On May 15, 1776, the Virginia Convention instructed its Continental Congress delegation to propose a resolution of independence from Great Britain, paving the way for the United States’ Declaration of Independence.
Paul Jacob feels a disturbance in the Force:
On May 16, 1843, one thousand pioneers from Elm Grove, Missouri, set off for the Pacific Northwest, blazing what became known as the “Oregon Trail.”
For the saddest epitaph which can be carved in memory of a vanished freedom is that it was lost because its possessors failed to stretch forth a saving hand while there was still time.
Supreme Court Justice George Sutherland, Associated Press v. National Labor Relations Board, 301 U.S. 103, 141 (1937) (dissenting).
Paul Jacob just heard terrible news:
On May 15, 1776, the Virginia Convention instructed its Continental Congress delegation to propose a resolution of independence from Great Britain, paving the way for the United States’ Declaration of Independence.
If one only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to be happier than other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are.
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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Reason expresses purpose, purpose expresses impulse, and impulses express a natural body with self-equilibrating powers.
George Santayana, The Life of Reason or the Phases of Human Progress: Reason in Society (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1905), p. 138.
Secrecy is an instrument of conspiracy; it ought not, therefore, to be the system of a regular government.
Jeremy Bentham, “On Publicity,” The Works of Jeremy Bentham volume 2, part 2 (1839).