Conservative Donnybrook

I have been counting on my fingers and toes and I think I’ve come to a startling conclusion. We got hosed.

By my figures, it appears the total outlays of the federal government for all spending is somewhere in the neighborhood of $3.8 trillion. Since 1996, that represents an overall increase of $2.1 trillion over the total outlays then or an increase of about 5.9% per year in total outlays. The plan that the Senate just approved proposes to “cut” $917 billion of spending over the next ten years. That sounds great, but overall spending during those same ten years will be $38 trillion if the budget does not increase at all year over year. The $917 billion spending “cut” compared against the total outlays in that context would represent a “savings” of roughly 2.4%.

But the chances that the budget will not increase by about as much as it historically has is remote. The more likely scenario is that the overall budget will continue to grow at least as fast as it has over the last decade or so. Using the 5.9% increase per year figure, the total outlays during the ten-year period would amount to $49.937 trillion (with total outlays in 2020 amounting to a whopping $6.385 trillion). That $917 billion in “savings” now represents a paltry 1.8% of the overall spending during the period.

Meanwhile, all this spending is doing no favors for the overall debt. The more suspicious of you might have discovered that this bill does not actually balance the budget. Rather, it decreases (imperceptibly, it turns out) the amount of debt that would have been added in any given year. During the period from 1996 to 2011, government receipts tended to grow by about 3.7% per year (while outlays during the same period increased by 5.9%, see the problem?). Receipts in 2011 are projected to be $2.1737 trillion. In 2012, they are projected to be $2.6274 trillion. Using the latter projection and figuring a 3.7% growth rate through 2020, the total deficits during that period amount to $20.217 trillion. The current U.S. government debt is $14.294 trillion. So, over the course of the next ten years while we’re busy “saving” $917 billion, the debt will more than double, ballooning to more than $34 trillion. Of course, it could be worse: the debt could have been $34.917 trillion.

If you want to be really depressed, consider that there are 312 million Americans. If the anticipated $34 trillion debt were paid equally (fat chance!) by each American, your share at the end of 2020 would be $108,974.40 ($435,897.20 for a family with the regulation 2.1 children). It sort of goes without saying that I was a bit perplexed at the outbreak of clapping on the House floor yesterday when our Representatives passed the plan.

Stop me if this sounds familiar:

Now few people recognize the necessary implications of the economic statements they are constantly making.  When they say that the way to economic salvation is to increase credit, it is just as if they said that the way to economic salvation is to increase debt:  these are different names for the same thing seen from opposite sides.  When they say that the way to prosperity is to increase farm prices, it is like saying that the way to prosperity is to make food dearer to the city worker.  When they say that the way to national wealth is to pay out government subsidies, they are in effect saying that the way to national wealth is to increase taxes.  When they make it a main objective to increase exports, most of them do not realize that they necessarily make it a main objective ultimately to increase imports.  When they say, under nearly all conditions, that the way to recovery is increase wage rates, they have found only another way of saying that the way to recovery is to increase costs of production.

Henry Hazlitt, Economics in One Lesson, 1946.

Barack will save us
From oily doom approaching
Stand back, let him work!

Barack will save us
From unemployment malaise
With clever taxing.

Barack will save us
From global warming danger -
He’ll lower the seas.

Barack will save us
From free market ravages
And give us free drugs.

Barack will saves us
From national default shame -
Call our Chinese friends.

Barack will save us
From Middle Eastern warfare -
Give them all the Jews.

Barack will save us
From judicial activists -
Send Prof Kagan in.

Barack will save us
From fat and lazy children
If Michelle has say.

Barack will save us
From Islamic terror threats
Trying Navy SEALS.

Barack will save us
From global low opinion
Bowing to despots.

Barack will save us
From Europe’s collapse sending
Them borrowed money.

Barack will save us
Ev’rybody sing along,
He’s the Chosen One.

All that being said,
Who will save us from Barack
And his Hope and Change?

The Anti-Planner, like Savoir-Faire, is everywhere! VREG, however, is local.  Keep up the good work!

It is no secret that California is in dire straits (not the band, that would at least be cool) but this little bit of Reason demonstrates that it is the Greece of the United States.  Enjoy (if you are a Texan).

is about one trillion, twenty-seven billion, eight hundred million dollars for 2009. In addition to the exorbitant costs of Medicare, Social Security, “foreign aid,” and the bailouts and recovery acts, this behemoth simply must be addressed, or else, as I have said before, the game is over. The current gaggle of whores in the District of Criminals are bent on further “regulating” the financial sector, which is to say soon-to-be-ex-senator Dodd is proposing that a new, “independent” regulatory oversight power be given to the Federal Reserve Board. I’m not kidding.

I will be posting – this time I promise – a follow-up post concerning financial and monetary reform this week, and there will be links to lengthy, scholarly support for my positions, as well as recollections from my recently deceased uncle, a PhD (University of Chicago) economist who retired from the University of Missouri with an extensive background in agricultural economics and economics in general. I hope many of you will find it enlightening, or at least interesting. Feedback and respectful discourse will of course be welcome.

I did indeed attend the Tea Party last weekend with my esteemed colleague Karl, which inspired the following thoughts.

One particular meme that I’ve seen cropping up among the Tea Party circles is those signs with pics of Bush and Cheney, along with the line “Miss Me Yet?” This is something that never fails to send the vomit shooting up the back of my throat. I won’t recount, yet again, the multitude of sins against limited government and fiscal sanity that have been promulgated by the Bush-bots and their neoconservative counselors. Sure, as Karl pointed out to me this weekend, for all his wretchedness, McCain probably wouldn’t have been foisting socialized (or cartelized) healthcare on us, at least this year (although it’s not inconceivable). Nevertheless the prominence of these die-hard Bushie fanboys among the supposedly revolutionary Tea Partiers is the number-one piece of evidence that the movement has been co-opted by amoral GOP set and its talk-radio enablers.

Depressingly, Ron Paul types and associated libertoids, apparently, were completely non-existent among this crowd. In fact, I would guess that, say, a Ron Paul Revolution t-shirt would get some hostile attention from these guys. That’s too bad, because the hard-libertarian forces are younger, more geographically diverse, and are much more serious about pushing back at against the growth of the state. This is not to criticize the undoubtedly fine and dedicated middle-American family men who seemed to make up the bulk of the Partiers, but a broad-based coalition is becoming increasingly essential.

Continue Reading »

This morning we awake to a brave new world. By sleight of hand, trickery, and lies, the House Democrats have passed the Senate health care reform bill by inducing those who were inclined to vote against the measure with empty promises. Astoundingly, Pelosi was able to convince otherwise sensible Democrats to switch their votes by making promises that she has absolutely no ability to deliver and which everyone should have known have little chance of being delivered.

What Pelosi and company did was to load up an amendment bill with all sorts of goodies specifically targeted toward those Democrats who were maintaining no votes on the Senate bill. The problem is the bill that goes to the President’s desk is the Senate bill – not the amendment bill. That bill still has to go to the Senate to be voted on by the Senate. This is where it becomes obvious that those who changed their votes because of measures placed in the amendment bill have been duped – in some cases probably willingly. Most of those measures have absolutely no chance of passage in the Senate. Indeed, the Senate Republicans have made quite clear that they do not intend to pass any of the measures and that they will publicize the individual bribes which induced each of the former no-voting Democrats to change their votes.

Of course one presumes that the members of the House know the rules and that the promises being made were unlikely to be kept. Therefore, the only conclusion that one can draw from this is that these members are full-blown cynics who believe they can go back to their constituents and claim that they only changed their votes because of the promises made to them without ever mentioning that they knew full well that those promises were illusory. In other words, the amendment bill was simply cover to allow those Dems who were afraid of their constituents to flout the desires of the folks back home. Indeed, Nancy Pelosi, who had considered using the “deem and pass” rules of House procedure for this landmark legislation, spoke to liberal bloggers on Monday saying, “Nobody wanted to vote for the Senate bill….It’s more insider and process-oriented than most people want to know, but I like it because people don’t have to vote on the Senate bill.” While they ended up voting anyway, the amendment bill is designed to give Democrats with cranky constituents cover. Each knew that it was the Senate bill that would go to the President’s desk.

Probably the most astounding reversal came from Bart Stupak, whose amendment banning federal expenditures on abortion caused problems during the initial round of passage. Indeed, the Stupak Amendment was one of the major differences between the House version and the Senate version of health care reform. The Senate version contains no limitations on federal spending to kill babies. Now Stupak has aligned himself with those who urge American women to kill babies for convenience sake. He must know that a presidential executive order is entirely worthless as the President cannot, by executive order, repeal a bill passed through Congress. The President has no power to prevent the operation of the Senate mandate that abortion be covered by the new health care plan. Yet Stupak willfully allowed himself to be duped into compromising whatever principles he may have once had.

This morning, the Change™ promised by our savior, Barack Obama, is headed to his desk. That change will be fundamental and, I fear, irrevocable. I was speaking to a friend who has a two-year-old daughter. His daughter will grow up in a country where every time she has a sniffle, she will run to the government to take care of her. Her individual relationship with government will be substantially different from the traditional one in which Americans viewed the federal government as a threat to liberty. Instead, she will see the government as the source of her rights and welfare, the font from which all good things come. After an entire generation or two of this new relationship, it is impossible to imagine a true conservatism taking root in the psyche of the American people again. We will never again be independent from the care of, and control by, an all-encompassing government. And once that impulse to individual responsibility for our lives has been quashed there is no impediment to despotic rule or even outright dictatorship, which will be instituted for our good.

Karl and Willmoore protesting the health care bill

It was with this thought that I drove to Washington D.C. this weekend to join in the protest against the end of our American experiment. The photo above shows that there were thousands of like-minded people who also made the same trip. I met with fellow Conservative Donnybrook contributor Willmoore. Willmoore and I took the Metro to the Capitol and were greeted at the top of the steps by an operative from the Republican National Committee who was passing out signs that read, “Listen to me!” The West lawn of the Capitol was packed with people who rejected the notion of a government large enough to give us everything. While we listened to House members and ordinary citizens take turns at the microphone, someone reported that the Park Service had estimated the crowd at 25,000 people. And, even as that announcement was made, more continued to join the throng.

I had attended a local Tea Party rally in Indianapolis last summer and Willmoore had attended the Rally for the Republic back in 2008. While outwardly the basic format of the Tea Party protests where ordinary citizens addressed the crowds alternating with Tea Party-friendly politicians was followed at this rally, the overall tenor seemed to have shifted ever so slightly to the mainstream Party line. Indeed, the Tea Party has been crashed. On the other hand, not a single Republican voted for the health care overhaul bill so it appears that at least they heard the voice of the people. It remains to be seen if the Senate follows through with its promise to obstruct the overhaul. At this point, we are left to hope that the Supreme Court will read the Constitution and realize that nothing in Article I, Section 8 authorizes the Congress to mandate health care for all and strike down the bill. The only other hope is that after November 2, the Republicans will find a way to repeal the law before it goes into effect, at which point it will never be repealed. Indeed, if universal health care goes into effect, it will only ever be expanded, like all entitlements.

Upon my return after twenty hours’ round trip in the car, my wife asked me if I thought the trip was worth it. Did the presence of thousands of people outside the Capitol mean anything? In the short run, it appears that our exertions were wasted. After all, the Democrats passed the health care bill and the Senate bill will now go to the President’s desk. But, had there been no one outside the House chambers, the decision for the Dems who caved would have been easier. They could have argued that nobody cared. This way at least they know that there is an angry mob ready to take their seats from them. The same goes for the Republicans. It is good (and perhaps a little surprising) that not a single Republican voted for the bill. Had there been no crowds outside, one wonders if that would have been the case. In the long run, it will be interesting to see if the coherence that we have seen among the Republicans in this fight will remain once the amendment package goes to the Senate. Let us see if the Senate Republicans can show the same mettle that their brothers and sisters on the other end of the Capitol have shown. If they have, I believe, it will be in part because of the crowds that gathered in Washington this weekend. That may be the true measure of whether all the driving was worth it.

Reporting to you from the heart of SNOWMAGEDDON!!!, the snowfall in DC is just now tapering off, leaving a heavy blanket of upwards of up to 20+ inches in its wake.

It’s customary to make fun of Washington for shutting down completely at the slightest dusting of snow, but I think by the time you hit two feet of accumulation, it’s pretty understandable that stuff just isn’t going to happen here. Plus, it’s Saturday.

Unfortunately for anti-government activists, the DC shutdown will probably only last through Monday and thereafter the wheels of the State will continue to turn in their depressing fashion.

Those looking for salvation from the RNC are likely to be disappointed. I can’t agree with my colleague Karl’s optimism about the recent noise being made from the bowels of RNC officialdom about withdrawing support from candidates who don’t hew closely to the 2008 Republican platform.

Of course, the Republican party has been an unmitigated disaster to conservatism in America.

Just take a look at that platform that’s supposed to be the basis for ideological cleansing. Section One: “Defending Our Nation, Supporting Our Heroes, Securing the Peace.” Translation: maintaining the aggressive, expansionist foreign policy that has been at the heart of exploding government spending, the curtailment of civil liberties under a bipartisan national security state, and the unprecedented expansion of the military-industrial complex.

Meanwhile, vague platitudes about “reducing spending” and “reforming the budget process” serve as promises to tinker with, not demolish, the corrupt fusion of the State with corporate interests that has resulted in the wholesale robbery of trillions of taxpayers’ dollars by corporate elites — under the watch of Democrats and Republicans alike.

What would the consequence be of a successful purge of non-GOP-approved candidates? For one thing, the promising candidacies of such genuine anti-government figures as Rand Paul and Peter Schiff would have been strangled in their cribs.

Unifying behind “GOP values” would spell the end of reform, not the beginning, and would represent a betrayal of the grass-roots Tea Party phenomenon, constitutionalism, and traditionalist conservatism.  It comes down to this: You can’t be anti-government and pro-Empire. The cause of liberty won’t be furthered by strengthening the RNC leadership — instead, it must be overthrown.

for everyone!

The particulars are starting to appear less thrilling than Uncle Barry’s promises at first appeared at the SOTU.
For example: the second stimulus proposal appears to be simply another TARP for smaller banks, most of which only carry around 80% debt (as compared to the Big Boys, who carry around 92%). The small banks don’t want it, and they will sit on it rather than loan it, just like the Big Boys did. Anyone out there building a new high-rise because you got a loan in the past six months? Didn’t think so. Neither will anyone be financing all new office furniture, office equipment, tools, raw materials like wire or PVC with any new loans from the new “stimulus.” Example 2: the hinted at nuclear power plant boom is apparently contingent on Republicans playing ball and voting for crap-and-tax, er, cap-and-trade. Sure, the two “could” be separated. And Uncle Barry might sprout a third arm and use it to reach across the aisle, too. Example 3: targeted tax cuts (which won’t work) attached to the dangling carrot of capital gains rate reductions. Along with those few select rate cuts are other rate hikes and permanent extensions of further entitlements for the dependent class in the form of “tax cuts” for people who never pay them to begin with (i.e., more spending under the moniker “tax cut.”) Aren’t words wonderful things, Humpty-Dumpty?

The last year of this first decade of the 21st century will bring us many challenges and, D.v., many blessings as well. Speaking for my part, I resolve to strive for constructive policy recommendations along with my typical criticisms. Conservatives face a tremendous opportunity to once again, as Buckley once said, stand athwart history yelling “Stop!” And it is clear that they must be stopped: those forces of destruction, confiscation, redistribution, secular salvation, usurpation, and tyranny. The question before us, as has been handily demonstrated in the recent past here at CD is, “what is conservatism?” How shall we then live? What methodologies will we need to adapt and resurrect to counteract these agents of “change”? Whom shall we trust to carry our standard? What, in short, is a credo by which we can measure all our rhetoric and action?

Peril abounds, as it always has. Folk wisdom tells us not to bash a bee hive with a creek rock. Doubtless, the occasional sting will occur, even with due caution in the apiary. Such stings do not imply that the caution we were exercising was inappropriate or should be jettisoned in a fury of pain and trauma. Especially when an epinephrine pen won’t work to prevent the anaphylaxis anymore.

Debt looms insanely large, and yet more and more clamoring is heard from old and new quarters. A serious audit of the books is due, and serious cutbacks are not only necessary but inevitable, regardless of how they come. Borrowing billions to send $50 billion annually in foreign “aid” is no longer feasible. We have long since shifted from a manufacturing and production economy, and thus the idea that we as a country can or should take on the burdens of other countries is as ridiculous as taking out a third mortgage on my house to pay my neighbors’ cable and electric bills. That’s one slice of a tragically large pie that has to be — finally — served.

Lastly, liberty should not be spoken of apart from attendant responsibilities, because it is derived therefrom. We are created beings, social beings, and the most basic duties we have are to the One Who created us and to those whom we are familially and then societally related. It is inside those boundaries that we are truly free from fear, from want, and from oppression.

We have our work cut out for us, friends and readers. Let us get to splitting the wood.

… whether this editorial from NRO was real or an Onion parody.

I mean, really? Bernanke “is the principal architect of the government’s interventions in the banking industry during the financial crisis. That intervention probably represented the best available course of action in the circumstances, and it very likely averted a much worse recession… .” New Deal Republicans stand by their man.

Furthermore: “Bernanke has earned himself some enemies — enemies to be proud of [sic].” So, because Ron Paul doesn’t like you, you’re a genius? That’s the standard at NRO these days, it would appear. No, “the first order of business for Bernanke and the Fed is to lead the slow return to financial normalcy while standing ready to mitigate the effects of any unexpected economic shocks that may come… …to press for radical restructuring at the Fed, as Paul and Frank do, is hazardous.”

We must maintain the status quo in order to prevent the disastrous results we can necessarily expect from having, well, instituted that very status quo. Don’t you ninnies get it? Back to work, serfs, and spend EVERY DIME we graciously give you, whether earned or extended through whatever credit we deign to leak to you!

And the icing on the cake: NRO schlocks calling Ron Paul for being “a little dishonest” because, even though he makes no bones about wanting to abolish the Fed, somehow his initial tactic of calling for a full, independent audit as a first step in that direction is just disingenuous and mean. Poor Ben. Poor, poor Ben. He’s got all of these problems – the weight of the financial world – on his shoulders, and he’s got a “puritanical libertarian” [I swear they juxtaposed those terms] and a corrupt homosexual politician asking unfriendly question about what he’s doing with Americans’ life savings, tax revenues, and interest rates! The horror!

While conceding that we “wouldn’t know it to hear Bernanke speak lately,” he is really busy trying to maintain low prices [obviously for "consumers" in our "consumer economy" in which we are all simply supposed to "consume" and "consume."]. “For the past many decades, that has come to mean keeping a damper on inflation, a critically important task. We have severe unemployment and jaw-dropping deficits that Democrats are laboring mightily to make worse. The dollar and the creditworthiness of the U.S. government are objects of skepticism, and a serious spike in inflation would exacerbate that.” Nevermind that Ron Paul’s other crazy ideas would counteract inflation far better (indeed, the usual canard is that he would cause hysteria-inducing, starvation-causing “deflation”). No, any stick at hand with which to beat a straw man.

They caution us that “a central bank in thrall to the short-term political needs of congressmen would be a catastrophe.” Indeed, it would. And that is actually what we have today. Because the money behind those short-sighted congressmen which keeps them in power is the money that is coming from and simultaneously keeping afloat that very central bank. And who, precisely, do the editors of the magazine-formerly-known-as-the-premiere-conservative-periodical think Paul wants doing the audit? Other Congressmen or the CBO? Something – a hunch, call it – tells me Ron might be thinking more along the lines of independent, contracted, professional forensic accountants.

“Independence is the Fed’s characteristic virtue, as solvency is the FDIC’s and creditworthiness is the Treasury’s.” Oooops, bad choice of analogies. (“The FDIC’s Deposit Insurance Fund, which protects bank deposits, fell below zero in the third quarter of this year. Fifty U.S. banks failed, taking the fund down to negative $8.2 billion. It’s only the second time in the agency’s history that it has slipped into the red.” says the NPR article.)

Maybe when the kids at NRO finish prep school, they’ll have a little more clarity and credibility.

With respect to the establishment of a military, our constitution provides that Congress has the authority to levy taxes to “provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States” and

To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;

To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;

To provide and maintain a navy;

To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces.

The president is imbued with the authority to implement military strategy in his role as commander-in-chief of the military by Article II, Section 1 of the constitution.

Clearly, the raising and equipping of a military force is authorized by the constitution. What the constitution does not say is how that military is to be used. In the debates that led to the adoption of our constitution, issues surrounding the raising of armies and navies were hotly contested. Generally the debating parties fell into one of two camps: the Federalists and the anti-Federalists.

The Federalist position on the military was mainly represented by Alexander Hamilton’s writings. In Federalist 23, Hamilton argued that the federal government should be imbued with an unlimited authority to raise armies and navies “for the common defence.” Nonetheless, it was clear from his writings that the military’s role was defensive, that the military should be powerful enough to address any contingency in order to deter aggression from other quarters. Hamilton saw the American people as essentially a commercial people rather than an imperial or martial people. In Federalist 34, he stated:

But if we mean to be a commercial people, it must form a part of our policy, to be able one day to defend that commerce. The support of a navy, and of naval wars must baffle all the efforts of political arithmetic admitting that we ought to try the novel and absurd experiment in politics, of tying up the hands of Government from offensive war, founded upon reasons of state: Yet, certainly we ought not to disable it from guarding the community against the ambition or enmity of other Nations.

Clearly, the idea of engaging in offensive wars was an absurd notion to Hamilton, who believed that the military’s role should be to protect our nation’s commerce from attack. Continue Reading »

Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution (see Dead Letter) defines the powers of Congress. It reads:

Section 8. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;

To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;

To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;

To establish post offices and post roads;

To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;

To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;

To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;

To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;

To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;

To provide and maintain a navy;

To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;

To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;–And

To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.

What provision above grants Congress the power to provide health care to Americans?

I’m afraid that if the House’s arrogation of powers not delegated to them stands, even the most obtuse of us will come to the (belated) realization that the United States is not a free country and its citizens are but slaves the fruits of whose labors are enjoyed by their slavers.

President Obama is reported to have “decried” the media frenzy over angry protesters showing up at meetings all over the country concerned, and in many cases more informed than their representatives, about the current health care reform bill. This, from a man known for subtle and not-so-subtle criticisms of ordinary Americans (who cling to their religion and guns, the fools) was droll.

President Obama and his fellow Democrats across town at the Rayburn and Hart Buildings are reported to be extremely nervous about recent polling data showing a tremendously precipitous decline in public support and confidence in their ability to affect the kinds of change they voted for, namely an end to a reckless foreign policy and worrisome deficits, which the White House recently admitted were going to be $2 trillion more over the next decade than previously announced, skyrocketing from $7 trillion to $9 trillion. This kind of spending is beyond comprehension. It is outrageous and sickening. The continuation of essentially the same foreign policies as the last 3 administrations, the continuation of the same fiscal and monetary policies, the astonishing non-reform of credit-default swaps among the “too big to fail” but now record-profits-making financial sector, and so on, are all hastening the impending collapse of the world’s remaining superpower. The threatened takeover of the healthcare system, price-fixing, socialist income-levelling of doctors, and non-reform of insurance protection rackets companies are awakening the slumbering middle American like nothing since September 11, 2001.

That the constant media coverage of the public outrage has towed the White House barge onto the shoals of bill-killing sandbars is now apparent. The leftists in the editorial rooms have obeisantly published finger-wagging and the occasional mention of Sarah Palin’s tweets while steadfastly refusing to investigate the meaning of the actual content of the proposed legislation. Americans can access it for themselves in a fashion not possible on this scale 15 years ago. They do not like what they read. They are pointing out very valid concerns and huge 5-year-plan type language, and the Left has been forced to abandon one chief facet of their plan: the “public option.” While seemingly heartening, this is a ruse, a temporary setback in the Rahm Emanuel-designed hit-’em-from-7-sides strategy. As with every other leftist “compromise,” the ratchet will tighten. It just won’t be cranked up 4 clicks.

When I worked for a legal document management and reproduction company, we were often sent large jobs to provide legislators at the statehouse with copies of proposed legislation — from a huge law firm in town. The lawyers there wrote the bills, lobbied to find “sponsors,” and then gave the general assembly the materials needed to discuss and review the new laws. It happened all the time. Does anyone imagine that a hydra like the current healthcare bill is any different? This, friends, is not republicanism, it is not representative democracy, it is not American. It must stop. We must demand a return to constitutional government and expect responsible behavior from our elected officials. It starts with anger like we’re seeing today, but it is accomplished when emotions are set aside and rational examination of the sausage-making takes place.

Peter Schiff has a new article out cataloguing the misery that is coming down the pike. In 1979, Milton and Rose Friedman wrote a book called Free to Choose: A Personal Statement. In it the Friedmans decribed the causes and remedies for inflation.

Five simple truths embody most of what we know about inflation:

1.  Inflation is a monetary phenomenon arising from a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output (though, of course, the reasons for the increase in money may be various).

2.  In today’s world government determines – or can determine – the quantity of money.

3.  There is only one cure for inflation: a slower rate of increase in the quantity of money.

4.  It takes time – measured in years, not months – for inflation to develop; it takes time for inflation to be cured.

5.  Unpleasant side effects of the cure are unavoidable.

As Schiff notes in his article, the massive amounts of spending by GWB and Obama, abetted by Bernanke’s keeping interest rates exceptionally low, have conspired to increase the amount of money available in the market. As the Friedmans point out, any time the money supply increases at a rate faster than the supply of goods on which to dispose of that money, inflation results. Furthermore, as the Friedmans point out, it takes years to feel the effects of the government’s policies. Once the die is cast, however, the outcome is inevitable.

Like a doomed Greek hero, Bernanke believes he can avoid his fate. But, like Oedipus, no matter what gyrations Ben attempts his Uncle Sam is doomed. Moreover, the question that Schiff poses is whether Bernanke will have the balls to face down his government masters to impose the only solution that might work to fend off the approach of the Inflation Monster. As the Friedmans point out, government never takes responsibility for its role in creating the monster:

No government is willing to accept responsibility for producing inflation, even in less virulent degree. Government officials always find some excuse – greedy businessmen, grasping trade unions, spendthrift consumers, Arab sheikhs, bad weather, or anything else that seems even remotely plausible.

Moreover, the government actually benefits from high inflation. To give one example, today we have sold billions of dollars of debt to the Chinese. We take money from the Chinese, which is worth a dollar today to finance whatever projects we want to spend teh money on. In ten years, after a serious inflationary period, we pay them back with dollars which are worth very much less. The Chinese have been screwed and the government finds that it has borrowed money for nothing or better than nothing – they have paid us to finance our spending.

In the face of the large benefits to the government, does anyone really believe that Bernanke will be able to stand up to whoever sits in the Oval Office and tell him no? Sure, the consumer will have felt the pinch and may be hurting. But, the cure for inflation causes the economy to slow down. Would a president want to slow the economy when the people are feeling their economic woes so strongly? Not likely. And despite Ben’s assurances, it is likely he will not have the fortitude to face down the president, the people, and tell them, “This is for your own good. Take your medicine. It will make you better, even if you feel worse for a while.”

This country is in for some tough times ahead. GWB started it. Obama made it much worse and appears intent on heaping even more coal on the fire. The Friedmans liken an inflationary period to binge drinking:

A more instructive analogy is between inflation and alcoholism. When the alcoholic first starts drinking, the good effects come first; the bad effects only come the next morning when he wakes up with a hangover – and often cannot resist easing the hangover by taking “the hair of the dog that bit him.”

The parallel with inflation is exact. When a country first starts on an inflationary episode, the initial effects seem good. The increased quantity of money enables whoever has access to it – nowadays, primarily governments – to spend more without anybody else having to spend less. Jobs become more plentiful, business is brisk, almost everybody is happy – at first. Those are the good effects. But then the increased spending starts to raise prices; workers find that their wages, even if higher in dollars, will buy less; businessmen find that their costs have risen, so that the extra sales are not as profitable as they anticipated, unless they can raise their prices even faster. The bad effects start to emerge: higher prices, less buoyant demand, inflation combined with stagnation. As with the alcoholic, the temptation is to increase the quantity of money still faster, which produces a roller coaster was have been on. In both cases, it takes a larger and larger amount – of alcohol or money – to give the alcoholic or the economy the same “kick.”

The parallel between alcoholism and inflation carries over to the cure. The cure for alcoholism is simple to state: stop drinking. It is hard to take because, this time the bad effects come first, the good effects come later. The alcoholic who goes on the wagon suffers severe withdrawal pains before he emerges in the happy land of no longer having an almost irresistible desire for another drink. So also with inflation. The initial side effects of a slower rate of monetary growth are painful: lower economic growth, temporarily high unemployment, without, for a time, much reduction of inflation. The benefits appear only after one or two years or so, in the form of lower inflation, a healthier economy, the potential for rapid noninflationary growth.

It will be interesting to see if Bernanke has the wherewithal to resist the urge for a little nip when the hangover comes. His previous track record with the subprime fiasco indicate that he may have good intentions, but his judgment is not always sound. Bet on the occasional shot…just to get us through the night.

Update:

Somewhat related is this latest from the Southern Avenger who posts at TakiMag.

Sarah Palin put together a factual and well-reasoned editorial in today’s Washington Post.

HotAir followed with excellent analysis here.

As Indiana’s own popular and successful Republican governor noted in May, it’s not only an unnecessary waste of money to accomplish nothing, but it’s an exploitative, provincial policy that, if it benefits anyone at all, only does so to the richest (and “faltering”) coastal states, while hurting the people it supposedly helps.

No surprise the out of touch Statists running the Democrat party want it so badly.

Conservatives need to stop over-analyzing their own party — and mocking terminology of an essential conflict  supported by the right — and band together to defeat the enemy within in 2010 and 2012. If not, we’re doomed, and it won’t matter whether Paleos, Neos, Libertarians or whomever had the better “conservative” ideas.

On the same day that Michael Jackson beat it for the great beyond, Pelosi and her cohort passed the largest tax increase in the history of history. Perhaps you missed it; the news tended to focus only on the passing of a pop singer of doubtful moral character to the exclusion of a number of other stories. Can anybody tell me what ever happened with that North Korean freighter that the U.S. Navy was bird-dogging? Anybody hear about the AMA revolting against Obama’s healthcare scheme? You might have heard that we won the war in Iraq. Maybe not. Did anyone hear that an American soldier was captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan this week? How about that Barack Obama’s nominee for the upcoming Supreme Court vacancy was overturned this week by that same Court?

If you can’t beat ‘em, I suppose, you join ‘em. So, I will show how even the the Michael Jackson estate would be affected by the Cap and Trade bill that the House of Representatives passed last week. But first, a little about the bill itself. The bill itself states that its purpose is ”[t]o create clean energy jobs, achieve energy independence, reduce global warming pollution and transition to a clean energy economy.” Some of that may need to be explained. For instance, global warming pollution is carbon dioxide – the same stuff you exhale. Indeed, each respirating organism on earth is now categorized as a polluter. For an idea of what “transitioning to a clean energy economy” looks like, take a look at Spain. Apparently, if we look at Spain, it is possible to create clean energy jobs, but each one will cost between $750,000 and $1.4 million and will cost 2.2 jobs in other areas per job created. On other hand, we will be saving the planet, right?

But, how do they propose to do it? The bill is designed to increase the price of energy in order to drive down consumption.

During the campaign, Obama also pledged that he would never raise taxes in any form on Americans making less than $250,000 per year. But his cap and trade tax is estimated to cost American families almost $2,000 a year when it becomes effective, growing to almost $7,000 a year for a family of four by 2035. That will be paid through higher prices for electricity, oil, gasoline, natural gas, home heating oil, coal, food, and every product that is produced or transported using energy.

In short the Cap and Trade proposal passed out of the House last week is a “Tax on Everything” – everything that uses energy. An interesting exercise is to try to think of anything that you purchase that requires no energy to produce, deliver, sell, or consume. The increased costs associated with that energy usage will be embedded in the price of every consumer good and service that Americans utilize. As a result, Americans will purchase fewer goods and services. If Americans purchase fewer goods and services, then companies who provide those goods and services will be forced to cut production (read: jobs). But, hey, we’re saving the planet.

One of my “favorite” provisions of the bill is in sections 201-203, which requires every State to adopt the building codes of California. (See ACES Sec. 201(c)(3) which reads “COMPLIANT CODE — For the purposes of meeting the target described in subsection (a)(1)(A) [which required that State's become compliant within one year of enactment] for residential buildings, a State that adopts the code represented in California’s Title 24-2009 by the date two years after the enactment of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 shall be considered to have met the requirements of this subsection for the applicable period.”) The code then goes on to dictate to State legislatures the legislation it is required to pass and the timeline on which it is required to pass it.  The States are to be denied federal funding from the Act if they are found to be noncompliant. Indeed, if  the State fails to enforce compliant building codes within 2 years, the Secretary of Energy shall enforce the codes within that State.

The bill requires not only new buildings to satisfy whatever arbitrary standard the Secretary chooses, but it also places the burden on homeowners of existing houses to “retrofit” their property before they are allowed to sell them. This provision alone will place an incredible economic burden on homeowners whether they earn $250,000 or not.  Their mobility, their choice of where to live, their ability to change jobs will be affected by this single onerous provision. But, we will gladly sacrifice our freedom because it’s saving the planet, right? I hope MJ installed new windows and an EnergyStar compliant furnace before he died, otherwise his estate’s going to get hit with a gigantic bill to retrofit Neverland Ranch before they can sell it and distribute the proceeds to his heirs.

There is plenty more where that came from in the bill that has nothing to do with the actual Cap and Trade bits and which are sure to raise the eyebrows (or ire) of anyone who loves his freedom. For instance, there is an entire section regulating outdoor lightbulbs to be brighter and last longer. There’s even a provision regulating the type of bulb one can use to illuminate their artwork, including mandating its color spectrum and power factor.

As mentioned earlier, outrageously, this bill passed the House of Representatives 219-212. Now the bill goes to the Senate. If the Senate passes the bill, it will become law. If the Senate passes any kind of compromise bill, it will go to conference and will become law in some form. The only hope now is that the Senate stops this bill dead. “Obi Wan Senati, you’re our only hope!”

After all that, I apologize, but I don’t really care how this bill will affect the Jackson estate. I can assure you it would be bad. But, thanks for all the MJ Googlers for stopping in.

Obama announced yesterday that Corporate Auto Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards would be raised to 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016. Mugging for the photo op, were Governors Jennifer Granholm (MI), Arnold Schwarzenegger (CA), and Deval Patrick(MA), each of whom presides over some of the worst economic conditions in their respective states and each having proven to be inept at balancing a budget. The president and governors were abetted by Union capo, Ron Gettelfinger and members of Congress. Smiles and backpats were the order of the day.

Meanwhile, I can’t help but wonder. ARE THEY INSANE? Haven’t we been hearing about the bad financial straits that the automakers have been suffering through recently? Why in the world would anyone do anything to increase the cost of their products when they are having a hard time selling their products as it is? One estimate is that the new standard will add $4,000 to $10,000 to the cost of each new vehicle. It seems the administration and his admirers have set out to destroy the automakers even as they lavish untold amounts of taxpayer monies upon them.

The model is not new. It seems that Obama is following a model in which you take a formerly productive member of society, promise to pay him money seized from other taxpayers, and meanwhile create roadblocks to allowing that member of society becoming productive again. This way, one can create a dependent constituency who, even if he realizes that he has become a slave and is being hurt by the “kindness” being shown him by his master, nonetheless can see no option but to vote to keep the checks coming. Obama seems to be offering the carrot to the automakers at the same time he is making more carrots more necessary.

The rational thing to do at this point when the automakers are struggling to survive would be to lighten the regulatory burden that Big Government has placed on them. Instead, it appears the federal government will be increasing the regulatory burden of 49 states, by exporting California’s repressive auto emission standards to the rest of the nation, further increasing the costs associated with the automakers’ products for the other 49.

None of this will be good for the automakers and it certainly will hurt the consumer on Main Street.

Much hullabaloo has been made in California over COLA… that is, cost of living adjustments.  With our beautiful state in dire straits, many local governments (Los Angeles included) have asked public servant unions to fore-go their annual cost of living adjustments.  I find this sort of thing outrageous.  What right does a local government have to ask employees to fore-go what they contracted for so long ago?  The whole point of a COLA is to ensure that the value of the dollar earned by the employee fairly reflects the cost of living in a given area.  Asking civil servants to disregard their contracts in a fiscal emergency is unfair and an insult to the taxpayer.

It is my opinion that COLAs ought to be mandatory this year.  The overall cost of both ownership and renting a family home has dropped dramatically over the past year.  the price per gallon of gasoline is nearly half of the cost it was the year before.  automobiles cost less, tangible personal property costs less.  Almost everything is cheaper.  The cost of living in California, especially Southern California, has dropped by margins unseen in modern history.  I am all for the COLAs.  By all rights, the union members deserve a downward COLA adjustment to reflect just how far a dollar earned can go.