Piscataway has sicked its dog bark police on pooch perpetrators 24/7. wcbstv.com: “Muzzle it. That’s the word in one local town [Piscataway, New Jersey] as officials try to put dog owners on a financial leash if they can’t keep their pets quiet — no matter what time of day or night.”
Bloomberg.com: “President Barack Obama said on the campaign trail in October 2008 that he wanted to ‘spread the wealth around.’ With Obama on the verge of signing sweeping health-care overhaul legislation, he’s about to do just that.”
President Obama and the Democrats tacked an amendment on to the Obamacare bill that will kill the private student loan business and make the federal government the sole lender of student loans. This would be a terrible blow to freedom and the beginning of government control of who gets loans and the curriculum taught by schools. Peter Wood has written an excellent article published at the National Association of Scholars that examines why government control of the student loan is bad for education and the country. As an example of the evils of federal control of education, the author cites Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 that has been used to eliminate some college sports programs because the colleges could not maintain programs that had an equal number of men and woman. He says:
They [the federal government] succeeded in transforming Title IX from a law against discrimination into a system of quotas. Too many boys playing college sports? The Department of Education will knock your college off the list of institutions eligible to receive federally-guaranteed student loans. . . . In the name of “gender equity,” the government used its financial aid muscle to impose its own agenda on one dimension of college life. . . . . Or consider the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights which has more than once used the government’s financial leverage to foster racial preferences in college admissions and hiring.
Arizona contractors – are you ready for the new federal lead paint regulations that are effective April 22, 2010? Virginia Real Estate, Land Use & Construction Law Blog: “The next wave of the EPA’s lead paint regulations take effect on April 22. These regulations will impose new training, certification, work practice and record keeping requirements on contractors performing renovations on structures built prior to 1978. . . . A number of people have asked me specific, important questions which I would like to give my take on, which can be viewed below . . . .”
See the new regulation – Title 40 Part 745 — LEAD-BASED PAINT POISONING PREVENTION IN CERTAIN RESIDENTIAL STRUCTURES. To see if your state will be the primary regulator (the lead paint police) of the lead paint regulation in your state rather than the federal government, see the EPA Authorization to States for Manage RRP Rule.
Wall St. Journal: “Income tax rates go up, rich taxpayers vanish. . . . after passing a millionaire surtax nearly one-third of Maryland’s millionaires had gone missing, thus contributing to a decline in state revenues. The politicians in Annapolis had said they’d collect $106 million by raising its income tax rate on millionaire households . . . the state comptroller’s office now has the final tax return data for 2008, the first year that the higher tax rates applied. The number of millionaire tax returns fell sharply to 5,529 from 7,898 in 2007, a 30% tumble. The taxes paid by rich filers fell by 22%, and instead of their payments increasing by $106 million, they fell by some $257 million.”
This is more proof that politicians are totally disconnected from reality. The stupid Maryland legislators who voted to increase the tax on the rich were incapable of understanding the laws of economics. There’s only one thing the stupid Maryland legislators can do now and that is pass more tax increases that will further decrease tax collections. Maryland could also pass an “Amazon” tax to further reduce state income tax revenue. See “Amazon Tax Signals Business Unfriendliness & Will Worsen Short-Term Budget Problems.”
Update: See The Tax Policy Blog’s post called “Maryland Lawmaker Proposes Making Millionaires’ Tax Permanent.” Delegate Jolene Ivey (D) introduced a bill in the Maryland legislature that would make the temporary millionaire’s tax permanent. The idiot said “”Programs that help children, the elderly, the poor, the environment, education, the arts, the unemployed—everything’s on the chopping block. Millionaires should continue to share in the pain.” When you practice the religion of tax and spend like Ms. Ivey, you have faith that increasing taxes is good, but that faith prevents a true believer from facing the reality now proven in Maryland that the millionaires tax decreased revenue by $257 million in its first year. Once again, we have proof that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.