Little Johnny and the Election

I believe mockery is a very useful way of dealing with the political crowd.

They may over-tax, over-spend, and over-regulate, but at least we can deny them the public affection they so desperately crave.

This is why I like sharing anti-politician humor. Even if, on occasion, it means some PG-13 jokes like the meeting between Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, and some ranchers.

Or the little girl expressing her opinion of Obamanomics, this prostitute risking her reputation by hanging out with the wrong type of person, or this mistaken anatomy episode.

And here’s one featuring “Little Johnny,” the foul-mouthed kid who inevitably says something inappropriate to his class.

Speaking of Little Johnny, here’s  a new joke.

Actually, it was probably new last November, but I only saw it recently

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A teacher goes around her class asking each of the kids what they need at home?

Joey says “A computer.”

The teacher replies, “That would be very useful.”

Kimmy says “A new lawn mower.” and gets a similar response.

Little Johnny pops up and says “At my house we don’t need nothing!”

The teacher asks him to think again carefully, as everybody needs something.

Little Johnny replies, “No I’m sure. When Obama was re-elected, I remember my Dad saying, ‘Well, that’s the last f**king thing we need.’”

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By the way, as you can see from this joke (warning, probably R-rated instead of PG), it’s not as if Little Johnny’s dad had many options.

Here are some additional jokes that also are a bit crude, but acceptable (in my mind) because they target politicians.

• The link between physics and Obama.
• Some sado-masochism on Capitol Hill.
• A bonding moment between Bill Clinton and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
• This not-safe-for-work Obamacare joke.
• The three-part jobs legacy.
• Another risqué Obamacare joke.

Last but not least, I can’t resist sharing the joke about the rabbi and the IRS.

Question of the Week: What Are the Strongest Arguments for and against Immigration Amnesty?

I’ve been peppered with all sorts of questions about immigration this week. Many of them deal with the Heritage Foundation study, including the “dynamic scoring” issue and Jason Richwine’s resignation.

I’m also getting asked about other aspects of this debate, ranging from the desirability of a border fence to what I think about skills-based immigration vs. family-reunification immigration.

The short answer to just about every question is that I don’t know. I’ve never studied the issue and I’m not knowledgeable enough to give competent answers. As I remarked in my one interview on the subject, I like immigration but want people coming to America for opportunity rather than welfare.

Not exactly bold stuff, I realize. Heck, everyone from John McCain to Jeff Sessions presumably would be willing to publicly endorse those sentiments.

But I don’t want to dodge the issue completely, and one reader posed a question that got me thinking. She asked me to name the strongest arguments for and against amnesty.

I won’t pretend that these are the strongest arguments, but I will tell you the arguments that I find most compelling.

The most compelling argument for amnesty is that it’s a recognition of reality. Simply stated, the illegals are already here, any kids born in the US already are citizens, and there’s no practical way of getting any of them to leave. What’s the point of pretending otherwise?

I realize that’s a very practical argument, which distinguishes me from some fellow libertarians who make the moral case that people shouldn’t be constrained by government-imposed borders. But that argument doesn’t sweep me off my feet since it implies that everybody in the world has a right to come to the United States.

The most compelling argument against amnesty is that it will make America more statist. I’m not an expert on voting patterns, but I think it’s safe to assume that immigrants will have below-average incomes for the foreseeable future and that they generally will be likely – once they get voting rights – to support politicians who want to make America more like Europe. I’m 99.99 percent confident that this thought has crossed Chuck Schumer’s mind.

Once again, I realize I’m making a practical argument. And you can probably tell that my real concern is with redistributionism and majoritarianism, not immigration. But the bottom line is still the same. We desperately need to scale back the welfare state and I fear amnesty will make that an even bigger challenge.

But to close an a humorous note, perhaps this concern about amnesty can be allayed if we can encourage this type of emigration.

And since we’re sharing some humor, here’s a funny video about Americans sneaking into Peru.

Going Galt: More Americans Vote with their Feet against Obama

I’ve written many times about how investors, entrepreneurs, small business owners and other successful people migrate from high-tax states to low-tax states.

Well, the same thing happens internationally, as France’s greedy politicians are now learning.

It’s a lot harder for Americans to escape our tax system, though, in part because of reprehensible exit taxes that are disturbingly reminiscent of some of the awful policies of past totalitarian regimes.

But it still happens, and that’s a very damning indictment of Obamanomics and a worrying referendum on the future of the United States. Here are some blurbs from a recent Fortune article.

Americans are ditching their U.S. passports in record numbers, a sign of growing frustration with a system that taxes U.S. citizens on their global wealth whether they live in Montana or Mongolia. …on the list, published quarterly by the Internal Revenue Service, is Isabel Getty, the daughter of jet-setting socialite Pia Getty and Getty oil heir Christopher Getty. In total, more than 670 U.S. passport holders gave up their citizenship — and with it, their U.S. tax bills — in the first three months of this year. That is the most in any quarter since the I.R.S. began publishing figures in 1998. And it is nearly three-quarters of the total number for all of 2012, a year in which the wealthy songwriter-socialite Denise Rich (christened “Lady Gatsby” by Yachting magazine) and Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin joined more than 932 other Americans in tossing their passports. …Expatriations first picked up pace in 2010, when more than 1,530 Americans dumped their passports.

The problem is particularly serious for Americans who live and work overseas. The United States is one of the few nations (and the only developed nation) to have “worldwide” taxation, which means overseas Americans have to pay tax to the IRS as well as to the nation where they live.

And thanks to laws such as “FATCA,” that burden just became far more onerous.

While dumping citizenship may seem unpatriotic or smack of tax avoidance to some critics, tax lawyers blame the byzantine complexity of American tax regulations. The rules “are confusing, complex, and so complicated that even Americans with good intentions can easily find themselves running afoul of the law,” said Jeffrey Neiman, a former federal prosecutor who was involved in the government’s offshore banking probe and is now in private practice in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. “This very well may explain why we are seeing a record number of Americans renouncing their United States citizenship.”

No wonder more and more people are escaping Obamanomics.

The good news, by the way, is that Senator Rand Paul has introduced legislation to repeal the worst parts of FATCA.

But that’s not going to happen while Obama’s still in the White House, so let’s focus on the Americans who are “going Galt.”

I have mixed feelings about these rich people. Many of them did nothing to help the fight for liberty while they were U.S. citizens.

And notwithstanding my post about where I would go if America suffers a Greek-style fiscal collapse, I suspect I’ll stay in the United States and fight until my last breath. So I get a little bit irked that they escape and leave the rest of us to deal with the mess created by our political elite.

Nonetheless, I strongly believe that all individuals have the right to protect themselves from predatory government.

And when you add up the various forms of double taxation in the internal revenue code (particularly the death tax), it makes little sense for families with high net worth to stay in the United States when there are many jurisdictions around the world that will welcome them with open arms.

In other words, let’s not blame the victims and castigate Americans who redomicile in jurisdictions with better tax policy. Let’s fix the awful internal revenue code with a flat tax.

P.S. I’m ashamed to admit that France has a more pro-liberty policy on tax migration than the United States.

P.P.S. But that may not last too long. Other nations are looking to copy America’s disgraceful worldwide tax approach.

Let’s Fix the Real Obesity Problem in Washington

Whenever someone proposes that we need more intervention from the federal government, I always go to the Constitution and check Article I, Section VIII.

This is because I’m old fashioned and I actually think the Founding Fathers weren’t joking when they granted only a few enumerated powers to the federal government.

And when I check that list, I don’t see anything about steroid investigations, housing, or disaster relief. Nor do I see anything about childhood obesity.

Which is what makes this cartoon from Ken Catalino amusing. At least in a morbid way.

I would have labeled the guy “Washington” instead of “Congress,” but that’s nitpicking. The point I’m trying to make is that we have a bloated federal government that is sapping the economy’s vitality and undermining social capital.

We should be trying to rein in that behemoth, not allowing it to get involved in other areas of life.

This doesn’t mean we don’t have a problem with overweight children. It simply means that it’s absurd to think the answer will come from a bunch of politicians and bureaucrats in Washington.

P.S. I very much enjoy cartoon that portray Washington as a flat slob. For other examples, see here, here,here, here, here and here.

P.P.S. Here’s another Ken Catalino cartoon that I like, even though it perpetuates an inaccurate portrayal of Robin Hood as a redistributionist.

Great Moments in Government: The IRS Apologizes for Bias while Simultaneously Denying Bias

I’m happy to bash the IRS, but I usually try to explain that our anger should be focused on the politicians who created the corrupt, 74,000-page tax code.

But sometimes the IRS deserves some negative attention. The tax collection bureaucracy has thieving employees, incompetent employees, thuggish employees, brainless employees, and victimizing employees.

The senior folks at the IRS also deserve scorn for bone-headed decisions such as squandering millions of dollars on a P.R. campaign and a scheme to regulate and control private tax preparers.

Now it seems we have another reason to condemn the tax-collection bureaucracy. The IRS is engaging in Nixon-type political harassment.

Here’s some of what the Associated Press just reported.

The Internal Revenue Service inappropriately flagged conservative political groups for additional reviews during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status, a top IRS official said Friday. Organizations were singled out because they included the words “tea party” or “patriot” in their applications for tax-exempt status, said Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups.

Heaven forbid somebody self-identify as being patriotic. Obviously a cause for investigation by the IRS.

And it’s rather ironic that the IRS felt compelled to apologize just a few days after President Obama just told us we shouldn’t listen to “voices” telling us that bad things happen in Washington.

But it’s not just that the IRS targeted groups opposing big government. The bureaucrats also violated the rules designed to protect taxpayers from IRS abuse.

…groups were asked for their list of donors, which violates IRS policy in most cases, she said. “That was wrong. That was absolutely incorrect, it was insensitive and it was inappropriate. That’s not how we go about selecting cases for further review,” Lerner said at a conference sponsored by the American Bar Association. “The IRS would like to apologize for that,” she added.

But you can put your mind at ease because senior IRS officials assure us that the targeting of Tea Party groups had nothing to do with political bias.

Lerner said the practice was…not motivated by political bias. …IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman told Congress in March 2012 that the IRS was not targeting groups based on their political views. “There’s absolutely no targeting. This is the kind of back and forth that happens to people” who apply for tax-exempt status, Shulman told a House Ways and Means subcommittee.

Just like we’re supposed to believe that political bias had nothing to do with all the IRS harassment of conservative groups during the Clinton years. The message from the elites in Washington is “Nothing to see here, move along.”

But as the Wall Street Journal warned at the time, it seems there is a remarkable lack of curiosity about patterns of IRS abuse.

…once we agree that a politicized IRS is a dangerous thing, it is hard to understand the see-no-evil approach taken by the Congress, the press and the judiciary about serious, current allegations of exactly this. …organizations have been using the Freedom of Information Act to find out if there is anything to the extraordinary run of audits that happened to hit a number of tax-exempt organizations that might reasonably be described as Clinton enemies. …we have lots of Clinton enemies who have suffered actual audits, and very little interest in finding out whether this was simply a massive coincidence or the result of something more sinister.

And now we’re going through the same process again.

Maybe, just maybe, there’s a lesson to be learned about the dangers of giving power to politicians and bureaucrats.

Yet another argument for the flat tax. If there’s no charitable deduction, there’s no opening for a politically biased IRS bureaucracy to investigate and harass non-profit groups because of their philosophical beliefs.

P.S. On a lighter note, here’s the IRS version of the quadratic formula, and a cartoon showing how GPS would work if operated by the IRS.

Following in Geithner’s Footsteps, Treasury Secretary Lew Urges Bad Fiscal Policy in other Nations

Political insiders remember Tim Geithner for his role in promoting the bailout culture and crony capitalism in Washington.

Comedians remember him for the laughable hypocrisy of urging higher taxes for others while cheating on his own tax return.

But I mostly think of him as being the Forrest Gump of international economics.

This was the guy, after all, who unintentionally caused Chinese students to burst out laughing in 2009 when he claimed the Obama Administration supported a strong dollar.

And Europeans told him to get lost when he tried to lecture them on fiscal policy in 2011. But don’t think they were being rude. They already had to endure his bad advice earlier that year and back in 2010 as well.

Well, Geithner’s successor apparently is equally oblivious. He’s badgering the Germans to adopt Keynesian policies to “stimulate” growth, even though the Germans are doing better than most other European nations – in part because they are one of the few nations that have reduced the burden of government spending in recent years!

Here are some blurbs from the EU Observer on Treasury Secretary Lew’s attempt to export bad ideas.

US treasury secretary Jack Lew will repeat calls for Germany to stimulate demand in order to drag the eurozone out of recession, according to US government sources. …The US stance is likely to meet resistance from the German government, which is reluctant to increase wages and stimulate domestic spending, preferring instead to keep wages low to encourage manufacturing and exports. But Berlin is under pressure to reduce its 7 percent export surplus. In April, Lew used his first trip to Berlin as Treasury Secretary to urge counterpart Wolfgang Schaueble to put in place measures to stimulate consumer spending. For his part, Schaueble commented that neither the US or Germany should try to give “lessons” or “grades” to each other.

I’m actually in favor of giving “lessons” and “grades” to governments, but not if it’s a case of the blind leading the blind.

This is not to say that Germany has good fiscal policy. Indeed, the best that can be said about the Merkel government is that it hasn’t moved Germany much further in the wrong direction in recent years.

The Obama Administration, by contrast, is moving the United States in the wrong direction at faster pace, so the last thing the Germans need is advice from Treasury Secretary Lew or anyone else associated with the White House.

P.S. If you want some unintentional humor, the Washington Post referred to Germany as being “fiscally conservative.”

P.P.S. As you can see here and here, there’s little reason to be optimistic about the intellectual climate in Germany.

P.P.P.S. But at least we have some amusing videos involving Germany, as you can see here, here, and here.

P.P.P.P.S. Geithner also should be remembered for pushing through an IRS regulation that forces American banks to put foreign tax law above U.S. tax law.

Which Presidents Are Right about Government, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson or Woodrow Wilson and Barack Obama?

When I was became interested in public policy, I thought Jimmy Carter was the epitome of a bad President. But as I began to learn economics, I realized that Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson also were terrible and belong in the Hall of Fame of bad Presidents.

And the more I studied economics and public policy, I learned that Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt were two peas in a failed big-government pod and deserve membership in that Hall of Fame.

Or I guess we should call it a Hall of Shame (you can click on the image to see my selections).

Whatever we call it, I’m now at the point where I realize that Woodrow Wilson and Teddy Roosevelt are the charter members. Why? Well, because they were the first Presidents to reflect the progressive ideology.

More specifically, they shared the ideology of the progressive movement, which saw a powerful and activist central government as a force for good – a radical departure from the views of America’s Founding Fathers, who hoped that the Constitution would protect people by keeping government very small.

Not surprisingly, Barack Obama is in that “progressive” tradition, even to the point of attacking the views of the Founding Fathers in a recent speech at Ohio State University.

I commented on this issue in this Fox News segment.

That short clip only scratches the surface.

For more detail, here are some excerpts from a column by Andrew Napolitano. Like me, he isn’t impressed by the President’s statolatry.

It should come as no surprise that President Obama told Ohio State students at graduation ceremonies last week that they should not question authority… And he blasted those who incessantly warn of government tyranny. Yet, mistrust of government is as old as America itself. America was born out of mistrust of government. …Thomas Jefferson…warned that it is the nature of government over time to increase and of liberty to decrease. And that’s why we should not trust government. In the same era, James Madison himself agreed when he wrote, “All men having power should be distrusted to a certain degree.” …The reason Obama likes government and the reason it is “a dangerous fire,” as George Washington warned, and the reason I have been warning against government tyranny in my public work is all the same: The government rejects the natural law because it is an obstacle to its control over us. …Because the tyranny of the majority can be as dangerous to freedom as the tyranny of a madman, all use of governmental power should be challenged and questioned. Government is essentially the negation of liberty.

Napolitano also warns against majoritarianism in his column, which is music to my ears.

Though I’m not sure our battle today is with majoritarianism or the progressive ideology.

Our real challenge is redistributionism. Far too many people think it is okay to use the coercive power of government to obtain unearned benefits. And that’s true whether the benefits are food stamps or bailouts.

And as we travel farther and farther down this path, it leads to ever-greater levels of dependency and ever-higher levels of taxation. But that simply means more people decide it makes more sense to ride in the wagon rather than pull the wagon.

Somehow, we have to reverse this downward spiral.

Unless we want America to become Greece or France, at which point productive people may be forced to emigrate – assuming there are still some sensible nations left in the world.