Month: May 2013

Talk about a tempest in a tea (party) pot.

These social welfare tax exempts are entities that don’t pay taxes on their income which does not include contributions.  So these groups suck in money, spend it on ads, consultants and so forth.  How much income could they have?  Probably none.  A little interest earned on their bank accounts?  Totally offset by salaries, office expenses, etc.  See the point?

Contributions to these groups are not tax deductible.  Now if contributions were deductible then yes the IRS should police these vehicles closely.

So from a revenue standpoint, granting “tax exempt” status to “social welfare” entities makes zero difference to the federal fisc which is after all what the IRS should be trying to protect.

 

 

Two things.

In almost any discussion of politics, the first thing that is lost is perspective.  Some issues are of huge importance but most are lesser issues where the outcome will not be profound one way or another.  And yet it seems the “heat” of political discussion has no relationship to how high or low the item under discussion is on the scale of important decisions.

The other point that gets lost is that just because I may disagree with someone does not mean they are wrong.  And yet in political discussion so often the parties seem determined to prove the other wrong rather than convincing the opponent that the speaker is right.  The “seed” which grows into bipartisanship is the predicate that although we disagree on an issue that does not mean I am right and you are wrong.  It merely means we disagree.

 

 

As the story goes, in the 1990’s the Iranians would sporadically attack US merchant ships in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere.  The Americans responded by blowing up their naval bases and oil platforms used to launch the attacks.  The Iranians got the message.  To conclude the matter, the Iranians made the following announcement:  “We had nothing to do with the attacks on your ships but it won’t happen again.”  Priceless.