Free Republic

I was watching the post debate coverage on Fox yesterday, and this group of “undecided” voters was talking about how the turning point for them, was Obama’s policy regarding universal health coverage. Now one thing you have to understand is this; when a politician promises a new government program, or an increase in a government service, that means they will be spending more money. Where does the government get it’s money? Well, it sure as heck doesn’t work for it. Taxes; the government makes it’s money by taxing you and I. Free, universal health care sounds awesome, but it’s not...

GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) - Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama moved to claim the mantle of fiscal responsibility in a roiling economy, vowing on Monday to slash federal spending on contractors by 10 percent and saving $40 billion. Urging members of his own party to be just as fiscally tough as the most conservative Republicans, Obama said the $700 billion economic bailout plan proposed by the Bush administration and congressional leaders is forcing a renewed look at federal spending.

Alaska, here's how to sell a plane Rendell, unlike Palin, shuns eBay By Mario F. Cattabiani Inquirer Harrisburg Bureau HARRISBURG - Maybe Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin should take a lesson from the Rendell administration on how to sell a state airplane. Pennsylvania is preparing to turn over the keys to one of its two executive planes to an Illinois company that has agreed to buy it for $1.375 million – above its appraised value and several hundred thousand more than the state paid for it 16 years ago. Palin, the governor of Alaska, tried to win points as...

When she arrived in Congress last fall, Rep. Laura Richardson sought out a vehicle that would match her newfound status. She settled on a 2007 Lincoln Town Car - the choice of many representatives who lease their vehicles at taxpayers' expense. But hers was distinct: at $1,300 a month, it was the most expensive car in the House of Representatives. Richardson, a Democrat who represents Carson, has since become known for defaulting on two home loans and losing a third house - in an upscale neighborhood in Sacramento - at a foreclosure auction. But her history with vehicles has been...

Last night I was reviewing a website called Washington Watch. It is a great website for keeping up on legislation being proposed in Congress. On the front page of the site was an unbelievable piece of legislative garbage: H.R. 6068, The Don't Let the Bed Bugs Bite Act of 2008 H.R. 6068 would create a grant program in the Department of Commerce and authorize $50,000,000 in each of fiscal years 2009 through 2012 for giving these grants to states. I read that and did an involuntary Lewis Black style headshake. $50,000,000 a year! To fight bedbugs?!

Remember, we just TRIPLED our funding for fighting the global AIDS epidemic, to $50 billion over 5 years. Fifty billion dollars we don’t have, for what experts are now calling a myth: The threat of a global AIDS epidemic is over, the World Health Organisation’s top HIV expert has admitted. Kevin De Cock, who has spent most of his career leading the battle against the disease, said the understanding of the threat posed by the virus had changed. Rather than being a risk to populations anywhere, the threat is largely confined to gay men, drug addicts and prostitutes and their...

. . . Democrats will control Congress. If they also control the White House, we will have a series of legislative packages that will make the Great Society look like a libertarian government. . . . The country is in trouble. We have forgotten our founding principles, and we move inexorably toward a European style socialist state, with the only winners being an enormous bureaucracy. This will accelerate the economic decline. The argument is to give the Democrats their head, and pick up the pieces after the inevitable crash. I think that overlooks the resilience of tax and tax, spend...

What’s the only thing worse than Republicans on a spending spree? Democrats on a spending spree. Or maybe Republicans on a spending spree when they know the Democrats are going to take the heat. Either way, your representatives in Washington D.C. are a bunch of dirty filthy liars. The 2008 Pig Book is out, and even though Republicans and Democrats promised to cut back on the earmarks, they have done the exact opposite.

Norway's state treasury is set to overflow, local analysts claim. Some think the price of North Sea crude oil will hit USD 130 a barrel, pumping even more "petrokroner" into the state budget and giving politicians few excuses to limit its use. Norway's oil and gas industry is hotter than ever, but many Norwegians complain that government services are nonetheless declining. Some grades of crude oil hit USD 111 a barrel this week, before easing on Friday. The North Sea Brent crude that's been pumping up Norway's economy for years was being traded at just over USD 107 a barrel...

Face Off: Putting name and face on official material amounts to back-door electioneering Clint Bolick, Goldwater Institute Daily Email January 22, 2008 The Arizona Republic quotes Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas as saying criticisms of his office spending millions of taxpayer dollars on publications and advertising bearing his name and photo are the product of “an alliance of politicians and critics in the media who oppose my policies on illegal immigration.” Not true. Thomas has done some great things as County Attorney. But when I go to the movies, I don’t want to see his face on the screen, knowing...

$9,128,000,000,000+. That is what our national debt sits at as I write this article. I can’t put the actual number because it is increasing so fast it would be wrong within minutes. In fact, the debt is increasing at a rate of one million dollars a minute. That’s about $1.36 billion dollars a day, according to the U.S. National Debt Clock. We are spending money like there is no tomorrow. And if we don’t stop, there might not be a tomorrow for our republic. Why are we spending so much money? Our elected leaders have warped the phrase “general welfare”...

Story of the Unelectable November 3, 2003 by: Alan Moretti "Freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to everyone of that society...and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, arbitrary will of another man". - Locke America's founding fathers formed this country not for greed or profit, but to escape from a tyrannical king that ruled the colonies like a dictator. They rebelled and framed a government controlled by checks and balances, never giving complete power to one individual or party. The founding fathers feared "egotism". They also wanted to avoid...

By Evan Halper, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer November 6, 2007 SACRAMENTO -- -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday ordered all state departments to draft plans for deep spending cuts after receiving word that California's budget is plunging further into the red -- largely BECAUSE OF THE TROUBLED HOUSING MARKET. State officials have warned the governor that the likely deficit for next year has jumped from a few billion dollars to as much as $10 billion, threatening to wipe out the progress Schwarzenegger has claimed in getting the state's accounts in order................... www.latimes.com

Each year, families and individuals pay taxes to the government and receive back a wide variety of services and benefits. A fiscal deficit occurs when the benefits and services received by one group exceed the taxes paid. When such a deficit occurs, other groups must pay for the services and benefits of the group in deficit. Each year, govern­ment is involved in a large-scale transfer of resources between different social groups. Fiscal distribution analysis measures the distribution of total government benefits and taxes in society. It pro­vides an assessment of the magnitude of government transfers between groups. This paper provides...

The gunman in Monday's massacre at Virginia Tech was Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old senior English major from Centreville, Virginia, Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum said Tuesday. A government official told CNN's Jeanne Meserve that a note has been found indicating Cho showed anger against "rich kids." The official also said Cho had a history of mental illness but gave no details. Cho left a note in his dorm in which he railed against "rich kids," "debauchery" and "deceitful charlatans" on the Virginia Tech campus, The Associated Press reported. The Chicago Tribune, citing unidentified sources, reported that Cho may have...

Washington needs a hefty dose of fiscal discipline. To restore accountable and effective leadership to America, government needs to run more like a business. That is what I did in New York. My administration inherited a $2.3 billion deficit. We responded by imposing fiscal discipline. We cut programs. We cut taxes. And we got results. We turned the deficit into a multibillion-dollar surplus. We cut bureaucracy by 20,000 workers - while increasing cops on the street and teachers in the classroom. And we cut taxes 23 times, all while working with a Democrat-dominated city council. Every year - in good...

he Center for Governmental Research put together a great study in which they compared the level of and rate of satisfaction with government services in Long Island and Northern Virginia. Here are the vitals:

When I was around 11, there were these two stupid brothers at my school who looked down on us other kids because we came from families so utterly impoverished we actually WASHED our underwear instead of buying new briefs etc on a daily basis. Their family were rather well off, but not especially rich compared to the richest ones in town. The reason noone else adopted their underwear procedure was probably that the concept of throwing clothes in a washing machine is easier than throwing underwear away and buying new sets for an entire family every day. However, the cost...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Taxpayers are funding a telescope to search for space aliens and research devoted to improving the shelf-life of vegetables, part of $13.2 billion in special-interest projects the U.S. Congress approved last year, a private watchdog group said on Wednesday. The billions of dollars, attached to spending bills for the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security, were detailed in the annual "Pig Book" report compiled by Citizens Against Government Waste. As two potbellied pigs named Winnie and Dudley munched on rice cakes, group President Tom Schatz chastised congressional lawmakers for what he called wasteful spending of...

Calling it an "unsafe investment," the mayor of Salt Lake County said Monday that he won't support $30 million in taxes for a professional soccer stadium, a fatal blow to Real Salt Lake's plan to move to the suburbs...

SANTA FE— Gov. Bill Richardson is proposing a nearly $5.7 billion state budget that provides for an 11 percent increase in spending next year and leaves room for about $125 million in tax cuts. In releasing its budget recommendations to the Legislature on Wednesday, the Richardson administration proposed a more than doubling of state money for pre-kindergarten programs serving 4-year-olds and phasing in over two years an expansion of Medicaid to provide health care to more uninsured low-income adults.~~ snip ~~ Public schools and higher education accounted for much of the governor's proposed budget increase. The governor recommended ... a...

Federal spending in fiscal year 2006 increased by a whopping 9 percent — the largest rise since 1990 — and has risen more than 40 percent since President Bush took office. The most recent rise far outpaces inflation — the Consumer Price Index is up only 1.3 percent in the past 12 months. "The greatest scandal in Washington, D.C., is runaway federal spending,” Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., said after the midterm elections. In recent years, he points out, the GOP majority "voted to expand the federal government’s role in education, [added new] entitlements, and pursued spending policies that created deficits...

The Homeland Security Department spent $34 billion in its first two years on private contracts that were poorly managed or included significant waste or abuse, a congressional report concluded Thursday. Faulty airport screening machines, unused mobile homes for hurricane victims and lavish employee office space — complete with seven kitchens, a gym and fancy artwork — were among 32 contracts on which Homeland Security overspent, the report found. "The cumulative costs to the taxpayer are enormous," concluded the report, which was prepared for Reps. Tom Davis, R-Va., and Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who head the House Government Reform Committee. The House...

On Tuesday, President Bush announced that the federal budget deficit will be $100 billion lower than initially expected due to higher levels of economic growth. This is the third consecutive year substantial downward revisions were made to the deficit as part of the administration’s mid-year budget review. The president further claimed that the nation is ahead of schedule by one year in its goal to cut the budget deficit in half. On the surface this appears to be good news. Yet the biggest mistake the conservative movement could make is to focus on the budget deficit. The deficit is an...

After attending the annual ISI Leadership Conference in Indianapolis, one of the things I thought about was a living wage. Since the topic was Friedman it did come up that he wasn't a fan of welfare programs. The argument by many of the participants was that the best way to lift people out of poverty and provide a living wage was a robust economy. Basically trickle down economics. Even Thomas Woods' talk which had a religious character had this general idea. In fact, when he was asked to reconcile St. Peter's teaching on obedience to the government with disagreement on...

Most of the big public policy debates in Washington these days somehow involve homeland security. It animated the controversial ports deal, for example, and it underscores the battle over illegal immigration. And that's as it should be. As I write in my book, Getting America Right, national security is the federal government's most important obligation. What could be more critical than that? Judging from the government's spending pattern, we have an answer: corporate welfare. Last year, Washington spent $53 billion on homeland security -- and $60 billion on corporate welfare. Clearly our priorities are misplaced, and it's time to change...

The future of Social Security is indeed going to be a burden on future generations, but what about the national debt? Maybe it's time to start vetoing spending bills full of unnecessary earmarks. See the cartoon: http://cartoons.blog.com

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship."

A $59 million jail featuring art and flat screen TVs in Portland, Ore., has been sitting unused for more than a year as the city can't afford to open it. The Wapato Facility took two years to construct and can house 525 inmates at a cost of $20 million per year, .... The county spent more than $600,000 on art for the jail, including a sculpture out front by the circular driveway. There are 30-foot vaulted ceilings and private showers. "I love coming to an empty $59-million jail," Giusto told the Los Angeles Times. "I get tired of telling people...

WASHINGTON - The Senate voted Thursday to allow the national debt to swell to nearly $9 trillion, preventing a first-ever default on U.S. Treasury notes. The bill passed by a 52-48 vote. The increase to $9 trillion represents about $30,000 for every man, woman and child in the United States. The bill now goes to President Bush for his signature. The measure allows the government to pay for the war in Iraq and finance Medicare and other big federal programs without raising taxes. It passed hours before the House was expected to approve another $91 billion to fund the war...

U.S. senator wants to know why Medicaid funded sex operations By Alicia Mundy Seattle Times Washington bureau WASHINGTON — The head of the Senate Finance Committee wants Gov. Christine Gregoire to explain why the state's Medicaid system is paying for erectile implants, sex-change operations and breast enlargements. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said, in a letter sent Thursday to Gregoire, that he has asked the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to look at what he considers dubious expenses discovered in the state's 2004 audit. Grassley, who led the charge in Congress against Medicaid payments for...

What does IBM know that most New York lawmakers don't? Judging by Big Blue's recent announcement that it is shifting to a defined-contribution pension plan, it knows that these plans are the only way forward for any company that hopes to stay on this side of bankruptcy court. Defined contributions have been the norm among small companies for years, but old industrial giants have been slow on the draw. Some, like General Motors, are still grappling with defined benefit pension programs ... There's a lesson here for New Yorkers faced with troubled pension systems. The logic becoming so catastrophically clear...

George Will exposes another spectacular waste of federal tax money: subsidized television upgrades: Feeling, evidently, flush with (other people’s) cash, the Senate has concocted a novel way to spend $3 billion: create a new entitlement. The Senate has passed — and so has the House, with differences — an entitlement to digital television. If this filigree on the welfare state becomes law, everyone who owns old analog television sets — everyone from your Aunt Emma in her wee apartment to the millionaire in the neighborhood McMansion who has such sets in the maid’s room and the guest house — will...

As the California Legislature proves itself to be more and more irrelevant, liberals have decided to take their tax and spend agenda to the ballot box. Unfortunately, recent history has proven that voters are willing to approve increased government spending as long as they believe that someone else is footing the bill. Read More... Craig DeLuz Visit The Home of Uncommon Sense... www.craigdeluz.com

Congress will never get spending under control until its members start acting responsibly. Two out three Senators are simply spendthrifts who just can't help themselves. Exhibit number one is Senate Amendment 2355. Introduced by Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, the amendment would cap non-defense, non-trust-fund, discretionary spending at the previous fiscal year's spending level. In other words, spending would not automatically increase. And frankly, it never should without proper justification. Congress often looks at appropriations with pre-set increases, in addition to an inflation rate adjustment, as the baseline in new spending. As bizarre as it sounds, many members see spending...

King Ralph's 'handout' program a mess There are better ways to use cash -- let's start with... So Ralph Klein is going to give me $400 (more or less). And he's going to give you $400. And my five-month-old nephew. And the CEO of every major Alberta company. And every guy awaiting trial at the Remand Centre. Actually, that last paragraph is a bit of a fib. Right now, the beleaguered civil servants in the Finance Department who've had this idea lobbed their way have no idea who's going to get a cheque. Will they only go to people who...

Despite calls for sacrifice, Katrina's costs will just swell government borrowing Saturday, September 17, 2005 By Andrew Taylor The Associated PressWASHINGTON — How much it will cost to clear the debris, detoxify the water, house the homeless and rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast after the Katrina catastrophe is still anyone's guess, but it's clear who's going to pay for most of it: Future generations. The bill to the government for Katrina — $62 billion so far with untold billions to come — will be added directly to the $7.9 trillion national debt. President Bush said Friday, "We're going...

Virginia Politicians and Highway Porkby Jacob G. Hornberger, August 17, 2005 For a good example of the moral perversity of the budget-busting, pork-barrel highway bill, consider what recently happened in Bristol, Virginia. While on his annual statewide “listening tour” across the state, Republican Sen. George Allen proudly told Bristol voters that their local officials were going to receive even more money from Congress than they had requested for the renovation of the local train station. Rep. Rick Boucher, a Democrat, had requested only $400,000 for the project. Not to be outdone, Sen. John Warner, a Republican, had requested $1 million...

Comptroller William Donald Schaefer and Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. are blocking a plan to fill the House of Delegates' new office building with $2,000 desks, $1,300 chairs and a $4,800 sofa, arguing that legislators should give at least part of the order to a prison labor shop. Saying that they have State Use Industries furniture in their offices and find it of high quality, Schaefer and Ehrlich essentially tabled a proposal before the Board of Public Works yesterday in which the House sought to buy $2.1 million in furnishings from private sources. "They're trying to build a Taj Mahal...

Tax Wars Edward Hudgins ehudgins@objectivistcenter.org As we rush to meet the April 15 deadline to file our tax returns, many fail to realize those 1040 forms do more than just make us all personally poorer. The tax code is a principal instrument that creates and sustains the politicized, partisan, uncivil, contentious conflict society so many bemoan. Why can't we all just get along? Here's why. Taxes are meant to pay for the legitimate functions of government, and America's Founders were clear that those functions were to protect the lives, liberty and property of the citizens and otherwise to let us...

It's late morning on a brisk day in downtown Boston, and Angelo R. Buonopane, the state's director of the Department of Labor, steps out of his office building. He looks right, he looks left, in front of him, and behind him. Then Buonopane starts strolling up Washington Street, returning to work 40 minutes later with a shopping bag from one of his favorite haunts, Filene's Basement. An hour later, Buonopane emerges from his office again, and this time heads for a two- hour, 12-minute lunch at his North End home. Buonopane returns to the office, for 37 minutes, then heads...

TEAMING FOR EXPLORATION A multibillion-dollar NASA contracting effort, the largest since the Apollo, shuttle and space station developments, is formally underway with the release of the draft request for proposals for the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) to replace the shuttle and eventually return astronauts to the Moon as a stepping-stone to Mars. With guidance from the draft request for proposals (RFP) now in hand, contractors are beginning a flurry of activity to posture for formal bids and to align their earlier in-house concepts with major new exploration program specifics, including strong guidelines on managing cost and risk. And Lockheed Martin...

The television brings us images of all kinds of evil. Rape. Murder. Theft. Corruption. Death. We see terrorism, battles in the Mideast, dishonest government and endless stories of sick events unfolding in the world around us. Recently, we've seen devastating images of events that seem a little more complicated: Nature destroying lives and livelihoods. We're seeing creation groaning and we know that something is wrong with all of this; it's not right. And in the midst of that, we give. We're giving a lot. It seems to be our only response. So much so it that we're seeing what can...

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is set to deliver his State of the State address on Wednesday, and the Golden State is buzzing with talk of reform—especially spending reform. "[T]he crux of how the year's going to go will be in his budget," said a consultant to Assembly Democrats, quoted in the Jan. 1 Sacramento Bee. "[I]t's time to really say quite bluntly, 'How do you stop the gimmicks and start really focusing on long-term structural solutions to the financial situation we're in?'" Ahem, long-term structural solutions? How about consulting those Assembly Dems to spend less money? Having never heard the...

WASHINGTON - The bipartisan National Commission on Energy Policy on Wednesday urged the US Congress to end a two-year stalemate and adopt a broad package of proposals addressing climate change, oil security, natural gas supplies and fuel efficiency in vehicles. The commission said it based its recommendations on cost-effectiveness, consumer impacts, flexibility for adjustment when conditions change, ease of implementation, and political viability. The package would cost about $36 billion over 10 years, an amount that could be raised from selling emission allowances for greenhouse gases. Key recommendations to Congress included: * Spend $3 billion over 10 years in incentives...

Please tune in and listen to Tom Delay going over recent history in Congress - good reminders of what happened, deficits, etc.

Bread, Circuses, Tax Cuts, and Debt Robert P. Murphy [Posted November 5, 2004] Now that Bush has been reelected, and has comfortable majorities in both the House and Senate, we will have at least a two-year unambiguous test of Republican fiscal policies. My prediction? Massive spending and massive deficits. After all, that's what Republican presidents do, if history is any guide. Of course, the immediate retort is that at least Republicans are good on taxes. Sure, spending may have gotten out of hand under Reagan and both Bushes, but at least two of them cut taxes. And what's the harm...

How government spending creates wealth, opportunities July 17, 2004 BY RALPH MARTIRE Listen closely to what's coming out of state and national debates over budget deficits. Illinois is considering 4 percent across-the-board cuts that will harm the most vulnerable in our state. The feds will spend more in interest on the debt this year than all discretionary spending on education, health, human services, housing and urban development combined. Yet, amid all the sparring over taxes, budgets and programs, no one seems to recognize the fundamental role government plays in both creating wealth for the few and opportunity for the many....

Mark Twain famously said that everybody talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it. The same could be said for taxes in the United States. Sometimes there’s a little tinkering around the edges. This year, for example, Tax Freedom Day fell on April 11th. Established by the Tax Foundation as a barometer measuring the overall tax burden, Tax Freedom Day is the date Americans have earned enough to pay all their taxes for all levels of government for the year. This year’s indicator is three days earlier than it was last year and three weeks earlier than...

WASHINGTON (Talon News) -- Conservative lawmakers are applauding the action taken by Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson to significantly reduce the cost of sending government scientists to this year's International AIDS Conference. The group of 30 Republican House members sent a letter to Thompson thanking him for his "leadership in working to scale back the largess of the federal involvement" at such events. The letter points to news reports that say HHS will spend $500,000 to send 50 people to July's conference in Bangkok, Thailand. While the lawmakers say that sending 50 people at a cost of $10,000...