Sleepless in Midland

IRS similar to FBI under J. Edgar Hoover?

I'm reading this great book by Tim Weiner titled Enemies, a History of the FBI in which Weiner sets out what he learned about the FBI from numerous interviews, publicly available sources, and J. Edgar Hoover's own secret files. The files were obtained by a Washington lawyer through a FOIA request for a writer who was no longer interested when the files finally arrived 26 years later. The lawyer offered them to Weiner who snapped them up and wrote a very interesting history of the FBI.

These days the top political news story is the Tea Party non-profit applicants for exemption and how the IRS agent's delaying actions may have affected the outcome of the 2012 election. Weiner's book gives the reader a good reminder that government employees can sometimes see their mission as so important that laws don't apply to them.

There doesn't seem to be a bureaucrat around today with quite the power of J. Edgar Hoover who was so intent on ferreting out Communists and terrorists that he ordered his agents to perform all sorts of illegal bug planting and black bag operations. Stop violence before it happened -- that was a guiding principle. Sometimes he acted at the behest of presidents, and sometimes he did it on his own. The result was that FBI agents did things that could have landed them in jail if they had gotten caught.

This brings us to the IRS scandal. The agents who actually committed the acts, or in some cases simply failed to act, may very well have been doing it on their own. But it was all done in an environment where management either encouraged that sort of behavior or looked the other way.

And then there's Barack Obama. He's the J. Edgar Hoover in this picture. He simply lets it be known how much of a threat he thinks certain classes of people are, and the underlings do the dirty work. Just don't leave a paper trail that would lead to the top.

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Too busy to read Weiner's book? Watch an hour long Q&A with him on C-SPAN. Too busy for that, here's a shorter interview on Fresh Air.

True the Vote's letter from the IRS

Finally the public gets a chance to see for themselves just how intrusive the IRS's requests to the Tea Party applicants were with True the Vote's court filing. Here's a link to the complaint in True the Vote, Inc. v. IRS, et al, cause 1:13-cv-00734 in the U.S. District Court of DC.

See the letter the IRS sent to True the Vote with all the questions here. The information requirements go on for eight pages and include this one:

13. Provide the following information for all the events you will conduct for 2012 and 2013:
a) The time, location, and content schedule of each event
b) Identify handouts you provided to the audience
c) Identify workshop materials that instructors will use
d) The names and credentials of the instructors
e) If speeches or forums will be conducted in the event, provide detailed contents of the speeches or forums, names of the speakers or panels, and their credentials. If any speakers or panel members will be paid, provide the amount will be paid for each person. If not, please indicate they volunteered to conduct the event.
f) The names of persons from your organization and the amount of time they will spend on the event. Indicate the name and amount of time they will spend on the event. Indicate the name and amount of compensation that will be paid to each person. If no one will be paid, indicate this event will be conducted by volunteers to each person.
g) Indicate the percentage of time and resources you will spend on these activities in relation to 100% of all your activities.

The letter was dated February 8, 2012, so question #13 required speculation about the future, under penalty of perjury, of course. But the election was in November of 2012, so why did they include 2013? Was this supposed to provide the IRS with plausible deniability?

Today Lois Lerner famously invoked the Fifth Amendment at a House committee hearing. The above letter was signed by Janine L. Estes with cc to Cleta Mitchell, Esq. and Richard F. Riley, Esq. So if the House needs more witnesses to question, there's a good place to look.

Post script. Many of the published IRS forms have a posted estimate of the completion time. Gathering all of the information they required here could take weeks. It's no wonder many of the Tea Party groups simply gave up.

"Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?"

This quote has been tossed around lately in regard to President Obama's claims that he didn't know that IRS agents were discriminating against non-profit applicants which used the names "Tea Party," "Patriot," or "9/12."

According to this Wikipedia page, King Henry II and Thomas Becket were feuding, and the king made a remark in the presence of some knights that got Becket killed. The quote above is actually incorrect, according to said Wikipedia page, and a more accurate version is supposed to be this:

What miserable drones and traitors have I nourished and promoted in my household, who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born clerk!

Dutifully shamed, four knights took it upon themselves to go to Canterbury on December 29, 1170, and assassinate Becket.

And likewise the IRS agents, inflamed by the hostile rhetoric coming from the President about his political opponents, knew that they could make a difference. Since those Tea Party people were racist hicks anyway, it was all OK. It was for the greater good. Who could let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by such low-born provincials?

Unfortunately for the IRS agents, Obama will use them as human shields to protect himself. If any heads roll, it will be theirs.

Sure, Bush appointed IRS Commissioner Shulman, so what?

Anyone who watched any of Acting IRS Commissioner Steve Miller's testimony today probably came away with a righteous indignation about how the IRS targeted conservative groups for abusive treatment. Poor old Mr. Miller looked like a scolded hound as both Republicans and Democrats went after him. But other than having to sit through a few hours of tough grilling, he'll pay no price. It was the underlings who did all those bad things, you see. Miller will land on his feet, and as a tax lawyer with first hand experience with the IRS, he'll likely land a very, very high paying job. Check out his CV.

Anyway, some Democrats are trying to make a big deal out of the fact that the acting IRS Commissioner who was in charge when the shenanigans started, Douglas H. Shulman, was appointed by George W. Bush.

That's irrelevant. Barack Obama changed the atmosphere when he became president. There was constant bad mouthing about Republicans from the highest levels, and when the Tea Parties came along, there was a new boogie man for Democrats to smear. And smear they did.

Those low level IRS employees didn't need specific instructions. They simply used their passive aggressive ways to do what they thought was right to achieve the progressive America Obama wanted by slowing down these hillbillies with their come-and-take-it flags. The bosses just looked the other way, pretending not to see. The entire atmosphere at the IRS and probably all government agencies was polluted with anti conservative vitriol.

Maybe this will be the final straw that will lead to some real tax reform. A flat tax would be the perfect solution. But perfect solutions seldom come from government.

Post script. For some reason I was reminded of a conversation I had over a decade ago with a government lawyer. He was an impassioned Democrat who hated Republicans and at the time was angry over the possibility that George W. Bush might become president. While he admitted that often the Republican government appointees were better administrators than the Democrat appointees, he said that there are countless ways the employees could make the guy/gal at the top of the agency look bad.

How Dem talking points get dispensed to the loyals

Thanks to Instapundit for these two links which direct us to Erik Wemple's article titled: Media Matters denies involvement in Justice-AP talking points. There, Mr. Wemple tells us that David Brock is in charge of both Media Matters for America, which is basically an attack dog website targeting anyone who is publicly critical of Democrats, and its partner, Media Action Network, which dispenses attacks and responses for Democrats to use.

The screen shot is Media Action Network's one pager for May 14, 2013 to preserve it in case it goes away.

But here's the good part. In the event anyone is wondering why the highly political Media Matters has remained silent about the issue of the IRS denying non-profit exemptions to Tea Party groups, look no further than their "about" page:

Media Matters for America is a Web-based, not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.

Yep, it's a not-for-profit organization with the coveted IRS exemption denied to Tea Party groups. That phoney watchdog didn't bark about that issue. Oh the irony. Exemption for me but not for thee.

Ad council needs remedial education

A local radio station plays when my radio alarm comes on in the mornings, and maybe it's the time of day, but after a few minutes it's almost guaranteed that some Ad Council advertising will play.

None of them are very good, but one is outstanding in that department. You have to listen until the end to find out it's a collaboration between everyoneon.org and the Ad Council. It's about how to find a job online and has two actors, one portraying an instructor and the other a job seeker.

So the instructor tells the guy what to type in the blanks on the screen. And the job seeker reads his lines as if he's typing, "E-lec-tri-cian." Then he's amazed at the job offers he found online.

Here's the thing. Electrician is a highly skilled occupation, and at least in Texas, it's a licensed occupation. The idea that someone who has the wits to learn the skill and pass the test but didn't have enough smarts to go online to look for a job is ludicrous. That's an electrician you don't want to hire.

Another ad extolls the virtues of the mandated light bulbs. This one is from the U.S. Department of Energy and that same Ad Council. They are trying to sell us on the idea that we should like the new light bulbs which by government decree will replace the old bulbs which we already like but shouldn't. The reason we shouldn't like the old ones is because they are old. They were invented so very long ago. They're old fashioned. The ad spokesman tries to tell us that comparing the old bulbs with the new ones is like comparing carrier pigeons with texting.

That's an obvious appeal to the low-information voter, and these days those are the people who put candidates in office, so I guess they've hit on the right demographic.

But since the new bulb mandate was based on a flawed prophecy of global warming, a better comparison might be between the Toyota Camry, a reliable and popular car, and the Fisker, another government money waster.

Heritage Foundation estimates the cost to taxpayers of illegal immigrants

The Heritage Foundation released a study showing that illegal immigrants are a net drain on government resources when four types of government benefits are considered. Those four are direct benefits, means tested welfare benefits, public education and population-based services (roads, cops, firefighters, parks, etc.)

Download the PDF at The Fiscal Cost of Unlawful Immigrants and Amnesty to the U.S. Taxpayer and/or read the executive summary.

They conclude that the value of the services illegal immigrants consume over their lifetimes exceeds the money they pay as taxes. And it would get worse after amnesty. The chart on the right was lifted off the PDF and purports to show the after-amnesty lifetime cost.

But the reason for that, at least at the federal level, is the highly progressive income tax system in place whereby the people making the most money account for must of the tax revenue. As a result, the top 50% of earners pay over 97% of the taxes. (See this neat interactive chart, also at Heritage.org.

So while Heritage points to a legitimate problem of illegal immigrants most likely being in the lower tiers of the income brackets and thereby driving up the deficit by consuming more than they pay, the real problem is the progressive income tax.

The flat tax has a definite appeal to those of us who seek fairness, and although it might not cure the problem identified by Heritage.org, it certainly couldn't hurt. Meanwhile, the deficit just keeps growing. And the people who elect our presidents turn a blind eye to it.

Rand Paul told a good story at Howard University - spoiler alert - it has a surprise ending

The percentage of qualified voters in the audience who voted for Obama last November was probably higher than 93%, the percent of African American votes Obama got overall. So when Rand Paul addressed them on April 10, 2013, they listened politely.

They sat mostly silent as he tried to open with a little humor. But the more he talked, the more of an impact he had. The speech along with the Q&As can be found at this C-Span link. It's worth a listen.

But if you only have a few minutes to spare, skip to the 17:45 mark and listen to the story he told. Partial transcript by me:

Republicans are often miscast as uncaring and condemning kids who make bad choices. I for one plan to change that. We're working with Democratic Senators to make sure that kids who have made bad decisions, such as non-violent possession of drugs are not imprisoned for lengthy sentences. I'm working to see that first time offenders are put into counseling and not imprisoned with hardened criminals. We should not take away anyone's future over one mistake.

Let me tell you the story of two young men. Both of them made mistakes. Both of them were said to have used illegal drugs. One of them was white from a privileged background. He had important friends, an important father and an important grandfather. You know, the kind of family universities name dorms after. This family had more money than you could count. Drugs or no drugs, his family could buy justice if he needed it.

The other man also used illegal drugs, but he was of mixed race and from a single parent household. With little money. He didn't have important friends or a wealthy father.

Now you may think I'm gonna tell you a story about racism in American with the rich white kid gets off and the black kid goes to jail. It could be, and often is. But that's not this story. In this story both young men were extraordinarily lucky. Both young men were not caught using illegal drugs, and they weren't imprisoned. Instead they went on to become presidents of the United States.

Barack Obama and George Bush were lucky.

A story with a surprise ending. That got a big laugh. More:

We should not have laws that ruin the lives of young men and women who have committed no violence. That's why I've introduced a bill to repeal mandatory minimum sentences.

That got applause.

He went on to explain that the history of African American repression, like Jim Crow laws, arose from government sanctioned racism. He reiterated that big oppressive government has long been the enemy of freedom and encouraged the audience members to embrace the Republican message.

Maybe some of them will. Click here to watch/listen to the whole thing.

Women in combat and sexual harassment

The other day Secretary of the Navy Ray Nabus was on C-Span's Washington Journal, and something he said was hard to reconcile with some of the other news that's come out about the military.

Specifically, at around the 16:15 point of the program -- watch it here -- he was asked what is the biggest challenge for the Naval Academy as it prepares a new generation of offices. He answered by saying how seriously he takes charges of sexual assaults at the Academy. He said reports show that this problem hasn't gotten any better over the past few years. He said he addressed the people at the school to emphasize how serious that was. And in an apparent attempt to compare sexual assaults with the Fort Hood shooting he noted that a sexual assault was an attack on one's fellow students similar to a gunman walking through the school shooting at the students. Maybe that stern talking-to will solve the problem.

So now we look back through the news a couple of months to see the announcement in WaPo that Pentagon removes ban on women in combat. So we need to reconcile these two things -- a problem of sexual assault and harassment on one hand, and a drive to put women in combat positions on the other.

Brings to mind this editorial titled Five myths about women in combat. Myth number 3 was as follows:

The presence of women causes sexual tension in training and battle.
This notion insults men as much as women. For nearly 10 years, the U.S. military has been fighting two wars with a majority of units that include both men and women. Why hasn’t supposed “sexual tension” undermined the stellar performance of gender-integrated units? ...

So the myth of "sexual tension in training and battle" has been busted, has it?

Well, that attempt at myth busting has itself been busted. March 13, 2013: Military Sexual Assault Victims Detail Humiliation; Aug 13, 2012: Sexual Assault Cases Flood Military Courts to cite two at Military.com.

Over at the government radio website we find two more from March of this year: Sexual Violence Victims Say Military Justice System Is 'Broken' and Off The Battlefield, Military Women Face Risks From Male Troops which proclaims "Women who join the military face a much higher risk of sexual assault than civilian women."

So clearly the problem of demanding political correctness from the people we train to kill our enemies is not so easy. The effort by the government to place women in combat situations with men is a little ahead of its time. Maybe it would work if they had gender segregated brigades as they probably do in other countries. In any event, put young men and women in their sexual prime in close quarters with one another, but don't expect political correctness to prevail.

[The sophisticated writer doesn't use the word "bust" or variations thereof when writing about gender differences. Robo-ed. We're good. No sophisticated writers here. Sleepless.]

Obama wants lenders to make more risky home loans

This is astonishing.

There was an NPR program back in 2008 which attempted to explain the cause of the financial crisis. They went to the Republican convention and ask attendees what caused it, and the resounding answer was the Clinton mandate for relaxed lending standards for people with bad credit. The answer Democrats gave was the Republicans' deregulation of the banking industry. The conclusion on the government radio program was that they were both right.

However, Democrats must have missed the message, because now they seem to think the Dodd-Frank somehow caused the posibility of another lending crisis to disappear. WaPo has the story -- Obama administration pushes banks to make home loans to people with weaker credit.

Sure enough, lending standards are to be relaxed so that the ability to pay it off isn't that important. Don't worry, the government will provide a safety net if the loan goes bad.

That's insane. Really. If insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result, then that's insane.

Be cautious whenever someone says, "It's different this time." The difference this time is that there's a Democrat in the white house. And with a Democrat friendly media setting the news agenda, somehow it will all be Bush's fault.

We miss you Margaret Thatcher

"Thatcher Thatcher the milk snatcher!"

The "milk snatcher" label came from opponents of her proposal as Education Secretary in 1971 to redirect education funds by eliminating the program left over from WWII that paid for free milk for students over seven. See BBC. Lefties tried to demean Margaret Thatcher over her entire political career, but she held firm, and Britain and the world were better for it.

Sometimes you don't miss someone until they are gone. And as we learned this morning that Margaret Thatcher died, it reminds us that socialism isn't defeated in one battle.  It's a lifelong struggle. She fought the good fight and won during her time. And that's a legacy anyone would be proud to pass on to the next generation.

The goal of a politician is to get power over people, and socialism is bait they use to sucker people into giving them power. That brings to mind Thatcher's famous quote: "The trouble with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money." Snopes tells us the real quote was in 1996 about the Labour Party as follows:

I think they've made the biggest financial mess that any government's ever made in this country for a very long time, and Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people's money.

Close enough.

The U.S. appears to be headed toward the type socialism that can turn a great nation into a mediocre nation. It will take resolve to fight it -- the kind of resolve the Iron Lady had. If only we can be so strong. Let Margaret Thatcher be our guide, and maybe someday our country can show other nations how economic and individual freedom is the way to greatness.

Yo Quiero IRS?

Who says the IRS isn't hip?  They've not only got an iPhone app, but it's bilingual.

Notice and Youtube video.

Good thing that sequester thingee didn't come about.

A city of two tales -- socially conservative, fiscally liberal

The city of Midland, Texas, is unique. It's a city out in the middle of nowhere and somewhat like the rural community it once was.  But it's also a lot like the larger urban cities.

Around 75% of voters vote for Republicans in national elections, however the city government elected officials don't have to declare a party. And what we've ended up with is a progressive local government. Add in the socially conservative constituency, and we have a unique home brew of fiscal liberals and social conservatives.

How could that happen?

In The Real Reason Cities Lean Democratic, Emily Badger speculates that urban dwellers are fiscal liberals because residents being stacked on top of one another makes them appreciate money being spent on the common good. Maybe.

In Midland's case it's a matter of spend-it-while-ya-got-it. With unemployment low, incomes high, and housing in short supply, residents are complacent about the rising taxes. And they seem to be looking to government for relief from the housing shortage. Elected officials are eager to comply, especially those seeking reelection or a higher office. Mix in the intoxicating effect of coffers overflowing with ad valorem, sales and motel tax revenue. The only problem they contemplate is how to spend it all before the good times end.

So we see news reports about how the city is going to buy the old county courthouse and the land it sits on and give it to a developer to build a sky scraper. It looked good to the council on paper, and the city has cash burning a hole in its pocket. So they splurge. It's all for the common good, you see.

It's too bad there's no politician on the local political horizon who wants to give the money back to the people from whom it was taken.

Border still porous in spite of claim to the contrary

The big issue with immigration reform is whether the border will be closed before or after the currently undocumented residents are granted amnesty. The amnesty-now groups proclaim that the borders are effectively sealed already with the electronic surveillance systems in place.

That argument doesn't really pass the stress test when we read that Border Patrol agents found a little over a thousand pounds of marijuana on foot trails and in vehicles near the border town of Del Rio last week. Story here.

One might attempt to argue that that is anecdotal evidence the system is working. But a more convincing conclusion is that people and contraband are crossing the border as easily as before, and accidental discoveries don't prove efficiency.

The Border Patrol is boasting in its annual report that:

Attempts to cross the border illegally, as measured by U.S. Border Patrol apprehensions, totaled nearly 365,000 nationwide in FY 2012, representing a nearly 50 percent decrease since FY 2008 and a 78 percent decrease from their peak in FY 2000. ...

The lower illegal crossing apprehensions might reflect the lousy job market since 2008 more that it does more proficient enforcement. More from the annual report:

Under this administration, DHS has dedicated historic levels of personnel, technology, and resources to the Southwest border. CBP has more than doubled the size of the U.S. Border Patrol since 2004. In FY 2012, CBP employed over 21,300 Border Patrol agents, keeping staffing levels along the border at an all-time high.

So even if the electronic detection systems are in place, it still takes someone in a position of authority to order someone to act on the intelligence that comes in. That's the variable. The electronic fence can be useful or useless, depending on the whim of the person ultimately in charge, particularly one expected to cut budget deficits.

Everyone and his or her perro is claiming that conservatives are anti Hispanic and anti immigrant. Wrong. And quit trying to make a racial issue out of everything. The concern is the lack of control over who comes in. I would speculate that none of the other developed nations allow undocumented border crossings. Our elected officials are currently working on an immigration policy that hopefully will solve some of the current problems. But those of us who have developed a suspicion of the current administration are not yet convinced that the borders can or will be controlled once a new immigration policy is signed into law.

Regime Uncertainty on display - gun version

We began talking about "Regime Uncertainty" way back in the Spring of 2009, but the theory has been around ever since Robert Higgs coined the phrase in explaining why the Great Depression lasted so long. It's a simple theory: fear of government prevented businessmen from making the investments needed to expand the economy.

Today we have a very good example of how fear of government affects the economy. Except this time the effect is positive, at least for one industry.

Gun and ammo manufacturers and sellers are thriving like never before. And the reason is fear of Barack Obama's ambitious drive to take guns away from honest citizens. As the president ramps up his rhetoric, fear envelops the country. And citizens are taking action to protect themselves by buying guns before they are outlawed.

President Obama seems intent on fulfilling a dream of many Democrats, and that's to disarm the citizenry. Why do they want to do that? The leaders want it because it enhances their own power over the people. As for why their followers are so willing to surrender their rights is up to them to try and explain. But my theory is that they have such an overwhelming faith in government that they think the government will step in to solve any problem that arises. The world would be a better place if people would just do what the government says. Free people just cause more problems.

So we end up with programs like Obamacare. Fortunately, there are still plenty of people around who think the better world is a place where the government leaves them alone.

And as long as there is an uncertainty about what rights citizens will have remaining after the president gets through with them then the gun market will thrive. If only I had bought Sturm Ruger stock back in the Spring of 2009. Sigh.

It takes a train wreck to get city council to update the antique city code

Some portions of the city code for Midland, Texas, are as current as the Mayan calendar. Yesterday we addressed a change in the works for an ancient provision regarding parade permits. See New Parade Permit Rule - Minorities Hit Hardest.

But that was not the only outdated code provision. My favorite old timey law is Section 6-1-9 in the aforementioned code. As follows:

6-1-9. - Police radio; interception of communications.

No solicitor, or other person, not being authorized by the City, shall intercept any communication and divulge or publish the existence, contents, substance, purpose, effect or meaning of such intercepted communication, and no solicitor or other person, not being entitled thereto, shall receive or assist in receiving any message emanating through the medium of KKA-662, and use the same or any information therein contained for his own benefit, or for the benefit of another solicitor or person.

(Ord. of 3-24-1953)

So it's illegal to divulge anything overheard on a scanner tuned into the police and fire radio channels. Tell that to the TV news people who make extensive use of it during ongoing news events.

Free the NewsWest Nine! See previously, Free the CBS Seven!

My second favorite ancient code is 6-1-12. - Arsonists, to wit:

There is hereby appropriated from the general fund of the City the sum of $250.00 to be paid to any person procuring the arrest and conviction of any person found guilty of arson, or any attempt to commit arson, within the corporate limits of the City. If and when such fund is exhausted, then additional funds of like amount shall be appropriated so as to keep the fund a continuous one.

(Ord. of 2-16-1928; Ord. of 2-14-1950)

Back in 1928 that $250 reward would have been a princely sum. Today not so much.

I complain about it, but in reality I like it that these ridiculous old rules stay on the books. Overall it's a bad thing for society to have so many ancient rules and no one in government caring enough to update them or get rid of them all together. But for bloggers they are manna from heaven. Our local government is so kind as to hand out the bludgeons and ask to be beaten about the head with them.

That code provision about the radio scanners will have its 60th birthday in a couple of months.  I hope I can remember to help celebrate.

New parade permit rule - minorities hit hardest

The Midland, Texas, city council plans to amend the old parade ordinance, according to MyWestTexas.com. And if the ordinance is enacted parades will be prohibited from crossing over the railroad track*.

People in government always seem to want to do something, anything, following a tragedy to show the voters that they care. So they pass a law or amend a rule that makes them feel good but doesn't do any real good. But if there are no train/parade collisions in the foreseeable future, they'll count this new rule as an improvement for the masses.

Where does that leave the annual Juneteenth parade? The several Juneteenth parades I've attended in Midland all started North of the railroad track, crossed over the track, and ended South of the track. To my knowledge, the parade has never been struck by a train, and parade participants probably didn't need to be cautioned about crossing the track even before the freak accident at the Show of Support parade in November of last year.

I won't use the loaded word "segregation," but it sure does seem as though the railroad track will now mark an even more prominent boundary between the North side and the South side.

*Apparently, the city council can grant exceptions if the parties wanting to conduct a parade go before them, hat in hand, seeking their permission. Should they do that some city council member will dutifully admonish them to watch out for trains. You just watch.

I wonder if the other me will file a tax return again this year

The Wall Street Journal the other day contained an article by Jay Starkman titled E-Filing and the Explosion in Tax-Return Fraud in which he states:

Tax-identity theft exploded to more than 1.1 million cases in 2011... The IRS has a backlog of 650,000 cases.

Those numbers don't jive with the GAO which reports :

As of September 30, 2012, IRS had identified almost 642,000 incidents of identity theft that impacted tax administration in 2012 alone, a large increase over prior years.

Maybe the way to square the two is to assume the 2012 cases are the ones backlogged.

My fraudster came to my attention in April 2012 when I tried to file my 2011 return online through H&R Block's software program. It was rejected because someone else had already filed one with my name and SS number. So I wasted two hours at the local IRS office trying to find out what happened and what to do with it. Actually, 1.5 hours was wasted waiting to talk to an actual person, the other half hour was wasted talking to said person.

The effort wasn't 100% wasted, however. I did learn from her that someone had filed a return using a Dallas address requesting a $9,000 refund which at that time had not yet been paid. She refused put a hold on it or to do anything further because I had not brought a copy of my return with me. Her suggestion that I go get it, return, and get in back of the line was declined. She did, however, point me to the IRS form for declaring an identity theft.

Here's a link to the Identity Theft Affidavit form 14039 pdf for 2012. If anyone reading this suffers a similar fate, don't waste time going to an IRS office, just download the form, fill it out and mail it in. And in all future years try to pay just enough taxes throughout the year so that you won't have to ask for a refund.

Any criminal investigation in my case is unlikely: "IRS conducts criminal investigations only in the most serious identity theft-related refund fraud cases," says the GAO. That $9,000 is chicken feed to the U.S. government, but I do wonder if they actually paid it out.

Meanwhile, Paul Bedard says in Washington Times that the response time for help from the IRS has gone from bad to worse.

It's time for a flat tax.

AR-15 Magazine change on video

The people leading the move to disarm the populace are currently focused on high capacity magazines. I've mentioned in previous posts how easy it is to change magazines in the AR-15. See Mega-maga-phobia: The fear of large capacity magazines. The point was that the time is not significant enough to matter in a Sandy Hook school active shooter situation. And therefore banning hi cap mags would be pointless, other than making the gun control advocates feel good and encouraging them toward some other anti-gun measure.

Here's an even better video showing a magazine change. The shooter loads 20 rounds into a high capacity magazine and fires all twenty bullets through the AR-15 in 15.30 seconds. Then he fires 10 rounds from a single magazine, withdraws the empty magazine, inserts a second magazine containing 10 rounds, and resumes shooting until that magazine is empty. The elapsed time there was 15.57 seconds -- a difference of 27 seconds. Here's a link to the video. (Thanks, S.M.)

A half minute isn't significant enough to start banning firearm paraphernalia, especially at a time when citizens are in a highly suspicious mood about an administration that seems bent on disarming them.

Can you pass the U.S. citizenship test?

It should be easy for anyone who grew up in the U.S. to pass the citizenship quiz. But for new arrivals it might take a little bit of study. There are 96 easy questions, and winners have to answer 58 (60%) correctly.  Sample question:

Take the quiz yourself.

On the other hand, with websites gathering so much info about us these days, taking this quiz online could just give marketers more data on how to sell to you, politicians more info to help win you over, and the government more data on what to do with you.

How did the CBO conclude that paying people not to work would create jobs?

Answer: They didn't. They pulled numbers out of the air.

The other day the morning paper contained a short unsigned Associated Press filler piece titled, "Report: Extending jobless benefits creates jobs" in which AP says the following:

Washington -- Extending the current level of long-term unemployment benefits for another year would add 300,000 jobs to the economy, according to a report from the Congressional Budget Office.

The Washington Post elaborates:

The report notes that extending unemployment insurance is a particularly effective form of stimulus when the economy is still struggling. That’s because jobless workers who receive benefits are extremely likely to spend the money right away. So, the CBO estimates, if Congress extends all the programs, GDP will likely be 0.2 points higher and employment will be 300,000 higher at the end of 2013 than if Congress does nothing at all.

[They are referring to the CBO report of 11/28/2012. Click Unemployment Insurance in the Wake of the Recent Recession to get the CBO summary, and download the full PDF here.]

One not so minor problem: The economy is much too complex to make predictions like that and expect them to come true. And another contributing factor that can't be measured is the rampant fear present today that things will only get worse.

The report says that the CBO estimates that if unemployment benefits are extended the payoff to the GDP will $1.10 for every $1.00 of budgetary cost in 2013. And they don't admit it, but that's just a wild guess. Researchers are all over the map on whether or how much government stimuli influences the GDP.

Valarie Ramey has analyzed the research on the effects of stimuli on GDP, and she reported in a podcast interview by Russ Roberts with her last year that the effect varied from about $0.80 to $1.20 increase in GDP for every $1.00 the government spent. Download or listen to that interview at econtalk.org.

For Mr. Roberts' own 2010 evisceration of CBO estimates, see CBO estimates. And for the Heritage blog take, see Unemployment Benefits: No Free Lunch.

In any event, here's some good news for the unemployed. The CBO currently has four job openings. Go for it. Their standards really can't be very high.

School Bond part 2 -- the over 65 exemption

You know you are getting old when the political solicitations you receive are targeted at the elderly.

The local school district here in Midland, Texas, wants voters to authorize a $163 million bond on election day. And their supporters have made a very earnest effort to persuade the electorate that taxpayers need to take on more debt. Previously on these pages see local government bond debt still under a billion -- school district hopes to change that.

So the particular solicitations -- two since I started saving them -- were either signed by or show photos of some prominent locals who beseech the recipient to vote "For" the bond with the assurance that it will not cause the recipients school tax to increase.

Here's why. The state of Texas allows qualified property owners to get an "over 65" exemption which caps the property owner's school taxes. From the Texas Comptroller:

What is a homestead tax ceiling?
It is a limit on the amount of taxes you must pay on your residence. If you qualify your home for a 65 and older or disabled person homestead exemption for school taxes, the school taxes on that home can't increase as long as you own and live in that home. The tax ceiling is the amount you pay in the year that you qualified for the 65 or older or disabled person exemption. The school taxes on your home may go below the ceiling but not above the amount of the ceiling. However, if you improve the home (other than normal repairs or maintenance), the tax ceiling may go higher because of the new additions. For example, if you add on a garage or game room to the house after you have established a tax ceiling, the ceiling will be adjusted to a higher level to reflect the value of that addition.

The legislative rationale was probably that senior citizens would not likely have children in the school system and shouldn't have to pay so much for educating other people's children. But the practical effect is the creation of a class of voters who can vote to raise the tax on another class of voters.

All eight of the individuals whose signatures appear on one of the solicitations show up as property owners in the Midland Central Appraisal District search engine. Furthermore, the search engine shows that all eight have claimed the over "65 exemption." That means their school taxes were locked in as of the year they applied for the exemption.

A few years ago some MISD board member was talking about working to eliminate the over 65 exemption. But they figured out how to use it to their advantage. A vote for the bond by someone with the exemption is in effect a vote for someone else to pay the extra tax. So the senior citizen who votes for the bond has nothing to lose. It's a very clever marketing strategy on behalf of the bond advocates. As for pitting the old against the young, what could possibly go wrong?

Even the Chi-Coms saw a problem with over taxing the rich

Richard W. Fulmer, in a blog post titled Whipping the Fast Ox pulls an item from Commanding Heights, the battle for the world economy. He notes that after Mao's death there were some within the Chinese Communist Party who recognized a problem with putting a heavy tax burden on the most successful.

"Whipping the fast ox" was the analogy they used, and what a great one that is. If the most productive are punished then there would be no incentive to excel. It's really that simple.

local government bond debt still under a billion -- school district hopes to change that

There is no minimum percentage of registered voters required for a bond election to succeed. So big debt loads are often placed on taxpayers by a very few ardent supports of the bond.

That may change this year in Midland, Texas, where a big school bond vote coming up this November in which voters will also be electing a president. That's sure to bring out huge numbers of voters. And the supporters of the big Midland Independent School District bond of $163 have been in high gear trying to build support.

The photo on the right came from Your Money and Local Debt, Texas Comptroller Susan Combs' site in which she attempts to alert Texans about the huge level of debt their local governments have undertaken for taxpayers to pay back. Her list of the top ten most populous states puts Texas at number two for local debt with a per capita debt amount of $7,983.

According to the Texas Bond Review Board search engine, the bond debt outstanding for taxpayers in Midland as of 8/31/11 is as follows:

City of Midland	$179,510,417
Junior College	$67,410,592
Midland County	$42,047,267
Midland Mem Hospital	$211,120,245
MISD	$184,674,627
GRAND TOTAL	$684,763,148

So as you can see, we haven't yet reached the $1 billion mark. But take heart. An article in Sunday's Midland Reporter Telegram contained an article titled, Will voters pass the largest bond in Midland's History? lays out what happens next:

The $163.1 million elementary schools bond is phase one of a two-phase district reconfiguration plan to create true middle schools and move freshmen onto high school campuses. ...

Three different options were presented, with the projects ranging from $360 million to $500 million.

Billion dollar debt here we come! Maybe this is a good point to insert a chart from the Cato Institute:

As you can see, costs per student have climbed drastically, but unfortunately, SAT math and reading scores stayed flat. If U.S. students were outscoring students in other countries it might be easier to ignore the cost. But sadly, it is costing more and more just keep them dumb.  We need to be giving them better tools with which to pay off all of the debt they'll inherit.

Pre-existing conditions and the uninsured

My head is still spinning from reading the WSJ article the other day titled The Better Solution for 'Pre-Existing Conditions' by John C. Goodman.

The problem, as presented by the pro-Obamacare people, was that millions of people with pre-existing conditions were unable to obtain medical insurance. That was the whole foundation for the albatross that came to be known as Obamacare. Never mind that many states, *like Texas, already had programs through which people who were unable to buy insurance could get it.

Along came President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to save the day with Obamacare. But here's the result of all that. As of July 31, 2012, only 82,000 people have enrolled in the program. Resource: Kaiser Family Foundation website Statehealthfacts.org.

From Mr. Goodman's article, an astonishing observation:

That is not a misprint. Out of a population of more than 300 million, some 82,000 have the problem that was cited as the principal reason for spending $1.8 trillion over the next 10 years and in the process turning the entire health-care system upside down.

Please, my poor head, stop spinning.

*The Texas plan was passed into law under Republican Governor William P. Clements in 1989 and was funded under Republican Governor George W. Bush in 1997.  Source.

Some righteous citizen outrage over the hotel/motel tax, finally

Had to laugh at an item on the local TV news last week. Seems that some citizens took it upon themselves to help alleviate the housing shortage by renting out rooms to the Permian Basin Oil Show attendees.

So along came the state comptroller warning them they have to collect the hotel/motel tax. Link. So maybe now some of those citizens will display a little righteous outrage over that tax.

The hotel/motel tax is one of the more sinister taxes governments collect, because it's a tax on passers-by who typically don't get to vote in that jurisdiction. To the taxing entities it is free money.

They say the reason hotels and motels are flashing "No Vacancy" signs is because many oil field workers are living there because they can't find other accommodations. Meanwhile, that money taken from them for the hotel/motel tax is supposed to be used to bring even more people into the city. All taxes are permanent, of course, so the fact that it outlived its purpose is irrelevant.

Previously: Taxing People Who Can't Say "No" - The Motel Occupancy Tax.

City council meetings on twitter -- a good baby step

The city government website tells us that citizens can follow the city council meetings on Twitter. Midlandtexas.gov, shows a news release, as follows:

City Council Meetings Now Available by Tweet

Residents can find the agenda online at the city website, then follow along with public comment, council motions, and city actions with the click of a mouse. Read More.

[The "Read More" link was 404 last I checked.]

But it's a one way street. People can follow on Twitter, but they cannot give feedback. Twitter Terms of Use:

The City of Midland will not respond via Twitter to press inquiries or other citizen matters. While we hope you will follow us on Twitter, we are unable to respond to questions on Twitter.

Anyway, it's a good first step. Ideally the city council meetings would be video recorded and broadcast on Tall City TV, the city's very own TV channel. This blogger has asked the city council to do that on two separate occasions, most recently on 8/17/2010, but the timing was bad. The suggestion was that they could use volunteers to operate city owned cameras and get the results without spending a dime. Unfortunately, the council members that day, while polite on the surface, were unified in a "No soup for you!" frame of mind due to their commitment to raise taxes while facing a room full of citizens imploring them to please not raise taxes.

But now we can follow the council meetings on Twitter. Baby steps. Baby steps.

Dallas Police and Fire pension system's luxury investments

There's no suggestion that fraud was involved, but when a public pension system strives so hard to keep its Hawaiian luxury housing secret it inspires curiosity.

Minutes of the board of directors of the Dallas Police and Fire Pension System meeting of December '06 mention a previous $18 million investment with Knudson Luxury Housing, which is owned by the pension system. An additional $14 million investment was approved at the '06 meeting for purchase of real estate in Hawaii.

Someone who isn't identified in the various articles and documents wanted some followup information and filed an open records request about Knudson Luxury Housing and two individuals who also aren't named. The pension system delivered some but not all of the information requested. But an Assistant Attorney General in a letter ruling said the pension system had to disclose most of the information they wanted to keep secret.

So the pension system filed suit for a declaratory judgment. They claim information pertaining to real estate contracts, marketing and pricing, if released, would materially affect the value of the property. And they say identifying the tenants would violate their expectation of privacy. So they seek a court ruling allowing them to withhold the information.

The pension system's claim does make some sense. But if it turned out that some of the key players are getting sweetheart deals for luxury Hawaiian vacations then the public would never know.

The concept of a quasi governmental entity -- which in this case appears to be 7/8 taxpayer funded -- to be delving in the luxury rental business is a bit disquieting. And it certainly is a good argument for scrapping those old municipal pension plans and replacing them with self directed 401(k) type programs that civilians have used for decades.

This story comes to us by way of Texaswatchdog.org along with Courthousenews.com.

Democracy, majorities, and freedom

Here's the question. Should the majority decide everything?

The short answer is "no." In the U.S., the bill of rights sets forth the limits on what the majority can do.

Unfortunately, the boundaries get moved from time to time. While political and religious freedoms have been protected, economic freedoms are another matter. For example, the case of Kelo v. City of New London involved a battle between the majority and an individual on whether the government could take someone's house for the purpose of economic development. The Supreme Court got it wrong by siding with the majority over the individual thus eroding economic freedom.

From Professor Mike Munger: "When the majority always wins, each of us loses."

Via Don Boudreaux.

City government: Sorry we made you use less water, now can you please pay for the water you didn't use?

Oh the irony of unintended consequences.

They cajoled, they scolded, they threatened, they raised the rates. The Midland, Texas, city leaders did all they could to get residents to use less water due to the shrinking reservoirs and the on-going drought. It worked. People took the matter seriously and curtailed their water usage like the good citizens they are.

Now the city is crying because the revenue from the residents' water bills isn't high enough.  The bureaucratic solution is to make residents pay more to make up for the short fall. So now citizens have to pay for the water they didn't use. Sigh. The citizens just can't catch a break.

Sometimes the jokes write themselves. If I weren't so lazy I would learn how to draw cartoons:

First panel: Mayor looking straight out at you and saying earnestly: "We are very proud of our ability to take a long range view and solve potential situations before they develop into problems."

Second panel: Mayor looking through the wrong end of a telescope at a glass of murky water. "It's half empty. No, it's half full. No wait, it's half empty."

Third panel: Mayor looking earnest again: "There is no temporary crisis that can't be cured by a permanent hike in your taxes, fees, and rates. You can thank us later."

Move over Garry Trudeau.