Barack Obama and Mitt Romney's tax plans.

Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have both promised tax cuts, if elected, that sound delicious to the voter’s ears. Barack Obama has said he will cut corporate taxes from 35% to 28%. He has also said he will maintain the Bush era tax cuts for most voters, and raise taxes on those earning 250,000 dollars a year and more. Mitt Romney on the other hand, rather more adventurously, has promised to cut all individual tax rates by 20% - and to cut corporation tax to just 25%. Now, my question is: are these two men sane?

There is a profound problem with the idea that broad ranging tax cuts are possible in America, at this time. America, as the whole world knows, is deeply in debt. Indeed, its debt is so large that it would take many years to conquer it, with wide ranging tax INCREASES, and cuts to all government funded public services. It is simple not possible to cut taxes, as offered by Obama and Romney, and maintain existing services. Should either of these tax plans be implemented then one of two things would happen: the American debt burden would grow rapidly – or all publicly funded services would have to be dramatically cut, to balance the books. Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are making seductive promises to the electorate, which simply cannot be kept, without destroying America as a nation. Now, there is the real meaning of these promises: both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney would be prepared to destroy America, just to get elected.

America needs to cut public spending, and/or raise taxes, if it is to reduce its debt burden. This is the unavoidable truth. Barack Obama and Mitt Romney clearly believe that the American electorate is dumb...and perhaps they are right. They are certainly banking on the dumbness of the American people to get them elected, since what they are promising cannot be delivered without imperilling the United States itself.

I am hoping that the American electorate is bright enough to see the essential problem with promising significant tax cuts in an era of unprecedented national debt. It would be rash in the extreme to do so. Promising to do so, can only mean one thing – that the politician would do anything, absolutely anything, including bankrupt his own nation, just to get elected. What the American people need to do is pause for a while and reflect on whether they really want a politician like that, at the helm of their nation. By making such promises, both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, reveal themselves to be dangerously unelectable. Should they be elected, the safety and long term security of the United States would be imperilled (if they keep their promises and are able to make them happen).

If any candidate wishes to promise significant tax cuts, they should also identify which public services they are going to cut, and by how much. The full truth needs to be declared. It is meaningless for a candidate to promise massive tax cuts, without also explaining how the budget will be balanced. It would also be very revealing if they do not intend to balance the budget, for that would be a plan to increase America’s debt burden...and that, now, at over 15 trillion dollars, is beyond the point at which it would be safe to increase it further.

So, remember this: Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, by declaring such fantastic, even delusional tax cutting plans, are declaring that they would bankrupt America, if it meant they could get elected again. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want either of them in charge of my country. Would you?

Posted by Valentine Cawley

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Of curiosity and criminality

Which is worth more: a tree or a PhD? Have a think about it and come to a decision.

Which did you choose, the tree or the PhD? (You can say in the comments if you like).

Well, I think the tree is worth more, when you know a little bit more about the tree. In 1964, a young geographer, Donald R. Currey, was working his way towards his doctorate, and was interested in gathering evidence for Ice Age glaciers, in the Southwest USA. He was on Wheeler Peak with a colleague when he came upon some bristlecone pines at the timberline. They started drilling cores into them, to determine their age. They found one that was over 4,000 years old, which rather excited them. Then their only corer broke.

They had, before them, an even bigger tree than the others. It was known as "Prometheus". Without the corer, there was only one way to find out its age: kill it. Shockingly, this impatient young man called the U.S. Forest Service to ask permission to cut down the tree, just so he could find out how old it was. Even more shockingly, some dimwit at the Forest Service said yes to his request. So, Mr. Currey (as he then was) and some Forest Service personnel duly cut down this magnificent ancient tree 8 foot up from the base. Then they settled down to count the rings. They got to 4,844. (Later dendrochronologists determined that it was actually over 4,950 years old). Donald R. Currey had just killed the oldest living thing on Earth, known, at the time, simply to find out how old it was.

I really had to share this incident with you, because I was stunned by the stupidity of the attitude that would allow such a wonderful multi-millenial life to be snuffed out, just to find out how long it was.

It was completely unnecessary to kill the tree. All they had to do was come back another time, with a new corer and get their answer that way. However, this young man had no patience for that: getting his PhD pronto was more important than the life of the oldest living thing on Earth.

No-one should put short term personal gain, over the long term health of the world - or the existence of a magnificent life, such as the nigh-immortal tree that Mr. Currey killed that day.

That tree had stood from the dawn of human civilization, right up until the modern world: from the time of the Ancient Egyptians to the time of the 20th century Americans and the hippies of the sixties - until one young man put his immediate career and personal curiosity before its undying life. Think of the sadness of that trade: he killed it just so he could write a number on a piece of paper - the tree's age. (Oh, and make some observations about the Little Ice Age - which most regard as being just 600 years ago: so there was no need to gather information from such an old tree, at all).

How many of you, now, think a PhD is worth more than a tree? Comments please.

By the way, Donald R. Currey went on to earn his doctorate five years later. He had a successful academic career primarily studying a single lake - Bonneville. His papers on geomorphology of lakes, paleolakes, lake basins, and coasts; geotectonics (paleolimnology) and geochronology and geodynamics of quaternary lakes; geoarchaeology; and environmental change in desert, mountain, Arctic areas were highly cited.

Personally, I would swap his entire career for the grand tree he murdered in the name of it.

As a direct consequence of Mr. Currey's tree killing action, Bristlecone Pines have become a protected species - and the areas in which they grow are now part of a national park. (Something for which Currey, in perhaps a fit of late-arriving guilt, lobbied for.)

Rather pointedly, despite all his academic ambitions, Dr. Don Currey is most famous for the day he killed the oldest tree in the world. Or should I say, infamous.

So, if curiosity ever leads you to a course of action with irrevocable harmful consequences, please pause to think again. Don't do as Mr. Currey did - for the sake of us all.

Dr. Don Currey, himself, didn't have the lifespan of a tree, though: he died at 70 in 2004. I hope he came to understand what he had done, before his time was up.

Prometheus, the ancient tree, would still be alive, today, if Mr. Currey hadn't killed it, for career advancement.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and four months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and nine months, and Tiarnan, twenty-six months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)