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Biggest Nanny State Moron of them All

Felix Ortiz, D-Brooklyn, wants to ban the use of salt in restaurants.

“No owner or operator of a restaurant in this state shall use salt in any form in the preparation of any food for consumption by customers of such restaurant, including food prepared to be consumed on the premises of such restaurant or off of such premises,” the bill, A. 10129 , states in part.

But, is salt necessary for some cooking? Yes.

Salt is probably the most important seasoning in cooking. On its own, or when used to deliberately make something taste salty, salt’s flavor is quite distinct. But salt can also enhance the flavors of other ingredients without calling attention to itself. A light seasoning with salt can bring out flavor, smooth out bitterness, and make foods taste not salty, but more like themselves.

Salt also affects the way foods look and smell. Salt will help to preserve the green color in cooked vegetables when added to the cooking water. It has the same effect on cauliflower, keeping it from yellowing. Salt intensifies aromas, making them more apparent.

Pickling salt is used to enhance the flavor of pickles. It is simply table salt without the additives that can turn a pickling liquid cloudy. If you can’t find it, you can use table salt or sea salt, as long as it doesn’t have any additives.

Adding a pinch of salt to eggs is standard culinary practice, because the chemical reaction of salt with the fats and emulsifiers causes the egg to break down and smooth out quickly, making it more apt to combine with other ingredients.

Salt is an important ingredient in bread making. It adds taste, and inhibits yeast production, thus preserving the bread. It also contributes to the texture, having a toughening effect on gluten. However, salt, being a yeast inhibitor should never be added directly to the dissolved yeast.

Salt is an important ingredient in marinades. It draws the water out of the food being marinated, helping to concentrate the flavor of the food.

In other words, you will no longer be able to eat fresh baked bread in your favorite restaurant. No more pizza dough where the dough is made on the premises. The vegetables will look less appealing as well. And taste will likely be adversely impacted and I’m willing to bet that the typical response by most people will be to…add salt.

This article demonstrates what a blithering idiot Ortiz is, by the way, in Ortiz’ case does the D stand for Dimwit? If I were a Democrat I’d want this guy booted from the party.

Ortiz admits that prior to introducing the bill he did not research salt’s role in food chemistry, its effect on flavor or his bill’s ramifications for the restaurant industry. He tells me he was prompted to introduce the bill because his father used salt excessively for many years, developed high blood pressure and had a heart attack.

“I think salt should be banned in restaurants. I ask if a dish has salt in it, and if I does, I get something else that doesn’t have salt,” Ortiz tells me, before going on to say that he has eaten, and expects he will continue to eat, among other things, ham, cheese and bread in restaurants, all of which contain salt.

How about baking soda or baking powder? Those are types of salt, unless I’m mistaken. And what about MSG, no more Chinese restaurants either.

“That [bill is] insane,” says Christopher Allen Tanner, a culinary professor at Schenectady County Community College in Schenectady. “You can’t make hams without salt, you can’t make bacon without salt,” he tells me. “There would be no pickles, no relishes, no — no just about everything.”

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DAs 8 Year Old Slut Theory

Yes, you read the title correctly. Here is the story with excerpts below,

Residents were alarmed last summer by a rash of thefts, trespasses and burglaries in Stonegate, a neighborhood in Douglas County.

Fear turned to panic in July after an intruder reportedly climbed into a second- story window and groped an 8-year-old girl in her bed.

A sicko was on the loose and pressure was on to catch him.

A week later, Sheriff David Weaver announced that his office had made an arrest.

What Weaver didn’t say is that the suspect, Tyler Sanchez, a thin 19-year-old redhead, looks nothing like the 40ish, stockier, brown-haired intruder described by the victim.

What the sheriff left out is that Sanchez has serious cognitive delays.

Okay, lets just go over this. The 19 year old, who is thin and has read hair and has cognitive delays is a dead ringer for the stocky, 40 year old brown haired intruder. Got that? Now lets continue,

What the news release failed to mention was that investigators’ only evidence against him is a short statement that seems to repeat what Sanchez was told about the crime during 17 hours of interrogation by detectives who didn’t seem to catch that he’s mentally disabled and hearing impaired.

No, that doesn’t look suspicious at all. Holding a person against their will for 17 hours. And giving him some of the details of the crime so he can repeat them back, brilliant bit of trickery…err police work. And mind you the time Sanchez spent in custody was actually 38 hours.

And what prosecutors continue to ignore is the key physical evidence in the case.

Records show underwear the victim says her molester yanked to her knees bears the DNA of two other people: her father and an unknown male. Neither of the genetic profiles match Sanchez. The young man who continues to be charged is excluded from the only piece of physical evidence that would tie him to the assault.

So, lets ignore the victims description, the dubious questioning process, and the DNA evidence because of the following brilliant theory put forward by Douglas County’s DA,

With the low-cut jeans that girls wear, she could have picked up anyone’s DNA off any surface her panties touched while they may have been riding up above her pants. I hate those low-cut pants,” Chambers said Friday, swear to God.

“Depending on how long she had been wearing those panties and where, they could have rubbed up against the back of her chair at school, a restaurant, the couch at home that someone else had been sitting on, a bus seat, someone’s toilet seat if she did not pull them down far enough — there are many ways to get unknown DNA on clothing. Another kid could have snapped the elastic on her underwear — kids do that sort of thing.”

In other words, this 8 year old girl who was molested really kind of asked for it cause she is a dirty little slut wearing those low cut jeans and showing off her thong (I made up the bit about the thong, but based on the DA’s comments you might not know that).

On a side note I wonder if DA Chambers will keep this statement in mind when her prosecutorial team finds DNA that matches the suspect?

There you have folks, the 8 year old slut theory.

And here is an added bonus of police stupidity,

Said Sheriff Weaver in July: “I hope that the residents of Stonegate feel a lot safer knowing that an arrest has been made and that someone will be held accountable for what occurred.”

Good to know. Next time there is a crime, just go out and arrest someone…anyone, it doesn’t matter who. That way people will feel safer. What a dope.

Link via Radley Balko.

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New Jobless Claims and PPI Surge

People filing for unemployment insurance for the first time surged to 473,000 compared to the expectations of 430,000. On top of that the Producer Price Index (PPI) rose 1.4% which is considerable faster than the 0.4% that was expected.

The jobless claims numbers underscores the weakness in the jobs market. Unemployment/employment typically are lagging indicators but for the two previous recessions they have lagged considerably behind the recoveries and the length of the lag has grown. Granted we have only two recessions on which to compare, but if the trend continues it could be quite sometime before improvement is seen in the labor market. Hopefully, this wont be the case. The one bit of good news is that the continuing jobless claims is essentially unchanged and has been holding below the 5 million mark.

The increase in the PPI is itself potentially bad news because it could indicate that inflation might be returning and that would mean the Federal Reserve has to make a decision on what to do about it. Of course, most of the increase is due to the energy component of the index. Stripping out the volatile food and energy components the index increased only a 0.3% last month.

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Duke Rape Accuser Charged with Attempted Murder

After following, rather closely, the Duke “Rape” case I can’t say I find this new surprising.

Durham, N.C. — Durham police late Wednesday arrested the woman who four years ago falsely accused three Duke University lacrosse players of rape. Investigators said Crystal Gayle Mangum assaulted her boyfriend, set his clothes on fire in a bathtub and threatened to stab him.

A judge set her bond at $1 million during a Thursday morning court appearance. Mangum, 33, has been appointed a public defender and is scheduled to appear in court on Feb. 22.

Police charged her with attempted first-degree murder, five counts of arson, assault and battery, communicating threats, three counts of misdemeanor child abuse, injury to personal property, identity theft and resisting a public officer.

Based on what I read while following the Duke case this is completely inline with the how Mangum was protrayed.

The article’s reference to the Duke lacrosse rape case is a bit misleading. The number of people Mangum claimed to have raped her changed. She also identified as rapists people that could prove that they had left the party well before the rape was supposed to have occurred. The three defendants were not simply exonerated the North Carolina Attorney General proclaimed them innocent an unprecedented move. And finally the semen from several different men was found inside Mangum, none of which blonged to anyone on the lacrosse team.

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Amy Bishop: Dungeons & Dragons Assassin

dungeons-dragons-player-handbookNo, I’m not kidding.

Accused campus killer Amy Bishop was a devotee of Dungeons & Dragons – just like Michael “Mucko” McDermott, the lone gunman behind the devastating workplace killings at Edgewater Technology in Wakefield in 2000.

Bishop, now a University of Alabama professor, and her husband James Anderson met and fell in love in a Dungeons & Dragons club while biology students at Northeastern University in the early 1980s, and were heavily into the fantasy role-playing board game, a source told the Herald.

“They even acted this crap out,” the source said.

That is some quality reporting the Boston Herald, keep up the good work. I like the way one commenter, lazy and pedestrian reporting.

Is it 1984 again?

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Pigs on the Police Force

Here is a public service announcement to all police departments, when you find guys like this in your ranks it is probably a better idea to kick them from your ranks and throw the book at them, legally speaking. Protecting them just gets their stink on you.

FAIRMONT — A Marion County sheriff’s deputy accused of sending sexual text messages to a 17-year-old girl, was back in court Thursday.

Cpl. Joseph McKinney pleaded guilty to four counts of indecent exposure.

He was sentenced to 12 months in the regional jail for each count, to be served consecutively.

Judge David Janes then suspended the sentence and placed McKinney on supervised probation for four years.

He was also required to resign from the sheriff’s department.

McKinney worked for the department for 11 years.

And just to be clear, if it was another 17 year old or a non-LEO adult sexting with this girl, he’d likely be charge with child pornography and/or indecent exposure, and wind up looking at jail time and time on the sex offender registry. There really are two Americas when it comes to the law. One for us peasants and one for the Law Enforcement Officers.

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Obama: Big Brother

Tracking cell phones is now something the Obama administration wants to do.

Even though police are tapping into the locations of mobile phones thousands of times a year, the legal ground rules remain unclear, and federal privacy laws written a generation ago are ambiguous at best. On Friday, the first federal appeals court to consider the topic will hear oral arguments (PDF) in a case that could establish new standards for locating wireless devices.

In that case, the Obama administration has argued that warrantless tracking is permitted because Americans enjoy no “reasonable expectation of privacy” in their–or at least their cell phones’–whereabouts. U.S. Department of Justice lawyers say that “a customer’s Fourth Amendment rights are not violated when the phone company reveals to the government its own records” that show where a mobile device placed and received calls.

Those claims have alarmed the ACLU and other civil liberties groups, which have opposed the Justice Department’s request and plan to tell the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia that Americans’ privacy deserves more protection and judicial oversight than what the administration has proposed.

“This is a critical question for privacy in the 21st century,” says Kevin Bankston, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who will be arguing on Friday. “If the courts do side with the government, that means that everywhere we go, in the real world and online, will be an open book to the government unprotected by the Fourth Amendment.”

Well cool, if the Obama Adminsitration has its way they will know where you are so long as you have your cell phone with you. Isn’t that nice to know that your big brother is monitoring your where abouts at all times? Next up, remote activation of your cell phones video capabilities to make sure you aren’t doing something you shouldn’t be doing. Wish I were kidding with that last one, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that some people actually think this way.

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Arnold Kling on the Progressives

Arnold Kling has a post on the temper tantrums some progressives have been throwing and here is the concluding comments,

The important point is that Progressives are never wrong. Top-down reform is the only way to fix the health care system. Anthropogenic global warming is scientifically proven, and its solution requires strenuous exercise of political control over individual behavior. Deficit spending is necessary and sufficient to create jobs. Technocrats can make banks too regulated to fail. Markets without technocratic control are like adolescents without adult supervision. Individual happiness can be improved by political authorities using scientific knowledge. Concentrated political power is the wave of the future, and it is good.

I am not a populist. I fear the mob. But how can I fear the Progressives any less?

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John Cochrane on the Financial Crisis

University of Chicago Professor John Cochrane explains the causes of the financial panic and how two mistakes turned what might have been a mild recession into a deep recession.

The short form is:

  • Failure to bailout Lehman Brothers after bailing out (or at least appearing to) Bear Stearns.
  • The chaos surrounding the TARP legislation.

Cochrane points out that the bankruptcy of Lehman was nothing special in an of itself. Many of Lehman’s operations were back up and running within days under new owners. Overall, it was unremarkable save for a few glitches here and there. What was really problematic though was that initially the government had signalled that it would bailout large financial entities under the “too big to fail” belief. Then when Lehman indicated it was in trouble the government not only didn’t act, it claimed it didn’t have the legal authority to act. Basically the belief that the government saw large financial entities were “too big to fail” was in serious doubt and people panicked.

After that the TARP mess just made things worse. As Cochrane puts it,

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, and President Bush got on television and said, basically, “The financial system is about to collapse. We are in danger of an economic calamity worse than the Great Depression. We need $700 billion, and we won’t tell you what we’re going to do with it. If you need a hint, we justmade it illegal to shortsell bank stocks.”

These speeches should be remembered as a case study in how to start a financial crisis, not how to relieve one. In the Washington context theymay havemade sense, and I understand and sympathize with the awful position that Bernanke and Paulson were in. I suspect that they wanted legal authority to bail out the likes of Lehman and they needed to scare Congress into giving themthemoney, even as stubborn rightwing fiscal conservatives like Barney Frank were saying impolite
things like, “No one in a democracy, unelected, should have $700 billion to spend as he sees fit.” Alas, the speeches scared everyone outside the Beltway too.

And these kinds of things did not start recently. As has been noted before this has happened before. In 1998 the government bailed out Long-Term Capital to some financial fall out. You can read about it here, but the bottom line was that a bail out was arranged because fairly large amounts of money were owed to Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, and Lehman Brothers.

Cochrane’s look at mortgage backed securities and how things went so wrong there is interesting as well.

Third, it hides risk and avoids regulations, which may be much of its design. An institution that issues short-term debt to hold mortgages is what we used to call a “bank.” Why call it an spv? Because the regulations assessed lower capital requirements on spvs. This structure allows investors who really do want higher risks and higher yields, but are constrained by regulations that specify types (commercial paper) and ratings of individual securities they must hold rather than focusing on portfolio risk. Thus the regulatory system ends up encouraging artificial obscurity and fragility.

It is often claimed that “free, deregulated markets failed,” bringing about the housing collapse and financial crisis. In fact, the free, relatively deregulated equities market absorbed massive losses this time, as last time, with relatively little turmoil. It was the regulated, supervised part of themarket that failed.

I recommend reading the whole thing.

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Debt and Economic Growth

In a few posts I’ve noted that we can expect lower economic growth in the future and one reason is the enormous amounts of debt that the country has been taking on. Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff layout why this is so here.

In previous cycles, international banking crises have often led to a wave of sovereign defaults a few years later. The dynamic is hardly surprising, since public debt soars after a financial crisis, rising by an average of over 80 per cent within three years. Public debt burdens soar owing to bail-outs, fiscal stimulus and the collapse in tax revenues. Not every banking crisis ends in default, but whenever there is a huge international wave of crises as we have just seen, some governments choose this route.

We do not anticipate outright defaults in the largest crisis-hit countries, certainly nothing like the dramatic de facto defaults of the 1930s when the US and Britain abandoned the gold standard. Monetary institutions are more stable (assuming the US Congress leaves them that way). Fundamentally, the size of the shock is less. But debt burdens are racing to thresholds of (roughly) 90 per cent of gross domestic product and above. That level has historically been associated with notably lower growth.

While the exact mechanism is not certain, we presume that at some point, interest rate premia react to unchecked deficits, forcing governments to tighten fiscal policy. Higher taxes have an especially deleterious effect on growth. We suspect that growth also slows as governments turn to financial repression to place debts at sub-market interest rates.

[...]

Another big unknown is the future path of world real interest rates, which have been trending downwards for many years. The lower these rates are, the higher the debt levels countries can sustain without facing market discipline. One common mistake is for governments to “play the yield curve” – as debts soar, shifting to cheaper short-term debt to economise on interest costs. Unfortunately, a government with massive short-term debts to roll over is ill-positioned to adjust if rates spike or market confidence fades.

Given these risks of higher government debt, how quickly should governments exit from fiscal stimulus? This is not an easy task, especially given weak employment, which is again quite characteristic of the post-second world war financial crises suffered by the Nordic countries, Japan, Spain and many emerging markets. Given the likelihood of continued weak consumption growth in the US and Europe, rapid withdrawal of stimulus could easily tilt the economy back into recession. Yet, the sooner politicians reconcile themselves to accepting adjustment, the lower the risks of truly paralysing debt problems down the road. Although most governments still enjoy strong access to financial markets at very low interest rates, market discipline can come without warning. Countries that have not laid the groundwork for adjustment will regret it.

This is why I’ve been seemingly wishy-washy on things like deficits and tax cuts. On the one hand tightening the belt by reducing spending could send the economy back into recession (assuming we are indeed out, if not it would just make the recession worse). If we raise taxes across the board, same thing. Yet if we keep spending as we are then we can expect lower growth for quite some time. Add on things like Social Security and Medicare and we have a very bleak picture indeed.

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Rent Seeking At Its Finest

Rent seeking in economics is where firms or individuals seek economic rents (unearned profits) via the political process. Here is a nice example.

Senator Richard Shelby, the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, placed a blanket “hold” in part because of the feud pitting Airbus parent EADS and its partner Northrop Grumman against Boeing, his office said.

[...]

The European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company and its rival Boeing have been locked in a long-running rivalry to win a 35-billion-dollar contract for a fleet of new aerial refueling tankers.

The EADS/Northrop partnership would build the airplane in Shelby’s home state of Alabama but have accused the Pentagon of favoring Boeing in a draft request for proposal and warned they may withdraw from the competition.

[...]

Shelby is also “deeply concerned” that Obama may block the construction of an FBI center in Alabama to test improvised explosive devices — the “roadside bombs” that have killed hundreds of US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And its always nice when they can put such a nice patriotic spin on it too,

“This decision impedes the US military, the intelligence community, and federal law enforcement personnel in their missions to exploit and analyze intelligence information critical to fighting terrorism and ensuring American security worldwide,” said Graffeo.

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Pointing Fingers

Where should we point the fingers for our current fiscal/economic mess? Keith Hennessey has a post that I tend to agree with. Hennessey looks at the opening statements from President Obama on his new budget,

The fact is, 10 years ago, we had a budget surplus of more than $200 billion, with projected surpluses stretching out toward the horizon. Yet over the course of the past 10 years, the previous administration and previous Congresses created an expensive new drug program, passed massive tax cuts for the wealthy, and funded two wars without paying for any of it -– all of which was compounded by recession and by rising health care costs. As a result, when I first walked through the door, the deficit stood at $1.3 trillion, with projected deficits of $8 trillion over the next decade.

Hennessey has a fairly long list of responses to this, but I want to try and keep this post somewhat short. Obama lists a number of reasons why the current problems we face aren’t his fault,

Medicare Drug Program
Tax Cuts
Iraq and Afghanistan
Recession (2 of them actually)

Now, how many of these are “Bush’s fault”? I’d say the first 3 can be partly blamed on Bush. But let us consider what Team Obama is going to do:

Medicare Drug Program—Keep it
Tax Cuts—Keep Most of them
Iraq and Afghanistan—Continue Bush’s policies.

Huh. Not all that much change if you ask me. What was Candidate Obama’s campaign slogan again?

And to be fair, if the Democrats were in charge during the Medicare Drug Program we’d have an even larger program than we do now. And regarding Iraq and Aghanistan, I’ve seen the claim that Obama’s first term could be considered Bush’s third term. So, even though Obama, ostensibly, could take different policy positions on several of things he claims are responsible for our current plight…he doesn’t.

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First Time Jobless Claims & The Economy

For the fourth time in the last 5 weeks first time jobless claims have risen.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of newly laid-off workers filing initial claims for jobless benefits rose unexpectedly last week, evidence that layoffs are continuing and jobs remain scarce.

The rise is the fourth in the past five weeks. Most economists hoped that claims would resume a downward trend that was evident in the fall and early winter.

I think that we are seeing the effects of ending Cash For Clunkers and other programs. Sure it was great for awhile where care sales were moved forward, but now that people have bought the cars, demend has become slack.

The Labor Department said Thursday that new claims for unemployment insurance rose by 8,000 to a seasonally adjusted 480,000. Wall Street economists had expected a drop to 460,000, according to Thomson Reuters.

The four-week average, which smooths fluctuations, rose for the third straight week to 468,750.

[...]

The number of people continuing to claim benefits was unchanged at 4.6 million. That data lags initial claims by a week.

But the so-called continuing claims do not include millions of people who have used up the regular 26 weeks of benefits typically provided by states, and are receiving extended benefits for up to 73 additional weeks, paid for by the federal government.

More than 5.8 million people were receiving extended benefits in the week ended Jan. 16, the latest data available, up from about 5.6 million the previous week. The extended benefit data isn’t seasonally adjusted and is volatile from week to week.

Calling the recession over may have been premature. And yes, I realize that unemployment is a lagging indicator. But consider that while personal income and disposable income are rising, personal consumption expenditures seem to be slowing down. Yes, GDP grew at 5.7% (advanced estimate) for the fourth quarter, but as James Hamilton notes, the fundamentals aren’t all that good.

Three-fifths of that Q4 GDP growth came from the fact that businesses were drawing down inventories more slowly than they had the quarter before. Firms sold $8.5 billion more goods (at a quarterly rate) in 2009:Q4 than they produced, and met those sales by drawing down inventories by $8.5 billion. This reduction in inventories counts as negative investment spending of -$8.5 billion at a quarterly rate (or -$34 B at the annual rate these numbers are typically reported) for purposes of calculating fourth-quarter GDP. Firms sold $34.8 billion more than they produced in 2009:Q3, which amounted to negative inventory investment of -$139 B at an annual rate for Q3. Since this component of investment spending went from -139 to -34, it counts as positive growth when you compare Q3 GDP with Q4 GDP. This mechanism alone contributed 3.4 percentage points to the 5.7% growth rate for real GDP reported for Q4.

In other words, investment decreased at a slower rate and made up the bulk of that 5.7% (about 60% of it). This not exactly what you call great news. Its like being on a ship and the captain comes on the intercom and says, “Great news, we are now sinking slower!” Or to put it yet a third way, suppose this was the only thing affecting a change in GDP, we’d have 3.4% growth in GDP because businesses are drawing down inventories to the tune of $8.5 billion in quarter four vs. $34.8 billion in quarter three. That isn’t something to consider great, and would be an explanation of why we see first time jobless claims rising.

Of course, we can’t continually draw down inventories without eventually starting to restocking them. So, there is hope. And as Prof. Hamilton notes, plugging in the new data into his recession indicator index the index is at 37.6% which indicates that the expansion probably started in 2009:Q3. And if the GDP numbers hold up for one more revision the index will likely fall below the 33% threshold for declaring the recession over and weak growth starting in 2009:Q3. But we can probably expect weak growth for sometime.

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Lancet Formally Withdraws Autism/Vaccine Article

For quite some time now, there has been claims that autism in children has been linked to vaccines, namely the MMR vaccine. The reason for this, at least in part, was an article in the Lancet. That article has been formally withdrawn.

The scientific evidence since 1998 has been completely unable to find any link between autism and vaccines. Of course, this wont persuade any of the advocacy groups and the anti-vaccination movement will continue apace.

More by Orac (link fixed).

h/t Ronald Bailey.

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Tax Increases For the Middle Class–Nope

According to this story President Obama is planning on letting the Bush tax cuts and the ATM.

In the 2010 budget tabled by President Barack Obama on Monday, the White House wants to let billions of dollars in tax breaks expire by the end of the year — effectively a tax hike by stealth.

While the administration is focusing its proposal on eliminating tax breaks for individuals who earn $250,000 a year or more, middle-class families will face a slew of these backdoor increases.

[...]

If the provisions are allowed to expire on December 31, the top-tier personal income tax rate will rise to 39.6 percent from 35 percent. But lower-income families will pay more as well: the 25 percent tax bracket will revert back to 28 percent; the 28 percent bracket will increase to 31 percent; and the 33 percent bracket will increase to 36 percent. The special 10 percent bracket is eliminated.

Investors will pay more on their earnings next year as well, with the tax on dividends jumping to 39.6 percent from 15 percent and the capital-gains tax increasing to 20 percent from 15 percent. The estate tax is eliminated this year, but it will return in 2011 — though there has been talk about reinstating the death tax sooner.

[...]

Without annual legislation to renew the patch this year, the AMT could affect an estimated 25 million taxpayers with incomes as low as $33,750 (or $45,000 for joint filers). Even if the patch is extended to last year’s levels, the tax will hit American families that can hardly be considered wealthy — the AMT exemption for 2009 was $46,700 for singles and $70,950 for married couples filing jointly.

I don’t see how this wont be a campaign issue and it could be an expensive one for the Democrats.

Update: Reuters has pulled the story.

Update II: And this one notes that Obama’s budget will extend Bush’s tax cuts for the middle class.

Update III: And here is part of the 2011 budget that addresses the Bush tax cuts (pages 39-40).

Allow the Bush Tax Cuts for Households Earning More Than $250,000 to Expire. In the last Administration, those at the very top enjoyed large tax breaks and income gains while almost everyone else struggled and real income for the middle class declined. Our Nation cannot afford to continue these tax cuts, which is why the President supports allowing those tax cuts that affect families earning more than $250,000 a year to expire and committing these resources to reducing the deficit instead. This step will have no effect on the 98 percent of all households who make less than $250,000.

This is what I thought the Obama Administration would likely do. Still, from a fiscal standpoint it is going to make the situation worse than better. Of course, considering the weak nature of the economy allowing the tax cuts to expire for everyone probably is not the best course either.

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