Mr. President, would you please raise my taxes?

This question was asked during President Obama's faux "Jobs Townhall", hosted last week by LinkedIn at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. The question in my headline was actually asked. The identity of the questioner and his evasiveness prompt me to ask some questions:

 Q1. Why do Democrats assume anybody opposed to high taxes must be a shill for "Big _____" (insert your favorite evil industry)? Like in 2009, when then-Speaker of the House, San Francisco liberal Nancy Pelosi, described T.E.A. Parties springing up all across the country as "Astroturf"—her way of saying they're not an authentic, organically-grown movement. Why do Democrats think this way?

A1: Sigmund Freud talked about projecting "one's own undesirable thoughts, motivations, desires, and feelings onto someone else." Nancy Pelosi and the Professional Left routinely create fake outrage and drum up phony protest marches by busing in people who need to be instructed on what they should chant and why they should be outraged. Not infrequently these malleable folks are even paid to protest. The simple fact that Democrats actually have a name for such duplicitous behavior reveals the Freudian pot-v-kettle nature of their accusations.

When Democrats hold a "Jobs TownHall", they see nothing wrong with planting a retired millionaire—Google Employee #59, and recently-published author—in the audience to pretend he's unemployed. When the President asked where he used to work, the man dissembled: "At a search engine." An honest questioner might have mentioned that he is the founder of a Bay Area organization called Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength, which argues that "Americans with incomes over $1 million should shoulder a larger share of the tax burden to pay for Pell Grants, road improvements and training programs." That might've been a more accurate way to identify himself than saying "I'm not working".

So, yeah, when an Ohio plumber playing catch with his son on the front lawn spots Presidential candidate Obama walking down his street and asks "Your new tax plan's going to tax me more, isn't it?" Democrats just know he must have been planted on that street by evil Big Oil. They must have purchased that home and cooked up that fake son in a test-tube provided by Big Pharma. I mean, what normal person would ever think to ask such a subversive question?

Q2: Why couldn't Congress just raise the questioner's taxes?

A2: Because the U.S. Constitution forbids Bills of Attainder (Article One, Section 9) that penalize a certain group or person.

Q3: Why can't the 200 Bay Area "Patriotic Millionaires" and billionaires who want to pay higher taxes just...pay them?

A3: They can. They could even choose which agency to pay. If, say, they didn't like the military, they could write a check to the Bureau of the Public Debt. But, of course, they don't do that because they don't want only their taxes raised—they want everybody else making over a certain income to pay more taxes too. So Mr. Google 59's question is yet more artifice.

When the identity of Obama's questioner came to light, two wealthy liberals favoring higher taxes appeared with Bill O'Reilly. Informed of their options to pay above the amount of their obligation, both admitted they were aware of the options but chose to not pay any more to the IRS. Interestingly, each said they calculated what their taxes would have been at the higher rate and then gave the difference to charity.

Q4: Aren't those two wealthy Liberals proving they believe private charities do better than government programs?

A4: Very observant, yes. Or they may have just wanted the tax deduction.

Q5: Why is it that Omaha multi-billionaire Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary?

A5: He probably pays his secretary a very generous salary, pushing her into a 20% or higher tax bracket. But Buffett reportedly derives most of his own petty cash from Capital Gains, which are taxed at 15%. 

Remember a couple of things. First, Buffett previously paid taxes on the money he used to generate those Capital Gains—making his actual tax rate at least double what he's claiming. Lots of economists oppose the existence of the CapGains and Dividend taxes since they are double-taxation. And secondly, if Buffett makes less than his secretary, he is artificially underpaid. Unlike his secretary, he's free to decide his own salary. The founder and chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, the most successful diversified conglomerate of all time, could surely command a salary at least as high as the average NHL hockey player if he so wished. But no, he wishes to structure his own income to shield it from high tax rates.

I don't begrudge a Google millionaire or America's richest man the right to live off investment income at low tax rates. I just don't want them to be dishonest and try to mislead less well-off Americans into thinking that "the rich don't pay their fair share".

Don't See The Movie Right After Reading The Book

I'd tried this once before, back in the '80s with Sophie's Choice. The book was sittin' in the living room (my mother-in-law's copy) and I'd heard the movie was coming...so why not? I'd been writing and directing for a few years, so I figured it would be informative to see how the movie makers chose to handle the adaptation. 

Well, William Styron's book is powerful and riveting—its central event a long-ago evil dilemma foisted upon a young Polish mother by a power-drunk Nazi. Many years later and half-a-world away, that same woman—Sophie—finally believes she has found happiness with a suitor. I don't know how it is, exactly, that a well-told tale on the printed page can embed itself so deeply into our souls. I've gasped audibly reading crime novels, I've teared-up reading relationship stories, lost track of time in a good business yarn. But I can count on one hand the number of movies that have undone me: Deer Hunter, Reds, Local Hero, Aliens, Raising Arizona and, well, guess I better use another finger for Toy Story 3. 


Despite the presence of Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline,  the Alan J. Pakula screen version of Sophie's Choice didn't move me an inch. I learned nothing about either writing or filmmaking from the cross-media experience.

And now I've done it again. Having read the book Golf's Sacred Journey: Seven Days at the Links of Utopia a couple of weeks ago, I went this week to see the movie version. I have no way of evaluating whether the movie could get you to suspend disbelief and take a journey deep into the heart of Texas. My whole viewing experience consisted of waiting to see certain scenes from the book...and then being disappointed when they weren't in the film. How could I possibly tell you whether the movie "held together" when I spent its duration picking it apart?


I can, however, state this with certainty: there's no WAY the movie is as bad as the reviews I've read in the national press. I found the golf swing of actor Lucas Black entirely believable—partly because I know he is a scratch-golfer in real life. And of course Robert Duvall is terrific. Deborah Ann Woll is pitch-perfect as the love-interest, and the supporting cast adds genuine Texas flavor to the mix. Perhaps the ending sequence—which features real PGA golfers and several on-camera announcers/analysts from the Golf Channel—comes close to going over the top. At least the cliffhanger ending from the book stayed in the movie...as dramatically unsatisfying as it may be.


My conclusion: the compressed time-frame of a movie gives it less opportunity to burrow into your heart. If your brain still holds details of the book in fresh memory, the film doesn't have a prayer. Until you rinse the book out of your head—replaced by other, newer reads—you should wait to see the movie.


Next time, I may try reading the book after seeing the movie. 

Review of "Golf's Sacred Journey"

An avid golfer, I have never been able to finish a book about golf. I've received several as gifts, tried my best to read them, but never been able to get all the way through one. Not only have I never purchased a book about golf for myself, I've never even shopped for or considered shopping for a book about golf. I do read golf magazines, but mostly for their reviews of new courses and products and interviews with players. So it is a signal achievement for me to have finished—devoured may be a better word—this brief novel by David L. Cook, PhD.

I first heard about Golf's Sacred Journey watching a trailer for the forthcoming movie based on the novel. Robert Duvall stars in the picture, which is named after the book's subtitle Seven Days In Utopia. The fact that there really is a town named Utopia and it really does have a 9-hole course next to the cemetary helped lure me in—that and its location just outside San Antonio in the wonderful Texas hill country, where I've played several different courses over the years.

Given that I am currently adapting a friend's novel into a screenplay—not a golfing tale—I had extra motivation to read this book so I could compare book-to-film when the picture releases.

Big caveat: if you don't play the game, I don't know how you could enjoy this book. So many of the extended descriptions of the the grip, the stance, the swing, ball flight, trajectory, course management, club selection and unexplained jargon make this pretty much a novel only for golfers. That said, if you do play, I doubt you've ever read anything that captures better the way you feel when you pure a long iron, or execute a shot exactly the way you'd visualized it.

The novel opens with a hungry young professional golfer contending for the lead on the back nine Sunday at a mini-tour event in San Antonio. But on the par five 10th he melts down and takes a 15, including 3 penalty strokes—two for burying his putter-head into the green. In disgust and despair he drives away from the tournament heading aimlessly toward the setting sun, taking a fateful fork in the road away from Vanderpool and toward Utopia, population 373.

On Monday morning, along the banks of the Sabinal River, the crusty old owner of the Links of Utopia finds a disillusioned young pro pounding balls on his dusty driving range. Recognizing a desperate need, he challenges the player: "Spend seven days with me...and you'll find your game." And thus begins a week-long psychological deconstruction and rebuilding of not just the young man's game, but of his very soul.

While Golf's Sacred Journey won't win a Pulitzer or be taught in college english courses, the old man's object-lessons (oil painting, fly-fishing, washer-tossing, Cessna-flying) are strangely affecting. And given the universal anguish even casual golfers experience, the dawning self-awareness in the young pro rings true. But nothing in the first six lessons is remotely sacred...and then comes Sunday. By now the old man's wisdom and goodwill establish him as completely trustworthy, and the outcome of his sermon-in-a-cemetery is never in doubt. This set-piece doesn't feel the least bit contrived—and the term "buried lies" will never again be merely about a golf ball in a sand trap.

From there it's all denouement. At his next tournament the pro stays in the zone, conquers his demons, knocks down flagsticks—and has progressed so far beyond golf that the notion of life-and-death grinding on the links has become a faint echo in the warm sunshine. Golf's Sacred Journey is a good walk unspoiled.

One death—a tragedy; one million deaths—a statistic

A nurse or doctor who works daily caring for people who are about to die can't afford to think of these folks as people—they are "patients". Think of the debilitating sorrow and grief that overwhelms family members of the dying...would you want the nurses and doctors so burdened that they are barely able to function in their important tasks? Yet we do expect these professionals to show warmth, empathy and a degree of compassion in dealing with the sick and their loved ones. And, generally, those who work in the healing arts behave graciously toward those in their care. This is due in large measure to looking these people in the eye, knowing their name and dealing with them personally.


If you know somebody who lost his home in the immediate aftermath of the 2008 meltdown, or who is out of work now as a result of the lethargic economy, your heart aches for them. If you know two or three such folks, you have to be careful to avoid getting angry or depressed. But the destruction of the wealth and well-being of millions of people by this foreseeable and preventable debacle is so far beyond my ability to absorb, that I can only comprehend it in the realm of statistical analysis. And from this principle comes much evil in a technocratic state: despite an abysmal track record when attempting to manage/control economies, the statist impulse is to nonetheless intervene. These interventions always end badly, hurting most those with the least ability to protect themselves.

Human greed and venality are nothing new. Governments are supposed to punish evildoers, and ensure "honest weights and scales". But the modern Leviathan state provides the biggest companies cover for their shadowy deeds. Government interventions leading to the housing mess have been no secret: from the ticking time-bomb of the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act, to the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act allowing investment banks into the depository game, to the Federal Reserve's low-to-no interest rates (many say the mere existence of the Fed is a grave danger), to the moral hazard of Government Sponsored Enterprises, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to Land-Use Restrictions driving up home prices (most famously in California), to the near-trillion dollar "stimulus", the Dodd-Frank regulatory charade, and that mother of all interventions: bailing out selected firms deemed Too Big To Fail.


Obama's Justice Department has obtained zero convictions among the lenders, legislators, underwriters, raters, regulators and insurers responsible for the debacle—I'm not even aware of any investigations they've launched to hold anybody accountable. Remember that under Reagan, Bush and Clinton there were a thousand prosecutions and about 800 people convicted for their part in the S&L Crisis. How can there not have been private and public sector villains in our most recent catastrophe? For all the talk of "predatory lending", how is it that not one such predator has been brought to justice? Mister Holder—can you spare a moment from persecuting CIA interrogators to, say, enforce the laws that have laid low the greatest economy in the history of the planet?


Next up, Obamacare. Get ready for another arrogant overreach, causing the same slow motion train wreck in healthcare that crushed our housing sector and has shaken the foundations of the Republic. 


Despite a stinging electoral repudiation of their hubris, the regime now in control of the Executive Branch and half of the Congress shows no sign of slowing its headlong rush into the abyss. If America doesn't elect small-government conservatives next year, Obama's "fundamental transformation" may well be irreversible.