Having Lived in Arizona, I Vote Yes

Pima County in southern Arizona — home to the liberal Tucson area — wants to secede from the state. This is an opportunity for a true win/win situation, so I vote yes. Let’s give the nanny-state liberals the opportunity  to create their utopia and then live with the consequences of their leftist policies.

Meantime, we limited government conservatives will provide citizens with core essential services and a safety net to help those who can’t help themselves. Then we’ll see who comes running for help.

To see how North Carolina can provide core services, a safety net, and tax relief, check out this report.

It’s not ‘welfare fraud’ anymore

I was interested to see in a story in The News & Observer this morning that welfare fraud apparently does not exist anymore (my emphasis added):

From the U.S. Postal Service to Facebook, county investigators are using a full range of tools to detect entitlement fraud – including almost $1 million in the past year.

Nonsensical decisions like this by editors and copy editors have always fascinated me. Nobody’s fooled by this. Welfare fraud is what it’s always been: welfare fraud.

It’s a term everyone knows and understands. Why change it and risk destroying that immediate understanding? Probably because someone called the newsroom and said they were offended. That’s all it takes these days. That is, unless you’re a conservative group, in which case the most derogatory term will suffice.

The Real-World Impact of Taxes

In his Daily Journal, John Hood explains why paying any tax is a big deal that has long-term consequences.  And right now, as state budget writers put together a budget plan, it’s important to compare the impact of the tax policies imbedded in the recently passed N.C. House budget and in Gov. Perdue’s plan.

• Tax policies associated with the House budget plan will create 14,000 private-sector jobs in 2012 and 16,000 in 2013. Subtract the 7,000 public-sector layoffslikely to result from the budget, and the Republican plan is a net job creator.

• The tax policies associated with the Perdue budget plan will create about 3,000 private-sector jobs next year, which is about the same number as the public-sector layoffs in her plan. The Perdue plan is not a net job creator.

• The House’s individual income tax and sales tax changes would increase real disposable income by $1 billion million in 2012 and $1.5 billion in 2013. The corporate income tax changes would reduce the tax burden on capital investments. As a result, both local and out-of-state businesses would find investment more attractive in North Carolina. Private investment will increase by just over $600 million in 2012, increasing to $1 billion in 2013.