Government

The White House explanation is that some people have accumulated "substantially more than is needed to fund reasonable levels of retirement saving." So Mr. Obama proposes to "limit an individual's total balance across tax-preferred accounts to an amount sufficient to finance an annuity of not more than $205,000 per year in retirement, or about $3 million for someone retiring in 2013."

Always, more taxes.

Government buildings are grand, too, even new ones like the Reagan office building. "It's very much like Versailles before the French Revolution," says historian John Steele Gordon. Washingtonians have become like the French nobility, who spent their lives in the palace at Versailles "and didn't know much about what went on outside that world."

Bubbles pop.  Eventually.

Under a New Deal era law, the government can confiscate part of the raisin crop, seemingly with no compensation.  In this case, the government is demanding 47% of the crop.  If the  win, this could be a big deal.  The case is before the Supreme Court.

Government should not be deciding what people should be able to do with their property.

According to Watt'sUpWithThat, an outstanding FOIA request for emails related to Obama's War on Coal will be released today.  This is the same request that the EPA tried to fight in court and lost; it is most likely the request which caused Lisa Jackson (aka "Richard Windsor", her secret email alias) to resign. 

Expect something interesting to come out of this.

The government is not your friend.  Not even in the US.

Hat tip to Barron.

... then it becomes very tempting to invent a crisis.  Governments do this a lot, because it works.  That explicitly includes our present government (as admitted by Rahm "Never waste a crisis").  It explains global warming and gun control; both are artificial (and inflated) crises designed to transfer political power and money to those seeking to "solve" them. 

See also, swine flu, avian flu, and the World Health Organization.

If there are any of my readers who have not yet realized that the entire existence of the Transportation Security Agency is a complete waste of time and money, I have a pair of examples for you.  Examples that, sadly, are not the exception, but seem to be the rule.

First, we have Breda's experience of flying with a prosthetic leg: groped on the trip out, groped on the trip back, but the TSA missed her pocketknife on the way back.

Second, we have a more serious case of Security Fail: Don, the Armed School Teacher, flew legally with a handgun and ammunition.  This involves declaring the firearm to the airline and, depending on the airport, jumping through a slightly different set of security hoops.  Sometimes, though, the security doesn't quite work the way it is intended.  In Don's case, the fancy new and expensive scanner did not detect a standard steel firearm and ammunition in an ordinary handgun case.

I wonder how much we the taxpayers paid for that expensive piece of worthless equipment?  (Yes, I know: too much.)

To make things worse, though, even after Don declared the firearm to the local agents (since he needed to put the declaration tag into the case after they inspected it), one of the other agents tossed it into the back room to be loaded into the airplane.  Without his declaration form.  It took Don arguing with two different agents (one a supervisor) in order to get the bag retrieved so he could put in the form that would protect him from being arrested for trying to smuggle a handgun onto a plane.

To make this clear: two TSA agents, one a supervisor, were initially quite happy to have a declared firearm loaded onto a plane illegally.

Now, I'll grant that the declaration form is sort of silly.  It's basically a way for the owner of the firearm to prove to the authorities "See, I told you this was here" to avoid getting in trouble.  It won't actually make the gun less dangerous, although the requirement that the gun be unloaded probably helps a bit... assuming the security staff know how to verify that.  But it's the sort of silly that involves serious consequences to ordinary folks if it's not followed. 

Finally, we have another example of airline security becoming a voluntary form of humiliation for the amusement of government employees: the urinal flush sensor that doubles as TSA security camera.

Well, "threatens" is probably a little strong.  But nonetheless:

"Texas is a unique place. When we came into the union in 1845, one of the issues was that we would be able to leave if we decided to do that," Perry said. "My hope is that America and Washington in particular pays attention. We've got a great union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, who knows what may come of that."

For the record, I think Texas leaving the union would be a mistake.  Obama will be in power for at least 4 years, at most 8.  With any luck, he won't have a completely supine Congress for more than two years.  While undoing his policies will be difficult, leaving the nation would have huge downsides that would endure much longer than that.  On top of that, it would raise some serious Constitutional questions and probably provoke another civil war regardless of the correct legal answer.  Rick Perry isn't exactly the kind of leadership I would get excited about in that scenario.

However... it would be a better option than quietly accepting the rule of a National Socialist dictator.  Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

UPDATE: Seems someone has called me an idiot using stumbledupon.  Here's exactly what he said:

i just wanted to show here how retarded some people are....a national socialist dictator? really? you think that would fly in america? if so- you're a fucking idiot liberal or conservative

I'll apologize in advance for using a few big words, Travis.  The statement you are referring to is a hypothetical (5. a hypothetical situation, instance, etc.: The Secretary of Defense refused to discuss hypotheticals with the reporters).

I hope such a situation will never fly in America, but I would be an idiot in truth if I did not recognize that change may happen, whether I like it or not. 

Furthermore, my use of the term "National Socialist" was specifically chosen for humorous and rhetorical purposes in light of topics I have discussed on my blog in the past.  Specifically, the report recently issued by the Department of Homeland Security demonizing advocates of state and local government who oppose federal power; and Obama's known approval of Marxism and Socialism.  You may also wish to consider Obama's actions in the auto and financial industries in light of the definition of socialism: "public or state ownership and administration of the means of production." Combined, these elements certainly make him a national socialist, if not quite a National Socialist... Dictator remains to be seen, but the opposition party has not exactly had much input on policy lately.

I haven't seen a lot of news coverage about the Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act (GIVE), but it passed the House last Wednesday.  Over at the E3 Gazette, there's an analysis of the bill and what it proposes.  I won't excerpt anything except the title: Is "Arbeit Macht Free" too strong?  We had best hope that we can stop this in the Senate.

Surely, even a Chicago liberal can't really be calling for a Mommy and Daddy Government.

There are so many different ways that our government could modernize itself in order to better use technology to communicate with the people.  The problem is, our "leaders" usually see communicating with the people to be a one-way sort of thing: they talk, we listen.  That's why we need ideas like this one to shake things up a little.  It's impossible for politicians to keep track of this stuff even with dedicated full-time staffers.  How can ordinary citizens be expected to form an opinion of how their representatives are managing the nation's budget without the tools to do so in a reasonable amount of time and effort?  

One of the big advantages of a decentralized system of personal transportation technology (like, say, personal automobiles and public roads) is that it reduces the dependency of individuals upon the State for their daily lives.  It's hard to screw up a road, although governments certainly put a lot of effort into it! 

Generally, city governments seem to spend all their time complaining about traffic while begging for money to build extensive public transportation systems that aren't used.  Austin, for example, keeps putting silly "light rail" public transportation systems on the ballot, then scolding the public when they say no -- and nevermind that the bus system is so inefficient that it would be cheaper to buy each passenger a humvee.  (No, I didn't do that math, and I don't have a link handy to the person who did -- sorry).

Now a local news channel is complaining that Katrina evacuees who depended on public transportation in New Orleans are now stuck walking around Austin, because our public transport system sucks.  Here's one story:

Every morning and every evening, rain or shine, hot or cold, Ivy Harris walks one mile from her apartment on Decker Lane in Northeast Austin to the nearest bus stop to get to her job downtown.

"I was going to quit, but I talked to my job and they cut my hours, unfortunately, to get me home before it gets dark. Because one night I walked home and it was dark I couldn't see my hand in front of me," Harris said.

Her plan is to save up for a car and insurance so she can work more hours and fulfill her other responsibilities to her children. Right now, she must rely on cabs to get to the grocery store at a cost of $25 each way.

Here's one case where "tough love" is encouraging the right decision.  Relying on the State to provide your personal transportation may leave you without such transportation and unable to fulfill your own responsibilities.  The appropriate response, rather than quitting your job, is to take steps to become responsible for yourself.  In fact, the article closes on this note:

Some subjects interviewed for this article have since found ways to purchase vehicles, at times at the expense a tighter budget for food and other basic bills.

Heavens, you don't say that they are making cost-benefit tradeoffs!

So what's the clear subtext of this article?  "Vote for public transport to help the Katrina victims."

And that's why I titled my post "Do it again, only HARDER."  Because this news story is doing nothing less than pushing everyone to fund the exact sort of system that produced individuals dependent upon the State for their personal transportation.  The people they interviewed seem perfectly capable of learning from their mistakes and adapting to their new situation, so why is it so difficult for journalists to do so?

It used to be that Captain Ed could be relied upon for accurate, if partisan, analysis of politics and political news.  Though I did not always agree with him, I respected his opinion and ability to express it. 

Unfortunately, while I still admire his ability to express his opinion, I no longer have confidence in his ability to analyze a situation and come to the correct answer without the guidance of a partisan weathervane.  Here's why:

Nowhere in that resolution does it restrict the Bush administration from conducting its war operations within the US, and contrary to what Russ Feingold and Tom Daschle would have Americans think, laws do not enable government power but restrict them. That which is not explicitly forbidden is therefore assumed to be legal, and not the other way around, as a moment's thought will clearly show.

This flatly contradicts the enumerated powers doctrine.  Our constitution authorizes a limited federal government to take certain specified actions.  While a case could be made for State governments operating in that fashion, the Federal government is explicitly limited by the Constitution and doubly so by the 9th and 10th Amendments.

Sigh.

Did you think government was about solving problems?  No.  Government is about getting votes, even if it means creating a problem to pretend to solve.

Whenever someone says that this or that government program is absolutely necessary, I always wonder, "What did people do and how did they survive before the program?"

If someone says food stamps are absolutely necessary for poor people's survival, I wonder how America's millions of poor immigrants made it. Unless I missed something, mass starvation is not a part of our history. Was there a stealth food stamp program during the 1700s and 1800s?

Wouldn't it be great if no one ever took any harmful drugs and the violence associated with the drug trade was ended? Wouldn't you like to see how much better the world would be if poverty were ended? Don't you agree that discrimination against individuals and groups because of their race, creed, color, gender or sexual orientation by others, is intolerable and must be dramatically reduced and if possible ended? Shouldn't something be done to end terrorism, pollution, crime, molestation, rape, slavery, disease, and all of our social ills?

Republicans and Democrats have made good on the promise that by whatever means necessary they will work to end these social ills. No matter what it takes. So what does it take?

Congressional investigators said Monday that Vice President Dick Cheney had stymied their investigation into his energy task force by refusing to turn over key documents.

The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said it was impossible to tell how much energy companies or industry groups may have influenced the task force's 2001 report because the administration withheld important records.

You likely won?t hear about it in the nation?s major media outlets, but recent events suggest Texas may be doing the best job of letting sunlight shine on state government. In the process it?s establishing a benchmark for others.

The big news is the recent decision of Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott to hire an experienced prosecutor as the first attorney ever placed on the state payroll to prosecute violations of the Texas Public Information Act. Abbott?s move means state and local bureaucrats who prefer to operate behind closed doors could now face the prospect of fines or jail time or both for violating the PIA.

The new prosecutor?s ?only job in the Office of the Attorney General will be to prosecute open government act violations,? Abbott told a recent gathering of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas.

Now here's a rarity -- a government institution specifically intended to pressure other government institutions on behalf of the people. It's an interesting idea; I hope it works.

A bill that would allow undocumented immigrants to apply for financial aid at California community colleges was approved by the state Assembly on Thursday.

The bill, by Sen. Martha Escutia, D-Norwalk, would direct the board of governors to establish a process so students without legal immigration status can apply to have tuition waived.

It's sobering to realize that this proposal was passed in the middle of a fiscal crisis that has already caused a recall of the governor. The Libertarian ideology includes the concept of open borders, but open borders don't work in the presence of a welfare state.

This touches on several interesting areas. First, the question of whether felons should be allowed to vote; frankly, I see very little about being a felon that necessarily removes your right to political representation permanently. Felons certainly have a self-interested position with respect to criminal law, but that is not necessarily wrong; governments are quite capable of abusing criminal law to restrict the number of voters or to exclude those unlikely to support the present government from the process at all. At present, according to this survey, more than 2% of the potential voters are felons and thus barred; that seems clearly excessive. So, I don't see anything wrong with felons voting in the long run; whether they can vote while incarcerated is a different question.

Second, would it have changed the election? Apparantly so, but it was a remarkably close election. Since my vague knowledge of this issue suggests to me that most felons are racial minorities convicted of drug offenses, should we assume that felons would have voted for Gore because they are a minority (traditionally voting heavily democratic), because they believe Democrats are softer on drug issues, or because of some other factor?

Declaring there "are no sacred cows in my administration," Mayor Richard M. Daley fired one of his cousins Monday for his role in a scandal involving $40 million a year paid to politically connected trucking companies, some with mob ties.

"It doesn't matter who they are or whether they know me, they have to do the job," Daley said in announcing the firing of Mark Gyrion from a Water Department job.

Gyrion was the third city official to lose his job in the burgeoning scandal over the no-bids Hired Truck Program, now under investigation by federal prosecutors. The first was Angelo Torres, the former head of the truck program, who is charged with extortion. Last week, William Abolt resigned under pressure as city budget director.

Hmm... A relative of Mayor Daley, who bans firearms in his city of Chicago, is accused of corruption and mob ties? Why am I not surprised?

An antiaircraft missile, ready for use, sits atop a federal office building near the White House. Devices that test the air for chemical and biological substances are positioned throughout the city. Subway stations are now equipped with "bomb containment" trash bins. A major highway that runs by the Pentagon is being rerouted several hundred yards away. A security wall is going up around the Washington Monument.

Day by day, the nation's capital is becoming a fortress, turning a city known for graceful beauty into a virtual armed camp. In response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, federal security agents along with their counterparts in the Washington, Maryland and Virginia governments began a huge effort to build permanent safeguards for the capital area's most important buildings and monuments.

What we are seeing here is a government that is, above all else, afraid. Afraid of terrorism against its members, politically afraid of missing a terrorist attack against the nation, and increasingly afraid of its own citizens, who object to measures like the Patriot Act with growing fervor.

This is a trend that should concern everyone.

No one is likely to argue that the terrorist threat is not present. Whether that threat remains serious is more debatable, but in fact relatively irrelevant. The precautions that are being taken to turn the seat of our government into a modern fortress have psychological effects as well; the safer government officials feel behind their walls, the less concerned they are for the safety of those outside. And the thicker those walls, the more threatening anything outside those walls starts to look.

The fortifications can only reinforce the growing divide between the people and their representatives, the federal politicians and officials who supposedly carry out their will. The more isolated from public opinion and discourse a government becomes, the harder it is for that government to change course in response to the will of the people. And our present government badly needs a change of course; needs less insulation and more openness.

During testimony before the House Financial Services committee last week, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan indicated that he is prepared to maintain low interest rates for ıas long as it takesı to energize the listless economy. Unfortunately, this will only prolong the painful economic consequences of his own easy money, easy credit policies.

Once again Ron Paul hits the nail on the head.

Remember 'squeegee kids'? They may still exist in your town, but I haven't seen any since the early '90s. The '80s were probably their heyday in the US. Squeegeeing was an especially aggressive sort of panhandling practiced at busy urban intersections where a kid armed with a bucket of filthy water and a squeegee would dash out into the street when the light was red, splash some water on your windshield, made perfunctory wiping motions with the squeegee to streak up the windshield nicely, and then demand/beg a 'payment' for the 'service' they had rendered. Of course the level of aggressiveness and the quality of the wipe varied wildly, but this was the basic mode of operation. A squeegee-intersection was sort of like a bandit's tollbooth - pay the price or face the unpleasant consequences ranging from vague guilt to physical damage to your car.