Dan Mitchell of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity (associated with the Cato Institute) explains that the government’s fiscal problems are not so much a function of deficits or debt, but of politicians’ uncontrolled spending:

Best line: “You don’t cure an alcoholic’s drinking problem by giving him more beer, and you don’t fix a politician’s spending problem by giving him more money.”

(via Hot Air)

A new video from Dan Mitchell and the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, explaining why both the House and Senate health-care reform bills would be a red-ink train wreck:

(via Big Government)

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Limousine Liberal) has proposed imposing a European-style value added tax to fund the health care “reform” plans now lumbering through Congress. Dan Mitchell of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity explains why this is a bad idea:

No, not the web site from Andrew Breitbart. That’s quickly becoming invaluable. Instead we present three videos from the Cato Institute -allied Center for Freedom and Prosperity, presented by Dan Mitchell. The first presents eight reasons why big government hurts economic growth:

The next argues the empirical case against big government:

Finally, Mitchell makes the case that, if you want to cut down on government corruption, cut down its size and cut back on the money that flows to it:

Fitting, given the revelations about ACORN, the NEA, and the administration’s dealings with both.

The Cato Institute’s Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation has produced a short video outlining the negative consequences of Keynesian economic policies.

HT: Cafe Hayek

Cato’s Dan Mitchell has a post today about how the Obama administration is trying to force UBS to divulge information about foreign bank accounts held by Americans in Switzerland, a violation of Swiss law.

In an odious display of fiscal imperialism, the Department of Justice is demanding that one of the Swiss banks divulge any information about American clients – even though this would mean imposing America’s bad law on a foreign institution operating on foreign soil.

This is the kind of imperialism that I am worried about. Perhaps we can get Code Pink involved.

First we talked with Dan Mitchell from CATO about GM:

Then we spoke with Ed Paisley from the Center for American Progress:

Here are Dan’s points on Creative Destruction:

Ed doesn’t think it applies in this situation.

E-mail from Michael:

“The guy at the end of the show didn’t like your wax candle maker story because it didn’t really apply to the situation he said. Maybe he would have liked William Durant’s story more. He was a horse-drawn carriage maker that became the president of buick and a few years later general motors because the horseless vehicle started to overtake the demand for horse-drawn carriages.  Maybe that applies better.”

Here is one of the videos that Dan makes:

While it is not getting a great deal of attention in the traditional or new media, the issue of whether the FDA should be spilt into two agencies is getting a lot of discussion among those who have followed the agency over the past decade.

With a new FDA commissioner announced, but not yet confirmed—Dr. Margaret Hamburg—and with a deputy also picked out, there are some, including Dan Mitchell of the Daily Bread, a trade pub on the business of food, who believe that the choice of Hamburg actually signals the Administration’s interest in a split of the agency into two separate agencies; one for drugs and one for food safety. I could not disagree more. In his article “New FDA Head: Commissioner of Food?” Mitchell actually describes Hamburg’s experience as a nod toward a split of the organization. I think that Mitchell has not looked far enough into Dr. Hamburg’s background if he thinks that she is only qualified to be the Commissioner of Food.

Peggy was Dr. Fauci’s, Director of the NIAID of the NIH, special assistant for AIDS during the early years of the HIV epidemic. She had many occasions and many duties involved in the fight toward drug discovery, and review of HIV drugs, during these early years. She was instrumental in helping the Institute formulate its plans for HIV drug development grants and contracts and in the development of the overall DHHS response to the HIV epidemic. She was even the Assistant Secretary of the DHHS for planning and evaluation with responsibility over both the NIH and the FDA’s planning and evaluation of programs, not just of HIV, but all drug discovery efforts. Dr. Hamburg is more than ready to be commissioner of the entire FDA and I personally believe there is no reason to split the agency. What they lack is leadership, and they are about to get that. Furthermore, my contacts around town say that such a proposal has no hope of making it through Congress.

The Jon Stewart-CNBC kerfuffle is one of those stories that news channels usually introduce with a “it’s all the talk on talk shows and blogs,” which I’ve always found to be a bit of a self-fulfilling — and self-serving — prophecy. It also comes across a little bit as a public rationalization for reporting on the feud. As if covering the back and forth between The Daily Show host and Jim Cramer (who, to be fair, is only really representing himself and not the entire business news network) is the type of gossip mongering CNN, Fox News and their ilk is above. 

And so this becomes Reason #987 for why the MSM is becoming irrelevant. Stewart’s attack on CNBC is not some cable cockfight. At the heart of this spectacle is a lesson that reporters, anchors, editors, news directors and anyone with a stake in a vital American fourth estate should heed: Stewart shouldn’t be alone.

While interviewing Jim Cramer, Jon Stewart makes Mike Wallace look like a reporter for "Access Hollywood."

When I was formulating this entry, I figured I’d focus on how newspapsers and newscasts could take some of the tactics used by Stewart and The Daily Show in order to reclaim journalism’s watchdog status in this country. However, in the process of doing my research, I found that Will Bunch at the Philadelphia Daily News beat me to the punch with his recent column. He breaks down Stewart and staff’s equation for tackling media incompotence as well as economic and civic malfeasance: research + humor x passion = satisfied viewership. Bunch suggests that this approach should be a prototype for newspapers in particular that are looking to survive in a fast decaying industry. Critics, though, such as Big Money’s Dan Mitchell, think The Daily Show approach sacrifices fairness for jokes, something Stewart and show contributors fully admit. The Daily Show is a comedy show first and foremost. Any journalistic tendencies are purely coincidental.

But all the analysis of whether humor and news should mix obscures a vital reason why Stewart is so successful with getting people to care about the news. Unlike a lot of journalists, Stewart genuinely talks for his viewers. He knows who his viewers are, and he expresses their outrage. He asks the questions they want to ask. I’ve worked in my share of newsrooms, and I know firsthand that journalists have a contemptous relationship with their readers/viewers/consumers. We’re told to “write down” to readers. We dismiss their complaints because their cranks. Many times our stories aren’t aimed at the paying audience. It’s directed at the people we cover or, worse yet, our peers in the newsroom. And while Stewart might be a first-rate performer, he at least acts with sincerity when he addresses his audience. Journalists don’t even bother to put on a pose.

If there’s one thing Stewart and the writers of The Daily Show have contributed to American journalism it’s that there are a variety of bullets journalists should carrying in their arsenals. And not just because news gathering as a profession and an industry is dying. But because journalism is the one weapon people have left to keep those in authority honest.  Like Spider Jerusalem, Warren Ellis’ gonzo journalist of the future, says: ”Journalism is just a gun. It’s only got one bullet in it, but if you aim it right, that’s all you need. Aim it right, and you can blow a kneecap off the world.”

*Technically, I’m posting this Saturday. The week got away from me. Sue me.

Is anyone out there getting an idea of what this so-called “Change We Can Belive In” is really about?

If you thought the ”stimulus” money was supposed to create jobs and help save the economy, well, you’ve clearly been duped.  It is instead the largest liberal social works boondoggle on the face of the earth — little more than a gargantuan slush fund for liberal activists seeking to turn America into a socialist “paradise.” 

And you’re paying for it, my friend.  And your children.  And your children’s children. 

What’s more, if you voted for Obama-messiah, you deserve every bit of the coming misery.

– Spencer

“Economic Stimulus” Billions to Aid Left-Wing Radicals

http://www.sofmag.com/wp/2009/02/02/acorn-moveonorg-could-receive-billions-of-dollars/

by John Velleco

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), the far left anti-gun group under investigation for voter fraud, could be eligible to receive millions, if not billions, of dollars from the economic bailout bill that passed out of the House of Representatives on Wednesday.

ACORN was an aggressive supporter of Barack Obama — who had served as the group’s legal counsel and even trained ACORN in “community organizing” — in the presidential election. The Obama campaign even paid the group $800,000 for “voter turnout,” the very activities that came under scrutiny by the FBI.

In October 2008, ACORN’s Las Vegas office was raided by law enforcement agents investigating voter registration fraud. According to the Nevada Secretary of State’s office, voter information submitted by the group included nonexistent names, false addresses, duplicate filings and even the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys.

In addition to turning in massive amounts of fraudulent voter registration forms leading up to the 2008 elections, ACORN is also involved in anti-Second Amendment activism. For instance, a New Jersey ACORN chapter supported a one-gun-a-month ordinance in Jersey City, a law that was struck down last year by an appeals court for violating the State’s preemption law.

This group should not be eligible to receive one penny of your tax money, yet ACORN has received over $28 million in taxpayer dollars in

2008 alone and over $53 million since 1994. Last year, some members of Congress were able to strip $100 million of potential ACORN money from the home mortgage industry bailout bill, but it was reinserted into the current legislation.

The total amount of money for which groups like ACORN would be eligible in the bill is a staggering $4.2 billion, under a provision for “neighborhood stabilization activities.” According to the bill, the money can be utilized by state and local governments and also “nonprofit entities or consortia of nonprofit entities.”

ACORN can possibly collect more money under this legislation that it has over the past 15 years, and you can bet that ACORN is expert at accessing those funds.

Another group that could benefit from the bailout bill is MoveOn.org, an organization that has advocated for sweeping gun control laws.

According to Rep. Darrell Issa, a California Republican, “MoveOn.org’s civic action committee could receive stimulus funds such as money earmarked for energy ‘activities’, since MoveOn.org lists one of its goals to ‘reduce America’s dependence on oil.’”

Both ACORN and MoveOn.org have also been heavily involved in supporting Secretary of State candidates, thus placing allies in a position where they can help swing close elections in their favor.

This strategy has apparently paid off handsomely in Minnesota, where ACORN supporter and former community organizer Mark Ritchie ran the election recount that saw pro-gun incumbent Senator Norm Coleman’s slight lead on election night evaporate into a win for supposed funnyman Al Franken. Over 25 voting precincts recorded more votes than there are registered voters, votes that “happened” to be overwhelmingly in favor of Franken.

Mark Ritchie was supported in 2006 by the Secretary of State Project, a so-called “527″ organization co-founded by MoveOn.org’s director of grassroots mobilization.

The defeat of Sen. Coleman, if it holds up in court, will mean one less Senator to vote against bills like the semi-auto ban.

Pro-gun Senator David Vitter (R-LA) sees the bill as “payoff” for the liberal interest groups that helped to put Barack Obama in the White House, and that some provisions in the bill were actually written with specific interest groups in view.

Sen. Vitter told FOX News that the bill “is a payoff for that political activity in last year’s election, particularly with the fraudulent voter registration drives,” Sen. Vitter said.

The bottom line is that the only thing this bill will “stimulate” is attacks against the Second Amendment.

Gun Owners of America is calling on the Senate to strip the provisions which can fund anti-gun organizations, or to reject the bill in its entirety.

____________________

John Velleco is the Director of Federal Affairs for Gun Owners of America.

Some Economists Say Best Way to Battle Recession Is a Do-Nothing

abc news

By JOHN HENDREN and MELLEN O’KEEFE

Jan. 31, 2009

The debate on Capitol Hill this week is all about the size of the stimulus: Should it be big? Bigger? A behemoth? But there is another school of thought that’s getting less attention.

Call them the do-nothings.

In these free-spending times there’s a growing movement among economists who say the best way out of this recession is to do nothing, nothing at all.

“I think there’s nothing wrong with doing nothing,” David Henderson of the Hoover Institution told “Good Morning America.”

Nor do the 250 other economists who signed on this week to an ad in the New York Times and Washington Post.

“Government just doesn’t work very well,” said Dan Mitchell, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. “We tried big spending under Bush, it didn’t work. We tried big spending under Hoover, it didn’t work.

“A lot of bad government policies got us into this mess and we don’t have a magic wand to get us out right away,” he said. …

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=6776245&page=1

Just what are they talking about when they say:

“Government just doesn’t work very well,” said Dan Mitchell, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. “We tried big spending under Bush, it didn’t work.

What BIG SPENDING under Bush is Dan Mitchell talking about? The Iraq war? The stimulus program? Both?

If Mr. Mitchell is saying what Mr. George W. Bush tried did not work, the world already has experienced that fact. But Mr. George W. Bush’s government was not indicative of American governments in general. Mr. Bush’s government with neocons driving it turned into a disaster. There is a hint here that something Mr. Bush tried was suppose to work. That is wishful thinking.

Mr. Mitchell may be close to being correct if he is saying Mr. George W. Bush spent BIG on the Iraq war and that did not work – there he might get other than neocons on his side.

Mr. Mitchell said:

We tried big spending under Hoover, it didn’t work.

If Mr. Mitchell is talking about the Hoover who presided over the Nation’s first Depression then eyebrows should be raised. Those 30’s Republicans were interested in using TARIFFs to bail America out of the depression. No one was speaking of “cause and effect” regarding the TARIFFs but after the TARIFFs were applied, what was an American depression turned into a WORLD WIDE DEPRESSION. Other countries followed America’s lead on TARIFFs.

Mr. Mitchell also said:

“A lot of bad government policies got us into this mess and we don’t have a magic wand to get us out right away,”

It is said that, “Confession is good for the soul”. The above statement is good for the soul. Mr. Mitchell put his finger on the CAUSE of the economic meltdown. And if the cause of a problem is known why not fix the problem by addressing its cause. That is a rational approach. How could it make sense to do otherwise? If bad government policies got us into this mess, admit it(even though it pains neocons) and proceed with the problem solution.

The idea of doing nothing while waiting to see “HOW LOW WE CAN GO” is ludicrous. But it might cast suspicion away from the current neocons who got America into this mess.

The below is an excerpt from the Hoover Institution’s Mission Statement:

… Ours is a system where the Federal Government should undertake no governmental, social or economic action, except where local government, or the people, cannot undertake it for themselves…

http://www.hoover.org/about/mission

While America’s federal government is certainly powerful – in the hands of some “administrators” it can host a series of mistakes, train-wrecks and miscues. That is the current situation today. If the federal government makes mistakes, the federal government owns the mistakes.  And a member of the old Bush team made that point clear when he said, of Iraq, if you break it you own it. The Bush team broke Iraq but handed the broken pieces to Iraqis to put together again.

If the federal government creates an American  problem, then the federal government owns that problem. Ex-President Harry S. Truman put his “The Buck Stops Here” on his desk. For the neocons it has been, “round and round she goes – where she stops nobody knows”.

Bombarded by bailout talk? Here’s some ammunition to fight back, from Dan Mitchell.

For some background, here’s a quick lesson on Keynesian economics

#TCOT #diggcons

The dems are screeching from every platform in America about the inevitable destruction of life as we know it if we don’t all lay down and let them steamroll us with what Michelle Malkin has suitably titled The Generational Theft Act of 2009.  Obama’s was out the other day guaranteeing us trillion dollar deficits for the foreseeable future, but telling us we should be afraid of what would happen without them.  Without digging the deficit hole so deep our great-great grandchildren may not refill it in their lifetimes, things could get really bad according to the President-elect–even dire.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) tells Americans to trust the politicians who passed the laws, catered the corruption, and ignored the warnings that led to our economy’s current unstable foundation–they can fix it.  Reminds me of the movie “Fast Times at Ridgemont Hight” when Shawn Penn wrecked the football star’s car and said “I can fix it.”  She says we shouldn’t fear mortgaging our grandchildren’s future, but be very afraid of not being able to buy a new big screen TV this year.

If you’ve read my other posts regarding the bailout/stimulus/Socialist spending plans the last few weeks, you already know where I stand.  Ronald Reagan said it best when he said, “Government takes from the needy and gives to the greedy.”  Fred Thompson does a great job explaining why this plan-to-save-us-from-certain-death is fundamentally flawed here.  And you can see another great explanation of the fallacy of Keynesian economics from Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute in this video.

What, you still don’t believe those folks know what they’re talking about?  Well, how about two UCLA professors who studied the Great Depression and concluded that Roosevelt’s policies didn’t save us from the Depression, they made it worse!  Again, thanks to Michelle Malkin for bringing this study to light.  These two professors, from UCLA (not a right-wing think tank by any means) mind you, set out to find why the Great Depression lasted soooooo loooonng and discovered FDR’s attempts to stimulate the economy actually stifled it!

Their conclusion:

Yet, here we go again. Using the same flawed logic and theory that FDR used to make a bad depression worse, Democrats are trying to strike fear of the alternatives into the hearts of Americans.

We need to work hard to make sure these idiots only control all three branches of government for 2 years or the human race may be extinct before we can recover from their stimulus.

Related Posts

Flashback: UCLA study on FDR’s growth-stifling policies–Michelle Malkin

Nancy Pelosi: Stop talking about the cost of the stimulus!–Michelle Malkin

When Tax and Spend Liberalism Meets Bankruptcy–Blogs for Victo(R)y

CAP: The Country Needs More Bush/Obamaism–The Foundry

Dan Mitchell debunks a Keynesian myth that big government and spending borrowed money can “stimulate” the economy.

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Chrysler spends $100K on a full-page ad in USA Today thanking American taxpayers for a bailout most of the public opposed, Congress never approved, and that your average taxpayer had no choice but to fund.

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George Will takes aim in his latest column at the irrelevance of the US Congress in recent years.

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That’s it. Deal with it.

This video is from the Center on Freedom and Prosperity, a “non-profit organization created to lobby lawmakers in favor of market liberalization. The top project of CF&P is the Coalition for Tax Competition, which is fighting to preserve jurisdictional tax competition, sovereignty, and financial privacy.”  It explains why deficit spending will not only be ineffective in stimulating the California economy, but will actually make the economic recession worse.  It’s about 7 minutes long, but very informative.

Dan Mitchell of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity:

Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute does a great job explaining why Keynesian Economics can’t work.

Surely, even the dimmest of big government advocates can understand this.

NTU Spending Analysis [PDF]

Hilarious!

Reasonable.

Educational.

mp3 on the Great Depression with Robert Higgs. Discusses the data of the days back-when and why the conventional wisdom and economic models then and now are faulty, and consequently, destructive.

Dan Mitchell, Senior Fellow beim Cato Institute in Washington hat sich die Mühe gemacht und Videos auf Youbute eingestellt, die in einfachen Worten erklären, warum niedrige Steuersätze nicht nur gut für die Bürgerinnen und Bürger eines Landes sind. Er legt auch dar, dass Wirtschaftswachstum und Staatseinnahmen durch ein vernünftiges Steuerniveau signifikant gesteigert werden können.

Viel Spaß beim Zuschauen

The Economic Case for Tax Havens

The Moral Case for Tax Havens

Tax Haven – Myths vs. Facts

Dan Mitchell apara concurenta fiscala

si un exemplu relevant:

Dan Mitchell de la Institutul CATO prezinta teoria si implicatiile practice ale nivelului impozitarii

Partea I:Understanding the Theory

Partea II: Reviewing the Evidence

Partea III:Dynamic Scoring

Larry Kudlow posted this supply-side economic tutorial from CATO’s Dan Mitchell today at NRO.