Category: too much government

Categories
subsidy too much government

Precedented Payments

CARES Act, Coronavirus, Covid,

I idly wonder who cooks up the initialisms for the big federal legislative packages (“laws”) — you know, like the recent “CARES Act” that distributed $2.3 trillion conjured out of thin air … and the faith and credit of a wobbly reputation. CARES stands for “Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security,” and I say “idly” because I am not googling this. 

If I can resist searching for (as I am instructed to do daily) “any three numbers and ‘new cases,’” I can let others do that initialism research.

Whoever it is, though, does a pretty good job. Usually. Good P.R. But they missed the boat a bit on CARES. It should have been CORPSE, standing for “Coronavirus Overpayment, Relief, Prodigality, Stupidity and Eeeeek!” Act.

For, you see, $1.4 billion was sent to dead people.

More than a million of them.

At least we can be thankful that the IRS wants that money back.

Well, “wants” is a funny word to use for a bureaucracy. Especially since the IRS has no current plan “to notify ineligible recipients on how to return payments.” According to the General Accounting Office.

You can read about it all at Reason.

I would say it makes for fascinating reading, but it doesn’t really. This is the same-​old/​same-​old. The Department of Kludge and Fubar, you know, which would be a better name for most government bureaus.

The Reason piece call the CARES Act “unprecedented emergency spending,” but I think we could find plenty of precedents. 

If we googled.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
crime and punishment general freedom too much government

Unfriending the Police?

police brutality, racism, criminal justice reform, drug war,

Defund the police?

First, take a moment to celebrate those on the American Left who have finally — miraculously — stumbled onto something they actually want the government to spend less money on. 

Second, consider policing expert and Washington Post columnist Radley Balko’s amply backed-​up contention that “the evidence of racial bias in our criminal justice system” is “overwhelming.” 

Nonetheless, Mr. Balko notes that “lots of white people are wrongly accused, arrested and convicted” and “treated unfairly, beaten and unjustifiably shot and killed by police officers. White people too are harmed by policies such as mandatory minimums, asset forfeiture, and abuse of police, prosecutorial and judicial power.”

Even if police violence is “more of a problem for African Americans,” posits David Bernstein at Reason, “it’s not solely a problem for African Americans. Eliminating racism, in short, would still leave the U.S. with far more deaths from police shootings than seems reasonable.”

This is not an argument to ignore racism, but in favor of making effective changes in policy and law.

Maybe the solution to our police violence problems is not defunding departments, in a vast unfriending campaign, but to let up on some of their burdens, require them to do less. De-task.

For starters? Defund the War on Drugs! 

Drug prohibition has been a criminal justice disaster — filling our jails with victimless criminals whose problem is drug addiction. In a myriad of ways, the drug war has spawned greater police corruption and introduced more intrusive and dangerous policing.

Let’s have a frank conversation about … making practical changes to our criminal justice system.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
First Amendment rights national politics & policies too much government

A Modest Extrapolation

civil rights, discrimination, 1st Amendment, free speech,

The big news from yesterday’s Supreme Court decisions (in June, they typically come in chunks) regards discrimination law, in which the court decided, 6 – 3, with Neil Gorsuch writing the majority opinion, that discrimination “against an employee for being gay or transgender violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964.” As covered at Reason it makes for fascinating reading.

Still, there are many problems here. The whole employment discrimination issue assumes that people have a right to be judged suitable for employment based only on strict consideration of job performance.

This is intrusive into private decision-​making, and opens up hiring and firing to huge legal costs.

But a bigger issue lurks here.

It is now commonplace for employees to be fired under public pressure for merely having political opinions that have little or nothing to do with their jobs.

Anti-​discrimination civil rights law was designed to curb this sort of thing — public pressure for reasons of antipathy and social mania — but only on a limited number of criteria, racism and sexism against protected groups being the areas carved out.

Since we have a First Amendment right to speak, mightn’t that right be applied via discrimination law to prohibit mob deplatforming or resulting loss of employment?

Sure, 1964’s Civil Rights Act limited the scope of its intervention into employment contracts and the “public accommodations” realm of commerce to the above-​mentioned isms, on grounds of a long history of bigotry and invidious private discrimination. But right now, that sort of discrimination is primarily an ideological matter, not racial or sexual. 

Extending the scope of the First Amendment via an anti-​discrimination rationale would seem a natural.

At least for those who favor consistent government intervention over freedom. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
nannyism national politics & policies too much government

Regs to the Chopping Block

chopping block, regulations,

Donald J. Trump started his presidency with a flurry of activity. One of the things he did was sign an executive order to reduce Americans’ regulatory load.

This move may have been the most important initiative the new president advanced. It led to an economic boom that was not all just smoke and mirrors and “stimulus.” Real factors were involved in the resulting progress.

Now, however, the economy is in tatters. Massive unemployment, rising real poverty. 

But this is not a normal depression. It was the result of the reaction to the coronavirus — largely by the states, but at the recommendation of Trump himself, as advised by Dr. Anthony Fauci. Trump now wants what increasing numbers of Americans want: a return to business and normal life. But “re-​opening the economy,” as it is called, is not going quickly or smoothly.

On Tuesday Trump signed an executive order to give his Cabinet secretaries broad permission to cut regulations, “instructing federal agencies to use any and all authority to waive, suspend and eliminate unnecessary regulations that impede economic recovery.”

“And we want to leave it that way.” 

Which is the most promising part of this. 

“Mr. Trump has made nixing regulations,” explains John T. Bennett in The Independent, “especially ones put in place by the Obama administration, a top priority during his over three years in office.”

We could call the nixing of the lockdown orders themselves a “freeing up” of the economy. To help ease over all the damage, also “freeing up” business from regulatory kludge could not hurt.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

chopping block, regulations,

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
crime and punishment general freedom too much government

Pocket Prohibition?

vape, backpack, authoritarianism, surveillance,

Should the FDA outlaw backpack pockets?

Trick question. 

Oh, you said “no”? 

Okay, not that tricky …

But a little tricky. The FDA doesn’t want to prohibit backpack pockets as such. Only backpack pockets that can hide vaping equipment, like an e‑cigarette.

Such pockets could presumably also hold a pen, thermometer, stick of beef jerky, perhaps even a plastic straw or spindled dollar bill. The list of cacheable contraband is endless. But it’s the thoughtcrime that counts.

The FDA wants to deploy its power to regulate food and drugs to also bully makers of pockets and other things that facilitate peaceful actions of which FDA officials disapprove. For now the agency is sending stern letters to sellers of legal products. 

Tomorrow it may send SWAT teams.

“The FDA is especially disturbed by some of these new products being marketed to children and teens by promoting the ease with which they can be used to conceal product use,” frets Mitch Zeller, king of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products. (It’s not an emporium.)

Various products that could help a person vape furtively are on the FDA’s hit list. Many of these products never hurt a fly. Backpack pockets in particular are getting a bad rap. I’m a fan of backpack pockets and hope the production of every kind of backpack pocket will continue unabated.

So, regardless of any animus that certain functionaries may feel about the covert carrying of e‑cigarettes, pencils, or swizzle sticks, let them leave backpack pockets alone.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

vape, backpack, authoritarianism, surveillance,

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
too much government

Cure and Consequences

body politic, Covid, corona virus, epidemic, pandemic,

“As the nation enters a third month of economic devastation, the coronavirus is proving ruinous to state budgets,” the Associated Press reports, “forcing many governments to consider deep cuts to schools, universities, health care and other basic functions that would have been unthinkable just a few months ago.”

Notice the breezy attribution to the pandemic of the devastation caused by governments’ reactions to the pandemic.

Official tallies have it that COVID-​19 has killed over 80,000 Americans. And it will kill more. But state government revenue is nose-​diving “because government-​ordered lockdowns have wiped out much of the economy and caused tax collections to evaporate.” 

Why make much of this fine distinction between the disease and the response?

Because it is easier to control our response than it is a disease.

The people we elect are supposed to understand such things. 

But, do they?

The fact that this is a political as opposed to medical predicament is clear: “Now state finances are in peril regardless of the actual number of infections.”

And note: a few states aren’t going to experience the problem nearly so badly: Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska and the Dakotas. Why? These states have done pretty much what Sweden has done: avoided lockdown orders and treated the disease like a health problem and not a political opportunity to flex their “leader” complexes.

No matter how we reacted, the pandemic was going to be devastating. But generally cures shouldn’t be worse than the disease, and we should wonder whether our politicians’ lack of understanding here is indicative of a co-​morbidity … of the “body politic.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

PDF for printing

body politic, Covid, corona virus, epidemic, pandemic,

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts