Catch 22 on Poverty and Welfare

To the average American, the word "poverty" implies significant material deprivation, an inability to provide a family with adequate nutritious food, reasonable shelter, and clothing. But the actual living conditions of America's poor are far different from -- read: better than -- what these media images convey. What does it mean to be "poor" in America? I write about it in a new paper from The Heritage Foundation: "Air Conditioning, Cable TV, and an Xbox: What is Poverty in the United States Today?" According to the government's own non-census data, in 2005 the average household defined as poor by the Census Bureau lived in a house or apartment equipped with air conditioning and cable TV.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/07/catch_22_on_poverty_and_welfare.html

Making Priorities

Cut the Damn Spending

It's time to cut the damn spending! This means taking a commonsense approach to America's priorities and eliminating outdated programs that have long past served their original purposes and exist only out of habit and to protect their bureaucracies.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/07/cut_the_damn_spending.html

Undertaxed or Overspent?

Historical spending and revenue data cannot be used to justify current levels of expenditures or taxation. However, it is important that thoughtful citizens as well as those directly involved in deficit-cutting legislation be informed about the origins of the deficits. Have recent deficits been the result of taxes falling more than spending or of spending increasing more rapidly than taxes?

The more things change, the more they stay the same. This article was written in 1988. What has changed?

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/undertaxed-or-overspent/

America - The Europe of the West?

The reality is that Americans need not resign themselves to the future that the White House would have them embrace. Flawed policies are holding back the U.S. economy, and there is room to grow if the government gets out of the way. As Heritage’s Bill Beach explains that, “Based on our talents, resources, and capital structure, the economy should be growing now at 4—5 percent. That growth rate would produce over 250,000 jobs per month…enough to reduce the unemployment rate.” But because of big government policies, we’re not realizing those gains.

America doesn’t have to be France. It doesn’t have to carry a European-style debt and tax burden. But the White House and congressional leaders must choose to enact policies that reject a European-style future.

http://blog.heritage.org/2011/07/11/morning-bell-america-the-europe-of-the-west/

The Schiff Report - Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uh3Z-JbqIJU

The Wisdom of Thomas Sowell

"A recent poll showed that nearly half the American public believes that the government should redistribute wealth. That so many people are so willing to blithely put such an enormous and dangerous arbitrary power in the hands of politicians -- risking their own freedom, in hopes of getting what someone else has -- is a painful sign of how far many citizens and voters fall short of what is needed to preserve a democratic republic."
-- Thomas Sowell (1930- ) Writer and economist

Economic Freedom and Quality of Life

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1U1Jzdghjk

"If an American is to amount to anything he must rely upon himself, and not upon the State; he must take pride in his own work, instead of sitting idle to envy the luck of others. He must face life with resolute courage, win victory if he can, and accept defeat if he must, without seeking to place on his fellow man a responsibility which is not theirs." Theodore Roosevelt

Thought for the Day

A thoughtful person might be forgiven for asking the obvious question here: Why is the government — i.e. the least productive institution in any economy — charged with the duty of stimulating anything? Everyone knows DC is a veritable cash vortex. When it comes to vacuuming scarce resources from those most in need, nothing sucks quite like bureaucracy.

So how do they get away with it? Why are people sending in their tax dollars instead of rioting in

the streets? Why do swindled citizens applaud trillions squandered on programs to buy small business cyanide and economy-sized nooses? The trick, as usual, lies in a carefully plotted economic public relations campaign. It’s in the way these schemes are sold.

As George Orwell once noted, “Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket.” People seldom riot while waiting in line for a free lunch. Recognizing this, politicians and their lackey economists go about convincing people that a nation really can spend its way to riches.

In this manner, the Keynesian economic theory of interventionalism enjoys a growing popularity among those it will eventually ravage. The hungry man will do well to remember, therefore, that the only thing a universal “free lunch” can reasonably guarantee is mass starvation.

Joel Bowman

The Increasingly Complex Relationship between Man and State

The expropriation of private property – which in any other domain is punishable by the very institution that holds a monopoly on such an action; the state – is commonly known as theft. Of course, when the state commits such an act, on threat of imprisonment, fine or other use of force, we refer to it by a subtler label: tax. Let us not be confused here. There exist only two possible forms of wealth transfer – one voluntary, the other coercive. One can no more be “voluntarily taxed” as one can be “partially pregnant.” A = A, no more, no less and no other.

http://dailyreckoning.com/the-increasingly-complex-relationship-between-man-and-state/