Florida Governor Rick Scott, foreground, speaks along with Sheriff Scott Israel, center, of Broward County, and Pam Bondi, Florida Attorney General, during a news conference near Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland on Wednesday, February 14, 2018. (Photo: AP)
The PPD-BDP Sunshine State Battleground Poll finds Florida voters favor posting armed personnel on campus during school hours to prevent mass shootings over stricter gun control laws. Last week, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz shot and killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
The tragedy has sparked a renewed push from Democrats for stricter gun control laws.
Overall, 56.7% say placing “armed security, police and trained personnel on campus during school hours” will “do the most to reduce the number of school shootings.” That compares to just 43.3% who think “stricter gun control laws” are needed.
However, voters are evenly divided over the need for stricter gun control laws versus mental health reforms in general, 50.4% to 49.6%, respectively. That’s a change from past surveys conducted by Big Data Poll, which typically found mental health reforms more popular. While only about 31% of Republican voters in Florida support beefing up gun control laws over mental health laws, roughly 68% of Democrats and 52% of independents, agree.
“I suspect this is a reaction to the tragedy last week and more than likely a temporary one, but it’s too soon to know for certain,” Rich Baris, the director of Big Data Poll said. “Support among independents and Republicans isn’t particularly firm.”
Source: Big Data Poll
The PPD-Big Data Poll Battlegrounds conducted highly-accurate statewide surveys in 2016, including in the state of Florida. The Sunshine State Battleground released on November 6 found Donald Trump leading Hillary Clinton by 1.6%, rounded up to two points.
He won by 1.2%.
Can’t read the crosstabs? View them on Google Sheets!
*(Big Data Poll logo on the survey questionnaire is NOT visible to panel respondents.)
Big Data Poll conducted the mixed-mode survey of 910 registered voters in Florida from February 17 to 18, 2018. The survey has margin of error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. The mixed-mode breakdown was a total of 609 interviews conducted using interactive voice response (IVR) and 301 conducted by online survey panel (OSP).
The data are weighted for age, gender, race/ethnicity, education and income based on projected voter turnout. Partisan affiliation is derived from a proprietary likely voter model and demographic weighting, not the other way around.
The sample identified a partisan split of 32.64% Republican, 32.09% Democrat, 31.10% Independent and 4.18% “Something Else.” Read about methodology here.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the media after the Congressional Republican Leadership retreat at Camp David, Maryland, U.S., January 6, 2018. (Photo: Reuters)
Federalism is the gold standard for reforming redistribution programs. This was the approach used in the very successful Clinton-era welfare reform, and it should be replicated for other means-tested programs.
If states were in charge of such programs, by contrast, there would be lots of innovation and experimentation. This would help policy makers understand the best way of taking care of the truly destitute while helping others transition to productive and self-sufficient lives.
Today, let’s look specifically at food stamps. I’ve already explained why federalism is the right way of fixing the program.
And here are some additional reasons to support reform.
Writing for USA Today, Jim Bovard opined on the program’s glaring shortcomings – many of which were exacerbated by the Obama Administration’s efforts to expand dependency.
Why did the food stamp program spiral out of control? The Obama administration believed that maximizing handouts would maximize prosperity… So the feds bankrolled massive recruiting campaigns to sway people to abandon self-reliance. A North Carolina social services agency won a USDA “Hunger Champions Award” for attacking “mountain pride” as a reason not to accept government handouts. In Alabama, people received fliers proclaiming: “Be a patriot. Bring your food stamp money home.” The state of Florida paid individual recruiters to sign up at least 150 new food stamp recipients per month. …enrollment also skyrocketed after Obama effectively suspended the three-month limit for able-bodied adults without dependents to collect food stamps. From 2008 to 2010, the number of able-bodied recipients doubled.
Jim points out several reasons why the program is bad for the economy and bad for poor people.
A 2012 Journal of Public Economics study concluded that receiving food stamps sharply reduces work hours by single mothers. …state governments have little or no incentive to police the program because losses from fraud or waste don’t come out of state budgets. …the program is a dietary disaster. Walter Willett, chair of Harvard University’s Department of Nutrition, observed in 2015, “We’ve analyzed what (food stamp) participants are eating and it’s horrible food. It’s a diet designed to produce obesity and diabetes.” A 2017 study published in BMC Public Health found that food stamp recipients were twice as likely to be obese as eligible non-recipients. …A 2016 USDA report revealed that soft drinks and other sweetened beverages are the most common purchase in food stamp households, accounting for almost 10% of monthly expenditures. “Desserts, salty snacks, candy and sugar” account for another 10% of food stamp expenditures.
And it’s definitely bad for taxpayers. In a column for the Wall Street Journal, Kristina Rasmussen explained how rich people are able to bilk the system.
Consider the food stamp program’s longstanding policy of “broad-based categorical eligibility.” You probably assume that food stamps go to poor people only. But this policy, which the U.S. Department of Agriculture instituted during the Clinton administration, allows state food-stamp programs to grant benefits to anyone who has moderately low wage income, regardless of net worth. A family with a seven-figure bank account can be eligible for food stamps. That’s how lottery winners—including actual millionaires—wind up getting food stamps. In 2012 Amanda Clayton of Detroit was revealed to be receiving $200 in monthly food aid despite having won $1 million the year before. “I feel that it’s OK because I have no income,” she said, “and I have bills to pay. I have two houses.” In 2011 Leroy Fick of Bay County, Mich., was found to be receiving food assistance despite having taken home $850,000 in lottery winnings the previous year. …more than 30 states continue to have no asset limits. All you need to collect food aid is two things: an income below a multiple of the poverty line, ranging from 130% to 200%; and eligibility for some sort of benefit funded by Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), the main welfare program for single parents. And there’s the “one weird trick.” The state spends TANF dollars to print a welfare brochure. The brochure itself is defined as a “benefit,” which everybody is “eligible” to receive, thereby meeting the USDA requirement. Of the 47 million Americans who received food stamps in 2014, some four million got them under “broad-based categorical eligibility”—most because their wealth would have made them ineligible otherwise.
The good news is that the White House wants to reform the scandal-plagued program.
The bad news is that Trump and his people have chosen paternalism rather than federalism.
The Budget would also create a new approach to nutrition assistance that combines traditional SNAP benefits with U.S. Department of Agriculture Foods provided directly to households. This cost-effective approach supports American agriculture, prevents certain types of program abuse, provides state flexibility in delivering food benefits, and ensures the nutritional value of the benefits provided. …Under the proposal, households receiving $90 or more per month in SNAP benefits will receive a portion of their benefits in the form of a USDA Foods package, which would include items such as shelf-stable milk, ready to eat cereals, pasta, peanut butter, beans and canned fruit, vegetables, and meat, poultry or fish. …This cost-effective approach will generate significant savings to taxpayers with no loss in food benefits to participants.
I can understand that people don’t like it when food stamp recipients are buying junk food. Or luxury items.
But I have zero faith in the federal government’s ability to send food boxes to people every month and somehow save money and avoid extra bureaucracy.
What’s frustrating about the plan in Trump’s budget is that they actually proposed a semi-decent policy of partial federalism last year. So I view this as a step in the wrong direction.
By the way, the fact that I don’t like the plan doesn’t mean I agree with some of the leftist critics. As this “perplexed meme” illustrates, the folks who correctly mock the White House’s proposal are also the same ones who want the government to have massive powers over matters that are far more complex than delivering food.
While the budget plan takes the wrong approach, the White House has done something good via the regulatory process by giving states more flexibility for work requirements.
Kansas, Maine, Wisconsin, and Alabama have achieved good results already, and now the same thing is happening in Georgia, as noted by PJ Media.
Thousands of Georgia residents who depend on food stamps are losing their benefits because they have failed to meet the state’s new requirements that force the able-bodied without children to find jobs. …“The greater good is people being employed, being productive and contributing to the state,” Bobby Cagle, director of the state Department of Family and Children Services, said. …State Rep. Greg Morris (R) said the fact that thousands of people have lost their benefits only showed the magnitude of the problem of welfare fraud in Georgia. He said the new mandate is working. “This is about protecting taxpayer dollars from abuse, and taking people off the cycle of dependency,” Morris said. However, Benita Dodd, vice president of the conservative Georgia Public Policy Foundation, wrote that saving taxpayer dollars was not the program’s ultimate goal. “The goal must be to focus aid on those who truly need help and restore the dignity of work to able-bodied adults,” Dodd wrote. “Reducing dependency and promoting economic opportunity help end the cycle of poverty, reinforce the temporary nature of assistance and encourage personal responsibility.”
The bottom line is that I don’t know how much work should be required, or what kind. I also don’t know whether the idea of direct food delivery in Trump’s budget is necessarily a bad idea.
Which is why I want decentralization of the program. Let states try different approaches and then learn from each other. That’s good for taxpayers and good for poor people.
Which is basically what I said in this interview more than six years ago.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to attendees as he departs his infrastructure initiative meeting at the White House in Washington, U.S., February 12, 2018. (Photo: Reuters)
I’ve received several emails and Facebook messages asking me why I haven’t written about Trump’s recently unveiled budget proposal for the 2019 fiscal year.
And I even outlined the strategy that was necessary to achieve success, at least with regards to so-called discretionary spending. But I included a very important postscript as part of that column.
P.S. I’m not convinced that Trump actually wants smaller government, but I hope I’m wrong. This upcoming battle will be very revealing about where he really stands.
Well, that battle occurred and the result was a disaster for taxpayers. The budget caps were busted again, with the net effect being even worse than the big-spending agreements back in 2013 and 2015.
But it’s not that the Trump Administration lost. They never even tried. The folks I know on Capitol Hill said the White House didn’t lift a finger to urge spending restraint, much less fight to limit budgetary growth. Never.
And the painful experience of the profligate Bush years taught me that most Republican Senators and Representatives will partake in a spending spree when they sense the White House is soft on the issue. The common excuse I get from them is that “the floodgates have opened, I can’t do anything to stop it, so I may as well get a chunk for my voters”.
What’s extra depressing is that Trump’s fiscal incontinence is actually par for the course for Republican presidents, at least in recent decades.
I recently crunched the numbers for every president since the 1960s who served at least one full term, and I measured the average annual growth of government spending (adjusted for inflation) for the years they held power.
Moreover, I sliced and diced the numbers in several ways. I wanted readers to understand what happened to total spending (the combined growth of defense and domestic outlays), as well as what happened to domestic spending.
And the bottom line is that Republicans generally do worse than Democrats. Not just on total spending. They’re even more profligate on domestic spending!
The only exceptions to this pattern are Reagan (the only good Republican) and LBJ (the only really awful Democrat).
By the way, I’m not claiming that Clinton, Carter, or Obama were fiscal conservatives or that they believed in small government. I’m simply pointing out government grew slower when they were in office, at least compared to the growth of government under Nixon, Bush I, or Bush 2. The numbers don’t lie.
I suspect these counter-intuitive results are because of two factors.
Presidents try to deflect and/or preempt criticism, so that leads Democrats to be cautious about spending money (they don’t want to be called “big spenders”) and it leads Republicans to squander a lot of cash (they don’t want to be called “heartless” or “mean”).
The party controlling the White House often loses seats in mid-term elections and that subsequently limits the ability of presidents to push an agenda that is opposed by the other party, or even leads them to acquiesce to initiatives pushed by the other party.
Needless to say, this is rather depressing for those of us who want to limit the size and scope of government. It’s quite likely that Trump will spend the next three years or seven years instigating and/or accepting bigger government. And then we’ll probably have a Democrat in the White House who will – at least for the first two years – push for even more government.
But I get more upset when Republicans are big spenders because they should know better. Most Democrats actually believe it’s a good idea to make America more like Greece. Republicans, by contrast, make us more like Greece because they put short-term politics ahead of the national interest.
Bags of Florida Crystals cane sugar roll down a conveyer belt after filling at the Florida Crystals Corp. sugar mill, refinery and power plant in Okeelanta, Florida July 9, 2008. (Photo: Reuters)
Government intervention is not good for economic prosperity. That general observation is both accurate and appropriate, but it might also be helpful to contemplate what sector of the economy suffers the most damage and distortion because of government.
In terms of aggregate impact, there’s a strong case to be made that government intervention – via spending, tax breaks, and price controls – wreaks the most havoc with the health sector.
In terms of perverse results, it’s hard to imagine a more convoluted sector than higher education, where government intervention causes higher tuition and transfers wealth from the poor to the rich.
Speaking of agriculture, let’s commemorate Valentine’s Day by exploring how politicians shower sugar producers with undeserved wealth every time one of us buys something sweet for a sweetheart.
Vincent Smith of the American Enterprise Institute shares some grim news on who is reaping unearned benefits.
Valentine’s Day is here again, and still the US sugar lobby has its hand in everyone’s wallet when they buy chocolate and other candy for their friends and families. For over four decades, the sugar lobby has managed to persuade Congress to maintain a Soviet-style supply control program that, by sharply limiting imports and curtailing domestic production, keeps US sugar prices well above free market levels. The program costs US consumers an average of about $3.4 billion every year, effectively a hidden annual tax of over $40 for a typical family of four, all to benefit fewer than 5,000 farm businesses. Further, the program raises production costs for the US food processing industry, damaging the food industry’s ability to compete in export markets and causing them to sacrifice a share of the domestic market to exporters from other countries. The impact of the US sugar program on employment for US citizens consistently has been estimated to be negative, costing the US economy between 10,000 and 20,000 jobs on a net basis. While the program creates employment for some workers in sugar refineries, it destroys far more employment opportunities in the US food processing sector by making the sector less competitive.
Two of his colleagues, John C. Beghin and Amani Elobeid, produced a detailed study on the topic for AEI. Here are the key findings.
The sugar program is a protectionist policy, which increases the domestic price of sugar above the corresponding world price. It restricts imports of raw and refined sugar, depresses world sugar prices, and substantially changes the mix of sweeteners used in processed food. Domestic markets are distorted, sugar users are effectively taxed by the program, and sugar producers are subsidized by it. The welfare transfer to sugar growers and processors is quite large in the aggregate, hovering around $1.2 billion. Losses to households are diffused, about $10 per person per year but large for the population as a whole, in the range of $2.4–$4 billion. …Gains to producers are concentrated in a few hands, especially in the cane sugar industry. Labor effects from lost activity in food industries are between 17,000 and 20,000 jobs annually.
For those who like the quantitative details, here’s a table with the most important numbers in the study.
Writing for the Federalist, Eric Peterson explains the high costs and inefficiency associated with this bit of central planning.
The history of candy canes dates back over 300 years… While this iconic symbol of Christmas saw its first mass production in America, Washington politicians have too often behaved like Scrooge, enacting policies that have sent all but one maker of this holiday classic fleeing abroad. One reason for the mass exodus is the little known U.S. sugar program. …Government interference in the sugar market comes in four flavors: Price supports, marketing allotments, import quotas, and the Feedstock Flexibility Program. …Although programs such as price supports (which mandate domestic prices for sugar at nearly double the world price) are fairly straightforward, programs such as Feedstock Flexibility are far more opaque. It allows sugar producers to sell sugar to the government at above market value, which the government then sells to ethanol producers at a loss. …Companies that need sugar for their products…can’t even import cheaper sugar from abroad thanks to import quotas that strictly limit foreign sugar. It’s no one wonder that some companies like Atkinson Candy Co have responded by moving some of their peppermint-candy production to Guatemala, where sugar is cheap and plentiful. …Consumers pay higher prices on everything from chocolate to cranberry sauce thanks to these big-government mandates, with the estimated annual costs to consumers and food manufacturers adding up to a whopping $3.5 billion annually. …Since 1997, for example, over 120,000 jobs have been lost in the sugar industry. It’s estimated for every job subsidies prop up, three are destroyed.
Notice, by the way, the consistent theme that subsidies and protectionism result in fewer jobs. This is not a surprising result for anybody who has looked at the fourth item in this column.
Let’s continue with some more analysis. The Foundation for Economic Education has a column by Ted Ellis on the program.
…for taxpayers, …sweetness doesn’t come cheap. For decades, domestic sugar producers have been protected from fair competition. In recent years, their influential lobby has ensured producers’ inflated profits through $260 million worth of federal subsidies and restrictions on fairly priced imported sugar. …these handouts rarely accrue to anyone but the industry’s largest and most well-connected players. …The National Confectioners’ Association, a trade group, agrees…that “the benefits of sugar subsidies and protections go directly to just 14 sugar beet and sugarcane producers in a few states.” …inflated prices disrupt domestic supply chains, threatening thousands of well-paying American manufacturing jobs, all while nibbling away at American taxpayers’ wallets. …the sugar program costs American businesses and consumers more than $3 billion every year. …the cost of special-interest lobbying in the sugar industry is felt most heavily by US workers laid off by companies that have been forced to move abroad, where sugar prices are cheaper. A 2006 report by the US International Trade Administration found that as many as 10,000 American jobs were lost as confectioners such as Hershey Co. and Lifesavers were forced by government-inflated domestic sugar prices to move plants out of the US. The same report found that the many jobs lost on account of federal intervention in sugar production far outweigh the few jobs saved for growers. In fact, it found that “for each one sugar growing and harvesting job saved through high US sugar prices, nearly three confectionery manufacturing jobs are lost.”
If you’re tired of reading about the senselessness of sugar subsidies, here’s a video on the topic from Reason. It has a Halloween theme instead of a Valentine’s Day theme, but that doesn’t change anything.
Let’s conclude with some hard-hitting analysis by Jim Bovard, who explains the tangled web of cronyism for CapX.
…the federal government has maintained an array of sugar import quotas and/or tariffs for most of the last 200 years. The regulatory regime has provided windfalls for generations of politicians and jobs for legions of bureaucrats while destroying more than a hundred thousand private, productive jobs. …The sugar program illustrates why politicians cannot be trusted to competently manage anything more complex than a lemonade stand. In 1816, Congress imposed high tariffs on sugar imports in part to prop up the value of slaves in Louisiana. In 1832, a committee of Boston’s leaders issued a pamphlet denouncing sugar tariffs as a scam on millions of low-paid American workers to benefit fewer than 500 plantation owners. …Despite perpetual aid, the number of sugar growers has declined by almost 50% in recent decades to fewer than 6,000. Federal policy failed to countervail the fact that the climate in the mainland U.S. is relatively poorly suited for sugarcane production. …Federal sugar policy costs consumers $3 billion a year and is America’s least efficient welfare program. In the 1980s, sugar import restrictions cost consumers $10 for each dollar of sugar growers’ income. …producing candy and many other food products is far more expensive here than abroad. Since 1997, sugar policy has zapped more than 120,000 jobs in food manufacturing… More than 10 jobs have been lost in manufacturing for every remaining sugar grower in the U.S. …The sugar lobby showers Congress with money, including almost $50 million in campaign contributions and lobbying between 2008 and 2013. In return, members of Congress license sugar growers to pilfer consumers at grocery checkouts and rob hardworking Americans of their jobs.
That last segment is the key. Sugar subsidies are a class case of “public choice,” with special interests and politicians both benefiting while ordinary people pay the price.
There are many reasons to shut down the Department of Agriculture. But it’s hard to imagine a bigger reason than getting rid of handouts for Big Sugar. Maybe ultra-corrupt ethanol handouts are even worse, but that’s a judgement call.
In my first column on jury nullification, I applauded ordinary citizens for producing a not-guilty verdict when the federal government tried to impose bad U.S. tax law on a Swiss banker who lived in Switzerland and obeyed Swiss law. Simply stated, borders should limit the power of a government.
In my second column on jury nullification, I approvingly wrote about how citizens on another jury rebelled against the government’s persecution of western ranchers (while also noting that dramatically reducing government land ownership would be the solution to the underlying controversy).
To be sure, I don’t think jury nullification is the ideal way of dealing with over-criminalization and abusive law enforcement. It would be much better to repeal bad laws and get rid of the bad people working for government. But until those things happen, I’m glad nullification exists as a last line of defense.
Now let’s look at a third example. Except it’s probably more accurate to say it’s an example of pre-jury nullification.
You may have heard that saying: If prosecutors want to, they could get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. It’s a knock on how much control prosecutors hold over the grand juries to whom they give evidence for possible indictments. The 269th Pima County Grand Jury could not be controlled like that. …this one was led by a criminal-defense attorney and populated by freethinkers who took to heart their role as “conscience of the community.” They went so far as to decline to indict people even though there was enough evidence to show probable cause, foreman Natman Schaye and others told me. That, in essence, is grand-jury nullification — not carrying out the law because, in the jury’s opinion, it is unjust.
This grand jury, which was labeled as “The Notorious 269th” by the press, decided that justice was more important than obeying the government.
Rick Myers, a well-known Tucsonan who is a member of the Arizona Board of Regents, also was on the Notorious 269th. What bothered him was the many cases of small quantities of drugs that were charged as Class 4 felonies, as state law dictates. He said he began making a distinction between what’s actually a “crime” and what’s “breaking the law.” The reason, another grand juror, Jodi Kautz, said was: They were presented with possession cases involving drug amounts as tiny as 2/100th of a gram, a trace amount. …Myers said. “There’s a whole lot of people getting charged for things that are not hurting other people.”
Here’s some background info on the role of the grand jury.
Grand juries have their roots in 12th-century England, but in early America took on more of a judicial role — that of a body of citizens standing between the government and a person accused of a crime. The grand jury eventually came to stand as a check, ensuring the government had enough evidence to pursue a criminal case. …Prosecutors run the grand-jury sessions… They bring proposed indictments to the jurors and call police officers as witnesses, without a defendant or a defense attorney present. The grand jurors, though, make the ultimate decision as to whether to indict, and on what charges.
Unsurprisingly, government officials don’t approve of grand jurors exercising independent thought.
As to the grand jurors’ decision to reject some cases with adequate evidence, Acosta said that really isn’t their place. They take an oath to follow the law before taking their seats, she said. “If somebody has a particular agenda, I suppose they can go to the Legislature and say, ‘We don’t like this law, maybe you should change it.’ But the grand jury isn’t the place for that kind of activity,” she said.
Sorry, Ms. Acosta, that’s not right.
The grand jury — or regular jury — may not be the ideal place to protect against injustice, but it’s better than nothing when governments have bad laws and/or government officials abuse citizens.
There’s a philosophical principle involved. In many cases, nullification is appropriate because governments have criminalized actions that have no victims. Which is why the movement’s motto, as noted in this Ron Swanson meme, is that there is no crime when there’s no victim.
I’ll close on a personal note. I’ve lived in Fairfax County for almost three decades and I’ve only received one summons for jury duty. When that happened, I immediately fantasized about being a hero and using nullification to block an unjust gun prosecution or unjust drug prosecution. But it turned out that the case was a lawsuit between a contractor and consumer, so I was happy they wound up finding enough people before my name was called.
But maybe my nullification fantasy eventually will become a reality.
Oxfam was founded in 1942 at 17 Broad Street, Oxford, as the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief by a group of Quakers, social activists, and Oxford academics. (Photo: Reuters)
Writing a column every day is a recipe for making an occasional mistake. Sometimes the errors are minor, such as when I put Tucson in New Mexico rather than Arizona.
In an event, I always try to acknowledge and fix my mistakes.
And that’s why I want to write today about Oxfam. Early last year, I wrote a column criticizing the group’s statist orientation, asserting in my title that the group was a leftist joke instead of a real charity.
Time to correct the record. But I want to begin by noting that my title was only partly wrong. Oxfam is very much a left-wing organization. In prior columns, I’ve shared critiques of the group’s statist ideology from Tim Carney, Marian Tupy, and Tony Travers.
And before I get to the part about fixing my mistake, I want to augment this list by sharing the views of two more experts. We’ll start with some excerpts from a column in the Wall Street Journal by David Henderson.
Oxfam recently published a 76-page report, “Reward Work, Not Wealth,” that advocates taxing the rich to reduce inequality and help the poor. …There are two ways to close the gap. The first is to concentrate on making the poor better off. Mostly that has happened, thanks to liberalized international trade and reduced costs for shipping goods. Just as Walmart and Amazon have cut costs for Americans, the introduction of container shipping crushed transportation costs for the world. The second way to reduce inequality is to make the rich worse off.
Needless to say, Oxfam prefer the approach that gives more power and money to government.
Any guess which method Oxfam’s report emphasizes? “Governments should use regulation and taxation to radically reduce levels of extreme wealth,” the authors conclude. …The document’s title, “Reward Work, Not Wealth,” is strange: Wealth is one of the main rewards for productive work. High taxes on wealth and the wealthy reduce the incentive to produce.
And Oxfam, to its credit, understands that confiscatory taxes will require a global tax cartel.
…the report…effectively advocates…the creation of a tax cartel. Since capital is extremely mobile and will go where it is lightly taxed—witness the corporate “inversions” of American companies—the report suggests “a new generation of international tax reforms.” Negotiating tax rates would take place under the aegis of “a new global tax body that ensures all countries participate on an equal footing.”
Reading Henderson’s column, we have additional confirmation that Oxfam is a run-of-the-mill statist organization that myopically believes in class warfare.
So you might think the group is no different that other leftists groups such as the United Nations (UN) or the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Or no different than politicians such as Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton.
But Oxfam also has a reputation for beclowning itself with shoddy analysis.
Johan Norberg mocked the group’s ideology-over-results approach when he noted that Oxfam is distressed about an era of “neoliberalism” in the world — meaning, in this case, the European definition of pro-market classical liberalism. Yet that’s also the period of time when the poor enjoyed huge gains.
And here’s some of what Tim Worstall just wrote for the U.K.’s Adam Smith Institute.
Buried in Oxfam’s latest report about how disastrously unequal the world is we’ve got an assumption which is so breathtakingly foolish as to kill off any belief in the sense or sensibility of the organisation’s mindset. They’re trying to insist that the minimum wage in a place should be very much higher than GDP per capita in that same place.…the garment trade in Bangladesh…minimum wage there is…5,000 taka a month, or £50. …Yes, a low sum and most assuredly we’d all like it to be much higher. But Oxfam’s claim is that this should be a living wage of more like £250 a month (perhaps $250). Something which simply cannot happen. GDP per capita in Bangladesh is some $1,500 a year or so. We cannot have a minimum wage twice that. This would be the same claim as insisting that the UK minimum wage should be $80,000 a year (say, £60,000). …It’s a demand based upon the most aggressively stupid misunderstanding of what ails Bangladesh, isn’t it? ……to get this so wrong seriously calls into doubt Oxfam’s right to anything more than a contemptuous sneer. …Sorry folks, but Oxfam is deluded.
Tim concludes with some very wise words.
Bangladesh’s problem is not global inequality, the thing Oxfam is whining about, it’s Bangladesh’s poverty. …The cure for poverty is economic growth, the very thing which has reduced that global absolute poverty from 40% of all humans to under 10% in just these past three decades of that very neoliberal globalisation.
Now it’s finally time for my correction. When I wrote last year that Oxfam was “not a real charity,” I was merely implying that the group was a bad charity since it advocated policies that hurt poor people.
But thanks to new revelations about Oxfam’s involvement in horrific sex-crimes scandals, I’ve learned it doesn’t deserved to be called a charity of any kind. Check out these excerpts from a CNNreport.
Oxfam’s deputy chief executive has resigned amid a growing sex crimes scandal involving the organization’s aid workers in Haiti and Chad. …Oxfam announced the resignation after a meeting with UK government officials Monday, at which it had fought to keep millions of pounds in public funding. …Oxfam received about £32 million (about $44 million) from the government last financial year, according to public records.
And the money from British taxpayers is just the tip of the iceberg.
Here’s a shocking bit of information from the conclusion of David Henderson’s column.
Oxfam’s annual budget exceeds $1 billion, and it gets almost half of that from governments and the United Nations. So maybe it’s time for a new name. Oxgov.
Almost half of its budget from taxpayers?!? At best, that makes them a government contractor rather than a charity.
I’ll conclude with two points.
First, I think Oxfam should lose public funding. But not because some of its employees engaged in sexual predation. Yes, that’s bad, but I certainly don’t think sex abuse was ever part of the organization’s mission. Instead, it should lose funding because taxpayer money should not go to leftist organizations that advocate for bigger government (the same argument I use, by the way, when urging an end to OECD handouts).
Second, instead of telling people that “Oxfam is a letist joke rather than a real charity,” I’ll have to changes the second part of the sentence. Maybe “Oxfam is a leftist joke and it mooches from taxpayers.” I’m not sure that rolls off the tongue gracefully, so I’m open to other suggestions.
P.S. You probably won’t be surprised to learn that the International Monetary Fund partners with Oxfam. I guess the old saying is right that birds of feather flock together.
Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro (C) attends a ceremony to sign off the 2017 national budget at the National Pantheon in Caracas, Venezuela October 14, 2016. (Photo: Miraflores Palace/Handout)
It’s now a pattern. I’ll come across a soul-sapping story about terrible suffering caused by statism in Venezuela and I think the country has hit rock bottom. Such as back in September, when I read about people literally starving.
But then I will read another report about incredible misery and realize that the socialist regime is even worse than I thought. Such as back in December, when I read about economic deprivation ruining sex for the women of the country.
And then I find another horrifying example of how big government destroys lives and I’m forced to reconsider the definition of failure. Such as last month, when I read about criminal gangs using food to recruit children.
Despite this pattern, I’m going out on a limb and asserting that nothing possibly could be worse than this Washington Poststory of Venezuelan parents giving up their children because they can’t afford to feed them.
In September, her mother left her at a subway station with a bag of clothes and a note begging someone to feed the child. Poverty and hunger rates are soaring as Venezuela’s economic crisis leaves store shelves empty of food, medicine, diapers and baby formula. Some parents can no longer bear it. They are doing the unthinkable. Giving up their children. …it was a challenge to actually meet the tiniest victims of this broken nation. My requests to enter orphanages run by the socialist government had gone unanswered. One child-protection official — warning of devastating conditions, including a lack of diapers — confided that such a visit would be “impossible.” …A child-welfare official in El Libertador — one of the capital’s poorest areas — called the situation at public orphanages and temporary-care centers “catastrophic.” “We have grave problems here,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisals from the authoritarian government.
Fortunately, there are still some private facilities that help families.
But even though such institutions are run more efficiently and compassionately, it’s still a tragedy that they have to exist. And the stories the reporter uncovered are heartbreaking.
“I didn’t know what else to do,” said Angélica Pérez, a 32-year-old mother of three, near tears. …she showed up at Fundana with her 3-year-old son and her two daughters, ages 5 and 14. She lost her job… Her plan: leave the children at the center, where she knew they would be fed, so she could travel to neighboring Colombia to find work. She hoped she would eventually be able to take them back. Typically, children are allowed to stay at Fundana for six months to a year before being placed in foster care or put up for adoption.“You don’t know what it’s like to see your children go hungry,” Pérez told me. “You have no idea. I feel like I’m responsible, like I’ve failed them. But I’ve tried everything. There is no work, and they just keep getting thinner.
Here’s another incomprehensibly sad example.
For many Venezuelan families, hunger presents an excruciating choice. I met Dayana Silgado, 28, as she entered Fundana’s new food center for parents in economic crisis. Silgado seemed drained. The shoulder blades on her thin frame protruded from her tank top. In November, she surrendered her two youngest children to Fundana after losing her job… At the center, she knew, they would get three meals a day. Fundana’s home for children did not accept older kids, so Silgado was still trying to feed her two eldest — ages 8 and 11 — at home. …After eating dinner, Silgado said, her children tell her, “Mom, I want more.” “But I don’t have more to give,” she said.
What a terrifying awful country.
Shame on Bernie Sanders. Shame on Joe Stiglitz. Shame on every leftist who offered support for the evil government of Venezuela.
Since we’re on the topic of that despotic regime, here are a few additional stories that are worth a mention.
Street vendors in Venezuela are weaving baskets from banknotes after 13,000 per cent inflation rendered them practically worthless. …Cash is worth so little there bank notes are often seen littered on the streets. …street seller Wilmer Rojas has found a use for them. …The 25-year-old is selling origami-style handbags, purses, hats and baskets – all made out of money. …Mr Rojas, a father-of-three, said: ‘People throw them away because they are no good to buy anything. …These things are no good for buying anything. At least I am putting them to good use rather than throwing them away.’ …Jose Leon, a 26-year-old designer, draws the faces of Star Wars characters over the image of Simon Bolivar and other famous Venezuelans pictured on the notes. Foreign customers pay him up to £14 ($20) for each piece of ‘money art’, which he said increases the note’s value by nearly 5,000 per cent.
Now let’s look at our next story. Rather than weave money, some Venezuelans have turned to crime.
When he set off at sunset from the town of La Grita in western Venezuela on his 900-km (560-mile) journey, Aguilar knew he was taking his life in his hands. With hunger widespread amid a fifth year of painful economic implosion under President Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela has seen a frightening surge in attacks on increasingly lawless roads. Just a few days earlier, Aguilar said he sat terrified when hundreds of looters swarmed a stationary convoy, overwhelming drivers by sheer numbers. They carted off milk, rice and sugar from other trucks but left his less-prized vegetables alone. “Every time I say goodbye to my family, I entrust myself to God and the Virgin,” said the 36-year-old trucker. …looting of cargoes on roads has soared in Venezuela in recent times and appears…directly linked to growing hunger and desperation among the population of 30 million. …“The hunger and despair are far worse than people realize, what we are seeing on the roads is just another manifestation of that. We’ve also been seeing people stealing and butchering animals in fields, attacking shops and blocking roads to protest their lack of food. It’s become extremely serious,” said ORC director Oswaldo Ramirez. …The dystopian attacks in a country with one of the world’s highest murder rates are pushing up transport and food costs in an already hyperinflationary environment, as well as stifling movement of goods in the crisis-hit OPEC nation.
Given these horrifying condition, is it any surprise that people are doing whatever they can to escape the socialist hellhole of Venezuela?
Thousands of desperate Venezuelans are trying to enter Colombia in a bid to escape the hunger and soaring crime rate caused by the spiralling economic crisis. Incredible pictures show the mass exodus of refugees crossing the Simon Bolivar international bridge trying to flee the political crisis threatening to engulf Venezuela. Colombia – along with its neighbour Brazil – has sent extra soldiers to patrol their porous border with the country after officially taking in more than half a million migrants over the last six months of 2017. …In a visit to a border city at the epicenter of Colombia’s mounting migration crisis, President Juan Manuel Santos on Thursday announced new measures that could make it more difficult for Venezuelan migrants to cross into the country illegally or remain there without any official status. ‘Colombia has never lived a situation like the one we are encountering today,’ Santos said. Migration into Colombia has surged as Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has moved to consolidate his rule and the nation’s economy plummets. Colombia migration authorities say there are an estimated 600,000 Venezuelans currently in Colombia – double the number six months ago.
I also know from my visits to Panama that the Venezuelan population has exploded there as well. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the same is true for other nations in Latin America as well.
President Donald Trump, left, and RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, right, then the Michigan Republican Party chair, speaking before a Republican presidential primary debate in Detroit on March 3, 2016. (Photo: AP)
Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said the indictment of 13 Russian nationals and organizations for election meddling makes it “crystal clear there was no collusion.”
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced the indictments Friday afternoon and stated that Special Counsel Robert Mueller found no American was a knowing participant in illegal activity. Further, DOJ made clear that the indictment does not allege that any of the interference changed the outcome of the presidential race.
“These indictments make it clear that starting in 2014, the Russians launched a sophisticated assault on our elections with the goal of spreading distrust in the core elements of our democracy,” Chairwoman McDaniel said in a statement after Mr. Rosenstein’s press conference. “It also remains crystal clear there was no collusion and the Russians were unsuccessful in their attempts to influence the results of the election.”
Indeed, the 37-page indictment (read here), which is signed by Special Counsel Mueller, said the actions detailed by prosecutors date back to 2014. The probe allegedly uncovered a sophisticated plot to wage an “information warfare” within the U.S. and a “strategic goal to sow discord in the U.S. political system, including the 2016 presidential election.”
Agitators supported the candidacies of Bernie Sanders and President Trump at some point during the process, but turned on him sometime around mid-2016. The evidence suggests that the goal was chaos in the electoral process, not the support of any one particular candidate.
The three entities charged are Internet Research Agency LLC, Concord Management and Consulting LLC and Concord Catering.
The 13 Russians charged are: Yevgeniy Viktorovich Prigozhin; Mikhail Ivanovich Bystrov; Mikhail Leonidovich Burchik; Aleksandra Yuryevna Krylova; Anna Vladislavovna Bogacheva; Sergey Pavlovich Polozov; Maria Anatolyrvna Bovda; Robert Sergetevich Bovda; Dzheykhun Nasimi Ogly; Vadim Vladimirovich Podkopaev; Gleb Igorevich Vasilchenko; Irina Viktorovna Kaverzina and Vladimir Venkov.
“We, however, cannot ignore that Russians targeted our democratic system, candidates from both parties, and the media in an assault that can never be allowed to happen again,” Chairwoman McDaniel added. “These indictments incriminate Russian officials alone and should serve as a rallying cry for Washington and the country to come together to prevent Russia, or any foreign government, from attempting to meddle in future elections.”
However, Democrats don’t want to accept the current conclusion of the investigation, which they had hoped would give them a precursor for impeach in the event they were to take back the House of Representatives after the 2018 midterm elections.
In a statement released shortly after Mr. Rosenstein held his press conference, President Trump released a statement saying it’s time to “stop the outlandish partisan attacks, wild and false allegations.” The White House said it’s now time get to the people’s work. If not, the Russians win.
“We cannot allow those seeking to sow confusion, discord, and rancor to be successful,” President Trump said in a statement. “It’s time we stop the outlandish partisan attacks, wild and false allegations, and far-fetched theories, which only serve to further the agendas of bad actors, like Russia, and do nothing to protect the principles of our institutions.”
“We must unite as Americans to protect the integrity of our democracy and our elections.”
Rosenstein: Mueller Probe Found No Americans Were Knowingly Involved, Meddling Didn’t Influence Election Outcome
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announces the indictment of 13 Russian nationals for election meddling among other crimes on February 16, 2018. Mr. Rosenstein noted there was “no allegation in the indictment that the charged conduct altered the outcome of the 2016 election.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced 13 Russian nationals have been indicted for election meddling and other crimes, stating Special Counsel Robert Mueller found no American was a knowing participant in illegal activity.
Mr. Mueller allegedly uncovered a sophisticated plot to wage an “information warfare” within the U.S. and a “strategic goal to sow discord in the U.S. political system, including the 2016 presidential election.” Further, the Department of Justice (DOJ) made clear that the indictment does not allege that any of the interference changed the outcome of the presidential race.
“There is no allegation in this indictment that any American was a knowing participant in this illegal activity,” Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein, who oversees the special counsel probe, said at a Friday press conference. “There is no allegation in the indictment that the charged conduct altered the outcome of the 2016 election.”
President Donald Trump reacted to the indictments by seizing on Rosenstein’s comment that the election results were not impacted by the Russians’ activity.
“Russia started their anti-US campaign in 2014, long before I announced that I would run for President,” President Trump tweeted. “The results of the election were not impacted. The Trump campaign did nothing wrong – no collusion!”
Russia started their anti-US campaign in 2014, long before I announced that I would run for President. The results of the election were not impacted. The Trump campaign did nothing wrong – no collusion!
Indeed, the 37-page indictment (read below), which is signed by Special Counsel Mueller, said the actions detailed by prosecutors date back to 2014.
The three entities charged are Internet Research Agency LLC, Concord Management and Consulting LLC and Concord Catering.
The 13 Russians charged are: Yevgeniy Viktorovich Prigozhin; Mikhail Ivanovich Bystrov; Mikhail Leonidovich Burchik; Aleksandra Yuryevna Krylova; Anna Vladislavovna Bogacheva; Sergey Pavlovich Polozov; Maria Anatolyrvna Bovda; Robert Sergetevich Bovda; Dzheykhun Nasimi Ogly; Vadim Vladimirovich Podkopaev; Gleb Igorevich Vasilchenko; Irina Viktorovna Kaverzina and Vladimir Venkov.
The investigation found that agitators supported the candidacies of Bernie Sanders and President Trump at some point during the process, but turned on him sometime around mid-2016. The evidence suggests that the goal was chaos in the electoral process, not the support of any one candidate.
“We have known that Russians meddled in the election, but these indictments detail the extent of the subterfuge,” House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said in a statement. “These Russians engaged in a sinister and systematic attack on our political system. It was a conspiracy to subvert the process, and take aim at democracy itself.”
The indicted claims they created group pages on Facebook and Instagram with names such as “Secured Borders,” “Blacktivist” (an anti-Trump page promoting Black Lives Matter movement) and “United Muslims of America” (anti-Trump).
But Democrats don’t want to accept the current conclusion of the investigation, which they had hoped would give them a precursor for impeach in the event they were to take back the House of Representatives after the 2018 midterm elections.
“It is imperative that the Special Counsel investigation be allowed to continue to follow the facts on the Trump-Russia scandal, unhindered by the White House or Republicans in Congress,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said. “The American people deserve to know the full extent of Russia’s interference in our election and the involvement of Trump officials.”
In a statement released shortly after Mr. Rosenstein held his press conference, President Trump said it’s time to “stop the outlandish partisan attacks, wild and false allegations,” and get to the people’s work. If not, the White House noted, we let the Russians win.
“We cannot allow those seeking to sow confusion, discord, and rancor to be successful,” he said in a statement. “It’s time we stop the outlandish partisan attacks, wild and false allegations, and far-fetched theories, which only serve to further the agendas of bad actors, like Russia, and do nothing to protect the principles of our institutions.”
“We must unite as Americans to protect the integrity of our democracy and our elections.”
FBI Director nominee Christopher Wray prepares to testify on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, July 12, 2017, at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. (Photo: AP)
Florida Governor Rick Scott called on FBI Director Christopher Wray to resign for the Bureau’s admitted failure to take action after receiving alarming information on January 5, 2018, regarding Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz.
“The FBI’s failure to take action against this killer is unacceptable,” Governor Scott said. “The FBI has admitted that they were contacted last month by a person who called to inform them of Cruz’s ‘desire to kill people,’ and ‘the potential of him conducting a school shooting.”
Cruz, 19, was behind the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, a middle-class community located about 45 miles (72 km) north of Miami. The FBI had information regarding “[Nikolas] Cruz’s gun ownership, desire to kill people, erratic behavior, and disturbing social media posts, as well as the potential of him conducting a school shooting.”
The FBI was alerted back in September to a post made by a user under the name Nikolas Cruz claiming he would be a “professional school shooter.” There are only 12 people in the country who spell their name as the shooter did and only 6 of them reside in Florida.
Yet, the FBI claimed to have spoken with the YouTube channel creator who reported the post and that’s it. It’s also true that the school system, students and other officials were well-aware of his violent and troubled disposition. Now, 17 people are dead.
“Seventeen innocent people are dead and acknowledging a mistake isn’t going to cut it,” Governor Scott said. “An apology will never bring these 17 Floridians back to life or comfort the families who are in pain. The families will spend a lifetime wondering how this could happen, and an apology will never give them the answers they desperately need.”
Cruz was arrested Wednesday and charged Thursday with 17 counts of premeditated murder.
“We constantly promote ‘see something, say something,’ and a courageous person did just that to the FBI. And the FBI failed to act. ‘See something, say something’ is an incredibly important tool and people must have confidence in the follow through from law enforcement. The FBI Director needs to resign.”
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