State Income Tax

Many states are facing major budget deficits this year. So governors in states like California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, and Oregon have a plan. They want to increase the state income tax on the wealthiest citizens.

For a moment, let’s leave aside whether this is a good or bad idea in terms of tax fairness. Let’s merely focus on whether it will be effective. Arthur Laffer and Stephen Moore argue in a recent column that it will be counter productive. They say: “Here’s the problem for states that want to pry more money out of the wallets of rich people. It never works because people, investment capital and businesses are mobile. They can leave tax-unfriendly states and move to tax-friendly states.”

I have talked about this in previous commentaries. For example, a survey by United Van Lines found an interesting pattern of movement among the twenty thousand Americans who relocate across state lines each day. In general, they moved from high-tax states to low-tax states.

More recent research by Laffer and Moore using data from Ohio University found that 1,100 people move every day from the nine highest income-tax states such as California, New Jersey, New York, and Ohio to the nine states with no state income tax, including Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, and Texas. They also found that those no-income tax states created 89 percent more jobs and had 32 percent faster personal income growth than their high-tax counterparts.

But is also important to remember that the fifty states aren’t just competing with each other; they are competing with other countries. The governor of Texas put it this way: “Our state is competing with Germany, France, Japan, and China for business. We’d better have a pro-growth tax system or those American jobs with be out-sourced.” Perhaps he is right. Last year Texas created more new jobs than all other 49 states combined.

I can understand why governors in many states would want to raise taxes when they are facing budget shortfalls, but perhaps they should consider some of the economic facts before they do so. I’m Kerby Anderson, and that’s my point of view.

Pro-Life Trend

Much has been written about the latest Gallup poll showing that for the first time in history, a majority of Americans consider themselves “pro-life.” This is significant since just a year ago the percentages were reversed. Fifty percent described themselves as pro-choice and 44 percent described themselves as pro-life.

Critics rightly point out that this is just one poll. And they also believe we need to look beyond the self-identification labels of “pro-life” and “pro-choice.” Meanwhile pro-life proponents argue that this radical shift in values in due to promotion of abortion by the current administration and a rethinking of such pro-life issues as embryonic stem cell research.

I believe what this poll shows is the beginning of a demographic trend that many of us have been predicting for years. The prediction is based upon an assumption and an observation. The assumption is that children who grow up in pro-life homes are likely to have a pro-life worldview when they are adults. The observation is that more children are born in pro-life homes than in pro-choice homes.

The assumption seems relatively sound. Apparently it follows the classic “80-20 rule.” Political scientists have found that 80 percent of children select the same party preference as their parents. Twenty percent do reject their parents’ ideology, but still the most significant predictor of future ideology is parental values.

The observation is even more solid. In previous commentaries I have talked about Arthur Brookes who has found a substantial fertility gap between liberals and conservatives. Other social scientists like Phillip Longman has also noted a similar disparity between progressives and traditionalists.

Some writers point to a simple fact. Pro-choice parents had fewer children because they were more likely to abort them. The 50 million abortions since Roe v. Wade were not evenly distributed throughout the American population. A higher percentage of children were aborted in pro-choice homes.

If this assumption and observation is correct, then we should see the percentage of people describing themselves as pro-life increasing in years to come. I’m Kerby Anderson, and that’s my point of view.

Legalize Drugs?

When Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced that he was considering legalization of marijuana, I thought: “here we go again.” For the last two decades, I have always included a chapter on drugs in any book I wrote that dealt with ethics. Within those chapters I included a short section on why drugs should not be legalized.

There was a strong push for drug legalization in the 1980s and 1990s. But there were also good reasons to reject these ideas, and few legislatures seriously considered legalizing drugs. Some decriminalized marijuana and a few made provisions for medical marijuana. The statement by the governor of California probably guarantees that drug legalization will once again be a live issue for some time.

Drug legalization and taxation won’t solve all of California’s budget woes, but the potential income would be significant. It could add more than a billion dollars to the state budget. But there would certainly be social costs.

We know this is the case just by looking at what happened in states that decriminalized marijuana. Arrests for driving under the influence of drugs exploded, drug-related accidents increased, and welfare costs went up.

When drugs like marijuana are legalized, drug usage increases. Obviously, some people are going to use drugs whether they are legal or illegal. Keeping drugs illegal persuades law-abiding citizens to live their lives without drugs. Legalization removes the incentive to stay away from drugs.

What will happen to our young people? William Bennett served in both the Reagan and Bush administration. He said: “I didn’t have to become drug czar to be opposed to legalized marijuana. As Secretary of Education I realized that, given the state of American education, the last thing we needed was a policy that made widely available a substance that impairs memory, concentration, and attention span. Why in God’s name foster the use of a drug that makes you stupid?”

Why indeed. Legalizing any drug is bad social policy and bad government policy. I’m Kerby Anderson, and that’s my point of view.

Health Care Facts

America is about to engage in another debate about health care. By now, we have heard all of the justifications for more governmental involvement. The U.S. medical system is too expensive and quite inefficient in delivering health care to its citizens. Critics also argue that socialized systems of health care are more effective.

These are the foundational arguments for change that you find in columns, commentaries, and even documentaries. A recent article in Forbes magazine and a research paper published by the National Center for Policy Analysis provides a quick rebuttal to these arguments and put some relevant facts on the table.

Let’s address the first question. Does the U.S. spend too much on health care? The best answer is yes and no. America does devote more resources per capita than do socialized nations. But when you compare the outcomes, the U.S. is neither better nor worse than “the rest of the developed world at controlling expenditure growth.” And more spending on medicine isn’t a bad thing. For example, “Britain has only a fraction of the number of CT and MRI scanners per patient population that the U.S. has.”

What about health care delivery? A dialysis patient “had to wait 62 days for access in Canada versus 16 days in the U.S.” Similar disparities in delays can be found with other treatments when comparing developing countries to the U.S.

What about effective treatment for various medical conditions. The U.S. exceeds other countries in treatments and cures for such diseases as cancer, diabetes, and hypertension. For example, “U.S. women have a 63% chance of living at least five years after a cancer diagnosis, compared with 56% for European women. Men in the U.S. have a five-year survival rate of 66%, compared with 47% for European men.”

Before Congress begins to tinker with health care in America, we need to put these relevant facts on the table. I’m Kerby Anderson, and that’s my point of view.

Cell Phones

Cell phones are changing the world often in ways you might not expect. We all know how we use cell phones in this country, but what is the impact they are making in other countries?

Jessica Williams is the author of the book, 50 Facts That Should Change the World. In her first edition, one of her facts was that 70 percent of the world’s population had never heard a dial tone. By the second edition, that was no longer the case.

Every single day, one million people become new mobile phone subscribers. The large majority of them are in the developing world. Consider that in India alone, more than six million new customers sign up each month. By 2010, the government predicts there will be more than 500 million mobile phone users.

These new phones provide much more than convenience. They grow the economy and allow access to the outside world and. Studies show that adding phones in a country increases its GDP. And these newer phones allow people in the developing world to access information on the Internet.

Let’s be clear: there is still a digital divide in the world. In North America, nearly 70 percent can access the Internet. The percentage drops to 10 percent when you are talking about the Middle East and Asia. Only 4 percent of people in Africa can access the Internet. Let’s also remember that government in certain countries limit access to the Internet. Many governments (China, Iran, Myanmar) heavily censor Internet access. Others filter Internet traffic.

But the increased access to cell phones is a positive step in the world. In many countries, access to a phone was virtually impossible. In others, it meant waiting a very long time to get a phone line put into your home.

In our information society, information is power. The gap between rich and poor is still very troubling, but at least cell phones are beginning to bridge the gap in the digital divide. I’m Kerby Anderson, and that’s my point of view.

Attack Averted

During the recent debates and discussions about enhanced interrogations, we heard that the government’s actions saved lives and stopped terrorist attacks. When I heard people say this, I wanted them to go on and give an example. Obviously, much of this is classified. But can’t we come up with at least one example of how these interrogations averted an attack?

Fortunately there is an example that has surfaced. Apparently the interrogation of Khalid Sheik Mohammed prevented the destruction of the Brooklyn Bridge and the loss of perhaps ten thousand lives. Here is how it happened.

The National Security Administration picked up chatter about the “Brooklyn Bridge” in its warrantless wiretaps. It alerted New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly to the possibility of an attack against the bridge. Kelly sent police to the bridge for surveillance and also commissioned a study to determine how terrorists could bring down the bridge. If this was done during rush hour, ten thousand people would plunge into the East River.

The study concluded that it would be impossible to blow up the bridge without being discovered. But it did suggest that it might be possible for a terrorist to sever the cables holding up the bridge. Using a torch, a terrorist could slice through cables in a vacant building under the bridge. Traffic noises could mask his work, and the building was not patrolled or even visited by anyone.

By this time, the terrorist noticed the police on the bridge and sent another message that was intercepted by the NSA. It said “too hot on the Brooklyn Bridge.” The government had these messages, but they did not have the terrorist. That is where the interrogation of Khalid Sheik Mohammed comes in. He finally revealed the name of the terrorist: Lyman Farris.

The New York police raided his apartment and found the equipment needed to bring down the bridge. They even found an engineering diagram identifying where to cut the cables.

Are there other success stories? Mostly likely there are. This one at least can be told and demonstrates what one terrorist could do. I’m Kerby Anderson, and that’s my point of view.

Information Overload

Have we as a nation reached information overload? Social scientists have been warning about the possibility for years. It does seem as if it has arrived.

The Information Worker Productivity Institute estimates that the average worker spends more than 90 minutes a day dealing with e-mail. One source says that the typical office worker in the U.S. sends and receives as many as 200 e-mail messages a day. Frankly, I think that number is low and might not take into account the messages sent on a Blackberry or iPhone.

One research group found that the volume of business e-mails annually worldview exceeded one exabyte by the year 2003. To put this in perspective one exabyte is equal to one billion gigabytes.

As the information is increasing, its length is decreasing. For example, from 1968 to 1988, candidate “sound bites” on television decreased from an average of 45 seconds to 9 seconds. Subsequent studies saw the sound bite shrink to 7 seconds.

Of course candidates know that and don’t even try to explain complex policies. They merely deliver short, punchy slogans that don’t explain but merely try to create an impression or an emotional response.

It is clear that as a nation we are processing more and more information in less and less time. And we seem to be doing it while preoccupied with electronic devices that demand out attention. Scientists call this “continuous partial attention.” Essentially, we have become a nation with ADD.

So what is the solution? Even secular social scientists are saying that we need some “quiet time.” Now there’s a novel concept? Isn’t that in the Bible? Of course it is. In a world of information overload, we need to schedule time to think and process it all. I’m Kerby Anderson, and that’s my point of view.