Tuesday, April 15, 2003

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

In the rush of news from far and wide, I all but missed this story in Sunday’s Seattle Times, reprinted and augmented from Elizabeth Shogren’s report in the Los Angeles Times.  In response to a lawsuit brought by the state of Utah, Interior Secretary Gale Norton has succeeded in completely revamping the priorities of the Bureau of Land Management.

Now, instead of having the BLM, with its emphasis on assessment of an area’s potential for preservation of wilderness qualities, as the primary decisionmaker, federal land use choices will revert to Congress.  It is not clear in the article precisely how the legislators will carry out this responsibility.

Which is probably the entire point of the decision by Interior and Justice to settle the Utah lawsuit ... unless Congress enacts legislation to designate a specified area as a wilderness preserve, corporations and others will be free to build roads, dig mines, set up drilling operations, practice logging, construct buildings, and otherwise “use” what might have been pristine and unspoiled land.  According to Utah governor Mike Leavitt, Interior and Justice approached him and his state officials to work out this legal settlement of an issue that had been in litigation for many years.

As best I can reconstruct it, BLM had been tasked by Congress to survey some 261 million acres under its purview to determine which (5000-plus acre) parcels might meet the qualifications for designation as wilderness—in other words, to be protected from development and to retain those wilderness qualities in perpetuity.  That task had been initiated in 1976, when Gerald Ford was president.  Like the administrations of Carter, Reagan, and GHW Bush, Clinton’s BLM and Interior continued to review BLM land for potential designation as wilderness.  Under Bruce Babbitt’s 1996 inventory, BLM wanted to add 2.6 million acres in Utah to the state’s previously-designated 3.2 million acres of wilderness.  That’s when Utah first filed its suit, which temporarily halted the inventory.  In 1998, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the federal District Court order prompted by Utah’s suit, ruling that Utah had no standing to challenge the inventory. 

The state of Utah refiled its suit this year.  In very short order, the Bush administration offered to settle the case before the 10th Circuit rendered a decision on it.  In that settlement offer, Norton and the Bushies agreed that Babbitt’s 1996 inventory had no basis in law, that in fact Congress’s mandate to BLM had expired well before that, no later than October 21, 1993.  In addition, Norton and the Bushies agreed to toss aside the BLM’s “wilderness handbook”, a document used by federal land management officials to guide the process of assessing the potential qualities of a parcel before designating it as a wilderness area.  That handbook had been created in 2001, under the GWB administration, though it undoubtedly had been initiated in a previous administration’s Interior department.

This sea-change in federal land management policy has been carried out without seeking public input or public comment.

The upshot of this contretemps, I believe, is that federal land will now be assessed primarily for its development and economic use potential, with corporations, off-road enthusiasts, real estate developers, and the like firmly in control of the process.  Only if none of them find something that they can use or exploit in that parcel will it then be examined for its wilderness qualities.  It’s another defeat for conservation and preservation, another success for Bush’s corporate governance and anti-environmental fervor.

And it’s another reason—as if we needed more—to do everything humanly possible to defeat Karl Rove and Dick Cheney in their efforts to reelect the monster they have created.

Monday, April 14, 2003

Non sequitur

Seen as I walked up to the front door of my company’s office building this morning, a sign hanging in the window of (naturally) an SUV:

Don’t be a tree hugger
Support our troops

Aside from the clear implication that the vehicle’s driver probably doesn’t share a lot of my opinions on the world, what does this mean?  What is the connection?  I don’t have a clue.

Tax time

I make pretty decent money.  Along with my salary and investment income, I’m taking distributions from my late father’s SEP-IRA.  Though I won’t reveal the precise totals, suffice it to say that I’m in the upper mumblemumble percent of taxpayers.

For 2002, my federal income tax constituted 21.7% of my AGI (Adjusted Gross Income), or 25.2% of my taxable income.  The latter figure takes into account my itemized deductions and personal exemption.  For the record, unlike CalPundit and Atrios, I have been duped by The System into owning real estate, so that I have a mortgage interest deduction.

Just for fun, I did the same calculations for our nation’s two most-reported wage-earners.  As reported by Money magazine and CNN, President Bush’s 2002 tax return showed AGI of $856,058, taxable income of $771,940, and total tax of $268,719.  The vice president, of course, is a considerably wealthier man, as (among other sources of income) he’s still on Halliburton’s payroll.  His numbers came to $1.166 million AGI and $945,051 of taxable income, with a tax bill of $341,114.  Doing the same calculations for Bush and Cheney as I did for my own taxation:

Tax as percentage of AGI
N in Seattle 21.7%
Bush 31.4%
Cheney 29.3%

Tax as percentage of taxable income
N in Seattle 25.2%
Bush 34.8%
Cheney 36.1%

Now, that article on Dick and Dubya also reports how much of their income came from dividends, the sort of income that they’re looking to remove from taxable status.  The prez took in a mere $23,947 in dividends, some 2.8% of his AGI and 3.1% of his taxable income.  Compare that with Cheney, whose dividends of $490,999 constituted a whopping 42.1% of his AGI and 52.0% of his taxable income!  For the record, my own percentages were a Bushian 3.5% of AGI and 4.0% of taxable income.

If ordinary dividends were not taxed for individuals, how much would our two dear leaders (and I) have retained in our pockets?  To estimate that, I applied the tax / taxable income percentages in the respective 2002 tax returns after subtracting out reported dividends.  In other words,

[2002 total tax] - [(2002 taxable income - 2002 ordinary dividends) * (tax/taxable income)]

This is a conservative estimate, because it is possible that lowering the taxable income would result in a lower taxation percentage.  I also compared the results of the above equation to each one’s AGI, to see what additional proportion of the money that entered their/our pockets during 2002 would have stayed there.  Here’s what I found:

Tax savings if ordinary dividends weren’t taxed:
N in Seattle $1287
Bush $8336
Cheney $177,225

Tax savings as percentage of AGI:
N in Seattle 0.9%
Bush 1.0%
Cheney 15.2%

I don’t necessarily have a lot to say about what this actually means, other than to note that for all that is detestable in his political and administrative actions, at least GWB seems to have actually tried to remove his own earning power from the governmental equation.  His taxation profile doesn’t look all that different from this ordinary citizen’s.  Not so Dick Cheney.  He’s really raking it in, even if it’s at a far lower rate than in 2001, when his Halliburton earnings were somewhere in the $4 million range.

I fail to see how a couple of hundred thousand additional dollars in Dick Cheney’s deep, deep pockets will result in help for “the economy”.  He already has all the money he needs to buy whatever he needs, so it’s not like he’s going to run out and spend like a drunken sailor.  OTOH, an extra couple of hundred or couple of thousand in the hands of the millions and millions of Americans who are struggling to make ends meet, who pinch pennies in the hope that their accounts don’t run dry before the next paycheck arrives (these days, maybe I mean unemployment check), would make an immense difference in both the national economy and the national mood.

Not that greedy little Dick Cheney gives a good goddamn about that…

Thursday, April 10, 2003

Hall of Fame / Petroskey update

For the record, here is the text of the email message I sent to the Baseball Hall of Fame regarding the cancellation of appearances by Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon.

In reference to the HOF’s recent cancellation of the celebration of the 15th anniversary of “Bull Durham”, I am outraged by the injection of partisan political posturing into the Hall of Fame.  I would have thought that the president of the HOF would possess enough intellect and enough sense not to attempt to pre-emptively blacklist fellow Americans.  I would also have though that Mr. Petroskey was sufficiently observant to notice that Mr. Robbins and Ms. Sarandon “behaved themselves” at the recent Academy Awards, a vastly more influential and visible “bully pulpit” than the HOF event would have been.

Apparently I was mistaken in my beliefs about Mr. Petroskey’s intellect, sense, and observational skills.  I am saddened that he has sullied the reputation of the Baseball Hall of Fame so thoroughly with this heavy-handed anti-American overreaction.

As a member of the Society for American Baseball Research, I have been a “Friend of the Hall of Fame” for some time.  I see now that the HOF—or at least its president—is no friend of such American values as free speech, the right to dissent, open public discourse, and the right to disagree with the decisions of politicians and the government.  The HOF—or at least its president—is therefore no friend of mine, and so I must regretfully ask to have my name removed from the rolls of “Friends” until such time as the Hall shows that it better understands what it means to be an American.

I urge the Hall’s board of directors to take appropriate steps to rectify this affront, to try to repair the damage inflicted upon its reputation by its boorishly anti-American president.  I don’t think a mere strong admonishment of Mr. Petroskey would be enough; a more appropriate response by the board would be to suspend or even dismiss him for such an egregious, detrimental action.

If anyone who reads this blog wishes to express his or her thoughts on the subject to the Hall of Fame, their “contact us” page is here.

Wednesday, April 09, 2003

Wingnuts intrude on the National Pastime

It’s usually easy to keep my political thoughts and opinions separate from what is probably the most central enthusiasm of my life—baseball.  Even when the game does intersect with the “real world”, it’s often a balm and a calmative force.  For example, returning to the rhythms of the baseball season after 9/11 was universally hailed as a valuable start to a national healing process.

Now, wingnut political thuggery has raised its ugly head in the world of baseball.  The National Baseball of Fame in Cooperstown, New York had planned a celebration the weekend of April 26-27 to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the release of the movie Bull Durham.  Today, citing the anti-war political stances of Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins, who starred in the film (along with Kevin Costner), the Hall of Fame cancelled the fete.

In a letter and release about the cancellation—which, by the way, hasn’t appeared on the HOF’s website (I won’t dignify it by displaying a link)—Dale Petroskey, President of the Hall of Fame, wrote some truly malevolent and truly inane statements: 

In a free country such as ours, every American has the right to his or her own opinions, and to express them. Public figures, such as you, have platforms much larger than the average American’s, which provides you an extraordinary opportunity to have your views heard—and an equally large obligation to act and speak responsibly.

We believe your very public criticism of President Bush at this important—and sensitive—time in our nation’s history helps undermine the U.S. position, which ultimately could put our troops in even more danger. As an institution, we stand behind our President and our troops in this conflict.

Furthermore, according to espn.com, Petroskey emailed an explanatory message to the employees of the Hall, in which he wrote: 

Sarandon and Robbins have publicly criticized the U.S.’s position to change the Iraqi regime, and to rid the Iraqis of deadly weapons which could be used against its enemies, including the United States.

I usually save my baseball wrath for either the damnYankees or for Commissioner Bud Selig, referred to by such epithets as “Budzilla”, “Seligula”, or “Beelzebud”.  Within the context of the great game, those are the primary sources of evil and wrongdoing.  But Mr. Petroskey’s reprehensible boorishness and shameful wingnut thuggery transcends sport.  By not only cancelling the event but also throwing in gratuitous accusations about Robbins and Sarandon’s dissenting viewpoints, he demonstrates anew that jingoistic suppression of free speech is alive and well in George W. Bush’s America.