Eliminating Gerrymandering Induces Term Limits

In 1988 President Reagan began his campaign against what he called the "national scandal" that has followed every constitutionally required decennial census since 1810 – namely the practice of Gerrymandering – the age-old antidemocratic un-American practice of legislatures drawing new congressionally mandated electoral district boundaries that distort & bend the shape of congressional districts for the purpose of ensuring the election of politically favored politicians.

 

The term Gerrymander was named after Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry who was instrumental in the redrawing of a state senate district that resembled a salamander – see cartoon below that appeared in the Boston Gazette newspaper on March 26, 1812 that satirized the odd shaped district that had been drawn to obtain every possible vote needed to ensure victory for the candidate preferred by the party in power.

 

click on cartoon to enlarge

 

Calling for term limits always rates high in political polls.  Working to replace the current politically manipulated redistricting system with a computer programmed to divide each state into congressional districts with the smallest perimeter possible produces compact districts without identifying the residents' party, gender, or race.  In other words such a change gives us a chance for unbiased elections & in essence term limits.  The computer would redraw the districts in each state after every decennial census so the boundaries of each district would change more as a function of people moving than politicians purposely rigging elections by drawing districts resembling salamanders.

 

It is important to understand that the primary goal of Gerrymandering is to place as many supporters of the party out of power into as few districts as possible meaning the party in power gets the maximum bump from their supporters in the most districts possible & therefore maintains political control.  This obviously takes a computer to program such districts so why not change the computer program to find the most nondiscriminatory geographically compact districts possible which has benefits for everyone except career politicians?  See graphic below.

 

click on graphic to enlarge

 

Gerrymandering is the root reason why people eligible to vote become disinterested.  For example – in NJ 91% of general election races for the House & 97% of state Senate races were won by greater than 10% margins & 75% were won with over 20% margin landslides.  These margins for 2012 are typical of previous elections & in 2020 the districts will be redrawn to protect preferred politicians thereby perpetuating the cycle of turning off people eligible to vote.  Today there are more people eligible to vote who do not vote than there are people who will vote for any presidential candidate.

 

I have always thought that primaries are more important than general elections – if you don't vote in the primary you are left with whomever someone else picks to vote for in the general.  Election laws in most states further exacerbate the voting predicament described above in that primaries become even less relevant.

 

For example in the 2012 NJ primary turnout was only 8.8% of registered voters.  Because of election laws that require people to declare party affiliation there were 2.62 million unaffiliated voters who could not vote in the primary – this represents 48% of registered NJ voters who were shut out from the electoral process not because of poll taxes or voter ID requirements but because of election laws favoring the two party system.  There are 1.79 million registered Democrats & only 1.08 million registered Republicans in NJ who decided the general election candidates with an 8.8% turnout.

 

Turnout in the 2014 Virginia district 7 primary was 13.7% – this is the race Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor lost to Professor Dave Brat 7.6% of registered voters to 6.1%.  There had not been one Virginia district since 2006 that had a primary turnout greater than 10% so this race that brought out an additional 20,000 primary voters showed the power of the people in a positive anomaly in that Dave Brat has not disappointed since being elected & Cantor always did when it counted. 

 

But the worst part of the current electoral system is that people realize more & more every day that there is no difference between the two parties – or put another way there is only one Big Government Party with a Republican wing & a Democrat wing who take turns being in office @ our expense as obviously illustrated by the salamander shaped districts.

 

For instance in 2013 following the death in June of incumbent NJ Senator Frank Lautenberg Governor Christie appointed NJ AG Jeff Chiesa to fill the Senate vacancy until an October special election.  On his first day in Washington Chiesa (a self described conservative Republican) voted to reauthorize agricultural programs (subsidies) through 2018 meaning there was no difference in the vote this Republican cast & the vote the deceased Lautenberg would have cast.  The bill was 1,150 pages long which makes me wonder if he, or anyone else, read it before voting.

 

Click here to hear a radio interview with Jeb Bush explaining that he thinks the best part of BO's administration the past six plus years is the enhancement of the NSA mega data program.  The announcer virtually had to put words in Jeb's mouth for him to say anything you would have thought would have rolled off his tongue when asked a question about a political adversary.  But in Jeb & BO we are talking about members of the one Big Government Party & this is highlighted in this brief radio comment.

 

Two more recent examples - Defense Secretary nominee Ashton Carter responded very poorly in his confirmation hearings yet was confirmed by the Senate 93 to 5.  And just last week Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch whose position on illegal immigration is as lawless as BO's was confirmed 56 to 43 by the Senate with Ted Cruz not voting.

 

Senator Cruz said "this nominee has given every indication she would continue the Holder Justice Department's lawlessness.  There are more than a few voters back home that are asking what exactly is the difference between a Democratic & Republican majority when the exact same individual gets confirmed as attorney general."

 

The Republicans have the Senate majority & both the cloture vote & the actual nomination vote for Lynch could have been blocked by this majority.  Instead Lynch was confirmed as AG as if the Democrats were the majority.

 

All Senate Democrats voted for Lynch.  The following Senate Republicans also voted for Lynch.

 

Ayotte (NH), Cochrane (MS), Collins (ME), Flake (AZ), Graham (SC), Hatch (UT), Johnson (WI), Kirk (IL), McConnell (KY), & Portman (OH).

 

The two schools of thought are – 1) a president is entitled to the cabinet personnel he nominates if the Senate confirms their qualifications for the position, & 2) each member of Congress is elected to represent his constituents & vote accordingly on nominees.

 

The first school of thought is for politicians to go along to get along keeping everyone happy (except ultimately the citizenry) while the second school of thought is another way to keep government under control by bottling it up – which pays dividends no matter whether Democrats or Republicans are in power.

 

Now if you are part of "more than a few voters back home" that have been repulsed by the American electoral system I hope you can see that the Gerrymander redistricting process vividly described hereinbefore ensures that it is no coincidence that we keep getting unsatisfactory candidates & electoral results that turn people off & away from participating in the direction our Republic takes.  Even more important it tilts the board in favor of the enrichment of the elite high energy politicians leaving many people who would like to contribute with a feeling of hopelessness.

 

Sadly President Reagan's illness did not let him carry out his plan of exposing & correcting the Gerrymander abomination – I had so looked forward to his leadership in this.  But if you see the importance of this matter you have access to your congressman & state representatives who can help.  Redrawing congressional districts via a computer programmed to find the smallest perimeter possible for each nondiscriminatory geographically compact district is far superior to the Gerrymander way & will correct one of the biggest connivances our nation faces.

 

Of course realizing the benefits of such a change will take the persistent urging & involvement of the citizenry & in an apathetic entitlement society where everyone is busy enjoying America, while they still can, it is never thought of.  In fact far too many people do not know what their district looks like or even who their congressman is. 

 

But click here to see the Columbia University Law School's report entitled Draw Congress: Redistricting and Gerrymandering which draws all 435 congressional districts following several different parameters such as 1) political subdivision lines, such as counties and cities, 2) maximization of political competition by creating as many districts as possible that are evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, & 3) attempts to achieve proportional representation by producing districts that are likely to reflect the underlying partisan division in the state.

 

I was glad to see that NJ's district #12 could be redrawn as one of the smallest districts in geographic area in the state instead of one that sprawls from sea to shining Delaware River like it has for years.

 

Freedom Of Association Dispels Homosexual Wedding Discrimination Claims

"When law & morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law." – Frederic Bastiat 

 

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The enemies of America have been having a field day with duplicitous insidious attacks against the Indiana & Arkansas state versions of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA) that was introduced in the House by then NY Congressman Chuck Schumer, in the Senate by the late Senator Ted Kennedy, & signed into law by President Bill Clinton.  There was a unanimous vote in the House & a near unanimous 97 to 3 vote in the Senate supporting RFRA.

 

RFRA provides a means for a religious objector to become exempt from applicable law & claims of discrimination.

 

For instance a landlord could ask for an exemption under RFRA if for religious reasons he objected to renting an apartment to an unmarried man & women even though state law prohibits marital status discrimination in housing matters.  Such a situation has been referred to as living in sin so this example of claiming an exemption has a religious basis for some. 

 

A more recent example was the Hobby Lobby case in which the Supreme Court determined in a 5 to 4 vote that employers are not required to provide female employees with no-cost contraception because of religious convictions to the contrary.

 

With the above as background the enemies of America have turned the matter into a clash over pretending to respect people of faith versus citing them for discrimination against homosexuals – examples include bakers, florists, & photographers who do not want to provide their services on religious grounds for homosexual marriage ceremonies. 

 

A simple question is what couple (homosexual or straight) would want to have a baker, florist, or photographer be part of their wedding ceremony if the service provider did not share in the happy occasion – if there was not another agenda or ulterior motive like undermining the founding principles of our country?

 

In the latest assault the media has added Memories Pizza of Walkerton Indiana to the list of bakers, florists, & photographers to be charged with discrimination against homosexuals after Memories co-owner Crystal O'Connor told a local news station that if a homosexual couple wanted to order pizzas for their wedding, "we would have to say no."  How many weddings or receptions have you been to that served pizza?  So why would the media interrogate a pizza store owner?

 

Of course the media driven brouhaha has nothing to do with discrimination against homosexuals & everything to do with destroying both individual rights & freedoms.  The late Harvard professor Robert Nozick, author of one of my favorite books – Anarchy, State, & Utopia – wrote that only a minimal state "limited to the narrow functions of protection against force, theft, fraud, enforcement of contracts. . ." could be justified without violating people's rights - & in this case involving RFRA & claims of homosexual marriage discrimination the principal right violated is the constitutional right of freedom of association.

 

The Constitution does provide anti-discrimination protection for age (in voting), citizenship (in naturalization), race (in voting), sex (in voting), & voting (no poll taxes).  Unlike the foregoing specific constitutional anti-discrimination protections there is no specific constitutional anti-discrimination protection for homosexual weddings.  This means that homosexual supporters who want to cite people of religious faith with discrimination against homosexuals must rely on the 14th Amendment to defend their actions – "No state shall. . . deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

 

The basis for disposing of this position regarding the current argument is found in The Federalist No. 78 where Alexander Hamilton wrote that the Constitution is the fundamental law that has the superior obligation & validity that takes preference over statutes. 

 

This means the law referred to in the 14th Amendment is the Constitution & in particular the First Amendment guaranteeing the free exercise of religion & the right of expressive association – that is there is a right to associate to engage in the activities protected in the First Amendment. 

 

Anti-discrimination statutes such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination Act of 1975, or the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 do not take preference over any parts of the Constitution.  Accordingly, the religious rights & rights of association of the First Amendment take precedent over the aforementioned statutes.

 

This is not to say that the courts could not find against the Constitution - in violation of the justices' oaths - in ruling for their notion of the greater good of not promoting any perceived discrimination in America – of course a ruling in favor of forced participation in homosexual marriages in this case means a vote against the free exercise of religion of bakers, florists, photographers, & pizza pie makers.  With four left wing justices on the Supreme Court willing to find any statist presentation constitutional & three others of the nine reading the text of the Constitution as originalists means that every decision will be decided by either Roberts' &/or Kennedy's feeling that particular day.  What a terrible way to decide the issues in our country.

 

"We're not discriminating against anyone, that's just our belief & anyone has the right to believe in anything" – pizza maker Crystal O'Connor told a local news station.

 

Many businesses clearly display the sign "We reserve the right to refuse service to anybody."  Business owners who display such a sign try to enforce the words as they see fit but I don't know of any that refuse service to anyone that the aforementioned Civil Rights Act considers a protected class.  In brief, if they did it would be bad for business – most people would exercise their freedom to associate by not associating with bigoted business owners.

 

There are dress codes @ Saratoga Race Course, fine restaurants, golf courses, & businesses.  Bars regularly offer "ladies nights" where women are served @ a discount & students, veterans, & senior citizens are often encouraged to use certain products or services @ lower costs than the general public – there is nothing about students, veterans, or senior citizens that make delivering the products or services less expensive – it is simply a marketing ploy to make these people partake.

 

Stutterers can find it hard to get a job; older people are perceived as feeble; deaf people love to say they are deaf not stupid; & single sex schools do not admit people of the opposite sex – like the above these additional examples display forms of discrimination to one degree or another.  Even signs that say "no solicitations" can be considered discriminatory when all the owner of a business or medical practice wants to do is be left alone – similar to the no call telephone list.

 

How far we want to go with all of this should be carefully considered.  If we make or enforce rules so politically correct that they become burdensome we are in danger of creating unintended weapons against our entire way of life – if we haven't already.

 

RFRA was intended for such matters like disputes over whether or not Muslim prisoners had to shave their beards – the Muslim prisoner had to prove it was a religious hardship to shave his beard & if he did the government was then compelled to use the least restrictive means of achieving the state interest.  

 

RFRA enforcement has been expanded in the above homosexual wedding examples to require the religious objector to make his case explaining why he should be excused from an activity deliberately distorted to be portrayed as hurtful discrimination – this is a burden not freedom of association & accordingly it is not right in a free society.  People should not need a reason like showing how religious they are to not participate in something.  It is akin to being guilty before given a pass. 

 

We can see where this is going – we already have a healthcare law that requires people to buy a product or be fined (taxed) & a Medicare law that requires people to privately insure the government's single payer partial coverage if they want decent coverage.

 

Freedom of association as described above solves the dilemma of the cruel alternative presented by Frederic Bastiat above – unless someone is purposely looking for trouble.

 

Christine Upton summed this up when she wrote "How we perceive of the world around us determines the outcome of what it is we choose to see or not see."

 

Reference Post:  Individual Rights & Homosexual Marriage

 

The Income Tax - The Base Of America's Road To Ruin

 

click on graphic to enlarge

 

The above graphic shows the result of an estimate by the Tax Policy Center (TPC) of the distribution of the shares of both income & federal income taxes paid in 2014 by all 325 million Americans divided into quintiles of 65 million people in each quintile.

The quintiles are defined by annual incomes up to $24,200 for the bottom, 47,300 for the second, $79,500 for the middle, $134,300 for the fourth, & above $134,300 for the top quintile.

 

Tax Report columnist Laura Saunders writes in the WSJ that "unlike IRS data, it includes information about nonfilers – both people who didn't need to file & people who should have filed but didn't.  The total also includes Americans living overseas & others, which is why it is greater than the U.S. Census estimate of 319 million."

 

Saunders adds "Another important difference: The income cited includes untaxed amounts for employer-provided health coverage, tax-exempt interest & retirement-plan contributions & growth, among other things.  This can be significant."

 

Yes, receiving employer provided healthcare insurance @ no out of pocket cost in an income tax system is quite a significant benefit for those who earn it as part of their total compensation.  Please be assured that no employer provides this benefit for any reason other than being competitive for talent in the labor market in their search for people whose education, training & experience meets the employer's needs.  So many people work just to keep healthcare insurance through their employer or are looking for work with good healthcare insurance & yet do not consider this benefit as income although if pressed they would have to admit it is a significant part of their total compensation that is earned.

 

Although the above TPC estimate is for federal income tax payments only, the overall distribution follows the same top quintile pays the overwhelming majority of federal taxes profile when payroll taxes of Social Security & Medicare are included.  It is the return of cash payments of these payroll taxes to people who do not pay any federal income tax that result in 40% of Americans' share of federal income taxes being negative @ –3.2% as shown on the graphic.  Even more insidious - the graphic shows that close to 80% of the people pay either no federal income tax or so little federal income tax that tax reform is of little or no interest to them meaning that America is stuck in a rut where statist politicians can present shams like income inequality, raising the minimum wage, & class warfare that hold back & actually thwart tax reform that would result in economic growth & prosperity for all.

 

In this regard I wrote two posts ago "Congressman Woodall learned in 2014 that the Joint Committee of Taxation has no methodology to properly evaluate the FairTax meaning that it will not come out of the Ways & Means Committee onto the floor of the House as it stands.  It is like the House statists have checkmated the FairTax into the corner of W&M where they plan to keep it."

 

With the FairTax bottled up in a bureaucratic dead end this leaves us some Republicans talking about an undefined flat income tax that stirs up some conservatives while others talk about tinkering around the edges of the current income tax code – falsely calling either meaningful tax reform.  Estimates of foregone investments and consumption resulting from the federal income tax system increase the deadweight loss to the economy every year – Professor Martin Feldstein calculates a recent fiscal year deadweight loss due to the federal income tax to be $385 billion or 2.55% of GDP.

 

The above 2014 distribution duplicates similar results for 2013 – the TPC determined that a middle class family of four paid only 5.3% (effective tax rate) of its income in federal income taxes & the CBO determined that overall federal taxes (income, payroll, excise, & imputed corporate taxes) for such a family were @ their lowest levels in decades.  See graph below for effective federal income tax rates for a middle class family of four.

 

click on graph to enlarge

 

So with the FairTax slowed down in W&M & no other compelling Republican tax reform message taking hold to date it is easy to see how far too many people in the bottom 80% of income earners consistently fall for Democrat tax the rich schemes that vilify millionaires & billionaires.  This 80% don't pay much in taxes & they also don't make much money if they are working @ all – the majority of these people are not happy & prefer to close any perceived income inequality by bringing the top earners down since they don't hold much hope for going up themselves.  Confiscation of wealth is @ the end of this road to ruin we are travelling.

 

But we need to recognize that it is not taxes but rather what we spend money on that is the enemy – namely Social Security, Medicare, & Medicaid entitlements, interest on the national debt, & the 126 welfare programs recognized by the Cato Institute.  These entitlements & programs take money from the high income earners & give them in one form or another to people in the lowest three quintiles.  For instance Scott Hodge of the Tax Foundation determined that the average middle class family receives over $7,000 more in benefits than they pay in federal taxes each year.  See graphic below to see what the top 20% of income earners pay – you have to reach the 90 to 95 percentile of income earners in order for the share of income to equal the share of federal income taxes paid.

The graphic below is based on the 80% to 90% income percentile's income range going from $134,300 to $180,500 representing a 13.1% share of total U.S. income; the 90-95 income percentile representing a 9.0% share of total U.S. income going to annual incomes up to $261,500; the 95-99 income percentile representing a 12.1% share of total U.S. income going to annual incomes up to $615,000; & the 99+ income percentile representing a 17.1% share of total U.S. income going for annual incomes above $615,000.

Click on graphic to enlarge 

 

This means that far too many people don't have skin in the game or think they don't.  But they do.  Their entire way of life is about to be changed forever, if it hasn't already, to one of government dependent socialism.  Trying to eliminate or reverse a welfare state that has taken hold in the apathy to dependence stage of an entitlement society like it has in America has always been a political loser throughout history & every Republican & Libertarian candidate for president is facing this losing compulsion.  Even President Reagan, 35 years ago, could only slow, not reverse this course.

 

Hillary Clinton opened her official campaign for president saying "the deck is still stacked in favor of those @ the top."  A more accurate statement would be "the Democrat deck is stacked against everyone who has not educated themselves properly to support themselves & who relies on government for nourishment & safekeeping" – namely the people who currently support her & can't see her programs will keep people down.

  

But the worst part of socialism to me is that it cheats people out of reaching the potential in life they were born to live.  They will never experience the thrill & triumph of high achievement - the highs of life that Ayn Rand wrote about in We The Living - so that to reverse paraphrase TR - everyone's place will always be with those cold & timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.  As such the true cost to any socialist society, namely the opportunity cost, is more than just enormous - it is literally unimaginable.

 

Reference Post - Why Income Inequality Has Not Increased In America