Maybe elections have consequences after all. Bolstered by the populist uprising against bloated and wasteful government, politicians in Washington actually defended the interests of taxpayers yesterday. Not just once, but twice. Our first bit of holiday cheer comes…
Daily Analysis
What Rabid, Hate-the-Poor, Right Wingers Uttered these Spiteful Words?
Here’s a passage from a speech by a well-known political figure, but it wasn’t Ronald Reagan, Ron Paul, or Milton Friedman. The lessons of history, confirmed by the evidence immediately before me, show conclusively that continued dependence upon relief induces a…
Can You Name the Hate-Filled, Racist, Right-Wing, Tea-Party Fanatic Who Said This?
At a recent speech in Atlanta, a somewhat famous former elected official made some rather blunt comments about welfare. According to a news report: In discussing welfare, he said rules instituted by liberals to limit benefits to single mothers discouraged blacks from…
How Welfare Destroys the Human Spirit
This isn’t a video produced by an anti-welfare group. It’s not even from the United States. Instead, you’re looking at a straight news clip from England that unintentionally offers a very powerful example of how welfare saps initiative, creates dependency, subsidizes…
France Increases Retirement Age to 62, Solves 1.94 Percent of Its Fiscal Problem
I’m just making up the 1.94 percent number, but the International Herald Tribune reported last year that unfunded liabilities in France are nearly 550 percent of GDP. The news reports don’t include any estimates of what Sarkozy’s reform will mean, but I would be…
Mitch Daniels Would Be a Terrible President
I’m mystified that some conservatives and libertarians are sympathetic to the idea that Mitch Daniels, the governor of Indiana, might be a good candidate in 2012. The main challenge for our nation is the growing burden of government, so it seems that this would…
More than Two-to-One Support for Personal Retirement Accounts
I am pleasantly shocked to see that a healthy majority of respondents favor partial privatization of Social Security. I knew support was reasonably strong several years ago, but I feared that the financial crisis would have made Americans more leery of financial…
Does the War on Poverty Fight Destitution or Subsidize It?
The Census Bureau will be releasing new poverty-rate numbers on Thursday and the numbers are expected to show a big move in the wrong direction. Much of the coverage will be on how much the poverty rate increases, with 15 percent being a likely amount according to…
Will Entitlements, Handouts, and other Government Programs Turn America into a Nation of Sheep?
If you saw the Wall-E movie, you may remember how people morphed into helpless blobs because all their needs were being fulfilled by something called BNL. I realize I’m a quirky libertarian, but the movie made me think about how excessive government is doing something…
Smoke for the Motherland
Excise taxes, where government taxes the sale of particular goods, are usually levied with the excuse that consumption of a good or engagement in a certain activity is harmful for individuals. If this were actually true, you’d expect government bureaucrats to…