The welfare state isn’t going anywhere.  The current debate is, as our recent guest William Voegeli argues, simply “narcissism of small differences.”  It will surely mean a nasty fight, but it won’t end with any dramatic changes to the public’s philosophy of government and what it is meant to do or provide.  The truth is – people like getting stuff.  And politicians have no incentive to be clear about how the welfare state works.  Instead, they are comfortable with the vast majority of the public fundamentally misunderstanding social security and welcome the welfare state’s ability to buy off voters.

Why so pessimistic?  As Voegeli argues in the episode below, “liberal victories advance liberalism.  Conservative victories postpone liberalism.”  Even in the reign of the Republican Party from 1980 – 2007 (where the GOP controlled any combination of the White House, House and Senate), the cost of the welfare state ballooned 77%.

No one under the age of 45 has any memory of government being organized any differently  – FDR’s New Deal and LBJ’s Great Society fundamentally changed the intellectual framework for our government,  We went from a limited constitutional government to a more energetic, powerful government that can (try to) solve people’s problems.   Voegeli, while submitting to the reality of a continued welfare state, argues that the GOP needs to find a welfare state that we can live with and admire.  One that creates a social safety net that actually helps those who really need it, without propping up and enabling those that don’t and/or spending money that we simply do not have.

For a historical look at the creation of the welfare state, its growth and continuation (and thoughts on what to do about it), watch Voegeli’s full episode below:

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One of the hurdles to improving our nation’s public education system is that it is generally designed for the benefit of adults in the system, i.e. unionized teachers and administrators, rather the children. Negotiations between school boards and teachers’ unions focus on pay, benefits and specific work rules, rather than deciding the best or most innovative ways to educate the next generation.

But, don’t take our word for it; listen to a union official admitting as much. In a new ad from the Economic Freedom Alliance, former Counsel to the National Education Association rallies a union audience describing the secret to the union’s success: Power

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Last month’s Nanny tackled the “scourge” of distracted walking, and this month’s runners-up have their sights set on banning big-leaguers from dipping and toddlers from talking.

But top dishonors go to the nanny from Nevada who’s picking a fight with prostitutes.

Presenting Reason.tv’s Nanny of the Month for February 2011: Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV)!

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While the situation in Wisconsin continues to heat up, there has been too little examination by the media about what collective bargaining is and how it works when government unions are involved. After all, unlike in the private sector, no one at the bargaining table is negotiating with their own money, it’s taxpayer money that’s at stake.

We have put together a short video on collective bargaining which, along with our other recent videos on public unions, helps put the issue in perspective. And with a majority of union members now in government rather than the private sector, this is an important issue to understand.

Despite the astonishing flood of more than a trillion dollars in new commercial-bank reserves that the Fed created in late 2008 and early 2009, when it undertook to rescue the big banks and other institutions from the consequences of their boom-time mistakes, Ben Bernanke has insisted that the Fed can and will contain this inflationary potential, and he has emphasized that inflation remains under control, indeed, that potential deflation presents the greater danger. He rests his case on the evidence of standard macroeconomic indexes.

Standard measures of the money stock, for example, have not increased greatly. The year-to-year change (ending in January 2011) in M2 was only 4.3 percent; the two-year change, only 6.4 percent. For MZM (money zero maturity), the corresponding rates of change were 2.6 percent and 4.4 percent, respectively. Thus, it would appear that by historical standards money has grown quite moderately in the past two years.

Bernanke and his supporting cast of monetary economists can also point to corroborating evidence that by historical standards the rate of inflation has been modest. The year-to-year change (ending in January 2011) in the all-items consumer price index (CPI) was only 1.7 percent; the two-year change, only 4.3 percent. The implicit price deflator for GDP, the broadest of all price indexes, reveals even less inflation. This index, which is computed on a quarterly basis, shows a one-year change of only 1.4 percent for the year ending in the fourth quarter of 2010, and a corresponding two-year change of only 1.8 percent.

(I have computed all of the figures mentioned in this article from basic data available at the website maintained by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.)

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Today, in 1770, the Boston Massacre occurred.

I feel like, “We warned you,” is not quite poignant enough.  But well…we warned you.  Those of us in the free market technology policy sector have been trying to wake up various think-tanks and Republican politicians alike to the dangers of Network Neutrality for roughly 6 years now.  We were all ignored for the most part and now the reality is starting to sink in that Republicans will have to lie in the bed they made for themselves.

Thanks should be given to a few diligent organizations like the late Progress & Freedom Foundation led by Adam Thierer, Jon Henke’s Digital Society, and Information Technology & Innovation Foundation who have beat the drum tirelessly.  In the last year Americans for Prosperity can be applauded for their efforts to educate and build up a grassroots movement.  And organizations like CATO and Phoenix Center have provided key scholarly work.

Where was everyone else?

It’s not really a complex arithmetic to figure out that if you ignore an issue that you won’t make up any ground on the issue.  Net Neutrality was essentially ignored by our side and the result was that we lost the regulation battle.  Technology policy is not sexy.  Much of it is hard to understand.  Some of the time it is difficult for those of us that love technology to understand.  We dig through it though because we have a passion for it and desire to find ways to communicate what many times is a lot of “techie jargon” into a language that normal people speak.  This is no different than me trying to understand lawyer speak or this strange medical language that people like my father speak fluently.  The reality though is that amongst policy circles, tech policy guys are still the nerds, and many times we are pushed aside, the attitude by the mainstream policy folk is one of, “Go back and play with your gadgets and stay out of the way of the important issues.”

Then what happens is everyone wakes up one day, the Net is regulated, business models are destroyed, infrastructure is in the hands of the FCC and provider side innovation is most likely about to take a dive and gents like Kevin McCarthy (CA-R) stand up and say, “Why didn’t anyone tell us?!”  This is precisely what happened earlier this week when McCarthy wanted to know why various Internet providers were not doing more to help the Republicans fight against Net Neutrality.

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Faced with an $8 billion budget deficit, Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) is on the verge of signing a bill that would prevent state employees from using collective bargaining to negotiate their health and pension benefits. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) has pushed a similar bill, which has drawn national attention, spawned weeks of protests, and sent Democratic lawmakers fleeing the state as a way to stall its passage.

Two other GOP governors facing major budget crises – New Jersey’s Chris Christie and Michigan’s Rick Snyder – have made it clear that they don’t see restricting bargaining rights as the key to more austerity. Texas, North Carolina, and Louisiana face major budget deficits, and in those states public employees don’t have collective bargaining rights.

To what extent is collective bargaining to blame for out-of-control state spending? Is clamping down on the ability of public-employee unions to negotiate an important tactic for closing what may grow to a combined $125 billion gap in state budgets next fiscal year?

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They screamed, they begged, cajoled but everyone called them liars.  Ever since the outline of the Obamacare began to be circulated people pointed out that the $500 billion dollars of Medicare savings were being double counted in the cost estimates.

Yesterday the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee heard testimony from Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Representative John Shimkus (R-IL) asked about the double counting of the $500 billion of savings which seemed to still helping the bottom line of Medicare and contributing to the funding of Obamacare.    He asked Sebelius which program was supposed to receive the benefit of that Medicare cut, she answered, “Both.”

WOW ! Maybe Obama is “the one”  he can spend $500 Billion Dollars, and the spend the same exact money on something else, that is magic of biblical proportion. I wonder if he can split the Reed Sea as an encore?”

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Far Left protester Patrick J. Knauf, 43, of Eau Claire was arrested on Wednesday for the violation of making a bomb scare under state statute 947.015.

He was released on a $3,000 signature bond.

On Wednesday a bomb threat was made at an aviation business in Eau Claire just hours after Governor Scott Walker spoke there. Police brought in a man who was protesting this week against the Republican governor.
The Pierce County Herald reported:

An investigation continues into a bomb threat made this week at an aviation business in Eau Claire, just hours after Governor Scott Walker held a news conference there.

Authorities said a 43-year-old Eau Claire man allegedly called in a threat to Heartland Aviation on Wednesday evening. The facility is next to the Chippewa Valley Regional Airport in Eau Claire. The man is free on a signature bond. No charges have been filed yet, but the man is due back in Chippewa County Circuit Court on April 19th.

Investigators said the man took part in public demonstrations at the airport on Monday and Wednesday. His home was searched yesterday, and police are checking phone records and interviewing people. Eau Claire Police have asked for tips with more information.

Amazing!

A bomb threat was called in on a Walker rally and the media doesn’t report on it?

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Dane County Circuit Court Judge John Albert ordered the Wisconsin Capitol cleared Thursday night (and at close of business hours from now on). However, union plaintiffs and those who had occupied the building for more than two weeks believe they have achieved a significant victory.

Judge Albert also ordered the Capitol open as usual during normal business hours, scrapping the limitations placed on visitors earlier this week.

As soon as the written order was drafted and distributed to the approximately 100 protesters who remained in Wisconsin Capitol, protesters were told to leave.

After a few hours, all of them did so, without incident.

But earlier in the evening, tensions were running high.

Shortly before 6pm, a crowd as large as 100 stormed in through the Capitol’s West Wing doors and past police, which prompted law enforcement to tell legislative staff to secure their individual office doors.

However, most of those protesters left when told they would be arrested if they did not.

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The National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), a group of angry, feminist lawyers are intimidating high school districts throughout the nation.  They want schools to offer exactly equal opportunities to girls as to boys in high school sports by establishing a strict quota system.  To some, this may sound fair on its surface, but in reality, its execution has meant the closure of popular varsity sports for men throughout the nation in favor of female sport teams where coaches can hardly muster a team or find a league to play in and which generates even less public interest.

When very small girls are given toy trucks to play with, they naturally reject them; boys don’t.  These behaviors have been well documented in studies of six month old children by researchers. This is way before gender stereo types are inculcated into the children. Boys like to wrestle, girls don’t. Shall we force girls to have wrestling teams or just abandon boy’s teams if we can’t have an equal girl’s team?   Yet, this is the precisely the scenario being played out throughout the nation.   There are differences between genders and throughout history, and in disparate civilizations, men were the warriors and the athletes well before federal Title IX programs which tried to artificially level the playing field.

Title IX of the Federal Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits intentional gender-based discrimination in most educational programs that receive federal funds.  The debate that has been shadowing Title IX is not due to the law itself, which on its face is reasonable.  The debate has been about defining “discrimination” and then identifying the remedies for this discrimination if and when discovered.

Title IX actually outlaws reaching these goals by the use of quotas.

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If it wasn’t clear enough with the auto bailouts, the health care battle, the effort to effectively eliminate secret-ballot elections on unionization, as well as the provocatively pro-union actions of the agencies governing labor-management relations (the NLRB and NMB), the Battle of Wisconsin should make it crystal clear: The Democratic Party has become America’s de facto Labor Party.

When Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s plan to limit (not eliminate) public-sector unions’ ability to keep their hands firmly on Wisconsin taxpayers’ throats become the rallying cry for unions, the Democrat National Committee’s Organizing for America immediately jumped into the fray. Since then, Nancy Pelosi has begun fundraising for the union cause, Sherrod Brown [D-OH] has taken to comparing those opposed to unions to Hitler and Stalin, while Charlie Rangel says that abolishing bargaining rights is akin to slavery. Accuracy? No. Lunacy? Absolutely.

Now, with Maryland Governor Marty “Muscles” O’Malley joining the union fight as a commander, Democrats are wholly and openly coordinating the fight with, and on behalf of, union bosses:

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley is building a Democratic offensive to Republican governors’ union-busting proposals, according to O’Malley spokesman Shaun Adamec.

O’Malley is meeting in Washington on Wednesday with top executives of the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor union.

“He will discuss the political power grabs that many Republican governors are attempting, and what Democratic governors can do to work with public employees’ labor unions and the business community to create jobs,” Adamec told The Washington Examiner. The morning meeting will be held at the AFL-CIO headquarters.

One might find the unions’ singular ownership of a political party strange given that unions only represent 12% of the entire American workforce. However, Democrats know that, without the unions’ money and the boots on the ground at election time, they are finished as a party. However, the problem for the American taxpayer is inextricably linked to this perverted political process.

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If I tried to do at my job what Wisconsin Democratic lawmakers did at theirs, I’d be fired.

Yet fourteen Democratic Senators from Wisconsin still have their jobs, even though they aren’t performing them and are being paid.

This has nothing to do with unions and benefits.  It has everything to do with democracy, and the favoritism shown to politicians.

This isn’t a partisan issue.  It’s simply about holding people accountable for their actions.  In this case, the actions of these fourteen individuals are disgraceful.  Why?  Because they were elected by the people, for the people.  They serve at the pleasure of the people. They are part of the engine of Democracy.  Just because they don’t like a piece of legislation doesn’t give them the right to flee, and to avoid doing the work of the people (Interestingly, it’s always the Democrats who flee, isn’t it?)

A friend of mine posted on his Facebook page that he’s a union member and that if we don’t like the benefits he enjoys, then we should fight for our own.  Fair enough.  Heck, I’m a union member!   But the converse is also true. If you don’t like a piece of legislation, then fight for your own…by staying at the Capitol.

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Today, U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), a member of the Senate Commerce Committee that oversees the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), and U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-Oklahoma) introduced legislation to stop taxpayer subsidies to public radio and television. CPB-funded television and radio programs are distributed through National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). Since 2001, CPB has received nearly $4 billion in taxpayer money.

“Our nation is on the edge of bankruptcy and Congress must make some tough choices to rein in spending, but ending taxpayer subsidies of public broadcasting should be an easy decision,” said Sen. DeMint. “Americans struggling to make ends meet shouldn’t be forced to fund public broadcasting when there are already thousands of choices for educational and entertainment programming on the television, radio and web. President Obama’s own bipartisan debt commission proposed ending these unnecessary subsidies to public broadcasting. NPR boasts that it only gets 2 percent of its funding from taxpayers and PBS gets about 15 percent, so these programs should be able to find a way to stand on their own.”

“Politicians in Washington should focus their attention on eliminating the more than $200 billion in duplicative spending GAO highlighted this week and stop defending indefensible subsidies for public broadcasting,” said Dr. Coburn. “The federal government has no business picking winners and losers in today’s highly competitive media environment.  NPR and CPB will do just fine without largesse from Washington.”

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss the reality of inflation vs the Fed rate, the latest unemployment numbers and the fall of the dollar.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

Current Inflation Rates: 2001-2011
Focus of US Fed remains on core inflation
Unemployment Report – February
U-6 Underemployment Rate – February
Why the Dollar’s Reign Is Near an End
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What an irresponsible and repulsive statement in the face of the current controversies over unions in America. Not only that, it’s entirely unfounded.

“I look back in history, in some of the worst governments that we had, you know the first thing they did, go after unions, Hitler didn’t want unions, Stalin didn’t want unions, Mubarak didn’t want unions, these autocrats don’t want independent unions,” Brown said Thursday during a speech on the floor of the Senate.

Here is a direct quote from Hitler on trade unions.

I think that I have already answered the first question adequately. In the present state of affairs I am convinced that we cannot possibly dispense with the trades unions. On the contrary, they are among the most important institutions in the economic life of the nation. Not only are they important in the sphere of social policy but also, and even more so, in the national political sphere. For when the great masses of a nation see their vital needs satisfied through a just trade unionist movement the stamina of the whole nation in its struggle for existence will be enormously reinforced thereby.

Before everything else, the trades unions are necessary as building stones for the future economic parliament, which will be made up of chambers representing the various professions and occupations.

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From Politico:

Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert wants Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate whether the liberal group Common Cause should lose its nonprofit status, after a conservative website published footage of protesters calling for the lynching of conservative Supreme Court justices.

The footage shows enraged protesters making inflammatory and threatening comments about Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, as well as Thomas’s wife, Ginni Thomas.

Gohmert said that the inflammatory remarks are more troubling given the attack on Arizona Democratic Rep. Gabby Giffords earlier this year.

“We shouldn’t have any organization, especially one that says it’s nonpartisan, out there stirring up hatred and animosity to the point that people would say, “Let’s string up a justice of the Supreme Court as well as his wife,” Gohmert said.

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