Wire Report

(Wire/FFF) – It may be possible to look into America’s future. How? Watch what’s going on in Greece. According to the Washington Post, “Greece needs to raise about €23 billion [more than $31 billion] in April and May to pay debts coming due. Greek officials say that either is impossible, or would require punitive interest rates — making it harder to bring the budget under control — unless Europe helps out.” So the Greek government awaits a bailout from Germany and France, but first it has to impress them that it is serious about fiscal austerity.

The Greek welfare state’s annual deficit is about 13 percent of its GDP and its accumulated debt is 113 percent of GDP. Meanwhile, the U.S. government’s overall debt is now on track to reach 90 percent of GDP by 2020, more than $20 trillion¹. Just last week the Congressional Budget Office said that over the next decade, the annual budget deficit will be $1.2 trillion more than the Obama administration has guessed. The ten-year figure is now projected to be $9.76 trillion. The annual deficit is about 10 percent of GDP.

Government spending is rising — and the new entitlement called health-care “reform” hasn’t passed yet. That’ll be good for a couple of trillion over the next decade.

CBO  estimates, GDP will reach 90% by 2020

The economic consequences of all that are likely to be dire. As the government tries to borrow more money, both to finance its programs and to pay the old debt that’s coming due, it will have to promise a better return to nervous lenders, such as China. But raising the interest rate will push other borrowers’ rates up, which in turn will put a damper on economic activity. Unemployment will grow and revenues will shrink, but entitlement programs, such as Medicare and Social Security, will keep growing. They already face tens of trillions of dollars in unfunded liabilities and are heading toward bankruptcy. Military spending will also increase, along with most other government spending.

What will the politicians do when they find interest payments swallowing the budget, leaving them less and less money to shower on political supporters? They might resort to higher taxes, which would further dampen economic activity. They might get the Federal Reserve to monetize the debt through inflation; but that would wreak economic havoc. Politicians aren’t likely to cut spending because it would jeopardize their careers. At that point, the government might default on its debts, a step that has much to recommend it.

Thus, the welfare state is a fiscal failure.

The welfare state has long been presented as the viable “third way,” a happy medium between laissez faire — full separation of state and economy — and state socialism — government control of the economy. Advocates of individual liberty have emphasized that the welfare state violates freedom because government takes wealth from those who produce it and transfers it to favored groups. Defenders have responded that the welfare state embodies compassion: people with means give to those less fortunate. But forced transfers through government are not true compassion. A virtue like compassion requires free choice, but government gives you no choice. So the compassion of the welfare state is counterfeit. It’s more about distributing goodies at others’ expense to win votes for politicians.

Historically compassion had little to do with government programs for the poor and social insurance for the working and middle classes. Beginning as far back as Queen Elizabeth I poor laws were intended to control people who were potential sources of social strife; and social insurance beginning in Bismarck’s German welfare state was calculated to make working people dependent on the government. In both cases the free society was subdued for the sake of those in power.

Now it is clearer than ever that the welfare state is not only morally flawed, it is also fiscally unsustainable. Politicians will always have an incentive to spend, while hiding the costs or pushing them onto future generations through debt. But reality doesn’t go away. It comes back to bite in unexpected ways.

We’re seeing it in Greece today. Tomorrow it will be other European welfare states. Then, if nothing changes, it will be America’s turn.

© 2001-2010 The Future of Freedom Foundation. All rights reserved.

Source(s): ¹Congressional Budget Office, The Budget and Economic Outlook, January 2010 •

Sheldon Richman, Editor “The Freeman”

Sheldon Richman is editor of The Freeman, published by The Foundation for Economic Education in Irvington, New York, and serves as senior fellow at The Future of Freedom Foundation. He is the author of FFF’s award-winning book Separating School & State: How to Liberate America’s Families; Your Money or Your Life: Why We Must Abolish the Income Tax; and FFF’s newest book Tethered Citizens: Time to Repeal the Welfare State. Calling for the abolition, not the reform, of public schooling. Separating School & State has become a landmark book in both libertarian and educational circles. In his column in the Financial Times, Michael Prowse wrote: “I recommend a subversive tract, Separating School & State by Sheldon Richman of the Cato Institute, a Washington think tank… . I also think that Mr. Richman is right to fear that state education undermines personal responsibility…” Mr. Richman’s articles on population, federal disaster assistance, international trade, education, the environment, American history, foreign policy, privacy, computers, and the Middle East have appeared in the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, American Scholar, Chicago Tribune, USA Today, Washington Times, Insight, Cato Policy Report, Journal of Economic Development, The Freeman, The World & I, Reason, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Middle East Policy, Liberty magazine, and other publications. He is a contributor to the Fortune Encyclopedia of Economics. A former newspaper reporter and former senior editor at the Cato Institute, Mr. Richman is a graduate of Temple University in Philadelphia.

Wire Report

(WIRE/SA) – In 2007, USA Today reported. “Like a ticking time bomb, the national debt is an explosion waiting to happen. It’s expanding by about $1.4 billion a day – or nearly $1 million a minute¹. What’s that mean to you? It means almost $30,000 in debt for each man, woman, child and infant in the United States.” Three years later Congress has raised the national debt ceiling yet again — to an unprecedented and even more astronomical $14 trillion. From healthcare to climate change, stimulus to war, virtually every conversation coming out of today’s Washington, DC-regardless of which party is in power — is about how much money our government is going to spend next.

Not surprisingly, countless Americans are now realizing that the greatest threat to their life, liberty and property is their government. Describing such people as “deranged,” New York Times columnist Frank Rich seems to think the greatest danger on the horizon is not necessarily big government-but “extremists” hell-bent on fighting it. Writes Rich:

(M)ost Tea Party groups have no affiliation with the G.O.P. despite the party’s ham-handed efforts to co-opt them. The more we learn about the Tea Partiers, the more we can see why. They loathe John McCain and the free-spending, TARP-tainted presidency of George W. Bush. They really do hate all of Washington, and if they hate Obama more than the Republican establishment, it’s only by a hair or two. The Tea Partiers want to eliminate most government agencies, starting with the Fed and the I.R.S., and end spending on entitlement programs. They are not to be confused with the Party of No holding forth in Washington – a party that, after all, is now positioning itself as a defender of Medicare spending. What we are talking about here is the Party of No Government at All.

Frank Rich
New York Times Columnist
“The Axis of the Obsessed and Deranged”²
Published: February 27, 2010

What Rich derisively calls the “Party of No Government at All,” has been a healthy and long overdue reaction to what we have now — the Party of Any-and-All Government. Flustered over the rise of anti-Washington “extremism,” establishment men like Rich continue to ignore that our current, virtually omnipotent federal government is pretty damn extreme itself-that is, if the U.S. Constitution is still any gauge on what American government should be and not simply the status quo sympathies of a NYT’s columnist.

Rich paints a picture in which the supposedly respectable conservative movement of the recent past has been hijacked by the ghost of John Birch and the specter of Ron Paul. But Rich has it exactly backward-there has been no mainstream movement advocating for limited government conservatism for decades, only the GOP using conservative rhetoric as a marketing tool to win elections. The conservative movement isn’t being hijacked-it’s being resuscitated. Rich notices the difference; he just doesn’t like it:

The distinction between the Tea Party movement and the official G.O.P. is real, and we ignore it at our peril. While Washington is fixated on the natterings of Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Michael Steele and the presumed 2012 Republican presidential front-runner, Mitt Romney, these and the other leaders of the Party of No are anathema or irrelevant to most Tea Partiers. Indeed, McConnell, Romney and company may prove largely irrelevant to the overall political dynamic taking hold in America right now. The old G.O.P. guard has no discernible national constituency beyond the scattered, often impotent remnants of aging country club Republicanism. The passion on the right has migrated almost entirely to the Tea Party’s counterconservatism.

Frank Rich
New York Times Columnist
“The Axis of the Obsessed and Deranged”²
Published: February 27, 2010

As the old GOP guard scrambles to put rank-and-file conservatives back in line so they can vote for Republicans like Mitt Romney who might save Medicare or spend trillions on another war, tea partiers, libertarians, and constitutionalists of all stripes should take solace in the fact that despite their critics–radical loyalty to limited government principles has long been a hallmark of American conservatism. Or as the original right-wing extremist, Barry Goldwater explained in his famous 1960 book The Conscience of a Conservative:

The turn will come when we entrust the conduct of our affairs to the men who understand that their first duty as public officials is to divest themselves of the power that they have been given. It will come when Americans, in hundreds of communities throughout the nation, decide to put the man in office who is pledged to enforce the Constitution and restore the Republic. Who will proclaim in a campaign speech: ‘I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel the old ones that do violence to the Constitution, or that have failed in their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is ‘needed’ before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents’ ‘interests,’ I shall reply that I was informed their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can.’

Barry Goldwater
“The Conscience of a Conservative”³

Copyright © 2010 The Southern Avenger

SOURCE(s): ¹USA Today “U.S. Debt $30,000 per American” published 12/03/2007 • ²The New York Times “The Axis of the Obsessed and Deranged” by Frank Rich, published 02/27/2010 • ³ “The Conscience of a Conservative” by Barry Goldwater • ⁴ Southern Avenger YouTube Channel

Kelly

WASHINGTON D.C. – Former Representative Cynthia McKinney is interviewed by Dina Gusovsky from “Russia Today” to discuss her opinion of the Obama Administration, stating that when it comes to the Iraq War, safeguarding civil liberties, the national debt, and a thorough investigation of the FEDERAL RESERVE, the current administration is merely “Bushism without Bush.”  Ms. McKinney also takes exception to the Obama Administration’s doublespeak on torture and the expansion of war into Pakistan.

Allison Bricker

Publisher’s Note: This post is a response to “A Debate of Real Substance, Part One” by Kelly Frahm.

Kelly is correct, I do hate this issue. Although the reason this issue causes me so much consternation is rooted in the way it is presented; a very glib, soundbite oriented, matter-of-fact methodology, that in the end is to the betterment of no one. The politicians, media, and PACs would have us believe we must join either the camp of “pro-abortionists” or “theocratic oppressors”. However, this issue is far more complex than the stark contrast of either or, and may contain more shades of gray than any known to humanity’s current convulsion.

For the record, and in order to really mess with the academics who seek to classify the abortion debate into two distinct demographics, let me just say that I am “pro-choice”, but also see this matter as an issue better left to the people’s legislative processes than to the Federal government’s judiciary. However that is not, nor should one construe that to be, my final solution.

It is important to understand that my support of abortion as an option, is wholly rooted in my philosophical belief as to when life begins. It is my philosophy that until the growing fetus’ is capable of functioning autonomously, i.e. breathing, evacuating waste, etc, the fetus is not “alive” nor an individual, and thus not the benefactor of the inherent rights of humanity. Whereas, those who do not see abortion as an option believe that life begins the moment an egg is fertilized. Somewhat unfortunately, there is no way to “prove” whose belief system is in fact correct, thus both are valid and wholly deserve the respect of the opposition. However, the current environment surrounding this issue, makes a reasoned discussion almost impossible.

The resolution of the aforementioned would indeed be required before it could be deemed rational or logical for our nation to proceed as it has since Roe v. Wade¹ was decided by the United States Supreme Court on January 22nd, 1973.

This decision by nine individuals, appointed for life, has set the stage for the eventual judicial retribution by those who believe that life begins at conception, ergo we have not respected their belief so why should they respect ours, so to speak.

It should be a dire warning that Justice Blackmun’s memos, accidentally released in whole to the Library of Congress in 1989, acknowledge his siding with the majority as “arbitrary” not based on the legal merits of the case. In another memo Justice Potter Stewart, who joined Justice Blackmun in the 7 to 2 majority, wrote the determination in the opinion “legislative”, not judicial².

The first challenge to Roe came in 1992 with the Supreme Court ruling on Planned Parenthood v. Casey³. In yet another note released five years after the death of Justice Blackmun in 1999, we see the opinion of the court was first 5 to 4 voting to overturn Roe, but that Justice Kennedy got cold feet regarding his legacy and switched his vote at the last second to the compromise position of Justice O’Connor⁴.

Writing for the dissent in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Justice Scalia wrote³:

“…by foreclosing all democratic outlet for the deep passions this issue arouses, by banishing the issue from the political forum that gives all participants, even the losers, the satisfaction of a fair hearing and an honest fight, by continuing the imposition of a rigid national rule instead of allowing for regional differences, the Court merely prolongs and intensifies the anguish.”

Is is dangerous in deed to live by the whims and personal affectations of a Judiciary. We were given a window to the tyranny which can be exacted by a Judiciary in the 2000 Supreme Court case Bush v. Gore⁵. Again a judicial decision wholly squashed the representative voice of the people by appointing George Bush as the 43rd President of these states United.

Whereas, the precedent would have been to allow the Congress, comprised of 535 elected members serving 4 and 6 year terms to vote on whether to exclude Florida for lack of competency, in lieu of 9 Justices stepping in wholly removing the case from the will of the people.

The judicial sword is too easily used as a weapon of tyranny and thus should be reserved for legality not policy.

Furthermore, the fire has been stoked by the ubiquitous hand of government using tax dollars of those in opposition to abortion to subsidize organizations, hospitals and planning facilities via TITLE X and the MediCare program⁶.

Imagine if you consider yourself pro-choice, the compounding resentment you would almost certainly feel if government was using monies coercively taken via income taxation to fund a quasi-private organization which sought to root out and prosecute doctors who performed abortions or individuals who help women in need gain access to the procedure. Think this notion is impractical and/or hyperbolic? One need only look back to the mid nineteenth century when Congress passed the “Fugitive Slave Act”⁷ forcing all officers of government to round up runaway slaves and prosecute those who gave aid or comfort with fines, imprisonment and treason. Even more devious was the ridiculously low burden of proof, whereby simply accusing an individual was enough to be brought up on charges. It is my analysis that when, not if, this ruling is overturned, ideologues will seek to use Federal retribution to punish those who operate outside of the “new” judicial dictate of the land.

The “Fugitive Slave Act”⁷ is cited as one of the numerous compounding instances which led to a fracturing of the Union and to the bloodiest war in our history, the Civil War. Not in any war from the revolution to Iraq, has our Republic seen casualties approaching 600,000+ dead Americans. A “wedge”, fueled, sustained, and provoked by government.

Bitter resentment and divisiveness, is in my estimation, just as detrimental to the stability of our Republic as is the crushing weight of a national debt estimated anywhere between $10 to $70 trillion⁸. Both threaten the long term sustainability of our Republic to not only the living, but our posterity as well.

It is not to hard to comprehend the heavy handed retaliation of a new plurality thrust into power. History is replete with all sorts of examples of tyrannies exacted upon minorities by a majority and vice versa. It is the eventual certainty of a country who so unknowingly resigns to be a “Democracy”.

The Founding Fathers were all too familiar, first hand, with the teeter-totter, tit for tat battles of government oppression by a current ruling class bent on exacting pent up a ideological resentment. Hence why they sought to construct a Republic, based on the principles of Federalism, not Federal tyranny, and why I feel this issue must be decided by states in order to relieve the building pressure within our nation.

For one, every state Constitution within the Union expounds upon the inherent rights as described in our Federal Constitution’s first 10 Amendments, i.e. the Bill of Rights. Furthermore, states are in a position to be more intimately acquainted with local sentiment than is the King and his Court sitting up on the hill, pleasing one half of the nation while enraging the other.

Moreover, the process of changing laws in a state is both easier and limits the unintended consequences of poor legislation by confining its jurisdiction within the boundaries of the state’s territory. It is important to give mention to the possibility, as Kelly raised during our discussion, the plight of the 14 year old teenager stuck within a state who would not only outlaw abortion, but would do so without an exception for the health and safety of the mother.

While it would most assuredly be difficult for her to travel to a state which allowed abortion, that difficulty is undoubtedly less than what our ancestors faced in crossing an ocean in a disease filled wooden boat to start a new life, sometimes wholly separated from family and uncertain of conditions at the destination. Moreover, my own mother having been a victim of sexual violence, faced this exact obstacle in 1971, but managed to overcome the prohibition in order to make the best decision for herself.

Difficulty while needing sincere consideration, should not justify the continued division and policies thereof, which seek to wedge this issue between friends, neighbors, family, and ultimately the Republic.

If this were to be the outcome, instead of what I fear the true overturning of Roe v. Wade will be, it would greatly help alleviate the divisive red state, blue state, one fish, two fish, juvenile mentality condescendingly cast down upon the American people. My analysis leads me to believe that when Roe v. Wade is overturned within 4 years or in 20, the possibility of a “Fugitive Abortionist Act” grows all the more likely.

However, if we were to see this decision returned to the states,myself and many others most assuredly would pledge an alliance with those who would seek to set up a pathway to help women in need exercise their individual choice. Just as the “Jane Collective”⁹ did prior to the ruling in 1972.

Furthermore, my efforts would be redoubled to see the principles of Federalism exalted and thus seek to remove the determination from state authority and rested unto counties. The ultimate goal being to see this decision reduced to the responsibility of a municipality or town, whereby either abstention or regulation is more easily overcome.

If we are to accept the principle that the decency of images and words can be beholden to “community standards”, as stated in Miller v. California¹⁰, then choices made regarding the rights of mothers, need to be left as close as possible to the individual. Not in a distant centralized federal or state authority all but deaf to individual’s plights and unique circumstances.

Source(s):

¹JANE ROE v. WADE, 410 U.S. 113, No. 70-18 Argued: December 13, 1971 — Decided: January 22, 1973 (retrieved from FindLaw.com, 10/18/2008)

²Washington Post by Bob Woodward, January 22nd, 1989

³PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF SOUTHEASTERN PA. v. CASEY, 505 U.S. 833, No. 91-744 Argued April 22, 1992 — Decided June 29, 1992

⁴ Washington Times, “Blackmun papers reveal doubts on abortion ruling”, March 4th, 2004

⁵GEORGE W. BUSH, ET AL., PETITIONERS v. ALBERT GORE, JR., ET AL.,No. 00-949, Argued December 12th, 2000 —Decided December 12th, 2000

⁶ General Accounting Office (MEMO) -May 16, 2003, Subject: Federal Funds: Fiscal Year 2001 Expenditures by Selected Organizations Involved in Health-Related Activities

⁷ September 18th, 1850, 1st Session, 31st CONGRESS of the UNITED STATES, Chapter LX, FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT

⁸ “Is the U.S. Going Broke?” by: Laurence J. Kotlikoff September 4th – Forbes Magazine dated September 29, 2008

⁹ “The Story of Jane: the Legendary Underground Feminist Abortion Service” by: Laura Kaplan, University of Chicago Press, 1995.

¹⁰ MILLER v. CALIFORNIA, 413 U.S. 15, -APPEAL FROM THE APPELLATE DEPARTMENT, SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF ORANGE, No. 70-73. Argued January 18-19,1972—Reargued November 7, 1972—Decided June 21, 1973

Allison Bricker

In the self aggrandizing banter following last night’s Vice-Presidential debate, the punditocracy’s own, Chris Matthews committed a giant verbal faux pas.  As soon as the word “depression” left his lips, Mr. Matthews froze. Viewers could literally witness his face glaze over, trying to process the gravity of his own words.  Mr. Matthews then attempted a course correction, nervously fumbling over, “recession”.

Make no mistake, now that this bailout bill has passed and is on its way to the President, our American republic is headed towards a multi-year economic depression, instead of just a shorter less painful recession. Contrary to the condescending tones from the financial “gurus” about how “We the average People” just do not understand the complexities or necessity of the bill, it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that you do not fix a debt problem by shoveling on more debt.

Americans knew all too well twice before that central banks were bad for the country.  Both “The First and Second  Banks of the United States” were ripe with corruption, caused wild speculation in markets and, were not renewed at the times their 20 year charters came up for review before Congress¹.

However, unlike “The Third Bank of the United States”, i.e “The Federal Reserve” the first two central banking schemes utilized sound money to back the currency.  Where once the American Dollar bore the words “Gold” or Silver Certificate”, meaning the Dollar was legally convertible into actual gold or silver on demand of the bearer.  Today’s Dollar only bears “Federal Reserve Note” on its face, and are thus nothing more than paper backed by the full faith and credit of the United States of America.

From 1800 to 1933 the average daily price of one Troy ounce gold, chugged along steadily at $20.00/ounce². Thus a Dollar in 1800 basically bought the same amount of goods in 1912. However, on March 9, 1933, in an effort to “stabilize agricultural crop prices”, Franklin Delanor Roosevelt signed Presidential Executive Order 6102 which invoked his authority to make it unlawful to own or hold gold coins, gold bullion, or gold dollar certificates³. By the end of that year gold rose 62% to $32.00/Troy ounce.

As the “Great Depression” continued, the government tried all sorts of measures, such as the 1933 “Agricultural Adjustment Act”⁴. The AAA even paid a subsidy to farmers to plow under their crops in order to “stabilize crop prices”, whilst 7 million+ Americans starved.  All so “Prices” could remain stable on the “open” market. Only after inflating the currency even further via the “Lend/Lease” scheme of World War II and being in charge of the massive rebuilding of a devasted Europe, would America climb out of the “Great Depression”.

Following World War II, the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Government continued its effort to move totally away from a sound currency.  Finally, in 1973, President Nixon put the final nail in the coffin, and removed the dollar completely, 100% off the Bretton Woods gold standard⁵.

Since that day, our money’s value has been based on one thing; the peoples ability to perpetuate the borrow/repay cycle needed to sustain a wholly fiat currency.  This time however we are propping up “home prices” by buying up these failed mortgage backed securities at an over valued price, from the criminal financiers who recklessly packaged said instruments in the first place.  It sometimes seems like we never learn, and hence why my philosophy on the importance of history is: “You cannot know where you are going, if you do not know where you have been.”

Please do not misconstrue my analysis that we are headed into another depression as yet another condescending statement to “We the People”.  The difference now is that in previous borrow/repay cycles, the creditors were fellow Americans, in the form of local banks, business, etcetera, etcetera.  However, now the creditors are wholly foreign as we no longer produce much of any real assets,  instead we consume.  We consume all the wonderful distracting gadgets, such as plasma televisions, iPhones, and clothing to name a few.

In the final analysis, let us say you take a credit card with a $50,000.00 limit and spend until the card is completely maxed to its limit.  You then fall behind on a couple of “minimum payments on the National Debt”.  Which leads you to the bright idea to call the credit card company and explain to them to raise your credit limit so you can buy/invest in some more consumable not durable goods or real assets, which will then allow you to make a profit to pay off the originally purchased items “sometime in the future” – maybe.

What do you think that credit card company would say? This is exactly what this bailout is in essence requesting.  However, even more despicable, is that this bill will print the money out of thin air and then try to sell these Treasury I.O.U’s to our master creditor, the Chinese government.

My fellow Americans, this is the situation we now find ourselves in thanks to the wholly uncaring, selfish, corrupt, and deviant government that runs amok in Washington.  It spread its “Consume until bloated” mentality to both the state governments and the American people.  Unfortunately, the “United States Credit Card” has officially just been Declined” for the inability to repay.  My fellow readers, our country is bankrupt.  Perhaps Mr. Peter Schiff’s words from an interview on Thursday says it more succinctly, stating “we’re screwed” in response to the question, “What will happen if the bailout passes?”  Mr. Schiff, as our loyal readers already know, warned us two years ago exactly where this current debt based bubble was taking the U.S. economy.

Unfortunately, I have no direct answer on how to solve this crisis.  If our family was wealthy enough we would invest in foreign gold and silver markets.  However, this malfeasance threatens our Republic’s very existence, and even if that opportunity were available, it is only a matter of time before the government outlaws the possession of gold yet again.

Perhaps there will be a groundswell of Americans finally ready to repeal the charter of the Federal Reserve and thus a demand to return to sound money.  If not, there is always that tree, and it seems more and more to be in need of a serious refreshment.

Source(s): ¹ Central banking functions of the United States Treasury, 1789-1941 published: 1943- ² World Gold Council – ³The American Presidency Project/University of California – ⁴The Depression in the United States–An Overview/University of Illinois – ⁵Commanding Heights by Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw, Published 1997 – “Purchasing Power of Federal Reserve Notes”/Consumer Price Index/Bureau of Labor Statistics