Mandatory Entitlements

In 1993, the Clinton administration promulgated rules which said that seniors who withdraw from Medicare Part A (which covers hospital and outpatient services) must forfeit their Social Security benefits.

In 2008, a group of senior citizens sued the government, saying they should be allowed to opt out of Medicare without losing their Social Security benefits. The plaintiffs paid Medicare taxes during their working lives, and they were not trying to get that money back. They just wanted to be able to pay for medical care from their own private savings without losing Social Security benefits. In other words, they wanted to be able to pay for medical care they considered to be superior to that offered by Medicare, without being penalized for that choice.

In the fall of 2009, federal judge Rosemary Collyer supported the plaintiffs. She rejected the Obama Administration's argument that the plaintiffs had suffered no "injury" and lacked standing. She also denied the Administration's request to dismiss the suit, saying that "neither the statute nor the regulation specifies that Plaintiffs must withdraw from Social Security and repay retirement benefits in order to withdraw from Medicare." You read that last part right. The government argued that in order to withdraw from Medicare, you must not only lose your Social Security, but you must repay any retirement benefits you may have received to that point.

Incredibly, last week Judge Collyer reversed herself and dismissed the case. She decided that the Medicare statute does indeed require that Social Security recipients take government health care. According to the judge's newly discovered logic, you are no longer simply "entitled" to Medicare if you are "entitled" to Social Security (as the Medicare statute says), you must accept Medicare if you accept Social Security. In Collyer's current view, if you are entitled to something, you must accept it, or be penalized.

It is difficult to find the words to describe how insane this is. One might think that the government would be thrilled to have some seniors opt out of Medicare, since Medicare is currently a high speed fiscal train wreck that can't be stopped without major changes.

Why, then, would the government insist that seniors must participate in Medicare against their will? Here's a possible answer: the government is less interested in saving money and offering choice to consumers than in herding everyone into the same government health care pen, all in the pursuit of their egalitarian utopia.

I recently offered the opinion that we are less free than we once were. I would like to thank the government for proving my point.

Offshore Drilling is Great -- Just Not Here

Obama has come out strongly in favor of off-shore drilling for oil...in Brazil.

During his trip to South America, he told a group of Brazilian businessmen:

“We want to help you with the technology and support to develop these oil reserves safely. And when you’re ready to start selling, we want to be one of your best customers. At a time when we’ve been reminded how easily instability in other parts of the world can affect the price of oil, the United States could not be happier with the potential for a new, stable source of energy.”

As Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA), chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, put it:

“Rather than creating American energy and American jobs, President Obama is in Brazil advocating for deepening the United States’ reliance on foreign energy."

“The President has clearly learned nothing from recent world events.  He appears to believe the answer is to shift our foreign energy dependence from one part of the world to another.  The real answer is to produce more American energy.  The ‘potential for a new, stable source of energy’ can be found with our own resources here at home.  Resources that the Obama Administration is purposely choosing to keep under lock-and-key.”

Just so. If only Obama were as concerned about American jobs and economic growth as he apparently is about Brazil's. A cynic might begin to think that he views this as an opportunity to redistribute wealth.

Conditioning for Dhimmitude

The following article by Janet Levy on the American Thinker makes an interesting argument, namely that the West has already succumbed, at least psychologically, to the de facto imposition of Islamic law. The desecration of a Christian symbol such as a crucifix in a jar of urine is not only tolerated, but celebrated by some as art, and taxpayer funded art to boot. But a book published by Yale University Press on the Danish cartoons of Mohammed that sparked Muslim violence contains no illustrations of those cartoons, for fear that they would spark more violence. Her argument supports my belief that Muslims have learned to use our own notions of political correctness against us. Islam enjoys a protected status in America that no other religion can claim.


 Conditioning for Dhimmitude

Atlas Shrugged Motors

Did y'all know that taxpayers will be paying GE $375,000,000 to buy cars that the private sector is rejecting? Central planning and crony capitalism combine to make Ayn Rand's cautionary tale a lesson we have yet to learn.


Chevy Volt: The Car from Atlas Shrugged Motors

by Patrick Michaels


The Chevrolet Volt is beginning to look like it was manufactured by Atlas Shrugged Motors, where the government mandates everything politically correct, rewards its cronies and produces junk steel.

This is the car that subsidies built. General Motors lobbied for a $7,500 tax refund for all buyers, under the shaky (if not false) promise that it was producing the first all-electric mass-production vehicle.

At least that's what we were once told. Sitting in a Volt that would not start at the 2010 Detroit Auto Show, a GM engineer swore to me that the internal combustion engine in the machine only served as a generator, kicking in when the overnight-charged lithium-ion batteries began to run down. GM has continually revised downward its estimates of how far the machine would go before the gas engine fired, and now says 25 to 50 miles.

It turns out that the premium-fuel fired engine does drive the wheels--when the battery is very low or when the vehicle is at most freeway speeds. So the Volt really isn't a pure electric car after all. I'm sure that the people who designed the car knew how it ran, and so did their managers.

Why then the need to keep this so quiet? It's doubtful that GM would have gotten such a subsidy if it had been revealed that the car would do much of its freeway cruising with a gas engine powering the wheels. While the Volt is more complicated than the Prius, and has a longer battery-only range, a hybrid is a hybrid, and the Prius no longer qualifies for a tax credit.

In other words, GM was desperate for customers for what they perceived would be an unpopular vehicle before one even hit the road. It had hoped to lure more if buyers subtracted the $7,500 from the $41,000 sticker price. Instead, as Consumer Reports found out, the car was very pricey. The version they tested cost $43,700 plus a $5,000 dealer markup ("Don't worry," I can hear the salesperson saying, "you'll get more than that back in your tax credit!"), or a whopping $48,700 minus the credit.

This is one reason that Volt sales are anemic: 326 in December, 321 in January, and 281 in February. GM announced a production run of 100,000 in the first two years. Who is going to buy all these cars?

Another reason they aren't exactly flying off the lots is because, well, they have some problems. In a telling attempt to preserve battery power, the heater is exceedingly weak. Consumer Reports averaged a paltry 25 miles of electric-only running, in part because it was testing in cold Connecticut. (My engineer at the Auto Show said cold weather would have little effect.)

It will be interesting to see what the range is on a hot, traffic-jammed summer day, when the air conditioner will really tax the batteries. When the gas engine came on, Consumer Reports got about 30 miles to the gallon of premium fuel; which, in terms of additional cost of high-test gas, drives the effective mileage closer to 27 mpg. A conventional Honda Accord, which seats 5 (instead of the Volt's 4), gets 34 mpg on the highway, and costs less than half of what CR paid, even with the tax break.

Recently, President Obama selected General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt to chair his Economic Advisory Board. GE is awash in windmills waiting to be subsidized so they can provide unreliable, expensive power.

Consequently, and soon after his appointment, Immelt announced that GE will buy 50,000 Volts in the next two years, or half the total produced. Assuming the corporation qualifies for the same tax credit, we (you and me) just shelled out $375,000,000 to a company to buy cars that no one else wants so that GM will not tank and produce even more cars that no one wants. And this guy is the chair of Obama's Economic Advisory Board?

It really is enough to get you to say Atlas Shrugged. For those who do not know, or who are only vaguely familiar with, the Ayn Rand classic, it is a story of a society in decay, where politically favored technologies and jobs are foisted on the nation, where innovations that might threaten existing corporatist cartels are financially or physically sabotaged as unemployment mounts and the nation spirals into a malaise that makes the Carter years look like Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.

Atlas Shrugged is about to come out as a surprisingly good and entertaining movie (which will be destroyed by Hollywood and New York Critics) on--you guessed it--April 15. Maybe the government could put in an ad before the show with Immelt exhorting Americans to care about "the environment and green jobs." All must buy Volts.

Patrick Michaels is senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute and author of Climate Coup: Global Warming's Invasion of our Government and our Lives, which comes out April 22.

Lying About Social Security

A few weeks ago Jack Lew, director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) wrote in USA Today that social security is solvent until 2037. Therefore, the narrative goes, there is no need to even consider social security in current budget negotiations. I have since heard the same claim made by several journalists and pundits on the left.

Lew was also OMB director in the last couple of years of the Clinton administration. Back then, he sang a different tune. When discussing the fiscal 2000 budget, then-director Lew said that social security trust fund balances were nothing more than a "bookkeeping" device. He said “They do not consist of real economic assets that can be drawn down in the future to fund benefits.” Then, he was telling the truth. There was, and is, nothing in the "trust fund" but a government IOU that can only be redeemed by taxing or borrowing. Contrary to the tale being spun by the left, social security is already a drain on budgets. As baby boomers start retiring, the burden will quickly become severe. And Lew damn well knows it.

Why, then, is Lew lying through his teeth now? Do they actually want the economy to implode?

The Myth of Green Energy Jobs

In a recent article by Kenneth Green at the American Enterprise Institute, he discusses the failure of the European experiment in "green jobs", and its implications for Obama's attempts to create them. The article is lengthy, so I offer the conclusion below for those who don't wish to wade through it. Note: his comment about "breaking windows" is a reference to French economist Frederic Bastiat's fallacy of the broken window, which is explained in the article.


Conclusion
Both economic theory and the experience of European countries that have attempted to build a green-energy economy that will create green jobs reveal that such thinking is deeply fallacious. Spain, Italy, Germany, and Denmark have all tried and failed to accomplish positive outcomes with renewable energy. Some will suggest that the United States is different, and that US planners will have the wisdom to make the green economy work here. But there is no getting around the fact that you do not improve your economy or create jobs by breaking windows, and US planners are no more omniscient than those in Europe.

The Myth of Green Energy Jobs: The European Experience

The Brits and the U.N.

According to an item in the news...

The British are pulling funds from U.N. agencies deemed to be wasteful and inept. Britain's Department for International Development (DFID) issued a review of funding to the U.N. It placed two agencies on notice, saying they must improve immediately or lose their funding. Four other U.N. agencies fared worse. The UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT), the International Labour Organization (ILO), the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), and the UN International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) had their funding withdrawn completely. All other U.N. agencies were harshly criticized.

I think it's time the U.S. conducted a study of what exactly the U.N. does and how it does it. We might just find that the Brits are on to something.

Saw a pretty good line in an article this morning....

"No matter how cynical I get, I just can't keep up."

Rousseau, Islamists, & the Left

Below is an article by Andrew McCarthy at National Review. It examines the connections between jihadists and the left, with Rousseau as a major link. Quite thought provoking...

 

Jean-Jacques Jihad

March 5, 2011

 

The one thing that absolutely could not be tolerated was true freedom, the liberty of the individual. For Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the “social compact” would otherwise be “an empty formula.” The irreducible core of the utopia he envisioned, the “undertaking which alone can give force to the rest,” was quite simply this: “Whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be compelled to do so by the whole body.” 

Ah, yes, the “general will.” For this, every modern totalitarian movement is indebted to the 18th-century Genevan philosopher who claimed, in The Social Contract, that a man’s compulsory servitude to the state — the embodiment of this general will — “means nothing less than that he will be forced to be free.” Rousseau was what we today call “Orwellian” long before there was an Orwell. “Freedom” was nothing more than submission.

That is why Rousseau so admired Islam.

The history of Islam and the modern Left is one of cooperation when there is some obstacle to their divergent concepts of “social justice” and the perfect society. These are always marriages of convenience, enduring no longer than the enemy that drives them into each other’s arms. But, reliably, it is they — the Islamists and the leftists — who come together when there is a third party in the mix. Rarely will one collude with a common enemy against the other. Today, the common enemy of Islamists and leftists is individual liberty, especially the social, economic, and political freedom guaranteed by the American Constitution, as conceived by the Framers. Conceived, that is, by men who saw government as a necessary evil to be rigorously limited lest it devour true freedom — not as an essential good to be empowered for the very purpose of enforcing servitude.


Collaborations between Islamists and leftists — past examples and those happening right before our eyes — are numerous, so much so that I admit to being dumbfounded by the frequency of the question of whether they really happen. That there is collusion is undeniable.

That collusion is a major theme of my book The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America — “grand jihad” and “sabotage” being the Islamists’ own terms for what they describe as their plan to “destroy Western civilization.” By the time the book was published last spring, the Center for Constitutional Rights, a New Left flagship created by radical lawyer William Kunstler in the 1960s, had spent nearly a decade spearheading the representation of jihadists captured making war against the United States. The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) — whose founders were ardent admirers of Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood, and whose current executive director said, right after the 9/11 attacks, that “we should put the State of Israel on the suspect list” — was at the forefront of Islamist organizations then campaigning for the enactment of Obamacare, when MPAC wasn’t otherwise occupied by the numerous executive-branch agencies that regularly seek its input on any number of issues.

This should have been no surprise, for history is littered with Islamist/leftist confederations — e.g., the Muslim Brotherhood’s support of the military coup led by Soviet puppet Gamal Abdel Nasser to overthrow the British-backed Egyptian monarchy; the avowed “Islamic socialism” of the Pakistan People’s Party; the blend of Islamists and leftists that has always composed the Palestine Liberation Organization. Let’s say that this hadn’t been the case, though. Let’s pretend that the last 30 years hadn’t seen everything from Iranian Communists rallying to support Khomeini’s revolution to last summer’s “peace flotilla,” a joint effort by Islamist operatives and avowed Communists such as Bill Ayers to break Israel’s blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza. The everyday cooperation between Islamists and leftists right under our noses would still be manifest.

The interesting question is not whether it occurs, but why. To anyone who studies the matter, as the liberty-loving Muslim reformer Zuhdi Jasser has, the Islamist enthusiasm for statist schemes like Obamacare is easy to decode. Islamist organizations are collectivist groups, Dr. Jasser explains. They fall squarely in line with the socialist platform of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is, as Dr. Jasser puts it, to “increase the power of government through entitlement programs, increased taxation, and restricting free markets whenever and wherever possible.” That platform is the legacy of Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna and of Sayyid Qutb, the Brotherhood’s most formidable theoretician. Decades after their deaths, both these men remain required reading for budding Islamist activists in Brotherhood-inspired redoubts like the Muslim Student Association, the Islamic Society of North America, and the International Institute of Islamic Thought.

An animating goal of these organizations is to have Islamic principles recognized by government and enforced through the state’s coercive power. These principles needn’t be known as “Islamic” any more than leftist pieties are advertised as “leftist.” They need only reflect what Islamists, like leftists, call “social justice.”

This is perhaps most clearly illustrated in Qutb’s tract, Social Justice in Islam. The book teaches that Islam is about the collective, and that those who resist the Muslim ummah must, as Rousseau would have said, be “forced to be free.” According to Qutb, “integrating” humanity in “an essential unity” under sharia is “a prerequisite for true and complete human life, even justifying the use of force against those who deviate from it, so that those who wander from the true path may be brought back to it.” The overarching principle is the “interdependence and solidarity of mankind,” with the individual’s well-being achieved by his submission to the Islamic state. And “whoever has lost sight of this principle must be brought back to it by any means.” Thus, Qutb elaborates, sharia makes “unbelief” a “crime” that is “reckoned as equal in punishment” to the “crime of murder.” Forms of treason such as apostasy and fomenting discord in the ummah are capital offenses. As in all totalitarian systems, freedom is an illusion: security through enslavement

Thus is Islam virulently opposed to capitalism, true freedom’s economic form. Qutb expounds on Islamic economic tenets: Human life is demeaned by great agglomerations of personal wealth and by the enrichment financiers attain by collecting interest on loans (which sharia forbids). These arrangements are said to enslave debtors and the working classes, making men the gods of other men. To be sure, Islam endorses private property — nominally — and it is less indifferent than the Left about incentivizing human achievement. But this is only because individual achievement is ultimately a corporate asset, increasing the dominance of the ummah. The property “owner” is merely a custodian; his wealth belongs to Allah. It is subject to confiscation by Allah’s agent on earth, the Islamic state, for what is deemed to be the collective good of the Muslim Nation.

This is Islam’s version of the general will: sharia’s enforcement of the central conceit that there is no God but Allah. Freedom, for Qutb, was a release from the servitude of men to men. Not, however, a release from all servitude. Freedom was “submission” to Allah — and not just spiritual submission, but total submission. Authority in Islam is unitary and indivisible. It recognizes no distinctions between the sacred and the secular. Sharia is not simply a set of spiritual principles. Islam is a comprehensive political, economic, social, and military program with its own legal code, governing every aspect of life.

There can be no compartmentalizing or narrowing. To narrow the breadth of sharia — as Qutb put it, “to confine Islam to the emotions and ritual cycles, and to bar it from participating in the activity of life, and to check its complete dominance over every human secular activity” — would reduce it to something other than the divine law. It would no longer be Islam. Therefore, mankind is not at liberty to constrict Allah’s law, much less to enact provisions that contradict it. Legislatures in the Islamic state are not democratic in the Western sense, even if they have been elected by the community. In a sharia state, as Brotherhood guide Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi has observed, legislators don’t really legislate; they are merely vessels of the divine law, which has substantially been set in stone for more than a millennium.

In Islam, it is Allah’s sharia that fills the role of Rousseau’s general will. Thus did Qutb observe of Rousseau’s great upheaval, the French Revolution, that what it “theoretically established by human laws . . . was established as a matter of practice by Islam in a profound and elevated form more than fourteen centuries earlier.”

Such symmetry had not been lost on Rousseau, for whom statism would be the “religion of the citizen.” Above all, it would merge the sacred and the secular under a single authority. As in the pagan states of antiquity, Rousseau’s vision of the ideal regime included

its gods, its own tutelary patrons; it has its dogmas, its rites, and its external cult prescribed by law; outside the single nation that follows it, all the world is in its sight infidel, foreign and barbarous; the duties and rights of man extend for it only as far as its own altars.

The similarity to Qutb’s Islam is striking. For the Islamist, all the world is divided into irreconcilable spheres: the perfect social justice of Dar al-Islam, the realm of the Muslims, and the unenlightened darkness so tellingly called Dar al-Harb, “the realm of war” — infidel, foreign, and barbarous.

Small wonder, then, that Rousseau lavished praise on Islam. But not just any Islam; his accolades were reserved for the early Muslims, Islam’s first generations. “Mahomet held very sane views,” Rousseau opined in The Social Contract. The prophet “linked his political system well together,” the civil and the spiritual as one. “As long as the form of his government continued under the caliphs who succeeded him, that government was indeed one, and so far good.” It was only when “the Arabs” departed from this model — when, “having grown prosperous, lettered, civilised, slack and cowardly,” they were “conquered by barbarians” — that Islam fell victim to what Rousseau (and Qutb) saw as the Christian dystopia: “the division between the two powers” of religion and the state.

The Muslim Brotherhood, it bears remembering, preaches a Salafist ideology: a retrenchment to the principles of the salafia, the “rightly guided caliphs” who were Mohammed’s immediate successors. The reform of Islam urged by Banna and Qutb was a purge of the same barbaric influences — particularly Western, Judeo-Christian influences — that Rousseau had seen as so corrupting.

Islamists and leftists have several significant differences. Qutb saw communism as far preferable to capitalism but too obsessed with an economic determinism that discounted the spiritual. The two camps part company on the equality of women and of non-Muslims, on matters of sexual liberty, and on abortion. If the world were populated only by Islamists and leftists, they could not coexist. Their marriages of convenience can have savagely unhappy endings once the common enemy that has drawn them together has been overcome. In Egypt, the Islamists were brutally persecuted by Nasser; in Iran, the secular leftists were routed by Khomeini.

Nevertheless, for all their differences, what unites Islamists and leftists is stronger than what presently divides them. They both support totalitarian systems. They would both attempt to recreate mankind, intending to perfect us by indenturing us to their utopian schemes. Their general will cannot abide free will. They both abhor individual liberty, unfettered reason, freedom of conscience, equality of opportunity rather than result, and bourgeois values that inculcate a devotion to bedrock Western principles and traditions.
That is why Islamists and leftists work together. It is why they will continue working together as long as there is resistance.

—  Andrew C. McCarthy, a senior fellow at the National Review Institute, is the author, most recently, of The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America.

Reid to Cowboys: I can't get quit of you

In case anyone thinks democrats are actually serious about cutting spending, I offer the following...

Harry Reid on Cowboy Poetry

Who Drives Environmental Policy?

From Arnold Kling, at the Library of Economics and Liberty, commenting on the Dept. of Energy:

Tim Carney writes:

“Environmental policy is not driven by tree-hugging activists, earnest liberal bloggers, or ecologically minded citizens. Instead, it flows from the lobbyists and executives of well-connected multinational corporations and built-for-subsidy startups that see profit in the loan guarantees, handouts, mandates, and tax credits Congress creates in the name of saving the planet.”

This is a most depressing topic. The latest issue of Technology Review has a cover story on the editors' selection of the 50 most innovative companies. It is heavily weighted toward firms involved in green energy, and these are in turn heavily weighted toward companies that enjoy subsidies and loan guarantees from the taxpayers.

In reality, much of the increase in energy demand over the next ten years will be met by natural gas, which is cheap, abundant, and relatively "clean" in terms of carbon emissions. The subsidized forms of energy will be a net drain on the economy.

Yet energy blogger Kevin Bullis writes:

“Obama, with his proposed multi-billion dollar increases for renewable energy research has the right idea, although this could go further (more research into cleaner hydrofracking technology for natural gas, for example, would likely prove a wise investment). Cheap, clean energy that doesn't come from oppressive dictators and enemies of the United States should have strong bipartisan support.”

Of course, nobody is opposed to cheap, clean, domestically-produced energy. But the political attempt to provide it will only result in expensive energy, with unseen environmental costs (biofuels), and increases in budget deficits that will harm, rather than enhance, America's strategic position.

The Department of Energy was established during the Carter Administration. As far as I know, no one has ever suggested that we have benefited from its existence. The other night, Ron Bailey pointed out that its original goal was "synfuels," which not only were ridiculously expensive but would have greatly increased the carbon emissions of our transportation system.

Still, if you suggest that America should not have an energy policy, everybody other than a hardcore libertarian will dismiss you as a crackpot.  Energy policy is a triumph of faith over experience.

Change

In fiscal year 2007, the budget deficit was about $163 billion.

For February 2011, the CBO estimates the budget deficit at $223 billion, a new record. And a much higher deficit for one month than we had in all of 2007.

Voters were seduced by the call for change in 2008. They got it.

The U.N., Iran, and Women

In April, 2010, the United Nations voted to seat Iran as a delegate to the Commission on the Status of Women for the 2011-2015 term. Iran took its seat yesterday.

According to the Commission's mission statement, it "is dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women. It is the principal global policy-making body. Every year, representatives of Member States gather at United Nations Headquarters in New York to evaluate progress on gender equality, identify challenges, set global standards and formulate concrete policies to promote gender equality and advancement of women worldwide."

According to Anne Bayefsky, a Canadian political science professor, "Iranian judges can, and do, sentence women to death by stoning for alleged adultery. And according to the State Department's latest report: "Spousal rape is not illegal... Rape:...according to the penal code...four male witnesses or three men and two women are required for conviction...A man may escape punishment for killing a wife caught in the act of adultery if he is certain she was a consenting partner...[I]n 2008 50 honor killings were reported during a seven-month period...The punishment for perpetrators was often a short prison sentence...A woman has the right to divorce only if her husband signs a contract granting that right, cannot provide for his family, or is a drug addict, insane, or impotent. A husband was not required to cite a reason for divorcing his wife...The testimony of two women is equal to that of one man..."

The U.N. has a history of putting on councils miscreant nations that make a farce of what those councils purport to do, presumably in the service of multiculturalism.

How can anyone take the U.N. seriously? And why should the U.S. continue to support it? From what I've read, the U.S. did not oppose the seatiing of Iran on a council that allegedly promotes equality for women. How can that be? And why aren't feminist groups raising hell about it?

GAO Report

I was shocked, shocked I tell you, by the following item...

The General Accountability Office (GAO) has released a study which was mandated by law in January, 2010. Its mandate was to study government waste and inefficiency. Among its findings, some would be funny if they weren't throwing taxpayer money down the drain...

82 different programs across 10 agencies to improve teacher quality

80 programs to help the less fortunate secure transportation

56 overlapping programs to help Americans understand personal budgeting

47 job training programs, 44 of which overlap

20 programs across 7 agencies dealing with homelessness

15 agencies administering 30 food-related laws

Some of the programs struggled to explain to GAO what they do. According to GAO, 18 programs for domestic food assistance initiatives are run by the Dept. of Agriculture, Homeland Security and the Dept. of Health and Human Services. GAO estimates that $62.5 billion is spent on these programs. But "little is known about the effectiveness" of 11 of those programs, the report states. Of the 47 job-training programs run out of the federal government, only five could provide an "impact study" since 2004 looking at "outcomes." About half of them provided no performance review at all since 2004.

This report lends credence to Reagan's observation that the closest thing to eternal life on this earth is a government program.

When republicans recently proposed $61 billion in spending cuts for the remainder of this year's budget, democrats were horrified by such draconian measures. According to some estimates, the waste and duplication detailed in the GAO report amounts to hundreds of billions per year. I wonder if democrats will claim that the sky is falling if republicans actually try to root out this waste.

It's worth noting that the only reason we are having a budget battle right now is that democrats chose not to offer a budget last year. The reason they didn't is that they did not want voters to see their budget before the elections. Alas, their attempt to hoodwink the voters failed. And with the results of the election, they have been hoisted with their own petard.

I can't wait for next year's GAO report. Any bets on whether the situation has improved?

Your Tax Dollars at Work

Last year a study at the University of Madrid concluded that Spain's efforts to create "green" jobs had resulted in a cost per job of something over $200,000. And as I recall, that figure didn't take into account the companies that left Spain due to its foolish economic policies.

Now comes word that the Congressional Budget Office has estimated the cost of jobs "saved or created" by the stimulus bill to be at least an average of $228,055 each. I would wager that the actual cost per job "saved or created" is much higher.

What will it take for certain policy makers to grasp that government spending to stimulate the economy is stupid? Is there any amount of empirical evidence that will make them abandon their fantasies? I fear not.

Corporate Tax Rates

In the State of the Union address, Obama mentioned the possibility of lowering corporate tax rates. Since then, Treasury Secretary Giethner has expressed some interest. That's good. 

So far, however, there has been no concrete proposal to cut corporate rates. Perhaps they are worried about political fallout because the left views corporations as evil things that shouldn't get any “tax breaks.” But U.S. corporate rates are the second highest among developed countries, and will probably secure the #1 spot if Japan, as expected, lowers rates in April. 

The end result of high corporate tax rates is that U.S. companies are less competitive, which among other things means lower economic growth and lower employment. 

The left desperately needs an education on this. Below is a link to a study from the School of Public Policy, University of Calgary. I copy the conclusions below for those who don't care to wade through the article.

Conclusions:

A growing number of policymakers are recognizing that the U.S. corporate tax system is a major barrier to economic growth. The aim of corporate tax reforms should be to create a system that has a competitive rate and is neutral between different business activities. A sharp reduction to the federal corporate rate of 10 percentage points or more combined with tax base reforms would help generate higher growth and ultimately more jobs and income. Such reforms would likely lose the government little, if any, revenue over the long run

State governments also play an important role in business tax policy. Unfortunately, the average state corporate tax rate has not been cut in at least three decades, despite major reductions around the world since then. Furthermore, state retail sales taxes impose substantial burdens on capital purchases, which undermines investment and productivity. Thus, sales taxes should be reformed to remove taxation on business inputs.

New Estimates of Effective Corporate Tax Rates on Business Investment