Category Archives: spending out of control

Use of our tax money is pretty stupid

April 16, 2013 – 6:56 am

Sad that the government wastes so much of our money and it wants more from us under President Obama.

Remember the Spending Quiz from 2010, which asked people to guess whether absurd examples of government waste were true or false?

Well, we have a new video on government waste, though bureaucrats and politicians have become so profligate it doesn’t even bother to trick people with fake examples.

Your Tax Dollars at Work

While very well done, I do have two small complaints about the video.

First, it asks whether we should cut spending or raise taxes to deal with the national debt. I think that’s too narrow. We shouldn’t be wasting money even if the budget was balanced and there wasn’t a penny of debt.

In other words, the problem isn’t deficits. Red ink is just a symptom. The real problem is that government is too big.

Second, the video sort of acquiesces to the dishonest Washington terminology by asking whether we should cut spending or raise taxes, implying those are the only two options. I favor genuine spending cuts, of course, but the most accurate way of phrasing the question is to ask whether we should cut spending, restrain spending, or let government grow on auto-pilot.

As I explained earlier this year, we can balance the budget in just 10 years if spending grows “only” 3.4 percent per year. When people understand that detail, there’s almost no support for higher taxes.

But I’m nitpicking. Overall, a very good video.

P.S. If the examples of pork-barrel spending in the video get you angry, you’ll probably have a stroke if you also watch the waste video from the folks at Government Gone Wild.

 

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Dan Mitchell explains what happened in Cyprus

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Dan Mitchell on Obamacare (includes cartoons on Obamacare)

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

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Dan Mitchell’s tribute to Margaret Thatcher

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Dan Mitchell, Ron Paul, and Milton Friedman on Immigration Debate (includes editorial cartoon)

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Dan Mitchell on Texas v. California (includes editorial cartoon)

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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

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Editorial cartoon from Dan Mitchell’s blog on California’s sorry state of affairs

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Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute:HUD has to go!!!! (includes political cartoon)

You want a suggestion on how to cut the government then start at HUD. I would prefer to eliminate all of it. Here are Dan Mitchell’s thoughts below: Sequestration’s Impact on HUD: Just 358 More Days and Mission Accomplished March 12, 2013 by Dan Mitchell As part of my “Question of the Week” series, I had […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Cato Institute, Economist Dan Mitchell, President Obama, Taxes | Comments (2)

We need to slash defense spending and make other wealthy allies pay for their own defense!!!!

April 16, 2013 – 6:17 am

We need to slash defense spending and make other wealthy allies pay for their own defense!!!! The Republicans need to wake up on this issue.

APRIL 15, 2013 1:13PM

Your Tax Dollars at Work: Subsidizing the Security of Wealthy Allies

It’s Tax Day, and for millions of Americans that means ponying up to the IRS. The federal government does many things these days—most of which would be more efficiently carried out at the local level, or in the private sector. But Uncle Sam also engages in a particular form of charity that many Americans overlook: spending many tens of billions of dollars to defend wealthy, developed nations.

A new Cato infographic puts it all in perspective. It shows how much American taxpayers spend to subsidize the security, and to defend the interests, of other nations that are more than capable of defending themselves.

The average American spends $2,300 on the military, based on the latest data available. That is roughly four and a half times more than what the average person in other NATO countries spends. These countries boast a collective GDP of approximately $19 trillion, 25 percent higher than the U.S. They obviously can afford to spend more. So why don’t they? Because Uncle Sucker picks up nearly the entire tab.

Looked at another way, U.S. alliances constitute a massive wealth transfer from U.S. taxpayers (and their Chinese creditors) to bloated European welfare states and technologically-advanced Asian nations.

Despite the size and wealth of our allies, they are military dwarfs compared to the United States. The particularly galling comparison is the disparity between what the United States spends on the military as a percentage of the federal budget and what other countries spend on their military relative to total government spending.

While the United States spends 20 percent of the budget on the military, Japan spends a paltry 2.3 percent. Our NATO allies? The average is 3.6 percent. Even South Korea’s share of military spending is roughly half of our total, and they have much bigger threats to worry about. By providing for their security, we have encouraged allies to divert resources elsewhere.

The Constitution stipulates that the federal government should provide for the “common defence.” But the document never talks about providing for the defense of other nations. Their citizens are not party to our unique social contract. On this tax day, you might rest assured that wealthy citizens around the world are grateful that you are defending them, but don’t hold your breath waiting for a word of thanks.

It is time to rethink our alliances and the culture of dependency we have created among our allies. They have become wards to Uncle Sam’s dole. Only by ceasing to foot the security bill for them will we create an incentive for them to spend more.

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

Conservatives win the first round in the medicaid expansion debate

April 15, 2013 – 3:02 pm

 

I was glad to see that the true Tea Party Conservatives won the first round in the medicaid expansion debate. According to AFP in the last 5 years Arkansas’ current Medicaid program has run a deficit of a billion dollars. Why expand it willingly with Obama? The “Do Nothing” expansion plan increases spending by 5.9 billion with 158,000 new recipients when the Gov. Beebe Expansion plan increases spending by 21.99 billion with 247,000 new recipients.

Here is how the individuals in the House of Representatives voted today in Little Rock:

HB1219  –  AN ACT FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES – DIVISION OF MEDICAL SERVICES APPROPRIATION FOR THE 2013-2014 FISCAL YEAR.

 

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Great article by Michael Cannon on Arkansas Medicaid expansion plan

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Michael Cannon of Cato Institute speaks to Arkansas Senators (Part 3 includes editorial cartoon)

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

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Sanders v Greenberg on KARN

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

Open letter to President Obama (Part 298)

April 15, 2013 – 7:44 am

Obamanomics: A Legacy of Wasteful Spending

Published on Aug 12, 2012 by

This mini-documentary from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation highlights egregious examples of wasteful spending from the so-called stimulus legislation and explains why government spending hurts economic performance.

**Links to additional reading material**

Thomas Sowell, “Stimulus or Sedative?”
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/03/09/stimulus_or_sedative_104…

Veronique de Rugy, “Green Energy Loans: Beyond the Solyndra Drama,”
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/303787/green-energy-loans-beyond-solyndr…

CF&P Economic Lessons Video, “Keynesian Economics is Wrong: Bigger Gov’t Is Not Stimulus,”
http://freedomandprosperity.org/2008/videos/keynesian-economics-is-wrong-bigg…

Doug Bandow, “Federal Spending: Killing the Economy with Government Stimulus,”
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/federal-spending-killing-economy-…

Dan Mitchell, “Spending Is Not Stimulus: Bigger Government Did Not Work for bush, and It Will Not Work for Obama,”
http://www.cato.org/pubs/tbb/tbb_0209-53.pdf

CF&P Economic Lessons Video, “Obamas So-Called Stimulus: Good For Government, Bad For the Economy,”
http://freedomandprosperity.org/2009/videos/obamas-so-called-stimulus-good-fo…

Nicolas Loris, “Department of Energy Budget Cuts: Time to End the Hidden Green Stimulus,”
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/03/department-of-energy-budget-…

Jim Powell, “How Obama’s Last Stimulus Bill Became a Comedy of Errors,”
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/how-obamas-last-stimulus-bill-bec…

__________

 

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 am afraid that you messed up when you bailed out the auto industry.

The Truth about the GM and Chrysler Bailouts

Posted by Randal O’Toole

Vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan has been accused of lying when he claimed that Obama broke a promise by letting a Wisconsin auto factory close, when in fact the factory closed before Obama took office. Although that isn’t precisely what Ryan said, there is some validity to the accusation that his statement was deceptive.

But numerous Obama supporters are playing just as loose with the facts when they say that, if Obama hadn’t rescued GM and Chrysler, far more factories would have closed permanently. That is simply untrue. While news agencies have fact-checked some of the things being said at the Democratic convention, I haven’t seen any challenges of this claim.

Both GM and Chrysler were headed for bankruptcy. If they had gone bankrupt under chapter 11, most of their factories would have stayed open and they would have continued making and selling cars. Bankruptcy would have allowed the companies to avoid interest and dividend payments for a time, and to renegotiate union contracts. Under bankruptcy laws, stockholders would have lost the value of their stocks, but bond owners–who have first claim to company assets and profits–would have been paid off, if not in whole than at least in part.

Instead of letting the companies declare bankruptcy, Obama decided to “bail them out” by taking them over. Once the administration had control of the companies, it had them file for bankruptcy, just as they would have done without the government takeover. Stockholders still lost everything, but so did Chrysler’s bond holders. Instead of renegotiating union contracts, the administration gave the unions greater say over the companies. In other words, the administration didn’t bail out the companies; it bailed out the unions at the expense of (in Chrysler’s case) the bondholders.

In doing so, the administration created uncertainty in the bond market. Bonds were supposed to be safer investments than stocks. But who would want to invest in long-term bonds if the government could step in at any time and void the legal rights of the bond owners? The result is that bond sellers must be willing to pay more interest to attract buyers.

In short, the Obama auto bailout probably didn’t save many jobs (though it probably did keep worker pay uncompetitively high). Instead, it is more likely that the Obama administration’s action prolonged the recession by discouraging private investment in American industry.

__________

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

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in President Obama | Comments (1)

Once someone is dependent on the government it is tough to get off

April 15, 2013 – 5:09 am

Once someone is dependent on the government it is tough to get off.

Rachel Sheffield

March 22, 2013 at 12:30 pm

Newscom

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R) says welfare dependence is no measure of success when it comes to helping the poor.

“Sadly, there are some in our nation’s capital who measure success in government by how many are dependent on the government,” said the governor. “Our mindset in Wisconsin is a sharp contrast.… We measure true compassion by helping people no longer require the assistance of the government.”

That’s why Wisconsin will reform the food stamps program to require work for able-bodied recipients.

Food stamp rolls have swelled nationally, with spending doubling in the past four years. Part of the reason for the growth is connected to President Obama waiving the (small) work requirement in food stamps, which requires able-bodied adults to work or prepare for work in exchange for receiving benefits.

According to the governor’s plan, able-bodied adult recipients without young children would be required to work or participate in job training for 20 hours a week in order to receive food stamp benefits:

Previously, Wisconsin was one of 46 states receiving a waiver from a federal requirement for food stamp recipients to get job skills. However, we think it is an important investment in the futures of these individuals and our state.

Work requirements for able-bodied individuals should be at the foundation of welfare. This policy establishes the principle of work and promotes personal responsibility and self-sufficiency.

Tragically, the vast majority of the federal government’s 80-plus welfare programs include no work requirement at all, and the Obama Administration has been diligently toiling to remove work requirements from those programs that do include them. In 2009, Obama suspended food stamp work requirements as part of his stimulus package. That suspension was supposed to end in September 2010, but his next two budgets requested that the suspension continue. Rather than waiting for Congress to act, however, the Administration simply began allowing states to waive the work requirement.

To make matters worse, last summer the Administration issued another policy to waive the work requirements from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, which was created by the1996 welfare reform law.

Self-sufficiency for those who are able should be the goal of welfare assistance. “It is important to give temporary hand up to those in need, but for those who are able, we should not provide a permanent hand out. Our goal is simple: transition people from government dependence to true independence,” said Walker.

By Everette Hatcher III | Comments (0)

We got to get a hold on entitlement spending!!!

April 14, 2013 – 1:42 pm

We got to get a hold on entitlement spending!!!

If America descends into Greek-style fiscal chaos, there’s no doubt that entitlement programs will be the main factor. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Disability are all fiscal train wrecks today, and the long-run outlook for these programs is frightful.

Just look at these numbers from the Bank for International Settlements and OECD to see how our fiscal future is bleaker than many of Europe’s welfare states.

If we don’t implement the right kind of entitlement reform, our children and grandchildren at some point will curse our memory.

But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t worry about other parts of the budget, including the so-called discretionary programs that also have been getting bigger and bigger budgets over time.

That’s why I was a bit perturbed to read Veronique de Rugy’s piece in National Review Online, which implies that these programs are “shrinking” and being subject to a “Big Squeeze.”

…there is another number to look at in that budget. It’s the shrinking share of the budget consumed by discretionary spending (spending on things like defense and infrastructure) to make space for mandatory spending and interest. This is the Big Squeeze. …in FY 2014 mandatory spending plus interest will eat up 67 percent of the budget, leaving discretionary spending with 33 percent of the budget (down from 36 percent in FY 2012). Now by FY 2023, mandatory and interest spending will consume 77 percent of the total budget. Discretionary spending will be left with 23 percent of the budget.

But all that’s really happening here is that entitlement outlays are growing faster than discretionary spending.

Here’s some data from the Historical Tables of the Budget, showing what is happening to spending for both defense discretionary and domestic discretionary. And these are inflation-adjusted numbers, so the we’re looking at genuine increases in spending.

Discretionary Spending FY62-14

As you can see, defense outlays have climbed by about $100 billion over the past 50 years, while outlays for domestic discretionary programs have more than tripled.

If that’s a “Big Squeeze,” I’m hoping that my household budget experiences a similar degree of “shrinking”!

To be fair, Veronique obviously understands these numbers and is simply making the point that politicians presumably should have an incentive to restrain entitlement programs so they have more leeway to also buy votes with discretionary spending.

But I’d hate to think that an uninformed reader would jump to the wrong conclusion and decide we need more discretionary spending.

Particularly since the federal government shouldn’t be spending even one penny for many of the programs and department that are part of the domestic discretionary category. Should there be a federal Department of Transportation? A federal Department of Housing and Urban Development? A federal Department of Agriculture?

No, NO, and Hell NO. I could continue, but you get the idea.

The burden of federal government spending in the United States is far too high and it should be reduced. That includes discretionary spending and entitlement spending.

P.S. Since I don’t want to get on Veronique’s bad side, let me take this opportunity to call attention to her good work on properly defining austerity,. And if you watch her testimony to a congressional committee, it’s also quite obvious that she also understands that the real problem is bloated and wasteful government spending.

P.P.S. For those who don’t have the misfortune of following the federal budget, “entitlements” are programs that are “permanently appropriated,” which simply means that spending automatically changes in response to factors such as eligibility rules, demographic shifts, inflation, and program expansions. Sometimes these programs (such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc) are referred to as “mandatory spending.”

The other big part of the budget is “discretionary spending” or “appropriations.” These are programs funded by annual spending bills from the Appropriations Committees, often divided into the two big categories of “defense discretionary” and “nondefense discretionary.”

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Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute:HUD has to go!!!! (includes political cartoon)

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Dan Mitchell: Cartoonists React to the Senate Democratic Budget

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

Obama has created less jobs than people he has on disability (includes cartoons)

April 12, 2013 – 2:58 pm

Obama has created less jobs than people he has on disability.

Plagued by Rising Costs and Vulnerable to Fraud, It’s Time to Focus Attention on the Disability Progam

April 12, 2013 by Dan Mitchell

When I think of the disability program, I think of the bum who is collecting a check so he can be an “adult baby” and indulge his fetish of wearing diapers. Though I guess that’s not as bad as the situation in Greece, where you can get a disability payment for being a pedophile.

But this is a much bigger and more serious issue. Earlier this morning, I took part in a joint Brooking Institution/American Enterprise Institute/Secretary’s Innovation Group conference on the disability insurance program.

I only had a minor role, posing question to Mark Duggan of the University of Pennsylvania and Stephen Goss of the Social Security Administration, but it was a very useful exercise because I was exposed to some sobering details about the program.

Let’s review a couple of Professor Duggan’s charts, starting with a look at how the disability rate has exploded in the past 22 years.

Disability Slide 2

And here is some very disturbing data showing that much of the increase is in the areas that are most subject to abuse because of subjective judgements about “bad backs” and “depression.”

Disability Slide 1

Hmmm…, I’m a bit depressed about the ever-rising burden of government. Maybe I should get a check from the government!

Joking aside, I briefly touched on this issue in a recent CNBC interview. Here’s the segment dealing with the disability program and the disturbing rise in dependency.

I’m not overly impressed by the counter-argument from Christian Weller. Does he really want us to believe that the service sector jobs of today are more disabling than the manufacturing jobs of 20-plus years ago?

This is a depressing topic, so let’s close with a couple of cartoons, starting with this gem from Chip Bok.

Disability Cartoon 1

It’s amusing, but keep in mind that we have an unusually high joblessness rate right now, but it would be even higher if we counted the people who shifted to this other form of unemployment dependency.

And here’s a Chuck Asay cartoon that I really like because he augments my argument in the interview that it hurts the economy when you lure workers out of the job market and make them wards of the state.

Disability Cartoon 2

Asay takes it one step farther and shows the lifeboat sinking. That’s basically what will happen if we don’t adopt the entitlement reforms that are needed to rein in the welfare state.

P.S. If you want some jokes referencing the disability program, we have the politically correct version of The Little Red Hen, as well as two very similar jokes about Jesus performing miracles and how liberals differ from conservatives and libertarians.

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Dan Mitchell’s tribute to Margaret Thatcher

Very well said by Dan Mitchell. A Tribute to Margaret Thatcher April 8, 2013 by Dan Mitchell The woman who saved the United Kingdom has died. A Great Woman I got to meet Margaret Thatcher a couple of times and felt lucky each time that I was in the presence of someone who put her nation’s […]

Dan Mitchell, Ron Paul, and Milton Friedman on Immigration Debate (includes editorial cartoon)

I like Milton Friedman’s comments on this issue of immigration   and Ron Paul and Dan Mitchell do well on the issue too. Question of the Week: What’s Your Take on the Immigration Debate? April 7, 2013 by Dan Mitchell A reader from overseas wonders about my views on immigration, particularly amnesty. I confess that this is one of […]

Dan Mitchell on Texas v. California (includes editorial cartoon)

We should lower federal taxes because jobs are going to states like Texas that have low taxes. What Can We Learn by Comparing the Employment Situation in Texas vs. California? April 3, 2013 by Dan Mitchell One of the great things about federalism, above and beyond the fact that it both constrains the power of governments […]

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

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Editorial cartoon from Dan Mitchell’s blog on California’s sorry state of affairs

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Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute:HUD has to go!!!! (includes political cartoon)

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Dan Mitchell: Cartoonists React to the Senate Democratic Budget

I read that President Obama in his meetings with the Republicans would not even say that a balanced budget was a goal. According to the budget presented by the Democratic Senate he is in agreement with their approach. Cartoonists have taken the opportunity to poke fun at that below. I  have put up lots of cartoons […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Cato Institute, Economist Dan Mitchell | Comments (0)

Open letter to President Obama (Part 295)

April 12, 2013 – 5:10 am

Robert Rector Explains Obama’s “Dirty Trick” To Gut Welfare Reform

Published on Aug 23, 2012 by

Barack Obama’s campaign is outraged that Mitt Romney’s campaign is running ads exposing the fact that last month he quietly, and illegally, gutted the work requirement in welfare reform. Who do you trust: Barack Obama, who has lied and lied again, or Mr. Rector?

___________

 

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.

We got to lower our federal spending or we will be heading to Greece soon. This is a top priority.

Rachel Sheffield

October 19, 2012 at 11:00 am

Welfare spending is at a staggering, all-time high. A new government report confirms that the U.S. now spends roughly $1 trillion a year on what has become a behemoth welfare system consisting of more than 80 federal programs. Robert Rector explains more in congressional testimony from earlier this year: “Examining the Means-Tested Welfare State.”

This news comes in the wake of the controversy that erupted this summer when the Obama Administration announced it would gut work requirements from welfare’s largest cash-assistance program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).

Here’s a recap of Heritage’s top publications and interviews on the Obama Administration’s illegal move to waive the work requirements in welfare reform:

“An Overview of Obama’s End Run on Welfare Reform” (Robert Rector)

The Heritage Foundation, 9/20/2012

Summarizes the key points of the Obama Administration’s overturning of welfare work requirements.

“Obama’s End Run on Welfare Reform Part One: Understanding Workfare” (Robert Rector)

The Heritage Foundation, 9/20/2012

Explains how “workfare” works.

“Obama’s End Run on Welfare Reform, Part Two: Dismantling Workfare” (Robert Rector)

The Heritage Foundation, 9/26/2012

Provides a comprehensive analysis of the Obama Administration’s action to overturn welfare work requirements.

“How Obama Has Gutted Welfare Reform” (Robert Rector)

The Washington Post, 9/6/2012

Summarizes the issue.

“Video: Robert Rector on the PBS News Hour” (Robert Rector)

PBS, 8/9/2012

Robert Rector debates Peter Edelmann on welfare, welfare reform, and the attack on work requirements.

“Welfare Reform’s Work Requirements Cannot Be Waived” (Andrew Grossman)

The Heritage Foundation, 8/8/2012

Explains why the Obama Administration’s waiver of work requirements is illegal.

“Report Finds Obama Can Waive Welfare Work Requirements…or Not” (Andrew Grossman)

The Heritage Foundation, 9/14/2012

Reviews the Congressional Research Service report on the legality of the Obama Administration’s waiver of work requirements.

“Gutting Welfare Reform at Taxpayer Expense” (Robert Rector)

The Heritage Foundation, 9/24/2012

Liberals in the House of Representatives voted unsuccessfully to jettison the federal work requirements of the welfare reform law. Worse, they voted to increase the national debt to accomplish it.

“Video: Fact Checking the Fact Checkers on Welfare Reform” (Sarah Morris)

The Heritage Foundation, 9/20/2012

This event features Senator Orrin Hatch (R–UT), Robert Rector, Mickey Kaus, and Kay Hymowitz discussing the Obama Administration’s attack on work requirements in welfare.

“Obama Guts Welfare Reform” (Robert Rector and Kiki Bradley)

The Heritage Foundation, 7/12/2012

This initial article, which broke the news, blew the whistle on the Obama Administration’s illegal attempt to overturn the welfare work requirements.

Other Materials

“Obama’s Palace Guard: How Media Fact Checkers Made Themselves of Service to the President in the Welfare Reform Debate” (Mark Hemingway)

The Weekly Standard, 10/12/2012

Discusses the distortions of the waiver issues by the mainstream media’s so-called fact checkers.

“The Welfare Waivers: How They Really Do Water Down Work Requirements” (Russell Sykes)

Manhattan Institute, 10/2012

The chief administrator of New York’s TANF program explains how the Obama Administration’s waiver policy will potentially undermine the TANF work requirements.

Various articles appearing in the Daily Caller by Mickey Kaus: “Obama Weakens Welfare Reform—Again” (7/13/2012); “The Case for Romney’s Welfare Attack” (8/8/2012); “NYT Proves Romney Right on Welfare” (8/10/2012); “The Welfare Issue Is Back” (8/28/2012); “Credulous Fact-Checkers Fall for 20% Scam” (9/2/2012); “Welfare Fight, Round Four” (9/14/2012).

__________

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

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

Dear Senator Pryor, here are some spending cut suggestions (“Thirsty Thursday”, Open letter to Senator Pryor, cartoons included)

April 11, 2013 – 6:41 am

Senator Pryor pictured below:

Why do I keep writing and email Senator Pryor suggestions on how to cut our budget? I gave him hundreds of ideas about how to cut spending and as far as I can tell he has taken none of my suggestions. You can find some of my suggestions here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here,  here, and  here, and they all were emailed to him. In fact, I have written 13 posts pointing out reasons why I believe Senator Pryor’s re-election attempt will be unsuccessful. HERE I GO AGAIN WITH ANOTHER EMAIL I JUST SENT TO SENATOR PRYOR!!!

Dear Senator Pryor,

Why not pass the Balanced  Budget amendment? As you know that federal deficit is at all time high (1.6 trillion deficit with revenues of 2.2 trillion and spending at 3.8 trillion).

On my blog www.thedailyhatch.org . I took you at your word and sent you over 100 emails with specific spending cut ideas. (Actually there were over 160 emails with specific spending cut suggestions.) However, I did not see any of them in the recent debt deal that Congress adopted although you did respond to me several times. Now I am trying another approach. Every week from now on I will send you an email explaining different reasons why we need the Balanced Budget Amendment. It will appear on my blog on “Thirsty Thursday” because the government is always thirsty for more money to spend. Today I actually have included a great article below from the Heritage Foundation concerning an area of our federal budget that needs to be cut down to size. The funny thing about the Sequester and the 2.4% of cuts in future increases is that President Obama set these up and then he acted like the sky was falling in as the cartoons indicate in the newspapers.

IF YOU TRULY WANT TO CUT THE BUDGET AND BALANCE THE BUDGET THEN SUBMIT THESE POTENTIAL BUDGET CUTS PRESENTED BELOW!!

T. Elliot Gaiser and M. Christian McNally

February 28, 2013 at 12:09 pm

Rainer Jensen/dpa/picture-alliance/Newscom

President Obama is touring the country and campaigning against the spending cuts under sequestration, such as cuts to energy research. The Department of Energy (DOE) itself has claimed that it may have to “curtail vital programs” and furlough employees in light of sequestration.

The Heritage Foundation has already identified wasteful spending and targeted ways in which Congress could scale back the budgets at the Department of Education and Small Business Administration. The situation at the DOE is no different.

The DOE is no stranger to wasteful spending. As Senator Tom Coburn’s (R–OK) Wastebook 2012 reports, the agency:

  • Gave away $100,000 in prize money for a duplicative mobile phone app that had already been developed;
  • Spent $489,000 retrofitting a 73-foot, VIP touring yacht in Los Angeles that regularly hosts Universal Studios’s screenwriters, members of the exclusive Jonathan Club, and dozens of the mayor’s interns; and
  • Sent $15 million to a Russian weapons institute, where it was used contrary to the program’s purpose in recruiting scientists for the weapons institute.

Waste and inefficiencies run deep at the DOE. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) discovered that the agency spends approximately $5 billion on redundant contractor-managed production and testing sites that could be streamlined to yield significant savings. The GAO also found 90—count them, 90—separate initiatives focused on “green” building that it recommended the agency consolidate.

Congress and the President have also squandered taxpayer dollars through so-called investments in green energy companies—which have failed in droves. Remember Solyndra? Or Beacon Power, Evergreen Solar, and Abound Solar, which also received millions—even hundreds of millions—in subsidies, yet filed for bankruptcy?

Federal energy spending has grown steadily in recent years, as Washington increasingly subsidizes programs for energy efficiency, energy supply, and technology commercialization.

Such a bloated budget parallels an ever-expanding mission at the DOE, a trend that should be reversed. As Heritage expert Nick Loris writes, “Congress’s ultimate objective should be to eliminate any Department of Energy function that does not support a critical national interest unmet by the private sector.” Loris explains that lawmakers could start by:

  1. Reforming or eliminating applied-research programs in Commercial Deployment and Technology Development (Savings: $3.04 billion);
  2. Ending or scaling back spending on programs in the Office of Science (SC), and returning the SC to its original intent (Savings: $1.42 billion); and
  3. Ending direct payments to the four Power Marketing Administrations and restructuring them to sell electricity at market rates (Savings: $85 million).

The private sector is far more efficient at providing for America’s energy needs than Washington bureaucrats and an endless stream of market-distorting subsidies. As history shows, when the DOE chooses winners and losers in the energy market, American taxpayers often are the ultimate losers.

T. Elliot Gaiser and M. Christian McNally are currently members of the Young Leaders Program at The Heritage Foundation. For more information on interning at Heritage, please click here.

_______________

From Dan Mitchell’s blog:

I shared some sequester cartoons last month, but I didn’t think they hit the nail on the head.

As regular readers know, I want the message to be focused.

  1. The problem is spending, not deficits.
  2. Government is too big.
  3. The sequester is a good thing, albeit too small.
  4. Obama and the other politicians are engaging in hysterical hyperbole to protect special-interest spending.

I think that message is slowly sinking in, which is why I was much happier about the next batch of sequester cartoons.

Now we have an embarrassment of riches. Enjoy (and widely share) this set of cartoons.

We’ll start with Michael Ramirez, who uses pie charts to show how much bigger government is today and how the sequester is just crumbs.

Sequester Cartoon Ramirez 3

And here’s one from Ed Gamble showing the President engaging in fear tactics, though both Ramirez and Gamble are wrong about the “cuts.” The sequester cuts $85 billion of “budget authority,” but that translates into only $44 billion of “budget outlays.”

That’s just 1.2 percent of FY2013 spending. And remember that this means spending will still go up compared to FY2012 – as I explained in my most recent interview.

Sequester Cartoon Gamble 3

Here’s a cartoon from Gary Varvel, which is quite similar to an excellent cartoon he produced last year.

Sequester Cartoon Varvel 3

Here’s one from Glenn McCoy, poking fun at Obama for taking everything in stride…except when something happens to threaten the amount of waste in Washington.

Sequester Cartoon McCoy 3

_________

The Balanced Budget Amendment is the only thing I can think of that would force Washington to cut spending. We have only a handful of balanced budgets in the last 60 years, so obviously what we are doing is not working. We are passing along this debt to the next generation. YOUR APPROACH HAS BEEN TO REJECT THE BALANCED BUDGET “BECAUSE WE SHOULD CUT THE BUDGET OURSELF,” WELL THEN HERE IS YOUR CHANCE!!!! SUBMIT THESE CUTS!!!!

Thank you for this opportunity to share my ideas with you.

Sincerely,

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

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Open letter to President Obama (Part 294)

April 11, 2013 – 6:05 am

 

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 got this cartoon below from Dan Mitchell’s blog.

Where can our government turn to get out of this socialist mess they have got themselves in? They have to realize what really creates wealth. Over in France they are facing the same problems we are because of the welfare state and they are about to put in a bunch of new leaders who want more of the same. How can you get out of this mess by doing the same thing that got you in the mess to begin with? Bradley Gitz wrote on 4-29-12 in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette:

Escape from reality

LITTLE ROCK — The “left” is making a comeback in France. Not just Francois Hollande’s Socialists, but the hard left guys, the French Communist Party (PCF).

More than two decades after the dissolution of the Soviet Union supposedly signaled the end of Marxism-Leninism as a viable belief system, the Communists are once again attracting huge crowds waving red flags and their candidate, the “charismatic” Jean-Luc Melenchon, is said to hold the key to the outcome of the May run-off between Hollande and French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Just as some Catholics can be more Catholic than the Pope, during the Cold War the PCF was often more Stalinist than Stalin (or at least Leonid Brezhnev and Andrei Gromyko). The crimes against humanity committed by the Soviet regime and other Communist despotisms around the world never seemed to make a dent in their moral obtuseness. The PCF even condemned Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika as a betrayal of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

That such a blight on the human experience, one exceeding even Nazism in its body count, could gain electoral traction in an advanced postindustrial democracy tells us something other than that cheese-eating surrender monkeys have a unique capacity for political idiocy. Indeed, the foundation of the Communist comeback has been resistance to the austerity measures that the French government has been reluctantly forced to embrace due to France’s mounting debt problems. The irony comes when considering that Communism represents the most extreme extrapolation of the welfare state mentality that produced such debt levels in the first place.

The European crisis (and the American crisis, too) is essentially a crisis of the welfare state. More precisely, it represents the presentation of the bill for payment that the welfare state has racked up for decades on both sides of the Atlantic. And in both Europe and America, the left, whether Communist, socialist,or “liberal-progressive,” is counting upon voters refusing to accept reality and the austerity measures that it so obviously dictates. More of what caused the disease is now being recommended as treatment.

Just as Communism in its heyday represented an effort to repeal the laws of human nature and the economic realities that flowed from them, today’s French Communists (and American liberals) seek to deny that budget numbers have any real meaning because money grows on trees.

What Charles Krauthammer calls “free lunch egalitarianism” is now firmly, perhaps irreversibly, entrenched in the politics of democratic states. That you can get something for nothing (or at least something that others can be made through political coercion to pay for) increasingly drives the voting behavior of ever-larger chunks of their dependent, dumbed-down electorates.

Momentum in that direction continues even after the money has run out.

The ability of Communism to survive in the electoral politics of France requires both historical amnesia regarding its crimes as well as an encouragement of the human desire to believe that two plus two really can be made to add up to seven or eight if one wishes it hard enough; that if we just close our eyes, plug up our ears, and stamp our feet in unison those nasty budget deficits will magically disappear, there will be no need for painful austerity programs, and we can go on providing free college tuition, health care, housing, and anything else that the political left designates as a fundamental human right without economic repercussion.

In the end, there is apparently something deeply ingrained in human nature that makes Communism and other forms of political leftism alluring. But just as there will always be credulous people living under the imperfections of capitalism who crave what Communism promises, there will always also be people who seek to escape from the ugly practice of Communism wherever it is established. What history has never produced, and likely never will, are a people who, once having arrived at the Communist paradise, are content to remain there. The guard towers atop the Berlin Wall weren’t, after all, designed to prevent people from entering.

Of course, no one with anything resembling a functioning brain really believes that if the French do what Melenchon and the PCF recommends-to confiscate wealth, nationalize banks and industries, and dramatically increase government benefits and the minimum wage-things will go well for France. Rather,

their supporters appear to only be hoping that it will provide them with the ability to continue to live beyond their means for a bit longer, and thereby push the inevitable crash onto the next generation.

The truly sad thing about all of this is that the formula for economic growth in the post-industrial age isn’t all that complicated, consisting as it does of secure property rights, low tax rates, and reasonable constraints upon governmental regulation, spending, and welfare state entitlements.

The left, whether in its French Communist or American liberal permutations, cannot construct sustainable societies because it has never figured out where wealth comes from. There are, in the end, no “shortcuts” to prosperity, and reality can only be temporarily ignored.

———◊-

———

Freelance columnist Bradley R. Gitz, who lives and teaches in Batesville, received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Illinois.

Editorial, Pages 75 on 04/29/2012

Print Headline: Escape from reality

<!–Editorial 75

_____________

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

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in President Obama, Social Security | Comments (0)