Patterico's Pontifications

10/8/2014

Anti-ObamaCare Movie Maker Hit with Audit

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:51 am



How about that.

The producer of a new movie that criticizes Obamacare has reportedly become the latest prominent conservative slapped with an IRS audit.

Logan Clements, producer of “Sick and Sicker: ObamaCare Canadian Style,” announced via press release Tuesday that he is being audited for the first time ever.

The news comes one month after the conservative Breitbart News announced that it, too, was being audited and that the action was probably politically motivated.

Mr. Clements‘ movie makes the case that Obamacare will eventually lead to socialized medicine like Canada.

This comes via Ed Morrissey at Hot Air, which also gives us the guy’s video response:

My only quibble with the guy is his statistical claim about the unlikeliness of him and Breitbart getting hit with an audit. Here, I have the same quibble I have with people who cite those statistics that supposedly prove how unlikely it is for x number of IRS hard drives to have gone bad. People need to understand that probability assessments depend on knowledge before the event; it all goes back to the Monty Hall problem. But that’s a minor quibble and to explain it properly here would take too long and be distracting. It should probably be the subject of a different post.

The main point here is that this federal government is corrupt and essentially illegitimate. We need to do what we can to return it to its core responsibility of providing for the common defense and not much else. I’ll keep making that point here. Guess I’ll get my own receipts in order as well.

95 Responses to “Anti-ObamaCare Movie Maker Hit with Audit”

  1. Why wouldnt they keep doing this? There have been no consequences for doing so.

    JD (3cd6e1)

  2. The main point here is that this federal government is corrupt and essentially illegitimate. We need to do what we can to return it to its core responsibility of providing for the common defense and not much else. I’ll keep making that point here. Guess I’ll get my own receipts in order as well.

    1. The use of the IRS as a political weapon is derived from the culture of the political class and the civil service, not the range of functions the central government performs. The range of functions was not substantially different ca. 1970 when Randolph Thrower blocked attempts by the Nixon White House to use the IRS in this manner.

    2. If you fancy your going to reconstruct the central government so it is functionally similar to what it was in 1795, you’re bound to be disappointed.

    Art Deco (ee8de5)

  3. Exactly JD! The media and the entire left has given him permission.

    Patricia (5fc097)

  4. IRS is so manipulative, the entire idea of the Federal Government collecting taxes from citizens should be re-evaluated. Debtor prisons are bad for the private sector, but they’re the bread and butter for tax law.

    No chance of it occurring under the current conditions, but the Income Tax needs to be repealed.

    Dejectedhead (a094a6)

  5. “People need to understand that probability assessments depend on knowledge before the event; it all goes back to the Monty Hall problem.”

    Not sure what direction you’re going with as applies to the Monty Hall problem. What is your take on TMHP?

    WTP (4090b3)

  6. Speaking of audits, time to review central bank balance sheets:

    http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/2014/10/20141008_japan.jpg

    gary gulrud (46ca75)

  7. The insolence of office. — Hamlet

    They do it because they can. All they have to do is obey their agencies’ rules. It’s everywhere. You read a story about a cop throwing a flash-bang and burning a baby and there’s the police chief “The officers followed procedure”.

    nk (dbc370)

  8. unexpectedly!

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  9. But “filmmakers” should be near the top of the IRS’s audit list. Right after Illinois politicians. They are far more creative in their bookkeeping than they are in their films. Their accountants only buy red ink. It is the foolish participant in a production who agrees on a percentage of “the net”.

    nk (dbc370)

  10. UNEXPECTEDLY!

    redc1c4 (abd49e)

  11. Decent people would think publicizing IRS thuggery would put a damper on it. Wrong! That’s just what they want. Make an anti-Obama movie, get an audit. Write a book about it, audit. Give millions to conservative PACs, face an audit. Organize a group to investigate voter fraud in predominantly Democratic districts, get multiple audits, no action on non-profit approval and an investigation from OSHA.

    Like the mob, this administration wants you to know the consequences of bucking the system. It may not be Vito who makes an offer you can’t refuse. More likely it’s Lois or John. But it’s designed to have the same effect.

    Corky Boyd (f38e2c)

  12. true story: a few years back, i filled my taxes on what little income i had made that year and sent them off to our loving and benevolent Uncle Sam.

    i got a letter back from his efficient minions in the IRS, saying they had reviewed & adjusted my return, and was i okay with the changes or did i want to argue about it?

    being of sound mind, i said nothing, and eventually got the ~$1100 or so they said i had coming my way.

    a month or 3 after that, i signed a petition at WH dot gov, using my Army e-mail address.

    a month or 3 after that, i got another letter from the IRS, saying that they had re-reviewed my return, that there was an error, that my refund wasn’t mine, and, btw, i needed to pay it back immediately, WITH penalties & interest. i pointed out that they had reviewed my return and checked it, and never heard anything back, except more letters demanding money. too bad for them their boss has destroyed the economy and i haven’t earned even a $1000, total, since then… the interest & penalties are still accruing on the bill. 😎

    in what is undoubtedly a total coincidence, the FTB here in #Failifornia started saying i owed taxes on income they believe i had earned, simply because i maintain a state professional registration, the following tax year, a delusion they continue to pursue to this day, albeit without a shred of proof that i am earning said “income”.

    so yeah, it’s a total coincidence that this guy is getting audited, and none of you should think differently.

    (or else)

    redc1c4 (abd49e)

  13. Behavior that is rewarded increases, that which is punished diminishes.
    I think we know where most gov’t agencies in the Age of President Putz fall on that continuum – who has been truly sanctioned for their outrageous behavior?
    Retiring with a 6-figure pension and full medical benefits is not a sanction.

    askeptic (efcf22)

  14. Time for a tax strike.

    jakee308 (d409c2)

  15. At least he wasn’t charged with felony sidewalk-spitting.

    Kevin M (b357ee)

  16. Lois Lerner’s neighbors know exactly what a contemptible whore she is

    God bless America but that does a pikachu’s heart good to see

    happyfeet (d2d6b4)

  17. How could you even do a tax strike? It is auto-deducted from the vast majority of people working in this country.

    Dejectedhead (a094a6)

  18. #17: you could adjust your claimed deductions on your W-9, and reduce your withholding, but you’d either have pay the difference in April or face the music.

    unless it was a massive groundswell of dissent, those doing so would just get hammered into submission by the feds.

    redc1c4 (abd49e)

  19. A few years ago I would have rolled my eyes. With all the revelations about emails being hidden and Lerner pleading the fifth of course I instead and extremely suspicious of all the critics of the administration who are constantly bombarded with this sort of action.

    there appears to be the opposite of consequences for this corruption. You instead get to live a luxurious retirement after a lucrative career, if, and perhaps only if, you are this kind of Chicago style bureacrat.

    Bush 43 made a mistake by not cleaning house in 2001. The next GOP president would be wise to basically start from scratch.

    Dustin (801032)

  20. Socialized medice is inefficient because it treats all instead of just those who can pay. Free enterprise health care only treats those who can pay sends indigent away and tells them to go to charity if they can find any that haven’t been over whelmed much more efficient then socialized money and tax payers don’t have to pay for it especially all of those poor sick children.

    angel of death (99719e)

  21. “I had never been audited before I made this movie,” he says in a YouTube video. “There seems to be a pattern here.”

    Mr. Clement appears to be unaware of the meaning of the word “pattern.” It does not mean that one thing happened one time.

    carlitos (c24ed5)

  22. carlitos, he means a pattern of other pundits getting audited soon after being conspicuously critical.

    I find that pattern combined with the email destruction and Lerner’s behavior to be alarming.

    Dustin (801032)

  23. redc1c4 – The FTB did the same thing to a client of mine back in 2008 / 2009. It was easy to shoot down but I can confirm your point that they came after you saying ‘you have a professional license in CA, and we believe you made $xxx.xx from that. Here’s your bill!”

    Roger Bournival (8b388c)

  24. We need to do what we can to return it to its core responsibility of providing for the common defense and not much else.

    In what way do you imagine that performing those core functions would not require a revenue service?
    In what way do you imagine that said revenue service could not be corrupted by political machinations?
    In what way do you construe and dismiss regulating commerce as “not much else”? (Noting that said “regulating” includes both internal and external commerce, as well as such things as establishing a currency, weights, measures, and intellectual property rights.)

    Sam (e8f1ad)

  25. Off Topic:

    http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com/2014/10/stunner-rep-duncan-hunter-r-ca-ten-isis.html

    Van Susteren: Hold on. Stop for one second.

    Hunter: They are going to be bombing American cities coming across from Mexico.

    Van Susteren: Let me ask a question. You say that they are coming in the southern border, which changes all the dynamics Do you have any information that they are coming in through the southern border now?

    Hunter: Yes.

    Van Susteren: Tell me what you know.

    Hunter: At least ten ISIS fighters have been caught coming across the border in Texas.

    Van Susteren: How do you know that?

    Hunter: Because I’ve asked the border patrol, Greta.

    Van Susteren And the border patrol just let’s ISIS members come across the border?

    Hunter: No. They caught them at the border. Therefore, we know that ISIS is coming across the border. If they catch five or ten of them, you know that there are going to be dozens more that did not get caught by the border patrol. That’s how you know. That’s where we are at risk here, is from ISIS and radical Islamists coming across the border. Once again, they don’t have a navy, air force, nuclear weapons. The only way that Americans are going to be harmed by radical Islam — Chairman Dempsey said the same thing. He said that’s where the major threat is here, that’s how these guy guys are going to infiltrate through America and harm Americans.

    the way to understand this is taht the Border Patrol – its union – is a pack of liars. No way were 10 members of ISIS detaineed and nobody else knows it except Duncan Hunter who has been privately informed by people in the Border Patrol.

    Maybe they detained some people on suspicion. That could be.

    If they have been detained and really were from ISIS one or more would have talked. Terrorists don’t send operatives unaccompanied except very high level ones.

    Sammy Finkelman (d22d64)

  26. Here’s a thought. Make the penalties for abuse of office draconian, especially if proven to be political. Imprisonment for life, seizure of all assets for sale into a fund to cover judgements against the government, and pretty much anything that doesn’t explicitly count as cruel and unusual punishment. I want them to suffer and realize that they are total failures.

    OmegaPaladin (a0e77e)

  27. Bush 43 made a mistake by not cleaning house in 2001. The next GOP president would be wise to basically start from scratch.

    You’d need to have the following:

    1. Federal legislation which restores comprehensive use of examinations to recruit the civil service and distribute promotions within it, and

    2. Thus eliminate any warrant in law or regulation for political patronage (‘affirmative action’) and

    3. Fight off the s***** lawfare artists who will claim in front of receptive federal judges that strict use of examinations violates the 14th amendment (or that any examination which does not produce results favored by said lawfare artists violates the 14th amendment), which will require

    4. The balls to pass a law stripping the federal courts of jurisdiction over these matters. conjoined to which must be

    5. Provisions which allow for discretionary dismissal of civil servants, say, allowing for the removal of an employee should three supervisors in his chain of command concur. “Eric Holder hired you” is a perfectly good reason to fire any employee, so long as you recruit their replacement through examinations. These might provisions might be tempered by a corps of hearing examiners who hold post hoc inquiries on whether the civil servant in question was terminated for one of a half-dozen impermissible reasons (to protect whistle-blowers &c). The burden of demonstration would be on the dismissed civil servant, however. to this should be appended

    6. An end to collective bargaining in federal employment. Allow civil servants to join benevolent associations which offer pension and insurance plans, as well as labor lawyers on retainer, but nothing more.

    I’m not holding my breath any of this would ever be accomplished. You’d need to eliminate what’s left of the filibuster (fancy McConnell having the sense to do that) and find a critical mass of Republican pols who give a rip about doing something other than striking attitudes on marginal income tax rates.

    Art Deco (ee8de5)

  28. and ban unions for governmental employees, at all levels, federal on down.

    you have civil service protections: you don’t need anything else unless you’re a 5hitbird.

    redc1c4 (abd49e)

  29. In what way do you construe and dismiss regulating commerce as “not much else”? (Noting that said “regulating” includes both internal and external commerce, as well as such things as establishing a currency, weights, measures, and intellectual property rights.)

    Mightn’t we limit the commerce regulated to

    1. The financial sector (leaving consultancies and pawn brokers to the states)

    2. Commercial and general service transactions which occur when people actually travel across state lines, ship merchandise across state lines, contract for services with someone who lives in another state (or abroad), or send money across state lines?

    3. Labor agreements wherein the employer is actually domiciled in multiple states, or here and abroad, or where the laborer might be domiciled anywhere (as a pensioner could be)

    4. Health and safety matters wherein the effects are peculiarly abiding (as is nuclear waste); or require shipping merchandise or waste across state lines; or implicate effluvia being distributed in multi-state watercourses, or off the coast, or in the air; or concern the internal workings of enterprises domiciled in multiple states (or hear and abroad)

    5. Land and resource use off the coast, or with regard to inter-state watercourses, or regarding migratory species, or upon federal real estate

    ??

    For seven decades, federal courts have treated the distinction between local commerce and inter-state commerce as if it were factitious.

    Art Deco (ee8de5)

  30. 1-5 is not much I guess.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  31. Patterico, yes, the statistical argument is not perfect, and the causation question is still in play.

    But before this administration, it *wasn’t* in play. Nobody during the Clinton era would get widespread consideration of the legitimacy of saying “retaliatory audit” based on simple politics. Now? It’s mostly held as “Duh.”

    JWB (c1c08f)

  32. the IRS should stop persecuting people for their political views I think

    happyfeet (a785d5)

  33. “alarming”? I find it criminal, which is why she took the 5th. We don’t need anymore milksop reactions, we need to punch back twice as hard!

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  34. Where do you hide, carlitos? There has been a documented pattern of behavior by the IRS and – for that matter – the FEC.

    Honesty, good sir!

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  35. this lois lerner
    she is a stone pariah
    hellhounds on her trail

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  36. the Tea Party, True the Vote, Z street, a pro Israel pac, have all been targeted, by FEC, OSHA, DOJ as well as IRS

    narciso (ee1f88)

  37. #35: all purely coincidental.

    and you’d be a dangerously unstable tea bagging hobbit rayciss to think otherwise.

    redc1c4 (abd49e)

  38. 1. The use of the IRS as a political weapon is derived from the culture of the political class and the civil service, not the range of functions the central government performs.

    I disagree. If the government performed only its core functions we would not need an income tax.

    2. If you fancy your going to reconstruct the central government so it is functionally similar to what it was in 1795, you’re bound to be disappointed.

    Oh, I’m bound to be disappointed no matter what, but that doesn’t mean I can’t continue to point out the problems with big government as part of a movement to limit its size. Ideas matter. Either get on board, or explain why big government is desirable so I can steamroll your arguments. Just carping that the ideal is impossible makes you feel sophisticated, I’m sure, but contributes nothing to the exchange of ideas.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  39. Taxes, when they were finally figuring out Jesus was likely the Son of God – what was the questioned they asked?

    Taxes….

    Of course all those Audits like organizations such as JTMP and Velvet whatever are going on too right?

    EPWJ (9dacda)

  40. question,,,,, question,,,,,

    got to go back to sixth grade

    EPWJ (9dacda)

  41. “People need to understand that probability assessments depend on knowledge before the event; it all goes back to the Monty Hall problem.”

    Not sure what direction you’re going with as applies to the Monty Hall problem. What is your take on TMHP?

    It’s a little like arguing that the lottery is rigged because, that guy who won it? Turns out the odds against him winning it were astronomical!

    What the Monty Hall problem illustrates is that probabilities are a function of your knowledge. If you know which door has the prize, your odds of picking it are 100%. If you know nothing at the outset, your odds of picking the right door in your first guess are 1 in 3. If you pick a door and then are given additional information (in the Monty Hall problem, this information is conveyed by the omniscient host opening one unselected door which is empty) your odds are greater (in the problem they become 2 in 3).

    Knowing that Breitbart and this filmmaker are getting audited, what are the chances they will be audited? 100%. There is a fallacy in picking them out now that we know that, and treating them as if we knew nothing about their chances of being audited — just as there would be a fallacy in arguing that the lottery had to be rigged because of the fact that the guy who won it, won it. There are other conservatives who have criticized Obama who have not been audited. (Just like there are other people in the IRS investigation whose hard drives we would like to see, whose hard drives did not fail — so you can’t just pick only the ones whose drives did fail, and analyze the chances that all their hard drives would fail, as if that were a meaningful statistical analysis.) If you had analyzed the chances against Breitbart and this guy getting audited before they were, you could make the point the way the filmmaker did — but after the fact the same statistical analysis just doesn’t apply.

    I’m not explaining it that well, but the bottom line has to do with the fact that probabilities depends upon facts known before the probability is computed.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  42. Pat there are tens of millions of returns

    and tens of thousands of audits

    And the returns that show income are 75% republican

    Therefore Common core math would tell you based on this post that as the criticism (c) approaches Administration (A) then the chances of Audit (Au) = 100

    EPWJ (9dacda)

  43. Corky Boyd @11 is exactly right. These people exposing and standing up to the corrupt parts and people of government are patriots– all the more because they can guess what the actions taken against them will be. Nathan Hale would understand.

    “I only regret that I have but one IRS audit to take for my country. “

    elissa (ab7968)

  44. I disagree. If the government performed only its core functions we would not need an income tax.

    Are you sure?

    Doing a quick check, I find:
    http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3822

    So just cutting Income and Payroll taxes leaves 19% of the current federal income, and of course a bunch of those corporate and estate taxes would be cut too so the number would be even lower.

    Compared to:
    http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1258

    Just Defense and Interest comes to 25% of current revenues. Add in benefits for federal retirees and veterans, transportation infrastructure, non-security international, and all other miscellaneous brings us to 40% of current receipts.

    Sam (e8f1ad)

  45. In what way do you imagine that performing those core functions would not require a revenue service?
    In what way do you imagine that said revenue service could not be corrupted by political machinations?
    In what way do you construe and dismiss regulating commerce as “not much else”? (Noting that said “regulating” includes both internal and external commerce, as well as such things as establishing a currency, weights, measures, and intellectual property rights.)

    I already explained that performing core functions should not require an income tax.

    Nor do I think Congress should be doing much in the way of regulating commerce at all. The less it does, the better off we are.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  46. Agre e. The MHP is often misunderstood, even by college statistics professors. I like to wager with such people.

    WTP (066be7)

  47. Either get on board, or explain why big government is desirable so I can steamroll your arguments. Just carping that the ideal is impossible makes you feel sophisticated, I’m sure, but contributes nothing to the exchange of ideas.

    Why not formulate a definition of ‘big government’?

    Art Deco (ee8de5)

  48. Why not formulate a definition of ‘big government’?

    Why don’t we start with: government that goes beyond what the Constitution permits? (Not what unelected judges have pretended it permits, mind you, but what it actually permits.)

    Patterico (9c670f)

  49. The MHP is often misunderstood, even by college statistics professors.

    That’s . . . scary.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  50. Are you sure?

    Doing a quick check, I find:
    http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3822

    So just cutting Income and Payroll taxes leaves 19% of the current federal income, and of course a bunch of those corporate and estate taxes would be cut too so the number would be even lower.

    Compared to:
    http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1258

    Just Defense and Interest comes to 25% of current revenues. Add in benefits for federal retirees and veterans, transportation infrastructure, non-security international, and all other miscellaneous brings us to 40% of current receipts.

    I’m sorry. Where in your analysis did you do an analysis of the cost of core government functions?

    Keep in mind that I don’t believe our bloated defense budget is necessary for our core function of defense.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  51. Art Deco,

    Much of what I write about here is designed to move the Overton Window. In other words, I am not particularly interested in your supposed insight as to where that window lies right now. I am concerned with moving it. So help, or do your best to explain why it shouldn’t move. Noting that it is where it is right now is boring, pedestrian, and useless.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  52. The real problem with a huge federal government is that we all fear it. Even liberals fear it. Oh, lots of people on both sides are willing to USE it if they get control, but what they really fear is that the other guys will.

    A small central government with clearly-defined limits is not only not to be feared, but can be basically ignored. Most power resides locally (subject also to constitutional limits) and if that becomes too strident in a way you dislike, you can always vote with your feet. See California, or Texas, depending.

    There was a time within living memory when “your” side’s loss in a federal election wasn’t a calamity. But these days the stakes are too high. Doesn’t have to be that way.

    Kevin M (b357ee)

  53. It’s gotten to the point that if there are a variety of Nidal Hasans embedded throughout the federal bureaucracy — particularly at the IRS — and in light of such entities being awash with people who embrace political correctness, and cheap compassion for compassion’s sake, and mouth the virtue of diversity in race/ethnicity/nationality/gender/sexuality—but not ideology, if variations of Ford Hoods should break out in that sector of American society, well, don’t come crying to me.

    Mark (c160ec)

  54. President George Washington put on his general’s uniform and personally commanded his massed militias in the field in the suppression of the Whiskey Rebellion, more properly called the Whiskey *Tax* Rebellion. The only time a President has done that. Forget it, guys, when they say “death and taxes”, they mean it. 😉

    nk (dbc370)

  55. I already explained that performing core functions should not require an income tax.

    Well no, you didn’t explain that.
    You declared it summarily, with no budget or other demonstration of how exactly it would work.

    Of course you use that to avoid actually answering my primary questions:
    How do you imagine this government of yours will collect revenue without a revenue collection service?
    How do you imagine this revenue collection service will be incorruptible?
    (Your answer to the third part becomes clear below:

    Nor do I think Congress should be doing much in the way of regulating commerce at all. The less it does, the better off we are.

    And:

    Why don’t we start with: government that goes beyond what the Constitution permits?

    The Constitution permits the government to regulate commerce.
    It seems you actually want to start with redacting the Constitution and stripping the government of a good deal of what the Constitution permits.
    Now certainly you are entitled to have that as your goal, but then it becomes disingenuous of you to declare that “big government” is anything beyond what the Constitution permits.

    I’m sorry. Where in your analysis did you do an analysis of the cost of core government functions?

    Nowhere.
    Nor did I suggest that I had done such a thing.
    But then, neither did you perform any such analysis.
    Do you have a specific budget we can examine to determine just how your scheme would work out?

    Keep in mind that I don’t believe our bloated defense budget is necessary for our core function of defense.

    And yet another fiat declaration from you that you apparently insist be accepted as proven and not subject to disagreement without extensive analysis and documentation.
    Just what in our current defense budget is actually “bloated”, and what specific programs can be cut without threatening our security? Again, we seem to be missing that detailed analysis you are demanding as a precondition to a valid rebuttal.

    (Said to Art Deco)

    In other words, I am not particularly interested in your supposed insight as to where that window lies right now. I am concerned with moving it. So help, or do your best to explain why it shouldn’t move. Noting that it is where it is right now is boring, pedestrian, and useless.

    Now I find Art Deco’s manner of argumentation to be wanting, but you are doing precisely what you are accusing him of doing.
    You are not presenting any actual explanations or details regarding anything either. All you are doing is proclaiming that the current system doesn’t work the way you want it to, and that some sketchily described system that you would prefer is the panacea to solve all the problems you have declared exist in the first place.

    You might also want to consider that there are others with an interest in moving the Overton Window, and that they might consider both your goals and methods to be counter-productive or oppositional to the goals they seek.

    Sam (e8f1ad)

  56. Well, OK Mark, but all bets are off if I see a Chevy Hood breaking out…….

    elissa (1bdc29)

  57. Sam,

    Try being a more careful reader.

    “I already explained that performing core functions should not require an income tax.” I used the word “that” and not “how.” I did not purport to hold your hand and take you through a step by step analysis. But yes: a national sales tax or a flat tax would be far less open to political manipulation than the system we have.

    Also, I said: “Why don’t we start with: government that goes beyond what the Constitution permits?”

    “Start with.” Meaning that I didn’t say I wouldn’t reduce government past what the constitution permits. But going back to that would be a nice start.

    The Constitution permits the government to regulate commerce.
    It seems you actually want to start with redacting the Constitution and stripping the government of a good deal of what the Constitution permits.

    Pffft. The regulation it actually permits is 1/100,000th of what courts and modern-day politicians think it permits.

    Now certainly you are entitled to have that as your goal, but then it becomes disingenuous of you to declare that “big government” is anything beyond what the Constitution permits.

    No it doesn’t.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  58. Nowhere.
    Nor did I suggest that I had done such a thing.
    But then, neither did you perform any such analysis.

    Nor did I claim to.

    I really have no idea what you were trying to say in this comment but I am glad you admit that you did not refute my statement that the government’s core functions could be paid for without an income tax.

    If you want to try, for the first time, go ahead.

    If you want to carp that I have not laid out an extensive analysis of how it could be done in a blog comment, go ahead.

    I stand by the statement. It could be done, easily. Not politically easily. But if the will were there, it would be easy. Very, very easy.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  59. You might also want to consider that there are others with an interest in moving the Overton Window, and that they might consider both your goals and methods to be counter-productive or oppositional to the goals they seek.

    I might want to consider that other people disagree with me? OK. Noted. Doesn’t mean they are right. I firmly believe they are not. The free market is the answer to humanity’s problems, not a giant government. Much of what I say here is devoted to that idea.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  60. You are not presenting any actual explanations or details regarding anything either. All you are doing is proclaiming that the current system doesn’t work the way you want it to, and that some sketchily described system that you would prefer is the panacea to solve all the problems you have declared exist in the first place.

    Um, my “sketchily described system” is the free market, pal. It’s not some mysterious concept. It’s the free market. Ever heard of it?

    Patterico (9c670f)

  61. Just what in our current defense budget is actually “bloated”

    Virtually all of it?

    Are you unfamiliar with the problems of government budgeting and the non-market incentives that bloat budgets and create politically expedient waste? It’s not a matter of this program or that program. It’s the whole culture.

    I will, I’m sure, devote a series of posts to it at some point. You might have noticed that I actually spend a lot of my free time detailing my beliefs and the reasons for them. The fact that I might not jump and respond to all your specific pet questions at the precise moment you demand it, does not make me someone who goes around asserting things without making arguments to back them up.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  62. For example: I make a passing comment, in the context of a larger argument, that I don’t believe that our entire defense budget is critical to maintaining the core mission of the country to protect us. That is, again, part of a larger argument, and I made the comment specifically to forestall you from assuming — quite wrongly — that if our defense budget is x and we take in y from the tax on widgets, and y is less than x, then automatically the tax on widgets is insufficient to provide for the defense.

    And you come trotting in on your high horse and proclaim, essentially, that because I don’t, right now, when I am about to take my dog for a walk, give you, a random blog commenter, my entire detailed thesis on what military projects and necessary and which ones aren’t, then I am just some gasbag proclaiming generalities with no substance at all.

    I won’t say what I am tempted to say under these circumstances. I will say: I am now going to take my dog for a walk — even if that might not meet with your approval!

    Patterico (9c670f)

  63. the dippy pentagon thinks global warming is a bigger threat to america than america’s parlous finances

    happyfeet (a785d5)

  64. well they have Caligula’s horse, Hagel, running it,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  65. Try being a more careful reader.

    I am a very careful reader.
    That is how I can say so confidently that you keep making demands for specifics of anyone who disagrees with you while refusing to provide any similar specifics yourself.

    I used the word “that” and not “how.” I did not purport to hold your hand and take you through a step by step analysis.

    Yes. I know.
    The problem is you demand that people do that when disagreeing with you.
    It seems perhaps you are not a very careful reader.

    But yes: a national sales tax or a flat tax would be far less open to political manipulation than the system we have.

    Prove it.
    I say your assertion is complete and utter nonsense.
    First, the sales tax would be destructively regressive. Of course the usual retort to that is there will be rebates or prebates or whatever for people below some income level. That of course brings us right to the corruption we see now with the Obamacare subsidies, not to mention wasting money by paying to collect it then sending it right back. A flat tax has the same regressive problems, which is great if you want to provoke a class rebellion such as has been ubiquitous throughout history, but less so if you are looking for stability.
    Second, it is clear from the dizzying array of supplemental sales taxes on a multitude of objects that an exclusive sales tax system would be subject to even more political manipulation rather than less as it would be the only possible way to gain financial advantage or payoffs, as well as the only way to gain increased funding.

    “Start with.” Meaning that I didn’t say I wouldn’t reduce government past what the constitution permits. But going back to that would be a nice start.

    Yes it would.
    Again though, and despite your denials, you clearly want to go beyond that.

    Pffft. The regulation it actually permits is 1/100,000th of what courts and modern-day politicians think it permits.

    Prove it.
    Show me the text of the Constitution that establishes that.
    Oh right, you can’t. And we have both courts and politicians going back over a century thinking otherwise.

    Now if you had said that it is 1/100,000th of what the Founders intended you would have a point, but that is not what you said. Further, the last I checked, you were rather disdainful of claims to legislative intent versus actual text.

    Nor did I claim to.

    But you demand that I do.
    Nice try at a double standard, but I don’t play that game.

    I really have no idea what you were trying to say in this comment but I am glad you admit that you did not refute my statement that the government’s core functions could be paid for without an income tax.

    Actually, I did.
    Just because I didn’t refute your movable goalposts in no way means that I failed to demonstrate that at current rates, non-income and non-payroll taxes alone do not cover the “core” government functions of our current defense and non-entitlement budget.

    What you want is to cite some theoretical budget whose details only you know and declare that because nobody could possibly prove that wrong that you are right, and that your budget would be perfectly functional.
    Uh huh.

    Um, my “sketchily described system” is the free market, pal. It’s not some mysterious concept. It’s the free market. Ever heard of it?

    Really?
    So now the free market determines what the size of the government should be, its powers, the budget, the rate and form of taxation, and such?
    Apparently the free market is a very mysterious concept to you as you have confused it with a constitution and government.

    Virtually all of it?

    Well, that is certainly specific and clears up any confusion.

    Are you unfamiliar with the problems of government budgeting and the non-market incentives that bloat budgets and create politically expedient waste? It’s not a matter of this program or that program. It’s the whole culture.

    Then by definition, even under your fanciful plan virtually all of the defense budget would be bloated.
    Why exactly is your plan for waste and corruption superior to the current plan?
    How will it provide superior security?

    You might have noticed that I actually spend a lot of my free time detailing my beliefs and the reasons for them. The fact that I might not jump and respond to all your specific pet questions at the precise moment you demand it, does not make me someone who goes around asserting things without making arguments to back them up.

    You are deliberately conflating the difference between providing the theoretical base for particular beliefs with the detailed financial analyses that you have demanded in order to rebut your random musings.
    I have provided numerous details regarding my beliefs when I present them as rebuttal to yours, yet you are always eager to demand a fully detailed budget analysis as the only viable “proof” while never presenting any such to support your own assertions. That is just plain dishonest.

    And you come trotting in on your high horse and proclaim, essentially, that because I don’t, right now, when I am about to take my dog for a walk, give you, a random blog commenter, my entire detailed thesis on what military projects and necessary and which ones aren’t, then I am just some gasbag proclaiming generalities with no substance at all.

    What a pretentiously hypocritical strawman.
    Once again:
    You are the one who started in with the demands for detailed financial analyses and extended theses to support any contention, not me.
    I simply suggested that if you were going to demand such then you should be prepared to provide them in return.

    Clearly you are incapable of living up to your own standards.

    I’m sure you think you are quite brilliant, but all you are doing is replaying the usual anarchist platitudes then going ballistic when anyone suggests they might not be as perfect as the book you read said they would be.
    You might want to consider that in contrast with your complaint about Jon Stewart’s situational clown nose.

    Sam (e8f1ad)

  66. Yes it would.
    Again though, and despite your denials, you clearly want to go beyond that.

    I do. Which is why I haven’t denied it, Mr. Careful Reader. You cite my denials. Link one. Quote one. I have repeatedly emphasized that we should “start with” constitutional government.

    So, where are the “denials” you just cited, Mr. Careful Reader?

    Patterico (9c670f)

  67. Anyone can read the thread and easily see that you are distorting my arguments. I’m not going to continue to respond point by point to someone who consistently distorts what I say. Can you show me these “denials” you cite? Honest and direct answers only, please. I’ll be in the corner holding my breath waiting.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  68. Let’s retrace how this got started. I said: you can pay for the core functions of government without an income tax. You tried to cast doubt on that by citing statistics on the current bloated federal defense budget, combined with the extraordinary interest we pay because of irresponsible loans taken out by the government, and by that argument you imply that I am wrong. I respond to that by noting that you have not refuted my assertion by citing current budgets, because those are ridiculously bloated; if you want to do an actual analysis of what the core costs of government would be without bloat and interest, feel free, but you haven’t. Then you turn around and demand that I start giving specifics about what I would cut from the military.

    What has happened here? I made an assertion. I never said I was going to choose the venue of this thread to lay out a detailed 500 page plan for the defense of the country paid for without an income tax. I just offered my very firm opinion that this could be done.

    If you want to point out that this is merely an assertion on my part, go nuts. I will agree. I have not laid out any support for it. But if you want to purport to go further and actually contradict it, by citing current budgets, I am certainly within my rights to note that, by using current bloated numbers, your numbers are waaay off what I would consider necessary.

    Note: I am not demanding anything from you. I am simply observing that you fail to make your case by relying on current numbers.

    You react to this by falsely claiming that I have purported to prove my assertion (nope, never said that) and that I demanded detailed budgets from you (nope, just pointed out that if you don’t provide them, you can’t claim to have refuted my statement). You then fly into a trollish, nasty flurry of accusations of dishonesty on my part, coupled with a persistent misreading of nearly every statement I make.

    That, my friend, is not fun to deal with. I do not like to be called dishonest on my blog, and I notice that the accusation tends to come from sloppy thinkers and writers who do not actually read what I have read, but instead take what I say and tweak it a little bit so they are responding to something different. That is what you have done here.

    Problem is, I’m not dumb and neither are my readers. You may not be distorting my words intentionally, but you definitely are. It’s your choice whether you want to take a step back, recognize your missteps, perhaps apologize for unwarranted accusations of dishonesty, and start over — or plow ahead in a trollish manner. If you choose to do the latter, I will start ignoring you, and so will others, I suspect.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  69. Or, if that’s too long, here’s the short version:

    Why do you hate the free market, Sam?

    Patterico (9c670f)

  70. And there I dug out my Statistics 101 textbook and was ready to show you how Monty Hall, the lottery, and IRS audits are three different things in probability theory, and you guys start arguing about the free market again.

    Free market, eh? Sign on restaurant window:
    WE DON’T SERVE BLACK PEOPLE
    All our meat is USDA-inspected beef, pork, or chicken.

    nk (dbc370)

  71. I am a very careful reader. Lol

    JD (950bc6)

  72. Imagine that…there is nothing to see heree, move along…

    Rich Vail (015de0)

  73. I have been preoccupied with Ebola and have not followed this thread.
    FWIW,
    I will just say that on previous threads I was involved in, Sam seemed to have very reasonable thoughts and things to add, IMO, and I’m surprised to see that there is a kerfuffle.
    Maybe there is a good reason for a kerfuffle, but I would not have expected one from my previous experience with Sam (though I think there was at least one kerfuffle before that I also did not follow).

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  74. 73. You are brave to bring this up, MD in Philly. Sometimes when our host goes mano a mano with a single commenter who may be trying to have a conversation it often is best to just look away. In life, reasonable people can have differing views, may honestly pick up varying interpretations of others’ statements, and may make insightful or worthwhile contributions to a number of topics. It’s a shame if that all sometimes gets lost or buried in the shuffle of emotion. As has been pointed out before, they are great for conversation on the news and floating ideas. But usually, open blogs with multiple threads are not necessarily the best place in which to conduct serious and perfectly written argumentation– or to witness professionally crafted argument support and rebuttal from all sides.

    elissa (dc8585)

  75. I don’t mind arguing about the free market. It’s nice and potentially useful, like the mustangs the Plains Tribes inherited from the Conquistadors. But it must be be tamed to be beneficial, otherwise it only exists to foul up the waterholes, drive away the deer and antelope, and crush the prairie grouse nests.

    Its fundamental characteristic is that it’s selfish. And predatory. (Its two fundamental characteristics.) And never sated, it always wants more. (Its three fundamental characteristics.) Which place it at odds with most societal goals, making it necessary for society to put controls on it. And since societies also tend to be selfish, predatory, and never satisfied, they will try to exploit, too. With taxes.

    nk (dbc370)

  76. Patterico, you’ve insisted this decay into an argument about the argument, so it’s all wheel-spinning with him (and, for the most part, with me).

    The federal constitution is not something written on stone tablets. It’s a law delineating a piece of political architecture. There were other charters around at the time, as there are now. Also, there are a considerable run of countries with experience with different sorts of institutional arrangements, so one can make some rough and ready comparisons. Some thoughts:

    1. The imperatives of legal security demand the provisions be respected, but the provisions themselves are not self-justifying. They reflect an implicit political theory (which precepts may or may not be intended by framers, who were just getting through steps necessary to complete the task). If the understandings encoded in that political theory are not consensual, the capacity of the political architecture to contain, channel, and adjudicate social conflict is hampered by provisions which are, in context, prescriptive as to public policy. I once set some chap in a forum like this into a state of apoplexy when I asked him if he would favor a constitutional amendment that would retrospectively legitimize Social Security. “Hell, no!”, he says. Then he goes into a long whinge of how its downright offensive for me to suggest he reflect on antecedent principles. The Constitution! told him all anyone needed to know. There are few people who are much good at discussing normative questions (and I’m not one), but I wasn’t asking him to be John Rawls; I was just suggesting he not be a complete bonehead.

    2. Also, the mechanics incorporated within the constitution may be ill adapted to the working political society in which the constitution subsists. Gen. de Gaulle’s success after 1958 was in constructing a set of institutions which worked better than Westminster parliamentarianism (modifications to which were not strictly necessary in much of continental Europe).

    3. One might also recall that neither the society as a whole nor the political class have a fixed culture or set of social relations. The political architecture can grow increasingly ill-adapted to that society.

    4. Re a more particular problem, there is a question of what to do with provisions which have fallen into desuetude. (See Robert Bork on the subject of paper money).

    In this country, you start out with a basically agrarian society. To some extent, it’s a society of orders, but different orders than you find in Europe: you have a hereditary slave caste which has no European counterpart outside the Balkans, no formal nobility, the clergy folded into the slim stratum of town professionals, and a geography of settlement and agriculture which would be very unusual though not unknown in Europe (dominated as it was by open-field villages) and where people in general tend to be very spread out. It’s also a society wherein the technology and modes of social organization and general expectations are conditioned by hard living. The society at the time had a large mass of west African slaves. The rest of the population was a self-selected set of protestants from the British Isles (with some leavening from the Low Countries and the peripheral German states). It was not uniform, but had some commonalities from being self-selected.

    We do not live in that world anymore. So the question is going to arise as to what extent institutions addressing topical questions are still well-adapted to latter-day social conflict manifest in the political sphere and what actually are the abiding principles one can tease out and preserve even as institutions and practices are modified.

    There are also features of political conflict herein which are quite local to the United States. These discussions tend to get into the thicket of the division of labor between the central government and provincial governments, discussions which would be very peculiar in a country with New Zealand’s dimensions and have not been live issues (until quite recently) even in quite populous countries like Britain.

    Economic activity takes place within a legal architecture. Those sorts of practices are part of the background in the schematic discussions you have in microeconomics so the student of theoretical economics does not delve into them. (Applied research on policy questions does require it). The legal architecture is not going to have fixed properties because the technology and modes of organization are not fixed. There were in 1787 no banks, credit unions, securities markets, or futures and options markets. Far higher proportions of economic activity were localized and even domestic.

    That aside, there was little in the way of medical technology. The proportion of lunatics in the population was a great deal smaller (see Fuller Torrey on this point). Also, how society handles questions of common provision (live in Medieval Europe and industrial America alike) was somewhat in abeyance (perhaps due to the land-man ratio).

    While we’re at it, it’s rum to be obstreperously opinionated on questions which require granular knowledge which is not too prevalent (e.g. the utility of different levels and types of military spending).

    Art Deco (ee8de5)

  77. Art Deco, TL;DR does not begin to describe your comment. Tell me, do you
    a) Oil a door hinge; or
    b) Implement appropriate measures to facilitate access into a structure through the judicious application of a petroleum-derived friction-minimizing aliphatic substance in an environmetally-responsible manner taking into considerations the potential costs and benefits of such a course of action after due study and consultation with qualified experts?

    nk (dbc370)

  78. elissa (dc8585) — 10/9/2014 @ 6:37 am

    For the most part I have looked away, for various reasons, and perhaps my comment was unwise, unappreciated, or inappropriate,
    I just wanted to say for the sake of perspective that in my previous experience, Sam was not someone who seemed unreasonable or who wanted to pick a fight, in fact he was eager to voice understanding of different points of view even when he didn’t share them. I.e., he seemed to be a good faith commenter, not trolling or concern trolling.

    A second point while we are at it, I think the main problem with any human enterprise in government or economics or whatever is the fallibility of people in them. That is what I find most fundamentally wrong about leftism, they think if only we get the best societal organizational system in place we will be back in the garden and all will be well. With that basic error, they manage to justify all kinds of mischief for the sake of getting to that state.
    The best organizational structure is the one that takes reality into account, that people are prone to lapses of judgment or goodwill, sometimes going all out wicked, and keeping people accountable one to another is much more important than putting the “right person” in a position of unaccountable authority.
    Of course, the weakness is that good and evil is worked out in a myriad of ways by individuals in their spheres of influence every day.
    Like the story aphrael brought up the other day. On one hand, the purpose of the Goodyear company is to make tires and such, for which they have a large operation in Liberia to obtain latex. It could have been out of genuine human good will, thoughtful and considerate ways to maximize profit, or likely some of both which made them invest time, energy, and other resources to keep their workers free of an Ebola outbreak. As it seems they are using their facilities/letting them be used for people in need from the surrounding communities that do not directly concern them, it seems that the (short term) profit motive alone is not what guides their activities.
    And they have been more proactive and effective than many agencies that are supposedly interested only in helping with no profit motive.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  79. Patterico, you’ve insisted this decay into an argument about the argument, so it’s all wheel-spinning with him (and, for the most part, with me).

    I’d love it if you’d show me where I “insisted this decay into an argument about the argument.” Since I would rather discuss the ideas, I rather think this insistence of mine is something you made up.

    I once set some chap in a forum like this into a state of apoplexy when I asked him if he would favor a constitutional amendment that would retrospectively legitimize Social Security. “Hell, no!”, he says. Then he goes into a long whinge of how its downright offensive for me to suggest he reflect on antecedent principles. The Constitution! told him all anyone needed to know. There are few people who are much good at discussing normative questions (and I’m not one), but I wasn’t asking him to be John Rawls; I was just suggesting he not be a complete bonehead.

    I’m not quite sure what your point is here, but let me try to address it anyway. I agree that it is worth it to be reflective about the principles of the Constitution. My reflection leads me to the conclusion that government governs best when it governs least, thus allowing people’s preferences to be best satisfied through channeling resources in the free market. Price signals help direct those resources in the most efficient manner possible — a mechanism that has made extraordinary, unbelievable advances against poverty in the past 200 years or so. The greater the market’s freedom, the better off we are.

    I am also, in good time, happy to discuss the deficiencies of John Rawls’s philosophy.

    Economic activity takes place within a legal architecture. Those sorts of practices are part of the background in the schematic discussions you have in microeconomics so the student of theoretical economics does not delve into them. (Applied research on policy questions does require it). The legal architecture is not going to have fixed properties because the technology and modes of organization are not fixed. There were in 1787 no banks, credit unions, securities markets, or futures and options markets. Far higher proportions of economic activity were localized and even domestic.

    The more the legal architecture stays out of the way, the more prosperous we will be. That is why I agree with the Founders’ principles of limited government. I would even consider making government more limited than they did — but let’s start with bringing it back in line with their vision.

    While we’re at it, it’s rum to be obstreperously opinionated on questions which require granular knowledge which is not too prevalent (e.g. the utility of different levels and types of military spending).

    “Rum”? I’ve not heard that before, old chap. Here’s what I’m “obstreperously opinionated” about: we need much less taxation. It would benefit the economy. I certainly do not believe that the level of military budget we have is critical to carrying out the mission of defending our country. The way military budgets are created, with firms setting ever-higher prices to boost the “historical costs” that the Pentagon uses as their baseline; the fact that we spend as much on our military as all other countries do combined; the fact that the Pentagon is not even subject to audits; the supposed need for bases all over the globe and to arm people who inevitably turn around and use the weapons against us . . . all this suggests to me that we could do the job for much, much less.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  80. well TR didn’t require an imcome tax, it’s arguable that tariffs could cover the whole of government financing, maybe a flat tax added to the tab:

    http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/10/bombshell-terrorist-adnan-shukrijumah-in-new-mexico-this-year-as-part-of-narco-terrorist-plot/

    narciso (ee1f88)

  81. A small point about the military, more tangential than helpful, perhaps.
    I do think in the long run an investment in a strong military is a very good thing, even economically. Nature abhors a vacuum, and the history of mankind is one person or country after another trying to exert power over others. I do think, for all of our faults, that US military power and behavior in regard to the losers of war has surpassed any other, and I think a “Pax Americana” has been a good thing, and when it disappears, the world will be worse off.
    I think the military needs to be stronger than it is now, with more of those F-22’s built and more ships being constructed than being mothballed.
    But, I see a main point in your argument is that we could probably have a stronger military with our current budget, or even a smaller budget, if things were run better and built in incentives for waste were eliminated.
    On to work.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  82. The federal constitution is not something written on stone tablets.

    It’s only as good as the people who are responsible for upholding or interpreting it. It’s only as good as the prevailing ideology or philosophy of the people in positions of authority throughout this country.

    We as a people chose a very leftist route to take back in 2008 and again in 2012, so the US Constitution (as now being influenced by the court system and legislatures) is increasingly reflecting that.

    Incidentally, there are lousy court decisions that have been handed down just within the past 10 or so years by judges appointed during the years of Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s, or over 30 years ago. So keep that in mind and also the saying “a gift that keeps on giving.”

    BTW, Elissa, lol about my typo, which I can’t pawn off as a case of a fat finger, since T and D are not anywhere close together on the keyboard.

    Mark (c160ec)

  83. The most leftist Supreme Courts were appointed by Eisenhower, Mark. Either directly to the Supreme Court, or to stepping-stone Court of Appeals positions which later propelled the judges to Supreme Court Justices.

    nk (dbc370)

  84. Eisenhower also warned about the military-industrial complex. I think he coined the phrase. The marriage of the militarization motive of the generals with the economic motive of the arms makers. And veteran-worship insinuated the welfare state into the menage a trois. The bureaucracy are just the towel boys.

    nk (dbc370)

  85. Eisenhower also warned about the military-industrial complex. I think he coined the phrase. The marriage of the militarization motive of the generals with the economic motive of the arms makers. And veteran-worship insinuated the welfare state into the menage a trois. The bureaucracy are just the towel boys.

    Context is everything. Eisenhower’s professional career prior to 1941 was spent in circumstances where the military was a modest corps commanding perhaps 1% of gross domestic product outside of general mobilizations. The ratio of military expenditure to domestic product stood at 11%+ by 1956 and we’d had peacetime conscription in place for 13 years when Eisenhower used that phrase (which was a statement of caution, not a condemnation). Conscription ended in 1973. The ratio of military expenditure was on a monotonic decline (bar a couple of years at the beginning of the VietNam War) from 1953 to 1978. It increased some for the next six years, then went into decline again, bottoming out at 3.7% in the year 2000; it increased to 5.7% over the succeeding years, and declined to 4.5% after that. Military pensions have also been made more actuarially sound than they were 30 years ago. The military is not an impregnible interest in the manner of the bar, or the teachers’ unions or even the Farm Bureau.

    Art Deco (ee8de5)

  86. Please.
    Generals want guns.
    Arms makers want money so they get the generals to buy guns.
    We want to treat our soldiers well so we provide them benefits.
    A bureaucracy is necessary to divide up the money.
    The bureaucracy wants to flourish, expand and perpetuate.
    In order for it to flourish, expand and perpetuate, the generals, the arms makers, and the soldiers-benefits providers must flourish, expand, and perpetuate.
    In order for us to pay for generals, arms makers, and soldiers to flourish, expand and perpetuate, there must be war and rumors of war.
    And it goes on.

    nk (dbc370)

  87. maybe true, nk,
    but there will be wars and rumors of wars whether we pay our arms makers and generals and soldiers or not

    I don’t know if Eisenhower ever said anything about having a military so weak and a foreign policy so isolationist that it invited people like Hitler to go for it.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  88. No he didn’t. Eisenhower consented to the equipment of a conscript military contextually twice the size of the post-Cold War peak. What he said was “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.” The frame was a discussion of the extent and census of the military as against previous era and the novelty of that situation. It’s a pretty circumscribed and qualified warning.

    Art Deco (ee8de5)

  89. Art Deco, in the “actions speak louder than words” department, as you describe it, I would say Eisenhower’s actions did speak that “having a military so weak and a foreign policy so isolationist that it invited people like Hitler to go for it” was a bad idea, and a strong military was necessary, even if there needed to also be concern over undo influence. The press and others emphasizing only one side of a story is not new.

    MD in Philly (f9371b)

  90. I would say Eisenhower’s actions did speak that “having a military so weak and a foreign policy so isolationist that it invited people like Hitler to go for it” was a bad idea,

    Who can disagree with that?

    nk (dbc370)

  91. redcic4

    You’ve probably already been told this, but they’ll just take their $1000 plus penalties and interest out of any future refunds.
    They might put a snitch on your bank account and wait for the day you have the rent money in there and then sweep the money out some night while you are asleep… because collections has more than its share of aholes
    They will attach a red flag to your SS# that will never go away… I’d recommend getting it handled. Write a letter back that says something like… when I look at my return I can now see how you did in fact owe me $1000 and I’d like a detailed response showing all your work to why you have reversed. Until this is resolved I ask that no penalties be assessed and that no interest would accrue..
    oh hell, go online and find one, but I’ve written letters where my old CPA told me to write: “I disagree. Show me all of your work. No penalties and no interest.”
    If you lose, insist on no penalties they will then behave like a used car dealer and have to go talk to their boss… he’ll say no. Hold your ground, not your mistake. Then ask for a 48 month payment plan (48 months is their magic default payment plan, but try to get a longer one if you don’t have any money) and pay it ontime religiously even if you need to give blood, sperm, spinal fluid all at the same time to raise the cash. They always charge interest… I think it is the law.. Good luck to you

    steveg (794291)


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