Category Archives: Economist Dan Mitchell

Open letter to President Obama (Part 526) If the increase in food stamps was just because of the recession then why did the spending go from $19.8 billion in 2000 to $37.9 billion in 2007?

February 25, 2014 – 1:48 am

Open letter to President Obama (Part 526)

(Emailed to White House on 6-6-13.)

President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here.

I have been writing on my blog for over two years now concerning the disturbing trend of more and more people becoming dependent on the federal government for more of their income than ever before. This encourages laziness in my view and in the case of the food stamp system many people find themselves in what Milton Friedman calls the “Welfare Trap.”  (Much of this trend started under President Bush and had Republican support.) I wanted to point out that we should cut back on government spending and let the private economy do it’s magic.

If the increase in food stamps was just because of the recession then why did the spending go from $19.8 billion in 2000 to $37.9 billion in 2007?

 and 

May 27, 2013 at 12:00 pm

(7)

Newscom

Newscom

A recent US News & World Report article set out to unveil the “facts” about food stamps.

What are the so-called “facts”?

For one, the article claims that the food stamps program is not “bloated,” but rather, the surge in participation and spending is a result of the program “doing what it’s supposed to do.”

But what is it “supposed to do”?

Food stamps (or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), as it is now called) were designed to ensure that Americans without the ability to provide for themselves are able to receive basic nutrition. However, application loopholes and policy changes over the past decade or so have allowed recipients to bypass income and asset tests, meaning many people are receiving food stamps who would not have been eligible under the program’s original purposes.

One of the changes in eligibility requirements is “broad-based categorical eligibility.” This type of eligibility means that an individual who receives any service under another welfare program, such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)—even something as small as a TANF brochure—can be deemed eligible for food stamps. A full 50 percent of all food stamp recipients now enroll in the program through this broad-based categorical eligibility procedure. As Heritage welfare experts Robert Rector and Kiki Bradley write:

In states using this loophole, a middle-class family with one earner who becomes unemployed for one or two months can receive $668 per month in food stamps even if the family has $20,000 in cash sitting in the bank. Because of this, food stamps has been transformed from a program for the truly needy to a routine bonus payment stacked on top of conventional unemployment benefits.

In addition, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has operated substantial outreach programs to pull more people onto the food stamp rolls. Some states have gone so far as to hire food stamp recruiters, tasked with filling a monthly quota of new food stamp enrollees.

Another “fact,” according to the author, is that much of the growth in food stamp costs is due to the recession and is temporary.

That’s partially true. Food stamp spending has roughly doubled in the past four years, and part of this is clearly due to the recession. However, food stamp spending has been on an upward climb since the program began back in the 1960s. In the decade prior to the recession, total government food stamp spending nearly doubled, from $19.8 billion in 2000 to $37.9 trillion in 2007.

Bfoodstampreform2012chart1

Moreover, according to Obama’s budget plans, food stamp spending will not return to pre-recession levels when the economy improves. “For most of the next decade, food stamp spending, adjusted for inflation and population growth, would remain at nearly twice the levels seen during the non-recessionary periods under President Bill Clinton,” note Rector and Bradley.

What’s more, food stamps are just one of roughly 80 federally funded means-tested welfare programs. The total cost of government welfare spending has been on a nearly continual climb over the past five decades and has increased 16-fold, to nearly $1 trillion annually, since the 1960s. Welfare is the fastest growing part of government spending, and under Obama’s fiscal year 2013 budget, total welfare spending will permanently increase from 4.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) to 6 percent of GDP.

US News & World Report also suggests as a “fact” that most food stamp recipients work.

However, a significant portion of able-bodied recipients of food stamps perform little to no work. Of the roughly 10.5 million households receiving food stamps containing an able-bodied, non-elderly adult (there are approximately 20 million households receiving food stamps total), more than half—5.5 million—performed no work during a given month in 2010. Another 1.5 million to 2 million performed fewer than 30 hours of work per week. This isn’t unique to the recession, but is typical even during good economic times.

The food stamp program is just one of dozens that comprise the complex system of federal means-tested welfare programs. Instead of continuing to pour more dollars into these programs, which have failed to promote self-sufficiency, policymakers should roll back aggregate spending on means-tested welfare to pre-recession levels when employment recovers. Likewise, programs like food stamps should be reformed to promote self-reliance through work, empowering individuals and families to become free from government dependence.

 

_______________________

Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com

Related posts:

Tell the 48 million food stamps users to eat more broccoli!!!!

Welfare Can And Must Be Reformed             Uploaded on Jun 29, 2010 If America does not get welfare reform under control, it will bankrupt America. But the Heritage Foundation’s Robert Rector has a five-step plan to reform welfare while protecting our most vulnerable. __________________________ We got to slow down the growth of Food Stamps. One […]

Republicans for more food stamps?

Eight Reasons Why Big Government Hurts Economic Growth __________________ We got to cut spending and we must first start with food stamp program and we need some Senators that are willing to make the tough cuts. Food Stamp Republicans Posted by Chris Edwards Newt Gingrich had fun calling President Obama the “food stamp president,” but […]

Obama promotes food stamps but Milton Friedman had a better suggestion

Milton Friedman’s negative income tax explained by Friedman in 1968: We need to cut back on the Food Stamp program and not try to increase it. What really upsets me is that when the government gets involved in welfare there is a welfare trap created for those who become dependent on the program. Once they […]

400% increase in food stamps since 2000

Welfare Can And Must Be Reformed Uploaded by HeritageFoundation on Jun 29, 2010 If America does not get welfare reform under control, it will bankrupt America. But the Heritage Foundation’s Robert Rector has a five-step plan to reform welfare while protecting our most vulnerable. __________________________ If welfare increases as much as it has in the […]

Food stamp spending has doubled under the Obama Administration

The sad fact is that Food stamp spending has doubled under the Obama Administration. A Bumper Crop of Food Stamps Amy Payne May 21, 2013 at 7:01 am Tweet this Where do food stamps come from? They come from taxpayers—certainly not from family farms. Yet the “farm” bill, a recurring subsidy-fest in Congress, is actually […]

Which states are the leaders in food stamp consumption?

I am glad that my state of Arkansas is not the leader in food stamps!!! Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall, Which State Has the Highest Food Stamp Usage of All? March 19, 2013 by Dan Mitchell The food stamp program seems to be a breeding ground of waste, fraud, and abuse. Some of the horror stories […]

Why not cancel the foodstamp program and let the churches step in?

Government Must Cut Spending Uploaded by HeritageFoundation on Dec 2, 2010 The government can cut roughly $343 billion from the federal budget and they can do so immediately. __________ We are becoming a country filled with people that dependent on the federal government when we should be growing our economy by lowering taxes and putting […]

Food Stamp Program is constantly ripped off and should be discontinued

Uploaded by oversightandreform on Mar 6, 2012 Learn More athttp://oversight.house.gov The Oversight Committee is examining reports of food stamp merchants previously disqualified who continue to defraud the program. According to a Scripps Howard News Service report, food stamp fraud costs taxpayers hundreds of millions every year. Watch the Oversight hearing live tomorrow at 930 […]

Open letter to President Obama (Part 326)

(This letter was emailed to White House on 11-21-11.) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse […]

Welfare state may drag England down the tubes!!!!

Welfare state may drag England down the tubes!!!! Very Funny but Very Un-PC British Video on Welfare and Immigration May 19, 2013 by Dan Mitchell I’ve shared this bit of political incorrect terrorism humor from England, as well asthis somewhat un-PC bit of tax humor. But perhaps motivated by the scandal of giving welfare to terrorists, this new video is […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Cato Institute, Milton Friedman, President Obama, spending out of control | Comments (0)

At some point we will have too many people dependent on the government to turn back our fate!!!

February 20, 2014 – 6:39 am

__________

At some point we will have too many people dependent on the government to turn back our fate!!!

When I give speeches around the country, I often get asked whether it’s time to give up.

More specifically, has America reached a tipping point, with too many people riding in the wagon of government dependency and too few people creating wealth and pulling the wagon in the right direction?

These questions don’t surprise me, particularly since my speeches frequently include very grim BIS, OECD, and IMF data showing that the long-run fiscal problem in the United States is larger than it is in some nations that already are facing fiscal crisis.

But that doesn’t mean I have a good answer. I think there is a tipping point, to be sure, but I’m not sure whether there’s a single variable that tells us when we’ve reached the point of no return.

Is it when government spending consumes 50 percent of economic output? That would be a very bad development if the burden of government spending reached that level, but it’s not necessarily fatal. Back in the early 1990s, the public sector was that big in Canada, yet policy makers in that country were able to restrain budgetary growth and put the country on a positive path. Sweden is another nation that has turned the corner. Government spending peaked at 67 percent of GDP in the early 1990s, but is now down to 47 percent of GDP after years of free-market reforms.

Is it when a majority of households are getting government handouts? That’s also a worrisome development, especially if those folks see the state as a means of living off their fellow citizens. But taking a check from Uncle Sam doesn’t automatically mean a statist mindset. As one of my favorite people opined, “some government beneficiaries – such as Social Security recipients – spent their lives in the private sector and are taking benefits simply because they had no choice but to participate in the system.”

Is it when a majority of people no longer pay income taxes, leaving a shrinking minority to bear all the burden of financing government? It’s not healthy for society when most people think government is “free,” particularly if they perceive an incentive to impose even higher burdens on those who do pay. And there’s no question that the overwhelming majority of the tax burden is borne by the top 10 percent. There’s little evidence, though, that the rest of the population thinks there’s no cost to government – perhaps because many of them pay heavy payroll taxes.

I explore these issues in this interview with Charles Payne.

Dan Mitchell Discussing the Tipping Point when America Becomes a Failed Welfare State

The main takeaway from the interview is that the tipping point is not a number, but a state of mind. It’s the health of the nation’s “social capital.”

So for what it’s worth, the country will be in deep trouble if and when the spirit of self-reliance becomes a minority viewpoint. And the bad news is that we’re heading in that direction.

The good news is that we’re not close to the point of no return. There is some polling data, for instance, showing that Americans still have a much stronger belief in liberty than their European counterparts.

And we’ve even made a small bit of progress against big government in the past few years.

I speculated in the interview that we probably have a couple of decades to save the country, but it will become increasingly difficult to make the necessary changes – such as entitlement reform and welfare decentralization – as we get closer to 2020 and 2030.

Welfare State Wagon CartoonsAnd if those changes don’t occur…?

That’s a very grim subject. I fully understand why some Americans are thinking about the steps they should take to protect their families if reforms don’t occur and a crisis occurs.

Indeed, this to me is one of the most compelling arguments against gun control. If America begins to suffer the chaos and disarray that we’ve seen in nations such as Greece, it’s better to well-armed.

Though maybe there will be some nations that remain stable as the world’s welfare states collapse. And if emigration is your preferred option, I’d bet on Australia.

But wouldn’t it be better to fix what’s wrong and stay in America?

 

Related posts:

Private charities are best solution and not government welfare

Milton Friedman – The Negative Income Tax Published on May 11, 2012 by LibertyPen In this 1968 interview, Milton Friedman explained the negative income tax, a proposal that at minimum would save taxpayers the 72 percent of our current welfare budget spent on administration. http://www.LibertyPen.com Source: Firing Line with William F Buckley Jr. ________________ Milton […]

The Founders desired to limit government power and constrain politicians and they knew where the welfare state would lead!!!!

  Welfare Can And Must Be Reformed             Uploaded on Jun 29, 2010 If America does not get welfare reform under control, it will bankrupt America. But the Heritage Foundation’s Robert Rector has a five-step plan to reform welfare while protecting our most vulnerable. __________________________ The Founders desired to limit government power and constrain politicians and […]

“Friedman Friday” 40% of USA on government dole, need to eliminate welfare and put in Friedman’s negative income tax

Eight Reasons Why Big Government Hurts Economic Growth We got to cut these welfare programs before everyone stops working and wants to get the free stuff. The Bible says if you don’t work then you should not eat. It also says that churches should help the poor but it doesn’t say that the government should […]

Welfare should not stand in the way of self-sufficiency but should encourage freedom from government dependence!!!

Fox News Follows California Beach Bum Living Off Food Stamps For Years You Won’t Believe This Surfer Living the Food Stamps Dream Rachel Sheffield August 15, 2013 at 5:01 pm This is Jason Greenslate’s typical day: “Wake up, go down to the beach, hang out with my friends, hit on some chicks, start drinking.” He […]

Want to cut waste out of the government then reform welfare state!!!!

The Government Episode 1 Published on Jul 24, 2013 Follow the day-to-day office life of a federal agency trying desperately to spend their way to a bigger budget. _________________________ Want to cut waste out of the government then reform welfare state!!!! Want to Rebuild Opportunity, Mr. President? Start with Welfare Reform T. Elliot Gaiser July 31, […]

40% of USA on government dole, need to eliminate welfare and put in Friedman’s negative income tax

Eight Reasons Why Big Government Hurts Economic Growth We got to cut these welfare programs before everyone stops working and wants to get the free stuff. The Bible says if you don’t work then you should not eat. It also says that churches should help the poor but it doesn’t say that the government should […]

Open letter to President Obama (Part 516) (Welfare state erodes social capital)

Open letter to President Obama (Part 516) (Emailed to White House on 5-3-13.) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get […]

Rand Paul rightly notes, “The Fourth Amendment requires an individualized warrant based on probable cause before the government can search phone records and e-mails”

_________ Reclaiming Our Rights in the 21st Century (Sen. Rand Paul) Published on Aug 1, 2013 Full event: http://www.cato.org/cato-university/2… Limiting government means expanding the sphere of the individual. And given recent scandals with the NSA and IRS, the struggle for liberty clearly continues. At Cato University, Kentucky’s Junior Senator Rand Paul addressed the crowd, covering […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in President Obama | Tagged  | Edit | Comments (0)

Big government means overpaid bureaucrats who loaf and it encourages dishonesty!!!!

Many people that wok in the government are decent people, but also there is another side to this story too. Big government means overpaid bureaucrats who loaf and it encourages dishonesty!!!! Are Government Bureaucrats Corrupt and Dishonest? January 25, 2014 by Dan Mitchell I don’t like government bureaucrats. Actually, let me re-phrase that statement. I know lots of […]

 

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Cato Institute, spending out of control | Comments (0)

Liberals hate tax deductions even if they are legitimate!!!

February 19, 2014 – 10:05 am

____________

One of my favorite groups growing up was ABBA. Here are some of my favorite songs:

Liberals hate tax deductions even if they are legitimate!!!

The tax code is a complicated nightmare, particularly for businesses.

Some people may think this is because of multiple tax rates, which definitely is an issue for all the non-corporate businesses that file “Schedule C” forms using the personal income tax.

A discriminatory rate structure adds to complexity, to be sure, but the main reason for a convoluted business tax system (for large and small companies) is that politicians don’t allow firms to use the simple and logical (and theoretically sound) approach of cash-flow taxation.

Here’s how a sensible business tax would work.

Total Revenue – Total Cost = Profit

And it would be wonderful if our tax system was this simple, and that’s basically how the business portion of the flat tax operates, but that’s not how the current tax code works.

We have about 76,000 pages of tax rules in large part because politicians and bureaucrats have decided that the “cash flow” approach doesn’t give them enough money.

So they’ve created all sorts of rules that in many cases prevent businesses from properly subtracting (or deducting) their costs when calculating their profits.

One of the worst examples is depreciation, which deals with the tax treatment of business investment expenses. You might think lawmakers would like investment since that boosts productivity, wage, and competitiveness, but you would be wrong. The tax code rarely allows companies to fully deduct investment expenses (factories, machines, etc) in the year they occur. Instead, they have to deduct (or depreciate) those costs over many years. In some cases, even decades.

But rather than write about the boring topic of depreciation to make my point about legitimate tax deductions, I’m going to venture into the world of popular culture.

Though since I’m a middle-aged curmudgeon, my example of popular culture is a band that was big about 30 years ago.

The UK-based Guardian is reporting on the supposed scandal of ABBA’s tax deductions. Here are the relevant passages.

The glittering hotpants, sequined jumpsuits and platform heels that Abba wore at the peak of their fame were designed not just for the four band members to stand out – but also for tax efficiency, according to claims over the weekend. Abba…And the reason for their bold fashion choices lay not just in the pop glamour of the late 70s and early 80s, but also in the Swedish tax code. According to Abba: The Official Photo Book, published to mark 40 years since they won Eurovision with Waterloo, the band’s style was influenced in part by laws that allowed the cost of outfits to be deducted against tax – so long as the costumes were so outrageous they could not possibly be worn on the street.

When I read the story, I kept waiting to get to the scandalous part.

But then I realized that the scandal – according to our statist friends – is that ABBA could have paid even more in tax if they wore regular street clothes for their performances.

In other words, this is not a scandal at all. It’s simply the latest iteration of the left-wing campaign (bolstered by tax-free bureaucrats at the Paris-based OECD) to de-legitimize normal and proper tax deductions.

So I guess this means that the New York Yankees should play in t-shirts and gym shorts since getting rid of the pinstripes would increase the team’s taxable income.

And companies should set their thermostats at 60 degrees in the winter since that also would lead to more taxable income.

Or, returning to the example of ABBA, perhaps they should have used these outfits since there wouldn’t be much cost to deduct and that would have boosted taxable income.

Shifting to the individual income tax, another potential revenue raiser is for households to follow this example from Monty Python and sell their kids for medical experiments. That would eliminate personal exemptions and lead to more taxable income.

Heck, maybe our friends on the left should pass a law mandating weekend jobs so we could have more income for them to tax.

Though I’m not sure how that would work since the statists are now saying Obamacare is a good thing because it “liberates” millions of people from having to work.

I’m not sure how they square that circle, but I’m sure the answer is more class-warfare tax policy.

P.S. If you want to a simple rule to determine what’s a legitimate tax deduction, just remember that economic activity should be taxed equally (and at the lowest possible rate). That’s why businesses should have a cash-flow tax, and it’s why households should have a neutral system like a flat tax or national sales tax.

P.P.S. Though it would be nice if we had the very limited government envisioned by the Founding Fathers. In that case, we wouldn’t need any broad-based tax whatsoever.

P.P.P.S. A very low tax rate is the best way of encouraging taxpayers to declare income and minimize deductions. Sweden Individual Income tax ratesWhen ABBA first became famous, the top personal tax rate in Sweden was at the confiscatory level of about 80 percent and the corporate tax rate was about 55 percent. With rates so high, that meant taxpayers had big incentives to reduce taxable income and little reason to control costs.

After all, a krona of deductible expense only reduced income by about 20 öre for individual taxpayers.

Corporate taxpayers weren’t treated as badly, but a rate of 55 percent still meant that a krona of deductible expense only reduced after-tax income by 45 öre.

But if the rate was very modest, say 20 percent, then taxpayers might be far more frugal about costs (whether the cost of uniforms or anything else) because a krona of deductible expense would reduce income by 80 öre.

By the way, the United States conducted an experiment of this type in the 1980s and the rich wound up declaring far more income to the IRS.

_______________

It is sad that we are heading to where Sweden used to be and they are heading to where we used to be. Here is a great article from the Heritage Foundation:

Anthony B. Kim

April 16, 2012 at 5:30 pm

Sweden is known for, among other things, Swedish meatballs, the pop group ABBA, and IKEA.

Well, here is another thing that Sweden should be recognized for: tax cuts. Yes, you heard right: tax cuts.

Sweden used to tax corporations at a 60 percent rate. Now that has come down to 26.3 percent. As noted in a recent article by the U.K.-based Spectator magazine, Sweden’s finance minister, Anders Borg, who was named the most effective finance minister in Europe by the Financial Times, got something awfully right.

Since becoming Sweden’s finance minister, [Borg’s] mission has been to pare back government. His “stimulus” was a permanent tax cut. To critics, this was fiscal lunacy—the so-called “punk tax cutting” agenda. Borg, on the other hand, thought lunacy meant repeating the economics of the 1970s and expecting a different result.… Three years on, it’s pretty clear who was right. “Look at Spain, Portugal or the UK, whose governments were arguing for large temporary stimulus,” he says. “Well, we can see that very little of the stimulus went to the economy. But they are stuck with the debt.” Tax-cutting Sweden, by contrast, had the fastest growth in Europe last year, when it also celebrated the abolition of its deficit.… He continued to cut taxes and cut welfare-spending to pay for it; he even cut property taxes for the rich to lure entrepreneurs back to Sweden. The last bit was the most unpopular, but for Borg, economic recovery starts with entrepreneurs.

The tax cuts, combined with Sweden’s highly efficient regulatory system, have raised the Swedish economy to 21st place in the 2012 Index of Economic Freedom. By sharp contrast, the regulation-loving “Yes, We Can” U.S. Administration has driven down our economic freedom ranking over the past three years and is steering our economy into “Taxmageddon.”

Maybe it is time for President Obama to sit down with Sweden’s finance minister for a lesson on how to achieve economic recovery.

________

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Cato Institute | Comments (0)

Obama just made the 18th executive branch’s unilateral change to Obamacare but who will challenge him on it?

February 13, 2014 – 7:29 am

__________

Obama just made the 18th executive branch’s unilateral change to Obamacare but who will challenge him on it?

We’ve reached the stage where Obamacare is the punchline to a bad joke.

The law has been a disaster, both for the economy and for the Democratic Party. Not that we should be surprised. You don’t get better healthcare with a poisonous recipe of higher taxes, added government spending, and more intervention.

With any luck, Obamacare will be a textbook example of why we should never again give power to a bunch of political hacks and dreamy-eyed central planners.

Because when they try to buy votes and create more dependency with Rube Goldberg schemes, the results are well..we    see the cluster-you-know-what of Obamacareunfolding before our eyes.

Not that anyone should be surprised. Remember what happened when politicians decided government would make housing more affordable?

And remember what happened when politicians decided government should extend American tax law into other nations?

Simply stated, grandiose plans for expanded government don’t end well.

But this isn’t a normal public policy issue.

The Obama Administration has just announced that it arbitrarily will be ignoring one of the requirements in the law, and this is the executive branch’s 18th unilateral change to Obamacare.

We have to ask whether the American political system is being corrupted by a White House that doesn’t feel bound by the rule of law.

To put it mildly, the Wall Street Journal is not impressed.

…the law increasingly means whatever President Obama says it does on any given day. His latest lawless rewrite arrived on Monday as the White House decided to delay the law’s employer mandate for another year and in some cases maybe forever. …last summer the Treasury offered a year-long delay until 2015 despite having no statutory authorization. …Now the new delay arrives amid a furious debate about jobs after a damning Congressional Budget Office report last week, only this time with liberals celebrating ObamaCare’s supposed benefits to the job market. …Oh, and the Treasury also notes that, “As these limited transition rules take effect, we will consider whether it is necessary to further extend any of them beyond 2015.” So the law may be suspended indefinitely if the White House feels like it. …The text of the Affordable Care Act specifically says when the mandate must take effect—”after December 31, 2013″—and does not give the White House the authority to change the terms. Changing an unambiguous statutory mandate requires the approval of Congress, but then this President has often decided the law is whatever he says it is.

I admit that part of me wants Obamacare delayed as much as possible.

After all, even more jobs will be lost if the employer mandate is properly enforced, and that would add to an already anemic employment situation.

But America isn’t Argentina, or some other Banana Republic, where the law is based on the arbitrary and capricious decisions of some political thug.

Political Cartoons by Lisa Benson

At least it shouldn’t be.

If the President wants to change the law, he should propose legislation and send it to Congress.

But it’s obvious what that isn’t happening. The White House understands that it would be forced to make concessions to get the changes it wants.

So why not make a mockery of the rule of law instead?

As nicely illustrated by the Lisa Benson cartoon.

This is such a depressing topic that we need to close this post with some cartoons about the failure of Obamacare.

We’ll start with Henry Payne, who uses an Olympics theme.

Political Cartoons by Henry Payne

Gary Varvel has some fun mocking the left about being “liberated” from the drudgery of employment.

Political Cartoons by Gary Varvel

Fans of James Bond my remember a certain scene from Goldfinger, and Glenn McCoy recreates that scene.

Political Cartoons by Glenn McCoy

Steven Breen looks at the law’s impact on jobs.

Political Cartoons by Steve Breen

And Robert Gorrell makes a nice point about labor supply incentives.

Political Cartoons by Bob Gorrell

These are all amusing cartoons, but let’s not forget that Obama will get the last laugh if the final result is more dependency and a permanent expansion of the welfare state.

At some point, we need to restore genuine market forces and get a lower-cost, more-efficient healthcare system.

And that means not only repealing Obamacare, but also addressing all the other programs and policies which have caused the third-party payer crisis.

P.S. Here’s some good news showing we’re not quite at the same level as Argentina.

You may remember what I wrote back in 2012 about the IRS seeking to impose new restrictions on the tax preparation industry.

This was a power grab with no legal justification.Indeed, it seems to have been an example of crony capitalism since H&R Block wanted to shut down low-cost competitors.

That was the bad news. The good news is that the Institute for Justice sued to block the IRS/H&R block scheme.

And the great news is that the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals just drop-kicked theIRS thugs into a dumpster.

Here’s part of the Court’s decision, as reported in the Washington Post.

It might be that allowing the IRS to regulate tax-return preparers more stringently would be wise as a policy matter. But that is a decision for Congress and the President to make if they wish by enacting new legislation…. The IRS may not unilaterally expand its authority.

Let’s keep our fingers crossed that the Courts do the same – by defending the rule of law – on future Obamacare decisions.

 

Related posts:

Obamacare Death Panels Kills Jobs more often than people!!!

____________ Obamacare Death Panels Kills Jobs more often than people!!! Crying about Obamacare, but also Laughing at Obamacare February 8, 2014 by Dan Mitchell I asked back in September whether all the bad news about Obamacare meant it was time to feel sorry for President Obama and other statists. Some people apparently didn’t realize I was […]

Open letter to President Obama (Part 514) (Why We Should Be Optimistic about Repealing Obamacare and Fixing the Healthcare System)

Open letter to President Obama (Part 514) (Emailed to White House on 4-15-13.) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get […]

Obamacare’s sinking ship is sad to watch!!!

______ Oklahoma Doctors vs. Obamacare Obamacare’s sinking ship is sad to watch!!! Drilling More Holes in Obamacare’s Sinking Ship January 23, 2014 by Dan Mitchell The President’s main “accomplishment” has been such a disaster that I wonder whether it’s time to feel sorry for Obama. And if you looked in the dictionary for a definition of Schadenfreude, you might […]

I don’t feel sorry for Insurance Companies that endorsed Obamacare but I feel sorry for taxpayers who are about to bail them out!!!

_____________ I don’t feel sorry for Insurance Companies that endorsed Obamacare but I feel sorry for taxpayers who are about to bail them out!!! TARP Was Bad, but the Looming Obamacare Bailout for Corrupt Insurance Companies Could Be Worse January 3, 2014 by Dan Mitchell I hate to dredge up bad memories so early in a […]

Obamacare is so dumb that you just have to laugh!!!

________ Obamacare is so dumb that you just have to laugh!!! Some Partially Serious Thanksgiving Humor November 28, 2013 by Dan Mitchell Tim Carney of the Washington Examiner is a must-read columnist and expert on the pervasive corruption in Washington. He’s also an insightful commentator on why freedom and morality go hand in hand, which suggests […]

Open letter to President Obama (Part 469)(An Obamacare Chart to Make You Cry…Balanced by Obamacare Cartoons to Make You Laugh)

Open letter to President Obama (Part 469) (Emailed to White House on 5-4-13.) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get […]

We need to repeal Obamacare and get away from third-party payer system and get a genuine free market!!!!

______ We need to repeal Obamacare and get away from third-party payer system and get a genuine free market!!!! The Continuing Obamacare Disaster November 11, 2013 by Dan Mitchell You know things are going poorly for the Obama White House when even the New York Times is writing about the “third world experience” of Obamacare. Heck, […]

Supreme Court to Hear Challenges to Obamacare Anti-Conscience Mandate

________ I have written about this before and I have even emailed the White House about it. Today we have some very good news!!! Supreme Court to Hear Challenges to Obamacare Anti-Conscience Mandate Elizabeth Slattery and Sarah Torre November 26, 2013 at 2:12 pm (0) Today, the Supreme Court announced that it will take up […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Cato Institute, Healthcare, President Obama, spending out of control | Comments (0)

Open letter to President Obama (Part 516) (Welfare state erodes social capital)

February 11, 2014 – 1:57 am

Open letter to President Obama (Part 516)

(Emailed to White House on 5-3-13.)

President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here.

______________________

Welfare Can And Must Be Reformed

            Uploaded on Jun 29, 2010

If America does not get welfare reform under control, it will bankrupt America. But the Heritage Foundation’s Robert Rector has a five-step plan to reform welfare while protecting our most vulnerable.

__________________________

We got to stop encouraging people to stay on welfare.

I’m a big fan of Chuck Asay’s political cartoons. My favorite is his nothing-left-to-steal masterpiece.

And his tractor cartoon and his regime-uncertainty cartoon are brilliant indictments of Obamanomics.

Here’s another classic. It shows the impact of the welfare state on incentives for work, self reliance, and independence.

Asay Welfare CartoonIn six cartoon frames, he cleverly explains the economics of labor supply in a welfare state. Heck, there are many economists who could learn something from Asay’s work.

With gems like this, no wonder he came in second place in my political cartoonist contest.

This unsigned Wizard-of-Id parody has the same basic message about labor supply and handouts, and here’s a chart with some staggering real-world evidence of how the welfare state discourages people from productive behavior.

___________________

Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com

Related posts:

What does the welfare state do to people?

I have posted stories on welfare before and here is another one. Another Horrifying and Depressing Look at the Human Cost of the Welfare State March 22, 2013 by Dan Mitchell When we think of Julia, the mythical moocher created by the Obama campaign, our first instinct is probably to grab our wallets and purses. After […]

Founders Fathers were against welfare state

Why are we spending more and more on welfare every year?  What would the Founding Fathers have to say about this if they were still here today? We will look at that in a little bit. We need to cut Food Stamp program and not extend it. However, it seems that people tell the taxpayers back […]

The Welfare trap can be destroyed by Milton Friedman’s negative income tax

The best way to destroy the welfare trap is to put in Milton Friedman’s negative income tax. A Picture of How Redistribution Programs Trap the Less Fortunate in Lives of Dependency I wrote last year about the way in which welfare programs lead to very high implicit marginal tax rates on low-income people. More specifically, they […]

Open letter to Congressman Womack: Total Welfare Spending Is Rising Despite Attempts at Reform

  December 19, 2012 The Honorable Steve Womack United States House of Representatives 1508 Longworth House Office Building Washington, D.C. 20515-0403 Dear Congressman Womack, This is the second time I have written to you about this. It is obvious to me that if President Obama gets his hands on more money then he will continue […]

Welfare Spending Shattering All-Time Highs

  We got to act fast and get off this path of socialism. Morning Bell: Welfare Spending Shattering All-Time Highs Robert Rector and Amy Payne October 18, 2012 at 9:03 am It’s been a pretty big year for welfare—and a new report shows welfare is bigger than ever. The Obama Administration turned a giant spotlight […]

We need more brave souls that will vote against Washington welfare programs

We need to cut Food Stamp program and not extend it. However, it seems that people tell the taxpayers back home they are going to Washington and cut government spending but once they get up there they just fall in line with  everyone else that keeps spending our money. I am glad that at least […]

Welfare programs are not the answer for the poor

Government Must Cut Spending Uploaded by HeritageFoundation on Dec 2, 2010 The government can cut roughly $343 billion from the federal budget and they can do so immediately. __________ Liberals argue that the poor need more welfare programs, but I have always argued that these programs enslave the poor to the government. Food Stamps Growth […]

Private charities are best solution and not government welfare

Milton Friedman – The Negative Income Tax Published on May 11, 2012 by LibertyPen In this 1968 interview, Milton Friedman explained the negative income tax, a proposal that at minimum would save taxpayers the 72 percent of our current welfare budget spent on administration. http://www.LibertyPen.com Source: Firing Line with William F Buckley Jr. ________________ Milton […]

The book “After the Welfare State”

Dan Mitchell Commenting on Obama’s Failure to Propose a Fiscal Plan Published on Aug 16, 2012 by danmitchellcato No description available. ___________ After the Welfare State Posted by David Boaz Cato senior fellow Tom G. Palmer, who is lecturing about freedom in Slovenia and Tbilisi this week, asked me to post this announcement of his […]

President Obama responds to Heritage Foundation critics on welfare reform waivers

Is President Obama gutting the welfare reform that Bill Clinton signed into law? Morning Bell: Obama Denies Gutting Welfare Reform Amy Payne August 8, 2012 at 9:15 am The Obama Administration came out swinging against its critics on welfare reform yesterday, with Press Secretary Jay Carney saying the charge that the Administration gutted the successful […]

 

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Cato Institute, President Obama | Comments (0)

Obamacare Death Panels Kills Jobs more often than people!!!

February 10, 2014 – 12:13 pm

____________

Obamacare Death Panels Kills Jobs more often than people!!!

I asked back in September whether all the bad news about Obamacare meant it was time to feel sorry for President Obama and other statists.

Some people apparently didn’t realize I was being sarcastic, so I got some negative feedback.

I’ve since learned to be more careful with my language, and subsequent columns about Obamacare developments have used more direct rhetoric such as Obamacare disaster, Obamacare Schadenfreude, and the continuing Obamacare disaster.

Well, I don’t even know if there are words that can describe the latest bit of bad news about Obamacare. The Congressional Budget Office, which usually carries water for those who favor bigger government, has been forced to acknowledge that Obamacare is going to wreak havoc with America’s job market.

Today’s Wall Street Journal has a column on the topic, giving considerable and deserved credit to Casey Mulligan, an economics professor at the University of Chicago who has produced first-rate research on implicit marginal tax rates and labor supply incentives.

Rarely are political tempers so raw over an 11-page appendix to a dense budget projection for the next decade. But then the CBO—Congress’s official fiscal scorekeeper, widely revered by Democrats and Republicans alike as the gold standard of economic analysis—reported that by 2024 the equivalent of 2.5 million Americans who were otherwise willing and able to work before ObamaCare will work less or not at all as a result of ObamaCare. As the CBO admits, that’s a “substantially larger” and “considerably higher” subtraction to the labor force than the mere 800,000 the budget office estimated in 2010. The overall level of labor will fall by 1.5% to 2% over the decade, the CBO figures. Mr. Mulligan’s empirical research puts the best estimate of the contraction at 3%. The CBO still has some of the economics wrong, he said in a phone interview Thursday, “but, boy, it’s a lot better to be off by a factor of two than a factor of six.”

That’s a lot of lost jobs, which is going to translate into lower levels of economic output and reduced living standards.

By the way, I can’t resist quibbling with the assertion that CBO is “widely revered” and that it’s the “gold standard of economic analysis.”

Utter nonsense. CBO helped grease the skids for Obamacare by producing biased numbers when the law was being debated.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. CBO also produces “analysis” which implies that you maximize growth with 100 percent tax rates. And the bureaucrats at CBO also are reflexive advocates of Keynesian economics, which is why they claimed that Obama’s so-called stimulus was creating jobs even though unemployment was rising.

So you can understand why I don’t like citing CBO numbers, even when they happen to support my position.

As far as I’m concerned, the bureaucracy should be shut down. And if Republicans win the Senate in the 2014 elections, it will be interesting to see whether they have the brains to at least reform CBO to limit future damage.

But I’ve digressed long enough. Let’s get back to the WSJ column about the latest Obamacare disaster.

Our friends on the left are in a very tough position.

…liberals have turned to claiming that ObamaCare’s missing workers will be a gift to society. Since employers aren’t cutting jobs per se through layoffs or hourly take-backs, people are merely choosing rationally to supply less labor. Thanks to ObamaCare, we’re told, Americans can finally quit the salt mines and blacking factories and retire early, or spend more time with the children, or become artists. Mr. Mulligan reserves particular scorn for the economists making this “eliminated from the drudgery of labor market” argument, which he views as a form of trahison des clercs. …A job, Mr. Mulligan explains, “is a transaction between buyers and sellers. When a transaction doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen. We know that it doesn’t matter on which side of the market you put the disincentives, the results are the same. . . . In this case you’re putting an implicit tax on work for households, and employers aren’t willing to compensate the households enough so they’ll still work.” Jobs can be destroyed by sellers (workers) as much as buyers (businesses).

By the way, just in case you’re an unsophisticated rube like me, Wiktionary says that trahison des clercs means “a compromise of intellectual integrity by members of an intelligentsia.”

Which is a pretty good description of leftists who are twisting themselves into pretzels trying to rationalize that joblessness and government dependency are good things.

And Prof. Mulligan makes the right analogy.

He adds: “I can understand something like cigarettes and people believe that there’s too much smoking, so we put a tax on cigarettes, so people smoke less, and we say that’s a good thing. OK. But are we saying we were working too much before? Is that the new argument? I mean make up your mind. We’ve been complaining for six years now that there’s not enough work being done. . . . Even before the recession there was too little work in the economy. Now all of a sudden we wake up and say we’re glad that people are working less? We’re pursuing our dreams?” The larger betrayal, Mr. Mulligan argues, is that the same economists now praising the great shrinking workforce used to claim that ObamaCare would expand the labor market. He points to a 2011 letter organized by Harvard’s David Cutler and the University of Chicago’s Harold Pollack, signed by dozens of left-leaning economists including Nobel laureates, stating “our strong conclusion” that ObamaCare will strengthen the economy and create 250,000 to 400,000 jobs annually.

Gee, that “strong conclusion” about an increase in jobs somehow turned into a cold reality that the economy might lose the equivalent of 2.5 million jobs.

This is very grim news. We can be happy that there’s now even more evidence that big government doesn’t work, but we should never forget that there are real victims when statist policies lead to less growth and more joblessness.

So let’s try to bring some cheer to a dismal situation with some new Obamacare cartoons.

Our first entry is from Chip Bok, who is mocking the New York Times for writing that fewer jobs was “a liberating result of the law.”

Gary Varvel’s analysis of the job impact has a seasonal theme.

And the great Michael Ramirez points out that the death panel has been very busy.

Lisa Benson picks up on the same theme, pointing out that at least Granny is still safe.

And Henry Payne makes a subtle, but superb point about labor supply incentives.

Just like this Chuck Asay cartoon, this Wizard-of-Id parody., and this Robert Gorrell cartoon.

Let’s now look at another Lisa Benson cartoon. It’s not about the job losses, but the underlying foolishness of how Obamacare is designed.

And if you like cartoons with sharks, here’s a classic one about Keynesian economics.

Let’s close with a couple of cartoons that look at the big picture.

Glenn McCoy shares a warning label.

And Steve Breen also has a warning label about Obamacare, but it’s much quicker to read.

Last but not least, Scott Stantis looks at one of the side effects of Obamacare.

Stantis Obamacare Cartoon

Stantis, by the way, produced the best-ever cartoon about Keynesian economics.

P.S. If you want to learn more about how redistribution programs such as Obamacare trap people in dependency and discourage them from the job market, click here.

There are even some honest leftists who recognize this is a serious problem.

________

Related posts:

Open letter to President Obama (Part 514) (Why We Should Be Optimistic about Repealing Obamacare and Fixing the Healthcare System)

Open letter to President Obama (Part 514) (Emailed to White House on 4-15-13.) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get […]

Obamacare’s sinking ship is sad to watch!!!

______ Oklahoma Doctors vs. Obamacare Obamacare’s sinking ship is sad to watch!!! Drilling More Holes in Obamacare’s Sinking Ship January 23, 2014 by Dan Mitchell The President’s main “accomplishment” has been such a disaster that I wonder whether it’s time to feel sorry for Obama. And if you looked in the dictionary for a definition of Schadenfreude, you might […]

I don’t feel sorry for Insurance Companies that endorsed Obamacare but I feel sorry for taxpayers who are about to bail them out!!!

_____________ I don’t feel sorry for Insurance Companies that endorsed Obamacare but I feel sorry for taxpayers who are about to bail them out!!! TARP Was Bad, but the Looming Obamacare Bailout for Corrupt Insurance Companies Could Be Worse January 3, 2014 by Dan Mitchell I hate to dredge up bad memories so early in a […]

Obamacare is so dumb that you just have to laugh!!!

________ Obamacare is so dumb that you just have to laugh!!! Some Partially Serious Thanksgiving Humor November 28, 2013 by Dan Mitchell Tim Carney of the Washington Examiner is a must-read columnist and expert on the pervasive corruption in Washington. He’s also an insightful commentator on why freedom and morality go hand in hand, which suggests […]

Open letter to President Obama (Part 469)(An Obamacare Chart to Make You Cry…Balanced by Obamacare Cartoons to Make You Laugh)

Open letter to President Obama (Part 469) (Emailed to White House on 5-4-13.) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get […]

We need to repeal Obamacare and get away from third-party payer system and get a genuine free market!!!!

______ We need to repeal Obamacare and get away from third-party payer system and get a genuine free market!!!! The Continuing Obamacare Disaster November 11, 2013 by Dan Mitchell You know things are going poorly for the Obama White House when even the New York Times is writing about the “third world experience” of Obamacare. Heck, […]

Supreme Court to Hear Challenges to Obamacare Anti-Conscience Mandate

________ I have written about this before and I have even emailed the White House about it. Today we have some very good news!!! Supreme Court to Hear Challenges to Obamacare Anti-Conscience Mandate Elizabeth Slattery and Sarah Torre November 26, 2013 at 2:12 pm (0) Today, the Supreme Court announced that it will take up […]

Open letter to President Obama (Part 460) Lots of reasons to still oppose Obamacare (includes editorial cartoon)

(Emailed to White House on 3-20-13.) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is […]

Open letter to President Obama (Part 418) Why do religious institutions have to provide a way for their employees to get abortions under Obamacare?

  (Emailed to White House on 1-14-13.) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what […]

We got to cut the size of government and Obamacare is the best place to cut!!!!

We got to cut the size of government and Obamacare is the best place to cut!!!!   A Funny Look at How Obamacare Screws Young People August 30, 2013 by Dan Mitchell During the big-spending Bush years, economic and fiscal people inside the Administration often would sympathize with my complaints about bad policy, but say that […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Cato Institute, Healthcare, President Obama | Comments (0)

Higher taxes on the rich don’t always bring in more money!!!

February 7, 2014 – 2:28 pm

Higher taxes on the rich don’t always bring in more money!!!

My main goal for fiscal policy is shrinking the size and scope of the federal government and lowering the burden of government spending.

But I’m also motivated by a desire for better tax policy, which means lower tax rates, less double taxation, and fewer corrupting loopholes and other distortions.

One of the big obstacles to good tax policy is that many statists think that higher tax rates on the rich are a simple and easy way of financing bigger government.

I’ve tried to explain that soak-the-rich tax policies won’t work because upper-income taxpayers have considerable ability to change the timing, level, and composition of their income. Simply stated, when the tax rate goes up, their taxable income goes down.

And that means it’s not clear whether higher tax rates lead to more revenue or less revenue. This is the underlying principle of the Laffer Curve.

For more information, here’s a video from Prager University, narrated by UCLA Professor of Economics Tim Groseclose.

Lower Taxes, Higher Revenue

Published on Feb 3, 2014

Should Taxes Be Higher? It’s the million dollar question! Up? Down? No change? Where in the world should taxes go? In election years, the question of tax rates fills the airwaves. In non-election years, the question of tax rates, again, fills the airwaves. So what’s the answer? UCLA Professor of Economics Tim Groseclose explains his research on the topic. Basically, there’s a certain point at which higher tax rates actually reduce the amount of revenue the government collects. What’s that point? When are tax rates too high? Learn a valuable lesson in economics, and public policy.

You can support Prager University at https://www.prageruniversity.com/dona…. Free videos are great, but to continue producing high-quality content, even small contributions are great.

Visit us directly!
http://www.prageruniversity.com/

LIKE us!
https://www.facebook.com/prageru

Follow us!
https://twitter.com/prageru

If you are an educator and are interested in using material like this in your classroom, visit http://www.prageruniversity.com/educa…

____________________

An excellent job, and I particularly like the data showing that the rich paid more to the IRS following Reagan’s tax cuts.

But I do have one minor complaint.

The video would have been even better if it emphasized that the tax rate shouldn’t be at the top of the “hump.”

Why? Because as tax rates get closer and closer to the revenue-maximizing point, the economic damage becomes very significant. Here’s some of what I wrote about that topic back in 2012.

…labor taxes could be approximately doubled before getting to the downward-sloping portion of the curve. But notice that this means that tax revenues only increase by about 10 percent. …this study implies that the government would reduce private-sector taxable income by about $20 for every $1 of new tax revenue. Does that seem like good public policy? Ask yourself what sort of politicians are willing to destroy so much private sector output to get their greedy paws on a bit more revenue.

The key point to remember is that we want to be at the growth-maximizing point of the Laffer Curve, not the revenue-maximizing point.

P.S. Here’s my video on the Laffer Curve.

Since it was basically a do-it-yourself production, the graphics aren’t as fancy as the ones you find in the Prager University video, but I’m pleased that I emphasized on more than one occasion that it’s bad to be at the revenue-maximizing point on the Laffer Curve.

Not as bad as putting rates even higher, as some envy-motivated leftists would prefer, but still an example of bad tax policy.

The Laffer Curve, Part I: Understanding the Theory

P.P.S. Switching to a different topic, it’s been a while since I’ve mocked Sandra Fluke, a real-life Julia.

To fix this oversight, here’s an amusing image based on Ms. Fluke’s apparent interest in becoming a politician.

Fluke Filing Fee

But she’s apparently reconsidered her plans to run for Congress and instead now intends to seek a seat in the California state legislature.

She’ll fit in perfectly.

If you want to see previous examples of Fluke mockery, check out this great Reason video, this funny cartoon, and four more jokes here.

P.P.P.S. And since I’m making one of left-wing women, we may as well include some humor about Wendy Davis.

Check out this excerpt from a story in the Daily Caller.

A dating service that pairs wealthy “sugar daddies” with “sugar babies” for “mutually beneficial dating arrangements” has endorsed Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis. SeekingArrangement.com’s Friday announcement followed a recent report in the Dallas Morning News which detailed a number of discrepancies in Davis’ personal narrative, including that she left a man 13 years her senior the day after he made the last payment for her Harvard Law School education. “Wendy Davis is proof that the sugar lifestyle is empowering,” seeking arrangements founder and CEO Brandon Wade said in his endorsement.

Mr. Wade obviously is a clever marketer, but he may also be a closet libertarian.

After all, he also mocked Obamacare with an ad telling young women to join his site so they could find a sugar daddy to pay for the higher premiums caused by government-run healthcare.

Then again, I’ve also speculated that Jay Leno and Bill Maher may be closet libertarians, so I may be guilty of bending over backwards to find allies.

Related posts:

Dan Mitchell’s blog has great cartoon that demonstrates what President Obama has been doing the last 4 years!!!

I have put up lots of cartoons from Dan Mitchell’s blog before and they have got lots of hits before. Many of them have dealt with the economy, eternal unemployment benefits, socialism,  Greece,  welfare state or on gun control.     I’ve Obtained a Secret Pre-Release Copy of Obama’s Budget April 9, 2013 by Dan Mitchell The President is supposed to release […]

Dan Mitchell’s blog tells the story of the little red hen and President Obama

Uploaded by ForaTv on May 29, 2009 Complete video at:http://fora.tv/2009/05/18/James_Bartholomew_The_Welfare_State_Were_In Author James Bartholomew argues that welfare benefits actually increase government handouts by ‘ruining’ ambition. He compares welfare to a humane mousetrap. —– In the controversial book The Welfare State We’re In, James Bartholomew argues that the welfare state in Britain has resulted in a […]

Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute on President Obama’s “Social Darwinism speech”

Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute rightly has pointed out that President Obama is off base to be critical of Paul Ryan’s budget since it allows the government to grow by over 3% each year and he wished that the Republicans would taking a sharper knife to the budget cuts!!!! Appearing on PBS to Debate […]

Open letter to President Obama (Part 514) (Why We Should Be Optimistic about Repealing Obamacare and Fixing the Healthcare System)

Open letter to President Obama (Part 514) (Emailed to White House on 4-15-13.) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get […]

Open letter to President Obama (Part 513) (Minimum Wage, Maximum Foolishness)

Open letter to President Obama (Part 513) (Emailed to White House on 5-4-13.) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get […]

Open letter to President Obama (Part 512) (Cartoonists React to the Senate Democratic Budget)

Open letter to President Obama (Part 512) (Emailed to White House on 4-15-13.) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get […]

Open letter to President Obama (Part 510) (What Can We Cut to Balance the Budget)

Open letter to President Obama (Part 510) (Emailed to White House on 4-15-13.) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get […]

Open letter to President Obama (Part 508) (Margaret Thatcher and the Battle of the 364 Keynesians)

Open letter to President Obama (Part 508) (Emailed to White House on 4-15-13.) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get […]

Open letter to President Obama (Part 506) (Obama Administration Wants to Subsidize Banks to Make More Dodgy Loans)

Open letter to President Obama (Part 506) (Emailed to White House on 4-15-13.) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get […]

Obamacare’s sinking ship is sad to watch!!!

______ Oklahoma Doctors vs. Obamacare Obamacare’s sinking ship is sad to watch!!! Drilling More Holes in Obamacare’s Sinking Ship January 23, 2014 by Dan Mitchell The President’s main “accomplishment” has been such a disaster that I wonder whether it’s time to feel sorry for Obama. And if you looked in the dictionary for a definition of Schadenfreude, you might […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Cato Institute, President Obama | Comments (0)

Open letter to President Obama (Part 514) (Why We Should Be Optimistic about Repealing Obamacare and Fixing the Healthcare System)

February 7, 2014 – 1:45 am

Open letter to President Obama (Part 514)

(Emailed to White House on 4-15-13.)

President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here.

___________________

Some very good points by Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute on Obamacare:

I’m going to make an assertion that seems utterly absurd.

The enactment of Obamacare may have been good news.

Before sending a team of medical attendants to cart me off to a sanitarium, allow me to elaborate. I’m not saying Obamacare is good policy. After all, I’ve written over and over again that it is a budget-busting boondoggle that will exacerbate our real healthcare crisis of third-party payer.

What I am saying, though, is that Obamacare may turn out to be a major political mistake for the left, one that sets the stage for sweeping free market reforms.

Here’s my six-part hypothesis.

  1. Our healthcare system as a mess before Obamacare. Normal market forces were crippled by government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid and also undermined by government intervention in the tax code that resulted in pervasive over-insurance that exacerbated the third-party payer problem.
  2. These various forms of intervention led to all sorts of problems, such as rising prices and indecipherable complexity, and most people blamed that the “free market” and “private” healthcare.Health Freedom Meter before Obamacare
  3. Obamacare was enacted in 2010, and it was perceived to be a paradigm-shifting change in the healthcare system, even though it was just another layer of bad policy on top of lots of other bad policy. Immediately after the legislation was approved, I offered a rough estimate that we went from a system that was 68 percent dictated by government to one that was 79 percent dictated by government.Health Freedom Meter after Obamacare
  4. Not surprisingly, all of the same problems still exist, but now they’re exacerbated by the mistakes in Obamacare.
  5. But because people think we’ve had a paradigm shift and government now is in charge (pay attention, since this is my key argument), they will be much more likely to blame “Obamacare” and “government” for all the warts and inefficiencies of the healthcare system.
  6. This means the public will be more receptive to pro-market policies, such as Obamacare repeal, tax reforms to reduce over-insurance, as well as the Medicaid and Medicare reforms in the Ryan budget.

All this will be much easier said than done, of course, and it is disconcerting that we’ll probably have to rely on feckless Republicans to implement these reforms.

But at least there’s a plausible scenario for systemic reform, and that wasn’t the case before Obamacare was enacted. In other words, the President’s signature achievement may turn out to be a Pyrrhic victory for the left.

P.S. Watch this excellent video from Reason TV to see how a genuine free market could deliver health care at lower cost and with greater efficiency. For another example, here’s a report from North Carolina on free-market healthcare in action.

P.P.S. This post is part of my let’s-be-optimistic series. Previous editions include:

Third-Party Payer is the Biggest Economic Problem With America’s Health Care System

Published on Jul 10, 2012

This mini-documentary from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation explains that “third-party payer” is the main problem with America’s health care system. This is why undoing Obamacare, while desirable, is just a small first step if we want to reduce costs and boost efficiency

____________________

I have put up lots of cartoons from Dan Mitchell’s blog before and they have got lots of hits before. Many of them have dealt with the economy, eternal unemployment benefits, socialism,  Greece,  welfare state or on gun control.

These cartoons are sad but true.

I’m not sure why political cartoonists have been revisiting the issue of Obamacare in recent days, but I’ve been enjoying their humor.

I shared three funny cartoons a couple of days ago, adding to my collection of Obamacare humor (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here).

Now let’s enjoy three more, beginning with this gem from Lisa Benson.

Obamacare Cartoon 4

Though we shouldn’t laugh at this cartoon. As we saw with both Medicaid and Medicare, entitlement programs routinely cost far more than original projections.

If you somehow think Obamacare might be different, watch this video.

Gary Varvel hits a different part of Obamacare, noting that the President’s promise of lower premiums is an utter fantasy.

Obamacare Cartoon 5

And Michael Ramirez looks at the big picture.

Obamacare Cartoon 6

I want to close with an optimistic point about the prospect of changing this terrible law.

Thanks to government programs and other forms of regulation and intervention, we had a bad healthcare system before Obamacare.

And even though it was government that was causing the system to malfunction, many people blamed the free market. And the President took advantage of that misunderstanding to push he legislation.

So now we have Obamacare, which has made the system a bit more statist.

But most people think Obamacare was much bigger than it actually was, with some actually thinking we used to have a free market!

Anyway, this flawed perception works to our advantage since it will now be possible to blame any bad news in the healthcare world on  Obamacare.

As such, I expect that Obamacare will remain unpopular.

The real question will be whether reformers will rally behind proposals to not just repeal Obamacare, but to actually restore a free market.

If you want to understand what needs to happen, I encourage you to watch two short videos, one from Reason TV and the other from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity.

______________________

Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com

Related posts:

Obama up to his Chicago style politics and tricks with Obamacare

Nic Horton Medicaid Expansion will “Cost Almost Double than Doing Nothing” part I It is amazing to me that Repubican lawmakers are considering taking President Obama’s advice on anything in light of this article below. March 25, 2013 4:26PM Here’s Your Free Health Care. Would You Care to Vote? By Michael F. Cannon Share Tweet […]

Will President Obama keep his word concerning Obamacare?

A Red-Ink Train Wreck: The Real Fiscal Cost of Government-Run Healthcare Uploaded on Nov 9, 2009 This CF&P Foundation video explains why healthcare proposals in Washington will result in bloated government and higher deficits. This mini-documentary exposes the pervasive inaccuracy of congressional forecasts and succinctly lists 12 reasons why Obamacare will be a budget buster. […]

Republicans in Arkansas messing up by endorsing Obamacare

  Enlarge image Credit Nathan Vandiver / KUAR Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute told lawmakers March 19, 2013 that abandoning plans to partner with the federal government on a health insurance exchange would both benefit the state and reduce the power of the Affordable Care Act. __________________ I am very pleased with the Republican lawmakers in […]

Cartoons from Dan Mitchell’s blog on Obamacare

Third-Party Payer is the Biggest Economic Problem With America’s Health Care System Published on Jul 10, 2012 This mini-documentary from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation explains that “third-party payer” is the main problem with America’s health care system. This is why undoing Obamacare, while desirable, is just a small first step if we […]

Obamacare cartoons from Dan Mitchell’s blog

I have put up lots of cartoons from Dan Mitchell’s blog before and they have got lots of hits before. Many of them have dealt with the economy, eternal unemployment benefits, socialism,  Greece,  welfare state or on gun control. The funniest cartoon is the one with “Nurse Sebelius” stuffing the huge capsule down the kid’s throat!!! Obamacare […]

Lots of reasons to still oppose Obamacare (includes editorial cartoon)

Here is a great article I read on November9, 2012 in the National Review: November 9, 2012 4:00 A.M. Obamacare Is Still Vulnerable Now is not the time to go wobbly. By Michael F. Cannon President Obama has won reelection, and his administration has asked state officials to decide by Friday, November 16, whether their state […]

Michael Cannon on Obamacare (editorial cartoons on Judge Roberts and Obamacare)

Representative Bollinger asks CATO Institute Michael Cannon about Obamacare Published on Mar 19, 2013 The CATO Institute’s Michael Cannon spoke at the Arkansas Conservative Caucus on Tuesday March 19th. Several conservatives were present. Cannon talked about how to defeat Obamacare in Arkansas & how the states can stop Obamacare on a national level. Representative Bollinger […]

An ObamaCare Debate Challenge by Michael F. Cannon (editorial cartoon)

Obamacare is a poorly written and because of that the majority of states may never have to put into practice.   February 28, 2013 2:13PM ObamaCare Debate Challenge: Lawrence Wasden Edition By Michael F. Cannon Share Tweet Like Google+1 Congress empowered states to block major provisions of ObamaCare, including its subsidies and employer mandate. All […]

States response to Obamacare and Medicaid expansion

Great article from Heritage Foundation: Chart of the Week: The States That Have Expanded Medicaid T. Elliot Gaiser March 13, 2013 at 5:30 pm         «Expanding Medicaid will be costly for most states. The authors of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (Obamacare) threatened to strip all federal funding […]

I hope Arkansas follows the lead from other southern states and flees from Obamacare (includes editorial cartoon)

I hope Arkansas follows the lead from other southern states and flees from Obamacare. Morning Bell: Obamacare’s Medicaid Trap Amy Payne March 13, 2013 at 7:07 am While Members of Congress are arguing about defunding parts of Obamacare, the rubber is meeting the road in the states. Governors and state legislatures are sweating decisions about […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Cato Institute, President Obama | Comments (0)

Open letter to President Obama (Part 513) (Minimum Wage, Maximum Foolishness)

February 6, 2014 – 12:02 am

Open letter to President Obama (Part 513)

(Emailed to White House on 5-4-13.)

President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here.

______________

It seems that everything that you do to help the economy actually does the opposite.

Should the federal government make life more difficult for low-skilled workers?

I hope everyone will emphatically say “NO!”

Heck, most people understandably will think you’re crazy for even asking such a preposterous question.

Minimum Wage Cartoon 2But some of those people will also think that it’s a good idea for politicians in Washington to make low-skilled workers less attractive to employers by raising the minimum wage.

I often ask such people whether they are more likely to buy a Big Mac if McDonald’s raises the price by 24 percent. They say they are less likely.

I then ask them if they are more likely to buy a car if GM increases the price of a Buick by 24 percent. They say less likely, of course.

But they seem to have a blind spot when I ask them whether employers will be more likely or less likely to hire low-skilled workers when the government increases the cost of those workers by 24 percent.

I explain further in this interview for Yahoo! Finance.

The interviewer, by the way, seems to be economically illiterate.

He apparently believes that we can reduce inequality by pricing poor people out of the job market. He also blames companies for sitting on piles of cash, presumably unaware that firms only will invest if there are profitable opportunities.

Minimum Wage CartoonAt one point, I delicately state that one of his questions “betrays a certain lack of historical knowledge,” which is a polite way of saying “you’re either lying or you have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Ultimately, I try to help him understand by comparing fast-growing economies such Hong Kong and Singapore, which have relatively low burdens of government, with slow-growth economies such as France and Italy, where politicians ostensibly seek to “help” people with various forms of intervention.

I’m not sure I made any progress, so feel free to suggest other ways of convincing skeptics that freedom is better than statism.

Anyway, for those who want more information, this video explains the underlying economics of the minimum wage. We also have plenty of evidence (see here and here) that unemployment rose following the most recent hike in the minimum wage.

_______________________

Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.com

Related posts:

Why do the liberals want to increase unemployment more by increasing minimum wage?

Williams with Sowell – Minimum Wage Why do the liberals want to increase unemployment more by increasing minimum wage? With Unemployment Already High, Why Are Leftists Pushing for an Increase in the Minimum Wage? September 3, 2012 by Dan Mitchell The unemployment rate has been stuck above 8 percent ever since Obama pushed through his ill-fated […]

Minimum wage could be eliminating jobs

Minimum wage could be eliminating jobs Liberals just don’t have a clue. The Job-Killing Impact of Minimum Wage Laws Uploaded by CFPEcon101 on Jun 14, 2010 Minimum wage laws seem like a good idea, but arbitrarily mandating a certain wage can have terrible consequences. This CF&P Foundation mini-documentary reveals that business are not charities, so if the […]

Minimum wage could be eliminating jobs

Minimum wage could be eliminating jobs Liberals just don’t have a clue. The Job-Killing Impact of Minimum Wage Laws Uploaded by CFPEcon101 on Jun 14, 2010 Minimum wage laws seem like a good idea, but arbitrarily mandating a certain wage can have terrible consequences. This CF&P Foundation mini-documentary reveals that business are not charities, so […]

President Obama and Alternative Minimum Tax

President Obama and Alternative Minimum Tax Dan Mitchell does it again. He is always right on the mark. CPAs Celebrate as Obama Proposes to Create a Turbo-Charged Alternative Minimum Tax Posted by Daniel J. Mitchell Wow, this is remarkable. The alternative minimum tax (AMT) is one of the most-hated features of the tax code. It […]

President Obama and Alternative Minimum Tax

President Obama and Alternative Minimum Tax Dan Mitchell does it again. He is always right on the mark. CPAs Celebrate as Obama Proposes to Create a Turbo-Charged Alternative Minimum Tax Posted by Daniel J. Mitchell Wow, this is remarkable. The alternative minimum tax (AMT) is one of the most-hated features of the tax code. It […]

Video clips of Jonah Goldberg and an interview about his book “Liberal Fascism” (Part 3)

Liberal Fascism (5) – Jonah Goldberg ** UNEDITED **   Uploaded by TylerNull on Feb 17, 2008 PLAYLIST: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=C20E954A7632DCFD Jonah Goldberg discusses his new book, “Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning”, at The Heritage Foundation on C-SPAN2. 09 JAN 08. ____ Below is  a portion […]

Open letter to President Obama (Part 245)

Williams with Sowell – Minimum Wage President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is […]

Ark Times blogger claims California is better than Texas but facts don’t bear that out (3 great political cartoons)

I got on the Arkansas Times Blog and noticed that a person on there was bragging about the high minimum wage law in San Francisco and how everything was going so well there. On 2-15-13 on the Arkansas Times Blog I posted: Couldn’t be better (the person using the username “Couldn’t be better)  is bragging […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Cato Institute, Current Events, President Obama, spending out of control | Comments (0)

Open letter to President Obama (Part 512) (Cartoonists React to the Senate Democratic Budget)

February 5, 2014 – 1:36 am

Open letter to President Obama (Part 512)

(Emailed to White House on 4-15-13.)

President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here.

___________________

Is it true that in your  meetings with the Republicans you  would not even say that a balanced budget was a goal. According to the budget presented by the Democratic Senate  they are  in agreement with this approach. Cartoonists have taken the opportunity to poke fun at that below.

I  have put up lots of cartoons from Dan Mitchell’s blog before and they have got lots of hits before. Many of them have dealt with the sequester, economy, eternal unemployment benefits, socialism,  minimum wage laws, tax increases, social security, high taxes in California, Obamacare,  Greece,  welfare state or on gun control. Here is another one.

I didn’t take Patty Murray’s budget very seriously. Indeed, I would have completely ignored the plan by Senate Democrats if it wasn’t for the fact that I felt compelled to debunk her mythology about the 1990s.

America’s political cartoonists are similarly underwhelmed.

Here’s Lisa Benson’s analysis.

Murray Budget 1

A great cartoon because it recognizes that the problem is bloated government, not red ink.

Steve Breen also is not impressed.

Murray Budget 2

As you can imagine, this might be my favorite of the group because I’m a sucker for cartoons portraying government as an obese slob (see here, here, here, and here).

Last but not least, thisJerry Holbert cartoon also is worth sharing.

Murray Budget 3

Again, this cartoon correctly focuses on the main problems of punitive taxation and excessive spending, not the lesser symptom of too much borrowing.

It will be very interesting to see what we get (from both a substance perspective and humor perspective) when the White House finally decides to issue its budget.

That budget was legally required back on the first Monday in February. Based on what we saw last year and the year before that, I’m not holding my breath expecting anything more than another tax-and-spend blueprint.

And as this Michael Ramirez cartoon illustrates, we know where that will lead. Or take a look at this Glenn Foden cartoon. Different theme, but same restult.

Does Government Have a Revenue or Spending Problem?

People say the government has a debt problem. Debt is caused by deficits, which is the difference between what the government collects in tax revenue and the amount of government spending. Every time the government runs a deficit, the government debt increases. So what’s to blame: too much spending, or too little tax revenue? Economics professor Antony Davies examines the data and concludes that the root cause of the debt is too much government spending.

______________________

Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733, lowcostsqueegees@yahoo.comRelated posts:

Cartoons from Dan Mitchell’s blog that demonstrate what Obama is doing to our economy Part 2

Max Brantley is wrong about Tom Cotton’s accusation concerning the rise of welfare spending under President Obama. Actually welfare spending has been increasing for the last 12 years and Obama did nothing during his first four years to slow down the rate of increase of welfare spending. Rachel Sheffield of the Heritage Foundation has noted: […]

Cartoons from Dan Mitchell’s blog that demonstrate what Obama is doing to our economy Part 1

  I have put up lots of cartoons from Dan Mitchell’s blog before and they have got lots of hits before. Many of them have dealt with the economy, eternal unemployment benefits, socialism,  Greece,  welfare state or on gun control. I think Max Brantley of the Arkansas Times Blog was right to point out on 2-6-13 that Hillary […]

Great cartoon from Dan Mitchell’s blog on government moochers

I thought it was great when the Republican Congress and Bill Clinton put in welfare reform but now that has been done away with and no one has to work anymore it seems. In fact, over 40% of the USA is now on the government dole. What is going to happen when that figure gets over […]

Gun Control cartoon hits the internet

Again we have another shooting and the gun control bloggers are out again calling for more laws. I have written about this subject below  and on May 23, 2012, I even got a letter back from President Obama on the subject. Now some very interesting statistics below and a cartoon follows. (Since this just hit the […]

“You-Didn’t-Build-That” comment pictured in cartoons!!!

watch?v=llQUrko0Gqw] The federal government spends about 10% on roads and public goods but with the other money in the budget a lot of harm is done including excessive regulations on business. That makes Obama’s comment the other day look very silly. A Funny Look at Obama’s You-Didn’t-Build-That Comment July 28, 2012 by Dan Mitchell I made […]

Cartoons about Obama’s class warfare

I have written a lot about this in the past and sometimes you just have to sit back and laugh. Laughing at Obama’s Bumbling Class Warfare Agenda July 13, 2012 by Dan Mitchell We know that President Obama’s class-warfare agenda is bad economic policy. We know high tax rates undermine competitiveness. And we know tax increases […]

Cartoons on Obama’s budget math

Dan Mitchell Discussing Dishonest Budget Numbers with John Stossel Uploaded by danmitchellcato on Feb 11, 2012 No description available. ______________ Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute has shown before how excessive spending at the federal level has increased in recent years. A Humorous Look at Obama’s Screwy Budget Math May 31, 2012 by Dan Mitchell I’ve […]

Funny cartoon from Dan Mitchell’s blog on Greece

Sometimes it is so crazy that you just have to laugh a little. The European Mess, Captured by a Cartoon June 22, 2012 by Dan Mitchell The self-inflicted economic crisis in Europe has generated some good humor, as you can see from these cartoons by Michael Ramirez and Chuck Asay. But for pure laughter, I don’t […]

Obama on creating jobs!!!!(Funny Cartoon)

Another great cartoon on President Obama’s efforts to create jobs!!! A Simple Lesson about Job Creation for Barack Obama December 7, 2011 by Dan Mitchell Even though leftist economists such as Paul Krugman and Larry Summers have admitted that unemployment insurance benefits are a recipe for more joblessness, the White House is arguing that Congress should […]

Get people off of government support and get them in the private market place!!!!(great cartoon too)

Dan Mitchell hits the nail on the head and sometimes it gets so sad that you just have to laugh at it like Conan does. In order to correct this mess we got to get people off of government support and get them in the private market place!!!! Chuck Asay’s New Cartoon Nicely Captures Mentality […]

2 cartoons illustrate the fate of socialism from the Cato Institute

Cato Institute scholar Dan Mitchell is right about Greece and the fate of socialism: Two Pictures that Perfectly Capture the Rise and Fall of the Welfare State July 15, 2011 by Dan Mitchell In my speeches, especially when talking about the fiscal crisis in Europe (or the future fiscal crisis in America), I often warn that […]

Cartoon demonstrates that guns deter criminals

John Stossel report “Myth: Gun Control Reduces Crime Sheriff Tommy Robinson tried what he called “Robinson roulette” from 1980 to 1984 in Central Arkansas where he would put some of his men in some stores in the back room with guns and the number of robberies in stores sank. I got this from Dan Mitchell’s […]

Gun control posters from Dan Mitchell’s blog Part 2

I have put up lots of cartons and posters from Dan Mitchell’s blog before and they have got lots of hits before. Many of them have dealt with the economy, eternal unemployment benefits, socialism,  Greece,  welfare state or on gun control. Amusing Gun Control Picture – Circa 1999 April 3, 2010 by Dan Mitchell Dug this gem out […]

We got to cut spending and stop raising the debt ceiling!!!

  We got to cut spending and stop raising the debt ceiling!!! When Governments Cut Spending Uploaded on Sep 28, 2011 Do governments ever cut spending? According to Dr. Stephen Davies, there are historical examples of government spending cuts in Canada, New Zealand, Sweden, and America. In these cases, despite popular belief, the government spending […]

Gun control posters from Dan Mitchell’s blog Part 1

I have put up lots of cartons and posters from Dan Mitchell’s blog before and they have got lots of hits before. Many of them have dealt with the economy, eternal unemployment benefits, socialism,  Greece,  welfare state or on gun control. On 2-6-13 the Arkansas Times Blogger “Sound Policy” suggested,  “All churches that wish to allow concealed […]

Taking on Ark Times bloggers on the issue of “gun control” (Part 3) “Did Hitler advocate gun control?”

Gun Free Zones???? Stalin and gun control On 1-31-13 ”Arkie” on the Arkansas Times Blog the following: “Remember that the biggest gun control advocate was Hitler and every other tyrant that every lived.” Except that under Hitler, Germany liberalized its gun control laws. __________ After reading the link  from Wikipedia that Arkie provided then I responded: […]

Taking on Ark Times bloggers on the issue of “gun control” (Part 2) “Did Hitler advocate gun control?”

On 1-31-13 I posted on the Arkansas Times Blog the following: I like the poster of the lady holding the rifle and next to her are these words: I am compensating for being smaller and weaker than more violent criminals. __________ Then I gave a link to this poster below: On 1-31-13 also I posted […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Cato Institute, President Obama | Comments (0)