A different take on NSA spying

Matt Kibbe, of FreedomWork, asked Sen Lindsey Graham a good question today.  From the group's press release:

In a Fox and Friends interview last Thursday Senator Graham defended the National Security Agency’s (NSA) warrantless surveillance of American civilians, telling the show’s hosts, “I don’t think you’re talking to the terrorists. I know you’re not. I know I’m not. So we don’t have anything to worry about.” Senator Graham then went one step further, concluding that he was “glad” the warrantless surveillance activity was happening in the NSA.

Kibbe commented, “Privacy is a citizen’s right to choose what information you prefer to tell the public about, and what you choose to keep to yourself. Senator Lindsay Graham recently asserted that violating the Fourth Amendment to implement warrantless government surveillance is not only acceptable, it’s welcomed. If we’re not talking to terrorists, we have nothing to worry about.”

“Respectfully, Senator, we ask you to lead by example and make your email account password available to the American people. If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to worry about. Right?”

I cannot believe how George Bush abused America's civil liberties

Oh, so the basic laws of economics do still apply....

From the Chicago Sun Times:

"Chicago Transit Authority ("CTA") fare revenues for the first four months of the year are less than expected, with seven-day passes taking the biggest hit since the agency hiked the cost of its fare passes, CTA officials revealed Wednesday.

In mid-January, the price of the CTA’s seven-day pass jumped 22 percent, from $23 to $28, although one-day and three-day passes increased by even larger percentages."

Let me see.  When you increase the cost of something demand goes down.  Interesting.

Why is Detroit going bankrupt?

As Detroit sinks into bankruptcy concerned Americans taxpayers are looking for the causes of this stunning decline from industrial greatness.

Let me give you a little hint.  From the Detroit News:

A former top aide to Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano is barely in his 40s and poised to collect a pension that will pay him nearly $100,000 per year for the rest of his life...

...The deal would cost the beleaguered system more than $3.5 million over its lifetime.

The guy is 41! You'll be happy to know that  most "county retirees must wait until they're at least 55 to retire".  That's pretty much in line with the private sector (aka the people who pay public sector pensions) right?

Crony capitalism Farm style

So the senate approved yet another get elected in the midwest Farm Bill, the centre piece of which is the crop insurance program. As NPR reports the program “insures not just against yield loss from storms or drought but also from revenue loss, if commodity prices drop” (“How The Senate Farm Bill Would Change Subsidies“).

Senator  Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., who heads the Senate Agriculture Committee, asserts that  crop insurance "is insurance — and the farmer gets a bill, not a check."

So if crop insurance is just "insurance" why doesn't the private market provide it just as it does for the vast majority of Americans who insure their homes, cars, and businesses?

Well it turns out it is not "just insurance" in that for every dollar of insurance premium an average farmer pays 38 cents and the taxpayer pays 62 cents.  This is forecast to cost taxpayers $89 billion over the next decade.  Sen. Stabenow's rationale for her largesse with  taxpayers money is that "It's got to be a bill that they can afford to be able to provide the coverage".

As Don Boudreaux points out there are millions of Americans and businesses that would love to have insurance that covers them against loss to their earnings but find it too expensive so why don't Sen. Stabenow, and her fellow committee members feel obliged, to make taxpayers pay two thirds of those premiums? 

Taxes, Apple and Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell exposes the hypocrisy of politicians such as Carl Levin:

We have truly entered the world of "Alice in Wonderland" when the CEO of a company that pays $16 million a day in taxes is hauled up before a Congressional subcommittee to be denounced on nationwide television for not paying more. 

Apple CEO Tim Cook was denounced for contributing to "a worrisome federal deficit," according to Senator Carl Levin -- one of the big-spending liberals in Congress who has had a lot more to do with creating that deficit than any private citizen has.

Because of "gimmicks" used by businesses to reduce their taxes, Senator Levin said, "children across the country won't get early education from Head Start. Needy seniors will go without meals. Fighter jets sit idle on tarmacs because our military lacks the funding to keep pilots trained."

The federal government already has ample powers to punish people who have broken the tax laws. It does not need additional powers to bully people who haven't.

What is a tax "loophole"? It is a provision in the law that allows an individual or an organization to pay less taxes than they would be required to pay otherwise. Since Congress puts these provisions in the law, it is a little much when members of Congress denounce people who use those provisions to reduce their taxes.

If such provisions are bad, then members of Congress should blame themselves and repeal the provisions. Yet words like "gimmicks" and "loopholes" suggest that people are doing something wrong when they don't pay any more taxes than the law requires.

Are people who are buying a home, who deduct the interest they pay on their mortgages when filing their tax returns, using a "gimmick" or a "loophole"? Or are only other people's deductions to be depicted as somehow wrong, while our own are OK?

Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes pointed out long ago that "the very meaning of a line in the law is that you intentionally may go as close to it as you can if you do not pass it."

If the line in tax laws was drawn in the wrong place, Congress can always draw it somewhere else. But, if you buy the argument used by people like Senator Levin, then a state trooper can pull you over on a highway for driving 64 miles per hour in a 65 mile per hour zone, because you are driving too close to the line.

The real danger to us all is when government not only exercises the powers that we have voted to give it, but exercises additional powers that we have never voted to give it. That is when "public servants" become public masters. That is when government itself has stepped over the line.

Government's power to bully people who have broken no law is dangerous to all of us. When Attorney General Eric Holder's Justice Department started keeping track of phone calls going to Fox News Channel reporter James Rosen (and his parents) that was firing a shot across the bow of Fox News -- and of any other reporters or networks that dared to criticize the Obama administration...

...No American government can take away all our freedoms at one time. But a slow and steady erosion of freedom can accomplish the same thing on the installment plan. We have already gone too far down that road. F.A. Hayek called it "the road to serfdom."

How far we continue down that road depends on whether we keep our eye on the ball -- freedom -- or allow ourselves to be distracted by predatory demagogues like Senator Carl Levin.

Eyelid lifts paid for by the taxpayer

While many struggle to get basic healthcare at the same time that medical costs continue to rise and our Government struggles to come up with solutions you may be gratified to know that one group of patients are happy as well as significantly younger looking.

From the Miami Herald:

Aging Americans worried about their droopy upper eyelids often rely on the plastic surgeon’s scalpel to turn back the hands of time. Increasingly, Medicare is footing the bill.

From 2001 to 2011, eyelid lifts charged to Medicare more than tripled to 136,000 annually, according to a review of physician billing data by the Center for Public Integrity. In 2001, physicians billed taxpayers a total of $20 million for the procedure. By 2011, the price tag had quadrupled to $80 million. The number of physicians billing the surgery more than doubled.

I can see that this whole Obamacare thing is going to work very well

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/05/28/3414990/eyelid-lifts-for-medicare-patients.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/05/28/3414990/eyelid-lifts-for-medicare-patients.html#storylink=cpy