Posts Tagged Government Spending

Clunker Drivers Have Been Bailed Out…Where’s The Outrage?

Posted by Scott in Entitlements, Gov't Spending, Taxes on August 29th, 2009

It was less than a year ago when Wall Street firms started seeing the first wave of government bailouts.  Shortly thereafter the media and “Main Street” started crying about corporate excesses and greed.  Those same people, however, are praising the “successes” of Cash For Clunkers; even advocating for a sequel Dollars For Dishwashers.

Why was Clunkers a success when the Wall Street bailouts were a miserable failure?  Essentially they amounted to the same thing, the only difference was the recipients of our tax dollars.  Where’s the outrage against those who were able to get a discount on their new automobile?  Where’s the public disclosure (maybe a bumper sticker to thank the rest of us for their new purchase)?

Now I’m not trying to say that I agree with the Wall Street bailouts, because I don’t.  I’m just trying to figure out how it’s OK to bailout one group of people and not another.  The dollar amounts are irrelevant – the principle is the same.

After all, wouldn’t it just be easier (and more Constitutional) to simply not tax us as much?  Lowering taxes for everyone across the board would not only help the auto industry and big Wall Street firms, it will also help every other industry.  If everyone has more money to spend, they will spend it where they see fit.  Whether that’s a new car, or a new dishwasher, the money will be spent, and the economy will eventually correct itself.

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Cash For Clunkers Thank You For Proving Our Point

Posted by Scott in Entitlements, Gov't Spending, Healthcare, Taxes on August 21st, 2009

For years, conservatives and liberals have clashed over taxes.  Do we tax less, and allow the free market to thrive with the increased spending, or do we tax more to allow for an increase in government spending.

Cash For Clunkers has proven the conservative point of taxing less to benefit the economy, and here’s how.

Everyone, especially liberals are pointing out that one of the successes of Cash For Clunkers is that if you give people money, they will spend it.  But why did the government have to place restrictions on how it could be spent?  Had they simply not collected that $3 billion from the American taxpayer, we would have spent it as we saw fit to begin with.

Not only would people inevitably have purchased new (or even used cars), they also would have had additional money to pay for things like, gee I don’t know, maybe health care? 

This leads me to another point.  Cash For Clunkers was supposed to last until November.  Whether it was the apparent “success” of the program, or the flaws in the paperwork processing that caused the program’s early departure, it was still cut short.  What happens when the proposed universal health care ends up becoming too “successful” for its own good, or the inevitable mountains of paperwork become too much to handle?  Are people going to be left waiting weeks or months for the treatment they desperately need (similar to the auto dealers waiting on payments they also desperately need)?

It’s time to see the light at the end of the government sponsored tunnel.  More government involvement than is absolutely necessary in anything is never a good thing.  And right now there is definitely far more than is necessary.

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Cash For Clunkers – Yet Another Government Blunder

Posted by Scott in Entitlements, Environment, Gov't Spending on August 20th, 2009

If you’ve driven by a new car dealership lately, you’ll likely notice the same thing I did when I went out looking to buy a new car.  The lots are barren.  You’re lucky to find a dealership who has more than one of the model car you’re looking for, and even luckier if it happens to be the right color, with all the features you want.

The recent buying frenzy caused by Cash For Clunkers has diminished the supply of new cars available to dealers to sell, because manufacturers weren’t able to increase production enough in anticipation of the surge in demand.  What this has done, is caused an increase in the price of new cars, potentially eliminating most, if not all savings the government incentive program provides.

What’s worse, is that the dealerships who have already made thousands of sales aren’t being reimbursed by the government.  One Los Angeles area dealership has said that they have made about 270 clunker deals, and has only been reimbursed for two.  That means that this dealership is owed around $1 million from the government.  And that’s just one dealership.  Nationwide, approximately 2% of all clunker deals have been paid out so far, and 80% of all applications are “rejected for minor oversights”.

Not only is the $3 billion program expensive, it’s clearly inefficient (like any other government program).

Additionally, think back to the lessons learned from the mortgage crisis, where people went further into debt than they could afford, ultimately foreclosing on their homes.  If someone is driving around in a “clunker”, they’re probably doing so because they can’t afford to buy a brand new vehicle.  They might be better off if they upgraded to a nicer used vehicle, but many of the new vehicles that qualify for the program are expensive.  The auto finance companies are loving life right now, but they’ll be looking for another bailout once people start defaulting on their loans.

Come to think of it, why are only new cars accepted in the clunkers program?  It seems to me that buying a more fuel efficient used car would be better for the environment than manufacturing a brand new fuel efficient car.  Not to mention the environmental impact of increased scrapping of some perfectly good cars.  Seems to me like the program is more of a bailout for the automakers than it is an environmental incentive.

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Universal Insurance

Posted by Scott in Healthcare, Legislation on April 26th, 2009

Let’s get one thing straight here.  When people start talking about “universal health care” they’re really talking about how one goes about paying for health care.  The reality is that they’re not talking about health care at all.  They’re talking about insurance versus out of pocket expenses.

I was on my honeymoon last year in Europe and was talking to some nice people from England.  The discussion about the differences in our two countries health care came up when talking about the upcoming Presidential election.  The man I was talking to was defending the universal system in England by saying that if you don’t have insurance in the US, an ambulance won’t even take you to the hospital, and if you do manage to get to the hospital they won’t even look at you until you prove you can pay for the medical care.

He couldn’t be further from the truth.  In the US, as in England, no one is denied medical care in an emergency.  The only difference is who foots the bill.  In the US, if you have insurance, your insurance company pays, if not, you do.  In England, the tax payers fund all the health care.

Oh yea, one other major difference is the bureaucrats that the British have to deal with in order to get medical care.  We’re used to bureaucratic nonsense in the US when dealing with the government (long lines at the DMV, waiting periods for licenses and permits, etc.), but we don’t have life threatening injuries when dealing with the bureaucracy.

I never realized it until I spoke with this guy, but it seems like the British are fearful that without a universal health care system, they might not be able to get health care at all.  The thought that individuals can pay for their own health care doesn’t seem to cross their mind.  As a matter of fact, when I explained the insurance process in the US to this guy, he sort of had an “ah-ha” moment, almost like he never considered how easy it could be to simply pay for it yourself.

So what’s the point here?  The liberals keep touting universal health care as the way to go in the US.  No one stops to think that we already have universal health care.  Anyone and everyone can walk into an emergency room and get treatment for their medical problems.  It seems like liberals in the US are learning from the lessons learned from other countries like England.  They are instilling a sense of fear into Americans that don’t have insurance, making them think that it will be impossible to gain access to health care without universal coverage.

For whatever reason these people don’t have health insurance, either if they can’t afford it or don’t want to pay for it, they still have access to health care if they need it.

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Lucky Strike Museum

Posted by Scott in Gov't Operations, Gov't Spending on April 19th, 2009

Remember back in the late 1990’s, when the tobacco companies were sued?  They were ordered to pay over $240 billion to 46 states over the course of 25 years to fund the health costs associated with smoking and chewing tobacco.

According to an article on Townhall.com, roughly $80 billion has been paid out so far, and of that amount only 30% has been spent on health care programs, while only 6% was spent on smoking cesation programs.

So where did the other 70% go?  It must be sitting in escrow somewhere right?  Wrong.  The states have spent this money on things like museums, tax relief programs, and other non-health related programs.

The reason why, is that the states are not bound by any formula or criteria for spending the money.  They essentially said to trust them to do the right thing.  The right thing for who is the question we’re now left with.

It becomes a public outrage when big corporations like AIG “inappropriately” spend their bailout money to send their employees and agents on outings to Las Vegas.  But when the states do essentially the same thing, no one makes a peep.

Where’s the outrage?  Where are the demands to pay back the inappropriately used funds?  More importantly, why aren’t the tobacco companies suing the states for the misappropriation of their funds?

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Government Owned Companies

Posted by Scott in Gov't Spending on March 25th, 2009

With all the recent investment by the government into banks and other publicly traded companies, one has to wonder, is the government really the best organization to run these companies?

In the private sector, a company will spend millions of dollars on a single executive’s pay each year.  This isn’t because the companies are wasteful or the executives are greedy.  It’s because this is what the executive’s experience is worth in the free market. 

If you work at McDonald’s for $8/hour, it’s because [a] you haven’t done well on your executive level interviews, or [b] that is what your experience is worth in the free market.

When a person takes a position in the government, no matter at what level, they are either doing so to fulfil a civic duty or because that’s the best job they can get.  No one in government, whether they are working to fulfil a civic duty or not, is making executive level salaries.  It’s not because the government is poor and can’t afford to pay these salaries.  It’s because the experience they are receiving isn’t worth an executive level pay.  Granted there are people with executive level experience who work for the government who don’t make executive level pay.  These people are working for the government to fulfil their civic duty.

My point here is that in a free market, quality experience is well compensated.  The government does not have an abundance of quality experience, and their employees are compensated as such.  Why then, do we as a society think that the government has all the answers?  Why do we think that they will be able to solve all of our problems if the private sector has yet to solve them? 

The answer is they can’t, without imposing heavy taxes upon the American people. 

Think about it.  All the companies who are asking for bailout funds, are looking at a few billion dollar loss per year.  The US government is forecasted to hit a $1.8 trillion deficit this year.  Even in a surplus year, the government does nothing to earn a single dollar.  They only regulate the ins and outs through taxation and government spending.

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Tuesday Morning Humor

Posted by Scott in Entitlements on March 24th, 2009

I received this in an email forwarded to me, and thought it was funny.  Note: I haven’t verified the dollar amounts quoted towards the end, but I’m sure they are not too far off. 

Enjoy!

The little red hen called all of her Democrat neighbors together and said,’If we plant this wheat, we shall have bread to eat. Who will help me plant it?’

‘Not I,’ said the cow.

‘Not I,’ said the duck.

‘Not I,’ said the pig.

‘Not I,’ said the goose.

‘Then I will do it by myself,’ said the little red hen, and so she did. The wheat grew very tall and ripened into golden grain.

‘Who will help me reap my wheat?’ asked the little red hen.

‘Not I,’ said the duck..

‘Out of my classification,’ said the pig.

‘I’d lose my seniority,’ said the cow.

‘I’d lose my unemployment compensation,’ said the goose.

‘Then I will do it by myself,’ said the little red hen, and so she did.

At last it came time to bake the bread.

‘Who will help me bake the bread?’ asked the little red hen.

‘That would be overtime for me,’ said the cow.

‘I’d lose my welfare benefits,’ said the duck.

‘I’m a dropout and never learned how,’ said the pig.

‘If I’m to be the only helper, that’s discrimination,’ said the goose.

‘Then I will do it by myself,’ said the little red hen.

She baked five loaves and held them up for all of her neighbors to see. They
wanted some and, in fact, demanded a share. But the little red hen said,

‘No, I shall eat all five loaves.’

‘Excess profits!’ cried the cow. (Nancy Pelosi)

‘Capitalist leech!’ screamed the duck. (Barbara Boxer)

‘I demand equal rights!’ yelled the goose. (Jesse Jackson)

The pig just grunted in disdain. (Ted Kennedy)

And they all painted ‘Unfair!’ picket signs and marched around and around the little red hen, shouting obscenities.

Then the farmer (Obama) came. He said to the little red hen, ‘You must not be so greedy.’

‘But I earned the bread,’ said the little red hen.

‘Exactly,’ said Barack the farmer. ‘That is what makes our free enterprise system so wonderful. Anyone in the barnyard can earn as much as he wants. But under our modern government regulations, the productive workers must
divide the fruits of their labor with those who are lazy and idle.’

And they all lived happily ever after, including the little red hen, who smiled and clucked, ‘I am grateful, for now I truly understand.’

But her neighbors became quite disappointed in her. She never again baked bread because she joined the ‘party’ and got her bread free. And all the Democrats smiled.. ‘Fairness’ had been established.

Individual initiative had died, but nobody noticed; perhaps no one cared…so long as there was free bread that ‘the rich’ were paying for.

EPILOGUE

Bill Clinton is getting $12 million for his memoirs.

Hillary got $8 million for hers.

That’s $20 million for the memories from two people, who for eight years, repeatedly testified, under oath, that they couldn’t remember anything.

IS THIS A GREAT BARNYARD OR WHAT?

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