The "trickle-down" putdown is bogus

In 1921, when the tax rate on people making over $100,000 a year was 73 percent, the federal government collected a little over $700 million in income taxes, of which 30 percent was paid by those making over $100,000.
By 1929, after a series of tax rate reductions had cut the tax rate to 24 percent on those making over $100,000, the federal government collected more than a billion dollars in income taxes, of which 65 percent was collected from those making over $100,000.
This disturbed big-government liberals who loved raising taxes. They began mocking the idea of cutting taxes as "trickle-down economics," meaning that tax relief for the wealthy who pay taxes was supposed to trickle down to the less wealthy.
It made no sense, and no one proposing tax relief ever made such a claim, but liberals adopted it and have repeated it ever since, in the mindless way they repeat nonsense that appeals to unthinking people.

They tried it when Ronald Reagan got Congress to reduce tax levels in the 1980s. It had the same effect then, just as it had when the Democrats cut taxes under Johnson, fulfilling a proposal by the late President Kennedy.

When people are allowed to keep more of their own money they don't stuff it under the mattress. They invest it, which creates jobs and wealth. Everyone benefits.

Liberals would spend every dime you earn if you let them, because they fancy that they know better than you how best to use the money.

Now for something different

Everyone is tired of politics, a mean, nasty sport based on destroying the other person's good name.
How about something uplifting for a change?
Abba!
This greatest of all pop groups is going to sing again, in December on NBC.
While it will be their voices, in a new tune not previously recorded, they won't actually sing it in person. They will be "digitally represented" in avatars, holograms or some such techie thing.
But it is the music that matters.
It is extremely difficult for a small group in a small country to become an international sensation. But that is what Abba did in the 1970s. With masterful productions they took Europe by storm, beginning with "Dancing Queen."
That was their only song to reach the top in America and they made only one limited appearance here, for various reasons. Had they focused more on the American market I have no doubt they would be even more renowned today.
What sealed their place in music history was the Australian tour. That country Down Under went completely over the top for the group, with sold out appearances at every stop.
Also, in this century a stage production and movie called "Momma Mia" rekindled the admiration for Abba. I saw Momma Mia onstage in London and it was tremendous.
The music comes from the minds of Benny Anderson and Bjorn Ulvaeus and is delivered, mostly, by the incredible singers Frida Lingstad and Agnetha Foltskog. Music experts say the music is complex and the singers are exceptional.
All I know is I could listen to it every day. And I do.

Bashing old foes

If you are a good reporter or opinion writer, you can write a perfectly accurate story or column and yet not quite tell the truth.
Bill Cotterell is a veteran reporter of 50 years and may know more about Florida government than anyone.
In this piece he writes about money, lobbyists and influence. It is well written and I would not take issue with anything he writes.
Yet.
He is deploring two of the liberal media's favorite targets, money and lobbyists.
Liberals don't like people who support (conservative) politicians financially so they constantly decry such support. Hillary Clinton outspent Donald Trump 2-to-1 and still lost, but it didn't damage the narrative that those with the most money win.
They also hammer lobbyists. In his column Cotterell's main point is that some politician claimed he listened only to lobbyists who contributed to him.
That could be defended by noting that politicians are always pressed for time, and hearing first from those who support you would make sense.
But, aside from that, it doesn't make sense. To prevail in debate on an issue, you have to know both sides. Not to mention that you should know both sides before choosing one to support. Maybe politicians choose a side and then listen to lobbyists who can supply good talking points.
As a reporter, I always wanted to know both sides so I relied on lobbyists as well as legislative staff members. A good lobbyist won't lie, but he will leave out points his counterpart will supply.
Readers must always remember that the media considers lobbyists to be rivals. The media wants to be the sole source of information to politicians and voters. It doesn't like competition.
If a politician from one party listens only to lobbyists who support him, guess what? Politicians from the other party listen only to the lobbyists who support them! Then they argue it out in debate. It's called democracy.

Criticize reality, not myths

It is amazing how many people have bought into the silly notion that politicians are “stealing” Social Security funds.

It is all over social media how the money has been looted from the so-called trust fund.

As the lady on the TV commercial said, “That’s not how any of this works!”

It is a testament to how the government misrepresented the program from the start.

Today, you can go to a government site and find an accurate history of the program.

However, millions of people still believe the money taken from their paycheck is put into a special account in their names in Washington, where it gains interest and is repaid to them upon retirement.

In fact, workers pay a payroll tax. It is immediately doled out to retired people. When those workers retire, people still working will share their paychecks with them based on the retiree’s work history. (We’re setting aside the disability, Medicare and SSI portions for now. Those are other sad stories.)

But.

The system began running a cash deficit eight years ago. In about 12 years, the IOUs in the trust fund will be repaid from the general fund and something will have to change. Either benefits will have to be reduced or the payroll tax will have to soar. The children and grandchildren of today’s workers will be soaked.

It sounded wonderful when proposed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s, as one of his New Deal policies.

Indeed, as with Ponzi schemes, it was great – for those in first. The first retiree had paid $24.75. She got $22,888.92 back (by living to 100).

But there were a couple of catches.

One is that even FDR admitted it was never intended to be anyone’s sole source of post-retirement income. In other words, people who counted on it would be foolish not to invest their own money.

(This after FDR had poisoned the idea of banking, saving and investing in “evil” corporations.)

In addition, the official government retirement age was set at approximately the median age of life expectancy. The government fully expected half the population to pay into the system but never receive anything.

But a funny thing happened on the way to Utopia. People began living much longer, and politicians found out you could hand out benefits, get votes in return and it wouldn’t cost them a dime.

Over the years, the system was played with, taking it “off-budget” and “on-budget,” neither of which has much meaning. The trust fund is an accounting mechanism.

Then because of demographics, the system created surpluses – more money than was needed to pay retirees.

So, the politicians spent it.

A lot of people moan and groan about this, but what else should they have done? Invest it? Do anyone really want politicians playing the stock market with trillions of dollars?

The alternative, since they were going to spend money anyway, would have been to borrow it or raise taxes. There is no free lunch.

The money was replaced with IOUs, totaling some $2.6 trillion.

It is being repaid with interest. But it is only taking money out of one pocket and putting it in the other.

Watch their hands, not their mouths.

In their most recent report, trustees of the fund warn: “Lawmakers should address these financial challenges as soon as possible.”

Neither party is doing anything about a looming crisis, following the first rule of Washington: When a crisis looms, kick the can down the road and let someone else take the heat.

Kill the goose?

Once again, as it has periodically for the past 50 years, the idea of selling the JEA is up for discussion.
I have no dog in the fight. If it is worth $2 billion and some private utility wanted to pay $5 billion for it, we should listen. (The city calculated the value of the JEA to a private utility at around $1.2 billion as of late 2011.)
But the idea that any amount would be a great windfall we could use to hire policemen or pay schoolteachers more money is fanciful.
The electric utility is an asset. It produces income -- a lot of it. That money is used "in lieu of taxes," which means property taxes would have to soar if it were not there.
It is controlled by an independent authority and run, in theory, like a business. Politicians appoint the authority members.
But when you sell a revenue-producing asset, you forfeit the future revenue it produces.
If a private company owned the utility it would pay property taxes and franchise fees, and federal income taxes.
For years, the City Council had an annual argument over how much money it would squeeze from the electric utility -- commonly called the "goose with the golden eggs."
The amount generally was set to represent what a private utility would pay, plus.
That was ended some years ago by an agreement to take a fixed percentage of the gross.
If a private company ran the utility, it would set rates approved by the state Public Utilities Commission, one level removed from local control. JEA has for years had some of the lowest rates in Florida.
The JEA has considerable debt. Any revenue from the sale would have to pay that, either up front or over the future years.
Jacksonville would lose a revenue stream of some amount, forever, and lose local control of rates and regulation.
The JEA has lower debt costs because it issues tax-exempt bonds. A private utility's customers would pay more to borrow. They also would pay more in property taxes because they would pay school taxes.
In short, there are a lot of factors. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Truth is elusive

It is time for a review of media history.
Sharyl Attkinson, University of Florida grad and former CBS reporter, has written two best-selling books on liberal bias in the media.
She is right but it is not a new phenomenon.
In colonial America, when newspapers began to be printed, they usually were unabashedly partisan.
However, that was not necessarily bad because the remedy was easy.
Another partisan could easily begin publishing his own paper even in a small town and they could fight it out in the marketplace of ideas.
By the mid-20th century, however, publishing had become expensive. It wasn't always easy and large newspaper chains often drove out competition in smaller venues.
After the war, the government set up a special blue-ribbon commission to look at the media.
It found bias but did not recommend government controls.
What it did recommend was a clear line between opinion and news reporting and all the media pledged to follow that way of operating.
As usual, it was almost moot by the time the government examined the problem. Television was on the rise and news reporting with it, although at first TV shied away from opinion. Still, the competition helped keep newspapers more honest.
Inevitably, opinion began to creep in, and then cross the line into reporting.
By this century, as Attkinson and many others have noted, it was difficult to tell the difference between and editorial and a news story. Even readers often lost the ability to distinguish fact from opinion.
At the paper where I worked I often likened my job to the guy with the shovel who followed the elephants in a circus parade.
We wrote editorials to correct news stories that were little more than editorials. One reporter was fired as the result of one clearly biased story. (I would have fired the editor, not the reporter.)
But this century also brought in amateur journalism, via social media. Sloppy, undisciplined, where an error or an outright lie can be posted as easily as the truth. It isn't pretty, but it has turned out to be one way of keeping the liberal media accountable.
I don't know what the next innovation will be but it almost certainly will be better than government control as a means of getting to the truth.