Congress pontificates about reducing its massive national debt of $30 trillion, but each year it gets bigger. Diet books don’t help one lose weight. Only by reducing food intake can weight be lost. The same is true for budgets. Bloviating about the national debt on cable TV will not reduce the debt. Only by cutting programs and reducing laws can Congress reduce the national debt.

In 2021, our federal government spent $6.82 trillion in a $22.4 trillion economy. Simply, 30% of all economic activity in the U.S. is federal spending.  Another $3.3 trillion was spent by state and local governments. Forty-five percent of our entire economy is government spending. The Government Accountability Office (“GAO”) informed Congress that the growth of the national debt is unsustainable and a risk to our future. It’s now time to stop spending and start reducing the nation’s debt to ensure a sustainable nation for our children.

A diet that takes trillions off the federal spending scale without disrupting a lifestyle.

The nation’s goal should be to reduce the national debt with as little disruption as possible. Starvation diets don’t work. The nation just needs to cut out the junk food but keep a good helping of vegetables on our plate. This is doable by recognizing we don’t need to eat every time we see food. Likewise, Congress does not need to spend money every time it sees a perceived “problem.”

Once in this mindset, Congress needs to identify what the American people do not need. Five categories of spending literally jump off the plate.

1. Do not fund laws that have not been authorized. The easiest set of budget cuts would be to refrain from funding laws that Congress has not authorized. “In FY 2021 appropriations, the Congressional Budget Office identified 1,068 authorizations of appropriations, stemming from 274 laws, tolling $432 billion, that expired before the beginning of the fiscal year 2022.” Since House Rules prohibit appropriations to fund laws not authorized by Congress, just letting those unauthorized laws expire is an easy savings of almost one-half trillion dollars. If Congress is so unwilling to perform oversight on expired laws or the public has so little interest in a law being reauthorized, Congress should follow House rules and not fund the expired laws.
2. Review and vote on every expenditure in the Judgment Fund. The Judgment Fund is the mother of all slush funds. It is a permanent, indefinite, and unlimited congressional appropriation continuously available to pay money judgments entered against the United States and settlements of cases in or likely to be in litigation with the United States. It is so secret that Congress no longer even debates what the amounts are for as an indefinite appropriation. The amounts are appropriated, no matter what the amount. The Department of the Treasury just pays the claims upon the receipt of completed forms.This is the fund that President Obama used to deliver $1.7 billion in cash to Iran as a bribe to sign the Iran nuclear deal. Why should our government officials have billions in a secret fund to cover up illegal activity or to held terrorists? Having Congress approve each judgment and settlement as it did before 1956, the U.S. could save taxpayers tens of billions of dollars by rejecting settlements the executive branch makes with its friends that bring suit against the government knowing of a friendly settlement or with terrorists.
3. Enact a fair, simple, tax code that focuses on raising money not legislating behavior. Another easy way to reduce the deficit is to get rid of the 8-million-word tax code and replace it with the 1913- four-page Form 1040. Few deductions and low rates, but everyone pays something, including the wealthiest. The benefit of this simple approach is it captures a greater amount of tax owed by closing the “tax gap.”  The IRS defines the tax gap as the difference between true taxes owed for a given tax year and the amount that is paid. The gap is caused by the under-reporting of income, non-filing, and tax evasion. While the exact amount is unknown, the IRS estimates it to range from $574 to $700 billion, annually. A complex tax code invites under-reporting and manipulation, whereas failing to pay taxes in a simple system, could easily place one in a position of defending a fraud or tax evasion charge.
4. Follow and implement GAO’s Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (“GAAP”). Congress mandates GAO to perform a GAAP analysis of federal spending and assets and provide recommendations to ensure the financial reporting by the agency is transparent and consistent. Every member of Congress should read these reports on how our money is managed and should implement its findings when mismanagement is identified. One specific GAO recommendation is for the federal government to address the government-wide improper payments, estimated to be $175 billion.
5. Congress should make a kitchen-table list of what programs are most important to our Republic. The amount of information available to Congress for making smart debt reduction decisions is overwhelming. It is time Congress puts these materials to use. A simple way to approach this task would be for each congressional committee to rank sequentially, each program within its jurisdiction, with the most important programs having the lowest number. The budget committee would still allocate a budget for appropriations and the highest-priority programs will be funded first. The appropriation committees would work down the list until the revenues raised by taxes are expended.At that point, Congress would have to cease spending money on programs for which there is no longer any money, e.g., studies of shrimp on a treadmill, or admit to the taxpayers, it wants to borrow money to fund programs of little value. This kitchen-table process of spending only up to revenues received could save another $1plus-trillion annually, even if Congress expended a few hundred billion on some lower value programs.

These five modest proposals for reducing the national debt do not disturb any of the programs Congress views as a “must fund.” The reductions all come in areas where Congress has little interest, settlement of lawsuits that should not be settled, making sure everyone pays their fair share on income tax, requiring agencies to only pay authorized recipients, and not spending money on stupid programs.

Is anyone in Congress willing to put the national debt on a diet?

The post Reducing National Debt by Trillions with a 5-Step Diet appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Given the circumstances, the question anyone should be asking is, what is next? What direction should the country go? There are appear to be five main options: civil war, peaceful secession, decentralization, cultural and political homogeneity, or forced conformity. 

Civil War

This would presumably be the worst of all the options. The idea of war between the states and between the American people is unimaginable. However, there is a legitimate chance this could occur. In fact, 46% of Americans think a civil war is inevitable. None should dismiss this possibility, but if the path the United States takes is to be peaceful, there must be a serious awakening of the American people.

Peaceful Secession

As opposed to a violent civil war, peaceful secession proposes that certain parts of the country leave the jurisdiction of the United States without war and establish their own countries. The idea is gaining support, and there are movements like this on a smaller scale in Colorado and Oregon. Although this option seems unlikely, it is preferable to a violent civil war that also breaks the country apart.

Decentralization

Similar to the option of peaceful secession, decentralization is the process of distributing political power among the states and local jurisdictions rather than leaving power centralized with the federal government in Washington. In this case, decentralization is not even going outside the realm of what has been done in the United States before. 

Simply, San Francisco governs San Francisco and Knoxville governs Knoxville. In a way, decentralization is a watered down version of self-determination. Each locality or state can govern themselves while also having some accountability and responsibility on the national level. This option, while keeping the country intact, gives groups of people the ability to make their own decisions while minimizing the effect it could have on other groups. By far, this is a more satisfying and safe option.

Cultural and Political Homogeneity

Unlike decentralization, this option leaves power centralized and unifies the majority of the American people—an establishment of a new normal so to speak. In short, one of our political “sides” wins and that is the standard moving forward. An instance similar to the Reagan era where the political left had to respond with a more conservative candidate or the acceptance of the New Deal as a mainstay in American political life could serve as examples.

This new normal would at the very least end the current polarization and create a sense that the country is unified enough to continue standing. With this option however, one side would have to lose and lose gracefully at that. Under current conditions, this seems unlikely, but there is always the chance that some event or leader is capable of bringing the nation closer together, even if unwillingly. Do not be surprised if this is the chosen path of the United States in the future.

Forced Conformity

Like the option of homogeneity, forced conformity centralizes power and establishes a new normal. However, this new normal is established by whoever uses the power of the state first to put people in line. This is the creation of a totalitarian society via the means of the government gun. No longer will there be unnecessary squabbling over politics. There will be order and unity regardless if it is desired or not.

The political right likes to compare certain policies to that of George Orwell’s 1984, often incorrectly and entirely overused, but it is a legitimate possibility. With any state that has grown as large as the United States federal government, there is a real threat of it just asserting its own dominance to enforce order and control. Americans would like to think that they are immune to this totalitarian concept, but in the end humans have the aptitude to take such action. This option, along with that of civil war, should be seen as the most dangerous.

What Direction Should the United States Choose?

The scenarios above are general, and each has their own issues. However, for any average American, the prospect of violence between the people or coercion in the political sphere should be off the table. They are easily the worst options to anyone that seeks peace. 

As for the other options, it depends almost entirely on the issue of polarization. If the country is so divided that there is no chance at reconciliation, peaceful secession is the best path. If the ideological gap is serious, but not so bad that the American people cannot remain neighbors with their political opposites, decentralization seems optimal to increase everyone’s satisfaction. Should the polarization cease and a new normal is secured, the option of homogeneity is preferable. 

Regardless, the United States cannot stand as it is currently. The priority for the American people now needs to be focused on solving this crisis of country and truly becoming that shining city on a hill again.

The post Is the Future Really Dark? appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

For a century and a half, the federal government has expanded its powers by diminishing the standing in the union of the sovereign states. And Americans are exhausted by politics.

It’s time to ask the question, can the United States unite? If not, how does it divide? What do the people say? After all, it is their country.

• Pew Research Center finds only about 25% of Americans believe they can trust the government in Washington to the what is right “just about 2% of the time and 22% most of the time.” Trust in government is down from 75% in 1958.
• Gallup finds only 12% of Americans have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in Congress.
• Rasmussen finds 59% of likely voters believe members of Congress care more about what the media thinks is more important than what the voters think.
• Gallup finds only 20% of Americans have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the criminal justice system.
• Gallup finds only 21% of Americans have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in newspapers.
• Rasmussen finds 58% of voters agree media is the “Enemy of the People.”
• A survey by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism found the U.S. ranks last of 46 nations in media trust, at 29% trust.
• A Gallup Poll finds 84% of Americans believe media is to blame for our political divide.
• A Public Agenda/USA Today/Ipsos poll found 90% of Americans “…are sick and tired of being so divided.”
• Gallup finds only 37% of Americans have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in religious institutions.
• Only 37% of likely voters think the country is heading in the right direction.

Whatever trust the American people have in their institutions, it is in the military, 73%; small business, 68%; and the police 53%—notwithstanding the absurd “defund the police” movement.

The fifty states are almost equally divided on every policy issue by political camps “Red” or “Blue.”

Even within states, the conservative parts of Oregon want to join Idaho, and parts of northern California want to separate from the rest of California and form their own state.

Pew Research Center finds two-thirds of Americans are “worn out” by the amount of political news.

The Georgetown University Civility Survey found while 80% of voters want both parties to find “compromise and common ground;” yet 67% believe the U.S. is two-thirds of the way to the edge of a civil war. Voters across all demographics believe “…political, racial and class divisions are getting worse.”

What are these polls telling us?

A June 13, 2021 poll by the bipartisan Georgetown University Institute of Politics and Public Service found “… voters now rate ‘division in the country as the most important issue.” Voters believe the level of division is alarmingly high and will get worse in the future. These voters want compromise—at least on the issues of spending and infrastructure. However, on social issues such as abortion and voting rights, both Republican and Democrat voters want members of Congress to fight for their principles.

The most interesting part of the poll, however, is the finding that there is “a strong correlation between where people get information and how they view key issues and figures.” For example, Fox News viewers have a favorable/unfavorable rating of 17/78 on Black Lives Matter. Non-Fox viewers, however, have a 59/35 favorable/unfavorable rating. Dr. Anthony Fauci has a favorable/unfavorable rating of 20/69 among Fox viewers and a 64/27 favorable/unfavorable rating among non-Fox viewers.

The American people are smart. They want the government to work on matters impacting their day-to-day lives, but are willing to accept conflict on non-bread-and-butter issues. Unfortunately, due to the influence of the media on government and the obsession of government officials to be the “darlings” of the media, government is dysfunctional because politicians and the media have agendas that conflict with the American people.

Simply, the federal government is now separate from its citizens. Government is the ruler and citizens are the servants. Media is the government’s tool to maintain confusion within the electorate so they cannot unite. Being unable to unite, the nation remains polarized and will remain polarized until elected officials begin functioning as fiduciaries to the Constitution and the institution of government in which they serve. Only when the system works for the people, will the people have trust in it.

Part II of this series describes how difficult it is for states to protect their citizens from the federal government. When a State joins the United States, it checks in under the rules of the Hotel California— States can check out anytime they like, but they can never leave. No matter how bad it gets!

The post The Divided States of America: United We Fall? Part I of V appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

First and foremost, the COVID-19 pandemic posed enormous challenges to American institutions, and continues to do so. Frankly, we were not prepared. We need to diagnose what went wrong, so that we are never caught unaware like this again. Fortunately, the diagnosis is straightforward. COVID-19 was going to be bad, no matter what. But the failures of big government made it much, much worse.

In particular, the Centers for Disease Control, Food and Drug Administration, and public teachers’ unions are the great American villains of 2020. Meanwhile, the heroes of this year are almost entirely in the private sector. From Zoom to vaccine development, Big Pharma and Big Tech—yes, you read that right—made this horrible year bearable. Even amid a crisis that led so many to cry out for vigorous government action, we saw that private markets still work best.

For progressives and so-called “national” conservatives who support big government, 2020 represented the ultimate test for their philosophies. Although they disagree on cultural issues, they see eye-to-eye on the role of government. Both want a big, energetic state promoting what (they believe to be) the good of the nation. Well, here was their chance for the government to shine.

The result was shameful failure. The COVID-19 crisis put left-wing and right-wing statism on trial—and both were found guilty of ill-intent and gross incompetence.

After all, the CDC is the reason America lagged behind other nations for so long in terms of COVID-19 testing. We had the virus genome fully mapped in January, which enabled the rapid production of private testing kits. But the CDC forced these operations to shut down, coming up with its own test—which was flawed, and even contaminated! Testing and tracing could have stemmed the worst of the COVID-19 tide.

On this issue alone, CDC ineptitude is likely responsible for tens of thousands of deaths. Its red tape and incompetence made containing the COVID-19 pandemic, like a few other countries were able to, impossible.

How about the FDA?

It is no secret that the vaccine was delayed because it needed FDA approval. Indeed, several working vaccines could have come much earlier, were it not for our bungling bureaucrat gatekeepers. (Dear FDA: Can you please speed things up a little, so people do not, you know, die? It would make us ever so happy if you did. Thanks.)

As for schools, the data show that young people and children are at very low-risk from COVID-19, and that schools are not “super spreaders.” Despite this, largely due to pressure from public teachers’ unions, many schools remained closed in the fall. In fact, the US was pretty much the only country to pursue the alarmist policy of keeping schools closed.

The toll on school-aged children is immense, from psychological trauma to impeded learning. Low-income families were hit especially hard. They often lacked the means to participate in distance learning, and having their kids at home made it harder for parents to earn much-needed income.

Fortunately, there seems to be some well-deserved backlash against the crony public education establishment. Hopefully a mass exodus to more effective and accountable learning platforms will follow, whether that is charter schools, private schools, or homeschooling. Even more hopefully, parents will realize public education racketeers are not their friends. They should demand loud and clear: Fund students, not systems!

In stark contrast to these unacceptable failures by government agencies and employees, the private sector delivered.

Big Pharma and Big Tech are the winners here. Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, and many other companies did amazing work getting the vaccines developed as quickly as they did. Public health “experts” repeatedly claimed a vaccine would not be available for 18 months, at the earliest. (Shows what they know!)

As for Big Tech, companies like Facebook and Twitter helped us stay connected while we were forced physically to remain apart. Amazon responded well to a huge surge in demand, stemming from the curtailment of in-person shopping. Faced with an immense logistical challenge, the online retailer surpassed expectations.

These sectors and their star performers are not perfect, of course.

In the past, Big Pharma lobbied for many of the regulatory roadblocks that made fighting COVID-19 so hard. Big Tech got egg on its face for covering up the Hunter Biden laptop story. Nevertheless, the takeaway is clear: 2020 would have been much, much more miserable without these supposedly evil big businesses in our corner. We owe them far more than we give them.

2021 is the perfect time to revisit our basic beliefs about the role of government and business in society. Both were unexpectedly challenged by the greatest public health crisis in recent memory.

Government failed. Business triumphed. Statism should be discredited, hopefully for an entire generation. Any coherent political philosophy for the 21st century must start from this basic truth.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

The post Why the Real Villain of 2020 Was Big Government appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

“When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things.”

– 1 Corinthians 13:11 (New American Bible)

When I was a young pup, my father sent a letter to the governor of Missouri advocating a particular cause. As I was already a somewhat precocious young writer, I asked if I could send my own letter along with it. Dad agreed.

I don’t remember much of what was in my letter, but what I do remember makes me shudder in shame. For example, I’m pretty sure that I asked Governor Kit Bond to cap candy bar prices at twenty-five cents apiece. (What can I say, candy bars were an important part of my life.)

This would hardly be the only outrageous request I would make to an authority figure; I once wrote a letter to Santa asking for my own personal flying reindeer. I didn’t specifically request Rudolph—I’d have been happy with his half-brother Randolph, or even one of Blitzen’s bastard kids. I didn’t get any flying reindeer that year and I am still super pissed about it.

Looking back, though—what makes a kid think that the government could (or should) set candy bar prices in the first place? Was I that naive?

Short story: yes. But at least I came by it honestly. My father is a member of the Silent Generation and my mother is a baby boomer. They had a lot of respect for the government and they passed this along to crumb cruncher Chris. And that’s understandable, when you consider the things they saw the government do:

Build Hoover Dam

Implement the “New Deal“*

Overcome the Great Depression**

Invent the atomic bomb

Win a war against fascism on two different continents***

Finally fix the Civil Rights mess****

LBJ’s “Great Society“*****

Put men on the moon******

_{*f#ck this noise though}

_{**no relation to the New Deal}

_{***with help from the limeys and more than a few commie “friends”}

_{****a mess government created in the first place}

_{*****f#ck this noise too}

_{******at least the fascists we beat a few years before didn’t help us with this. Wait, what?}

No wonder my parents’ generations thought big about government. (And don’t even get me started on my grandparents’ generation—they practically created a religion around FDR.)

Bottom line: our government used to do some really cool shit. If they can put a man on the moon, surely they can keep a Snickers bar from costing more than two bits.

While such micromanaging of the economy may seem like an exaggeration, government actually does far worse things these days. If only their meddling was limited to candy bars. I think of Dr. Malcolm from Jurassic Park: “Your (politicians) were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, that they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

Along similar lines, as a younger Missourian with a mind of mush, I was taught that “right” and “wrong” were roughly equivalent to “legal” and “illegal.” That particular piece of indoctrination is insidious. It takes years, nay, decades to unlearn that once it’s burned into your brain.

Never shy about quoting myself, I refer you to a high school philosophy paper I wrote in January 1990 humbly titled “Morrillism.” It included these wonderfully clueless nuggets of ‘wisdom’:

Substance addictions have been given a bad name. To be completely honest, some of these little habits can be very important.

It’s okay to be hooked on something as long as…

1. It’s cheap.
2. It’s legal (this is very important!)

(In retrospect, I was simply justifying my own addictions to coffee and cheap beer.)

Then, later on in the same paper, I doubled down on the inanity:

What makes you happy? This is one thing where almost everyone differs. Here is the key to happiness (at no charge!)

If you get a kick out of it, do it, as long as…

1.  It is legal (once again, this is important)
2.  and it falls within your budget.

Oh, what a sweet summer child I was. So sweet it’s amazing that I didn’t give myself type 2 diabetes. (You can tell, however, that I have at least always been consistent about one thing: being a cheapskate.)

I can’t solely blame my parents or grandparents for instilling me with a respect for government and a legality-based view of morality. No, my schools did a lot of that too.

When we were taught history, specifically the early days of the country after the Revolutionary War, the Articles of Confederation were given extremely short shrift. My teachers, both in my public high school and my state college, talked about the Articles in much the same way that the school nurse might talk about head lice.

The recurring theme: the Articles of Confederation had to be replaced, because the national government it formed was too weak to get anything done. A weak government! Oh, the horrors!

As an adult, I look back on this and think: a federal government too weak to get anything done sounds pretty kick ass! In my old age, I would be fine with the Articles being brought back, plus the Bill of Rights and some language mirroring some of the subsequent amendments (most notably 13, 14, 15, 19, 24, and 26.) (Notice I didn’t mention Amendments 16 and 17, both of which should be killed with fire. Much like head lice.)

I remember another sweet innocent question that I asked my parents as a tot: “Do the police have to follow laws?” And its companion question: “Who arrests police if they do wrong?” They didn’t have a good answer for either question. America is still struggling with this in 2020.

In my old age, I have grown to become quite skeptical of activist government. I also now know that legality does not equal morality; far from it. I have lost faith in both government and Santa Claus.

Santa Claus and government really aren’t that much different.  One doesn’t exist and the other really shouldn’t. In any event, you shouldn’t be counting on either for free stuff or moral guidance.

My naivete as a youngster was focused around the government as a force of good. My naivete as an adult may be focused around the idea that we will ever be able to shrink or rein in that same government. Using government to fight government—isn’t that just precious?

If it sounds like I’m evolving (or devolving) into an anarchist, maybe you’re onto something.

The post Out of the Mouths of Babes: Big Government Gets It Done appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Congress had little time to properly review fiscal 2020 spending bills, which weighed in at more than 2,000 pages of clunky text.

The legislation contained a multitude of flaws, including lobbyist-driven handouts and a private-pension bailout that could open the door for even larger bailouts down the line.

This is a business-as-usual conclusion to an irresponsible decade. The degree to which Washington has been reckless with the nation’s finances is hard to comprehend.

Next year, absolutely everything is on the line. Defend your principles before it is too late. Find out more now >>

Since 2010, the federal government has spent $293,750 per household.

Federal spending started the decade at an artificially high level due to the 2009 “economic-stimulus” package. There was a slight dip after the stimulus ended, and the tea party wave ushered in a brief period of restraint in Congress. Sadly, this flicker of responsibility was short-lived.

According to the Office of Management and Budget and the Congressional Budget Office, federal spending totaled $37.6 trillion from 2010 through 2019. Spread across 128 million households (per the Census Bureau), that yields $293,750 in spending for every household.

Federal spending in 2019 was equivalent to the combined economies of 16 states.

In fiscal 2019, which ended Sept. 30, the federal government doled out $4.4 trillion. The full scope of that much money is virtually impossible for the human mind to grasp. One way to understand the sheer enormity is by comparing it to the size of state economies.

To match the amount that the federal government spent in fiscal 2019, one would need to add the total economic output of Alabama, Arizona, Connecticut, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, and Wisconsin.

We should treat the notion that this level of federal activity is too small with deep skepticism.

Spending per household is up 47% since 2000.

The federal government spent $34,700 per household in 2019, which is serious money no matter what part of the country you live in.

Is nearly $35,000 per household too much spending? To put it in context, we can go back to the last time the economy had a surging stock market and unemployment under 4%, the year 2000.

Back then, federal spending was about $2.49 trillion after adjusting for inflation. Divided by the number of households in 2000, the government spent just $23,600 per household in today’s dollars.

That means that the spending increase from 2000 to now is a staggering 47% per household, even after controlling for inflation. In real terms, the federal government is nearly half-again larger than it was less than two decades ago.

The budget would balance today if spending had grown more modestly.

With the federal government growing so quickly, it should come as no surprise that this year’s deficit likely will exceed $1 trillion, even if the economy remains strong.

Some on the left counter that the high deficits are primarily the fault of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, signed into law just before Christmas 2017, and that the solution is funneling more taxpayer dollars to Washington. That assertion is incorrect.

Once again, a comparison to 2000 is instructive. Revenue per household, adjusted for inflation, was $26,750 in 2000. Today, it’s roughly $27,000, even after the 2017 tax cut.

If federal spending had grown based only on population and inflation starting in 2000, today’s trillion-dollar deficit would turn into a surplus.

Policymakers should recognize that the federal government has grown far too quickly. Since there is no way to undo the past, they should take some prudent steps to return the country to sound financial footing.

First, Congress should trim excessive spending that has accumulated over the years. The Heritage Foundation’s Blueprint for Balance offers hundreds of policy ideas to save money by eliminating waste, making Social Security and Medicare sustainable, and slashing perks for politically connected industries.

Second, Congress should enact meaningful guardrails that rein in future spending growth. One model for reform comes from Switzerland, where the budget balances over the course of a business cycle.

Closer to home, the “taxpayer bill of rights” approved by Colorado voters in 1992 limits spending based on a combination of revenue, inflation, and population growth.

Such rules would create headaches for Washington by forcing big-spending members of Congress to make tough decisions, rather than all of them getting what they want by abusing the national credit card.

Yet this would merely force legislators to behave the way most families do every day; namely, pay for necessities first, and only add extras if there’s cash to spare.

Congress is ending the decade on a note of fiscal irresponsibility, but next year lawmakers have a fresh chance to do right by America.

COMMENTARY BY

The post Federal Spending Explodes at Nearly $300,000 Per Household Since 2010 appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

“The game shouldn’t be allowed,” said the former bad boy prince. “It’s created to addict. An addiction to keep you in front of a computer for as long as possible. It’s so irresponsible.”

Nobody, as far as I know, has yet proposed legislation to ban the popular game, which is played by 125 million people and reportedly generates $2 million in revenue per day. But the anecdote serves as a reminder of how cavalier humans tend to be about prohibiting things they personally object to.

At different points throughout history, Americans have banned Christmas, alcohol, and bikinis. Other “threats,” like comic books, were not outright banned but ruined through regulation.

If you think silly and arbitrary bans are a thing of the past, think again. If anything, the impulse to ban and regulate has only increased in a world that has gotten much faster.

These laws are usually proposed to serve a greater good or to protect people. Unfortunately, they usually miss the mark and often have adverse consequences. Here are a few of the worst laws proposed and passed in 2019 in no particular order.

10. Massachusetts Lawmakers Try to Criminalize Saying “B*tch” (Proposed)

Massachusetts is looking to up the ante in the war on pottymouths. State Rep. Daniel Hunt (D–Boston) proposed legislation (H.3719) that would make it a crime to say “the b-word” (as my children would say) “to accost, annoy, degrade or demean” someone. Those found guilty would face a $200 fine and up to six months in jail(!).

9. California’s Crackdown on the Gig Economy (Passed)

A reported 57 million Americans work as freelancers, adding an estimated $1 trillion to the economy each year in flexible gig work. That number is about to shrink, however. California lawmakers, in an effort to save us, passed Assembly Bill 5 (AB 5), which uses a complicated ABC test that redefines many gig workers as full-time employees. Unsurprisingly, many companies cannot take on swaths of new full-time employees, who would become eligible for numerous benefits. So thousands of workers lost jobs, including 200 workers let go by Vox Media a week before Christmas. Three months earlier, Vox had called the legislation “a victory for workers everywhere.” That’s what economists call a Cobra Effect.

8. Florida’s “Cutting Edge” Anti-Hazing Act (Passed)

Hazing is said to go all the way back to Ancient Greece, where Plato wrote of “practical jokes played by unruly young men” at his academy. It’s not uncommon today to see young people get carried away with this tradition, however. One such case can be found in Andrew Coffey, a Florida State University pledge who in November 2017 died after excessive drinking. In response, Florida lawmakers passed what has been described as the “most cutting edge” anti-hazing law in the US. Though no doubt well-intentioned, the law allows prosecutors to charge people who weren’t even present for a hazing but were simply involved in its discussion. It’s not difficult to see how an accidental tragedy could end up ruining even more lives.

7. Alabama’s “Anti-Road Rage Act” (Passed)

Nobody likes slow left-lane driving. I’m on the record saying it’s my worst pet peeve. But Alabama’s “anti-road rage” law, which prohibits drivers from driving in the left lane for more than a mile and a half without passing, is hardly the solution. Drivers are more than capable of policing slow drivers through the usual means—excessive horn beeping, silent cursing, and arm-waving. The stiff fines—up to $200 a pop—will likely fall on unsuspecting out-of-state drivers and be little more than a cash cow for police.

6. Pennsylvania’s “Violent Video Game” Tax (Proposed)

Early in 2019, a bipartisan group of Pennsylvania lawmakers floated one of the silliest proposals of the year: a 10 percent tax on video games rated “Mature or Adults Only.” The bill was a transparent cash grab and went nowhere in the legislature. The legislation’s poor showing was probably less attributable to the dubious link between video games and violence and more to stiff opposition from the $43.5 billion gaming industry. Either way, the episode affirmed Gideon J. Tucker’s famous axiom: “No man’s life, liberty or property are safe while the Legislature is in session.”

5. California’s Ban on Single-Use Shampoo Bottles (Passed)

Anyone who has traveled is familiar with the little bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and lotion hotels provide their guests. Well, you won’t find them in California much longer. In October, Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill that will ban (starting in 2023) hotels from supplying the little bottles as part of an effort to use less plastic. Violators will be fined $500 for their first offense and up to $2,000 for additional violations. Meanwhile, as lawmakers wage war on tiny shampoo bottles, the Golden State continues to struggle with a human excrement problem that has resulted in a surge of typhus.

4. Virginia Raises the Smoking Age to 21 (Passed)

Smoking is bad for you. Don’t take it from me; it says it right there on the pack. SURGEON GENERAL’S WARNING: Smoking Causes Lung Cancer, Heart Disease, Emphysema, And May Complicate Pregnancy. Despite the warning, an estimated 34 million US adults smoke. That’s their choice, right? Well, Virginia lawmakers took it upon themselves to prevent young adults (18-20) from legally purchasing cigarettes. The law amounts to little more than a condescending intrusion into the lives of young people since they’ll just have friends purchase their smokes for them. But it’s still annoying, especially since many of these people are legally obligated to sign-up for selective service.

3. & 2. Oregon and California’s Statewide Rent Control Laws (Passed)

Economists disagree on a lot of things, but they pretty much all agree on this: Rent control is really harmful. “In many cases rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city—except for bombing,” observed Swedish economist (and socialist) Assar Lindbeck. Alas, new laws in Oregon and California, the first of their kind, show how little politicians understand about economics. The caps on rent are sure to further reduce housing supply and quality, and increase housing prices in the long run. California’s housing problems are well documented. Unfortunately, they’re about to get a lot worse. (As FEE has observed, the solution to high housing costs is more housing, not price controls.)

1. California’s Water Tax (Proposed)

California Governor Gavin Newsom has the unfortunate distinction of making the list a fourth time. Newsom’s water tax, a proposal he ultimately withdrew, was perhaps the strangest. As Carey Wedler noted on FEE earlier this year, the “Environmental Protection” section of Newsom’s budget sought to

establish a new special fund with a dedicated funding source from new water, fertilizer, and dairy fees, to enable the State Water Resources Control Board to assist communities, particularly disadvantaged communities, in paying for the short-term and long-term costs of obtaining access to safe and affordable drinking water.

Ensuring citizens have clean water is a noble goal, to be sure. But the means are highly questionable. Utilizing markets is the best way to address water shortages, not passing new taxes. Newsom’s proposal, which sparked sharp pushback from his own party, is sort of like passing a food tax to make sure people don’t go hungry.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

The post The 10 Worst State Laws Proposed and Passed in 2019 appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

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Should any American have a property right to a federal job for life?

Citizens elect the House of Representatives every two years; Senators ever six years. The President every four years. Elections are the primary mechanisms citizens have to hold government accountable.

Unfortunately, behind this facade of Democracy are two million bureaucrats (or civil servants as they prefer to be called), who burrow into government positions for most of their careers. These bureaucrats control the spin on information given elected officials. In foreign affairs, these bureaucrats replace the President’s policy with policies adopted by interagency working groups. They write the hundreds of thousands of regulations few of us read, but control our lives. Bureaucrats determine who of us acts lawfully or unlawfully.

The impact of bureaucrats is massive; scandals at the FBI, Justice, State, ranging from destruction of information, to selling guns to Mexican gangs to kill Americans. All happening without any accountability!

In addition to job security, the Congressional Budget Office found pay and benefits for bureaucrats 47% more than the combined pay and benefits in the private sector. A Cato Institute study put the number at 80% more than the private sector. The average federal worker receives $123,160 in pay and benefits compared to $69,901 in the private sector.

On top of better pay and benefits, a Heritage Foundation analysis found federal employees work fewer hours a week than their private sector counterparts, 38.7 to 41.4 hours.

The  federal government must get the “best and brightest” since 99.5% of the 2 million federal employees receive a “fully successful” rating, or above, on their evaluations? Of the 2 million bureaucrats, only 0.1% received unacceptable ratings.

The cost of these federal bureaucrats is massive. Presently, there is $3.5 trillion in unfunded pension and health benefits.

Let’s ask the question again. Should any American have a property right to a federal job for life?

How did this happen?

Civil Service started in 1883 with the Pendleton Act requiring a competitive examination for many government positions. By requiring hiring based on the highest scores, Congress was eliminating political patronage. While only the top prospects were to be selected, the Pendleton Act did not protect government employees from being fired. In 1962, President Kennedy signed an Executive Order allowing federal employees a right to appeal a firing. In 1974 President Nixon issued another Executive Order ensuring an automatic right of appeal to an independent authority.

As appeals reached the courts, decisions were inconsistent. Over time, the competitive exam was stuck down by the courts, part-by-part. In 1978, Congress enacted the Civil Service Reform Act making the Executive Orders statutory and authorizing unions to collectively bargain with the federal government. The Supreme Court interpreted the new law as requiring trial-type hearings, making it almost impossible to dismiss a federal employee.

Another impact of “life-time jobs for bureaucrats” is that it fundamentally changes the role of the President. Article II requires the President to execute the laws of the U.S., yet the President controls only 4000 appointments out of 2 million positions. 99.8% percent of the bureaucracy beats to its own drummer. Many of these highly paid elites, believe “the public knows little or nothing” about issues facing the nation.

Over time, the public lost trust in government. In 1958 almost seventy-five percent of Americans trusted government. By 2013 only 28% of Americans had a favorable view of it.

Action

Other than dramatically shrinking government, the options for changing the bureaucracy are limited. Eliminating all civil service protections returns the nation to a spoils system. Hiring more political appointees expands the bureaucracy. Congress is weak at fact-intensive oversight. Moreover, it is unlikely that the protections can be eliminated due to strong union support. This leaves term limits as a practical solution.

In a major 1926 policy speech, Calvin Coolidge warned:

“Unless bureaucracy is constantly resisted it breaks down representative government and overwhelms democracy. It…sets up the pretense of having authority over everybody and being responsible to nobody…”

Term limits on bureaucrats would have three major benefits for our country.

First, term limits break bureaucrat control of government by eliminating the power imbalance between elected officials whose service can regularly be limited by citizens and an unaccountable bureaucracy that can hold jobs for life.

Second, with term limits, a greater number of Americans will be able to serve their country.

Finally, term limits, by reducing the number of bureaucrats qualifying for federal benefits, results in major reductions in unfunded federal benefits.

It’s a modest proposal, but it is a start.

The post Big Government: What To Do With Lifetime Unelected Bureaucrats? appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

Any friend of freedom searching for reasons to despair will easily find many.

But despair is unnecessary.

In the 1930s Things Were Worse

While I can’t say with certainty how today’s intellectual atmosphere compares with that of the 1930s, I do know that that depressed decade fostered widespread enthusiasm among intellectuals for socialism — a socialism not prettied up with adjectives such as “democratic.” Indeed, it wasn’t difficult to find in these United States prominent apologists for Stalin and fans of Mussolini.

Of course this growth of a more statist attitude — a growth rooted in the Progressive myths that became fashionable 30 years earlier — did saddle us with the New Deal, if not with full-fledged socialism. Yet for all of the many affronts to liberty unleashed by FDR (and his successors in the White House), America remained a (largely) free society with private property rights (largely) secure and markets (largely) open and competitive — and, importantly, entrepreneurs still highly innovative.

By the late 1970s there had arisen in many quarters a palpable aversion to big government. Milton Friedman was a celebrated public intellectual whose columns and books were widely read and discussed. He even had a popular television series in 1980: Free to Choose — broadcast by PBS!

Deregulation began, not on the watch of President Reagan, but on that of President Carter. Ted Kennedy, of all people, helped to lead the successful move in Congress to deregulate interstate airline travel — a move that resulted in the actual closure in 1985 of a government agency (the Civil Aeronautics Board).

In the 10 years from 1977 through 1986, not only were commercial airlines deregulated, so too were banking, trucking, and telecommunications. Also deregulated were energy markets. And under the influence of market-friendly scholars such as Yale Brozen, Ronald Coase, Harold Demsetz, and Aaron Director, antitrust interventions were dialed down significantly.

The bipartisan 1986 tax reform reduced the number of federal income tax brackets from 15 to 4, and reduced the top marginal tax rate from 50 to 33 percent.

Admittedly, in classical-liberal and libertarian eyes this deregulation and tax cutting did not go far enough. Nor has all of it lasted. And the gains that remain must be weighed against new intrusions that have since then been imposed on Americans, not least of which is the cancerous growth of discretionary executive power and the bloating of “entitlements.”

But the failure to make markets even freer should not mask this fact: ideas were effective in increasing the public’s willingness to embrace markets.

If ideas were effective back then, they can be effective again.

This optimistic claim about the potential effectiveness of pro-freedom ideas is easy today to dismiss. With the GOP having all but completely abandoned even the pretense of being the party of free markets and liberty — and with the Democrats having moved so far left that the likes of Joe Biden and (gasp!) Nancy Pelosi have become that party’s voices of reason — any hope for restoring genuine liberalism and freer markets does seem especially dim.

I, though, take comfort not only in the successful revival in the past of pro-freedom ideas; I take comfort also in the counsel of two insightful men.

“We’re All Part of the Equilibrium”

The first is Jose Pinera. Twenty years ago, over a lunch that he and I shared, I expressed pessimism about the task of spreading the ideas of liberty. With a sympathetic smile, Jose said, “My friend, you talk as if we must persuade great numbers of people both to adopt our understanding and ideals, and to do so rather completely. But you’re wrong.”

Pointing to a fork that he’d carefully balanced upon an extended index finger, Jose continued: “While it would be nice to instill in everyone a commitment to freedom equal to that of Milton Friedman, all we must do to make the world more free is to move some people closer to our position.”

I looked at his fork quizzically.

“Think of this fork as the ideological spectrum, with people standing on it, arrayed from the tip of the pronged end to the tip of the handle end. Our task is to tilt this fork more in one direction, say, to move the pronged end downward relative to the handle end” — Jose explained, pointing to the fork’s prongs. “To achieve this outcome, we don’t need to convince everyone standing on the handle to leap over completely to the prongs. Instead, all we must do is to convince some people on the handle end of the fork to move inward along the handle in the direction of the prongs. Even if no one is persuaded to come over fully to our side of the fork, we achieve real victories simply by persuading more people to move closer toward our side. By doing so, the balance will tilt in favor of liberty.”

Immediately upon seeing Jose’s demonstration, I felt relief. Each person persuaded to be even slightly less prone to endorse statism is someone who moves ideologically in a direction more favorable to freedom. Freedom’s prospects are thereby improved. And of course, persuading some people to be slightly less prone to endorse statism is a task much more doable than persuading everyone to fully embrace the ideas and ideals of scholars such as Friedman and Hayek.

The second insightful person whose counsel gives me comfort is the late economist Robert Tollison, a long-ago colleague of mine at George Mason University. One day, Bob and I were having a water-cooler conversation with Pete Boettke, who was then a graduate student at GMU. Pete expressed doubt that the work of any one scholar, except for that of a few greats such as James Buchanan and Ludwig von Mises, will ever have any effect at improving the world.

In his soft South Carolina accent, Bob replied: “Pete, take heart. We’re all part of the equilibrium.”

This expression was Bob’s economist way of saying that each person’s contribution to the world’s stock of ideas affects the existing ideological balance. Seeing the effects of any individual’s work is typically difficult. But every contribution, no matter how small, tilts the “fork” of ideology in the desired direction of that work’s author. If Pete didn’t publish some article about the perils of socialism, or if, say, George Selgin didn’t deliver an insightful lecture on the danger of central banking, the world would be a bit more inclined toward socialism and central banking.

The individual effects in these, as in most, cases are too small to detect. But Bob wisely insisted that these effects are nevertheless real. The world would be a tiny bit less free and the economy faintly less productive without each of the many, mostly small, contributions to classical-liberal scholarship and to the sharing of liberal ideas with the public.

In short, even if the state of the world at the moment appears to be hopeless, it would be even worse without the efforts of the many stalwart champions of liberty — and it would be truly hopeless only if those stalwarts lose all hope and give up.

I, for one, will not give up.

Donald J. Boudreaux

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