In Illinois reform begets corruption

The Illinois State legislature recently passed a campaign finance reform bill. Some discussion of this bill can be found in this Chicago Tribune article:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-campaign-finance-sundaynov01,0,4798276.story

The new law places restrictions on campaign spending:

• The proposal would limit donations to candidates to $5,000 each for the primary and general elections from individuals, $10,000 from corporations and unions and $50,000 from political action committees.
  

This sounds like real reform but the following section of the law reveals its true intention:

• Madigan and Cullerton -- as well as reluctant Republican leaders, Sen. Christine Radogno of Lemont and Rep. Tom Cross of Oswego -- would be allowed to spend unlimited sums of money from their special leadership campaign accounts on individual legislators or candidates in highly competitive general election races.
  Since Madigan also serves as state Democratic chairman, he also could devote unlimited party campaign resources to the dozen or so targeted legislative races that are the true battleground contests.
  

This new law which was written and approved by the State’s legislative leaders will now magnify their power over candidates in future elections. Under the current system a candidate must pander to the legislative leaders to receive their endorsement. Currently if a candidate does not receive the support and endorsement of the party elite that candidate can still go out raise funds and run against the parties' selected candidate. With the new law the independent or renegade candidate who is not baptized by the “machine” will no longer be able to raise enough money to mount a viable campaign. This will lock in the “machine” politicians and build legions of candidates beholden to them.

There is a moral to learn from this sad situation. Campaign reform laws are all written by entrenched politicians. These politicians will fashion the reform law so as to enhance their own political careers. This is one reason that incumbents win reelection 95% of the time.

The cycle of taxes

We are continually told that residential real-estate foreclosures are a product of greedy manipulation by bankers and Wall Street. We are also told that if we spend more taxpayers’ earnings on hand outs to low income home owners we can mitigate the effects of these foreclosures.

The following Chicago Tribune article reports the latest residential real estate tax increases in Cook County, Illinois:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-property-tax-27-oct27,0,3685132.story

The message that this article delivers is the real estate taxes are going up:

• Most Cook County residents are in for another round of sticker shock when new property tax bills arrive in the mail in a few days, with the median increase in many suburbs topping 10 percent and, in a handful, 20 percent.
  
• Median increases in many city neighborhoods will also hit double digits, with some lower income areas seeing the highest percentage spike. The median rise in the West Garfield Park neighborhood will top 46 percent, according to figures provided to the Tribune by Cook County Assessor James Houlihan.
  
• In the city, the median increase in the trendy Lincoln Park neighborhood is a modest 3 percent and in the North Side Lakeview neighborhood it will be even less, 2.1 percent. On the flip side, however, the median increase in the Englewood neighborhood on the South Side nears 25 percent. The median rise in President Obama's Kenwood neighborhood is 9 percent.

For those of you who are not familiar with Chicago neighborhoods you may be surprised to learn that West Garfield Park and Englewood are arguably the 2 poorest neighborhoods in the city. The fact that real estate taxes are rising by 46% and 25% in these 2 areas will inevitably lead to more foreclosures. When these foreclosures occur we will be told they are due to “greedy manipulation by bankers and Wall Street”. The local politicians will be leading the cry for Federal funds to “save our homeowners”. After the Federal funds arrive, those same local politicians will push through more local tax increases.

Subsidies for the politically connected

The following article by Robert Bryce discusses corn based ethanol and plug in electric vehicles:

http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=2485

The following paragraphs explain how the “Green Movement” works:

• Then again, the entire electric car push may just be another over-hyped flavor-of-the-month whose main effect will be the transfer of billions of dollars from the pockets of taxpayers to the coffers of politically favored industries that have effective lobbyists in Washington.
• Among the most notable recipients of the government’s largesse: Fisker Automotive. In September 2009, Fisker received a $529 million loan from the US government to help finance its startup costs. One of Fisker’s main financial backers is the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a Silicon Valley firm where Al Gore is a partner.

If a thorough audit of any Government subsidy to industry is carried out you will find some type of unsavory relationship. There will always be someone who can benefit from convincing the Government that their industry is promoting the “common good”. Government should never fund private enterprise.

"Is that about the coolest thing you've ever heard?"

Where is another example of why the Federal Government should never be allowed to spend our money. This is a story from the Wall Street Journal published on 10/17/09:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704107204574473724099542430.html

The details of this fiasco would once again be funny if not for the fact that we are paying for this nonsense:

• 
  We thought cash for clunkers was the ultimate waste of taxpayer money, but as usual we were too optimistic. Thanks to the federal tax credit to buy high-mileage cars that was part of President Obama's stimulus plan, Uncle Sam is now paying Americans to buy that great necessity of modern life, the golf cart.
• The federal credit provides from $4,200 to $5,500 for the purchase of an electric vehicle, and when it is combined with similar incentive plans in many states the tax credits can pay for nearly the entire cost of a golf cart. Even in states that don't have their own tax rebate plans, the federal credit is generous enough to pay for half or even two-thirds of the average sticker price of a cart, which is typically in the range of $8,000 to $10,000. "The purchase of some models could be absolutely free," Roger Gaddis of Ada Electric Cars in Oklahoma said earlier this year. "Is that about the coolest thing you've ever heard?"
• The golf-cart boom has followed an IRS ruling that golf carts qualify for the electric-car credit as long as they are also road worthy. These qualifying golf carts are essentially the same as normal golf carts save for adding some safety features, such as side and rearview mirrors and three-point seat belts. They typically can go 15 to 25 miles per hour.
• This golf-cart fiasco perfectly illustrates tax policy in the age of Obama, when politicians dole out credits and loopholes for everything from plug-in cars to fuel efficient appliances, home insulation and vitamins. Democrats then insist that to pay for these absurdities they have no choice but to raise tax rates on other things—like work and investment—that aren't politically in vogue. If this keeps up, it'll soon make more sense to retire and play golf than work for living.

It is easy to attribute this policy to “unintended consequences” from a large federal spending program. I think that some research would lead to a different conclusion. I believe that the wording of this federal law was intentionally vague so that those who were positioned to gain from the sale of these vehicles would directly benefit from this legislation.
Imagine the “unintended consequences” that have been inserted into the 1,500 page health care legislation.

A Nobel gesture

Coming to a neighborhood near you soon will be some of the most dangerous criminals of modern society. You can read the details here:

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE59E4X120091015?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

The Federal Government will move ruthless criminals dedicated to the death and destruction of the USA from a fortress prison in Cuba to prisons in our major cities. This will make Europeans happy. This is the type of nonsensical self destructive behavior that is required for us to keep the Europeans happy. In return the Europeans will show their gratitude by giving our political leaders prizes.

Redistributing Health

Alan Reynolds of the Cato Institute has written the following article which was published in the New York Post on 10/12/09:

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10623

Alan Reynolds exposes one of the goals of the current health care legislation:

• The fundamental Proponents of compulsory, government-designed health insurance can't seem to understand why others disagree. Perhaps the public is realizing that these proposals are fundamentally about redistributing health?
• The major proposals, the AARP Bulletin explains, "include around $500 billion in savings carved from future growth in Medicare spending over a 10-year period. "Even in the Obama era, $500 billion is a lot. Yet we're supposed to believe that less is somehow more — that seniors will benefit from these spending cuts. "The Obama administration and congressional leaders," intones a recent New York Times editorial, "are hoping to save hundreds of billions of dollars by slowing the growth of spending in the vast and inefficient Medicare system that serves 45 million older and disabled Americans. The savings would be used to help offset the costs of covering tens of millions of uninsured people."
  
• President Obama, in an Aug. 16 Times op ed, made such redistribution seem easy and painless: "We'll cut hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and inefficiency in federal health programs like Medicare and Medicaid," he said.
  
• Such efforts to appease seniors are not working because they are transparently dishonest.
  First of all, the Congressional Budget Office figures that cutting "waste, fraud and abuse" might save $200 million a year — that's millions, not billions.
  
• Second, the hundreds of billions in "savings" are to be carved out of the hides of Medicare providers and Medicare Advantage benefits, not Medicaid. In the Senate Finance Committee proposal, Medicaid gets $345 billion more money from 2014 to 2019.
  
• The Times claims the cuts should actually make Medicare better "for most beneficiaries," partly by "helping keep Medicare solvent." That is either a hoax or fraud. If "the savings would be used to help offset the costs of covering tens of millions of uninsured people," as the Times says, then the same savings can't also be used to shore up the Medicare trust fund.
  
• The president and his allies in Congress believe they can use deep cuts in Medicare — plus steep new taxes on health insurance, drug and medical device companies — to pay for a vast expansion of Medicaid and new health-insurance subsidies.
  
• These grandiose redistribution schemes are grounded in lethal economics and suicidal politics. Because bad ideas are hard to sell, politicians and journalists have been peddling health redistribution with the rhetorical and statistical equivalent of waste, fraud and abuse.
  
• American voters, particularly seniors, don't like to be lied to. They are just as leery of the political redistribution of health as they are of the redistribution of wealth.

It's a 12-day miracle!

Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass has an enlightening commentary about the Nobel Peace Prize. The article can be read here:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-kass-11-oct11,0,6621520.column

John’s commentary is of course satirical in nature, but he points out a remarkable fact:

• Isn't it great that President Barack Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize?
  
• He'd been in office only 12 days when the Nobel nominations were due. That's a mere 288 hours for Obama to have been credentialed as President Peace.

If you are not familiar with John Kass’s writing you may have missed his original column about “hopium” (note that the date of this column is 7/30/2008):

http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2008/jul/30/news/chi-kass-30-jul30

"the image of success"

Charles Krauthammer’s latest column in the Washington Post comments on how President Obama manipulates foreign policy to enhance his self image:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/01/AR2009100104208.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns

Some of the highlights of this article are:

• Don't take it from me. Take it from Sarkozy, who could not conceal his astonishment at Obama's naivete. On Sept. 24, Obama ostentatiously presided over the Security Council. With 14 heads of state (or government) at the table, with an American president at the chair for the first time ever, with every news camera in the world trained on the meeting, it would garner unprecedented worldwide attention.
  
• Unknown to the world, Obama had in his pocket explosive revelations about an illegal uranium enrichment facility that the Iranians had been hiding near Qom. The French and the British were urging him to use this most dramatic of settings to stun the world with the revelation and to call for immediate action.
  
• Obama refused. Not only did he say nothing about it, but, reports the Wall Street Journal (citing Le Monde), Sarkozy was forced to scrap the Qom section of his speech. Obama held the news until a day later -- in Pittsburgh.
• And from Obama's star turn as planetary visionary: "The administration told the French," reports the Wall Street Journal, "that it didn't want to 'spoil the image of success' for Mr. Obama's debut at the U.N."

Out of the past

For those of you familiar with Chicago corruption, a ghost of scandals past has reappeared:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-kass-01-oct01,0,5966158.column

If you make a deal with the devil he will expect you to keep up your end of the bargain. After paying bribes to high ranking City of Chicago officials it is expected that you will never testify against those officials. If you do begin to testify you will receive a visit from that official’s “associates”.

The above article describes one such visit:

• If you've been following the story in this column and in news accounts in the Tribune, you know that Morales once told federal investigators about large bribes he paid to a Daley administration chieftain, former Transportation Department boss Anthony Pucillo, who has vehemently denied Morales' allegation.
  
• Then came a death threat telling him to keep his mouth shut, Morales said. Marco had pleaded guilty to bribery and corruption charges, but instead of reporting to prison, he ran to the Yucatan, to the town of Merida. While on the run, as the statute of limitations on the Daley administration bribery investigation was running out, his son Marc Morale began receiving the bulk of more than $60 million in contracts from the Daley administration.
  
• "You know when Marco got the death threat, that same day, they came to our house too," Stella said. "We were divorced by then. And then came the men. They knocked on the door."
  
• "This was after Marco was arrested, after he was talking to the grand jury about the bribes to Pucillo," Stella said. "They said to me, 'You have a son. Do you want your son to be able to walk and talk? Then tell Marco to keep his mouth shut about the bribes. Capisce? "

"an undue burden"

Would it surprise you to learn that EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has no grasp of basic economics? This news article gives us her perspective:

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_EPA_GREENHOUSE_GASES?SITE=OHWIL&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Here is her view of economic interactions:

• "By using the power and authority of the Clean Air Act, we can begin reducing emissions from the nation's largest greenhouse gas-emitting facilities without placing an undue burden on the businesses that make up the vast majority of our economy," EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said. "We know the corner coffee shop is no place to look for meaningful carbon reductions."

In her mind raising the costs for large industries has no effect on small business. Maybe she intends to subsidize the increased costs of raw materials, electricity, and transportation that will be borne by all small businesses.

Do your sit-ups

Your federal government wants you to be healthy! Don’t you feel better already?

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE58T7IU20091001?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0

This paragraph from the above article describes the new plan:

• The Senate Finance Committee voted for an amendment offered by Republican Senator John Ensign and Democrat Thomas Carper that would allow health plans to provide financial incentives for people to quit smoking, exercise more, and engage in other healthy activities.

Will we be able to earn $5.00 for every mile that we jog, or how about $0.10 per push up? And who will be our fitness czar? It’s too late to name Teddy Kennedy to this important post.

Is there any better of example of a government that is out of control? The same people that have no self control over any impulse that brings them personal gain will now set up a system of rewards to encourage us to live a “healthy lifestyle”!