Free kibbles

TAX AND SPEND:

Using food stamps to buy cigarettes and beer.

Obama continues to give stimulus boondoggle money to phony congressional districts. Another phony district.

Letting the Bush tax cuts expire will lead to a $3 trillion tax increase.

Everybody is jumping on this report that government made $98 billion in improper payments. Out of a budget of $3.6 trillion, that's only $2.7 percent. I don't believe that number is that small for a second.

John Stossel explains what too many people don't get - the real problem with government is the spending. Taxes are just one symptom of that problem.

"Taxes, even counting hidden taxes, are not the real measure of what the thieves take. The true burden of government, the late Milton Friedman said, is the spending level. Taxation is just one way government gets money. The other ways—borrowing and inflation—are equally burdens on the people. (State governments can't inflate, but they sure can borrow.) "

We pay for every dollar government spends twice. First we pay for it in taxes. Then we pay for it in the economy because when government spends our tax dollars in the economy to satisfy the desires of the politicians instead of where we would spend it to satisfy our own desires, it changes the allocation of resources in the economy, making the things we want to buy more expensive. So our $3.5 trillion budget is doing $7 trillion of damage to our $13 economy. Mandates, regulations and bans do more damage. Spending, mandates, regulations and bans at the state and local levels do even more damage. And we wonder why we're in a recession. And government keeps pretending it can spend us out of it.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

Ron Paul succeeded in reinstating the guts of his audit the Fed bill in the House financial services committee. Good deal.

Robert Murphy claims we're suffering inflation right now. Of course we are. Production cycle for many finished good in America is years long. That means it takes years for inflation to flow through the production cycle to reach the consumer. Yet we're already seeing signs of it even in the consumer market.

"On his blog Free Advice in September, the Pacific Research Institute economist Robert Murphy argued that inflation is already here but economists are missing the signs. “From [December 2008] until August 2009, the unadjusted CPI level has increased 2.7%, which translates to an annualized increase of just over 4%,” Murphy wrote. He acknowledged that “ten-year yields [on Treasury bonds] are…low” but added that the price of gold has increased enormously. “Why do we assume that TIPS [Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities] traders are genius forecasters, but gold traders are morons?” he asked."

HEALTH CARE:

Harry Reid using taxpayer money to bride Senators to vote for his health care bill.

"On the Democratic side, Majority Leader Harry Reid is passing out goodies in hopes of garnering the 60 votes he needs for a motion to proceed to debate on the bill. Yesterday, Mr. Reid announced he'll hold that vote on Saturday at 8 pm after a day-long debate. Whether he has the 60 votes is uncertain at the moment, but you can bet he will open the taxpayer spigots to secure those he needs."

Politics as usual in America is criminal. He should be arrested, tried and convicted for this. They all should.

"Republicans had the option of staying on the floor and having Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and others read the bill, a process that would take at least two days. They opted for a less strenuous path that will allow them to spend plenty of time at home during the Thanksgiving holiday. "Republican members oppose the bill, but they don't appear willing to stay up nights arguing against it," one former Hill staffer told me."

Thanks, Republicans.

Premature baby left to die in UK because government guidelines recommend not providing care to babies born that early. In other words, the government probably wouldn't have reimbursed the costs. Far worse will happen here and everywhere else if Obamacare passes because the US health care system will no longer be able to lift up the health care systems of the rest of the world or even our own.

GLOBAL WARMING:

It looks like Obama will order the EPA to cap CO2 emissions. Great Pharaoh need not bother with that pesky legislative process.

WAR:

The US has never tried an enemy combatant caught on the battlefield in federal court. What does caught on the battlefield mean in this war?

POLITICS:

Gallop reports Obama's approval at 49 percent.

MISC:

Robert Murphy blasts the efficient market hypothesis. I like this refutation. It is a mere tautology. Of course markets reflect the best available information available. People can't act or stay out of a market on anything but the information they have. But that doesn't mean people are infallible. Some expect one set of consequences. Others expect another. Both can't be right. To the extent people are fallible, and that's a huge extent, markets are fallible too.

Here's the Democrat party platform in 1932, campaigned on by Roosevelt:

"

1. An immediate and drastic reduction of governmental expenditures by abolishing useless commissions and offices, consolidating departments and bureaus and eliminating extravagance, to accomplish a saving of not less than 25 percent in the cost of Federal government.…
2. Maintenance of the national credit by a Federal budget annually balanced .…
3. A sound currency to be maintained at all hazards.[4]

...
It was … actually an old-time Democratic platform based upon fairly well-accepted principles of the traditional Democratic party. That party had always denounced the tendency to strong central government, the creation of new bureaus. It had always denounced deficit financing. Its central principle of action was a minimum of government in business.[7]"

Roosevelt's lies created the monstrous Democrat party of today. This is an interesting article showing how the terms liberal, conservative and libertarian got flipped during Roosevelt's reign.

Wired pans Google's Chrome OS with a pretty good argument. Why would people give up what works today? Of course, I use all those web aps because I refuse to buy software. I wouldn't be surprised if many younger people feel the same. But you'd have to expect the market to be small for a long time.

Obama nominates judge who thinks judges can amend the constitution by adding footnotes. Shouldn't our judges at least have read the document?

Victor Davis Hansen paints the sorry picture the US is facing.

"Add it all up and there is a growing sense that America is in fact hemorrhaging - as both friends and enemies abroad smell blood in the water. The president through conciliation and concession - not to mention constant talk - is trying to superficially restore the influence we once earned by virtue of our economic power and self-confidence in our exceptional past and singular values."

The burden of government has dragged America into decline. Obama is purposely accelerating that decline. We have to admit the problem before we can fix it.

Tax problems for another Obama nominee.

The scary rise of communist nostalgia. The welfare state is rotting people's brains.

Oh my goodness, this is a funny cartoon.