Posted by: DrewM at 08:33 AM | Comments (69)
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TurboTax, Lobbying and Failure
— JohnE.

Are you enjoying your tax day? Don't you wish this whole process was easier? We all do. Well, maybe not all of us.

In the most technologically advanced countries, filing a tax return is free, easy and fast: Instead of taxpayers painstakingly calculating figures themselves, the government provides estimates of what they owe based on the very bank records and wages it already collects. Intuit, maker of the popular tax preparation software, TurboTax, has funnelled millions to oppose every effort to make tax day less painful.

Intuit has spent $11.5 million lobbying the federal government — more than Apple or Amazon. Former California Senator, Tom Campbell, who felt Intuit’s power during his proposal for an easy-file system in California, wrote that he “never saw as clear a case of lobbying power putting private interests first over public benefit.”

It should be noted that both liberals and conservatives have opposed simplifying the tax filing process. Some Republicans, like Eric Cantor, see a government takeover of tax filing industry. Liberals like Zoe Lofgren oppose it for reasons she doesn't make clear, but I'm confident in guessing her motivations (she likes taxes. I'm saying she likes taxes).

Meanwhile, the tax filing industry is massive and succeeds at producing the lifeblood of any strong and growing economy, needless and soul-crushing paperwork.

There is a lot more to taxes than simply paying the bill. Taxpayers must spend significantly more than $1 in order to provide $1 of income-tax revenue to the federal government.

To start with, individuals and businesses must pay the government the $1 in revenue plus the costs of their own time spent filing and complying with the tax code; plus the tax collection costs of the IRS; plus the tax compliance outlays that individuals and businesses pay to help them file their taxes.

In a study published last week by the Laffer Center, my colleagues Wayne Winegarden, John Childs and I estimate that these costs alone are a staggering $431 billion annually. This is a cost markup of 30 cents on every dollar paid in taxes. And this is not even a complete accounting of the costs of tax complexity.

As if this all wasn't enough to drive you insane, Intuit's TurboTax online filing system crashed last night hours before the deadline. This is the same company that spent millions on lobbying to, I'll be charitable here, compel you to use their software.

TurboTax, the popular tax-filing software, went offline briefly on Sunday — the day before the filing deadline.

Users had problems entering data on the Web site, according to angry Twitter messages directed at the company.

“We’re having problems with TurboTax online. We’re in process bringing back the experience u expect. Updates 2 follow,” the company said on its official Twitter account Sunday evening.

They managed to get the system back up fairly quickly, but who knows how many people nearly lost their lives because of it (the government does not keep statistics on tax filing deadline-related heart attacks).

Where is the index card-sized return I was promised? Can we please end this nonsense?

Posted by: JohnE. at 07:25 AM | Comments (109)
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Tax Day News Dump
— Pixy Misa

• Lindsey Vonn's Ex Makes A Funny Tweet About Tiger At The Masters
  
• Iranian Scientist Claims To Have Invented A Time Machine
  
• Andrew Cuomo Continues To Prepare To Lose Every Red State Dem Primary In 2015-2016
  
• Chavez's Hand Picked Heir Barely Wins Election
  
• Attractive Female Teacher Sleeps With 16 Year Old Boy
  
• Obama's Abuse Of Dead Children
  
• Former Prostitute Running For Mayor In Mississippi
  
• Gold Tumbles To A Two Year Low
  
• NYT Now Publishing Letters From Gitmo Detainees
  
• Wealth Tax To Pay For EU Bailouts
  
• Gun Rights Leader Claims He Snookered The Dems In The Toomey-Manchin Gun Deal
  
• Maine Gov LePage Takes To The WSJ Editorial Page To Invite Gun Manufacturers To His State
  
• Turbo Tax Goes Off Line Last Night Because Of So Many Last Minute Filers
  
• The Terrifying Reality Of Long Term Unemployment
  
• John Kerry Claims Foreign Students Scared Of Guns In The United States
  
• A Bad Time For Press Freedoms
  
• Legal Pot Draws Tourists To Colorado For 4/20
  
• House Puts A Hold On NLRB
  
• George Will On Immigration
  
• KMart's Funny New Ad (Video Autoplay)
  
• Man Commits Suicide At NRA 500 Race
  
• Israel Turned 65 Yesterday
  

I cordially invite you to follow me on twitter. more...

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:16 AM | Comments (275)
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DOOM: Unsafe At Any Speed
— Monty

UPDATE: (via Instapundit) The terrifying reality of long-term unemployment. It won't be long before chronic joblessness is classified as a disability; then going on SSDI will be nothing more than a legal formality instead of fraud. I do disagree with this, however:

It's time for the government to start hiring the long-term unemployed. Or, at the least, start giving employers tax incentives to hire the long-term unemployed. The worst possible outcome for all of us is if the long-term unemployed become unemployable. That would permanently reduce our productive capacity.

The last thing we need is another harebrained government employment program...which we don't have the money for anyhow.

The one number you need to know in Obama's budget.

Under ObamaÂ’s budget, in 2020 interest payments alone would amount to more than national-defense spending in that year. By 2023, interest payments alone would amount to more than all nondefense discretionary spending in that year.

Retirement? Don't count on it. I don't -- I've known since my teen years that Social Security was a lie, and that if I wanted to retire, I'd have to do so on my own savings. And since I don't know how long I'll live or what my expenses will be when I'm old, I'll simply work as long as I'm able to.

The problem with Barack Obama isn't that he's an economic illiterate -- he's hardly unique among lawmakers in that respect. The real problem is that he thinks he understands just fine. Barack Obama is a vain man, and nowhere is his vanity stronger than in his own intellect. He really thinks he's the smartest guy in the room.

Margaret Thatcher predicted the failure of the Euro twenty years ago. She was a woman of protean gifts, a formidable clearsightedness primary among them.

The financial networks have an attention span like a toddler on a sugar-high, and like most others in the media they spin madly to advance the liberal narrative on the economy. The recent upswing in equities has them in a tizzy, but the fact is that the stock market is illustrating stagnation, not recovery.

It's become apparent that many workers, having exhausted their unemployment benefits, are simply transitioning to SSDI. And once in that program, they are for all intents and purposes divorced from the work force permanently -- not many in SSDI ever re-enter the workforce. Fraud in the program is rampant, aided by compliant doctors and lax regulators.

Yes, Virginia, America still makes stuff. Quite a lot of stuff, as a matter of fact. It's just that we no longer need as many people to make all this stuff as we used to.

The blue-on-blue civil war that Walter Russell Mead has been predicting is underway. Public-sector pensioners are going to start consuming an ever-larger part of municipal and state funds, and there's no way local governments can raise taxes enough to cover the shortfall. So other things will have to give, and those things are likely to be programs that liberals like: the bookmobile, meals on wheels, stuff like that. Eventually they'll have to start cutting into muscle: public safety, roads, and other services. In other words, cities (like Stockton, CA) will fail at their basic job of providing protection and public services to their citizens...all so they can keep sending money to people who no longer work for them.

If you come out of school owing $100,000 in student debt, that's pretty much the equivalent of owing a mortgage on a house. Except that you don't have a house; you have four years of an education that may nor may not be worth the debt you took on to get it. Buying a house means borrowing another couple of hundred grand (or so)...and you may find that banks are unwilling to extend that kind of credit to a twentysomething with high debt and uncertain job prospects.

Dear France: HA HA HA HA! Hope you're enjoying that socialist paradise you voted for. It sounds like the Frenchies need to re-read Orwell's Animal Farm.

The Eurozone crisis is back? I've got news for you: the Eurozone crisis never went away.

China's economy continuing to slow. And given how unreliable the economic numbers out of China are, I bet the news is a lot worse than they're letting on.
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Posted by: Monty at 04:15 AM | Comments (164)
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Top Headline Comments 4-15-2013
— andy

Happy Patriot's Day, on which we commemorate the 238th anniversary of resistance to the forces of an arrogant, out-of-control government in a far away land coming after our guns.

Some things never change.

Posted by: andy at 02:22 AM | Comments (144)
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Tech you'll be interested in - "hybrid" SSD drives [Purp]
— Open Blogger

SSD'ish performance at rotating media prices. $120 for a 1T laptop drive.

Q: What's SSD? (for those who don't already know)
A: (S)olid (S)tate (D)rive. i.e. no rotating platters. Fast/expensive.

Q: What's a "hybrid" SSD drive?
A: Its traditional rotating media (i.e. cheap), BUT it adds a big glob of solid state memory between the drive and the computer, and has onboard firmware that "learns" over time what the most common data being accessed is and stashes that most frequently used stuff in the glob of solid state memory memory for faster access.

Q: How is this different than traditional cache memory found on rotating hard disks?
A: Its persistent. It doesn't go away when powered off. This is why the firmware can "learn" over time and adapt to whatever your usage profile is.

If you're looking for cheap performance, this hybrid SSD stuff looks pretty good.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 01:36 AM | Comments (39)
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Overnight Open Thread (4-14-2013)
— Maetenloch

The Internet in a Picture

So how well do you know your memes?

Well a good number of these have appeared on this very site. So if you can't recognize at least 5, you may need to start spending your evenings at the AoSHQ study hall. And yes - this will be on the final exam.

Answer key here.

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Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:20 PM | Comments (611)
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The Boning of April 15th
— Dave in Texas

via Slublog, and this did not improve my mood after finishing my taxes today.

UPDATED: Slubs is just piling on now. more...

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 04:24 PM | Comments (162)
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The Masters
— rdbrewer

In a few minutes, there will be a playoff between Angel Cabrera from Argentina and Adam Scott from Australia. Both players finished at nine under. You can see it on CBS or at Masters.com. (Use the drop down menu in the video box to choose the coverage.)

The playoff will start on 18, then it will go to 10. According to Jim Nantz, a playoff has never gone beyond two holes.

Golf cheerleaders. Sort of.

Posted by: rdbrewer at 03:08 PM | Comments (306)
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Sunday Evening Open Thread
— DrewM

Queen of "real time fact checking" Candy Crowley reminiscences about when North Korea attacked Seoul in "the last 2, 3 years".

Via John E. Romney's digital team loses elections but on the upside, they win lots of awards.

Posted by: DrewM at 02:06 PM | Comments (262)
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