‘Fort Hood attack was not anomaly,’ lawmaker contends at Hill hearing
RUSH: This was an attack on the Second
Amendment. The purpose of this was to have it all go wrong, have American guns,
because they’re so widely available, “You can go into any gun store in
America and buy an assault rifle,” quote, unquote, end up owned by Mexican
drug lords. (gasp) We were supposed to be so appalled and outraged by that that
the American people would clamor for gun control. That’s what they were trying
to do. Nobody’s gonna ever convince me otherwise.
December 7, 2011 4:34 P.M.
By Raymond J. Keating
Dead last among the states. Nobody is worse.
What am I talking about? Among the 50 states, New York ranks at the very bottom on the just-published
2011 “Small Business Survival Index.”
(Only the District of Columbia ranks worse.) Indeed, it’s hard to survive,
never mind thrive, as a small business in the once-Empire State, overwhelmingly
due to constant heavy attacks by policymakers.
And given the latest deal served up by Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo, the
Democratic leadership in the state assembly, and Republican leaders in the
state senate, New York appears ready to stay at the bottom for some time.
The “Small Business Survival Index,” which I author for the Small Business &
Entrepreneurship Council, ranks the 50 states and the District of Columbia
according to their public-policy climates for entrepreneurship, small business,
and investment. This year’s index has been expanded to include 44 different measures
covering the broad areas of taxes, regulation, energy costs, health-insurance
mandates, government spending and employment, state liability systems,
education reforms, and property rights and protections. It is the most
comprehensive ranking of the states in terms of policies affecting
entrepreneurs and investors, and therefore the economy and job creation.
So, what about New York? First, tiny positives can be detected even when ranking
last. For example, the state’s crime rate is low, and interestingly, its
unemployment tax is comparatively low. But the good news pretty much ends
there.
The negatives, in contrast, are overwhelming. For example, New York imposes high
taxes on personal income, individual capital gains, corporate income, and
corporate capital gains. These send clear signals to businesses and investors
to build, invest, and create jobs somewhere else. The state piles on with high
property taxes just to make sure businesses and individuals cannot afford to
stay and have no reason to come here.
It’s also pricier in New York to fill up the gas tank or use a cell phone, due to
very high gas and diesel taxes and high wireless taxes. Indeed, consumption
taxes are relatively high in general.
Unfortunately, there’s still more on the tax front. The state’s death tax helps to send family
businesses, investors, and retirees packing for less costly climates.
And it’s not just the federal government that imposes alternative minimum taxes on
individuals and businesses. New York does as well, raising tax compliance costs
and diminishing the impact of any positive incentives that might be included in
the tax code.
On the regulatory front, New York likes to impose mandates on health-insurance
companies. While that might feel good to the politicians, it means increased
health-insurance costs for businesses and individuals. At the same time, New
York has poor private property protections, leaving small businesses and
homeowners open to eminent-domain abuse by politicians and various special
interests.
Naturally, high taxes in the end are about the size of government. Predictably, New York
has a high level of per capita state and local government spending, a large
number of state and local government employees, and the second-highest level of
state and local government debt.
To sum up, the index makes clear that New York is a big government mess. So, what
was the deal just agreed to in Albany? The highest income-tax rate on
upper-income earners is set to expire at the end of this month, dropping the
top individual income and capital-gains tax rate from 8.97 percent to 6.85
percent. But political leaders have agreed to setting the top tax rate for
those topping $2 million in earnings at 8.82 percent, while offering tiny token
cuts for low- and middle-income earners.
Quite simply, higher tax rates on upper incomes mean higher taxes on the
entrepreneurs and investors needed to get New York’s economy moving. Will New
York’s economy really be better off by trying to suck more resources out of the
private sector so elected officials can dole out bigger bucks according to
their political preferences? Of course not. After all, it hasn’t been working
so well for the state so far.
But New York politicians seem to be immune to sound economics. Instead, it’s all
about class warfare and big government. The rest of the nation can learn what
not to do by watching New York’s elected officials operate.
— Raymond J. Keating,
a New York resident, is chief economist of the Small Business &
Entrepreneurship Council and author of a new book titled “Chuck” vs. the Business World:
Business Tips on TV.
December 6, 2011 8:39 A.M.
By Steven W. Mosher
“There is such a thing as too many daughters, but not
too many sons,” Dr. Sunita Puri was told by the Asian-Indian women she was
interviewing.
The physician, who practices in the Bay Area, wanted to find out why so many
immigrant Indian women in the United States were so eager to find out the sex
of their unborn children, and why so many of them choose abortion when they
found out they were carrying a girl.
What she discovered over the course of 65 interviews conducted over several
years profoundly shocked her. Fully 89 percent of the women carrying girls
opted for an abortion, and nearly half had previously aborted girls.
Puri’s report, published in Social Science and Medicine this last
April, makes for grim reading. Women told Puri of their guilt over their
sex-selection abortions, how they felt that they were unable to “save” their
daughters. Even the women who turned out to be carrying boys this time around
could not shake their remorse over having earlier aborted daughters in this
deadly game of reproductive roulette.
They also made clear that they were not free actors when it came to
reproductive “choice.” Many, when it was learned that they were carrying girls,
became the victims of family violence. Some — in an effort to make them
miscarry — had been slapped and shoved around by angry husbands and in-laws, or
even kicked in the stomach. Others were denied food, water, and rest in order
to coerce them into aborting their unwanted girl babies.
Whether such brutality is common is an open question. That sex-selective
abortion is widely practiced among certain Asian-American communities is not.
Jason Abrevaya of the University of Texas analyzed U.S. birth data and found
unusually high boy-birth percentages after 1980 among later children (most
notably third and fourth children) born to Chinese and Asian-Indian mothers.
Moreover, using maternally linked data from California, he found that
Asian-Indian mothers are significantly more likely both to have a terminated
pregnancy and to give birth to a son when they have previously only given birth
to girls.
Columbia University economists Douglas Almond and Lena Edlund also found
clear evidence of sex-selective abortions in what they called “son-biased sex
ratios,” that is, a higher ratio of boys to girls than would occur in nature.
Looking at the sex ratio at birth among U.S.-born children of Chinese, Korean,
and Asian-Indian parents, they found that first-borns showed normal sex ratios
at birth. But if the first child was a girl, the sex ratio jumped to 117, and
if the first two children were girls, then the sex ratio jumped to 151. That is
to say, for every 151 boys, there were only 100 hundred surviving girls. The
rest had been eliminated.
This is not just misogyny; it is misogyny that kills.
Racism kills as well, to judge from the fact that the abortion rate among
blacks is about five times higher than the American average. Blacks are only 12
percent of the population but have 37 percent of the abortions. This suggests
that their abortions, too, are more than just a matter of personal choice.
We have been told by the self-described “pro-choice” movement that women who
go in for abortions do so because they (not their husbands, in-laws,
or kinship group) have decided not to continue their pregnancies. If this turns
out not to be true, and others bend you to their prejudices where gender and
race are concerned, then the pro-choice argument evaporates.
What we are then left with is discrimination, pure and blatant, on the basis
of sex and race. If the child is male or white, it will likely live. If the
child is female or black, it may die.
The obvious solution, according to Arizona congressman Trent Franks (Ariz.)
is to ban sex- and race-selective abortion. This week he introduced a bill,
called the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act, or PreNDA for short, to do just
that.
The bill declares that an abortion done for reasons of sex or race selection
is a violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and prohibits doctors from
carrying out such abortions. Those who coerce women into a sex- or race-based
abortion can be sued by their victims, and organizations that solicit or accept
funds to perform such abortions will be in violation of the law.
This reasonable effort to reign in discriminatory abortions has been
mischaracterized by the National Organization of Women as an “attempt to
restrict healthcare for women of color.”
What it is really about is allowing Indian, Chinese, Korean, and other women
the freedom to have the babies of their choosing. Isn’t that what “reproductive
choice” is supposed to be all about?
— Steven W.
Mosher is the president of the Population Research Institute and the author of Population
Control: Real Costs and Illusory Benefits.
On the NR cruise, we were all astonished to discover that novelist Andrew Klavan is in fact a cartoon character. But we still like his videos. This one is sponsored by those shady characters at the Manhattan Institute.
‘Fort Hood attack was not anomaly,’ lawmaker contends at Hill hearing
RUSH: This was an attack on the Second Amendment. The purpose of this was to have it all go wrong, have American guns, because they’re so widely available, “You can go into any gun store in America and buy an assault rifle,” quote, unquote, end up owned by Mexican drug lords. (gasp) We were supposed to be so appalled and outraged by that that the American people would clamor for gun control. That’s what they were trying to do. Nobody’s gonna ever convince me otherwise.
Newt Presents a Fresh New Virtual Face
Dead last among the states. Nobody is worse.
What am I talking about? Among the 50 states, New York ranks at the very bottom on the just-published
2011 “Small Business Survival Index.”
(Only the District of Columbia ranks worse.) Indeed, it’s hard to survive,
never mind thrive, as a small business in the once-Empire State, overwhelmingly
due to constant heavy attacks by policymakers.
And given the latest deal served up by Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo, the
Democratic leadership in the state assembly, and Republican leaders in the
state senate, New York appears ready to stay at the bottom for some time.
The “Small Business Survival Index,” which I author for the Small Business &
Entrepreneurship Council, ranks the 50 states and the District of Columbia
according to their public-policy climates for entrepreneurship, small business,
and investment. This year’s index has been expanded to include 44 different
measures covering the broad areas of taxes, regulation, energy costs, health-insurance
mandates, government spending and employment, state liability systems,
education reforms, and property rights and protections. It is the most
comprehensive ranking of the states in terms of policies affecting
entrepreneurs and investors, and therefore the economy and job creation. So, what about New York? First, tiny positives can be detected even when ranking
last. For example, the state’s crime rate is low, and interestingly, its unemployment tax is comparatively low. But the good news pretty much ends
there.
The negatives, in contrast, are overwhelming. For example, New York imposes high taxes on personal income, individual capital gains, corporate income, and corporate capital gains. These send clear signals to businesses and investors to build, invest, and create jobs somewhere else. The state piles on with high
property taxes just to make sure businesses and individuals cannot afford to stay and have no reason to come here.
It’s also pricier in New York to fill up the gas tank or use a cell phone, due to very high gas and diesel taxes and high wireless taxes. Indeed, consumption taxes are relatively high in general. Unfortunately, there’s still more on the tax front. The state’s death tax helps to send family businesses, investors, and retirees packing for less costly climates. And it’s not just the federal government that imposes alternative minimum taxes on individuals and businesses. New York does as well, raising tax compliance costs and diminishing the impact of any positive incentives that might be included in the tax code. On the regulatory
front, New York likes to impose mandates on health-insurance companies. While that might feel good to the politicians, it means increased health-insurance costs for businesses and individuals. At the same time, New York has poor private property protections, leaving small businesses and homeowners open to eminent-domain abuse by politicians and various special interests. Naturally, high taxes in the end are about the size of government. Predictably, New York has a high level of per capita state and local government spending, a large number of state and local government employees, and the second-highest level of state and local government debt.To sum up, the index makes clear that New York is a big government mess. So, what was the deal just agreed to in Albany? The highest income-tax rate on upper-income earners is set to expire at the end of this month, dropping the top individual income and capital-gains tax rate from 8.97 percent to 6.85 percent. But political leaders have agreed to setting the top tax rate for those topping $2 million in earnings at 8.82 percent, while offering tiny token cuts for low- and middle-income earners.
Quite simply, higher tax rates on upper incomes mean higher taxes on the entrepreneurs and investors needed to get New York’s economy moving. Will New York’s economy really be better off by trying to suck more resources out of the private sector so elected officials can dole out bigger bucks according to their political preferences? Of course not. After all, it hasn’t been working so well for the state so far. But New York politicians seem to be immune to sound economics. Instead, it’s all about class warfare and big government. The rest of the nation can learn what not to do by watching New York’s elected officials operate.
— Raymond J. Keating,
a New York resident, is chief economist of the Small Business &
Entrepreneurship Council and author of a new book titled
Business Tips on TV
“There is such a thing as too many daughters, but not too many sons,” Dr. Sunita Puri was told by the Asian-Indian women she was interviewing.
The physician, who practices in the Bay Area, wanted to find out why so many immigrant Indian women in the United States were so eager to find out the sex of their unborn children, and why so many of them choose abortion when they found out they were carrying a girl.
What she discovered over the course of 65 interviews conducted over several years profoundly shocked her. Fully 89 percent of the women carrying girls opted for an abortion, and nearly half had previously aborted girls.
Puri’s report, published in Social Science and Medicine this last April, makes for grim reading. Women told Puri of their guilt over their sex-selection abortions, how they felt that they were unable to “save” their daughters. Even the women who turned out to be carrying boys this time around could not shake their remorse over having earlier aborted daughters in this deadly game of reproductive roulette.
They also made clear that they were not free actors when it came to reproductive “choice.” Many, when it was learned that they were carrying girls, became the victims of family violence. Some — in an effort to make them miscarry — had been slapped and shoved around by angry husbands and in-laws, or even kicked in the stomach. Others were denied food, water, and rest in order to coerce them into aborting their unwanted girl babies.
Whether such brutality is common is an open question. That sex-selective abortion is widely practiced among certain Asian-American communities is not.
Jason Abrevaya of the University of Texas analyzed U.S. birth data and found unusually high boy-birth percentages after 1980 among later children (most
notably third and fourth children) born to Chinese and Asian-Indian mothers. Moreover, using maternally linked data from California, he found that
Asian-Indian mothers are significantly more likely both to have a terminated pregnancy and to give birth to a son when they have previously only given birth
to girls. Columbia University economists Douglas Almond and Lena Edlund also found clear evidence of sex-selective abortions in what they called “son-biased sex
ratios,” that is, a higher ratio of boys to girls than would occur in nature. Looking at the sex ratio at birth among U.S.-born children of Chinese, Korean, and Asian-Indian parents, they found that first-borns showed normal sex ratios at birth. But if the first child was a girl, the sex ratio jumped to 117, and if the first two children were girls, then the sex ratio jumped to 151. That is to say, for every 151 boys, there were only 100 hundred surviving girls. The rest had been eliminated.
This is not just misogyny; it is misogyny that kills.
Racism kills as well, to judge from the fact that the abortion rate among blacks is about five times higher than the American average. Blacks are only 12 percent of the population but have 37 percent of the abortions. This suggests
that their abortions, too, are more than just a matter of personal choice. We have been told by
the self-described “pro-choice” movement that women who go in for abortions do so because they (not their husbands, in-laws,
or kinship group) have decided not to continue their pregnancies. If this turns out not to be true, and others bend you to their prejudices where gender and
race are concerned, then the pro-choice argument evaporates. What we are then left with is discrimination, pure and blatant, on the basis of sex and race. If the child is male or white, it will likely live. If the
child is female or black, it may die.
The obvious solution,
according to Arizona congressman Trent Franks (Ariz.)
is to ban sex- and race-selective abortion. This week he introduced a bill,
called the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act, or PreNDA for short, to do just
that. The bill declares that an abortion done for reasons of sex or race selection
is a violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and prohibits doctors from
carrying out such abortions. Those who coerce women into a sex- or race-based
abortion can be sued by their victims, and organizations that solicit or accept
funds to perform such abortions will be in violation of the law.
This reasonable effort to reign in discriminatory abortions has been
mischaracterized by the National Organization of Women as an “attempt to
restrict healthcare for women of color.”
What it is really about is allowing Indian, Chinese, Korean, and other women
the freedom to have the babies of their choosing. Isn’t that what “reproductive
choice” is supposed to be all about?
— Steven W.
Mosher is the president of the Population Research Institute and the
author of Population
Control: Real Costs and Illusory Benefits.
By John J.
Miller
On the NR cruise, wewere all astonished to discover that novelist Andrew Klavan is in fact a
cartoon character. But we still like his videos. This one is sponsored by those
shady characters at the Manhattan Institute.
Denver quarterback Tim Tebow sits on the bench during a loss to San Diego in January. (Barry Gutierrez / Associated Press / January 2, 2012)
– A.K.
