PAJudgmentDay.com

Paying your taxes ≠ giving to "charity"

2012-02-16T15:34:00.000-08:00

The two biggest complaints I hear about conducting charity on a voluntary basis as opposed to via the tax code (a.k.a. at the end of the barrel of a gun) is that 1) it is an unreliable source of funding and 2) that if government doesn't do it, nobody will do it.

The federal government collects roughly $1 trillion annually in revenue from the income tax. Unfortunately it also spends about $1 Trillion annually on occupying and bombing other countries and in general failing miserably at policing the globe. Private charitable donations by Americans, on the other hand, total roughly $300 Billion annually and go largely to peaceful things like helping the poor. They also volunteer about 8 million hours of their time which can be valued at roughly $158 Billion. That's even in the midst of a "Great Recession" like 2010.

So this begs the question...where do you want your money to go?

Sunlight is the best disinfectant

2011-11-14T14:08:00.000-08:00

"60 Minutes" recently did a report on soft corruption in Congress suggesting quasi-insider trading by congressional members. They looked at the investing habits of several lawmakers around the time that various pieces of related legislation were being debated. As CNN Politics reported, while a piece of legislation opposed by credit card companies was making its way through Congress "Pelosi and her husband participated in an initial public offering of Visa in 2008, according to CBS. They bought 5,000 shares at the initial price of $44; two days later, shares were trading at $64, CBS said." Her spokesman, predictably, denied the allegations.

In other news, the Daily Caller pointed out "Wealthy celebrities including Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi, Quincy Jones and Ted Turner have received federal subsidies, according to 'Subsidies of the Rich and Famous,' a new report from the office of Oklahoma Republican Senator Tom Coburn.

The wealthy and the elite play by a different set of rules than the rest of us. They often engage in risky and/or odd financial behavior knowing that the government will socialize the risk/activity via the middle class and they rely on our ignorance and apathy to make it happen.

As former Justice Brandeis stated, "Sunlight is the best disinfectant." Thank goodness for the Internet!

Quid Pro Quo: Crony Corporatism 101

2011-09-08T18:53:00.000-07:00

FBI agents raided a California solar panel manufacturer Thursday in an attempt to uncover why Solyndra, a company that had been given over $500 Million in stimulus funds, had suddenly and unexpectedly gone bankrupt. Coincidentally, Solyndra executives and board members donated $87,050 to Obama’s 2008 election campaign. Solyndra was a centerpiece of Obama's green jobs agenda; just a little over one year ago President Obama visited Solyndra's California solar panel plant. He boasted that this plant that would produce enough solar panels annually to generate 500 megawatts of electricity. Instead, they've simply flushed $500 Million of our money down the toilet.

These shenanigans are not unique to Obama and the democratic party; unfortunately, they are a hallmark of our brand of democracy. Solyndra's story is merely the latest in a long line of cautionary tales warning of the dangers of big government.

What is regulation anyway?

2011-08-15T11:32:00.000-07:00

There exists a pervasive mentality on the American left that our economic maladies would magically disappear if only the "rich" paid their "fair share" and if "business" was sufficiently "regulated." I want to focus on the latter half of that equation for a moment. We hear it all of the time in the liberal media that deregulation destroyed the economy. But what is regulation, and why would more of it fix the problem when it has failed so miserably at doing so in the past?

To answer, I'd like to revisit something that I posted nearly two years ago in the lead up to the passage of Obamacare. This time around, I'd like to present it using the analogy of your cell phone bill.

I have cell phone service through a major provider. They offer 450 anytime minutes for $39.99/month. If that doesn't meet your needs, you can opt for other domestic calling plans that include 900 anytime minutes for $59.99/month or unlimited calling for $69.99/month. Want to add texting? You can get 1000 messages for $10/month, 1500 messages for $15.00/month, or unlimited messages for $20/month. If you've got a smartphone and want internet/data then they have a solution for you too; 200 MB for $15/month or 2 GB for $25. You have choices and can customize a plan that fits you and your lifestyle. If you don't like any of those options and are willing to sacrifice your coverage area, you can choose another provider that offers unlimited talk, text, and data for $69.99/month or you can go with a prepaid cell phone, for example.

Suspending disbelief momentarily, let's assume that the government were to consider cell phones a right as many on the left posit to be true of health care. You can't possibly get by on only 450 minutes/month; you need at least 900 minutes/month to adequately function in society. Texting? It's a given that you need texting; at least 1500 messages/month. And internet? How are you going to have a cell phone and not have the internet?! You need minimum 200 MB/month and that is really cutting it close. So we're going to mandate that all cell phone providers make available plans to consumers including the above minimum coverage.

"But what if I don't need texting?" Too bad. "No really, I don't want a contract I just want to prepay for minutes and buy more when I run out." Nope, not happening. "I have a home computer, really I don't have the money for internet on my phone I can just use free Wi-Fi or wait until I get home." Sorry about your luck...now pay up!

This may sound absurd but this is exactly what the government does every day with a wide-ranging host of regulations; over 80,000 pages of new federal regulations were added in 2010 alone. With the above cell phone example, people that don't text or use the internet on their phone could once opt for a plan that costs them $39.99/month, end of story. With our new regulations, their minimum coverage option would be $89.99/month, a full $50 more monthly, and include many features that they would never use. It also blocks smaller providers that lack the infrastructure to support data transfers from providing lower cost options such as plans that provide minutes only or that allow customers to "pay as you go."

Regulation, no matter how well-intentioned, limits consumer choice and inevitably raises costs; goods and services such as health care and prescription drugs are not immune to economic reality.

On taxation and income vs. wealth

2011-02-12T17:22:00.001-08:00

If you favor a progressive income tax because you want to see the wealthy "pay their fair share," consider the following analogy: Wealth is the amount of water in a bathtub and income is the amount of water flowing into it. The wealthy have a full bathtub and the resources to make it look like there is less water going in than there really is. "Progressively" turning down everyone's faucet discourages achievement and only makes it harder for others to become wealthy, leaving them to bathe in an inch of water.

More evidence that we are living through Bush's third term

2010-11-09T19:23:00.000-08:00

Remember this?

So that sixteen-month time frame has come and gone and now the AP reports today that the US is open to keeping troops in Iraq past the end of 2011 withdrawal deadline.

In other news, the Hill is reporting that a watchdog group is asking for a probe of Google's "unusually close" ties to Obama:

The National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), a group that advocates for a smaller and more ethical government, wrote to leaders of the House Oversight Committee this month urging them to investigate a major privacy breach by Google. It wants to know if the company's ties to the administration helped it dodge penalties after the incident.

The article continues:

"Like Halliburton in the previous administration, Google has an exceptionally close relationship with the current administration," the letter says.

Is it 2012 yet?

President George W. Bush Admits to Authorizing Waterboarding

2010-11-04T18:10:00.000-07:00

President George W. Bush, in his memoirs "Decision Points," reveals that he was asked for and granted permission to the CIA to waterboard Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. As you may or may not recall, KSM was reportedly waterboarded 183 times in March 2003.

President Obama announced in 2008 that he would not pursue charges against former President Bush or other government officials for war crimes related to waterboarding, even though waterboarding is generally accepted to be a form of torture. The Geneva Convention of 1949, ratified by the US, expressly prohibits torture. At the Tokyo Trials following WW II, Japanese soldiers were tried, convicted, and hanged for crimes committed against American POWs which included waterboarding.

President Bush gets blamed for a lot of things; some rightfully so, some not. With his stunning admission of authorizing waterboarding, this is one particular case where it is painfully obvious that Bush is deserving of whatever criticism he has coming. While I don't think that the former President should be hanged for his crimes and would likely be pardoned if convicted, the Justice Department would be remiss to fail to prosecute him.

Judgment Day is coming

2010-10-13T16:09:00.000-07:00

Many heralded the elections of November 2008 as historic. Obama's messianic campaign fancied him the anti-war candidate, champion of LGBT rights, the transformative leader who would usher in a new era of post-racial harmony, an era of the highest level of ethics and government transparency, etc., and the Democrats rode this wave of "hope" and "change" to overwhelming majorities in both houses of congress.

Sadly, both the President and his Democratic colleagues haven't made good on their promises. They bailed out the bankers and Wall Street but neglected Main Street; unemployment remains stuck at 9.6%. The President ramped up the war in Afghanistan and now his Justice Department is appealing the ruling backing gay marriage and is expected to appeal the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Charlie Rangel and Maxine Waters are mired in ethics scandals, and news broke today of Barney Frank's trip via private jet to the US Virgin Islands courtesy of a hedge fund manager who just so happened to have received $200 million in 2009 as part of the $180 billion federal bailout of troubled insurance giant AIG.

In November 2010 we the people face another choice; that is what elections are after all, a choice. Instead of running on their record, Democrats, with the help of President Obama, are creating a new bogeyman: the US Chamber of Commerce. The President and his surrogates are alleging that powerful foreign interests, in an attempt to influence US elections, are funding attack ads against Democrats via donations to the Chamber of Commerce. Never mind that there is no actual proof that any of this is even happening.

The premise is that since the US Chamber of Commerce receives donations from foreign interests it must necessarily be using this money to fund attack ads. As the New York Times reported, "Organizations from both ends of the political spectrum, from liberal ones like the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and the Sierra Club to conservative groups like the National Rifle Association, have international affiliations and get money from foreign entities while at the same time pushing political causes in the United States." If this is such a big deal, then why is the President singling out the US Chamber of Commerce? SEIU and AFSCME are expected to spend $100 Million on the 2010 election, with the AFL-CIO slated to spend an additional $40 Million. Needless to say this is clearly a political stunt intended to rally the Democratic base and little else.

By any reasonable metric it's hard to deny that the stimulus was a failure. People like Paul Krugman now argue that the problem is that we didn't spend enough, and President Obama, in spite of all of his talk about "shovel-ready jobs" has now back-peddled in saying that there probably is no such thing. As if pushing a $50 Billion "jobs bill" for infrastructure projects after passing the $787 Billion Recovery Act directed at that same goal didn't tip off the American public.

So what will happen in November 2010? Expect voter outrage at the current state of the economy to translate into anti-incumbent sentiment resulting in a lot of turnover in both houses of congress. Given the Democrats' overwhelming majorities, expect them to bear the brunt of this anger. Republicans are by no means safe, though. People haven't forgotten what happened the last time that they were in charge.

Communism vs. Freedom

2010-09-09T17:50:00.000-07:00

Fidel Castro recently opined to a visiting American journalist that Cuba's communist economic model doesn't work. I know what you're thinking: What a shock! Even a casual observer of the 20th century and the fall of the Soviet Union should be able to surmise that given enough time communism and all of its variants will inevitably always and everywhere fail.

The main problem with wealth redistribution, other than it being a fancy term for government-sanctioned theft and thus morally reprehensible, is that it encourages mediocrity. The US, with its progressive tax rates and myriad welfare programs, is a good case study. In America you are punished for excellence; the more you earn, the more the government takes from you. What's the incentive for you to work hard and to take risks if the government is just going to take away the fruits of your labor?

On the opposite end of the spectrum, most of the country's welfare programs are means tested, meaning that if you make above a certain threshold you are ineligible to receive a government subsidy. On one hand there is some logic in means testing as you need some way to quantify who is most deserving of a subsidy. On the other hand, it incentivizes underachieving as people are careful not to earn too much money for fear of losing their government handout. This keeps people just comfortable enough to get by but too poor to ever really advance their station in life.

President Obama and many on the left would like to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire. The wealthy aren't "paying their fair share," whatever that means. The harsh reality is that the wealthy create jobs. There's an old saying that "no poor person ever gave me a job," and this certainly rings true in my own personal experiences. However, let's examine for a second what happens when we allow people, regardless of income level, to keep more of their own money.

Nobody socks away money under a mattress anymore, so really there are only a few plausible scenarios these days as to what a person will do with their money. 1) The person spends their money on goods and services that they want, thus providing clear signs to the market regarding which goods and services should be produced. 2) The person invests their money in some interest-bearing venture that suits their affinity for risk. This similarly sends clear signals to the market as to which ventures should be pursued. 3) The person saves their money. All three of these scenarios cause the economy to grow. Even simply "doing nothing" with money and placing it in a bank account spurs economic growth as it allows banks to loan out the money to market participants.

We will never eliminate inequality in the world; the best that we can is to try to mitigate injustice. Many are in favor of progressive tax rates because they feel that flat tax rates disproportionately affect the poor. My response to that is that if you don't like where you are financially then go out, work hard, and make more money. There are very few things that government is actually good at doing, and charity isn't one of them; there is every incentive for the government to be wasteful as they are spending "someone else's money."

When it comes to money and how people spend it, there's a fourth option that I didn't include above and that is that people have the option to donate to charity. Americans collectively are by far the most charitable people in the world. It's time for government to simply get out of the way. After all, rewarding mediocrity is not what made the US the greatest country in the history of the world.

When is your private property not really your private property?

2010-09-03T12:10:00.000-07:00

When the government says so, of course!

Montgomery, AL residents are being told to demolish their homes per a local blight ordinance. If they refuse to do so the local government is coming in with bulldozers and then sending the homeowners the bill. If the homeowners are unable to pay the bill, the government is seizing their land and selling it at auction.

abcnews did an article on this phenomenon:

Many of the homes and apartment buildings already torn down are located just blocks away from the sites of some of Montgomery's proudest moments in the civil rights movement, including the bus stop where Rosa Parks was arrested and the final stop in the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery.

"This is what freed all of us, so it should take care of the people who stayed here in Montgomery," Jones said of the city. "This district should be a historic district, actually. It should be trying to be preserved and revitalized."

Goodbye, 4th Amendment. It was nice knowing you.

2010-08-24T18:15:00.000-07:00

Backscatter x-ray scanners, like the the controversial full-body scanners that are being rolled out by the TSA in airports around the U.S., now come in a new and exciting flavor...street-roving van! You read that right, American Science & Engineering, a company based in Billerica, Massachusetts, is producing these monstrosities. According to AS&E's head of marketing, these vans have been deployed by law enforcement agencies here in the U.S. So much for the 4th Amendment. Watch this video...truly frightening stuff:

I've heard people argue that the TSA scanners are OK because if you don't like it then you don't have to fly. So what's the rationale for these being acceptable? If you don't like it, you don't have to leave your lead-lined bomb shelter?

Classic bump and lift?

2010-08-19T15:36:00.001-07:00

Do a quick scan of the news and take a guess at what today's top headline is. Is it "Weekly Jobless Claims Post Surprise Jump, Hit 500,000?" Nope. Is it "More tough economic times forecast by CBO?" Nope, that's not it either. In my own personal experience, the two most talked about stories today are "TIME Poll: Majority Oppose Mosque, Many Distrust Muslims" and "White House says Obama is Christian, prays daily."

What?!

Don't be a mark. Unemployment is officially at 9.5% (although the real number is probably floating around 20%). The economy is still in tatters. There has been no "summer of recovery." With millions of Americans wondering how they're going to feed their families and pay their mortgages, we cannot afford to be distracted.

This is one of the oldest tricks in the book; let's show Washington that we're not going to fall for it anymore.

The Fed makes it rain!

2010-08-11T18:20:00.001-07:00

Pretend for a moment that you're the Federal Reserve; since December 2008 you've maintained your key interest rate at right around zero percent and you've committed at least $6.4 Trillion in bailouts, but the economy is still stalled out. To boot, you've already doubled the money supply. So what do you do? Inflate some more, of course!

According to the AP, the Federal Reserve will begin purchasing $10 Billion of government debt monthly. The article describes this as "a small amount;" however, as Murray Rothbard showed rather elegantly $10 Billion can quickly turn into $100 Billion due to our fractional reserve banking system.

So every month the Federal Reserve is going to pump $100 Billion created out of thin air directly into the banking system. Sooner or later all of this money is going to make its way out into the general economy, and when it does, God help us all. Weimar Republic, anyone?

End the Fed already!

Another bailout on the horizon?

2010-08-09T14:09:00.001-07:00

Reuters is reporting on a rumored August mortgage bailout in which GSEs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would engage in mortgage debt forgiveness for homeowners that presently have mortgages that exceed the actual value of their homes (aka "underwater"). This could all take place without any Congressional input or oversight.

This will be framed to the American public as a bailout of Main Street, but make no mistake this is just another Wall Street bailout. Banks around the globe are heavily invested in securities that are based on these toxic assets. When the federally-backed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac rewrite the terms of mortgages for homeowners that are underwater, the debt owed doesn't just vanish; it is paid for by US taxpayers. This will make the banks happy because they will now have investments based on assets that are appropriately priced (aka no longer worthless). To add insult to injury, it will only further encourage bad behavior as those who made poor decisions will be rewarded at the expense of those that made good choices and lived within their means. This is known as moral hazard.

More "change" we can believe in!

Is this your idea of transparency?

2010-07-28T19:30:00.000-07:00

If you thought that the financial reform legislation that passed last week was bad, it turns out that it's probably even worse than you had imagined. A freedom of information act inquiry that was recently submitted by FOX Business to the SEC was summarily rejected. Why? Apparently under the new financial reform legislation the SEC is no longer required to comply with such requests.

The law, signed last week by President Obama, exempts the SEC from disclosing records or information derived from "surveillance, risk assessments, or other regulatory and oversight activities." Given that the SEC is a regulatory body, the provision covers almost every action by the agency, lawyers say. Congress and federal agencies can request information, but the public cannot.

Not only does this legislation ignore many of the root causes that lead to the financial meltdown of 2008, it prohibits the public and the media from obtaining information from the regulatory body that oversees financial markets in the US. So much for that pledge of increased transparency and accountability under the Obama administration.

Return of the draft to the USA?

2010-07-27T19:48:00.000-07:00

Remember this video from the campaign trail?

Unless America speaks up, it looks like President Obama may be getting his wish. Two weeks ago H.R.5741, the "Universal National Service Act," was introduced in the House by embattled Congressman Charlie Rangel. The act aims "[t]o require all persons in the United States between the ages of 18 and 42 to perform national service, either as a member of the uniformed services or in civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, to authorize the induction of persons in the uniformed services during wartime to meet end-strength requirements of the uniformed services, and for other purposes."

This is not hyperbole: You will essentially be enslaved for a two-year period. If we do not even have the right to our own person then what rights do we have? I strongly urge you to write your Congressman in opposition to this bill.

Financial Reform: More of the same?

2010-07-22T16:39:00.000-07:00

Indeed, the current outstanding balance of overall Federal support for the nation's financial system...has actually increased more than 23% over the past year, from approximately $3.0 trillion to $3.7 trillion -- the equivalent of a fully deployed TARP program -- largely without congressional action, even as the banking crisis has, by most measures, abated from its most acute phases.

These are the words of Neil Barofsky, the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program. He asserts that this was due largely to the government's pledges to supply capital to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and to guarantee more mortgages to the support the housing market. He went on to say that the TARP program has not "put an appreciable dent in foreclosure filings," i.e. the bailouts are not working.

So you'd expect that Fannie and Freddie, two government sponsored enterprises that were at the heart of the financial collapse, would be a main focus of the "monumental" financial reform legislation that was signed into law Wednesday by President Obama, right? Wrong. According to a report by the AP "[t]he bill doesn't include a fix for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac."

So basically we have a 2,000-page law that is supposed to prevent another collapse like the one we experienced in 2008 and it doesn't even address two of the biggest players that helped to cause the collapse? Brilliant!

North America - The New Battleground for Terror?

2010-07-18T05:44:00.000-07:00

According to the AP, drug cartel battles have resulted in the deaths of about 25,000 people since late 2006 in Mexico. Friday night came the news that the Mexican drug traffickers have now added Hezbollah-style car bombings to their repertoire. This on the heels of a NY Daily News editorial reporting that the Mexican government has recently uncovered a Hezbollah network being built in Tijuana.

All of this is a direct consequence of the war on drugs and our adventurous foreign policy. Americans have some very important decisions to make this November regarding the proper role of government, both home and abroad.

What are we doing in Afghanistan?

2010-07-12T15:25:00.001-07:00

Much ado has been made of Michael Steele's recent comment that Afghanistan is "a war of Obama's choosing." Given Obama's 2008 campaign rhetoric, it's hard to argue against this point. However, a larger point needs to be made: What exactly are we doing in Afghanistan?

According to CIA director Leon Panetta, there are maybe 100 al-Qaida militants currently operating in Afghanistan. Do we really need 100,000 US troops to hunt down 100 al-Qaida militants? Seems a bit like overkill, no?

In his 1961 farewell address President Eisenhower warned us to beware the military industrial complex. As we approach the tenth anniversary of our involvement in Afghanistan and the 50th anniversary of this speech, perhaps we would be wise to heed Eisenhower's warning.

Obama Internet kill switch plan approved by US Senate

2010-06-27T06:03:00.000-07:00

Techworld reports:

A US Senate committee has approved a wide-ranging cybersecurity bill that some critics have suggested would give the US president the authority to shut down parts of the Internet during a cyberattack.

Senator Joe Lieberman and other bill sponsors have refuted the charges that the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act gives the president an Internet "kill switch." Instead, the bill puts limits on the powers the president already has to cause "the closing of any facility or stations for wire communication" in a time of war, as described in the Communications Act of 1934, they said in a breakdown of the bill published on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee website.

There are quite a few problems with Senator Lieberman's rationalization. "War" has become a pretty nebulous term these days. Prior to the Korean War, Congress took it's constitutionally enumerated power as the body of government authorized to declare war quite seriously. Since that time the mere notion of a formal declaration of war has become passé. We've essentially been in a perpetual state of war since 9/14/2001 when Congress gave President Bush carte blanche to go into Afghanistan to pursue the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks.

What happens if someday the US finds itself in the same situation that Iran found itself in the summer of 2009? Twitter was integral in allowing the people of Iran to organize and mobilize during the chaos subsequent to their highly contested presidential election. The Iranian government had essentially shut down the media and the Internet; were it not for Twitter the world would have had nary a detail about the brutality of the state in the uprising that followed the election.

We cannot afford to give our government such power. Have we learned nothing from our post-9/11 experience including the passage of the Patriot Act? Many of the provisions of the Patriot Act were supposed to sunset 12/31/2005. Over five years later President Obama reauthorized key portions of the act including roving wiretaps, records access and tracking terror suspects not affiliated with any group.

The Internet is the last bastion of freedom in America; we cannot simply allow it to go quietly into the night.

How would the free market have handled the BP oil spill?

2010-06-05T09:29:00.000-07:00

The latest headline from the AP reads "Oil pours from cap over Gulf gusher, some captured" as BP's latest attempt to abate this Gulf disaster appears only marginally successful at best. The article notes "[s]ix weeks after the April 20 oil rig explosion that killed 11 workers, the well has leaked somewhere between 22 million and 47 million gallons of oil, according to government estimates."

On June 2 Louisiana finally got the OK from the White House to build sand bars to cut off the spread of the oil spill throughout the Gulf, this after languishing in limbo for weeks while the Army Corps of Engineers conducted a study to assess the environmental impact of building sand bars. They initially made the request on May 11; by June 2 the oil slick was within seven miles of the Florida Panhandle.

As I've written previously, the government is considering quadupling the oil tax to help to pay for the cleanup effort. That's because BP's liability for damages is capped at $75 million. This cap was a gift to the oil companies in exchange for an 8 cents per barrel tax on oil after the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989.

We have a regulatory body, the federal Minerals Management Service, that inspects rigs like the Deepwater Horizon for safety. According to an AP report, the MMS issued an award to the Deepwater Horizon for its safety history just last year. This should be of comfort to those in the Gulf given that according to CNN "[o]il company BP had three indications of trouble aboard the doomed drill rig Deepwater Horizon in the hour before the April 20 explosion that sank the offshore platform" which were ignored.

President Obama has responded by issuing a moratorium on deepwater drilling. According to the NY Times, "[t]he Obama administration plans to halt new deepwater drilling for six months, suspend exploratory drilling that had been scheduled off Alaska this summer and cancel a lease sale off Virginia." Aside from the disastrous effect that this could have on Louisiana's economy, this knee-jerk reaction is eerily reminiscent of the almost 30-year moratorium on new nuclear plants in the US following the near-meltdown at TMI in the 70's. In the meantime, nuclear power in countries like France has grown to generate almost 80% of their power needs while our dependence on oil has only increased.

So how would the free market respond?

BP should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for the damage that they have caused to the environment and Gulf businesses that have been injured due to BP's actions should be free to seek full restitution in civil court. BP should be liable for 100% of the damages resultant to this disaster. If they go out of business in the process, so be it. Louisiana should be free to take whatever measures it deems necessary to protect its land and its citizens without interference from the federal government. Furthermore, the cleanup efforts should not be subsidized by the taxpayers. If additional money is needed, then charity should be the answer. Americans are and have always been extremely generous in times of need:

There was a time in this country when it was recognized to be improper for the federal government to provide humanitarian relief even within the United States. President Grover Cleveland vetoed a bill in 1887 that would have provided seed for farmers in drought-stricken Texas. In his veto message, he wrote that aid from Washington only "encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character." The Texas farmers ended up getting ten times as much in private assistance as they would have received from Uncle Sam.

Regulation hampers entrepreneurship and results in both the destruction of wealth and a poorer standard of living for everyone. Regulation did not stop this disaster from happening and further regulation will not prevent future accidents from occurring. Regulation merely results in granting virtual monopoly rights to a select few that are politically favored. Additionally, regulation creates a moral hazard as companies like BP have no incentive to take the proper safety precautions. Why would they when they fully expect the government to step in and pay for their mess should anything happen?

A sea of government did not stop this; no amount of regulation can stop accidents from happening. So what's the answer? The answer is freedom.

Capitalism is a system based on risk and reward. A perversion of this system where the government subsidizes risk but allows market participants to keep the rewards can only result in catastrophe. We don't need more regulation; what we need is accountability.

Who should pay for the BP oil spill?

2010-05-25T04:19:00.000-07:00

Sounds like a simple question, right? Not so fast. According to the AP:

Responding to the massive BP oil spill, Congress is getting ready to quadruple—to 32 cents a barrel—a tax on oil used to help finance cleanups. The increase would raise nearly $11 billion over the next decade.

Let's take a quick trip down memory lane and revisit a moment in Pennsylvania history as reported in 2007 by the Tribune-Democrat:

On March 17, 1936, floodwaters fueled by heavy rains and melting snow surged through Johnstown.

The deluge took two dozen lives, destroyed 77 buildings and caused more than $40 million in damages.

And, in a sense, every modern-day consumer who buys liquor or wine in Pennsylvania still is footing the bill for that St. Patrick’s Day disaster 71 years ago.

The so-called “Johnstown Flood Tax,” an 18-percent surcharge on every bottle bought at a state liquor store, first was introduced a “temporary” tax to help Johnstown’s cleanup efforts in 1936.

And the levy, which is separate from the state’s 6-percent sales tax, lives on despite multiple attempts to kill it – and in spite of the fact that the tax’s proceeds have not flowed into Johnstown anytime in recent memory.

The article continues:

The tax originally was set at 10 percent. But instead of repealing the levy when Johnstown’s cleanup was complete, state lawmakers actually raised it twice in the 1960s to the current level of 18 percent.

As Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board’s retail sales have reached record-high levels, so have flood-tax revenues. Proceeds from the levy topped $200 million in fiscal year 2004-05 and rose to $239.4 million in fiscal 2006-07.

And it is not clear where that cash eventually ends up, since it simply is sent directly to the state treasury.

As of the date of the Tribune-Democrat article, 12/15/2007, $5.4 Billion had been collected via a tax that was instituted to pay for $40 Million in flood damage.

This oil spill is BP's fault; American taxpayers should not have to pay a single dime to fix BP's mistake. If anything, the Johnstown Flood Tax should remind us of an old Milton Friedman adage: "Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program."

Where have the Democrat champions of civil liberties gone?

2010-05-21T09:50:00.000-07:00

cnet reports:

Millions of Americans arrested for but not convicted of crimes will likely have their DNA forcibly extracted and added to a national database, according to a bill approved by the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday.

By a 357 to 32 vote, the House approved legislation that will pay state governments to require DNA samples, which could mean drawing blood with a needle, from adults "arrested for" certain serious crimes. Not one Democrat voted against the database measure, which would hand out about $75 million to states that agree to make such testing mandatory.

The fourth amendment is pretty clear:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

It shouldn't be too much of a stretch to think that wanting to take someone's blood qualifies as an unreasonable search and seizure. So what does the constitution require law enforcement to do? Go to a judge, show probable cause, and get them to sign a warrant. Apparently making law enforcement's job a little easier trumps our fourth amendment rights.

The article continues:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic leadership scheduled Tuesday's debate on the bill--called the Katie Sepich Enhanced DNA Collection Act of 2010--using a procedure known as the "suspension calendar" intended to be reserved for non-controversial legislation.

"Suspension of the rules is supposed to be for praising the winner of the NCAA championship or renaming Post Offices," Harper says. "Things like collecting Americans' DNA are supposed to be fully debated in Congress."

It's sad to see a Democratic party that has historically been a defender of civil liberties completely sell out the people of the United States of America.

What's the real story on the price of gold?

2010-05-19T19:15:00.000-07:00

The headline on CBSNEWS reads "Rep. Anthony Weiner Hits Glenn Beck, Goldline for "Unholy Alliance" to Sell Gold."

Weiner accused Beck and other conservative spokespeople (among them Mark Levin and Fred Thompson) of using "their shows to prey on the public's fears of inflation and socialist takeovers while actively promoting the purchase of gold coins as insurance against this purported government overreach."

So what's the real story here? Let's look at the numbers.

Here's a chart of the US Money Supply (to remind you, the Federal Reserve is charged with managing monetary policy):

Here's a chart of the price of gold in US$ per ounce from 2000 - 2010:

Notice that the two upward trends from 2006 on are eerily similar? Should we really be surprised that a doubling of the money supply would result in the doubling of the price of gold?

The Federal Reserve is literally stealing our money via inflation. An amendment to the Dodd financial reform bill that would have allowed for a full audit of the Federal Reserve failed 37-62. Maybe we should be less concerned with Goldline and more concerned with why our elected officials are allowing an unelected quasi-private entity with zero congressional oversight of their daily operations to continue to victimize the American people.

The War on Drugs

2010-05-13T16:34:00.000-07:00

According to the AP:

After 40 years, the United States' war on drugs has cost $1 trillion and hundreds of thousands of lives, and for what? Drug use is rampant and violence even more brutal and widespread.

The statistics are staggering: 22,700 dead at our southern border in the last three years, all due to the drug war.

So here's your "war on drugs" in action. In raiding the home of a suspected marijuana drug dealer, Missouri SWAT shot two family dogs (killing one) and likely traumatized a seven year-old boy. What did they find? A little marijuana residue inside a pipe.

Clearly the war on drugs is a colossal failure. We could have gotten much better results by simply decriminalized drug possession for personal use and focusing instead on education and prevention. We learned a tough lesson in the 1920's: Prohibition does not work. How did we end Al Capone et al.'s reign of terror? The US repealed the 18th amendment. Maybe we should take a cue from our prior successes. Seems unlikely though:

"President Obama's newly released drug war budget is essentially the same as Bush's, with roughly twice as much money going to the criminal justice system as to treatment and prevention," said Bill Piper, director of national affairs for the nonprofit Drug Policy Alliance. "This despite Obama's statements on the campaign trail that drug use should be treated as a health issue, not a criminal justice issue."

Obama is requesting a record $15.5 billion for the drug war for 2011, about two thirds of it for law enforcement at the front lines of the battle: police, military and border patrol agents struggling to seize drugs and arrest traffickers and users.

About $5.6 billion would be spent on prevention and treatment.

When will we learn our lesson?

Didn't we learn our lesson from the PATRIOT Act?

2010-05-06T04:25:00.000-07:00

Joe Lieberman is drafting legislation to strip the citizenship of American terror suspects in order to circumvent the constitution:

“I’m now putting together legislation to amend that to [specify that] any individual American citizen who is found to be involved in a foreign terrorist organization, as defined by the Department of State, would be deprived of their citizenship rights,” Lieberman said Tuesday.

So essentially an unelected body of bureaucrats decides that you are an enemy of the state and presto, you have no civil rights and you are shipped off to Gitmo. The problem with this is that the "enemy" is largely determined by who is in power. In light of last year's Department of Homeland Security report warning against the rise of right-wing extremism, advocates of limited government and fidelity to the constitution should be on guard.

The real face of US domestic terror?

2010-04-26T18:10:00.000-07:00

A family in the woods of Michigan conspiring to kill law enforcement officials is newsworthy, but apparently two of America's oldest and most notorious street gangs conspiring together to do the same in America's most populous city is not.

According to an article that ran in the New York Post about a week and a half ago "Bloods and Crips in a rough corner of Queens put their beef on ice to form a murderous, drug-pushing union that was caught on wiretaps plotting to use a sniper rifle to pick off beat cops from rooftops."

I suppose this isn't newsworthy because it doesn't fit neatly into the narrative that has been constructed by the media in lockstep with the current administration. Eugene Robinson stated in a Washington Post op-ed that "[f]or decades now, the most serious threat of domestic terrorism has come from the growing ranks of paranoid, anti-government hate groups that draw their inspiration, vocabulary and anger from the far right," in spite of the fact that street gangs, like the Bloods and the Crips, have been terrorizing American neighborhoods for over four decades.

An Internet search for major news outlets covering this story resulted in zero hits.

Indeed, a revolution is brewing in America. Contrary to what the left will have you believe, it is a peaceful revolution. It would appear that the current administration has taken regulatory czar Cass Sunstein's advice to "cognitively infiltrate" the opposition. In the words of Gandhi, "[f]irst they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win."

Not one single dime, Mr. President?

2010-04-22T12:16:00.000-07:00

Today the AP ran an article on a CBO report showing that millions of Americans, the vast majority of them middle class, will be paying fines in excess of $1,000 for not getting health insurance once the health care overhaul kicks in. This is in sharp contrast to President Obama's statement that "if your family earns less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes increased a single dime. I repeat: not one single dime."

Under the new law, the penalties will be phased in starting in 2014. By 2016, those who must get insurance but don't will be fined $695 or 2.5 percent of their household income, whichever is greater.

The article continues:

About 3 million of those required to pay fines in 2016 will have incomes below $59,000 for individuals and $120,000 for families of four, according to the CBO projections.

H.R. 4995, sponsored by Congressman Ron Paul of Texas, would repeal the individual mandate and get rid of these onerous fines. Contact your congressman today and urge them to become a cosponsor.

US Department of Justice wants warrantless email searches

2010-04-15T13:28:00.001-07:00

What happens when the law hasn't quite caught up to technology? Chicanery ensues. According to a report by cnet, the US DOJ is attempting to gain access to email messages of Yahoo! Mail users without first obtaining a search warrant.

According Kevin Bankston, attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation:

"The government is trying to evade federal privacy law and the Constitution." Yahoo's brief is also worth noting. Like the coalition's filing, it argues that "users have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their e-mails" and says the Fourth Amendment requires police to obtain a warrant to peruse stored messages. And it confirms that prosecutors want "all e-mail" in the targeted Yahoo Mail accounts, even if it's not relevant to the investigation or could include documents protected by the attorney-client privilege.

Looks like Big Brother is at it again!

END THE MANDATE - Support H.R. 4995

2010-04-14T18:18:00.000-07:00

On April 13, 2010, Congressman Ron Paul of Texas introduced legislation to repeal the individual mandate component of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

H.R. 4995 aims "[t]o restore the American people's freedom to choose the health insurance that best meets their individual needs by repealing the mandate that all Americans obtain government-approved health insurance."

As it stands, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has a clause that stipulates that every man, woman, and child must either purchase a government approved health insurance plan or pay a fine. For the first time in our nation's history the purchase of a good is required by virtue of citizenship.

Contact your congressman today and urge them to become a cosponsor of this critical piece of legislation.

Government should take its cues from Main Street

2010-04-08T06:13:00.000-07:00

It's looking increasingly more and more like now was probably not the best time to introduce a new trillion dollar entitlement program. In speaking about the current economic state of affairs in the US, Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke was quoted in an article by the AP as saying:

"To avoid large and unsustainable budget deficits, the nation will ultimately have to choose among higher taxes, modifications to entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare, less spending on everything else from education to defense, or some combination of the above."

The Article continues:

"Unless we as a nation demonstrate a strong commitment to fiscal responsibility, in the longer run we will have neither financial stability nor healthy economic growth," he said.

It doesn't appear that we, as a nation, are serious about making a commitment to fiscal responsibility:

The US government registered a record budget deficit in February of 220.909 billion dollars despite rising revenues, setting a record 17th consecutive month in the red.

The White House has warned the deficit for the 2010 fiscal year that ends on September 30 could swell to 1.555 trillion dollars, eclipsing the prior year's record of 1.415 trillion dollars, because of government spending to stimulate recovery from the worst recession in decades.

The US debt stood at 7.5 trillion dollars or 53 percent of gross domestic product at the end of 2009, according to the CBO, which expects that figure to balloon to 20.3 trillion dollars, or 90 percent of GDP by 2020.

In a time when belt-tightening has become commonplace among Americans, government continues to spend our money like there's no tomorrow.

Soak the Rich!

2010-04-07T18:42:00.000-07:00

Joe Biden complained about the top 1% of earners taking home 22% of the income in the US. What he didn't tell you is that the top 10% of earners also pay 73% of income taxes. Is this what he means by "tax equity?"

The result is a tax system that exempts almost half the country from paying for programs that benefit everyone, including national defense, public safety, infrastructure and education. It is a system in which the top 10 percent of earners -- households making an average of $366,400 in 2006 -- paid about 73 percent of the income taxes collected by the federal government.

The bottom 40 percent, on average, make a profit from the federal income tax, meaning they get more money in tax credits than they would otherwise owe in taxes. For those people, the government sends them a payment.

Is it no wonder that the demand for government services continues to rise when many of the recipients bear increasingly less and less of the burden required to provide them?

Health Care Reform: Young Adults Get Left Holding the Bag

2010-03-30T07:01:00.000-07:00

The AP ran an article yesterday discussing something that many have been warning about for the past year: The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act forces healthy 20- and 30-somethings to purchase approved health insurance policies to subsidize care for older generations.

Under the health care overhaul, young adults who buy their own insurance will carry a heavier burden of the medical costs of older Americans—a shift expected to raise insurance premiums for young people when the plan takes full effect.

Beginning in 2014, most Americans will be required to buy insurance or pay a tax penalty. That's when premiums for young adults seeking coverage on the individual market would likely climb by 17 percent on average, or roughly $42 a month, according to an analysis of the plan conducted for The Associated Press. The analysis did not factor in tax credits to help offset the increase.

The higher costs will pinch many people in their 20s and early 30s who are struggling to start or advance their careers with the highest unemployment rate in 26 years.

...and the hits just keep on coming.

Pennsylvania: Looking for a better solution than Obamacare?

2010-03-26T10:20:00.000-07:00

Look no further than Altoona, PA. As reported in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Dr. Zane Gates runs a clinic there for Altoona's working poor that "serves more than 3,500 people who earn too much to qualify for medical assistance but cannot scrape together enough money for health insurance."

How can he do this?

The clinic, Partnering for Health Services, subsists through an association with Altoona Regional Health System, which absorbs and writes off approximately $2.3 million more in costs per year for laboratory tests, X-rays and medication.

Additionally,

He is also developing a hospital-only insurance plan that would give his free clinic patients access to a preventive wellness program and three emergency room visits each year, for which they would pay less than $100 a month.

"If you have a heart attack, or you break a leg, you get your gall bladder out -- all that stuff, it's all covered," said Dr. Gates. "No co-pays, no pre-existing conditions, anything."

The plan would save money for both the clinic's patients and Altoona Regional Health System, said Cloyd Beers, executive director of the Altoona Regional Partnership for a Healthy Community.

Compare that to the Obama plan that was recently signed into law which at best is just another unfunded mandate for the already distressed states. According to the chief deputy director for California's health programs, Obamacare's expansion of medicaid will cost his state at least an additional $2 - 3 Billion annually.

Perhaps a new massive social program isn't the answer after all.

Social Security: The elephant in the room

2010-03-14T16:19:00.000-07:00

$2.5 Trillion of the US government's $12.5 Trillion debt is owed...to the US Government? Due to the economic downturn it looks like the bill has finally come due. According to an article run by the AP today:

For more than two decades, Social Security collected more money in payroll taxes than it paid out in benefits — billions more each year.

Not anymore. This year, for the first time since the 1980s, when Congress last overhauled Social Security, the retirement program is projected to pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes — nearly $29 billion more.

The article continues:

For more than two decades, regardless of which political party was in power, Congress has been accused of raiding the Social Security trust funds to pay for other programs, masking the size of the budget deficit.

These accounting tricks are finally catching up to us. Unfortunately, the outlook is not so good:

In the short term, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects that Social Security will continue to pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes for the next three years. It is projected to post small surpluses of $6 billion each in 2014 and 2015, before returning to indefinite deficits in 2016.

Additionally,

Social Security is projected to drain its trust funds by 2037 unless Congress acts, and there's concern that the looming crisis will lead to reduced benefits.

Social Security is essentially a giant Ponzi scheme; Bernie Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in a federal prison for doing the same thing that the United States government has been doing since 1935. Clearly this is a problem that the people of America can no longer ignore.

Big Brother to take a peak at your emails?

2010-03-04T18:33:00.000-08:00

WSJ Blogs is reporting that the Obama administration lifted the veil Tuesday on a highly-secretive set of policies to defend the U.S. from cyber attacks. This Homeland Security program is nicknamed "Einstein":

The current version of the program is widely seen as providing meager protection against attack, but a new version being built will be more robust–largely because it’s rooted in NSA technology. The program is designed to look for indicators of cyber attacks by digging into all Internet communications, including the contents of emails (emphasis added), according to the declassified summary.

Although Einstein was designed to operate on federal networks, cnet reports that the Department of Homeland Security is looking to extend this technology to private sector networks.

And you thought that the Patriot Act was bad! The government will literally be snooping in on every domestic transmission via the internet.

Email? Check. Internet phone? Check. Video chat? Check. Blogs? (gulp) Check.

You can view the summary on the White House web site here.

Canadian dignitary travels to US for cardiac surgery

2010-02-23T09:21:00.000-08:00

It's not exactly a ringing endorsement of the Canadian health care system when one of the country's ruling class chooses to come to the US for surgery in lieu of waiting in line with the common folk. It's nothing new for the elite to play by a different set of rules, especially when they have means and resources to which the masses do not have access. In Premier Williams' own words:

"This was my heart, my choice and my health."

"I did not sign away my right to get the best possible health care for myself when I entered politics."

Perhaps we should think twice about which health care systems we wish to emulate when those with access to "free" health care would rather pay to come to the US for it.

Bailout Bonanza!

2010-02-20T10:59:00.000-08:00

Apparently the executive pay limits set by President Obama only apply to Wall Street bankers. The AP is reporting that Ed Whitacre, the new CEO of General Motors, is poised to receive a $9 Million pay package this year. This is almost twice the amount of money that former CEO Fritz Henderson, the man that was essentially fired by President Obama, was paid. Speaking of Fritz, he's recently been hired back on as a consultant to the tune of $59,090/month to come back in and work 20 hours per month. All of this from the company that lost almost $31 billion in 2008 and received a $49.9 Billion bailout in 2009.

Looks like that $49.9 Billion is turning out to be money well spent!

Do we really need universal health care?

2010-02-16T07:31:00.000-08:00

According to a recently conducted survey reported by PennLive.com, 2 out of 3 in Pennsylvania want universal health care. Many of the reader comments that favor universal health care describe skyrocketing health care costs and a lack of affordable insurance options as their motivation.

Let's look at the facts. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that government programs will soon account for over 50 percent of health care spending in the US. This would imply that we already have "some form of universal health care." Some other interesting statistics about health care:

Many claim that there are 46 million uninsured Americans when 9.7 million are not Americans, 16 million make more than $50,000, and 14 million are eligible for government programs leaving 8 million as chronically uninsured. The rate of uninsured in the U.S. is steady at about 15-16% since the early 90’s. In Pennsylvania, about 92% are insured!

Medical bankruptcy is another hot button issue, even though an American Journal of Medicine study showed that 77.9 percent of those who filed for bankruptcy due to medical issues actually had insurance at the onset of their illness.

So where is all of this coming from? It would appear that the Obama Administration has taken a page out of the Alinksy playbook in manufacturing a health care crisis. According to the most recent US Census Bureau statistics, about 88 percent of those those with private insurance have employer-provided insurance. ABC reported that among insured Americans, 82 percent rate their health coverage positively.

Is our system perfect? Far from it. But when a 55 y/o male can get health insurance in Pennsylvania through Geisinger Choice for as low as $202/month, and a 25 y/o male can get insurance for as low as $53/month, it would seem that the situation is not as dire as we're being lead to believe. There is certainly room for reform but a complete government hijacking of the health care system is probably unnecessary.

Harrisburg City to Possibly Raise Water Rates for Residents of Neighboring Municipalities

2010-02-12T07:35:00.000-08:00

There is currently an article on PennLive.com indicating that Harrisburg City is contemplating raising water rates for residents of Susquehanna Township and Penbrook Borough in order to service the city's debt. Regardless of whether this may or may not be legal, it is completely immoral. It is one thing to raise water rates due to increased costs in processing or delivering water; it is another thing entirely to raise water rates for something completely unrelated to the service being provided i.e. inability to pay off incinerator debt. The residents of neighboring municipalities, who do not even reside within city limits, should not be punished for the ineptitude of city leadership.

I advise all residents of Susquehanna Township and Penbrook Borough to contact their local officials and state senator/representative and demand their attention in this matter.

Obama Administration Wants to Track Cell Phones Without a Warrant

2010-02-11T10:03:00.000-08:00

According to a report by cnet, the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia will hear oral arguments Friday in a case that could establish new standards for locating wireless devices.

In that case, the Obama administration has argued that warrantless tracking is permitted because Americans enjoy no "reasonable expectation of privacy" in their--or at least their cell phones'--whereabouts. U.S. Department of Justice lawyers say that "a customer's Fourth Amendment rights are not violated when the phone company reveals to the government its own records" that show where a mobile device placed and received calls.

The fourth amendment is pretty clear:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

There is at a minimum an implied right to privacy embedded in the Constitution. Should the court find in the White House's favor, it would certainly be a profound loss for liberty everywhere.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

2010-01-25T09:48:00.000-08:00

According to a Foxnews.com report, the Obama administration this month awarded a $25 million federal contract for work in Afghanistan to a company owned by a prominent Democratic campaign contributor without entertaining competitive bids. This is a bit peculiar given the loftiness of then candidate Obama's campaign rhetoric:

As a candidate for president in 2008, then-Sen. Obama frequently derided the Bush administration for the awarding of federal contracts without competitive bidding.

"I will finally end the abuse of no-bid contracts once and for all," the senator told a Grand Rapids audience on Oct. 2. "The days of sweetheart deals for Halliburton will be over when I'm in the White House."

Those remarks echoed an earlier occasion, during a candidates' debate in Austin, Texas on Feb. 21, when Mr. Obama vowed to upgrade the government's online databases listing federal contracts.

"If (the American people) see a bridge to nowhere being built, they know where it's going and who sponsored it," he said to audience laughter, "and if they see a no-bid contract going to Halliburton, they can check that out too."

The article continues:

Less than two months after he was sworn into office, President Obama signed a memorandum that he claimed would "dramatically reform the way we do business on contracts across the entire government."

Flanked by aides and lawmakers at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Office Building on March 4, Obama vowed to "end unnecessary no-bid and cost-plus contracts," adding: "In some cases, contracts are awarded without competition…And that's completely unacceptable."

The March 4 memorandum directed the Office of Management and Budget to "maximize the use of full and open competition" in the awarding of federal contracts.

Sounds like it's business as usual in Washington, D.C.

How much have the bailouts really cost YOU?

2010-01-21T06:01:00.001-08:00

With the money spent on bailouts the past two years, you and every other working American could have paid zero dollars in federal taxes this year. You read that right. Zero. Dollars. In. Federal. Taxes.

You could have kept your entire paycheck, free to spend it as you see fit. That is, of course, if you're among those lucky enough to still be collecting a paycheck. What did you get instead? 10% unemployment (which is probably closer to 20% unemployment if you use the government's old method for making the calculation) and an economic system built on sand.

What can you do? Support HR 1207 and S 604 and audit the Fed!

A tax on banks is a tax on you!

2010-01-14T07:07:00.000-08:00

According to Bloomberg:

As many as 50 financial firms with assets greater than $50 billion each would be hit by a levy President Barack Obama will propose today to help recoup taxpayer bailout money and trim the federal budget deficit, an administration official said.

The article continues:

The fee targets the country’s biggest financial institutions and aims to recoup losses from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which the Treasury Department now estimates to cost $117 billion, the administration official said.

Banking, like any other enterprise, is a profit-seeking venture. Simply put, banks are in the business of making money. If government chooses to increase the cost of doing business for these banks, this in turn will result in higher costs for consumers. To quote:

“Using tax policy to punish people is a bad idea,” JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon, 53, said after testifying yesterday at a hearing of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in Washington. “All businesses tend to pass their costs on to customers.”

To be frank, this approach does not truly address any of the problems that lead to the bank bailouts. Regardless, if we truly want to fix the problem we must end the Federal Reserve, return to a gold standard, and do away with fractional reserve banking and the FDIC.

Banks are required by law to keep only 10% of their reserves on hand at any given time. This is called fractional reserve banking. What this means in practice is that if you deposit $1,000 into a bank account, the bank can turn around and make a loan to someone else for $10,000 at an interest rate higher than what they agree to pay you to hold your money. This is how banks make money (as an aside, the inflation caused from the increased money supply makes each dollar that you own worth less). Eliminating fractional reserve banking would force banks to keep customers' money on hand in cash reserves, much like a warehouse, effectively giving them less money to play around with. In turn, this would force banks to be more selective about the types of loans they issue, thus resulting in a sounder financial system.

We need to be honest with ourselves; we are never going to see that TARP money back. If government does by chance recover some of that money they will simply spend it on something else. The most practical course of action is to properly identify and eliminate the root causes of our current financial crisis and to take effective steps to mitigate moral hazard.

Surprised? Public works spending provides no "stimulus"

2010-01-11T04:21:00.000-08:00

According to a study completed by the AP, "a surge in spending on roads and bridges has had no effect on local unemployment and only barely helped the beleaguered construction industry." This should come as no surprise to those that have studied history. No matter how much Paul Krugman and others insist that these types of measures bear fruit, in practice this has simply not been the case.

Spend a lot or spend nothing at all, it didn't matter, the AP analysis showed: Local unemployment rates rose and fell regardless of how much stimulus money Washington poured out for transportation, raising questions about Obama's argument that more road money would address an "urgent need to accelerate job growth."

Obama wants a second stimulus bill from Congress that relies in part on more road and bridge spending, projects the president said are "at the heart of our effort to accelerate job growth."

The article continues:

Even within the construction industry, which stood to benefit most from transportation money, the AP's analysis found there was nearly no connection between stimulus money and the number of construction workers hired or fired since Congress passed the recovery program. The effect was so small, one economist compared it to trying to move the Empire State Building by pushing against it.

"As a policy tool for creating jobs, this doesn't seem to have much bite," said Emory University economist Thomas Smith, who supported the stimulus and reviewed AP's analysis. "In terms of creating jobs, it doesn't seem like it's created very many. It may well be employing lots of people but those two things are very different."

There was no difference in unemployment trends between the group of counties that received the most stimulus money and the group that received none, the analysis found.

In spite of this, it seems that the President and Congress are determined to pass another "stimulus:"

Despite the disconnect, Congress is moving quickly to give Obama the road money he requested. The Senate will soon consider a proposal that would direct nearly $28 billion more on roads and bridges, programs that are popular with politicians, lobbyists and voters. The overall price tag on the bill, which also would pay for water projects, school repairs and jobs for teachers, firefighters and police officers, would be $75 billion.

It's time for Americans to insist that our government forgo what is popular in favor of what actually works. The only way to improve our economic outlook is to opt for true stimulus, which involves shrinking the size of government by reducing government spending and cutting taxes for everyone.

Health Care "Reform?" America...you're getting hosed!

2010-01-05T09:41:00.000-08:00

C‑SPAN has sent a letter to House and Senate leaders asking that negotiations on the health care bill be open to their cameras. Given that President Obama pledged to do as much during the Presidential Campaign, you'd think that this one would be a no-brainer; guess again.

As the Washington Times points out, this is just the latest in a long line of measures that Congress has taken to make this process as convoluted as possible. The House passed their version of the bill on a Saturday night. The Senate held its key procedural vote at 1 AM and passed their version of the bill Christmas Eve. House and Senate leadership is now taking things one step further by bypassing the traditional conference committee in favor of simply passing the Senate version with an amendment added and shipping it back over to the Senate for a final vote. This vote would need a simple majority and not the typical sixty votes that would be needed otherwise. In doing so, House and Senate leadership can simultaneously castrate any Republican opposition as well as snuff out any opposition from moderate Democrats.

What's with all of the secrecy? This is a dangerous game that Reid, Pelosi, et al. are playing. If you happen to still be of the mind that this legislation is a good thing for Americans, you may want to re-evaluate your position.

Government to the rescue: Enjoy that 79.9% interest rate

2009-12-19T11:23:00.000-08:00

I was in a nationwide retailer last night with a friend of mine who was in the market to purchase a new mattress. The sales clerk informed him that he could take advantage of their twelve-month no interest, no payments financing. She commented that they were discontinuing this program shortly because Congress, in their infinite wisdom, had passed credit card reform this past year outlawing these types of lines of credit.

This seemed simultaneously strange and infuriating to me. I've made quite a few purchases using such payment programs; typically I keep my money in an interest-bearing account and make sure to pay the entire balance of the credit card off before the twelve-month period lapses. I find that it's a good way to make your money work for you. Could what she was saying really be true?

The White House website has a press release detailing the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure (CARD) Act of 2009. Sure enough, what this sales clerk had told me was in fact accurate. This new law bans retroactive rate increases. The way that these twelve-month no interest, no payments financing programs work is that if you do not pay off the balance in full by the end of the twelve-month period, finance charges are assessed from the date of purchase.

Another fun and unintended consequence of this legislation is the advent of the 79.9% interest rate credit card that targets consumers with poor credit histories that would not normally qualify for a credit card. This article from the AP explains:

The bloated APR is how First Premier Bank, a subprime credit card issuer, is skirting new regulations intended to curb abusive practices in the industry. It's a strategy other subprime card issuers could start adopting to get around the new rules.

The article continues:

In a mailing sent to prospective customers in October with the revamped terms, First Premier writes "...you might have less-than-perfect credit and we're OK with that." The letter notes that an online application or phone call is still required, but guarantees a 60-second status confirmation.

The letter also states there are no hidden fees that aren't disclosed in the attached form. That's where the 79.9 percent interest rate and $75 annual fee are listed. There's also $29 penalty if you pay late or go over your $300 credit limit.

Good luck ever paying your balance on that credit card off! Many thanks to the do-gooders in Washington, D.C., for once again saving us from ourselves.

Obama Warns US Will Go "Bankrupt" Without Health Care Bill

2009-12-17T10:41:00.000-08:00

Once again, the President is resorting to fear mongering to ram through yet another horrendous piece of legislation. According to President Obama, the federal government will go bankrupt if Congress does not pass the health care bill.

I guess the President has already forgotten about the $700 Billion spent on bailing out the banks, the $787 Billion in economic stimulus, the $410 Billion omnibus spending bill, the $1 Million per troop price tag for the 30,000 troop Afghan "surge," and the $1.1 Trillion spending bill that doesn't even cover defense spending.

Add to that $200 or so Billion just to service the national debt this year, $100 Billion in annual proposed spending to combat "climate change," and a new $2.5 Trillion health care "reform" bill...and let's not forget about the $100 Trillion in unfunded liabilities already on the books...

Go bankrupt? Sounds like we're already there!

More on the Cap and Trade Scam

2009-12-14T06:33:00.000-08:00

The AP is reporting today that developing nations, led by China and India, are blocking UN climate talks while demanding that rich countries discuss much deeper cuts in their greenhouse gas emissions. This is curious given that China and India rank number one and number four, respectively, in the list of top world polluters. Furthermore, according to Time the top four most polluted places in the world are cities in China and India.

This is an old trick that common street pickpockets use; first they create a diversion and then they make off with your wallet before you even realize that it's gone. As I've stated previously, cap and trade does nothing to address the issue of pollution; it simply grants permits to pollute and blocks the poorest nations of the world from having the opportunity to step out of the stone ages via industrialization. Cap and trade levies a tremendous tax on us all and the end result is massive profits for multi-national corporations while keeping the impoverished poor and dependent on the government dole.

Senate to drop public option?

2009-12-09T06:02:00.000-08:00

The AP is reporting that the "public option" is now out of the Senate version of health care reform. So what exactly are we getting for $1 Trillion?

Officials said it included nonprofit national health plans administered by the Office of Personnel Management, which runs the popular federal employees' health plan, as well as opening Medicare to uninsured Americans beginning at age 55, effective in 2011.

The article continues:

The Senate is in its second week of debate on the 10-year, nearly $1 trillion legislation that would dramatically remake the U.S. health care system and extend coverage to millions of the uninsured, with a new requirement for nearly everyone to purchase insurance. New purchasing marketplaces called exchanges would make it easier for small businesses and people without government or employer coverage to shop for health insurance, and onerous insurance company practices such as denying coverage to people with pre-existing medical conditions would be banned.

The deal reached Tuesday puts even more requirements on insurers by requiring that 90 percent of premium dollars be spent on medical benefits, as opposed to administrative costs, officials said. The officials who described the details of the closed-door negotiations did so on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to discuss them publicly.

Is it unthinkable that insurers may simply raise the cost of insurance premiums in order to guarantee that they hit the 90% mark set by this legislation? Would health care providers, aware of this new mandate and the theoretically increased supply of available health care dollars, decide to charge higher rates for services thus resulting in higher costs for everyone? What about the potential for additional multi-billion dollar annual losses due to cost-shifting and fraud that will inevitably occur by adding millions to the medicare rolls?

By requiring everyone to purchase an insurance policy, young and otherwise healthy individuals that normally may not choose to purchase insurance in essence will be subsidizing the care of older and chronically ill individuals as these are typically the people that are most expensive to insure/would be denied coverage. So basically we've ensured a ton of new business for the insurance companies but done nothing to actually curb the cost of health care. Sounds like a great deal for the American public.

Apparently this session of Congress is willing to do pretty much anything just so they can say that they passed health care "reform." Perhaps instead they should consider market-based solutions, deregulation of health care markets, and allowing for the sale of insurance policies across state lines in order to curb skyrocketing health care costs.

Obama plans to "spend our way" out of downturn

2009-12-08T09:20:00.000-08:00

Let's try a quick thought exercise. Imagine that you earn about $32,000/year at your job (that's the 2008 median salary here in the US). Now imagine that you've somehow managed to get approved for a mortgage on a house worth about $320,000. For simplicity, let's pretend you got one of those fancy no money down mortgages. Suddenly your employer cuts back your hours; you still have a mortgage payment to make but you no longer have the income on which you've come to rely. Imagine the bank's response if you told them "Don't worry about it, I'm going to spend my way out of this."

This is essentially what President Obama said today in front of the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, in spite of the fact that our federal government finds itself in the very predicament outlined above.

Without giving a price tag, Obama proposed a package of new spending for highway, bridge and other infrastructure projects, deeper tax breaks for small businesses and tax incentives to encourage people to make their homes more energy efficient.

Government stimulus NEVER works. By any sane metric, the most recent round of stimulus has been a colossal failure with a true unemployment rate presently floating around 17%. Huge public works projects did not work in the 30's and there is no reason to believe that this time around would be any different. The reason is quite simple; public works projects are kind of like summer jobs but worse. Once the project is completed everyone is once again out of work with long-term prospects that are no better than they were before the government came to the rescue. To further compound the problem, resources must be taken away from the productive segment of the economy (i.e. the private sector) to pay for this government largess.

Common sense tells us that when we are in financially tough times we must cut our household spending, save money wherever we can, and try to pay down debt as much as possible. No matter what anyone tells you, you cannot spend your way to prosperity and it is insane to suggest that you can solve a problem brought about by too much debt and too much spending with more debt and more spending.

More on "Climategate"

2009-12-02T06:16:00.000-08:00

It's odd that a story of this magnitude is receiving little to no press. If you're not up to speed, the article "Lord Monckton’s summary of Climategate and its issues" should catch you up.

Another interesting article from the Daily Press reports on mining geology professor and man-made climate change skeptic Ian Plimer's recent appearance before a London audience:

Professor Plimer said climate change was caused by natural events such as volcanic eruptions, the shifting of the Earth’s orbit and cosmic radiation. He said: “Carbon dioxide levels have been up to 1,000 times higher in the past. CO2 cannot be driving global warming now.

“In the past we have had rapid and significant climate change with temperature changes greater than anything we are measuring today. They are driven by processes that have been going on since the beginning of time.”

He cited periods of warming during the Roman Empire and in the Middle Ages – when Vikings grew crops on Greenland – and cooler phases such as the Dark Ages and the Little Ice Age from 1300 to 1850.

And he predicted that the next phase would cool the planet.

Also, to tie in with a subject I've written about previously:

He suggested many scientists had a vested interest in promoting climate change because it helped secure more funding for research. He said: “The climate comrades are trying to keep the gravy train going. Governments are also keen on putting their hands as deep as possible into our pockets.

“The average person has been talked down to. He has been treated like a fool. Yet the average person has common sense.”

The belief that we could have such a profound effect on a planet that has existed for over 4.5 billion years and endured at least five mass extinctions is truly a testament to our arrogance as a species.

The Cap and Trade Scam: Follow the Money

2009-11-27T18:59:00.000-08:00

As reported by the Guardian, 160 MB of private emails and documents allegedly exchanged between some of the world's leading climate scientists during the past 13 years were recently stolen by hackers and leaked online. The article reports that "[c]limate change sceptics who have studied the emails allege they provide 'smoking gun' evidence that some of the climatologists colluded in manipulating data to support the widely held view that climate change is real, and is being largely caused by the actions of mankind." This news, coupled with the Telegraph's recent piece suggesting that Al Gore could become the world's first carbon billionaire begins to make this entire situation feel a bit like insider trading.

The Heritage Foundation recently highlighted a video produced by two EPA attorneys showing that Cap and Trade actually does little to nothing in the way of helping the environment. In reality Cap and Trade legislation simply is a way for the government to make money by issuing permits to pollute and for multinational corporations and Wall Street to make money by creating a new commodity to trade. It is little more than the redistribution of wealth on a global scale.

I will leave it up to you to decide for yourself if man-made global warming is a scam or not, but if you truly care about the environment you should join in the fight to prevent these frauds from passing legislation that does little more than further bind us in the chains of economic slavery. After all, President Obama himself has said that under his Cap and Trade system "electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket" in spite of the fact that a fully implemented Kyoto Protocol would at best reduce global temperatures by one tenth of one degree Celsius by 2100.

Are we facing a debt explosion?

2009-11-24T07:02:00.000-08:00

The answer is an emphatic YES! The New York Times recently ran an article on the wave of debt payments facing our federal government.

With the national debt now topping $12 trillion, the White House estimates that the government’s tab for servicing the debt will exceed $700 billion a year in 2019, up from $202 billion this year, even if annual budget deficits shrink drastically. Other forecasters say the figure could be much higher.

In concrete terms, an additional $500 billion a year in interest expense would total more than the combined federal budgets this year for education, energy, homeland security and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

These figures, by the way, don't include any additional expenditures that will undoubtedly arise from the institution of so-called "Health Care Reform" or a "Cap and Trade" system.

The article continues:

Americans now have to climb out of two deep holes: as debt-loaded consumers, whose personal wealth sank along with housing and stock prices; and as taxpayers, whose government debt has almost doubled in the last two years alone, just as costs tied to benefits for retiring baby boomers are set to explode.

The problem, many analysts say, is that record government deficits have arrived just as the long-feared explosion begins in spending on benefits under Medicare and Social Security. The nation’s oldest baby boomers are approaching 65, setting off what experts have warned for years will be a fiscal nightmare for the government.

For far too long Americans have been pretty juvenile in their demands on government, much like the child that wants a pony for Christmas but doesn't bother to consider how they're going to house or feed it, let alone how mom and dad are going to pay for it. We have some difficult choices ahead of us and we'd better make sure that we make some tough decision before the decisions are made for us.

Breaking News - The House Passes the Health Care Bill

2009-11-07T20:32:00.000-08:00

The House just passed the Health Care Bill HR 3962 by a margin of 220-215. Now the attention shifts to the Senate...

What exactly is Speaker Pelosi trying to hide?

2009-11-07T17:00:00.000-08:00

President Obama stopped by the House of Representatives today in an effort to rally support for HR 3962, the "Affordable Health Care for America Act." Speaker Pelosi will not be allowing the final language of the bill to be posted online 72-hours before a vote comes to the floor of the House even though she pledged to do so only a little over a month ago.

Why the change of heart? Could it be because she doesn't want the American public to know that you can be fined up to $250,000 and/or imprisoned for up to five years for willful failure to purchase an approved policy? Incidentally, according to the CBO such a policy would cost a family of four at least $15,000/year.

Maybe she doesn't want the American public to know that the reason that AARP is suddenly behind her plan is because they stand to make a significant amount of money given a sizeable source of their revenue is from the sale of, among other things, supplemental insurance policies for medicare recipients. Of course seniors will be needing plenty of supplemental insurance policies given that Pelosi's health care bill aims to pay for itself via more than $400 Billion in cuts to medicare.

Perhaps she doesn't want Americans to know that the medically uninsurable will have to wait a full six-months before they are eligible for government-subsidized insurance plans. Given that most of these people are uninsurable due to terminal illness, I'm sure that they'll be happy to know that they will most likely not survive the six-month waiting period.

By not posting the final language of the bill online for 72-hours prior to a final vote, Speaker Pelosi is virtually ensuring that the members of congress will not have the opportunity to read the bill prior to voting on it. Of course this is probably of little consequence to the millionaires club given that they already have top-of-the-line health insurance of which the government pays up to 75% the cost.

Oh and by the way some members of Congress are still wrangling to get illegal aliens access to the health care plans as outlined in the bill.

The current session of Congress has made a habit of ramming through bad legislation that is not in the best interests of the American public. Contact your Congressman today and let them know that you aren't going to stand for it anymore. After all, there's an election in 2010 and their job depends on it.

Central PA Voter Guide - Elections are this Tuesday!

2009-11-01T18:24:00.000-08:00

Election day is this Tuesday, November 3. PennLive.com has put together a pretty nifty voter guide that allows you to view candidate biographical information side-by-side for all of the elections in your district. Check it out here.

Not sure where you are supposed to go to vote? PA Department of State has a page here that will help you figure it out. Need you zip+4? USPS has a page here.

It is important that each and every one of us participates in the process. As Thomas Jefferson once famously said, "When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny."

Good thing we passed that stimulus bill

2009-10-29T18:51:00.000-07:00

In February of this year President Obama painted a pretty grim picture of the future of the US economy if swift and decisive action was not taken in passing his stimulus bill. His stimulus bill would save or create four million jobs. With the stimulus, unemployment would peak at just under 8 percent. If nothing was done, we'd lose five million jobs and unemployment would peak at 9 percent.

So how have the White House's projections faired thus far? After losing another two or three million more jobs, we're only off the pace by a little over six million jobs. Unemployment? It now stands at 9.8 percent.

Good thing we passed that stimulus bill, huh?

Keep your eye on the bill

2009-10-29T18:26:00.001-07:00

The latest House version of health care reform clocks in at 1,990 pages. Supposedly it stands at nearly nine inches tall and weighs over nineteen pounds in printed form. Whether you are for a government-based solution or a market-based solution, you should be alarmed by the sheer size of this thing. One can only imagine what special interest perks and kickbacks to big business are included in this monstrosity. Think anyone in Congress will actually read this version?

We deserve better, and we must demand better. Write your congressman and let them know how you feel!

What's the big deal about Linda Thompson's unemployment, you ask?

2009-10-23T18:35:00.000-07:00

Linda Thompson, Harrisburg City Council member and mayoral candidate, was recently asked a series of questions by the Harrisburg Patriot News. I'd like to highlight two specific questions, and her responses:

Question: When were you unemployed, and from what organization did you lose your job?
Thompson: “I didn’t lose my job. I voluntarily resigned from my employment with the Urban League of Metropolitan Harrisburg.” (She did not answer when.)

Q: How long did you collect unemployment? How long were you unemployed?
Thompson: “Approximately six months to 1 year.”

The article also notes that Linda Thompson was quoted in a recent debate as saying "I've taken all of my unemployment checks that I had before I started Loveship and put every dime of it into Loveship."

Section 402(b) of the PA Unemployment Compensation law states that "a claimant shall be ineligible for benefits for any week in which his/her unemployment is due to voluntarily leaving work without cause of a necessitous and compelling nature. A claimant who voluntarily quits continuing work has the burden of proof in establishing good cause for quitting; and, that such cause was real and substantial, leaving the claimant no other alternative. The burden is on the claimant to show that, prior to quitting continuing employment, he/she made every reasonable effort to maintain the employer/employee relationship."

On the application itself it specifically asks the applicant the reason for their separation from their employer. Now the reason why all of this is important is that if Ms. Thompson did in fact resign from her employment then she may have perpetrated a fraud if she reported otherwise on the application. Furthermore, the Urban League of Metropolitan Harrisburg would have been complicit in this fraud if they did not contest Ms. Thompson's reason for separation and subsequently her claim for unemployment compensation benefits.

Ms. Thompson also stated that she collected benefits for "approximately six months to 1 year." Typically unemployment benefits are exhausted after 26 weeks unless certain economic conditions are met, at which point state and federal extended benefits may be available. Potentially Ms. Thompson may have defrauded both the state of Pennsylvania and the Federal Government of additional funds if she did in fact voluntarily resign from her employment yet still collect unemployment compensation benefits.

Do I think that this matter will be investigated further or that Ms. Thompson will be prosecuted? No, I do not. However, I do think that it's important for the citizens of Harrisburg to look past the campaign slogans and sound bytes and take a long hard look at the candidates' records and character when deciding who they want to be the next mayor of Harrisburg.

The PA Senate takes a crack at single payer

2009-10-19T17:41:00.000-07:00

Many thanks to our friends at Pennsylvania Revolution for bringing this matter to our attention.

Senate Bill 400, sponsored by Jim Ferlo, is the "Family and Business Healthcare Security Act." This rather benign-sounding bill is anything but; it's everything that progressives in the US Congress are dreaming of and more. To put it bluntly, this legislation if passed would put a single payer health care system in place in the state of Pennsylvania. It's mostly filled with the vague, feel-good language you've come to expect from government, aiming to do things such as "(i)nvestigating proposals for innovative approaches to the promotion of health, the prevention of disease and injury, patient education, research and health care delivery." Make no mistake, this legislation's aim is nothing less than a complete and total usurpation of the health care system from top to bottom.

Here are some of the highlights:

An 11 member board appointed by the Governor, the President pro tempore of the Senate, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives composed of individuals representing hospitals, organized labor, consumers, business, agriculture, physicians, public sector employees, nurses, pharmacists, long-term care facilities, and social workers. The initial board gets to set their compensation (aka salary and benefits). How nice!

Some of the board's specific duties include:

deciding who is eligible for the plan, adopting a benefits package for participants of the plan
acting directly or through one or more third party contractors as the single payer administrator for all claims for health care services made under the plan
deciding what is "fair and reasonable" regarding reimbursements to providers
implementing policies and developing mechanisms and incentives to assure "culturally and linguistically sensitive" care
establishing rules and procedures for implementing a no-fault compensation system to deal with issues of malpractice
recruiting a "health advisory panel" that will advise the board on things such as "the establishment of policy on medical issues, population-based public health issues, research priorities, and scope of services (you know, instead of you and your doctor deciding what's best for you)
establishing a centralized electronic health record system containing all of your medical information
employ and fix the compensation of agency personnel as needed by the agency to properly discharge the agency's duties

This legislation also aims to create the "Pennsylvania Health Care Agency" which would "administer the plan and is the sole agency authorized to accept applicable grants-in-aid from the Federal Government and State government. It shall use such funds in order to secure full compliance with provisions of Federal and State law and to carry out the purposes established under this act. All grants-in-aid accepted by the agency shall be deposited into the Pennsylvania Health Care Trust Fund established under this act, together with other revenues raised within this Commonwealth to fund the plan." The executive director would be appointed by the governor. Oh and by the way, the board, advisory panel, and agency have immunity i.e. you essentially have no one to sue should their actions cause you direct harm.

Who's covered, you ask? EVERYONE! You heard me right. Citizens, non-citizens, legals, and illegals. There is a "presumption of eligibility" clause indicating that in instances of emergency they will cover you and sort it out later. They will reimburse any participating provider who "renders humanitarian emergency or urgent care" to non-eligible patients.

The board will establish one benefits plan to which everyone will be a member. Long-term care is provided for those who can no longer care for themselves. There are no exclusions for pre-existing conditions. There are no co-pays, deductibles, or other point-of-service charges if you go to a participating provider. On the downside, any treatment determined by the board to be non-therapeutic (i.e. palliative treatments that ease the pain of cancer patients) won't be covered.

The board wants total control over participating providers. Any capital investments valued at $1 Million or more (including studies, surveys, etc.) or that change the bed capacity by 10% must be approved by the board. There is also a provision for required investments: "The board is authorized to adopt programs to assist participating providers in making capital investments responsive to best practice recommendations."

How will this leviathan be funded, you ask? First, employers (including those that are self-employed) will be taxed 10% of gross payroll. If, as a consumer, you choose to not participate in the system, you will be subject to the "Individual Fair Share Health and Wellness Tax" of 3% of your income. For those of you that lose their jobs in the health care industry as a result of this legislation, you will be eligible to receive up to $5,000/month for two years or until you find a new job, whichever comes first. You can also get training assistance of up to $20,000 to help you get a new job.

As I've written previously, reform can best be achieved through market-based means and any additional government intervention in the health care marketplace is counterproductive. Considering the Republican majority in the PA Senate, the likelihood of this legislation passing is slim; yet given the events of the last year or so, I personally wouldn't take anything for granted. Write your PA Senator and let them know how you feel about the matter.

Say "No" to Government Health Care

2009-10-15T16:29:00.000-07:00

A recent study shows that the average premium for a company-provided family health insurance plan has risen 131% over the last decade. I'd venture to say that everyone agrees that the system needs to be reformed; however, the manner in which to reform is a highly contested matter. Any reform should lower the cost and increase the availability of health insurance to the average American. The best option that our government has come up with thus far is the Baucus Bill. Even if you believe the rosy projections about $500 Billion in savings from Medicare, this bill will still cost in excess of $800 Billion, leave 17 million citizens uninsured, and dramatically raise the cost of health insurance for both individuals and families in America.

Perhaps instead we should be looking at market-based solutions. In Pennsylvania, companies like Hershey Co. have cut their costs in half and encouraged competition in the marketplace by only sending their employees to highly-rated hospitals. Vermont has greatly reduced ER visits by providing their elderly citizens with counseling services to help manage their chronic conditions before they become critical. Through a system of incentives, Safeway has been able to cut costs by 40%. Whole Foods has been able to insure more of their employees while simultaneously reducing costs using similar methods.

Government programs are rife with fraud and have a propensity for cost overruns. Medicare alone burns up about $100 Billion per year via fraud and its 1990 projection (forecasted in 1965) was off by almost 750%. As I've written previously, regulation is costly and actually serves to increase the cost of health insurance. There is no need to spend $1 Trillion to reform the health care industry in America. With the stroke of a pen and essentially no spending health care costs could be cut dramatically simply by allowing for the sale of health insurance across state lines. The market is far more powerful than the government could ever dream to be. Let's all just keep our money and allow the market to do its thing.

Nevermind that man behind the curtain

2009-10-07T17:59:00.000-07:00

In a recent article about the House's Financial-Rules Overhaul, The Wall Street Journal quotes Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D., Penn.) regarding the need for more government regulation: "Billionaires on Wall Street have had their day, egged on by a culture of greed, deregulation, and a survival-of-the-fittest attitude that ignored the harsh effects those things inflict upon larger society." This view of the financial system neglects the government's role in the equation.

The government often tilts the playing field to the advantage of their politically-favored allies. Speaking of the financial-rules overhaul, consider Barney Frank's derivatives bill that exempts Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Of course U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler merely sees this little oversight as an "unintended consequence." It couldn't possibly have anything to do with the thousands of dollars in campaign contributions that Barney Frank has received from the two government-sponsored entities.

There is a culture of corruption in Washington, D.C. These people put in two and a half day work weeks, collect their six figure salary and benefits packages, and sell us down the river every chance they get. People like Charlie Rangel, who writes the tax code, mind you, that neglect to declare millions of dollars in income and face no consequences when they're caught breaking the very laws that they wrote. Our elected officials allow special interest groups to write thousand-page bills, refuse to read them, and then vote against allowing the bills to be posted online for all of us to read before they vote on them. What are they trying to hide? And who's really running the show?

The latest CBO estimate of this year's budget deficit is $1.4 Trillion dollars. This is roughly triple George Bush's much-maligned budget deficit from his last year in office. Organized crime is turning from the drug trade to Medicare fraud because the money is easy and the penalties aren't nearly as stiff. We need to ask ourselves here, is it really capitalism or corporate greed that is the villain? And if it's not, should we be looking to the government for solutions, or is it the government that's really the problem?

When will the bailouts end?

2009-10-04T18:23:00.000-07:00

Tiger Management founder and chairman Julian Robertson told CNBC "It's almost Armageddon if the Japanese and Chinese don't buy our debt," Robertson said in an interview. "I don't know where we could get the money. I think we've let ourselves get in a terrible situation and I think we ought to try and get out of it."

So why are we bailing out the US Postal Service to the tune of $4 billion?

Al Gore doesn't care about the environment

2009-10-04T18:03:00.000-07:00

Visualize Kanye West.

The Wall Street Journal reports that "A tiny car company backed by former Vice President Al Gore has just gotten a $529 million U.S. government loan to help build a hybrid sports car in Finland that will sell for about $89,000."

OK, so let me get this straight - we gave Al Gore half a billion dollars to build cars that nobody probably wants and he's not even going to be building them here in the US? Could it be that even Al Gore realizes that it is more cost-effective for corporations to conduct business abroad than it is to do it in the US? According to the Tax Foundation, the 2006 corporate tax rate in Finland was 26% compared to 39.3% here in the US.

I wonder if the mainstream media will be critical of Al Gore for sending jobs abroad...I won't hold my breath.

Health Care Reform: Invoke the Commerce Clause!

2009-10-03T18:54:00.000-07:00

The Commerce Clause has been invoked by Congress to regulate every conceivable type of behavior even when said behavior has nothing to do with interstate commerce. One of the original intents of the clause was to prohibit states from instituting protectionist tariffs and the like thereby hurting the national economy as a whole.

Right now if you live in Pennsylvania you cannot buy a cheaper insurance policy from a company in another state. You can do this with your auto insurance, home owner's insurance, flood insurance, etc., but not your health insurance. For all of this talk about choice and competition, you'd think that instead of just making something up Congress would remember the Constitution for once, use one of their enumerated powers, and enact a simple solution that would lower the cost of health insurance immediately: Allow for the sale of health insurance policies across state lines!

This would greatly reduce health care costs and would literally not cost a single dime of taxpayer money.

Debt Be Not Proud: The Sorry Tale of America's Out-of-control Spending

2009-10-03T16:55:00.000-07:00

This article provides a little back-story on how we got to where we are today. Here's a little preview:

The U.S. debt exploded in the last half-century from a fateful intersection of 1) a national economic trauma; 2) a fundamental change in the prevailing economic theory; 3) ill-considered political fund raising reforms after Watergate; and 4) reforms in Congress that made spending impossible to control.

Regulation drives up health care costs

2009-10-03T09:51:00.000-07:00

As a Washington Post article reports, Vice President Joe Biden recently spoke at a meeting of state insurance commissioners contending that tighter regulation of the insurance industry is critical to health reform. Apparently the Vice President is oblivious to the fact that regulation is actually driving up the cost of health insurance in America. According to the Council forAffordable Health Insurance, here is a list of 2009 mandated benefits that must be included in every insurance policy sold to every man, woman, and child in the state of PA from pediatrics to geriatrics:

Alcoholism/Substance Abuse

Ambulance/Transportation Services

Ambulatory Cancer Treatment

Autism

Breast Reconstruction

Cervical Cancer/HPV Screening

Chemotherapy

Diabetic Self Management

Diabetic Supplies

Drug Abuse Treatment

Emergency Service

Home Health Care

Mammography

Mastectomy

Mastectomy Minimum Stay

Maternity Minimum Stay

Mental Health Parity

Orthotic and/or Prosthetic

Ovarian Cancer Screening

PKU/Metabolic Disorder

Telemedicine

Well Child Care

Now some of these obviously make sense, but others, depending on your age and sex, are benefits that you are paying for but can't possibly even use. Consumers should be able to tailor their health insurance policies to their own unique needs. Allowing consumers to do so would greatly reduce the cost of health care in America.

Peter Schiff dispels the myth of the jobless recovery

2009-10-03T09:00:00.000-07:00

The Recovery That Isn't - "U6, the Bureau of Labor Statistics' most complete measure of unemployment, has risen to a dismal 17%." Seems that Bernanke had a bit of a "Mission Accomplished" moment with his announcement that the recession is over.

Cap and Trade?

2009-10-02T18:13:00.000-07:00

Only the government would advocate a plan that gives permits to pollute instead of simply fining polluters.

The deal of the century!

2009-09-01T18:32:00.000-07:00

A column ran in today's Washington Post that highlights a common fallacy that is rooted in a lack of understanding of basic economics. The writers of the article try to argue that although we are broke and don't have the money to pay for it, we can't afford not to have Obama's version of health care reform. After all, $1 Trillion spread over a ten year period is only $100 Billion/year:

"Our economic well-being is generally determined by the amount of goods and services that we consume; transfers of money between us have no impact on that total. (Trade with the rest of the world is relatively insignificant when it comes to health care.) So the relevant question is whether our economy should be producing $100 billion more of health insurance each year so that virtually everyone in the country can be covered. The trade-off is either consuming less of other goods and services or investing less in future growth."

Consumption is not a good indicator of economic health. I can get a mortgage for an extravagant house, get a loan for a luxury car, take out a home equity loan on my new house to go on a Caribbean vacation, max out my credit cards to buy plasma televisions and some trendy new furniture, and in the process bury myself under a mountain of debt. Sure, I may have a lot of fancy new things and on the surface appear to be quite well off; the real problems start when the bills come due and I have no way of paying for them. This type of thinking is precisely why we find ourselves in the midst of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

We cannot spend our way to prosperity, no matter what the people in D.C. would have you believe. The cold hard truth probably won't win too many elections, but in times like these it may be the only thing that can save our republic. Why is China's economy so healthy? The answer is actually quite simple. They are producing goods that other countries want to buy. This is how wealth is created, and although it pains me to say it, we could learn a thing or two from the Chinese.

Here's the link to the article, in case you're interested:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/01/AR2009090101027.html

A word of caution: It goes from bad to worse in a hurry.

So how's that "Cash for Clunkers" working out for you?

2009-08-25T15:28:00.000-07:00

Was this really a well-conceived incentive?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/14/business/14ford.html

“Ford said on Thursday that it would add 10,000 vehicles to its production schedule in the third quarter and significantly increase its fourth-quarter output as well. The company now plans to make 570,000 vehicles in its North American plants during the last three months of the year.”

People are buying cars now; what will that do to demand for vehicles after the incentive is gone? American automakers ramped up production and paid out overtime to keep up with demand, but this demand is completely artificial. Potentially these people could be out of work now that the program is finished. What happens when we have excess inventory sitting on the lots for the next several years because people bought cars now?

http://money.cnn.com/2009/08/13/news/economy/retail_sales_July/

“Retail sales fell in July after two straight months of gains, the government reported Thursday, a drop that surprised economists. Without car sales from the “Cash for Clunkers,” the numbers would have been even worse.”

Retail sales have fallen since this program was enacted. So people that would have probably spent their money otherwise funneled it into the car industry instead of buying other goods/services. To boot, these people now have $500/month car payments for the next five years.

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/08/05/business/econwatch/entry5217824.shtml

“Sadly, the cash-for-clunkers program requires that vehicles traded in have their engines destroyed. This will raise the costs of used vehicles for poorer Americans. It will also raise the cost of used U.S. vehicles around the world: Cambodians are less likely to upgrade to newer, safer, less polluting, and more fuel-efficient used Corollas.

Perhaps the need to bail out a struggling U.S. automobile industry is enough to justify renewing the program, even though four out of the five top sellers are Japanese. But it’s a bit silly for politicians to claim that cash-for-clunkers can be justified by environmental or economic concerns, and even sillier for Americans to pretend to believe them.”

What will this do for the auto mechanics? Certainly this will take away a lot of business as there will not be as many older cars on the road in need of servicing. What about the poor? According to government statistics, they've just taken 665,000 cars off of the road, many of them in perfectly good working order. This will dramatically affect the used car market.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE57F12O20090816

“Volunteers of America and other charities that receive tens of thousands of cars each year said such donations have quickly fallen up to 12 percent — and fear a 25 percent drop eventually, or over $100 million — as owners rush to trade gas guzzlers for new fuel-efficient models while federal rebates last.”

http://www.ehow.com/how_2325207_donate-car-salvation-army.html

“Keep in mind that the process is a simple one that only takes a few minutes to activate.”

Many of these cars could've been donated to the needy. Donating to the Salvation Army is not as difficult as you’d think.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bal-clunkers-0728,0,3093927.story

“Not all auto recyclers are relishing the government’s new cash for clunkers program, which requires car dealers to destroy the gas-guzzlers they get as trade-ins from new car buyers.

Used engines and drivetrains are a big part of recyclers’ income from each scrapped car, and under the federal program those engines must be destroyed. The idea is to promote fuel efficiency and help automakers, but it comes at a time when more than a dozen U.S. auto parts suppliers have filed for bankruptcy this year.”

What will this do to the used parts market?

What I’ve discussed is just the tip of the iceberg. This was a completely ill-conceived and poorly thought out plan. But that’s the government’s m.o., right? They helped their buddies in the auto unions out short-term and the dealers and the rest of us (i.e. taxpayers that funded this) are going to be left holding the bag. Not to mention that tons of people bought new cars that they probably didn’t need and took on loans that they might not be able to afford. Unnecessary debt is what got us into this whole mess in the first place.

The government is not omnipotent and does not and cannot predict the fallout from their intervention in the market place. A few billion dollars of taxpayer money was dumped into a program that by any objective standard has been a failure. This money could’ve been better spent by the people that earned it. Instead, we redistribute it around to those that are more politically favored.

What got us into this mess was too much borrowing and too much spending. You cannot fix a problem caused by too much borrowing and too much spending by doing more borrowing and more spending.

Ron Paul - The Free Market as Regulator

2009-08-19T06:27:00.000-07:00

Since the bailouts last fall, lawmakers have been behaving as quasi-owners of the bailed-out banks and businesses, leading to calls for increased regulation of executive compensation and other wasteful expenditures. We have heard much about bonuses and executive pay packages that sound more like lottery winnings than an honest salary.

Many lawmakers voted in favor of these unconstitutional bailouts, believing that these corporations were too big to fail, and allowing them to go under would precipitate widespread economic disaster. This second wave of citizen outrage at the bailouts has left these lawmakers with a bit of egg on their face, and once again, they feel the need to "do something" to "fix" it. Shouldn't there be a regulatory structure in place governing executive compensation? Politically, it seems quite feasible. People are outraged that the system has once again gutted the many to make a few at the top fantastically wealthy. But they are incorrectly demonizing the free market.

What we need to realize is that there WAS a regulatory structure in place that was attempting to stop bad management, including overpaying executives. That regulatory structure is the free market, and when poor management brought these companies to the point of bankruptcy, Congress circumvented the wisdom of the free market, and inserted its own judgment at our expense. And now because of that intervention, we will burdened with massive new regulations. We can be certain this effort will fail.

The free market is a naturally occurring phenomenon that can't be eliminated by governments, not even totalitarian ones like the former Soviet Union. It can be regulated, over-taxed and manipulated until it is driven underground. Lately it has been wrongly accused of doing so many things it just doesn't do, that are really the fault of crony corporatism and convoluted government policies that brought on the crisis. Too many people equate the free market with big business doing whatever it wants, but that is not the free market. Unconstitutional taxpayer funded bailouts are what allow giant corporations to run roughshod over the economy. The free market is what puts them out of business when they misbehave.

The free market is you and your neighbors working hard to produce what you produce, and exchanging goods and services voluntarily, in mutually agreeable arrangements. The free market is about respecting property rights and contracts. It is not about building up oligarchs and monopolies and confiscatory tax theft - these are creatures of government.

We must watch out when government comes up with interventionist solutions to interventionist problems. The root of our problems lie in interventionism. Trusting the free market is the solution.

Posted by Ron Paul (08-18-2009, 01:43 PM) filed under Monetary Policy

Texas Straight Talk
A weekly column
www.house.gov/paul

Seniors and Health Care Reform

2009-08-13T08:25:00.001-07:00

Seniors are getting pretty agitated over Obama's proposed health care reform. They're hearing rumors of "death panels" and cuts to their Medicare benefits. Recently at a New Hampshire town hall meeting, President Obama stated that his plan had the backing of AARP. AARP, or the Association for the Advancement of Retired Persons, is the largest lobbying power in Washington. AARP members, and seniors in general, routinely manufacture the largest turnout of any group of eligible voters. AARP offered a very public denial of the President's claim when they issued a statement clarifying that they in fact have not endorsed the President's plan. Robert Gibbs, the White House Press Secretary, is again claiming that the President misspoke.

The President, at this New Hampshire town hall, also tried to ease Medicare recipient's concerns that their benefits would be cut. However, not even a month ago President Obama was talking about how $313 billion in cuts, including $110 billion in cuts from reducing scheduled increases in Medicare payments to doctors, would help to pay for his plan. Would these cuts not necessarily impact seniors' Medicare benefits, via less doctors agreeing to take Medicare patients as well as increased costs associated with their supplemental insurance policies?

The White House is claiming that there is a lot of "disinformation" being disseminated regarding health care reform; what they're not telling you is that they are arguably the biggest culprits.

In what universe is the $787 billion stimulus working?

2009-08-07T09:29:00.000-07:00

By any objective standard, President Obama's $787 billion stimulus has been a colossal failure. Since the stimulus bill was signed into law, 2 million Americans have lost their jobs. Unemployment is charging toward 10%. A record number of Americans, about 1 in 9 or nearly 35 million people, are receiving food stamps. The credit markets are still locked up and banks are not lending. And now some of the President's top advisors are saying that a tax increase for the middle class is on the table to fund his vision for health care reform.

Let's suspend disbelief for a moment and accept that the stimulus is in fact working. So far approximately 10% of the money allocated in the stimulus bill has actually been spent. If this thing really is working, then why did we need to put $787 billion worth of spending in the bill if it was only going to take under $8 billion to get the job done?

The truth is, although the President initially described his stimulus as a "jolt" to the economy (he's since backed off and stated that it was never intended to be as such), the spending in the bill is heavily back-end loaded for 2011-2012. Conveniently, the President is up for re-election around that time. Coincidence?

Council of Economic Advisers chair Christina Romer insists that the stimulus is working. "Sometime after you get the prescription, and maybe even after you take the first pill, your fever spikes. Do you decide that the medicine was useless? Do you conclude the antibiotic caused the infection to get worse? Surely not," she said. "You probably conclude that the illness was more serious than you and the doctor thought, and are very glad you saw the doctor and started taking the medicine when you did."

What if what you're experiencing is an allergic reaction to the "prescription?" You just may want to stop taking it and try something else; it could save your life.

What's in the Obamacare bill? They're going to teach us how to parent too. Awesome!

2009-08-02T18:43:00.000-07:00

Creating a program to have a government bureaucrat come into our homes to teach us how to be parents...where do I sign up?

HR 3200 Sec. 440

SEC. 440. HOME VISITATION PROGRAMS FOR FAMILIES WITH YOUNG CHILDREN AND FAMILIES EXPECTING CHILDREN.

`(a) Purpose- The purpose of this section is to improve the well-being, health, and development of children by enabling the establishment and expansion of high quality programs providing voluntary home visitation for families with young children and families expecting children.

it goes on...

(v) provide parents with--
`(I) knowledge of age-appropriate child development in cognitive, language, social, emotional, and motor domains (including knowledge of second language acquisition, in the case of English language learners);
`(II) knowledge of realistic expectations of age-appropriate child behaviors;
`(III) knowledge of health and wellness issues for children and parents;
`(IV) modeling, consulting, and coaching on parenting practices;
`(V) skills to interact with their child to enhance age-appropriate development;
`(VI) skills to recognize and seek help for issues related to health, developmental delays, and social, emotional, and behavioral skills; and
`(VII) activities designed to help parents become full partners in the education of their children;

and...

`(A) in supporting home visitation programs using funds provided under this section, the State shall identify and prioritize serving communities that are in high need of such services, especially communities with a high proportion of low-income families or a high incidence of child maltreatment;

here's the link, it's a swell read!

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-HR 3200:

Health Care Reform: What's wrong with a "public option," you ask?

2009-08-02T18:41:00.000-07:00

On one of the Sunday morning news shows I heard economist Paul Krugman make the argument that a "public option" provided by the government is needed to reform health care. 73% of people in Iowa are covered by the same insurance provider. We need competition. We need a public option.

He's half-right. A lack of competition is part of the problem; however, not in the way that he would lead you to believe. There are approximately 300 health care providers in the US. Adding one more will somehow magically create competition? The problem with this theory is that it neglects to consider the way that health care is administered.

In a past life, I worked in Advanced Technology for a major dental company. During my tenure I came into contact with a man named Brian Hill. Brian is the former owner of a dental company, stage 3 oral cancer survivor, and founder of the Oral Cancer Foundation. When he was diagnosed, he wanted to get the best treatment possible. Although he was a California resident, he found that the premier facility for oral cancer treatment was located in Texas. His insurance company told him that treatment there would not be covered since it was out of network. He was insured by a major insurance provider, Blue Shield I believe. There's Blue Shield in Texas, so this shouldn't be a problem, right? WRONG. So he had to pay out-of-pocket. Fortunately he had the ability to do this; not everyone is so lucky.

Ever wonder why health insurance is so much more expensive than car insurance or renter's insurance? One of the reasons is because you can shop around. If you live in California, you can get a policy for your car from a company in Texas. Health insurance doesn't really work that way. HMO's (a government creation) and PPO's have a government-enabled monopoly on health care and a huge lobbying influence in Washington; they wouldn't want something like a little competition to affect their bottom line.

But a public option will keep the insurance companies honest, you say? Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius recently said “The president feels that having a public option side by side, same playing field, same rules, will give Americans choice and will help lower costs for everybody. And that’s a good thing.”

The problem is that a public option provided by the government would by definition not be playing by the same rules. Private companies are beholden to the bottom line; in the free market, if a company is not profitable it goes the way of the dinosaur. The government is not in the business of making a profit and has essentially unlimited resources (aka our tax dollars) so they do not have the same limitations. The government could charge a price far lower than the market would normally bear because of this. This would drive private insurance companies out of business, as the consumer will obviously opt for the lowest price, all things being equal.

At this point I hope that you can see that a public option is merely an attempt to backdoor socialized healthcare. Maybe you are all for this. Understand though that socialized healthcare is not FREE healthcare. When you eliminate competition from the market place, you lose the ability to keep prices down and thus rationing care is the only option to keep down cost. It's economics 101...if you short the supply and demand remains the same, price will inevitably go up.

How are these banks posting "surprise" profits?

2009-08-02T18:39:00.000-07:00

P Morgan Chase - $2.7 Billion
Goldman Sachs - $2.7 Billion
Citigroup - $4.3 Billion

These are the recently announced second quarter profits for three of the major recipients of bailout cash. Does anyone else find it astounding that while the rest of the economy is in shambles with hundreds of thousands of jobs being shed on a monthly basis that these banks are posting tremendous profits? Curious how this happened?

Thank the Federal Reserve. Pull a dollar bill out of your wallet. It says "Federal Reserve Note" across the top. The Federal Reserve is a private institution that Congress has chartered to manage our money supply in direct dereliction of their constitutionally mandated duties. The Federal Reserve has dished out $2 Trillion in loans in the past year and they refuse to disclose the recipients of this money. Guess what...by law, they don't have to tell us.

Does it shock you that in its 97 years of existence, the Federal Reserve has never been audited even once? Presently, we are prohibited from knowing about the Federal Reserve's operations by law. Ron Paul has proposed legislation HR 1207 "The Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2009" that would require a complete audit of the Federal Reserve to be performed by the GAO (Government Accountability Office) by 2010. This is the division of government that provides audits for every other government agency. The companion bill in the Senate is S 604.

Senator Jim Demint of South Carolina recently attempted to get this bill inserted into the 2010 Spending Bill but was blocked from even getting it to a vote. Why? Because if we audit the Fed we will realize what a scam it is and our government will no longer be able to recklessly spend our money and inflate our currency behind closed doors.

People blame "evil capitalism," but we have not practiced free market capitalism in this country for 100 years. What we practice is corporatism, where major corporations and the select few are the beneficiaries of government largesse. Cronyism at its finest. They get the benefit of easy money on the way up as well as a government bailout on the way down. Is it any wonder that Wall Street was the number one donor to Obama's campaign? They want to keep a good thing going!

I urge you to write or call your Senators and Congressmen and tell them that you demand that they support this legislation.

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml