MLLG

Questions From Readers

George Noga

My facts have been challenged only twice in over 600 posts.

Questions From Readers

By: George Noga – March 20, 2022

I receive many questions and comments from readers for which I am grateful – even for the ones that are critical. I try to respond to all reader questions and you may email me at mllg@cfl.rr.com. Certain questions are asked frequently and may be of interest to all readers. In this post I respond to three of the questions I am asked most often.

Question: How do you stay informed? In addition to a lifetime of heavy duty reading, I read the Wall Street Journal thoroughly each day. I read the front page of each section, particularly the front section. I scan the What’s News column (front page far left) to see what other articles to read. I spend most of my time on the 3 Opinion pages. I watch the Journal Editorial Report on Fox News Saturdays at 3:00 PM. Contrary to what you may have heard, the WSJ’s news coverage leans to the left; however, the opinion pages are conservative and provide an excellent forum for reliable fact and opinion.

I also read Reason and Forbes magazines, Cato Institute publications and Imprimis, published by Hillsdale College. I subscribe to Praeger University videos and to daily emails from the Mises Institute and LewRockwell.com. I peruse these sources and read whatever is of interest. I read several books each year – exclusively non fiction; many of the books are selected based on reviews published on the WSJ opinion pages.

Question: How do you perform research? At any given time I have a list of around 30 topics I want to blog about and I have a file for each topic. As I go about my daily reading and see an idea or fact that fits one of these topics, I make a copy and put it in the file. My prior 600 postings also provide a wealth of data. When I begin drafting a post, I already have much of the data needed. I then independently check each fact, usually on the internet. There have been occasions when I have backed away from publishing a post when the facts were not 100% supportive. In all my years of blogging and with many thousands of readers, I have had facts challenged only twice.

Question: What are your political bona fides? I was hyperactive in politics in college; I held several of the highest offices in student government and would have had a very good shot at being elected Student Body President if I had remained in college for another year. While in grad school, I worked in a gubernatorial campaign that defied all odds to unseat an incumbent governor. During that campaign I worked closely with top national political operatives. I was in line to receive a subcabinet appointment in the Nixon Administration but Watergate caused the Senate to suspend confirmations.

I was offered gubernatorial appointments but declined most of them; I did serve on the Industrial Development Authority but declined reappointment to a second term. I wrote an op-ed column for a local newspaper and headed up a major arts organization. I served on the advisory board of the James Madison Institute (JMI), the leading state think tank. I was honored by JMI as a “JMI Angel” for my work on school choice in Florida. I cofounded and cochaired the Center-Right Coalition of Central Florida.

I started the school choice movement in Florida in 1994. The organization I started and ran for 10 years, (now called Step Up For Students) today provides scholarships to over 100,000 children from low income families at a cost of $700 million a year. I also served on the national board that began voucher programs in over 100 US cities. My post of 7/25/21 about the history of school choice in Florida is on our website.

If you are interested in learning more about More Liberty – Less Government, our mission statement or me, please visit our website at: www.mll.us. Click on the ribbon at the top of the page where it says “About MLLG & Author”. There also are hundreds of past postings – most of them indexed. I just updated the information on the website and even if you previously have been on the website, you may want to browse it again.

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Next on March 27th: the good, the bad and the ugly of the pandemic.

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Government Failure and Business Success

George Noga

This post explains why government always fails while business succeeds.

Government Failure and Business Success

By: George Noga – March 13, 2022

Have you ever wondered why government always fails, regardless of time and place, while business usually succeeds? There are many amazing business successes: Apple, Amazon, Disney, Walmart, Coca-Cola, Google and Facebook to name but a few. When we think of government, what comes to mind is public schools, the IRS, the USPS, immigration, the war on drugs, crime, pandemic mismanagement, huge deficits, TSA, Medicaid, mindless regulation, crumbling infrastructure, corruption, waste, fraud, abuse, climate madness and dysfunctional cities littered with human jetsam.

Why Business Succeeds

 

Business closely aligns its risks and rewards and its incentives and disincentives with human nature – which is unchanging. Business so closely aligns personal incentives with the goals of the business such that they are nearly indistinguishable. The need to make a profit creates a sense of urgency, focuses attention and summons great exertion because success confers wealth and status while failure has immediate and very unpleasant consequences. As a result, business attracts motivated, hard-working, talented, non risk–averse people with a strong bias for action over inertia.

Business is based on markets; highly specific knowledge constantly flows from the bottom up and confers valuable information about consumer preferences and prices. All transactions are voluntary, non-coercive and mutually beneficial, otherwise they would not take place; that explains why both parties to a market-based transaction always say “thank you“. In business, one person can improve the lives of a billion people as did Gates, Walton, Jobs, Disney, Zuckerberg and Bezos. Businesses routinely manage vast global enterprises with little waste, fraud, abuse or corruption.

 

Why Government Fails

 

Government is unalterably contrary to human nature. Not only are its incentives and disincentives not aligned, they are diametrically misaligned to encourage behavior contrary to the public interest. This problem is dissected and explained by the science of public sector economics, which explains, inter alia, why taxes are opaque, failed programs never end and why borrowing and spending is out of control. It also explains why all forms of collectivism never work outside of a small family, clan or tribe.

The risks and rewards of government do not attract talented, hard-working people; in fact, they appeal to the opposite cohort. Government is not based on markets and gets only the most generalized feedback every few years in elections. Government is top-down, highly coercive, ignores consumer preferences and artificially creates winners and losers; it is rife with waste, fraud, abuse and corruption. One person cannot make a difference; try to name one bureaucrat who transformed government for the better.

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The causes of government failure are systemic and structural; they are deeply rooted, organic and incapable of reform. There is no way to fix government; it is futile to try. Voting different political parties into power, increasing oversight by Congress, forming elite study commissions or hiring gaggles of inspectors general will have no impact. Even bringing in top business executives fails; Robert McNamara comes to mind.

Government cannot be improved; but there is one way – and only one way – its many pathologies can be reduced. That answer is to drastically shrink the overall size and scope of government – nothing else will work. Even then, government still will be a failure – but at least it will be a smaller failure. We do not need more government, better government or even wiser government; we need less government!

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In our next post on March 20th, we answer questions from readers.
More Liberty Less Government – mllg@cfl.rr.com – www.mllg.us
MLLG

The Real Attack On Our Democracy

George Noga

Democracy is not intended instantly to actualize the will of a bare majority.

The Real Attack On Our Democracy

By: George Noga – March 6, 2022

“Attack on our democracy” has become the go-to phrase regurgitated by progressives. Whenever they don’t get their way they, along with their media handlers, screech this pallid mantra in unison. Rush Limbaugh was fond of saying that whatever progressives accuse others of doing, they are doing themselves. This critique was never more on target than when liberals direct this rant at others. The real attack on our American democracy emanates from the progressive left and the modern Democratic Party.

Our democracy is best defined in our founding documents. During the Constitutional Convention, the framers were mindful of all previous attempts at self government throughout recorded history – and why they failed. They were determined not to repeat any of those mistakes. Our Constitution works because it embodies a fundamentally correct understanding of human nature and incorporates effective checks and balances, guardrails and restraints on the use of power to prevent tyranny of the majority.

Our founders regarded pure democracy as a form of tyranny to be avoided. I cannot find one example of a democracy where the majority has not tyrannized a minority; it is occurring today in Iraq, Syria, Turkey, China, Russia, Mexico, Myanmar, Sudan, Nigeria, Congo, Ethiopia, Bolivia, Kyrgyzstan, Indonesia, Botswana and throughout much of the Arab world and most of Central America. During the past century over 100 million Europeans were slaughtered in genocides, ethnic cleansings, holocausts and pogroms, every one of which resulted from tyranny by the majority.

We needn’t look elsewhere for abuses of democracy; there are abundant examples here in the USA. From 1776 to the Constitution of 1787, Americans were effectively governed by 13 state constitutions – not by the Articles of Confederation. Some of those governments were experiments in pure democracy; they contained unicameral legislatures which, along with the governor, were directly elected yearly. Such governments were immediately and highly responsive to the mood of the electorate.

The results were so flagrantly abusive, dangerous and scary that it led, more so than anything else, to the Constitutional Convention. Our framers witnessed firsthand how the excesses of democracy unleashed unanticipated social and political forces. They were determined to correct these deficiencies and to protect against tyranny of the majority and the excesses of democracy. It was for that reason the Constitution contains such strong checks, balances, guardrails and restraints on power.

It is against this backdrop that Democrats want to use the barest of majorities in both the House of Representatives and in the Senate to enact, inter alia, all the following: (1) massive voting rights bill federalizing elections; (2) abolition of the Electoral College and election of the president by popular vote; (3) elimination of the filibuster; (4) expansion of the Supreme Court; (5) admission of D.C. and Puerto Rico as states; (6) voting rights for illegal aliens; and (7) changing the makeup of the Senate.

Democrats would turn the Senate into a clone of the House to pass transformational laws with a one-vote margin. They would unleash the forces of majoritarian tyranny that have plagued democracies since time immemorial. Their action would be opposed to all accumulated human wisdom about the relationship of man and the state including our American experience between 1776 and 1787. The Democrats are making a direct and savage frontal attack on our democracy that would forever change America.

Of course, the Republicans would reverse everything at their earliest opportunity, perhaps in a few years. Moreover, the Republicans may preemptively change to a pure majority to enact their agenda, knowing that the Democrats will do so at their earliest opportunity. Some of the laws Republicans could pass with a bare majority include: (1) national right to concealed carry; (2) national right to work; (3) abolish capital gains taxes; (4) unfettered energy production and transmission in ANWAR and federal lands; (5) abortion restrictions; and much, much more. What’s scary is that the Democrats know all this but are unconcerned because they intend to create a permanent majority such that there never again would be competitive elections held in America.

Let’s go back to first principles. What is the purpose of government? Is it to actualize the will of the barest possible majority at any given instant? Or, is it to preserve a democracy that has delivered justice, freedom, security and stability for 235 years?

The real attack on American democracy comes from the left. They want instantaneous actualization, as in the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution. It is easy to visualize Nancy Pelosi as Madame Defarge and AOC presiding over the Committee of Public Safety as her squad screeches in unison “off with their heads“.

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Coming March 13th – Why government fails and business succeeds.
More Liberty Less Government – mllg@cfl.rr.com – www.mllg.us
MLLG

Socialism, Toilet Paper, Taxes and More

George Noga

Socialism resulted in chronic shortages of meat, fish, bread, milk and yes – toilet paper.

Socialism, Toilet Paper, Taxes and More

By: George Noga – February 27, 2022

Democratic Socialist or Social Democrat: It is critically important which word is the noun and which is the adjective. Socialists like Bernie Sanders and AOC like to cloak themselves in the mantle of Scandinavian social democrats, who promote robust social benefits – but all within the ambit of a capitalist democracy. Don’t be fooled by this maskirovka. When the words are reversed, socialist becomes the operative word and democratic merely a modifier. Social democrats give you countries like Sweden and Denmark; democratic socialists give you hell holes like Venezuela and Cuba.

Socialist Humor: A journalist enters a store in Venezuela and asks if there is any meat. The clerk replies, “This is the store with no fish; the store with no meat is across the street.” The journalist dutifully writes in his notebook “no fish, no meat“. Next, the journalist goes into a bakery; finding no bread, he jots down “no bread“. Then he goes into a dairy store and once again finding the shelves bare, he enters “no milk“. A secret police agent following the journalist then goes up to him and says, “You could be shot for writing that“. Whereupon, the journalist writes in his notebook “no bullets“.

“Workers were issued their own personal roll of toilet paper.”

Toilet Paper and Socialism: Commies are not only incapable of producing meat, fish, bread and milk, they could not produce toilet paper. In workplaces throughout the Soviet Union, there never was any toilet paper in the stalls because it instantly would be stolen. Instead, each worker periodically was issued his personal roll of toilet paper for use while at work. This is not a joke; welcome to the socialist workers’ paradise.

Note: We do not publish these vignettes to heap ridicule, however well deserved, on the commies of yore and their present day look-alikes. Our purpose is to remind people that this will happen here if we continue down the path of progressivism.

“The IRS answers only 3% of all calls to taxpayer services.”

Democrat Tax Increases: House Dems voted for 87,000 more IRS auditors to conduct 1.2 million more audits annually. Incredulously, this equals only 13.8 audits per year for each new agent. There is something terribly wrong with this metric; why can’t each agent perform five or ten times that number? I am reminded of Will Rogers’ quip, “Thank God we don’t get all the government we pay for“. To make matters worse, the burden of the new audits would fall predominantly on small business and the middle class; the wealthy use high-octane tax professionals and are effectively audit proof. The Democrats want to fund IRS enforcement by 2,300% more than taxpayer services. Last year 97% of all calls to IRS taxpayer services (help line) went unanswered.

The law passed by the Dems raises the effective personal income tax rate to 57.4%, the highest in the developed world. Many blue states will have a combined marginal rate above 60%. They voted to increases the top marginal capital gains rate to 37% – the highest in 50 years. They also voted to increase the tax on home heating fuel.

Identity Politics: The EPA recently issued a press release heralding new appointments to its Science Advisory Board; it began as follows: “Today the EPA announced the selection for membership of the Science Advisory Board, which will be comprised of 22 women and 25 men, including 16 people of color, making it the most diverse ever.” How comforting it is to know that our science is in the hands of a group balanced by race and gender. This is a disservice to any appointees selected on the basis of merit.

Biden announced his Supreme Court appointment would be a black woman. This not only would be illegal in the private sector, it is a colossal disservice to his nominee. Biden is announcing his nominee will be selected based on identity and not on merit.

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Next on March 6th – The progressive assault on our democracy.
More Liberty Less Government – mllg@cfl.rr.com – www.mllg.us
MLLG

On the Origin and Nature of Government

George Noga

Neolithic barbarians understood economics better than many of today’s predator class.

On the Origin and Nature of Government

By: George Noga – February 20, 2022

Primitive societies had leaders but no government. Small bands of hunter-gatherers and nomads lived from hand to mouth dependent of the exigencies of the hunt, the bounty of the sea and the caprice of nature; they never generated an economic surplus. They moved from place to place and were not easy targets for predators. Nonetheless, such primitive bands frequently were victimized by roving bandits. However, the bandits, once they had plundered what little booty that was available, moved on to plunder others; after all, there was no incentive for them to remain behind.

All that changed during the Neolithic Revolution when people learned agriculture and created permanent settlements. Now humans generated a regular economic surplus and were more vulnerable to bandits because they had more to plunder and had to remain in one location. Once again, roving bandits came to plunder; however, they were not stupid. There was an incentive for them to stay to plunder permanently. Roving bandits became stationary bandits, forcefully subjugating the populus and keeping out other bandits. They had a monopoly of the use of force and, bingo, government was born.

A regular economic surplus is an a piori condition for the existence of a state; hence, government cannot exist without entrepreneurs. Without those who accumulate capital, take risks and create things people need or want, government could not exist. Even the earliest farmers had to build capital to support their families while the crops were grown and they had to overcome many risks such as weather and pestilence. Meanwhile, the now permanent bandits did nothing constructive and even imposed obstacles to productivity; they also took a big chunk for themselves.

There is little difference in principle between the stationary bandits of yore and today’s governing class. Instead of kings and emperors, they now call themselves presidents and prime ministers. They both have a monopoly on the legal use of force; they both hinder production; they both take a large share for themselves; and they both are permanent. The difference is that, instead of conquest, today’s rulers achieve power by guile, ersatz promises, lies, bribery and pitting people against each other.

Even today, we might be better off governed by Neolithic barbarians wearing animal skins. At least they understood that government does not create wealth and that things had to be produced before they could be plundered. They understood that imposing regulations and creating obstacles and uncertainty reduced the amount of plunder. Some of the barbarians even grasped that plundering less today enabled them to plunder more tomorrow – benefitting both the plunderers and the plundered.

Moreover, the barbarians of yore sometimes got sated and left us alone for awhile. Today’s predator class never gets sated and never leaves us alone.

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Next on February 27th – Socialism and Toilet Paper.

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Spending Crisis Locomotive Nearing the Abyss

George Noga

“God loves fools, drunks and the United States of America.” (Otto von Bismarck)

Spending Crisis Locomotive Nearing the Abyss

By: George Noga – February 13, 2022

The spending crisis is one of MLLG’s signature issues – along with climate change and school choice. Our last update was in our post of 2/7/21 and it is time for another. First however, we take a look back to our prior projections about the spending crisis.

Over 10 years ago I wrote a 24-page report entitled “The Crisis of Spending, Debt and Deficits“; it was printed and mailed (USPS) to our readers – which were much fewer in number back then. It is not on our website. I had not given this report any attention in many years and had nearly forgotten about it until one of our longtime readers asked for a copy. I reread the report and was flabbergasted to see how accurate it was!

Nearly 12 years ago, I projected that in 2021 GDP would be $21 trillion, public debt $26 trillion and the ratio 124%. The best data available for year-end 2021 are GDP of $23 trillion and debt of $25 trillion for a ratio of 109%. For reference, back in 2010 GDP stood at $15 trillion, debt at $9 trillion and the ratio at 60%. No one – absolutely no economists anywhere – and most certainly not the CBO – were projecting anything even remotely close to the data published by MLLG. Note: I actually published three projections; the one cited herein is the middle (or most realistic) case.

My projection was not a lucky guess. I spent hundreds of hours during the summer of 2010 while in Montana constructing a computer model of the US economy. I used that model to generate the data in the published report. I did not merely project a ratio, I built the data from the ground up. My projection was accurate because I made realistic assumptions about, inter alia, recessions, spending and taxation. Readers may decide for themselves, but my past accuracy should confer a strong presumption of present credibility about the spending crisis. As a reminder, I call it the spending crisis rather than the debt crisis because the crisis ultimately results from uncontrolled spending.

At its heart, it is not really a spending crisis – it is a moral crisis.

I again have spent many hours updating projections. Surprisingly, the 2021 (debt/GDP) ratio was better than projected in 2020 because of the stronger than expected economic recovery from the pandemic. Future debt ratios depend primarily on: (1) economic growth; (2) tax rates and collections; (3) interest rates; (4) timing, length and depth of recessions; (5) inflation; and (6) any spending blowouts such as BBB. There are many variables and uncertainties such as possible natural disasters and military conflicts.

I have run numerous projections with various combinations of economic growth, taxes, inflation, spending, interest rates and recessions. The best I now can project is that the ratio will be near 150% in 5 years and over 200% in 10 years – on its way to the moon. In later years the ratio would hit 500% and even 1,000%, but that is moot because the locomotive would go over the cliff long before the ratio reached such numbers. God may love fools, drunks and the USA, but nothing can save us from a ratio of 500%.

I call it a spending crisis, but at its heart it is not really a spending crisis; it is not really a debt crisis; it is not really a deficit crisis; it is a moral crisis! We chose – whether consciously or unconsciously matters not – to take from our children and grandchildren rather than to control our own spending. We refused to make tough choices, falsely thinking we could buy social peace. We elected politicians who promised the moon was made of Stilton. We chose, and are continuing to choose, to condemn our progeny to a lost generation in a Clockwork Orange world filled with existential threats.

Even worse, we stole from future generations – not to save America from some manmade or natural calamity – but to pay for a perpetual New Years Eve party.

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Next on February 20th – the origin and nature of government.

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America Needs More Jury Trials . . . Chauvin-Rittenhouse-Smollett-Arbery-Potter-Holmes

George Noga

America’s criminal justice system must have more involvement by citizens.

America Needs More Jury Trials . . .

Chauvin-Rittenhouse-Smollett-Arbery-Potter-Holmes

By: George Noga – February 6, 2022

One of the bright spots in American democracy is our jury system. Most Americans join me in believing that the juries got it right 100% of the time in the six recent headline-grabbing trials listed above. Juries are fallible, but they represent the best way to deliver justice and to check against government run amok. Unfortunately, today in America a jury trial is a vastly underutilized right. Instead of a jury system, we now have a plea system with 96% of criminal cases settled without a jury trial.

“I consider trial by jury the only anchor imagined by man, by which a
government can be held to the principles of its constitution.” (Jefferson)

The right to a jury trial is the only right mentioned in both the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and more words are devoted to it than to any other right. The founders intended to put citizens at the beating heart of our criminal justice system. However, plea bargains, unknown to America’s founders, now dominate criminal cases.

Plea bargains are more problematic for our democracy than jury trials. Defendants often are coerced to plead guilty due to police and prosecutorial misconduct as well as plea deals cleverly designed to induce an innocent defendant to accept the proffered plea rather than to chance a trial and a much more severe sentence. Defendants often are overcharged to pressure them, even though the sluiced up charges would dramatically wither away in a courtroom. Plea bargains cover up police misconduct and relieve prosecutors from having to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

American juries have a long and glorious history. The Salem witch trials ended only after 52 straight acquittals and/or hung juries. Northern juries acquitted abolitionists charged under the Fugitive Slave Laws. Juries speeded the end of prohibition and acquitted protestors during the Vietnam War. Juries refused to convict LGTBQs charged with consensual sex under sodomy laws. The right of a juror to vote his conscience goes back over 1,000 years and is traceable directly to Magna Carta.

The right of a jury to vote conscience is traceable to Magna Carta.

In a trial, jurors can go well beyond determining the facts. They can choose to exercise their independent life experience, concept of justice, wisdom and beliefs. Following are some of the situations where a jury may choose to exercise conscientious acquittal and nullify a flawed law or prosecution: (1) the accused never intended to commit a crime; (2) an honest citizen acted in good faith; (3) vague or unknown laws; (4) the minimum sentence is out of proportion; (5) laws that shouldn’t exist; (6) law applied selectively or misapplied; (7) police/prosecutorial abuse; (8) overzealous enforcement; (9) reliance on paid informants; (10) victimless crimes; (11) matters of conscience.

America’s founding documents and system of government depend on citizens being involved in the criminal justice system. We need to rein in plea bargains to hold the government to account. Not everyone may agree with the outcomes of the trials of Chauvin, Rittenhouse, Smollett, Arbery, Potter and Holmes, but we all should be able to agree the juries discharged their duties faithfully. That is the American way.

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Next on February 13th, an update about the worsening spending crisis.

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More Liberty Less Government – mllg@cfl.rr.com – www.mllg.us
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Taxes – Showerheads – School Choice – Economics

George Noga

The total wealth of all US billionaires would fund government for only 158 days.

Taxes – Showerheads – School Choice – Economics

By: George Noga – January 30, 2022

 

Biden’s inflation tax devastates ordinary Americans: Biden’s tax hikes hit middle- income Americans and even low-income Americans who pay no income tax. Inflation is the cruelest tax of all and it falls disproportionately on low and middle-income families. Inflation is outstripping wage gains and Americans are getting poorer each month. Moreover, unlike other political issues, inflation is impossible to spin because Americans are acutely aware of it every time they buy gas or groceries.

Taxing billionaires doesn’t work: Forbes Magazine counts 614 US billionaires worth a total of $2.95 trillion. If you taxed each $1 billion, it would fund government for 33 days. If you confiscated all the wealth of every billionaire, it would fund government for 158 days – and then it would be gone forever. The narrative of taxing billionaires is pure class warfare intended to disguise from where the money really is coming.

Why some corporations pay no income tax: The poster child for this is Amazon, which paid no federal income tax last year. That’s because Amazon suffered humongous losses in prior years and was able to carry those forward to offset later profits. FedEx paid no tax due to accelerated depreciation on its fleet of aircraft – in accordance with laws passed by Congress to encourage investment and job creation. However, both Amazon and FedEx pay billions each year in payroll, state, local and foreign taxes.

Corporations that pay little or no federal tax are acting in furtherance of laws passed by Congress. It takes chutzpah for politicians to rail against tax laws they passed. Further, per a congressional committee, 98% of corporate taxes are passed through to low and middle-income families, including those who pay no income tax, as higher prices.

Biden is regulating your bath: Prior to Trump, each showerhead could emit no more than 2.5 gallons per minute. Trump eliminated that restriction. One of Biden’s first moves was to reverse this and also to extend the limit to apply to all showerheads in the aggregate – even though fewer than 1% of Americans have multiple showerheads. This is a minor issue in the cosmic scheme of things, but it exemplifies progressives’ desire to regulate every aspect of your life and to diminish your personal liberty.

School choice is a winning issue: It is incandescently clear from polls and elections that K-12 education is the wedge political issue in America today. Parents are shocked and mortified by what they learned during the pandemic including: (1) school boards and PTAs as adjuncts of teachers unions; (2) pornography in grade school libraries; (3) the 1619 project; (4) mask mandates; (5) critical race theory; (6) encouraging young kids to question their gender; (7) vaccine mandates; (8) school closures; and (9) huge gaps in learning versus private schools and other nations. Union control of education has wrought nothing short of total disaster. Universal school choice would immediately end all dissonance about the nine aforementioned issues. School choice demonstrably is a winning political issue as well as the civil rights issue of our time.

Economics: Roger Ream upon receiving the 2021 Bradley Prize in Economics: “Taught properly, economics provides a lens to understand how the world works. It is about how humans interact and make choices and how an undirected market process unleashes the forces of invention, innovation, imagination and improvement. The result is nothing short of miraculous. We ignite a spark in the minds of students as we show them how Adam Smith’s invisible hand motivates a self-interested individual to promote an end not part of his intention and thereby to serve the needs of others.”

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Next on February 6th: Chauvin, Rittenhouse, Smollett, et. al.
More Liberty Less Government – mllg@cfl.rr.com – www.mllg.us

 

MLLG

The Raison d’etre of Government

George Noga

The answer is not more government or even better and wiser government.

The Raison d’etre of Government

By: George Noga – January 23, 2022

Preamble to the US Constitution

“We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.“

Since the Neolithic Revolution 12,000 years ago, when humans transitioned from nomadic hunter-gatherer clans to settled agricultural societies, people have banded together for security from internal and external threats to their lives, property and liberty. The Declaration of Independence proclaims all men have an unalienable right to life, liberty, and (property) pursuit of happiness. The Constitution, in its preamble above, establishes the raison d’etre for our government as being mostly about security, i.e. justice, domestic tranquility, defense and liberty. Indeed, the social contract between man and the state always has been, first and foremost, about security.

Americans expect government, above everything else, to protect their lives, property and liberty. Progressive government at all levels, national, state and local, is failing in this, the most basic role of government. The Biden Administration is failing to provide for the common defense. Its manifest weakness, on full display in Afghanistan, is an open invitation to Putin, Xi, Kim, Iran and to tyrants everywhere. Moreover, Biden is slashing (real) defense spending as progressives always do when in power. The most potent asset in our defense arsenal is our economy and Biden is weakening it.

Progressives in control of state and local governments refuse to protect citizens and property from mob violence. They defund police, decriminalize larceny, abolish bail, create sanctuary cities and refuse to prosecute serious offenses. They impose gun control to keep citizens from defending themselves and their property from mobs; instead, they prosecute those (McCloskeys, Rittenhouse) who exercise their rights.

Rather than defending Americans’ lives, property and liberty, Biden and his top advisors, all selected based on identity rather than merit, are putting us at greater risk. They are destroying the property and life savings of many Americans by the pernicious inflation they have unleashed. Their profligate spending is hastening the arrival of a debt crisis and a lost generation for our children and our children’s children.

Progressives, and those who enable them, have lost sight of the reason Americans have a government in the first place. It is not for transgender bathrooms, CRT, identity or wokeness. They are placing our lives at risk from both foreign and domestic threats. They are failing to protect our property from criminals, looting and mob violence. They are assaulting our liberty in myriad ways – using the pandemic to abolish our right to assemble, to worship and to be secure in our persons (vaccine mandates).

Ironically, the evils catalogued supra all were promulgated by a form of government most people consider to be among the best in the world and even throughout history. The root cause of our present accursedness is not a failure of government or even bad government – although we presently have both. Rather, it is due simply to immutable human nature and to our government behaving like governments always do.

Indeed, the entire sweep of human history in the 12,000 years since the Neolithic Revolution instructs us that it is foolish to believe people can control government. We can’t; but we can limit it. Dear readers, the answer lies not in better, wiser or even enlightened government. The answer lies in more liberty and less government.

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Our next post January 30th is about taxing billionaires.

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More Liberty Less Government – mllg@cfl.rr.com – www.mllg.us

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Cri de Coeur for America

George Noga

First and foremost, I write this blog as my cri de coeur for America.

Cri de Coeur for America

By: George Noga – January 16, 2022

This begins the 16th year of the MLLG blog; thus far I have written 600 posts totaling 2,000 pages and 1,000,000 words. During that time readership has grown from 150 into the tens of thousands; whew!. I have labored mightily to present original and compelling ways to communicate the blessings of liberty and the evils (yes – evils) of government. Every so often, it is a good idea to remind readers (and myself) why I write this blog. But first, I offer a preview of my plans for the coming year.

I will continue blogging about my signature issues of: (1) climate change; (2) the spending crisis; and (3) school choice. You may also expect special postings on key holidays; my Independence Day and Columbus Day postings have become classics. Look for new multi-part series about “Poverty in America” and “Policing in America“. I will address timely political, economic and human interest topics. Responding to reader requests, I may write a few posts of a personal nature. As always, I will strive to present new ways to showcase the blessings of liberty and the evils of government in a fact-based, principled manner and without demonizing those with opposing views.

Why I Write This Blog

Above all, this blog is my cri de coeur for our beloved republic. I am standing athwart America’s steady march toward socialism, and ultimately to Gomorrah, screaming “stop”. I am constantly mindful that of the 115 billion humans who have trod this earth, fewer than 1% have enjoyed liberty. Even now, only 10% live in freedom. Alexander Hamilton’s eternal question still lingers, “Are societies of men capable of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or forever destined to depend on accident and force?” I would like to believe that I am providing our children’s children an infinitesimally better chance for liberty. If I fail, at least I failed daring to try.

As Hamilton knew, whether any society of men gets its politics right or wrong affects every aspect of life, and even life itself. If we get our politics right, we live our lives in freedom and prosperity. If we get our politics wrong, liberty, happiness and property are forfeit and our lives are brutish and brief. Our children’s children will be a lost generation living lives of quiet desperation in a Clockwork Orange world of staggering debt and climate madness, surrounded by nuclear armed enemies committed to our destruction. The gods of the copybook headings, with terror and slaughter, will return.

There is a second, and much darker, reason I write this blog. If it proves too late to prevent the self destruction of our beloved republic, I want to leave a historical record so my children’s children will know there once was such a wondrous thing as the fire of liberty and that some of us took great care to preserve embers of that flame until some glorious day when the embers may be used to reignite the torch of liberty.

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The next post is about the raison d’etre of government.
More Liberty Less Government – mllg@cfl.rr.com – www.mllg.us