Mar 20

Virtually all Manmade-Global-Warming Science–Almost All of Which Supports Expanding Government–Has Been Funded by Governments

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According to the book “Merchants of Smear” by Russell Cook, the U.S. government alone spent more than $106 billion in taxpayer funds to research and support alarmist climate research between 2003 and 2010, as well as billions more on ineffective renewable energy boondoggles. Much of the taxpayer-supported alleged scientists refuse to let other scientists, IPCC reviewers, or FOIA investigators view their raw data, computer codes, or computer algorithms. The alarmist “scientists” claim the information is private property, even though taxpayers paid for the work and the results.

Cook’s book also exposes the widely-repeated “97 percent consensus” claim as highly imaginative. The claim, according to Cook, is based on a study by a University of Queensland professor claiming 97 percent of published scientific papers agree humans caused at least half of the 1.3º F (0.7º C) global warming since 1950; in reality, only 41 of the 11,944 papers cited explicitly said this.

Mar 20

A Private-Sector website that directed consumers to different health-insurance options already existed before the Obamacare website flop

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Most of us remember two years ago when the government’s Obamacare website was launched. Americans watched in horror as the website crashed, failed to function and was hacked. At a cost to taxpayers of many tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars.

It was a lesson in how government enterprises perform.

Of course, ANY American with an IQ above 85 could have produced a working website to help consumers identify health-insurance options for less than a million dollars. If he couldn’t do it himself, he could have paid a webmaster to build such a site for, say, a hundred thousand dollars. Almost anyone in the business would have jumped at the opportunity. And the original guy would have pocketed $900,000. ANY AMERICAN COULD HAVE DONE IT FOR A MILLION DOLLARS–and most would have made a handsome profit.

Now we read from former congressman Allen West that THERE ACTUALLY WAS a private-sector website that could do what the Obamacare website failed to do. It was called eHealthInsurance.com.

The ehealthinsurance.com site was in the business of helping consumers find health insurance options on their own. The private-sector site had built-in security protections to keep consumers’ confidential information private. And it was free or cheap. Who knew?

Mar 20

Congressional Republicans Introduce Proposed Budget that Increases Spending by at least 4 %; Democrats Cry that Republicans Intend to Slash Spending

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If ever there were one graph showing how broken the U.S. government is, it is the graph above. The graph shows the current proposed Republican (“Grand Old Party”) budget in comparison to the Democrats’ suggested budget for the next decade. (Thanks to Daniel Mitchell of Townhall.com.) Both continue growing government significantly, however some economists hope that the GOP plan may grow government at a rate slower than the growth of U.S. G.D.P.

Mar 19

Government Funding of Higher Education Takes Money from the Poor and Transfers it to the Rich

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Why are taxpayers made to own or pay for government colleges and universities they do not attend? The only plausible explanation is that government-owned colleges somehow meet the needs of people in ways that private colleges do not.

There is scant support for such a proposition.

In fact, governmental support for higher education has actually backfired on its intended beneficiaries (if providing higher education to the poor is the intention).

“Frequently it will actually be the better-off who succeed in having themselves subsidized by the worse-off. Consider, for example, the almost universal practice of offering a ‘free’ university education, whereby the working class, whose children rarely attend universities, pay through taxation for the education of middle-class children!” Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Democracy: The God that Failed (2002, p. 97.))

A 2003 study showed that the most underrepresented group of Americans at the nation’s top universities is low-income Americans. Only 3% of freshmen at the top 146 most selective colleges came from the bottom quarter of U.S. households by income. Only 10% come from the bottom half (Anthony Carnevale of Educational Testing Service 2003//).

Mar 18

Believe it or Not, Welfare Spending Harms the Poor

Roger Roots, J.D., Ph.D.

Roger Roots, J.D., Ph.D.

From Roger I. Roots, “When Laws Backfire: Unintended Consequences of Public Policy,” American Behavioral Scientist, Vol. 47 No. 11, July 2004, page 1382:

The unintended costs of welfare spending have rarely been compiled by academics. But research has shown that a substantial number of welfare recipients simply live in poverty by choice because of the attractiveness of welfare programs. During the mid-1980s, at least 5.7 million people—roughly one sixth of the population in poverty—were living in poverty by choice due to welfare (Goodman 1987). Each additional $1 million in welfare spending increased the poverty population by 250,000 people (Goodman 1987). Controlled experiments by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Serviced found that compared with similarly situated families not on welfare, families drawing welfare payments changed their behavior substantially.

The number of hours worked by husbands dropped 9 percent; by wives, 20 percent; by young male adults, an incredible 43 percent. The length of unemployment among husbands increased 27 percent; among wives it increased 42 percent, and for single female household heads it increased 60 percent. Divorce increased 36 percent among whites and 42 percent among blacks. (Goodman, 1987, p. 37).

Mar 18

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF PUBLIC POLICY

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In the words of the immortal Harry Browne, “Each government program carries within it the seeds of future programs that will be ‘needed’ to clean up the mess the first program creates.” (Why Government Doesn’t Work, 1995, p 17). Herbert Spencer remarked in 1850 that there was scarcely a bill introduced in the British Parliament that was not titled “An Act to Amend an Act,” the “Whereas’s” of which always heralded “on account of the miscarriage of previous legislation.” (Social Statics, 1850, p. 12).

“To mitigate distress [of the poor],” wrote Spencer, “the English people have sanctioned upward of one hundred acts in Parliament . . . each of them arising out of the failure or incompleteness of previous legislation. . . . What is the statute book but a record of such unhappy guesses?” (1850: . 11).

Mar 18

Another town eliminates police force, finds that crime drops

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The town of New Carlisle, Ohio–just outside Dayton–has eliminated its police force and cut its funding for county sheriffs deputies substantially. Just as with other towns who have done the same, crime has dropped.

Mar 17

Milton Friedman on Social Security:

Milton Friedman

The U.S. Social Security program taxes most heavily on persons with low incomes, does not provide a fair return, and causes a massive transfer from the less well off to the better off. According to Milton and Rose Friedman, “the poor tend to pay [Social Security] taxes for more years and receive benefits for fewer years than the rich—all in the name of helping the poor!” (Free to Choose (1979 p. 97)). If the same program were implemented by a business in the private sector, it would be considered a criminal offense.

Mar 17

BRITISH MINIMUM WAGE ACT OF 1773 DROVE THE BRITISH TEXTILE INDUSTRY OVERSEAS AND DROVE COUNTLESS BRITS INTO POVERTY

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Herbert Spencer, one of the founders of sociology, pointed out in 1850 that the British Minimum Wage Act of 1773—passed due to pressure from English weavers who believed the law would help lift textile workers out of poverty—decimated the British textile industry only 20 years later. By 1793, “some four thousand looms would be brought to a stand in consequence of the trade going elsewhere.” Few if any of the unemployed weavers recognized that the minimum-wage legislation they so enthusiastically advocated just 20 years earlier was the cause of their impoverishment.

Herbert Spencer, Social Statics (1850), page 11.

Mar 17

Government Supported MSNBC Network Continues to Lose Viewers

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It was recently reported that MSNBC’s government-cheerleading show “The Rachel Maddow Show” is now down to fewer than 100,000 worldwide viewers in the coveted 25-54 age range.

This news comes on the heels of disclosures by former NBC Senior Reporter Lisa Myers that NBC “news” producers worked hard to scuttle and suppress news stories showing that Obamacare was predicted to cause numerous Americans to lose their insurance.

It was revealed in 2010 that MSNBC {and the other “NBC”s} were secret recipients of government TARP bailout money in 2008, through their parent corporation, General Electric.