The Weakest Anti-Tax Argument

There are a lot of bad reasons for cutting taxes — and some good reasons for some tax cuts — but few of the anti-tax cut arguments made in Minnesota today are as weak as the tax flight argument.  Much has been written debunking the Tax Flight Myth, but it persists, perhaps because sound economic reasons don’t fit our current fiscal situation.

Leave the technical arguments to the experts which, of course, will mean nothing to the anti-tax folks anyway.  So I will focus on the absurdity of the Tax Flight argument and point out why it really isn’t a persuasive one in smart tax circles.

If the argument is going to be persuasive, there needs to be some sort of advantage or gain in the argument.  The Tax Flight people seem to think people will take their side of the argument because they don’t want them to leave.  I think that’s a weak argument.

People who support fair tax policy, community investment, and a smart government might hope this rhetoric isn’t a threat but rather a promise.  After all, if you want to fix government and resolve problematic funding issues do you want anti-tax takers getting in the way?  Probably not.  South Dakota is waiting and you’re free to leave.

But let’s hope they don’t leave too soon.  Watching the anti-tax crowd get all puffed up and threaten to leave is kind of fun in the way that listening to a petulant brat threatening to run away from home is fun.  It’s almost cute.

We could do what smug parents do and offer to pack the suit case, but I think a better approach — one that is both good for the state’s bottom line and like a good kick in the ass as they leave — would be a tax on interstate moving services. I don’t know…30% on interstate moving contracts seems like a good sting.

How about a tax on home sales not reinvested in the state?  Now there is a good idea!

Of course this isn’t a good idea and I am only being flippant, but it is a fun idea, at least when you think about sticking it to anti-tax hysteria.  It wouldn’t really wouldn’t do much anyway.  Even if you could tax people moving for tax purposes, it wouldn’t amount to much.  Tax flight isn’t a big deal.

People want to live in places with a high quality of living just as people choose to live in better neighborhoods.  Places with a high quality of living require support, including smart public investment.  It is one thing to say you don’t like taxes.  It is another to understand how your taxes are being invested.  In an era of reckless public disinvestment and chronic underfunding of government, it isn’t clear to me that many anti-taxers understand the benefits of fair tax policy and adequate public funding of state services in the first place.  And that is at the heart of the problem.

Taxes are not inherently bad, but how we raise taxes and how we manage revenues has become a mess.  It is a wicked brew of favors, incentives, and transfers increasingly skewing away from the common good and toward special interests.  A simple, progressive income tax — combined with business tax parity — can keep the state economically competitive and fund government services.  The system also needs property tax reform that finds a balance which will restores stronger state-funded local government aid.

Grown ups discuss things like this.  Children threaten to run away from home.

Monday in Linden Hills

I am on holiday and I am spending it close to home.   A good choice.  The afternoon weather has turned a bit overcast, but it doesn’t feel like heavy weather.  That’s almost a disappointment, actually.

I have the propensity to rally behind over-the-top weather.  If we’re experiencing a streak of snowy weather, I want more snow.   Heavy rain?  Why not some more?  Let’s go for a record.  Same for bitter cold, high winds, wild thunderstorms (a favorite), and dense fog.  Make it something to talk about.  That weather is best.

There’s something exciting about extremes.  In fact, other than stretches of heat, sunshine, and drought, I like extreme weather streaks.  And I only find heat and sunshine uninteresting because I lived in Tempe, Arizona, for ten years.  Droughts simply are not a good idea unless you live in a desert.

When I see the last bands of persistent heavy rain disappearing from a weather radar with only clear skies behind, I feel disappointed, almost a sense of loneliness.  So I hope for maybe just one more deluge before things calmer, more tepid days return.  Maybe some lightning and thunder, too.

Until then today has been nothing less than a decent one away from work.

Should I tell you about my walk in the woods?  Why not.

I notice from time to time deer tracks that appear to show a deer dragging a leg a little.  I have seen this before, not just recently, so I wonder if it is a way deer walk.  I doubt it.  More likely one of the deer is somewhat lame.  Although it is more common to see this dragging print in the snow.  Perhaps deer just get a little lazy and shuffle along like a bored kid impatiently trailing behind busy parents.

Not a warbler. It’s a cardinal.

The birds were out and so were the birders.  I chatted with two.  The first birder told me he was watching some sort of warbler.  I just nodded, pretending to know exactly what he was talking about.  He also corrected my owl identification.  I have been seeing — and hearing — barred owls, not great horned owls.  Although I do know for a fact that I have spotted great horned owls more than once in the woods and heard them in the back yard.

I took quite a few photos.  My camera works great!  But I need a tripod.  When on deep zoom, my ability to steady the camera doesn’t last long and with uncooperative birds that is proving to be a problem.  Still, I get a semi-decent picture from time to time.  As they say, even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.

Going down the trail I noticed some bright white stuff on the ground beneath a tree.  I got excited.  It looked like egg shells.  Here was my chance, I thought, to find a hidden nest and earn some birder bragging rights.  Surely above these broken fragments of egg shell there was something special.  The pieces looked large, like potato chips. But no nest.  It made no sense until I got closer and saw that my discovery was a torn up styrofoam cup.

Barred Owl

Nonetheless, I think my instincts and logic deserve a compliment.  It could have been what I thought it was.

The second birder I encountered had a camera bigger than some beer coolers I own.  He had a tripod out of simple necessity.  (Have you ever tried to hold a beer cooler steady?  It isn’t easy.)  He told me he was photographing some bird nesting in a hollow tree.  Instinctively he seemed to know that the species would be irrelevant to me.

I did show him a couple of my pictures, however, and he seemed to be more than polite about them.  Feeling smug and chatty, in the whispering birder sort of way, I also commented on the “morning” warblers I learned about from the other birder.   When I came home and looked them up in my bird guide, I discovered they are mourning warblers.  I suspect the guy with the giant camera wouldn’t have noticed my mistake.

I do have a Sibley Guide to birds.  It is great, however I can’t really carry that in my back pocket.  I am thinking of getting a field guide, but I’m not sure if I really have the patience to stop and look up a bird.  And none of the serious birders seem to have a guide stuck in a back pocket.   I don’t want to look like a dork.

I wonder if I should get a photojournalist’s vest instead.

I’m not sure how I will finish my holiday.  Perhaps I will find time to embark on my Big Ambition.  I should probably check in at the bar, however, and make sure nothing has changed.  And I do have a couple clients I want to call.  Strangely, I tend to like making calls on my days off.  Those calls seem so unworklike.  I like that.

Whatever it is, I have to decide soon.  The afternoon is running fast and I have a very acute obsession with time, recently, especially the lack of it.  That Big Ambition can wait no longer.  To make something of a high art reference, these are indeed the days of our lives.

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Linden Hills Celebrity

Several days ago, I eavesdropped on a conversation at a local coffee shop between a realtor and an older couple.  She was trying to convince them to reconsider a house in my neighborhood.  The couple, however, was set on looking at other homes in an adjoining Edina neighborhood.

The realtor persisted, selling the neighborhood more than the house.  Obviously a couple that thought too highly of ever-striving Edina.

The realtor didn’t let up.  In a last ditch, allmost exasperated effort, she described Linden Hills as a highly educated, high-income celebrity neighborhood.  And that made a difference — to me, at least — it made me ask:  Why aren’t I a celebrity?

Quite a preoccupation, one burdened with deep responsibility.  But first, ff I am going to be a celebrity, I need to come up with something to do.  A guy definitely doesn’t want to become an accidental celebrity.  Even being Steve Harvey is better than being an accident.  No, you want to be in control of celebrity.  So I am seeking answers.

What shall I do?  I am open, however there are some restrictions.  First, I don’t want to be recognized as much as known.  I will only appear on The Charlie Rose Show.  And I will not be the Grand Marshall in any parade as a favor to an ex-wife or ex-girlfriend.  Other than that, what have you got?

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Science Fiction is Made of This Stuff

In my experience, Republicans are not very smart or sophisticated, certainly not funny. It’s probably a fart joke.

Topsy-turvy world.  I wake up and my computer — the one that never holds a charge for more than 30 minutes —  is running, almost fully charged, and unplugged.  That is big news.  And very strange.  I expect a wife I don’t know to tell me breakfast is almost ready and see a bunch of cute, well-behaved kids quietly waiting for waffles in the dining room.

Alas, life is different, much less complicated, and feeling very much like it usually does this morning.  Certainly the computer working is strange, but I don’t ask metaphysical questions when things work in my favor.  Maybe the universe is paying me back for yesterday.  I was a good guy yesterday.

If generosity gives good karma, I have a little karma in the bank.  I am not sure what happened, but I felt giving yesterday.  I held open doors, gave up a cab, bought drinks, and handed out cash on whim.  I even thought about giving an old girlfriend or two a call.  I gave a pair of swindlers five bucks instead.

Later last night, I got one of my cab drivers to open up and start talking.  His wife is a nursing student at the University of Minnesota.  He and she work two jobs each.  (If you don’t live in a four-income family, that should make you think.)  He talked about was how exciting it is seeing her get a degree.  He said his wife feels so fortunate she cries and they laugh and they close their eyes and hope it will all really work out.   I felt alive simply listening to his happiness.  I gave him a tip on my fare plus $20.  It was worth many times that, but I am not a rich man.

When he thanked me he said most people are not friendly to him.  He said being an immigrant to the United States is very hard.  People are not nice.  He said it reassured him when he met a nice man.  Like me.  That made me feel really good.  Thank you.  Little gestures matter.  Remember that.

We’re all foreigners here, by the way.  Maybe being “a foreigner” is a hazing ritual.  Perhaps that’s it.  But bigotry and paranoia drive me nuts.

So then I ran into a couple ladies on the corner of Lake and Hennepin.  Somalis.  I gave them each five dollars.  And guess what.  They were offended!

Of course timing is everything.  I guess I understand why they were offended.  They probably thought I was a patronizing white guy shivering in the cold and had lost my mind, which is all true.  My gesture was out of context and probably inappropriate.  But I didn’t care then and just let it be.  I suppose I was set on making friends even if it meant offending people.  They bitterly took the gift and turned their backs to me.  It is part of the hazing ritual.  I’ll learn.

My twenty minutes is almost up.  Time to get on to other things.

I’m still waiting for the doting wife to tell me she and the kids are ready for breakfast.  If karma exists she’s wearing tight leopard-print capris and the kids are eager to go play in the yard.

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Because My House is Haunted…

I’m convinced my place is haunted.  No real big deal there and I don’t mean to sound all cavalier and cool about it but no big deal there.  Most places where I have taken up residence for more than a few months comes around to being haunted.  Usually it is just bump in the night kind of stuff, but I’m sure it is only a matter of time until I finally catch one of the little buggers in the other room nibbling on a doughnut.

Oh, how badly I miss my cat.  Klick Klack Kitty Cat feared nothing, except lightning and loud noises.  In fact, Klick Klack would get ornery an hour before a storm, giving that glaring “if you don’t do something I am not going to be happy” look I knew only too well.  But it took only one nearby lightning strike and an explosion of thunder and that cat disappeared like a genie in a bottle.  I never figured out where she went…or how she got there, literally in a flash.  (I really believe she disappeared, angry and disappointed.  And don’t we all have a little taste of that in our life?)

Other than that, Klick Klack Kitty Cat backed down to nothing.

Spooky

Cats, being supernatural beings, offer special guidance in things spooked, haunted, and unexplained   I always felt a little comfort having Klick Klack Kitty Cat nearby at night.

A stalwart negotiator, that cat, she simply stood her ground until she got her way.  Tonight, alas, Klick Klack chases birds in Paradise, having crossed over to the other side — permanently this time  a few years ago — and I am left behind to look after myself.

I’m especially tuned into the hauntings tonight because I wrecked my headphones, or at least the wire connecting the phones to a jack that gets plugged into my sound-making device.  The headphones were shorting out and I thought the best thing I could do was to pull apart some wires so I could get a look at the problem.  That’s when I remembered — too late — that modern gadgets aren’t designed to be repaired.  They’re designed to be replaced.  Now mine needs to be replaced.  A new cable plug in thing probably will cost me twelve bucks…

Ok, wait…Bring it back.  What the hell was I talking about?  The hauntings.  Focus on the hauntings.  Yes, I know headphones and all of this make little sense together, but hauntings don’t make much sense either.  Read on.

Perdita clears the cobwebs around here.

So as I was saying — or at least trying to say until I got distracted — an hour doesn’t go by without a boom or a crack or the sound of spilling glass pouring from an empty corner of the house.  Remaining focused is a challenge.  And I am getting jumpy.

And outside — oh, outside, what a scary place that is — thousands of sleepless birds — gulls, probably — gather in large rafts, bacchanal style, on the lake and really put an eerie, doom-is-looming touch to things.  Really quite creepy, especially when I think I hear something rummaging through my saltines.

No, no rodents.  No signs of them.  And I don’t expect it.  I really suspect that what I have here are little buggers.  You know, a clan of hobbits or maybe an incubus or two.  I’d prefer a sprite — what was Tinkerbell? — but I think I have buggers.

A teacher once scolded me, telling me “bugger” wasn’t a nice thing to say.  So I had to look it up.  (He was right.)

You know…no rodents, noises in the kitchen, invisible things falling in the night…could it be Klick Klack Kitty Cat, that furry prankster, visiting from the other side having a little fun?  Probably payback for the family Christmas pictures I took each year…

One of these nights — I know it is going to happen because I am taunting them (they must read my blog) — a shimmering milky plasma will call my name from the other room and then it is game over.   I’ll shiver like a school girl, teeth clattering under my sheets, and pray for an early dawn.

Hell, that sounds a lot like last night!

You know, I once knew a woman in Arizona.  She told me she had an aunt named Perdition.  I wonder if that was true.  Perdita I could accept.  Perdition seems like a cruelty.  But families get big in Arizona, especially Mesa.  Sooner or later someone will insist only Perdition could be suitable.

I knew another woman once.  She should have been named Hell on Fire, but she wasn’t.  Or Chop Sissy.  I like Chop Sissy.  It fits somehow, but Hell on Fire isn’t far from the mark certainly.

How much time do I have left?  Not much.  And I do appreciate you staying with me this long.  (You must value your time poorly.)  So now as the sands run thin and the night turns past the midnight hour, let’s complete the lead.

Because my house is haunted, I plan to have an old Scottish poem drawn in some suitable manner so I can frame it and place it on a wall in my bedroom.  And here it is:

From ghoulies and ghosties
And long-leggedy beasties
And things that go bump in the night
Good Lord, deliver us!

Isn’t that delightful?  It is a must have for me and I think I know just the guy to draw it up for me, too.  My friend Scott Seekins is that guy.  Something dark, moody, with a touch of Gothic or Victorian…hmm, what to call it?…let’s call it dark innocence.

Damn, did you hear that?  Something just crashed in the other room!  Probably just a pad of paper blown off the table.  Or maybe a ghost.  Good Lord, deliver us!  Or deliver me, at least.

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Maybe It Is the Weather

I don’t seem to be getting much done and what I am doing doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense.  I am reading a volume of Tacitus, for example, only because it happened to be available at my bookstore recently.  And when I am not doing that I am watching British period dramas featuring Joanne Froggatt.  Seems like such an odd mix of pre-occupations.

Maybe it is the weather.

I am a bad weather kind of guy.  If you cannot be a bad boy, be a bad weather boy.  I love the cold wet winds and heavy grey skies.  But maybe we’re getting just just a bit too much of it this spring.

Several days ago I took myself for a walk, an irresponsible absence from my day job, and composed a long and clever post about outdoor photography.  I never posted it.  I never finished it.  In fact — to tell the truth — I never started it.  I just took many pictures, pictures begging for attention and explanation.  Self-portraits, maybe, and each was more or less the same.

Interesting.

Even now I am writing only because I feel like I should…something about guilt, I think, and a sense of responsibility.  Plus I want a chance to admire a hat.  (See hat to left.  Where does a guy get a hat like Lord Grantham’s hat?)

And that’s all I can muster right now.

I cannot even pick on Republicans — as easy as that is — the fun isn’t in it for me now.  Besides some people do it so much better, proving that irony is nothing but a matter of perception if not perspective.  And no one wants to go to the bar with me.  That’s odd, I think.  Who could have anticipated that other people might enjoy my sober self more than myself?  Odd and dull.  Responsible, too.

So I take my found time and day dream of riding a bicycle down a Yorkshire lane.  It has to be the weather, hasn’t it?

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Jason Lewis, Take a Tip from Phil Mickleson.

Jason Lewis’s most recent short-sighted diatribe published Sunday in the Star Tribune starts with a quote from Phil Mickelson in which the golfer threatens to leave California for tax reasons.  My first reaction is who cares?  Leave.  My second is what’s holding Jason back?  I am sure Tennessee, Texas, or Wyoming would welcome the blabbermouth eagerly.

Hey Texas! Do you want this guy?

States with relatively higher income tax rates do quite well attracting high-income, highly educated individuals and businesses.  California and New York, for example, don’t struggle to retain economically successful people regardless of what the Phil Mickleson’s of the world choose to do.

Moreover Democrats are not out to “punish,” “confiscate,” or “loot” the incomes of high earners as Lewis tastelessly claims.  Rather Democrats propose thoughtful long-term solutions to chronic policies of underfunding government programs and facilities.  These investments sustain economic security and a higher quality of life for all, rich and poor alike, which in turn attracts more talent and private investment. The nation’s economic power houses are in places like California and New York, not Tennessee and Wyoming.

In fact, only about 5% of small business owners would be impacted by Governor Mark Dayton‘s proposed marginal tax increase on top earners.

As usual, Lewis’s column is loaded with misleading references to small business, taxes, and high income earners.  He automatically connects taxes to harm for these groups and implies that higher taxes will persuade “job creators” to leave Minnesota.  People who really create jobs will leave when they cannot find or attract skilled workers, especially in a future that likely will rely more on skilled labor and intellectual capital.

Taxes are necessary.  However, tax policy should both be fair and responsible.  No one suggests that taxes don’t have economic impact and can harm economic growth, but lower taxes don’t always bring coinciding economic benefit, especially in the long term.

Even Arthur Laffer — a well-known economist cited by Lewis in Sunday’s column seemingly as support for his anti-tax arguments — recognizes that decreased tax rates don’t automatically result in broader growth.  Taxes fund programs essential to economic growth as well as programs that indirectly support economic security.

People are free to move and live where they choose in the United States.  Perhaps if we had fewer drags like Lewis around we would have less trouble achieving again what Minnesota once was, a smart, fiscally responsible state that thrived, not a dysfunctional state plagued with bellyachers.

How Business Ate My Brain

Listen to any politician or public policy wonk and you hear strong, unbroken business first rhetoric.  In fact if you think Citizens United is strange for essentially elevating corporations to citizen status, listen to politicians.  One would be forgiven to think that government represents business first, people second.

Has it always been this way?

In Minnesota some people want to slow down and take a look at sand mining operations developing primarily in the state’s southeastern counties.  Sand is used in frac mining — another business-first juggernaut that might need scrutiny — and there is a lot of sand miners need in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Some people living in those areas want development to slow down, primarily to study impact on the environment and the local economy.

But you will hear politicians push back.  They don’t want the business to go elsewhere.

Frac Sand Mine near LaCrosse, WI.

Well, what if it might be preferable for that business to go elsewhere?  Suppose the frac sand mining operations cause long-term harm that outweighs short-term gain, for example?

Well, maybe, but the Business Zombies don’t give those possibilities much of a chance.  As quickly as a pragmatic argument like that emerges, it is chomped down by the Business Zombies.

This is just one example.  We could consider many others, like frac mining itself.  From the mad sweep to deregulate industry to dismantling pro-(domestic) business trade policy to enthusiastic tax giveaways, it is all done in the name of business.

On the other end we no longer find the political will to fund important social contracts that serve people, programs like Medicare and Social Security; we compromise our environmental protection laws; we cut funding for schools; we support unbalanced tax policies that hurt families; and the list goes on.

Why?  Because the Business Zombies have taken over.  Government of business, by business, for business…especially if you’re a multinational, tax-evading, increasingly foreign-owned business.  Domestic business?  Well, you have had your chance.  Quietly go away.

I understand the importance of business and jobs, but business and jobs don’t preclude some thoughtful commonsense.  The fear of being marked as anti-business in this country leads to too many things happening too recklessly.  Everything is put into a context that business means everything.  It doesn’t.  If a business destroys the land, ruins the local economy, and shifts long-term priorities away from people, that’s a bad thing.  The costs are too high.

Where is the harm in asking whether something good for business is bad for people?

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Anything is Possible Week: Day Two

Aspire!

When I declared this “Anything is Possible Week,” I guess I thought I might be setting the week up for something special.  Maybe it’s the word “anything” that tripped me up.  Put “anything” with “possible” and you start to think “different” and maybe even expect “exceptional.”

So far, I hate to say, “anything” has meant neither anything different or exceptional.

Nevertheless, I will say that Day Two shows improvement over Day One however.  We actually got a thing or two accomplished.  (Imagine that.)  And I enjoyed driving around town.  Plenty of time to think.

And that got me wondering…Do my clients think?

I deal with a lot of small business owners and…well…while I love them, I worry.  (Boy, do I worry.)  I have my theories explaining why I think many people get into business for themself, but they are not very flattering theories.  (Unable to work with others, maybe?  I won’t say.)  Nevertheless, for a group of people you would expect to be smart planners and polished professionals, the  best advice I have is don’t set expectations too high.

If fact I started writing about dealing with these clients and lost my enthusiasm for it almost from the moment the idea popped into my head  I plodded on anyway and that only made things worse.  If I was getting bored writing about it, I can imagine how painful it would be if — and that’s a big if – you read it.

Hollow Suffering (Photo credit: Cayusa)

So, I don’t know…A day doesn’t go by when I don’t scratch my head trying to sort it out.  (The worrisome “what the fuck am I doing” moments.)  These really aren’t Willy Loman experiences, but frustrating nonetheless.

When I look across the table in a meeting, often I see…well, I see nothing.  Staying awake is the goal.  Simple concepts like return on investment mean nothing.  Figuring margins is impossible.  Keeping a budget…forget about it.  But the most frustrating thing I experience dealing with small business owners is the inability to make a decision.

I start looking for an out, unless something interesting is going on in the office.  That doesn’t happen often, but it happens.  Offices with animals offer the most promise for this when things fall apart.  Making faces at cats and dogs when the business owner isn’t looking, for example, relieves a lot of impatient anxiety.  The dogs and cats seem to like it, too.  At least the dogs do.  And so do I.

Plus it is amazing what you can learn from meeting a wide variety of people every day.  It is amazing, too, to see how much social stamina you can build over time in those less-than-stimulating experiences, as in “I am going to stay for ten more minutes and not kill anyone.”  It is like practicing holding your breath.  Over time, endurance increases.

And like breaking the surface after holding your breath underwater, escaping a suffocating office can feel as exhilarating as a jail break, without the hassle of deputies chasing you, of course.  When I eventually break away, I count my good fortune — “Thank god I don’t work there!”– and move on.

It’s a lot of fun, actually.

Have you found your nut today?

Every so often making a sale is a good idea, however, and today I turned a few clients toward the light and got signatures, long overdue signatures.  In this way, I proved once again that every so often even a blind squirrel finds a nut and it really is true, anything is possible.

And, please, please, tolerate me…there are many very smart, polished and enjoyable business owners out there with whom I get to work with every day — and you know who you are, don’t you, superstar! — but if the world were all superstardom, being great would merely be being average.  Isn’t that right?  We strive for more than average, dear reader!  I need the flops for context and it takes a special breed (me) to deal with them.

Such is Day Two.

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Anything is Possible Week: Day One

To recap, this week is Anything is Possible Week.  Remember?  You do if you follow this blog as closely as you should.  And today is Day One of Anything is Possible Week.

Today also happens to be Monday.

If you follow this blog, you’re likely smarter than most and so you already know you shouldn’t expect much from Monday.  Today, Monday lived up to expectation.  Let’s just leave it at that.

Oh, I did get to Target today.

Tune in tomorrow.

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