Minor Thoughts from me to you

Welcome to the Great Immigration Debate. Over the next couple of days (weeks?), Jenna and I will be discussing the immigration issue, both legal and illegal. As Jenna pointed out, immigration "is a very complex issue that crosses many standard lines". While most Republicans agree on most issues, many Republicans disagree on how to handle illegal immigration.

As I listen to talk radio and read blogs, I see a lot of heated rhetoric. I see a lot of statements that, frankly, go beyond rational argument straight into frothing anger. I see a lot of polarized opinions and people talking past each other. I'd like to make a small step towards changing that. Immigration is a complex issue and it needs to be treated as such. I don't believe there is one "right" answer or easy answer to the question. So, let's talk about it. Let's talk about what makes it such a big problem and let's talk about all of the ways (good and bad) to handle this problem.

I think the best place to start would be a quick summary of where we're each coming from. I'm a life-long Republican (whatever that means when you're as young as I am). I grew up in Norfolk, Virginia, rejoiced when the South turned Republican, and was glued to the television for Election Night 2000. In my younger days, I breathed fire and brimstone towards any and all who would break the law. During my early teenage years, I once advocated sending in the SEALs and Rangers to deal with the inner city drug trade.

I say all of this to establish my conservative bona-fides or, at least, to demonstrate that I once was a "law and order" Republican and understand the mind set. More recently, I've been drawn towards libertarianism. I've seen that politicians rarely act in the nation's best interests. I've seen that many laws are unfairly written or unfairly enforced. I've developed an aversion to using government power unless it is absolutely necessary to do so.

So, I have a lot of questions about illegal immigration. I think the first and most prominent one is: why is it such a big deal? Why do people care so much about Mexicans crossing the border, looking for a better life for themselves and their families? Is it just because there is a law prohibiting that? (That is, would the issue go away if the law were changed?) Or is there a reason for the law. If so, what is it?

Yes, it's a rather basic question. But in this case, I think it's best to start with the basics and move on from there.

From Boston Gal's Open Wallet:

Today's Christian Science Monitor explains: Why the rich get the most tax goodies.

He suspects one reason Americans tolerate tax cuts favoring the wealthy is that many anticipate becoming rich themselves and thereby benefiting.

It is true that when I made the most (as an independent contractor) was also when I paid the least in taxes (write-offs, write-offs, write-offs!) Sometimes I wish the tax code could be written to heavily tax people like Paris Hilton - we could call it the "stupidly wealthy tax". Money generated from the Paris Hilton tax would directly fund educational programs with the goal to produce as many anti-Paris Hilton's as possible.

Well, the Fair Tax would certainly accomplish that goal. Err, the goal of taxing Paris Hilton, not the goal of funding educational programs to produce anti-Paris Hilton's. Still, by taxing consumption rather than income, the Fair Tax would certainly make rich playboys/ playgirls actually pay taxes for the first time in their lives.

Fortunately, the Fair Tax wouldn't just tax Paris Hilton. It would make all of us better off by removing all federal taxes (income, investment, capital gains, business income, etc) and replacing them with a single consumption tax. It would simplify the entire tax code and increase the tax base (tax everyone, not just those earning an income). It would make American exports cheaper. American made products and foreign made products would -- finally -- be taxed at exactly the same rate.

What's not to like?

I've been closely watching the entire debate over illegal immigration. I have a lot of thoughts, a lot of links that I've been collecting, and a few things that I want to say. Sometime tonight or tomorrow, I'll publish a post that it will outline my thoughts on the debate. For now, however, I'd like to focus on the latest entrance to the debate.

Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions has issued a press release claiming that the new Senate immigration bill could bring in as many as 217 million people in the next 20 years. 217 million. That's a huge number. The Heritage Foundation agrees with him. They think it would allow 103 million persons to immigrate within the next 20 years. Again, a huge number.

Well, I think they're both full of it. The current population of Mexico is around 108 million people. So, if Senator Sessions and the Heritage Foundation are claiming that over the next 10-20 years somewhere between the entire population of Mexico and twice the entire population of Mexico will be immigrating to the United States.

To put it bluntly, I don't trust any analysis that determines that an entire country will be left entirely unpopulated within a decade. You shouldn't either.

Instead of using our oil ourselves, we may soon be watching Cuba use them on behalf of China and India. Does something about that sound wrong? It sure does to me.

We can do something about the potential encroachment on our oil fields by lifting the bans on off-shore drilling and increasing the domestic production of oil and natural gas. The Times notes that we could become self-sufficient for energy for the next generation just on the known oil and gas reserves off our shores, and that does not count the ANWR preserve. The commodities market for oil would deflate with the US running on its own energy production, greatly reducing the revenue to potentially dangerous regimes. At the least, we can shed our trade with Venezuela and the Middle East, focusing on imports from Canada and Mexico instead, and extending the life of our reserves in the process. That would send a message that we have the will to reach self-sufficiency as well as remind some regimes how much they rely on American petrodollars and the inflated price of oil for survival.

Instead of providing for our own needs -- thus lessening our dependence on Venezualen oil and Iranian oil -- we're content to "protect the environment" and ignore our energy needs. While I have my (large) differences with the Republicans in Washington, the Democrats increasingly seem to be bent on stupidity.

Instead, we will probably continue to dream up conspiracy theories about greedy oil companies which have few investment choices, given the restrictions on drilling and refining that the US has imposed on the domestic industry. And while we travel through the fascination of paranoia, we will allow our economic and military rivals to steal our reserves out from underneath us -- literally -- and pretend that their drilling somehow doesn't carry the same environmental problems as our drilling would.

(A tip o' the hat to Captain Ed. The analysis is his, I'm just passing it along.)

Michael Yon posted a new dispatch on his blog. In it, he talks about the "forgotten war" in Afghanistan, the recent attacks on Secretary Rumsfield, and the importance of listening to the soldiers who are fighting the war.

On Rumsfield:

And when these old veterans talk, we should all listen. They know war. We should listen more to our veterans than to politicians. We are more likely to get straight answers about war from warriors than we are from politicians and most of the media.

Like it or not, "Rummy" is a politician. He's a good one. He's an effective administrator. But he's just an administrator, when all is said and done. If he hasn't been personally involved in a battle, he can't have the same perspectives and understandings that the people in the field do.

Joe Galloway (the reporter from "We Were Soldiers") had this to say about Secretary Rumsfield:

I can wish that your boss [Donald Rumsfeld] had surrounded himself with close advisers who had, once at least, held a dying boy in their arms and watched the life run out of his eyes while they lied to him and told him, over and over, "You are going to be all right. Hang on! Help is coming. Don't quit now".

Such men in place of those who had never known service or combat or the true cost of war, and who pays that price, and had never sent their children off to do that hard and unending duty. I could wish for so much. I could wish that in January of this year I had not stood in a garbage-strewn pit, in deep mud, and watched soldiers tear apart the wreckage of a Kiowa Warrior [helicopter] shot down just minutes before and tenderly remove the barely alive body of WO Kyle Jackson and the lifeless body of his fellow pilot. They died flying overhead cover for a little three-vehicle Stryker patrol with which I was riding at the time. I could wish that Jackson's widow Betsy had not found, among the possessions of her late husband, a copy of my book, carefully earmarked at a chapter titled Brave Aviators, which Kyle was reading at the time of his death. That she had not enclosed a photo of her husband, herself and a 3 year old baby girl.

On the character of those attacking Secretary Rumsfield:

And some highly respected officers such as recently retired Major General John Batiste have been calling for Donald Rumsfeld to resign. When John Batiste was leading the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq, he was not a stay-in-the-palace general. Like many of our top military leaders, Batiste was frequently on the battlefield. He lost more than 100 soldiers in Iraq. I would see the General personally attending the memorials for his soldiers.

General Batiste knows the face of war, and his voice should be heard by Americans. Some people have called Generals like John Batiste "traitors" because they speak out in retirement against civilian leadership. Batiste and Galloway might be a lot of things, but they are both patriots to freedom and brave men. They are also both very smart about war.

On Afghanistan:

The Canadians are fighting more and more although few people seem to notice. Hopefully, Bill can help change that. No matter what anyone says, the Afghanistan I just left is easily as dangerous as the Iraq I spent almost a year in. But whereas we are beating back the enemies and winning in Iraq, the enemies in Afghanistan are getting stronger as the seconds tick. We need to listen to our military experts and to our young soldiers, too. Like Ernie Pyle once noted, nobody is more plainspoken than combat soldiers. The ones I met in Afghanistan call that the "forgotten war" but unless things change dramatically, 2007 will be a year everyone remembers in Afghanistan.

On listening to the military:

Soldiers, you are fighting a war that is becoming the Great Undocumented War. We at home need to know what is happening, what you are doing right, wrong. Good or bad, tell us what you need. We are listening. Send us your stories.

Read the dispatch. Then go read the stories.

There's a very simple way to demonstrate that high taxes are a bad idea. Rich people have lots of money. The best thing possible for everyone else is that rich people spend that money. Every dollar spent by a rich person is a dollar that helps employ someone else. If buying a car, auto works are employed; if buying a suit, textile workers are employed; if buying a house, construction workers are employed; if buying a yacht, dock workers are employed.

The more government taxes someone, the less likely they are to put their money in places where it can be taxed. If they stop spending, the entire economy suffers. If government lowers their taxes, they will be more likely to spend their money, thus creating jobs for everyone else.

Call it trickle down economics. Call it Reaganomics. Or call it psychology. Whatever you call it, it works. Tax someone more, they'll spend less; tax someone less, they'll spend more. I'm better off when they spend more. Aren't you?

I'm always quick to criticize the Department of Motor Vehicles. After all, I've spent more time in their lines than I have anywhere else. Still, fairness requires me to praise them when they actually do something right. The Wisconsin State Journal wrote today about the DMV making it tricky to get fake driver's licenses:

Getting a fake state-issued driver's license in Wisconsin now requires more than stolen or forged documents. It might take a plastic surgeon.

Every night, after the cameras have been shut off and the staff has gone home, computers quietly scan the roughly 5,500 images captured at state Division of Motor Vehicles field offices that day and compare them to some 6 million photos from driver's licenses and state identification cards on file.

They look at the shape of the nose, the arch of the eyebrows, the crease in the forehead. If the person photographed that day has had a picture taken for a state ID since 1997, chances are, the computers will find it.

Since the system was implemented it has caught more than 630 attempts to get false ID's -- including attempts by a child molester and a drug dealer trying to establish new identities. This is great news. If a driver's license is to have any validity at all as an identifier, it must be difficult to establish a false ID. While this system won't prevent other people from creating false ID's on their own, it will help make sure that the DMV isn't handing out "official" fake IDs.

Good job -- that's praise-worthy.

Republicans in the Assembly and the Senate failed to pass the Taxpayer Protection Amendment. Owen looks at what went wrong.

The bottom line is, the Republican leadership in Madison failed to step up, fight hard, and actually promote conservatism. If we want to pass this thing, we'll have to keep fighting at the grassroots. The only way our "representatives" will pass this is if we force them to.

The California Legislature thinks you're too dumb to own an ultrasound machine. Here's why:

"I've seen the images, and they are amazing," Mr. Lieu, referring to ultrasound pictures, said in a telephone interview after the Assembly vote. "I could watch for hours. That's the problem. Someone could leave it on the belly all day long and do harm without even knowing it."

Some studies have shown that when used improperly, the ultrasound machine can heat internal organs and the fluid inside a womb, possibly causing neurological damage to a fetus, Mr. Lieu said.

Is Mr. Lieu afraid that he's a moron or that the voters are morons? I trust that the American populace is smart enough to use ultrasound machines responsibly. Mr. Lieu just thinks you're an idiot who will strap one on and leave it running for the next 8 hours.

Fortunately, one California legislator actually uses his brain:

"We can't legislate everything, and this is certainly one of those things that we're going down the path of just really binding our society with a billion little laws," said Assemblyman Dave Cogdill, a Republican from the Central Valley.

Would that the rest of the legislators took a hint. Wouldn't it be simpler to just outlaw everything and force voters to ask for permission before doing anything? It sure looks like that's the road we're headed down.

Senate Democrats are, apparently, in favor of making sure gas stays expensive. How else do you explain this FoxNews story:

Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne's nomination for interior secretary could run into trouble from Senate Democrats who want to use it as a bargaining chip to stop more oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

[Sen. Bill] Nelson [D-Fla], citing the potential for environmental damage, said Wednesday he would "keep all my options open" for delaying the nomination. "I have nothing personally at all against Governor Kempthorne," Nelson said after meeting with Kempthorne, a former senator.

When we need as much oil as we can possibly get, the Senate is more concerned with making sure we can't use any of our own.

From today's Wisconsin State Journal (Federal health insurance bill draws wide opposition):

Senate Bill 1955 would let small businesses and trade associations band together and offer group health coverage on a national or regional basis. No law precludes them from doing that now, but a patchwork of state insurance mandates makes it cost-prohibitive and logistically impractical, said Craig Orfield, spokesman for Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., the bill's lead sponsor.

Currently, each state decides which benefits insurance companies must offer. In Wisconsin, the mandates include mammograms, alcoholism treatment, child wellness services and chiropractic care.

Some people are opposed to the bill:

The cancerous tumor in Nancy Restivo's breast was no bigger than a grain of salt when a routine mammogram discovered it in 1994. She credits the mammogram - paid for by her insurance company - with saving her life.

"I'd want that kind of coverage for as many people as possible," said Restivo, 59, a retired Janesville teacher.

I have a question for Ms Restivo. Your health insurance is more expensive because it covers all routine mammograms. For some people, that extra coverage makes their health insurance too expensive to afford. Do you want that kind of coverage mandated for everyone with health insurance if it means that some people will not be able to afford health insurance? Would you prefer that more people have basic health insurance or that fewer people have comprehensive health insurance?

I'm not sure yet whether or not I support this bill. On the whole, I'd prefer that the Federal government stick its fingers into as few pies as possible. I think regulation is best done by the states, not by Washington. On the other hand, this may be one of the few Senate bills that is actually permitted under the Constitution's Interstate Commerce Clause.

Rick Scarborough just made another statement about immigration:

Increasingly, conservative Christians are being drawn into the illegal immigration controversy. Over the past few weeks, illegal immigrants and their supporters have taken to the streets to demand their "rights" -- including a blanket amnesty for an estimated 11 million who are in the country illegally.

On the one hand, some Christians (including those usually associated with conservative causes) are saying that the Bible's call for compassion to the stranger should shape the Christian position here.

But others note that God does not require us to treat the innocent and the guilty alike. While God's mercy is available to all, the Bible also says that He has put the sword of justice in the hands of the civil authorities to punish wrongdoers.

Whether they are a burden or an asset to society, it is self-evidently true that illegal immigrants have broken our laws. How can we expect respect for the law if we condone law-breaking?

I have a counter-question: how can we expect respect for the law if we have laws that are nearly impossible to follow? The United States currently limits the number of people that can legally immigrate every year. Anyone who wants to immigrate needs to go through multiple offices, file many, many different forms, pay multiple fees, wait, wait, and wait some more. Is it any wonder that many poor Mexicans choose to slip across the border illegally? Especially when the well being of their families is one the line?

There are two ways to restore respect for the law: harshly punish those who break the law or reform the law so that it is more just. I can't speak for all Christians, but this particular Christian would rather reform the laws. It is my belief that reforming the laws and helping our poverty-stricken neighbors is more in keeping with Christ's examples than all-out enforcement and punishment would be.

I think John McCain just lost whatever chance he had at the Presidency:

[T]alking about campaign finance reform....I know that money corrupts....I would rather have a clean government than one where quote First Amendment rights are being respected, that has become corrupt. If I had my choice, I'd rather have the clean government.

Yep, he really said "I would rather have a clean government than one where quote First Amendment rights are being respected". I certainly won't be voting for him, ever. Simply put, I don't trust him to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of these United States, so help me God".

(Hat Tip: Division of Labour).

The biggest problem with our current tax code is that it's too complex. Millions of hours worth of effort are wasted every year calculating who owes what, to whom, for what, in what quantities. Every year Congress makes the entire enterprise more complicated. For instance, after Hurricane Katrina, Congress wrote all kinds of breaks into the tax code for those who had been harmed by the hurricane or those who were helping those harmed by the hurricane. The result is a mess of new forms, qualifications, deductions, credits, required documentation, and -- most of all -- confusion.

It turns out that there's actually a very good reason for all of this confusion:

Three of the four top lawmakers on the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means committees, which are in charge of writing tax laws, pay professionals to file their annual tax returns with the Internal Revenue Service.

(The fourth files his own taxes every year.) Will any of the other law makers ever consider filing their own taxes?

"Absolutely not," said Rep. Jim McCrery (R-La.). "I'm not an accountant. I'm a lawyer."

Well, buddy, I think you should feel the pain that American taxpayers feel. I propose -- beginning next year -- that all Congresspeople and Senators be required to fill out their tax returns by hand. No calculators. No computers. No tax advisors. No visits to H&R; Block. Furthermore, any errors will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. And why not -- they're writing laws that all Americans are expected to follow fully. It's only fair that they themselves face the same expectations and the same penalties for failure.

As for not allowing the lawmakers to have any help when filing their taxes, just consider it an incentive to simplify the tax code. After all, not everyone can afford fancy software of expensive advisors. If the people that write the code (who are supposedly experts on the topic) can't follow the code, maybe the code needs to be changed. Left to its own devices, I don't expect Congress to ever simplify the tax code. But maybe if we make them feel the full and undiluted pain of the tax code, they'll see the light.

While I was growing up, my dad frequently mentioned a set of tapes he had once heard. The speaker on the tapes proclaimed that no American truly owed income taxes. He proclaimed that the entire tax code was a fraud foisted upon the American public and that you were free to earn income without paying taxes. The idea sounded kooky, but my dad (and I) was intrigued and, as I get older, asked me to help him investigate the idea.

Well, Papa, I've got your answers in. Reason magazine published a May 2004 article: "It's So Simple, It's Ridiculous": Taxing times for 16th Amendment rebels.

The partisans of the tax honesty movement go beyond complaining that the income tax is too high, or that out-of-control IRS agents enforce it in thuggish ways. They claim, for a dizzyingly complicated variety of reasons, that there is no legal obligation to pay it. The continued life -- and even flourishing -- of that notion, in the face of obloquy, fines, and jail sentences, says something fascinating about a peculiarly American spirit of defiance. It may even say something encouraging about what it means to live in a nation of laws, not of men.

Never has any court anywhere -- much less the IRS -- accepted as valid any of the many arguments the movement offers for how and why there is no legal obligation for individuals to pay federal income tax. In fact, courts will fine you up to $25,000 for even raising them, insisting such arguments have been rejected so often by so many courts at so many levels that they are patently frivolous and time-wasting.

Madison's smoking ban claimed its first (business) victim yesterday. The Hammer Time bar on Madison's East Side announced that it will be closing on April 15. Bob Tague and Carla Hammerschmidt, the current owners, blame the loss of business, caused by the smoking ban.

The Wisconsin State Journal attempts to spin the story as nothing major -- just another bar, already in financial difficulty, that was forced to close:

But financial difficulties already plagued the location when the current owners ... bought it in June 2004.

When the couple bought the bar, formerly known as Vial's Lake Edge Tavern, the asking price reflected $58,800 in needed repairs, money owed to vendors and back taxes, according to court documents.

But the history of financial difficulties at the location, along with the decision to buy a tavern business after the ban was approved, led some observers Wednesday to doubt the connection between the ban and the shutdown.

It's true, Tague and Hammerschmidt took a risk by buying the bar. It needed repairs, still owed taxes, and the ban had already been approved. This is something to applaud. Had they succeeded in renovating the bar, they would have kept jobs in the neighborhood (possibly creating new jobs along the way) and kept taxes flowing to the City Council.

The Council chose to make that renovation harder than it had to be. Instead of supporting local business, supporting private property rights, and supporting people's moral right to choose whether or not to expose themselves to cigarette smoke, the council chose to hamstring local businesses and limit their competitiveness. As a result, Tague and Hammerschmidt will lose their investment. The bar employees will lose their jobs. And the city of Madison will lose another tax-paying business.

The bar may have failed even without the smoking ban. But the smoking ban made success far harder than it otherwise would have been. It would be nice to have the City Council stand up and take responsibility for the results of their ban. But they won't. It's far easier to make moral stands than to face the results of those stands. And Madison voters have shown that they're perfectly willing to accept that behavior from their Aldermen. Indeed, many Madison voters seem to positively relish doing the same thing.

To those voters: Enjoy your moral certainty. While you're celebrating the success of the ban, I'll be thinking of the employees and employers that you're hurting. One of us has the right to the moral high ground. I'm not certain it's you.

[tags]smoking ban, regulation[/tags]

The Senate missed two golden opportunities to reform the lobbying process yesterday. First, they chose not limit earmarks (hat tip to Captain's Quarters in future appropriations bills. Given that earmarks are one of the largest sources of purely wasteful spending that the Congress engages in, this is a big disappointment.

Earmarks are pet spending projects that Senators can attach to almost any bill. Currently, multiple earmarks are bundled together into a bill, then voted on as a package. Earmarks also provide plenty of opportunity for lawmakers to reward lobbyists who donate to a Senator's campaign.

Secondly, the Senate voted down the Coburn / Obama amendment to the lobbying bill. This amendment "directs the U.S. Office of Management and Budget to establish a publicly available database of the more than $300 billion the federal government spends each year via contracts and grants to more than 30,000 groups, businesses and organizations."

Nothing would limit government corruption like creating a giant database that shows exactly who the money goes to. This database would quickly expose any politician that tried to give away taxpayers' money to family, friends, or lobbyists. It's somewhat surprising, then, that Senator Trent Lott felt compelled to raise a "Rule 22 Point of Order" when the amendment was brought up for a vote.

The Senate's Rule 22 refers to the germaneness - i.e. relevance - of a proposed amendment. Translated from the Washington legislatese in which senators and congressmen so often hide, this means Lott thinks making sure the public can see who is getting more than $300 billion of their tax dollars has nothing to do with congressional ethics.

Put another way, Lott just told taxpayers to butt out.

Yes, indeed. Senator Lott doesn't think that knowing where the money goes is relevant to lobbying reform. I wonder why that is Senator? Do you have anything you'd like to hide from the American people? Or do you just believe that being accountable to the voter is an idea who's time has not yet come?

Once again, I'm disappointed in the Senate Republicans. For a party facing a tough election year, they're certainly not doing anything to inspire the voters, excite fiscal conservatives, or even show that they're aware of the election.

[tags]earmarks, pork[/tags]

I've been trying to figure out how to articulate them. Jane Galt beat me to the punch. Go read her post.

The three-quarters of my forebears who were Irish probably didn't speak English when they got here, and showed no particular interest in learning how to do so. Cramming themselves into tenements ten or more to a room, they were willing to work longer hours for lower pay than native-born Americans. Having brought a rich, and very foreign, culture with them, they clustered in urban areas so that they could preserve it, including a drinking culture that horrified the Protestants then flocking to temperance reform. None of them showed much propensity for assimilating; they established their own churches, schools, social organizations, and businesses, allowing their descendants to live in a little parallel Irish world that kept them out of the mainstream. More than 100 years after they landed in North America, my father's family was still living in an Irish neighbourhood in Boston (though by then they had learned how to speak English). Then, as soon as there were enough of them, they took over the political apparatus of the cities they lived in, and began running it for the benefit of the immigrant communities swelling the tenements, instead of the native-born. This separatism was so complete, so pervasive, so stubborn that America is still riven by the threat of . . . gay Irishmen marching in the St. Patrick's Day Parade.

You really should read it all. It's what I would say. Err, except the part about three-quarters of my ancestors being Irish. I think most of mine were English. But, given that I never finished my genealogical research, that could apply to me as well.

Two weeks ago, I e-mailed Representative Parisi to ask his opinion of the proposed Taxpayer Protection Amendment:

Representative Parisi:

As a constituent, I am interested in your position on the Taxpayers Protection Amendment. Do you think this is a good idea? As currently written, do you plan to vote for it or against it?

~joe

This morning, I received a response from Representative Parisi:

Dear Mr. Martin:

Thank you for your email regarding Senate Joint Resolution 63/Assembly Joint Resolution 77, the so called "Taxpayer Protection Amendment" (TPA).

While I support government spending controls at the federal, state and local levels, I believe the proposed "Taxpayer Protection Amendment" will have a devastating effect on our state and local government with regard to the disabled, the elderly, University and K-12 education, the unemployed and our prison system. It will remove control from our local governments and restrict essential services from keeping pace with need and growth. And, most importantly, this proposed constitutional amendment will impair Wisconsin's ability to invest in the future.

I understand the need to reduce the state's property taxes. As a co-sponsor of the Democratic proposal to establish a "Homeowner's Tax Credit" we would eliminate school taxes on the first $60,000 of assessed value of the taxpayer's residence. This would cut the property tax bill for the average homeowner by $400. I think it is much better to change the current system and reduce people's property taxes than to freeze the unfair system into place.

Again, I appreciate your email on this issue. Please don't hesitate to keep in touch with my office on any issues of concern.

Sincerely,

JOE PARISI

State Representative

48th Assembly District

I appreciate his answer, but I do see a few things that raise further questions. I'll be composing a response later today.

On Friday night, Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker dropped out of the Republican primary race against Representative Mark Green. You can read the Wisconsin State Journal story on the event.

Owen Robinson, of Boots & Sabers, was at the 5th Congressional District Republican Caucus where Walker announced his decision. He uploaded a copy of Walker's speech. He also provided a copy of Representative Green's response (with audio) and an audio copy of Walker's speech.

This announcement makes things simpler for me. I had been leaning towards supporting Scott Walker, but hadn't made up my mind yet. Now I can focus on campaigning for one candidate and know exactly where to send my money. I back Representative Green 100% and look forward to having a governor that will require photo ID to vote, that will sign a concealed-carry bill into law, and that will work towards lowering Wisconsin's tax burden. As of this morning, I'm a member of "the Green Team".

Two side notes. Walker wins my award for best political soundbite of the month: In the end, I love this state too much to see Jim Doyle elected to another term.

Democratic Party Chairman Joe Wineke won the award for "Cutest Attempt at a Political Attack: The good news for Wisconsin voters is that Scott Walker is out of the race. The bad news is that extreme Mark Green is still in it. Wineke gets bonus points for clever use of assonance -- glad to see he was paying attention when his English teacher covered clever uses of rhyming.