The Free Lunch Myth -- Why We Should Drop The Corporate Tax Altogether

Debt Level Will Rise To 90% Of GDP In Nine Years

Our President... the Record Breaker! -- Obama Runs Up $2 Trillion In Debt In 421 Days (per HotAir)

 (HotAir h/t)

The latest posting from the Treasury Department shows the National Debt has increased over $2 trillion since President Obama took office.

The debt now stands at $12.6 trillion. On the day Mr. Obama took office it was $10.6 trillion.

President George W. Bush still holds the record for the most debt run up on his watch: $4.9 trillion. But it took him over four years to rack up the first two trillion dollars in debt. It has taken Mr. Obama 421 days.

But the Obama Administration routinely blames the Bush Administration for inheriting a budget surplus and turning it into years of record-breaking deficits and debt — and then leaving it on the doorstep of the new president.

...(read more)...

(Thomas Sowell - Real Clear Politics)

.... The Congressional Budget Office can only deal with the numbers that Congress supplies. Those numbers may well be consistent with each other, even if they are wholly inconsistent with anything that is likely to happen in the real world.

The Obama health care plan can be financed without increasing the federal deficit-- if the administration takes hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicare. But Medicare itself does not have enough money to pay its own way over time.

However money is juggled in the short run, the government's financial liabilities are increased by adding this huge new entitlement of government-provided insurance. The fact that these new financial liabilities can be kept out of the official federal deficit projection, by claiming that they will be paid for with money taken from Medicare, changes nothing in the real world.

[....]

Whether this administration, or any future administration, will in fact take enough money from Medicare to pay for this new massive entitlement is a question that only the future can answer, regardless of what today's budget projection says.

On paper, you can treat Medicare like the hypothetical rich uncle who is going to leave me enough money to buy a Rolls Royce. But only on paper. In real life, you can't get blood from a turnip, and you can't keep on getting money from a Medicare program that is itself running out of money.

An even more transparent gimmick is collecting money for the new Obama health care program for the first ten years but delaying the payments of its benefits for four years. By collecting money for 10 years and spending it for only 6 years, you can make the program look self-supporting, but only on paper and only in the short run.

This is a game you can play just once, during the first decade. After that, you are going to be collecting money for 10 years and paying out money for 10 years. That is when you discover that your uncle doesn't have enough money to support himself, much less leave you an inheritance to pay for a Rolls Royce.

[....]

Fraud has been at the heart of this medical care takeover plan from day one. The succession of wholly arbitrary deadlines for rushing this massive legislation through, before anyone has time to read it all, serves no other purpose than to keep its specifics from being scrutinized-- or even recognized-- before it becomes a fait accompli and "the law of the land.".... 

...(read more)...

Libertarian Republican Import -- Texas Textbooks and Giants in Economics

Hayek, Milton Friedman added to Texas Textbooks

MAJOR VICTORY FOR LIBERTARIANS!!

Thanks to the efforts of the hardright conservative majority on the Texas Board of Education, two Libertarian Giants in Economics will now be studied in State High Schools.

From the NY Times, Justin Wolfers (Freakonomics), "Hayek propped up by Government Intervention", March 15:

How do they plan to rewrite high school economics?

In economics, the revisions add Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek, two champions of free-market economic theory, to the usual list of economists to be studied – economists like Adam Smith, Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes

Wolfers goes on to heartily approve of Friedman's inclusion, but not necessarily of Hayek. He believes him to be too obscure, based on relatively low amount of Google searches he receives in relation to other better known economists:

Sure, Hayek was an insightful economist. But insisting that high schools teach Hayek is a clear statement of ideology, not of economic science.

Free Market Mojo blogger responds to Wolfers:

Um, what’s the problem? Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek are tremendously influential figures, not just in the field of economics. Can a truly honest study of the past century ignore their contributions to the world? I don’t think so. Mention them and criticize them if you must, but don’t ignore them.

There were other changes of note. Interestingly, the term "capitalism" was replaced in the textbooks by "free enterprise." additionally, early reports from Leftist bloggers had Thomas Jefferson removed from any mention in history books. This is incorrect. Jefferson was removed from only discussions of the enlightenment section not of American history. (Source: Village Voice)

Heavy Weight Health-Care for the Tax Payer

Letter Passed on about Haiti from Some Friends In Florida ("Dead Aid" book author, Dambisa Moyo, interviewed about differing types of aid)

I don't know how legit this is, I checked Snopes and it isn't on their radar yet. That being said, there are some good points in it. I would donate money to Christian organizations if you are going to donate. Haiti is New Orleans magnified.

Hi to All,

Have been receiving a few emails from people "on the scene" and being active in the rescue in Haiti.


This came from a very close friend of a friend and passing it on. He did not sugar coat anything. Please be aware that in the Dominican Republic, which shares the same island as Haiti, put guards on it borders to keep the people from Haiti -- infiltrating into their country.

I just returned from Haiti with Hebler. We flew in at 3 AM Sunday to the scene of such incredible destruction on one side, and enormous ineptitude and criminal neglect on the other. Port of Prince is in ruins.The rest of the country is fairly intact.Our team was a rescue team and we carried special equipment that locates people buried under the rubble.

There are easily 200,000 dead, the city smells like a charnal house. The bloody UN was there for 5 years doing apparently nothing but wasting US Taxpayers money. The ones I ran into were either incompetent or outright anti American.

Most are French or French speakers, worthless every damn one of them. While 18oo rescuers were ready willing and able    to leave the airport and go do our jobs, the UN and USAID (another organization full of little O'Bamites and communists that openly speak against America) These two organizations exemplared their parochialism by:

USAID, when in control of all inbound flights, had food and water flights stacked up all the way to Miami, yet allowed Geraldo Rivera, Anderson Cooper and a host of other left wing news puppies to land.

Pulled all the security off the rescue teams so that Bill Clinton and his wife could have the grand tour, whilst we sat unable to get to people trapped in the rubble.

Stacked enough food and water for the relief over at the side of the airfield then put a guard on it while we dehydrated and wouldn't release a drop of it to the rescuers.

No shower facilities to decontaminate after digging or moving corpses all day, except for the FEMA teams who brought their own shower and decon equipment, as well as air conditioned tents.

No latrine facilities, less digging a hole if you set up a shitter everyone was trying to use it.

I watched a 25 year old Obamite with the USAID shrieking hysterically, berate a full bird colonel in the air force, because he countermanded her orders, whilst trying to unscrew the air pattern. "You don't know what your president wants! The military isn't in charge here we are!"

If any of you are thinking of giving money to the Haitian relief, or to the UN don't waste your money. It will only go to further the goals of the French and the Liberal left.

If we are a fair and even society, why is it that only white couples are adopting Haitian orphans. Where the hell is that vocal minority that is always screaming about the injustice of American society.

Bad place, bad situation, but a perfect look at the new world order in action. New Orleans magnified a thousand times.  Haiti doesn't need democracy, what Haiti  needs is Papa Doc. That's not just my opinion , that is what virtually every Haitian we talked with said. the French run the UN treat us the same as when we were a colony, at least Papa Doc ran the country.

Oh, and as a last slap in the face the last four of us had to take US AIRWAYs home to Phoenix. They slapped me with a 590 dollar baggage charge for the four of us. The girl at the counter was almost in tears because she couldn't give us a discount or she would lose her job. Pass that on to the flying public.


Nick

Dambisa Moyo, author of "Dead Aid: Why Aid is not Working and How There is a Better Way for Africa." The book argues that western financial aid to African countries has actually hurt instead of helped. Program from Sunday, April 5, 2009.

Thomas Sowell on Intellectuals and Society - 37 minutes

The author of more than a dozen books, Dr. Sowell is now a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. In his newest work, Intellectuals and Society, he will discuss why so many disasters of our time have been committed by experts or intellectuals. You may remember FDRs Brain Trust which according to later studies is a prolonged the depression by several years. The wiz kids at the pentagon under McNamara who managed to mess up the Vietnam War, you can run through an impressive list of things, of disasters brought about by people with very high IQs

A Belated Tribute to Max Hartwell

The Mont Pelerin Society. Early 1980s.

Third Row: Ed Feulner, Allen Wallis, Carl-Johan Westholm, Rose Friedman, Peter Beanholz, Charles King Arthur Seldon, Leon Liggio

Second Row: Max Hartwell, Henry Maivne, Gary Becker, Richard Ware, Arvid Fredburg, Ralph Harris

Front Row: Antonio Martino, Herbet Giersch, Manuel Ayau, James Buchanan, Milton Friedman, Chiaki Nishiyama

I know JD Sallinger died, but I was not a fan... sorry. However, when someone like Max Hartwell passes, I will write a bit about his from obituary sources. First, I must say that the only thing that unites Professor Hartwell and I is our passion for common sense economics devoid of a "statist" mindset... that's it, that's about as much as I know about economics and where Hartwell sores above the rest.

(The Independent)

...Hartwell was a great teacher with an irreverent sense of humour. He loved provoking people and students who could stand up to him became his friends; many are now eminent themselves. Most of the articles he published originated as lectures. His collection The Industrial Revolution and Economic Growth (1971) stands well-used on the shelves of economic historians throughout the world, and still informs many lectures on the subject.

After he semi-retired from Oxford in 1977, Hartwell taught every autumn at the University of Virginia and often at the University of Chicago. A keen controversialist, he was long a member (and for two years President) of the Mont Pelerin Society founded in 1947 by Friedrich Hayek to defend liberal thinking; Hartwell was given to musing about Hayek's reference to the unintended consequences of well-intentioned actions. ...

(Online Library of Liberty)

We are sad to note the passing in March of Ronald Max Hartwell who was one of the greatest economic historians of the industrial revolution. Beginning his career in a small town in country New South Wales, Australia he later moved to Oxford University where he spent his academic life at Nuffield College. Hartwell challenged the Marxist orthodoxy which argued that the Industrial Revolution was largely a disaster for the working class. On the contrary, Hartwell urged, it lead to the greatest expansion of wealth for ordinary people that the world has ever seen. He was interviewed by Patrick O'Brien in one of Liberty Fund's Intellectual Portrait Series in 2000. A DVD of this interview can be purchased, the audio track is available online in various formats, or one can listen online here:

 

An article for those that like to chew on history:

• Taxation in England During the Industrial Revolution

Obama Blamed Bush and Inherited

PRESIDENT OBAMA: By the time I took office, we had a one year deficit of over $1 trillion and projected deficits of $8 trillion over the next decade. Most of this was the result of not paying for two wars, two tax cuts, and an expensive prescription drug program. On top of that, the effects of the recession put a $3 trillion hole in our budget. All this was before I walked in the door. 

 

[....]

Not exactly.

After all, on March 14, 2008, then Sen. Obama voted in favor of the 2009 budget which authorized $3.1 trillion in federal outlays along with a projected $400 billion deficit. The 51-44 vote that morning was strongly along party lines with only two Republicans saying "Yes."

When the final conference report was presented to the House on June 5, not one Republican voted for it.

This means the 2009 budget was almost exclusively approved by Democrats, with "Yeas" coming from current President then Sen. Obama, his current Vice President then Sen. Joe Biden, his current Chief of Staff then Rep. Rahm Emanuel, and his current Secretary of State then Sen. Hillary Clinton.

How is this possibly something that happened before Obama "walked in the door" when his Party ramrodded the original budget through Congress with virtually no Republican approval -- save Bush's signature, of course -- and the highest members of the current Administration -- including the president himself!!! -- supported it when they were either in the Senate or the House?

Sadly, Obama-loving media care not to address this inconvenient truth.

[....]

Update: Obama praised the 2009 budget after it was passed (h/t Verum Serum) --

March 14
Obama Statement on the Senate's Passage of the FY 2009 Budget

Washington DC -- Sen. Obama today released a statement on the Senate's passage of the FY 2009 Federal Budget:

"In Illinois and throughout the country, Americans share common hopes and common struggles. They are worried about keeping their jobs and being able to pay record gas prices and stay ahead of their mortgages and credit card bills and still have enough left over to make ends meet. They want to know that they'll have health care when they get sick - not just for themselves, but for their children and elderly parents. They want to know that a quality education and a college degree are within reach for all Americans. They want to retire with security and dignity. And they want to know that our government is doing everything it can to keep our nation safe and secure.

"The budget passed by the Senate tonight makes significant progress in getting our nation's priorities back on track. After years of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, this year's budget helps restore fiscal responsibility in Washington, and provides tax relief for the middle class and low-income families who need help most. It includes an expansion in the Child Tax Credit that I have fought for and makes marriage penalty relief permanent. And it rejects the President's drastic cuts in important domestic programs.

"We need change in this country, and this budget is an important step in helping bring it about. I commend Chairman Conrad for his extraordinary leadership in moving this resolution forward and moving America's fiscal policies in the right direction."

Hmmm. Now two years later, he's blaming Bush for the deficit it caused!

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2010/01/28/mccain-said-blame-it-bush-when-obama-claimed-he-inherited-deficit#ixzz0dwYXaZ8s

We Heard About These When Bush was Pres? Hello! (Banks Go Belly Up -- 9 Banks Fail in 2010)

Banks shut in Fla., Mo., NM, Ore., Wash.

Regulators shut down banks Friday in Florida, Missouri, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington, bringing to nine the number of bank failures so far in 2010, following 140 closures last year in the toughest economic environment since the Great Depression.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over the five banks: Charter Bank, based in Santa Fe, N.M., with $1.2 billion in assets and $851.5 million in deposits; Miami-based Premier American Bank, with $350.9 million in assets and $326.3 million in deposits; Bank of Leeton in Leeton, Mo., with $20.1 million in assets and $20.4 million in deposits; Columbia River Bank, based in The Dalles, Ore., with $1.1 billion in assets and $1 billion in deposits; and Seattle-based Evergreen Bank, with $488.5 million in assets and $439.4 million in deposits.

Beal Financial Corp., based in Plano, Texas, agreed to assume the deposits and assets of Charter Bank. In addition, the FDIC and Beal Financial agreed to share losses on $805.5 million of the failed bank's loans and other assets.

Columbia State Bank, based in Tacoma, Wash., agreed to buy the deposits and assets of Columbia River Bank. The FDIC and Columbia State Bank agreed to share losses on $697.4 million of its loans and other assets.

Umpqua Bank, based in Roseburg, Ore., is assuming the deposits and assets of Evergreen Bank. The FDIC and Umpqua Bank agreed to share losses on $379.5 million of its loans and other assets....

....[read more]....

1.5 Trillion, or, $871 Billion Over 10 years? (Plus -- Harry Reid Redux -- Triplex and Priest Examples)

 

This is a polite correction of a friends post found here: "Health Care Bill: A Trip To the Sausage Factory"

 

The True Cost of the Health Care Bills
November 20, 2009 by John Stossel 

The House did Thursday what the Senate didn’t do last month: It passed a bill to cancel a scheduled 21 percent pay cut for doctors who treat Medicare patients.

That's from an NPR report this morning about the "doc fix". (We listen, so you don’t have to.) Current law requires cuts in Medicare payments to doctors, but since 2003, Congress has suspended those cuts year by year. However, both Senate and House Health Care bills rely on these Medicare cuts so they can deceitfully flaunt them as "deficit reducing" bills. If this "doc fix" bill passed in the House becomes law, the Health Care bills will actually cost over a Trillion dollars and add billions more to the deficit -- two things President Obama pledged his health "reforms" would not do.

Want to guess whether NPR finds this relevant? Something that would perhaps be important to its listeners? Don't bother. They didn't. Not a single word explaining the connection.

Megan McArdle at The Atlantic explains why the "doc fix" needs to be included in any discussion about the true cost of the health care bills in Congress:

It would be one thing if they'd found some alternative financing mechanism to pay for the physician fix. But as I see it, they're passing a bill that increases the deficit by $200 billion in order to pass another bill that hopefully reduces it, but by substantially less than $200 billion. That means that passage of this bill is going to increase the deficit.

Exactly. Rep. Paul Ryan asked the Congressional Budget Office to incorporate the "doc fix" into the Health Care bill and tell him whether it was still "deficit neutral". It wasn't. Few besides McArdle, Reason's Peter Suderman, and Bloomberg.com have reported on that.

Our government, as our Constitution says, derives its powers “from the consent of the governed," (for instance: when only 30% of a state’s likely voters support Obama-Care, this is not "consent of the governed"). The idea here is that we cannot and should not ask the government to do anything for us that we cannot legally or morally do for ourselves. Sounds logical, doesn’t it? With that premise in mind, lets build the following scenario.

You live in a triplex. You are in apartment No. 1, Johnson is in apartment No. 2, and Wilson lives in No. 3. You discover that Wilson is ill and cannot work. He never bothered to buy a health insurance policy because he just didn’t believe he would need it for quite some time. Wilson, it seems, is not good at making rational decisions. He has no savings because it was more important to use that money for bondo on his Camaro and a good Panama City Beach vacation every summer.

You believe that Wilson is about to starve to death. His electricity is going to be cut off, and he can’t afford to buy his blood pressure medication. You decide to help, charitable soul that you are. You scrounge through your bank account and find $200 to help your neighbor out.

Good for you. What a guy!

A month later Wilson is still in trouble. Your $200 wasn’t enough. It turns out that he spent $20 for a case of beer and at least another $100 or so at the horse races. Things may not be all that desperate, though. One of the thirty-five Lotto tickets he bought with that carton of cigarettes might pan out.

You decide to visit Johnson in apartment No. 2 to see if he can chip in. Johnson tells you that, while he certainly understands the seriousness of Wilson’s situation, he needs his money to send his daughter to college in the fall and to pay some of his own medical bills. Besides, he’s trying to save up some cash for a down payment on a house so he can get out of this weird apartment building.

You make the determination that it is far more important for Wilson to have some of Johnson's money than it is for Johnson to keep it and spend it on his own daughter’s education and a new home. So, here’s the question:

“Do you have the right to pull out a gun and point it right at the middle of Johnson’s forehead? Can you use that gun to compel Johnson to hand over a few hundred dollars for Wilson's care, and then tell Johnson that you’ll be back for more next month?”

Obviously, when put like this, you won’t run into too many people who will tell you that they have the right to take Johnson's money by force and give it to Wilson. They might say that they would try to talk Johnson into being a bit more charitable, but they don’t think that they have the right to just rob him at gunpoint. But this is the next question:

“Well, if our government derives its powers from the consent of the governed, how can you ask your government to do something for you that, if you did it for yourself, would be a crime? Why would it not be OK for you to take that money from Johnson by force and give it to Wilson, but it would be perfectly OK with you if the government went ahead and did it?”

Last time I checked, IRS agents were armed.

Another way to put this is an example from J. Budziszewski’s book, The Revenge of Conscience: Politics and the Fall of Man:

“On a dark street, a man draws a knife and demands my money for drugs.”

1. Instead of demanding my money for drugs, he demands it for the Church.
   
2. Instead of being alone, he is with a bishop of the Church who act as bagman.
   
3. Instead of drawing a knife, he produces a policeman who says I must do as he says.
   
4. Instead of meeting me on the street, he mails me his demand as an official agent of the government.

If the first is theft, it is difficult to see why the other four are not also theft.

The Real Jobless Rate: 17.5% Of Workers Are Unemployed

As experts debate the potential speed of the US recovery, one figure looms large but is often overlooked: nearly 1 in 5 Americans is either out of work or under-employed.

According to the government's broadest measure of unemployment, some 17.5 percent are either without a job entirely or underemployed. The so-called U-6 number is at the highest rate since becoming an official labor statistic in 1994.

The number dwarfs the statistic most people pay attention to—the U-3 rate—which most recently showed unemployment at 10.2 percent for October, the highest it has been since June 1983.

The difference is that what is traditionally referred to as the "unemployment rate" only measures those out of work who are still looking for jobs. Discouraged workers who have quit trying to find a job, as well as those working part-time but looking for full-time work or who are otherwise underemployed, count in the U-6 rate....

...(read more)...

"The Economics of Medical Care" Chapter from Thomas Sowell's book, Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One, Linked at Investors Business Daily

Dr. Sowell has granted IBD permission to run one of the chapters of Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One — The Economics of Medical Care — in its entirety. We are doing so because of its relevance to the debate over health care reform. The chapter will run in nine parts over the next week and a half.

---

Part 1
Thomas Sowell On Economics Of Medical Care

The high cost of medical care has been a recurrent theme in countries around the world. In the United States, medical expenses absorb about one-sixth of the total annual output of the economy.

Medical care is one of many goods and services that can be provided in a wide variety of ways. At one time, it was common for sick people simply to pay doctors and buy medicine individually with their own money.

Today, both the medicines and the medical care are often paid for by third parties through either political or market institutions — that is, either by insurance companies or government agencies, or both, with or without some portion being paid by the individual patient.

Read More

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Part 2
How Quantity Of Medical Care Is Influenced By Price Controls

Just as artificially low housing prices have led many people to seek their own separate housing units who would not ordinarily do so, if they had to pay the full costs in a free market, so artificially less expensive — in some countries, free — medical care has led many people with minor medical problems to absorb far more of doctors' time and expensive medicines and treatments than they would if they had to pay the costs themselves.

Read More

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Part 3
How Payment By Third Parties Distorts Health Care Decisions

Third-party payments are at the heart of much confusion about the cost of medical treatment— and are a major factor in the increased cost of that treatment.

In government-run medical systems, the public pays in taxes for its medical care, either wholly or in part, with a share being paid directly by the individual patient.

Political slogans about "bringing down the cost of medical care" are almost invariably about programs or policies directed toward lowering the price paid directly by the patient. But the fact that only part of the costs are reimbursed by direct out-of-pocket payments from individual patients to doctors, hospitals or pharmacies in no way indicates that the total cost of the particular medical treatment is any lower than before.

Read More

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Part 4
Costs Of Malpractice Insurance Go Beyond Doctors' Premiums

A major source of the high cost of American medical care is malpractice insurance for doctors and hospitals.

The average cost of this insurance for individual doctors ranges from about $14,000 a year in California to nearly $40,000 a year in West Virginia. In particular specialties, such as obstetrics and neurosurgery, the cost of malpractice insurance can exceed $200,000 a year in some places.

Read More

Milton Friedman - Socialized Medicine

Nobel Laureate Economist Milton Friedman explores the unsettling dynamics set into motion when government imposes itself into the health care system. (1978)

Economic Reporting: Then and Now (Obama vs. Bush)

(HotAir h/t)

Judd Gregg Says Obama's Financial Plan Is Chaos to America

Obama's plan bankrupts us.

Flashback Hypocrisy: Obama Campaign Ad Warned Voters about BIG SPENDER McCAIN

New Deal or Raw Deal? How FDR's Economic Legacy Has Damaged America

"for every public job created... a private job has been destroyed somewhere else." -- Henry Hazlitt

Book Of The Month

How FDR's New Deal Harmed Millions of Poor People

by By Jim Powell

Jim Powell, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, is author of FDR's Folly, How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression (Crown Forum, 2003).

Democratic presidential candidates as well as some conservative intellectuals, are suggesting that Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal is a good model for government policy today.

Mounting evidence, however, makes clear that poor people were principal victims of the New Deal. The evidence has been developed by dozens of economists -- including two Nobel Prize winners -- at Brown, Columbia, Princeton, Johns Hopkins, the University of California (Berkeley) and University of Chicago, among other universities.

New Deal programs were financed by tripling federal taxes from $1.6 billion in 1933 to $5.3 billion in 1940. Excise taxes, personal income taxes, inheritance taxes, corporate income taxes, holding company taxes and so-called "excess profits" taxes all went up.

The most important source of New Deal revenue were excise taxes levied on alcoholic beverages, cigarettes, matches, candy, chewing gum, margarine, fruit juice, soft drinks, cars, tires (including tires on wheelchairs), telephone calls, movie tickets, playing cards, electricity, radios -- these and many other everyday things were subject to New Deal excise taxes, which meant that the New Deal was substantially financed by the middle class and poor people. Yes, to hear FDR's "Fireside Chats," one had to pay FDR excise taxes for a radio and electricity! A Treasury Department report acknowledged that excise taxes "often fell disproportionately on the less affluent."

Until 1937, New Deal revenue from excise taxes exceeded the combined revenue from both personal income taxes and corporate income taxes. It wasn't until 1942, in the midst of World War II, that income taxes exceeded excise taxes for the first time under FDR. Consumers had less money to spend, and employers had less money for growth and jobs.

New Deal taxes were major job destroyers during the 1930s, prolonging unemployment that averaged 17%. Higher business taxes meant that employers had less money for growth and jobs. Social Security excise taxes on payrolls made it more expensive for employers to hire people, which discouraged hiring.

Other New Deal programs destroyed jobs, too. For example, the National Industrial Recovery Act (1933) cut back production and forced wages above market levels, making it more expensive for employers to hire people - blacks alone were estimated to have lost some 500,000 jobs because of the National Industrial Recovery Act. The Agricultural Adjustment Act (1933) cut back farm production and devastated black tenant farmers who needed work. The National Labor Relations Act (1935) gave unions monopoly bargaining power in workplaces and led to violent strikes and compulsory unionization of mass production industries. Unions secured above-market wages, triggering big layoffs and helping to usher in the depression of 1938.

What about the good supposedly done by New Deal spending programs? These didn't increase the number of jobs in the economy, because the money spent on New Deal projects came from taxpayers who consequently had less money to spend on food, coats, cars, books and other things that would have stimulated the economy. This is a classic case of the seen versus the unseen -- we can see the jobs created by New Deal spending, but we cannot see jobs destroyed by New Deal taxing.

For defenders of the New Deal, perhaps the most embarrassing revelation about New Deal spending programs is they channeled money AWAY from the South, the poorest region in the United States. The largest share of New Deal spending and loan programs went to political "swing" states in the West and East - where incomes were at least 60% higher than in the South. As an incumbent, FDR didn't see any point giving much money to the South where voters were already overwhelmingly on his side.

Americans needed bargains, but FDR hammered consumers -- and millions had little money. His National Industrial Recovery Act forced consumers to pay above-market prices for goods and services, and the Agricultural Adjustment Act forced Americans to pay more for food. Moreover, FDR banned discounting by signing the Anti-Chain Store Act (1936) and the Retail Price Maintenance Act (1937).

Poor people suffered from other high-minded New Deal policies like the Tennessee Valley Authority monopoly. Its dams flooded an estimated 750,000 acres, an area about the size of Rhode Island, and TVA agents dispossessed thousands of people. Poor black sharecroppers, who didn't own property, got no compensation.

FDR might not have intended to harm millions of poor people, but that's what happened. We should evaluate government policies according to their actual consequences, not their good intentions.

Santelli On AIG Bonuses: It's Only Millions. $165 M Is Like Worrying About 16.5 cents.

20/20 - Bailouts and Bull**** (6-parts)

I disagree with a few minor instances of what John Stossel talks about, but his dealing with the budget issues, right on. I have even added a "John Stossel" tag. This is a HotAir h/t, by-the-by.

(PART-1)


(PART 2)


(PART 3)


(PART 4)


(PART 5)


(PART 6)