Back in the good old days of 1995, when Republicans controlled both houses of Congress for the first time in anyone’s memory, conservatives began clamoring in earnest for a balanced federal budget. President Nixon submitted the last black-ink account in 1974, and trillions of debt had accumulated since that memorable year. Now was the time, said the newly installed [...]
Nestled in the heart of bustling Riverside is the Southern California freeway interchange from Gehenna, aka the 60/91/215. Designed and built long before Riverside County’s recent explosive growth, the tangle of undersized roadways, narrow overpasses, and nightmarish transition roads have been overwhelmed for years. Daily, tens of thousands of commuters inch along, often moving at less than 10 miles per [...]
America is the richest nation on earth. Our economy out produces all others. We enjoy the world’s highest per capita income and most lavish standard of living. Yet, incredibly, our financial well-being is at risk as never before. Profligate government spending and counter-productive government programs have combined to push America toward a financial abyss. The hard [...]
Adhering to their annual pattern, “Trustees for the government’s two biggest benefit programs warned that Social Security and Medicare are facing ‘enormous challenges’ with the threat to Medicare’s solvency far more severe,” as reported by the Associated Press March 25th. “Without change, rising costs will drive government spending to unprecedented levels, consume nearly all projected federal [...]
Just when you think you’ve heard the dumbest idea since the Susan B. Anthony silver dollar, the latest government misadventure raises the bar. The LA Times reported Friday that “California drug officials launched an $11 million barrage of billboards, bus wraps, cable TV ads and a website Thursday aimed at discouraging gay men from using methamphetamine…” [...]
To round out our week-long discussion of limited government, bureaucratic waste and the like, I think a nice dose of egregious examples of public sector boondoggling is in order. So, in no particular order and always adjusted for inflation, here are all too typical instances of your tax dollars at work:
“Under ‘urban renewal’ policies [a favorite in the [...]
American governments collect and spend too much money. Each year, billions of dollars are wasted through fraud, duplicative and/or obsolete programs, and mismanagement. In the 1980s, the Grace Commission calculated that one-third of Federal expenditures should be characterized as waste. If that ratio holds today, the Federal government this year will round-file more than $1 trillion, an outrage of mythic [...]
Every time free-market capitalism is given a chance to operate, the result is hailed as an “economic miracle.” Not to get picky, but there is nothing miraculous about capitalism producing wealth and spreading prosperity. Miracles by definition occur because of the suspension of natural law. Water becomes wine, food multiplies, and the dead are raised because [...]
“Government spending should be significantly reduced. It has grown far too quickly in recent years, and most of the new spending is for purposes other than homeland security and national defense. Combined with rising entitlement costs associated with the looming retirement of the baby-boom generation, America is heading in the wrong direction. To avoid [...]
Our founding fathers shared a profound aversion to what we would today call big government. In the 18th century and before, big government meant something very close to autocratic rule, the consolidation of power in the hands of the few and privileged. Most colonialists emigrated to the New World precisely to escape the smothering political, social, religious and [...]