Category: too much government

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Fourth Amendment rights privacy tax policy too much government

A Closer IRS

IRS, privacy, banking, audit

Congressman Jared Golden, a Democrat in a Trump district, may be feeling heat.

“First, Nancy Pelosi said she’d raise taxes. Now, she’s coming for what’s left,” warns an American Action Network television advertisement airing in Golden’s Maine district. 

“To help pay for trillions in new spending, Pelosi wants the government to spy on nearly every American bank account, looking for new money to spend,” the spot continues. “Your deposits, payments, bank balance … under Pelosi’s plan, the government monitors them. 

“Call Jared Golden and tell him to … keep the government out of your bank account.”

Fact-​checking the spot, News Center Maine determined that, “yes, as part of that plan, banks would be required to give two additional pieces of information to the IRS: how much money went into certain bank accounts over the course of the year and how much came out.”

Those “certain” accounts started out being those with $600 going in or out. After the public uproar, the plan hiked the amount to $10,000. 

Same principle, though.

“The only way to ensure that upper-​income taxpayers pay what they owe,” explained a U.S. Treasury press release, “is by giving the IRS the resources and information required to close the tax gap.”

But does our system work that way? Not according to the Fourth Amendment.

We do not keep “a closer eye” on people making a certain amount; it is un-​American to require all such “suspects” be put through the wringer the better to find a few guilty of something.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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judiciary national politics & policies too much government

Emergency Effrontery

Joe Biden, Covid, Vaccines

The ruling was hardly shocking. Most constitutional scholars expected it, I think. That being said, the whole business is … shocking.

I refer to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals coming down hard against the Biden Administration’s vaccine mandate.

Say those words, “vaccine mandate,” reflecting on how it was “enacted” — not by act of Congress — and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s tortured justification for forcing private companies seems doomed.

At least if the Constitution retains any of its meaning.

“The stay,” explains Reason editor Jacob Sullum, “which the court issued on Friday evening, says OSHA shall ‘take no steps to implement or enforce the Mandate until further court order.’ It is officially a preliminary pause ‘pending adequate judicial review of the petitioners’ underlying motions for a permanent injunction.’ But the court left little doubt that it would grant those motions, saying ‘petitioners’ challenges to the Mandate show a great likelihood of success on the merits.’”

The administration’s desperate shoehorning of OSHA’s statutory ability to concoct an “emergency temporary standard” (ETS) is an act of effrontery. 

Sullum, in his detailed coverage, shows just how extraordinary and inapt the reliance upon the ETS is. The COVID-​19 crisis cannot justify the mandate through the legal mechanism chosen. It is fairly obvious that, as the court put it, Biden’s decree “grossly exceeds OSHA’s statutory authority.”

Sullum quotes another judge’s concurring opinion to the effect that even a congressionally legislated mandate would be controversial, constitutionally.

But breathe easy: Nancy Pelosi’s and Chuck Schumer’s Congress has no interest in creating a rational and constitutional response to the crisis.

And our Congress? Well, it doesn’t exist.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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too much government

The Big Lesson

lab rat, Covid, lockdowns, freedom

“Panicked Americans surrendered a lot of power during the pandemic,” wrote J.D. Tuccille last Friday. “Now they want their country back.”

On the same day, Matt Welch concluded his somewhat more caustic piece, “They Just Keep Closing Schools and Mandating Masks,” with a warning: “If you think Tuesday was a bad day for Democratic busybodies, let them keep trying to squeeze the walls in on this rat cage of an American life.”

The main theme of these two Reason pieces is about right. Americans got snookered into giving up too much; the only silver lining is that we may have learned a few things.

One lesson? People who talk up “follow the science” are least reliable at relaying scientific findings, much less “following” those findings … or sticking to scientific method.

During the pandemic, the Science Pushers lied to us, hid truths, spun us helter skelter, pushed government force willy nilly, and stuck out on limbs with less reason than the hokey pokey.

But, through all the deception, fear-​mongering, and downright bullying, one thing became clear: elite pharmaceuticals, bureaucrats, politicians and corporate media shills nurture interests wildly at variance of the American people’s. 

For those who have read the economics of Public Choice, X‑efficiency, and old-​fashioned “political economy,” this is hardly a shocking lesson. It is as familiar as a well-​worn slipper.

Yet this lesson, pretty clear to most sane folks, needs driving home. Repetition will help it really sink in.

It’s too important to forget, for it was liberty that Americans surrendered, power being what was unconstitutionally expanded and exercised — making the limiting of government the proper response.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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national politics & policies too much government

One Against the Mandate?

Daily Wire, law suit, Covid, vaccines, mandates

“President Biden, the federal government, social media, and the establishment media have conspired to rob Americans of their freedoms in the name of public health,” declares Jeremy Boreing, co-​CEO of The Daily Wire. “They have broken faith with the American people through conflicting messaging, false information, and by suppressing data and perspectives with which they disagree.”

Quoted by Alex Swoyer in The Washington Examiner, Boreing is explaining why his company — best known for its platforming (as we say these days) of commentators Ben Shapiro, Andrew Klavan, Michael Knowles and Matt Walsh, but also for its burgeoning news service and mini-​entertainment empire — will not comply with “the Biden administration’s COVID-​19 vaccine mandate for private employers.”

It is “suing in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, the company announced Thursday,” Swoyer reports.

Though we’ve been hearing about these “requirements” for over a month, they were published by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) just yesterday. Folks at The Daily Wire had been talking up their challenge ever since Biden first dropped his bomb, and had their legal response ready.

OSHA’s mandate, Swoyer explains, “directs large companies to require employees to get vaccinated by Jan. 4, or else pay for them to get tested weekly,” and also requires those tested-​but-​unvaccinated employees “to wear a face mask.”

Note that the tests for the coronavirus are not reliable, tests for antibodies are not even mentioned (and also not reliable), and face mask utility has not been demonstrated to anything approaching certainty, as I’ve discussed.

Grounds for challenge are legion.

Other affected companies should join The Daily Wire with parallel lawsuits, or at least amicus briefs.

The president’s mandate must not stand. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom local leaders too much government

Intrusive, Improper, Offensive

in-n-out burgers, Covid, mandates, papers

The In-​N-​Out Burger restaurant won’t kick out customers who fail to display a “vaccine passport” proving they’ve been vaccinated against COVID-19.

In-​N-​Out has restaurants in California and the Southwest. And it has one in San Francisco, where Mayor London Breed has ordered restaurants to enforce the city’s vaccine mandate.

Arnie Wensinger, an attorney for the chain, has explained the company’s defiance.

“We refuse to become the vaccination police for any government,” he said on KPIX-​TV. “It is unreasonable, invasive, and unsafe to force our restaurant associates to segregate customers into those who may be served and those who may not, whether based on the documentation they carry, or any other reason. [This is] intrusive, improper, and offensive.”

In an age of weasel words and abject apologies for non-​wrongdoing, In-​N-​Out Burger is forthright in defense of itself and its customers.

Not without cost. The health department closed the restaurant for mandate violations, and it was able to partially reopen only for takeout and drive-​through orders. 

Indoor dining is verboten.

The San Francisco health department says that the restaurant was informed “multiple times about the proof of vaccination requirement,” as if the mere repetition of such an order were enough to justify it. The “outreach team provided information so the restaurant could comply.…”

Of course, the folks at In-​N-​Out Burger know that they “could comply.” And the San Francisco government has also been provided with information on why they should leave In-​N-​Out alone. Would repetition help?

Leave In-​N-​Out alone.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom too much government

No Transplants for the Unvaxxed

organ transplant, socialized medicine, Covid

Because of a rare but dangerous side effect, heart inflammation, Scandinavian countries are now discouraging the use of the Moderna vaccine in younger people.

We’ve seen other reports of severe illness and even death because of, or at least soon after, COVID-​19 vaccinations. But we’re assured that serious side effects are so rare and the vaccines so effective that the wisdom of getting vaccinated is self-evident.

But what’s more evident? They’re forcing you. 

If you’re “vaccine-​hesitant” for any reason — even if you’ve already got immunity because of a COVID-​19 infection — too bad. A public-​private partnership to mandate vaccination is already costing many people their jobs.

Now it’s costing people a chance for a kidney.

So ordains University of Colorado Hospital, whose Kidney Transplant Coordinator, Katie Harmann, tells Leilani Lutali that she “will be removed from the kidney transplant list” until she is vaccinated.

Note that the opportunity is not being withdrawn because the prospective recipient is sick with COVID-​19 and therefore is about to kick the bucket anyway. The hospital is treating the patient’s assessment of her own risk as irrelevant.

Lutali says, “I feel like I’m being coerced into not being able to wait and see [whether the vaccine is the right thing to do], and that I have to take the shot if I want this life-​saving transplant.”

This is the reality of rationed care in a largely socialist medical system.

And this is what Democrats lust for, even demand; and it is what they are working mightily to ensure — that our current messy, mixed healthcare system will soon become even more bureaucratic and restrictive.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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