Category: too much government

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Accountability national politics & policies too much government

Drop Out of the Bucket

Does $40.3 million seem like a lot of money to you? It does to me.

But to the Social Security Administration? It’s a drop in the bucket.

Or, a drop out of the bucket.

You see, while the federal government is scheduled to soon reinstate the estate tax on the wealth of deceased people, we now learn that it has also been giving money to the dearly departed.

Yes, an internal audit of the Social Security Administration revealed that it paid out more than $40 million to over six thousand dead people.

These benefits were given out weeks, months, years after receiving death certificates. The bureaucracy had been duly notified. And yet it went blithely on, continuing to send monthly checks.

Bureaucratic error. Hey, we all make mistakes. But it’s worth noting that this was an internal audit. Who knows what we’d catch if it were an external audit, with teeth?

Lately, the federal government has been talking over car companies and banks. Now the president and Congress plan to take control of the medical sector of our economy. They tell us they’ll cut medical costs by cutting waste. Yeah, right.

On a cheerier note, we needn’t fear the institution of those so-​called “death panels” to cut costs. The way the feds work, there’d be no savings — they’d still be paying for care long after the patients were dead and gone.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets national politics & policies too much government

Over 50 and for Freedom

Say you’re a senior citizen. You’re concerned about the rising costs of medical services, but are not ready to surrender your care to well-​meaning but naive advocates of ever-​greater government. What to do?

Many seniors belong to AARP, a kind of combination consumer group and political lobbyist association for people age 50 and over. Fifty seems kind of youngish to me to be a senior citi — ow! crick in my back! — but okay.

Members get discounts and also get AARP spokesmen pretending to represent them on political questions. AARP supports a big-​government overhaul of medical services. However, they’ve discovered that the issue is touchy. So they have taken pains to dispute President Obama’s recent claim that AARP endorses any particular bill.

Some AARP members fear that Medicare benefits are at risk. Other AARP members and former members just like their freedom.

Thank goodness AARP has competition. There’s a group called 60 Plus, and now a new outfit, the American Seniors Association, is offering a special deal to all seniors who submits a torn-​up AARP card with their application. 

ASA’s president, Stuart Barton, is blunt: “President Obama must think the American people are idiots.…” if he thinks they’ll buy “the idea that health care rationing, restrictions and regulations being debated in Congress will save money and result in better preventative medicine.”

You know what? I’m not even going to wait until I turn fifty. Sign me up.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets too much government

Privatize the Post Office!

Weeks ago, in the debate over whether to euthanize what’s left of freedom in American medicine, President Obama made a stunning concession about the so-​called “public option” being proposed. Hoping to assure attendees of a townhall meeting that private insurers would not be threatened by the public option, he said, “if you think about it, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine, right? … It’s the post office that’s always having problems.”

Yes. The post office. The “public option” in mail delivery: chronically in financial trouble; chronically over budget; chronically being bailed out by taxpayers. 

So, don’t worry, everybody! Government expansion into our medical delivery system will be just as lumbering and inefficient as the post office is in our mail and package delivery system. 

Er, good point, Mr. President.

Some might argue that under the proposed public option, direct private competition will in fact be allowed, whereas direct competition with stamped-​envelope postal delivery is not allowed. But, as many supporters have conceded in unguarded moments, the Democrats’ reform is intended to be a transition to a single-​payer system. Moreover, the medical reform bills pending in Congress are bulging with new mandates and price controls for private insurers that will hamper their ability to compete — something UPS and FedEx don’t have to contend with.

The president has done us a favor. He’s reminded us why we should privatize postal delivery.

Health care too.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets national politics & policies too much government

The Wrong Job

I’ve criticized the cash-​for-​clunkers program; I’ve argued against the notion that government should spend our tax dollars to create jobs.

Now the two come together. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is hiring 1,100 people to process the paperwork associated with the clunkers program.

Will these be long-​term jobs? Well, sure, just as long as there is a powerful need in our country for processors of ten-​page government forms to facilitate the forking over of $4,500-a-pop subsidy payments.

Maybe these United States can lead the world in such work. 

Thank goodness the feds so botched up the program it didn’t cost us as much as it could have. Dealers across the country quit the program early, scared Uncle Sam wouldn’t pay back what they had fronted to customers.

Or, at least, not fast enough. Turns out auto dealerships have certain cash-​flow concerns that our solons fail to fully appreciate.

Also not appreciated by Congress is the fact that taxpayers will have to hand over their hard-​earned money to pay for all these deals. More billions. Money that taxpayers could have put to more productive use.

Our federal government shouldn’t be in the car business. It shouldn’t be in the car finance business, either, much less subsidizing car purchases. 

The only productive jobs our current office-​holders should create is by stepping down and giving someone else a chance.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
general freedom national politics & policies too much government

Government Isn’t Love

Dear Reader: This “BEST of Common Sense” comment originally aired on January 7, 2002. There are tough problems in the real world. Many of them cannot be solved by “public policy” or faceless bureaucracies, but only by people who care about and for each other. Realizing the limits of government doesn’t solve every problem, but it does prevent some problems from getting even worse. —PJ

Recently I joined the growing chorus calling the war on drugs a failure. My comments were provoked by a DEA raid against the Los Angeles Cannabis Resource Center, a place where cancer patients in pain can obtain marijuana that is legal under state law, but illegal under federal law.

Well, I got a flurry of responses. Some said we need to get tougher. A woman wrote: “Paul, the way to stop drugs is to instantly execute people who push it — no trial.”

On the other hand, a gentleman wrote: “Until we start seeing addiction as a medical rather than criminal problem, we’re never going to get out of the bunker in this failing war.”

But one listener summed up what many folks were trying to say. He wrote: “Okay Paul, I agree with you. But what is your proposed solution?”

There are many solutions. The war on drugs hasn’t prevented the damage done by addiction or alleviated the pain felt by loved ones. We’d all love to pass some law that would miraculously solve the problem, but there is no magic wand.

The problem of addiction has to do with individual people and their individual circumstances. And that’s how it must be addressed: Individually, by people who care, not by distant bureaucracies who may do more harm than good. 

Ultimately, love is the answer, because love does conquer all. But government isn’t love.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Common Sense general freedom too much government

The Two Americas

Dear Reader: This “BEST of Common Sense” comment originally aired on July 4, 2007. A longer version published at Townhall​.com was picked up by Rush Limbaugh and read on his radio show. —PJ

Could Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards actually be right about something? Not where to go to get a haircut, mind you, I mean about there being two Americas. 

There is the vibrant America … and the stagnant one.

There is the America of ever-​increasing wealth, innovation, creativity, new products and services. Choices galore.

And there is the politician’s America: The regulated America, the subsidized America, the earmarked America. The failing America.

In one America, it is what you produce that gets you ahead. In the other, it’s who you know.

In one America, to earmark some money means setting aside funds (into savings) for a purchase — a car, house, college.

In the other America, to earmark is to grab from taxpayers to give to cronies. It is the highest rite of career politicians: Buying their votes with other people’s money. Oh, there have been reforms, sure. But a recent bill in the House had 32,000 earmark requests.

In one America, we decide what we pay for. We choose constantly about little things and big. We call the shots. Or we walk down the street and associate with someone else. So we have some faith in those we work with.

In the other America, we vote. But we rarely get what we vote for.

Maybe that’s why the new Democratic Congress just registered the lowest approval rating in poll history.

It surely isn’t because folks love the Republicans.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.