Jun 16

Average American now Says Government Wastes 51 Cents out of Every Dollar

corruption_god_by_m0ai-d69w39e

Gallup has been polling Americans since 1979 regarding how much out of every dollar they think the government wastes. Answers have always varied widely, but when the question was first asked in 1979, the average American said the federal government wastes about 40 cents of every dollar.

Over the years, this assessment of waste has increased steadily, and last fall (October 2014), the average American responded that the federal government wastes a majority of the money it gets–51 cents out of every dollar.

Remember, this is the average response. Eighteen percent of Americans say they think the federal government wastes 76 cents OR MORE out of every dollar it gets.

Gallup has separated state from federal spending in the question. The average American is slightly more respectful of the spending habits of their state government. On average, Americans say their state governments waste 42 cents of every dollar.

Jun 14

11-Year-Old Boy Played Alone in His Yard. Government Agents Took Him, Charged Parents with Felonies.

tsa_dees

Lenore Skenazy is a noted freedom activist and advocate for parents allowing their children to raise their children in conditions of freedom (like generations of Americans in the past). She reports on a recent Florida prosecution of two parents charged with child neglect for allowing their 11-year-old son to play basketball in his yard after school while waiting for the parents to return home. Skenazy’s story can be found at Reason.com.

The parents actually lost their kids to the government . . . over nothing.

Jun 14

It Has Gone Underreported that the IRS Threatened North Carolina Businessman Lyndon McLellan to Keep Him Silent.

change4th_dees

It has been widely reported that in March 2015, the IRS seized $107,000 from North Carolina businessman Lyndon McLellan’s bank account because he had made cash deposits in “wrong” amounts. The IRS claimed that McLellan was “structuring” cash deposits under $10,000 to avoid being identified or suspected of money laundering, drug activity, or whatever. In reality, McLellan is a small businessman who operates a small gas station and catfish-sandwich shack and regularly deposits cash in his bank account. The money seized by the IRS constituted McLellan’s life savings.

Soon after the national media picked up this story of outrageous government abuse, the IRS caved, and returned the money. The agency quickly realized it could not survive the negative publicity regarding its lawless actions.

What has not been widely reported is that the IRS sent McLellan an email when McLellan hired the nonprofit law firm Institute for Justice to help him fight the government. The email warned McLellan not to seek publicity, and suggested that if McLellan went public with the outrageous story, the government would target him even more severely.

The government prosecutor’s email stated:

publicity about it doesn’t help. It just ratchets up feelings in the agency.

The message was clear: McLellan was being warned to keep his mouth shut.

The Institute For Justice’s description of the story is here.

Jun 14

“Progressive” Politicians Hiring Loads of Unpaid Interns While Lecturing the World About Inequality and Campaign-Finance Corruption

isis
THE GUARDIAN is out with a fascinating story about the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton. The Clinton campaign is employing large numbers of unpaid interns–who generally come to work for the campaign for purposes of resume’-building and view such internships as stepping stones to future career rewards.

The use of unpaid interns, of course, should not be a mark of corruption or callousness. Except that the Hillary campaign (and the government-trusting “left” generally) tend to constantly complain and lecture about income inequality, the plight of the working poor and the evils of (private sector) money in politics. (Trusters of the state don’t tend to see the government’s constant spending on advertising and propaganda, such as the hundreds of millions spent annually on military-worship promotion, as money in politics.)

Many in the government-trusting left (including many political police officers stationed in the F.E.C. and state-level “political practices” offices) consider volunteer work for political campaigns to be “in-kind” monetary contributions and seek to prosecute, charge, fine or otherwise punish political campaigns which use volunteer and unpaid-intern assistance. In Montana and other states, political czars will sometimes (when it suits the government) monetize the hours of volunteer efforts and then assess campaigns with fines and other penalties for failing to report such volunteer efforts to the government.

Jun 07

Government health care and medical regulation has cost thousands if not millions of lives.

suffering

Veronique de Rugy has written an insightful column. Rugy writes

At the federal level, that means, among other things, radically reforming the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA is the perfect example of an agency that works by the “precautionary principle” norm. In the name of protecting people from everything at any cost — even against their will, if need be — it imposes an incredible regulatory burden on health care innovators, which then translates into higher costs and fewer new products available to consumers.

In some cases, the FDA’s intervention in the health care market slows down access to certain drugs, or it makes some drugs and technologies unaffordable to low-income individuals. In other cases, it actually drives innovators out of the market. In extreme cases, it kills people who could have been saved if they had had access to a drug or a technology.

Jun 07

Economist points out the uncomfortably close relationship between high taxes and slavery

john c. goodman

Most people, if candid, would admit that a 100 percent tax rate would be akin to slavery by definition. What about a 90 percent tax rate? How about a 75 percent tax rate? Would that mean that the taxpayer is under a state of 75 percent slavery? The analogy is not perfect. (Slavery, after all was supported by a vast array of laws and government policies, including fugitive slave laws, slave-harboring laws, etc.)

The noted economist John C. Goodman is out with a critique of leftist Paul Krugman’s desired tax policy. Like most trusters of expansive intrusive government, Krugman proposes high taxes on the rich, as much as 75 to 95 percent.

As Goodman writes:

So why doesn’t Krugman want to admit that, by his own criteria, LeBron [James] would be taxed to the hilt? I was perplexed.

Then I realized something that I’m sure every basketball fan already knows. LeBron James is black. What Paul Krugman wants to do to James today uncomfortably resembles what slave owners did to his ancestors more than a century and a half ago.

[W]hen it comes to confiscating the product of someone else’s labor, the parallel is unmistakable.

Jun 05

The Wages of Socialism: Greece Rolls Out Its Slow-Motion Slave Status

shelves_dees

The government of Greece, like many world governments, has been on a slow-motion ride toward solialism for decades: redistributive taxes to take money from nonapproved groups and transfer it to approved gropes by force; welfare and entitlement supports to incentivize sloth and disincentivize hard work; the constant empowerment of organized labor, which slowly decreases the profitibability of businesses and disincentivizes entrepreneurs.

Recently, the national government of Greece confiscated the money of all lower-level governments including cities and towns. Now, as Greece nears (another) default, . . . er, “deferment,” the government’s ministers flirt with having their country taken over by outside entities. The story is here.

Jun 04

The Ultimate Victims of Socialism: Those Who Seek It

sociallism

Fascinating story on Yahoonews today. “Paradise for $20.” The nation of Venezuela was once a thriving, hard-working industrious outpost in South America. Then the country went hard-core socialist, with the elections of Hugo Chavez for more than a decade.

Chavez nationalized industries, drove out evil capitalists, and took command of the Venezuelan economy. Rationing, shortages, censorship, suffering and poverty soon followed.

And today the country is victim to such inflation (having printed so much money to “stimulate” itself in traditional Keynsian fashion) that almost any tourist can travel to Venezuala and live like a king among peasants. There are tales of lobster dinners for under a dollar, lodging at the country’s finest hotels for $5 a night, and guided trips into the rainforest for $25 a day. Hookers can reportedly be had for pennies.

We should wish socialism only on our enemies. Every society that embraces it will inevitably become sick and weak.

Jun 04

NSA Secretly Expands Its Powers Without Authorization–Again!

chippedamericadees

The New York Times is reporting today that the TSA has once again expanded its spying on Americans’ internet and email communications, despite the lapsing of the USA Patriot Act and a total lack of congressional authorization.

The new spying apparently does have the approval of President Obama, who campaigned in 2008 that he would carve back on President Bush’s unconstitutional NSA spying on the American people without warrant.

Jun 04

The Government’s TSA Screening Fails 95 Percent of the Time

grope_dees

by Dr. Roger I. Roots

Back in 2003, I authored a peer-reviewed article entitled “Terrorized Into Absurdity: The Creation of the Transportation Security Administration.” See here. (Scroll down.) I predicted that the TSA (which was brand new at that time) would cost 6 times more than the private-screening efforts that had previously operated at America’s airports, and that the TSA would NOT make air travel appreciably safer.

Now it has come out that the TSA–which now costs MORE THAN TEN TIMES MORE than private-sector alternatives–produces a 95 percent failure rate. See here.