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

Conservatives Must Take US Senate in 2012

Conservatives Must Take US Senate in 2012

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

As the battle rages in the US Congress over raising the debt ceiling, cutting spending, and raising taxes, it is becoming increasingly clear that conservatives must take the Senate in November of 2012.

At this writing, all the news media is focused on the GOP plan working its way through the US House of Representatives.  The problem is, the GOP plan stands no chance, whatsoever, in the Senate.  At this writing, I have not seen the plan and, frankly, there is a very good chance that I won’t like it when I DO see it.

I draw that conclusion from the fact that many of the new conservatives sent to the House in the 2010 election don’t like the plan and reports of severe arm-twisting by the Speaker’s troops have been making their way into the news frequently.

Regardless of which “plan” actually gets to the President’s desk for his signature, there is a better than even chance, I, as a conservative, will not like it.

I, personally, want a plan with NO NEW TAXES or TAX INCREASES.  We take in enough money to pay our bills now without the added burden of new taxes further depressing the business community.

I want a plan with HUGE spending cuts – cuts that take effect immediately -- not way the heck down the road into the future. 

Look.  Projected spending cuts in the future have a way of simply disappearing between the time they are promised by our politicians and the time window for their implementation closes. We cannot count on future Congresspersons and Senators “remembering” to implement those spending cuts.  Believe me, they have proven to have extremely short memories when it comes to promises having to do with our money.

As far as raising the debt ceiling is concerned, I don’t want it increased at all.  In fact, I want it lowered.  In reality, though, the debt ceiling will have to be raised because our government, from the Oval Office to the Senate to the House of Representatives has borrowed so much money they have run that debt to an astronomical height.  Think about it.  As of today, the US OWES more money that any nation in the history of the world  -- and they still want to borrow more and more -- and simply blow most of it.

The bottom line is this:  There is no way to guarantee our federal government won’t spend us into bankruptcy – except through a “balanced budget amendment” to the constitution.  The only way such an amendment can be ratified by the people of the country is for it to pass both houses of the Congress and be sent to the states. Believe me when I tell you, there is no way the politicians are going to give up their checkbooks on the US treasury by passing a balanced budget amendment – because they know the people of the country would ratify it in a New York minute!   So don’t hold your breath waiting for it.

Oh, and while we are on the subject of raising the debt ceiling, allow me to point out that if President Obama is just dead set on being impeached -- then he should invoke the 14^th  I can assure you that Articles of Impeachment would be drafted before the ink was dry on Obama’s executive order.  Amendment and go ahead and raise the debt ceiling “unilaterally.”

Allow me one other thought on Mr. Obama raising the debt ceiling by invoking the 14^th  Such an action by Obama has been likened to the Emancipation Proclamation.  It is good to note, I think, that the Emancipation Proclamation freed not a single slave. Raising the debt ceiling by executive order would, indeed, free Obama from his duties as President of the United States.   Of that you can be sure. Amendment.

It is looking more and more as if the government is not able to come to an agreement and, most likely a short term “fix,” of some kind, will be implemented to insure the US does not default on its debt.  Seems to me that’s where we have been headed all along.

So. What do we do to insure that this does not happen again? 

We must have a conservative controlled federal government.  That means, at the very least, we must control both houses of Congress.  I hasten to add -- it must be a “veto-proof majority.”  Otherwise a president of the opposing party will simply whip out his “veto” stamp and veto everything reaching his desk, thereby bringing the legislative branch of the government to a screeching halt.  Conservatives will have gained nothing.

Things have changed in America.  People are tired, broke, worried, angry – and volatile.  It will take very little for that anger to break loose resulting in Americans surging into the streets bringing chaos and anarchy, especially to our great urban centers.

Limousine Liberals and Country Club Republicans are an endangered species these days. BOTH are so out of touch with the average American that they have no clue that their days in those cushy jobs in Washington are numbered.  

Conservatives continue to search for someone (a true conservative) to carry our banner into the White House in January of 2013.  It is an understatement to say we are “unhappy” with the candidates currently offering themselves for our perusal. 

Things have to change in America.  We must return to those virtues that made us the greatest nation on the planet.  There is simply no other viable choice for our national salvation.

It should be abundantly clear to all Americans that our flirtation with socialism, under the Obama Administration, has nearly destroyed our country. Another 4 years of that collectivist/communist ideology WILL most certainly end the grand experiment that is America.

Americans can return sanity to our government in 2O12 by purging our government of the fat-cat liberals and the weak-spined republicans, who just want to be liked, and replace them with men and women who will make the difficult choices that we all know MUST be made to save America for our children and our grand children. 

In the meantime, we can take comfort in a piece of scripture from the Bible, which seems as if was directed, not just to the people of the writer’s day, but directly to modern day Americans, as well.  It reads thusly:  “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. (2 Chronicles 7:14)

Does anyone dispute our land NEEDS healing … desperately?

J. D. Longstreet