Pat Allen: The View from Right Field

“Oh Rahm, Oh Rahm, Emanuel”

Last Tuesday I wrote a short post saying Chicago’s new semi-official Christmas/Holiday song was “Oh Come, Oh Come, Em[m]anuel”.  That was too quick.   After a couple of days further thought, let me suggest that Chicago’s new semi-official Christmas/Holiday song is “Oh Rahm, Oh Rahm, Emanuel”:

Oh Rahm, Oh Rahm, Emanuel
Help save Chicago from going to hell.
From union bosses robbing us blind
And teachers letting our kids get behind.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emanuel
Has come to us, fifth floor of City Hall.

O come, from the White House and free
Us from the Daley family tyranny.
We used to be the city on the lake.
Now we're just a city on the take.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emanuel
Has come to us, fifth floor of City Hall.

O come, thou Rahm, come and cheer
Our spirits by returning here.
Stop ward hacks selling zoning permits
And pols looking for money in their fists.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emanuel
Has come to us, fifth floor of City Hall.

O come, Rahm Emanuel, come
And live again in your own home.
No parking meter contracts for sale
Or airport deals for friends of the mayor.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emanuel
Has come to us, fifth floor of City Hall.

Taxing the Rich – By Eliminating Tax Credits for Electric Cars

President Obama wants to raise taxes on “the rich,” who he calls “millionaires and billionaires” but who, under most of his proposals, are those who make more than $250,000 a year ($200,000, if they aren’t married).  And I want to get rid of wasteful government tax credits and subsidies, especially those that mainly benefit the middle classes and above.

Here is an idea that meets both criteria.  It taxes the rich (by raising the amount of taxes they pay) and it eliminates a tax credit that really only benefits the upper middle class and above:  Eliminate the subsidies and tax rebates for electric cars.  Think about it.  Who are those subsidies going to?  Are poor people or even working or lower middle class people buying electric cars?  Do regular working people have enough money to buy a “hobby” car that makes a nice political and environmental statement but costs more than cars with internal combustion engines?  To ask the question is to answer it.  These cars are being bought, to the extent that they are being bought at all, by the upper middle class.

The liberal-left buys electric cars to show-off their environmental consciousness.*  And I have no problem with them doing that.  I just don’t see why we have to subsidize this choice of theirs – especially when our deficit is so large and we have so many other needs.

As President Obama said in a different context, I am not telling upper middle class people that they can’t have an electric car.  I’m just saying that, in our present fiscal situation, they just need to pay a little more to for it.**

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* When Toyota came out with its hybrid, Toyota made the Prius look different than its other cars.  When Honda came out with its hybrids, Honda just put a hybrid engine (and battery packs) in its existing cars and put a little nameplate on the back that said it was a hybrid.  Toyota’s Priuses sold; Honda hybrids didn’t – because you couldn’t tell they were hybrids.  After all, what is the purpose of driving a “statement” car if nobody can tell you are doing it?

** Supporters of the electric car subsidies and tax credits (other than those who are just trying to get government money for themselves) will argue that the purpose of the subsidies is to help the environment by encouraging people to buy electric cars (and to help develop the electric car industry).  Well, President Obama talks about how rich people are willing to help America by paying more taxes.  Why doesn’t he also ask his friends (i.e., upper middle class liberals, the target market for electric cars) to help American by buying electric cars without a tax credit?

Chicago’s New Semi-Official Christmas/Holiday Song

“Oh Come, Oh Come, Em[m]anuel”

PS – Sorry for the delay.  I only thought of it today.

What Christmas Is All About

Charlie Brown:  "Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?"

Linus: "Sure, Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about. Lights, please?

  "And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them. And they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, ‘Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you. Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.’ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth peace, good will toward men.’

  "That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown."

-- "A Charlie Brown Christmas"

 

Christmas Memories

One of my favorite Christmas memories was watching the Bob Hope Christmas Special each year.  The show was of Bob’s Christmas tour for the USO to visit our troops, in Vietnam and elsewhere.  (Actually, the special wasn’t on at Christmas.  That was when he was there.  The TV special was on after Christmas, once he got back.) 

And the best part of the show was at the end, when one of the singers, and the troops, sang “Silent Night”.  Here is Jan Daley singing “Silent Night” from the 1971 tour:

 

Did Somebody Say Pedro Cerrano?

This from Paul Sullivan:

“The Ricketts family's $20 million purchase of the McDonald's and its parking lot across from Wrigley Field makes perfect sense for long-term planning, but goes against the grain a bit for the organization. After the team hired a nutritionist in 2010, clubhouse employees were banned from making McDonald's runs for the players.

The team relaxed the fast-food ban somewhat last summer and now allows players to eat Popeye's chicken when Matt Garza starts.”

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Explanatory note to people who have not watched “Major League” at least ten times:  At the end of the movie, before the playoff game between the Yankees and the Indians, Pedro Cerrano, a religious refugee from Cuba (his religion? Voodoo), wants to sacrifice a live chicken in the clubhouse.  Jake Taylor tries to divert him by bringing in a bucket of chicken from the Colonel.

Illinois – It’s Just Not Getting Any Better

Last Thursday, David Wessel of The Wall Street Journal wrote about the differences between the United States and what they have and are trying to get to in Europe.*  But the most interesting thing about the article was not Mr. Wessel’s comparison of the United States and the European Union.  Rather, it was this chart, which accompanied it:

   

As you can see, the chart shows the current yield (i.e., the effective interest rate) on ten-year general obligation bonds of five different states.  And the results are depressing.

Illinois’s effective borrowing rate is the highest in country.  In fact, it is over ¾% higher than even California’s, and it is almost double Georgia’s.

In spite of a 67% increase in personal income taxes, the state budget is still a disaster.  Our unfunded pension liabilities are the highest in the nation.  Delays in paying the state’s bills have not been reduced to any appreciable degree.  And rip-offs in the various state pension plans are becoming an almost daily feature in the Chicago Tribune.  (When asked about these articles, some Democrats just say, “Oh, it’s the Tribune,” as if that means they don’t have look at the facts.)

I will admit that House Speaker Mike Madigan did, along with Republican Minority Leader Tom Cross, force the state Senate and Governor Quinn to limit spending in the 2011-12 state budget.  But before giving too much credit to Mike Madigan, remember that he was speaker for all eight years of the Rod Blagojevich/Pat Quinn administrations, when spending went through the roof and the state budget went down the toilet.  (Not easy to picture that, is it?)

Because of Speaker Madigan, Governors Blagojevich and Quinn, Senate Presidents Emil Jones and John Cullerton, and lots of other Democrats in the state legislature, Illinois promised and spent way more than it collected in taxes from 2003 through 2011.  Now, in order to get its budget under control – and to get that interest rate down, Illinois is going to have to collect more in taxes than it spends.  Other states have done it.  The question is whether Illinois Democrats can do it – and given the way the Democrats have drawn (gerrymandered-?) the new state legislative districts, it’s Democrats who will be in control in Springfield for quite a while.  Which seems only fair, since they are the ones who got us into this mess over the last eight years.**

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* David Wessel, “The Ties That Bond – and Don’t,” The Wall Street Journal, December 15, 2011.

** At least some Democrats will respond that it wasn’t their fault that the nation’s economy collapsed in 2008.  That may be true, but Illinois’s overspending and bigger and bigger deficits started in 2003.  By the time of the 2006 election, Illinois was already in bad shape (see here and here), and that was long before the economic crisis started.

Update (12/21/11 9:00 am):  Fixed a typo in the second footnote.

Vaclav Havel, RIP

Vaclav Havel passed away today.  He was a playwright, an anti-communist dissident and a former President of Czechoslovakia (and then the Czech Republic). 

Havel wrote plays in the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s, and he was eected President of Czechoslovakia in December of 1989, just months after getting out of jail.

But perhaps his greatest contribution was as a dissident.  He was one of the original signers of Charter 77, and in 1978 he wrote his classic essay, “The Power of the Powerless.”  (See the “Books Worth Reading” sidebar in the right-hand column.)

At a time when many people use the phrase the “Arab Spring” to talk about what is happening in the Middle East, it is useful to remember that communism in Czechoslovakia (and Eastern Europe) lasted for another 21 years after the Russians crushed the Prague Spring in August of 1968

Havel was not a big supporter of “Socialism with a human face”.  He saw it was not a matter of reforming communism; it was a matter of getting rid of communism.  The problems of communism could not be reformed because they were of the essence of communism.

Instead, Havel talked of “living in truth”:

“Living within the lie can constitute the system only it if is universal.  The principle must embrace and permeate everything.  There are no terms whatsoever on which it can coexist with living within the truth, and therefore everyone who steps out of line denies it in principle and threatens it in its entirety. …

If the main pillar of the system is living a lie, then it is not surprising that the fundamental threat to it is living the truth.  This is why it must be suppressed more severely than anything else. …

It seems that the primary breeding ground for what might … be understood as an opposition in the post-totalitarian system is living within the truth. …

Living within the truth, as humanity’s revolt against an enforced position, is, on the contrary, an attempt to regain control over one’s own sense of responsibility.”*

Vaclav Havel was a great man.  He played a key role in the successes of 1989 and the establishment of freedom across Eastern Europe.  But perhaps the best epitaph for him would merely be: “He lived in truth.”

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* Vaclav Havel, et al., The Power of the Powerless, p. 40, 41, and 45.

Cubs Fans

This is an exact quote from a Christmas card we received earlier this week:

“I hope you had a good year and that the coming season and the new year will also be good ones.  Let’s also hope that the Cubs have a better year. …

My younger grandson decided he was going to be a St. Louis fan until my daughter asked him where he was going to live.  He is still a Cub fan.”

The Heckler

For those of you who don’t read it, The Heckler is a satirical sports publication.  It started in Chicago, focusing on the Cubs.  It expanded to other sports and other teams and then to other cities.  I got my first article published in The Heckler yesterday: "Braun blames drug test on eating a leftover chorizo from the sausage race".  You can find it here.