Banana Republic of Texas

In the Houston Chronicle story on the new yacht tax cap moving through the legislature, I saw this gem:

"With those boat sales went fuel sales, retail sales, mooring fees, service fees, restaurant sales, and every other money-generating sale associated with a large boat purchase."

Anybody see the assumption here? Anybody? If not, then describe for me the relationship between where a yacht is purchased and where it moors. Yachts bought in Florida never visit non-Floridian ports? Who knew?

Here's another fun quote from the article:

Rep. Mike Villarreal, D-San Antonio, said the measure is "crazy" given the state's two year budget shortfall of $15 billion to $27 billion.
"We're helping yacht owners while we are cutting our public schools by 21 percent and nursing homes by 33 percent," Villarreal said. "We're helping yacht owners … while we're eliminating all scholarships for college freshmen in 2012-13."
The bill is ill-timed, Villarreal said, because no data have been collected to show how yacht sales in Florida have been affected by the bill passed last year.

Tax cuts for the rich as an economic growth driver has been discredited at the state & national level (see unemployment rate figures and Texas public school budgets). Once again, ideology trumps evidence for "conservatives".

Thanks Al!

Al Giordano offers a nice reality-check on the doom and gloom that we are being barraged with:

But headlines that merely tell the truth – “Normal Election Forecast for November” – don’t sell newspapers, or keep you glued to the TV or Internet screen. And beyond the transparent effort by so many in the media to grab your attention with apocalyptic warnings for Democrats or triumphant teasers for Republicans, there is another level of duplicity going on behind the curtain.

If you look at the comments section under Blumenthal’s “just the facts, M’am” essay you can see the partisans on each side cheering or attacking each pollster based on whether the results fit what the commenter wants to happen. But that’s the rank-and-file party activist or sympathizer position. Up above, in the war rooms of the political consultants and party operatives, Democrats are actually stoking the reports of their own demise under the belief that they will scare their grassroots troops into action.

You really should read the whole thing, and then put "The Field" on your RSS reader or favorites list.

These Guys Must Be In On It!!

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities is clearly a socialist muslim kenyan weatherman front:

Some critics charge that the new policies pursued by President Obama and the 111th Congress generated the huge federal budget deficits that the nation now faces. In fact, the tax cuts enacted under President George W. Bush, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the economic downturn together explain virtually the entire deficit over the next ten years.