Taxation

Last week we were reminded that ours is not the only country suffering from severe economic turmoil. The Greek government is the latest to come close to default on their massive public debt. Greece has insufficient funds in their treasury to make even the minimum payments that are now coming due. Their debt level is about 120 percent of their gross domestic product and their public sector absorbs what amounts to 40 percent of GDP. Any talk of cutting costs and spending is met with violent protests from the many Greeks heavily dependent on government payments. Mounting fears of default have sent shockwaves through their creditors and all of the eurozone countries.

Last week politicians in Washington made a few things clear about how they really feel about the state of the union. First, they are beginning to hear the growing discontent with the size and scope of government and the broken promises that keep piling up. Certain events in Massachusetts recently made that statement loud, clear and unavoidable. In the face of those events, the powers that be made the determination that some populist rhetoric was in order, and the idea of a spending freeze in Washington was proposed, albeit with several caveats. These caveats to the proposed spending freeze ensure that we are not at any real risk of actually doing anything about spending.

Last week, in the name of protecting the little guy from Wall Street, the House passed HR 4173 to increase the little guy’s false sense of security in the financial system. This mammoth piece of legislation would massively increase government regulation and oversight in the banking industry under the misguided reasoning that more government could have stopped faulty lending practices, when in actuality it caused them. This bill would also greatly increase the powers of the Federal Reserve, which too many in Congress still see as savior rather than perpetrator in this mess.

Congressman Ron Paul and Congressman Harry Mitchell are again joining forces to stop the increase in pay that Members of Congress automatically get every year unless it is voted down. To this end, they have introduced H.R. 4255, the Stop the Automatic Pay Raise for Members of Congress in FY2011. A "Dear Colleague" letter was sent out today inviting other Members to sign on as cosponsors of the bill.

It is their strong belief that with high unemployment and the economic turmoil the nation continues to face, it is absolutely inappropriate for Members of Congress to raise their own pay.

“We Members of Congress should not be padding our pocketbooks when our constituents are still tightening their belts and losing their jobs,” stated Congressman Paul.

I was pleased last week when we won a vote in the Financial Services Committee to include language from the Audit the Fed bill HR1207 in the upcoming financial regulatory reform bill. As it stands now, if HR 3996 passes, because of this action, the Federal Reserve’s entire balance sheet will be opened up to a GAO audit. We will at last have a chance to find out what happened to the trillions of dollars the Fed has been giving out.

Finally, the blanket restrictions on GAO audits of the Fed that have existed since 1978 will be removed. All items on the Fed’s balance sheet will be auditable, including all credit facilities, all securities purchase programs, and all agreements with foreign central banks. To calm fears that we might be trying to substitute congressional action for Fed mischief in tinkering with monetary policy, we agreed to a 180 day lag time before details of the Fed’s market actions are released and included language to state explicitly that nothing in the amendment should be construed as interference in or dictation of monetary policy by Congress or the GAO. This left no reasonable objections standing and the amendment passed with a vote of 43 to 26.

President Obama wants to move alleged terrorists out of the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba so he can keep a campaign promise and shut the place down.

Obama home-state politicians want the federal government to buy the Thomson Correctional Center in rural northwest Illinois and move the current Gitmo residents in.

Land of Lincoln Governor Pat Quinn waxed eloquent on Sunday in an AP article proclaiming that selling the prison to the federal government is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create jobs in the struggling area.

But can politicos really turn taxpayer-funded public works projects into incredible job-creating machines?

Congressman Ron Paul sent a letter to all Members of Congress today asking them to support his legislation HR 219 The Social Security Preservation Act, which simply states that all monies raised by the Social Security Trust Fund will be used only in payments to beneficiaries or invested in interest-bearing certificates of deposit.

With the country crumbling around them, slipping into starvation, riots, and open civil war due to their constant economic bungling, the president and his fellow powercrats were desperate to track down the one man they believed could save their failing regime and force that man to become their economic dictator.

Eventually they arrested him and dragged him before the TV cameras where they forced him to explain to the country what they had dubbed the "John Galt Plan." Galt's explanation, as he moved abruptly sideways to expose the gun poking against his ribs, was "get the hell out of my way!"

When you hear that some libertarians who typically call themselves Anarcho-Capitalists, or AnCaps, want to abolish government entirely do you respond with gnashing of teeth and pulling of hair?

“Without government we’ll have nothing but chaos,” you might gasp in dismay.

But think about how much chaos government creates.

Last Wednesday the nation was riveted to the President’s speech on healthcare reform before Congress. While the President’s concern for the uninsured is no doubt sincere, his plan amounts to a magnanimous gift to the health insurance industry, despite any implications to the contrary.

For decades the insurance industry has been lobbying for mandated coverage for everyone. Imagine if the cell phone industry or the cable TV industry received such a gift from government? If government were to fine individuals simply for not buying a corporation’s product, it would be an incredible and completely unfair boon to that industry, at the expense of freedom and the free market. Yet this is what the current healthcare reform plans intend to do for the very powerful health insurance industry.

Google the phrase, with quotes, "Going Galt" and you'll get "about 215,000" results or so.

Are libertarians witnessing the mainstreaming of John Galt?

This article touches on one of the reasons why the idea of Going Galt is becoming so popular. But it needs to begin with this caveat:

The whole point of libertarianism is individual freedom.

The enemy of freedom is coercion. While criminals of all stripes and types use coercion to steal our freedom, the number one freedom-stealer is government.

Even the most-limited, least-interventionist, libertarian-friendliest government in history – the one created by representatives of thirteen previously subservient British colonies - required the coercion of taxes to make it go.

The Cash for Clunkers program has received a lot of attention this week on Capitol Hill and across the country. The program offers a voucher of up to $4500 in federal funds to anyone who trades in a working used car for a new one with better fuel economy. Congress was shocked at how quickly people responded to promises of free money and drained the program, while car dealers have been equally shocked at how slow and arduous the government’s website to claim the rebates has been.

As the healthcare debate rages on, there is one reality that even the proponents of this hostile takeover of healthcare by government cannot ignore – and that is money. The government simply does not have the money for a new, expansive, public healthcare plan. The country is in a deep recession that will deepen even further with the coming collapse of the commercial real estate market. The last thing we need is for government to increase and expand taxes to pay for another damaging, wasteful program. Foreigners are becoming less enthusiastic about buying our debt, and creating another open-ended welfare program when we cannot pay for what is already in place, will not help. Champions of socialized medicine want to tax the rich, tax businesses that already cannot afford to provide health plans to employees, and tax people who don’t want to participate in the government’s scheme by buying an approved healthcare plan. Presumably, all these taxes are to induce compliance. This is not freedom, nor will it improve healthcare.