More federal government control has made things much better, right?

 

Commentary by James H. Shott

Most Americans probably have at best a foggy concept of the degree to which the federal government intrudes into their lives, and just how many people are paid to conduct that intrusion from dozens, perhaps hundreds, of departments, agencies, bureaus, divisions, boards and other bodies.

In March of this year the U.S. Census Bureau reported that as of March 2010, the last year for which complete data exist, there were 3,007,938 total federal employees, 2,583,768 of them working full-time, with a payroll that month of $16.2 billion.

Depending upon whom you believe, federal employees either make lots more than their private sector counterparts (according to Republicans and other small government advocates) or lots less than private sector employees (according to Democrats and federal employee union leaders). Looking at total wages and benefits, the Republicans and small government advocates are closer to right, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

A CBO report in January of this year concluded that federal employees with no more than a high school education and those with a bachelor’s degree averaged higher total compensation than their private sector counterparts by 36 percent and 15 percent, respectively. But where benefits are concerned, the lower the education level of the federal employee, the greater the disparity in paid benefits. “Average benefits for federal workers with no more than a high school diploma were 72 percent higher than for their private-sector counterparts,” while those “whose education ended in a bachelor's degree were 46 percent higher” than for similar workers in the private sector, whereas workers with “a professional degree or doctorate received roughly the same level of average benefits in both sectors.”

We euphemistically refer to federal government employees as “public servants,” but increasingly it seems that it is we who serve them. And just what is it that they are up to?

Many of them are madly creating rules and regulations with the force of law and enforcing them. Most of them were not created by Congress, the only government branch empowered to create laws, and Congress is not even specifically aware of many or most of them, except when someone writes a letter of complaint. Furthermore, all of this regulating and penalizing often occurs without oversight by anyone besides other bureaucrats.

“A man’s home is his castle” is a phrase that once represented America’s personal freedom, meaning that people enjoyed the position of rulers in their homes, and others had no right to enter without the householder's permission. That is no longer true; now, Washington is in charge.

This situation has become so perverse that attorney and author Mark Levin describes it thus: “America has become a society in which the people are wise enough to select their own leaders, but too incompetent to choose the right lightbulb.” In his brilliant book “Ameritopia: the Unmaking of America” he cites as one example of the degree to which the feds have become entangled in our day-to-day lives the government’s involvement in the food industry where “the federal budget for regulating nearly all aspects of food, from production to consumption, exceeds the entire country’s net farm income.”

And that is just for our food.

Here’s a test: Before reading further, make a list of the things in your most personal space – your home – that government at some level doesn’t regulate. It will not be an impressive or long list.

Now that you have completed the test, here are some of the things in your home about which you have little to say, courtesy of Mr. Levin: washing machines, dryers, dishwashers, dishwashing detergents, microwave ovens, toilets, showerheads, heating and cooling systems, refrigerators, freezers, furnace fans and boilers, ceiling fans, dehumidifiers, lightbulbs, certain renovations, fitness equipment, clothing, baby cribs, pacifiers, rattles and toys, marbles, latex balloons, matchbooks, bunk beds, mattresses, mattress pads, televisions, radios, cell phones, iPods, and other digital media devices, computer components, video recording devices, speakers, batteries, battery chargers, power supplies, stereo equipment, garage door openers, lawn mowers, lawn darts, pool slides, toothpaste, deodorant, dentures and virtually everything one could put in a medicine cabinet.

Things are not improving under President Barack Obama. Dr. Robert Moffit, writing for The Heritage Foundation, reports that “[s]ince President Obama took office in 2009, federal agencies have issued 75 major regulations with an annual additional cost to the economy of $38 billion. Taken altogether, the Small Business Administration last year estimated that the total cost of America’s regulatory burden reached $1.75 trillion—more than twice what Americans pay in individual income taxes,” and more than the annual budget deficits each year since 2009. And that is just from the federal government; state and local bodies also contribute.

And if it isn’t bad enough that these multitudinous rules and regulations stifle productivity and make things cost a lot more, some of them are manifestly stupid. In order to close down a business, Milwaukee, Wisconsin requires purchasing an expensive license, submitting a pile of paperwork on the inventory to be sold, and a fee based on the length of the "going out of business sale."

What has happened to the “Land of the Free” and the self-reliant spirit that made this country great?

Cross-posted from Observations

Obama Proves US Doesn’t Need A Congress!

Obama Proves US Doesn’t Need A Congress!
Bypasses Congress Again! Appoints New Czar … Sort Of!
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

Last week President Obama announced a new addition to his Obama Regime. “He who needs no Senate, no Congress,” announced he had appointed Elizabeth Warren as the new “Consumer Czar” … sort of.

In his continued war on business in the US Obama skipped right over the US Senate… again… and named Warren as the person who would SHAPE the new Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection.

Warren, a Harvard law professor, is said to be an expert on bankruptcy. Business and banks are bristling at this latest move by the Obama Regime to make doing business in America even more difficult. They say Warren will create an agency more aggressive than it ought to be while the GOP says she is already far too critical of business and Wall Street.

Obama preened before the cameras and declared: "Never again will folks be confused or misled by pages of barely understandable fine print that you find in agreements for credit cards or mortgages or student loans …” Obama continued: “Elizabeth understands what I strongly believe: that a strong, growing economy begins with a strong and thriving middle class, and that means every American has to get a fair shake in their financial dealings."

Ok. Let’s clear some of the smoke away and see what we have here.

The Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection will write and enforce new rules with authority over the largest banks in America right down to the smallest storefront payday lender. Lending institutions will be hit, among other things, with new government rules on the types of mortgages they can handle. In other words more government intrusion into the way business is done in America. Oh, the BCFP is SUPPOSED to protect consumers from those dreaded hidden fees and abusive terms.

Everyone knows Obama intends to appoint Warren as director of the new government agency. By going this route, and bypassing the Senate confirmation hearings, Obama is avoiding what he knows would have been some very tough questioning by the Senators which just might expose just how little his appointee actually knows about business beyond the theory of textbooks and campus debate. This is not surprising, in the least, as the Obama Regime is littered with egghead, elite, intellectuals who can theorize all day long on how business and America works, but have no actual experience beyond the confines of a college campus.

So far, the advice of Obama’s Czars has been disastrous for America. As evidence, one has only to consider the condition America’s business community and the entire American financial system finds itself in today.

We suggest the GOP Congress should consider closing and shuttering the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection immediately upon being sworn in. (If the Bureau is even up and running at that point. Treasury Secretary Geithner has set July 21, 2011, as the deadline for the BCFP to be ready for operations. That should give the Congress ample time to cut-off any funding for the BCFP and effectively shut it down.)

It is interesting to note that for the past two years Warren has been running the Congressional Oversight Panel, which is charged with monitoring the Treasury Department's handling of the $700 billion bank rescue fund known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). We ALL know HOW SUCCESSFUL THAT HAS BEEN … RIGHT? As of last Friday she no longer holds that position.

Back in the 1920’s President Calvin Coolidge said: “The business of America … is business.”
Unfortunately, that has changed to THE BUSINESS of AMERICA IS BIGGER AND BIGGER GOVERNMENT!

Under the auspices of the Obama Regime the American government just grows and grows and grows. It now intrudes into every aspect of every single American’s life and is smothering business literally to death. Each year more and more businesses are closing and shuttering their plants and moving them to other countries where the government welcomes them and the jobs they took along with them when they left America. More and more businesses today are reluctant to consider establishing their business or a branch of their business in America because the US government is hostile to business.

So long as the Obama Regime is in power, business is under a threat. They know it and so they are “marching in place” waiting and hoping for a change in the attitude the US government has toward business. Until such time as they get some regulatory relief, they are not going to expand, nor hire new employees. Americans can expect the economy to remain essentially flat and the jobless rate to remain high until there are some expansive changes in the Congress and the White House.

Fortunately Americans have a chance to begin those expansive changes this November -- at the polls.

J. D. Longstreet