Author: Redactor

Categories
nannyism

Rubbing Salt Into the Wound

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg finagled a way around the city’s two-term limit on mayoral service, and is now running for a third term.

As if to rub it in, he’s attacking our use of salt.

Bloomberg has simply declared that the city is starting a “nationwide” effort to pressure the food industry to decrease salt use.

Which is more audacious, making New Yorkers’ salt shakers the city’s business, or foisting this intrusion onto the rest of the country?

This would have been a strawman example — a reductio ad absurdum — a generation ago. Back then, when some of us objected to, say, regulation of cigarettes, arguing that next government would be regulating the salt on our French Fries, earnest nanny-state proponents would sniff. No. They wouldn’t do anything that absurd.

Today, Thomas R. Friedman, Bloomberg’s man at the city health department, claims that if restaurants followed the New York City government prescription, they would in effect “lower health care costs and prevent 150,000 premature deaths every year.”

Is he right? John Tierney, writing in The New York Times, asserts that this “prediction is based on an estimate based on extrapolations based on assumptions that have yet to be demonstrated despite a half-century of efforts.”

Healthy or not, my salt intake is my business. And maybe my wife’s. Not New York City supreme ruler Michael Bloomberg’s.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
U.S. Constitution

Politics or the Constitution?

Americans living in the District of Columbia are taxed by the federal government, but not really represented. To address this, a bill now in Congress would grant DC’s single delegate the right to cast a vote. The Senate has approved the bill, but attached a provision on gun regulation to which many in the House object. So House leadership is still mulling over what to do.

Both chambers miss the bigger problem: DC is a territory and our Constitution clearly states that only states shall have full represention in Congress.

There are a number of ways around this. The residential areas of the District could become part of Maryland or Virginia, for instance. Or the Constitution could be amended.

But our current leaders prefer ignoring the Constitution entirely.

For example, Attorney General Eric Holder recently ignored and even refused to release a report from his own Office of Legal Counsel that found the legislation to be unconstitutional.

Eleanor Holmes Norton, DC’s non-voting delegate, also pooh-poohs the constitutional issue. “I don’t think members [of Congress] are in the least bit affected in their votes on the question of its constitutionality,” she says. “People vote their politics in the House and in the Senate.”

Sad but true. Our representatives take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution, but their real allegiance is to their own petty politics.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall

Exploring Recall in Wisconsin

You’ve heard of a campaign exploratory committee?

Well, at recalldoyle.com you can see a recall exploratory effort in full bloom. Not a candidate campaign exploration, but an effort to recall a sitting official.

The site is titled the “Doyle Recall Exploratory Portal,” and organizers of the  effort are serious about doing something about Wisconsin’s governor. The core of their argument is at the center of the page:

WHY RECALL DOYLE? Jim Doyle is the de facto CEO of a $30 billion dollar corporation we call the State of Wisconsin that is being rapidly run into the ground. The buck stops at the top. . . .

  • Record Deficits – 4th Largest in the USA
  • Massive Tax Increases Threaten Prosperity
  • Radical Agenda Drives Away Business, Kills Jobs

. . . An unprecedented fiscal crisis demands bold and immediate action to save Wisconsin from certain financial ruin. The longer we wait, the more damage will be done. The clock is ticking!

If you support the idea of citizens taking control, when politicians go out of control, you can’t help but admire the intent here. And I, for one, wish the effort luck.

I confess, I don’t know everything about Governor Doyle. But knowing, as I do, the general run of the political mill, I’d bet money that the folks at Recall Doyle are doing their state a great service.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
insider corruption

Stevens, Justice, and Corruption

When Ted Stevens, former senator from Alaska, was convicted on seven felony counts of corruption, I stressed that what I knew about Stevens’s corruption was not what was debated in court but what happened, quite openly, in the U.S. Senate.

Do you remember my verdict? Here’s what I said: “[I]f as many as five or six — or even all seven — of the counts against him are not upheld, his name will still appear dirty in my book, dirty from all the porkbarelling. Senator Ted Stevens is a horrifying example of much that is wrong in government.”

Stevens has always been proud of his porkmeistering, his attempts to transform independent-minded Alaskans into our union’s biggest pork recipients.

Further, Stevens insisted upon his innocence of illegal corruption all through his trial. And in his appeal his lawyers made much of a whistle blower’s leaked information from the prosecution that the office did not fully disclose all the information from a chief witness. At that point, there was almost no possible recourse but to overturn the convictions.

According to Eric Holder, top banana at the Department of Justice, there will be no second prosecution.

I still have no certainty about the DOJ’s case against Stevens. But I do have certainty about my case against Stevens’s politics of pork.

One additional bit of certainty: Corruption is in plentiful supply among prosecutors, including in the U.S. Department of Justice.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets general freedom

People Power

How many people does it take to run a civilization?

Lots.

And the more things you are doing — the more productive and wealthier you want your civilization to be — the more people it can use.

It’s people who do things. Without people, the things won’t get done. People aren’t the problem, they’re the solution.

But the non-problem of “too many” people bothers Jonathan Porritt, a “green” advisor to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Porritt says if Britain is to feed its population “sustainably,” her population will have to be reduced to 30 million. Britain’s current population is about 61 million, twice that. So . . . do we have 31 million volunteers?

Porritt says “Population growth, plus economic growth, is putting the world under terrible pressure.” That terrible pressure of making it easier and easier to survive.

Industrialized, capitalistic countries are often slammed for consuming a disproportionate share of the world’s economic output.

Less often mentioned is that these countries also produce the lion’s share of the output. They can do so to the extent that people with brains and initiative are free to function. Free to work, keep what they earn, benefit from planning ahead. Let people be free, and they’ll feed themselves fine. They will expand resources.

You want to “sustain” economic development, Mr. Government Official? Get out of the way.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
property rights too much government

Controlling the Message

In Portland, Oregon, the difference between Constitutional takings and just plain theft by government can be seen in bright neon.

The “Made In Oregon” sign on what used to be called the Bickel Building, on Burnside Street, is something of a landmark. It’s huge. It used to say “White Stag Sportswear.” It still features a white stag atop the sign. To much hullabaloo, every Christmas season the white stag’s nose gets lit, red.

Over the years, the sign’s ownership has changed. Now there are political rumblings to condemn the sign and make it public property, so to “control its message.” That’s city councilor Randy Leonard’s notion. Mayor Sam Adams (certainly not my favorite Sam Adams) and Commissioner Nick Fish have batted around the idea to buy the sign.

Jeff Alan, of the Cascade Policy Institute, makes the obvious point: If the city has a half million dollars to buy the sign, why not spend that money on real needs — like road repair or something — rather than on a neon sign?

How different were things back in 1925, when a portion of the Bickel Building, upon which the sign stands, was condemned to make room for the Burnside Bridge.

That displayed a commonsensical notion of public use.

Buying — or, worse, forcing the sale of — a sign to signal an official message? That’s Orwellian . . . if it even makes that much sense.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Accountability

Expect the Unexpected?

If we expect things to be exactly the opposite of what we expect, would we still be surprised by the unexpected? Or surprised by the expected?

You tell me.

There exist laws about how employers must treat their employees. Employers are required to offer equal opportunity. To make certain this happens, the federal government has established and funded an agency called the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. So what employer do you think was just found guilty of willfully violating the Fair Labor Standards Act on a nationwide basis?

Yup, it’s the EEOC. The federal agency charged with protecting worker rights has been systematically violating the rights of its own workers.

We often hear calls for tougher regulation, but the problem here is regulators who can’t seem to follow their own regulations.

Here’s another bizarre case of the unexpected. The Virginia branch of PETA — that is, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals — just filed a report about their animal shelters.

My kids have donated to no-kill shelters because they don’t like the idea of killing stray pets that don’t quickly find homes.

Well, don’t tell my kids, but PETA reports that under its “ethical treatment” 95 percent of the dogs and cats they “rescued,” were then killed.

As always, don’t listen to what folks say; watch what they do.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
insider corruption

Here’s a Fact for You

However brutal or irresponsible Roman emperor Nero may have been, he didn’t literally fiddle while Rome burned. The violin hadn’t been invented yet.

Our modern rulers, on the other hand, know the metaphorical instrument’s arpeggios and double-stops, fiddling with taxpayer dollars as our economy sputters and smolders.

Washington Post columnist Al Kamen passed along the news of nothing unusual, just another so-called fact-finding junket undertaken by intrepid congressfolk. Says Kamen, “Spring break is upon us. That means the skies will darken for two weeks with military jets winging our lawmakers and their spouses to faraway places in search of elusive facts.”

Representatives Ed Pastor, James Clyburn, Maurice Hinchey, John Salazar, Tim Ryan, and Rodney Alexander are winging their way south, to a check list of fascinating tourist spots, plus perhaps a Brazilian state dinner or two. Facts, facts, facts — at Copacabana Beach, Corcovado mountain, the beautiful Iguazu Falls, then on to Salvador.

You could probably pick up a lot of facts about these places from Wikipedia and YouTube. But hey — nothing like being there.

Mostly Democrats in this particular gang, but using taxpayer and lobbyist dollars to fund exotic jaunts to far-flung sumptuous locales is a bipartisan tradition.

The full cost is trivial.

This year? Not even a trillion dollars.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Accountability insider corruption

Why Pay Your Taxes?

Why pay your taxes? I mean, why pay your taxes until you’ve been chosen for President Obama’s cabinet?

Most folks pay with little or no threat of having to serve on Obama’s brain trust.

I pay because my wife tells me to and she agrees to fill out the forms. Some folks pay because they like all or much of what government does. Others may hate the waste, folly, or unconstitutional criminality of the bulk of government spending, but pay taxes out of a sense of duty.

Or fear.

But what of those politicians who constantly put forth the importance — the glorious nobility — of granting government an ever-larger role? Why would they fail to pay their taxes to support that government?

The latest is the current nominee to head the Health and Human Services Department, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius. She owes $7,000 in back taxes, which now that she’s in line to be a cabinet secretary, she’s taking care of.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel hasn’t paid his tax bill. Sebelius’s predecessor, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle withdrew his nomination because of, yes, tax problems. And who can forget Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner? He paid up after he was nominated. But of course, he was “too big to fail.”

Maybe it’s how our leaders see the division of labor: We pay, they spend.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
education and schooling

History, Economics, Pizza

The recession deepens and budgets tighten.

This isn’t news to citizens of Pocatello, Idaho. Students, teachers and administrators of the school district sure feel it. Cuts in state aid are leading to a $10 million shortfall. Citizens voted down a tax increase.

So every light switch has a warning next to it, to save electricity.

More interesting is history and economics teacher Jeb Harrison’s response. He went out shopping for a sponsor, and nearby Molto Caldo Pizzeria agreed to supply Harrison’s class with 10,000 sheets of paper.

Charity?

Community spirit?

No. Advertising.

Every sheet has the imprint of Molto Caldo Pizzeria. For a mere $315 the pizza joint places its name in front of a most promising clientele. With every test, pop quiz, worksheet, and info sheet on the Great Depression, students see the tasteful ad for what I hope is tasty pizza.

Though a schoolboard member gave kudos to Harrison for “creativity,” there are critics. One news report quotes Susan Linn, a Harvard psychologist, saying that this “crosses a line.”

OK . . . but, just maybe, instead, this sort of classroom advertising should increase. Students in public schools could bring home their report cards printed on on paper with ads from competing private schools.

“Learn more, better, faster — at Joe’s Education Emporium.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.