Editor's take on today's news

Surprising poll and the anger vote

Results in the latest Minnesota Public Radio/Humphrey Institute poll are somewhat surprising showing Mark Dayton opening up an 11 point lead over Republican Tom Emmer.

Apparently, Dayton's tax the rich message is not scaring too many average people. You have to wonder if one of the worst recessions in decades, angst and discord in Washington, tea parties across the country has created the perfect storm for the anger and frustration vote.

The idea that taxing the rich will hurt job creation also seems to be a message that not many people are buying. I'm not sure why they would. They haven't seen their "rich" employers add many jobs lately. So, they figure, what do we have to lose?

That's not necessarily the way I would think about it, but I've not seen anyone offer a study that shows when you raise taxes on wealthy individuals you curtail job creation, or conversely, if you lower taxes - like in 2001 - you spur job creation. That obviously didn't happen.

Anger, part two, the Chinese

With voters angry at their U.S. elected leaders in Congress, you've got to figure Congress gets angry and frustrated as well. So why not take it out on the Chinese.

A bipartisan group of 348 members of the House of  Representatives voted to penalize China if we don't like how they value, or - in our view- manipulate, the value of their currency, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

Journal writer Michael R. Crittenden and Bob Davis describe it as a move that is "sending a powerful warning to Beijing but risking a response that could harm U.S. companies and consumers."

That's a great piece of good old fashioned journalist intelligence to work into that lead. The politicians were acting tough, but likely to the detriment of their constituents.

But who is against bashing the Chinese, the guys who are like the "rich" of the world because they own so much of our debt.

The bill would allow us to put tariffs on Chinese goods if we didn't like the fact that Chinese currency was making ours look bad. Congress is probably posturing more on this than actually thinking about doing it, but then again, actions of Congress are often based on what looks good and not what will work well.

The risk in this kind of retaliation legislation is what the World Trade Organization won't tolerate. The WTO has the authority to rule against any unfair tariffs and allow the aggrieved country justice. This legislation seems like it would certainly fall outside the WTO rules we all agreed to abide by years ago.

We'd just have them retaliate with tariffs on everything we have to sell to them. And being that China is one of the largest markets in the world for U. S. goods, (why would our governors and others be continually traveling there if they weren't?) cutting off trade or artificially raising the price of our goods in the Chinese market wouldn't make any economic sense.

Tip of the day for tea party folks

The tea party continues its angry protests against all manner of federal spending that doesn't ever seem to be specified except in broad ways like welfare and Obamacare.

I offer this specific for use in their next rally: The House of Representatives approved in May a Defense Department budget that will increase $46 billion in 2011, or 7 percent. The vote was 229-186.

But Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and his deputy recently told Congress their budget is bloated and wasteful and they don't need that much money, and are aiming to cut their own budget $100 billion over five years because of waste in private contracts that should be done by the Defense Department's own employees.

They also didn't want Congress to spend $485 million on backup jet engines they say they didn't need, as did Obama, as did Bush before him. The House voted down stripping that money from the Defense bill. The vote will surprise you. Democrats voted against the wasteful spending, while many Republicans voted in favor of the extra jet engines, though there was crossover both ways.

Tea parties and citizens getting involved in government is great. It helps if you have some facts.