7 posts tagged “government”

This just goes to show that the true purpose of taxes is now shifting away from roads, emergencies, etc. to whatever pet projects politicians find that will help them get re-elected.

...cash-per-crash ordinances tend to infuriate motorists, and they often generate bad press, but a lot of cities are finding them hard to resist. With the economy flailing and budgets strained, state and local governments are being creative about ways to raise money. And the go-to idea is to invent a fee — or simply raise one.

So when times get tough and government budgets are stretched thin because of the crazy amount of spending that is going on, this is what you get -- "out of the box" thinking.  And the basic elements of government suffer.  Not the exotic spending programs.

No offense... but the way I see things - my government should not have to think out of the box.  Because the box from the get go should be simple.

The solution is simple for government.  Have a pile of cash to tap into when economic slumps occur and replenish the pile when times are good.

But the true problem with that is politicians hate to see piles of cash sitting on the sideline.  Because they love to spend, spend, spend.

Your government at work.

Mandi Hamlin was just trying to grab a flight from Lubbock, TX. She made it through the main security scanners and her various metal piercings hadn't set off any alarms. Then she was wanded by a female TSA employee and discovered that, without her knowledge, her breasts had joined Al Qaeda.

Read the article.  It only gets better.

Much is touted during election campaigns.  Politicians promising the world.  Voters wanting more services and more safety nets.  More and more spending with no money to spend.

And promises are made.  "Better" services.  More laws.  Security.  Etc...

In a way, I want to see the government give more security.  But not in the sense of a social blanket or an entitlement. 

What we are seeing around us with these economic bailouts and the government's effort to stave off depression is unfortunately needed to prevent system meltdown.  And on a side note, Friedman has a great piece in the NY Times about this.

But back to my thoughts.  What I see is the government using money it doesn't have to bailout companies that made bad choices.  That got greedy.  That displayed zero responsibility and seek the taxpayers to help them probably do it all over again.

And the consequences will still be rough with these bailouts.  Monetary issues.  Buying power reduction.  Continued domino effect on the economy.

So the security I seek from government is seeing it spend less.  Become more economically responsible with taxpayer money.  Reducing our deficit to zero (to surpluses) so we can pay off our debt after this economic crisis is resolved.

The end security from that action will be priceless.  And maybe it can be done in my lifetime...

The way I see it -- if the U.S. government had close to zero debt these bailouts would be much easier to swallow.

The government should be there to prevent system meltdown.  But when it already has 10 trillion dollars of debt, it is harder to save the system.  The simple economics of spending money you don't have doesn't change when the size of the account is ginormous.  And debt with 13 zeros is enough.  And enough is enough!

It is time to reboot the system in Washington.  Clear the cache.  Do what we have to do now and then get back to the basics. 

The NY Times ran an interesting article about the network-level filtering big internet service providers plan to do in the near future.

Internet civil rights organizations oppose network-level filtering, arguing that it amounts to Big Brother monitoring of free speech, and that such filtering could block the use of material that may fall under fair-use legal provisions — uses like parody, which enrich our culture.

Rick Cotton, the general counsel of NBC Universal, who has led the company’s fights against companies like YouTube for the last three years, clearly doesn’t have much tolerance for that line of thinking.

“The volume of peer-to-peer traffic online, dominated by copyrighted materials, is overwhelming. That clearly should not be an acceptable, continuing status,” he said. “The question is how we collectively collaborate to address this.”

Ask yourself this...  if the big internet service providers start "sniffing" for packet traffic on a network scale, what is going to stop the federal government from getting in on this?  They talk about looking for copyrighted material being trafficked over the internet and these actions are meant to stop piracy.  But is that where it starts?  First piracy.  Next [fill in blank].

"Hey, AT&T, we would like to add our own algorithms to your server filters...  you know...  to sniff out terrorists."

Buh-bye net neutrality.  This new internet isn't going to have billboards all along the digital superhighway that read: "Hey!  We're reading your content!"  It is going to be in the super fine print of your service provider contract that says we reserve the right to screen your content.

So we can thank the abusers of the internet and the fanatical nature of the internet service providers for the punishment of the masses...  but hey...  we're protecting children, looking for pirates, oh and... potentially stopping terrorism!  Goooo.... Freedom-loving-peoples!

Absolutely appalling.

The DoD has sent letters telling wounded soldiers and Marines that they have to prorate their bonuses because they didn't complete their enlistment terms. The Pentagon discharged them and wants a refund from those who left their health on the battlefield.

W gets it right when he questions our government's ability to do anything with any semblance of intelligent thought.  I can't even think where to begin on this one.

Peanut Butter and Jelly?  I wonder if our government can even get a glass of water right?

Decrease taxes.  Increase revenue.  It really is simple.

So far this year, tax revenues total $1.505 trillion, an increase of 11.2 percent over the same period last year. That figure includes $383.6 billion collected in April, the largest monthly tax collection on record.

But as Bill Hobbs explains, both sides of the aisle still don't get it.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: conservatives who think the key to shrinking the size of the federal government is cutting taxes are always going to be disappointed. President Ronald Reagan proved that tax cuts stimulate the economy and lead to record tax revenue - and Congress proved it can spend every last dollar and then some. (The Reagan era deficits were not caused by tax cuts as revenue growth soared, but instead were caused by Congress passing budgets that spent even more.)

Tax cuts don't shrink government - unless you slash tax rates close to zero - because, as per the Laffer Curve, lower taxes=higher economic growth=higher revenue.

If the liberal Big Government lovers understood that, they'd work with conservatives to keep taxes low at all levels of government, and they'd find themselves with plenty of money to spend on all those things that liberal politicians can't seem to get enough of.

And if conservative Big Government loathers understood that, they'd work to keep taxes low, but instead of calculating the size of government based on the size of the federal budget they would focus their "Small Government" agenda on shrinking the power of the government to intrude on and regulate what ought to be private, personal, family, religious, business and local-community matters.

Ronald Reagan sums it up pretty good though.

The government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

The politics of fear.  Recently in France a socialist candidate used the fear of violence as an outcry (and last ditch effort) against the leading conservative candidate.

My point (from the link) above was to say that the "politics of fear" is used on both sides of the political fence.

Shortly after my post this was posted.  How convenient.  Lets take a look shall we?

The domestic scene is just as surreal.  Rank opportunism rules.  In the name of preventing terrorism, the Bush administration has employed a politics of fear to create the most extensive national security apparatus in our nation's history.

Military tribunals.  Mandatory registration.  Mass detentions.  Electronic surveillance.  Government secrecy.  Executive privilege.  Office of Total Awareness.  Perpetual war.

Folks, this is the stuff of such dystopian novels as Aldous Huxley's "Brace New World" or George Orwell's "1984."  As a historian, I hear echoes of voices from the past -- survivors of Nazi-occupied nations, dissidents who disappeared in Soviet prisons, Japanese Americans ordered to internment camps, political activists persecuted under McCarthyism.

No, noe of these historical analogies is appropriate -- yet.  But we civilians have just as much responsibility to protect our liberties as do combat soldiers.  And right now, we are governed by an administration that wields far too much power -- simply because it can.

Oh, were talking George Orwell now?  The last I checked there wasn't an "Office of Total Awareness" run by the Bush administration.  But I understand the liberal argument of violating civil liberties and whole big brother issue.  Maybe we should look at some examples.

Case 1:  Great Britain.  They are moving toward a "survelliance society."  Here is a recent BBC article.

Researchers highlight "dataveillance", the use of credit card, mobile phone and loyalty card information, and CCTV.

Monitoring of work rates, travel and telecommunications is also rising.

There are up to 4.2m CCTV cameras in Britain - about one for every 14 people.

Now talk about Orwellian.  So who is exactly running Great Britain?  An evil conservative secretive coalition?  Nope.  The liberal Labour Party currently holds majority in the House of Commons along with Tony Blair (who soon will step down).

Case 2:  Chicago.  Here is a USA Today article.

A survelliance system that uses 2,000 remote-control cameras and motion-sensing software to spot crimes or terrorist acts as they happen is being planned for the city.

If that sounds a little like Big Brother is watching, he might be.

So who exactly is running Chicago?  Why that is Mayor Daley.  He doesn't exactly fit into the conservative category.

These are just a few examples and designed to show that liberals in power may be just as dangerous, when it comes to limiting civil liberties, as conservatives in power.

It is the government's responsibility to protect its citizens.  So am I happy that our governments are moving to cameras at every street corner?  Of course not.  But these are the solutions our governments want to enact to stop attacks and save civilians.

Are liberals showing their restraint in turning government into institutions of big brother?  I don't see it.  Heck, they just helped to reinstate the PATRIOT Act.

The United States Senate voted to renew the Act on March 2, 2006. On March 7, 2006, the House gave its final vote in approval of renewing the act. [8] The legislation to extend the statute will make all but two of its provisions permanent. The provisions in question are the authority to conduct "roving" surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and the authority to request production of business records under FISA (USA PATRIOT Act sections 206 and 215, respectively). These provisions will expire in 4 years.

In the grand scheme of things, I worry more about those politicians who seek to make the government bigger, not smaller.  And I believe most conservatives seek to limit government powers.

The way I see it -- either do what we need to do to try to stop terrorism now or suffer the long-term changes to our way of life.  Do you think big brother is going to get better or worse after another major terrorist attack in this country (regardless of who is president)?

All of these polls that liberals cite showing that the U.S. citizenry are not in favor of Bush's efforts will flip on a dime when the next big attack comes.  And fellow Americans will demand our politicians act.  What then?