Category: too much government

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deficits and debt international affairs national politics & policies too much government

Debt for Pakistani Trans

Pakistani transgender youth, American debt

Thirty-​two trillion dollars. That’s a lot of money we don’t have.

I checked the U.S. Debt Clock last night. The federal government was, at that time, $200 billion shy of owing that amount, $32 trillion.

It’s such a big number that it doesn’t seem real.

Maybe that’s why politicians ignore it. And keep spending, adding to it.

All spending that seems fishy contributes to that debt. But so, alas,does spending that a majority of Americans may want. When you are over-​spending, all spending contributes to the red ink.

Still, to witness elected government officials throw money around with reckless abandon is especially irksome. Consider all the taxes that pay for that debt, continually as well as eventually. And the misdirected investments that get derailed from productive activity just to fund that debt.

Today’s example of idiotic spending? A mere $500,000. Half a million bucks. Chump change — next to the trillions on budget lines.

So this half-​a-​million is slotted to go to Pakistan.

To train Pakistanis to speak, read and write in English.

But the kicker’s in the headline, courtesy of The Epoch Times: “Biden Earmarks $500,000 for Transgender Youth, Other Groups in Pakistan.” The blurb makes the obvious point I wish to drive home: “Biden ‘hell-​bent on spending money we don’t have,’ said Rep. Ralph Norman’s office.”

Biden’s prodigality will provide “intensive professional development courses for Pakistani transgender youth.”

The old saw about such foreign aid runs, “Don’t we have transgender youth in this country to help?”

But better to join Rep. Norman and point to the debt clock. And shake our heads.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights ideological culture national politics & policies too much government

Biden Brazenness Against Religion

Joe Biden, Christians, Christianity, religion

April is the cruelest month, wrote T.S. Eliot, but he wasn’t referring to the Biden Administration’s ramped-​up war on Christianity.

Mid-​month, the administration barred Catholic priests of the Holy Name College Friary from providing “pastoral care” to servemembers at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. The government contract had been granted, instead, to Mack Global LLC, which the archdiocese characterizes as “a secular defense contracting firm that cannot fulfill the statement of work in the contract.”

Not convinced that this Daily Signal story amounts to “a war on Christianity”?

Well, try The Epoch Times. In “Christians Say Government Targets Them Because They Oppose Left-​Wing Agenda,” Kevin Stocklin lists a number of federal government policies that favor left-​wing politics over the social and political activism of Catholics and other Christians. 

Abortion activists, pro- and anti‑, do occasionally engage in what might plausibly be called “terrorist” activities, but the FBI appears avid in hounding pro-​life protesters, yet uninterested in doing any actual work to curb the string of “violent attacks, including assaults and firebombings, against pro-​life individuals and institutions.”

Rep. Jim Jordan (R‑Ohio)’s “subpoena to the FBI earlier this month demanding information on its alleged program to surveil Catholics for ‘signs of radicalization,’” spurred Stocklin’s reporting about the government’s increasing conflict with Christianity.

Why see traditional Christians as enemies of the State? Because they are.

Potentially, at least.

In part, simply because those who worship God see a worshipful attitude towards the State as something akin to idolatry. And apparently vice versa. But sociologists such as Robert Nisbet regard religion as a countervailing power against ever-​growing government.

If you are looking for a jealous god, the modern total State fills the bill.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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folly free trade & free markets too much government

Make Them Pay

California, Commiefornia, socialism, electricity

Thanks to renewable-​energy mandates and other regulations, California muddles along with crippled power markets in which rolling blackouts are routine when demand for electricity is high and sun and wind are unavailable.

Apparently, this and other burdens on energy usage in the Brownout State are insufficient to fully immobilize everybody who relies on things that need to function. So the state’s utilities are preparing to also impose socialist billing on its customers.

Pacific Gas & Electric, San Diego Gas & Electric, and Southern California Edison are proposing that the flat-​rate component of power bills be based on income. Once regulators sign off, there is to be an ongoing transfer of wealth from richer to poorer.

The utilities aren’t acting independently. 

They’re obeying a legislative mandate.

In addition to a flat-​rate component of utility bills that would be $15 for the poorest customers and $85 for the wealthiest customers, there would still be a component based on power consumption. So the impending looting of nonpoor customers could be worse.

The socialism isn’t full bore yet.

But I doubt that initial limits on this redistribution agenda would remain intact were the scheme implemented and to persist.

In addition to other objections, there is also the matter of how utilities will know their customers’ incomes. Will customers be required to report and prove these incomes? The central planners presumably regard this invasion of privacy as not worth fretting about. 

They’re too busy creating perfect equality … of brownouts.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom national politics & policies too much government

It’s Over But It Isn’t

Covid, emergency, Dr. Fauci

Is the pandemic over?

On March 29, House Joint Resolution 7 passed with a 68 – 23 margin in the Senate: 47 Republicans and 21 Democrats voting Yea. Earlier this week, Joe Biden signed it into law.

But, as The Epoch Times explains, that resolution “states that the pandemic national emergency ‘is hereby terminated,’” but “does not impact the public health emergency, which is still scheduled to terminate on May 11.” 

But that lag — why terminate one (“national”) emergency footing and leave the other (“public health”) to linger for another month?

It’s worse than that, though. Back in September, President Biden told 60 Minutes that the pandemic was over, noting then that “no one’s wearing masks; everybody seems to be in pretty good shape.”

The administration offers bureaucratic rationales for the lagtime. But its impact on you and me is said to be zero: “To be clear, [the] continuation of these emergency declarations until May 11 does not impose any restriction at all on individual conduct with regard to COVID-​19,” explains a January letter from the Biden administration to Congress.

Repeat that: the continuation of the emergency declarations does not impose any restriction at all on individual conduct. Which should have been true from the beginning, for the Constitution does not provide any powers to the general government over individuals on these matters.

Does public health really need another month of crisis … after acknowledging there isn’t a crisis anymore?

At least, there is a May 11th at the end of the tunnel.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets general freedom too much government

Detonators in Place

rent control, good intentions, government regulations

You must place explosives a certain way when demolishing a building to avoid damaging surrounding structures. But if you just want to destroy, you can forget about such precautions.

Could this be the perspective of those demanding national rent control?

They forget — or ignore — the destruction of living space inflicted by incentive-​incinerating rent controls in places like New York City and Santa Monica.

Rick Moran perceives that President Biden is making a “first move toward a radical national rent control law,” telling agencies to find ways to stop rent increases. Biden is doing so at the behest of 50 congressional communists who have implored him to take executive action to save tenants from rising rents.

According to their letter, “rent is too high and millions of people across this country are struggling to stay stably housed as a result.” Meanwhile, landlords are “increasing the rent for their own profit …”

Profit? In a market economy? 

Rising rents! Caused by … ?

But if you just want to “solve the problem” and have been trained to be heedless of the destruction regulation can cause, you needn’t think about cause and effect — who did what and how and why. In the interventionist mentality, when oil or food or housing prices zoom upwards, only one cause is possible, and it has nothing to do with politics and policies already in place.

Even if the government’s central banks have been zanily pumping up the supply of money and credit while city and state bureaus have been going all-​out to hamper and halt production.

That single cause, they contend, can only be the grasping, grabbing, profit-​seeking capitalists. You know. The bums who make their riches (when they do) by supplying us with what we need.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom Internet controversy too much government

Regulatory Miasma

gas stove, Jill Biden, regulations, bans, prohibitions, memes

Rumors can fly fast. And the Internet not only aids in their spread, but can make even false rumors seem worthwhile.

The gas stove ban rumor, which spurred so many hilarious “memes,” is a case in point.

It appears to have started with a letter from Senator Corey Booker (D‑NJ) and Representative Donald S. Beyer, Jr., to the chair of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission about the risks associated with gas stoves per “indoor air pollution.” According to Rep. Beyer’s defensive tweet, which cleverly enough uses the buzzword “gaslighting,” such risks even include “childhood asthma,” though the word “asthma” does not appear in the politicians’ original letter.

What does appear is extra concern for the “cumulative burden to households that are already more likely to face higher exposure to both indoor and outdoor air pollution” — i.e., “Black, Latino, and low income households.”

Booker and Beyer did not quite suggest a ban; their concern was for more research and regulation. But on Monday, Bloomberg quoted the word “ban” from the lips of a government bureaucrat: “‘This is a hidden hazard,’ Richard Trumka Jr., an agency commissioner, said in an interview. ‘Any option is on the table. Products that can’t be made safe can be banned.’”

But that’s all very … iffy. More directly, and fueling the reaction, the Governor of the State of New York did propose a ban. 

Which all goes to show that the “over” in over-​reaction can deflate pretty fast, down to a perfectly apt response, at the speed of … memes.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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