Category: national politics & policies

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media and media people national politics & policies tax policy too much government

Smart Reaction?

If you balk at having more and more of your life run from the nation’s capital, you’re stupid. 

Or, so blares Joe Klein in a Time magazine online article, “Too dumb to thrive.”

See, “smart” Americans understand that a trillion in federal “stimulus” spending can only do “good.” Apparently dumb Americans are the ones telling pollsters that the “stimulus” money is being wasted.

Klein says the biggest part of the stimulus is a tax cut for most, meaning more money in their paychecks. But ignorant Americans focus on the huge debts we’ll have to pay back … in higher taxes.

Klein says that the second biggest portion of stimulus money went to state governments to keep our kids’ teachers from being laid off and state taxes from being raised. The notion that without the stimulus all the public school teachers would have been pink-​slipped is a bit much. 

As for higher state taxes, couldn’t state spending actually be cut? And not just on police, teachers and firemen?

Klein’s blithering blathering reminds me of Chris Matthews, and other MSNBC geniuses, who contend that politicians are in deep doo-​doo because “people are angry and scared” and want to take their frustrations out on someone.

People are angry and scared, sure. But taking out our anger out on those responsible for destroying our wealth and freedom seems … well .  .  . smart.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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

Do As I Don’t

Many American politicians decry any attempt to liberalize the market for grade school education. They insist that the public school system must be protected from competition. They hate charter schools, vouchers, tax credits, anything like that. 

Yet many of these same politicians send their own kids to private schools.

But simultaneously promoting government-​run industry, while choosing private alternatives, isn’t just an education pathology. Consider medicine.

Canadian politicians eager for medical care that really works have made it a habit to travel to the United States to get it. The latest is Danny Williams, premier of the Canadian providence of Newfoundland and Labradour. Williams recently trekked stateside for heart surgery. His office wasn’t releasing many details, but indicated that the surgery isn’t routine. 

That explains it. If there’s any chance a life-​saving procedure will be tricky, quality is really important.

Williams’s deputy premier, Kathy Dunderdale, told reporters that surgery in the province was never an option. She said: “He is doing what’s best for him.” I’m sure that’s true.

Folks, we can’t, just cannot, further put the American medical industry under government bureaucratic control — that is, make our health care as bad as Canada’s. There’s got to be somewhere for our Canadian friends to go when they really need the good stuff.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
national politics & policies too much government

Do the Right Thing – Later

Late in life, St. Augustine characterized his youthful, wayward ways in a droll prayer: “Lord, make me chaste and celibate — but not yet!”

Today, politicians of both parties understand the sentiment. 

On Monday of last week, President Barack Obama unveiled his budget to Congress with this nicely worded maxim: “We simply cannot continue to spend as if deficits don’t have consequences, as if waste doesn’t matter, as if the hard-​earned tax money of the American people can be treated like Monopoly money.”

Obama proposed a record budget of $3.8 trillion — including a deficit of well over $1 trillion. We can’t keep deficit spending like this, but we keep deficit spending like this.

Talking to reporters, Obama admitted that he and his friends in Congress “won’t be able to bring down this deficit overnight.” He cited the need for more job creation as reason to continue to spend so much money.

Money we don’t have. So it will be borrowed. Against future taxes. Or future default.

Sure, the president is proposing a freeze. To start next fiscal year. And he’s proposing a bipartisan committee to cook up some way to balance the budget. The committee hasn’t been formed yet.

That seems like too much procrastination for the state of our nation. I think St. Augustine would agree with me: Virtue is not something you put off until next year.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
general freedom national politics & policies

Greater Eloquence

Last week, two major speeches caught our attention.

Barack Obama wagged his finger at the Supreme Court and orated in front of Congress. He said the state of the union is sound.

Apple’s Steve Jobs gave the other big speech, presenting the new iPad, a portable device that accesses the Web, allows users niftily to buy and read e‑books, and much more. 

Which speech will usher in real change? 

Both have their critics. Many people no longer trust Obama, whether he’s pushing more government or a freeze. And many folks second-​guess Apple’s newest project, despite Jobs’s spectacular success record. 

For my part, I don’t buy Obama’s agenda. But I probably won’t buy an iPad, either. I tend to regard even the best new tech breakthroughs as just more vacuum cleaners. They really do suck … one’s time, anyway.

But to succeed, Apple doesn’t need my excitement. Just enough from others. 

Early in each of Apple’s revolutions, it was hard to prophesy success, with certainty. 

The neat thing about a possible neo-​Gutenberg Age of tablets, e‑books and virtual libraries is that I will still be able to read a normal book. One the other hand, if Obama gets his way, his policies will, willy nilly, crowd out better ones.

Still, it’s heartening to realize that to most of us the eloquence of a revolutionary thing means more, now, than the eloquence of any politician.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
national politics & policies responsibility

Washing Dishes

If you can’t pay your bill at a restaurant, management may set you to washing dishes to cover the cost of your meal.

Or so it’s said — I’ve never heard of it actually happening. Clean dishes are a must for serving food to paying customers; restaurants simply can’t wait around to press non-​paying customers into service. Instead, they hire folks to do the dishes.

This came to mind when our president and congressional leaders began pushing to raise the federal government’s debt ceiling by $1.9 trillion.

The raise would allow the federal debt to increase to $14.3 trillion, about the size of our country’s entire yearly economic output.

Senator Max Baucus of Montana is all for raising the limit. He says it simply must be done: “We have gone to the restaurant,” he explained. “We have eaten the meal. Now the only question is whether we will pay the check.”

No dishwashing for Baucus. 

Most of us avoid Congress’s unseemly situation by looking in our wallets for cash or ready credit before we order the filet mignon, not after we’ve consumed it.

I’m no wizard of high finance, but hey: If we want to stop piling debts onto our children, at some point we will have to prevent our so-​called representatives from borrowing more trillions.

Oh, and if a congressman enters your diner, better make him pay cash up front.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
general freedom national politics & policies

The War on Terror Lumbers On

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to blow up himself and 277 other people on Flight 253 to Detroit Christmas Day. Fellow passengers subdued and disarmed him.

Lessons? Start with the obvious: There are still terrorists in other countries who want to hurt us. 

Some will say that we must beef up security. But consider: America’s security state, which has been in alleged high gear (or some bright color) since 2001, has already been beefed up. And yet, once again, this security broke down.

It could be that preventing violence is just not that easy to do. If you have determined enemies who spring up in unexpected quarters, it’s really hard for government to stop them.

Herbert Spencer, a 19th century sociologist, explained it this way: “The law-​made instrumentality lumbers on under all varieties of circumstances at its habitual rate. By its very nature it is fitted only for average requirements, and inevitably fails under unusual requirements.”

We cannot expect government to always foresee dangers. We cannot even rely on government to transmit warnings of a specific terrorist from one department to another, and do something about it.

I’m not saying we should expect nothing of government. Just don’t expect too much.

All hope is not lost, however. We have each other. From the heroism of

Flight 93 on 9.11 to this Christmas Day incident, passengers have shown they’re not powerless.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
national politics & policies too much government

Happy Healthcare

The funniest show on TV? Health care reform. It’s a laugh a minute.

More awkward pauses than The Office. The melodramatic back-​stabbing that makes Desperate Housewives amusing. Plus, nearly as much deliberation as Wife Swap.

Boy, do we have great politicians. For Christmas they got us much better medical care and at lower cost. But wait, the federal deficit gets reduced in the process. They just vote it into being. Shazam!

How can they do it? By sticking it to the insurance companies!

Funny, the stock prices of health insurance companies have shot up … just as this legislation is passing. President Obama brought the House down, in his weekly television bit, proclaiming these bills are “the toughest measures we’ve ever taken to hold the insurance industry accountable.”

The more sophisticated humor is how polls show most Americans opposed to the plan Congress rushes to pass. So, who are the beneficiaries? Those who slipped special deals into this 2,000-plus page bill?

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says that’s what legislating is all about. But giving unfair deals to certain states to entice their senator’s vote looks, well, sorta blatantly crooked. Not to mention fiscally irresponsible. The sale of Senator Ben Nelson’s vote gained Nebraska a Medicare expansion on the federal taxpayers’ tab … forever.

The silver lining is that, at the rate they’re going, forever may not be so long.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Accountability national politics & policies U.S. Constitution

Ron Paul’s Gold Standard Version of Principle

They call him Dr. No.

But medical doctor and Congressman Ron Paul does more than vote against awful and unconstitutional legislation. He has also proposed many bills to roll back the government’s assault on our liberties — bills to get rid of the income tax, minimum wage laws, antitrust laws.

Of course, to advocate undoing decades of ever-​more-​brazen governmental interference in our lives is to swim against the tide. To most congressmen, the idea of limiting federal governance to constitutionally authorized functions is so old-​fashioned as to be perverse. So Paul hasn’t had much luck with his initiatives.

But one of them is now back on the table: A bill authorizing the GAO to audit the Federal Reserve. Paul first advanced it in the early ’80s, and since then it’s been gathering dust. But thanks to the way the Fed has been conducting itself during the financial crisis, with all its massive yet secretive bailouts and interventions, the bill is now popular.

It has a good shot at passing.

Ron Paul himself won’t be voting for it, however. It’s going to be packaged with other legislation to impose new financial regulations, regulations he opposes. Paul says: “I won’t vote for a bill that’s a disaster because one or two or five percent of it is an improvement.”

Can’t argue with that. If only all our representatives had such scruples.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
national politics & policies too much government

Give Liberty a Chance

Give a golf club to Tiger Woods, and you know what to expect: Great golf.

Give the same club to Mr. Woods’s wife, and, well, you get something else again.

Give our politicians both a huge allowance and unlimited credit, and you get a batch of people unable to control their spending.

Expected, or unexpected?

Expected. Of course. We’ve come to expect this for a very long time. That’s why both the Federalists who wrote the Constitution, and the anti-​Federalists who amended it, were obsessively concerned with checks and balances, with limitations on government. 

Unfortunately, too often we speak of BIG government these days. But it’s not the size, as such, that is the problem. It’s the unlimited nature of it.

So when you have a chance to check government at the ballot box — say, in a state or local initiative or referendum — ask whether the measure limits government or unlimits it.

And, when considering a candidate, look for his or her promises about limits. If the candidate won’t limit spending in some very sure way, or the candidate’s own terms in office, then reject the candidate. Vote against. Go to the polls and write someone else’s name in, if that’s the only pro-​limit, pro-​liberty thing you can do.

We’ve got to put “limits” back into the conversation. Think constitutions. Think rule of law. Think liberty.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
national politics & policies responsibility too much government

$800 Billion Gorilla

It somehow didn’t come up.

Last week, when President Barack Obama met with Chinese premier Wen Jiabao, there was reportedly no discussion of the fact that our country owes China over $800 billion. 

Just suppose you owed someone $800 bucks … or $800,000. Do you think it could affect the relationship?

What about nearly a trillion dollars?

The Obama Administration just announced that American-​Chinese relations are “at an all-​time high.” But a story in the Washington Post compared our relationship with China to the nuclear stalemate of the Cold War, known as “mutually assured destruction,” or MAD. We’re dependent on them for future loans; they’re dependent on us to pay back old loans and new.

Kenneth Lieberthal of the Brookings Institution explained that “the Chinese can pull the rug out from under our economy only if they want to pull the rug out from under themselves.”

Reassuring? Not very. 

Why have we allowed a foreign power to gain such leverage over us? 

Because our politicians cannot — will not — limit their yearly spending to the trillion-​plus dollars in revenue from American taxpayers.

When it comes to debt, China’s tyrants  have taken better care of their country than our politicians have of ours. But we needn’t cede them control. Far better simply to stop borrowing billions from Beijing. 

How? Slash spending. If our politicians can’t do it for us, maybe they can do it for their Chinese allies.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.