Category Archives: morality

It Isn’t Your Money

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Or, gimme, gimme, gimme.

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew told “Fox News Sunday” that President Obama will neither sign government funding bills that slash domestic spending nor negotiate with Republicans over spending cuts to reduce the federal debt limit.

That’s not all.  He told ABC’s “This Week”

I think the president has made crystal clear, he’s not going to negotiate over the debt limit.

But he’s willing to “work with” all comers.  Sure.

This President, and his cronies in the Senate, are perfectly willing to blow up our credit rating (or what’s left of it after their last fiasco just a couple of years ago) and shut down the government if they’re blocked from taking more of your money away from you (in their demanded higher taxes) or taking more of your children’s money away from them (in their demanded continuing borrowing) and spending ever more of your money (their demanded spending increases).

All because these…politicians…think they know better than you—or your children—what that money should be spent on, and they’re convinced it’s their money and not yours in the first place.

Cynical Goals for our Economy

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Most Democrats want tax-overhaul efforts to fund government programs or contribute to deficit reduction.

Indeed.  In addition, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, UT) demands that any tax “reform” raise Federal revenues ($975 billion more over 10 years is his minimum bid) for the purpose of supporting increased Federal spending.

“Contribute to deficit reduction.”  How disingenuous.

Here’s a thought: how about tax reform that reduces rates against a backdrop of reduced/eliminated government “programs,” so that the Federal government is out of the way (or at least less in the way) of our economy?  The result would be a robust and growing economy that would both raise revenue for the Feds from that increased activity and that actually would eliminate the deficit instead of cynically perpetuating it.

And from that deficit elimination, facilitate actually paying down a ruinous Federal debt.

Know Betters Who Know Better

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Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg had a few things to say, in the context of an AP interview about the Supremes’ VRA ruling last month, about voter ID and the sanctity of the individual vote.

Texas’ decision to implement its voter ID law hours after the court struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act last month was powerful evidence of an ongoing need to keep states with a history of voting discrimination from making changes in the way they hold elections without getting advance approval from Washington.

Because acting on being newly freed from the shackles of government is somehow nefarious.

The notion that because the Voting Rights Act had been so tremendously effective we had to stop it didn’t make any sense to me[.]

Because we’re irretrievably beyond redemption, men cannot change away from the mistakes of a distant past, and it takes an enlightened Progressive to instruct and guide us.

It’s inconceivable to Know Betters that such seigniory might not actually be necessary.

Bunny Huggers

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…or seal huggers.

Mark Hodgdon was scuba diving around 1:30 pm when he found a stranded baby seal covered in bite marks.

“As I got a little [bit] closer, he just swam closer to me and jumped right up on my shoulder,” said Hodgdon.

…implying that the baby seal’s distress might have been more exhaustion than serious injury.

However.

After Hodgdon and his fiancé (who was with him during this) got the seal to shore and called the New England Aquarium for assistance, when the Aquarium’s volunteer arrived, he refused to lift a finger to help the seal.

In fairness to the Aquarium, this is driven by our bunny hugger laws that make it a crime even to touch baby seals.

Touching the seal was a violation of the Federal Marine Mammal Protection Act, and the couple could face a $5,000 fine.  Aquarium officials say even though their intentions were good, if you see a seal you should not approach it.

No, instead,

Anyone who thinks a seal is in distress is asked to call the US Coast Guard or emergency officials and stay nearby so it can be found.

This, on the heels of the Kennedy brothers’ rescue of a leatherback turtle that was tangled in a buoy line.  Rescuing that member of an endangered species was a violation of the Endangered Species Act.

Remember: when the shark comes, and seconds count, the do-nothing authorities will be only hours away.  And expect you to pay the vig if you lift a finger to intervene in the interim.  It’s the law.

Federal Climate Plan and Crony Capitalism

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George Russell, writing for Fox News, had this on the efficacy of President Barack Obama’s national plan to fight “climate change:”

a separate, groundbreaking study by the National Research Council has warned that those kinds of subsidies are virtually useless at quelling greenhouse gases .

The study, which looks at the subsidies and other incentives embedded in U.S. federal tax law after the past several years of climate change initiatives, concludes that they  have done little or nothing so far to cut U.S. contributions to global carbon emissions, and are unlikely to do much more before 2035, the project’s research horizon.

And

[T]he study declared that “their combined impact is less than 1% of total US emissions” over the next 25 years, and they are a lousy bargain to boot:  “Very little if any GHG reductions are achieved at substantial cost with these provisions.”

[T]he study concluded “current tax expenditures and subsidies are a poor tool for reducing greenhouse gases and achieving climate-change objectives.”   They “achieve small reductions in GHG emissions and are costly per unit of emissions reduction.”

The full cost was something the study was unable to make entirely clear.  It estimated that the federal government had spent some $48 billion in just the past two years on “tax expenditures”—meaning subsidies, credits, and other incentives—related to the energy sector, and also noted that few were specifically enacted to reduce greenhouse gases.

Obama’s plan also ignores the erroneous nature of its assumptions about what is a significant GHG.  It includes all of their assumed GHGs, for instance including atmospheric CO2….

Worse, for the short term,

[T]he probe underlined how little is yet known about the relationship between government tax-and-spend activity and actual climate change results, especially as government spending gets embedded in a growing thicket of regulations and initiatives created to solve different parts of the greenhouse gas puzzle, but all touted to achieve the same ends.

And

[T]he plan also calls for $7.9 billion in additional funding for advanced clean energy technology, a hike of about 30%.  This includes investment in a range of energy technologies, from advanced biofuels to nuclear mini-reactors.

Never mind that this is a waste of money.  If the technology can’t compete in the free market without subsidies, it’s not commercially viable.  And so does not warrant subsidization—assuming government subsidies are ever appropriate.

The ludicrosity goes on, but you get the idea.

It’s hard to believe that Obama and his colleagues in the Executive Branch and allies in the Legislative Branch didn’t know this stuff a priori; earlier studies, for instance, have debunked the very concept of serious human impact on evolving climate.  But he, and they, do know full well the pecuniary benefit of this plan for the plan’s recipients.

The study itself can be found here.