Here's an Idea!!

When the subject of politics comes up in life I have always had many more questions than answers. Instead of knowing, with anything approaching certainty, what should be done to alleviate poverty, I wonder why it is that the 22 trillion dollars we have already spent fighting the War of Poverty declared by Lyndon Johnson fifty years ago hasn't done the job. Lots of questions, precious few answers.

But today, for the sake of argument, let us suppose that Progressives are right when they assert that the real problem is that the government doesn't spend enough. Let us assume first that every social pathology that currently plagues us in these United States, in fact, has a workable remedy that can be brought to bear if only we had the resources to proceed. Then, the question becomes...how much money would be enough, and what will have to become of tax rates in order to provide enough?

Much is made among the left about the 90% top tax rate during the booming 50's. The question is often posed, "The economy boomed when the rich had to pay 90%!! That proves that it's possible to soak the rich!" What isn't mentioned is the fact that virtually nobody actually ended up paying 90%, because rich people could afford to hire very clever accountants who found loopholes in our impossibly complex tax code to avoid the best intentions of policy makers. Not much has changed in that regard since the 50's. When the state of Maryland tried a millionaires tax a few years back, proponents promised it would raise 100 million dollars in revenue. In fact, it resulted in a decrease of 257 million instead, since the specter of the new tax reduced the number of Maryland's millionaires from 8,000 to 6,000. Apparently, rich people aren't complete idiots.

So, if Progressives really want more revenue with which to solve our problems, they need to offer up some sort of workable plan of how much they want and how they plan to collect it. Their answer can't involve the words, "raise taxes on the rich", without some guarantee that the rich won't merely avoid those taxes with world class accounting. In my opinion...there is only one way to accomplish this and that is with a complete ellimination of our tax code and the adoption of a flat tax with no deductions for anyone. We can debate what that flat rate should be. We can even debate whether to include everyone or carve out exceptions for people under the poverty line etc..., but our current Rube Goldberg contraption of a tax code is beyond repair and any attempts to wrangle more revenue from the rich from it will be futile. 

But here is my hunch. Even if it could be proven beyond debate that a flat tax rate of say...17% would increase revenue beyond the wildest dreams of every big government leftist alive on this planet, they would still be against it. My hunch is that the only thing more important to the left than more money for government is their desire to punish the rich. What's the point of taxation if it cannot be used as a cudgel against the "winners of life's lottery" as President Obama likes to call them. The existence of income inequality in America requires the leveling hand of wealth redistribution by a benevolent state. The only trouble is, under our current tax system, nothing is getting leveled except economic growth.

In my opinion, a flat tax with no deductions solves two big problems. First, it gets the government out of the business of dispensing favors through tax policy, and secondly, if done right, will increase revenue to the Treasury...which should satisfy the left and the right. Would I be willing to pay more in taxes under a flat tax? In a New York minute, primarily because while my tax bill might go up, my accounting bills would disappear...sorry Carl. But more importantly, Washington would no longer be a magnet for lobbyists. And that would be worth it, no matter the cost!

Is the glass half full, or half empty?

Optimist or pessimist? Is the glass half full or half empty? Is that a light at the end of the tunnel or a train?

Last night, Pam went out into the garage to take her car to the grocery store to shop for our big trip to the Smoky Mountains this week. We have been looking forward to our little fall family reunion for months now, all of our kids...and their dogs, together for three days in a beautiful cabin in the hills outside of Gatlingburg, Tennessee. Only her car, our chosen vehicle for the trip, wouldn't start. Not only that, a couple of days ago some strange warning light on the dash lit up furiously to inform us that the Anti-Lock Brake system was not functioning properly. What the heck?? Her car hasn't given us any trouble in forever and suddenly three days before we're planning a 600 mile trip...THIS? What horrible timing!

Umm, actually it's fantastic timing. The timing could not possibly have been better. Can you imagine how panicked I would have been if the Anti-Lock Brake system warning light had flashed for the first time while I was navigating one of those hairpin turns in the Smoky Mountians? How horrible would it have been to wake up at 3000 feet of altitude with failing brakes? Or even worse, try discovering that your battery is dead on the first night of your vacation?? So, this morning my trusted mechanic will go over the car with a fine toothed comb before I leave for Tennessee. 

This is how life works sometimes. Things happen that at first glance seem poorly timed or unfair, but upon closer inspection prove to be beneficial. Whether the twists and turns of life are good or bad are largely dependent upon our attitude. Car trouble is just an example of a thing that happens, and is neither good nor bad. The older I get the more I find myself dividing things that happen into two categories...eternal or temporary....

TEMPORARY.                                                                                            ETERNAL.

Car trouble.                                                                                My wife

Shoulder surgery.                                                                        My kids

Stock market fluctuations.                                                          My family and friends

Bad weather.                                                                              Music

Finances.                                                                                    Faith 

Politics.                                                                                       Baseball

Politicians.

Electioneering.

If something falls into the temporary category, I try not to lose too much sleep over it, because in the grand scheme of things, there's not much I can do about it anyway. Stuff in the eternal category demands my attention, blood sweat and tears, because these are the things that matter. If something goes wrong there, my job is to move heaven and earth to make it better. Well, maybe not baseball...but I just can't put the most eternal of games in the temporary column, it just wouldn't look right!

So, I choose to see the glass as half full. I'm able to fix the car before we leave, saving me from plunging headlong over a cliff to certain death because of a break failure. 

Definitely half full!

All In For Autumn

                                    

                                            

Today is the day when I finally get around to getting rid of the summer plants and replace them all with mums and other more seasonally appropriate stuff. As you can see, Pam has already taken care of the inside of the house. This morning it was 42 degrees outside when I came downstairs so I fired up the fireplace. Maybe if I'm lucky Pam will whip up some pumpkin spice pancakes at some point over the weekend. In the Dunnevant house, we are all in for autumn.

We are also less than a week away from our much anticipated family cabin adventure in the Smokey Mountains which can only mean one thing...my wife is in full organization mode. A couple of days ago all of us received an e-mail with an attached Google-Doc, asking us to make comments/suggestions/vote  in reference to the attached menu offerings for the weekend. Here were our choices:

Breakfast A

-Pumpkin Stuffed Oven Baked Pumpkin French Toast, syrup

-sausage links

Breakfast B

-Breakfast Burritos

-hash browns

-fruit--oranges, bananas...?

Lunch A

-Hawaiian Ham&Swiss Rolls with poppy seeds

-tomato soup

-grapes

Lunch B

-Reuben dip

-rye bread

-apple slices

Dinner A

-White Chicken Chili(bring frozen)--or Slow Cooker Beef Chili

-Cheddar Biscuits

-Dessert: Apple Crisp w/ice cream

Dinner B

-Grilled Smoked Sausage w/ onions and peppers

-cheesy hash brown casserole

-panned apples

-Dessert: Cappucino Brownies w/ ice cream

Sweet Treats for Coffee/Tea a time or late night snacks:

-Molasses Crinkles?

-Oatmeal Cinnamon Chip Cookies?

-Pumpkin seeds( make these together after carving Pumpkins)

-Pumpkin Cranberry Bread

.......I love my wife.

The Democrat Debate

So, I didn't watch the first Democratic debate live because, well...baseball. But, yesterday I waded through a dozen or so highlight videos and read a handful of analysis pieces about the event. So, just like I did for the first two Republican debates, I will now offer up my take. It can be summarized with this statement...If anybody out there actually believes that someone besides Hillary Rodham Clinton will be the next President of the United States, think again.

There she was on a stage surrounded by Bernie Sanders and the three dwarves. The Bern looked every single day of his 74 years, literally yelling at everyone, as if he assumes that everyone is as hard of hearing as he is. His message hasn't changed for fifty years and it's the sort of political world view that one would expect from someone who chose the old Soviet Union for his honeymoon destination. He seemed to be running for President of Denmark, so fond is he of small Scandnavian Socialist countries. But I knew he wasn't going to be a serious rival to Hillary the very second he rushed to her defense over her "damned e-mails." He is just another vanity candidate, albeit a lovable one. Sanders has one thing that no other candidate has...the courage of his convictions. But he ain't winning the nomination, not after that kid's glove treatment of the only democrat currently standing in his way.

Then there was Martin O'Malley, the buff, handsome former Maryland governor who finally got his chance in the national spotlight. It was clear fifteen minutes in that he is running for Vice-President, practically screaming,"Pick me! pick me!!" He was polished and well spoken, and he seemed to think that his number one job as President would be to take everybody's guns away except for a handful of hunters in western Maryland. But he too treated Hillary Clinton like you treat someone who possesses explicit photographs of you having sex with farm animals, and knows how to use them.

Jim Webb, former Senator from the Old Dominion, is the kind of democrat candidate who could really have given Harry Truman a run for his money in 1948. This guy sounded more Republican than half of the Republicans candidates. My son made the pithy observation that he half expected Webb to pull out a 38 caliber handgun from his vest pocket to demonstrate the virtues of conceal carry laws! But I never much cared for Webb when he was my senator, he seemed too brutish, carried around too many grudges for my taste. By all accounts he is a smart, brave patriot, but what the heck was he doing on that stage?

Whatever he was doing, it made more sense than anything that Lincoln Chaffee was up to. Ahh yes, good old Lincoln, former Republican, former Independent, now nascent Democrat, running for the highest office in the land so he can usher the country safely into the bosom of the metric system...or something.

Which brings me back to Mrs. Clinton. She was the winner, or so I am constantly being told by the gushing coverage at CNN. She famously never sweats, and you wouldn't sweat either if you had the Clinton machine at your disposal. She looks for all the world to see like a woman who knows that she is going to be the first woman President of the United States, Benghazi or no Benghazi. She knows everyone's secrets, knows where all the bodies are buried, and thanks to an extremely weak democrat bench, her nomination is a lock. She also knows that there isn't a Republican who can beat her, despite what all these generic polls are saying. When it's time to actually vote, with the northeast and California already in the bag, she will ride the same coalition that swept Barack Obama into office...blacks, Hispanics, and women, and thanks to our newly minted immigration capitulation, there will be plenty of them to pad her margin of victory.

Generally speaking, the democrat party on display in Las Vegas wants:

1. Gun control

2. More immigration, lots more.

3. Free college education for all

4. Higher taxes on the rich

5. Nationalization of big banks, or something...

6. Get money out of politics, ( but not until after Hillary wins)

7. A new pledge of allegiance that acknowledges that only Black Lives Matter

8. Cabinet status for Planned Parenthood

This debate was Hillary's show and the next one will be too. All of us better get used to it.

My Shoe Buying Adventure

I bought these shoes from Shoe Carnival a little over two years ago. I liked them because they were discretely black, and therefore could be safely worn with anything, and they were only $65.99. The bright orange box they came in said that they were running shoes. In two years I've put close to a thousand miles on them either on the road or the treadmill, so it was time for some new ones. And since lately my feet have started to hurt the morning after a run at the gym, I thought perhaps I should consider some real running shoes. In other words, maybe it was time to stop buying my footwear at a store with the word Carnival in the name.

So, a couple days ago I set out to buy my first pair of legitimate running shoes at a store called Fleet Feet.I was the only customer in the place, so I had the undivided attention of the blade-thin marathon runner type who bounded from behind the counter to tell me the fascinating story of the evolutionary journey of the tennis shoe. After the history lesson, he guided me towards two tall racks of fluorescent colored running shoes, all of which seemed to have been painted by Jackson Pollock on a very bad day. Lots of blaze orange, lime greens and electric yellow. I owned not one piece of clothing that these shoes would work with except black work out shorts. Perhaps this is intentional on the part of the manufacturers. Maybe they only want the consumer to use their product for its intended purpose, so they make them so hideously ugly that you would never dream of doing any such thing. I stared at the tower of shoes before me searching for even the smallest patch of grey, hoping to find one without a giant angry slash splashed across the side. I finally settled on the least provocative pair...

For $126.99 I was the ambivalent new owner of the very latest in running shoe technology manufactured, no doubt, by a factory full of Chinese middle schoolers. The good part is, they are light as a feather. The bad part is, after my maiden voyage, a four-miler, my feet hurt every bit as much the next morning as they used to when I wore my old, boring black ones from Shoe Carnival. Maybe it's like the salesman said, that the souls of my feet needed to "get to know the cushion of the shoe" first before I will notice any improvement. Whatever. All I know is, for what I paid for these babies, I could have bought two pair from the Carnival and had money left over for a Pumpkin Spice Frappaccino from Starbucks.

Can You Google an Education?

Thanks to search engines like Google, there's no point in wondering about anything anymore. If a question pops into your head..."I wonder why there's a loop sewn into the back of my dress shirt," you can just Google it, and in less than thirty seconds, you'll find the answer. This raises the question, have search engines rendered traditional education obsolete? I suppose I could Google that too.

Younger people have become especially enamored with this fascinating technology, as you will discover if you ever get into an Internet argument with one of them. Suddenly, a kid who under normal circumstances couldn't write a single sentence without three grammar mistakes is suddenly pummeling you with brilliant paragraphs of information making your views on the designated hitter seem woefully ill-informed. You marvel at the speed and grace with which this generation has learned to cut and paste. Who knew that opposable thumbs would not only be the key to our dexterity as humans, but our ability to access information as well?

When I was getting my formal education, the place where all of this accessing information business took place was at the library. Now it's done at the local Buffalo Wild Wings on your cell phone between beers. The lucky kids when I was growing up were the ones who's parents had bought the complete set of encyclopedias from that door-to-door salesman from Brittanica. Now, they gather dust on the bookshelf, their leather bindings in perfect condition and the gold leaf paper still shiny and new like some sort of ornamental relic.

Lest anyone think that I believe this is all a bad thing, think again. Search engines have made my professional life so much easier. I benefit greatly from having information instantly available, and would hate to have to function without this awesome technology that we all now take for granted. But I'm troubled by my reliance on it nonetheless. Are human beings educated when they learn and know things that have been burned into their memory, or are they educated simply by knowing where to find information? Is reading Dostoevsky the same thing as Googling The Brothers Karamazov? Is having your father show you how to tie a Windsor knot better than Googling "How to tie a tie?"

How's this for a dystopian nightmare? Thirty years from now after an entire generation of humanity has been educated by search engines, a freak solar storm fries every circuit on Earth, wiping out the Internet. Will the knowledge base of humanity also be wiped out? How much will our collective memory be able to reliably recall? Since rote memorization went the way of the dinosaur, will humanity, after having its umbilical chord to the Internet severed, be rendered intellectually impotent? In the new internet-free world, will all of those dusty encyclopedias become the new Holy Books? What would become of civilization if we woke up one morning and there was no longer...an app for that?

Hopefully there will still be some folks around who went to the trouble of memorizing poetry. And that weird guy back in college who memorized the entire book of John...in Hebrew? He'll be the only employable religion professor on the east coast.

Ten Days and Counting

Waking up to 45 degrees is quite the beautiful thing. When what follows is clear, blue skies with the high topping out at 72, well, it doesn't get any better. This is the kind of weather that makes you want to hit the ground running, eager to discover what's in store. For me, it's a lot. In less than two weeks I'll be in a cabin in Gatlinburg, Tennessee with all of my kids for three days. The name of the place is "It's All Good." Indeed.

Preparations must be made. For Pam that means planning out the menus, buying as many of the ingredients as possible here, mixing together pancake mix ahead of time and putting it in clearly marked ziplock bags for assembly later, that sort of thing. That's just how she rolls. For me it means, planning out the itinerary. When will be the best time to go zip-lining? Go-Carts? The toboggan ride? Then, I have to get things at work to a place where it can be left for a while without any ensuing chaos.

This year, our Smokie Mountain getaway will feature two dogs, neither of which will be named Lucy. Our cabin is pet friendly, but allows only two dogs. Considering Lucy's rather poor performance a few months ago at the beach, she has been benched in favor of Jackson and Oliver. Jackson is Kaitlin and Jon's adorable English Cream Golden Retriever puppy. Oliver is Patrick's loaner dog, a ginormous brute of a Golden Retriever who he has been keeping for the past six months or so while his owner is doing lights on tour with Taylor Swift.( ahhh, Nashville life!) We've never met him, only seen pictures and videos. Patrick is smitten with the big guy and I believe it will be a difficult day when Oliver's owner comes back home to claim him.

So, we are all looking forward to three days together in this big honkin' cabin. The television won't get turned on the entire time unless we want to watch a movie, which means I won't have to listen to either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton running their pie-holes...always a good thing.

Ten days and counting!