Wednesday 25 April 2018

The True Effect of the NRA

Here's the thing.....on the payroll and as actual members....there are around 5-million Americans listed, and suspicions are that around another 15-million non-members exist. 

When the NRA lobbyist goes and visits Senator so-and-so, or House Member so-and-so....ensuring they don't go and vote in some wild regulation or gun-control.....the NRA lobbyist can state in a blunt way....we have x-number of members listed for your state (in a state like Missouri....probably over 250,000) that we can send an email to, and have them deny you their vote in this next election.

Even in California, I would take a guess that well over 350,000 NRA members or non-member supporters exist.  That swing-vote is a very intimidating factor.  For most folks running for Senator....they can't afford to lose a quarter-million votes. 

So, that's the real collective power of the NRA.....just one simple membership listing.  Even in a state like Vermont, they can probably suggest 100,000 members/supporters exist. 

The Scent of Taxation

I sat and looked over the Democratic commentary today of things they intend to offer in 2020, to get the massive vote.

The Bernie Sanders chat?   He says there has to be a mandatory $15-an-hour job setting, with complete health-care benefits to every single to every single American who needs it.  Then in a curious way, he hinted that no one has done a real cost estimate on this idea.

The Senator Gillibrand idea?  She wants jobs guarantees for people.  You'd get something, even if no real job existed.  Again, I noted.....no real cost estimate on this.

The Senator Cory Booker idea?  A Federal Jobs Guarantee Development Act.....where fifteen areas (he didn't say it but I would assume they'd have to be large urbanized areas).....where you would be guaranteed a job.

The Andrew Yang (entrepreneur and a Democratic presidential hopeful) plan?  He wants a $1,000 a month for all citizens between the ages of 18 and 64 as part of a universal basic income program.  Naturally, he had no cost estimate over this.

The amusing thing is if you added all of these up and passed them.....it would likely get into the fifty to one-hundred billion level, and require most everyone to pay at least $5,000 more a year on taxes (at least those making $75k or more a year).

Selling all of this to blue-state middle-class Democrats?  I would suggest that they will sit there amused, and laughing over the various offers of money. 

My thoughts would be that you really need to have the Democratic Party sit down in some meeting and write up two or three great ideas with minimal cost, and hype those for the 2018 election and later for the 2020 Presidential election.  The taxation required here?  Just way out beyond reality.

CALEXIT

According to news reports, there's enough signatures to put this California-exit-from-the-US idea on the ballot.

I've sat and pondered over this.  I admit....it was a brief eight minutes. Yep, that was enough.

Frankly, I think states (the other 49) should go ahead and write a 3-line text piece, and pass through their legislative chambers....a blessing to approve California to leave the Union.  Let the nation of California exist, and just move on.

Remove the military bases, ports.  Dissolve any federal support.  Shut down the postal facilities.  Remove the Social Security offices.  Close the federal court system there.  Bring the Coast Guard assets to Oregon and Washington.  And reset the border to the appropriate points.

To be honest, once you lay out all the measures.....less than ten-percent of the public would go along with the vote.  To be further honest....if you put the vote to the forty-nine other states....to please remove California....I suspect the vote would be about 35-percent of the general public to end the torment, and just send California off on it's own.

At some point in the 1970s....California just seemed to slip off and became something of a rogue-state. I've worked with various people who grew up there in the 1960s and 1970s, who almost got teary-eyed in describing the landscape and culture.  I've also worked with people who grew up there in the 1990s, and they lacked any teary-eyed feeling, and their criticisms would go on, and on, and on.  It's just not the same place.

As for the vote number here?  I suspect that the measure will get somewhere around 35-percent.  Some people will take it as a joke, and vote for it.

So don't get all peppy and enthusiastic that CALEXIT will occur.