Topic: Government and Politics

Washington Booms during Slowest Recovery

By
David Boaz

Continuing our ongoing series on the wealth of Washington, we bring you the lead story in Friday’s “Mansion” section of the Wall Street Journal:

WSJ DC Boomtown

The Journal reports:

As other American cities have been buffeted by an uneven economy, Washington’s property market has been buoyed two forces specific to the capital city: a surge of federal contractors and a rising tide of government spending. The result: what real-estate agents and developers are calling an unprecedented real-estate surge.

Yes, a rising tide of government spending may be bad for the American economy, but it’s great for the Washington area.

Washington is wealthy and getting wealthier, despite history’s slowest recovery in most of the country. As we’ve said here before, this of course reflects partly the high level of federal pay, as Chris Edwards and Tad DeHaven have been detailing. And it also reflects the boom in lobbying as government comes to claim and redistribute more of the wealth produced in all those other metropolitan areas. 

Money spent in Washington is taken from the people who produced it all over America. Washington produces little real value on its own. National defense and courts are essential to our freedom and prosperity, but that’s a small part of what the federal government does these days. Most federal activity involves taking money from some people, giving it to others and keeping a big chunk as a transaction fee.

Every business and interest group in society has an office in Washington devoted to getting some of the $3.6 trillion federal budget for itself: senior citizens, farmers, veterans, teachers, social workers, oil companies, labor unions - you name it. The massive spending increases of the Bush-Obama years have created a lot of well-off people in Washington. New regulatory burdens, notably from Obamacare, are also generating jobs in the lobbying and regulatory compliance business.

Walk down K Street, the heart of Washington’s lobbying industry, and look at the directory in any office building. They’re full of lobbyists and associations that are in Washington, for one reason: because, as Willie Sutton said about why he robbed banks, “That’s where the money is.”

The wonder is why the taxpayers put up with it.

Topics: 
Government and Politics

Pakistan: Will the Third Time as Prime Minister be the Charm for Nawaz Sharif?

By
Doug Bandow

Pakistan always has been a good example of being careful for what one wishes when it comes to democracy in Third World nations. The Pakistani people theoretically rule the unstable nuclear state. Whether that actually is positive is not so clear.

In the latest election, Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz won a strong plurality, making him the almost certain prime minister. However, that position may be a poisoned chalice. When he was last premier, for the second time, in 1999, he found himself ousted in a coup, imprisoned for months, and eventually bundled into exile.

Despite the relatively free (though violence-laden) vote, Pakistan’s political, economic, and security problems are enormous. And the dangers of a failed state reach well beyond Pakistan’s borders. As I wrote in my latest Forbes online column:

for those who worry about an Islamic Bomb in Tehran, one already exists in Islamabad. Pakistan has between 90 and 120 warheads, and is producing more plutonium than any other nation on earth. The result likely will be an expanded arsenal. Observed Tom Hundley of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting: “Pakistan could end up in third place, behind Russia and the United States, within a decade.” Yet the contest with India has left Islamabad officials “hobbled by fear, paranoia, and a deep sense of inferiority,” in Hundley’s words. At the same time, Pakistan has increasingly dispersed its warheads to frustrate any U.S. attempt to seize the weapons. The practice increases the possibility of radicals grabbing a warhead or fissile material.

Oh joy.

Although only the Pakistani people can fix their own country, Washington could help. It should wind down the war in Afghanistan, which is a destabilizing force in Pakistan. The U.S. should reduce its use of drones, which have made America hated by Pakistanis. Washington should resist the temptation to dump ever more foreign “aid” into the corrupt and incompetent institution known as the Pakistani government. Finally, Americans should hope—and pray!—that Nawaz Sharif has learned something during his 14 years in the political wilderness.

Topics: 
Foreign Policy and National Security, General, Government and Politics

Target the IRS—and the Abusive Administrative State

By
Doug Bandow

The IRS scandal has appropriately tarred the Obama administration. But IRS abuse is not new: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John Kennedy, and Richard Nixon all shamelessly used the tax authorities against their political enemies.

Thus, the problem is nonpartisan. More important, to paraphrase Rahm Emanuel, this scandal will be wasted if we don’t use it to advance the cause of liberty. The real issue is the expansive, expensive bureaucratic state, which threatens any system of limited government, rule of law, and individual liberty.

As I wrote in my recent article on American Spectator online:

the broader the government’s authority, the greater its need for revenue, the wider its enforcement power, the more expansive the bureaucracy’s discretion, the increasingly important the battle for political control, and the more bitter the partisan fight, the more likely government officials will abuse their positions, violate rules, laws, and the Constitution, and sacrifice people’s liberties.

One response to the scandal would be tax reform. But failing to address the broader underlying causes of the scandal would set the stage for a repeat performance in some form a few years hence. At the very least the latest IRS abuses should derail the Obama administration’s efforts to ever-expand the federal government.

The response should not be merely defensive. Americans should insist on abolishing the IRS as we know it. Ending tax-based social engineering would help. Moreover, government–and especially the national government–should do less.

Americans must decide if they want to live in a truly free society. Government increasingly attempts to run our lives at our expense. And now, we see yet again, public officials use their power to reward friends and punish enemies. Firing a couple of mid-level IRS employees isn’t enough. People must insist on real change in Washington.

Topics: 
Government and Politics, Law and Civil Liberties

Man Saves Child’s Life; Fined $1,000

By
Tim Lynch

Benjamin Srigley saw several pit bulls attacking an 11-year-old boy, so he ran into his home, retrieved his handgun, ran back, and shot one of the dogs. A bicycle policeman arrived on the scene shortly thereafter and shot the other two dogs. 

Here comes the twist: This incident happened in Washington, D.C., and even though the Supreme Court declared the city’s gun control regulations unconstitutional in 2008, the city government is still quite hostile to gun ownership. How hostile? Well, prosecutors offered Srigley a “deal”: pay a $1,000 fine and they would drop criminal charges against him. Turns out Srigley had lawfully purchased firearms when he lived outside D.C., but he had not registered them when he moved into D.C.

What kind of government would demand money from a guy who just saved a child’s life? The boy’s family can’t believe what is happening to their knight in shining armor. Srigley is now planning to move out of the city. One wonders if District officials can see any connection between their fine and the move.

On June 4, Cato will be hosting an event about the landmark Heller ruling. Registration information can be found here.

Topics: 
Government and Politics, Law and Civil Liberties

Gerson: ‘The Other IRS Scandal’

By
Michael F. Cannon

The Washington Post’s Michael Gerson writes that the IRS’s suppression of tea-party groups and the subsequent cover-up are the second-largest scandal haunting the agency.

Drawing from my article (with Jonathan Adler) on the illegal IRS rule meant to save Obamacare, Gerson concludes:

The IRS seized the authority to spend about $800 billion over 10 years on benefits that were not authorized by Congress. And the current IRS scandal puts this decision in a new light…

The whole enterprise [of Obamacare] is precariously perched atop a flimsy bureaucratic excuse. And the agency providing that excuse is a discredited mess.

When the IRS suppresses speech by the president’s political opponents, that’s nothing to sneeze at. Neither is it anything to sneeze at when the IRS tries to spend almost a trillion dollars against the express wishes of Congress.

Topics: 
Government and Politics, Health Care, Law and Civil Liberties, Regulatory Studies, Tax and Budget Policy

Government on the Friends and Family Plan

By
David Boaz

In his stirring speech to the 1984 Democratic National Convention, then-New York governor Mario Cuomo used an extended metaphor of the whole nation as a family. So maybe it should come as no surprise to discover that his son, current New York governor Andrew Cuomo, uses the New York State government as a jobs program for his friends and their families. The Empire State Development Corporation in particular is chock-full of his donors and friends, and their young sons–not to mention Cuomo’s political advisers.

He’s not alone in spending (other people’s) money to help family and friends. The Washington Post reported in December on the family-friendly atmosphere at the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority:

Meet the Kulle family: mom Helen, daughter Ann Kulle-Helms, son-in-law Douglas Helms, son Albert, daughter-in-law Michele Kulle and Michele’s brother, Jeffrey Thacker.

They all worked for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority. All at the same time.

One MWAA board member, 

who has had at least three relatives, including a daughter-in-law, work at the agency, said family members are employed frequently, particularly among board members.

“If you ask a third of those folks, their relatives work there,” he said. “I never thought that we were doing anything wrong.”

…

“This is a government town and an agency town,” Crawford said. “If there’s a possibility that you can hire a relative … it was the norm.”

Read the rest of this post »

Topics: 
Government and Politics

Tyranny of the Minority, ObamaCare Edition

By
Michael F. Cannon

This:

A Fox News poll released Wednesday finds that while 26 percent of voters say their health care situation will be better under the new law, twice as many – 53 percent – say it will be worse.  Another 13 percent say it won’t make a difference…

That helps explains why a 56-percent majority wants to go back to the health care system that was in place in 2009.  Some 34 percent would stick with the new law. 

Topics: 
General, Government and Politics, Health Care

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