Rainy day. Worked on books and needed a break and started watching a special on Military Channel about the 1983 near-catastrophe with USSR. Didn’t know it was going to take all afternoon, but it is an absorbing documentary. They say this is not in any book yet.
It was largely Soviet paranoia based on psychological projection and nobody in the
West realized how close we came to nuclear war until after it was over. Old
hard-line Soviets thought that since they believed in a universal revolution to
rid the world of capitalism-- “Workers of the world unite!”— the West must
think the same about them. They didn’t understand free speech and when Reagan called them an evil empire, they saw that as a good possibility that NATO was going to launch a pre-emptive strike. I have heard Reagan-bashers say that his harsh rhetoric caused this near-war but the military folks don’t pull political spin. Just the facts.
During Ford/ Carter/ Nixon, Soviets built up a huge 10,000 missle mobile line of SS-20
missles aimed at European cities. NATO had nothing like this. So Reagan
announced that USA was going to deploy a number of Pershing mid-range units and
this sparked widespread protests among the peaceniks of Europe, fomented by communist
infiltrators working in cooperation with the KGB. The Russians had been stunned by the fact
that Pershings could hit Moscow in 8 minutes, and this left them completely vulnerable
instead of advantaged. KGB was run by a guy whose name looks like Khruschev, (Kryuchkov??) call him K, who is now in his 80’s. He was (and still is!) convinced that NATO was going to strike and told his agents to gather observations to support this. That led to a self-feeding
intel where agents were scared to not to report imminent attack.
When Beirut barracks was bombed and all US forces were put on alert, Russians
interpreted this as a cover-up for imminent attack. When Grenada was invaded, Thatcher got mad at Reagan and chewed him out for invading a Brit commonwealth country over her
encrypted hotline. Russians couldn’t read this and surmised that she as communicating war plans. They got trigger happy and paranoid and shot down a Korean airliner which got lost over their waters even after it had turned around. But, proud communists, they refused to admit blame and grew cock-sure that the West was testing their defenses and prompting an excuse to attack.
What most Western experts didn’t realize was that the Soviets, though distrustful and
paranoid, didn’t want war. They were old guys who had lived through the horrors of the World Wars and the loss of half the adult male population of Russia. What they feared most was a replay of the disaster of 1941 when surprise attack by Germany nearly destroyed the country.
In November 1983, NATO scheduled war games. Andropov was new Soviet President, who immediately fell gravely ill with kidney failure which Russians publicly dismissed as “a cold”. Just like K, he believed war was coming. On the second day of the war games, the
Russian central satellite warning system gave alarms of a missle launch by USA,
then another, then 3 more. The Russian Colonel Petrov in charge was just cool-headed enough to be suspicious of computer error, and he manually overrode the computer.
In the interview, he told how he reasoned that if USA was really launching missles, they would launch not 5 but 500. Sure enough, there was a line of thunderstorms in mid-America whose cloud tops had reflected setting sunlight into a Soviet satellite and the signal went away in minutes. Nonetheless, Petrov was dismissed from the military the next day—after he had done the right thing!
In USSR there were 3 men who could launch missles, not one President like in America. And all three sat with fingers on the trigger while Russians listened to the war games.
The war game was entirely communications-related and no troops or missles were activated. Messages were prefixed by “Exercise, exercise, exercise” but still the Soviets thought the games were just going to be a cover-up of a real launch. Finally it was the Russian spies and double agents who called a stand-down by reporting ‘nothing is happening’, especially a super-mole named Topaz (Rainier Rupp) who was a German NATO official. There were about 10 Russians who were US moles and all but one was assassinated/hung by the Russians thereafter. That one guy, Olegiesky, gave a report to NATO, Reagan and McFarlane that illustrated the paranoia of the old Soviets and was spirited to safety by the Brits. This caused Reagan to go from rhetoric to engagement with the new Soviet boss, Gorby. Andropov had gotten progressively
worse with his ‘head cold’ “and dropped-off” a month after the incident.
Neither side wanted war but distrust and Russian paranoia caused a near disaster. The
paranoia was despite a number of socialist-sympathizing governments in NATO. So it was likely to happen no matter who was US Prez. The fact that both sides were so reluctant to push the button is in contrast to Iran today where their theology makes them want to push the button. And the Russian spies and KGB guys interviewed warned strenuously about this.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Retirement Info
I want to pass this along in case someone reading may have retirement questions. If you were on e of the many Conoco (or Phillips) employees laid off before you were 50, you stand to have a separation retirement if you were retirement vested (worked 5 or 10 years). That is generally true of any company where an employee is retirement vested by whatever rules govern that. Find out about your situation! A friend of mine who worked for the company 25 years was 49 when he was laid off and didn't know he had a pension coming. That is because the outplacement folks at the time were often clueless and untrained to speak about pensions. Often they told the laid off folks that they didn't think there was anything pensionwise. If you are a former Conoco or Phillips employee, go to hr.conocophillips.com and check things out. There are contact phone numbers for companies and various subsidiaries under the menu guide. You have to register for upcoming retirement with them. And in behalf of a number of folks around here who have wondered about which of the 2 new companies will be handling their pension (Is it CP or P66??), the HR guys haven't found out yet--announcement coming in May or June. They don't even know how their department will be split yet. So stay tuned. However, no concerns whether pensions will still be paid. The company has a legal requirement to pay them and can't duck the requirement. Only in event of bankruptcy, does the governement Pension Guarantee Corp. take over.
My friend who had the 25 years service and who said he struggled two years with what-do-I-do-with-my-life-now questions, it turns out will get nearly $2000 a month pension.
My friend who had the 25 years service and who said he struggled two years with what-do-I-do-with-my-life-now questions, it turns out will get nearly $2000 a month pension.
Friday, February 17, 2012
We the People
Smack in the middle of President's birthdays and valentines is Martin Luther Day, Feb. 18. (We commemorate saints not on their birthdays but on the day they get to go home.) So I write this for Marty--and all those reformers of his era who wanted so much to remove the state from interfering with faith. Hence Luther championed his 'two kingdoms--kingdom of heaven and kingdom of earth' and Richard Brooke coined the term 'separation of church and state'. This is also the address that I will give to KCRP on Feb 23.
I'm one of those guys who Garrison Keillor loves to make jokes about. One of those moderate blend into the woodwork guys that keeps his powder dry and doesn't get too emotional. In fact, now that I'm getting old I can't remember where I put my powder. For a long time, I have been an social conservative. But you won’t find me picketing anywhere. Yes, I’m pro-life. And that issue is important. And I was against embryonic stem cell research. But then research issues are really complex. And I thought that Terry Schiavo should probably be saved simply because if we had to err, we would probably best err on the side of life. I am against gay marriage. But then civic marriage has become so muddled, it is pretty late in the game to be getting wild about what they do to it.
But there is something happening the last few years with the Christian Faith that makes me want to grab a rifle and put on a Continental Army uniform. For me it started personally with Obamacare. Remember Bart Stupak? That Michigan Democrat who wouldn’t vote for Obamacare unless they took out the abortion mandated funding and put in the conscience clause for health workers whose faith rejects certain procedures. So Obama and Pelsoi got his vote. Now Obama and HHS Director Kathleen Sibelius very cleverly reinstated their original intent by fiat along with demands that health insurance policies include contraception and sterilization coverage. No wonder Bart quit Congress! His own leaders lied to him! But more than that, I find myself asking who would dream of telling Catholics to do something their faith forbids? What’s next? Are we going to tell Amish to drive electric cars? But the insurance companies will have to provide them free.
When you tell people to practice what their faith forbids, doesn’t that violate the First Amendment? “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Free exercise thereof flows out of the most deeply cherished beliefs of people. So even if I were a good, self-respecting atheist, why would I want to be in the Thought Police business? Let people think what they want and let that govern their own actions. But thinking alike, acting alike is what the secular progressive left wants. But then I have a little moderate voice inside my head that says, "Oh, you're making too much of this. Obama just did that so he could later back down on the mandate and have a big kissy,huggy moment with Catholic voters." Happy days are here again!
Not true. Leftists and Obama really do want the First Amendment gone. , Let me tell a story from a couple years ago. My denomination has a lot of church schools. The EEOC told my church that from now on, they would have to comply in hiring practices without regard to beliefs of the church. So you might have to hire a Muslim for a teacher. My pastor told about a church conference he attended in which this was announced. I have never seen people so stirred up, he told me. Well it happened. DOJ brought suit against a church school in MN for failure of the school to re-instate a teacher whom the local board said was teaching false tenets of faith. The Supreme Court upheld the church school 9 to 0. Now think about that. Even Ruth Bader Ginsburg voted for the First Amendment rights of the school! The woman who told the Egyptians not to copy us. “The DOJs position is even more hostile to the Lutherans than the amicus brief filed by Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the ACLU."
There’s a war going on against Christianity. In a 1992 Supreme court decision established the Outsider Test. If someone’s religious expression in a public place makes someone feel like an outsider, then it must stop. If you share the gospel in public—called Jesus’ Great Commission—and someone says they felt like an outsider, you can be stopped. All that remains is for them to put a penalty on religious expression in public. “We will imprison anyone who publicly shares the gospel,” and suddenly we have become Saudi Arabia or Iran.
The problem with Healthcare is not that the mandate to buy insurance will drive costs up—which it has—or that it will assess fines. Obamacare upends the fundamental relationship between God and man and government written into our Constitution and Declaration. The founders upset the old order: God over some lousy divine-right King who lorded it over the people. God over government over people. They reasoned both from scripture and from common sense that it was God in a direct relationship with His people who are over the king—or government, if you will. “We the People” Lincoln said those 3 words are the most significant words of the United States. "We the People, in order to form a more perfect union...do establish the United States of America."
When the government tells you that you must engage in commerce, you must buy health insurance and you can’t walk out of the store and say, “well, I choose not to buy,” then you are born with an obligation to your overlord, Government. That’s the definition of a serf-- guy born with an obligation to an overlord! Government has risen to place themselves over the people. I think it is time for We the People to rise up. Rise up and save America. Someday you and I will have a funeral and all the great grandkids will be there. They will ask, "What did grandma and grandpa do? Weren't they involved in politics somehow? But did they do anything important?" And I hope someone will say, "Kids, they saved America--for you!"
I'm one of those guys who Garrison Keillor loves to make jokes about. One of those moderate blend into the woodwork guys that keeps his powder dry and doesn't get too emotional. In fact, now that I'm getting old I can't remember where I put my powder. For a long time, I have been an social conservative. But you won’t find me picketing anywhere. Yes, I’m pro-life. And that issue is important. And I was against embryonic stem cell research. But then research issues are really complex. And I thought that Terry Schiavo should probably be saved simply because if we had to err, we would probably best err on the side of life. I am against gay marriage. But then civic marriage has become so muddled, it is pretty late in the game to be getting wild about what they do to it.
But there is something happening the last few years with the Christian Faith that makes me want to grab a rifle and put on a Continental Army uniform. For me it started personally with Obamacare. Remember Bart Stupak? That Michigan Democrat who wouldn’t vote for Obamacare unless they took out the abortion mandated funding and put in the conscience clause for health workers whose faith rejects certain procedures. So Obama and Pelsoi got his vote. Now Obama and HHS Director Kathleen Sibelius very cleverly reinstated their original intent by fiat along with demands that health insurance policies include contraception and sterilization coverage. No wonder Bart quit Congress! His own leaders lied to him! But more than that, I find myself asking who would dream of telling Catholics to do something their faith forbids? What’s next? Are we going to tell Amish to drive electric cars? But the insurance companies will have to provide them free.
When you tell people to practice what their faith forbids, doesn’t that violate the First Amendment? “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Free exercise thereof flows out of the most deeply cherished beliefs of people. So even if I were a good, self-respecting atheist, why would I want to be in the Thought Police business? Let people think what they want and let that govern their own actions. But thinking alike, acting alike is what the secular progressive left wants. But then I have a little moderate voice inside my head that says, "Oh, you're making too much of this. Obama just did that so he could later back down on the mandate and have a big kissy,huggy moment with Catholic voters." Happy days are here again!
Not true. Leftists and Obama really do want the First Amendment gone. , Let me tell a story from a couple years ago. My denomination has a lot of church schools. The EEOC told my church that from now on, they would have to comply in hiring practices without regard to beliefs of the church. So you might have to hire a Muslim for a teacher. My pastor told about a church conference he attended in which this was announced. I have never seen people so stirred up, he told me. Well it happened. DOJ brought suit against a church school in MN for failure of the school to re-instate a teacher whom the local board said was teaching false tenets of faith. The Supreme Court upheld the church school 9 to 0. Now think about that. Even Ruth Bader Ginsburg voted for the First Amendment rights of the school! The woman who told the Egyptians not to copy us. “The DOJs position is even more hostile to the Lutherans than the amicus brief filed by Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the ACLU."
There’s a war going on against Christianity. In a 1992 Supreme court decision established the Outsider Test. If someone’s religious expression in a public place makes someone feel like an outsider, then it must stop. If you share the gospel in public—called Jesus’ Great Commission—and someone says they felt like an outsider, you can be stopped. All that remains is for them to put a penalty on religious expression in public. “We will imprison anyone who publicly shares the gospel,” and suddenly we have become Saudi Arabia or Iran.
The problem with Healthcare is not that the mandate to buy insurance will drive costs up—which it has—or that it will assess fines. Obamacare upends the fundamental relationship between God and man and government written into our Constitution and Declaration. The founders upset the old order: God over some lousy divine-right King who lorded it over the people. God over government over people. They reasoned both from scripture and from common sense that it was God in a direct relationship with His people who are over the king—or government, if you will. “We the People” Lincoln said those 3 words are the most significant words of the United States. "We the People, in order to form a more perfect union...do establish the United States of America."
When the government tells you that you must engage in commerce, you must buy health insurance and you can’t walk out of the store and say, “well, I choose not to buy,” then you are born with an obligation to your overlord, Government. That’s the definition of a serf-- guy born with an obligation to an overlord! Government has risen to place themselves over the people. I think it is time for We the People to rise up. Rise up and save America. Someday you and I will have a funeral and all the great grandkids will be there. They will ask, "What did grandma and grandpa do? Weren't they involved in politics somehow? But did they do anything important?" And I hope someone will say, "Kids, they saved America--for you!"
Monday, February 13, 2012
Letter to editor, Income tax
News Managing Editor Kristi Hayes
Ponca City News
Letter to the Editor
Dear Madame:
Here are some numbers and resources to consult concerning the income tax discussion. First, the legislature and governor are not making broad assumptions in asserting that personal income taxes (PIT) discourage job creation and the economy. In the last fifty years, eleven states have instituted a progressive income tax (CT,NJ,OH,RI,PA,ME,IL,NB,MI,IN,WV). Compared to the time prior to the introduction of their tax, every one of those eleven states has declined in their share of the US economy.
The nine no-PIT states had jobs growth the last ten years in a range from -0.7% to 15.2% while the nine heaviest-PIT states had a range of -9.3% to 5.7%. However, Hawaii (tourism) and Maryland (federal jobs) were the only two states among the heavy taxers with any positive job growth. New Hampshire and Tennessee were the only two states with negative job growth among the no-PIT states.
Anyone who tells you there is no correlation between jobs and taxes isn’t consulting the data. The correlation is enormous. That’s why several of Oklahoma’s neighbors are also lowering income taxes (“Heartland Tax Rebellion” Wall Street Journal, Feb. 7) Concerning consistency of state services, the no-PIT states have experienced average year-to-year revenue shortfalls of 0.5% vs. 4.6% for the nine heaviest-PIT states. People who have lost jobs vote with their feet. The 9 no-PIT states have averaged net in-migration of 3.05% over the last decade. Those 9 heavies have net out-migration of 2.48%. All these statistics are available from Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, an independent, non-profit, policy ‘think tank’.
Readers should remember that it was originally one of Oklahoma’s independent commissions, the OK Tax Commission which recommended that roughly 90% of exemptions and loopholes be closed. This, they reasoned, OK could immediately lower the maximum tax rate from 5.25% to 3.0% and simplify returns. The governor’s plan is 3.5%, is revenue neutral and does not depend on cuts. This was recommended by a bipartisan group that included House District 37’s Rep. Steve Vaughan. Vaughan has been in the forefront of prudence insisting that the State needs to limit its claim on sales taxes so that cities and counties will not be crowded from future revenues. Yet he is a supporter of Gov. Fallin’s plan. He recently said of tax reform, “There is indeed a small revenue risk involved. But if no one will assume any risk, then no one would have lined up on the Kansas border in 1893.”
Ponca City News
Letter to the Editor
Dear Madame:
Here are some numbers and resources to consult concerning the income tax discussion. First, the legislature and governor are not making broad assumptions in asserting that personal income taxes (PIT) discourage job creation and the economy. In the last fifty years, eleven states have instituted a progressive income tax (CT,NJ,OH,RI,PA,ME,IL,NB,MI,IN,WV). Compared to the time prior to the introduction of their tax, every one of those eleven states has declined in their share of the US economy.
The nine no-PIT states had jobs growth the last ten years in a range from -0.7% to 15.2% while the nine heaviest-PIT states had a range of -9.3% to 5.7%. However, Hawaii (tourism) and Maryland (federal jobs) were the only two states among the heavy taxers with any positive job growth. New Hampshire and Tennessee were the only two states with negative job growth among the no-PIT states.
Anyone who tells you there is no correlation between jobs and taxes isn’t consulting the data. The correlation is enormous. That’s why several of Oklahoma’s neighbors are also lowering income taxes (“Heartland Tax Rebellion” Wall Street Journal, Feb. 7) Concerning consistency of state services, the no-PIT states have experienced average year-to-year revenue shortfalls of 0.5% vs. 4.6% for the nine heaviest-PIT states. People who have lost jobs vote with their feet. The 9 no-PIT states have averaged net in-migration of 3.05% over the last decade. Those 9 heavies have net out-migration of 2.48%. All these statistics are available from Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, an independent, non-profit, policy ‘think tank’.
Readers should remember that it was originally one of Oklahoma’s independent commissions, the OK Tax Commission which recommended that roughly 90% of exemptions and loopholes be closed. This, they reasoned, OK could immediately lower the maximum tax rate from 5.25% to 3.0% and simplify returns. The governor’s plan is 3.5%, is revenue neutral and does not depend on cuts. This was recommended by a bipartisan group that included House District 37’s Rep. Steve Vaughan. Vaughan has been in the forefront of prudence insisting that the State needs to limit its claim on sales taxes so that cities and counties will not be crowded from future revenues. Yet he is a supporter of Gov. Fallin’s plan. He recently said of tax reform, “There is indeed a small revenue risk involved. But if no one will assume any risk, then no one would have lined up on the Kansas border in 1893.”
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Zero Tax
Zero Tax?
Steve’s part of a 23-person panel which will likely author a bill to reduce Oklahoma’s income tax to zero in 10 years. I’ve been trying to help him think about how to present this idea. Here’s the fat and skinny of this proposal. Short version first, then a lengthier explanation, followed by website where you can see all the gory details.
States with no income tax and low overall taxes grow at about 5% a year while those with high taxes and highest income tax rates grow at 2-3% per year. No income tax states also have better services and safety nets (Revenue doesn’t drop so badly during recessions.) OK has a good overall tax burden compared to many states but higher income taxes. Worse, former Senator David Myers told us it is, “The Loophole Capital of America” with thousands of loopholes and exemptions that leave many paying virtually no state income taxes at all. Moreover, if OK merely eliminated all but the vital exemptions we could immediately lower the top rate from 5.25% to 3% with no loss of revenue (OTC report). Or, studies have shown, we could further this to an entire elimination within about 10 years if we could find about 6% budget cuts in the first year. The average taxpayer pays $1100 in state income taxes and $1300 in property taxes. Property taxes are locally decided and collected and the state has no claim on them, nor does it intend to. That means that after Zero Tax the state would be primarily dependent on sales taxes, fees and licenses, and severance taxes on petroleum. Sales taxes are the biggest contributors and are unlikely to be raised since consumer studies show that these have been maxed out and citizens won’t allow them to be raised. Fees that are raised often spark a rebellion also. So the state would have to live within its means. And once OK has no income tax, it would become the 2nd most tax-free state in America. That giant sucking sound of surrounding states is all the business moving to Oklahoma.
Here’s more detail. Arthur Laffer’s firm, Arduin, Laffer and Moore Econometrics was commissioned by the OK Council of Public Affairs to study OK’s taxes. The nine states with the lowest overall tax burdens (AK,NV,SD,TN,WY,TX,NH,SC,LA in that order) average 7.67% of personal income in taxes. OK is 8.7% and the states with highest burdens (MA,VT,MN,CA,RI,WI,CN,NY,NJ) average 11.02%. Those low-tax 9 had growth over the 2001-2010 decade of 58.57%, OK=51.81%, and 38.24% for the nine highest. We come out looking fairly favorable but remember the 2007-2009 recession didn’t hurt OK like it did the rest of the country. Wyoming with no tax had a 105.6% growth and South Dakota (third poorest growth of the low tax states) grew at 58.5%. Now why would anyone go to S. Dakota? Okay, so you really loved the Corn Palace and Walls Drug, but would anybody else move there? Yet S. Dakota’s 58.5 compares with next door and high-tax Minnesota’s 39.5 and Wisconsin’s 35.3% growth for the decade. You can play the same comparison games with Oregon-Washington and New Hampshire-Vermont. From a state revenue perspective, the 9 low-taxers gained 120.94% and the high-taxers averaged 57.46% revenue growth. OK revenues grew 58.53% for the decade. Payrolls (employment) grew +4.72% for the low-taxers and shrank -2.89% for the high-taxers. OK broke even at +.051%. The highest tax state in the country is New Jersey and lowest is Alaska. Likewise the states with zero income tax are almost an overlay of the low-tax states with Florida replacing S. Carolina. The highest income tax states are similar with Connecticut, Rhode Island and Wisconsin replaced by Oregon, Hawaii, and Maryland having an average 9.92% max income tax rate. Growth differential is even more pronounced with Zeros growing 123.66% a year. Finally Laffer offers a competitive environment ranking where other business factors like how business friendly is the legal system and how much state debt questions are considered. Again the list is extraordinarily similar (CO, an OK neighbor has a good business environment) and here the well-ranked states have 6.5% employment growth while the worst lost 0.9% of jobs.
States without an income tax exhibit less economic volatility and more tax revenue stability during bad economic times and stronger tax revenue growth during good times. Nevada was hammered by the recession and has been on national TV with anecdotes about home prices that dropped in half over the last 3 years. Yet the state had revenue growth of 100.1%. Of the low income tax states, only New Hampshire lost jobs--not surprising considering that Boston was so recession-hammered and most of the residents live as a suburb to Boston, moreover, the high fuel prices cripple cold New England which heats with fuel oil. Still they only lost 0.7% jobs and state revenues grew by 59.6%--almost equal to Oklahoma which was less damaged by the recession.
Lest one think that historic or geographic results were cherry-picked (well of course the states are all over the map), Laffer also notes that in the last 50 years 11 states have instituted a progressive income tax. Compared to the time just prior to the introduction of the income tax, EVERY state lost share of the U.S. economy after taxing. This is progress?
Steve and I notice a lot of skepticism about getting rid of the income tax. Residents of Pawhuska were wary and asked what other tax was going to go up to replace the revenue. I had a similar personal reaction initially and wanted to know if ‘no income tax’ would mean that my property taxes would take a hit. How do we lower taxes without a crash and burn? A $5.8 billion budget with 1.85 million taxpayers means that average Joe pays $3100 in state taxes—sales taxes, income taxes, fees, licenses, severance and hidden state charges that are usually paid by businesses and which most citizens are unaware. (Also Joe pays about $1300 in county property taxes) Income tax is 37% or $1147 of the total state take. Now suppose we remove 90% of the exemptions and lower the max rate from 5.25% to 3% as OK Tax Commission has recommended. This would be revenue neutral. (Some exemptions in manufacturing are necessary. Else costs of retail goods would be mostly tax) That would be an inducement in itself to bring business to the state since 3.0% would then be the 10th lowest max rate after the nine states with no tax. (PA has a 3.07% and all others are over 4.) Sales tax, currently at 4.5% for the state portion, generates almost $1500 from Joe. But what if we reduced the max income tax rate even farther to 2.25% the first year? The result would be $558 million less revenue but then state revenue should grow about $200 million a year anyway. So the shortfall would be $300-400 million or about a 6% budget cut. Could it be done? The Governor and Panel of 23 are pledged to not touch education, corrections, and a couple of other vital state functions. (Sorry,old brain, bad memory, ask Steve what they are.) The 6% cut is important since the econometric models run by Laffer are then able to completely eliminate income tax in quarter percent increments over ten years. Those models suggest that the state’s economy would grow and sales taxes would increase enough to take care of the income tax reductions.
Really? I was disbelieving. But then Laffer points out that in the years prior to 2005 (when OK began to reduce the income tax), the sales tax growth rate was 2.7% annually. Since 2005, despite the recession, sales tax growth has been 6.6%. When in 2005 the tax was first cut a quarter point, the Senate estimated a tax shortfall of $150.8 million. But in fact sales and income taxes grew $305million. Amazing what people will do with more money in their pockets.
Well, what do they do? We had a meeting we had with Craig and Homer. Stephenson rather astutely calculates the city’s total payroll at $417 million. City tax collections are about a million a month which calculates 3.5% of a $350 M tax base. Yet they claim that a far lower percentage of added dollars-in-the-pocket would be spent. Homer waves his hands and said they would pay off credit cards or take it to the casino. Well, yes, or spend on services and save. I’m no expert of sales tax theory or econometrics. Laffer, like Craig, calculates a 30% sales tax base. He uses a pooled regression analysis to predict the future. I’m a total dunce about such things but my hand calculations seem to note that he assumes a 4% growth rate in the economy. That suffices to cover the tax cut deficiencies.
Still, Steve says that if we have a tax-cutting we need to have benchmarks in place that stall any future cuts if we fall short. I can think of other objections to the Zero Tax. One is “cities depend on sales tax for most of their budgets. What if the state decides to raise their rate and there begins a sales tax war between municipalities and the state?” Two things seem to guard against this. One is that double-digit (total) sales tax rates drive sales across state lines (Ask Dallas what happened in the 90’s when they did this). And right now, everybody seems to have combined sales taxes of 8 or 9%. Secondly citizens who pay in the area get really rebellious when they see double digit sales taxes every day on every purchase. They are likely to take out their ire on the local state legislator if he voted to raise state sales tax rates. Well then, could the state raise fuel taxes at the pump? Not too much. Kansas has 5 cents more tax and we already see Arkansas Citians visiting the Otoeplex on Highway 77 for gasoline. Fee increases? These hammer select groups and those folks really holler when they get a fee increase. The squall gets magnified as a campaign issue, so again politicians are under the gun to keep fees under control. Raising severance taxes has already been shown to kill drilling so that is unlikely to happen. The bottom line here is that everyone will have to live under a tight budget, but not so different than the current ones we are used to.
In the end, Zero Tax reminds me of what I really stand for. If we had no income tax, it would be an incentive for people to work, to save, to produce in Oklahoma. It would be one less, very complex, regulation of our lives. The less we have to fill out tax forms and other regulatory red tape, the more folks can follow their dreams and their relationship with their Maker. And if someone gets a job reduction letter at the Oklahoma Tax Commission they can turn their accounting skills to better things. This is what we are really about, not being serfs to the bureaucracy, but finding ways to do things better. It helps enormously when our eyes are not so much on the bottom line, when the economy is good and jobs are available, as might happen with Zero Tax. The less fortunate fall between the cracks less often when we behave like inspired men in pursuit of a dream as well. Maybe we can really do this thing. Can we muster the courage to risk the change?
You want to see the whole Laffer study? Go to http://tinyurl.com/LafferPlanOK
Steve’s part of a 23-person panel which will likely author a bill to reduce Oklahoma’s income tax to zero in 10 years. I’ve been trying to help him think about how to present this idea. Here’s the fat and skinny of this proposal. Short version first, then a lengthier explanation, followed by website where you can see all the gory details.
States with no income tax and low overall taxes grow at about 5% a year while those with high taxes and highest income tax rates grow at 2-3% per year. No income tax states also have better services and safety nets (Revenue doesn’t drop so badly during recessions.) OK has a good overall tax burden compared to many states but higher income taxes. Worse, former Senator David Myers told us it is, “The Loophole Capital of America” with thousands of loopholes and exemptions that leave many paying virtually no state income taxes at all. Moreover, if OK merely eliminated all but the vital exemptions we could immediately lower the top rate from 5.25% to 3% with no loss of revenue (OTC report). Or, studies have shown, we could further this to an entire elimination within about 10 years if we could find about 6% budget cuts in the first year. The average taxpayer pays $1100 in state income taxes and $1300 in property taxes. Property taxes are locally decided and collected and the state has no claim on them, nor does it intend to. That means that after Zero Tax the state would be primarily dependent on sales taxes, fees and licenses, and severance taxes on petroleum. Sales taxes are the biggest contributors and are unlikely to be raised since consumer studies show that these have been maxed out and citizens won’t allow them to be raised. Fees that are raised often spark a rebellion also. So the state would have to live within its means. And once OK has no income tax, it would become the 2nd most tax-free state in America. That giant sucking sound of surrounding states is all the business moving to Oklahoma.
Here’s more detail. Arthur Laffer’s firm, Arduin, Laffer and Moore Econometrics was commissioned by the OK Council of Public Affairs to study OK’s taxes. The nine states with the lowest overall tax burdens (AK,NV,SD,TN,WY,TX,NH,SC,LA in that order) average 7.67% of personal income in taxes. OK is 8.7% and the states with highest burdens (MA,VT,MN,CA,RI,WI,CN,NY,NJ) average 11.02%. Those low-tax 9 had growth over the 2001-2010 decade of 58.57%, OK=51.81%, and 38.24% for the nine highest. We come out looking fairly favorable but remember the 2007-2009 recession didn’t hurt OK like it did the rest of the country. Wyoming with no tax had a 105.6% growth and South Dakota (third poorest growth of the low tax states) grew at 58.5%. Now why would anyone go to S. Dakota? Okay, so you really loved the Corn Palace and Walls Drug, but would anybody else move there? Yet S. Dakota’s 58.5 compares with next door and high-tax Minnesota’s 39.5 and Wisconsin’s 35.3% growth for the decade. You can play the same comparison games with Oregon-Washington and New Hampshire-Vermont. From a state revenue perspective, the 9 low-taxers gained 120.94% and the high-taxers averaged 57.46% revenue growth. OK revenues grew 58.53% for the decade. Payrolls (employment) grew +4.72% for the low-taxers and shrank -2.89% for the high-taxers. OK broke even at +.051%. The highest tax state in the country is New Jersey and lowest is Alaska. Likewise the states with zero income tax are almost an overlay of the low-tax states with Florida replacing S. Carolina. The highest income tax states are similar with Connecticut, Rhode Island and Wisconsin replaced by Oregon, Hawaii, and Maryland having an average 9.92% max income tax rate. Growth differential is even more pronounced with Zeros growing 123.66% a year. Finally Laffer offers a competitive environment ranking where other business factors like how business friendly is the legal system and how much state debt questions are considered. Again the list is extraordinarily similar (CO, an OK neighbor has a good business environment) and here the well-ranked states have 6.5% employment growth while the worst lost 0.9% of jobs.
States without an income tax exhibit less economic volatility and more tax revenue stability during bad economic times and stronger tax revenue growth during good times. Nevada was hammered by the recession and has been on national TV with anecdotes about home prices that dropped in half over the last 3 years. Yet the state had revenue growth of 100.1%. Of the low income tax states, only New Hampshire lost jobs--not surprising considering that Boston was so recession-hammered and most of the residents live as a suburb to Boston, moreover, the high fuel prices cripple cold New England which heats with fuel oil. Still they only lost 0.7% jobs and state revenues grew by 59.6%--almost equal to Oklahoma which was less damaged by the recession.
Lest one think that historic or geographic results were cherry-picked (well of course the states are all over the map), Laffer also notes that in the last 50 years 11 states have instituted a progressive income tax. Compared to the time just prior to the introduction of the income tax, EVERY state lost share of the U.S. economy after taxing. This is progress?
Steve and I notice a lot of skepticism about getting rid of the income tax. Residents of Pawhuska were wary and asked what other tax was going to go up to replace the revenue. I had a similar personal reaction initially and wanted to know if ‘no income tax’ would mean that my property taxes would take a hit. How do we lower taxes without a crash and burn? A $5.8 billion budget with 1.85 million taxpayers means that average Joe pays $3100 in state taxes—sales taxes, income taxes, fees, licenses, severance and hidden state charges that are usually paid by businesses and which most citizens are unaware. (Also Joe pays about $1300 in county property taxes) Income tax is 37% or $1147 of the total state take. Now suppose we remove 90% of the exemptions and lower the max rate from 5.25% to 3% as OK Tax Commission has recommended. This would be revenue neutral. (Some exemptions in manufacturing are necessary. Else costs of retail goods would be mostly tax) That would be an inducement in itself to bring business to the state since 3.0% would then be the 10th lowest max rate after the nine states with no tax. (PA has a 3.07% and all others are over 4.) Sales tax, currently at 4.5% for the state portion, generates almost $1500 from Joe. But what if we reduced the max income tax rate even farther to 2.25% the first year? The result would be $558 million less revenue but then state revenue should grow about $200 million a year anyway. So the shortfall would be $300-400 million or about a 6% budget cut. Could it be done? The Governor and Panel of 23 are pledged to not touch education, corrections, and a couple of other vital state functions. (Sorry,old brain, bad memory, ask Steve what they are.) The 6% cut is important since the econometric models run by Laffer are then able to completely eliminate income tax in quarter percent increments over ten years. Those models suggest that the state’s economy would grow and sales taxes would increase enough to take care of the income tax reductions.
Really? I was disbelieving. But then Laffer points out that in the years prior to 2005 (when OK began to reduce the income tax), the sales tax growth rate was 2.7% annually. Since 2005, despite the recession, sales tax growth has been 6.6%. When in 2005 the tax was first cut a quarter point, the Senate estimated a tax shortfall of $150.8 million. But in fact sales and income taxes grew $305million. Amazing what people will do with more money in their pockets.
Well, what do they do? We had a meeting we had with Craig and Homer. Stephenson rather astutely calculates the city’s total payroll at $417 million. City tax collections are about a million a month which calculates 3.5% of a $350 M tax base. Yet they claim that a far lower percentage of added dollars-in-the-pocket would be spent. Homer waves his hands and said they would pay off credit cards or take it to the casino. Well, yes, or spend on services and save. I’m no expert of sales tax theory or econometrics. Laffer, like Craig, calculates a 30% sales tax base. He uses a pooled regression analysis to predict the future. I’m a total dunce about such things but my hand calculations seem to note that he assumes a 4% growth rate in the economy. That suffices to cover the tax cut deficiencies.
Still, Steve says that if we have a tax-cutting we need to have benchmarks in place that stall any future cuts if we fall short. I can think of other objections to the Zero Tax. One is “cities depend on sales tax for most of their budgets. What if the state decides to raise their rate and there begins a sales tax war between municipalities and the state?” Two things seem to guard against this. One is that double-digit (total) sales tax rates drive sales across state lines (Ask Dallas what happened in the 90’s when they did this). And right now, everybody seems to have combined sales taxes of 8 or 9%. Secondly citizens who pay in the area get really rebellious when they see double digit sales taxes every day on every purchase. They are likely to take out their ire on the local state legislator if he voted to raise state sales tax rates. Well then, could the state raise fuel taxes at the pump? Not too much. Kansas has 5 cents more tax and we already see Arkansas Citians visiting the Otoeplex on Highway 77 for gasoline. Fee increases? These hammer select groups and those folks really holler when they get a fee increase. The squall gets magnified as a campaign issue, so again politicians are under the gun to keep fees under control. Raising severance taxes has already been shown to kill drilling so that is unlikely to happen. The bottom line here is that everyone will have to live under a tight budget, but not so different than the current ones we are used to.
In the end, Zero Tax reminds me of what I really stand for. If we had no income tax, it would be an incentive for people to work, to save, to produce in Oklahoma. It would be one less, very complex, regulation of our lives. The less we have to fill out tax forms and other regulatory red tape, the more folks can follow their dreams and their relationship with their Maker. And if someone gets a job reduction letter at the Oklahoma Tax Commission they can turn their accounting skills to better things. This is what we are really about, not being serfs to the bureaucracy, but finding ways to do things better. It helps enormously when our eyes are not so much on the bottom line, when the economy is good and jobs are available, as might happen with Zero Tax. The less fortunate fall between the cracks less often when we behave like inspired men in pursuit of a dream as well. Maybe we can really do this thing. Can we muster the courage to risk the change?
You want to see the whole Laffer study? Go to http://tinyurl.com/LafferPlanOK
Friday, January 13, 2012
Bonhoeffer Deep
A friend of mine, a pastor in our denomination told about a gathering in which a legal expert for the churchwide organization told them that it was likely the federal government would impose hiring laws on the churches. Soon churches could not discriminate against hiring atheists or gays or whomever. And my friend said he had never seen such a rebellion among a bunch of pastors. They all became conservatives that day, he ventured.
The reason this is such a big deal to our denomination is that we often have schools. In fact, there was a period when, in order to start a new church, the church had to pledge to start a school as well. Such was the dedication of these German-Americans to Christian education and the distrust of state-run schools from the land they had come from. Indeed, for a time in my youth, I was on track to become such a church school teacher. Once you graduate from one of the Lutheran teacher colleges you are installed as a (divinely)“called” teacher, just like a minister.
On Wednesday the Supreme Court decided a case about just such a Lutheran Church and School and it wasn’t even close. The Court held that churches have a right to hire and fire “ministers” as a right of “the free exercise thereof” of religion in the First Amendment by a margin of 9-0. That’s right, even the former ACLU queen, Ginsburg, and Kagan, the non-practicing Jewish agnostic voted in favor of the First Amendment and against the Obama administration. Forcing churches to to take religious leaders they don’t want—“Such action interferes with the internal governance of the church, depriving the church of control over the selection of those who will personify its beliefs,” wrote Justice Roberts in favoring the decision. “By imposing an unwanted minister, the state infringes the Free Exercise Clause, which protects a religious group’s right to shape its own faith and mission through its appointments.” No kidding! Who would order such a thing? Oh, wait, that’s our Prez who approved the EEOC lawsuit, wasn’t it. So with such a slap in the face at his policy, why isn’t anyone from the media asking Obama about this? Why did he follow through with this suit and not call off the EEOC dogs? Does he agree with the EEOC? Who’s in charge there? What kind of faith beliefs does he hold that he considers the church’s religious faith to be less than political correctness? And what does he believe about the First Amendment?
Wish I was part of the press corps. I’d ask the religious questions. (Obama pronounces that ‘corpse’, correctly, perhaps?)
Oh, wait, I think I know the answers! Obama believes in Liberation Theology, that curious belief that says Jesus came to the earth to liberate and play politics, not to save poor sinners from sin. Thus politics is god over everything else in life. And this is the same belief as noted socialists like Karl “The State is God” Marx, of whom Barry was a close follower during his high school and college years. Strange that no one in the media finds this fascinating, controversial, correlating, or significant.
Now that Court ruling in EEOC vs. Hosanna-Tabor still doesn’t mean that the church school can avoid hiring that Islamic radical for janitor. (He’s particularly good with chemicals.) Or that wickan for school cook (who can really concoct strange stuff in a kettle) or that atheist for secretary(whose favorite words are “Jesus Christ!”). Those folks probably won’t qualify for being “ministers” who have what the court calls “ministerial exception”. So don’t expect our church pastors and involved laity to be any less on guard about Obama’s brand of First Amendment rights. And for churches that don’t ordain and install, that use lay people for leadership, have schools but don’t have a churchwide pool of called teachers from which to choose, you need to be on guard too.
And the next time someone crabs about social conservatives who just discriminate against gays that want to get married and unwanted pregnancies, I think I will tell them the issue goes quite a bit deeper. Like Bonhoeffer Resistance deep.
The reason this is such a big deal to our denomination is that we often have schools. In fact, there was a period when, in order to start a new church, the church had to pledge to start a school as well. Such was the dedication of these German-Americans to Christian education and the distrust of state-run schools from the land they had come from. Indeed, for a time in my youth, I was on track to become such a church school teacher. Once you graduate from one of the Lutheran teacher colleges you are installed as a (divinely)“called” teacher, just like a minister.
On Wednesday the Supreme Court decided a case about just such a Lutheran Church and School and it wasn’t even close. The Court held that churches have a right to hire and fire “ministers” as a right of “the free exercise thereof” of religion in the First Amendment by a margin of 9-0. That’s right, even the former ACLU queen, Ginsburg, and Kagan, the non-practicing Jewish agnostic voted in favor of the First Amendment and against the Obama administration. Forcing churches to to take religious leaders they don’t want—“Such action interferes with the internal governance of the church, depriving the church of control over the selection of those who will personify its beliefs,” wrote Justice Roberts in favoring the decision. “By imposing an unwanted minister, the state infringes the Free Exercise Clause, which protects a religious group’s right to shape its own faith and mission through its appointments.” No kidding! Who would order such a thing? Oh, wait, that’s our Prez who approved the EEOC lawsuit, wasn’t it. So with such a slap in the face at his policy, why isn’t anyone from the media asking Obama about this? Why did he follow through with this suit and not call off the EEOC dogs? Does he agree with the EEOC? Who’s in charge there? What kind of faith beliefs does he hold that he considers the church’s religious faith to be less than political correctness? And what does he believe about the First Amendment?
Wish I was part of the press corps. I’d ask the religious questions. (Obama pronounces that ‘corpse’, correctly, perhaps?)
Oh, wait, I think I know the answers! Obama believes in Liberation Theology, that curious belief that says Jesus came to the earth to liberate and play politics, not to save poor sinners from sin. Thus politics is god over everything else in life. And this is the same belief as noted socialists like Karl “The State is God” Marx, of whom Barry was a close follower during his high school and college years. Strange that no one in the media finds this fascinating, controversial, correlating, or significant.
Now that Court ruling in EEOC vs. Hosanna-Tabor still doesn’t mean that the church school can avoid hiring that Islamic radical for janitor. (He’s particularly good with chemicals.) Or that wickan for school cook (who can really concoct strange stuff in a kettle) or that atheist for secretary(whose favorite words are “Jesus Christ!”). Those folks probably won’t qualify for being “ministers” who have what the court calls “ministerial exception”. So don’t expect our church pastors and involved laity to be any less on guard about Obama’s brand of First Amendment rights. And for churches that don’t ordain and install, that use lay people for leadership, have schools but don’t have a churchwide pool of called teachers from which to choose, you need to be on guard too.
And the next time someone crabs about social conservatives who just discriminate against gays that want to get married and unwanted pregnancies, I think I will tell them the issue goes quite a bit deeper. Like Bonhoeffer Resistance deep.
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Morning Star
The Morning Star on Christmas
For years they’ve argued about whether the “Star in the East” the magi talked about in Matthew’s gospel actually was a bright celestial event, a supernova, or just some prophesy or what. I suppose the argument will continue but I caught a most interesting new development the other day that may well be the real answer.
In the northern hemisphere our earth’s axis points toward Polarus, or the North Star. And all around it are a sphere of stars. The sphere appears to rotate around the Polarus axis as if one were standing inside a globe imprinted with the stars. All the stars are fixed in orientation to one another as one might expect, except for moon and sun and seven visible planets. Since earth’s axis is tilted 23.5 degrees with respect to the planetary plane of movements, these “wandering stars” move around and slowly progress through a belt that is 47 degrees wide --the same belt where the sun and moon come up and progress across the sky. That is, they come up somewhere in the east and progress across the southern sky and then set in the west. If you go out about 9 o’clock this time of year and look south, you’ll see the constellation Aries. As the night progresses the dome of stars moves from east to west and Pisces, then Aquarius come into that dead south position. As the months go by, the dozen or so constellations, named by ancient astronomers for the star formations, will rotate through the dome of stars so that each month a new constellation will be dead south and so forth. The ancient astronomers named the months, not for the prominent constellations that are straight south in early evening but for the one that is rising in the east as the sun sets. So Leo, the southern constellation in April is the east-rising constellation in July and that is the month designated as Leo. There is a lot of spooky belief about astronomers and astrologers today, but the astrologers were just fledgling scientists. They labored under the mistaken belief that if one could predict the seasons and crops from the movement of the heavens, then surely one could predict more good stuff from really studying the stars. And what interested the astrologers was not the fixed dome of stars but the wanderers—planets and moon. What they really thought significant was the times when the wanderers came very close together or crossed paths in their march across the sky.
A historian was looking at some ancient coins a few years ago. One side of a coin usually has a “head” of an important ruler or god, while the other side is “tails” which often had a commemorated event such as an important victory. On one side of a Syrian-minted coin just a few years after the birth of Christ, was a “head” of the god Zeus, king of the gods, and on the other was a ram looking over his shoulder at a very large star. The Ram is the constellation Aries. Was there a significant event that took place in Aries some time around the birth of Jesus? Well, it turns out that there was a stunning astrological event. During the month of April, 4 BC, the constellation Aries would have been rising just before daybreak. And planet Jupiter (or 'Zeus' as it was known then) was in Aries. The moon, which moves back 50 minutes each night in it’s sky position, would have been very very near the planet Jupiter just before dawn on April 17. In fact the moon, when it comes up just before the sun is a thin sliver (since we face mainly the dark side of the moon). And at about 35 degrees north latitude you would see Jupiter, which looks like a very bright star, just on the edge of the moon as if connected. Just north of 35 degrees you wouldn’t see Jupiter at all since the moon would be eclipsing it. Astrologically this is big stuff. Jupiter was called Zeus by the Greco-Roman world—king of the gods. The moon-star event is seen “in the east” just before daybreak, “the morning star”. And the constellation Aries, the Ram, was identified with the tiny nation of Judea astrologically. So here was born a king among the Jews, king above all gods. Oh, and April 17 was just after Passover of the Jews that year.
“Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin…” begins the story in Luke 1:26ff. The Jewish calendar starts in March and months are lunar so they are only 29 days long. Since 12 months doesn’t add up to a year, there are some years that begin very early in March and last 13 months. At any rate the sixth month is late July or August. And nine months later is April. “some shepherds were abiding in the field laying watch over their flocks by night” says Luke 2. Those passages are the only two hints about the time of year when Jesus was born. But the only time shepherds and sheep would have been ‘in fields’ rather than out to pasture is in the winter rainy season, Dec. to March—or early April if the ground was wet. Oh, and 4 BC is significant since that is the well-chronicled year Herod the Great died. He’s the paranoid king in the story of the Magi. And it was during this 'abiding in the fields' wintering-over that ewes had lambs and were given shelter under outcrops or caves in the cliffs around Bethlehem and fed supplemental hay in mangers. So most scholars think Jesus was born in or around early April of 4 BC.
But who, among the astrologers would think to travel to Judea and scout for a king that was born? Who, outside of little Judea would have known? The Jews had been conquered by the Babylonians 500 years before and during this time the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah foretold of a coming M’shia (Messiah), or “anointed one”, that is, “a king” expected among the Jews. The Greeks and Romans wouldn’t have heard this. So the magi (that is,the Babylonian word for “astrologers”) came from what we call Iraq today, seeking a king born among the Jews that would become ruler of everyone, king of kings and Lord of Lords. What irony that the former conquerers and oppressors had now come to find a king among the Jews.
And as one Messianic Jew (believers in Jesus Christ) said, “wouldn’t it be just too good, too fitting, if Jesus was born on Passover 4 BC and died on Passover?”
Merry Christmas everyone.
For years they’ve argued about whether the “Star in the East” the magi talked about in Matthew’s gospel actually was a bright celestial event, a supernova, or just some prophesy or what. I suppose the argument will continue but I caught a most interesting new development the other day that may well be the real answer.
In the northern hemisphere our earth’s axis points toward Polarus, or the North Star. And all around it are a sphere of stars. The sphere appears to rotate around the Polarus axis as if one were standing inside a globe imprinted with the stars. All the stars are fixed in orientation to one another as one might expect, except for moon and sun and seven visible planets. Since earth’s axis is tilted 23.5 degrees with respect to the planetary plane of movements, these “wandering stars” move around and slowly progress through a belt that is 47 degrees wide --the same belt where the sun and moon come up and progress across the sky. That is, they come up somewhere in the east and progress across the southern sky and then set in the west. If you go out about 9 o’clock this time of year and look south, you’ll see the constellation Aries. As the night progresses the dome of stars moves from east to west and Pisces, then Aquarius come into that dead south position. As the months go by, the dozen or so constellations, named by ancient astronomers for the star formations, will rotate through the dome of stars so that each month a new constellation will be dead south and so forth. The ancient astronomers named the months, not for the prominent constellations that are straight south in early evening but for the one that is rising in the east as the sun sets. So Leo, the southern constellation in April is the east-rising constellation in July and that is the month designated as Leo. There is a lot of spooky belief about astronomers and astrologers today, but the astrologers were just fledgling scientists. They labored under the mistaken belief that if one could predict the seasons and crops from the movement of the heavens, then surely one could predict more good stuff from really studying the stars. And what interested the astrologers was not the fixed dome of stars but the wanderers—planets and moon. What they really thought significant was the times when the wanderers came very close together or crossed paths in their march across the sky.
A historian was looking at some ancient coins a few years ago. One side of a coin usually has a “head” of an important ruler or god, while the other side is “tails” which often had a commemorated event such as an important victory. On one side of a Syrian-minted coin just a few years after the birth of Christ, was a “head” of the god Zeus, king of the gods, and on the other was a ram looking over his shoulder at a very large star. The Ram is the constellation Aries. Was there a significant event that took place in Aries some time around the birth of Jesus? Well, it turns out that there was a stunning astrological event. During the month of April, 4 BC, the constellation Aries would have been rising just before daybreak. And planet Jupiter (or 'Zeus' as it was known then) was in Aries. The moon, which moves back 50 minutes each night in it’s sky position, would have been very very near the planet Jupiter just before dawn on April 17. In fact the moon, when it comes up just before the sun is a thin sliver (since we face mainly the dark side of the moon). And at about 35 degrees north latitude you would see Jupiter, which looks like a very bright star, just on the edge of the moon as if connected. Just north of 35 degrees you wouldn’t see Jupiter at all since the moon would be eclipsing it. Astrologically this is big stuff. Jupiter was called Zeus by the Greco-Roman world—king of the gods. The moon-star event is seen “in the east” just before daybreak, “the morning star”. And the constellation Aries, the Ram, was identified with the tiny nation of Judea astrologically. So here was born a king among the Jews, king above all gods. Oh, and April 17 was just after Passover of the Jews that year.
“Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin…” begins the story in Luke 1:26ff. The Jewish calendar starts in March and months are lunar so they are only 29 days long. Since 12 months doesn’t add up to a year, there are some years that begin very early in March and last 13 months. At any rate the sixth month is late July or August. And nine months later is April. “some shepherds were abiding in the field laying watch over their flocks by night” says Luke 2. Those passages are the only two hints about the time of year when Jesus was born. But the only time shepherds and sheep would have been ‘in fields’ rather than out to pasture is in the winter rainy season, Dec. to March—or early April if the ground was wet. Oh, and 4 BC is significant since that is the well-chronicled year Herod the Great died. He’s the paranoid king in the story of the Magi. And it was during this 'abiding in the fields' wintering-over that ewes had lambs and were given shelter under outcrops or caves in the cliffs around Bethlehem and fed supplemental hay in mangers. So most scholars think Jesus was born in or around early April of 4 BC.
But who, among the astrologers would think to travel to Judea and scout for a king that was born? Who, outside of little Judea would have known? The Jews had been conquered by the Babylonians 500 years before and during this time the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah foretold of a coming M’shia (Messiah), or “anointed one”, that is, “a king” expected among the Jews. The Greeks and Romans wouldn’t have heard this. So the magi (that is,the Babylonian word for “astrologers”) came from what we call Iraq today, seeking a king born among the Jews that would become ruler of everyone, king of kings and Lord of Lords. What irony that the former conquerers and oppressors had now come to find a king among the Jews.
And as one Messianic Jew (believers in Jesus Christ) said, “wouldn’t it be just too good, too fitting, if Jesus was born on Passover 4 BC and died on Passover?”
Merry Christmas everyone.
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