Shot in the Dark

Category: Taxes

  • Second Acts

    America loves second acts.  The child star who disappeared under a mound of blow at age 15, coming back with a stellar performance. The team that started the season in the cellar, going to the championship. The 35 year old short reliever who started as an 18 year old prodigy before getting stuck in AAA…

  • We’re #1!

    Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, emails: It’s talking about fiscal policy and, well… No choking in the finals in this contest…

  • Your Tax Dollars Hard At Work

    Mayor Melvin Carter – who makes $132K a year – thanks “the President”… For wiping out his student debt transferring his student debt to America’s plumbers, truck drivers, waitresses and warehouse pickers: I’m not sure what bothers me more: Graft is bad. Redundant graft is worse.

  • A Christmas-Time Visit To The Ghost Of Democrat Victory-Dancing Past

    Let’s take a look back to last May. I started this post at the end of the session, last May, amid the DFL was doing its endzone happy dance over having gotten their way on literally everything during the session, Here’s Rep Long – who in normal times one would be tempted to call “one…

  • Free Fall

    As predicted by yours truly about this time a year ago, the DFL squandered a $18B “surplus” [1] The DFL is contratulating itself that it still has a surplus of a couple billion dollars – which is a little like jumping from the top of the IDS building, opening your eyes and seeing the 20th…

  • As Predicted Here

    You know those photos that amusement parks snap as you come down to the end of a log flume or roller coaster? They catch the rider at a moment when they’ve just been waaay up high, and are in the process of falling waaaaay down, into the water (for the log flume) or back to…

  • If The DFL Were A Spouse, It’d Be An Abuser

    “The Twin Cities are victim of Greater Minnesota!” It’s a weird approach to messaging. But the DFL’s noise machine is apparently betting long on it. A common refrain from Minnesota Republicans goes something like this: Rural communities are overtaxed, underfunded and ignored by legislators. Greater Minnesota sends their tax dollars to the Twin Cities, where metro residents…

  • Ill Advised

    To: Rep. Nathan Coulter (DFL 51B)From: Mitch Berg, Obstreporous peasant and human ATM Re: Congrats Rep. Coulter I was a little amazed to see that you are in fact a state representative. Because the optics of a tweet like this are a little… …well, bad: Rep. Coulter: speaking as a middle-class empty nester who is…

  • #OneAbusedSpouse

    You and your significant other each earn $60,000 a year. That’s a total household income of $120,000. Your bills – housing, transportation, loan payments, food, everything you do – come to $10,000 a month. Your family budget is balanced. You go out to the casino one night, and get the luckiest break ever; you walk…

  • And To Think That People Call WCCO TV A DFL PR Firm

    This is how they describe the free lunch bill: A “tax cut”. I suppose public education is a “tax cut” because parents aren’t doing teaching at home, too?

  • Priorities

    SCENE: It’s1989, in the home of TONI and MELVIN Carter (JR.). Melvin is a police officer; Toni an aspiring politician. They sit on a couch in the living room, watching the news. Their 10 year old son Melvin the III walks into the room. MELVIN III: Mom? Dad? MELVIN JR: Yes, son? MELVIN III: What’s…

  • I’m Old Enough To Remember…

    …when those 87,000 new IRS agents were “only going to go after rich tax cheats“. The Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service today issued Notice 2023-13, which contains a proposed revenue procedure that would establish the Service Industry Tip Compliance Agreement (SITCA) program, a voluntary tip reporting program between the IRS and employers in various service…

  • The Best Of Hands

    So on Tuesday, Brandon banged his sceptre on the floor of the palace and bade $20K to disappear from student loan balances, forthwith. And his reasoning was the same, sober statesmanship we’ve come to expect from Brandon: Unanswered – and, as far as I know, unasked by most of the media – does he actually…

  • Think “Walz Checks”, Only Gassy

    Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: Modern Monetary Theory says the government can borrow and spend as much as it likes without consequences. If we can afford a gas tax holiday, why not an income tax holiday, a social security tax holiday, a liquor tax holiday? Or is MMT a lie and the gas tax…

  • Modern Monetary Theory

    Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: In the olden days, when gold and silver were currency, there was only so much metal so there could only be so much money. The government couldn’t create more money out of thin air, it had to tax citizens to obtain the money to run the government. Lesko Brandon…

  • Everything Old Is New And Democrat Again

    Mid-2010s. Democrats chatter up a storm about Kansas, whose conservative governor and legislature lowered taxes without cutting spending, leading to all sorts of financial issues. Democrats (pointedly ignoring the success of many conservative states that held lines on both taxes and spending with superlative results) railed on Kansas as a sign that conservative governance couldn’t…

  • VIP Level Thinking

    Joe Doakes from Como park emails: CEO: “Alright everybody, settle down. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover. First up, the White House proposes a tax on oil company profits as a way to stop . . . let me quote . . . “despicable price gouging and exploitation.” Any suggestions?” VP Sales: “Sir,…

  • Truth In Advertising

    Could we at least call this what it really is – bribing you, with your own money?

  • Costs

    Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: I used $20 of electricity but my bill is nearly $50 because of the taxes and extra fees, including an “affordability” charge. If you’re trying to make my bill more affordable, shouldn’t that be subtracted instead of added? Joe Doakes It’s not about making your bill, or any of…

  • Appeal To Ridicule

    Senate majority leader Gazelka called it: the various metro teachers unions are making a grab for a chunk of the “9 billion dollar surplus”. Erin Murphy – Senator from the mean streets of Highland Pari, and living proof that the DFL is the party of misogyny – decided to chirp: Yeah, those damn teachers… …who…

  • Bureaucratese Translated Into English While You Wait

    The curiously omnipresent Lt. Governor Flanagan: Let’s translate: “Empowering communities to lead with state support” = “transferring public funds to ‘community’ non-profits who do nothing bout crime, but who do serve as the DFL’s farm team and ‘enforcers’ in the community’. “Be good partners” = keep transferring state money to that political class. Once you…

  • Infrastructure

    Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: This is the “infrastructure” that ordinary people think the Susan Rice Administration wants to spend money on: This is where the money actually would go: Joe Doakes The left, as Dennis Prager notes, destroys everything it touches. Including words.

  • We Should Have Listened To Larry Pogemiller All Along

    Wow, Governor Walz is a miracle worker.  Despite having the entire state economy locked down for a year with no end in sight, his administration now forecasts a billion-dollar budget surplus. So that should end his call for higher taxes, right? Hardly. “But some DFL lawmakers want Walz to stand firm in his call for…

  • Shot In The Dark: Today’s News, Delivered In 2013. As Usual.

    Remember when “Electronic Pull Tabs” were going to get the taxpayer off the hook for paying for Zygi Wilf’s big real-estate upgrade? Yeah, someone pointed out that that was baked monkey doodle, and it wasn’t someone with a tin “Journalist” badge. Of course, Minneapolis and Minnesota government has been busy rationalizing riots and carnage in…

  • Biden Ad – Part 3

    Joe Biden’s really plastering the airwaves with ads. Saw another one. Did you know Trump gave tax cuts to the rich? Yep. Said it right in the ad, so it must be true. I wonder . . . what are the qualifications to get that tax cut? My wife and I got a check earlier…