Category: too much government

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ideological culture national politics & policies political challengers too much government

Bite the Hand

I’m not sure there’s much percentage in talking about percentages.

Divvying folks into groups, and then relying on people to “stay” within their group — behaving according to one’s specifications — seems . . . kind of creepy.

Last year’s “Occupy” movement, with its relentless pitching of the “99 percent,” demonstrated that creepy/icky factor pretty well.

But Mitt Romney had to horn in on the action. “There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what,” he said. These wards of the state, he went on to say, believe that

  • they are victims
  • government has a responsibility to care for them
  • they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it

Furthermore, “these are people who pay no income tax,” Romney stated. “I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

Well, not all folks who are somehow “dependent on government” — a group ranging from Social Security retirees and the non-working poor to federal employees and agribusinesses and Solyndras feeding at the federal trough — necessarily want to increase their own ranks. Not a few are savvy enough to notice that the system that feeds them would, if larded up with more recipients, be made less capable of feeding them.

As for the logic of “not biting the hand that feeds you,” the advice of the late Thomas Szasz is pertinent: “maybe you should, if it prevents you from feeding yourself.”

After all, many of the people who may qualify, technically, as being “dependent on government” would rather not be. And might like the option of being less encumbered by government “help.”

Mitt, I wouldn’t write them off yet.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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national politics & policies too much government

716 Billion Lies

As the campaign for the presidency heats up, we’re going to hear the words “taxes” and “deficit” and “spending” repeated ad nauseam. And this number: $716,000,000,000.

That’s the amount of future Medicare spending that President Obama and the Democrats in Congress (exclusively, without a single Republican vote) cut, slashed, ripped, hacked out of the hands of elderly Americans over the next ten years.

And I thought Democrats loved Medicare, believed in it, wanted to keep it like it is against the bitter schemes of GOP Scrooges!

Now, as Republicans attack the Democrats’ attack on Medicare, Dems have counter-attacked by charging that in his plan GOP VP nominee Paul Ryan cuts Medicare this exact same $716 billion. Ryan explains that his approach simply took the status quo as the baseline, and, sadly, tragically, that includes Obamacare’s nearly trillion dollar malpractice in gutting Medicare funds.

With older citizens constituting a huge voting block, this fall’s election may hinge on this $716 billion being taken from Medicare. Funny thing is, the number is a mirage. Meaningless. Not real. Medicare will not be cut $716 billion. Not really. Instead, it will grow in leaps and bounds over the next decade.

Nothing in Obamacare stops Congress from spending that $716 billion and more in coming years. In fact, they already plan for Medicare spending to grow by far more.

That’s the problem more broadly with the cuts Democrats offer in exchange for higher taxes. The cuts are illusory because the spending continues to grow. Therefore, any tax increases to plug deficit spending would be pouring water into a bucket full of holes.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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national politics & policies too much government

I Know Savings

I don’t personally know Lance Armstrong, the cyclist who won the Tour de France seven times, including after beating cancer.

I don’t know if Armstrong tricked folks for all those years he was competing, finding some ingenious way to pass more than 500 drug tests even while doping, as witnesses tell the United States Anti-Doping Agency.

I don’t know what to make of the USADA’s doping charges, but, as for the agency’s motivations, a federal judge wrote that, “USADA’s conduct raises serious questions about whether its real interest in charging Armstrong is to combat doping, or if it is acting according to less noble motives.”

And I don’t know whether Armstrong chose to drop his challenge to the USADA charges against him because after years of fighting the agency, as he wrote, “enough is enough,” or, as USADA contends, there was ample “evidence” that “Armstrong used . . . and administered doping products.”

But there is something I know. I know where we can cut some federal spending.

On the Opposing Views blog, Tim Dockery points out that USADA “receives almost 70 percent of its funding from the federal grants” and “is a government program masquerading as a non-profit organization. This non-profit status allows it to investigate and prosecute athletes without affording them the constitutional and due process protections required of other federal agencies.”

Why is the federal government paying to police sport? In a way that undermines our standard of justice? When we’re already 16 trillion in debt and butting in costs money?

Yes, “enough is enough.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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property rights too much government

Pitchfork Rebellion

What if they threw a rebellion and everybody came?

Anything you do these days can get you in trouble with regulators, from serving water without the proper liquor license to (I kid you not) throwing a birthday party without the proper happiness-making license.

But being harassed for doing peaceful things with your own property isn’t about whether you’ve obtained the many licenses “required” to do them. It’s about whether you’ve caught the attention of some vindictive and cortex-deficient bureaucrat.

When Martha Boneta hosted a birthday party for a friend’s daughter on her Virginia farm, she forgot to get a birthday-party-for-little-girls permit; the county noticed; the county threatened fines. Zoning Adminstrator Kimberly Johnson went further, though, ordering Boneta to stop selling produce grown on her land.

Boneta finds it “rather odd” she’s being singled out, when so many Virginia farmers do likewise. Actually, she’d obtained a permit to sell produce, but since then the county’s regulations have grown more complicated. (Bureaucrats can grow things too!)

Supportive local farmers conducted a “pitchfork protest” outside the Board of Zoning Appeals. Alas, Boneta lost her appeal, but will pursue the case with the farmers’ help and that of the Institute for Justice. The travesty has also caught the attention of a local Tea Party group. Indeed, several of the “pitchfork farmers” are also members of the Tea Party chapter in Northern Virginia.

I didn’t obtain a permit to wish them all Good Luck, but I wish it anyway.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights too much government

Permit Needed

It’s hot out, and I’m thinking of ants.

Specifically, I’m thinking of the City of Phoenix functionary who told Dana Crow-Smith and her fellow Christian proselytizers that they could not hand out bottled water in the 112-degree heat. She and her fellow “good Samaritans” lacked a permit for vending.

Though, as Brian Doherty noticed on Reason’s website, she wasn’t vending. She was giving.

One needs a vendor’s license to give?

Thankfully, lawyers have come to the rescue, claiming that the city has violated the good Christian lady’s “First Amendment right to freely exercise her religion, her Fourteenth Amendment due process rights, as well as Arizona’s Free Exercise of Religion Act.”

Specifically, Ms. Crow-Smith demands a formal apology from the city, hoping, she says, to avoid a lawsuit. She just wants to be able to hand out water as she spreads the gospel. “I don’t think it’s even about religious beliefs.” she said. “I think anybody should be able to give away water on the sidewalk to anybody.”

Anarchy! Chaos!

Government isn’t about freedom, or even “nice.” On the one hand, governments increasingly force people to behave like the Gospel’s Good Samaritan; on the other, if you spontaneously take on the role yourself, government folk want you to get permission, first.

Call it insect logic. Above the ant colony in T.H. White’s The Sword in the Stone, there is written the ants’ totalitarian motto:

EVERYTHING NOT FORBIDDEN IS COMPULSORY.

Hot or cold, we must not let our governments take such insectoid philosophy as a principle. (Oh, and Phoenix? Apologize.)

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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political challengers too much government

Somewhere Short of Salvation

When I heard that Mitt Romney had chosen Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan to be his vice-presidential running mate, I thought, “Wow. It could have been worse.”

I like Paul Ryan. You know, for a politician.

Rep. Ryan, at least, appears to be serious about our country’s 16 trillion debt and the fact that yearly we’re still credit-carding a trillion more onto that tab. Ryan has crunched the numbers and written a budget blueprint that offers a more-or-less responsible way to restructure in-the-red programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security that drive the government’s debt.

The “professional left” will argue that Paul Ryan wants to throw grandma off a cliff by slashing Medicare, but I think the problem is that his budget doesn’t go far enough. Under Ryan’s own optimistic predictions of economic growth, his balanced budget is still a decade away. According to analyses by the Congressional Budget Office and others, the Ryan “Path to Prosperity” won’t bring the federal budget into balance for many decades – 30 to 50 years.

Which, the way Washington works, means never.

And that’s even before the plan goes through Congress, where far too few share Ryan’s hawkishness on budgetary matters.

Paul Ryan is a breath of fresh air compared to mealy-mouthed politicians such as Obama and Biden . . . and Romney. But even if the Romney-Ryan ticket wins, Ryan will only occupy what John Adams called “the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.”

Sounds like we’re still somewhere short of salvation.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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too much government

Don’t French-Fry Les Riches

French voters were in a mood to eject the incumbent, often a good idea. But, alas, the president they picked to replace Nicolas Sarkozy is an ardent socialist. And socialism, sanctified or not by centuries-old fealty to notions of French Revolutionary egalité, is always a très mauvaise idée.

President François Hollande has vowed to impose a 75 percent tax on all income over a million euros, or about 1.25 million dollars. Such a steep levy is supposed to be moral because making lots of money is per se morally suspect — at least according to the egalitarianism in which Hollande is steeped.

The tax gouge is also supposed to be practical in that it will supposedly help cure France’s debt crisis. Sure, looting les riches will cover but a smidgen of France’s debt pileup. But because even not-rich Frenchmen are also likely to pay higher taxes to appease the EU, it’s best to pave the way by first flogging the envious not-rich man’s favorite target.

Meanwhile, more sensible measures — like freeing up the French economy and slashing the government’s social welfare programs — don’t seem to rank very high on Hollande’s to-do list.

In response to the danger, many of the wealthiest and most productive Frenchmen are doing the only moral and practical thing. They’re packing their bags, just in case their new leader fulfills his vow. If so, they’ll flee to lower-taxing places like Belgium and Switzerland, where jobseekers will be delighted to have them.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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

Banker Away

Republican candidate for the U.S. Presidency Mitt Romney has received some flak for keeping some of his vast hoard of wealth in foreign accounts. Though I have a few problems with Mr. Romney, this isn’t one of them. Folks with savings and investments should diversify. Anyone with large amounts of money should consider diversifying beyond our borderlines.

And not just for “tax avoidance” reasons, either.

For one thing, as nice and generous as our politicians are, the U.S. isn’t exactly stable and business-friendly. That used to be the U.S. It may not be, any longer.

Take Peter Schiff’s new endeavor. The redoubtable Schiff, an investment expert perhaps best known for having predicted the 2008 mortgage crisis and the severity of the current recession, has started a gold bank, Euro Pacific Bank Ltd., which will back deposits with gold. The actual yellow stuff.

Its most interesting innovation will be its offer of a “gold debit card,” for use worldwide. Peter Wenzel calls this idea “awesome,” but then notes the downside:

U.S. security laws have become so intrusive, burdensome, and expensive to comply with, that it made it difficult for Schiff to offer the services in the U.S. So, Schiff opened his bank offshore, in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. It operates outside the jurisdiction of U.S. security regulations, and does not accept accounts from American citizens or residents.

America’s place in the world is changing. And not for the better.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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

A Fraudulent Pill to Swallow

If you’re like me, you often rub up against common opinion and find little sense in it — or, as I like to put it, popular opinion with the common sense bled out of it.

On Monday I reported on an anti-Obamacare lawsuit against the federal government for mandating the purchase of medical insurance that included “free” contraceptive drugs (including “morning after pills”). I took on the obvious problems, but neglected to mention that it’s not insurance.

I guess you can call turnips “rainbows” and politicians “angels,” but, based on accepted meanings of terms, it is not “insurance” when benefits include regular maintenance or common preventive (“prophylactic”) products.

One doesn’t insure against dandruff by buying a policy that provides you with “free” shampoo or against sunburn by purchasing a policy that offers free SPF50 sunscreen. One doesn’t insure against obesity with insurance that provides “free” healthy foods according to This Diet or That Diet.

For instance, it would be absurd to have an insurance policy to pay for one’s vitamins.

In a sense, the vitamins are the insurance. Think of them as a separate, medicinal form of insurance, which you pay for at purchase.

Same for contraception.

One buys insurance for unexpected and irregular needs. Calling Obamacare’s “contraception benefit” mandate “insurance” is a fib.

Much of what we think of as insurance actually amounts to confused (and confusing) methods of savings (at best) or a confidence game to get some people to pay for the regular goods and services other folks use (at worst). By force and fraud.

The force is the government mandate. The fraud is calling this whole program “insurance.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights Ninth Amendment rights too much government

The First Isn’t Enough

The First Amendment isn’t enough.

Because its provisions have stronger teeth than most other amendments in the Bill of Rights, it gets put into service quite a lot, to bolster other freedoms. It’s a pity there’s no general “right to freedom” — or even “freedom of contract” — amendment.

A Western Pennsylvania Christian higher education outfit, Geneva College, joined by Seneca Hardware Lumber Co. in Cranberry, has sued the federal government over the new “Obamacare” requirement to provide morning-after “contraception” to employees, saying that the provision violates their religious freedom. The Justice Department argues that the case should be thrown out, on grounds that public entities like the college and the lumber company do not possess the legal right to “impose” their religious values on others.

As noted at reason.com, this is a weird misreading of the crucial negative right/positive right distinction: Under the “negative right” to freedom, an employer not providing a benefit to employees imposes nothing. Quite literally. The imposition lies entirely with the government forcing its way into contracts between businesses and employees.

One could construe a positive right to contraception, I guess, but that positive right would also be an imposition. “Imposition” belongs to the language of positive rights.

The government’s lawyers also object to the hardware company seeking sanctuary (so to speak) in the First Amendment to oppose the contraception mandate. If just anyone can appeal to the First Amendment’s freedom of religious exercise clause, then the government could hardly enforce conformity.

Well, yes.

That’s the idea of limited government. The problem, today, is that we citizens don’t have enough legal oomph to protect ourselves (either as employers or employees) from the federal government’s vast overreach.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.