Category: government transparency

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Accountability general freedom government transparency ideological culture initiative, referendum, and recall national politics & policies porkbarrel politics responsibility too much government

Ethics First

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The biggest problem facing Americans? According to a Gallup poll, for the second year in a row, it’s our government.

Maybe I should say “the government.” Few think it represents us. Which is sort of a big problem for a representative government.

Presidential candidate Donald Trump says our leaders are “stupid.” Were that the case, it’d be easier to correct. The reality is worse.

We have an ethical problem in government. Those entrusted to represent us represent, instead, themselves. And their cronies. And special interests.

Charged with creating a level playing field where we can all succeed through hard work, our elected officialdom have tilted that field. Oh, they’re doing just swell. The rest of us? Not so well.

Elected officials from Washington to state capitols have hiked up their pay, finagled perks, per diems and other bennies, and rewarded themselves with lavish pensions. Meanwhile, most Americans lack even a 401K to help save for retirement, much less a pension beyond a meager (and politician-​imperiled) Social Security safety net.

Transparency? Well, it’s not just Hillary Clinton who has conducted public business privately. Even with her scandal looming in the headlines, Defense Secretary Ash Carter confidently did likewise.

Let’s end pensions for politicians, nudging them to return to our world. And let’s change the rules so they work serving the public, not for private gain.

Can we count on our elected representatives to rectify their ethical lapses? Not on your life. We need to do it ourselves, using ballot initiatives to put ethics first.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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government transparency initiative, referendum, and recall term limits

In-​Nate Problem

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My brother, Tim Jacob, blames me for sucking him into politics. And I have reason to feel guilt, for politics is filled with — ugh — politicians.

Back in 1992, I urged Tim to join Steve Munn and Lance Curtis, who were launching a petition drive to put term limits before voters. Along with other do-​it-​yourself citizens, they gathered (all volunteer) 100,000 signatures. Then, against a special-​interest-​funded TV barrage, term limits prevailed with the largest YES vote of any initiative in state history.

In 2004, Tim was called back into service when legislators proposed a constitutional amendment to weaken term limits, using ballot language claiming it would “establish” limits. Voters saw through it, crushing the scam 70 to 30 percent.

But last year, legislators got even trickier. Their Issue 3 ballot language told voters the measure would ban gifts from lobbyists to legislators, create an “Independent Citizen Commission” to set salaries and “establish” term limits. Enough voters were fooled: Issue 3 passed 52 to 48 percent. Now, lobbyists are buying legislators even more meals, the “independent” commissioners awarded the very legislators who appointed them a 150 percent pay raise, and term limits were doubled to a ridiculous 16 years.

My brother co-​chaired the unsuccessful effort to alert voters, noting that legislators “pursued a campaign of silence … letting the deceptive ballot title do their work.”

Today, he and a band of resilient volunteers have filed — and are gathering petition signatures for — a new initiative to give Arkansans an honest choice on restoring the stricter limits.

Yet, Monday morning, Rep. Nate Bell, who voted for Issue 3 and then hid throughout the campaign, tweeted, “I am publicly challenging Tim Jacobs [sic] of Arkansas Term Limits to a public debate on subject. Are there any #arpx news orgs that would host?”

Rep. Bell’s follow-​up tweet announced, “Jacobs [sic] has declined to debate me on proposed term limits amndmnt. ‘Well I’m busy overcoming your fraud now, so you’ll have to wait’ #arleg.”

My brother, being wiser than I (due undoubtedly to his being older), didn’t take the bait. There’ll be plenty of time for debate once the initiative has enough signatures to be placed on the ballot.

In the meantime, Mr. Bell can huddle with career politicians, perhaps New York’s former Speaker Sheldon Silver. But hurry, before Silver goes to prison for corruption.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment general freedom government transparency judiciary moral hazard national politics & policies property rights too much government

Government Burglars

civil asset forfeiture, police, abuse, robbery, Common Sense

If you try to compare those police who take people’s money and property through civil asset forfeiture laws to burglars, who rob folks in more traditional ways, you are just not being fair.

To the burglars.

The Institute for Justice recently released an updated Policing for Profit report showing that federal asset forfeiture topped $5 billion in 2014. The FBI disclosed that in that same year $3.5 billion of value was lost in burglaries.

Then, folks did the math.

Steven Greenhut’s piece at reason​.com was headlined, “Cops Now Take More Than Robbers.”

At The Washington Post Wonkblog, Christopher Ingraham explained there was an especially big haul in seized assets in 2014, including $1.7 billion from Bernie Madoff. Moreover, the dollar figure for burglary doesn’t include larceny, motor vehicle theft, etc. All such theft combined totaled more than $12 billion that year.

So, law enforcement isn’t stealing quite as much from citizens as the criminals they are supposed to be protecting us from are. Sort of a backhanded compliment, though.

Recent polling finds more than 70 percent of Americans opposed to seizing assets without a criminal conviction, i.e. innocent until proven guilty, but taking cash and cars and stuff from folks never charged with or convicted of a crime has become a big business for “our” government.

When legislation to mildly reform civil forfeiture failed recently in California, Mr. Greenhut called legislators’ votes “about money, not justice.” Ferocious lobbying by the California District Attorneys Association and the California Police Chiefs warned money-​grubbing legislators that budgets would take an $80 to $100 million hit.

Theft is apparently quite lucrative. Who knew?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets general freedom government transparency national politics & policies responsibility too much government

Post Dated

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What does a business do whose market share is decreasing, is billions of dollars in debt, and which incurred one-​third of that debt just last year?

Realistically, it cannot be sustained. Not as a normal business.

Of course, the business in question has been struggling to reform, has been cutting costs. But can’t cut enough.

I’m referring to the United States Postal Service. Not a “normal business,” either: no “normal business” is authorized in the U.S. Constitution — or must suffer with the 535 members of Congress as its board of directors.

Kevin Kosar, writing at the Foundation for Economic Education, says the “existential crisis is already happening.”

And by this he doesn’t mean that the organization is going through a bout of anxiety leading to Nausea, or is so estranged from humanity that on a beach the company will kill an Arab — though that may be indeed true, “going postal” and all. He means, simply, what his title says: “USPS Is Going Down, and It’s Taking Billions with It.”

Many on the left say the problem is Congress’s insistence that the enterprise fund its employee retirement program. Kosar quotes an economist who figures that, even without current (and still inadequate) levels of pension contributions, the post office would have “lost $10 billion over the past seven years.”

Besides, those pensions must be paid for at some time — postponing them just delays the inevitable, making a future bust that much bigger, less manageable. (Current level of unfunded liability? $54 billion — which is not accounted for in its official debt.)

The Internet is more important than the post, now. Could it be time to junk mail?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability crime and punishment general freedom government transparency moral hazard national politics & policies property rights

Equitable Stealing?

civil asset forfeiture, asset, forfeiture, police, abuse, stealing, theft, property, Common Sense

Is freedom a simple matter of drafting a lofty document about respecting the rights of citizens?

Alas, no.

Our Constitution does that, as does Turkey’s and, for that matter, so did the now-​defunct Soviet Constitution. Obviously, vigilance is also required. Keeping powerful government agencies respectful of the law — our liberties — and, when not, fully accountable for transgressions, is crucial.

That necessary vigilance is lacking here in America, today.

Your local police — the guys and gals who might respond if, heaven forbid, your home were broken into, or come upon your spouse broken down on a dark, rainy highway — are being encouraged to take people’s stuff … for “profit.”

It’s called civil asset forfeiture. This “legal” ability to stop people and snatch their money (or car or what-​have-​you) without ever charging anyone with a crime forces victims to hire a lawyer to sue the government to prove their stuff is innocent. 

Last Friday, I heralded a new Institute for Justice report on the growth of this dangerous practice of official police thievery. At Townhall on Sunday, I pointed out that even when reforms are enacted at the state and local level, federal law enforcement still facilitates civil forfeiture. The Feds encourage locals to continue taking stuff through a federal program known as “equitable stealing.”

No, my bad, it’s actually called “equitable sharing.”

But it’s the same thing, just with the Feds and locals splitting the loot.

We need new laws at the federal, state and local level that abolish forfeiture without a criminal conviction. If our “leaders” won’t act, we can petition at the local level to end this pernicious policy, forbidding any involvement with the Feds.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment folly general freedom government transparency

Candid Camera

body cam, body cameras, justice reform, feds, federal agents, U.S. Marshals , police, Common Sense

Support for criminal justice reform, especially the common sense use of body cameras for police, marks a bright spot for the Obama Administration.

Or so I thought.

The president has called on local police to don the video devices. He has even offered $75 million of his own hard-​earned money to help communities pay for the cameras. No, wait — turns out that $75M is not his personal stash but rather our tax money.

Oh, well. While I think local taxpayers should fund their own police forces, without federal subsidies, at least President O’s administration supports the right policy. No?

“The Justice Department is publicly urging local police departments to adopt body cameras, saying they are an important tool to improve transparency and trust …” reports The Wall Street Journal. “But privately, the department is telling some of its agents they cannot work with officers using such cameras as part of joint task forces …”

Weeks ago, the U.S. Marshals “announced that the agency wouldn’t allow any local law-​enforcement officers wearing body cameras to serve on Marshals task forces.…”

I’m only surprised that I’m surprised. I should have known that while preaching to others to use body cameras, the Obama Administration would completely ignore camera use for federal police agencies. I shouldn’t be shocked that it even failed to establish rules for working with local and state police who might be required to wear cameras, at the administration’s urging.

It’s a very candid snapshot of the utter hypocrisy we’ve come to know and loathe from Washington.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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