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Posts Tagged ‘Big Government’
April 25th, 2012 at 1:35 pm
“Bribery” in Mexico Not that Different from “Public Policy” in America
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In recent days, Wal-Mart has been rocked by the New York Times‘ reporting on a bribery scandal in Mexico, where the firm reportedly paid over $24 million to government officials to fast-track the permitting process for stores built south of the border.

The left, of course, is all over this because Wal-Mart is their corporate bete noir of choice. Personally, however, I think the party that bears the most guilt is the Mexican government, which has created an atmosphere in which graft is the easiest way to do business. Absent those conditions, the need for bribes would have been minimal and the issue would’ve been moot. Regardless, however, there’s an important angle here that gets fleshed out by the American Enterprise Institute’s Nick Schulz, writing for Forbes:

… While we’re on the topic of companies having to pay the politically powerful for access to markets, can we stop for a moment to examine how things sometimes get done right here in the United States? It’s not uncommon for big box retailers to pony up cash and other unearned benefits in order to break new ground on stores.; what’s different here, however, is that members of our political class often force them to do it. And it’s all perfectly legal.

Consider a recent bill in Maryland, where I live, aimed at big box retailers. Firms like Wal-Mart, Costco, and others hoping to expand operations in wealthy Montgomery County, just outside Washington DC, would be forced to negotiate legally-binding “community benefits agreements” as a condition for building and operating new stores. These sorts of bills are not uncommon when big retailers want to expand or enter into new markets.

The upshot is that politically well-connected local stakeholders – unions, community organizers, and other interest groups – get cash, hiring promises, and other benefits from the retailer in exchange for dropping any opposition to a new store.

Among the possible benefits are “assistance to community organizations and programs.” These organizations can, in turn, use this “assistance” to support the political candidates who push this kind of legislation in the first place.

What Schulz is describing is no more representative of free-market capitalism than the bribery going on in Mexico. As long as business owners have to compensate others who have contributed absolutely nothing to their efforts as the predicate for setting up shop, political power over business is still excessive. At least the folks in Mexico have the decency to call this what it is.

April 18th, 2012 at 9:10 am
A Federal Budget That Ignores the Constitution
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Writing in the Washington Times, Richard Rahn — Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and Chairman of the Institute for Global Economic Growth — puts the current state of federal spending in rather horrid relief:

The federal government is spending about 24 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). Most of it goes for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other entitlement programs. The “discretionary” portion of the budget equals about 9 percent of GDP, with about half going for defense. Until 1930, the federal government normally spent less than 4 percent of GDP, except for the periods during World War I and the Civil War. The Constitution gives the federal government very few tasks for which it is required to spend money — the big item being the “common defense.” Again, up until 1930, the courts forced the federal government to live largely within the confines of the Constitution. Deducting defense spending from the federal budgets before 1930 shows that the federal government lived perfectly well on 2 percent to 3 percent of GDP for the first 140 years of the republic.

What all of this means is that approximately three-quarters of all federal government spending is not required by — and often is contrary to — the Constitution.

Conventional wisdom in Washington increasingly holds that those who wish to see the federal government pare back its expenditures rather than increase the tax burden on the American people are delusional, if not antediluvian. Yet for the majority of American history, the federal government was only a fraction of what it is today — and the Republic did quite well for itself.

Are we really to believe today that spending cuts that would still leave the federal government’s share of GDP several multiples higher than it was less than a century ago mark some civilizational rot? Because by all indicators (Europe comes to mind), the failure to prune seems to be the more perilous course.

April 4th, 2012 at 12:13 pm
Head of Federal Government’s Cost-Cutting Agency Resigns Amidst Revelations of Taxpayer-Funded Excesses
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Every week or so it seems there’s another story out of Washington about the federal government spending an eye-popping amount of money on something that’s either dramatically overpriced or outright unnecessary: $115,000 a year for someone to update the Interior Department’s Facebook page, for instance, or the Maryland town where more than $800,000 of stimulus money was spent in order to publicize how well stimulus money was being spent.

Perhaps, in a fit of rage at one of these stories, you’ve wondered why there isn’t a government watchdog tasked with reining in these expenditures. Though it’s little know outside of Washington, there actually is such an organization, the colorlessly named General Services Administration (GSA), which describes its mission as “to use expertise to provide innovative solutions for our customers in support of their missions, and by so doing, foster an effective, sustainable, and transparent government for the American people.” And now the head of the organization, Martha Johnson, is stepping down after the GSA went on a taxpayer-funded spending binge.

From the Federal Times:

GSA’s Public Buildings Service spent $822,000 on the biennial Western Regions Conference in Las Vegas for only 300 employees, according to an inspector general’s report.

The expenses included $147,000 for airfare and hotel lodging for six planning trips by conference organizers. That figure included $100,000 on two “scouting trips” and five off-site meetings and an additional $30,000 on catering costs for those trips, according to the report.

Among the other expenses were $3,200 for a mind reader; $6,300 on a commemorative coin set displayed in velvet boxes; and $75,000 on a training exercise to build a bicycle, according to the IG report, which was obtained by Federal Times.

GSA also promised the hotel an additional $41,480 in catering charges in exchange for the “concession” of the hotel honoring the government’s lodging limit.

The agency also spent $44 a person per breakfast and $95 per person for its closing reception dinner.

The agency also spent money on mementos for attendees, clothing for GSA employees and tuxedo rentals, according to the report.

The GSA: Looking out for the taxpayers since 1949. But who will watch the watchmen?

h/t — Mollie Hemingway at Ricochet.

March 5th, 2012 at 2:13 pm
The Obama Energy Famine, Continued
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In my column last week, I focused on how the Obama Administration’s energy policies harm the economy by subsidizing “clean fuels” that are not viable at market while handicapping the energy sources that actually work (and are affordable) in the here and now. An editorial in today’s Washington Examiner drives the point home:

The number of approvals for drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf in the Gulf of Mexico — which accounts for a third of all U.S. oil production — under Obama has plunged from more than seven per month to only three. Measured in terms of how long is required for the government to consider a permit application, the average for the five years before Obama was 60.6 days. The average is now almost 110 days, according to the Institute for Energy Research. Viewed in terms of the percentage of all permits sought that are approved, the five-year average before Obama was 73 percent. Today under Obama, it is 23 percent and falling. In other words, it is almost certain that the oil-drilling rig count will head back down in coming months, but it will be in response to government interference rather than as a result of price fluctuations. And the price of gas at the pump will continue to go higher.

Read that again. A 2/3 reduction in the number of permits issued and a doubling of the time it takes to get said permits. And the president really wants us to believe he doesn’t have any “silver bullets” for gas prices?

February 8th, 2012 at 2:56 pm
New Heritage Foundation Study: Government Dependency at an All-Time High
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The Heritage Foundation is out today with its 2012 Index of Dependence on Government, and the results aren’t pretty. The study finds that Americans are more in thrall to the state than ever before. Amongst the report’s findings:

  • One in five Americans—the highest in the nation’s history—relies on the federal government for everything from housing, health care, and food stamps to college tuition and retirement assistance. That’s more than 67.3 million Americans who receive subsidies from Washington.
  • Government dependency jumped 8.1 percent in the past year, with the most assistance going toward housing, health and welfare, and retirement.
  • The federal government spent more taxpayer dollars than ever before in 2011 to subsidize Americans. The average individual who relies on Washington could receive benefits valued at $32,748, more than the nation’s average disposable personal income ($32,446).
  • At the same time, nearly half of the U.S. population (49.5 percent) does not pay any federal income taxes.

There are three tragedies at work here. The first is that the federal government — through relentless taxation, regulation, and legislation — has kept the economy in such miserable condition as to necessitate so many people looking for assistance. The second is that so many sectors that enjoy public subsidies — such as higher education and health care — are actually made more expensive by the federal largesse. And the third is the broader social trend of Americans coming unmoored from the independent, self-made spirit of our forebears, content instead to live in a gilded cage to which Washington holds the key.

Changing that mindset will be just as important as changing public policy if the American people are to rediscover their trademark sense of rugged individualism.

December 22nd, 2011 at 6:15 pm
Taxpayers Footing the Bill to Create Pakistani Version of “Sesame Street,” Video Game Based on Michelle Obama’s Garden
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You’ve really got to hand it to Senator Tom Coburn. In a job where the only real responsibility is to raise your hand from time to time, the junior senator from Oklahoma has taken it upon himself to use the full powers of his office to fight for a smaller, less wasteful government. One of the mechanisms he employs in waging this battle is his annual “Wastebook Report,” chronicling the most outrageous excesses in federal spending over the past year. The 2011 version is now out and well worth a read (assuming you have blood pressure medication nearby). Here are just a few samples from Coburn’s collection of 100 outrages:

  • $35 million of taxpayer money to pay for both major parties’ political conventions
  • Around $500,000 to purchase equity in a Washington D.C. IHOP
  • $120 million in benefits for federal employees who were ineligible — because they were dead
  • Over $100,000 to preserve vintage video games
  • $18 million in foreign aid … to China, our banker
  • $100,000 for a celebrity chef road show in Indonesia
  • $10 million to help develop a Pakistani version of “Sesame Street”
  • Approximately $1 billion in falsely-claimed tax credits for household energy efficiency
  • Nearly $1 million for an online soap opera about single mothers (starring Billy Dee Williams, no less)
  • Over $175,000 to fund a study on the connection between cocaine use and risky sexual behavior … in quail
  • Half a million dollars for research on the trustworthiness of tweets
  • $4.4 billion in wartime contracting fraud
  • Over $200,000 for an online organic farming video game based on Michelle Obama’s White House vegetable garden.
  • $600,000 for research on why chimps throw their own feces.

With this report, Tom Coburn is earning his taxypayer-funded salary. He may be the only one.

November 7th, 2011 at 6:46 pm
Internal Clock Off? Thank Congress
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If, like most Americans, you’re still struggling with the physiological fallout from this weekend’s end to Daylight Saving Time, keep this in mind: you have the federal government to blame.

Though it’s now regarded as something of a natural law, DST was actually a 20th century innovation, not imposed on the U.S. until our entry into World War I, when it was justified as a means of energy conservation. It was then repealed, brought back during World War II, used sporadically after the war, and finally made federal law in 1966. Yet politicians continue meddling with it to this day, changing DST most recently in 2007, when they made it approximately a month longer.

Is there any better example of Washington’s inability to know its limitations? Our elected officials literally think they can legislate what time it is. In reality, Daylight Savings Time is a sort of temporal Keynesianism — lop off a little time here, place it somewhere else, and act as if it’s a net gain. If you want to know how that little bit of alchemy works in the real world, ask any parent who has small children whether the tykes dutifully observed Sunday morning’s time change.

This is one more example of social engineering from the feds that we can do without. When it comes to keeping government out of our bedrooms, let’s start with the alarm clock.

October 26th, 2011 at 10:03 pm
ACORN Joins the Group of Liberal Special Interests Backing Occupy Wall Street
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I’ve posted before on how the ‘Occupy’ protests — supposedly an outlet for the disenfranchised and underprivileged — have cast their lot with powerful left-wing special interests like the teachers unions. Now, according to Big Government, ACORN is getting in on the action:

Fox News reported earlier today that remnants of ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), the radical community organizing group that collapsed after its corruption was exposed by Big Government, are playing a “behind the scenes” role in organizing the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations.

The Fox News investigation followed Matthew Vadum’s report two weeks ago at Big Government that ACORN was paying people to attend the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York through the Working Families Party, an ACORN front group.

Now, Big Government has learned that in an email sent by Fithian to Occupy organizers and supporters on October 22, 2011, she reported that the “New Bottom Line”–an effort to move as much money out of major banks as possible on November 5th–is being led by several ACORN-linked organizations: “National People’s Action, National Pico Network, and Alliance for Just and Sustainable Economy and other key state groups like ACCE in CA, NYCC in NY, or MORE in St. Louis.”

I don’t begrudge these groups their ability to participate in these protests. That’s a natural consequence of the robust rights of free association present in a liberal society. What I do object to, however, is the ‘Occupy’ movement’s continued rhetorical claims to be a voice for the voiceless when it’s doing the bidding of some of the most powerful and well-heeled liberal special interests in the nation. This isn’t a left-wing revolution promoting “people power.” It’s just the same old tax-and-spend crowd, only this time on the sidewalks.

September 16th, 2011 at 4:20 pm
Kotkin, Palin, and the Coming Middle Class Revolt

An interesting critique is starting to surface: Big Government and Big Business are conspiring to enrich themselves at the expense of job and wealth creation for the middle and lower classes.  Demographer Joel Kotkin is noticing it.  So too, is potential GOP presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

As Kotkin notes, grassroots Democrats are noticing that President Barack Obama’s neglect of job creation is costing their members dearly.  (Just ask California Democrat Maxine Waters.)  Republican presidential frontrunner Rick Perry is weakest on the issue of crony capitalism.  Palin’s critique of the Big Business-Big Government axis could expand a core Tea Party theme into a viable national campaign.

Of course, this argument may fizzle, but it’s interesting to see quite different commentators coming out with the same idea.

August 29th, 2011 at 1:28 pm
Irony: Gallup Poll Shows Tech Industry Rated Highest, Federal Gov’t That Keeps Regulating It Rated Lowest
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According to a new poll from Gallup, Americans rate the “Computer Industry” most positively among 25 business and government entities, with the “Internet Industry” close behind.  That’s no surprise – few innovations in human history have transformed our lives as rapidly and profoundly as the tech sector.

But here’s an irony.  The federal government, which constantly interferes with tech sector innovation via such bureaucratic assaults as so-called “Net Neutrality” and interference with the private proposed merger between AT&T and T-Mobile, is rated least favorably by Americans.  Only 17% of Americans rate the federal government positively, which 63% rate it negatively.  In contrast, the computer industry is rated positively by a 72% to 10% margin, and the Internet industry is rated positively by a 56% to 16% ratio.

Perhaps we’d all be better off if the tech sector began monitoring the federal government, rather than the converse.  It certainly appears that most Americans would agree.

August 11th, 2011 at 8:15 pm
Britain’s Warning for America
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One does not have to be a particularly astute connector of socio-political dots to watch the recent rioting that has gripped London and find parallels to America’s enfeebled welfare state. That makes the following bravura passage from Theodore Dalrymple at City Journal all the more disquieting:

The riots are the apotheosis of the welfare state and popular culture in their British form. A population thinks (because it has often been told so by intellectuals and the political class) that it is entitled to a high standard of consumption, irrespective of its personal efforts; and therefore it regards the fact that it does not receive that high standard, by comparison with the rest of society, as a sign of injustice. It believes itself deprived (because it has often been told so by intellectuals and the political class), even though each member of it has received an education costing $80,000, toward which neither he nor—quite likely—any member of his family has made much of a contribution; indeed, he may well have lived his entire life at others’ expense, such that every mouthful of food he has ever eaten, every shirt he has ever worn, every television he has ever watched, has been provided by others. Even if he were to recognize this, he would not be grateful, for dependency does not promote gratitude. On the contrary, he would simply feel that the subventions were not sufficient to allow him to live as he would have liked.

A challenge for readers: remove the first sentence from the above passage. Then see if you can find anything that doesn’t apply to modern-day America. It could happen here.

August 9th, 2011 at 9:01 pm
Obama Attempts to Create “National Education Industrial Complex”
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With the White House now stuck in a defensive crouch because of the state of the economy, many voters have the luxury of forgetting the activist liberal agenda that President Obama brought to the White House in 2009. Most of us remember that Obama’s first-term check list involved massive expansions of government involvement in health care, energy, and finance. But too many of us forget that the other area where he openly sought a broader role for Washington was in education.

Because there is no cumbersome education bill winding its way through Congress, the threat may seem to have ceased. But those who understand the administration’s tactical impulses know that it can always be relied on to pursue through regulation what it can’t get through legislation. That’s the point made by the Hoover Institution’s Bill Evers (former Assistant Secretary of Education in the George W. Bush administration) in this interview with Reason.tv. The Obama Administration’s goal, he says, is to create an American equivalent of the French Ministry of Education:

June 8th, 2011 at 12:13 am
Pawlenty Gets His Game Face On
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I’m going to have to make some concessions to Tim, which means I may start drinking before I’m finished writing this post (just kidding, Tim is consistently on point … and I started drinking long before I started drafting).

The source of this doff of the cap is the performance of one Tim Pawlenty, who Mr. Lee took to this blog to defend when I lamented the state of the Republican presidential field upon Mitch Daniels’ non-entry.

As the invisible primary picks up steam, Pawlenty is showing some real grit (he opposed ethanol mandates despite the importance of Iowa to his electoral strategy, for instance) and consistently sharpening his message. Giving a major economic address in Chicago today, the former Minnesota governor brilliantly characterized his formula for reducing government:

“We can start by applying what I call ‘The Google Test,’ Pawlenty said Tuesday. “If you can find a good or service on the Internet, then the federal government probably doesn’t need to be doing it.”

Pundits on the left are already hitting Pawlenty for being reductionist. There may be some ever-so-slight truth to that. You can find health care services online, but that doesn’t mean it’s unreasonable for the government to provide funding for the poorest among us. Still, having the government provide it? I’d have to say the Pawlenty formula is right about 98 percent of the time.

April 5th, 2011 at 1:19 pm
FCC Commissioner Clyburn Thinks Government Should Enter the Communications Business, Too
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In this era of bureaucratic overreach and unsustainable spending and deficits, should government also enter the business of competing against private communications service providers?  Doesn’t it already have its hands full?

We at CFIF think so.  In fact, we testified last month before the North Carolina legislature on behalf of thousands of supporters and activists across that great state in support of H.B. 129, which would restrain government bureaucrats from unfairly competing against private providers of communications services.   And with good reason.  From Taiwan to Australia, from Chicago to Houston, and inside North Carolina itself, the history of public broadband is without exception one of failure.  Every single public broadband project of which we’re aware has failed to so much as break even.  Ultimately, taxpayer bailouts become necessary as government endeavors lose money and require constant upgrades to keep pace with evolving technology.  Moreover, government broadband boondoggles undermine the billions of dollars invested in private network improvement and expansion, and discourage future private investment.  After all, why risk one’s capital to compete against governments that can manipulate the rules and go to taxpayers for bailout?  Inevitably, poorer service and layoffs in the vibrant tech sector result.  Rural communities particularly suffer.

But none of that logic seems to matter to Democratic FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn.   In a statement Monday, Clyburn attacked the North Carolina’s sensible legislation and defended the concept of government entering yet another portion of the private sector.   Perhaps that’s not surprising, considering Clyburn’s vote last December to impose so-called “Net Neutrality” in the face of two-to-one public opposition, a unanimous Court of Appeals decision that the FCC didn’t possess such authority and condemnation from bipartisan groups in Congress.

Predictable or not, however, it is critical that Americans at the federal, state and local level vocally oppose the sort of government tech sector overreach that she advocates.

March 31st, 2011 at 4:51 pm
But Remember, It’s Not a Government Takeover of Healthcare!
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Remember the line that President Obama used so often to soothe the anxieties of Americans worried about healthcare reform? “If you like your health insurance, you can keep it”? Well, things have gotten a litte more complicated since those earlier, more innocent days. Just ask Joel Ario, the HHS bureaucrat charged with overseeing Obamacare’s health insurance exchanges. According to The Hill’s Healthwatch Blog:

“If it plays out the exchanges work pretty well, then the employer can say ‘This is a great thing. I can now dump my people into the exchange and it would be good for them, good for me,’ ” Ario continued.

A kindly reminder from those of us not serving in the Obama healthcare politburo. If, like the majority of Americans, your employer provides your healthcare, you don’t get to choose whether or not you keep your current healthcare. And the government is putting its hand on the scales.

March 15th, 2011 at 5:52 pm
Shared Sacrifice? When Budget Cutting, Equality is the Wrong Principle.
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Sanity in the debate over slashing the federal budget is coming from some odd places lately. Today, it’s courtesy of Politico’s Michael Kinsley, a liberal’s liberal if ever there was one. Writing in a terrific piece in the Los Angeles Times, Kinsley offers up some conservative wisdom in words better than any on the right have come up with:

Comparisons [of domestic spending programs proposed to be cut] with Pentagon spending are especially inappropriate, because defense spending is different. The payoffs from most types of government spending are incremental. You can decide how much you want the government to spend on, say, subsidizing symphony orchestras. There is no exact right answer: The more you spend, the more you get. More symphony orchestras are a good thing, but there are other good things you want the government to do, or of course you might want the government to stay out of it and lower your taxes instead.

But in the case of defense spending, notions like how much we can afford, or what it would be nice to have, are inappropriate. The value is not gradual or incremental. It is absolutely essential to spend whatever is necessary to keep our nation safe, and a total waste to spend a nickel more.

Another worthy use of federal money: having the passage above carved into the walls in the Democratic cloakrooms on Capitol Hill.

December 20th, 2010 at 11:45 pm
Debt Crisis Could Bankrupt Over 100 American Cities in 2011
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Yes, you read that headline correctly. The day of reckoning for spendthrift states and localities is on the way according to Meredith Whitney, a research analyst who accurately predicted the global credit crunch. In a startling piece in the UK Guardian, Whitney predicts that the number of sizable defaults to come in the next year could hit the century mark. The record isn’t pretty:

Detroit is cutting police, lighting, road repairs and cleaning services affecting as much as 20% of the population. The city, which has been on the skids for almost two decades with the decline of the US auto industry, does not generate enough wealth to maintain services for its 900,000 inhabitants.

The nearby state of Illinois has spent twice as much money as it has collected and is about six months behind on creditor payments. The University of Illinois alone is owed $400m, the CBS programme said. The state has a 21% chances of default, more than any other, according to CMA Datavision, a derivatives information provider.

California has raised state university tuition fees by 32%. Arizona has sold its state capitol and supreme court buildings to investors, and leases them back.

Potential defaults could also hit Florida, whose booming real estate industry burst two years ago, said Guy J. Benstead, a partner at Cedar Ridge Partners in San Francisco. “We are not out of the woods by any stretch yet,” he said.

Indeed we’re not. And don’t expect to see a robust private sector recovery as municipal governments crumble throughout the nation.

December 10th, 2010 at 10:24 am
FCC Recreates ObamaCare Fiasco with “Net Neutrality” Secrecy
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Remember how ObamaCare was furiously crafted behind locked doors, despite Obama’s assurances it would be “on C-Span?”  The public revolted against those tactics, but Obama’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) apparently thought it all went pretty well.  Look no further than its secrecy in concocting its latest “Net Neutrality” draft, despite FCC Commissioner Julius Genachowski’s own promises of “transparency.”

In this way, “Net Neutrality” imitates ObamaCare beyond the broader fact that it seeks to commandeer 1/6 of the American economy.  Like ObamaCare, it is strongly opposed by the public and judicially suspect, and proponents know that exposing its manufacturing process to the sunlight would only help doom it.  Accordingly, Chairman Genachowski appears intent on concealing his “Net Neutrality” proposal as long as possible before dumping it on the public later this month.

Why all the secrecy?  What do Chairman Genachowski and “Net Neutrality” proponents fear so much?  Instead of secrecy, they should follow Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker’s call to immediately make the draft public.  Apply the same “openness” that you claim to desire for the Internet, Chairman Genachowski.

December 1st, 2010 at 4:56 pm
Too Long Without a Chris Christie Update?
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I thought so too. Check out the Trenton Thunder as he takes a shot at the self-interested bureaucrats attempting to stymie his plans for education reform in the Garden State:

November 10th, 2010 at 9:30 pm
Debt Panel Gets it 75 percent Right
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The Wall Street Journal is among the news sources carrying coverage of the preliminary recommendations being produced by President Obama’s much-feted debt reduction panel. According to the Journal’s synopsis:

Among the controversial proposals, the plan in its current form would end or cap a wide range of breaks relied on by the middle class, including the deduction for home-mortgage interest. It would tax capital gains and dividends at the higher rates now levied on wage income. To compensate, one version of the plan would dramatically lower and simplify individual rates, to 9%, 15% and 24%.

For businesses, the plan would significantly lower the corporate tax rate—from a current top rate of 35% to as low as 26%—but also eliminate a number of deductions. It would make permanent the research and development tax credit. Overall, the plan would cut the federal deficit by $3.8 trillion by 2020.

… On Social Security, the plan would gradually raise the retirement age to 68 around 2050 and 69 by 2075. It would combine a cut in benefits with a rise in taxes on wealthier people’s incomes. It would also seek to rein in federal spending on health care beyond what’s called for in the recently passed health-care overhaul. This would be achieved by introducing further changes, including reform of medical-malpractice law, and by seeking to slow the growth of the Medicare program.

The plan would make significant cuts on spending over which Congress has direct control, beyond entitlements such as Medicare. It identifies $410 billion in discretionary spending cuts by 2015. It proposes cutting the federal work force 10%, at a further savings of $13.2 billion by 2015.

Congressional earmarks—provisions inserted into legislation for lawmakers’ pet projects—would be banned permanently, saving $16 billion.

This a surprisingly market-friendly recommendation, much of which — though politically very tough — is admirable. Hopefully, low-tax advocates will train their fire on the unnecessary increases in capital gains and dividend rates, as well as what looks to be a proposed increase on Social Security and Medicare taxes for the wealthy. While we don’t know what deductions are on the chopping block, if the home mortgage example is representative there’s actually a strong free-market case to be made in favor of the eliminations. By giving economic preference to activities like home purchases, these deductions lead to economic inefficiency (they either direct consumers to make choices that wouldn’t be rational without the deduction or subsidize purchases that would have been made regardless).

Elsewhere in the WSJ piece, the authors refer to the fact that the current recommendations rely about 75 percent on spending cuts and 25 percent on tax increases. Good, but not great. A recognition that taxes always hamper economic activity means that tax increases should never be considered instead of spending cuts unless (A) government is only doing the things that are its rightful responsibility and (b) it is doing all those things at maximum efficiency. At some point, the exigencies of politics may require compromising short of that ideal, but I’d like to see a comprehensive examination of spending in the executive branch before tax hikes are even considered.

Let’s consider the cabinet departments. The Departments of Justice, Defense, Treasury, and State are the originals and unquestionably justified under our scheme of federal government. There are others that have probably grown into necessary organs in years since. We’ll need Health and Human Services as long as we have a federal welfare state, Interior as long as we have public lands and a National Park system, Transportation at least for the interstate highway system and air travel and, though its probably in need of some pruning, Homeland Security. Veterans Affairs seems like it could be folded into either Defense or HHS. As for the Departments of Education, Housing & Urban Development, Energy, Agriculture, Commerce, and Labor (apart from its statistical work), I’m at a loss for what useful purpose (or more importantly, results) justifies their existence. I’d be more than willing to scrap each of them, keep the few parts we still need, and re-check the ledger before considering higher taxes for even a single American.