Category: too much government

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Accountability general freedom nannyism national politics & policies political challengers porkbarrel politics responsibility too much government U.S. Constitution

How Bernie’s Like Trump

Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, minimum wage, jobs, anchor, bait and switch, negotiation, bargaining

Yesterday I made fun of Bernie Sanders’ jobs guarantee idea. Today, let’s take it seriously.

Not as policy, mind you. As propaganda.

It’s not worth talking about as a policy because there is no policy yet. “It is not clear when Sanders will announce the plan,” Fox News relates, “and a Sanders spokesperson told the Post that it was still being crafted.” 

It is mere advocacy. A press release. Vaporware.

But that’s the key to it, really. The jobs guarantee isn’t policy. 

It’s a ploy.

Bernie Sanders knows there is hardly a hope of passing such a bill. He probably understands that the current fiscal mess precludes it. He might even understand that it is literally a horrible notion, the worst policy idea in the world, and he would still have reason to pitch for it relentlessly.

Because what he is really after is the hiking of the national minimum wage to $15/​hr. That is the next Democratic ratcheting up of government. And by insisting that the government guarantee $15/​hr jobs, he is readying everyone to accept, as a compromise, the hiking of the minimum wage to that very figure.

Yesterday I noted a link between socialism and slavery. But minimum wages link up not with slavery but unemployment.

Which Bernie knows all too well. Before he got in politics, he was a layabout, a bum.

Not like President Trump at all, that way.

But by fixing on one key, “anchor” concept ($15/​hr) and demanding the Moon, he might just get his mere lunacy, er, minimum wage hike.

And that is a Trumpian* ploy.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Though Trump’s better. His “linguistic killshots” are far more memorable … because funny and (usually) visual.

 

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Accountability folly general freedom incumbents media and media people moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies political challengers porkbarrel politics responsibility too much government

Twirling Towards Freedom?

Citizen Kang, Simpsons, Bernie Sanders, socialism, health care, income, welfare

Does Bernie Sanders remind you of “Citizen Kang”?

Vermont’s [S]ocialist Senator is whipping up a new plan for America: to “guarantee a job with at least a $15-​per-​hour wage and health benefits to every adult American ‘who wants or needs one,’” we are told.

What was it that the slavering alien Kang promised* in The Simpsons’ eighth season opening episode? Well, we know how that episode ended, with Homer Simpson revealing the ’90s’-era presidential candidates to be aliens in disguise, Kang being elected, humanity enslaved, and Homer uttering the immortal words “Don’t blame me, I voted for Kodos.” 

And then Kodos, in cahoots with Kang, cracking the whip on Homer.

One shouldn’t have to read George Fitzhugh, the antebellum sociologist who attacked the very idea of free markets and free labor, insisting that slavery is a good thing and the very best form of socialism, to know that socialism and slavery go together hand in glove, whip in hand.

In an age of handouts for nothing, at least Sanders’ socialist proposal suggests productivity. But paying for it by nixing corporate “tax breaks”** is absurd. “Republicans have long opposed a federal jobs guarantee,” Fox News tells us, “saying such a plan would be too expensive and impractical.” And it’s productive people who would pay for it, making them de facto slaves to the system … even more than they are now.

But when socialists talk about “jobs,” worry about a more direct form of slavery.

And yes, I can imagine Bernie, with his four houses, flicking the whip.

I won’t be voting for him, if he runs. 

Or for Kodos.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Actually, Kang was known not for a promise but for his campaign speech (as Bill Clinton), saying, “[W]e must move forward, not backward; upward, not forward; and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom!” 

** The only funding source mentioned in the reports I read.

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ideological culture incumbents local leaders media and media people political challengers too much government

The Centre Cannot Hold

UK, British, politics, parties, centrist, left, right, partisan

The British may spell their words in funny ways, but their political problems do not seem all that foreign. Their left-​of-​center party has gone far left, Marxoid left; their right-​of-​center party has gone ultra-incompetent.

A healthy majority of Brits disapprove of both parties. So, no wonder many Brits are looking to create a new one.

A new centrist political party, no less.

Over at The Economist, the columnist writing under the name “Bagehot” (pronounced “badget”) predicts that this hope will be dashed, for at least three reasons:

First, Britain already has a centrist party, and it is not doing very well.

Second, there sure are a lot of contenders — 35 new parties have been formed just this year, including one called, with humble brag, “Sensible” — and all that competition fractionalizes the vote.

Third, the country sports the same system of vote counting and elections as America does, first-​past-​the-​post, which “is hard on startups.”

That last point is worth thinking about. In multi-​candidate races, the British-​American electoral system declares as winners those who obtain a bare plurality of votes — thus ignoring the preferences of those who vote for minor party candidates. This means that those who “waste” their votes not only hurt the candidacies they like as second-​best but also insulate the second-​best parties from those voters’ influence. So the parties become narrow-​minded and unhinged from an interested group of voters.

Bagehot thinks Britain’s centrists need to rethink, conjure up some new ideas. But what they need to do first is fix a system that prods political parties away from new ideas. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment folly general freedom moral hazard national politics & policies Popular privacy responsibility The Draft too much government U.S. Constitution

Leave Those Kids Alone

draft, selective service, conscription, war, slavery, servitude, Congress, hearings

Congress created The National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service “to consider and develop recommendations concerning the need for a military draft, and means by which to foster a greater attitude and ethos of service among American youth.”

Is it possible that Congress and the commissioners have never considered the inherent contradiction between forcing people into the military against their will and fostering an “ethos of service”?

Today, I will get perhaps two minutes to address this commission at a hearing in Denver, Colorado, answering* these questions it has posed:

Is a military draft or draft contingency still a necessary component of U.S. national security?

The military draft has never at any time in the history of this country been a necessary component in U.S. national security. 

Are modifications to the selective service system needed?

No. The Selective Service System, the people who force very young men into the military against their will, needs to be ended. Not modified. Not expanded to women. End draft registration. Close the agency. 

The United States should forswear any use of conscription. A free country need not force people into the military to defend it.

Is a mandatory service requirement for all Americans necessary, valuable, and feasible?

Necessary? Not on your life. Americans have always stepped forward — not only to defend their own country, but also in hopes of defending people across the globe. 

Valuable? That’s a bad joke. People forced to kill and die in Vietnam and other conflicts and those imprisoned for refusing to take part in such a system fail to see any value. The draft has been disastrous. 

What is valuable are the lives and rights of the young. They are free citizens, not Congress’s pawns.

Feasible? No. Because too many of us will fight you, refusing to go along. Even if it means our imprisonment.** Plus, a conscripted army is a poor substitute for the All Volunteer Force. 

The draft is unnecessary, divisive and dangerous.

How does the United States increase the propensity for Americans, particularly young Americans, to serve?

Be worthy of the voluntary service of the American people.

If the government is responsible, then people will respond to protect it.

Commit to raising an army of soldiers and service providers by persuading citizens to freely serve their communities and their country. In short, this commission and this Congress should commit to freedom.

That would be truly inspiring.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* I will also be submitting a longer, more formal statement in testimony.

** As regular readers know, I was one of 20 young men prosecuted for refusing to register for the draft in the 1980s.

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Accountability crime and punishment folly free trade & free markets general freedom media and media people moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies property rights Regulating Protest too much government U.S. Constitution

That Something You Do

Congress, Facebook, hearings, control, regulations, Mark Zuckerberg, censorship, censor, regulate

Congress grilled Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, last week, and as usual ended up roasting itself. 

“Zuckerberg has already experienced the worst punishment of all,” quipped comedian Trevor Noah on The Daily Show. “He had to spend four hours explaining Facebook to senior citizens.”

Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, retiring after his 42nd consecutive year in Washington, asked, “How do you sustain a business model in which users don’t pay for your service?”

“Senator,” Zuckerberg incredulously replied, “we run ads.”

Inc. magazine reported the obvious: “several of our elected leaders asked questions that were highly uninformed, or in some cases just plain weird.”

Uninformed. Weird. That’s them, alright.* 

Still, the Washington establishment seems to seriously think these same congressmen ought to be re-​writing privacy rules. 

“Elected officials know the public wants them to do something to protect their privacy,” announced Chuck Todd, host of NBC’s Meet the Press. “The question now turns to what is that something?”

“Americans are largely together on this issue,” Todd said, citing a recent poll where a similar “66 percent of Democrats and 68 percent of Republicans say they want more control over the information companies have about them.”

But Democrats and Republicans are together on something else: Only 21 percent of Democrats and a tiny 14 percent of Republicans “trust the federal government” to act on the issue.

The senators, though obviously “confused about basic topics,” Emily Stewart wrote at Vox,  “seem to agree they want to fix something about Facebook. They just have no idea what.”

Please Congress: DON’T “do something.” Don’t do that thing you do.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Reason TV has a very funny video on the Zuckerberg hearing.

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Accountability folly general freedom government transparency moral hazard national politics & policies porkbarrel politics responsibility too much government

While the Clock Ticks

national debt, debt clock, Mercatus Center, economics, economy, folly,

Pushing annual federal spending over a trillion bucks into the red?

It has consequences. 

“Our debt is growing, and it’s growing fast,” writes Veronique de Rugy at Reason. “Though it’s a shame that lawmakers passed tax cuts without cutting spending to offset short-​term losses in revenue, there’s no doubt that Social Security and Medicare deficits are almost entirely to blame for our impending debt crisis.”

Ms. de Rugy, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center, has a typo in the version of her article that I read (it has probably since been corrected): “Based on current trends, the debt held by the public is set to reach $15.7 trillion by the end of this year and continue rising to $28.7 trillion by 2028.” She surely meant “$25.7 trillion,” since the current debt clock figure shows the U.S. public debt at over $21 trillion. Still, $25.7 seems a bit high … but at this point we can leave the exact numbers to the professionals.

We just know that the debt’s too damn high.

As de Rugy explains, it has present as well as future cost. And, yes, entitlements are the biggest problem — but even more than Ms. de Rugy suggests. Congress owes the Social Security “trust fund” (in Al Gore’s infamous and non-​existent “lock box”) nearly $3 trillion.

Our solons would have to (painfully) switch from revenue deficits to revenue surpluses just to pay off its debt to a much-​relied upon institution.

What will happen, though, is surely this: Congress will borrow more from elsewhere to pay what Social Security needs — which all too soon will be a lot more than $3 trillion. 

That’s not Common Sense. (But I am Paul Jacob.)

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