In most cases, it is difficult to rein in a government's spending and taxing. It is the nature of government to expand its functions and imposts, even if there is no mandate to do it. This is the nature of democracy today, tomorrow, and yesterday. Any tax or office--no matter how ridiculous or cumbersome--will always find pals in Congress.
After laboring mightily and giving birth to the 2001-2002 federal budget, politicians returned home for the holidays, where they spent much of their time emphasizing their role in bringing home the bacon to those local interests who benefit. But as Congress returns to "the work of the people" in a midterm election year, it is worth remembering that not one cent of the funding came from anyone except taxpayers.
One's chance of winning a top prize in one of the rigged state lotteries is so close to zero as to be indistinguishable from zero. In California's feverish drive to take more money from a citizenry that is already overtaxed, officials are looking for an even better bet for the state: selling tickets to games that have already been decided.
When the AMT began, those with a $20,000-a-year or less income in 1979 were exempted. That would mean that, correcting for the inflation, today the AMT exemption should be about $54,000 for married couples filing jointly and $41,000 single filers. It isn’t. Congress, which in its wisdom never forgets to raise its own salaries, has moved slowly in raising the AMT exemption.
The fact that Carlo Ponzi's investment scheme lasted less than a year--while the government's "Ponzi scheme" has lasted, through good times and bad, for more than half a century--only suggests that Ponzi should have applied his talents as a politician, where he could've fleeced his victims legally.
Now that the economy is in a slump, many of the workers who gave up their welfare benefits are finding themselves without a job. Many of the industries that were most likely to hire former welfare recipients have been those worst affected by the recession. These workers are finding that they have no legal right to a resumption of welfare payments because the disgraceful Aid to Families with Dependent Children program was abolished.
So, knock down the Empire State Building and we can further increase our economic output. Of course Krugman would not want just New York City's economy to grow, so we should also knock down the Sears Tower in Chicago and the Hancock Building in Boston. If this does not revive the economy, we better start leveling entire cities; surely that will bring economic prosperity.
AmeriCorps is little more than social work tinged with messianic delusions. Citizens should no longer be forced to pay hundreds of millions of dollars of taxes each year for a bunch of photo opportunities for politicians and do-gooders.
Forest industry and other private timberland owners increasingly are burdened by environmental and other government regulations that in many cases constitute de facto seizures of their property rights.
If the military was all it took to wipe out terrorists, writes Robert Blackstock, Israel would have long ago shut down the PLO, and Britain would have already made Northern Ireland a vacation mecca.
