Category: national politics & policies

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national politics & policies

Waste, Fraud and Abuse

There are few things less inspiring than listening to Republican and Democratic Party candidates and their flunkies discuss entitlement reform.

Last weekend, the Romney camp defended its newly acquired reform high-ground from assaults by the current administration. Rep. Paul Ryan had famously charged that the Democrats’ health care reform package of 2010 had “raided” nearly three-quarters of a trillion dollars to help extend Medicare-like benefits to younger populations. The Obama camp swears on a stack of, uh, Bibles, that all it did was cut waste and fraud and, yes, expanded services to seniors in the process and . . .

I don’t have the heart, or stomach, or liver (which organ is it that deals with bile?) to diagnose all this with scientific scrutiny, but I will say, off-hand, both sides look pathetic.

Who can believe that politicians and their hangers-on in the bureaucracies have actually honed in on — much less will actually cut —nearly a trillion dollars of waste, fraud and abuse?

Not that they aren’t there. It’s just that waste and fraud seem awfully stubborn, given that even those spending a lifetime in politics have made no progress against them.

Except during campaign speeches,

Washington politicians seem much friendlier to the wasters, fraudsters and abusers than to taxpayers. And the former are better organized, too.

It’s all preposterous.

And the supposed Republican reformers? They are “defending Medicare” so that older people don’t have to lose anything. But if the system is falling apart, it may be that the only fair thing is for every current recipient to lose something, so as not to lose everything.

The unmentionable truth? Waste is part of the system, and the programs are themselves fraudulent and abusive.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
media and media people national politics & policies political challengers

The A-Word

The n-word got dropped on MSNBC’s The Cycle this week. The show’s co-host [No First Name] Touré called Mitt Romney’s use of the word “angry” to describe some of the rhetoric coming out of the White House as “the ‘niggerization’ of Obama”:

“You are not one of us, you are like the scary black man who we’ve been trained to fear.”

Naturally this led to a battle between Touré and conservative co-host S.E. Cupp. She took particular issue with the fact that Touré admitted that VP Joe Biden‘s “chains” comments were divisive, but is now calling Romney a “racist” for saying the Obama campaign is “angry.”

“Do you see how dishonest that is?” she asked.

Good question. But here’s a better one: Doesn’t talk of race and code-words obscure the real issue here, anger?

Romney shouldn’t be calling for the Obama administration to be less angry. He should be angry himself, and castigating the president and his crew for being angry at the wrong things.

We should be angry at the continuation of wars, foreign (the Middle East) and domestic (on psychoactive drug use), to the detriment of fiscal stability as well as our civil liberties.

We should be angry that the nation’s pension system has been systematically stripped of its surpluses for 77 years — by politicians in Washington.

We should be angry that federal (along with state) policy has interfered with medicine to such an extent that the most idiotic ideas around — nationalization/socialization — almost seemed plausible to a sizable minority of Americans.

We should be angry that the Democrats pushed through yet another expensive entitlement, “Obamacare,” while the rest of the federal government sunk further into insolvency.

And yes, we should be angry that our leaders can’t stick to decent issues.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
national politics & policies responsibility

A Loan of Common Sense

If you give something that belongs to you, without expecting to get it back, that’s giving. You just hand over a gift and forget about it. Perhaps you would appreciate a “thank you.”

If you lend to someone, you expect to be repaid. Those who don’t repay are called deadbeats.

If you mug somebody on the street and grab his wallet, you are stealing. You are then a thief, a robber.

That’s all straightforward enough. This is not: Say that you steal from the productive citizens of one country or countries (Country or Countries A) and give the dough to the fiscally irresponsible government of another country (Country B), and you call it a loan. But when Country B can’t pay the installments, it is provided another loan originating in the wallets of the very same Country A citizens from whom was extracted the original loan.

What is this? You are not only stealing, you are shuffling IOUs instead of getting repaid. You are also misrepresenting the nature of the transactions, for it is clearly a gift of stolen money and not anything voluntary, like a loan.

Bill Wilson, President of Americans for Limited Government, goes into a bit more of the nitty and gritty of Greece’s tricky tranche of “repayment” on its “loan” from the European Union, and relates it to the similar finagling here in the United States . . . which all rests on credit expansion by the Federal Reserve. “The eggheads in Washington, D.C.,” he says, offer only one solution: “just keep digging.”

But how deep? At some point it gets too hot down there.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
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.

Categories
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.

Categories
general freedom national politics & policies too much government

Spice Trade

“Who knows how this got out,” one scientist mused, trying to account for how a synthetic marijuana substitute leaked out of his lab and onto . . . the black market.

I’ll echo that “who knows?” and raise it a “par for the course.”

The War on Drugs backfires all the time.

Take all the lying drug warriors have done (and continue to do) about illegal substances. Their job is to discourage drug use, so they engage in hype. However, once a drug user figures out that the government regularly lies to them about the dangers, they distrust everything the government says.

Our drug use educators also rarely admit that a key factor in all drug use is hormesis, the principle whereby the effectiveness (and lethality) of a drug varies by dosage. No doubt the “zero tolerance”/”just say ‘no’ rap” is easier to communicate, and sports a superficies of sense. But the downside of making drugs illegal (and thereby putting them in the black market) has a consequence: drug purity becomes almost impossible to maintain, rendering drug users unable to manage their doses — and, by long-term adaptation, making them more and more reckless, less and less responsible.

Not a good result.

Also bad is today’s trendy (and reportedly dangerous) marijuana substitute known as “Spice.” And yes, this — along with a cabinet filled with new synthetic substances — was invented by government-funded chemists.

To aid the War on Drugs.

No one knows who leaked the recipe onto the Net, allowing enterprising folks overseas to synthesize it and transport it here. It’s another case of outsourcing caused by an allegedly “well-meaning” government program.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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

Listicle!

In education circles, “lifelong learning” is a mantra, a piety, a cliché. For the rest of us, it’s how we maintain sanity.

Take words. It’s worth learning a few new ones now and then. After all, with new words can come new insights. Mostly, it’s just fun.Listicle

Yesterday, I learned a new word: Listicle.

This gem courtesy of Jesse Walker with Reason. He blogged about a Cracked “listicle” entitled “The 6 Most Popular Crime Fighting Tactics (That Don’t Work).” If you are on the Internet (and, since you are reading this, you almost certainly are) you’ve seen plenty of “listicles.” These are articles constructed in the form of a list. They are very popular, often linked on Facebook, tweeted on Twitter. Walker defends his recommendation: “Don’t sneer. Many listicles are excellent. I’ll take the average listicle over the average op-ed any day.”

I’d never heard the word before, but I am certainly aware of the art form. The listicle in question was concocted by Robert Evans, and he makes some great points:

  • Drug Dogs Are Inaccurate . . . and Racist
  • Car Chases Are More Dangerous Than Criminals
  • Drug-Free Zones Keep Dealers Close to Schools
  • Red Light Cameras Are Killing People
  • “Dry County” Laws Increase Drunk Driving
  • Capital Punishment Does Nothing to Reduce Violent Crime

Walker excerpts the “dry county” prohibition story, which is well-reasoned. I’m against capital punishment, but not moved by Evans’s take on it. Still, a tip of the hat to his red-light intersection revelation . . . which I won’t quote, because, like the most popular listicles, this one contains a plethora of words that, were I quoting, would contain a superabundance of aster**ks.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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

Bipartisan Blame for Auto Wreckage

President Obama often takes credit for President Bush’s worst policies while also averring that the economy hasn’t resurged yet because of his predecessor’s bad policies. I’m happy to blame both of them for the bad policies and bad results.

While campaigning in Ohio recently, Obama said we should pick him in November because he didn’t “let Detroit go bankrupt.”Auto Wreck

Financial writer Steve Conover points out that the car-czar idea started with Bush in the frantic last months of his administration. Also that the choice for dealing with troubled auto firms “in 2008-2009 was not bankruptcy versus no bankruptcy [but] between precedent-driven bankruptcy and White House-driven bankruptcy — rule-of-law versus rule-of-czar.”

Not every car company was going bankrupt back then and being “rescued” by the elephantine intercession of the federal government. GM and Chrysler were the special beneficiaries of that galumphing guidance. As were the auto unions at whose behest the usual bankruptcy procedures were bypassed.

Better-managed firms like Ford and Honda had circumvented the abyss. The reward for their hard work and foresight? Government-subsidized competition. Conover’s most basic point is that the only resource that can (and should) “save” any company from failing in the marketplace is “a sufficient number of buying customers.” The auto industry would have continued minus GM and Chrysler. People who wanted to buy cars would simply have bought cars elsewhere — from companies better able to supply their demand. And auto jobs would have moved accordingly.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
national politics & policies too much government

Against Debt

The federal debt is no mystery. It is fed by deficits. “Because the federal government has long been spending more than it takes in tax revenues, we now face a $16 trillion debt, an amount that has grown by $5 trillion in the last four years alone.”

That’s Richard Lorenc and Jonathan Bydlak writing in The Daily Caller. And they are not merely describing a bad situation. They are proposing a solution.

They formed a Coalition to Reduce Spending, and are encouraging citizens and politicians to sign their “Reject the Debt” pledge. The vow has some takers, most notably Ted Cruz, running in a close U.S. Senate race in Texas, with a runoff at the end of the month. Like all who take the pledge, he promises

  • not to vote to raise the debt ceiling;
  • not to borrow more money to pay for spending;
  • to support balanced budgets; and
  • consider all spending fair game for reduction.

Other candidates — from Minnesota and North Carolina as well as Texas — have signed on, and more likely will, as the campaign hits the news, gains fame . . . and “notoriety.”

Perhaps unlike the folks I talked about yesterday, supporters of this coalition and its pledge aim at the heart of the problem. So go on: sign the pledge. And press your favorite candidate until he or she does so as well.

After all, there’s a lot at stake.

The idea that politicians can just run up a tab indefinitely, and “feel no pain,” is absurd.

The pain is coming. The only question is: Do we act in advance to forestall some of it, or just let it hit us like a full ton brick-load?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
national politics & policies too much government

Cliff Notes

When the bus you’re in is set to drive off the cliff, what do you do?

Let off the accelerator, stamp on the brakes, steer clear. If the cliff cuts through the road ahead, stop. And turn around.

Unfortunately, though the U.S. is heading directly toward a “fiscal cliff,” half the folks in Washington want to speed up, while the other half think just a little deceleration will do it.Beware Dangerous Cliffs

Enter the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and its new newly launched project, the Campaign to Fix the Debt. According to this non-partisan outfit, “temporary patches” and “one-year extensions” will not work, not while the federal government amasses “trillion dollar annual deficits” and “borrows 40 cents of every dollar it spends.”

Economist Arnold Kling hazards that an honest debate about deficits and debt is not possible, and that a “bipartisan solution to the deficit has passed its sell-by date.” Further,

the “fiscal cliff” noise will drown out everything else after the election. My definition of “fiscal cliff” is running out of suckers willing to lend to our government at low interest rates. (We are closer to this cliff than you may think — look at how much of the debt the Fed has to buy.) But in Washington-speak, the “fiscal cliff” refers to the thought that the budget deficit might be reduced suddenly next year. Horrors!

My own fear is that this group is, in reality, just a bunch of politicians who will wind up pushing the old, tired mix of tax increases and spending cuts, with the “cuts” swallowed up in the CBO’s baseline annual spending increases.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

N.B. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s installment, when we look at a new group tackling this problem with greater gusto.