Welfare Handouts for Promoting Terrorism

I don’t think the federal government should be in the business of redistribution income. Simply stated, the welfare state has been a disaster for both taxpayers and recipients.

But our system, with whatever flaws it might have now or in the future, presumably will never be as crazy as the system in the United Kingdom.

A reader sent a story that blows my mind. Our cousins across the ocean give big welfare handouts to terrorist agitators. Here are some excerpts from The Sun.

British taxpayers subsidize this hate-filled moocher

…hate preacher Anjem Choudary has told fanatics to copy him by going on benefits — urging: “Claim your Jihad Seeker’s Allowance.” He cruelly ridiculed non-Muslims who held down 9-to-5 jobs all their lives and said sponging off them made plotting holy war easier. …Father-of-four Choudary, who has praised terrorist outrages, pockets more than £25,000 a year in benefits — £8,000 more than the take-home pay of some soldiers fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. He laughed as he told supporters:  “You find people are busy working the whole of their life. They wake up at 7 o’clock. They go to work at 9 o’clock. They work for eight, nine hours a day. They come home at 7 o’clock, watch EastEnders, sleep, and they do that for 40 years of their life. That is called slavery.

This dirtbag is right about one thing. It is a form of slavery to involuntarily confiscate money from the hard-working taxpayers of the United Kingdom and give the money to scroungers such as Choudary.

Choudary may be a despicable worm, but he’s clever enough to bilk the system.

Figures obtained by The Sun in 2010 showed the extremist cleric received £15,600 a year in housing benefit to keep him in a £320,000 house in Leytonstone, East London. He also got £1,820 council tax allowance, £5,200 income support and £3,120 child benefits — equivalent to a taxed salary of £32,500.

A £320,000 house?!? That’s about $500,000! That’s probably more valuable than the average home of the people paying punitive taxes to support this deadbeat.

For all intents and purposes, Choudary is like Natailija, Tracey, and Gina and Danny – but far worse since he sponges off the taxpayers and also advocates for terrorism. All subsidized by tax dollars.

P.S. You probably won’t be surprised to learn that the French government gives welfare handouts to terrorists. But I’m surprised the Australian government also allows mooching by pro-Jihad activists.

P.P.S. The good news is that at least some leftists are beginning to realize that the welfare state cripples people by creating government dependency.

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What Really Happened in Cyprus?

Did Cyprus become an economic basket case because it is a tax haven, as some leftists have implied?

Did it get in trouble because the government overspent, which I have suggested?

The answers to those questions are “no” and “to some degree.”

The real problem, as I explain in this interview for Voice of America, is that Cypriot banks became insolvent because they made very poor investment decisions, particularly their purchases of Greek government bonds.

A few additional points.

1. The mess in Cyprus won’t cause problems in other nations, but it may lead investors in other nation to pay closer attention to whether there are problems with the government and/or banking sector.

2. There is not a “European problem” or “euro problem.” Some nations, such as Switzerland and Estonia, have made sound decisions. Others, such as Sweden, Denmark, and Germany, are in decent shape.

3. The final outcome in Cyprus was bad, but probably less bad than other options. The final result surely was better than the corrupt TARP regime in the United States.

4. It is utterly absurd to blame tax havens for the financial crisis. That disaster was caused by mistaken decisions by politicians in Washington.

So what happens now? I fear that Cyprus is going to be like Ireland, a nation that used to have a few attractive policies but now will have a bleak future.

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