If you didn't know already, John Sununu is my favorite Senator, and if he loses next year, I'm going to cry for days on end. So, I'm not happy about seeing polls like this. A new WMUR/CNN poll shows that if ex-Governor and 2002 Senate candidate Jeanne Shaheen ran again in 2008 against Sununu, she'd get 54%, and he'd get 38%.

That's bad news, however, it's not nearly as bad as what some polls a few weeks back were saying, which is good (in a sick and twisted way). Sununu may be seriously in a hole right now, but at least he seems to be digging out of it, slowly but surely.

The good news in this poll is that 45% of independents favor Shaheen, but 40% favor Sununu. With Sununu carrying 80% support amongst Republicans, essentially what this means is that he needs to get his GOP numbers up a bit more, and then pick off some independents. And, then, we'll be in another close race, just like 2002.

Frankly, I've got to believe this will happen. If it doesn't, we've reached a true low point in politics in this country. Sununu has gotten into trouble purely by virtue of having an "R" after his name, because the President (who everyone in New Hampshire seems to utterly revile, and not without reason) also has an "R" after his name. The irony is that while Democrats try to portray Sununu as a Bush clone, he's about the furthest thing from it. If he loses because people are fed up with Bush, and Bushite Republicans, that will be extremely sad...

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So, when I was in New York earlier this week, I was pleased to see reported in the paper at which I write, the New York Sun, that Harry Reid was essentially planning to park consideration of a big tax hike that Max Baucus (D-MT) and Charles Grassley (R-IA), as well as most of the Democratic party, want to push through.

To remind readers, this tax hike is one that would see private equity partnerships paying an extra 20% in tax. That's a big, bad tax hike, which is terrible in itself, but the real reason that this proposal is bad is not just because it hikes taxes. It's also because it totally ignores basic principles that apply to business and tax law, in general. At present, private equity gurus get taxed at 15% when they extract money from a private equity fund by way of carried interest (also known as performance fees) because:

a) money paid out in respect of carried interest corresponds to capital, not income-- i.e., the gurus don't get paid the same amount regardless of what happens to the assets under their control, as would be the case if the carried interest were really income; they get paid solely if the assets under their control increase in value, i.e., if there is a capital gain-- so carried interest should be taxed at the capital gains tax rate, not the income tax rate, as a matter of logic; and

b) no matter how much Democrats and Mr. Grassley may want to pretend that a partnership is a corporation, and should be taxed at the 35% rate in respect of capital gains (this is of course assuming the failure of their argument that carried interest corresponds to income, a patently false characterization) just like a corporation would, legally, partnerships are not distinct entities from their members. In other words, if we're talking about capital gains tax, as long as the partnership is comprised of Fred, Joe and Harry, as opposed to IBM, Microsoft and Wal-Mart, the t...

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I returned from New York last night to see that the Democrats have crafted their new Farm Bill. Surprise, surprise, it looks pretty crap, overall.

The main thing that stands out to me about this bill-- and probably the thing that I instinctively am inclined to hate the most about it-- is its establishment of a ceiling of a very high $1 million in gross income, which, if exceeded, means a cut-off of subsidies. The administration had wanted a ceiling of $200,000, a much more sensible number. Does anyone else find it interesting that by setting the ceiling for cutoff of subsidy payments so high, not only are Democrats wasting more federal money on market-distorting and third-world-development-killing subsidies, but they're also giving a nice fat payout to farmers who are comparably rich? Democrats like to brand themselves as the party of the little guy, not big business. Clearly, with this bill, they're demonstrating that that's bull-- pure and simple.

I would say that giving what is effectively welfare to farmers earning $1 million is the equivalent of actually, physically cutting welfare checks to, say, corporate lawyers bringing in $1 million through their work, and paying for it all out of the federal budget. And we don't do that because we recognize that, hey, if you're making $1 million a year from your business, you actually don't need a government handout to survive: that poor person living on the street with no job and no housing clearly does, but you, you're a corporate lawyer earning loads of money, so no, you don't need government assistance.

I expect the people at dailykos to run the argument that the Bush tax cuts are the same thing as cutting the rich corporate lawyer a subsidy check, and so this is all fine and dandy, because it's consistent with what have been recognized as conservative economic principles. E...

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