Revolving Door: Google Enjoys Privileged Position within the US Government

Posted on August 10, 2016 in Business and Economy, Economic Liberty, Economics, Liberator Online, News You Can Use by Alice Salles

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Tags:Barack Obama,Campaign for Accountability,Congress,federal government agencies,Google,Google Transparency Project,Liberator Online,News You Can Use,Obama administration,President Obama,privileged position,Project on Government Oversight,Scott Amey,State Department,Watchdog.org

Revolving Door: Google Enjoys Privileged Position within the US Government

This article was featured in our weekly newsletter, the Liberator Online. To receive it in your inbox, sign up here.

Putting an end to the revolving door used to be one of the issues presidential candidate Barack Obama appeared to be most passionate about. In December of 2007, then Senator Obama vowed to close the “revolving door … [in other words] the pattern of people going from industry to agency, back to industry,” as soon as he entered the White House. But by 2016, Franklin Center’s Watchdog.org reports, the practice couldn’t get more popular.

Since 2009, more than 250 people moved between Google and other related firms and the federal government. According to the results produced by Campaign for Accountability’s Google Transparency Project, there have been 258 revolving door instances associated with Google employees and other related firms. In many cases, these individuals were either involved with national political campaigns or with federal government agencies and Congress.

But according to Watchdog.org, one of the most eye-catching discoveries is that “[m]uch of that revolving door activity took place at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, where 22 former White House officials went to work for Google and 31 executives from Google and related firms went to work at the White House.”

In many of these cases, the Obama administration appointed these individuals directly.

Many of the Google employees who left the tech giant and its associated firms ended up in the President’s Council on Science and Technology and the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, two boards responsible for regulating programs that directly impact Google as a company.

When the other end of the revolving door is analyzed, we also learn that 25 government officials involved with the intelligence community, the Department of Defense, or national security have joined the Silicon Valley giant in the past few years. And at least 18 former State Department officials embraced new positions with Google as well, while five Google staffers were hired by the State Department, and at least three Google executives switched jobs, moving their desks to the DOD headquarters.

According to the general counsel for the Project on Government Oversight, Scott Amey, the number of people moving between the government and Google is high, raising concerns among anti-revolving door activists. Amey says that precisely because information concerning the quantity of people involved in this revolving-door game is hard to find, the actual scope of this mass migration may not be easy to grasp at the moment. Nevertheless, 250 individuals involved in this activity is “a very significant number.”

Amey told Watchdog.org that, if individuals working inside the government “have access to information on competitors and they go to Google … then you have to wonder if Google is getting an unfair advantage over others in their market.” Interestingly enough, Amey’s comment serves as the perfect example of why crony capitalism or, in other words, the marriage of the state and private special interests, is bad.

Without a government setting the rules, winners are only picked by the market, not the privileged few.

Primaries, Caucuses, and Nominations… Oh My!

Posted on May 3, 2016 in From Me To You, Liberator Online by Brett Bittner

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Primaries, Caucuses, and Nominations… Oh My!

This article was featured in our weekly newsletter, the Liberator Online. To receive it in your inbox, sign up here.

Two weeks ago, we discussed The “Most Important Election of Our Lifetime” Fallacy. Today, Indiana Republicans and Democrats line up to vote for their favored candidates and delegates on Primary Day.

The pressure to “participate in our democracy,” as I heard on the radio yesterday, continues to increase. The #NeverTrump advocates want me to vote for Ted Cruz today. I have yet to #FeelTheBern, despite the numerous radio and television ads from Bernie Sanders. This election cycle, the presidential nominees for both of the old parties are not yet locked in place, giving Indiana a moment in the sun with both the media and the candidates.

On top of that, there is a contested race for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate between two sitting Congressmen, Marlin Stutzman and Todd Young.

While I have voted in primaries in the past, I last cast a partisan ballot in the primary in 2012 to vote for Ron Paul in the Republican Presidential Preference Primary. <– try saying that three times fast

While I supported some fine candidates in parties other than my own, I realized that the primary process is used to determine intra-party business. That business is to place the party’s best candidate forward for the general election.

Should I be able to participate in their elections? I am not a member of either Team D or Team R, nor do I donate to either. Should I have a vote in how they conduct business? After all, General Electric does not allow non-shareholders determine who sits on their board. They handle such decisions internally, and most importantly, without using resources paid for by taxpayers.

In 2012, taxpayers spent approximately $400 million to fund each state’s primary election, ranging from $1.32 to almost $4 per voter, depending on the state and their turnout.

That means that taxpayers across the country subsidized the cost of selecting Mitt Romney and Barack Obama before their conventions even occurred in Tampa and Charlotte.

By contrast, the Libertarian Party chose the Gary Johnson/Jim Gray ticket in Las Vegas at their 2012 convention whose costs were borne entirely by attendees and donors to the party.

Often, the argument used against the idea of parties funding their own intra-party business is that only party insiders will be involved in the selection process. Given the way that the rules are written, the ability of “superdelegates” to ignore their constituents’ desires, and the efforts of those looking to stop the likely nominee, aren’t those same party insiders already doing the legwork of choosing who should represent them in both of the old parties?

I guess the question to be answered is, should taxpayers fund conventions and primaries? Couldn’t we make this simpler and less expensive by having the Party bear these costs, rather than have taxpayers subsidize the cost of this selection process and provide extra paid and earned media to the parties allowed to participate?

White House Sacks the Treasury in the Name of Corporate Welfare

Posted on February 24, 2016 in Economic Liberty, Healthcare, Liberator Online, News You Can Use, Taxes by Alice Salles

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White House Sacks the Treasury in the Name of Corporate Welfare

This article was featured in our weekly newsletter, the Liberator Online. To receive it in your inbox, sign up here.

Friday, one day before the President’s day holiday weekend, the Barack Obama Administration announced that $7.7 billion of taxpayer dollars would be allocated to Affordable Care Act insurers through the law’s reinsurance program.

From the Americans for Tax Reform website:

“For 2015 Obamacare reinsurance, the administration will pay out $6 billion raised from a fee on private health insurance and an additional $1.7 billion that under federal law belongs to the Treasury department.”

According to pro-taxpayer organization, at least $1.7 billion of the $7.7 being used to cover insurers is being funneled illegally.

Doug Badger of the Galen Institute explains that ACA’s reinsurance program works by silently taxing every individual in America with health insurance. In 2015 and 2016, each individual with insurance is being allegedly taxed a total of $107. According to Badger, the program is designed to “prop up insurers that have agreed to sell Obamacare policies in the individual market.”

While the administration continues to claim that ACA is working, insurers that participate are losing money. But since the reinsurance program exists to cover the losses of the insurers, the administration seems to think keeping corporations happy with the deal is more important than following the law.

With the failure of the system, and with a growing number of consumers referring to alternative methods to have access to care, the administration is having to get creative.

According to the New York Post, not one dollar out of the $7.7 billion being promised to insurers should be taken from the Treasury under ACA law.

From the New York Post:

“The law states a fixed share ‘shall be deposited into the general fund of the Treasury of the United States and may not be used’ to offset insurance companies’ losses.

But the administration gave all of it to the insurance companies last year, and got away with that heist. So now they’re trying it again.”

While the administration projected it would be raising $12 billion for the ACA reinsurance program in 2014, it was $2 billion short. In order to handle the situation, the administration decided to keep the money from the Treasury, using it instead to hand it over to the participating companies.

The administration isn’t a stranger to this type of move. According to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, at least $8.5 billion in taxpayer money has already been illegally funneled to ACA’s corporate welfare programs.

Another initiative designed to shield insurers enshrined in ACA also seeks to secure the investment of insurers. The initiative is known as the Risk Corridor program, and it has also been tied to scandals in the past.

In 2014, insurers requested $2.87 billion in “risk corridors” payments, but the administration only offered 12.6 percent of that value.

The risk corridor program works by redistributing funds from insurers that make money with the Obamacare exchange to insurers that don’t. Not knowing how sick their customers were going to be due to the new healthcare law and its mandates, insurers were not being able to set premiums realistically, making it hard for companies to turn a profit.

Despite falling short on the risk corridor payments, the administration decided to bail out insurers that weren’t making money off the exchanges last year. ACA chief Andy Slavitt, who’s also the former Vice-President for United Health, made the announcement in December of 2015, saying the federal government was going to bail out insurers and offer them the amount they had previously asked. Later, however, Congress blocked the $2.5 billion “risk corridor” payment. The effort was championed by several conservative and libertarian organizations that came together to urge Congress to act.

If nothing is done this time around, taxpayers will have to foot the bill and cover the $7.7 billion the administration has vowed

Compassion with Caution

Posted on September 17, 2015 in Liberator Online, News You Can Use by Chloe Anagnos

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Compassion with Caution

This article was featured in our weekly newsletter, the Liberator Online. To receive it in your inbox, sign up here.

Over the last month, citizens of the world have watched the growing Syrian refugee crisis unfold on television. Thousands of men, women and children are risking their lives to flee the violence from the Syrian civil war. Many are making the treacherous journey on foot through Turkey, while others attempt to sail across the Mediterranean on makeshift rafts.

According to Mercy Corps, more than 11 million Syrians have been displaced since 2011. The majority of these people have fled to Syria’s neighboring countries over the years – Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Iraq. As violence continues in the Middle East, more than 350,000 migrants have sought asylum in Germany, France, Italy and the United Kingdom – and it’s not ending there.

Germany expects 800,000 more migrants this year. British Prime Minister David Cameron pledged on Monday to take in up to 20,000 refugees from camps in Syria over the next five years.

Since the start of the Syrian war in 2011, only 1,500 refugees fled Syria for the United States, though President Barack Obama has committed to accepting 10,000 more over the next coming year.

Obama’s plan has sparked a debate in Washington. Refugee advocates say the United States is not doing enough to address the humanitarian crisis caused by the war, while some congressional Republicans worry that an increase could allow terrorists to enter the United States.

“The rhetoric has been really awful,” said James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute. “The difficulty of doing it is met by this Islamophobia and conflation of Syrians and Iraqis with terrorists.”

Strong opposition met previous efforts to increase the flow of Syrian refugees.

Fourteen U.S. Senate Democrats wrote a letter urging the Obama administration to allow at least 65,000 Syrian refugees to settle in the United States this past May. The following month, Congressman Michael McCaul (R-TX) objected to the administration’s plans to allow nearly 2,000 by the end of 2015.

“While we have a proud history of welcoming refugees, the Syrian conflict is a unique case requiring heightened vigilance and scrutiny,” McCaul, whose Homeland Security Committee has held hearings on the issue, wrote in a letter to Obama.

Although both sides of the debate in Washington present valid arguments, why can’t the United States offer these refugees compassion while exercising caution? After all, the U.S. has a history of meddling in Middle Eastern affairs that complicate the situation faced today. That history goes back almost 100 years.

Now, in an attempt to escape the horrors of war, hundreds of refugees have drowned in the Mediterranean. Small children are washing up on the shores of Turkey and Greece. Refugees face tear gas and water bombs in other parts of Europe where their governments are closing borders.

The U.S. should be a shining example of compassion to the migrants who have lost everything. Republicans raise an excellent point: young, single men of military age should be looked at with caution so that our compassion isn’t taken advantage of by ISIS or other terrorists. The U.S. can do better than just taking 10,000 refugees.

By offering compassion, the United States can be an example to other parts of the world that the Syrian refugee crisis isn’t an issue of proximity, but an issue of humanitarianism.

Your Electricity Rates May Necessarily Skyrocket

Posted on August 3, 2015 in Economic Liberty, Environment and Energy, Liberator Online, News You Can Use by Jackson Jones

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Your Electricity Rates May Necessarily Skyrocket

This article was featured in our weekly newsletter, the Liberator Online. To receive it in your inbox, sign up here.

Back in 2007, during his initial run for the presidency, Barack Obama, then the junior senator from Illinois, said that his energy proposals would “bankrupt” a company looking to build a new coal plant. For consumers, he said, “electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”

As President, Obama has sought to implement those policies through legislation, though he has been largely unsuccessful. Since Obama can’t get his agenda through Congress, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has, at the direction of the White House, promulgated regulations to clamp down on emissions from coal- and gas-fired power plants.

The EPA rule, which was formally rolled out on Monday, directs these plants to reduce their carbon emissions by 32 percent of 2005 levels over the next 25 years. “We only get one home. We only get one planet. There is no plan B,” Obama said in a speech hailing the new rule. “I don’t want my grandkids to not be able to swim in Hawaii, or not to be able to climb a mountain and see a glacier, because we didn’t do something about it.”

The alarmist rhetoric may be a nice touch, but the rule is going to have negative consequences that will lead to job losses. In April, the American Action Forum noted that 93 power plants, representing some 80,000 jobs, would be in jeopardy because of the rule.

“As we predicted, EPA’s proposed federal implementation (FIP) entails two emissions trading schemes. Of course, Congress has expressly and repeatedly rejected such ‘cap and trade’ schemes, which raises an obvious question: Why is it appropriate for EPA to impose major policies that were refused by Congress? In practice, emissions are virtually synonymous with energy use, and, as a result, EPA’s FIP is not inaccurately labeled an energy rationing program,” said William Yeatman, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. “Talk about mission creep!”

Consumers, too, will feel the impact. Take, for example, the “clean coal” power plant in Kemper County, Mississippi. The $6.2 billion (originally $4.7 billion) plant, owned by the Southern Company, has been the hailed as example of what the administration hopes to see in the future. But the plant has been plagued by significant cost overruns, which were initially passed onto consumers in the form of a 15 percent rate hike. The Mississippi Supreme Court intervened in the matter and ordered refunds.

Consumers exposed to the EPA’s new climate rule may not be so lucky. It’s expected to cost as much as $479 billion between 2017 and 2031, and there’s no guarantee that it will have any measurable impact. Of course, this rule isn’t about climate change; it’s about controlling Americans who have no choice but to spend more of their money because of regulations that will boost favored businesses selling their products to plants hoping to comply with rules created by the fourth branch of the federal government.

They Said It with John Boehner, Gary Johnson, and MORE

Posted on April 2, 2015 in Liberator Online by James W. Harris

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(From the They Said It section in Volume 20, No. 13 of the Liberator Online. Subscribe here!)

U.S. COVERED UP GASSING OF AMERICAN TROOPS: “During and immediately after the first Gulf War, more than 200,000 of 700,000 U.S. troops sent to Iraq and Kuwait in January 1991 were exposed to nerve gas and other chemical agents. Though aware of this, the Department of Defense and CIA launched a campaign of lies and concocted a cover-up that continues today. A quarter of a century later, the troops nearest the explosions are dying of brain cancer at two to three times the rate of those who were farther away. Others have lung cancer or debilitating chronic diseases, and pain. More complications lie ahead. According to Dr. Linda Chao, a neurologist at the University of California Medical School in San Francisco, ‘Because part of their brains, the hippocampus, has shrunk, they’re at greater risk for Alzheimer’s and other degenerative diseases.’” — journalist Barbara Koeppel, “U.S. Nerve Gas Hit Our Own Troops in Iraq,” Newsweek, March 27, 2015.

BARACK OBAMA, PEACENIK-IN-CHIEF:
“The world is starving for American leadership. But America has an anti-war president.” — U.S. Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) during a Capitol Hill press conference, March 26. Apparently Obama’s ongoing U.S. military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan — not to mention covert operations around the world — slipped Rep. Boehner’s mind.

U.S. FOREIGN POLICY IN ONE TWEET: “US praises US ally for bombing US-equipped militia aligned with US foe who is partnering with US to fight another US-equipped militia.” — tweet by journalist/photographer Gregg Carlstrom, sent as Saudi Arabia began bombing Yemen, March 26, 2015.

YOU’RE ENTITLED (TO PAY FOR ENTITLEMENTS): “Your 2014 tax dollars — which are due [this] month — went primarily to pay for government benefits. Major entitlements (Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare and Social Security) devoured more than half of the 2014 budget at 51 percent of spending. Other federal benefits took another 19 percent, meaning that 70 percent of government spending went to pay some sort of benefit to someone. These additional ‘income security’ and other benefits include federal employee retirement and disability, unemployment benefits, and welfare programs such as food and housing assistance.” — economist Romina Boccia, “The Breakdown of Where Your Tax Dollars Go,” Heritage Foundation, March 17, 2015.

THE MARIJUANA DISCONNECT: “Marijuana polls 60% in favor of legalization. Huge, insane, disconnect that the minority is maintaining criminal penalties for the majority!” — tweet by Gary Johnson, 2012 Libertarian Party presidential candidate, March 5, 2015.

LET THEM BAKE — OR NOT BAKE — CAKE: “Nobody should be forced to do something they don’t want to do, whether it’s bake cakes for gay weddings or decorate cakes with anti-gay slurs. To me, whether a person’s or a business’s decision is based in religion is immaterial.” — Nick Gillespie, “Everybody’s Lost Their Goddamn Mind Over Religious Freedom,” The Daily Beast, April 1, 2015.

Libertarian Party: Shut Down CIA, Prosecute Torturers

Posted on December 9, 2014 in Communicating Liberty by James W. Harris

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Tags:accountability,Activist Ammunition,additional horrors,aggressive,assassinations,Barack Obama,bipartisan,brutality,brutalize the vulnerable,CIA,CIA torture,dealing heroin,December 9,deception,democratically elected governments,Department of Justice,disgusting,foreign leaders,full immunity,full-scale whitewashing,George W. Bush,Glenn Greenwald,government report,government-sanctioned torture,Guantanamo Bay,human experimentation,human rights violations,illegal activities,illegal behavior,immoral,ineffective,Intellectual Ammunition,lack of remorse,legal,Liberator Online,Libertarian Party,LSD,lying,mass surveillance,members of Congress,Nicholas J. Sarwark,out-of-control spy agencies,overthrow,politicians,practice of torture,prisoners,prosecution,redact,reprehensible behavior,rogue,self-investigation,Senate Intelligence Report,spying on Americans,targeted killings,un-American,war crimes,war on terror,war prisoners

(From the Activist Ammunition section in Volume 19, No. 24 of the Liberator Online. Subscribe here!)

The Libertarian Party says there’s only one way to deal with the new revelations of CIA torture and the torture agency’s long history of other crimes: shut down the CIA and other rogue, out-of-control spy agencies.

Says Libertarian National Committee Chair Nicholas J. Sarwark:

“The CIA’s practice of torture confirmed by the Senate Intelligence Report released on December 9 shows the agency engaged in reprehensible and illegal behaviors that were, in effect, war crimes.

“The CIA and politicians redacted the bulk of the government’s report, which remains withheld from public view. One can only speculate as to the additional horrors that lie within the rest of the report, given the gravity of what was revealed.

“These acts of torture were immoral, disgusting, and un-American. And… they were ineffective.

“Yet the CIA and the Department of Justice, which sanctioned the torture, claim that it was legal and exhibit a shocking lack of remorse for the brutality inflicted on its victims.

“Whether it’s choking a man to death for selling loose cigarettes in New York or torturing prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, the government refuses to prosecute government employees who brutalize the vulnerable. When the government investigates itself, it almost always clears itself of any wrongdoing.

“This is why we must shut down the CIA.”

Sarwark points out that the 70-year history of the CIA is ” littered with episodes of human rights violations, illegal activities, and deception,” including:

Targeted killings and assassinations
Overthrowing democratically elected governments
Human experimentation, including giving the hallucinogenic drug LSD to U.S. and Canadian citizens without their knowledge
Dealing heroin in Asia
Spying on Americans, members of congress, and foreign leaders
Shipping war prisoners to foreign countries where torture is permissible (“extraordinary rendition”)
Lying to Congress

“Government-sanctioned torture is bipartisan,” Sarwark adds, noting that Republican President George W. Bush authorized the torture revealed in the Senate report, and President Barack Obama granted him full immunity. Torturers still hold high positions in government.

“Famed journalist Glenn Greenwald said ‘The Obama administration’s aggressive, full-scale whitewashing of the ‘War on Terror’ crimes committed by Bush officials is now complete.’

“Whereas Democrats and Republicans have continually funded and encouraged CIA war crimes, the Libertarian Party has consistently and strongly opposed the use of torture, mass surveillance, and human rights violations by the U.S. government throughout the party’s 43-year history.

“The Libertarian Party calls for real accountability, including prosecuting all of those who authorized and performed these brutal acts.”

Buckley for Senate

Posted on August 4, 2014 in Liberator Online, Libertarian Party by James W. Harris

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(From the Intellectual Ammunition section in Volume 19, No. 12 of the Liberator Online. Subscribe here!)

One of the most famous family names in American political history is once again on the ballot and in the national news.

John Buckley — cousin of the renowned late conservative icon William F. Buckley and former U.S. Senator James L. Buckley — is running an active campaign as Libertarian Party candidate for U.S. Senate in West Virginia.

And he’s already drawing significant national attention. The Washington Post recently described his campaign as one of seven U.S. senate races in which a Libertarian Party candidate could win enough votes to affect the outcome of the election, thus forcing the campaigns of both older party candidates to seriously consider supporting libertarian positions if they want to win.

Said the Washington Post: “John Buckley knows something about winning political races. He’s a former state legislator in Virginia, and a former employee at the American Conservative Union, the Cato Institute and the Law and Economics Center at George Mason University.” He’s also a past National Chairman of Young Americans for Freedom and has worked for the Institute for Humane Studies and the National Tax Limitation Committee.

At his campaign website he sums this up: “All through my life, I’ve worked to promote freedom and prosperity.” His lifetime of political experience, he says, soured him on the Republican Party as a vehicle for liberty and led him to the Libertarian Party.

Buckley tells more about his background and beliefs at his Facebook page:

“I turned 60 in 2013 and, with what I see happening under the presidency of Barack Obama (and even the astonishing growth of government under President George Bush), I want to do my part to try to turn America around. We need less government, not more!

“I have also realized that principles of limited government should be applied across the board, not just as to taxes, spending, and economic regulation, but to personal, ‘lifestyle’ decisions as well. Thus, I favor drastically lowering the level of federal government taxes and spending, embracing Second Amendment gun ownership rights, and respecting private property;

“I also support the legalization of marijuana (common sense tells us it’s time to end the ruinously expensive, counterproductive, and failed ‘War on Drugs’), same-sex marriage, and ending Big Brother’s snooping and spying on American citizens.

“Most Americans don’t like being told what to do and don’t relish telling others what to do, either. The American way is ‘live and let live.’ We may not like the decisions our friends and neighbors make, but we express our moral suasion voluntarily (through churches and family and other peaceful expressions of community standards), not through laws and dictates.

“We certainly don’t like politicians, and especially not Congress or whoever is president, telling us what to do. Whether it’s fluorescent light bulbs, ‘Big Gulp’ sodas, how we run our businesses, how we choose to meet the moral obligation to help our neighbors in need, the curriculum of our children’s schools, our right to keep and bear arms, what we smoke or drink, who we can love or the terms of our health-care.

“I am in favor of liberty — that’s what ‘Libertarian’ means, favoring liberty. It’s the American way of life, but I’m afraid the principles of liberty have been largely abandoned under mainstream Republicans and Democrats. Let’s reclaim the greatness of the American system of limited government. I’ll hope you’ll join me in this campaign.”

National Service: Should Young Americans Be Forced To Serve the Government?

Posted on July 26, 2014 in Ask Dr. Ruwart, Liberator Online, Libertarian Answers on Issues, Libertarian Stances on Issues by Mary Ruwart

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(From the Ask Dr. Ruwart section in Volume 19, No. 12 of the Liberator Online. Subscribe here!)

QUESTION: I believe we shouldn’t be forced to participate in some kind of national service. However, some of my friends say we owe some duty to our country for being born here and living here. What about a citizen’s duty to country?

MY SHORT ANSWER: If “doing our duty” is equated to providing “service,” who decides what is service and what is not? If young Steve Jobs had been forced into some type of national service instead of being left alone to tinker in his garage, he might never have invented the personal computer. The resulting increases in everyone’s standard of living would have been lost or delayed because of a bureaucrat’s uninformed decision about what was good for the country.

Freedom is what is good for a nation, especially one that wants to help its poor. More freedom means more wealth creation and less poverty. Government interference, even well-intended, backfires. (For some examples and more detail, see my book, “Healing Our World.” The 1992 edition is available as a free download at www.ruwart.com. The updated 2003 edition is available at the Advocates online bookstore.)

Most people give generously of their time and money if this is the voluntary custom. For example, tipping is not mandatory, but almost everyone does it. Before government got involved in social welfare, almost everyone helped a less fortunate neighbor individually or as part of a formal organization because that was the custom. You were either a charity case or a provider of charity; few people wanted to be in the former group.

To return to this way of charitable thinking, the government should stop forcing people to “give at the office” through taxation and resist the temptation to force people into service. Doing so will only create resentment towards those in need, leaving little sympathy for the poor when their “help” disappears in the shifting political tides.

LEARN MORE: Suggestions for further reading on this topic from Liberator Online editor James W. Harris:

* “Shhh… Don’t call Obama’s national service scheme a ‘draft‘” by Jerome Tuccille. National service is seemingly off the front burner, but don’t let down your guard; the idea continues to circulate. This article, written in 2008 when the idea was being more strongly pushed by both Democrats and Republicans, points out the insidious nature of the concept.

EXCERPT: “Under Barack Obama’s plan, a refusal to participate in a national service program touted at the federal level will be punished by the withholding of high school diplomas by the school district in your town. And without that diploma, few colleges or employers will even bother to look at your application.

“It’s a softer sort of authoritarianism which requires no draft boards, muddles the identity of the ‘bad guy’ and produces no martyrs in handcuffs for the evening news. You just can’t get a job if you don’t do as you’re told.”

* “National Service? Puh-lease“ by Michael Kinsley, TIME, Sept. 04, 2007. Liberal journalist Kinsley does a great job of gutting the whole “national service” notion. Ignore the couple of paragraphs in the middle about democracy and taxation; the rest is brilliant and marvelously written.

EXCERPT: “Problem number one with grand schemes for universal voluntary public service is that they can’t be both universal and voluntary. If everybody has to do it, then it’s not voluntary, is it? And if it’s truly up to the individual, then it won’t be universal. What advocates of this sort of thing generally have in mind is using the pressures of social conformity and the powers of the state indirectly to remove as much freedom of choice as possible, while still being able to claim that everyone who signs up is a ‘volunteer.’”

* * *
Got questions? Dr. Ruwart has answers! If you’d like answers to YOUR tough questions on libertarian issues, email Dr. Ruwart

Due to volume, Dr. Ruwart can’t personally acknowledge all emails. But we’ll run the best questions and answers in upcoming issues.

Dr. Ruwart’s previous Liberator Online answers are archived in searchable form.

Dr. Ruwart’s latest book Short Answers to the Tough Questions, Expanded Edition is available from the Advocates, as is her acclaimed classic Healing Our World.

Libertarian Party Response to 2014 State of the Union Address: “Americans’ Rights Violated Like Never Before”

Posted on February 9, 2014 in Liberator Online, Libertarian Party by James W. Harris

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(From the Intellectual Ammunition section in Volume 19, No. 3 of the Liberator Online. Subscribe here!)

Perhaps you heard President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address and the GOP responses.The Libertarian Party responded as well, lambasting the Big Government policies of both parties and offering a pro-liberty alternative in a hard-hitting statement from Executive Director Wes Benedict.

Naturally the mass media declined to carry it, but don’t let that stop you

from encountering a genuine libertarian State of the Union address. Some excerpts:

“Thanks to unprecedented levels of government interference and government coercion, Americans’ rights are violated like never before. We are harmed by taxes, regulations, prohibitions, and shocking privacy intrusions. …

“Our Libertarian hope is that we can convince enough Americans to change their minds. We hope voters will come to understand that government is force, and force is unjust.

“Here are some of the problems we see.

* The government debt situation is atrocious. Government debt is a terrible thing, because it forces future generations to pay off debts they never agreed to incur. From 2001 to 2008, George W. Bush doubled the debt, mostly with the support of a Republican Congress. Since 2009, Barack Obama and the Democrats (and Republicans) have nearly doubled it again. It doesn’t matter whether Republicans or Democrats control the government. Libertarians would quickly balance the budget by cutting spending on everything, including entitlements and the military.

* The employment situation is still pretty bad. Why? Because government gets in between employers and employees, and tries to dictate everything. Minimum wage laws, hiring laws, firing laws, subsidies, and business taxes all make it harder to create jobs and find jobs. These laws are supported by both Republicans and Democrats. Libertarians would eliminate the minimum wage, employment red tape, and business subsidies and taxes. …

* If there’s one thing we have learned since 2001, it’s that we can’t trust what government officials say. They lie. Bush and Cheney said there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. James Clapper (Director of National Intelligence) said under oath that the NSA does not collect data on Americans. Those are a couple of the most outrageous lies, but there have been many others. The more power government has, the more government officials will have the opportunity and incentive to lie. Libertarians would greatly reduce government power. …

* How about the military? The Libertarian attitude is pretty simple: the U.S. military should leave other countries alone, even if their governments are unstable, and even if there are people living there who hate Americans. We need to cut military spending a whole lot. Try getting Republicans or Democrats to support ANY cuts to military spending. …

“All in all, the state of our union is a big mess created by Republicans and Democrats. Libertarians offer a path forward to peace and prosperity.”

And there’s lots more good stuff. You can read the rest of the statement at the Libertarian Party’s website.

Libertarian Party: End IRS scandals — By Abolishing the IRS and Income Tax

Posted on June 9, 2013 in Liberator Online by James W. Harris

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Tags:1992 levels,abolish the IRS,American jobs,balance the budget,Barack Obama,Bill Clinton,Carla Howell,constitutional obligations,corporate income tax,death tax,destructive,dysfunctional,era of big government is over,federal budget,federal payroll tax,Franklin Roosevelt,government interrogation,government sector,income tax,Intellectual Ammunition,Internal Revenue Service,IRS,IRS scandals,John F. Kennedy,Liberator Online,Libertarian Party,liberty,Liberty Amendment,life,Lyndon B. Johnson,massive global interventionist military presence,massive military budgets,new jobs,overseas meddling,personal income tax,political views,Private sector,property,prosperity,reduce the size and scope of the federal government,regulatory agency,Richard Nixon,small businesses,smaller less bureaucratic government,stabilize prices,stop inflation,sufficient funding,target political enemies,total federal spending,tremendous benefits,warfare,wasteful

In the wake of the latest Internal Revenue Service (IRS) scandals, Libertarian Party Executive Director Carla Howell says there’s only one certain way to end all such scandals, now and in the future:

“We must abolish the IRS and end any need for a regulatory agency that snoops into people’s private lives,” Howell said on May 17.

Further, Howell offers a compelling argument that this is not only possible, it would have tremendous benefits for the country.

If we just cut the federal budget back to 1992 levels, Howell says, we could end the IRS and the income tax — and leave the government with more than sufficient funding to perform its constitutional obligations.

1992 was the year Bill Clinton was elected president. Few people at the time would have argued that the federal government of 1992 was too small. Indeed, a few years later, President Clinton himself would famously declare it was time to reduce the size and scope of the federal government because “the era of big government is over” and Americans needed “a smaller, less bureaucratic government… that lives within its means.”

Says the Libertarian Party’s Howell: “We must draw back total federal spending to the level of 1992, which is more than enough to fulfill the government’s constitutional duties to protect our life, liberty, and property. This will allow us to balance the budget immediately, end the federal income tax completely, and give back an average of more than $12,000 to every family in America.”

“We don’t need an income tax, and we certainly don’t need the IRS,” Howell says.

The idea of getting rid of the income tax and the IRS by reducing the federal government to its 1992 size sounds downright reasonable. Indeed, a government funded at 1992 levels would still be far too big for many Americans.

Howell notes that IRS political scandals are nothing new. “The presidential administrations of Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, and, now, Barack Obama have all been caught using the IRS to target political enemies.

“As long as we have the IRS — and the income tax — we should expect more presidents to use their power to silence and intimidate free voices. No IRS investigation or firing of a few scapegoats will change that.”

Howell points out there are many other benefits to ending the income tax.

“Ending the income tax, abolishing the IRS, and cutting federal spending to the level of 1992 means no more deficit spending,” Howell says. “This will stop inflation and stabilize prices. Even more importantly, it will transfer wealth out of the wasteful, dysfunctional and destructive government sector and into the productive private sector, resulting in a bounty of new jobs and prosperity for Americans.

“We will make living in America and doing business in America much better,” Howell says. “Individuals, businesses, and political organizations will all be safe from government interrogation and free to express their political views. It will dramatically increase the wealth of the private sector and inspire hundreds of billions of dollars in investment in small businesses and American jobs.”

And why stop there?

“We can cut federal spending by 50 percent, or even 90 percent, and Americans will be better for it,” Howell argues. “We can end the personal income tax, the corporate income tax, the death tax, and all federal payroll taxes. There will be no need for the IRS, nor any substitute agency.”

Yet another benefit of abolishing the IRS is that it would become far more difficult to fund a massive global interventionist military presence and warfare around the world, Howell notes.

“It will also require our massive military budgets to go down, which currently encourage overseas meddling and war,” Howell says. “We get rid of the IRS, we get rid of the income tax, we dramatically downsize federal spending and taxation, and America and the world will be better for it.”

The Libertarian Party’s call to abolish the income tax and IRS echoes Ron Paul, who for years introduced the Liberty Amendment in Congress to do exactly that.

Want to convince others that this is a great idea? Here’s a four-part series of short articles by Advocates President Sharon Harris that offers suggestions for doing this:

Making the Case for Ending the Income Tax: Part 1.
Making the Case for Ending the Income Tax: Part 2.
Making the Case for Ending the Income Tax: Part 3.
Making the Case for Ending the Income Tax: Part 4.

They Said It… With Barack Obama, Penn Jillette and More

Posted on June 6, 2013 in Liberator Online by James W. Harris

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TAXATION IS THEFT:
“So many people say, ‘You know, your taxes aren’t taken by force,’ and that’s foolish. If you don’t pay your taxes and you don’t answer the warrant and you don’t go to court, eventually someone will pull a gun. Eventually someone with a gun will show up.” — renowned magician, author and libertarian Penn Jillette, interview, The Daily Caller, May 6, 3013.

WAR ON TERROR IS JUST GETTING STARTED: “At least 10 to 20 years.” – Michael Sheehan, U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, estimating at a May 16 U.S. Senate hearing how much longer the 12-year-old “War on Terrorism” will go on.

OBAMA WORST PRESIDENT EVER FOR CIVIL LIBERTIES: “From unilateral military actions to warrantless surveillance… the painful fact is that Barack Obama is the president that Nixon always wanted to be. Four decades ago, Nixon was halted in his determined effort to create an “imperial presidency” with unilateral powers and privileges. In 2013, Obama wields those very same powers openly and without serious opposition. The success of Obama in acquiring the long-denied powers of Nixon is one of his most remarkable, if ignoble, accomplishments. … Obama has not only openly asserted powers that were the grounds for Nixon’s impeachment, but he has made many love him for it. More than any figure in history, Obama has been a disaster for the U.S. civil liberties movement.” — liberal constitutional lawyer Jonathan Turley, “Nixon has won Watergate,” column in USA Today, March 25, 2013.

OBAMA TO STUDENTS — IGNORE REALITY, GOV’T IS YOUR FRIEND:
“Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all of our problems…. They’ll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices.” — President Obama’s commencement address at Ohio State University on May 5. That’s right, kids, don’t worry your pretty little heads about drone assassinations of U.S. citizens, unconstitutional wars, sky-high taxes, IRS snooping, government recording your emails, the War on Drugs, the U.S. spy empire…

JAY LENO ON HOW TO REPEAL OBAMACARE: “This week will mark the 37th time House Republicans have tried to repeal Obamacare. If Republicans really wanted to do away with Obamacare they should just endorse it as a conservative non-profit and let the IRS take it down.” — Jay Leno, May 16, 2013.

THESE ARE THE GOOD OLD DAYS: “This week marks the 40th anniversary of the Watergate hearings. For those of you too young to remember, back then the administration had an enemies list. They were spying on reporters, and they used the IRS to harass groups they didn’t like. Thank God those days are gone forever.” — Jay Leno. May 15, 2013.

SPYING ON THE MEDIA: “It was just revealed that the Department of Justice secretly recorded the phone calls of AP journalists for two months. Obama promised reporters that the incident will be immediately investigated — by the Department of Justice.” — Jimmy Fallon, “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon.” May 14, 2013.

ON THE MOVE FOR LIBERTY:
John Stossel “Forty-three million Americans moved from one state to another between 1995 and 2010 — about one-seventh of Americans. … Americans have moved away from high-taxed, heavily regulated states to lower-taxed, less-regulated states. Most don’t think of it as a political decision. They just go where opportunities are, and that usually means where there’s less government.” — libertarian journalist John Stossel, “Live Free or Move,” syndicated column May 8, 2013.

DEMOCRAT RIPS INTO DOJ ON MARIJUANA: “One of the greatest threats to liberty has been the government taking people’s liberty for things that people are in favor of. The Pew Research Group shows that 52 percent of people do not think marijuana should be illegal. And yet there are people in jail, and your Justice Department is continuing to put people in jail, for sale, and use, on occasion, of marijuana. That’s something the American public has finally caught up with. It was a cultural lag. And it’s been an injustice for 40 years in this country to take people’s liberty for something that was similar to alcohol. You have continued what is allowing the Mexican cartels power, and the power to make money, ruin Mexico, hurt our country by having a Prohibition in the late 20th and 21st century. We saw it didn’t work in this country in the 20s. We remedied it. This is the time to remedy this Prohibition, and I would hope you would do so.” — Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN), criticizing Attorney General Eric Holder in the U.S. House of Representatives, May 15, 2013.

Barack Obama