Should Politicians Be Allowed to Exempt Themselves and their Staff from Obamacare?

I get upset by a lot of what happens in the corridors of power, but two things really irk me.

First, I hate it when the rich and powerful use the coercive power of government to screw ordinary people. That’s one of the reasons I hated the TARP bailout.

Second, I hate the utter hypocrisy of the political elite exempting themselves from the bad policies that get imposed on everyone else. That’s why, for instance, it galls me that the pro-tax bureaucrats at the OECD get tax-free salaries.

Well, now we have a new example of political hypocrisy. Behind closed doors, the crooks in Washington are seeking to exempt themselves from Obamacare.

Here are some of the sordid details reported by Politico.

Congressional leaders in both parties are engaged in high-level, confidential talks about exempting lawmakers and Capitol Hill aides from the insurance exchanges they are mandated to join as part of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, sources in both parties said. The talks — which involve Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), the Obama administration and other top lawmakers — are extraordinarily sensitive, with both sides acutely aware of the potential for political fallout from giving carve-outs from the hugely controversial law to 535 lawmakers and thousands of their aides. Discussions have stretched out for months, sources said. …if Capitol Hill leaders move forward with the plan, they risk being dubbed hypocrites by their political rivals and the American public. By removing themselves from a key Obamacare component, lawmakers and aides would be held to a different standard than the people who put them in office. …There is concern in some quarters that the provision requiring lawmakers and staffers to join the exchanges, if it isn’t revised, could lead to a “brain drain” on Capitol Hill, as several sources close to the talks put it.

Well, to be thoughtful and analytical, my reaction is boo hoo and cry me a friggin’ river.

Obamacare is a fiscal disaster and a healthcare disaster. Our best bet to get the law repealed is to make sure the politicians and their underlings are subject to all of the law’s bad provisions. Period.

Read Full Post »

Grilled about Cayman Investments, Jack Lew Chooses the I’m-a-Moron Defense

Every so often, you get a “teaching moment” in Washington, and we now have an excellent opportunity to educate lawmakers about the “offshore” world because President Obama’s nominee to be Treasury Secretary has been caught with his hand in the tax haven cookie jar.

Mr. Lew not only invested some of his own money in a Cayman-based fund, he also was in charge of a Citi Bank division that had over 100 Cayman-domiciled funds.

As you can imagine, Republicans are having some fun with this issue.

Democrats used to be critical of Ugland House

Mitt Romney was subjected to a lot of class-warfare demagoguery during the 2012 campaign because he also invested  some of his wealth in a Cayman fund, so GOPers are hoisting Lew on a petard and grilling him about the obvious hypocrisy of a leftist utilizing – both personally and professionally – a jurisdiction that commits the unforgivable crime of not imposing income tax.

In a sensible world, Lew would say what everyone in the financial world already understands, which is that the Cayman Islands are an excellent, fully legal, tax-neutral platform for investment funds because 1) there’s no added layer of tax, 2) there’s good rule of law, and, 3) foreigners can invest in the American economy without creating any nexus with the IRS.

But we don’t live in a sensible world, so Lew instead wants us to believe he’s a moron and that he didn’t realize that funds were domiciled in Cayman.

And I guess all the other wealthy leftists with offshore-based investments probably think that as well, right?

Anyhow, I’m taking a glass-half-full perspective on this kerfuffle since it gives me an opportunity to educate more people about why tax havens are a liberalizing and positive force in the global economy.

Oh, what about Lew as Treasury Secretary? Well, as I explain for Real News, he’s competent but misguided.

In other words, the chances of any good reform in the next four years are asymptotically approaching zero. Based on his background (and also based on the views of the President he’ll be serving), it’s virtually impossible to envision good entitlement reform, pro-growth tax reform, and any changes to lessen the likelihood of future Greek-style fiscal collapse (as amusingly illustrated by this cartoon).

So with any luck, they’ll be some tax havens around that the rest of us can utilize when that day of reckoning occurs.

Read Full Post »

Another Hypocritical Leftist Caught with His Hand in the Tax-Haven Cookie Jar

I’m a huge fan of so-called tax havens. I’ve been working for more than 10 years to protect and promote the values of tax competition, fiscal sovereignty, and financial privacy.

The bureaucrats at the OECD even threatened to have me tossed in a Mexican jail because I was advising representatives of low-tax jurisdictions on how best to resist fiscal imperialism.

Why am I fighting this battle and taking occasional risks? Because tax havens are a huge plus for the global economy.

• They generally have better fiscal policy, often with zero income taxes.
• They encourage other nations to adopt better fiscal policy because of tax competition.
• They provide refuge to people suffering fiscal oppression.
• They provide privacy protection to people suffering political persecution.
• They benefit the American economy, both directly and indirectly.

Statist politicians, not surprisingly, resent and despise tax havens. They often attack these low-tax jurisdictions because they don’t want limits and constraints on their ability to increase taxes and spending. They want taxpayers to be “captive customers” who can be fleeced without any options to escape.

But statist politicians often are hypocrites. I’ve already written about lawmakers such as John Kerry, Bill Clinton, John Edwards, and others on the left who have utilized tax havens to boost their own personal finances.

“Our motto is ‘do as I say, not as I do’”

Now President Obama has nominated another one of these hypocrites to be Secretary of the Treasury, and this is generating a bit of controversy. Here’s some of what the Washington Post has reported.

Treasury secretary nominee Jack Lew will face questions at his confirmation hearing next week about an investment fund registered in a Cayman Islands building that has been called a notorious site for tax haven abuse. Lew held between $50,000 and $100,000 in the fund… The investment fund could become an issue during the upcoming hearing because Lew’s job as Treasury secretary would give him a major role in shaping the administration’s tax policy. The president has targeted tax haven abuse as a major problem in the country’s tax system. Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), a senior member of the committee, vowed to ask Lew about the Citigroup investment. “President Obama has been almost obsessively critical of offshore investments,” Grassley said in a statement Friday. “That makes this Cayman Islands investment of his top official and now Treasury secretary nominee worthy of attention. The irony is thick.”

The irony is doubly thick because we recently finished a presidential campaign where the President’s campaign viciously attacked Mitt Romney for doing exactly the same thing as Jack Lew. And now the White House is pointing out the same thing I pointed out about Romney – that there is nothing illegal, immoral, or unethical about investing in a place that has good tax laws and good governance.

“Jack Lew paid all of his taxes and reported all of the income, gains and losses from the investment on his tax returns,” White House spokesman Eric Schultz said. “He played no role in creating, managing or operating the fund, and he sold his investment in 2010 at a net loss.” …The address for the Citigroup fund is a building in the Cayman Islands known as the Ugland House, which President Obama singled out in a 2009 speech railing against tax haven abuse. “Either this is the largest building in the world or the largest tax scam in the world,” Obama said.

Not surprisingly, the media is remarkably quiet about Lew’s investments,even though they were very curious about how Mitt Romney was investing his money.

Ugland House: Approved for leftists

It’s also worth noting that the irony is triply (is that even a word?) thick since Lew invested in a fund based at Ugland House.

What’s Ugland House?

Well, you’ll notice in this video that a certain presidential candidate referenced Ugland House back in 2008.

And Democratic Senators also have launched big attacks on Ugland House.

But anybody want to place any bets on whether that will matter when it comes time to vote on Lew’s nomination?

Read Full Post »

On Second Thought (and as a Second-Best Proposal), David Gregory Should Be Arrested and Prosecuted

I’ve never watched Meet the Press, so I obviously didn’t see David Gregory’s pathetic attempt to play gotcha by unveiling a magazine while interviewing someone from the National Rifle Association.

And even when it was revealed that Gregory had broken D.C. law by possessing this supposedly dangerous object (basically a metal box with a spring), I didn’t care.

After all, gun control is a foolish policy (as even some leftists and foreigners are slowly beginning to realize). And surely cops have better things to do, after all, than arrest a callow journalist for something that shouldn’t be against the law in the first place.

But I’m now beginning to change my mind. One of the core principles of a just society is that the law applies equally to all people. Heck, that principle is even etched above the entrance to the Supreme Court.

…unless you’re a member of the beltway elite

If misguided laws were never enforced, I wouldn’t want to target Gregory for discriminatory treatment. But I get very irritated when ordinary folks with no power or connections are persecuted while those with political connections get a free pass.

And that’s exactly what’s happening. Here’s an excerpt from a Washington Times report about a member of the non-elite who ran afoul of the same stupid law that Gregory broke.

Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier’s spokesman refused Monday to respond to whether Mr. Gregory had even been interviewed yet. This is a rather curious departure for a city that has been ruthless in enforcing this particular firearms statute against law-abiding citizens who made an honest mistake. In July, The Washington Times highlighted the plight of former Army Spc. Adam Meckler, who was arrested and jailed for having a few long-forgotten rounds of ordinary ammunition — but no gun — in his backpack in Washington. Mr. Meckler, a veteran of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, says he had no idea it was illegal to possess unregistered ammunition in the city. He violated the same section of D.C. law as Mr. Gregory allegedly did, and both offenses carry the same maximum penalty of a $1,000 fine and a year in jail. Mr. Meckler was charged with the crime and was forced to accept a plea deal to avoid the cost and time of a protracted legal fight.

After reading this outrageous story, my first reaction is to want the law repealed. My second reaction is to hope for a judicious and appropriate application of tar and feathers to certain D.C. officials.

But I’m also thinking that the high and mighty – including influential journalists – should be subject to the same bad laws as the rest of us.

Mark Steyn also has some reprehensible examples of government run amok. He starts with some sage comments on our over-legislated society.

…in today’s America there are laws against everything, and any one of us at any time is unknowingly in breach of dozens of them. And in this case NBC were informed by the D.C. police that it would be illegal to show the thing on TV, and they went ahead and did it anyway… David Gregory intended to demonstrate what he regards as the absurdity of America’s lax gun laws. Instead, he’s demonstrating the ever greater absurdity of America’s non-lax laws.

And then he lists examples of innocent people caught in the chainsaw of government harassment and persecution.

Not far away from David Gregory, across the Virginia border, eleven-year-old Skylar Capo made the mistake of rescuing a woodpecker from the jaws of a cat and nursing him back to health for a couple of days. For her pains, a federal Fish & Wildlife gauleiter accompanied by state troopers descended on her house, charged her with illegal transportation of a protected species, issued her a $535 fine, and made her cry.

Or how about this one.

Daniel Brown was detained at LAX while connecting to a Minneapolis flight because traces of gunpowder were found on his footwear. His footwear was combat boots. As the name suggests, the combat boots were returning from combat — eight months of it, in Iraq’s bloody and violent al-Anbar province. Above the boots he was wearing the uniform of a staff sergeant in the USMC Reserve Military Police and was accompanied by all 26 members of his unit, also in uniform. Staff Sergeant Brown doesn’t sound like an “obvious” terrorist. But the TSA put him on the no-fly list anyway. If it’s not “obvious” to the government that a serving member of the military has any legitimate reason for being around ammunition, why should it be “obvious” that a TV host has?

Here’s another outrageous example.

Three days after scofflaw Gregory committed his crime, a bail hearing was held in Massachusetts for Andrew Despres, 20, who’s charged with trespassing and possession of ammunition without a firearms license. Mr. Despres was recently expelled from Fitchburg State University and was returning to campus to pick up his stuff. Hence the trespassing charge. At the time of his arrest, he was wearing a “military-style ammunition belt.” Hence, the firearms charge. …He had no gun.

This next story is amusing, until you think about how the coercive power of government is making life difficult for normal people.

Ernest Hemingway had a six-toed cat. …descendants of his six-toed cat still live at the Hemingway home in Key West. Tourists visit the property. Thus, the Department of Agriculture is insisting that the six-toed cats are an “animal exhibit” like the tigers at the zoo, and therefore come under federal regulation requiring each to be housed in an individual compound with “elevated resting surfaces,” “electric wire,” and a night watchman.

So what’s going to happen with this David Gregory kerfuffle? Well, what should happen is that bad laws should be repealed.

In the corrupt world of Washington, though, we know that Gregory hasn’t been arrested even though he clearly broke the law and there’s obvious evidence of his “criminal” behavior.

My guess is that the matter will get quietly dropped, and Steyn also assumes something like this will happen.

Gregory can call in a favor from some Obama consigliere who’ll lean on the cops to disappear the whole thing. If he does that, he’ll be contributing to the remorseless assault on a bedrock principle of free societies — equality before the law. Laws either apply to all of us or none of us. If they apply only to some, they’re not laws but caprices — and all tyranny is capricious.

The moral of the story (though “immoral” is a better word) is simple.

Laws are for the little people — and little people need lots of little laws, ensnaring them at every turn.

That’s a good description of our corrupt tax code. That’s a good description of America’s regulatory morass. That’s a good description of much of what government now does.

If you want to be further depressed, peruse these horror stories of government in action.

• A story of vicious IRS persecution.
• A women jailed overnight because she let her kids play outside.
• Cops legally stole $17,000 from a man who committed no crime.
• Threatening to send a woman to jail because someone whistled at a whale.
• Two stories of innocent people who were victimized by the idiotic Drug War.
• A video about how the EPA tried – and fortunately failed – to destroy a family.
• A story about the Justice Department’s discriminatory attack on a hapless homeowner.
• The government treating child molesters more leniently than people who accidentally omit irrelevant info from forms.

Read Full Post »

The Eternally Confused Mind of a Statist

I’ve shared some rather amusing jabs at libertarians.

• A video portraying Somalia as a libertarian paradise.
• Cartoons on libertarian ice fishing and libertarian lifeguards.
• A mosaic showing 24 types of libertarians.
• A poster showing how the world sees libertarians.

So it’s only fair that I give libertarians a chance to punch back. Here’s a very clever poster put together by the Libertarian Party.

Sort of reminds me of this cartoon mocking American hippies.

Or perhaps we can find a good real-world example in Greece, where the supposedly anti-government riots are actually protests by overpaid bureaucrats demanding more government.

Read Full Post »

The Regal Lifestyle of King Barack and the Rest of Washington’s Gilded Class

Way back in 2010, I savaged Prince Charles for being the ultimate Limousine Liberal. He lives off the taxpayers while traveling on private jets so he can pontificate about the need for ordinary people to live bleaker lives in order to appease the environmental gods.

And if someone asked me about the taxpayer cost of maintaining England’s royal family compared to the equivalent numbers for President Obama and his family, I would have guessed the royal family was more expensive.

I would have been wrong. Here’s an excerpt from a story in the Daily Caller.

Taxpayers spent $1.4 billion dollars on everything from staffing, housing, flying and entertaining President Obama and his family last year, according to the author of a new book on taxpayer-funded presidential perks. In comparison, British taxpayers spent just $57.8 million on the royal family. Author Robert Keith Gray writes in “Presidential Perks Gone Royal” that Obama isn’t the only president to have taken advantage of the expensive trappings of his office. But the amount of money spent on the first family, he argues, has risen tremendously under the Obama administration and needs to be reined in. Gray told The Daily Caller that the $1.4 billion spent on the Obama family last year is the “total cost of the presidency,” factoring the cost of the “biggest staff in history at the highest wages ever,” a 50 percent increase in the numbers of appointed czars and an Air Force One “running with the frequency of a scheduled air line.”

I hope that these numbers are wrong. Indeed, it wouldn’t be fair to add the policy staff of the White House (even though I’m sure it could be cut in half) when making comparisons of the care and upkeep of the Obamas and the royal family.

“Send out the Sheriff of Nottingham to collect more tribute”

But there’s definitely a big kernel of truth to the charge that politicians are leading lives of privilege and elitism compared to the peasants that finance their pampered existence.

To add insult to injury, they exempt themselves from the laws they impose on the rest of us, such as the decision that some White House vehicles will be exempt from Obama’s directive that the federal government purchase only green cars.

Keep in mind, though, that it’s not just Obama. The Bush White House also was guilty of extravagance, albeit perhaps at a lower level.

But the big numbers, in terms of the burden on taxpayers, come from the giant army of overcompensated federal bureaucrats. And you need to consider the mass of lobbyists and consultants that also are part of the corrupt Washington machine.

No wonder, as shown in this map, most of the richest counties in America are those surrounding Washington.

Read Full Post »

Republicans Endorse Platform Language to Dismantle Most of the Federal Government*

I wish the Republican Platform was binding.

Too bad it’s meaningless fluff

Why? Because the GOP, for all intents and purposes, has just proposed to eliminate the Department of Education, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Energy, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Transportation, the Department of Health and Human Services, along with a host of other government programs, agencies, and departments.

More specifically, they endorsed the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which means they put themselves on record in favor of getting rid of all federal spending and intervention that is inconsistent with the Founding Fathers’ vision of a limited central government.

Here’s some of the story, as reported by The Hill,

All federal spending should be reviewed to ensure powers reserved for the states are not given to the federal government, according to the GOP platform approved Tuesday. The platform language is meant to ensure all federal spending meets the requirements of the 10th amendment, which prohibits state powers from being given to the feds. “We support the review and examination of all federal agencies to eliminate wasteful spending, operational inefficiencies, or abuse of power to determine whether they are performing functions that are better performed by the States,” the platform reads. “These functions, as appropriate, should be returned to the States in accordance with the Tenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.”

For those of you who don’t have your Cato Institute pocket Constitutions handy, here’s what the 10th Amendment says.

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.

In other words, the 10th Amendment is basically a back-up plan to re-emphasize that the federal government was prohibited from exercising power in any area other than what is specified in the enumerated powers section of Article I, Section VIII.

And if you look at those enumerated powers, that pretty much invalidates much of what happens in Washington.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that the Republican platform will have less impact on a potential Romney presidency than this blog.  In other words, Republicans don’t intend to live up to this promise. Heck, they don’t even know that they have such a position. That’s why I included the asterisk in the title and must draw your attention to this fine print.

*Offer not good when GOP holds power.

But I suppose it’s good that they included this language in the platform, even if it’s merely empty political rhetoric

P.S. If they did abide by the 10th Amendment, it means that Obamacare also would be repealed.

P.P.S. Yes, this implies limits on democracy. Our Founding Fathers, contrary to E.J. Dionne’s superficial analysis, were opposed to untrammeled majoritarianism and wanted to make sure 51 percent of the people couldn’t vote to rape and pillage 49 percent of the people.

Read Full Post »

Left-Wingers Are only Generous with other People’s Money

Back in 2010, I posted some fascinating (at least to me) data on the underlying differences between conservatives, liberals, and libertarians.

That same year, I also wrote about whether evolutionary history helps explain why some people are leftists.

Let’s now reexamine the difference between those on the right and those on the left, based on some data in a fascinating report from the Chronicle of Philanthropy on the generosity of 359 cities in America.

It turns out that “red state” America is far more generous than “blue state” America. I was thinking of writing about the implications of this new research, but I found out that somebody else beat me to it – and said everything I could possibly say.

Here’s some of what Jeff Jacoby wrote about this study.

According to the Chronicle, the most generous city in America is Provo, Utah, where residents typically give away 13.9 percent of their discretionary income. Boston, by contrast, ranks No. 358: In New England’s leading city, the median household donates just 2.9 percent of its income to charity. Provo’s generosity is typical for its region. Of the 10 most generous cities in America, according to the Chronicle’s calculations, six are in Utah and Idaho. Boston’s tight-fistedness is typical too: Of the 10 stingy cities at the bottom of the list, eight are in New England — including Springfield (No. 363) and Worcester (No. 364). What’s the matter with Massachusetts? How can residents of the bluest state , whose political and cultural leaders make much of their compassion and frequently remind the affluent that we’re all in this together , be so lacking in personal generosity? And why would charitable giving be so outstanding in places as conservative as Utah and Idaho? The question is built on a fallacy.Liberals, popular stereotypes notwithstanding, are not more generous and compassionate than conservatives. To an outsider it might seem plausible that Americans whose political rhetoric emphasizes “fairness” and “social justice” would be more charitably inclined than those who stress economic liberty and individual autonomy. But reams of evidence contradict that presumption, as Syracuse University professor Arthur Brooks demonstrated in his landmark 2006 book, Who Really Cares .

Jacoby summarizes the entire discussion in these two sentences.

…this doesn’t mean that there aren’t generous philanthropists in New England. It doesn’t mean selfishness is unknown on the right. What it does mean is that where people are encouraged to think that solving society’s ills is primarily a job for government, charity tends to evaporate.

In other words, statists pretend to be compassionate. And they compensate for their stinginess by wanting to squander our money.

The fact that government programs generally hurt the people they’re designed to help seems irrelevant to them. It’s all about good intentions. But only good intentions with someone else’s cash.

P.S. If you want a less serious look at the differences between various groups, here’s a funny post on the differences between liberals, conservatives, and Texans.

P.P.S. Sometimes people have irreconcilable differences, which is why this post about the right and left getting a divorce is amusing.

P.P.P.S. We already know, from this clever video, that rich left-wingers like the idea of higher taxes for everybody else, but conveniently say no when they’re asked to pay more.

Read Full Post »

Republican Keynesians Come Out of the Woodwork to Oppose Sequestration

Beginning with the very first policy-oriented post on this blog, I’ve been criticizing Keynesian economics, usually with lots of cheering and support from the GOP. Indeed, more than 98 percent of Republicans in the House and Senate voted against Obama’s so-called stimulus.

They understood – or at least seemed to understand – that you don’t create jobs by diverting money from the private sector so it can be spent by politicians in Washington.

And they have the satisfaction of seeing history justify their votes. Unemployment rose after the faux stimulus was enacted and the joblessness rate has stayed above 8 percent.

But some Republicans are now sounding like born-again Keynesians. They object to the automatic budget savings – known as sequestration – that are scheduled to take effect next year, and they are warning that less government spending means fewer jobs. Here’s a small sampling of their statements.

• Cong. Rob Bishop of Utah claims a sequester will “destroy jobs.”
• Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi asserts that “up to 1 million jobs are at risk.”
• Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia says that sequestration is “putting hundreds of thousands of jobs in my state at risk.”

I would have no objection to these lawmakers arguing against a sequester if they based their concerns on national security, even if I think those concerns are exaggerated.

And I would understand if they objected to a sequester because defense is disproportionately impacted (the Pentagon accounts for only about one-fourth of the budget, yet it absorbs one-half of the sequester).

And I wouldn’t even complain if they claimed that a sequester is painful because of short-term economic dislocation and transition costs. Heck, I even said that might be a legitimate excuse when Mitt Romney said something that sounded suspiciously Keynesian.

But it doesn’t seem like those caveats apply.

Let’s close with some good news and bad news. The good news is that I don’t actually think any of the anti-sequestration lawmakers are genuine Keynesians.

The bad news is that they are genuine politicians, so they think there is nothing wrong with using the coercive power of government to take as much from the rest of the country as possible and redistribute those resources to their states or districts.

They may vaguely understand that big government undermines economic performance, but that’s a secondary concern. They’re main goal is buying votes with other people’s money.

P.S. You can peruse some good cartoons about Keynesian economics by clicking here, here, here, and here.

Read Full Post »

President Bush’s Pro-Marriage Spending Programs: Another Failure of Big Government

Statism is a bad idea, regardless of which political party is promoting bigger government. And it’s a really bad idea when people who should know better decide to increase the burden of government spending.

Consider, for example, the supposedly pro-marriage programs adopted last decade by Republicans. It turns out that millions of dollars were wasted and there was no positive impact on relationships.

Here are some excerpts from a story in Mother Jones.

With congressional Republicans beating the drum about profligate and wasteful government spending, they may want to take a hard look at a federal program pushed by a host of top GOPers during the Bush-era… Originally championed by Republican lawmakers including Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, and current Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, a federal initiative to promote marriage as a cure for poverty dumped hundreds of millions of dollars into programs that either had no impact or a negative effect on the relationships of the couples who took part, according to recent research by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). …Starting in 2006, millions of dollars were hastily distributed to grantees… The money went to such enterprises as “Laugh Your Way America,” a program run by a non-Spanish speaking Wisconsin minister who used federal dollars to offer ”Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage” seminars to Latinos. It funded Rabbi Stephen Baars, a British rabbi who’d been giving his trademarked “Bliss” marriage seminars to upper-middle-class Jews in Montgomery County, Maryland, for years. …when the federal government started dumping million of poverty dollars into marriage education, there was virtually no research on how such programs would fare with poor, inner-city single moms. Now, though, the data is in, and it doesn’t look good for proponents of taxpayer funded marriage education. This month, HHS released the results of several years of research about the performance of the marriage programs, and it indicates that the Bush-era effort to encourage Americans (straight ones, at least) to walk down the aisle has been a serious flop. …Take the Building Healthy Families program…, couples in the eight pilot programs around the country actually broke up more frequently than those in a control group who didn’t get the relationship program. The program also prompted a drop in the involvement of fathers and the percentage who provided financial support.

Isn’t that wonderful? Taxpayers are financing programs that undermine marriage. Not that we should be surprised by that results. The federal government declared a “War on Poverty” and wound up increasing dependency and destitution.

And even when researchers found results that vaguely could be interpreted in a positive fashion, the cost was absurd.

…married couples who participated in a government-funded relationship class reported being somewhat happier and having slightly warmer relationships with their partners. But the cost of this slight bump in happiness in the Supporting Healthy Marriage program was a whopping $7,000 to $11,500 per couple. Imagine how much happier the couples would have been if they’d just been handed with cash.

One would hope that this evidence of government failure would motivate GOPers to eliminate this example of waste. But I wouldn’t recommend holding your breath until that happens.

Given the underwhelming track record of the federal marriage program, it would seem a ripe target for GOP budget hawks, especially given that many of the original proponents of the program are no longer in Congress to defend it. Instead, in November 2010, Congress allocated another $150 million for healthy marriage and fatherhood related programs, with another $150 million budgeted for 2013. And this fall HHS doled out $120 million worth of grants.

What really irks me is that a former Bush Administration official defends the marriage handouts because we waste even more money on a Head Start program that doesn’t produce good results.

Ron Haskins, a marriage program supporter who is a former adviser to Bush on welfare issues and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, thinks Obama did the right thing. He points out that research on poverty programs beloved by liberals, such as Head Start, doesn’t look so good either, but that doesn’t mean the government should simply get rid of it. “When there’s tremendous pressure on the budget, there is a reason for reducing the spending,” he says. “The exception is, if it’s a new program you ought to try to figure out if you can improve it.” Haskins notes that in the grand scheme of the federal budget, the marriage program is but a blip. “We don’t spend a lot of money on these programs. [We spend] $7 billion on Head Start, but not even a $100 million on these [marriage] programs.”

I realize this is heresy in Washington, but what would be wrong with saying, “Neither marriage programs nor Head Start generate positive results, so let’s get rid of both and save $7.1 billion.”

No wonder we’re likely going to be another Greece in just a few decades.

P.S. I shouldn’t have to write this (especially since I’ve already explained my socially conservative inclinations), but allow me to deflect foolish attacks by saying that being against federal programs to subsidize marriage doesn’t make me anti-marriage. I like softball, apple pie, chocolate milk shakes, and the Georgia Bulldogs football team, but I don’t want the federal government subsidies for any of those things either. Indeed, I fear subsidies and handouts will have a negative impact.

P.P.S. The conservatives who support these programs are making the mistake of legislating based on good intentions. They correctly understand that stable marriages are a good thing (as Walter Williams has explained, an intact family is a sure-fire way of avoiding poverty if accompanied by a high school education, any sort of job, and obeying the law), but they erroneously jump to the conclusion that a good thing can be made better with money from the federal government.

P.P.P.S. Conservatives who want stronger marriages and healthier families should concentrate on ending the pernicious welfare handouts that, for all intents and purposes, replace fathers with government programs. I won’t pretend that’s a full solution because it’s not easy to put toothpaste back in a tube, but it can’t hurt given the strong correlation between the growth of the welfare state and the decline in stable low-income families.

Read Full Post »

The Steroid-Pumped Version of “Taxes Are for the Little People”

I’m not a big fan of international bureaucracies, mostly because they always seem to promote bad policy such as higher tax rates.

• The International Monetary Fund is urging higher tax rates and pushing for nations to replace flat tax systems with so-called progressive taxation.
• The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has embraced Obama’s class-warfare agenda and is pushing for higher tax rates in America.
• The United Nations is working with statists such as George Soros and urging global taxes.
• Even the World Health Organization has adopted some of this activist left-wing mentality, and is pushing global tobacco taxes.

To add insult to injury, the bureaucrats who work at these organizations have created very comfortable lives for themselves while the rest of us pick up the tab, as documented here and here.

But the ultimate insult is that the overpaid and pampered bureaucrats receive tax-free salaries while they jet-set around the world pushing for higher taxes.

Yes, you read correctly. They demand higher taxes for everyone else, but their bloated salaries are exempt!

Here’s some of what the UK-based Guardian just reported about the head of the IMF.

“Taxes for thee, but not for me”

Christine Lagarde, the IMF boss who caused international outrage after she suggested in an interview with the Guardian on Friday that beleaguered Greeks might do well to pay their taxes, pays no taxes, it has emerged. As an official of an international institution, her salary of $467,940 (£298,675) a year plus $83,760 additional allowance a year is not subject to any taxes. …Lagarde, 56, receives a pay and benefits package worth more than American president Barack Obama earns from the United States government, and he pays taxes on it. The same applies to nearly all United Nations employees.

To make matters worse, these globe-trotting bureaucrats have figured out all sorts of ways of padding their pay.

Base salaries range from $46,000 to $80,521. Senior salaries range between $95,394 and $123,033 but these are topped up with adjustments for the cost of living in different countries. A UN worker based in Geneva, for example, will see their base salary increased by 106%, in Bonn by 50.6%, Paris 62% and Peshawar 38.6%. Even in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, one of the poorest areas of the world, a UN employee’s salary will be increased by 53.2%. Other benefits include rent subsidies, dependency allowances for spouses and children, education grants for school-age children and travel and shipping expenses, as well as subsidised medical insurance. For many years critics have complained that IMF, World Bank, and United Nations employees are able to live large at international taxpayers’ expense.

So how do these bureaucrats justify their lavish salaries and gold-plated benefits?

Officials from the various organisations have long maintained that the high salaries are a way of attracting talent from the private sector. In fact, most senior employees are recruited from government posts.

Kudos to the Guardian for exposing this nonsense, particularly the fraudulent claim that lavish compensation packages are need to attract and retain these incompetent bureaucrats.

But let me add to the Guardian’s analysis. In a recent email exchange with several people, I addressed this issue, specifically commenting on whether the head of the IMF, Ms. Lagarde, should get a giant salary because she could earn more money in the private sector. I wrote that there were two responses to this assertion.

1. She has genuine skills as a wealth creator. In which case, we should force her out of the IMF as soon as possible so her talents can be used productively rather than destructively.

2. She can get big bucks by trading on her connections and entering the world of corporatism. Work for KPMG, or the Carlyle Group, or some other entity that specializes in getting favorable deals for the elite. That’s not the private sector.

In either case, her salary in her current position should be zero. Unless we think she should be paid the value of her marginal product, in which case she probably owes the world’s taxpayers several hundred billion dollars.

In other words, it doesn’t matter whether Ms. Largarde’s ability to earn lots of money is the result of genuine ability or cronyism. Since the IMF is pursuing bad policy, her value in that position is below zero.

My Cato colleague Richard Rahn was correct when he wrote that it is the ultimate hypocrisy for tax-free bureaucrats to lobby for higher taxes on the rest of us.

And that’s why defunding these parasitic international bureaucracies is not just good fiscal policy and good economic policy, it’s also the morally just policy.

Read Full Post »

This Takes “Sucking on the Public Teat” to a Disturbing New Level

Welcome, Insta-readers. If you like political humor, you can peruse dozens of options by clicking here.

=============================================================

I’ve made reference to the public teat or government teat a handful of times, including posts about moochers in France and Ireland, as well as posts about Senator Conrad and the Small Business Administration.

But now we’re going to move from metaphors to…well, you’ll see.

It’s probably been at least 20 years since I read Time, but I couldn’t help but notice the controversy over the recent cover story about breastfeeding. I don’t have a strong opinion about the right age to wean a kid, though there’s something about this photo that triggered my “ick” reaction.

But that’s not the point of this post. Instead, I want to share this Obama-Clooney parody sent to me by a softball buddy.

This also earned an “ick” when I saw it, but I also found it quite amusing. Like most normal people, I like when pretentious elitists are the targets of scorn and derision. And can you think of two people more out of touch with the real world than Barack Obama and George Clooney?

They truly are limousine socialists, as the parody states.

That being said, I wonder whether the positions should have been reversed. Whoever created this presumably is mocking Obama for sucking up (no pun intended) Hollywood money.

But perhaps Clooney should have been the child in this image. He and his Tinsel-Town colleagues are definitely part of the “1 percent,” but they figure they can stay in the good graces of the left by providing protection money and a bit of glamor-by-association for the political elite (rather appropriate since Washington is sometimes called Hollywood for ugly people).

One hopes that Hollywood leftists eventually will wake up and realize that they’ll be victimized by class-warfare tax rates. Indeed, that’s already happened with Jon Lovitz. And let’s remember that Ronald Reagan supposedly became a supply-sider because he learned there was no point in  making more than a couple of movies each year when  top tax rates were confiscatory.

But I’m not holding my breath in expectation of a big shift.

P.S. Don’t forget that Obama may become a film star after he leaves the White House, at least according to the person who put together these amusing movie images.

P.P.S. There doesn’t seem to be any risk of me becoming a limousine liberal. My one movie role was apparently so forgettable that I won’t be leaving Washington for Hollywood any time soon.

Read Full Post »

Is Warren Buffett’s Support for Higher Taxes a Way of Paying Back Politicians for Big-Government Policies that Line His Pockets?

President Obama, echoed by the establishment media, routinely trumpets Warren Buffett’s support for higher taxes.

If this rich guy is willing to pay more, the story goes, then surely the rest of us peasants should just roll over and acquiesce to the President’s class-warfare tax policy.

Well, one reason we shouldn’t surrender is that Buffett is either stupid or dishonest. In previous posts, I’ve exposed his fiscal innumeracy and explained that he is understating his own tax rate.

I also posted a video exposing the hypocrisy of rich leftists, who refuse to write checks to Uncle Sam notwithstanding their self-proclaimed willingness to pay more. As far as I’m aware, this also describes Buffett.

But maybe all this tax talk is a distraction. Perhaps the real story is that Buffett is a clever political manipulator and that his support for higher taxes is a way for him to pay back the politicians who have enacted policies to line his pockets.

Here are some very revealing passages from a new Reason column by Peter Schweizer. We start with the image that Buffett is creating for himself.

He frequently takes to the nation’s op-ed pages with populist-sounding arguments, such as his August 2010 plea in The New York Times for the government to stop “coddling” the “super-rich” and start raising their taxes.

Schweizer than puts forth an alternative hypothesis.

Warren Buffett is very much a political entrepreneur; his best investments are often in political relationships. In recent years, Buffett has used taxpayer money as a vehicle to even greater profit and wealth. Indeed, the success of some of his biggest bets and the profitability of some of his largest investments rely on government largesse and “coddling” with taxpayer money.

Buffett’s self-interested behavior during the Wall Street bailout is especially revealing.

…on September 23 that he became a highly visible player in the drama, investing $5 billion in Goldman Sachs, which was overleveraged and short on cash. Buffett’s play gave the investment bank a much-needed cash infusion, making a heck of a deal for himself in return: Berkshire Hathaway received preferred stock with a 10 percent dividend yield and an attractive option to buy another $5 billion in stock at $115 a share. Wall Street was on fire, and Buffett was running toward the flames.

What’s remarkable is that Buffett basically admitted he was investing money in the expectation that Uncle Sam was going to make his investment profitable.

 But he was doing so with the expectation that the fire department (that is, the federal government) was right behind him with buckets of bailout money. As he admitted on CNBC at the time, “If I didn’t think the government was going to act, I wouldn’t be doing anything this week.”

According to Schweizer’s analysis, Buffett very much needed a pipeline to the Treasury because of his investments in Goldman Sachs and other financial institutions.

Buffett needed the bailout. In addition to Goldman Sachs, which was not as badly leveraged as some of its competitors, Buffett was heavily invested in several other banks, such as Wells Fargo and U.S. Bancorp, that were also at risk and in need of federal cash. So it’s no surprise that Buffett began campaigning for the $700 billion Trouble Asset Relief Program (TARP) that was being hammered out in Washington. …Buffett received better terms for his Goldman investment than the government got for its bailout. His dividend was set at 10 percent, while the government’s was 5 percent. Had the bailout not gone through, and had Goldman not been given such generous terms under TARP, things would have been very different for Buffett. As it stood, the arrangement with Goldman Sachs earned Berkshire about $500 million a year in dividends. “We love the investment!” he exclaimed to Berkshire investors.

The same was true for his investment with General Electric.

The General Electric deal also was profitable. As Reuters business columnist Rolfe Winkler noted on his blog in August 2009: “Were it not for government bailouts, for which Buffett lobbied hard, many of his company’s stock holdings would have been wiped out.” …Buffett did very well with Goldman Sachs and GE too after they received their bailout money. His net gain from General Electric as of April 2011 was $1.2 billion. His profits from the Goldman deal by then had exceeded the gains of July 2009, reaching as high as $3.7 billion. He had bet on his ability to help secure the bailout, and the bet paid off.

I don’t know whether the $1.2 billion and $3.7 billion profits were for Berkshire Hathaway of for Buffett, but he still would be accumulating lots of additional wealth even if it was the former.

It also seems that Buffett’s support for the faux stimulus may have been for pecuniary reasons, or at least has a self-interested component.

In late 2009, Buffett made his largest investment ever when he decided to buy Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway (BNSF). It was not just an endorsement of the railroad industry’s financials; it was also a huge bet on the budget priorities of his friend Barack Obama. …the railroad industry saw Buffett’s involvement as very helpful, precisely because he was so politically connected. “It’s a positive for the rail industry because of Buffett’s influence in Washington,” Henry Lampe, president of the short-haul railroad Chicago South Shore & South Bend, told the Journal. …After Buffett took over the railroad company, he dramatically increased spending on lobbyists. Berkshire spent $1.2 million on lobbyists in 2008, but by 2009 its budget had jumped to $9.8 million, where it more or less remained. Pouring money into lobbying is perhaps the best investment that Buffett could make. …Buffett also owns MidAmerican Energy Holdings, which received $93.4 million in stimulus money. General Electric, in which he owns a $5 billion stake, was one of the largest recipients of stimulus money in the country.

By the way, Bloomberg reported that the President’s decision to kill the Keystone Pipeline was a boon to Burlington Northern.

Was it part of a quid pro quo? We don’t know, but Schweizer’s conclusion is right on the mark.

Warren Buffett is a financial genius. But even better for his portfolio, though worse for the rest of us, he is a political genius.

And if you want more info on Buffett’s unseemly connections with Washington, the invaluable Tim Carney has a column about how the political elite coddles Warren Buffett and another looking at how Buffett profits from bailouts.

The bottom line is simple. When people get rich by providing goods and services in a competitive market, that’s capitalism. When they get rich because of subsidies, bailouts, preferences, and handouts provided by the ruling class, that’s Argentina.

I have no idea whether Buffett is corrupt, but I know he is benefiting from a corrupt system. So it’s understandable that people like me suspect that his endorsement of higher taxes is not because of a mistaken view of fiscal policy, but rather because he wants to do something nice for the politicians who rig the rules to give him more wealth.

Read Full Post »

President Obama the Budget Cutter?!?

After saddling the nation with trillion-dollar boondoggles like the faux stimulus and Obamacare, I’m not sure it’s possible for Obama to reinvent himself as a budget cutter before the election.

But I welcome converts, even ones that are insincere, so I’m happy he’s at least pretending to want to deal with waste and duplication in the federal budget.

Here’s a blurb from the Daily Beast about his new idea.

President Barack Obama is seeking the power to merge agencies in a bid to shrink the federal government in a sweeping move. Obama will ask Congress to give him authority to consolidate six trade and commerce agencies that have overlapping programs, cutting up to 2,000 jobs and saving $3 billion over 10 years. He’ll call for a vote by Congress within 90 days.

But I’ll definitely wait to see the fine print. After all, the President claimed in 2009 that he was directing his Cabinet to find $100 million of budget cuts.

"I hate pretending to be a fiscal conservative"

But even that trivial gesture (almost immeasurably small compared to t a$3.6 trillion budget) turned out to be empty rhetoric.

And even if he’s serious about this latest plan, $3 billion of saving over 10 years is chicken feed compared to all of his new spending.

But if you allow me to modify an old saying, a journey of tens of trillions of dollars begins with the first $3 billion.

Read Full Post »

Rich Statists Exposed as Complete Hypocrites

Welcome Instapundit readers. If you want to know why rich liberals are not just hypocrites, but also wrong, read this post that tries to teach President Obama about the Laffer Curve.

==========================================================

I’ve written before about how some leftists have a masochistic desire to pay higher taxes.

I’ve also exposed Warren Buffett’s dishonest math, which is part of his campaign for bigger government.

And I’ve even debated rich statists on TV, telling them not to make the rest of us victims of their neurotic guilt feelings.

So it was with considerable amusement that I saw this video clip from the Daily Caller, exposing the utter hypocrisy of rich leftists.

By the way, you may recognize Michelle Fields because she narrated this video on how bad government policies such as the New Deal made the Great Depression worse.

Read Full Post »

Is Ireland’s Michael Higgins an Economic Illiterate or a Cynical Hack

I’ve always been proud of my Irish heritage, but now I’m having to reconsider. As is so often the case when something goes awry, the blame belongs to a politician (this Craig Ferguson joke is right on the mark).

Michael Higgins, the President-Elect of Ireland, has lived a very comfortable life sucking on the government teat. He began his adult life as a sociologist in academia. He then moved into politics, and for decades enjoyed lucrative pay as a member of the political elite (well above $100,000 annually in recent years).

Now he’ll pull in more than $300,000 per year for a largely ceremonial job as Ireland’s President. As the old saying goes, nice work if you can get it. This guy’s definitely part of the top 1 percent.

He’s also an economic illiterate or a cynical hack who apparently thinks noble poverty is a good idea for the other 99 percent.

Here’s some of what the Daily Mail reported about one of his recent speeches.

Michael D Higgins launched a savage attack on the Celtic Tiger in his first speech as President elect. In his acceptance speech, the Labour Party candidate…rejected the years of materialism and selfishness that drove the country to ruin. …Michael D declared: ‘We leave behind a narrow individualism that valued the person for what was assumed to be their accumulated wealth but neglected the connection between the person, the social, the community and the nation. …Mr Higgins called on Irish people to return to ‘co-operative and collective values’.

Isn’t this just wonderful? This pampered and cosseted member of the political elite thinks that Ireland somehow was demeaned by being the Celtic Tiger. Does this mean he wants to go back the mid-1980s, before Ireland began to reform? Back when government was consuming more than 50 percent of the nation’s output? Back when the the corporate tax rate was 50 percent? Back when other tax rates were at extortionary levels?

If that’s true, he wants to dramatically reduce the living standards of the Irish people.

Here’s a chart based on World Bank data for gross domestic product and gross national income.

Prior to the market-based reforms of the Celtic Tiger era, Ireland was a relatively poor nation with per-capita income and output well below $10,000. Today, by contrast, output and income are four or five times higher.

But here are two important caveats. First, the World Bank GDP/GNI numbers are not adjusted for inflation, so the chart overstates the rise in living standards. This World Bank data suggests that the price level in Ireland roughly doubled between 1985 and 2010, so the people of Ireland are perhaps “only” twice as rich as they were in the era before free-market reform.

The second caveat is that some of Ireland’s prosperity in recent years was hollow, the result of a real estate bubble. But even with the big decline since 2007-2008, the Irish people are still much better off than they were a generation ago.

But Mr. Higgins apparently doesn’t approve of this big jump in living standards.

He’s against “materialism,” so let’s look at some real world examples of how the lives of ordinary people have improved.

Maybe I’m just old fashioned, but I’d rather live in a “selfish” world that gives me doctors, cars, and central heating.

But to a member of the political elite like Mr. Higgins, this kind of prosperity probably spoils people and makes them uppity. Better for people to live noble lives of poverty and deprivation.

Last but not least, this post isn’t an endorsement of the “Irish model.” Yes, there are some admirable policies in Ireland, most notably the 12.5 percent corporate tax. And Ireland’s score from the Economic Freedom of the World has jumped from 6.3 in 1985 to 7.4 in 2009.

But that’s considerably below free-market jurisdictions such as Hong Kong (9.0) and Singapore (8.7).

Simply stated, government is too big in Ireland and many policies are grossly inconsistent with sound economics.

But if I get to choose between today’s Irish economy and the pre-Celtic Tiger economy of the early 1980s, it’s not a close call.

Maybe Mr. Higgins should spend a year or two living at 1985 living standards before he makes another jackass speech.

Read Full Post »

Tim “Turbotax” Geithner Has a British Soulmate

The Secretary of the Treasury, Tim Geithner, is infamous for conveniently forgetting to pay tax on $80,000 of income and then getting kid-glove treatment from the IRS when his crime was uncovered.

Not only did Geithner avoid even a slap on the wrist, he was confirmed to head the department that includes the IRS. So you can understand why a clever person came up with this t-shirt mocking the Treasury Secretary.

But it appears that Geithner’s elitist disdain for the law is shared by high-level left-wing political figures in other nations. Here’s a very similar story from the United Kingdom, where a cabinet official got caught for not complying with the value-added tax.

Here are some excerpts from the UK-based Independent.

Mr Cable was hit with a £500 penalty from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) after the blunder over a VAT bill of up to £15,000 on his media work. The Business Secretary – who has criticised firms which seek to avoid tax – admitted it was a “bit embarrassing” that his VAT liability “wasn’t spotted earlier”. But he insisted that he “made no attempt to avoid tax” and the “oversight” had happened in good faith. Downing Street said it regarded the incident as “closed”, adding that Mr Cable retained the Prime Minister’s full confidence.

If you recognize Mr. Cable’s name, there’s a good reason. He is member of the parasite class in England most associated with the push for higher tax rates on capital gains – which led to a clever set of posters attacking his destructive proposal.

Makes you wonder if there is some secret fraternity of politicians, with initiation rites involving the chant: “Taxes for thee, but not for me.”

Read Full Post »

The Problem Is Staggering Hypocrisy, not “Violent” Political Rhetoric

The Washington crowd and talk radio community is in a tizzy because the President took part in a Labor Day rally with a union thug, Jimmy Hoffa, who used harsh, militaristic rhetoric to criticize the Tea Party.

Pardon me if I’m not upset. As I’ve already explained, it is pathetic and demeaning for people to act like field goal kickers and soccer players, falling to the ground and feigning injury in hopes of getting a cheap penalty call.

The real problem is not harmless rhetoric, but pervasive hypocrisy by the press.

Probably the worst example, exposed by John Hinderaker of Powerline, is the way left-wing hack Paul Krugman engaged in libel against Rep. Michelle Bachmann by implying she was urging murderous violence against rival politicians, when all she said was “I’m going to have materials for people when they leave. I want people armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax.”

Or what about the media establishment getting all upset when anybody calls Obama a socialist (he’s actually a corporatist or statist), but don’t pay any attention when a Congressman Andre Carson slurs millions of Americans by claiming the tea party people want blacks “hanging on a tree.”

Media Bias is a huge issue. That’s what talk radio should be highlighting, not harmless rhetoric.

P.S. There are many examples of actual violence by union thugs, some of which are motivated by political passion. And there may be, at some point, examples of violence by Tea Party activists. The people who commit those crimes should be punished.

Read Full Post »

Republicans in Glass Houses Should Be Careful When Throwing Stones at Obama

Congressman Eric Cantor, the House Majority Leader, has a rather persuasive column in the Washington Post about the negative impact of President Obama’s big-government agenda.

… the Obama administration’s anti-business, hyper-regulatory, pro-tax agenda has fueled economic uncertainty and sent the message from the administration that “we want to make it harder to create jobs.” There is no other conclusion for policies such as the new Environmental Protection Agency regulations, including the “Transport Rule,” which could eliminate thousands of jobs, or the ozone regulation that would cost upward of $1 trillion and millions of jobs in the construction industry over the next decade. The administration’s new maximum achievable control technology standards for cement are expected to affect nearly 100 cement plants, setting over-the-top requirements resulting in increased costs and possibly thousands of jobs being offshored. There is the president’s silence as the National Labor Relations Board seeks to prevent Boeing from opening a plant in South Carolina that would create thousands of jobs. Such behavior, coupled with the president’s insistence on raising the top tax rate paid by individuals and small businesses, has resulted in a lag in growth that has added to the debt crisis, contributing to our nation’s credit downgrade.

The Congressman’s criticisms certainly are substantive and accurate, but I can’t help but wonder why he didn’t write this column years ago. Or, more important, why didn’t he object to big government when Bush was in the White House.

And, most important, why did he vote for all the wasteful spending and increased regulation of the Bush years. Such as:

Congressman Cantor voted for the no-bureaucrats-left-behind bill that further centralized education.

He voted for the Sarbanes-Oxley regulatory regime that dramatically raised the cost of red tape and drove business out of America.

He voted for the Medicare prescription drug entitlement that did more to increase long-term debt than Obamacare.

And he voted for the TARP bailout, exacerbating moral hazard and facilitating the corrupt mix of Wall Street and Washington.

I’m not trying to pick on Cantor. Most other GOPers were equally guilty of going along with big-government conservatism.

And I actually give Cantor a bit of credit for acknowledging that Republicans bear some of the blame for the current mess. The second sentence of his column refers to “decades of fiscal mismanagement by both political parties.”

All I’m really saying is that big government is the wrong approach, regardless of which party is in charge.

So while I’m glad Republicans are opposing Obama’s statist agenda, they would have more credibility if they also had opposed Bush’s statist agenda.

But the real purpose of this post is to wonder what will happen if we somehow wind up with a President Romney. Will congressional Republicans continue to do the right thing and oppose big government?

Or will they once again decide that the Washington cesspool is really a hot tub and join with Romney in making government even bigger and more wasteful? The experience of the Bush years does not give me much cause for optimism.

Read Full Post »

Warren Buffett’s Fiscal Innumeracy

Warren Buffett’s at it again. He has a column in the New York Times complaining that he has been coddled by the tax code and that “rich” people should pay higher taxes.

My first instinct is to send Buffett the website where people can voluntarily pay extra money to the federal government. I’ve made this suggestion to guilt-ridden rich people in the past.

But I no longer give that advice. I’m worried he might actually do it. And even though Buffett is wildly misguided about fiscal policy, I know he will invest his money much more wisely than Barack Obama will spend it.

But Buffett goes beyond guilt-ridden rants in favor of higher taxes. He makes specific assertions that are inaccurate.

Last year my federal tax bill — the income tax I paid, as well as payroll taxes paid by me and on my behalf — was $6,938,744. That sounds like a lot of money. But what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income — and that’s actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office. Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent.

His numbers are flawed in two important ways.

1. When Buffett receives dividends and capital gains, it is true that he pays “only” 15 percent of that money on his tax return. But dividends and capital gains are both forms of double taxation. So if he wants honest effective tax rate numbers, he needs to show the 35 percent corporate tax rate.

Moreover, as I noted in a previous post, Buffett completely ignores the impact of the death tax, which will result in the federal government seizing 45 percent of his assets. To be sure, Buffett may be engaging in clever tax planning, so it is hard to know the impact on his effective tax rate, but it will be signficant.

2. Buffett also mischaracterizes the impact of the Social Security payroll tax, which is dedicated for a specific purpose. The law only imposes that tax on income up to about $107,000 per year because the tax is designed so that people “earn” a corresponding  retirement benefit (which actually is tilted in favor of low-income workers).

Imposing the tax on multi-millionaire income, however, would mean sending rich people giant checks from Social Security when they retire. But nobody thinks that’s a good idea. Or you could apply the payroll tax to all income and not pay any additional benefits. But this would turn Social Security from an “earned benefit” to a redistribution program, which also is widely rejected (though the left has been warming to the idea in recent years because their hunger for more tax revenue is greater than their support for Social Security).

If we consider these two factors, Buffett’s effective tax rate almost surely is much higher than the burden on any of the people who work for him.

But this entire discussion is a good example of why we should junk the corrupt, punitive, and unfair tax code and replace it with a simple flat tax. With no double taxation and a single, low tax rate, we would know that rich people were paying the right amount, neither too much based on class-warfare tax rates nor too little based on loopholes, deduction, preferences, exemptions, shelters, and credits.

So why doesn’t Buffett endorse this approach? Tim Carney offers a very plausible answer.

For more information about why class-warfare taxes are misguided, this video may be helpful.

Read Full Post »

A Message from Soros: Regulation for Thee, but Not for Me

I think it may be time to update the dictionary definition of irony.

George Soros, the billionaire who finances statist organizations and causes in order to promote more government, has decided that he doesn’t want to deal with some of the new regulatory burdens resulting from the Dodd-Frank bailout legislation.

Consider this blurb from the Financial Times.

Quantum, which will continue to manage about $24.5bn of Soros family money, blamed the decision on new financial regulations requiring hedge funds to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission. “An unfortunate consequence of these new circumstances is that we will no longer be able to manage assets for anyone other than a family client as defined under the regulations”, Jonathan and Robert Soros, Mr Soros’ sons and Quantum’s co-deputy chairmen, wrote in a letter to investors on Tuesday. New regulations require hedge funds with more than $150m under management to report details about investments, employees and investors, and also makes them subject to possible inspections by the SEC. Mr Soros’ decision contrasts with his own reputation as an advocate for both government and corporate transparency.

The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page has some fun with this news.

Like many a rich political liberal, George Soros made his fortune in some of the least regulated corners of the capital markets. So it’s no great surprise that the left-wing financier announced yesterday that his hedge fund will cease investing on behalf of others in order to avoid Dodd-Frank’s new registration mandate. …This is one more example of Dodd-Frank’s 2,300-pages of unintended consequences. The 81-year-old Mr. Soros will no doubt still make a handsome living, but the trade-off is bad for the country. Better to have the billionaire preoccupied with decisions about allocating capital to maximize profit than spending his time donating to groups and politicians who want government to allocate capital for political purposes.

Poking fun at Soros and exposing left-wing hypocrisy is a noble endeavor, to be sure, but there’s a very serious side to this issue. The growing regulatory burden and increased level of intervention is both discouraging investment in the American economy and undermining the efficient allocation of capital that does get invested. The Dodd-Frank bailout bill is an obvious example, as is the IRS’s horrible interest-reporting regulation.

This translates into less growth, less vitality, and lower living standards (compared to what they would be in the absence of bad policy). The chart in this blog post is a good example of the cost of bad policy and the benefits of good policy.

Read Full Post »

Limousine Liberals: The Parody Has Become Reality

In the past, I’ve joked about “limousine liberals,” which is a phrase for elitist left wingers who pretend to identify with average people while living the good life. I’ve even mocked these folks on TV.

But I always thought the term was symbolic. Not anymore. Here’s a segment of a news report, based on a General Services Administration survey.

Limousines, the very symbol of wealth and excess, are usually the domain of corporate executives and the rich. But the number of limos owned by Uncle Sam increased by 73 percent during the first two years of the Obama administration, according to an analysis of records by iWatch News. …a watchdog group says the abundance of limos sends the wrong message in the midst of a budget crisis. The increase in limos comes to light on the heels of an executive order from President Obama last week that charges agencies to increase the fuel efficiency of their fleets. According to General Services Administration data , the number of limousines in the federal fleet increased from 238 in fiscal 2008, the last year of the George W. Bush administration, to 412 in 2010.

Read Full Post »

Obama Hypocrisy Is Disgusting, but Unsurprising

I don’t like it when politicians pass laws that undermine the freedom and prosperity of the American people. But I really hate it when politicians pass those laws and exempt themselves.

Years ago, as a lowly Senate staffer, I recall watching a debate about whether politicians were going to increase fuel economy regulations and thus force people into cars that were smaller, less convenient, and less safe. One good Senator, I think perhaps Don Nickles of Oklahoma, offered an amendment that basically would have forced bigwigs on Capitol Hill to live by the same rules by requiring limousines for congressional leaders to meet the same onerous restrictions. Needless to say, the arrogant political class thought this was absurd and to this day they get driven in luxury gas guzzlers (paid for by you and me).

We now have another version of this laws-for-thee-but-not-for-me mentality from the Obama Administration. No, I’m not talking about Tim Geithner, the Treasury Secretary who is in charge of the Internal Revenue Service but got a free pass after illegally hiding $80,000 of income from the IRS. I’m talking about the President and his personal fleet of limousines.

He wants us to abide by rules that will be expensive and lower the quality of cars, but those rules won’t apply to him. Here’s what the Detroit News reported.

The U.S. Secret Service said today that some federal vehicles for law enforcement and security purposes will be exempt from President Barack Obama’s directive that all federal vehicles purchased starting 2015 be advanced technology models. Secret Service spokesman Robert Novy said the directive wouldn’t apply to vehicles used for some law enforcement or security reasons by various federal agencies. …That would include the GM-built Cadillac presidential limousine and other vehicles in the motorcade. It also expected to include many law enforcement vehicles.

Not surprisingly, this is completely contrary to what the President said he would do, as noted elsewhere in the article. Unless, of course, you think “100 percent” means something other than “100 percent.”

Obama announced the plan this week to “green” the federal fleet. “I’m directing our departments and our agencies to make sure 100 percent of the vehicles they buy are fuel-efficient or clean energy cars and trucks by 2015.Not 50 percent, not 75 percent — 100 percent of our vehicles,” Obama said today at an appearance in Landover, Md., at UPS facility to urge private companies to green their vehicle fleets.

Read Full Post »

Having Purged Ron Paul from its National Advisory Board, Will Young Americans for Freedom also Dump Cheney and Gingrich?

I have always had a soft spot in my heart for Young Americans for Freedom. During the 1960s and 1970s, it was the main organization for young conservatives and libertarians, and it was a great rallying point for those who were unhappy about the big-government policies of the Republican establishment.

On a personal level, I started a YAF chapter at the University of Georgia and even attended the 1979 national convention (my aging memory may have the wrong year, but I think that’s right). Along with Ronald Reagan, YAF was part of my political and philosophical development.

So I was disappointed to see that YAF just announced that it is booting Ron Paul off its National Advisory Board. Politico reports.

The Young Americans for Freedom has voted the Texas congressman off its national advisory board in the aftermath of his straw poll win at CPAC over his positions on national security issues. “It’s a sad day in American history when a one-time conservative/libertarian stalwart has fallen more out of touch with America’s needs for national security then our current socialist presidential regime,” said the group’s national director Jordan Marks. The dispute between Paul and the group seems to stem from Paul’s anti-war activities and the prominence of his supporters at conservative events like CPAC.

My disappointment has nothing to do with foreign policy issues, or the policy positions held by YAF or Congressman Paul. My knowledge on these issues is too limited to make any sweeping pronouncements. Instead, I am saddened by the blatantly inconsistent application of conservative purity tests.

I can’t find a current National Advisory Board for YAF anywhere on the Internet (can anyone help me with this?), but I did find sites indicating that both Dick Cheney and Newt Gingrich are members of the Advisory Board. Assuming this information is true, has YAF jettisoned Dick Cheney for being part of an Administration that imposed the no-bureaucrat-left-behind bill that further centralized education and bloated the Department of Education? Or did they dump the former Vice President because the burden of federal spending doubled during the Bush-Cheney years?

Or did they get rid of Newt Gingrich for supporting the horrific Medicare prescription drug entitlement? How about Newt’s recent sellout on ethanol? Was that enough of a last straw?

I don’t mean to pick on Cheney or Gingrich. I actually think Cheney was a positive force in the Bush Administration (and I’m even willing to be photographed with the former Veep). And I spent many weekends in 1978 as a student volunteer helping Gingrich first get elected in 1978 and I applaud him for his revitalization of Congressional Republicans in the early 1990s and the role he played in restraining government spending in the mid-1990s.

After all, shouldn’t sauce for the goose also be the sauce for the gander?

I’ve never thought of myself as a “big tent” guy. Heck, regular readers of this blog know that I’m waging a one-man crusade to discredit and ostracize George W. Bush and Karl Rove.

I am ecumenical, however,l about expanding the universe of allies. That’s why I’m glad that the gay group, GOProud, is part of the movement for smaller government. And I’m equally pleased that social conservatives are part of the movement because of their strong support for limited government, individual responsibility, and constitutional principles. Similarly, I’m glad that there are allies for liberty who are neo-cons and allies for freedom who are isolationists.

It goes without saying that there is no unanimity on either policy or tactics in the broader coalition for limited government. And groups that focus on specific issues such as gay marriage or Iraq understandably will lock horns on a regular basis.

But groups like Young Americans for Freedom, which claim to represent the entire conservative movement, should have a big tent approach. Or, if they decide that purges are okay, they should be consistent and cut ties with anybody who deviates from the supposed party line.

Read Full Post »

Politicians and the Press Should Stop Acting Like Field Goal Kickers and Soccer Players

Whatever happened to the wise advice our parent passed down to us about teasing and name calling? Weren’t we all taught some version of “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me”?

The crocodile tears from the Washington crowd about “overheated rhetoric” leading to violence is almost beyond parody. The politicians, pundits, and journalists pushing this meme are worse than soccer players and field goal kickers who drop to the ground and feign injury in hopes of getting a cheap penalty call.

When Obama talked about bringing a gun to a knife fight during the 2008 campaign, Republicans looked like fools for acting like they were on the verge of fainting. Likewise, when Sarah Palin (or prominent Democrats) use cross-hairs or bulls-eyes to indicate races they are targeting, it is silly for people to act like this means a death threat.

Grow up people.

Obviously, if any politicians or their staffers actually instigate criminal behavior, that’s a different story, but that’s almost inconceivable. I hold politicians in very low regard, and I’m perfectly comfortable in assuming lies, corruption, and other bad things. Even I would be shocked, however, to find a lawmaker willing to deliberately provoke violence.

Read Full Post »

Why Is It Okay for Rich Democrats to Use Tax Havens, but It’s Not Okay for the Little People?

Senator John Kerry is enriched by tax havens. Former Democratic Senator (and professional slug) John Edwards got to use tax havens. Former President Bill Clinton got to benefit from tax havens. Connecticut’s Attorney General (and Senate candidate), Richard Blumenthal, saves money with tax havens.

Now we find out that a major Democratic donor and significant other to a Democratic Congresswoman from Maine, Donald Sussman, appears to be guilty of the horrible crime of…gasp…trying to lower his tax burden by using a tax haven. What makes this story interesting in part is the hypocrisy angle. Why is it leftists want all of us to pay more, but they get to utilize havens – or, in the case of folks like Geithner, Daschle, and Rangel, engage in outright evasion?

I’ve argued many times that tax havens are very beneficial for the world economy, so I certainly have no objection to what these Democrats are doing. I just wish they would let the rest of us in on some of the action.

But the other juicy part of the story is that there appears to be a legal catch-22 for Sussman and Congresswoman Pingree. In order for Sussman to be eligible for the big tax savings in the Virgin Islands, he needs to be a legal resident. But in order for Congresswoman Pingree to legally take rides on Sussman’s corporate jet, he needs to be living with her in Maine (technically, riding on his jet is only supposed to be legal if he’s a family member, but I guess shacking up counts in today’s society). Here’s are some amusing excerpts from the Weekly Standard.

As far as liberal financiers go, you don’t get much more powerful than S. Donald Sussman. Since 1989, the hedge-fund billionaire has pumped millions into the coffers of Democratic politicians and their political pet projects. …he’s been one of the top contributors to left-leaning 527 organizations during the 2010 election cycle. But while Sussman has long kept a behind-the-scenes profile, a recent ethics controversy in Maine has flung him into the center of a complicated dispute over state residency, tax dodging and congressional ethics – the implications of which extend all the way from the rocky coast of southern Maine to the offshore tax haven of the U.S. Virgin Islands. According to Sussman’s fiancée, Rep Chellie Pingree (D-ME), the philanthropist lives with her and has been a resident of Maine since 2009. But financial records and other documents indicate that Sussman has claimed full-time residency and extensive tax breaks in the U.S. Virgin Islands for years – and may be continuing to claim them. …Confusion over Sussman’s residency status has been dogging his fiancée’s congressional reelection bid for weeks. As the former president of an ethics watchdog group, Pingree caught flack in late September after she was found to be traveling on Sussman’s private jet – an activity prohibited by election rules, unless the aircraft owner is a family member. In response to Republican criticism over the incident, the congresswoman said that Sussman lives with her in Maine, which may qualify him as family. The House Ethics committee has since cleared her of any charges. …But this seems to conflict with records that suggest a company owned by Sussman is currently receiving financial benefits in the U.S. Virgin Islands. A decade ago, Sussman founded Trust Asset Management, LLP., in St. Thomas, and began paying himself income from his Connecticut-based hedge-fund firm through it. As recently as September, Trust Asset Management LLP., was listed as an active beneficiary of the Virgin Island’s tax breaks, known as the Economic Development Commission (EDC) benefits. U.S. Virgin Island tax attorneys said that in order to receive these benefits through the EDC, a company owner must be a “bona fide” resident of the territory – meaning that the individual needs to live in the area for more than six months out of the year. …Other information has added to the confusion over Sussman’s residency status. During an interview with the Virgin Islands Daily News in July, the hedge-fund owner reportedly told the paper that he has resided full-time in the territory since 2000. …Sussman’s Securities and Exchange Commission filings from September also list his address as the Virgin Islands, as do political contributions he made in 2009. The website for the Great Cruz Bay Homeowners Association in St. John names Sussman as the organization’s president. Over the past few years, the U.S. Virgin Islands have come under scrutiny for being a magnet for criminal tax evaders; individuals who want to take advantage of the territory’s 90 percent tax savings, but don’t want to make it their primary home.

Read Full Post »

Why Are We Paying $100 Million to International Bureaucrats in Paris so They Can Endorse Obama’s Statist Agenda?

There’s a wise old saying about “don’t bite the hand that feeds you.” But perhaps we need a new saying along the lines of “don’t subsidize the foot that kicks you.” Here’s a good example: American taxpayers finance the biggest share of the budget for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which is an international bureaucracy based in Paris. The OECD is not as costly as the United Nations, but it still soaks up about $100 million of American tax dollars each year. And what do we get in exchange for all this money? Sadly, the answer is lots of bad policy. The bureaucrats (who, by the way, get tax-free salaries) just released their “Economic Survey of the United States, 2010” and it contains a wide range of statist analysis and big-government recommendations.

The Survey endorses Obama’s failed Keynesian spending bill and the Fed’s easy-money policy, stating, “The substantial fiscal and monetary stimulus successfully turned the economy around.” If 9.6 percent unemployment and economic stagnation is the OECD’s idea of success, I’d hate to see what they consider a failure. Then again, the OECD is based in Paris, so even America’s anemic economy may seem vibrant from that perspective.

The Survey also targets some very prominent tax loopholes, asserting that, “The mortgage interest deduction should be reduced or eliminated” and “the government should reduce further this [health care exclusion] tax expenditure.” If the entire tax code was being ripped up and replaced with a simple and fair flat tax, these would be good policies. Unfortunately (but predictably), the OECD supports these policies as a means of increasing the overall tax burden and giving politicians more money to spend.

Speaking of tax increases, the OECD is in love with higher taxes. The Paris-based bureaucrats endorse Obama’s soak-the-rich tax agenda, including higher income tax rates, higher capital gains tax rates, more double taxation of dividends, and a reinstated death tax. Perhaps because they don’t pay tax and are clueless about how the real world operates, the bureaucrats state that “…the Administration’s fiscal plan is ambitious…and should therefore be implemented in full.”

But even that’s not enough. The OECD then puts together a menu of additional taxes and even gives political advice on how to get away with foisting these harsh burdens on innocent American taxpayers. According to the Survey, “A variety of options is available to raise tax revenue, some of which are discussed below. Combined, they have the potential to raise considerably more revenue… The advantage of relying on a package of measures is that the increase in taxation faced by individual groups is more limited than otherwise, reducing incentives to mobilise to oppose the tax increase.

The biggest kick in the teeth, though, is the OECD’s support for a value-added tax. The bureaucrats wrote that, “Raising consumption taxes, notably by introducing a federal value-added tax (VAT), could therefore be another approach… A national VAT would be easier to enforce than other taxes, as each firm in the production chain pays only a fraction of the tax and must report the sales of other firms.”

But just in case you think the OECD is myopically focused on tax increases, you’ll be happy to know it is a full-service generator of bad ideas. The Paris-based bureaucracy also is a rabid supporter of the global-warming/climate-change/whatever-they’re-calling-it-now agenda. There’s an entire chapter in the survey on the issue, but the key passages is, “The current Administration is endeavouring to establish a comprehensive climate-change policy, the main planks of which are pricing GHG emissions and supporting the development of innovative technologies to reduce GHG emissions. As discussed above and emphasized in the OECD (2009), this is the right approach… Congress should pass comprehensive climate-change legislation.”

You won’t be surprised to learn that the OECD’s reflexive support for higher taxes appears even in this section. The bureaucrats urge that “such regulation should be complemented by increases in gasoline and other fossil-fuel taxes.”

If you’re still not convinced the OECD is a giant waste of money for American taxpayers, I suggest you watch this video released by the Center for Freedom and Prosperity about two months ago. It’s a damning indictment of the OECD’s statist agenda (and this was before the bureaucrats released the horrid new “Economic Survey of the United States”).

 

Read Full Post »

Overpaid and Undertaxed

I sympathize with almost all taxpayers, but it’s difficult to feel sorry for government workers who get in trouble with the IRS. Compensation packages for federal bureaucrats are twice as lucrative as those for workers in the productive sector of the economy and their pensions are similarly extravagant. Yet they often can’t be bothered to fully pay their taxes, owing billions of dollars to the IRS according to a Washington Post report. Among the biggest scofflaws are the folks at the Postal Service, who have accumulated more than $283 million of unpaid taxes. Retired bureaucrats, meanwhile, have amassed nearly $455 million of back taxes. Even tax collectors sometimes fall behind. Treasury Department bureaucrats owe $7.7 million. How hard can it be for them to walk down the hallway and cough up? Or do they think they’re exempt since their boss barely got a slap on the wrist after “forgetting” to declare $80,000? The most startling part of the story, though, is the degree of tax dodging on Capitol Hill. Here’s an excerpt from the story.

Capitol Hill employees owed $9.3 million in overdue taxes at the end of last year… The debt among Hill employees has risen at a faster rate than the overall tax debt on the government’s books, according to Internal Revenue Service data. …The IRS data…shows 638 employees, or about 4 percent, of the 18,000 Hill workers owe money, a slightly higher percentage than the 3 percent delinquency rate among all returns filed nationwide. …”If you’re on the federal payroll and you’re not paying your taxes, you should be fired,” [Congressman] Chaffetz said in an interview. He said the policy should apply across the board and “there should be no special exemptions.”

The shocking part about this blurb, at least to me, is not the 638 staffers who owe money to the IRS. It’s the fact that there are 18,000 bureaucrats working for Congress. Do 100 Senators and 435 Representatives really need that many attendants? How I long for the good ol’ days, when each politician had about two staffers. I suspect it’s no coincidence that the federal government was a much smaller burden back when there were far fewer staff.

Read Full Post »

With Tax Increases Looming, CBO Does About-Face and Frets about Deficits and Debt

Like the swallows returning to Capistrano, the Congressional Budget Office follows a predictable pattern of endorsing policies that result in bigger government. During the debate about the so-called stimulus, for instance, CBO said more spending and higher deficits would be good for the economy. It then followed up that analysis by claiming that the faux stimulus worked even though millions of jobs were lost. Then, during the Obamacare debate, CBO actually claimed that a giant new entitlement program would reduce deficits. Now that tax increases are the main topic (because of the looming expiration of the 2001 and 2003 tax bills), CBO has done a 180-degree turn and has published a document discussing the negative consequences of too much deficits and debt.

…persistent deficits and continually mounting debt would have several negative economic consequences for the United States. Some of those consequences would arise gradually: A growing portion of people’s savings would go to purchase government debt rather than toward investments in productive capital goods such as factories and computers; that “crowding out” of investment would lead to lower output and incomes than would otherwise occur. …a growing level of federal debt would also increase the probability of a sudden fiscal crisis, during which investors would lose confidence in the government’s ability to manage its budget, and the government would thereby lose its ability to borrow at affordable rates. …If the United States encountered a fiscal crisis, the abrupt rise in interest rates would reflect investors’ fears that the government would renege on the terms of its existing debt or that it would increase the supply of money to finance its activities or pay creditors and thereby boost inflation.

At some point, even Republicans should be smart enough to figure out that this game is rigged. Then again, the GOP controlled Congress for a dozen years and failed to reform either CBO or its counterpart on the revenue side, the Joint Committee on Taxation (which is infamous for its assumption that tax policy has no impact on overall economic performance).

Read Full Post »

Not Just an Ordinary Limousine Liberal…

I don’t know whether he is a poster child for the dangers of inbreeding or a rich dolt who is seeking meaning in his life, but Prince Charles takes left-wing hypocrisy to an entirely new level. His “carbon footprint” almost surely is bigger than 99.9 percent of the world’s population, yet this pampered and clueless aristocrat thinks he was put on the earth to save the rest of us from sins such as “global warming” and ”unbridled commerce.” If he gave up the throne and dedicated himself to a life of genuine self-denial, I would call him a clueless moron. Until that happens, he is best categorized as a hypocritical clueless moron.

The Prince of Wales says he believes he has been placed on Earth as future King ‘for a purpose’ – to save the world. Giving a fascinating insight into his view of his inherited wealth and influence, he said: ‘I can only somehow imagine that I find myself being born into this position for a purpose. ‘I don’t want my grandchildren or yours to come along and say to me, “Why the hell didn’t you come and do something about this? You knew what the problem was”. That is what motivates me. ‘I wanted to express something in the outer world that I feel inside… We seem to have lost that understanding of the whole of nature and the universe as a living entity.’ His impassioned comments come during a film about his belief that unbridled commerce has led to the destruction of farmland and countryside. …But the Prince has previously come under fire for hypocrisy over his eco-values. Last year he commandeered a jet belonging to the Queen’s Flight to attend the Copenhagen climate change summit, generating an estimated 6.4 tons of carbon dioxide – 5.2 tons more than if he had used a commercial plane. …Graham Smith, of the anti-monarchy group Republic, said: ‘He is under the impression he has been sent to save the world and deliver us from our sins. It’s quite delusional.

Read Full Post »