Beaver County Reds – 4/25/11

 


This page was last updated on April 26, 2011.


The People’s Budget: Quick Summary of a Good Plan; Kay Kirkpatrick; Progressive Democrats of America – PA 4th CD Chapter; April 25, 2011.


If you’re familiar with the positions taken by Progressive Democrats of America – PA 4th CD Chapter, you won’t be surprised to learn at least three members of Beaver County Reds are communists, whether they still refer to themselves that way or not.  BCR leadership consists of Tina Shannon (chairperson), Randy Shannon (treasurer), Robert Schmetzer (vice president), Peter Deutsch (secretary), and Carl Davidson (webmaster and perhaps unofficial leader), a self-described Marxist who once “tr[ied] to create a new communist party.”  They also appear to be the leaders of Beaver County Peace Links.  Of this group, one was a leader of the now-defunct Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) and, according to KeyWiki, two are (or at least were in 1993) members of the Communist Party USA.  The Shannons were also leaders of the apparently-defunct Beaver County Coalition for Social Justice.  In the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS) [originally a splinter group of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA)], Mr. Davidson is a co-chair and the Shannons are members of the CCDS national coordinating committee.  Robert Schmetzer is Democrat party local town chair for South Heights.


Ms. Kirkpatrick appears to be a new Beaver County Reds contributor and I have no background info about her.

BCR needs some consistency in its messaging.  Last week BCR told us “THERE IS NO DEFICIT!!!,” while this post tells us “The People’s Budget” “ends the budget deficit two decades earlier than the Ryan plan.”  Well, BCR, is there a deficit or not?  As Sir Walter Scott wrote, “Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practise to deceive.”

As for “The People’s Budget,” the name is too close to names of communist countries like “The “People’s Republic of China” (Red China) and the “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea” (North Korea).  Given their ideology, it’s not surprising the “Congressional Progressive Caucus” would not catch this faux pas.

As for “Quick Summary,” Ms. Kirkpatrick could have saved a lot of typing simply by writing “Same old same old.”  There is absolutely nothing new in this leftist proposal to increase taxes for lefty boogeymen and increase spending on perceived lefty allies.  History and economic modeling shows these policies kill economic growth and tax revenue.  Any claim the proposal would do anything but hurt our economy is borne of ignorance or deliberate deception.  For those of you familiar with operations research, consider your experience with linear/nonlinear programming economic models.  Whether you’re solving solve for least cost or maximum profit, do you do better with more constraints or fewer?  For those of you unfamiliar with economic modeling, introducing constraints (regulations and taxes, for example) - whether necessary or not - always results in poorer economic performance and removing constraints always improves economic performance.  “The People’s Budget” would implement policies proven to hurt economic activity.


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