Not Even Record Turnout Can Dispel the Whiny 'Voterless Elections' Spin
"Voterless elections" is the new favorite rallying cry of the Trump campaign, dutifully reported by the Drudge Report. 
'CRUZ CELEBRATES ANOTHER VOTERLESS VICTORY: NO ELECTION IN WY . . .' It's absolute horse puckey. There was a vote, at precinct caucuses March 1, and turnout was higher than anyone can remember. From the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, March 2, 2016: Laramie County Republican Party Chairman Jared Olsen said he never has seen a turnout like Tuesday night. Hundreds of people packed the College Community Center at Laramie County Community College to take part in the county precinct caucus. All the parking lots around the building were full, and cars were parked on the shoulder of College Drive. A line stretched out the door well past the original starting time of 6 p.m., pushing the beginning of the caucus about a half-hour late. In an average presidential primary election, somewhere between 170 and 250 people show up, Olsen said. This year the party checked in 778 voters. And in the Casper Star-Tribune: Hundreds of people filled a room and spilled out the door Tuesday night in Natrona County to voice their opinions on who should be the next president. Natrona County Republican Party Chairman Bonnie Foster said she had never seen a crowd like this at the party's precinct caucus . . . Before the tally was taken, Foster asked for those who had never attended a Natrona County Republican Party event like Tuesday night's to raise their hands. Most of the hands in the crowd went up, all the way out the door. The Wyoming model was similar to Colorado's -- precinct caucuses held March 1; then county conventions, and a state convention. Once again, this is all very clear if you bother to read the rules, posted online. The Trump campaign appears to have not bothered. We know from recorded tallies that at the county conventions that there were 618 votes for Cruz delegates, 189 votes for Rubio delegates; 70 votes for Trump delegates, and 68 votes for undeclared delegates. That amounts to 65 percent for Cruz, 20 percent for Rubio, and 7 percent for Trump and undeclared. Out of 12 delegates that are won through this process, 9 are going to Cruz and one each is going to Trump and Rubio, and one is going uncommitted. (That amounts to 75 percent of the delegates for Cruz, and 8 percent for Rubio, Trump, and uncommitted.) If anybody's getting unfairly hurt by this setup, it's Rubio, not Trump. But that doesn't matter. Trump continues to whine that he's been robbed, even though he's getting as many delegates as Rubio, who won almost three times as many votes. "Look at what happened in Wyoming," Trump told supporters in Syracuse, N.Y., while 475 Republicans in Casper's Parkway Plaza convention center were marking their ballots. "Look at what's happening in Colorado, where the people never got a chance to vote and they're going nuts out there. They're angry -- the bosses took away their vote." Another 14 delegates are determined by the 505 attendees of the state party convention, which was held Saturday. Ted Cruz made his sales pitch in person; John Kasich had local congressman Butch Otter address the convention; and Trump was supposed to have Sarah Palin . . . but she canceled Friday afternoon. Bernie Sanders's Surprisingly Light Tax Bill Bernie Sanders believes the appropriate income tax rate for a married couple, making between $151,900 and $231,450, is 30.2 percent. (This is different from the overall percentage a person pays in taxes; it's the tax rate on how much they're making on every dollar past the minimum threshold.) Start with a couple making, oh, let's pick the oddly specific number of $205,271, for reasons we'll explain in a moment. Under current taxes, using the standard deduction of $12,600 for simplicity, that couple would pay $40,933.38. Under the Sanders plan, using the same standard deduction, that couple would pay $45,582.68. In other words, they're looking at a $4,649.30 hike in their federal taxes. We can argue about whether a couple making just north of $200,000 counts as "rich"; a good portion of couples making those sums see themselves as HENRYs – High Earners, Not Rich Yet. It turns out Bernie Sanders and his wife had $205,271 in taxable income in 2014. They had a lot more than the standard deduction: $22,946 on home mortgage interest $14,843 on real estate taxes $9,666 on state and local income taxes $8,000 in gifts to charity $350 in gifts to charity other than by cash or check $4,473 in unreimbursed job expenses, which according to tax law can include fees such as union dues and travel As a result of all those deductions, Sanders lowered his taxable income considerably. And with the lower taxable income, he paid a lot less than $40,000. U.S. presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, who has made income inequality a top campaign theme, had taxable income of $205,271 in 2014, putting him almost in the top 5 percent of American earners, according to the release of Friday of his federal tax return. That figure was still far below the millions earned by his main Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, in recent years. Sanders and his wife, Jane, paid $27,653 in federal income taxes in 2014, an effective federal tax rate of 13.5 percent, on income of $205,271, which is their adjusted gross income before deductions. That figure is just below the $206,563 that Census data show as the lower limit for the top 5 percent of U.S. households in 2014. Raise your hand if you paid more than 13.5 percent in federal taxes this year! According to the Tax Foundation, the average federal income tax rate for those making $200,000 to $500,000 was 15.2 percent. Those "millionayuhs and billionayuhs" that Sanders keeps going on about pay 27.4 percent rate. "But Jim, Bernie Sanders is perfectly entitled to all of those deductions, they're part of the tax code!" Yes, and so is everyone else, except Bernie Sanders keeps insisting that lots of other people aren't paying their fair share, and suggesting there's something immoral about doing everything legally possible to minimize your tax bill. There's nothing preventing Sanders or his wife from writing a check to the Treasury for more, but they don't do it. Maybe you feel under-taxed when you take $60,278 in deductions, as Sanders and his wife did. Finally, Consequences for Lying About the Deficit! Er . . . Somewhere Else. Remember how, on old crime shows, the bad guys would always make plans to take the money they've stolen and run to Brazil, allegedly "a non-extradition country"? The truth and law were always a little more complicated, with public perception shaped by a couple of high-profile cases. It's a curious country, where they appear to be on the verge of impeaching the president, Dilma Rousseff, for "resorting to accounting trickery in order to disguise the true size of the budget deficit." (Cue half of Washington asking, "Wait, that's illegal down there?") But it looks as if impeachment is only a matter of time: With the president's weekend defeat close to assured, minds are turning to the day after the vote. It could stretch to a month. Ms Rousseff will only have to step down once a simple majority of senators agree to start an impeachment trial. If and when that happens, [Vice President Michel] Temer will assume presidential duties for up to 180 days while the trial is conducted. (If it is still under way at that point, she would once again take office.) Her foes are pressing for a speedy Senate vote on whether to hold a trial, in the hope of ensuring a smooth transition to a Temer administration. But Renan Calheiros, the Senate's Speaker -- who, though a PMDB member, has remained loyal to Ms Rousseff -- has said he will not rush, and a vote may not happen until May 15th. Never mind that it looks like a foregone conclusion: Estado de São Paulo, a newspaper, reckons there are already at least 42 pro-impeachment votes in the 81-seat upper house. ADDENDA: Yeah, it's that time of year again, when all of us at National Review ask our readers for support. I know, you don't like being asked for money. I don't like asking for money, either. The web site and this newsletter offer quite a bit of quality writing, reporting, analysis and humor, all for free. Throwing a little donation our way is a nice way to ensure it stays free. The Carteret County News Times appreciated last week's observation about unions' demanding exemptions from the minimum-wage law they demanded. For some reason, last week's pop-culture podcast about adult coloring books, Gwyneth Paltrow's insufferable life advice, the real dangerous lesson of Harry Potter and made-up national days had huge traffic. Thanks to everyone who gave it a listen.  | 
Comments
Post a Comment