Category: Accountability

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Accountability national politics & policies too much government

Enough at Tea Time

On April 15, more than 2,000 Tea Parties were held across the country, many with thousands in attendance. These weren’t dainty luncheon ceremonies. They were protests, named after our revolutionary Boston Tea Party. 

In Washington, D.C., it rained like the dickens, but people still came out to say “Enough.” Regular folks sounded off. They work hard, and they’ve had enough of paying the bills for politicians and favored political interests.

Some big media personalities and major political figures showed up. Governor Rick Perry of Texas spoke at the Austin, Texas event. He’s called the federal government “oppressive.” In South Carolina, Governor Mark Sanford told folks that “Real change begins in the hearts and minds of people who are willing to stand … against an ever-​encroaching government.”

Meanwhile, much of television news media behaved badly, trying to marginalize or even demonize the protests as “anti-​government.” CNN correspondent Susan Roesgen was particularly argumentative, suggesting to one guy that he should be grateful for the $50 billion President Obama was sending to his state.

When a woman protester accused Roesgen of slanted coverage, she asked the woman why she was there. “We’re here,” the woman responded, “because we are sick and tired of the government taking our money and spending it in ways that we have no say in. We have no say whatsoever.”

And that’s what has to change. The people must be heard. Not just on one day, but every day.

This is Common sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability

Expect the Unexpected?

If we expect things to be exactly the opposite of what we expect, would we still be surprised by the unexpected? Or surprised by the expected?

You tell me. 

There exist laws about how employers must treat their employees. Employers are required to offer equal opportunity. To make certain this happens, the federal government has established and funded an agency called the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. So what employer do you think was just found guilty of willfully violating the Fair Labor Standards Act on a nationwide basis?

Yup, it’s the EEOC. The federal agency charged with protecting worker rights has been systematically violating the rights of its own workers.

We often hear calls for tougher regulation, but the problem here is regulators who can’t seem to follow their own regulations.

Here’s another bizarre case of the unexpected. The Virginia branch of PETA — that is, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals — just filed a report about their animal shelters. 

My kids have donated to no-​kill shelters because they don’t like the idea of killing stray pets that don’t quickly find homes. 

Well, don’t tell my kids, but PETA reports that under its “ethical treatment” 95 percent of the dogs and cats they “rescued,” were then killed. 

As always, don’t listen to what folks say; watch what they do.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Accountability insider corruption

Why Pay Your Taxes?

Why pay your taxes? I mean, why pay your taxes until you’ve been chosen for President Obama’s cabinet?

Most folks pay with little or no threat of having to serve on Obama’s brain trust. 

I pay because my wife tells me to and she agrees to fill out the forms. Some folks pay because they like all or much of what government does. Others may hate the waste, folly, or unconstitutional criminality of the bulk of government spending, but pay taxes out of a sense of duty.

Or fear.

But what of those politicians who constantly put forth the importance — the glorious nobility — of granting government an ever-​larger role? Why would they fail to pay their taxes to support that government?

The latest is the current nominee to head the Health and Human Services Department, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius. She owes $7,000 in back taxes, which now that she’s in line to be a cabinet secretary, she’s taking care of.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel hasn’t paid his tax bill. Sebelius’s predecessor, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle withdrew his nomination because of, yes, tax problems. And who can forget Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner? He paid up after he was nominated. But of course, he was “too big to fail.”

Maybe it’s how our leaders see the division of labor: We pay, they spend.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability too much government

Deep, Deep Waters

Are you surprised? I’m not surprised.

Turns out Congresswoman Maxine Waters had “family financial ties” to a bank for which she personally helped solicit bailout money. Without regard to its relative need or value to the economy. 

Shocker.

Trillions in stimulus money, bailout money. And we expect politicians will allocate it according to some impersonal calculus that has nothing to do with who their chums are?

Nor can we expect the politicians and bureaucrats to sit back and let the market, or what’s left of it, function unhampered once bailout money has been forked over.

Many banks seemed to think they would simply be allowed to spend the subsidies according to their own judgment about how best to promote the health of their enterprises. But once the bailouts failed to work the instant magic they were supposed to, politicians began attaching strings. So that voters angry about the bailouts could see that there’s “accountability.”

It’s not just about trimming fat executive bonuses. The banks are also supposed to obey orders to cancel employee training, reduce dividends to shareholders, stop hiring employees from overseas, etc. This is about social engineering, not economic efficiency.

So, many banks now say they’ll give the money back. Good idea; great idea. But it would really surprise me if it found its way all the way back to taxpayers.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Accountability general freedom responsibility

Good Guys and Bad Guys

There are two types of people, those who divide people into wicked capitalists and saintly victims, and those who don’t.

The folks at ACORN, a lefty activist group, see only evil capitalists and downtrodden everybody-else.

Columnist Michelle Malkin reports how ACORN champions the cause of homeowners crushed by the credit crunch and housing collapse. Except that some of their poster-​child victims are hardly innocent.

A few weeks ago, as a mob cheered and cameras recorded, an ACORN gang broke into a padlocked home in Baltimore. It had been owned by Donna Hanks, expelled when the bank foreclosed. “This is our house now,” ACORN activist Louis Beverly declared, with Donna by his side. 

Man of the people, right?

Except that Hanks was not merely hammered by circumstances. She bought the house in 2001 for $87,000, but later refinanced for $270,000 — money she presumably spent. In 2008 the house was sold for less than the new loan but more than twice the 2001 price. In 2006, Hanks declared bankruptcy, but did not comply with the terms of the court. Malkin gives further details of her irresponsibility, but you get the idea.

There are innocent victims hurting, now, in the current financial collapse. But being a borrower rather than a lender tells us nothing by itself. As the antics of ACORN show, either can be the victim.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Accountability free trade & free markets too much government

Able to Raise Keynes

Recently on This American Life, economists told NPR listeners how the then-​upcoming stimulus bill would amount to the very first legitimate and full test ever of Keynesian ideas.

Sure, politicians have been using John Maynard Keynes’s notions as an excuse to deficit spend ever since the Great Depression. But then, Lord Keynes had wanted politicians to spend even more, more than they dared.

Now, President Obama and our Democratic Congress have decided to spend enough billions, or trillions, to really do the trick.

Switch to Larry King’s latest interview with Bill Clinton. Our former prez assured us that the stimulus bill “would do what it is supposed to,” and he mentioned three things, only one of them vaguely about stimulus. He said the bill was better seen as a “bridge over troubled waters.” 

Clinton said the real issue was declining asset values, which Congress would address later.

At Mises​.org, Stephan Kinsella asked how this could amount to Keynesianism. Clinton used a different lingo entirely. 

Here’s how: It’s not that the bill will give us Keynesian stimulus. It’s that it has stimulated politicians in the old, old Keynesian way. 

Congressional Democrats know that the stimulus won’t work. So they are preparing the spin now. From them we heard the official excuse for the bill. From Clinton, the future excuse. 

Politicians know zip about the economy. They just know how to spend our money. And our great, great, great grandchildren’s.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.