President Barack Obama promised recently in a Wall Street Journal op-ed to undertake a grand review of economic regulation in the United States and get rid of rules that “are not worth the cost, or that are just plain dumb.” Yet he has added plenty of dumb regulations himself. FULL ARTICLE by Nick Ottens
Source link: http://archive.mises.org/15846/the-presidents-own-dumb-rules/
The President’s Own Dumb Rules
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All valid points, but again, a major point is overlooked: we’re not talking about health care. We’re talking about health insurance.
If universal health care were truly the object (as this horror was sold to the public), then health insurance would be unnecessary. The entire infrastructure of insurance — which is what the law is about — would be unnecessary.
The President and Congress are duplicitous; those who believe them are either stupid or ignorant — or deliberately on the take. Some people can’t be helped — and some shouldn’t be.
You’re giving the president and congress too much credit by calling them duplicitous. They’re simply as stupid and ignorant as their believers.
JE,
Do you really think the parade of horrors is a matter of stupidity? Somebody seems pretty smart here. It seems to me like smart people try to get what they want, and someone is getting that.
To dismiss this problem on the basis of stupidity implies the wrong cause, and therefore the wrong solution.
This is the product of collusion between special interests, accomplished through political power. It is the mercantile drama being repeated line for line simply on a different stage in a different time.
Well connected and financed special interests, with a specific legislative agenda in mind, have a significant advantage over the unconnected generally uninformed citizenry. This is the legislative bias that is now and has historically been inadequately checked by the “vigilance of patriots”.
As a people, we have granted politicians patriot status, and then ignored the plain evidence under our noses that they are not. They are “fixers” of the deals made between the special interests groups that arrange their elections, and the payers of the public treasury. When that was not enough, they invented the Federal Reserve to keep the party going.
This cannot be explained with simple stupidity. These are some pretty smart people. So, how smart are we?
I think Wildberry has it exactly right, this is all by design and the country is getting just what it voted for. The old adage of electing someone who “brings home the bacon” to their own district/state was the beginning of the end. Perhaps if we rewrite the election laws so that those who pay no taxes don’t get to vote…. Wasn’t the war cry “no taxation without representation”? Of course, the public got what they wanted in the form of the welfare state, but they didn’t see the knife waiting in the dark to stab them in the back.
No taxation without representation should also be applied to debt. Paying off debt is being taxed without representation.
There’s smart and then there’s smart. Obviously, the president and many of our congresspeople are intellectually gifted. But it’s much easier to believe that they’re incapable of distinguishing between negative and positive rights than to believe that they’re evil. You don’t have to be smart to get what you want in a democracy. You just have to tell more than 50% of the voters that you’ll give them something.
I’d also say that the cause is irrelevant as far the solution is concerned. Of course, my preferred solution would be moderated away on most forums.
Come on, tell us your preferred solution. Lets test the moderator.
I’d quote Sharron Angle. That’s not to say it’d be effective, but it’s more than justified.
It’s better to say 20% of the people. Between those that don’t vote and those that are legislatively blocked from voting (under 18, anyone in prison, etc), 20% of the population gets to decide how the other 80% live.
Using 50% implies some sort of popularity and legitimacy to the decisions.
I originally wrote “50% of the people,” then replaced it with “50% of the voters” because I didn’t have a good number. I’ll take your word on 20%. It sounds about right to me.
It is amazing what kind of conclusions you can come up with when you pay no regard to actual facts or data.
In 2008, 64.9 % of the total 18+ US population and 71% of citizens were registered to vote, and 58% and 63.6% respectively actually voted in 2008. Nearly 90% of registered voters actually voted. The census bureau link is here:
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/socdemo/voting/publications/p20/2008/tables.html
Care to try again?
Wildberry,
I’m not sure what you’re getting at. According the census report, 131 million people voted in 2008. The US population is approximately 300 million, therefore (131/300 = ) 44% of the population voted. Thus, it only takes 22% of the population to win a vote.
JE beat me to it. Also notice that the data you linked me fails to include the population under 18 in the calculation.
Let me just use your percentages. 72% of the population is over 18. This is your starting point. Of that, approximately 20 million are living in this country as legal aliens and not eligible to vote, so their percentages are off because those 20 million still need to live by our rules and pay our taxes. So the reported voting cell should read 58%. 58% of 72% = 42%. It only takes 50% + 1 to win a Presidential election. That’s 65.573 million people, or 21% of the legal population of the United States.
If you’re talking about presidential elections, you need to consider how they’re actually run and counted. It’s quite possible to win the office with a lot less than a majority of the votes. Not only can the “winner take all” aspect of most of the states’ electors factor in, there’s also the possibility of third (or fourth, or fifth) party candidates, who could allow the plurality of popular votes in any given state to represent well under “half-plus-one.”
But isn’t this entire thread simply a digression from the article’s point?
Why are you making up numbers when the data is there? The total population, according to the census data, was 225,499 in 2008, of which 206,702 were citizens. Of those who were eligible, 146,311 registered and 131,144 voted, or 63.5% of the total population actually voted who were qualified to do so. Nearly 90% of registered voters did. (numbers in millions)
If your beef is with eligibility, are you saying that a family of 4 should have 4 votes, even if one is 3 years old and one is a murderer on death row? You want non-citizens to vote? You think that there are 75 million Americans that weren’t counted by the census?
I’m not supposing to understand your point, just pointing out that you said something for which there is no data to support your position. 20% of the “population” does not decide what 80% does. But even if somehow that could be true, (i.e. 80% of the population was ether an infant or a convicted felon), what’s your problem? You don’t make decisions for your children?
I am asking who is smart and who is stupid? This conversation is interesting and relevant data point on that question, yes?
Wildberry,
First of all, your numbers are in thousands not millions.
Second, the population of the US in 2008 was 304 million. It doesn’t matter if they were non-citizens or illegal. Everyone is subject to the laws.
Third, even your numbers describe a tyranny of the minority.
No one is saying that children or murderers should vote (though maybe they should be able to). I’m saying that democracy in the US is damned by its own numbers.
J. Murray,
This discussion recalls that there are lies, damn lies and statistics. You are wrong, I believe, in your first assumption. The number is total population. You are surprised at the number because you always heard there were 300M in the US? Sorry, I don’t work in the census bureau.
And what is the point you are making? If there were 3.5Billion people in the US, and all of them voted, and the election was exactly tied save one vote, you are saying that is not legitimate? The alternative seems to be no vote at all, which of course would have no negative consequences to speak of, right?
What are you attempting to demonstrate with your immigration assumption? That it is unfair for someone to be granted permission to immigrate yet not be given full citizen rights in the process?
Help me, I’m just trying to understand. Not that it’s relevant, as Tim is pointing out, to the point of this article.
We are drowning in a sea of counterproductive regulations, and no one seems all that fired up about it. And of the few here that seem disturbed, you are simply whining that “those voters” you know, those other guys, didn’t do something you thought they should?
Help me out here, do you have a point?
JE,
Yes on the K’s v. M’s. We are taling about Millions of People.
I suppose the difference between 304M and 225M people is the 75M difference I would like you to explain, since it would include all non-citizens, including Puerto Rico, legal and illegal immigrants. That is an interesting number; something like 75M people live under US laws and privileges, yet are not citizens, even under our rediculously lax standards for such designations.
You say that “everyone is subject to the laws” so it doesn’t matter about citizenship. Really? Then what does matter? You be the genius here and tell me what you think SHOULD be the case.
Wildberry,
I figured it was obvious, but I’ll spell it out. Democracy is illegitimate, regardless of the numbers. Say, for the sake of argument, that there are 300 million people in the US, that they are all citizens and that they are all eligible to vote by whatever criteria you choose. Even if 299,999,999 vote the same way, they have no right to tell the lone dissenter what or what not to do.
The 20% figure only serves to show how ridiculous the system is because even a small minority is capable of forcing their will on the rest.
As to how this thread is relevant to the article, my original point is that because Obama only has to convince about 70 million people to vote for him (by promising to be their Robin Hood no less), his success does not imply intelligence.
My point is that Democracy can never be legitimate because the minority will always make the driving decisions.
I don’t have to work at the Census Bureau to read your own link, which in the very first one separates total population over 18 in Column B and voter eligible population in Column C. The 2010 census results have been available for months and the official number counted was 308,745,538.
Even if we use your link and 100% of the eligible voters vote, it still only requires 33% of the population to win an election. To even hit a basic 50% majority that democracy loves to talk about would require 154 million people casting a vote for a single candidate. This means 75% of the registered voters have to cast a ballot supporting the same candidate. For reference, only 47% of the entire population bothered to register, let alone actually cast a ballot. For example, for Obama to be legitimate under the concept of democracy, “majority rules”, would have required 2 and 1/3 times as many voters to have cast a ballot in his name than did in 2008.
Of course, the fact that roughly 33% of the entire population is banned from ever engaging in the political process effectively negates the entire legitimacy angle even by the most base standards supposedly held up by democracy. The illegitimacy is further exasperated by the fact that governments engage in debt financing, meaning a large population of future, not yet born, individuals are being handed a bill without representation or the opportunity to vote for it.
My point is that democracy by the standards supporters set for it can never be attained and any supporter of democracy would then be obligated to disavow any government that forms as it was never decided on by 50% + 1 of the population that is expected to fund it and live by its rules.
Since I forgot to address it before the edit time ran out -
The immigration issue is a major problem. The immigration system in the United States places people through numerous layers of sub-citizen status before being granted the ability to cast a vote. The average prospective citizen will go through roughly 20 years of processing by the INS to reach full citizenship status. During this 20 years, green card holders, resident aliens, and other permanent residents on the path to full citizenship are expected to fulfill the responsibilities of a full citizen, primarily pay income taxes and OASDI withholdings. Additionally, because of various regulations, these pseudo-citizens have a difficult time obtaining financing for homes and businesses, are blocked from engaging in any form of employment the government provides funding for (pseudo-citizens are banned from holding Federal jobs and are banned from holding any private sector position that has a security rating confidential and above), and even have a greater difficulty with employment that doesn’t deal with governments due to increased reporting requirements of companies involved. Non-citizens are even limited to how much time they can spend abroad. More than two weeks tends to damage the chances of getting a full citizenship in any reasonable timeframe.
So, by the Census Bureau’s own records, there are 20 million people who are being taxed and otherwise abused and basically getting nothing in return. They have the worst of both worlds. Pay all the taxes and they’re still treated like a foreign visitor. For two decades at the very minimum. At no point do these individuals ever even enjoy the illusion of having input on the functions of the very government that will tax them and rule over them. They’re serfs by all standards.
This doesn’t even discuss the “illegal immigration” debate, which is better left for a different article.
@JE March 1, 2011 at 5:41 pm
“I figured it was obvious, but I’ll spell it out.”
Thanks. It turns out I already got it, but didn’t want to put words in your mouth.
If you and 10 other people were in a life raft, and 10 voted to follow a certain rationing plan and the other decided to eat it all today, would you say that “Democracy is illegitimate, regardless of the numbers.”?
“they have no right to tell the lone dissenter what or what not to do.”
You see, a general statement like this can only make sense if qualified by specifics. It depends, right? It depends on what the majority is resolving. If it is what color shirt to wear, then you might be right. If it is whether to legitimize murder, you probably aren’t. I’d vote for the latter but not the former. How about you? No Limits?
“The 20% figure only serves to show how ridiculous the system is because even a small minority is capable of forcing their will on the rest.”
Your concept is inaccurate even based on the calculation you now offer. One lone person does not have the right to veto the desires of millions. You have a better alternative? All decisions in society must be based on total consensus or no go?
“As to how this thread is relevant to the article, my original point is that because Obama only has to convince about 70 million people to vote for him (by promising to be their Robin Hood no less), his success does not imply intelligence.”
If Obama can convince 70 million to vote for him, I want to be part of the 70M +1. That’s the way it works. Whining about not getting your way, with all due respect, does not change reality.
No offense intended.
Wildberry,
Rare, extreme situations hardly make good examples, but the answer is still simple. Whoever owns the food has exclusive authority to decide how it’s rationed. If the owner isn’t present and the lifeboat occupants eat the food, then they’re technically thieves and how they decide to divide their spoils is hardly relevant to a discussion on the merits of democracy.
Murder is not legitimate, regardless of whether it’s put to a vote.
One lone dissenter certainly has the right to veto the desires of millions if their desires infringe on his negative rights.
I agree that whining does not change reality. But there’s always hope in trying to convince others. I’m not offended, just dismayed.
@J. Murray March 1, 2011 at 5:55 pm
“My point is that Democracy can never be legitimate because the minority will always make the driving decisions.
Spoken like someone who has never been a part of a majority opinion. If the majority vote decides the outcome of a given issue, what is your explanation for the existence of a minority? You can drive your analogy to ridiculous extremes by having a single vote in millions decide the outcome. (Wasn’t there a movie about that?)
That is not the point, and illustrates the absurdity of your logic. You don’t believe in voting in general, because somehow that doesn’t wash with your concepts of anarchism, in which votes are miraculously unnecessary. Am I correct?
I would guess that you believe that all forms of self-government are illegitimate, because the only legitimate form of governance is the individual’s complete liberty and freedom to act as he wishes, right? And you believe that unconditionally? No exceptions? No accommodations? And from this belief all the problems of the world simply vanish?
You see, it sounds ridiculous when I say it that way, doesn’t it?
“The 2010 census results have been available for months and the official number counted was 308,745,538.”
I don’t dispute that. My understanding is that the difference, (excepting the difference over the two years) is that by these numbers, about 80M people that are here in the US are under 18. Even more astounding, only 206M are citizens over 18. Using citizenship and voting age as the only criteria, (something wrong with that?) that means that 206M have the right to vote on things which will affect 309M men, women and children, including themselves.
These 206 Million humans have the responsibility, like it or not, agree or not, to govern themselves. More accurately 206M of US have the responsibility to govern OURSELVES. How are we doing? That is the point, at least one of them, of this article. Not so good.
“Even if we use your link and 100% of the eligible voters vote, it still only requires 33% of the population to win an election.”
What? If the “yeas” and “nays” were split right down the middle, it would require about 103M on each side to achieve that deadlock. Only 146M bothered to register, and of those, only 131M voted. That means that as few as 65M could have swung it either way (excepting other factors, like the electoral college). You cannot use 47% because all 309M were not eligible to vote!
You seem to be arguing that they should have been, and this is why democracy is illegitimate. Is this correct?
Freedom means freedom. Using the 2008 numbers, only 131M exercised their freedom to vote. The other 75M exercised their freedom to let others decide things for them. Liberty cuts both ways, right? By these numbers, only 2/3 of the total living US population is eligible to vote (citizen+18). You think something needs to be done about that? What?
“The illegitimacy is further exasperated by the fact that governments engage in debt financing, meaning a large population of future, not yet born, individuals are being handed a bill without representation or the opportunity to vote for it”
That is the threat of destiny. That is why concepts like “character is destiny” ,”crisis reveals character” and “control your destiny” are favorites of mine. Like it or not, accept it or not, what 309 million people do today will reverberate into the future and affect those who are unable to choose. What only 206M (2/3) choose by voting will likewise affect us all. If we choose well, that’s a good thing. If not, it’s a bad thing. That is part of the responsibility of living, is it not? We choose for unborn generations. That is the nature of things. Excuse me, but that sounds kind of important.
“My point is that democracy by the standards supporters set for it can never be attained and any supporter of democracy would then be obligated to disavow any government that forms as it was never decided on by 50% + 1 of the population that is expected to fund it and live by its rules.”
When paddling upstream, 100% of the paddlers are expected to give 100% to the effort. Some don’t. Shall we just go over the falls then?
@JE March 1, 2011 at 6:49 pm
“I agree that whining does not change reality. But there’s always hope in trying to convince others. I’m not offended, just dismayed.
OK, good comeback. But let me ask you this one, serious question. I would really appreciate your most thoughtful answer.
If you have hope in convincing others, if you are successful, what would you have them do? How will they do it?
If we want to build a fire we don’t invent a tree, we look around for some dry wood and a match. We start with what we have. Whatever you believe, you need under current circumstances 65,573,001 other people to agree with you, and something or someone to vote for.
Wildberry,
If I can convince 65,573,001 other people to agree with me then we can simply vote for people who will eliminate the system.
But since I don’t accept the legitimacy of democracy, I don’t really need enough compatriots to win a vote. I just need enough people who are willing to physically defend their liberty. I would think a few million, or even several hundred thousand, could effectively do that.
JE,
You lay out two options. In the first, you peacefully dismantle the system and all you have to do is find a way to hook up with 65M others who want to do that. Sounds good.
In the second, it sounds like Jonestown or something. The irony is, you still need compatriots. They need to bring weapons. You are defending against a superior force. You are outnumbered and geographically dispersed.
As a general, I will not follow you. Perhaps others will.
Wildberry,
I don’t follow your Jonestown analogy. They were socialists and they poisoned themselves.
I never claimed it’d be easy, and I won’t say “if you’re not with us you’re against us.” Neutrality is a perfectly valid position. But your comments suggest more of an “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” position.
Of course he’s not serious.
While I agree with most of the points here, there is a point that is in error here, in my opinion, and has been missed by every free market analysis I have read. This includes the valiant attempts to have the mandatory purchase of health insurance overturned on constitutional grounds. Here is the point I would challenge:
” The individual insurance mandate is an affront to individual liberty unprecedented in American history. The federal government has never before forced people to purchase any product for their own good — at the risk of a penalty.”
I would contend that the ponzi scheme known as Social Security, with its vile siblings Medicare/Medicade etc; do carry penalties for not paying in and force the population at large to “purchase” a retirement product that is a total fraud, and along with the misapplication of the IRS statutes outside the legal jurisdiction of the Federal Government, constitutes the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on a population by its government. I’m concerned that the attempts to block the mandatory portions of the health care bill will face the fact that a legal precedent has been in place for decades to force such a purchase.
You’re absolutely right, though I suspect the subtle distinction most people would use to differentiate the two is that SS, etc. are public whereas the individual mandate involves private entities.
Yes, JE, I think you are right. SS is a tax for which benefits are accrued. The fact that it is a sham is also true. The tax has been diverted for other purposes, and now we act like it is supposed to be self-funding in the present and so the fund is broke. The fund is broke because “we” trusted politicians with our money.
To re-make my earlier point to you, how stupid does that make us?
The government actually got around that one by saying that Social Security isn’t a right, so it really isn’t an investment product but a tax like any other.
you say the government has never before forced us to buy anything? nonsense. this is exactly what social security does, as does medicare or medicaid, whichever one comes out of our paychecks. of course SS and the other would be every bit as unconstitutional as obamacare.
If Barack Obama was serious, and this was not the usual empty rhetoric, he would end up burning more books than Hitler.
When Obama spoke of rules that are just plain dumb, he was probably thinking of the Bill of Rights. Statists think that rules that interfere with their plans are “dumb”.
Give them credit for one thing though: Look at how creative they are at finding justifications for what they want to do.
Leaning on the Commerce Clause and General Welfare clause like they were amputees isn’t creativity.
” Lee
Give them credit for one thing though: Look at how creative they are at finding justifications for what they want to do.”
A parent or teacher has heard more and better from children.
Care to share some of them with us?
Nice article. Charlotte Twight indicates the US Code Annotated takes up thirty-three (33) linear feet of shelf space and the Code of Federal Regulations takes up another twenty (20) of shelf space. Apparently the fifty titles of the US Code tell us what we are supposed to do and the Code of Federal Regulations tell us how to do it. The idea that anybody needs the federal government to tell him what to do and how to do it is absolutely dumb and not worth the cost. What we need is for government officials to get out of our way and keep their hands off of our property.
That estimation is ONLY the documentation generated directly by the government. I was reading somewhere, can’t recall, that the health regulations alone are responsible for annual generation of 250,000 pages of documentation, per hospital, before ever seeing the first patient. This is all the required documentations, forms, forced business (like the AMA’s Insurance Code Book, updated annually and required to be purchased by anyone practicing medicine), and record keeping. If printed out in the same page size as a regulatory book, the impact of the health regs alone would be a 14 foot tall book that weighs 450 pounds.
Perhaps we fall in to a collectivist trap by arguing over the Constitutionality of the most recent rules enacted by our governing class. How many times must we lose the same argument before realizing it is the wrong argument? I’ll provide two quotes for context.
“If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the
General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions.” – James Madison, 179
“But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain – that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.”-Lysander Spooner
A more practical point here, folks. I don’t want to get into the theoretical right now, but an actual on-the-ground effect of this idiocy. I work in a bank in NJ. We offered Visa gift cards. State law mandates that if the card is not used within 2 years, the funds are escheated to the state. The new federal law says we must leave them open for 5 years.
We don’t offer Visa gift cards anymore. That simple. But the morons in DC never thought to see if what they were doing was going to conflict with state rules. What you get when it isn’t even read!
Everyone seems to give this idiot president the benefit of the doubt, well I happen to think he wants this economy to collapse. I think in his progressive mind that is his goal. We are the dumb ones that are sitting here watching him destroy our country from our White House.
I’m ready to stand up and be counted when it comes to ridding our country of a traitor in Washington…….Margie
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