CENTRAL VIEW for Monday, January 6, 2003

Beginning 2003 with Taxes, Iraq and North Korea

It is too bad the liberals are not as prescient about the outcome of college and professional football gams as they are about economic stimulus plan about to be unveiled by President Bush. Thus of us who watched football over the last week few days to the point we ran the risk of being declared legally dead, could have used some good prognostication. Other than Oklahoma winning the Rose Bowl, none of our favorite teams did very well.

Meanwhile, Congressional Democrats were condemning the contents of the Bush economic stimulus package even before it was made public. Evidently, Senate Minority Leader, Tom Daschle and House Minority Leader, Nancy Pelosi, must be reading Nostradamus. For sure, Congresswoman Pelosi hasn’t been reading or either flunked Economics 101.

Mrs. Pelosi holds the quaint belief that corporations pay taxes and, therefore, should be taxed more. Hello. No corporation that stayed in business very long ever paid a single tax on anything. Frankly, it is embarrassing to discover that someone holding a position as responsible as hers doesn’t understand that corporations pass all their expenses, to include taxes, on to those who buy their goods and services. Duh.

Congresswoman Pelosi also believes that pieces of real property pay taxes. Ask yourself: Have you ever seen a parcel of land jump up, run over to the court house and write a check for property taxes?

At some point, we will learn the details of what the President has in mind. Hopefully, he will ask the GOP-controlled Congress to: make permanent his earlier round of tax cuts, eliminate the capital gains tax, eliminate the double taxation on stocks and completely do away with death tax.

His political enemies know what would happen. The economy would take off like a skyrocket. Jobs would be created. Unemployment would drop down to those who either have zero skills or just won’t work.

But, early-on, President Bush needs to resolve the Iraq question. Financial markets dislike uncertainty. Remove Saddam and the markets will rebound. The easier and best outcome would be for Saddam to accept the millions he is being offered under the table and resettle in Libya. That would be a bargain for the American taxpayer and for those who have loved ones in our armed forces

Failing that, we and our allies must disarm Saddam. Initially, we should try to do that by use of air power and by use of special operators on the ground as we did in Afghanistan. If that doesn’t do it, then we must have sufficient conventional ground forces in the area to finish the job. Either way, for our unemployment lines to go down, Saddam has to find one in the Middle East and stand in it. Wonder what the job market is for unemployed dictators?

Meanwhile, it looks as if Red China, Russia, Japan and South Korea are putting the diplomatic squeeze on North Korean dictator Kim Chong-il. The United States and North Korea’s neighbors are serious when they say they want a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula. So, do not be surprised if the United States takes a page from the Israelis one day and we see the North Korea nuclear production facilities go up in smoke.

Toward the end of World War II, serious consideration was given to using the first of our two atomic bombs for a free home demonstration. But there were two problems: the Japanese mainland was too densely populated and there was a real risk that the first atomic bomb might be a dud. The latter outcome would defeat the purpose of the demonstration and leave us with only one bomb.

Today, both our nuclear and conventional weapons are highly reliable. So, let’s pick some unpopulated area of frozen Chosen and give Kim Chong-il a free home demonstration of what a cruise missile with a conventional warhead can do. Even someone as seriously out of touch with reality as Kim Chong-il might get the point.

William Hamilton, a nationally syndicated columnist and featured commentator for USA Today, is the co-author of The Grand Conspiracy by William Penn – a novel about a terrorist attack on Colorado’s high country.

©2003. William Hamilton

Dr. Hamilton can be contacted at:

Email: william@central-view.com