• VIDEO: Ghost Gunner By E.J. Smith
• O’Malley’s Fiscal Record: Fail By E.J. Smith
• An Island of Peace and Prosperity By Debbie Young
• The Flat Tax, the Answer for America By Richard C. Young
• War Is Justifiable only for Self-Defense By Richard C. Young
• It’s Never Too Late By E.J. Smith
• ​Culinary Nation Branding By Debbie Young

If you didn’t know about the Ghost Gunner, now you do.

From GhostGunner.net: “Ghost Gunner is a general purpose CNC mill, built upon a large body of open source work, including the gshield 3 axis motion hardware, the grbl g-code parser and motion controller, and popular microcontrollers. All Ghost Gunner schematics and design files will be published into the public domain, and anyone can program anything for the machine.”

The former governor of Maryland, and former mayor of the currently burning city of Baltimore, Martin O’Malley is preparing a run for president. Here, Cato Institute director of tax policy studies, Chris Edwards, takes on O’Malley’s absolute failure on fiscal responsibility.

Let’s take a closer look at spending. Over O’Malley’s tenure (fiscal years 2007 to 2015), Maryland general fund spending rose 13 percent, based on data from the National Association of State Budget Officers (NASBO). Across the nation, state general fund spending rose 15 percent over the period, so O’Malley performed a bit better than average.

However, the general fund is only a fraction of total state spending. According to NASBO, total Maryland spending jumped 33 percent from 2007 to 2014, which compared to the national increase of 25 percent. So by this measure, O’Malley was worse than average.

Now let’s look at tax changes, which are a more precise measure of a governor’s fiscal approach. While governors have only partial control over spending, they have full power to either sign or veto tax increases and cuts. Unless overridden by legislatures, governors are responsible for changes to income taxes, business taxes, sales taxes, and excise taxes.

This is where O’Malley reveals his Obama-style tendencies the most, as he raised just about every tax in Maryland. Governor O’Malley:

• Raised the top personal income tax rate from 4.75 to 5.75 percent. With local taxes on top, Maryland’s top rate is 8.95 percent.
• Raised the corporate tax rate from 7.0 to 8.25 percent.
• Raised the sales tax rate from 5 to 6 percent and expanded the sales tax base.
• Raised the sales tax rate on beer, wine, and spirits by 50 percent.
• Raised the gas tax by 20 cents over four years, almost doubling the rate from 23.5 cents.
• Doubled the cigarette tax from $1 to $2 per pack.
• Imposed higher taxes on vehicle registration.
• Imposed a stormwater mitigation fee on property owners, or a “rain tax.”

After eight years, O’Malley had hit income earners, businesses, consumers, smokers, beer drinkers, wine drinkers, and drivers, which probably means everyone in the state. He didn’t just punish the top 1 percent often targeted by Democrats — he gave a tax spanking to all 100 percent of Marylanders.

Richard W. Rahn, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, reports that, according to the United Nations, the #1 place to be happy is Switzerland. The United States, for example, ranks #15.

Read here from our friend Richard Rahn how landlocked Switzerland, without much in the way of natural resources, with four official languages and many different religious groups, surrounded by warring neighbors, is arguably the most successful country in the world.

Switzerland now has a higher real per capita income than the United States, a lower unemployment rate (3.2 percent versus 5.5 percent), and approximately one-third the amount of government debt in relation to gross domestic product. According to the latest annual Economic Freedom of the World index, Switzerland ranks No. 4 in economic freedom while the United States ranks No. 12. And by the way, Switzerland has the second-highest life expectancy in the world, while the U.S. is far down the list.

The Cato Institute’s Dan Mitchell explains that the Heritage Foundation’s Steve Moore thinks the flat tax has “political legs.” In the Weekly Standard, Moore writes, “The flat tax is again the rage in a presidential primary. A number of GOP candidates, including Rand Paul, Rick Perry, Ted Cruz, and Scott Walker, are looking to go flat tax with a radically simplified post card tax return. … Ripping up the 70,000 page tax code has visceral appeal to voters.”

I will not vote for a 2016 presidential candidate who does not lead his presidential platform list with just such a proposal. And as Dan Mitchell concludes, “I specifically agree that the best way of selling tax reform is to point out that it’s a Washington-versus-America issue.”

Dan writes:

Simply stated, if we’re going to have some sort of broad-based tax, it makes sense to collect revenue in the least-damaging fashion possible.

And a flat tax achieves that goal by adhering to the principles of good tax policy.

1. A low tax rate – This is the best-known feature of the flat tax. A low tax rate is designed to minimize the penalty on work, entrepreneurship, and other forms of productive behavior.
2. No double taxation of saving and investment – The flat tax gets rid of the tax bias against income that is saved and invested. The capital gains tax, double tax on dividends, and death tax are all abolished. Shifting to a system that taxes economic activity only one time will boost capital formation, thus facilitating an increase in productivity and wages.
3. No distorting loopholes – With the exception of a family-based allowance designed to protect lower-income people, the flat tax eliminates all deductions, exemptions, shelters, preference, exclusions, and credits. By creating a neutral tax system, this ensures that decisions are made on the basis of economic fundamentals, not tax distortions.

All three features are equally important, sort of akin to the legs of a stool. And if we succeeded with fundamental reform, it would mean an end to the disgraceful internal revenue code.

“The Anti-Federalists generally held to what Hamilton scornfully called ‘the novel and absurd experiment in politics of tying up the hands of government from offensive war founded upon reasons of state’.” (The Federalist no. 34)

“War is justifiable on no other principle than self-defense. It is at best a curse to any people; it is comprehensive of most if not all the mischief’s that do or can afflict mankind; it depopulates nations; lays waste the finest countries; destroys arts and sciences; it many times ruins the best men, and advances the worst. It effaces every trace of virtue, piety and compassion, and introduces all kinds of corruption in public affairs; in short, is pregnant with so many evils, that it ought ever to be avoided if possible; nothing but self defense can justify it.” (New Hampshire Farmer)

The American experience in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and now Syria validate the wisdom of the Anti-Federalists. One step in the right direction would be to entirely distance ourselves from the radical Muslim world and let the centuries-old Shia/Sunni religious war play itself out to its natural end.

The Sunni/Shia divide:

Do you remember the first rock concert you ever went to? Mine was actually more of a “Rap” concert. I was 16 years-old working at Oxford Creamery in Mattapoisett, MA scooping ice-cream and serving fried clams, lobster rolls, and coffee frappes. Some co-workers had an extra ticket to see rappers Run DMC and DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince the following night at the Providence Civic Center.

The Fresh Prince is actor Will Smith. I was reminded of the concert over the weekend while watching this video at a baseball camp with my son. Will Smith is a winner. Here he gives a great message for anyone who wants to be one too.

It’s never too late.

In an effort to redefine how the rest of the world sees it, Peru has turned to its cuisine to tempt tourists to visit. And it seems to be working. Read here from NPR how gastronomic tourism is redefining how the world views Peru.

Danny Kou, the executive chef at La Mar, an upscale Peruvian restaurant in San Francisco, says it’s a good time to be him.

Kou moved from Lima to the United States when he was 21. It was 2001, and back then, Peruvian cuisine was still unfamiliar in North America.

But in the last few years, there ‘s been an explosion of Peruvian restaurants in major cities all over the U.S. Last year, the American Restaurant Association named the cuisine a top food trend.

“I’ll tell you, nowadays, every week or two, people come to me. They want to give me money to start another Peruvian restaurant,” Kou says, with a chuckle. “I keep having to tell them, ‘No, thank you, I am very happy where I am.’ ”

Kou says there’s a simple explanation for why Peruvian cuisine has become so trendy: “It’s just very, very good.”

True, but it’s also more complicated than that. Over the past decade, the Peruvian government has been making a very deliberate effort to popularize its cuisine worldwide. It’s a strategy that a growing number of middle-income countries are adopting as they look to flex their muscles on the international stage.

“Think – if you’re Peru, Mexico or Korea, you are not going to be major nuclear proliferators,” says Johanna Mendelson-Forman, a policy expert on international conflict. “But maybe you can hope to become the world’s No. 1 culinary destination.”