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).
On May 14, 1787, delegates convened a Constitutional Convention, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to write a new Constitution for the United States. George Washington presided over the convention.
On the same day a century later, jurist and pamphleteer Lysander Spooner — author of an infamous pamphlet titled “No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority” — died.
Despite everything, public schooling can help kids learn some important things.
But this schooling is also something that kids have to survive. If and when Johnny can’t add, spell, figure out who’s buried in Grant’s tomb, or relate premises to a conclusion — the lessons and educational theories he’s been subjected to often have something to do with it.
Now Johnny is being told, if his skin is white, that he must feel guilty about his skin color and work to find, dwell on, and exterminate super-subtle racism buried deep within his privileged soul. He can’t just be happy and learn.
The rationale for this assault on the individual is called “critical race theory.” And in some school districts, this mislabeled “antiracist” indoctrination is being imposed on students (as it is also being imposed throughout society).*
Parents in Loudoun County, Virginia, are fighting back by forming a PAC with the mission of ejecting purveyors of critical race theory from the school board. The PAC is led by Ian Prior, who says that county parents “cannot wait until 2023 to elect new leaders.”
Board members must be recalled because of the board’s failure to reopen schools, its imposition of “dangerously divisive critical race theory,” and its cooperation with “tactics designed to intimidate students, parents and teachers from exercising their First Amendment rights.”
Good luck, parents.
And if you can find a way to educate your kids without sending them to public schools, I suggest that you consider that alternative.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* “On April 19, 2021, the Biden Administration proposed a rule,” alerts Heritage Action, “that would allow the Department of Education to prioritize recipients to receive K-12 grants if they include critical race theory in their curriculum.” The Federal Register is accepting public comments on the proposed rule here until May 19.
Child / Letters / FreeImmages / Bubbles / JGill 😇/ 🎨
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Every man may claim the fullest liberty to exercise his faculties compatible with the possession of like liberties by every other man.
Herbert Spencer, Social Statics: or, The Conditions essential to Happiness specified, and the First of them Developed, (London: John Chapman, 1851), Pt. II, Ch. 4 : Derivation of a First Principle, § 3.
On May 13, 1888, Brazil abolished slavery with the passage of the Lei Áurea (“Golden Law”).
“Gray Davis was never in a position to play Santa Claus,” said Steve Maviglio, press flack for the former California governor who was recalled by voters in 2003.
Maviglio was comparing Davis’ relative misfortune, back then — in not having a pandemic and the resulting economic stimulus — to today’s prospects for current Governor Gavin Newsom, who likewise faces a citizen-initiated recall. Yet, while 18 years ago Davis both cut budgets and raised taxes, Newsom has now discovered an extra $100 billion of spendable funds to let him off that hook.
California’s whopping budget surplus of $75.7 billion? Just the beginning. Democrats in Congress wanted to help with even more tax dollars, voting to drop-ship Golden State pols another $26 billion as part of the stimulus bill . . . which every Republican opposed, calling it at the time a move to “supply the Governor of California with a special slush fund.”
“Newsom wants to hand out cash before California recall election,” Politico headlined its story on Monday, informing that the embattled governor was quick to “tell Californians he wants to give them cash and pay some of their utility bills and back rent,” and noting specifically: “Checks would arrive in voters’ mailboxes not long before ballots do this fall.”
One key part of Newsom’s $100 billion “California Comeback Plan” is to give $600 “to some two-thirds of state residents in households making up to $75,000, along with $500 to families with dependents.”*
“It’s very significant,” offered former Gov. Davis, arguing “the future looks brighter as evidenced by the checks the public will soon receive.”
Whose future, precisely? Not Californians, really. Newsom’s.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* “Unlike the federal stimulus aid, undocumented immigrants and their families will be eligible to receive a state tax rebate,” The Sacramento Bee explained. “In fact, undocumented immigrants with dependent children will be eligible for $1,000 for family checks, double what other California families will receive, in order to make up for the lack of support at the federal level, according to Finance Director Keely Bosler.” [Emphasis added.] Must they document that they are undocumented?
Photo by Rob Growler / Photo by Gage Skidmore
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