{nationalreview.com} ~ Today the New York Times gave a large chunk of op-ed real estate (1,300 words) to Daniel Altman... a former Times editorial board member now teaching economics part-time at NYU. Concerned about wealth inequality–which he regards as a much more serious problem than mere income inequality–Altman proposes that we enact a wealth tax. This would target not what people earn but what they own–the houses, the cars, the money in the bank, the privately owned businesses, the investment portfolios themselves rather than the interests and dividends therefrom, and so forth. Altman recognizes various practical difficulties with the implementation of such a tax, but he is convinced it would be a good alternative to our present income tax. He proposes wealth tax rates of “zero percent up to $500,000 in wealth, 1 percent for wealth between $500,000 and $1 million, and 2 percent for wealth above $1 million.” He continues with this sketch: To see how the wealth tax would work, consider a family with $500,000 in wealth and $200,000 in annual income. Right now, they might pay $50,000 in federal income tax. With the wealth tax brackets described above, they would pay nothing. On the other hand, a family with $4 million in wealth and $200,000 in annual income would owe $65,000. Most families that depend on their wealth for their income would pay more, and most that depend on their earnings would pay less. Even assuming, as I do not, that the inequality Altman describes is in itself an injustice, or the cause of injustices, he is overlooking one huge problem–actually a set of problems–for any such proposal. It is contained in the Constitution, which says the following... Both Altman and dinky-Warren are both wrong on this inequality.
He rightly recognized that treating terrorism like a law-enforcement problem, as scumbag/liar-Bill Clinton did, was the wrong strategy. When it came time to making terrorists talk, Bush’s administration used enhanced interrogation to obtain life-saving information. And state sponsors of terrorism were put on notice that such a status would be hazardous to their regime’s existence.
That said, Bush also made some big mistakes. His failure to push back against the Left’s defamatory “Bush lied” narrative was costly, both in our strategic position and politically. By the time he did fight for the “surge” in Iraq, all he did was stabilize the country to the point that Barack scumbag/liar-nObama’s premature pullout was a non-concern to most Americans. The resulting rise of ISIS and the atrocities that terrorist group inflicted on millions of innocents are only the most visible consequences of that calamitous withdrawal.
Bush made other mistakes, too. He should’ve turned counterterror statutes on the Gitmo Bar, which was making Hanoi Jane look like a piker. A photo shoot on an enemy anti-aircraft gun pales in comparison to the access to the American legal system that our nation’s avowed enemies received. His failure to shut this down immediately yielded drastic consequences.
One of those consequences was that the CIA operatives who waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (let’s face it: a six-pack of Coors Light and a carton of smokes wasn’t going to cut it) were set upon by the ACLU. Leftists outraged over the alleged outing of CIA desk jockey Valerie Plame were conspicuously silent when these authentic operatives were outed to terrorists for the sake of smearing them as torturers. Another consequence is that our nation’s acceptable interrogation techniques are now public, available on Amazon. It’s kinda hard to beat someone who’s literally read your playbook.
The Bush administration’s biggest mistake, though, was failing to sufficiently build up our military to face a global war on terror in addition to its other tasks around the world. The Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard all needed to be built up, especially after the short-sighted “peace dividend” of the 1990s.
Not only would this have boosted our Rust Belt economy by creating jobs and upgrading our manufacturing capability, but a larger military would also have been less stressed by its increased workload. And there would’ve been plenty of reserve capability when Obama slashed the force structure.
Sound like a waste of money? Well, think about how much we’ve spent fighting the War on Terror, and how much it’s costing us to play catch-up as Russia and China get more aggressive. We needed a military that could kill jihadists and break (or take) their stuff, deter Russian aggression against Eastern Europe, and deal with any Chinese ambitions in the South China Sea. We never quite got that.
Today, we face a tougher situation, as any new build-up will take time to bear fruit. In a very real sense, while we’re safer in some ways because of what George W. Bush did, we also have some hard choices because of what he didn’t do. ~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/60771?mailing_id=4035&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4035&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body
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