How Political Lies Spread

Someone on Twitter asked me last night if I’d heard about what was happening in Minnesota with the poor. I didn’t, so they sent me a link to Crooks & Liars that talked about a law proposed there that would make it illegal for poor people to carry more than $20 cash!
(Note : It’s a [...]

Conservative Solutions for America

This week, The Heritage Foundation released a monumental policy guide titled “Solutions for America”. For the last year and a half, President Barack Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) have charged conservatives with having “no ideas” or “old ideas.” The release of “Solutions for America” will stop this false narrative once and for all. The [...]

California Welfare Cards Used in Casinos

From the Los Angeles Times:

California welfare recipients are able to use state-issued debit cards to withdraw cash on gaming floors in more than half of the casinos in the state, a Los Angeles Times review of records found.
The cards, provided by the Department of Social Services to help recipients feed and clothe their families, work [...]

Vermont and Northeastern States Dominate the Moocher Index

The Center for Immigration Studies recently put out a study arguing that immigration has had negative effects on California. One of their measures was a comparison of how many people in the state were receiving some form of welfare compared to other states. I found that data (see Table 3 of the report) very interesting, [...]

Jerry Brown Flashback: We Need More Welfare and Fewer Jobs

For a guy known to hold some pretty strange views, this might be the most bizarre perspective on welfare policy I have ever seen. Here is Jerry Brown from his Pacifica Radio show in 1995 (full transcript here):
The conventional viewpoint says we need a jobs program and we need to cut welfare. Just the opposite! [...]

Subsidizing Terrorism with Welfare Handounts: More Astounding Moments in Government Stupidity

Here are some very depressing stories showing that bloated welfare states funnel money to some rather disreputable characters – even when governments uncharacteristically try to do the right thing.

The Daily Mail reports that a European Court has ruled that the U.K. no longer can impose restrictions on welfare payments to women married to suspected terrorists:
A [...]

The Eternal Hope of Spring: Baseball and the United States

Spring means for millions of Americans renewed hope.  This is not Barack Obama’s sullied ‘hope’, but hope in the sense of untempered optimism, a youthful belief that miracles are possible and the fanciful notion that finally the stars will align and this will be our year.  Spring means that our lives will be diverted for [...]

My Country ‘Tis of Thee, Sweet Land of Dependency

If you want to get depressed or angry, the New York Times has an article celebrating the effort by politicians at all levels of government to lure more people into the food stamp program. New York City is running ads in foreign languagues asking people to stick their snouts in the public trough. The City [...]

Michelle Obama, Liberal Government and Obesity

First Lady, Michelle Obama, has decided to take a whack at solving the American obesity epidemic. Splendid.

She should start by looking at one of the biggest roots of the problem: liberal government and its most favorite project of the past 40 years, the welfare state.
There is a surprising, yet undeniable, correlation between skyrocketing [...]

Political Alchemy, Part I: Turning Spending Increases into Tax Cuts

Politicians in Washington have come up with something far more impressive than turning lead into gold or water into wine. Using self-serving budget rules, they can increase the burden of government spending and say they are cutting taxes instead.

This bit of legerdemain is made possible, thanks to the convolutions of the personal income tax, by [...]