Author: Redactor

Do we need another czar?

Ask Senator John McCain. In a year he could be president and appointing “czars.”

Scary thought. His McCain-​Feingold Campaign Finance law squelched too many freedoms for me to rush into rah-​rah mode.

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, agrees with me, telling CNN’s Anderson Cooper: “McCain- Feingold has really left a bad taste in many people’s mouths, not just conservatives …”

But when Cooper asked Perkins what steps McCain could take to win support from conservatives, Perkins said McCain could “announce a family czar in the White House to focus on strengthening America’s families.”

You know, I’ve never liked that term, czar. Russian czars were dictators, the name taken from Caesar, the Roman emperor. We Americans are just generally down on all-​powerful tyrants. So, why name our government officials “czars”?

Of course, Perkins’s idea isn’t for this Family Czar to tyrannize the countryside. He simply wants to bolster families.

But, ask yourself, which is more likely to come from some powerful new office in Washington: tyranny or stronger families?

And if you bet McCain would pick a swell person to be Family Czar, how would you like Hillary Clinton’s pick? Or Barack Obama’s? If you’re a Democrat, flip the examples around.

I wouldn’t want my own mother to pick someone for such a position. And she’s super swell.

Let’s make this our slogan: No new czars.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

When curious people do curious things, I get a bit curious myself.

A few months ago I mentioned how Warren Buffett had gone on record as saying he would like to be taxed more. Curious.

Bill Clinton said pretty much the same thing. And my response was to recommend they voluntarily give more. It’s legal to give money to the government; the U.S. Treasury is there to help.

Well, on CNBC recently, a listener emailed Buffett that very question. And the billionaire, not unreasonably, said that his charitable foundation probably does a better job of allocating resources than the government would do.

I can almost see your hand raise up. “Pick me, pick me, Mr. Buffett,” you are saying. “I’ve got a follow-​up question!”

Me too. Doesn’t your very answer, Mr. Buffett, beg the question of why we should have higher tax rates in the first place? I mean, why give more money to an entity that will not do a good job of allocating resources?

Maybe good ol’ Warren shouldn’t be taxed more. Maybe we should send our charitable money to Mr. Buffett!

But no. I bet even you and I â€” yes, humble you and humble me — have just as good ideas of how to spend our money as does Warren Buffett.

And, of course, as does the U.S. government.

So the simple question remains, why higher taxes, Mr. Buffett?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Popular political blogger Glenn Reynolds, he of InstaPundit fame, has done lots of yeoman work to bring attention to the proliferation of earmarks in the federal budget.

InstaPundit and others have pushed to make the process of stuffing pork into spending bills a lot more transparent, so constituents can see what’s happening while the wheeling and dealing is still in process.

Despite gestures from lawmakers in that direction, the effort has largely stalled. The Democrats, like the Republicans before them, proved more inclined to favor reform before they gained their new majority. Earmarks waste taxpayers’ money in ways ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous; they still get tucked away in murky committee reports, instead of listed openly in the bills lawmakers are constitutionally instructed to read and then vote on.

Twenty-​three House members have publicly pledged to forgo earmarks. The Republican Study Committee, a conservative caucus, has posted the list. Go to my PaulJacob​.com and click the “Swearing Off Pork” logo to get to it. These 23 abstainers may not make up even a fourth of the conservative caucus, let alone a hefty percentage of the full 435-​member House … but we gotta start somewhere.

Want the list to grow? Listen to the InstaPundit, who says: “Call your Representatives — congratulate ’em if they’re on it, and if they’re not, ask why not.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Sometimes it takes money to do things. Say, to collect signatures for a petition. If you want folks to be hitting the sidewalks all day inviting support for a ballot question, you might want to pay them so they can pay the rent while they’re doing this.

Critics of citizen initiative rights often complain about paying people to gather signatures — especially if they’re paid per signature. They even try to outlaw it. If workers are paid per signature, aren’t they motivated to commit fraud? Concoct fake signatures?

Let’s think this through. If the possibility of fraud justifies outlawing a paid activity, how many paid activities could then be outlawed? Well, all of them.

Outlawing fraud and outlawing a freedom that might be abused are two different things. All freedom can be abused. Suppose an envelope-stuffer’s revenue depends on envelopes stuffed per hour. Does he have an “incentive” to work too fast, never bothering to lick the envelopes?

No. It only makes sense to tie pay to productivity. And that doesn’t give you an automatic incentive to do slipshod work.

There are bad guys. But we don’t criminalize all conduct, even the good, because of the possibility of bad. Instead, we make laws against bad conduct.

That’s why the Federal 6th Circuit Court of Appeals just struck down an Ohio law that banned paying people based on the number of signatures they collect. The law was declared unconstitutional because it restricts good people from effectively using their First Amendment rights.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.