To paraphrase James Carville

James Carville was one of the key figures in the election of Bill Clinton to the presidency in 1992.  The fine film The War Room gives a good rendering of Carville's involvement in that campaign.  The saying "It's The Economy Stupid" comes from one of three bullet point statements that read as follows:

Change vs more of the same
The economy, stupid
Don't forget health care.

Recently, newly-elected Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez floated the idea of a top marginal tax rate of 70% on incomes in excess of $10 million.  Today Senator Elizabeth Warren talked about a proposal to impose a wealth tax.  Her proposal to tax wealth is not the same as an income tax and is a subject for a separate blog.  I wrote in detail some time back about the problems involved in taxing wealth and will search for that piece.

Meanwhile, back to Mr. Carville and paraphrasing that "saying" of his.  It is the effective rate, stupid.  Marginal rates are the so-called tax brackets.  But what really matters is the effective rate, which is the percentage of a taxpayers income that they actually pay in taxes.  To better understand this concept, let's look at the actual income and taxes from 2011 involving presidents and candidates.  Numbers are rounded, but effective rate is shown to two decimal points:


Name                                     Total Income           Federal Tax Paid     Effective Tax Rate

Romney                                  $13.7 million           $1.93 million           14.12%
Clinton                                   $14.7 million           $4.33 million            29.49%
Obama                                    $845 thousand         $162 thousand          19.18%
Bush (Jeb)                              $6.3 million             $2.26 million            35.85%
Cruz (Ted)                              $1.8 million             $565 thousand          31.12%

Why is there so much disparity?  Fully 2/3rds of the Clinton's income in 2011 was from self-employment.  When you have self-employment income, all of that income is subject to income tax and self-employment taxes.  Meanwhile, $9 million of the Romney's income was from long-term capital gains and qualified dividends.  So that $9 million wasn't taxed at the top marginal rate of 35% that year, but at the much more favorable rate of 15%.  That saved the Romneys $1.8 million in federal income tax.

Almost all of Jeb Bush's 2011 income was from self-employment.  And unlike the Romneys, whose itemized deductions of $4.6 million represented 34% of their income, the Bush tax return shows itemized deductions of $124,760 (1.9% of his income).

Favorable tax treatment of certain types of income and large itemized deductions are what drive the effective tax rate paid by the wealthiest Americans down from their top marginal rate.  And in spite of the prevailing wisdom that those wealthiest paid a lot more tax in the 1950s, the effective tax rate history tells a different story.

As you can see, the effective tax rate paid by the top 1 percent is only 5.6% lower in 2014 than it was in the 1950s.

There are other issues involved as well.  Let's look at the income, tax paid and effective rate from some 2005 tax returns of presidents and candidates:

Name                                     Total Income           Federal Tax Paid     Effective Tax Rate

Bush Jr (Dubya)                     $739 thousand         $188 thousand         25.41%
Cheney                                   $8.8 million             $530 thousand           6.00%
Clinton                                   $18.3 million            $5.6 million             30.44%
Trump                                    $49.5 million            $38.4 million           77.59%

Whoa there.  Trump paid 77.59% of his income in federal tax?  Based on the standard measurement of effective rate.  But those numbers include his ability to claim a Net Operating Loss (NOL) of $103.2 million.  Add that back in and his line entry looks like this:

Trump                                    $152.7 million          $38.4 million            25.16%.

It was that pesky Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) that resulted in his NOL being added back into his income for the purpose of the AMT calculation.  Without the AMT, there's a third view of that line:

Trump                                    $49.5 million             $7.17 million            14.48%
Trump                                    $152.7 million           $7.17 million            04.69%

As to why Dick Cheney and his wife paid such a low effective tax rate, their itemized deductions reduced their income of $8.8 million by $6.9 million.  That allowed them to avoid tax on 78% of their income.   Since the tax return they released did not include the page of itemized deductions, we'll never know what deductions they took.

A top marginal rate of 70% on income in excess of $10 million is meaningless without changes that ensure the effective tax rate those people pay goes up.

It's the effective rate.  Period.

We had Alternative Facts, how about Alternative Venues?

It looks like #DishonestDonnie has backed down and agreed to delay his State of the Union address in the wake of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's statement that Trump cannot deliver the SOTU from the House Chamber in the Capitol Building.

Since he's known to flip-flop positions, here is a list of alternative venues for him to consider.

How about outside the IRS headquarters building, with lots of protesting IRS employees in attendance?   No?

This would be an ideal location.  Outside one of his brilliant business ventures.

The upside of delivering the SOTU outside of a Golden Corral is that the unpaid Secret Service agents who have to protect the #LiarInChief could enjoy an all you can eat buffet after the speech is over.

That's the Russian Embassy building in Washington, D.C.  Considering it is an extension of the empire of Vladimir Putin, Trump's real boss, it would be an ideal spot for the SOTU.

Perhaps the ideal venue would be the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge.  This is where members of a group known as the No More Deaths Ministry of the Unitarian Universalist Church face charges for leaving food and water for people entering the U.S. illegally.

Trump could hire lots of people to portray illegal border crossers and have Customs and Border Protection arresting then en masse to make it look like the fake crisis he rails about actually existing.

Not Guilty ≠ Innocent

Saifullah Khan was a student at Yale University.  On January 4, 2019 he was expelled following a determination by the University-Wide Committee on Sexual Misconduct (UWC) that he had violated the university's policies in that area.

The timeline for Mr. Khan's expulsion begins on Halloween night of 2015.  He was accused of sexually assaulting a fellow student at Yale.  The criminal case against him ended in March of 2018 when he was found not guilty by a jury.

Victim advocacy groups were critical of the questions posed by Mr. Khan's attorney, Norm Pattis.  He asked why she'd chosen to wear a sequined cat costume rather than a flowing "Cinderella" type gown.  Whether or not the victim had previously flirted with Khan.  How much she had had to drink.

Jurors interviewed after the conclusion of the trial said that those weren't the things that had led to the verdict.  They cited inconsistencies in the victim's account of what transpired.  One had to do with the victim's testimony that Khan had been forced to hold her up because she was dragging one of her legs as she walked.  Surveillance video viewed by the jury didn't show that, jurors claimed.

On my way home from work yesterday I listened to Mr. Pattis being interviewed.  He kept harping on the fact that it was wrong for a man who was "cleared" in the criminal court system to be expelled without proper due process by Yale.

There are various burdens of proof in the legal system.  Mr. Pattis wrote about this himself in a blog about the expulsion of Mr. Khan.  To be found guilty in a criminal trial requires that the allegations be proven "beyond a reasonable doubt."  Not beyond any doubt.  In a civil trial, there is a lower bar known as "by a preponderance of the evidence."  That is how O.J. Simpson was acquitted in criminal court of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, but found responsible in the wrongful death civil trial held later.  Mr. Pattis described the hearing held by the UWC as "fatally flawed" because his client wasn't afforded the same things in that hearing that he had at the criminal trial.

* * *

The problem with the contentions of Mr. Pattis begins with a critical fact. The finding by the jury that Mr. Khan wasn't guilty of the charges does not make him "innocent."  It merely means that the evidence was insufficient to prove guilt "beyond a reasonable doubt."  The rights Mr. Pattis says his client was denied in the UWC hearing aren't guaranteed by the Constitution as they were in that courtroom, including the presumption of innocence.  Whether or not that hearing process should provide the accused the rights to confront and cross-examine their accuser is a good subject for debate, but not relevant to the finding of the UWC.  I am bothered by the fact that the UWC refused to allow Pattis to be nothing more than a silent witness to the hearing, and that there was no record of the proceedings themselves.

That doesn't mean Yale can do whatever it wants.  It must comply with federal and state laws regarding discrimination.   Mr. Khan will seek redress in the federal court system.

Did the 75,000 signatures gathered on a petition that urged Yale to "ban the rapist" influence the UWC decision?  Quite probably.  Does that matter?

Television shows

A friend shared this on Facebook

I was going to add just a couple of GIFs but for some reason they wouldn't upload properly.  That's why I'm going to display GIFs of all of the television shows that I've watched every episode of.  Beginning with the first series I watched every episode of.  In this case, I watched them all in their original prime-time airing.

My father and I were big fans of this show and watched every episode together.  This was long before one could tape or DVR episodes.

Here are other shows I've seen every episode of.

I've always been a fan of M*A*S*H, first the film and then the television show.  The writing was brilliant throughout, and it mixed drama and humor in a very enjoyable way.  I still watch the reruns.

The first of several police procedural shows I've seen every episode of.  The mere fact that Law & Order managed to endure 20 seasons is a strong endorsement of the show in and of itself.

Hill Street Blues ran for six seasons on NBC, starting in 1981.  From January of 1982 through April of 1984, I was stationed at Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi.  Whenever I was working a shift as a law enforcement specialist, our shift supervisor would almost always end the pre-shift briefing (known as "guard mount") with "Let's be careful out there."

Steven Bochco gave us Hill Street Blues and in 1986 he teamed up with attorney turned TV writer Terry Louise Fisher to create L.A. Law.  I chose this .gif of actress Diana Muldaur taking a wrong step into the elevator shaft because it was one of the most shocking TV deaths of all time.  It came as a surprise to her as well as she joked, "I thought I'd asked for too much money."

Michael Crichton created the television series ER which launched in 1994.  I'd been a fan of his since I read his novel The Andromeda Strain when it came out in 1969.  What many don't know about him is that he graduated from medical school and earned his MD.  His non-fiction book Five Patients, published in 1970 was fascinating.  ER ran on NBC for 15 seasons.  I came close to using the .gif of actor Paul McCrane's character "Dr. Robert 'Rocket' Romano" suffering the traumatic amputation of his arm at the shoulder when he walked into a helicopter blade; but decided it was too gory.  The fact they did that shot at all was pretty wild.

Third Watch was an NBC police procedural of sorts.  It brought together the stories of the police officers, firefighters and paramedics who worked the 3 pm to 11 pm shift in a fictional New York City police precinct.  It took the raw perspective of life on the streets portrayed by Hill Street Blues to another level.  And it had a crossover with ER where one of the ER doctors in Chicago traveled to NYC to look for her missing sister and niece.

Speaking of missing relatives, the major subplot of the first few seasons of JAG was the search for the main character's father.  Harmon Rabb, Jr. was a former F-14 pilot who became a lawyer after being diagnosed with night blindness.  His father had been shot down during the Vietnam War and was still listed as Missing in action.  NBC canceled the show after one season, but CBS picked it up.  They tweaked the casting and the show ran for nine more seasons.

Southland is another series that NBC gave up on after just one season.  But it found four more seasons of life on the TNT cable network.  Set in Los Angeles, it raised the bar on raw, real police action to an all-time high.  The show's producers used actual gang members on the show.  Anthony Ruivivar portrayed a paramedic on Third Watch and a different character as a cop on Southland.

January 17th

To paraphrase a Beatles lyric, it was 25 years ago today.  And yes, five years ago today I used that lyric in a blog that began on the same topic; the 1/17/1994 Northridge Earthquake.

It was a Monday.  The Monday of a three-day weekend as Martin Luther King, Jr's Birthday was being observed.  I had deliberately stayed up late the night before so for once I would sleep in on a holiday.  Instead I was awakened by the shaking of the building and my beloved dog Scooter going nuts.  

I described the damage I saw in my office at that private school in Santa Monica in that earlier blog.  What I didn't mention in it was an instance of karma that came from that morning's tremblor.  My divorce from ex-wife #2 had become final weeks earlier.  One of the few things we had argued over was the good china.

She had owned two complete settings of this line of fine china.  We registered for the remaining eight needed to complete the set.  My side of the family purchased almost all of them as wedding gifts.  I argued that given how we were dividing up things that we'd received of wedding gifts, those six settings belonged to me.  She vehemently disagreed.  She ended up conceding other things to get me to give her the dishes.

The funny thing is that the Northridge quake rendered the argument over those dishes meaningless.  Had they been in my apartment in El Segundo, they would have been fine.  Instead they were at the ex-wife's residence in Northridge, where they were all destroyed.  Every single item.

Justice through the intervention of Mother Nature?  No.  Just karma.

Random Ponderings on a rainy Wednesday

Well, a lot of us do think of him as a thief, so maybe his being the hamberderglar isn't beyond possibility?

Covfefe available for a small additional charge.

* * *

William Barr had the first of his two days of confirmation hearing on Tuesday.  He said that he can see a situation where he would jail journalists for doing their jobs.

That's just wrong.  Other than jailing journalists for a contempt of court citation, unless a journalist has been accused of committing a criminal act, there is no reason for them to be put behind bars.  Talk about your First Amendment violations.

Maybe he should go be the AG in North Korea or Saudi Arabia.

* * *

Atlas Brew Works is a craft brewer in the Washington, D.C. area.   They are suing the Trump Administration because the government shutdown has prevented them from getting approval to sell a new apricot-infused, seasonal beer.

Earlier this month, when news broke that farmers were suffering because their government subsidy payments weren't being processed, Trump recalled thousands of workers to process those payments  Of course, they are working without pay.

Then there is this:

Today you will not be receiving your regularly scheduled paycheck. To the best of my knowledge, this marks the first time in our Nation’s history that servicemembers in a U.S. Armed Force have not been paid during a lapse in appropriations. Read more: https://t.co/5tLzGhK2nt pic.twitter.com/J2o00zWm0k

— Admiral Karl Schultz (@ComdtUSCG) January 15, 2019

The CEO of Delta Airlines told CNBC that his company is losing $25 million per month due to the shutdown.

Kathryn Leudke is a furloughed federal contract employee who had to pawn her wedding ring and other family heirlooms.  She told a reporter in Oklahoma City that her doctor would not refill her prescriptions until the $166 balance due was paid.  That's upsetting to hear.

It isn't just the 800,000 government workers who are furloughed or being forced to work without pay who are being hurt.  It is all of us.  The revised estimate of the impact of the shutdown on GDP growth from people who work for Trump is that it will eliminate any growth at all; until the shutdown ends.

This is how you bankrupt an economy.

* * *

Since it takes a House resolution as part of the process to schedule the State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress, if she doesn't want to let Trump give that address in the Capitol Building, he won't be able to.

* * *

Susan Sullivan is the genius at NBC News who issued an email telling reporters and anchors not to refer to the remarks of Iowa Congressman Steve King's racist remarks as "racist."

Apparently, someone higher up on the food chain got wind of this and reversed this idiotic decision.

* * *

If Donald Trump were forced to prepare his own written State of the Union address, how many typos would it contain?  Vegas could make big money wagering on that.



CNN reports that Second Lady Karen Pence is returning to the classroom.  She will teach art two days a week at Immanuel Christian School, where she had been employed during her husband's time in Congress.

The school has a policy statement on their website that parents must sign.  Here is an excerpt:

"I understand the biblical role of Immanuel Christian School is to partner with families to encourage students to be imitators of Christ. This necessarily involves the school’s understanding and belief regarding biblical morality and standards of conduct. I understand that the school reserves the right, within its sole discretion, to refuse admission to an applicant or to discontinue enrollment of a student if the atmosphere or conduct within a particular home, the activities of a parent or guardian, or the activities of the student are counter to, or are in opposition to, the biblical lifestyle the school teaches. This includes, but is not limited to contumacious behavior, divisive conduct, and participating in, supporting, or condoning sexual immorality, homosexual activity or bi-sexual activity, promoting such practices, or being unable to support the moral principles of the school. (Lev. 20:13 and Romans 1:27.) I acknowledge the importance of a family culture based on biblical principles and embrace biblical family values such as a healthy marriage between one man and one woman. My role as spiritual mentor to my children will be taken seriously."

I wonder how many of the parents that have to sign this even know what contumacious means.

* * *

Meagan Hunter worked for Chili's for two years at a location in Phoenix, AZ.  She went to an interview for a management position.  After being told by her general manager she wasn't dressed in a "gender appropriate manner."  You can read the details of her story in this post on an ACLU website.

Chili's denies the charges.  This case will be worth watching if it winds up in court.  The first step is the filing of a complaint with the EEOC, which the ACLU has done.

* * *

Is a broken promise part of the cause of the strike by LAUSD teachers?

It's been just over three years since I wrote a two-part blog on how the California Lottery stopped fulfilling the commitment to provide 34% of its revenues to public schools and universities in California.  You can read Part I and Part II by clicking the links.

Then came AB 142 and the commitment of 34% of every lottery dollar going to public education ended.  New formulae were used to increase the prize pools to drive ticket sales higher and higher.  The bill was introduced by former Assembly member Mary Hayashi.  If the name seems familiar, you might remember her from her 2011 arrest for shoplifting nearly $2,500 in merchandise from a Neiman-Marcus store.

Ticket sales did go up.  The thing is, the increase is mostly among the Scratcher ticket, rather than the Super Lotto, Mega-Millions and Powerball games, where the biggest prizes are found.  Part of the reason for the growth of Scratcher ticket sales is the dramatic increase in the price of some of those tickets.

At the moment there are three different types of Scratcher ticket games where each ticket has a price of $30.  They all offer a top jackpot of $10 million.  California Millions is one of the three games.  There are four of those prizes in this game, and the odds of winning one of them are 3,013,433 to 1.  So far only one of those prizes has been claimed.

There are eight different Scratcher games where the tickets cost $20.  The odds of winning the top prize of $5 million in the Jackpot Fortune game are 3,079,065 to 1.  Again, four possible winners and only one has been found thus far.  Interesting how the price is 2/3rds as much as the $30 ticket but the prize is only 1/2 of the big prize.

When I was playing those Scratcher tickets regularly, the price points were $1, $2, and $5, with the rare special offering of a $10 ticket.  I stopped playing those games in 2009 when I got very ill for the first time.

So is it the bigger prizes that is driving the increase, or is it the ever growing price point of those Scratcher tickets?

The annual CA Lottery Report to the Public for the Lottery's fiscal year that ended on 6/30/2017 is not yet published.  But I was able to find the data needed to include that year in an update of the data from those blogs published three years ago.

				34% of total	Amount to	Actual % to
Year		Revenues		revenues	Education Fund	Education Fund
2005		3,333,620,669		1,133,431,027	1,148,775,087	34.46%
2006		3,584,996,251		1,218,898,725	1,258,507,917	35.10%
2007		3,318,346,505		1,128,237,812	1,176,929,117	35.47%
2008		3,049,620,915		1,036,871,111	1,069,328,092	35.06%
2009		2,954,839,094		1,004,645,292	1,027,728,959	34.78%
2010		3,040,959,866		1,033,926,354	1,072,496,752	35.27%
2011		3,438,577,998		1,169,116,519	1,102,860,768	32.07%
2012		4,371,491,746		1,486,307,194	1,300,240,379	29.74%
2013		4,445,874,040		1,511,597,174	1,262,058,020	28.39%
2014		5,034,661,424		1,711,784,884	1,327,928,392	26.38%
2015		5,524,850,593		1,878,449,202	1,391,545,550	25.19%
2016		6,275,597,288		2,133,703,078	1,587,416,599	25.30%
2017		6,233,468,423		2,119,379,264	1,499,004,486	24.05%

As you can see, ticket sales were down in the most recent fiscal year.  So was the amount that went to public education, as well as the percentage of ticket sales.  In spite of #DishonestDonnie's claims of a great economy, in spite of lowered unemployment in California.

If the original commitment of 34% were in force at the moment, given the ticket sales in the most recent fiscal years; public education would have received an additional $700.3 million dollars.

Would ticket sales fall all that much if the top prize on those $30 games was $7 million rather than $10 million?  If the other prizes were slightly reduced?  I don't think a tweak to the prize pool would matter all that much, given how fervently people are buying Scratcher tickets.

One indication of this is that while per capita spending on Lottery in California is up to $160 from the $131 three years ago, we're lagging further behind the nationwide per capita average of $225.

In late 2018 the Washington Post reported that on average, 32% of state lottery revenue went to state programs.  We're 8% behind the average.

Let's let Governor Newsom know this is something that needs another look.

Deconstructing just one Trump tweet

The New York Times reports that the FBI opened an investigation into whether or not Donald Trump was "working on behalf of Russia against American interests" after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey.  The tweet below was the first response from #DishonestDonnie

Wow, just learned in the Failing New York Times that the corrupt former leaders of the FBI, almost all fired or forced to leave the agency for some very bad reasons, opened up an investigation on me, for no reason & with no proof, after I fired Lyin’ James Comey, a total sleaze!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 12, 2019

Let's break this down.

Is the New York Times failing?  Not according to MSNBC and their story on the NYT's third-quarter earnings report.  Digital subscriptions are up, operating profit is up and advertising revenues are up.  They are NOT failing from a profit/loss perspective.

They are also not failing on a reporting perspective either.  Their story on how Trump and his father allegedly engaged in massive tax fraud was brilliant.

Did the FBI have reason to open the investigation cited in the story from the New York Times this week?  NYT cited two instances where Trump tied the firing of Comey to the Russia investigation.  Trump's call on Russia to hack the emails of Hillary Clinton was also troubling.

Is it appropriate for a man (should I say man-child) to call someone else "...Lyin'" when the tally of lies that man has told since taking office is nearing 8,000?  No.

The "Wall or Nothing" standoff continues unabated

"They say it's a medieval solution, a wall. It's true, because it worked then and it works even better now."  - Donald Trump during a recent bill signing at the White House.

In making his false case for the need to build a wall at the U.S. southern border, #DishonestDonnie claims it is needed to make the nation same from a vast flow of drugs, thugs, terrorists and other people entering the nation illegally.

Drugs - the truth is that the vast majority of illicit narcotic substances entering our nation do so by being smuggled in a legal entry-points into the U.S.

Thugs - #DishonestDonnie tried using anecdotes of heinous crimes committed by those in the U.S. illegally.  As reported by NPR, multiple studies prove that the presence of people in the U.S. illegally does not increase the problems of violent crime.  Studies also indicate that people in the country illegally are arrested for violent crimes at lower rates than those who were born here.

Terrorists - We heard over and over again about how 4,000 suspected terrorists were identified attempting to enter the U.S. at the southern border.  Actual data from the Customs and Border Protection agency shows the total of such individuals identified in the first six months of 2018 was actually just 6.

Others entering illegally - I just heard someone on Fox News pointing out that illegal immigration into the U.S. is at a 20-year low.

* * *

When the #InfantInChief banged his hands on the table before walking out of a meeting where the leadership of the Congress was meeting with him to try to end the Trump Government Shutdown (TGS), he made it clear that his position on this issue is "Wall or Nothing."

Fine.  He can hold that position if he wants to.  But then he shouldn't be sending Mike Pence out to claim that Democrats won't negotiate.  It is clear that Trump wants the entire $5.7 billion and the Democrats won't give him more than what was in the legislation that had already passed the Senate in 2018.

Joshua Tree National Park was going to be shutdown tomorrow morning (January 10th) but now it appears the closure will be temporary to clean up the massive mess created while most of the people who keep the park clean and safe are out on furlough.  But at least three people have died in the National Parks during the shutdown.  Were those deaths the result of the shutdown?  The problem with these park closures is that the precious natural resources they were created to protect and defend are suffering irreparable damage at the moment.  Their protectors aren't there.

At work yesterday I dealt with three clients whose situations required contacting the IRS.  That is not possible at the moment.  While the IRS won't begin accepting returns and issuing refunds until the end of this month, most of their collection activities are continuing unabated.  One client is having funds taken from their bank account that they don't actually owe; and that will have to be refunded once the paperwork involved is properly processed by the IRS.  In a year where there are so many changes involved in filing tax returns, it is just plain wrong for the IRS to be operating at severely reduced manpower levels.

CNN reports that an email was sent by Martin Elam, who directs TSA security operations at five Southern California airports, to the TSA employees who work at Palm Springs International Airport. It says that excessive absences have "adversely impacted security operations" at that location.

The number of FDA food inspections being conducted has dropped sharply since the TGS began.

Our health, our safety and our nation's economy are being damaged.  People's financial futures are being ruined.

#DishonestDonnie bangs tables and fumes.

That is not leadership.  To paraphrase FDR, January 9th, 2019.  A date where our president is practicing infancy.

When it comes to fact-checking...

Fact-checking has become much more important since #DishonestDonnie moved into the Oval Office.  Politicians have been misleading, less than honest and told whoppers for centuries.  But none of our nation's leaders have been as blatantly dishonest as the #LiarInChief.

As I said in my recent blog about her proposal to raise the top marginal tax rate to 70%, I'm a big fan of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  Now the Washington Post has given her a rating of Four Pinocchios  for a tweet she made this past Sunday.

$21 TRILLION of Pentagon financial transactions “could not be traced, documented, or explained.”

$21T in Pentagon accounting errors. Medicare for All costs ~$32T.

That means 66% of Medicare for All could have been funded already by the Pentagon.

And that’s before our premiums. https://t.co/soT6GSmDSG

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) December 2, 2018

Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez went on to ask some excellent questions about the fact-checking process.

For example, it looks like @PolitiFact has fact-checked Sarah Huckabee Sanders and myself the *same* amount of times: 6.

She’s been serving for almost 2 years. I’ve served 4 days.

Why is she fact-checked so little? Is she adhering to some standard we don’t know about?

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 7, 2019

Another question for @politifact: some officials’ statements (ex. Andrew Cuomo) get rated “true” frequently.

I say true things all the time - I’d hope most do. When does Politifact choose to rate true statements?

Is there a guide? I’d be happy to repost if there is.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 7, 2019

Her question where she points out that Politifact has fact-checked her the same number of times it has fact-checked Sarah Huckabee Sanders is a excellent question.  Why haven't they fact-checked the statement from Ms Huckabee Sanders regarding 4,000 terrorists entering the U.S. by violating our southern border; a statement which is "pants-on-fire" dishonest?

As to the choices of those engaged in checking fact, regarding which ones they issue ratings on, I go back to an adage from my long-ago days in the news biz.  If it bleeds, it leads.  The statements that are taken up by fact-checkers are those that are newsworthy, controversial, and/or blatantly wrong.

The tweet from Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez about $21 trillion in Pentagon financial transactions that could not be tracked makes it appear that there was $21 trillion lost by the accountants in that famed five-sided building.  That's just wrong.  Total spending on defense by the U.S. since 1940 doesn't total $21 trillion.  In fact, there isn't missing money, there are improperly labeled accounting entries that don't meet proper auditing standards.

$21 trillion is a huge number.  The entire U.S. national debt is currently $21.9 trillion.  When you make a sweeping statement about how this pot of missing money could be used to pay for a program you are advocating for, it is going to garner attention.

There is another factor in play here.  In the two most recent fact-checks of Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez (both after she won the November election), her staff did not respond to an inquiry from Politifact regarding the issue.

The best fact-checking is completely non-partisan, which makes it a nearly impossible task to perform flawlessly.  When the standard is what is and isn't newsworthy, that brings subjective judgment into play.

If you go to the Politifact website, there are three headline items.  The big one is that outgoing Florida Governor Rick Scott kept 50% of his campaign promises.  The two smaller items are showing that Trump's statement about Mexico paying for the wall through the new USCMA trade deal is false, and the other being an analysis of whether or not the House can now force the release of Trump's tax returns.

The extremely high profile of a newly elected member of the U.S. House that Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez enjoys comes with magnifying glass level attention to everything she says and does.  She is remarkably adept at dealing with conservative flack, as she demonstrated by dancing in D.C.  She deserves the same learning curve every other newly elected member of the House gets.  Her approach to acknowledging her mistakes, owning them and moving forward is a very refreshing change from the "deny, deny, lie, lie" mode of the White House.

Was she wrong in her tweet?  Yes.  Did she admit it?  Yes.  I'm giving her a pass on this one.

It would be great to have a fact-checking organization that could be relied upon to be non-partisan, and to fact-check many more statements from politicians without regard to their newsworthiness.  But that doesn't seem feasible.

Soaking the rich

I am a big fan of newly elected Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  One of her recent proposals is to institute a top marginal tax rate of 70%.  It would apply to only those Americans earning more than $10 million per year, and only on that portion of their income in excess of that amount.

A New York Times editorial written by Paul Krugman agrees with the proposal made by Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez.  It is cogent, logical and cites highly regarded economists who are experts in the area of public taxation.  But there is a factor that has been omitted.

That is the concept of effective tax rate.  Not the top marginal rate one is subject to, but what percentage of the income is actually paid in income tax.  We can better understand the concept by looking at the 2011 tax return of Mitt and Ann Romney, which was released during his failed presidential bid in 2012.

The Romneys earned a total of $13,696,951 in 2011 broken down as follows:

$3 million in interest income
$3.6 million in ordinary dividends
$2.2 million in qualified dividends (which is included in the above number)
$450,000 in business income
$6.8 million in capital gains income (all of which were long-term gains)
-$485,000 in other losses
a couple of other small amounts that further reduced their income by $91,000

The top marginal rate in 2011 was 35% and would have applied to all of their income in excess of $380,000.

They were able to claim $4.7 million in itemized deductions (one of those was a deduction for state income taxes paid of $1.3 million and $274,000 of property taxes; the so-called SALT deduction is now capped at $10,000 annually).

Their taxable income was reduced to $9 million.  The tax on that amount was $2,015,346, which was reduced by a credit of $102,790 in taxes they paid to foreign governments.  When you add in the self-employment tax on the business income, their total tax liability was $1,935,708

That's an effective tax rate of only 14.13%.  Why so much lower?

The itemized deductions
The capital gains being taxed at a more favorable rate of only 15%
The qualified dividends being taxed at that same favorable rate of only 15%

The fact is that of the $13.7 million the Romneys earned in 2011, $10.4 million would still be taxed at a lower rate of 20% thanks to the favorable tax rates that continue to be afforded to long-term capital gains and qualified dividends.  No matter how high that top marginal rate.

Congress needs to address the issue of effective tax rates if it is going to generate more tax revenue from the wealthiest Americans.

No, you can't relate

Donald J. Trump says he can relate to government workers who are either furloughed without pay, or being forced to work without pay.

This is one of the most egregious lies he's told in the more than 7,000 that have come out of his mouth since he was inaugurated.  That's because in his twisted mind, his need to find sources to borrow money from to fund his business ventures is the same as someone who cannot pay their rent or buy food because of HIS government shutdown.

CNN spoke to a number of government employees (and a few of their spouses) about what they are having to do.

A Coast Guard wife talked about how she considered returning her son's Christmas gifts.

A woman who was furloughed from her job at HUD talked about how she has to worry every day about if there is enough food in her house.

A man who has worked for the TSA for six years says that his family will run out of money at the end of January and the family's house could be lost.

A woman who is a contract employee as a janitor at the Department of Agriculture is furloughed and because she is a contract workers, she won't be paid for the missed hours at all.  She is 71 and needs the money from her contract job to make ends meet.

Then there is the irony of what is going on at federal prisons.  At the Allenwood Federal Prison complex in Pennsylvania, January 4th was payday.  For the inmates.  Not for their guards.  800 of the 850 corrections officers who work at Allenwood are working without pay during the shutdown.  The other 50 are being paid because the funding for their salaries was part of the federal budget that was passed into law in the other appropriations bills.

Donald Trump cannot relate to the problems HIS shutdown is causing the hundreds of thousands of families where someone has been furloughed or is working without pay.

* * *

Ellen DeGeneres is an icon.  A person who broke through barriers.  An extraordinary talent on multiple levels.  I'm a fan.

But she is not the spokesperson for the entirety of the LGBTQ community.  I have no issue with her decision to call the Academy and advocate for giving the hosting gig back to Kevin Hart.

I do have an issue with her summarily dismissing those who are critical of the past comments of Kevin Hart as "haters and trolls."  That's just not the case.  Here are just some of the responses to Ellen.

Very disappointed in @TheEllenShow I’m sorry but I’m not down with this. News flash @KevinHart4real it’s not trolls. It’s the public and your apology was not enough. Thank you @MeghanMcCain for speaking the truth #Ellen #KevinHart

— 🌈Robbi Roberts🔥 (@RobynJRoberts1) January 4, 2019

I’m sorry Ellen, but this ain’t it.

He didn’t apologize! This is a perfect example of 1 major problem within the black community. Persecuting and attacking black men who are a part of the LGBT community. I don’t forgive him. And it’s sad that you described them simply as trolls

— Sāvion (@SavionWright) January 4, 2019

I get what this segment is.
Kevin Hart getting Rehab’ed by a Gay friend and Ellen trying to tell the Academy she doesn’t want to host & to beg Kevin to jump back in.
All while dissing us as trolls & haters for daring to bring up a part of his act that keeps kids in the closet.

— Kevin D. Grüssing (Pronounced Grew-Sing) (@KevDGrussing) January 4, 2019

You insulted me @TheEllenShow when you said those who strongly criticised #KevinHart were #trolls and #Haters I'm a gay man, I was hurt by his repeated homophobic comments & he NEVER truly apologised. You can defend who you want but don't call us haters when we ask for integrity pic.twitter.com/CISJ3H1hoy

— Edd (@Edmatogo) January 4, 2019

The experience of every member of a community is unique.  LGBTQ is a very broad group and no one individual is fully cognizant of the reality of the experiences of every member of that community.  Everyone in that community is unique because they are not just LGBTQ.  They are men, women, of different races, socio-economic grouping and so on.

Ellen's life experience is not the same as that of Wanda Sykes or Robin Roberts.  Or that of Lee Daniels or Jason Collins.

Her tweet in response to the backlash is here:

However you feel about this, the only positive way through it is to talk about it. Thank you for being here, @KevinHart4real. ❤️ pic.twitter.com/FVKZ6FIQAx

— Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) January 4, 2019

She is right.  We need to keep talking.  Without dismissing people who feel they have a legitimate grievance as "haters and trolls."

Trump's shutdown (yes, it is his shutdown) could seriously damage the economy.

#DishonestDonnie loves to talk about the U.S. economy and how wonderful he's made it.  Like most of what comes out of his mouth, that claim is a lie at worst and misleading at best.  The longer this Trump shutdown goes on, the risk of doing serious damage to that economy grows exponentially.  Why?  Because these won't be issued:

In reality, most federal income tax refunds are not paper checks but are directly deposited into bank accounts.  As WaPo points out, last year the IRS issued $147.6 billion in refunds between late January and March 2nd of last year.

The IRS does not issue refunds, or perform audits while in shutdown mode.  Add to that the complications created by the changes to the tax laws instituted by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, and this is a quagmire in the making.

To be fair, refunds that involve refundable credits (the Additional Child Tax Credit, the Earned Income Tax Credit and the American Opportunity Tax Credit) may be delayed and not issued before February 15th.  If they can resolve this shutdown in short order, refunds might not be delayed at all.

But the negative impact of over $140 billion that normally flows into the economy in a six to seven week period should not underestimated.  The harm this will do to the tens of thousands of households that rely on this injection of a significant tax refund into their coffers will be serious.

As long as #DishonestDonnie insists on "Wall or Nothing" we are in danger of doing serious economic damage to our nation.

Something to think about

After the presidential election of 2016, I wrote a blog with some post-election ponderings.  Now that Senator Elizabeth Warren has made a formal announcement that puts her on the path to be a candidate to be the 2020 Democratic Party presidential nominee, it is time to go back and look at a few things.  One of them is contained in this chart that was created right after the election.

The updated vote tallies for 2016 in the popular vote were:

Clinton - 65,853,614

Trump - 62, 984,828

But here are the more important numbers.  Voter turnout by eligible voters in those election years:

1992 - 55.2%

1996 - 55.2%

2000 - 49.0%

2004 - 50.3%

2008 - 55.7%

2012 - 54.9%

2016 - 55.5%

Like it or not, in the last three presidential elections, the turnout by Republicans has increased while the turnout by Democrats has decreased.  While the turnout in key states is of greater import because of the flawed Electoral College system, getting people to vote is the key to winning in 2020.  No matter who the nominee is.

The 2018 midterm elections show that this is definitely doable.  Right after that election, NPR reported that more than 47% of eligible voters cast a ballot.  Factor in the voter suppression efforts of Republicans and that number is even more impressive.  It was the highest turnout for a midterm since 1966.

The path to victory in 2020 will take:

1.  A concerted effort to increase voter registration among Democrats, everywhere.

2.  Working to identify and defeat voter suppression efforts.

3.  Making sure that we get those voters to the polls.

4.  Protecting the security of the absentee ballot process from things like this.