Napolitano, Health Care and Nullification

You have to check out this Freedom Watch November 11 segment (linked below) . Judge Napolitano interviews former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson about H.R. 3962, the recently passed House Health Care bill.  In the midst of a sea of despair over the latest assault on personal sovereignty, constitutional government and fiscal sanity, we have The Judge seriously suggesting State “Nullification”.  It’s positively inspirational.

You need to see it yourself.  Napolitano points our that the Bill authorizes the IRS to enforce new government health insurance mandates.  Mandates that even have Democrats complaining they were written by the health insurance industry.   So what can we do about it?  Perhaps what Thomas Jefferson and James Madison did when that pillar of freedom John Adams and his henchmen enacted the Alien and Sedition Acts – the States could “just say NO”.  In the Kentucky and Virgina Resolutions two of our Founding Fathers suggested that the sovereign State Governments should declare the Acts null and void (Nullification) and even that it was the duty of State law enforcement officials to protect the State’s citizens from the initiation of force by Federal officers attempting to enforce the Acts (Interposition).  Damn, Judge!  That’s MY kind of talk.  Want to run for President?  Move to NYS and run for Governor next year!   Anybody who seriously talks about Nullification is cool in my book.  Out of the question? Too radical?  The Judge points out some interesting examples.  Think of California and Medical Marijuana. Think of Real ID.  It’s not exactly the same but things are different than they were in 1798.  

That’s what I call pokin’ a finger in the eye of  The Oppressor.  I’ll take a dozen.  The Judge is currently in negotiations to take Freedom Watch mainstream.  We need to make THAT happen.   RUN,  don’t walk to your email system and let the powers that be over at Fox know that we want more of The Judge.  Send email to viewerservices@foxnews.com with FREEDOM WATCH WITH THE JUDGE in the subject line.

Watch the video here

Audit the Fed: Tom Woods Testimony Today

Hearings began today on Ron Paul’s  HR1207 which proposes to audit the Federal Reserve.  Dr. Wood’s says it beautifully. I can’t begin to compare so read his testimony here.

First, this is a huge victory for the forces of freedom in New York City.  Dozens of heroic volunteers from the Campaign for Liberty and the Libertarian Party gathered signatures, called Congressmembers and lots of other activities and this was repeated across the country.  HR1207 has 290 co-sponsors as a result.  When I checked last no member of Congress from NYC  was included, in particular Financial Services Committee member Carolyn Maloney.

What’s to oppose about this bill?  It only seeks to require a thorough audit by the GAO so that Americans know where trillions of dollars printed by the Fed have gone.

The objections are nonsense.

For example some suggest it would remove the Fed’s independence and subject monetary policy to politics. Nonsense.  There is nothing in the bill that seeks to control Fed actions. An audit will only expose their actions to sunlight.  

Some opponents say that the bill is just a first toward abolishing the Fed.  They are right.  But that’s no excuse to oppose this step even if they don’t want to end the Fed altogether.  If there is nothing wrong going on won’t that help make the case that we should keep the Fed?  Regardless there is no excuse for keeping Americans and even Congress in the dark about vast expenditures that make things like the war in Iraq look trivial.

This is a bill every American should support.  And we shouldn’t accept a watered down version.  Dr. Wood’s put it perfectly…

If the Federal Reserve Transparency Act passes and the audit takes place, the American people will have achieved a great victory. If the legislation fails, more and more Americans will begin to wonder what the Fed could be so anxious to keep hidden, and the pressure for transparency will simply intensify. A recent poll finds 75 percent of Americans already in favor of auditing the Fed. The writing is on the wall.

The Federal Reserve may as well get used to the idea that the audit is coming. That would be a far more sensible approach than the counterproductive and condescending one it has adopted thus far, in which the peons who populate the country are urged to quit pestering their betters with all these impertinent questions. The Fed should take to heart the words of consolation the American people are given whenever a new government surveillance program is uncovered: if you’re not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about.

Reason Enough to Oppose the Senate Health Care Bill

… and start a business issuing 1099’s.   A forbes.com article ‘Senate Six’ Could Sink Small Business yesterday listed a number of nails in the coffins of small businesses, including:

• fees for not offering health insurance
• 35% tax on health plans worth over $8000 (singles) per year.
• cap flexible spending accounts at $2000 per year
• eliminate income exclusions for employers who maintain drug plans for seniors

There is a lot more lunacy in the Senate bill according to the article.  But here is one absolutely insane item. 

–For small business, there’s a provision that will increase the already sky-high tax compliance costs. It requires businesses that pay more than $600 annually to corporate providers of property and services to file an information report with each provider (1099) and with the IRS. Ask your accountant how much that’s going to cost. No one has done an analysis of the cost to business (it’ll be a whopper) vs. the dollars raised by the Treasury (minimal).

Think about that.  If you are still standing up you have never run a business (and complied with paperwork regulations anyway).  And if you have never run a business (like most of the people voting on this abomination) you are unqualified to interfere with those of us who have.   Based on the (Forbes) language above, businesses would have to issue 1099 information returns for virtually every vendor they do business with.  The record keeping and paperwork implications are staggering.  And the revenue potential is minimal.

And it has nothing at all to do with health care.  It has to do with tightening government’s grip on taxpayers and increasing government power.  That seems to be the theme of the bill.  Why else would you cap health savings accounts?  Why else would you tax employer paid health insurance?  Aren’t those the things we are supposed to be encouraging?

The bill also creates $80 billion in “fees”  based on market share for drug and medical device providers.  Fees? for market share?  Adding cost to drugs and devices?   How does that reduce the cost of health care?  

Where is anything in any of the bills that actually reduces the cost of health care,   things like tax-parity for health insurance purchased by individuals, or interstate competition or expansion of health savings accounts or  deregulation of  health care providers.  The Republicans are at least addressing tort reform which is actually one of the most difficult issues.  There is a ton of easy stuff based on free market  (or free-er market) principles that would actually help small business.  But this government seems intent on destroying small business instead.

Spitzer Reprise?

CJ Maloney blogs today on Eliot Spitzer in Hubris and the Hooker on Lew Rockwell.

CJ will be our guest at next Monday’s (Sep 14) meeting of the Manhattan Libertarian Party. Details here.

You can’t make this stuff up

I’m watching the Senate Health Committee debates. Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn (R)  introduced an amendment that as far as I could tell required members of the Senate to participate in whatever public plan they create for the common man and woman, apparently instead of the lush plan the taxpayer subsidizes for them now.   It always pains me to give credit to Republicans but lets give credit where credit is due.  Senator Coburn – on this one you rock.

Chairman Chris Dodd immediately accepted the amendment however,  New Mexico Senator Jeff Bingaman (D) objected.  He didn’t see why, since the public plan would be voluntary,  he ( and others among the ruling class) should be forced to participate in something that the proposed law specifically says would be voluntary.  That’s completely rational.

Of course it might be different if the taxpayer wasn’t subsidizing his royal behind.  If he had to deal with the disaster of the US health care “system”  created by his chamber and their lower house brethren that public option might look pretty good.

Or would it? The amendment lost.

So I guess the Senate Health Committee doesn’t have much faith in the quality of the public option.  They won’t give up their privilege but we have to pay for both their privilege and the public option they won’t subject their families to. 

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders proposed an amendment to facilitate the states in experimenting with single payer. He explained how it was revenue neutral since it was really just redirecting existing expenditures, and he limited it to a few states per year. Yeah Bernie – though single payer is fundamentally immoral – the “states as laboratory” is something I’ve preached for decades.  Small problem – it requires waivers on a significant list of Federal program requirements.  It sounded as if (though I haven’t read the bill – pretty sure no one has) they would redirect money from individuals’ medicare etc. apparently without their consent.  There was some discussion about this – no one seemed sure. What the hell – it’s not their health care. See previous paragraphs.   

Hold on – another objection – sure enough – Senator Bingaman. Its seems a lot of people in New Mexico like that medicare money they get from that bottomless piggy bank that is the Federal Government – or from younger generations – I don’t know.  But apparently we can’t have some silly little state making it’s own decisions about it’s affairs. They didn’t really mean it when they adopted the Tenth Amendment.  At least not when it means reducing OUR pork.

Speaking of which – I went to Senator Bingaman’s website to make sure I spelled his name right.  Here is what occupies about 25% of the home page

Bingaman: New Mexico Airports to Benefit from DOT Funds

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman today announced that two New Mexico airports will receive funding from the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to make improvements to their facilities and runways. 

• Bingaman: Funding to Help Combat Domestic Violence

• Feds Release Bingaman Secured Funds for Border Law Enforcement Agencies

• Bingaman: New Mexico Pueblos Awarded HUD Funds

• Bingaman: Tribal Communities Awarded Funds to Hire Police Officers and Purchase Equipment

• Bingaman: New Mexico Anti-Drug Organizations Awarded Federal Funds

• Bingaman: Los Lunas to Benefit from Crime Prevention Funds

WOW! Great work Jeff.  You bring home the bacon.  No wonder Arizona, according to the Tax Foundation,  gets $1.30 in Federal Expenditures (Pork) for every dollar paid in.  Hillary and Dick didn’t do so well.  Here in New York, we only get 79 cents back on every dollar we pay in.  Never understood why New Yorker’s like big government. When it come to our fair share of pork our elected officials get rolled – over and over again!

Wait a minute.  What does pork have to do with health care?

NYC Libertarians submit over 10,000 signatures for 10 Libertarian party candidates!

I was delighted to be a very small part last night in the submission at the Board of Elections of over 10,000 signatures on petitions for 10 candidates of the Libertarian Party in New York City.

In addition to three city-wide candidates, we have Borough President and City Council candidates in Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan.

The signatures were all collected at a total cost of $-0- to the LP!

In particular, kudos to our candidate for Mayor, Joseph Dobrian, who collected 3,000 signatures on his own. And further kudos to the entire Brooklyn team, headed by Gary Popkin, which generated 6,000 more signatures. And thanks too to Dan Halloran running for City Council in Queens who brought petitions with over 1500 signatures for his City Council candidacy on the Libertarian line. 

The results of the hard work of all our volunteers was truly fantastic. Now on to the campaigns to educate the sheeple in New York that there’s an alternative to King Mike and his cronies!

Mark Axinn
Secretary-Treasurer, Manhattan Libertarian Party

Is The Stimulus Working?

Dutifully fulfilling it’s role as chief propagandist for the State, today’s New York Times declares that 

It is clearly too soon to know for sure. But the evidence is now pointing pretty strongly in one direction: history books may conclude that the financial crisis of 2008 turned out to be far less bad than it could have been and that Washington deserved much of the credit. 

That statement belongs on the editorial page, not the front page and it is clearly irresponsible journalism, if it is journalism at all.  It is so full of bias and personal judgments that I am surprised even the Times printed it.

The bulk of the article simply recounts statistics indicating that the worst of the recession might be over.  In the last few column inches it tots up the jobs in the auto, health and state and local governments that the stimulus has supposedly created. It’s quite probable that many of these jobs came about directly because of stimulus money.  And it’s a great thing that some people will have some money they wouldn’t otherwise have. But suggesting that this proves the stimulus is working, or that the government has done something good doesn’t even begin to follow logically.

I will grant that the stimulus created some jobs that wouldn’t have existed otherwise.  But how many did it destroy in the process?  Moving money from one place to another can’t actually create wealth unless you move it from a less productive place to a more productive place. The government has successfully moved ( or begun to move) a couple of trillion dollars from one place to another but there is no proof it’s creating any wealth.  Its just giving it to people the politicians think will reward them with votes and taking it from people the politicians think wouldn’t ever vote for them anyway or who are too clueless to realize they have been swindled.   The people who would never vote for the current ruling class would be conservative and libertarian tax payers and of course future generations.  The clueless class? – Well that’s where the New York Times comes in.   Let’s take the same people who created what is possibly the worst economic crisis since at least the Great Depression (remember Obama was in the same Senate that helped create this crisis) wait till the crisis seems to have run it’s course (if it has) and then credit them with saving us.

For the Times article to be anything less than pure propaganda it would have to show that:

1. these guys didn’t cause the problem

2. their actions improved the short term situation

3. their actions didn’t hurt us in the long run.

4. they have the right to take from one person and give to another.

While they might have a long shot chance at number 2, they don’t even attempt the other three. 

The auto industry is a great example.  I remember being a kid in the ’60s hearing the news about Johnson administration controls on imports of small fuel efficient European cars.  Fast forward half a century to a failed auto industry, war in the middle east and a huge argument about global warming.  Does bailing about the auto industry REALLY HELP US?  All it does is stop some short term bleeding – which MIGHT be ok in the short run.  But it solves nothing.  

How many jobs do you think didn’t happen because the government injected so much fear and uncertainty into the economy? How many jobs will tax increases destroy?  How many productive jobs in the private sector will be displaced by moving the money from taxpayers to counterproductive governments?

So before we start handing out credit to the guys that created the problem let’s think about the costs of their actions, not just the short-run superficial benefits.  But of course then the Times wouldn’t be doing their job as part of the statist propaganda machine.

Worst Treasury Secretary :Rubin, Paulson or Geithner

I am giving an award for worst Treasury Secretary. And I am nominating these guys. Hamilton of course is in a class of his own so I am naming it after him. The Alexander Hamilton Award for Worst Treasury Secretary.

It all started when I got to thinking the other day about just how bad Robert Rubin was. He was the architect of much of Bill Clinton’s economic policy. While many think the economy was good under Clinton it’s important to remember that he balanced the budget by raising taxes instead of cutting spending and produced a nice big bubble that popped leaving us in a nifty little recession. Rubin convinced Clinton that he needed to keep interest rates low to get re-elected. What ensued was a policy of higher taxes and lower interest rates. That made profit less attractive and debt more attractive fueling speculation in the internet bubble. What would have happened if taxes had been lower and interest rates had been allowed to find their natural level? Perhaps more internet businesses focusing on profit? Perhaps less wild speculation? So after trashing the economy as Treasury Secretary he went on the work at Citibank engineering their disastrous climb to their lofty position as one of the worst failed mortgage market speculators. Old Bob quit a few months ago. It appears he never met a bubble he didn’t like – or one he didn’t create.

Do I need to talk about Henry “Bailout-Hank” Paulson? Would our current esteemed President have had the balls to toss away another trillion if Hank hadn’t paved the way foir him?

Tim Geithner? Did you catch him on “This Week” this morning. In a flash of brilliance he’s come up with the astounding conclusion that we need to reduce the deficit if we are to have a healthy economy! What a concept! AND

“that’s going to require some very hard choices. AND we’re going to have to do that in a way that does not add unfairly to the burdens that the average American already faces.”

But he’s not ruling out new taxes.  Is this guy tripping?

I can’t decide. Each is worse than both the others. Let’s hear what you think. And feel free to nominate your favorite or comment on one of mine.

Real Men of Genius: Me

I’m 19 years old. Every time I get a paycheck, about 5% is missing, gone to a line that says “Social Security.” Theoretically, when I turn 65 I’ll start receiving a check every month or so based upon how much money I’ve earned in my life. I don’t think this is going to happen. I have this sinking feeling that whatever incarnation of the United States of America exists in 2054 will not have the money I’ve paid in. Often times, when people think there’s a risk that something they’re promised won’t occur, they take out insurance on said event not occurring. Unfortunately, international leaders would probably frown upon legitimate insurance markets second guessing them. They tend to follow the George Constanza “It’s not a lie if you believe” line of reasoning. Barney Frank said that the stimulus isn’t working because not enough people believe in it. How is the statist redistribution of income that is Social Security going to work if companies are allowing people to brazenly state lack of confidence in the system? This is where gambling comes in. Insurance if often equated to very well informed gambling. Thus, armed with the information I have, I intend to find some gambling parlor which will allow me to place the bet that I social security as it is currently known will not exist, or at the very least will not pay me any money, when I turn 65. I have more faith that an offshore gambling concern will be around with my money come 2054 than social security.

NY Public Pension Costs Set to Triple

It shouldn’t surprise anyone.  Public watchdog groups have been pointing this out for years.  I pointed it out when I ran for Comptroller in 2005.  I even saw Mayor Bloomberg mention it – once.  Public pension costs are probably the single most impotant item creating the structural deficits in New York’s state and local governments.  The simplest analysis showed it many years ago.  But our polticians are so grossly and criminally irresponsible that they’ve continued to pile up more and more costs even as late as last year.

This article in the NY Times online illustrates the problem – as if this is news.

“It’s alarming, eye-popping and unthinkable,” said Stephen J. Acquario, executive director of the New York State Association of Counties. “To manage that liability in the face of this deep decline in government revenues is going to be a challenge,” he said. “Where is this money going to come from?”

Where will the money come from?  Taxpayers – are you listening for the huge sucking sound?

Now – who’s up for government health insurance?