If the Obama-GOP Budget Deal Is a Kiss-Your-Sister Agreement, Claudia Schiffer Ain’t My Sibling

Press reports indicate that there is a tentative agreement between Republicans and Democrats to trim $33 billion of spending for the remainder of the current fiscal year. Here are a few blurbs from a story in The Hill.

A source familiar with the talks said members of the Senate and House Appropriations panels are working toward a target of $33 billion in spending cuts. …The $33 billion would be close to the cuts first proposed by House GOP leaders, who moved to $61 billion in proposed cuts under pressure from freshmen in their conference. Policy language defunding the new healthcare law and Planned Parenthood, which conservatives have insisted should be in a final deal, remains a sticking point.

If the final result is anywhere close to $33 billion, this has to be considered a disappointment. I was never under any illusion that GOPers would get $61 billion of cuts. But I was hoping the final number would be somewhere in the range of $45 billion.

To put this in context, the budget for the current fiscal year is $3,800 billion. And that’s almost $2,000 billion higher than it was when Bill Clinton left office. Yet politicians, after a 10-year binge of higher spending, can only find $33 billion of cuts?!?

One Capitol Hill staffer told me that this is a “kiss-your-sister” deal, implying that neither side won or lost. But if that’s the case, then I’m definitely not related to Claudia Schiffer. In this case, my sister is…well, never mind…I don’t want to be snarky.

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Obama, Libya, and the Late-Night Comics

I don’t have any strong feelings about the Libya situation. I don’t think we should be there, but I also won’t shed any tears if a cruise missile lands on Qaddafi (I still remember Pan Am 103).

But I do appreciate clever political humor.

Here are Jay Leno’s jabs.

President Obama addressed the nation on Libya. This changes his previous policy on Libya, which was, “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

Instead of calling our mission in Libya a war, the White House is calling it a “kinetic military action,” which sounds better than “potentially endless quagmire.”

We’re down to the final four now. Only four Middle East countries we haven’t attacked.

It’s one humiliation after another for Moammar Gadhafi. First his own people started rising up against him, then his compound was bombed, and now he’s getting beaten up by the French.

Germany has pulled its forces out of NATO over Libya. When the Germans don’t want to fight and the French do, the whole world is upside down.

We’re fighting three wars now. Imagine how many we’d be fighting if President Obama hadn’t won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Remember when President Obama said we can’t fight two wars and vowed to change our policy? Well, he did. Now we’re fighting three wars.

Obama said we will send economic aid to Libya to help the Libyan people reach their dreams. And if that works, they’ll try it here.

Some Conan jokes.

It’s being reported that Moammar Gadhafi is surrounded by an elite core of female bodyguards. In a related story, Charlie Sheen invaded Libya.

The name of the U.S. operation in Libya is “Odyssey Dawn.” It’s the first military action to be named by Crabtree & Evelyn.

Here’s what Jimmy Fallon had to say.

The latest episode of “Dancing With the Stars” was preceded by Obama’s new show, “Dancing Around the Objectives in Libya.”

President Obama said the United States has clear and focused goals in Libya. He said he would share those goals with us as soon as Hillary shares them with him.

And here’s a line from David Letterman.

About Libya, President Obama says we’re staying for a short time and then leaving. That’s what my relatives always say.

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Jeffrey Sachs and the Fictional “Race to the Bottom” Caused by Tax Competition

Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University is a big booster of the discredited notion that foreign aid is a cure-all for poverty in the developing world, but he is now branching out and saying silly things about policy in other areas.

In a column for the Financial Times, he complains that tax competition is forcing governments to “race to the bottom” with regards to tax rates. The answer, he wants us to believe, is some sort of global tax cartel. Sort of an “OPEC for politicians” that will facilitate the imposition of higher tax rates.

Only international co-operation can now solve what is becoming a runaway social crisis in many high-income countries. …With capital globally mobile, moreover, governments are now in a race to the bottom with regard to corporate taxation and loopholes for personal taxation of high incomes. Each government aims to attract mobile capital by cutting taxes relative to others. …countries cannot act by themselves. Even the social democracies of northern Europe, with their balanced budgets and high tax rates, are increasingly being pulled into the vortex of tax cutting and the race to the bottom. …recent trends…require increased, not decreased, taxation of higher incomes, including corporate profits; and that tax and regulatory co-ordination across countries are vital to prevent a ruinous fiscal race to the bottom.

If this overwrought rhetoric is true, it would mean that governments have been starved of revenue because of race-to-the-bottom tax cuts for evil corporations and sinister rich people. Well, it is true that tax competition over the past 30-plus years has resulted in lower tax rates. But do lower tax rates mean less tax revenue, as implied by Sachs’ analysis?

At the risk of being impolite and shattering anyone’s illusions, let’s actually see what happened to the overall tax burden on both personal and corporate income.

This chart, showing the average for industrialized nations, shows that Sachs and his ilk are wrong. Way wrong. Tax rates have come down, but the overall tax burden actually has increased. So while there may be a race to less-destructive tax rates, there certainly isn’t a race to bottom for tax revenue.

Hmmm….lower tax rates and higher tax revenue. That seems vaguely familiar. Maybe it has something to do with “supply-side economics.” One can only wonder if Sachs has heard about that strange idea known as the Laffer Curve.

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Republicans and the Suicidal Impulse

Yesterday, I analyzed how the GOP should fight the budget battle, but I may have made a big mistake. I assumed the Republican leadership actually wanted to do the right thing. I thought they learned the right lessons from the disastrous Bush years, and that the GOP no longer would be handmaidens for big government. And I naively assumed that the Republican leadership would not betray the base and stab the Tea Party in the back.

Unfortunately, if this Washington Post story is accurate, that may be what is happening.

Having difficulty finding consensus within their own ranks, House Republican leaders have begun courting moderate Democrats on several key fiscal issues, including a deal to avoid a government shutdown at the end of next week. The basic outline would involve more than $30 billion in cuts for the 2011 spending package, well short of the $61 billion initially demanded by freshman Republicans and other conservatives, according to senior aides in both parties. Such a deal probably would be acceptable to Senate leaders and President Obama as long as the House didn’t impose funding restrictions on certain social and regulatory programs supported by Democrats, Senate and administration aides said.

Having been in Washington for 25 years, I’m not blind to reality. I knew it was never going to be possible to get all $61 billion of cuts. At some point, there would be a compromise. And I also was aware that the GOP “riders” – such as blocking Obamacare, curtailing the EPA’s power grab, and defunding the leeches at Planned Parenthood – were an uphill battle.

But I thought the GOP leadership would fight and get a decent deal rather than unilaterally surrender. If the Washington Post report is true and Republicans act like the French army, it will discourage the base and cause a rift with the Tea Party. So it’s dumb politics and dumb policy.

Let’s keep our fingers crossed, though, and hope this is just a trial balloon that quickly will be shot down.

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Budget Battle Update: It’s About Preparing for the Inevitable Fight, not Forcing a Shutdown

Welcome Instapundit readers (and everyone else, of course). I have a very depressing update to this post, which you can read here.

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According to news reports, Democrats and Republicans are unlikely to reach any sort of budget agreement before April 8, when a short-term spending bill for the current fiscal year expires.

Barring some new development, this could mean a shutdown of the non-essential parts of the government.

This makes both sides very nervous. Democrats don’t want the spending spigot turned off and are worried that voters might conclude that there’s no reason to ever re-open departments such as Housing and Urban Development. Republicans, meanwhile, mostly worry that they might look unreasonable and get blamed if certain parts of the government are mothballed and voters can’t get passports or visit national parks.

Given this state of play, what’s the best strategy for fiscal conservatives, libertarians, and other advocates of smaller government?

Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard thinks Republicans should continue with short-term spending bills.

…the incremental strategy is working. Republicans have passed two short-term measures to keep the government in operation since early March while slashing $10 billion in spending. At this rate, they would achieve the target of GOP congressional leaders of lopping off $61 billion from President Obama’s proposed budget in the final seven months of the 2011 fiscal year. There’s every reason to believe the incremental strategy would continue to succeed.

He’s worried that a more confrontational approach, where the GOP passes a take-it-or-leave-it spending bill, might backfire – even though any shutdown would exist solely because Senator Reid and/or President Obama refused to act.

Would a shutdown give Republicans more muscle in negotiating for cuts? …Maybe it would. But it might not. …So long as they control the Senate and White House, Democrats will reject massive cuts. Republicans also want to bar spending for Planned Parenthood, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and Mr. Obama’s health-care program. Attach any of these prohibitions to a spending measure and Democratic opposition is certain. Should Republicans insist, we’ll get a government shutdown. This is a big gamble. …Indeed it might discredit Republicans and boost Mr. Obama in the same way the shutdown in 1995 hurt Republicans and lifted President Bill Clinton out of the doldrums. It could alienate independent voters so critical to the Republican triumph in 2010. True enough, the political atmosphere is more favorable to serious spending reductions than it was 16 years ago. …But why take a chance?

I think Barnes is a bit off in his portrayal of what happened in 1995, as I’ve previously explained, but these are all fair points. A “shutdown” fight could be considered uncharted territory.

Keith Hennessey, a former Hill staffer and Bush Administration official, also is skeptical of a confrontational approach. Instead, he suggests that the GOP increase the pressure on Democrats by slowly increasing the amount of weekly spending cuts.

While negotiating with the President’s team and Senate Democrats, in this variant House Republicans continue to pass short-term Continuing Resolutions as long as there is not an acceptable full-year deal. In these repeated future CRs, they ratchet up the spending cuts by the paltry figure of only $100 million each week. …Under this new variant, as April 8th approaches House Republicans would pass another three week CR, one which cuts $2.1 B in its first week, $2.2 B in its second week, and $2.3 B in its third week. …Such a tiny weekly increment would be nearly impossible for Democrats to reject. And yet if continued through the end of this fiscal year, $4.5 B of discretionary spending would be cut in the final week, that of September 23rd. This strategy…poses zero additional risk for Congressional Republicans. They would maintain the high ground on spending cuts and remain on the offensive for the next six months.

There’s a lot to like about Keith’s approach. If successful, he explains, GOPers could wind up with $82 billion of cuts rather than just $61 billion.

But here’s my concern about an incremental strategy. What makes anyone think that the left will go along with short-term spending bills, regardless of whether they cut $2 billion per week, or even more?

Democrats already have agreed to $10 billion of cuts, and even though that’s very trivial when compared to total spending (akin to a couple of french fries out of a Big Mac meal), the pro-spending lobbies and their allies on Capitol Hill are balking at the thought of additional cuts. So while it might be possible to push through a couple of additional short-term spending bills, there will come a point when Democrats refuse to play ball. And when that happens, we’re back to a partial shutdown.

Here’s how constitutional lawyer James Bopp, Jr., explained the issue in a piece for the Washington Times.

A government shutdown is inevitable because President Obama will insist on it. Nothing the Republicans do, short of total capitulation, will prevent this from happening. …With a three-week extension of government funding (which included $6 billion in cuts) expiring April 8, now is the time to escalate one’s bid. Demand $12 billion in cuts the next time. And when the shutdown occurs because of an Obama veto or a vote in the Democrat-controlled Senate, the House should keep passing bills to reopen the government, coupling it with more spending cuts. …There is a fundamental contradiction in the Democrats’ shutting down the government. The Democrats are the party of government. It is like a bank robber, caught in the act, who threatens to pull the trigger on himself if arrested; what would the cop say but, “Go ahead”? The government shutdown threat defeats the Democrats own objective and is thus ultimately self-defeating, while the Republicans protect the bank depositors – the taxpayers – from the bank robber.

I think this is largely correct, particularly in that there almost certainly will be a shutdown fight. The only question is when it will happen. And if a shutdown battle is inevitable, advocates of smaller government should decide whether it’s better to have that fight sooner rather than later.

My instinct is that it would be better to fight now. GOP resolve presumably will decrease over time, particularly since the “easy” spending cuts get used up first. Moreover, it is quite likely that a strategy of short-term spending bills will complicate GOP efforts to get budget process reform in a couple of months in exchange for an increase in the debt limit.

Democrats surely don’t want the GOP to have another opportunity to restrain the size of government, so they would insist on an increase in the federal government’s borrowing authority as the price for approving whatever short-term spending bill is being considered around that time. Republicans presumably will balk at that demand. But that brings us back, once again, to a shutdown fight. Only this time, it will be complicated by demagogic assertions of a default.

So long as the final result is a smaller burden of government, there is no right or wrong answer about the process. It’s simply a question of which approach is more likely to achieve the desired outcome. I think fighting now is better than fighting later, but if the GOP chooses a strategy of short-term spending bills, I hope I’m wrong.

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Since the NEA Likes to Screw Taxpayers, this Joke Is Funny on Several Levels

A dedicated union official from the National Education Association was attending a convention in Las Vegas and decided to check out the local brothels.

When he got to the first one, he asked the Madam, “Is this a union house?”

“No,” she replied, “I’m sorry it isn’t.”

“Well, if I pay you $100, what cut do the girls get?”

“The house gets $80 and the girls get $20,” she answered.

Offended at such unfair dealings, the NEA man stomped off down the street in search of a more equitable, hopefully unionized shop.

His search continued until finally he reached a brothel where the Madam responded, “Why yes sir, this is a union house. We observe all union rules.”

The man asked, “And, if I pay you $100, what cut do the girls get?”

“The girls get $80 and the house gets $20.”

“That’s more like it!” the union man said.

He handed the Madam $100, looked around the room, and pointed to a stunningly attractive green-eyed blonde.

“I’d like her,” he said.

“I’m sure you would, sir,” said the Madam.  Then she gestured to a 92-year old woman in the corner, “but Ethel here has 67 years seniority and according to union rules, she’s next.”

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Why General Electric’s Non-Existent Tax Bill Is Both Good News and Bad News

General Electric has received a lot of unwelcome attention for paying zero federal income tax in 2010, even though it reported $5.1 billion in U.S. profits. This is a good news-bad news situation.

The good news is that GE’s clever tax planning deprived the government of revenue. And I’m in favor of just about anything that reduces the amount of money that winds up in the hands of the most corrupt and least competent people in America (a.k.a., the political class in Washington).

The bad news, though, is that politicians can engage in borrow-and-spend vote-buying behavior, so depriving them of revenue doesn’t seem to have much impact on the overall burden of government spending.

Moreover, there are good ways to cut taxes and not-so-good ways to cut taxes. Special loopholes for politically powerful companies and well-connected insiders are unfair, corrupt, and inefficient.And I’ve already written about GE’s distasteful track record of getting in bed with politicians in exchange for grubby favors.

Ideally, we should junk the corrupt internal revenue code (and the corporate side of the tax code makes the personal tax code seem simple by comparison) and replace it with a simple and transparent system such as the flat tax.

That way, all income would be taxed since loopholes would be abolished, but there would be a very low tax rate and no double taxation.

Tim Carney of the Washington Examiner is one of the best economic and policy journalists on the scene today, and this excerpt from his column explains what is right and wrong about GE’s tax bill.

GE allocates hundreds of talented minds to attempts at lowering taxes. I don’t blame GE for that. It’s probably worth it — which is exactly the problem. In a world with a simpler tax code — or better yet, with no corporate income tax — GE would spend those resources creating something of value. Again, this is a case where government creates a chasm between what’s profitable (gaming tax law) and what’s valuable for society. Also, this story demonstrates once again how Big Government hurts small business much more than it affects Big Business, which can afford to figure out a way around taxes.

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In One Chart, Everything You Wanted to Know about the Relationship Between Good Policy and Economic Prosperity

Okay, the title’s an exaggeration, but this chart is rather revealing. It shows how per-capita GDP has changed between 1980 and 2008 in Chile, Argentina, and Venezuela.

As you can see, Chile used to be the poorest of the three countries and now it is comparatively rich. Argentina has enjoyed a bit of growth. Venezuela, by contrast, used to be the richest of the three nations but has stagnated and now is in last place.

So what accounts for these remarkable changes in relative prosperity? The answer, at least in part, is the difference between free markets and statism. Simply stated, Chile has reduced the burden of government a lot in the past three decades, Argentina has reduced the burden of government a little, and Venezuela has gone in the wrong direction and increased the burden of government.

The following numbers come from the Economic Freedom of the World, which looks at all facets of economic policy, including regulation, trade policy, monetary policy, fiscal policy, rule of law, and property rights.

* Chile’s score jumped from 5.6 in 1980 to 8.0 in 2008, and the country now ranks as the world’s 4th-freest economy (ahead of the United States!).

* Argentina’s ranking has improved a bit, rising from 4.4 to 6.0 between 1980 and 2008, but that still only puts them in 94th-place in the world rankings.

* Venezuela, by contrast, is embarrassingly bad. The nation’s score has dropped from 6.3 to 4.4, and its ranking has plunged from 22nd-place in 1980 to 121st-place in 2006.

The simple lesson is that nations have the ability to create prosperity, but they have to follow a simple recipe. Adam Smith is reported to have written several hundred years ago that, “Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice.”

Since Adam Smith probably never imagined a world filled with things such as OSHA, the Department of Energy, the IRS, agriculture subsidies, and fiat money, his recipe might be a bit dated, but the general idea still holds.

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Can Anybody Read This and Not Despise the IRS?

My previous post looked at the federal government’s troubling decision to investigate, persecute, prosecute, and ultimately imprison a random home-loan borrower named Charlie Engle for the crime of mortgage fraud. Citing a column on the legal fallout from the financial crisis in the New York Times, I noted that it was rather odd that the government would target a nobody like Mr. Engle while letting all the big fish swim away.

This story certainly paints a picture of a government that has one set of rules for ordinary people, but an entirely different set of rules for the political elite and those who make big campaign contributions to that ruling class. But I also noted that I’m not a legal expert and was unsure about the degree to which the big players actually broke laws, or whether they simply made stupid business decisions (often encouraged by bad government policy).

The most upsetting part of the story, though, is how the government wound up targeting Mr. Engle. It turns out that an IRS agent, Robert Norlander, must have been competing for the IRS’s Thug-of-the-Year Award (or maybe it was A-Hole-of-the-Year or Jerk-of-the-Year) because here are some of the things he did:

o  Mr. Norlander decided to snoop into Mr. Engle’s because he saw a film about him training for a marathon. In other words, there was no probable cause, no reasonable suspicion, nothing. Just the perverse decision of an IRS bully to go after someone.

o  Mr. Norlander admitted a pattern of thuggish behavior, stating that he will snoop into someone’s private life simply because that person drives an expensive car.

o  Mr. Norlander continued to investigate and persecute Mr. Engle, subjecting him to undercover surveillance, even though his tax returns showed no wrongdoing.

o  Mr. Norlander even engaged in “dumpster dives” to look for evidence of wrongdoing in Mr. Engle’s garbage. Keep in mind that there is no probable cause, no reasonable suspicion, and Engle’s tax returns were legit.

o  Mr. Norlander used a sleazy KGB tactic by sending an attractive woman to flirt with Mr. Engle in hopes of getting him to somehow admit to a crime.

o  Mr. Norlander failed to find any evidence of a tax crime. He couldn’t even hit Engle with a money-laundering offense. But the undercover agent who was part of the “honey trap” was wearing a wire and supposedly got Engle to admit to mortgage fraud and Norlander used that extremely flimsy evidence to justify a Justice Department case against Mr. Engle.

In other words, this whole thing has a terrible stench. Assuming the details in the story are accurate, we have an IRS agent engaging in a vendetta against someone, and then apparently justifying his jihad by figuring out how to nail the guy for a very weak charge of mortgage fraud. I would refer to Mr. Norlander as a “rogue agent,” but apparently his jackboot behavior is business-as-usual at the IRS.

Here are the relevant passages from the New York Times column.

Mr. Engle received $30,000 for his participation. The film, “Running the Sahara,” was released in the fall of 2008. Eventually, it caught the attention of Robert W. Nordlander, a special agent for the Internal Revenue Service. As Mr. Nordlander later told the grand jury, “Being the special agent that I am, I was wondering, how does a guy train for this because most people have to work from nine to five and it’s very difficult to train for this part-time.” (He also told the grand jurors that sometimes, when he sees somebody driving a Ferrari, he’ll check to see if they make enough money to afford it. When I called Mr. Nordlander and others at the I.R.S. to ask whether this was an appropriate way to choose subjects for criminal tax investigations, my questions were met with a stone wall of silence.) Mr. Engle’s tax records showed that while his actual income was substantial, his taxable income was quite small, in part because he had a large tax-loss carry forward, due to a business deal he’d been involved in several years earlier. (Mr. Nordlander would later inform the grand jury only of his much lower taxable income, which made it seem more suspicious.) Still convinced that Mr. Engle must be hiding income, Mr. Nordlander did undercover surveillance and took “Dumpster dives” into Mr. Engle’s garbage. He mainly discovered that Mr. Engle lived modestly. In March 2009, still unsatisfied, Mr. Nordlander persuaded his superiors to send an attractive female undercover agent, Ellen Burrows, to meet Mr. Engle and see if she could get him to say something incriminating. In the course of several flirtatious encounters, she asked him about his investments. …Unbeknownst to Mr. Engle, Ms. Burrows was wearing a wire. …No tax charges were ever brought, even though that was Mr. Nordlander’s original rationale. Money laundering, the suspicion of which was needed to justify the undercover sting, was a nonissue as well. As for that “confession” to Ms. Burrows, take a closer look. It really isn’t a confession at all. Mr. Engle is confessing to his mortgage broker’s sins, not his own.

Now you understand why I’m a libertarian. As George Washington is reported to have stated, “Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”

Unfortunately, thanks to bad laws and thuggish bureaucrats, that government is now our master.

A previous post of mine addressed the issue of whether Republicans were right to trim the IRS’s budget. So long as the IRS is employing thugs such as Mr. Norlander, the answer is a resounding yes.

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If This Story Doesn’t Turn You into a Libertarian, You’re a Hopeless Statist

Joe Nocera has a must-read story in the New York Times about how the legal fallout from the financial crisis. His basic theme is that the government let all the bigwigs get away with their crimes, but then has a fascinating discussion about how the government targeted an inconsequential mortgage borrower.

I’m not sure I accept the first part of his premise. There were lots of sleazy people taking advantage of the perverse system created by bad government policy, but I would like to see some clear evidence of actual crimes before hopping on that bandwagon. Selling mortgage-backed securities filled with crummy home loans to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac may have been immoral, for instance (at least from a libertarian perspective), but I’m not aware that it is against the law to make choices that hurt the economy – particularly when government policy is designed to reward such stupidity.

That being said, I do wonder why there haven’t been any bribery prosecutions of the politicians who got sweetheart loans as part of the “Friends of Angelo” scheme. Actually, I don’t wonder why politicians such as Chris Dodd and Kent Conrad got a free ride. Politicians operate by the principle that law are only for the little people. Nonetheless, these are examples of real laws being violated.

But I’m digressing. The purpose of this post is to show how the government decided to go through great effort and expense to nail someone who, at most, was willing to go along with the government-subsidized and government-created housing scam.

Here are the sordid details.

A few weeks ago, when the Justice Department decided not to prosecuteAngelo Mozilo, the former chief executive of Countrywide, I wrote a column lamenting the fact that none of the big fish were likely to go to prison for their roles in the financial crisis. …There was, in fact, someone behind bars for what he’d supposedly done during the subprime bubble. …Mr. Engle’s is a tale worth telling for a number of reasons, not the least of which is its punch line. Was Mr. Engle convicted of running a crooked subprime company? Was he a mortgage broker who trafficked in predatory loans? A Wall Street huckster who sold toxic assets? No. Charlie Engle wasn’t a seller of bad mortgages. He was a borrower. And the “mortgage fraud” for which he was prosecuted was something that literally millions of Americans did during the subprime bubble. Supposedly, he lied on two liar loans. …It’s not just that Mr. Engle is the smallest of small fry that is bothersome about his prosecution. It is also the way the government went about building its case. …Even the jurors seemed confused about how to think about Mr. Engle’s supposed crime. When it came time to pronounce a verdict, the jury found him not guilty of providing false information to the bank, which would seem to be the only fraud he could possibly have committed. Yet it still found him guilty of mortgage fraud. “I think the prosecution convinced the jury that I was guilty of something but they weren’t sure what,” Mr. Engle wrote in an e-mail. …Even when he emerges from prison, though, his ordeal will not be over. As part of his sentence, Mr. Engle was ordered to pay $262,500 in restitution to the owner of his mortgages. And what institution might that be? You guessed it: Countrywide, now owned by Bank of America. Angelo Mozilo ought to get a good chuckle out of that one.

Later today, by the way, I’ll post about the IRS’s disgusting role in this story.

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Some Good Political Jokes

Found this joke in my inbox this morning. As with many of these jokes, it gets reworked with each new occupant of the White House. In the past, I’ve seen versions with both Bush and Clinton. Enjoy.

Obama goes on a State visit to Israel.  While he is on a tour of Jerusalem, he has a fatal heart attack.

The undertaker tells the U.S. diplomats: “You can have him shipped home for $1 million or you can bury him here in the Holy Land for $100”.

The U.S. diplomats go into a huddle and come back to the undertaker and tell him they still want Obama flown home.

The undertaker is puzzled and asks: “Why would you spend $1 million to get him home when it would be wonderful to be buried here in this religious country and you would only spend $100?”.

One diplomat replied: “More than 2000 years ago a man died here, was buried here, and just 3 days later he rose from the dead.  We simply can’t take that risk”.

This joke, and its morbid theme, led to me to peruse my archives and I found these two gems about Bill Clinton.

One day Bill Clinton slipped away from the Secret Service and was out jogging. He accidentally tripped and fell off a bridge into the cold water below.

Three 10-year-old boys were playing along the river and saw him fall in so they all  jumped in and saved him and dragged  him to shore. He was so thankful that he told each of them, “Boys, you just saved the President of  the United States and each of you deserve a reward.”

The first boy says, “I want to go to Disneyland!”

“I’ll take you there myself!!!” exclaims Bill.

The second boy says, “I want a brand new pair of autographed Air Jordan’s.

“I’ll buy them for you myself,” says Bill.

The third boy says “I want a motorized wheelchair with a stereo built into it with custom speakers.”

The president looks at the boy and says, “But son you don’t look like you are handicapped to me”

The boy says, “I’m going to be when my dad finds out I saved your ass from drowning!!”

And here’s the second one.

Air Force One crashed on a farm in the middle of rural America.  Panic stricken, the Secret Service mobilized and descended in force.  When they got there, the wreckage was clear. The aircraft was totally destroyed, with only a burned hulk left smoldering in a tree line that bordered a farm.

The Secret Service descended upon the smoking hulk, but could find no remains of the crew or the President’s staff.  To  their amazement, a lone farmer was plowing a field not too far away as if nothing at all happened. They hurried over to surround the man’s tractor.

“Sir,” the senior Secret Service agent asked, panting and out  of breath, “Did you see this terrible accident happen?”

Yep.  Sure did.” The man muttered, unconcernedly.

“Do you realize that is the President of the United States airplane?”

Yep.”

“Were there any survivors?” the agent gasped.

“Nope.  They’s all kilt straight out.”  The farmer sighed, cutting off his tractor motor.  “I done buried them all myself.  Took most of the morning.”

“The President of the United States is DEAD?” The agent gulped  in disbelief.

“Well,” the farmer sighed, obviously wanting to get back to his work, “He kept a-saying he wasn’t … but you know what a liar he is.”

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A Great Day in the Life of Dan Mitchell

It’s time for a completely narcissistic post.

I went down to Richmond today to play in the year’s first softball tournament. The conditions were miserable, with the temperature in the 40s. The first couple of games were rather depressing. Even when I made decent contact, I hit the ball right at fielders.

But then, in our third game, I knocked one over the left-center field fence. This was my first over-the-fence home run in two years, and it definitely ranks as one of the highlights of 2011 (which may be an indictment of my life, I admit, but what the heck).

It’s no fun getting old, and I pretty much lost my power about five years ago, so I have to cherish these moments whenever they happen.

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Republicans Are Even Stupider than I Thought

I posted yesterday about the stunning political incompetence of Republican Senators, who reportedly are willing to give Obama an increase in the debt limit in exchange for a vote (yes, just a vote) on a balanced budget amendment.

As I explained, there is no way they can get the necessary two-thirds support to approve an amendment, so why trade a meaningless and symbolic vote on a BBA for meaningful and real approval of more borrowing authority for Obama? My analogy yesterday was that this was like trading a all-star baseball player for a utility infielder in the minor leagues.

I did acknowledge that forcing a vote on a BBA was a worthwhile endeavor, but said that the GOP has that power anyhow, so why trade away something valuable to get something you already can get for free?

Little did I realize that Republicans already did force a vote on the balanced budget amendment. Less than one month ago, on March 2, Senator Lee of Utah got a vote on a “Sense of the Senate” resolution in favor of a balanced budget amendment. Senator Lee’s resolution was approved by a 58-40 margin, which is nice, but an actual amendment would need a two-thirds supermajority, so this test vote demonstrated that there is no way to approve an amendment this year.

I’m glad Senator Lee proposed his resolution. I’m glad Senators were forced to go on the record.

But I’m mystified, flabbergasted, and stunned that Republicans apparently are willing to give Obama a bigger debt limit in exchange for something they already got.

This would be like the Yankees giving Derek Jeter to the Red Sox in exchange for a player they already have, such as Alex Rodriguez. I imagine New York sportswriters would be dumbfounded by such stupidity and would rip the team’s management to shreds. So that gives you an idea of how I feel about what’s happening in Washington.

As I noted in yesterday’s post, I’ll soon write about the fiscal reforms GOPer should demand in exchange for a higher debt limit.

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The Stupid Party Strikes Again: Republicans May Raise Debt Limit in Exchange for Symbolic BBA Vote

The old joke in Washington is that Democrats are the evil party and Republicans are the stupid party (which is why you should guard your wallet and freedom whenever you hear talk of “bipartisanship”).

The GOP definitely is doing what it can to prove that at least one side of that joke is true. Republicans are actually talking about letting the debt limit increase in exchange for a vote on a balanced budget amendment.

Yes, you read correctly. They’re not talking about an increase in the debt limit in exchange for a balanced budget, or more borrowing authority in exchange for passage of a balanced budget amendment. Instead, they will roll over for the very low price of simply getting a vote on a proposed amendment.

Here’s a passage from a report in Human Events.

The Senate Republicans are preparing to tell President Obama that they want a Balanced Budget Amendment (BBA) to the Constitution passed in Congress in exchange for raising the statuary debt ceiling above $14.2 trillion. “My hope is that we would force a vote on a Balanced Budget Amendment as a condition to voting on the debt ceiling,” Sen. John Cornyn (R.-Tex.) told HUMAN EVENTS.  “By next week, or shortly thereafter, we will have all 47 Republicans unified behind the effort, and then begin to reach out to our Democratic colleagues.”

To understand the foolishness of this approach, here’s all you need to know.

1. If Republicans really want to force a vote on a balanced budget amendment, they basically have that ability already. The rules of the Senate give individual Senators considerable ability to disrupt ordinary business and force votes on motions that at the very least would be proxies for a BBA. And if all 47 Republicans really want to make a stink, they can grind the Senate to a halt and demand an up-or-down vote on a specific amendment.

In other words, Republicans are about to give the democrats something that they really want – an increase in the debt limit – in exchange for a vote that they could get anyhow.

2. More important, what makes them think it is a good deal to give Obama more borrowing authority in exchange for something that, at best, is symbolic? Everyone knows that there is zero chance of getting the necessary two-thirds vote to approve a balanced budget amendment.

That’s not an argument against having a vote (particularly if the BBA is well-written with real limits on taxes and the size of government), but it definitely is not a smart negotiating strategy. It’s sort of akin to trading a power-hitting all-star for a minor league utility player.

Fiscal conservatives should demand substance, not symbolism, in exchange for a higher debt limit. I’ll put forth a few ideas in next few days.

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Yet Another Scheme to Fleece (and Monitor) Americans: A Tax on “Miles Driven”

I commented yesterday about the silly idea, being promoted by a few politicians, to impose a tax on toilet paper. That post mostly was an opportunity to have some fun mocking greedy government because even a dour pessimist like me doesn’t expect that idea to get very far.

But there’s a new tax idea that sounds equally absurd, but actually is a much greater threat to taxpayers. The bureaucrats at the Congressional Budget Office have issued a report suggesting a tax based on the number of miles driven. Since such a tax almost surely (despite initial assertions to the contrary) would be in addition to existing gas taxes, this would be a way for politicians to grab more of our money.

But that’s not the only thing we should worry about. To impose such a tax, the government obviously would need the ability to track our vehicle usage. At the risk of stating the obvious, my driving patters are not the government’s business.

Here’s a blurb from a report in The Hill.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) this week released a report that said taxing people based on how many miles they drive is a possible option for raising new revenues and that these taxes could be used to offset the costs of highway maintenance at a time when federal funds are short. The report discussed the proposal in great detail, including the development of technology that would allow total vehicle miles traveled (VMT) to be tracked, reported and taxed, as well as the pros and cons of mandating the installation of this technology in all vehicles. …The report was requested by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), who held a hearing on transportation funding in early March. In that hearing, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said the Obama administration is hoping to spend $556 billion over the next six years, much of which would go to federal transportation improvement projects. Conrad said in response that federal funds are tight, and in asking for recommendations on how to raise that money, he noted the possibility of a VMT tax as a way to solve the problem of collecting less in taxes as people move to more fuel-efficient vehicles.

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I’m Shocked, Shocked, that Obama Wasn’t Telling the Truth about the Cost of Obamacare

This won’t surprise anyone with a pulse, but Obama, Reid, Pelosi, et al, were disingenuous about the costs of Obamacare. The Congressional Budget Office has released revised numbers and government-run healthcare will cost 8.6 percent more than what was projected in last year’s forecast. This doubtlessly is just the first of many “re-estimates” that will occur, with each one showing the program to be far more costly than initially projected.

This obviously shows the mendacity of Democrat politicians, but let’s also make sure that CBO takes a lot of the blame. The bureaucrats deliberately low-balled expenditure estimates to please their political masters. If Republicans had any brains, they would fire all of them.

Here’s a brief blurb from the Wall Street Journal’s editorial on the topic.

CBO says the entitlement’s health insurance subsidies will cost $1.13 trillion between 2012 and 2021, not $1.04 trillion, the prior estimate. This 8.6% jump is the result of revised assumptions, the so-called technical factors in CBO’s budget model. The bill’s total cost now stands at $1.445 trillion, according to another recent CBO estimate. Remember that all of these are fictitious numbers that reflect Congressional gaming of CBO conventions to make it seem as if ObamaCare “saves” money. But now, even under these conventions, CBO is conceding that it significantly underestimated the bill’s cost. If the propeller heads decide to add a few more trillion dollars in new spending, they might get somewhat closer to the bill’s true cost.

And because I like to brag when I get something right (to be fair, everyone knew the CBO numbers were dishonest and wrong, so I wasn’t exactly making a brilliant observation), I invite people to re-watch my video explaining how the politicians and their minions were lying to us.

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A Pun Contest to Describe a Tax on Toilet Paper?

The greed of the political class is boundless. They have figured out how to tax just about everything, including a tax on tanning salons to finance Obamacare.

But for sheer ingenuity (in the philosophically perverted sense), I must tip my proverbial hat to the politicians who want to tax toilet paper. Here’s a blurb from the Omaha newspaper.

Mayor Jim Suttle went to Washington Tuesday flush with ideas for how federal officials could help cities like Omaha pay for multibillion-dollar sewer projects. Among the items on his brainstorming list: a proposal for a 10-cent federal tax on every roll of toilet paper you buy. Based on the four-pack price for Charmin double rolls Tuesday at a midtown Hy-Vee, such a tax would add more than 10 percent to the per-roll price, pushing it over a buck. The idea came from a failed 2009 House measure by an Oregon congressman to help cities and the environment. “I heard about it and said, ‘Well, this is simple. Let’s put it on the table,’” said Suttle.

I’m not overly clever with puns, but how about:

Won’t the a@@holes in Washington leave our a@@holes alone?

We really mean it when we say politicians are doing a @hitty job?

Cleaning up after politicians dump on us?

 

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Jay Leno on Obama’s Libyan Adventure

This one-liner from Leno’s monologue is a pretty good summary of where things stand in North Africa.

According to Newsweek, 73 percent of Americans can’t say why we fought the Cold War. This sounds bad until you consider that no one in the White House can tell us why we’re fighting the Libya war.

Depending on the day of the week, or hour of the day, we’re there to protect civilians, promote democracy, impose regime change, or fight terrorism. Give the White House enough time and maybe they’ll explain why intervening in another Muslim nation stops global warming or saves baby seals.

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Walter Williams, Freedom Fighter

I’ve been fortunate to know Walter Williams ever since I began my Ph.D. studies at George Mason University in the mid-1980s. He is a very good economist, but his real value is as a public intellectual.

He also has a remarkable personal story, which he tells in his new autobiography, Up from the Projects. I’ve read the book and urge you to do the same. It’s very interesting and, like his columns, crisply written.

To get a flavor for Walter’s strong principles and blunt opinions, watch this video from Reason TV. I won’t spoil things, but the last couple of minutes are quite sobering.

I suppose a personal story might be appropriate at this point. My ex also was at George Mason University, and she was Walter’s research assistant. Walter would give multiple-choice tests to students taking his entry-level classes and she was responsible for grading them by sending them through a machine that would “click” for every wrong answer. For almost every student, it sounded like a machine gun was going off. Suffice to say, Walter’s classes were not easy.

So while I’m glad to say he’s my friend, I’m also happy I never took one of his classes.

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Fair Tax vs. the IRS: Debating in Favor of the National Sales Tax

While watching my interview with Dambisa Moyo, I noticed C-Span has an easy-to-use archive system that shows all previous appearances.

This was an opportunity for some narcissistic reminiscing, beginning with my first appearance in 1990 (which I shared with a friend, who laughed at my “Justin Bieber haircut”).

But I was especially pleased to find my debate with Bruce Bartlett about the national sales tax or Fair Tax.

Some readers occasionally give me a hard time about devoting a lot of time and effort to promoting the flat tax, while not paying enough attention to the national sales tax. I’ve explained that this is because I think the flat tax is more politically feasible, but the C-Span debate should demonstrate that I am more than happy to vigorously defend the Fair Tax when given the opportunity.

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Are Republicans Winning the Budget Battle but Losing the Budget War?

Among advocates of limited government, there is growing unease about the fiscal fight in Washington.

This is not because anything bad has happened. Indeed, Democrats thus far have been acquiescing – at least on a temporary basis – to conservative demands for $61 billion of spending cuts over the rest of the current fiscal year. This is remarkable after 10 years of endlessly expanding government.

Here’s what Jennifer Rubin wrote at her Right Turn blog.

A senior Senate adviser wisecracked, “A month ago, they said they couldn’t possibly cut a dime. Then they said the $4 billion [in] cuts in the first CR were a non-starter. Now they’re bragging about cutting spending?” It is a remarkable turn of events and another sign that Reid was bested in this round of budget battling. Twice now he capitulated to House Republicans.

This analysis is right, and it is very similar to what I wrote back on March 2 regarding the first short-term agreement.

So why, then, am I worried?

I’m nervous because the fiscal fight is evolving in a bad direction. In that March 2 post, I warned that “Republicans should be very careful about having their energy dissipated by a series of diversionary battles over short-run spending bills.”

That prediction, unfortunately, seems to have been rather accurate. Democrats have reluctantly agreed to some spending cuts, but their decisions perhaps could be characterized as a rope-a-dope strategy – tactical retreats designed to regain control over the field of battle and win the ultimate fiscal war.

The elephant in the living room, of course, is the threat of a government shutdown. Republicans seem terrified that they will get blamed if there is a stalemate and this leads to a shutdown of the non-essential parts of the government. And they are terrified of this outcome even if they have approved a budget and the stalemate exists solely because Harry Reid has blocked their budget in the Senate and/or Barack Obama has vetoed their budget.

I’ve already explained, in an article for National Review Online, why GOPers should not allow themselves to be blackmailed on this basis. The 1995 shutdown was a big policy success. Republicans did not get everything they wanted, to be sure, but the final result was real fiscal restraint – a four-year period where government spending grew by an average of less than 3 percent.

Moreover, the shutdown was hardly a political setback. Democrats on Capitol Hill were defecting to the GOP side during the fight, and the political people in the Clinton Administration were genuinely concerned that they might not be able to sustain the President’s veto. Some GOP political operatives thought, after the fight was over, that they lost because Clinton polled better than Gingrich, but this certainly didn’t keep Republicans from comfortably holding the House in 1996 and actually picking up seats in the Senate.

So what happens now? Republicans basically have two choices of how to proceed. Both options have some risk, but one approach almost surely leads to failure.

1. Draw a line in the sand and pass a strong budget with cuts and meaningful reforms, even if it means the Democrats block the spending bill and cause a shutdown.

Upsides – This approach is more likely to lead to an outcome that reduces the burden of government spending. Moreover, it surely would trigger more activism from libertarians, conservatives, and other supporters of limited government. A victory based on this approach (or even a draw) creates momentum for both the FY2012 budget resolution battle and the debt limit fight.

Downsides – The left, including the establishment press, will portray the GOP negatively. More specifically, they will claim Republicans are “shutting down the government” because of supposedly extraneous issues like abortion (i.e., the funding controversy over Planned Parenthood), the environment (the debate over the “rider” provision to curtail the EPA’s power grab), or healthcare (defunding Obamacare).

2. Do everything possible to avoid a shutdown, even if it means higher spending and no reform.

Upsides – There is no risk of being blamed for a shutdown.

Downsides – This French-army approach basically means that Republicans give up on fiscal policy for the next 21 months. Surrendering to avoid a shutdown means the burden of spending is higher. It means no program reforms or eliminations. Because of this precedent, it is highly unlikely that the GOP could attach meaningful fiscal conditions to the debt limit. Similarly, the loss of momentum would carry over to the budget resolution, undermining chances for fiscal reform in the 2012 fiscal year budget. Last but not least, the “base” would be very disappointed as activists from the Tea Party and elsewhere begin to conclude that fighting against big government is a fool’s errand.

Even in the most ideal scenario, using the line-in-the-sand strategy, fiscal conservatives in the House will not get everything they want. The real issue is which side has the upper hand in the negotiations.

The fight-rather-than-surrender approach gives the GOP leverage. They almost surely won’t get $61 billion of cuts, but they’ll be much closer to that number than with the French-army approach. They won’t succeed with all the “riders,” but they’ll make progress – perhaps temporarily setting aside the Obamacare issue in exchange for clipping the EPA’s wings, or gutting Planned Parenthood but letting NPR off the hook.

Politicians inevitably are worried about the political consequences of any strategy. That’s harder to judge, but they can protect themselves by not making it seem as if they welcome a partial shutdown. I explained in the National Review article that there are several lesson that Republicans can learn from 1995 that can help them prevail in 2011.

First and foremost, Republicans should keep passing bills to reopen the entire government. They should stress that they want the government open and explain that it is only closed because of Harry Reid’s obstinate support for big government and/or Barack Obama’s use of his veto pen on behalf of special interests. …Keep passing bills to reopen the parts of the government that voters actually care about, such as VA hospitals, the Social Security Administration, and national parks. …Remember that a government shutdown generally puts more financial pressure on the Left. If there is a lengthy showdown, Democratic constituencies begin to squeal. …In 1995, Republicans had to deal with a very hostile press corps. There was no Fox News, no Internet as we know it today, and no cadre of talk-radio hosts to augment Rush Limbaugh. So while it is true that CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, the New York Times, and the Washington Post will regurgitate Democratic talking points, many voters will have access to conservative news sources, something that was not the case in 1995.

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Do You Want to Attend a Private Screening of Atlas Shrugged?

This post is only useful for those of you who live in the Washington area. But if you do, click on this link to find out how to attend a screening of Atlas Shrugged tomorrow afternoon at the Heritage Foundation.

I got a chance to see the movie at a Cato event in California. As I wrote after that opportunity, “The production quality is first rate, the musical score (I think that’s the term) is perfect, and the story is well told – a particularly challenging task since the 1000 page-plus book is actually being brought to the screen in three parts and this is just the first installment.”

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This Cartoon Summarizes the Corrupt Insider-Dealing that Governor Walker (and others) Are Trying to Fix

This great cartoon I saw at The Corner is a very good summary of what the public-sector “collective bargaining” issue is all about.

In private sector labor disputes, unions and management both have ample incentives to protect their respective interests.

With government labor negotiations, by contrast, that natural system of checks and balances doesn’t exist. There’s no strong incentive for politicians to be frugal stewards of taxpayer money – particularly when they negotiate very expensive fringe benefits that defer costs to future years.

Indeed, because government employee unions tend to be very politically active, often being huge contributors to political campaigns, politicians often have a strong incentive to be profligate with taxpayer money.

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End the Fed: More than Just a Bumper Sticker Slogan?

To put it mildly, the Federal Reserve has a dismal track record. It bears significant responsibility for almost every major economic upheaval of the past 100 years, including the Great Depression, the 1970s stagflation, and the recent financial crisis. Perhaps the most damning statistic is that the dollar has lost 95 percent of its value since the central bank was created.

Notwithstanding its poor performance, the Federal Reserve seems to get more power over time. But rather than rewarding the central bank for debasing the currency and causing instability, perhaps it’s time to contemplate alternatives. This new video from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity dives into that issue, exposing the Fed’s poor track record, explaining how central banking evolved, and mentioning possible alternatives.

This video is the first installment of a multi-part series on monetary policy. Subsequent videos will examine possible alternatives to monopoly central banks, including a gold standard, free banking, and monetary rules to limit the Fed’s discretion.

One of the challenges in this field is that opponents of the Fed often are portrayed as cranks. Defenders of the status quo may not have a good defense of the Fed, but they are rather effect in marginalizing critics. Congressman Ron Paul and others are either summarily dismissed or completely ignored.

The implicit assumption in monetary circles is that there is no alternative to central banking and fiat money. Anybody who criticizes the current system therefore is a know-nothing who wants to create some sort of libertarian dystopia featuring banking panics and economic chaos.

To be fair, it certainly might be possible to create a monetary regime that is worse than the Fed. That is why the next videos in this series will offer a careful look at the costs and benefits of possible alternatives.

As they say, stay tuned.

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British Business Writer Explains: Thanks to Tax Competition and Tax Havens, the Greed of the Political Class Is Being Constrained

Regular readers know that I’m a big fan of tax competition because politicians are less likely to misbehave if the potential victims of plunder have the ability to escape across borders.

Here is an excerpt from a superb article by Allister Heath, one of the U.K.’s best writers on economic and business issues.

In a modern, global and open world, states have to compete for people. Weirdly, that is something that a large number of commentators have failed to recognise… They assume implicitly that governments remain quasi-monopolies, as was the case throughout most of human history, with citizens mere subjects forced to put up with poor public services, high taxes, crime, misgovernment and a poor quality of life. Yet the reality is that there is now more competition than ever between governments for human capital, with people – especially the highly skilled and the successful – more footloose and mobile than ever before. This is true both within the EU, where freedom of movement reins, and globally. …competition between governments is as good for individuals as competition between firms is for consumers. It keeps down tax rates, especially on labour and capital, which is good for growth and job creation; states need to produce better services at the cheapest possible cost. And if governments become too irritating or incompetent, it allows an exit strategy. It is strange how pundits who claim to want greater competition in the domestic economy – for example, in banking – are so afraid of competition for people between states, decrying it as a race to the bottom. Yet monopolies are always bad, in every sphere of human endeavour, breeding complacency, curtailing innovation and throttling progress. …Globalisation is not just about buying cheap Chinese goods: it also limits the state’s powers to over-tax or over-control its citizens.

For those who haven’t seen them before, here are a couple of my videos that elaborate on these critical issues.

First, here’s a video on tax competition, which includes some well-deserved criticism of international bureaucracies and high-tax nations that are seeking to create global tax cartels.

Here’s a video that makes a powerful economic case for tax havens.

But this is not just an economic issue. Here’s a video that addresses the moral issues and explains why tax havens play a critical role in protecting people subject to persecution by venal governments – as well as people living in nations plagued by crime and instability.

And last but not least, this video punctures some of the myths promoted by the anti-tax haven advocates of global tax cartels.

By the way, since the main purpose of this post is to draw your attention to the superb analysis of a British writer, I may as well close by drawing your attention to a couple of speeches by Dan Hannan, a British member of the European Parliament. In a remarkably limited time, he explains what this battle is all about.

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My Interview with Dambisa Moyo Has Been Posted

I wasn’t able to figure out how to embed the video on this site, but just click on this link and you can watch the program.

It’s been many years since I was on the other side of an interview table, so it was an interesting experience. And Dambisa made the process very easy.

Your feedback, as always, is appreciated. I don’t think there’s any danger that I’ll be the next Larry King, but I gave myself a solid B .

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Since When Does the United Nations Rather than Congress Get to Declare War for the United States?

I’m not a foreign policy expert, so perhaps I’m missing something, but a quick glance at the Constitution reveals that Congress has the power to declare war, as specified in Article I, Section VIII. Nobody else has that power, not even the President.

Notwithstanding this clear language, the United States may (or may not, depending on Obama’s mood) participate in military action against Libya merely because of a resolution at the United Nations.

This is rather troubling in the short run because it risks another messy entanglement in the Middle East – and it blatantly disregards the procedure created by our Founding Fathers for making such choices.

But it is equally troubling in the long run because it implicitly restricts the ability of the United States to unilaterally act if there is a time when America’s national security is genuinely threatened.

If we attack Libya because of a resolution from the U.N. Security Council, does that mean we can’t attack some terrorist stronghold in the future if we don’t get a resolution from the U.N.? Don’t kid yourself, the international bureaucrats and their multilateralist sympathizers all around the world think the answer to that question is yes, and they are delighted that the United States is acting in ways that strengthen their position.

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I’ll Be on C-Span this Weekend, Interviewing Dambisa Moyo

I’m not sure watching me on TV is the best way of spending a Saturday night, but watching Dambisa Moyo is much more understandable.

She’s the author of How the West Was Lost: Fifty Years of Economic Folly – and the Stark Choices Ahead.

Lots of interesting talk about policy, demographics, and culture. I agree with some of her book and disagree about other parts, so it made for a fun discussion.

It will show several times this weekend, so check out this Book TV site for the best option.

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The “McDonald’s Test” for Budget Cutting

I thought my post about budget cuts earlier today, mocking the biased language of the Washington Post, was clever. But I’m definitely an amateur blogger.

Check out these posts, at Powerline Blog and Arizona Economics.

These guys put me to shame with very clever calculations and great visuals. Check them both out.

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Bush Was Not a Conservative

There’s an interesting debate in the blogosphere about whether President George W. Bush was a conservative (here’s a good summary of the discussion, along with lots of links, though I especially like this analysis since it cites my work.).

I’ve already explained that Bush was a statist rather than a conservative, and you can find additional commentary from me here, here, here, and here.

Simply stated, any President who doubles the burden of federal spending in just eight years is disqualified from being a conservative – unless the term is stripped of any meaning and conservatives no longer care about limited government and constitutional constraints on Washington.

But if you don’t want to read the blog posts I linked above, this chart should make clear that Bush was a big spender, not only when compared to Reagan, but also compared to Clinton. Moreover, we’re only looking at overall domestic spending, so this doesn’t include Iraq, Afghanistan, and other defense expenditures. And these are inflation-adjusted dollars, so we’re comparing apples to apples.

But let’s also examine the burden of domestic spending as a share of GDP. As you can see, there actually was progress during the Clinton years, and significant progress during the Reagan years. But all that was completely wiped out during the Bush presidency.

These numbers should not be a surprise. During Bush’s tenure, we got the no-bureaucrat-left-behind education bill, two corrupt farm bills, a new prescription drug entitlement, two pork-filled transportation bills, an auto company bailout, and a TARP bailout for banks.

This was a time of feasting for special interest groups and lobbyists, to put it mildly.

If that’s conservative, then Ronald Reagan was a liberal.

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