An explanation, an experiment, and a parable about Milton Friedman's Four Ways To Spend Money

Here's a chart showing Milton Friedman's famous Four Ways To Spend Money. 

Here's a 2004 interview with Friedman, in which he explains the famous Four Ways To Spend Money.  (All government spending is in that nasty bottom right quadrant, BTW.  Any project that is advertised in terms of number of "jobs created" is a waste.  I'm just sayin'....)

There are four ways to spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why you really watch out for what you're doing, and you try to get the most for your money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well then, I'm not so careful about the content of the present, but I'm very careful about the cost. Then, I can spend somebody else's money on myself. And if I spend somebody else's money on myself, then I'm going to have a good lunch! Finally, I can spend somebody else's money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else's money on somebody else, I'm not concerned about how much it costs, and I'm not concerned about what I get. And that's government. And that's close to 40 percent of our national income.

Here's something from MSN Money, posted about a month ago.  It's an experiment that confirms Friedman's hypothesis about the top right and bottom left quadrants of the chart.  If you're helping someone else spend their money, or they're helping you spend yours, more money will be spent, often on silliness....

You and your friends are eating out and you plan to divide the tab evenly. Now you're faced with a dilemma. Do you splurge at the expense of your friend's pocketbook, or do you eat light, knowing you're going to end up paying for your friend's lavish meal? 

This seemingly innocuous event has caused enough consternation that a group of three scientists actually performed field experiments to see how unscrupulous people really are. 

According to io9.com, the experiment went a little like this: A group of strangers gather to eat at a restaurant. The participants are each told how they will pay for their meal. Some will pay individually, some are told they will split the check, and the remaining people are told that the meal will be free. 

The diners then ordered their meals without anyone else seeing what they had chosen.

The results of the dining experience are described by io9.com:

To no one's surprise, the people who paid individually were the most frugal, the people getting the free lunch were most extravagant, and the people who split the bill were in the middle, and therefore slightly unscrupulous.

Some diners were then told that they would have to pay just one-sixth of the cost of their individual meal. There was no difference between what those diners ate compared to those who were told they had to split the bill evenly, according to io9.com.

But what happens when you're in a large group of anonymous people?  Here's something from the immortal Russ Roberts, writing waaaaay back in 1995.  This essay, called "If you're paying, I'll have Top Sirloin", has already made it into the Libertarian Literary Canon.  The entire parable is scraped and reposted here, just to make my point....

As Congress prepares to try to cut spending, I am reminded of an evening last fall at the St. Louis Repertory Theater, our local company. Before the curtain rose, the company's director appeared and encouraged us to vote against a ballot proposition to limit state taxes. He feared it would lead to reduced funding for the company.

I turned to the woman sitting next to me and asked her if she felt guilty knowing that her ticket was subsidized by some farmer in the "boot-heel" of Missouri. No, she answered, he's probably getting something, too. She seemed to be implying that somehow, it all evened out.

I left her alone, but I wanted to say, no it doesn't even out. If it "evened out" for everybody, then government spending would really be depressing: all that money shuffled around, all those people working at the IRS, all those marginal tax rates discouraging work effort just to get everybody to get the same deal.

Here in St. Louis we recently completed Metrolink, a light rail system. It cost $380 million to build. We locals contributed zero out of pocket. It was paid for by the rest of the country. Shouldn't we feel guilty making people in Kentucky, Mississippi and Maine pay for our trips to the hockey arena downtown? No, say the beneficiaries. After all, we paid for BART in San Francisco and MARTA in Atlanta and all the other extraordinarily expensive, underutilized public transportation systems whose benefits fall far short of their costs. It's only fair we get our turn at the trough.

This destructive justification reminds me of a very strange restaurant.

When you eat there, you usually spend about $6—you have a sandwich, some fries and a drink. Of course you'd also enjoy dessert and a second drink, but that costs an additional $4. The extra food isn't worth $4 to you, so you stick with the $6 meal.

Sometimes, you go to the same restaurant with three friends. The four of you are in the habit of splitting the check evenly. You realize after a while that the $4 drink and dessert will end up costing you only $1, because the total tab is split four ways. Should you order the drink and dessert? If you're a nice person, you might want to spare your friends from having to subsidize your extravagance.

Then it dawns on you that they may be ordering extras financed out of your pocket. But they're your friends. They wouldn't do that to you and you wouldn't do that to them. And if anyone tries it among the group, social pressure will keep things under control.

But now suppose the tab is split not at each table but across the 100 diners that evening across all the tables. Now adding the $4 drink and dessert costs only 4¢. Splurging is easy to justify now. In fact you won't just add a drink and dessert; you'll upgrade to the steak and add a bottle of wine. Suppose you and everyone else each orders $40 worth of food. The tab for the entire restaurant will be $4000. Divided by the 100 diners, your bill comes to $40. Here is the irony. Like my neighbor at the theater, you'll get your "fair share." The stranger at the restaurant a few tables over pays for your meal, but you also help subsidize his. It all "evens out."

But this outcome is a disaster. When you dine alone, you spend $6. The extra $34 of steak and other treats are not worth it. But in competition with the others, you've chosen a meal far out of your price range whose enjoyment falls far short of its cost.

Self-restraint goes unrewarded. If you go back to ordering your $6 meal in hopes of saving money, your tab will be close to $40 anyway unless the other 99 diners cut back also. The good citizen feels like a chump.

And so we read of the freshman Congressman who comes to Congress eager to cut pork out of the budget but in trouble back home because local projects will also come under the knife. Instead of being proud to lead the way, he is forced to fight for those projects to make sure his district gets its "fair share."

Matters get much worse when there are gluttons and drunkards at the restaurant mixing with dieters and teetotalers. The average tab might be $40, but some are eating $80 worth of food while others are stuck with a salad and an iced tea.

Those with modest appetites would like to flee the smorgasbord, but suppose it's the only restaurant in town and you are forced to eat there every night. Resentment and anger come naturally. And being the only restaurant in town, you can imagine the quality of the service.

Such a restaurant can be a happy place if the light eaters enjoy watching the gluttony of those who eat and drink with gusto. Many government programs generate a comparable wide range of support. But many do not. How many Americans other than farmers benefit from the farm subsidy programs? How many Americans other than train riders derive benefit from the Amtrak subsidy?

People who are overeating at the expense of others should be ashamed. That shame will return when others are forced to cut back too. This requires deep cuts and an end to the government smorgasbord where the few benefit at the expense of the many.

There you have it.  The original Milton Friedman theory, a real-life experiment, and a Russ Roberts parable, all illustrating why government spending is generally a disaster. 
If you want someone to do a better job of pulling all this together, go elsewhere.  This is the best I can do. 
Here are some more charts, extravagantly posted on my site for your benefit, because I downloaded them from elsewhere at no expense to myself (ahem). 

Our government is like a bad factory

Next week I'll be going to Indiana. 

My employer purchased a percentage of a company up there.  It's an 8 million dollar per year operation that somehow managed to lose 3 million dollars. 

Yeah.  3 million. 

How in the hell can that happen?

Well, here are the basic reasons....

1) The old owners were not present.  "Everyone" was supposed to own the factory.  Therefore, nobody owned it.  The inmates were running the asylum. 

2) There were no incentives to keep costs down.  They were buying things from buddies and family.  (And they're still trying to, which I will end about one hour after walking in the door.)   

3) The place has a strong union mentality.  One co-worker of mine went up there to help out for a few weeks, and he swears that they weren't going to ship $300,000.00 worth of products because they had run out of #8 machine screws.  He drove down to Home Depot and bought some freakin' machine screws, and the orders shipped on time. 

4) Everyone was getting raises like clockwork, profitability and performance be damned. 

Those are the big reasons why the factory was losing money.  We almost have the place sorted out, but there's still a lot of work to do.

Does that factory remind you of another organization?  It should.   

Here are the reasons government doesn't work. 

1) Nobody owns the government.  "Everyone" is supposed to own it.  Therefore nobody owns it.  The inmates get to run the asylum. 

2) There are no incentives to keep costs down.  Bureaucrats are actually incentivized to create bigger budgets and hire more and more people. Therefore, their pay scale goes up. 

3) Government has the strongest union mentality in our nation.  Examples abound. 

4) Everyone working in government can probably tell you, plus or minus a few percentage points, how much they'll be earning five years from now, efficiency and performance be damned. 

That's all I got.  Hope you've had a good weekend !! 

 

James B. Stewart, of the New York Times, is confused

James B. Stewart, a writer for the New York Holy Times who is often fairly sensible, is confused.  I don't ordinarily read the NYT, since I prefer to read Obama's press releases without editorial reworking, spell-checks, and other modifications, but I saw this article in Starbucks and it jumped out at me. 

Here's how it begins....

The Republican Party has long claimed to be the champion of business, large and small, and an advocate for fiscal responsibility. Yet now Republicans in Congress have precipitated a shutdown of the federal government and are threatening to let the nation default on its once Triple-A-rated debt.

      

How could this be?

Let's disregard the unfortunate likelihood that this is all Performance Art, and that all of the useless and/or redundant Federal employees will be retroactively paid for their inconvenience.  Let's pretend that the Republicans are serious, and that they really will shut down the government, and default on some of the USA's bills. 

I know it's a stretch, but let's pretend that there are some adults in those rooms. 

We are broke.  The Federal debt per taxpayer is about to hit $150,000.00.  (It's $50K per citizen, if that tells you anything about the maker vs taker problem.) 

The debt is increasing by 1.75 billion per day.  As long as the Republicans and Democrats can keep borrowing, some foolish countries and businesses will keep lending.  (In reality, we're buying a lot of our own debt at the Fed, just to keep the bubble going for a few years longer.)  And the Fed is printing an extra 85 billion a month.  When the inflation hits, it's gonna be ugly, ugly, ugly. 

Mississippi novelist William Faulkner once put an ad in the Oxford Eagle newspaper stating that he would no longer be responsible for his wife's spending and debts. 

I wish I could do the same, and put an ad in the New York Holy Times for the benefit of James B. Stewart, explaining that I no longer wish to be held accountable for Washington's debts.  Let me pull out what I've paid into Social Security, without interest, and I'll be happy.

Please, please, please.... Do not give my government any money.  They are not me.  They are not you.  Government is not "society".  We will not fail if they do. 

Please, do not voluntarily give them any money. 

Non-Essential Government Workers Of The World, UNITE

Non-Essential Government Workers Of The World, UNITE!!  For without you, nothing wouldn't get done.  Or something. 

Looks like Dan McCall over at Liberty Maniacs has been busy.  He always draws the best stuff. 

But to expand on his point.... Can someone explain why we have ANY non-essential government programs or employees when we are 17 trillion dollars in debt?

 

Nancy Pelosi thinks her cupboard is bare

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who by most accounts is stark, raving mad, is concerned that her budget is going to be cut. 

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi says that while deficit reduction is a laudable goal, there are precious few spending cuts left to negotiate in exchange for raising the debt ceiling.
"The cupboard is bare," the California Democrat said in an interview aired Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union." "There's no more cuts to make."
"We all want to reduce the deficit," she added. "Put everything on the table, review it, but you cannot have any more cuts just for the sake of cuts. Right now you’re taking trophies."

In the words of the prophet Isaiah: "Bullshit".

No cuts would be "cuts just for the sake of cuts".  They would be for the sake of keeping this Statist harridan from putting more of her luxuries on my daughter's bar tab. 

Here are the easy cuts.  These are the ones that a Martian would instantly suggest after looking at our expenses for a few minutes.  This is about enough to balance the budget.  We could save even more by going to a 100% voucher system for education, shutting down the money printing facilities and bulldozing the Federal Reserve.  For the sake of convenience I've ripped these numbers off from John Stossel's site.  The accompanying snarkiness is from my own research, reading, and fantasies. 

 

Defense cut by 2/3: $475 billion.  Seriously.  We almost spend as much on military waste as the rest of the world combined.  And we consider most of the world to be our allies.  (Federal Budget, pg. 58)

 

Medicare/Medicaid*: $441 billion - Healthcare is expensive because of government regulations and subsidies.  Where are the incentives to lower costs if Medicare/Medicaid will pay x-amount 100% of the time?  (Cato Institute)

 

Social Security Means Testing: $170 billion - Social Security started going broke when LBJ raided the fund to pay for Viet Nam.  It's gone.  Let's stop pretending.  Honor existing entitlements with funny money, and left everyone else opt-out.  (Heritage Foundation)

 

Eliminate Dept. of Education (includes Pell Grants): $106.9 billion - The Department Of Education has been an absolute, total disaster.  A stupendous waste of money.  Give it back to the states and be done with it.   (Cato Institute)

 

Social Security*: $85.7 billion - See above.  (Cato Institute)

 

Eliminate Dept. of Transportation: $84.8 billion - The Department of Transportation has made the Department of Education look downright efficient.  It's a venture capital firm for political cronies.  Kill that bastard !   (And when it's time to run a bulldozer through the DOT building, please, please, please let me drive it for just 30 minutes.  That's all I ask.)  (Cato Institute)

 

Tax Amnesty: $80 billion  - Forget Tax Amnesty.  What would be so bad about a Flat Tax?  Calculated on a postcard?  With no exemptions for green energy expenditures for saving medical devices for gay whales?  (Rep. Jared Polis D-Co.)

 

Eliminate Dept. of Labor*: $78.6 billion  - We don't have a department of hamburgers, but somehow, hamburgers are still brought to market.  Disputes between McDonald's and customers still get resolved somehow.  (Department of Labor and White House)

 

Eliminate HUD: $60.8 billion  - Christ almighty, this is an easy one.  Anyone remember the Pruitt Iago housing debacle?  (Cato Institute)

 

Eliminate Dept. of Agriculture*: $33 billion - But if we didn't give money to millionaire farmers, how would the farmers become millionaires?   (Cato Institute)

 

Cut civilian employee compensation: $30 billion - Cut the pay and retirement and bennies to be in line with the private sector.  (Cato Institute)

 

Stop maintaining vacant federal property: $25 billion  - ALLRIGHT, GENTLEMEN, ALL PROPERTY WILL BE SOLD AS-IS, WHERE-IS, WITH ALL FAULTS DULY NOTED!  Who'll give me $900 an acre for this federal wasteland?  YES!! YOU IN THE BACK !!  Do I hear a thousand?  Auction it off.  Put it to work.  (Heritage Foundation)

 

Eliminate Foreign Aid: $21.2 billion - Foreign aid is notorious for staying in the pockets of the foreign politicians whose policies made the foreign aid necessary.   (Cato Institute)

 

Eliminate Dept. of Energy*: $20.8 billion  - God, what a waste that has been. (Cato Institute)

 

Eliminate NASA: $19.6 billion Privatize it!!  If the U.S.'s westward expansion and exploration had been left to NASA, we might have made it to St. Louis by now.  (Cato Institute)

 

Federal Drug War: $15 billion - Let's not just end it, let's prosecute the assholes who are currently fighting it.   (White House)

 

Earmark moratorium: $16 billion  - We almost have that one going on.  Nancy, you win this one.  (Heritage Foundation)

 

Eliminate Fannie/Freddie Subsidies: $14 billion - But.....they've worked out so well !!  How will we re-inflate the next real estate bubble?  (Federal Housing Finance Agency (p. 10))

 

Eliminate Dept. of Commerce: $13.9 billion  - no more junkets to other nations to increase commerce, only to have the Department Of Labor slap tariffs and quotas on the commerce, negating the savings from the additional commerce.  (Department of Commerce)

 

Eliminate Dept. of Interior: $12 billion - Privatize, privatize, privatize.   (White House)

 

Legalize Pot, Online gambling, Immigrants: $12 billion  - Pot is nobody's business but pot-smokers.  Ditto for online gambling.  And illegal immigrants?  People with that kind of drive and ambition are exactly the kind of immigrants we want.  Anyone who will wait patiently in line for 17 years to live in Abbott Tx is probably going to be a drain on society.  (Rep. Jared Polis D-Co.)

 

Privatize Army Corps of Engineers: $10.6 billion - I don't see how their engineers are better tha anyone else's.  (Cato Institute)

 

Cut federal employee travel budget: $10 billion - No, let's END it.  Most of our policy problems have Condi, Hillary and Kerry as their cause.  Keep their butts at home.   (Heritage Foundation)

 

Eliminate National Science Foundation: $7.4 billion  - Oh yes....  Totally cut it from the University system.  Watch the cost of both areas drop like a stone.  And scientific breakthroughs just might increase.  Just a gut feeling.  (National Science Foundation)

\

End EPA’s State and Local grants: $6.5 billion  - Yeah.  It's 90% political. (Cato Institute)

 

Repeal Davis-Bacon: $6 billion - We would have to learn to deal with increased labor competition from black people, but it's the right thing to do.  It's a racist law (See: Davis Bacon Acts) that has consistently produced racist results.   (Republican Study Committee)

 

Privatize TSA: $5.7 billion - Yep.  The current system is an illegal violation of the 4th Amendment.   (Federal Budget)

 

Cut Dept. of Justice’s State and Local grants: $5 billion  - As much as the cops in Waco, Tx might want a tank and a SWAT team, I bet we could be just as safe without that expense.  (Heritage Foundation)

 

Privatize Post Office: $4 billion  - FedEx and UPS are already doing it, and doing it better.  (White House)

 

Eliminate Small Business Administration: $1.8 billion  - The SBA works like this:  Behave like we want you to, and we'll give you someone else's money.  Let's end this one.  (Small Business Administration)

 

Lease coastal plain of ANWR: $1.5 billion - Hell, there's nothing there but ice and snow.  Let's put it to work. (Heritage Foundation)

 

Eliminate Federal Flood Insurance: $1.3 billion  - If the private sector won't insure you're multi-million dollar McMansion on the beach in hurricane alley, you shouldn't build it there.  (CBO, pg. 3)
 

Abolish SEC: $1.3 billion  - Can anyone name a scandal that these guys caught before it became huge? (SEC)

 

Eliminate Corporation for National Community Service: $1 billion - McDonald's, Home Depot, Barnes and Noble, and Gold's Gym serve their communities without the CNCS.  We don't need it.   (Cato Institute)

 

Suspend acquisition of federal office space: $1 billion  - Let there be cubicles !! (Heritage Foundation)

 

End subsidies for public broadcasting: $500 million  - Yes!  If you love NPR that much, you can pay for it!  Yes ! Yes ! Yes !  (Cato Institute)

 

Eliminate the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corp: $480 million - This one's an easy layup.   (Heritage Foundation)

 

Eliminate the FCC: $439 million  -  We've got 900 channels showing infomercials and reality show crap.  Deregulate.  If you don't like what's on the channel, change the channel.  (FCC)

 

Eliminate the Endowments for Arts/Humanities: $332 million - Another easy one.  Ken Burns is now a millionaire.  If he wants to do more documentaries on the role of Black People in the development of Black People's study of Black People, he should try to raise private funding.  It's not that difficult to put a voiceover on Powerpoint.  (NEA/NEH)

 

Total Cut: $1,882,619,000,000

Current deficit: $1,645,000,000,000

Surplus Achieved: $237,619,000,000

 

A few footnotes:

 

Department of Energy is eliminated except for Nuclear arms maintenance

Department of Agriculture is eliminated, except for food programs for the needy

Department of Labor is eliminated, except for 26-week unemployment benefits

Defense budget would still be $243 billion, more than twice what the next highest country (China) spends

Medicare and Medicaid savings breakdown:

Block grant Medicaid and freeze spending (226)

Repeal 2010 healthcare law (87)

Increase Medicare premiums (39.8)

Cut non-Medicare premiums (37.7)

Cut Medicare payment error rate by 50% (28.6)

Increase Medicare deductibles (12.6)

Tort Reform (10)

Social Security savings breakdown:

Price index initial benefits** 41.1

Raise the normal retirement age** 31.4

Cut Social Security disability program by 10% 13.2

 

There ya go, Nancy.  I fixed it for you.  And you'll still have plenty of pork in your cupboard. 

Quote of the decade, from Wes Benedict

The Libertarian Party of Texas recently sponsored a tax debate.  "Low Taxes vs. No Taxes"

Former LP Chair Wes Benedict, defending the "No Taxes" side, let loose with this gem:

"I'd rather see my dollars burned then see them go to the government." 

Wow. 

But think about it.  How do you feel about sponsoring the following:

The NSA

The Department of Energy

Lois Lerner

George W. Bush

The war in Afghanistan

Barack Obama

The war in Libya (yeah, there is one)

Aid To Families With Dependent Children (only pays if one parent leaves)

Social Security (totally mismanaged, and as broke as the 10 Commandments)

The war in Iraq

Jimmy Carter

The war in Yemen

Waste and inefficiency

Elaborate parties and conferences for the IRS and GAO

The Federal Reserve banking system

The place on Blue Mound Road in Fort Worth where the Fed prints is increasingly worthless paper money

Wiretaps

The 2nd highest corporate tax rate in the world, exceptions to which are sold like Big Macs

The Drug War

Providing 46% of the world's military spending, therefore encouraging terrorism

John Kerry

Hillary Clinton

Condi Rice

Support of Teachers' Unions

The Texas Department of Transportation

FEMA

Insane tariff and quota regulations which do nothing but add overhead

I'm typing as quickly as I can, and have to start work soon.  I bet I could go all day.  I repeat.... Here is the quote of the decade, from Wes Benedict of the Libertarian Party.  If you disagree, I've got some farmland in the Everglades I'd like to sell you.....

"I'd rather see my dollars burned then see them go to the government."

What happens when you ignore the Libertarian Party's Economic Platform?

Here's part of the preamble to the Libertarian Party's Economic Platform. 

The only proper role of government in the economic realm is to protect property rights, adjudicate disputes, and provide a legal framework in which voluntary trade is protected. All efforts by government to redistribute wealth, or to control or manage trade, are improper in a free society. 

 Back in 2008, the voters put in a president and a congress who didn't believe in those simple principles.  Or, to put it more accurately, Obama and congress wanted to back a few trailers up to The Treasury and start hauling off some loot.

They used Keynesian economic theories to justify their spending, wasting, thieving and stimulating.  They would have been just as happy to use the hidden messages in the inspirational poetry of Helen Steiner Rice.  (Seriously.... I don't believe anyone in government truly believes in Keynesian economics.  It's a convenient moral cover for giveaways to supporters.) 

We were supposedly on the edge of a cliff back in 2008. 
Certain institutions were declared "too big to fail" and got massive bailouts. 
Quasi-government entities like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which had been pumping billions into the housing market because (hell, who knows?) suddenly had no more chips to cash in. 
We received a massive, record-setting stimulus package.  It was the largest experiment in Keynesian Pork ever attempted. 
We paid people to destroy their cars and gave them credit for new ones. 
Ben Bernanke and Timmy "Tax Dodger" Geithner started pumping another $63,000,000,000.00 per month into the cash supply, and The Fed is still doing it. 
They had to do this because of "what we inherited". 
Hell, what we inherited looks pretty good compared to where we are now. 
Here you go.  This is from the notorious Tea Party rag, The Washington Post. 

Since Obama’s first full month in office in February 2009, the unemployment rate has gone from terrible (8.3 percent) to very bad (7.5 percent). But a true picture of just how bad the unemployment situation is in our country is revealed by the fact that more than 9.5 million people have dropped out of the labor force since the president took office in 2009. Undoubtedly, the impact of this number is reflected in some of the other indices and statistics that we can use to objectively measure the success of the Obama presidency.

In the past five years, 9.5 million people have quit working and the current labor force participation rate is just 63.6 percent, the lowest it’s been since May 1979. More than 15.2 million more people are on food stamps today than were in February 2009, and during the same time frame, the poverty rate has increased by 0.7 percent.

Gasoline prices have almost doubled under Obama, and there’s nothing more corrosive for the middle class than when more cash comes out of everyone’s pockets at the pump. This is especially true given that the median household income has dropped more than $3,000 during the Obama presidency.

All the while we have experienced the biggest jump in our national debt in history under Obama, with the debt exploding from $11 trillion at the end of 2008 to almost $17 trillion today. And I’ll point out once again that if we look at this huge number in more relatable terms, our current national debt translates to a cost of more than $148,000 per taxpayer, up from just over $90,000 per taxpayer in 2008.

Even the infamous “Misery Index,” created by Jimmy Carter, has gotten worse under the Obama presidency. Remember, the Misery Index is the unemployment rate plus the inflation rate. In January 2009, the index was 7.83, but as of March 2013, it increased to 9.07.

It’s safe to say that the above statistics are key benchmarks of the U.S. economy. You can pick through other available figures and try to find some small pieces of good news, but by any measure, what these data show is that things have gotten worse rather than better for many Americans during Obama’s tenure.

 Well, the Washington Post should've mentioned who has done well under The Coming Of The Obamassiah, just to be fair.  Here's Investor's Business Daily: 

Using Census data on net worth, the Pew report found that from 2009 to 2011, the richest 7% of Americans saw their net worth climb an average $697,651 — equal to a 28% gain.

The rest of the country saw their net worth drop an average $6,079 — equal to a 4% loss.

As a result, far from making the country more equal, Obama's policies have produced a greater concentration of wealth, with the share of wealth held by the top 7% rising to 63% in 2011, up from 56% in 2009, Pew found.

As I've noted before on these pages, if you look at the top 1% of wealthy counties in the U.S., half of them are the 13 or so surrounding Washington D.C.  The government spend more than $60,000.00 per poor family on anti-poverty programs.  Somehow, I think a lot of money gets sent to D.C. and stays in D.C.   

So, in summary....

The only proper role of government in the economic realm is to protect property rights, adjudicate disputes, and provide a legal framework in which voluntary trade is protected. All efforts by government to redistribute wealth, or to control or manage trade, are improper in a free society.

311,604 Federal Workers doing their part to prevent government waste

Several years ago I began awarding trophies called "The Whitey" to citizens who did their part to eliminate government waste.
The best way to eliminate government waste is to avoid paying your taxes.  If you don't give them your money, they can't waste it.  
An astounding number of Whiteys went to rejected (and confirmed) members of Obama's cabinet.  Timmy "TurboTax" Geithner, Tom Daschle, etc etc etc all did their part to keep their hard earned dollars out of The U.S. Treasury.  Hit the "Whiteys" label at the bottom to read about previous award winners.

Lord have mercy, they're still trying to devalue the trophy.  

From the Tax Prof Blog:

311,566 federal workers and retirees owed more than $3.5 billion in back income taxes in 2011 (up from $3.4 billion in 2010, $3.3 billion in 2009, $3.0 billion in 2008, and $2.7 billion in 2007).

And from Investor's Business Daily.  Looks like 40 of Barack's lackeys and handmaidens have been doing their share:

A new report from the Internal Revenue Service has just revealed that 40 of Obama's White House aides owe their employer, the federal government, a total of $333,485 in back taxes.
This is the third straight year that the chief executive of the United States has been unable to get his own staff members to keep up with a citizen's legal income tax obligations. to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes owed. All this while Obama has made such rhetorical hay about corporations and the wealthy paying their fair share.

That's 311,604 current and former suckers of the government tit who are doing their part to keep their own money from being wasted by Barack H. Obama. 

Here are your Whitey Awards !!

Milton Friedman Was Wrong

Milton Friedman once divided all spending into four basic categories, claiming that government spending would always be inefficient because it all fit into his fourth category.

Here's his breakdown:

There are four ways to spend money. 

1. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why you really watch out for what you're doing, and you try to get the most for your money. 

2. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well then, I'm not so careful about the content of the present, but I'm very careful about the cost. 

3. Then, I can spend somebody else's money on myself. And if I spend somebody else's money on myself, then I'm going to have a good lunch!
 
4. Finally, I can spend somebody else's money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else's money on somebody else, I'm not concerned about how much it costs, and I'm not concerned about what I get. And that's government. And that's close to 40 percent of our national income.

His point, of course, is well-taken, but incomplete.  Government spending isn't restricted to Category #4.  But I think the good Dr. Friedman should have anticipated the amount of government spending devoted to Category #3 (spending someone else's money on myself.) 

Consider this:

Poor oversight at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs allowed agency officials to waste as much as $762,000 at a pair of multimillion-dollar conferences that took place last year in Orlando, according to an investigative report released Monday.The report, released by the VA's independent watchdog, estimated that the agency spent about $6.1 million on the two conferences, including $762,000 that was identified as unauthorized or unnecessary. Among the wasteful expenses: $97,906 worth of promotional gifts for the federal workers attending the training sessions; $154,000 for contractor travel; $16,500 to produce daily "Happy Face" videos of those in attendance; and nearly $2,300 for beverages, such as soda and juice, consumed by conference officials and speakers.

And this one:

Where does a muffin cost more than $16?At a government conference, it turns out.They may run just over $2 at your average coffee shop, but the Justice Department paid seven to eight times as much at a gathering it held at the Capital Hilton in Washington. And on Tuesday, the muffins seemed well on their way to joining the Pentagon’s $600 toilet seat as symbols of wasteful spending.Justice Department auditors also criticized a $76-per-person lunch at a conference at a Hilton in San Francisco, featuring slow-cooked Berkshire pork carnitas, hearts-of-romaine salad — and coffee at $8.24 a cup.A report released Tuesday by the department’s acting inspector general,Cynthia A. Schnedar, is full of what she called “wasteful or extravagant spending” at 10 law enforcement conferences spanning the George W. Bush and Obama administrations. Descriptions of cookies and brownies costing the government nearly $10 each and beef Wellington hors d’oeuvres at $7.32 per serving struck a nerve in Washington, where austerity and belt-tightening are the watchwords at a time of economic hardship.

And there are the recent GSA scandals:

At least 77 General Services Administration employee conferences that totaled more than $6.7 million in costs are under review by the agency’s inspector general, the watchdog said at a hearing before a House panel Wednesday.


The conferences, which cost at least $10,000 each and were attended by 25 employees or more, were held between October 2010, when the agency held an $823,000 employee conference in Las Vegas, and April 2012, when that conference became public.

The conferences were the focus of a hearing before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. GSA acts as the realtor and purchasing officer of the federal government.

The conferences ranged from a a five-day regional marketing managers meeting that cost $10,920, to the 2011 GSA Training Conference and Expo that cost $1.2 million.

According to GSA preliminary findings obtained by The Washington Post, the Federal Acquisition Service held 30 conferences costing more than $3.5 million, the Public Buildings Service held 38 conferences costing more than $2.5 million, the Office of Governmentwide Policy held one conference costing $136,495, the Office of the Chief Information held two conferences costing $177,960, the PBS and FAS held a single joint conference costing $112,131, the Chief People Officer held three conferences costing $60,588; and one for Intergovernmental Relations, costing $15,922.

While the list gave numbers of people who attended, it did not break down the number of employees.

Since the 77 conferences are currently under investigation, the agency’s inspector general could not give examples of which conferences had problems or red flags.

The committee also reviewed a one-day $270,000 awards ceremony in Arlington County for employees of the Federal Acquisition Service.

The one-day conference was held four weeks after the Las Vegas event with a more than $140,000 tab for coordination and logistical costs, $34,000 for the venue, $28,000 on picture frames and $20,579 for drum sticks, Brian Miller, GSA’s inspector general, testified.

So, yeah, Government spending my neighbor's money on me isn't very efficient. 
But I bet spending my neighbor's money on $20,579.00 worth of drumsticks is a lot more fun! 

If you've ever wondered how the Federal Poverty programs can spend over $61,000.00 per family in poverty and still have families in poverty?  Look no further.  Milton Friedman's category #3

3. Then, I can spend somebody else's money on myself. And if I spend somebody else's money on myself, then I'm going to have a good lunch!

On Milton Friedman's Barking Cat

Let's start off with some vintage Milton Friedman:

 In a recent column (Newsweek Jan 8, 1973), I pointed out that approval of drugs by the Food and Drug Administration delays and prevents the introduction of useful as well as harmful drugs. After giving reasons why the adverse effects could be expected to be far more serious than the beneficial effects, I summarized a fascinating study by Prof. Sam Peltzman, of UCLA of experience before and after 1962, when standards were stiffened. His study decisively confirmed the expectation that the bad effects would much outweigh the good.    The column evoked letters from a number of persons in pharmaceutical work offering tales of woe to confirm my allegation that the FDA was indeed "Frustrating Drug Advancement," as I titled the column. But most also said something like, "In contrast to your opinion, I do not believe that the FDA should be abolished, but I do believe that its power should be" changed in such and such a way - to quote from a typical letter.    I replied as follows: "What would you think of someone who said, " I would like to have a cat, provided it barked"? Yet your statement that you favor an FDA provided it behaves as you believe desirable is precisely equivalent. The biological laws that specify the characteristics of cats are no more rigid than the political laws that specify the behavior of governmental agencies once they are established. The way the FDA now behaves, and the adverse consequences are not an accident, not a result of some easily corrected human mistake, but a consequence of its constitution in precisely the same way that a meow is related to the constitution of a cat. As a natural scientist, you recognize that you cannot assign characteristics at will to chemical and biological entities, cannot demand that cats bark or water burn. Why do you suppose that the situation is different in the "social sciences?"

In other words, to wish for an efficient, non-corrupt, economical government service is to wish for a "barking cat".  

Now let's go to something more recent, from the UK's Mail Online.  Britain's dreaded National Health Service has killed something like 1,200 people through sheer godawful neglect, and the government flunkies have responded by (pick one) simply 1) firing those responsible 2) privatizing their system 3) vowing to keep government out of citizens' lives, or 4) paying whistleblowers to shut the hell up.  

Hit the link.  Check out the comments.  A good number of the Brits are saying sensible things, but far too many are wishing for a barking cat.  And there's no such thing as a barking cat, no matter how you design it, or what was intended.  Sad.

If these idiots spent the money on 750 nurses, they probably won't need to gag any one !

The original principle was beyond reproach but sadly I believe it has lost it's way, been allowed to get too big, and 'governed/controlled' by self serving idiotsIf the government was serious about tackling this abuse of power, they would declare all these gagging clauses null and void. Also they would take steps to ensure that the authoritarian, bullying managers who are responsible for this state of affairs, are sacked.

Revelation after revelation but what will be done ? NOTHING ! What will change ? NOTHING ! It never does. This would be bad enough if it was confined to the NHS but it isn't ! Every public sector departments are riddled with overpaid, 3rd rate middleweight, incompetent managers who are never held responsible for their failures as they would be in the private sector. They demand to be paid the going rate for a first class manager but none would last 5 minutes in the real world. There needs to be a complete pay and conditions restructuring from the top down in all departments not just the NHS. Without this things will only get worse !

Being open and honest and fully accountable about problems and accepting and recognising there is a problem is the first step to resolving the problem. Preventing legitimate organisational operational concerns and problems being discussed, resolved and publicly available lead to the same problems being repeated and cause serious problems for patient's blighted by hospital blunders and mistakes. Only by learning from previous mistakes and taking real decisive action to prevent repeating mistakes with a genuine will, can the preventable suffering of future patients be avoided. It does not take a consultant to work this out do why does continue to be the case inquiry after inquiry for decades? The culture of secrecy surrounding mistakes needs to stop now and the superiority culture of the medical hierarchy that say they are always right must end.

Sorry boys.  You can fire all the government managers, you can re-structure your government programs, and you can rant and moan and express your outrage in the comment fields of your newspapers all you want.   

You can't make a barking cat.  

From The Splendid Table

A professor at NYU has attempted to read the entire 2012 Farm Bill, and teach its contents to her students.
It ain't pretty. 

Go here for the whole thing. 

Lynne Rossetto Kasper: You decided to teach the farm bill. Why?


Marion Nestle: Well, I didn't know anything about it. I knew that I would be asked about it by reporters, because I'm asked by reporters about everything and they think I know everything. In 2006, when the previous farm bill was under discussion, I actually tried to read it. I opened up the file that was on the Internet and the table of contents was 14 pages long. The entire thing was 663 pages and it's totally incomprehensible.

So, I've decided to take it on, and I must say I've had moments when I've regretted it deeply. But it's been absolutely fascinating and the class is enormously exciting. I've got 45 students who are jumping out of their seats because what they're finding out is so absolutely amazing and none of us knew any of this before. We're learning it together.

LRK: What's making them jump out of their seats?

MN: Well, it's so astonishingly irrational it just takes your breath away. This is a bill that started in the 1930s and has been added onto incrementally without anybody sitting back and saying, "[What would we do] if we wanted to promote farm policy -- a rational farm policy we all agree would feed everybody, would make a living for farmers, would protect farm workers, would protect the environment and would promote health?"

The bill does anything but that. It is designed to protect certain parts of the food supply but not others: commodities, not fruits and vegetables. With today's concerns about obesity, the idea that the farm bill does not promote production and consumption of fruits and vegetables seems bizarre.

Some things are so completely irrational they just take your breath away. For example, if a commodity producer decides to grow vegetables, that producer will either lose all of the subsidies he's getting or will have to plow the vegetables under. They are required by the way this law works to plow them under, treat them with Roundup and kill them, or let them freeze. But they're not allowed to actually grow and sell them.

There are real discouraging things in it that actually discourage the production of fruits and vegetables. You would think that somebody in Congress would sit back and say, "OK, let's take a look at this and let's try to get agricultural policy aligned with health policy." But that is so far from the political reality that what this course is really about is the political realities and what you have to do if you want to change those realities.

LRK: Is there any way for the consumer to get any kind of say on any of this?

MN: One of the things that's most disturbing to me about the bill is that it is so absolutely incomprehensible that nobody can understand it. It is so vast and includes the most astonishing details about the most astonishing number of programs -- dozens and dozens and dozens. I've not yet been able to identify them all.

Each section of the farm bill covers different kinds of programs. These range from tiny earmark programs that affect only a few people, to things like food stamps and the SNAP program, which affects 45-50 million people.

What the food assistance programs are doing in the farm bill is another thing. Neither one of them could be looked at rationally because they're completely linked. The reason that they're linked is the senators and House members who have interest in one or another aspect say, "I'll vote for yours if you vote for mine."

So, the food assistance programs are held hostage to farm subsidies and the farm subsidies are held hostage to food assistance programs. You cannot read the farm bill because each aspect of it refers to amendments to previous bills. So unless you know the 30 different previous bills that have been passed, you really can't. It doesn't read like a text.

One more point: Nobody in Congress can understand it either.

LRK: That's ... scary.

MN: That's scary.

The Whited Sepulchre: No, having a Department Of Agriculture, with Food Bills and Farm Bills and an "Agricultural Policy", all at the mercy of political contributors....That's what's scary. 

.

Why There's No Point In Watching Tonight's "Debate"

Barack Obama and Mitt Romney will have a conversation tonight about who is best qualified to lead our collective plunge over the cliff.


The following remedies for our economic situation will not be on the table. They are considered “outside the mainstream” and “extremist". 

Unfortunately, the only way to escape a 16 trillion dollar debt is to go outside the mainstream.

You will not hear a serious discussion about the following:

1) Cutting government spending. Both men have budgets that actually increase spending into infinity. The Romney/Ryan plan slows down the rate of growth just a tad, but the spending still increases. What makes all of these plans laughable is that no Congress can limit the thievery of a future Congress. Imagine the current group of legislators taking, say, Jimmy Carter’s 2012 spending goals seriously.

2) Ending the Drug War. There are one million government employees who rely on this idiotic conflict for a paycheck.
.
3) Ending the Fed. Both Romney and Obama know that the only way to keep their contributors happy and content at the government trough is for Ben Bernanke to keep printing cheaper and cheaper money. We are due for a massive inflationary leap in the next few years. These higher prices will be blamed on greedy corporations.

4) Shrinking the military. Our military spending equals that of the next 17 to 20 countries, depending on how you do the math. Most of those countries are our friends, BTW. We’ve been in South Korea since the late 1940’s. Ditto for Europe. We never send them a bill for defense. (Also, we have no business going to the Middle East to spread the gospel of “free and fair elections” when f***ing Oklahoma won’t allow Gary Johnson on the ballot. What a farce.)

5) Bringing Hillary back to the house. What makes anyone think that Bill Clinton’s wife is any more qualified to intervene in the Arab-Israeli conflict than, say, Sarah Palin’s husband???

6) Privatizing Social Security. The system is now running in the red. To mention that fact is political suicide. Unless you’re Gary Johnson.

7) School Choice. 70% of the Chicago schoolteachers who went on strike send their own kids to schools not run by the Chicago schoolteachers. How do you think it would work out if the government assigned you a grocery store?

There are other obvious topics that these two guys won’t touch, and that a Libertarian candidate would bring into the discussion.

I used to drunk-blog these things, but tonight I don’t think I’ll bother. A real debate would include parties besides those which got us into this mess. 

On the value of government-funded research

Here's something interesting on the value of most government-funded research, from The Bureau Of Labor Statistics. 

Page two, point #3. 

It's near zero. 

Fascinating. 

Why We Can't Shrink Our Government, by a failed Obama economist

Three and a half years ago, the media was drooling over the geniuses Barack Obama had appointed to turn around the economy - Peter Orszag, Christina Romer, Larry Summers, Timothy Geithner, and Jared Bernstein. 

All but Geithner have now resigned, probably because the populace is about to figure out the con game that  Orszag, Romer, Summers, Geithner, and Bernstein have pulled on them. 

These jokers backed some semi-trailers up to the Treasury and looted the place.  In a less sheep-like society, the mobs with tar and feathers would've already surrounded their homes. 

One member of this crew, Larry Summers, has taken to the pages of The Washington Post to try to justify another couple of decades of looting.   His article is called The Reality Of Trying To Shrink Government. 

Summers says that we won't be shrinking the size of government, or our debt, anytime soon. Here's a summary of his argument:

1) We're living longer than the brain trust that invented Social Security anticipated.  In the near future, the number of people on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security is going to explode.  (Everyone has seen this coming, but nobody has done anything about it.  This is a good case for smaller government.)   

2)  The interest on the national debt is far bigger than anticipated.  It's going to consume 3.2% of our GDP by the year 2020.  (Everyone has seen this coming, but nobody has done anything about it.  This is a good case for smaller government.)

3)  Here's the funny one, the one where Summers goes Full Obama Retard on us.  Things that government purchases cost more than things that the private sector purchases !!!  Here's a terrifying glimpse into the mind of a Statist: 

Third, increases in the price of what the federal government buys relative to what the private sector buys will inevitably raise the cost of state involvement in the economy. Since the early 1980s the price of hospital care and higher education has risen fivefold relative to the price of cars and clothing, and more than a hundredfold relative to the price of televisions. Similarly, the complexity, and hence the cost, of everything from scientific research to regulating banks rises faster than overall inflation. These shifts reflect long-running trends in globalization and technology. If government is to continue providing the same level of these services, government spending as a share of the economy has to rise, by at least 3 percent of GDP.

It's almost impossible to write something that stupid without having gone to an Ivy League University for practice. 

Do you know why the price of TV's and clothing has dropped like a stone, while the price of healthcare and education has gone into the stratosphere? 

It's because TV and T-shirts are relatively unregulated, and the government, for the most part, stays out of the TV and T-shirt industries.  Jesus Christ Almighty, get a freakin' clue !!  Read some Milton Friedman or some Thomas Sowell or some Henry Hazlitt, or any other reality-based economist.  Subsidies and regulations drive up prices.  Prices are high for healthcare and education BECAUSE the government helps pay for them.  (Everyone has seen this coming, but nobody has done anything about it. This is a good case for smaller government.)

Summers goes on to make a few other lame points.  (The one about how we can't reduce defense spending is also a real knee-slapper.  We're responsible for 45% of the world's defense spending.) 

That's all he had to say. 

Anyone who finished middle school could go into D.C. and cut the staff and the spending by 50% with no loss of services that wouldn't immediately be taken over by the private sector at a much lower cost. 

Read his whole article.  Or Stephen King's Pet Sematary.  They're equally scary. 

Why shouldn't Olympic earnings be taxed?

Florida's Marco Rubio is trying to ensure that Olympians aren't taxed for bringing home gold, silver, or bronze medals. 

The Florida Republican introduced a bill today to exempt U.S. Olympic medal winners from paying taxes on their medals. In addition to gold, silver or bronze, medal winners receive cash payments to go with their hardware.

Rubio said the American medal winners get honorariums from the U.S. Olympic Committee of $25,000 (for winning gold), $15,000 (for silver) and $10,000 for bronze, with the Internal Revenue Service ever ready to collect.

"Our tax code is a complicated and burdensome mess that too often punishes success, and the tax imposed on Olympic medal winners is a classic example of this madness," said Rubio, a Tea Party favorite. "Athletes representing our nation overseas in the Olympics shouldn't have to worry about an extra tax bill waiting for them back home."

Similar measures have also been introduced in the House, by Reps. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif., and G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C.

Under the legislation, the gross income of U.S. Olympians "shall not include the value of any prize or award won by the taxpayer in athletic competition in the Olympic Games." If the bill becomes law, it would apply to prizes received after Dec. 31, 2011.

Ok, so Michael Phelps works his butt off to win $25K, and wouldn't have to pay taxes on it.
 
Some other guy who isn't on television works his butt off to write a book, sell a painting, or even puts a lot of money at risk to win $25K at the blackjack tables in Vegas.  He still has to pay taxes on that, because he isn't representing our nation overseas?? 

Can someone please clarify the distinction that Rubio is trying to make? 

In case you're new to this site, I believe that 80% of all tax dollars are mis-spent.  The worst thing that can happen to an Olympian's hard-earned dollar is for Tim Geithner to get his grubby little paws on it.  But I don't think it makes sense to exempt Group A from taxes but not Group B.  Especially when Group B supplies the donations that make Group A's useless but entertaining activity possible. 

Pat Roberts of Kansas and the 2012 Farm Bill

For reasons that I don't quite understand, the infamous Farm Bill comes up for renewal every five years. 

It's one of the few scandalous giveaways that has to be reworked and reapproved. 


Here's Townhall.com:

Every vote in Congress can be viewed as an opportunity to either increase liberty or increase government. Right now, the Senate appears poised to choose the latter as they prepare to vote on the 2012 Farm Bill.

The 1,000-page bill that Senators Debbie Stabenow and Pat Roberts are pushing through the Senate is chock full of massive spending, new entitlements, and new regulations. With corporate welfare and generous subsidies thrown in for good measure, the bill reflects everything wrong with out-of-control government. No wonder Congress is sporting a 17 percent approval rating these days.

The farm bill is another in a long line of government boondoggles that simply builds on the big expenditures of a previous bill. The CBO estimates that the 2012 farm bill will up spending to $969 billion over the next ten years. Locking in at those levels in the midst of a debt crisis and credit downgrade is beyond fiscally irresponsible. Overall, the Senate farm bill punts on the opportunity to contribute to deficit reduction and shows a startling lack of political courage.

Ok, let's pause for a moment.  Farming is risky.  Erratic.  Unpredictable.  But, on the other hand, so is long-haul trucking.  So is running a lawn service or a coffee bar or an upholstery shop. 
Upholsterers aren't organized into a lobby, though.  Sucks to be them, doesn't it???

The 2012 farm bill’s most noticeable “reform” is the elimination of direct payments to farmers. In its place is a new entitlement program most commonly referred to as “shallow loss,” a new federal crop insurance program. It’s meant to serve as an income safety net that will automatically trigger payments to farmers when their crop yields fall below 90% of their average levels over the past five years. However, the past five years have seen a spike in crop yields, meaning that shallow loss is locking in rates that are due to fall. It’s unnecessary corporate welfare, despite what the farm lobby claims. According to the American Enterprise Institute:

“The current average debt-to-asset ratio in the farm sector is less than 9 percent and has been declining steadily over the past decade. Moreover, farms fail at a rate of less than one in two hundred a year, and, from a financial perspective, farms are better placed than almost any sector of the economy to handle year-to-year variations in revenues and costs by themselves. Yet, effectively, farmers want a tax payer-funded guarantee that their revenues will never fall below about 90 percent of their recent levels.

I'll throw in some more about "shallow loss" programs in a moment.  If you can't stand the suspense, go to the end of this post, and prepare to be depressed about the gullibility of the American public. 

The addition of a farm entitlement program is one of countless examples of the federal government encouraging dependence at the expense of liberty. Additionally, telling farmers that they can keep their revenues and have the taxpayers absorb their losses invites risky behavior on their end. Apparently too-big-to-fail has yet to go out of style.

Here's a quote on the Farm Bill from the New York Holy Times.  Any time you hear a politician or a "journalist" claim that people on both sides should reach across the aisle to get things done and break the gridlock?  You should hide your wallet, lock up your daughters and bury the family silver in the backyard.  You're about to get screwed.  Here are Democrat Debbie Stabenow and Republican Pat Roberts of Kansas:

“This bill represents significant reform,” said Senator Debbie Stabenow, Democrat of Michigan and chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee. “It cuts subsidies, it cuts the deficit and it creates jobs.”


Senator Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas and the ranking member on the committee, called the legislation the best bill possible. “It shows what can happen if we break the logjam of partisanship and work together to get something done,” Mr. Roberts said.

 Debbie, you ignorant slut.
You claim that this theft "creates jobs".  But what is the cost of taking the money from taxpayer A and giving it to farmer B?  Has it occurred to you that taxpayer A might have wanted to create some jobs of his own, you Statist looter?  
And Pat, a lot of us were depending on that logjam that you just managed to "break".  We want it back.  We want you to be tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail.
In addition to wanting to give money to farmers, Pat Roberts also wants to lower the tax burden on Kansas taxpayers.  Gag me with a dirty diaper.  Anyone voting for this old fraud should have his taxes doubled. 


God almighty, I'm in a bad mood this morning. 

Here's the skinny on the "shallow loss" farming program.  The older programs guaranteed an income.  This new one guarantees a profit.  Well done, Pat and Debbie.  Well done. 

Shallow-loss programs are costly: Depending on structure and crop prices, these programs could cost the taxpayer as much as or more than the direct payments program they would replace, averaging as much as $8 to $14 billion a year over the next five years.

 

• Shallow-loss programs amount to a new entitlement: Payments would be automatically triggered by revenue shortfalls and would be linked to average revenues over the past five years. So, when prices and yields increase, payment triggers will also increase, creating a new, partially disguised entitlement program that locks farmers into near-record incomes at the taxpayer’s expense.

• Shallow-loss programs based on farm-level yields create incentives for the wasteful use of economic resources by buying down deductibles associated with federal crop insurance: Farmers would reap the benefits of record crop yields and prices. However, because a high percentage of revenues are guaranteed, farmers may adopt more risky farming techniques.

• The Congressional Budget Office’s cost estimates for shallow-loss programs assume that recent historically high prices will be sustained: If corn, wheat, soybean, rice, and cotton prices return to the average levels observed between 1996 and 2011, however, program costs will balloon. A county-based program would cost taxpayers between $8.4 and $13.98 billion, depending on the rate of reimbursement. The Stabenow-Roberts shallow-loss proposal would likely cost taxpayers between $5 billion and $7 billion, depending on the mix of farm-based and county-based programs.

• Shallow-loss programs will perpetuate the federal farm program tradition of giving the majority of subsidies to farms that do not need them in the first place: Shallow-loss subsidies, like direct payments and crop insurance subsidies, would be tied to the amount of land that households farm. Consequently, the largest and wealthiest farmers enjoy built-in buffers in the form of substantial equity in their farm operations (debt-to-asset ratios average less than 9 percent in the entire American agricultural sector). These individuals would receive the lion’s share of shallow-loss subsidy payments.

Here's how it ought to work.
If corn prices aren't high enough for farmers to make a profit, that means there are too many people growing corn.
The farmers affected need to grow something else. Or become upholsterers.