Category: too much government

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too much government

Who “YouTubes” You, and Why

Government agencies now store nude pictures of you.

Well, if you travel on the major airlines out of some major airports, they do.

When the Transportation Security Administration began using full-​body scanning at select airports — with devices such as the backscatter X‑ray machine, which can show every lovely and unlovely fold (if not freckle) on your body — officials rushed to defend their practice of peering at us under our clothing. It was only for our safety. Besides, the images were made only for immediate viewing. They weren’t even stored. 

Why, they couldn’t be stored!

We learned this week how wrong that was. The U.S. Marshals Service has been secretly storing thousands and thousands of the images. Furthermore, specifications for some devices even require that they send the images over networks.

Once again, government folk have lied to us.

There’s no evidence that anyone’s been blackmailed based on the images. But you have to think of privacy dangers in the fourth dimension, time. Can we trust people in future governments with our intimate details as unforeseen crises come to the fore? As new personnel gain access to the archives? As tomorrow’s politicians pledge (and routinely break) their oaths of office?

We wear clothing to select who will see us naked. Taking that prerogative away, in the name of security, and giving it to people we do not know?

That’s transparently foolish. And unsafe.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
folly free trade & free markets too much government

The Alternative to the Public Option

The congressional “progressive” caucus still wants to impose a public health insurance option, allegedly to “reduce the deficit.”

According to caucus kingpin Raul Grijalva, deficit hawks are “hypocrites” for predicting that government spending would balloon were a public option imposed. Their “excuse … that it was going to be too expensive is phony,” according to Congressman Grijalva.

The progressives’ notion seems to be that accelerating the pell-​mell government takeover of the medical delivery industry is the very best thing one could do to reduce the deficit.

If that’s the case, then why not also “reduce the deficit” with respect to other sectors of the economy in which government spends any money at all — that is, in any economic sector — by launching a government takeover that eventually swamps private markets altogether? 

By “progressive” logic, communizing the whole economy must be the best way to foster fiscal sobriety in DC. 

Absurd, I know.

Perhaps Grijalva’s deceived by his franking privilege. The public option for postal delivery works so well. For him. For the rest of us, we have to pay the billions the USPS loses every year.

The solution to the USPS’s constant, persistent failure is not to regulate and nationalize Fed-​Ex and UPS and every other alternative. 

Real progress requires the opposite of Grijalva’s “progressivism”: Pry government out of both health care and postal delivery. This is not a radical idea. It is only … well …

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
national politics & policies responsibility too much government

Freeze Federal Salaries

Procrastination feeds deficits. Deficits feed debt. Debt feeds catastrophe.

Politicians avoid balancing budgets by saying they will do so not this year, but “sometime in the future.” Hence our looming debt crisis. This debt either must be paid, defaulted, or … “monetized.”

That last term is code for inflation.

Why not bring the need for cuts and inflation together? After all, the Federal Reserve still exists, so some inflation is inevitable. Inflation is what central banks like the Fed do.

So, barring a complete monetary reform, simply freeze all federal salaries, at least until the average level of compensation for federal jobs matches the average level of compensation for comparable private-​sector jobs.

Currently, as James Sherk of the Heritage Foundation has uncovered, federal workers earn 22 percent more than private sector workers … and that’s just in terms of nominal pay. If our politicians turned heroic and cut these down to where they should be, immediately, we’d save $47 billion in taxpayer funds per year.

But it gets worse, as Chris Prandoni writes: “The average federal civilian employee earns on average $32,115 a year in non-​cash compensation compared to a private sector employee who earns three times less, $9,882 annually.”

So freeze benefits, too. Defrost only when they match private sector levels. 

Politicians could start the freeze right now, just to show a smidgen of discipline. More likely? They’ll go with what they know: Procrastination. 

Responsibility? Wait for another freeze. Of hell’s shiny surface.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets general freedom too much government

The Full Flush of Equality

Years and years ago, it was often said against the proposed Equal Rights Amendment that it would prohibit separate toilets. Under the ERA, men and women would have to use the same public restrooms.

Properly interpreted, nothing of the kind should have happened. The text of the ERA stated that “equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” One does not have a right to a toilet, really, so it shouldn’t have affected restroom construction.

But leaping to absurdity is, alas, a propensity of government. In Minnesota, today, the state’s Department of Human Rights has declared that the offering of a “ladies’ night” by taverns and bars, etc, is illegal, discriminating (as it does) on the basis of sex.

Economist Robert Murphy has carefully explained why price discrimination is not bad — why it is common and why it benefits us. By setting up “ladies’ nights,” certain businesses attract female customers and (shock of all shocks) male customers, too … men actually eager to pay extra, if only to be around women.

I don’t see much point in explaining the philosophical basis for not getting carried away over the “sexual/​gender discrimination” involved in this. But it may be good that the ERA fizzled in 1982. It would have been twisted by bureaucrats in state after state, and we’d all endure uncomfortable encounters in public toilets throughout the land.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Accountability government transparency too much government

The Liability Behind the Curtain

Do not look at the liability behind that curtain! Or: Do not mention that we don’t know what the liabilities are.

Some things are too painful to report.

Apparently.

The folks who audit the Social Security Administration are late on a set of reports. The reports in question account for the financial and actuarial (un)soundness of Social Security, specifically on the (un)funded liabilities of the pension system and Medicare.

Unlike corporations, which are required to report to the IRS on March 15 each year, and individuals, who must report on April 15, there’s no set date for the trustees of our federal government’s biggest program to make its report. But in recent years the reports have been published early enough to allow summary by May. The last report summary we have is for 2009.

Why so late?

Could it be that things have gotten so bad that it’s difficult to figure out — and embarrassing to sign one’s name to — the actual financial situation? After all, this year Social Security ran out of money to write checks for its promised (and quite immediate) pay-outs.

Sheila Weinberg, CEO of the Institute for Truth in Accounting, writes that she heard the reports were late because “trustees wanted to include the effect the health care bill had on these liabilities.” Ms. Weinberg not unreasonably challenges this rationale. Wouldn’t Social Security’s liabilities have been worth knowing before Congress committed to more entitlement spending?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
First Amendment rights free trade & free markets property rights too much government U.S. Constitution

Hooray for IJ

Let a thousand floral arrangements bloom.

Louisiana has just abolished the “demonstration” section of the state’s licensing exam for florists. The new law came in response to a lawsuit by florists working with the Institute for Justice. IJ argued that the four-​hour demonstration requirement was “arbitrary, subjective and antiquated,” and allowed state-​licensed florists to determine the fate of their future competitors.

The outcome represents yet another victory for the “merry band of libertarian litigators” who regularly do battle “in the courts of law and in the court of public opinion on behalf of individuals whose most basic rights are denied by the government.…”

Founded in 1991, the Institute for Justice has successfully fought to lift caps on the number of licensed taxis in Minneapolis; eliminate laws around the country that prevent competition in every kind of occupation, from animal husbandry and interior design to hair braiding and pest control; restore freedom of speech undermined by vague and arbitrary campaign finance regulation in Florida and enemies of property rights in Tennessee; protect businessmen and home owners from eminent domain abuse in Arizona and Ohio.

IJ’s many successful efforts to defend the rights of individuals are having a major impact. Looking back over the many installments of Common Sense, I find that I mention this group’s work again and again.

With good reason. They keep fighting the good fight, and winning.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.