Friday, May 14, 2010

Paul Demko, of Politics in Minnesota reports a Maureen Reed mailing questioning Tarryl Clark's electability. I disagree with some premises. Things did not go far enough.

The Demko item is online, here.

I continue to favor Reed and will likely vote for her in the primary.

However, the Demko item states:

Reed is piggybacking on Republican attacks in recent days over Clark’s deciding vote in favor of a Senate proposal to raise the state’s top income tax bracket from 7.85 to 9.1 percent.

Here’s part of Reed’s missive:

“In a conservative leaning district, we cannot beat Michele Bachmann with another partisan politician. Unfortunately, Tarryl Clark’s work as a state senate assistant majority leader has given Michele Bachmann and the Minnesota Republican Party fuel to fire their partisan rhetoric and name calling.

“In fact, months before the election, Bachmann has already attacked Sen. Clark as a ‘tax and spend liberal.’ Today, the Star Tribune reported that Republicans have dubbed Sen. Clark ‘Taxin’ Tarryl.’ [...]"

Press reporting that Clark was a pivotal vote on a budget bill including a Minnesota income tax increase for the top marginal bracket is online; here and here for example.

To the extent it goes, the proposal arguably kicks in at too low a threshold, i.e., stinging below the "tax the rich" level of things; the Minn Post [Doug Grow] item states:

That plan would call for the creation of a "fourth tier" in Minnesota's income tax code. Under the plan, married couples with taxable incomes of $200,000 or more would pay at a 9.15 percent rate. Currently, top income earners in the state pay at a 7.85 rate.

However, my main beef - it is far, far too little a change, at the very top (recall Mark Dayton, a wealthy individual, campaigning on, "Tax the Rich").

I would say that - poster child example - Hemsley, CEO of UnitedHealth, reported to have compensation for the past year in excess of $100 million - I would say that you tax that at a 90% rate over ten million; and do not exclude stock options from the tax; and the gentlemen still would have a nine million dollar incentive to take home the extra ninety million from the firm in addition to his base ten million at a lower rate; whereas the State could use the eighty-one million in revenue my proposal would generate --- from a single individual. That eighty-one million might mean there's room to up the threshold in committee chairman Bakk's proposal for raising the top marginal rate from 7.85 percent. The Hometown Source [T.W. Budig] item noted this colloquy:

The session began with everyone talking about jobs, jobs, jobs, said Sen. Chris Gerlach, R-Apple Valley. Now it’s taxes, taxes, taxes, he argued. “When did we take that turn?” asked Gerlach.

Sen. Michael Jungbauer, R-East Bethel, argued the total cost of living in Minnesota — the demands of its weather, for instance — must be considered in comparing state-by-state tax rates.

But Senate Tax Committee Chairman Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook, argued that three-quarters of the tax revenue would come from Minnesotans making more than $500,000 a year.

Raising taxes is hard, he said. “I don’t think it will put them on the food shelf line, either,” said Bakk of wealthier Minnesotans.

On the Senate floor Bakk amended the bill. lowering the income tax increase to 9.1 percent from 9.15. Currently the income rate for that tax bracket is at 7.85 percent.

A change on the marginal bracket structure well above a half-million level, and reaching at stock option income and taxing it, would in my view have been a bolder and better step, in addition to whatever Clark and other DFL legislators did vote for. All I can say is,

BRAVO, SEN. CLARK. AND SEN. BAKK!

DO MORE.

THE IDEA IS JUST. IT IS MERELY TOO TIMID.

To the extent the Maureen Reed campaign sees the Sixth District electorate as energized by NOT taxing the rich, I believe she and advisors are misreading things.

It is underestimating the ability of DFL primary voters in the District to know what's in their best interest; and that is a counterproductive primary strategy where the dunces usually stay home during the primary but where those that can read and think get out to vote.

Particularly if the primary election day is rainy and windy.

Said differently, it is a different turnout segment of the Sixth District public that will vote in the DFL primary vs. the general entire electorate in a general election.

Saying Clark misunderstands things by favoring taxing the rich is a questionable premise. In all honesty, the rich don't live in the Sixth District. They live in the west 'burbs and a few pocket locales in the cities.

They have urban waterfront; not suburban shared wall and north-end single family housing distant from urban business cores.

And I would rather see a candidate champion taxing the rich, even if that were to risk losing. You can risk losing saying don't tax the rich, and if you win, what are you worth to me and anyone else not within "the rich?"

Tax the rich, advocate it, promise it; ideally deliver it if elected.

Do it or get out of the way of those who would. That's where my one vote stands. Why not?

I see the situation favoring Clark, in the primary, and that's the step Reed should not misstep around - if she expects to be the one bringing challenge afterwards against Michele Bachmann.

You do not unseat Bachmann with your own seat; without winning the primary and you do not win it by negative analysis of your primary opponent's "electability." If you are running, Maureen Reed, it is because of the quality of your experience and capabilities that you would bring to the office in comparison to Michele Bachmann. It is little else. It most certainly is not because you can spin "electability" cotton candy for a circus crowd; and you should look in the mirror and tout the quite impressive things the person facing you in the mirror has to offer.

But this "electability" theme - BOTTOM LINE - it's not going to win the primary.


_________UPDATE_________
Obviously my 90% marginal rate on individual/family income in excess of ten million dollars would allow deduction of federal income taxes paid, if any, for the taxable income of the uber-wealthy. You could not do aggregate taxing that would be over 100%. That would truly be a disincentive to earn more, the standard BS excuse the anti-tax uber-wealthy trot out against having to pay a fair share for a nation allowing them to keep luxurious wealth, i.e., a nation not taxing the wealth itself.

And what about an excise tax on urban waterfront single family homes?

Would that be unjust; an unconstitutional distinction? Judges living on single family urban waterfront might hold it to be so, but you never know unless you try it.

_____FURTHER UPDATE______
Not wanting to leave a wrong impression - Maureen Reed is an elegant and engaging person, very good in small group discussion. Of the candidates for the Sixth District she probably is the brightest and clearly is the most accomplished in the private sector. Clark and Aubrey Immelman are each very capable, with Michele Bachmann clearly a distant trailer; and prone to idelogical baggage carrying and show-boating. Reed is free of any ideological baggage that would get in the way of sensible and analytical decision making and is the best equipped candidate for the office with regard to the ongoing issue of healthcare policy - an issue far from settled so far by legislation passed at the federal level recently. Regarding other issues, foreign policy and such, I see her no less experienced than other candidates, and again far less a loose cannon than Michele Bachmann. She knows how to approach what she does not understand because as a physician and administrator you face new and changing situations all the time and cannot succeed without the ability to know what is old that works well and what is new and has to be tried.

But that is what choosing a member of Congress is about. Quality of potential service, or for Bachmann lack of a quality record in office. It is not to be cheapened with too strong a focus on "electability." My concern is that reporting might paint Reed as more aggressive in that direction than she is, whereas she has to my knowledge always first emphasized she is equipped to do the job and experienced in ways other candidates are not, such as private sector success in business, in her case the healthcare business.

In contrast, Bachmann's never held any real private-sector job whatsoever. Out of law school she became and IRS tax collection lawyer and has been on the public payroll ever since, or a homemaker raising natural and foster children. Child-bearing and rearing are lauadable enough activities, but not a thing suggesting a broad base of experience.


THE BACHMANN CHALLENGE, PART TWO: Can any reader point to any significant part of Michele Bachmann's working life when this strident railer against public spending and size of government has not held a government job?

__________FURTHER UPDATE_________
There's a Washington state case, this link, that begins:

A famous lawyer once said: "`[a]bout half of the practice of a decent lawyer is telling would-be clients that they are damned fools and should stop.'"[1] Consistent with that admonition, CR 11 allows courts to sanction lawyers who do not know when to stop. In this case, an attorney filed a suit against a dentist for medical malpractice who was not present during the operation where the alleged malpractice occurred. The trial court, concluding that the lawsuit was not well founded, entered a judgment against the lawyer in the amount of $4,200 for attorney's fees, pursuant to CR 11. We affirm the judgment against him and also assess reasonable fees on appeal.

The judges there liked that "damned fool" quote so much, they used it again, this link.

Why bring it up, well Michele Bachmann's being a damned fool, being herself I suppose, this link.

The obvious response of Tarryl Clark, is to say that Michele Bachmann ran an advertisement critical of me because I voted to marginally and minimally tax the rich a bit more, for the benefit of the rest of us - here's an excerpt - and that proves Michele Bachmann does not want to tax the rich for the benefit of the rest of us but would leave the rest of us holding the bag while the rich laugh and laugh.

That's how it is, and Maureen Reed has no business intruding herself into that dispute between two others. Not in my world view where Reed has so much positive to say about her own abilities and qualities - that she should not indirectly show a base quality of any kind.