Category Archives: spending out of control

Senator Mark Pryor responds to my email

September 6, 2012 – 4:25 pm

Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending and I sent them to him but he didn’t take any of my suggestions.

However, he did take time to get back to me today, but I am not too impressed with Senator Pryor’s response. 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 is his response:

September 6, 2012

Dear Mr. Hatcher,

Thank you for contacting me regarding across-the-board cuts to federal programs scheduled to take effect in 2013. I appreciate hearing from you.

On August, 2, 2011, Congress passed the Budget Control Act of 2011 (Public Law 112-25), which made nearly $1 trillion in initial spending cuts. To achieve additional, long-term savings, the law created a bipartisan select committee to make recommendations to reduce deficits by an additional $1.5 trillion over the next ten years. The law also created an enforcement mechanism to automatically sequester $1.2 trillion from federal spending if the select committee failed to agree on a deficit reduction package.

I am disappointed that the members of the select committee could not reach an agreement. As a result, $1.2 trillion in spending cuts will automatically take effect in January 2013. Cuts will come from both defense and non-defense programs, though Social Security, Medicaid, veterans’ benefits and healthcare, and certain programs for low-income families will be exempted. Further, cuts to Medicare are limited to 2% and only apply to provider payments.

It was my sincere hope that the select committee would recommend a balanced deficit reduction package to put our country on a fiscally sustainable path. I am very concerned that the indiscriminate cuts from the sequester will be disproportionately harmful to rural states like Arkansas, to senior citizens, and to our military’s ability to respond to threats.

Along with many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, I have been working and will continue to work on solving our nation’s fiscal challenges. I believe Congress can pass a bipartisan, balanced long-term budget plan that reduces our national debt while protecting our most vulnerable citizens. Hearing from Arkansans such as yourself helps me make better decisions, and I will be sure to keep your specific comments in mind as the Senate addresses this issue.

Again, thank you for contacting me. I value your input. Please do not hesitate to contact me or my office regarding this or any other matter of concern to you.

Sincerely,

Mark Pryor
United States Senate

Save money at the pump by taking the Drive Smarter Challenge: www.drivesmarterchallenge.org

Please Note, this is not a monitored email account. Due to the sheer volume of correspondence I receive, I ask that constituents please contact me via my website with any responses or additional concerns.

___________

Below is an excellent plan to balance the budget through spending cuts from Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute written in April of 2011. I sent this to Senator Pryor too but it was ignored too.

A Plan to Cut Spending and Balance the Federal Budget

by Chris Edwards, Cato Institute

Introduction
Reducing Spending over 10 Years
Spending Cut Details
Subsidies to Individuals and Businesses
Aid to State and Local Governments
Military Expenses
Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security
Privatization
Conclusions

Spending Cut Details

Table 1 lists the proposed annual cuts for the balanced budget plan. By 2021, these include $150 billion in defense cuts and $490 billion in cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and the 2010 health care law. The table also includes other discretionary and entitlement cuts valued at $445 billion in 2011. With the assumed revenues, all these spending cuts would be saving the government $260 billion in annual interest costs by 2021.⁷ All in all, total spending in 2021 under this plan would be about $1.4 trillion lower than under either the CBO baseline or the president’s budget.

As a technical note, most of the figures in Table 1 are outlays for fiscal 2011 from President Obama’s fiscal 2012 budget.⁸ These cuts are expressed in 2011 dollars, but I’ve assumed that the value of these cuts would grow over time at the same rate as discretionary spending in the CBO baseline. The cuts in Table 1 marked with an asterisk are expressed in 2021 dollars and are generally based on CBO estimates.

The reforms listed in the table are deeper than the “duplication” and “waste” items often mentioned by federal policymakers, such as earmarks. The reality is that the nation faces a fiscal emergency, and we need to cut hundreds of billions of dollars of “meat” from federal departments, not just the obvious “fat.” If the activities to be cut are useful to society, then state governments or private groups should fund them, and those entities would probably be more efficient at doing so.

The cuts in Table 1 are illustrative of how to begin getting the federal budget under control. Further reforms are needed in addition to these cuts, particularly structural changes to Medicare. But the important thing is to start cutting right away because the longer we wait, the deeper the pile of debt we will have to dig out from.

Table 1 includes cuts to individual and business subsidies, cuts to state aid, cuts to military expenses, cuts to the growth in entitlement programs, and privatization of federal activities. The sections following the table discuss these various types of cuts, and further analysis of the cuts is available at www.DownsizingGovernment.org.

Table 1 Proposed Federal Budget Cuts
Agency and Activity		Annual Savings
		$ billion
Department of Agriculture
	End farm subsidies	29.5
	Cut food subsidies by 50 percent	52.7
	End rural subsidies	4.2
	Total cuts	86.4
Department of Commerce
	End telecom subsidies	2.3
	End economic development subsidies	0.6
	Total cuts	2.9
Department of Defense
	Enact Preble/Friedman reforms^^	150.0
Department of Education
	End K-12 education subsidies	52.7
	End student aid and all other programs	33.1
	Total cuts (terminate the department)	85.8
Department of Energy
	End subsidies for energy efficiency	10.2
	End subsidies for vehicle technologies	5.2
	End the technology loan program	1.2
	End electricity research subsidies	2.0
	End fossil energy research	1.1
	Privatize the power marketing administrations	0.5
	End nuclear energy subsidies	0.6
	Total cuts	20.8
Department of Health and Human Services
	Block grant Medicaid and freeze spending^^	226.0
	Repeal 2010 health care law^^	87.0
	Increase Medicare premiums^^	39.8
	Cut non-Medicaid state/local grants by 50%	37.7
	Cut Medicare payment error rate by 50%	28.6
	Increase Medicare deductibles^^	12.6
	Tort reform	10.0
	Total cuts	441.7
Department of Housing and Urban Development
	End rental assistance	28.6
	End community development subsidies	15.0
	End public housing subsidies	8.9
	End housing finance and all other programs	8.3
	Total cuts (terminate the department)	60.8
Department of Justice
	End state and local grants	5.0
Department of Labor
	End employment and training services	4.8
	End Job Corps	1.7
	End Community Service for Seniors	0.8
	End trade adjustment assistance	1.3
	Total cuts	8.6
Social Security
	Price index initial benefits^^	41.1
	Raise the normal retirement age^^	31.4
	Cut Social Security disability program by 10%	13.2
	Total cuts	85.7
Department of Transportation
	End urban transit grants (federal fund savings)	5.8
	Privatize air traffic control (federal fund savings)	5.8
	Privatize Amtrak and end rail subsidies	2.9
	Total cuts	14.5
Department of the Treasury
	Cut earned income tax credit by 50%	22.5
	End refundable part of child tax credit	22.9
	Total cuts	45.4
Other Savings
	Cut federal civilian compensation costs 10%	29.6
	Cut foreign development aid by 50%	5.2
	Cut NASA spending by 50%	9.8
	Privatize the Corps of Engineers (Civil Works)	10.6
	Repeal Davis-Bacon labor rules	9.0
	End EPA state and local grants	6.5
	End foreign military financing	5.4
	End subsidies for the Corp. for Nat. Comm. Srv.	0.6
	End subsidies to the Corp. for Public Broadcasting	0.5
	End the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corp.	0.2
	Total cuts	77.4
Grand total annual spending cuts		$1,084.9
Note: Data items are outlays for fiscal 2011, but items with ^^ refer to the value of savings in 2021.

Senator Pryor asks for Spending Cut Suggestions! Here are a few!(Part 115)

October 3, 2011 – 12:26 am

Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below: Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future. On May 11, 2011, I […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Mark Pryor, spending out of control | Edit | Comments (0)

Senator Pryor asks for Spending Cut Suggestions! Here are a few!(Part 114)

September 26, 2011 – 12:24 am

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Mark Pryor, spending out of control | Edit | Comments (0)

Senator Pryor asks for Spending Cut Suggestions! Here are a few!(Part 113)

September 19, 2011 – 12:17 am

Alexis Garcia reports on America’s exploding debt. Experts blame entitlements like Social Security and government spending. But what is the solution? Can we raise taxes without crushing the economy and the middle class? Does Obama really want to lower the debt, or does he support continued deficit spending? See interviews with Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Brian Riedl, […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Mark Pryor, spending out of control | Edit | Comments (0)

Senator Pryor asks for Spending Cut Suggestions! Here are a few!(Part 112)

September 12, 2011 – 12:00 am

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Mark Pryor, spending out of control | Edit | Comments (0)

My philosophy and my favorite blog posts

September 9, 2011 – 8:45 am

I have got several comments during the last 35 weeks that my blog has been in existence and the reaction as been positive and negative. My evangelical and conservative political views have generated the most vocal response. Here are some of my favorite blog posts: 27 Club How should we then live? Series by Francis […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Tagged biblical archaeology, conservative political views, francis schaeffer, milton friedman., ronald wilson reagan | Edit | Comments (0)

Today in John Brummett’s article, “A Pryor offense? Surely not,” Arkansas News Bureau, August 28, 2011, noted: Meantime, another e-mailer, a Democrat in Northwest Arkansas, was highly agitated that Pryor had sounded from press reports like a doctrinaire Republican in this Rotary address, advocating cuts to Social Security and Medicare while extolling a corporate giant like […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in John Brummett, Mark Pryor | Edit | Comments (0)

Senator Pryor asks for Spending Cut Suggestions! Here are a few!(Part 109)

August 22, 2011 – 12:00 am

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Mark Pryor | Edit | Comments (0)

Reasons why Mark Pryor will be defeated in 2014 (Part 13)

May 23, 2012 – 6:37 am

It is apparent from this statement below that Senator Mark Pryor is against the Balanced Budget Amendment. He has voted against it over and over like his father did and now I will give reasons in this series why Senator Pryor will be defeated in his re-election bid in 2014. However, first I wanted to […]

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Jason Tolbert, John Brummett, Mark Pryor, spending out of control | Edit | Comments (0)

Reasons why Mark Pryor will be defeated in 2014 (Part 12)

May 23, 2012 – 12:36 am

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Mark Pryor, spending out of control | Edit | Comments (0)

Reasons why Mark Pryor will be defeated in 2014 (Part 11)

May 22, 2012 – 12:35 am

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Mark Pryor, spending out of control | Tagged Arkansas people, Arkansas voters, balanced budget amendment, cut federal spending, Democrats love to explode budgets, family society, next generation will pay the bill, pass on problems to next generation, senator pryor | Edit | Comments (0)

Reasons why Mark Pryor will be defeated in 2014 (Part 10)

May 21, 2012 – 12:33 am

Reasons why Mark Pryor will be defeated in 2014 (Part 9)

May 19, 2012 – 1:05 pm

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Mark Pryor, spending out of control | Edit | Comments (0)

Reasons why Mark Pryor will be defeated in 2014 (Part 8)

May 17, 2012 – 12:29 am

By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Mark Pryor, spending out of control | Edit | Comments (0)

Reasons why Mark Pryor will be defeated in 2014 (Part 7)

May 15, 2012 – 12:35 am

Reasons why Mark Pryor will be defeated in 2014 (Part 6)

May 14, 2012 – 12:23 am

Reasons why Mark Pryor will be defeated in 2014 (Part 5)

May 13, 2012 – 12:19 pm

Reasons why Mark Pryor will be defeated in 2014 (Part 4)

May 10, 2012 – 7:03 am

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

Private charities are best solution and not government welfare

September 6, 2012 – 6:38 am

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 Friedman describes the welfare state’s effect on private charitable activity

Uploaded by moogrogue on Oct 12, 2009

From “Free to Choose” (1980), Part IV: “From Cradle to Grave.”

The Morality of Conservatism

David Weinberger

June 7, 2012 at 1:00 pm

Liberals often appeal to morality in policy debates with conservatives—with much success. But conservatives should not cede the moral high ground. In fact, a strong case for conservatism can be made on the basis of morality.

Consider why shrinking government is moral. The more the federal government provides for people, the more it deprives them not only of their dignity, but of one of the most sacred rights, penned by Thomas Jefferson: the right to pursue happiness. Why? Because fulfilling happiness comes from earned success, not from unearned handouts.

Think about the person we all knew growing up whose parents spoiled him or her. Even if that person wasn’t unhappy at the time (though chances are he or she was unhappy), it teaches that individual to expect handouts, which will likely result in an unhappy adulthood. Sewing the seeds of entitlement is a recipe for misery.

During the recent recession, unemployment benefits were extended from six months to nearly two years . Does not an extension of such length send the message to people who receive them that they can depend on government? How dignifying is that?

Certainly in tough times people may need help, but the tragedy of governmental aid is that it crowds out assistance from families, private charities and local communities, which is much more personal, not to mention much more effective. Jonathan Gruber, an economist from MIT, conducted a study of the New Deal government in the 1930s, and concluded that private charity spending “fell by 30% in response to the New Deal, and that government relief spending can explain virtually all of the decline in charitable church activity observed between 1933 and 1939.”

Private charities are able to make distinctions between people who truly need help and those who do not, as well as between those who need material assistance and those who need moral refocus, personal counseling, relationship repair or spiritual commitment. Government, no matter how well-intentioned, does not and cannot make such distinctions. In fact, the more ubiquitous government programs become, the less needed families and communities are to help those who require it.

Though well-intentioned, leftism’s commitment to government undermines both the individual pursuit of happiness, which results from earned success, and private charity of families and communities who can best provide it to those experiencing hardship. Conservatism, on the other hand, is committed to both, and is precisely why moving the country to the right is moral.

By Everette Hatcher III | Comments (0)

When are we going to see real spending cuts?

September 6, 2012 – 6:31 am

Is Washington Bankrupting America?

Uploaded by BankruptingAmerica on Apr 20, 2010

Be first to receive our videos and other timely info about economic policy. Subscribe at http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
————————-
According to a recent poll, 74 percent of likely voters are extremely or very concerned about the current level of government spending. And 58 percent think the level of spending is unsustainable.

Is the public right? Is Washington bankrupting America? Some facts from the video:

Spending per household has risen over 40 percent in the last 10 years and is set to do so again in the next 10 pushing debt (and interest on the debt) to unprecedented levels. But that’s just a result of PAST spending…

Our government owes $106 trillion in FUTURE spending commitments – that cannot be paid for.

We can solve it, but politicians will have to make tough choices. Increasing taxes can’t do the trick ($106 trillion is equivalent to taking all of the taxable income from every American nine times over), nor is it fair to saddle taxpayers with a problem created by government irresponsibility.

We need real spending reform. Merely returning to the spending per household levels of the 1990s would balance the budget in three years.

___________

When are we going to see REAL SPENDING CUTS? I am tired of this being talked about but not done.

Spending Cuts and Tax Cuts Should Be an All-of-the-Above Option, Not an Either-Or Choice

August 31, 2012 by Dan Mitchell

I’m in Slovenia where I just finished ~~indoctrinating~~ educating a bunch of students on the importance of Mitchell’s Golden Rule as a means of restraining the burden of government spending.

And I emphasized that the fiscal problem in Europe is the size of government, not the fact that nations are having a hard time borrowing money. As explained in this video, spending is the disease and deficits are one of the symptoms.

This is also an issue in the United States, and Steve Moore of the Wall Street Journal is worried that the GOP ticket is debt-obsessed and doesn’t have sufficient enthusiasm for lower tax rates and tax reform.

Stylistically, Paul Ryan’s Republican convention speech last night was a grand slam. …But was it the growth message that supply-siders wanted to hear, or debt-clock obsession? There were clearly apocalyptic claims. “Before the math and the momentum overwhelm us all, we are going to solve this nation’s economic problems,” said Mr. Ryan in reference to the federal rea ink. “I’m going to level with you; we don’t have that much time.” …In fact, he talked about turning around the economy with “tax fairness.” Ugh, that’s an Obama term. …Larry Kudlow of CNBC and a former Reagan economist tells me, “Paul’s speech just didn’t have the growth, tax-cutting message. We didn’t even get the words tax reform. I don’t know what happened, but it worries me.” It’s a question of priorities. Are Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan signaling that they will put spending cuts ahead of pro-growth tax-rate cuts?

I share Steve’s concern, but with a twist.

I’m not worried that the Republicans will put spending cuts ahead of tax cuts. I’m worried that they won’t do spending cuts at all (even using the dishonest DC definition) and therefore wind up getting seduced into some sort of tax-increase deal that facilitates bigger government.

As a general rule, it is always good to do spending cuts (however defined). And it is always good to lower tax rates. And if you can do both at the same time, even better.

But since I have low expectations, I’ll be delighted if we “merely” manage to get entitlement reform during a Romney-Ryan Administration. That would mean some progress on the spending side and presumably reduce the risk of bad things (like a VAT!) on the revenue side.

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Cato Institute | Tagged Dan Mitchell | Comments (1)

Open letter to President Obama (Part 135 B)

September 6, 2012 – 6:27 am

1,000 Days Without A Budget

Uploaded by HeritageFoundation on Jan 24, 2012

http://blog.heritage.org | Today marks the 1,000th day since the United States Senate has passed a budget. While the House has put forth (and passed) its own budget, the Senate has failed to do the same. To help illustrate how extraordinary this failure has been, our new video highlights a few of impressive feats in history that have been accomplished in less time.

________________

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 ironic to me that we have not had a budget passed by the Senate for over three years yet you are bragging to the G-8 audience that you made a lot of progress getting measures passed that have helped the U.S. economy. Don’t you think that the other world leaders can see through all of this bragging of yours?

Obama’s Ironic European Lecture

Mike Brownfield

May 21, 2012 at 3:39 pm

Europe is in bad shape, there’s no doubt about it. The sovereign debt crisis continues to roil the continent, Greece may leave the euro, Spain may have to revise its budget deficit upward for the second time because of bad loans, and France has a new socialist president pledging more spending instead of austerity. So when the G8 leaders met last week, President Obama had some words of advice to offer — “Look at me and learn from my stellar example!”

OK, that’s a paraphrase, but his actual words aren’t all that much different. No joke, the president who has presided over a downgraded credit rating, three years without a budget, an exploding deficit, an entitlement system desperately in need of reform, and an unemployment rate still over 8 percent has painted himself as a model for others to follow.

Quite remarkably, the president bragged that he has worked to “bring down our deficits and debt over the longer term” while staying “focused on growing the economy and creating jobs in the immediate term.” Though he acknowledges that “Of course, we still have a lot of work to do,” he says that now there’s “room to take a balanced approach to reducing our deficit and debt, while preserving our investments in the drivers of growth and job creation over the long term — education, innovation, and infrastructure for the 21st century.”

In other words, because of his supposed successes, America can afford to spend even more money on stimulus.

It’s hard to say whether the president’s intended audience was the leaders of the G8 or the American electorate, but regardless of who it was, there’s not much for Obama to brag about.

In the past four years, unemployment has gone up, more people are unemployed longer, gas prices are higher, the cost of health care insurance has increased, the national debt is higher, federal spending has increased, more Americans are on food stamps, regulatory costs are higher, home values have declined, America’s economic recovery is historically slow, and while federal spending on education has increased, results remain flat. You can see for yourself just how bad America’s fiscal outlook is in Heritage’s 2012 edition of the Federal Budget in Pictures.

Though Europe needs solutions, they certainly shouldn’t be looking at President Obama for the answers.

__________

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 Current Events, President Obama | Comments (0)

Paul Ryan followed F. A. Hayek’s belief in limited government

September 6, 2012 – 6:19 am

Hayek on Milton Friedman and Monetary Policy

Uploaded by Malthus0 on Aug 29, 2009

Friedrich Hayek discusses Milton Friedman’s Monetarism and monetary policy.

_____________________

Good article on Ryan and Hayek!!!!

Hayek Wasn’t a ‘Free Market Marxist’

Posted by Alberto Mingardi

Why can’t liberals provide a fair portrait of a thinker they disagree with? It was a reasonable prediction that Mitt Romney’s choice of Paul Ryan as his VP appointee would ignite a discussion over the first principles of politics and the role of government in society. So far, however, it hasn’t been much of a discussion: rather, we shall speak of a goofy attempt to graft the practice of smearing the enemy from day-to-day politics to the realm of political thinking.

David Boaz has wisely commented upon Adam Davidson’s piece on Hayek. Even more surprising is a blog post from historian Timothy Snyder in the New York Review of Books. Professor Snyder sees Mr. Ryan as aiming to revive an “outdated ideology”—as “taking some of the worst from the twentieth century and presenting it as a plan for the twenty-first.”

What he finds outdated is, basically, Hayek’s allegiance to the principle of limited government. Revealingly, he maintains that “Austria became a prosperous democracy after World War II because its governments ignored Hayek’s advice and created a welfare state.” Linking the economic performance of Western democracies after WWII to the institutions of the welfare state (a national health care service, compulsory education, unemployment insurance et cetera) is at best naive.

Making “provisions for citizens in need” may be “an effective way to defend democracy” from the temptations of populism and authoritarianism but this doesn’t say much per se. Which provisions? Provided by whom? For the benefit of whom? The answers to these questions aren’t trivial.

What is most surprising in Snyder’s piece is how he portrays Hayekianism as the opposite of what it is. He writes:

Like Marxism, the Hayekian ideology is a theory of everything, which has an answer for everything. Like Marxism, it allows politicians who accept the theory to predict the future, using their purported total knowledge to create and to justify suffering among those who do not hold power.

You may wish to make a caricature of a thinker. A successful caricature should, however, resemble the subject, at least a little.

A cursory glance at the titles of Friedrich von Hayek’s books should be enough to understand that what he was preoccupied with was precisely the hubris of decision-makers who pretend to predict the future and manage it. Hayek’s best known paper is poignantly entitled “The Use of Knowledge in Society.” His last book was called The Fatal Conceit. His best work in history of ideas bore, as a subtitle, a reference to the “abuse of reason.”

Hayek was convinced that “no human mind can comprehend all the knowledge which guides the actions of society.” What he stressed, over and over and over, are the inherent limitations of our knowledge, that politicians and regulators, being human beings, share with the rest of us. He was skeptical even of the “purported total knowledge” of his own discipline, economics, as he claimed that “the curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.”

Hayek defended individual liberty, precisely because the future is unpredictable.

The case for individual freedom rests chiefly on the recognition of the inevitable and universal ignorance of all of us concerning a great many of the factors on which the achievement of our ends and welfare depend. It is because every individual knows so little and, in particular, because we rarely know which of us knows best that we trust the independent and competitive efforts of many to induce the emergence of what we shall want when we see it.

For Hayek,

If man is not to do more harm than good in his efforts to improve the social order, he will have to learn that in this, as in all other fields where essential complexity of an organized kind prevails, he cannot acquire the full knowledge which would make mastery of the events possible. He will therefore have to use what knowledge he can achieve, not to shape the results as the craftsman shapes his handiwork, but rather to cultivate a growth by providing the appropriate environment, in the manner in which the gardener does this for his plants.

Does this sound like a man that had an answer for everything, or wanted to propose a grand plan for society as a whole? Hayek’s worldview does not have much of a following among intellectuals, not least because it doesn’t see “knowledge” as a monolith. For Hayek, knowledge is dispersed in society, it is by and large “know-how” hence it belongs as much to the little guy on the street than to the Yale professor. The free market economy is a process by which these different pieces of knowledge somehow are put together to the good of society. Professor Snyder portrays Hayek as a “reacting” against national socialism and communism. It is an elegant way to dismiss him, by claiming that “precisely because they [Hayek and Rand] were reacting, they flew to extreme interpretations.”

Reality fascinates profound thinkers, as it may either ignite or terrify common people too. But the economic calculation debate, in which Hayek and his mentor Ludwig von Mises were the main actors, was not a mere “reaction:” it was, as brainy socialists at the time acknowledged, a discussion over the possibility of economic planning. Hayek stumbled upon a more refined understanding of the role of knowledge in society, while participating in that debate—this is certainly true. But he was not a political copywriter, as Professor Snyder seems to believe.

As an Italian, I envy the fact that until next November Americans will be having a discussion over the fundamental pillars of their political state. Neither Obama-Biden nor Romney-Ryan are political thinkers: they are politicians, and the very fact they have (some) convictions is rare enough to be praised. But it is good and exciting that the electoral contest will bring people to go back to basics and, perhaps, try to make sense of what this Hayek guy or that Rawls guy actually meant.

It is, however, rather depressing to see such a systematic misrepresentation of Hayek’s ideas. Let’s assume it is due to genuine ignorance. We shall then recommend some links to liberal chastisers of Mr. Ryan, so that they may know better what they disagree with.

The Universitad Francisco Marroquin has made available online this collection of interviews with Hayek.
This 1984 Cato Policy Report provides a quick introduction to some of the core themes in Hayek’s thinking.
Hayek’s Nobel lecture is a short but intriguing introduction to his thought.
Arch-liberal George Soros has a short appreciation of Hayek’s ideas, that was initially delivered in a conference at the Cato Institute.

I (and many others) would have quarrels with some of Soros’s points, but perhaps his article may suggest that critics of Hayek’s “free market Marxism” pause for a moment before rushing to their keyboard.

Alberto Mingardi • August 30, 2012 @ 2:47 pm

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Milton Friedman on Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom” 1994 Interview 1 of 2

Uploaded by PenguinProseMedia on Oct 25, 2011

Says Federal Reserve should be abolished, criticizes Keynes. One of Friedman’s best interviews, discussion spans Friedman’s career and his view of numerous political figures and public policy issues.

Milton Friedman on Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom” 1994 Interview 2 of 2

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

Dear Senator Pryor, why not pass the Balanced Budget Amendment? (“Thirsty Thursday”, Open letter to Senator Pryor)

September 6, 2012 – 5:19 am

Office of the Majority Whip | Balanced Budget Amendment Video

In 1995, Congress nearly passed a constitutional amendment mandating a balanced budget. The Balanced Budget Amendment would have forced the federal government to live within its means. This Balanced Budget Amendment failed by one vote. 16 years later, Congress has the chance to get it right. Our time is now.

______________________

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.HaltingArkansasLiberalswithTruth.com I took you at your word and sent you over 100 emails with specific spending cut ideas. However, I did not see any of them in the recent debt deal that Congress adopted. 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.

The Debt Ceiling and the Balanced Budget Amendment

Posted by David Boaz

The Washington Post editorializes:

A balanced-budget amendment would deprive policymakers of the flexibility they need to address national security and economic emergencies.

A fair point. Statesmen should have the ability to “address national security and economic emergencies.” But the same day’s paper included this graphic on the growth of the national debt:

National Debt

Does this look like the record of policymakers making sensible decisions, running surpluses in good year and deficits when they have to “address national security and economic emergencies”? Of course not. Once Keynesianism gave policymakers permission to run deficits, they spent with abandon year after year. And that’s why it makes sense to impose rules on them, even rules that leave less flexibility than would be ideal if you had ideal statesmen. Indeed, the debt ceiling itself should be that kind of rule, one that limits the amount of debt policymakers can run up. But it has obviously failed.

We’ve become so used to these stunning, incomprehensible, unfathomable levels of deficits and debt — and to the once-rare concept of trillions of dollars — that we forget how new all this debt is. In 1980, after 190 years of federal spending, the national debt was “only” $1 trillion. Now, just 30 years later, it’s sailing past $14 trillion.

Historian John Steele Gordon points out how unnecessary our situation is:

There have always been two reasons for adding to the national debt. One is to fight wars. The second is to counteract recessions. But while the national debt in 1982 was 35% of GDP, after a quarter century of nearly uninterrupted economic growth and the end of the Cold War the debt-to-GDP ratio has more than doubled.

It is hard to escape the idea that this happened only because Democrats and Republicans alike never said no to any significant interest group. Despite a genuine economic emergency, the stimulus bill is more about dispensing goodies to Democratic interest groups than stimulating the economy. Even Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.) — no deficit hawk when his party is in the majority — called it “porky.”

Annual federal spending rose by a trillion dollars when Republicans controlled the government from 2001 to 2007. It has risen another trillion during the Bush-Obama response to the financial crisis. So spending every year is now twice what it was when Bill Clinton left office. Republicans and Democrats alike should be able to find wasteful, extravagant, and unnecessary programs to cut back or eliminate. They could find some of them here in this report by Chris Edwards.

In the Kentucky Resolutions, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” Just so. When it becomes clear that Congress as a body cannot be trusted with the management of the public fisc, then bind them down with the chains of the Constitution, even — or especially — chains that deny them the flexibility they have heretofore abused.

David Boaz • July 19, 2011 @ 7:29 am

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

Open letter to President Obama (Part 135)

September 4, 2012 – 6:09 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.

We have spent over 19 trillion on welfare since LBJ started the war on poverty and it has only brought us several generations who are dependent on the government.

Welfare: Tackling the Fastest-Growing Part of Government Spending

Rachel Sheffield

April 20, 2012 at 2:45 pm

Multiple reports of welfare abuse have hit the headlines in recent weeks, from a million-dollar lottery winner receiving food stamps to a Massachusetts drug dealer attempting to use welfare cash to post bail and an Alabama nightclub advertising a “Food Stamp Friday” party.

These examples highlight the need to reform a welfare system that is contributing to a culture of entitlement. A crucial element of reform is tackling the ballooning costs of the welfare state, which has become the fastest growing part of government spending.

In a hearing on Tuesday headed by House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R–WI), Heritage senior fellow Robert Rector discussed the major growth in welfare costs and how to get spending under control.

First, Rector dispelled the myth that the 1996 welfare reforms ended “welfare as we know it.” In fact, he noted, since 1996 the U.S “spends 50 percent more on means-tested cash, food and housing than it did when Bill Clinton entered office on a promise to ‘end welfare as we know it.’”

The reforms have been significantly watered down over the last several years, and as Rector explained on Tuesday, they touched only one of dozens of federal welfare programs:

The public is almost totally unaware of the size and scope of government spending on the poor. This is because Congress and the mainstream media always discuss welfare in a fragmented, piecemeal basis. Each of the 79 programs is debated in isolation as if it were the only program affecting the poor. This piecemeal approach to welfare spending perpetuates the myth that spending on the poor is meager and grows little, if at all.

In reality, welfare programs are costing taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars each year. In fiscal year 2011, total welfare costs equaled $927 billion ($717 billion from the federal government and $210 billion from states).

From a historical perspective, since the War on Poverty began in the 1960s, the government has spent $19.8 trillion (inflation-adjusted) to fund a growing list of welfare programs. As Rector points out, this is nearly three times “the cost of all military wars in U.S. history from the Revolutionary War through the current war in Afghanistan.”

Yet, despite current annual welfare costs already twice the amount necessary “to lift all Americans out of poverty,” as Rector noted, President Obama plans to increase welfare spending. Welfare costs have already grown by a third since he came to office in 2009. And this isn’t temporary spending due to the recession. President Obama plans to grow welfare such that by 2022 costs will reach $1.56 trillion. Based on President Obama’s plan, in the next decade U.S. taxpayers will fork out roughly $12.7 trillion on welfare.

To control the burgeoning costs, Rector explained that Congress must put a cap on aggregate welfare spending. Once the current recession ends or by 2013 at the latest, welfare funding should be rolled back to pre-recession levels (adjusted for inflation) and then allowed to grow thereafter only at the rate of inflation. This would save U.S. taxpayers more than $2.7 trillion over 10 years. In addition to the spending cap, Congress should tackle the causes of poverty by promoting self-reliance through work requirements and time limits as well as efforts to strengthen marriage in low-income communities.

Pouring more federal dollars into welfare is creating a burden on taxpayers and promoting a system of government dependence. Reforming welfare by getting costs under control and promoting personal responsibility is an approach that not only respects American taxpayers but also benefits individuals in need.

_____________

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)

Open letter to President Obama (Part 134 B)

September 4, 2012 – 5:06 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 feel so strongly about the evil practice of running up our national debt. I was so proud of Rep. Todd Rokita who voted against the Budget Control Act of 2011 on August 11, 2011. He made this comment:

For decades now, we have spent too much money on ourselves and have intentionally allowed our kids and grandkids to pay for it. It is intergenerational theft—literally stealing from our best asset, our posterity. The correct course of action, as I have said from the beginning, is to enact permanent and structural reform as the price for raising the debt ceiling. Today’s bill does not do that.

Here he has called it for what it is: THEFT!!!

Ted DeHaven noted his his article, “Freshman Republicans switch from Tea to Kool-Aid,” Cato Institute Blog, May 17, 2012:

This week the Club for Growth released a study of votes cast in 2011 by the 87 Republicans elected to the House in November 2010. The Club found that “In many cases, the rhetoric of the so-called “Tea Party” freshmen simply didn’t match their records.” Particularly disconcerting is the fact that so many GOP newcomers cast votes against spending cuts.

The study comes on the heels of three telling votes taken last week in the House that should have been slam-dunks for members who possess the slightest regard for limited government and free markets. Alas, only 26 of the 87 members of the “Tea Party class” voted to defund both the Economic Development Administration and the president’s new Advanced Manufacturing Technology Consortia program (see my previous discussion of these votes here) and against reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank (see my colleague Sallie James’s excoriation of that vote here).

One of those Tea Party heroes was Congressman Todd Rokita of Indiana. Last year I posted this below concerning his conservative views and his willingness to vote against the debt ceiling increase:

Rokita Votes Against Debt Ceiling Increase

Aug 1, 2011 Issues: Spending Cuts and Debt

Rep. Todd Rokita voted against the Budget Control Act of 2011 because it fails to implement the long-term permanent and structural reforms necessary to put the nation back on a fiscally sustainable trajectory:

“I have heard a couple different definitions of leadership today. Let me add mine: leadership is effectively persuading others of the proper course of action. It is also about standing up for those who have no voice. For decades now, we have spent too much money on ourselves and have intentionally allowed our kids and grandkids to pay for it. It is intergenerational theft—literally stealing from our best asset, our posterity. The correct course of action, as I have said from the beginning, is to enact permanent and structural reform as the price for raising the debt ceiling. Today’s bill does not do that.

This legislation is a Washington deal, and it barely begins to address our long-term spending problem. Our debt crisis is driven by mandatory spending on entitlement programs and this plan fails to address such spending. Also, this plan only reduces the future debt we will pile on the backs of our kids from $10 trillion to around $7 trillion over the next decade. It does not begin to reduce our $14 trillion in current debt.

However, this legislation could eventually lead to the best permanent solution, a balanced budget amendment. This is certainly worth fighting for and I will lead on that front. But a vote alone is not worth the $2.5 trillion price tag, again to be paid by future generations. For that price, we should have required passage of a balanced budget amendment for state ratification.

I will continue to fight for a balanced budget amendment, lead our nation to live within its means and tackle out-of-control entitlement spending. It will be a long fight, but the enactment of a balanced budget amendment is the only way to fix the broken system that created this mess, both addressing our long-term fiscal health and giving Americans long-term peace of mind.”

_______________

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 Cato Institute, President Obama, Taxes | Comments (0)

Senator Pryor asks for Spending Cut Suggestions! Here are a few!(Part 160)

September 3, 2012 – 5:53 am

Senator Pryor asks for Spending Cut Suggestions! Here are a few!(Part 160)

Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below:

Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future.

On May 11, 2011, I emailed to this above address and I got this email back from Senator Pryor’s office:

Please note, this is not a monitored email account. Due to the sheer volume of correspondence I receive, I ask that constituents please contact me via my website with any responses or additional concerns. If you would like a specific reply to your message, please visit http://pryor.senate.gov/contact. This system ensures that I will continue to keep Arkansas First by allowing me to better organize the thousands of emails I get from Arkansans each week and ensuring that I have all the information I need to respond to your particular communication in timely manner. I appreciate you writing. I always welcome your input and suggestions. Please do not hesitate to contact me on any issue of concern to you in the future.

I just did. I went to the Senator’s website and sent this below:

Below is an excellent plan to balance the budget through spending cuts from Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute written in April of 2011. Here is the third part.

A Plan to Cut Spending and Balance the Federal Budget

by Chris Edwards, Cato Institute

Subsidies to Individuals and Businesses

The federal government operates more than 2,000 separate subsidy programs, a doubling of subsidy programs since the mid-1980s.⁹ The scope of federal activities has greatly expanded in recent decades, along with the size of the federal budget. The federal government subsidizes farm businesses, retirees, school lunches, rural utilities, the energy industry, rental housing, public broadcasting, job training, foreign aid activities, foreign purchases of weapons, urban transit services, and many other types of activities and people.

Each subsidy program costs money, generates a bureaucracy, spawns lobby groups, and encourages more people to demand freebies from the government. Individuals, businesses, and nonprofit groups that become hooked on federal subsidies essentially become tools of the state. They lose their independence, they have less incentive to innovate, and they shy away from criticizing the government.

Table 1 includes cuts to subsidies in agriculture, commerce, energy, housing, foreign aid, and other areas. These cuts wouldn’t eliminate all of the unjustified subsidies in the federal budget, but they would be a good start. Government subsidies are like addictive drugs, undermining America’s traditions of individual reliance, voluntary charity, and entrepreneurialism.

Aid to State and Local Governments

Under the Constitution, the federal government was assigned specific limited powers, and most government functions were left to the states. To ensure that people understood the limits on federal power, the Framers added the Constitution’s Tenth Amendment: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” The amendment embodies federalism, the idea that federal and state governments have separate areas of activity and that federal responsibilities are supposed to be “few and defined,” as James Madison noted.

Unfortunately, policymakers and the courts have mainly discarded federalism in recent decades. Congress has undertaken many activities that were traditionally reserved to state and local governments through the mechanism of “grants-in-aid.” Grant programs are subsidies that are combined with federal regulatory controls to micromanage state and local activities. In fiscal 2011, federal aid to the states will total $625 billion, which will be distributed through more than 1,100 separate programs.¹⁰

The theory behind grants-in-aid is that the federal government can operate programs in the national interest to efficiently solve local problems. However, the federal aid system does not work that way in practice. Most federal politicians are consumed by the competitive scramble to maximize subsidies for their states, regardless of efficiency, fairness, or any appreciation of overall budget limitations.

Furthermore, federal aid stimulates overspending by state governments and creates a web of complex federal regulations that destroy state innovation. At all levels of the aid system, the focus is on regulatory compliance and spending, not on delivering quality public services. The aid system destroys government accountability because each level of government can blame the other levels when programs fail. It is a “triumph of expenditure without responsibility.”

The federal aid system is a roundabout funding system for state and local activities. It serves no important economic purpose. By federalizing state and local activities, we are asking Congress to do the impossible—to efficiently plan for the competing needs of a diverse country of more than 300 million people.

The grants-in-aid system should be dramatically cut. Policymakers need to revive federalism and begin to terminate grant programs. Table 1 includes cuts to grants in the areas of agriculture, education, health care, justice, and transportation. The justice grants, for example, are for funding such items as bulletproof vests for local police.¹¹ There is no reason why such activities should not be funded at the city or county level.

Military Expenses

Cato Institute defense experts Christopher Preble and Benjamin Friedman have proposed a lengthy list of cuts to U.S. military spending totaling $1.2 trillion over 10 years.¹² Within 10 years, their proposal would reduce spending by about $150 billion annually, based on a strategy of restraint and reduced intervention abroad.

In proposing their plan, Preble and Friedman argue that the United States would be better off taking a wait-and-see approach to distant threats, while letting friendly nations bear more of the costs of their own defense. They note that U.S. policymakers support many extraneous missions for the military aside from the basic requirement to defend the nation. There is no doubt that America’s military budget is bloated. Even aside from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Department of Defense spending roughly doubled between 2001 and 2011.¹³

By Everette Hatcher III | Comments (0)

Open letter to President Obama (Part 133 B)

September 3, 2012 – 4:57 am

Michael Savage May 17 2012 hr 3 segment 3.wmv

Published on May 17, 2012 by Cyphrinfinity1

The Savage Nation

Savage guest Mark Calabria from the Cato Institute discusses J P Morgan in this segment.

www.cato.org

_________________

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.

The free market works much better than federal officials do. Take a look at how how our money is managed every year by the federal government. The federal government has 2.1 trillion coming in and 3.6 trillion going out!! I sincerely hope the federal government will stay out of Wall Street business!!! TARP was a joke and it ended up with a government takeover of GM.

Morning Bell: Don’t Fear the Free Market

Mike Brownfield

May 15, 2012 at 8:55 am

The lingering headline on the front pages this week is that JP Morgan Chase suffered a massive loss on a hedging strategy, costing them $2 billion. That’s no small mistake, and it’s an example of how bad decisions in the free market can cost big money. But just because mistakes have consequences doesn’t mean that the mighty hand of government needs to step in to save us from ourselves. However, that’s what some on the left are now calling for.

The news of this blunder hit last week when JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon revealed that the bank took a $2 billion loss over the past six weeks in a strategy intended to hedge against risks to the bank’s assets that could come from market volatility caused by the Euro crisis. On Sunday’s Meet the Press, Dimon admitted, “In hindsight, we took far too much risk. The strategy we had was badly vetted. It was badly monitored. It should never have happened.”

The company is certainly paying the price in losses, as are those responsible for the bad decision making. The Los Angeles Times reports that the bank’s stock fell 12% since it disclosed the loss last week, the executive who oversaw the department responsible for the loss retired on Monday, and JP Morgan’s reputation as an extremely well managed bank has been damaged.

But does the flawed strategy and the resulting loss mean that Washington should step in with more regulation of Wall Street? Yesterday, White House press secretary Jay Carney used the news of JP Morgan’s loss to call for more regulations, remarking, “The president fought very hard against Republicans and Wall Street lobbyists to get Wall Street reform passed . . . I think that this event merely reinforces why the President was right to take on this fight and why we still need to make sure it’s implemented.”

Likewise, former Obama adviser Elizabeth Warren called for Dimon to resign from the New York Federal Reserve Board and slammed Wall Street. “What happened here is not just about JP Morgan case, it’s about the kind of attitudes, that the bank should be regulating themselves instead of having real oversight,” Warren said. “We have to say as a country, no, the banks cannot regulate themselves.”

What’s needed is some perspective, not more regulation from Washington. Heritage’s David C. John explains that while JP Morgan’s loss represents a clear failure of management, it’s not a systemic problem that requires or would be fixed by additional regulation. For starters, JP Morgan is a $2.3 trillion bank with a net worth of $189 billion, meaning that this loss reduced the bank’s capital ratio from 8.4 percent to 8.2 percent. In other words, the bank can absorb the loss, and it’s nowhere close to needing any form of federal intervention.

Some more perspective could be gleaned by examining the $3.2 billion loss the U.S. Post Office experienced in the most recent quarter, or the billions lost on risky green energy bets made by President Obama and Energy Secretary Steven Chu. Only those losses weren’t incurred by private investors, but by you the taxpayer.

What’s more, John explains, the regulations that are now being called for — particularly the so-called Volcker Rule — would not have prevented the losses since it would not have affected this transaction. Finally, John writes, the system worked as is. “JPMorgan Chase losses were not discovered by regulators; they were discovered by the bank itself conducting its own management reviews.”

What America is witnessing is the left using the news of JP Morgan’s bad judgment as an excuse for more government regulation. But as even Carney acknowledged, regulations “can’t prevent bad decisions from being made on Wall Street.”

For all the wrangling over JP Morgan’s loss, John points out that the bank is still expected to make a healthy profit for all of 2012. Yes, it made a mistake, and yes, that mistake cost a lot of money. But risks, mistakes and costs are part of capitalism. They’re the price we pay for all the benefits that a free market affords us.

____________

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, Taxes | Comments (0)

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