Category: subsidy

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Fifth Amendment rights national politics & policies subsidy

The Moratorium on Survival

Bill of Rights, property, law

If only Lincoln Eccles were a property owner in Franklin County, Ohio, instead of Kings County, New York. He’d have more of a chance.

Franklin County is defying the latest national moratorium on evictions. Early in August, caving to pressure from socialist Democrats, President Biden directed the CDC to outlaw the evicting of tenants for another 60 days.

A Franklin County court has announced that the county will not obey the ukase. The county cites a recent court of appeals ruling that disputes the authority of the CDC to impose the nationwide moratorium.

In June, the Supreme Court had narrowly refused to lift a previous moratorium in evictions, even though at least one justice in the majority acknowledged that the CDC had exceeded its authority. Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s exact words: “Yes, this is unconstitutional, but . . . well, okay.” (Fine, not his exact words.)

Property owners have bills too. (Not to mention rights.) The less money they get from a property, the less money they have to maintain it, let alone earn profit.

Lincoln Eccles owns a 14-​unit building in Crown Heights. Several tenants owe him rent. One owes $40,000. Which has put Eccles behind on utility bills and property taxes. The boiler must be fixed before winter. 

But Kings County is not defying the CDC.

“At this point they’re just abusing us,” Eccles says. “And it’s some version of slavery to me, forcing people to work and produce a product for free, and there’s no compensation.”

Were one to consult the Constitution, one might find a prohibition about public taking of private property “without just compensation,” but governments throughout the union haven’t been consulting that relevant document much lately.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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national politics & policies subsidy

Maxine and Nancy Sure Need Joe

Pelosi, Biden, Congress, Constitution, rent, moratorium

“We thought that the White House was in charge,” explained Rep. Maxine Waters (D‑Calif.), after the Democratic majority had failed to act on a key pandemic subsidy.

 “Action is needed,” implored a panicky Speaker Pelosi in a statement also signed by the Democratic House leadership, “and it must come from the Administration.”

“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-​imposed moratorium [on home evictions] lapsed Sunday — five weeks after the Biden administration said it would extend the measure ‘one final month’ to July 31 and four weeks after the Supreme Court let the ban stand but signaled any new extensions would require Congress to act,” The Washington Post explained.

“But Congress didn’t act.”

Then, yesterday, President Biden responded to exhortations from his party’s left flank by announcing the CDC would extend the federal moratorium regardless of the unmet constitutional requirement.

“The bulk of the constitutional scholarship,” the president acknowledged, “says that it’s not likely to pass constitutional muster.” 

You don’t need to be a constitutional scholar to conclude that this sort of thing is wholly Pelosi’s bailiwick. But forget the Constitution, spending is the supreme law.

Also forgotten are the landlords devastated by the moratorium. They likewise have bills to pay. 

“Congress set aside nearly $50 billion to help families … pay the back rent they owe and avoid eviction,” National Public Radio reported. “But that money flowed to states and counties, which … have managed to get just a small fraction of the money to the people who need it.”

While the political “need” for bailouts directly resulted from government action — the pandemic lockdowns — blame for the current unconstitutional mess lies squarely with the Democratic Congress. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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subsidy too much government

Throwing Big Bucks at the Rich

John Stossel, welfare, subsidy

John Stossel’s latest YouTube video focuses on the many ways “your tax dollars end up in millionaires’ pockets.” 

In an interview with Lisa Conyers, co-​author of Welfare for the Rich, they deplore how recent COVID Relief funds went to state governments already flush with surpluses and, disproportionately, to wealthier local communities.

“Politicians also give your money to companies that promise jobs,” explains Stossel, using as an example the Ohio case wherein General Motors closed its Lordstown plant … after receiving tens of millions of tax dollars to keep it open. 

Regarding Wisconsin’s Foxconn subsidy, Conyers notes that it came to a million bucks per job. Actually, Stossel corrects, the cost of each Foxconn job was $1.42 million.

Soon the subject shifts to the spectacular subsidies billionaire sports team owners receive for their lavish stadiums. Some folks apparently still think this welfare is an investment that pays off by stimulating greater economic activity. But Stossel points out the stark math: $188 billion in welfare to the wealthy sports moguls and $40 billion back in benefits. 

“The Vikings stadium is so nice,” Bob Fastner deadpans in a comment left at YouTube, “that I can’t afford to go inside.”

“20 years ago, our small town almost subsidized a sports stadium for all the reasons your program described,” offers Friendly One in another comment. “A small independent radio station brought the true financial history of such projects to public awareness, stopped it. It became a thriving business center instead.”

“The politicians don’t call each other out on this and just continue stealing from us,” observes Kiki The Great. “Something all of us can agree on,” comments Mr. Beat. “End corporate welfare!”

Left or right, we don’t support corporate welfare — so why is there so much of it?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets national politics & policies subsidy

Unemployed or Misemployed?

couch potato, Covid, stimulus, welfare

“Now Hiring” signs are up everywhere, especially on the windows of restaurants and other retail businesses.

But those signs aren’t disappearing.

Lots of jobs are left open.

No takers.

Week after week.

The job recovery that President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. says he has placed his fabled “laser-​like focus” upon, has been disappointing, to use the words of Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell.

Oops, make that “extremely disappointing.”

“Economists and analysts had been expecting around a million jobs to be added on net in April,” Rampell wrote last week, “given the rising share of vaccinated Americans and relaxation of restrictions on business. Instead, employers created a measly 266,000 positions, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. Job growth for March was revised downward, too.”

This didn’t come out of nowhere, as another Washington Post columnist made clear a few weeks ago. “Many employers, especially restaurants and small retail businesses, are having a hard time finding workers,” explained Henry Olsen. “This is likely the result of trends in covid-​19 vaccinations and the generous unemployment benefits that were expanded due to the pandemic.”

Normally when talking about employment and unemployment, we are tempted to put on our economist caps and talk about supply and demand, marginal productivity, monetary policy, etc. But most commentators seem to be honing in on the ultra-​obvious: pay people to stay home, they tend to stay home.

Indeed, thinking of the generous unemployment benefits which the U.S. Congress has bestowed upon the country as “stimulus,” we should realize that paying people to stay at home is like hiring them for the cushiest job imaginable. No worker shortage, as many suggest, but malinvestment in the wrong “jobs.”

And thus the opposite of “stimulus.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Photo by greychr

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subsidy too much government

Precedented Payments

CARES Act, Coronavirus, Covid,

I idly wonder who cooks up the initialisms for the big federal legislative packages (“laws”) — you know, like the recent “CARES Act” that distributed $2.3 trillion conjured out of thin air … and the faith and credit of a wobbly reputation. CARES stands for “Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security,” and I say “idly” because I am not googling this. 

If I can resist searching for (as I am instructed to do daily) “any three numbers and ‘new cases,’” I can let others do that initialism research.

Whoever it is, though, does a pretty good job. Usually. Good P.R. But they missed the boat a bit on CARES. It should have been CORPSE, standing for “Coronavirus Overpayment, Relief, Prodigality, Stupidity and Eeeeek!” Act.

For, you see, $1.4 billion was sent to dead people.

More than a million of them.

At least we can be thankful that the IRS wants that money back.

Well, “wants” is a funny word to use for a bureaucracy. Especially since the IRS has no current plan “to notify ineligible recipients on how to return payments.” According to the General Accounting Office.

You can read about it all at Reason.

I would say it makes for fascinating reading, but it doesn’t really. This is the same-​old/​same-​old. The Department of Kludge and Fubar, you know, which would be a better name for most government bureaus.

The Reason piece call the CARES Act “unprecedented emergency spending,” but I think we could find plenty of precedents. 

If we googled.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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education and schooling subsidy

The Most Foolish Bank of All

education, bank, loans, Devos,

There are few things more foolish than turning the Department of Education into a bank.

“Congress never set up the U.S. Department of Education to be a bank, nor did it define the secretary of education as the nation’s ‘top banker,’” said Betsy DeVos, Trump’s controversial Department of Education secretary, at an annual education conference in Reno. “But that’s effectively what Congress expects based on its policies.”

Secretary DeVos “recommended that Federal Student Aid (FSA) — the nation’s largest provider of financial aid — be spun off from the Education Department so student loans can be better managed and administered,” Forbes summarizes.

The FSA is a bank, but not a very good one. It makes bad bets, which Mrs. DeVos tries to make clear by asking a few rhetorical questions:

  • “Is it any surprise … that both principal and interest are currently being paid down for only one in four loans? 
  • “Nearly 11 million borrowers have loans that are delinquent or in default? 
  • “And 43 percent of all loans are considered ‘in distress’?”

Even worse, the loans amount to an especially cumbersome form of subsidy, one that has corrupted the university system, misallocated higher education resources and inflated tuitions, and sunk generations into debt.

While DeVos’s reforms might possibly be an improvement, what if the troubles associated with the federal government’s student loan programs are not the result of how they are managed, but that the federal government is involved at all?

Centralizing consumer credit in specialized Congress-​created lending institutions (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) was at the heart of last decade’s massive financial crisis. Shouldn’t a major banking reform focus on avoiding the moral hazards involved in government-​run credit and subsidies?

DeVos’s plan doesn’t strike me as educated on this angle.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

education, bank, loans, Devos,

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