Month: February 2013

Posted by Bob Lord New data is in on our great experiment: How much wealth and how much income can we jam into the top 1% before the bottom 90% explodes? Apparently, quite a bit. As the New York Times reports,  Incomes rose more than 11 percent for the top 1 percent of earners during … Read more

By Craig McDermott, cross-posted from Random Musings

…In significant news, in Scottsdale, anyway, Bob Littlefield, member of the Scottsdale City Council, formed an exploratory committee for a run at a seat in the Arizona House of Representatives.

He's term-limited on the City Council, so he will not be able to run for reelection to the Council in 2014.  However, his interest in a legislative seat doesn't directly set up a primary challenge against one or both House incumbents in his district, LD23. 

The current state senator there, Michele Reagan, is "exploring" a run at the AZ Secretary of State's office next year, opening that seat.

One of the current state representatives, John Kavanagh, is "exploring" a run for the senate seat currently held by Reagan, opening his seat (presumably, the other LD23 House incumbent, Michelle Ugenti, is going to run for reelection to her seat). 

Now, Littlefield is "exploring" a legislative run of his own.

"Exploring" is in "quotes" because in most cases, it is a facade, a false front of sorts.  The exploring label is meant to shield the users from the state's "resign to run" law.  That law requires that current officeholders who aren't in the last year of their terms to resign from their office once they begin to run for another office.  Most of the time, that law is ignored with the use of none-too-subtle subterfuges like the "exploratory committee", and a lot of winks and nods.

Littlefield is thoroughly conservative but has earned a reputation as a straight shooter (meaning that he's direct and to the point).  However, he's not a "bay at the moon" type (actually, he can be a little impatient with that type), so there will be a primary here from one or more other candidates.  

Obviously it's early and things could change, but he is probably the biggest "name" who can be expected to jump into that race.  Joe Arpaio lives in the district, but he seems unlikely to resign as Maricopa County Sheriff to take a chance on a run at a seat in the lege.  Jus' sayin'…

The steepest learning curve for him will be learning the differences between a municipal campaign and a legislative campaign.  Municipal campaigns tend to be focused on practical issues, while legislative campaigns, especially is safe Republican districts, tend to be focused on ideological issues.

Posted by Bob Lord

This post may run through tax geekdom a bit, but it hopefully shows the relationship between federal and state tax policy, and how badly the battle has been waged by progressives over the years.

Over the past twelve years, significant changes have been made to the Federal estate tax code. Most of us know about the increase in the amount that can be passed free of federal estate tax, from One Million Dollars per person in 2001 to more than Five Million Dollars per person today. But there were other changes, among the most significant of which were (1) the elimination of the federal estate tax credit for state inheritance tax in favor of a deduction for state inheritance tax and (2) the reduction of the maximum federal estate tax rate from 50% to 40%.

It is those two changes, taken together, that present a case study in really bad federal tax policy and a shining example of progressives getting creamed at the negotiating table. And, based on the dearth of writing on this subject, it's not clear progressives even understood they were getting creamed.