Today in 1968, Tiny Tim’s “Tiptoe thru the Tulips” reached number 17:
Today in 1971, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were sentenced on drug charges. And, of course, you could replace “1971” with any year and Jagger’ and Richards’ names with practically any rock musician’s name of those days.
Or other people: Today in 2000, Eminem’s mother sued her son for defamation from the line “My mother smokes more dope than I do” from his “My Name Is.”
Birthdays start with LeRoy Anderson, whose first work was the theme music for many afternoon movies, but who is best known for his second work (with which I point out that Christmas is less than six months away):
Anderson was born two years before Alfred Hitchcock’s favorite composer, Bernard Herrmann:
Who was Eva Boyd? Older readers would remember Little Eva:
Ian Paice, drummer for Deep Purple …
… was born the same day as Bill Kirchen, who led Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen:
Colin Hay, who was born in Scotland but moved to Australia to join Men at Work …
… was born the same day as Don Dokken, who headed his eponymous group:
The latest consequence of the previous governor’s and Legislature’s tax-happiness comes from Kiplinger’s Retiree Tax Heavens (and Hells).
Even had you not seen this on the news, given Kiplinger’s headline, you probably could choose one and have nearly a 100 percent chance of being right.
Wisconsin is one of the 10 worst states for retirees, according to Kiplinger. The other nine are California, Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, Oregon and Vermont. (Which gives the lie, at least in those states, to the claims of the outsize political influence of senior citizens.)
The list of 10 best states for retirees actually does not include many states where one would think elderly people are moving in huge gray waves for retirement — Alabama, Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Wyoming. (Arizona, Florida, Nevada and Texas are not on the list.)
Wisconsin’s approach to taxing retirement income is similar to the federal government’s, according to Kiplinger. While Social Security and Railroad Retirement income is not taxable, and “all retirement payments from the U.S. military employee retirement system, the Coast Guard, the commissioned corps of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Public Health Service” are exempt from taxes, most other retirement income is taxable at up to 7.75 percent.
(An intriguing half-sentence on this page: “Certain Wisconsin state- and local-government retirees qualify for a tax exemption …” One wonders how those who paid the salaries of state and local government retirees who do not get that tax exemption feel about that.)
Wisconsin probably ranks closer to 41st than 50th given that the state did not make the lists of the five states with the top income tax brackets, highest sales taxes or highest median real estate taxes, or the six least pension-friendly states, or the 23 states with estate or inheritance taxes. On the other hand, Wisconsin also did not make any of the opposite lists, and Wisconsin’s lack of estate and inheritance taxes is the case only until the end of 2012.
If your goal is merely to maximize revenue from taxpayers, being on Kiplinger’s bottom 10 list makes sense. Despite what you read from demagogic Democrats about failure to tax enough resulting in senior citizens’ living on the street and eating cat food, the fact is that the retirement generation as a generation is the richest in this country. They’ve had their entire working lives to invest income and accumulate wealth, they’ve paid off most of the big bills (their homes, children’s college, etc.), and the past three years of stock market doldrums took money from a vastly larger base of investments thanks to the economy of the 1980s and 1990s.
What is particularly unfair about high retirement taxes is that many retired people feel unable to leave Wisconsin because Wisconsin is where their family is. (Particularly in the case of retired people with grandchildren, and particularly where their children are single parents.) The nature of retirement is much different from the days of retirees’ parents; retirees from the full-time grind can usually expect enough years of good post-retirement health to make such contributions as starting a business or getting heavily involved in volunteer work. Encouraging retirees to leave, which our tax structure clearly does, means those contributions go to another state too.
As is always the case, when you want less of something, you tax it.
Former Milwaukee Braves manager Fred Haney was once quoted as saying that anyone can be an example — an example of how to do things, or an example of how not to do things.
Guess which state the latter applies to in the American Legislative Exchange Council’s Rich States, Poor States? When one of the chapters is titled “Wisconsin Exposes Deeper State Budget Crisis,” you’re definitely an example.
Fortunately, Wisconsin as bad example is limited in the text to this:
In the wake of the recent protests in Wisconsin and several other states, Americans are taking a much closer look at the grim budget realities facing our states today. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker correctly points out that his state’s current budget trajectory is unsustainable, and he is not alone.
ALEC Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force director Jonathan Williams, economist Arthur Laffer, and Wall Street Journal senior economics writer Stephen Moore compiled their fourth ranking of the states in two listings — their State Economic Competitiveness Index and their Economic Outlook Index.
The first index “is a backward-looking measure based on a state’s performance on three important variables: Personal Income Per Capita, Absolute Domestic Migration, and Non-Farm Payroll Employment—all of which are highly influenced by state policy. This ranking details states’ individual performances over the past 10 years based on this economic data.”
In terms of economic performance between 1999 and 2009, Wisconsin ranks 44th of the states — 30th in absolute domestic migration (between 2000 and 2009, 18,365 more people left Wisconsin than moved to Wisconsin), 40th in per capita personal income growth (33.2 percent), and 41st in non-farm payroll employment (3.4 percent less).
Thanks to Gov. James Doyle and the previous Legislature, Wisconsin has the 15th highest top personal income tax rate, the 21st highest top corporate income tax rate, the seventh highest property taxes, and the fourth highest increase in taxes for the 2009 and 2010 tax years. Wisconsin ranks 20th in progressivity of income taxes.
Why did I write “Thanks to Gov. James Doyle and the previous Legislature?” The answer is found on page 98, where you’ll note that the state’s nosedive in income growth and non-farm employment below even the (increasingly weak) national economy came in 2008 and 2009, when Democrats controlled the state Senate (from 2007 to 2010) and Assembly (in 2009 and 2010). And how did that work out?
The conclusion is getting to be nearly inescapable that states with high and rising tax burdens are more likely to suffer in an economic decline while those with lower and falling tax burdens are more likely to enjoy robust economic growth. Here is a quick synopsis of the results:
The overall level of taxation has an inverse relationship to economic growth in a state.
The change in the level and rate of taxation impacts state economic performance.
High tax rates are especially harmful.
Some state taxes have a more negative impact than others.
Next is the Economic Outlook Index, which is “a forecast based on a state’s current standing in 15 state policy variables. Each of these factors is influenced directly by state lawmakers through the legislative process. Generally speaking, states that spend less—especially on income transfer programs, and states that tax less—particularly on productive activities such as working or investing—experience higher growth rates than states which tax and spend more.”
Wisconsin ranks 30th in its Economic Outlook Index, based on a combination over the past decade of gross state product growth (34.6 percent), personal income growth (35 percent), per capita personal income growth (33.2 percent), population growth (5.2 percent), net domestic in-migration (0.9 percent), non-farm payroll employment growth (0.8 percent), and 2010 unemployment rate (9.1 percent). Utah ranked first, and New York ranked last. And 30th is a significant downgrade from a year ago, when Wisconsin ranked 23rd.
Population growth and in-migration (the difference between people moving into Wisconsin and people moving out of Wisconsin) is a particularly interesting measure. There is one particular political impact from those two numbers: Since the 1960 Census, Wisconsin has gone from having 10 Congressional seats to having eight. Only 12 states have lost as many Congressional seats since 1960. Given that the House of Representatives has 435 seats and does not grow in size, one state’s loss is another state’s gain, which means that one state’s loss of Congressional power is another state’s Congressional power gain.
The usual suspects will … actually, the report nails it:
Some dedicated class warriors will angrily attack proponents of these business friendly, progrowth tax measures. However, as we have said for years, businesses do not pay taxes, people do, and economists from all parts of the political spectrum agree. Don’t take our word for it—even the left leaning Tax Policy Center Blog recently admitted that states need to rid themselves of corporate income taxes: “State corporate income taxes are lineal descendents of the federal version and share many of its flaws. They doubly tax income at the firm and individual level, penalize businesses that organize as corporations, and reward debt versus equity finance. They also are very sensitive to the business cycle, and tend to plunge when the economy sags.”
(It’s like they live in Wisconsin or something.)
The other thought from the preceding paragraph is that, contrary to the views of the class warriors and the other Madison protesters, is that their view of the purpose of government is wrong. The purpose of government is to provide government services. It is neither to serve as employer you’d most like to work for (or employer, period, beyond the absolute minimum of employees needed to perform government services), nor to redistribute income, nor to effect social change popular with those in power.
I wrote last week about those decrying the widening gap between the rich and the poor. There is a widening gap, but it isn’t just that gap:
The top 1 percent of earners nearly pays a larger share of federal income taxes than the bottom 95 percent. This happened for the first time in American history in 2007, even after tax rates were cut under President George W. Bush. Some critics argue that the rich pay most of the taxes because they make most of the income. Indeed, the top 1 percent of earners makes about 25 percent of income, but their share of the federal income tax is much higher than their share of earned income. It is also worth noting that the bottom 50 percent of Americans now pays less than 3 percent of the total federal income tax. The U.S. tax system is highly progressive already.
We already know what our state economy has been like with Doyle and Democrats in charge; the 44th ranking just quantifies what happened in our own Lost Decade. The more important number for the future is the 30th ranking. In order to do better than a 30th ranking over the next few years, the report suggests several principles that are obvious and yet escaped the attention of the now-minority party in state government (which led to the Nov. 2 election results):
Keep tax rates low.
Guard against inflation. (The report notes that education and health care, “two industries largely provided by government, particularly state government … have had nearly the highest rates of inflation over the past decade. The third-party-payer system in both industries is one of the biggest reason for this.”)
Balance the budget.
More spending is not the answer.
The third point isn’t happening because I believe state finances will show a continuing GAAP deficit as of June 30, the end of the 2010–11 fiscal year. The jury is still out on the other three points. It’s not clear to me that those extremist, divisive radicals (have I gotten in all the Dumocrat pejoratives?) in the Walker administration and the state Republican Party have gone nearly far enough to erasing years of bad policy.
For some reason, the Beatles’ “Sie Liebt Dich” got only to number 97 on the German charts:
The English translation, “She Loves You,” did much better, yeah, yeah, yeah:
This would have never happened in Madison, but … in Milwaukee today in 1993, Don Henley dedicated “It’s Not Easy Being Green” to President Bill Clinton … and got booed.
Frank Mills played a big instrumental of the late ’70s, “Music Box Dancer”:
Let’s see what we can find in the double play box, herr kommissar:
My German side should appreciate this: Today in 1870, Richard Wagner premiered “Die Valkyrie”:
Today in 1964, the Beatles released their album “A Hard Day’s Night”:
Today in 1975, Sonny and Cher decided they didn’t got you babe anymore — they divorced:
(Interestingly, at least to me: Sonny and Cher revived their CBS-TV show after their divorce. Also, Cher did a touching eulogy at Sonny Bono’s funeral.)
Today in 1990, eight Kansas and Oklahoma radio stations decided to boycott singer KD Lang because she didn’t have a constant craving for meat, to the point she did an anti-meat ad:
Birthdays start with Billy Davis Jr. of the Fifth Dimension:
Jean Knight, who was dismissive of Mr. Big Stuff:
Rindy Ross, the B-minor-favoring singer of Quarterflash:
Between my former and current blogs, I wrote a lot about automobiles and TV and movies. Think of this post as killing two birds (Thunderbirds? Firebirds? Skylarks?) with one stone.
Most movies and TV series view cars the same way most people view cars — as A-to-B transportation. (That’s not counting the movies or series where the car is the plot, like the haunted “Christine” or “Knight Rider” or the “Back to the Future” movies.) The philosophy here, of course, is that cars are not merely A-to-B transportation. Which disqualifies most police shows from what you’re about to read, even though I’ve watched more police video than anything else, because police cars are plain Jane vehicles.
The highlight in a sense is in the beginning: The car chase in my favorite movie, “Bullitt,” featuring Steve McQueen’s 1968 Ford Mustang against the bad guys’ 1968 Dodge Charger:
One year before that (but I didn’t see this until we got Telemundo on cable a couple of years ago) was a movie called “Operación 67,” featuring (I kid you not) a masked professional wrestler, his unmasked sidekick, and some sort of secret agent plot. (Since I don’t know Spanish and it’s not subtitled, that’s about all I can tell you.) The highlight of the movie is a duel between a 1965 Dinalpin A110 (apparently a Mexican-built Renault Alpine) and an airplane equipped with machine guns:
Unlike James Bond’s Aston Martins (apparently MI6 has more budget than whatever these guys work for), the A110 doesn’t have any special features at all, but our hero thoughtfully threw a bazooka in the trunk before he left. (Note to self: Check Army surplus store to see if they have any bazookas on clearance.)
The Dodge Challenger in “Vanishing Point” didn’t have a name, but its driver didn’t have a first name either:
(The Chevy, painted black, was driven by Harrison Ford in “American Graffiti.”)
Another early example is Eleanor, the Mustang featured in the original cult classic “Gone in 60 Seconds“:
I stumbled upon an early formula for TV series success: Cool car + cool theme music = something I’d watch. Although I didn’t watch much of this, one early example was “Mannix,” which combined the theme music of Lalo Schifrin (whose birthday was earlier this week) and, at first, the only Oldsmobile Toronado convertible and then a Dodge Dart GT convertible into a series in which the hero, by one count, was shot 17 times, knocked unconscious 55 times, and drugged 12 times:
There was a TV series, “Chase,” that ran one season on NBC in 1973. (It was repeated on USA Network one mid-1980s summer.) That show must have been a gearhead kid’s dream, because it featured (1) a souped-up Plymouth Satellite, (2) a motorcycle, (3) a helicopter and (4) a police dog. Unfortunately, other than listings of the series, there is no online evidence the series ever existed.
After “Chase” exited, Jim Rockford drove onto the scene:
Unlike a series you’re about to read about (the literary types call that “foreshadowing”), someone thought to replace Rockford’s 1974 Firebird with a 1977 Firebird when Pontiac replaced the dual round headlights with quad rectangular headlights. “The Rockford Files” was also known for epic car chases every other episode or so. (I wrote about the 10 best movie car chases for the previous blog, but that too has gone into e-heaven, it seems.)
One of the most famous series of the ’70s was “Starsky & Hutch,” which featured a red Ford Torino with a Nike-like white swoosh. I’m sure no one would have connected that car to belonging to the police, right?
In late 1976 Motor Trend did a story about the S&H Torino and, pointing out that Ford had just canceled the Torino, noted that “insiders are looking for a spectacular crash in an upcoming script,” and wondering with what the Torino would be replaced. The answer, of course, was … another Torino, something sort of noted in the “Starsky & Hutch” movie, when the Torino that was driven off a dock was replaced by … another Torino driven up by Paul Michael Glaser (whose movie part was played by Ben Stiller) and David Soul (whose movie part was played by Owen Wilson).
Speaking of movies …
(By the way: Pontiac never made a LeMans four-door convertible in 1976 or any other year.)
After Smokey drove onto the screen, along came “CHiPs”:
The coolest wheels were the motorcycles, of course. (At the time the California Highway Patrol was using Kawasakis instead of Harley–Davidsons or, apparently now, BMWs.) This was the first series, however, where I noticed that the same cars were passed every week, and the same vehicles were in the middle of each week’s epic crash. (In fact, one bad-guy car became Ponch’s car, a Pontiac Firebird with both the Trans Am shaker scoop and the Formula Ram Air scoops.) The other thing that annoyed me was the episode in which Ponch and Jon were assigned to a squad car because of bad weather, and their boss told them it was a new squad, when in fact it was about a three-year-old car. (Even though we didn’t own any Chrysler products, I could tell the difference between a full-size Dodge Monaco and a mid-sized Dodge Monaco!)
While Ponch and Jon were patrolling the freeways of southern California, Bo and Luke Duke were racing and being chased by the crooked establishment of Hazzard of some unnamed Southern state:
(Non-Wisconsinites may not know that Tom Wopat, who played Luke, is a native of Lodi. Non-Madisonians may not know that I went to high school with Tom’s cousin. And in some future blog, I may write about the incongruity of the family relationships about three cousins living with an uncle who is the father of none of them, once I figure out the Clampett family.)
The bad thing about “Dukes” (other than Bo and Luke’s several-episode departure due to a salary dispute in which they were replaced by, you guessed it, two other cousins who looked just like Bo and Duke) is the number of people who took perfectly good 1969 Dodge Chargers and ruined them by making Dukesmobiles.
And then we move to Hawaii:
What was not to like about this series? The lush scenery of Hawaii, and a charismatic star who drives a Ferrari! Add loyal friends, an amusing antagonist, mostly good stories, babes easy on the eyes (although Magnum never seemed to connect with them; perhaps that was part of his appeal too, that he was as much a klutz with women as his male viewers), and perfect targa-top-friendly weather.
Proving that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Magnum’s success bred several imitators, including “Hardcastle & McCormick,” with the latter … well, the first-season titles explain the premise:
Related to McCormick’s Coyote (which was actually a modified Manta Montage) was the “Hawk,” a heavily modified AMC Javelin for the miniseries “Wheels,” Arthur Hailey’s fictionalized retelling of Lee Iacocca’s battle to create the Ford Mustang. (“Wheels” should not be confused with “The Betsy,” a movie about the creation of a fuel-efficient car that was named to the 100 Most Enjoyably Bad Movies Ever Made list in The Official Razzie Movie Guide.)
Down under, Australian director George Miller was making considerably darker movies with a Ford Falcon Interceptor, “the last of the V-8s”:
I’m not sure how integral to the part the Ferraris (a 365 GTS/4 replica on a Corvette chassis and a very real Testarossa) driven by Miami–Dade Police Detective James “Sonny” Crockett were, but they certainly fit in with the series feel:
It is interesting to note that very few TV series or movies have featured America’s sports car, the Corvette. (The aforementioned Corvette-powered Daytona replica doesn’t count.) The Vette was integral to “Route 66,” of course:
Robert Conrad exported a C3 convertible to Vienna to channel his inner Rick Blaine in “Assignment Vienna“:
Just after that, before the scientific accident that turned him into the Incredible Hulk, Bill Bixby drove a white Corvette in the two-season “The Magician”:
There was the movie “Corvette Summer,” but the custom Vette is, frankly, an abomination, with asymmetrical hood scoops and, stupidly, right-hand drive:
Then you have to go all the way to a series by Jim Rockford’s creator, “Stingray,” which featured a ’65 Corvette driven by, of course, Ray:
So apparently I need to create a TV series, with Lalo Schifrin creating the theme music, where the hero drives a Corvette. (Particularly today, National Drive Your Corvette to Work Day.) That will have to be my weekend project. (Perhaps an out-of-work journalist who secretly performs feats of derring-do, rights wrongs, punishes the bad guys, and blogs? Naaaaaaahhhh ….)
State Rep. Fred Clark (D–Baraboo) will be in Ripon for an appearance today at 6:30 p.m. The appearance will be carried live on The Ripon Channel (channel 97 in Ripon and channel 986 for Ripon-area Charter cable subscribers) and replayed Saturday at midnight, Sunday at 7 a.m. and 4 p.m., and Monday at 2 and 10 a.m., plus later times.
Because I have a life (as in T-ball and baseball Friday night), I will not be at City Hall for Clark’s appearance. If I were able to be present, and if I was given the uninterrupted opportunity, I would have a few things — 14, to be precise — to ask Rep. Clark, who is running against Sen. Luther Olsen (R–Ripon) in the 14th Senate District recall election, which scheduling depends on the decisions of a Dane County circuit judge.
What misconduct has Sen. Olsen committed (misconduct, not positions with which you disagree) that warrants his recall?
If you believe that Sen. Olsen’s votes on the budget repair bill or the state budget or another bill warrants his recall, would you be OK with 42nd Assembly District voters recalling you for votes you’ve taken?
You call public employee collective bargaining rights a “fundamental human right.” Cite where that right is listed in the U.S. or Wisconsin constitution, or in any document that inspired the U.S. or Wisconsin constitutions. If you believe public employee collective bargaining rights are fundamental human rights, why have you not introduced a constitutional amendment to add those rights to the state Constitution?
Given the Department of Natural Resources’ reputation as being anti-business, anti-farming and anti-hunter, and given that you are a former DNR employee, why should business people, farmers or hunters support your candidacy?
In a period in which state finances are awash in red ink, the state is spending $86 million per year this decade to purchase land and take it permanently off the tax rolls for zero-impact recreational uses (which do not include hunting, fishing or motorized off-road-vehicle use). Why is this a good idea?
Explain how this list of your endorsers in your 2010 reelection campaign — AFSCME, Citizen Action of Wisconsin, the Clean Wisconsin Action Fund, the National Association of Social Workers, the Wisconsin Laborer’s District Council, the Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters, Wisconsin Progress, and the Wisconsin State AFL–CIO — represents the mainstream of 14th Senate District political thought.
In a Ripon Commonwealth Press interview, you said that “We have a structural deficit; we have to address that. We can’t tax our way out of it; we do need to make cuts.” What cuts would you favor that the state Legislature did not make? What tax increases do you favor that the state Legislature did not raise?
In that Commonwealth Press interview, you said that “I do not disagree that many public employee unions had bargained for benefit packages that were unaffordable.” You also said, “I firmly believe that everything should be on the table. … I always believed that we need to be doing something to lower costs of benefits. Did we need to require [public employees] to contribute more to health care benefits? Yes.” Yet you oppose restricting collective bargaining rights. How would you propose that public employees’ benefit packages be made affordable, now and in the future, without restricting their collective bargaining rights?
In that Commonwealth Press interview, you said, “I’m not a proponent of raising anybody’s taxes, but a lot of people aren’t [paying what they are supposed to be paying]. We should fund the Department of Revenue more to have more examiners.” Do you oppose business tax breaks that have been created by the Walker and Doyle administrations?
In that Commonwealth Press interview, you said, “The change I talk about is not getting us there; it doesn’t get even get us halfway” to the then-$2.5 billion budget deficit. What should the state have done to eliminate the structural deficit other than what you voted against?
In that Commonwealth Press interview, you said, “We need to set up a tax environment where small businesses can survive and thrive. We need to balance a growing economy and the environmental value of our … lands. We should have an economy that can grow and protect our resources at the same time.” When your party controlled the state Legislature and the Executive Residence, the state’s business climate was consistently rated in the bottom quarter among the states. Your website claims you oppose “tax breaks and tax loopholes to large corporations,” which are the largest employers in this state. What should the state be doing to improve the state’s business climate that (A) the state isn’t doing now and (B) your party didn’t do when it controlled state government?
When you were in the majority party of the state Legislature, your party and Gov. James Doyle raised taxes by $2.1 billion (for which you voted), giving the state the fourth highest state and local taxes in the nation. And yet the state had a GAAP deficit of $2.94 billion (second largest per capita and as a percentage of gross state product in the nation) at the end of the 2009–10 fiscal year, had a structural deficit of $3.6 billion at the start of the Walker administration, and had bond ratings worse than every other Midwestern state except Illinois. Voters replaced Democrats with Republicans in statewide and legislative races Nov. 2. Why should voters now entrust Democrats in fiscal matters?
Per-student educational spending in Wisconsin is in the top third among the states and highest in the Midwest. And yet two-thirds of eighth-graders scored lower than “Proficient” according to the U.S. Department of Education’s 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress. The Wisconsin Educational Association Council claims Wisconsin has “Great Schools.” The state also has the fourth highest state and local taxes in the nation. Why should teacher unions’ assertions about school funding get more weight than taxpayer groups’ assertions about school performance vs. school taxes?
Wisconsin voters, including voters in the 14th Senate District, overwhelmingly rejected Democrats Nov. 2. Why should 14th Senate District voters now change their minds and vote for you?
Proving that there is no accounting for taste, I present the number six song today in 1972:
Twenty years later, Billy Joel got an honorary diploma … from Hicksville High School in New York (where he attended but was one English credit short of graduating due to oversleeping the day of the final):
Birthdays start with Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac:
Chris Wood of Traffic was born the same day …
… as Jeff Beck:
Colin Blunstone of the Zombies:
Patrick Moraz played keyboards for Yes (for one album) and the Moody Blues (including their number one album “Long Distance Voyager”):
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 