Over the last three years, the number of Americans on food stamps has skyrocketed by two-thirds and stands at a record-high 46 million citizens, or one out of every seven people in the United States.  Despite the historic rise in food stamp use, however, the Obama Administration believes not enough people are receiving food stamps who should be and is offering $75,000 grants to groups who devise “effective strategies” to “increase program participation” among those who have yet to sign up.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s website singles out Hispanics and elderly Americans as groups who often fail to enroll in the food stamp program (officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP) and says  that one of the contributing factors that must be overcome to get more people to sign up for SNAP benefits is individual “pride”:

There are many reasons why eligible people, including seniors and Hispanics, do not participate in the SNAP. These include unawareness of eligibility, confusion about program rules and requirements, a complex application process, and a lack of transportation and pride.

To reduce these “barriers” to food stamp enrollment, the Department of Agriculture offers non-profit groups the chance to receive $75,000 grants for projects designed to boost food stamp participation among those who are eligible but have yet to sign up.  The Department of Agriculture believes that the SNAP program is “severely underutilized” and says that 33 percent more Americans who are eligible to receive food stamps have yet to apply, thus the need to offer federal grants to sign more citizens up.

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How much bailing out does one company need? After receiving some $50 billion in tax dollars from us courtesy of Obama’s “cash stash,” GM is claiming success with a “big profit” with last year’s third quarter report, and in his recent State of the Union Speech, President Obama claimed that GM was “back on top as the world’s number one automaker.” But true or not, if all is coming up roses for GM, why is the company now lobbying the individual states for mini bailouts?

That is exactly what is happening. The new “big success” automaker is spending millions hiring lobbyists to squeeze more millions out of state legislatures. As Justin Owen notes, GM has “turned to another, smaller government teat” by putting its hand out to the states. GM, Owen says, “has received another $1.7 billion in taxpayer-funded grants and tax abatements.”

This is no accident of timing, either. GM admitted to the Tennessee Watchdog that begging to the states for tax dollars is a concerted effort.

“We are increasing our activity with the states obviously, in the communities in which we operate. In doing this, we’ve invested more than $6 billion (throughout the states) during the last five years and brought 15,000 people back to work. So, the activity at the state level is important to us. Our lobbying is comparable to what our competitors are doing throughout the states,” said GM spokesman Greg Martin.

For the Watchdog, Christopher Butler found that GM has received more than $1.5 billion from Michigan, $7.5 million in tax incentives from Kentucky, over $10 million from Texas, and over $2 million from Indiana. Ohio and Maryland have given to the GM bailout fund, too, with tax incentives and other giveaways. (more…)

The latest taxpayer-funded boondoggle to emerge from the Obama Administration’s infamous Energy Department grant and loan program has cost taxpayers $118.5 million, new bankruptcy filings by electric battery maker Ener1 reveal.

From Bloomberg News:

The company listed assets of $73.9 million and debt of $90.5 million as of Dec. 31 in Chapter 11 papers filed today in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. Ener1 has been affected by competing battery developers in China and South Korea, “which generally have a lower cost manufacturing base” and lower labor and raw material costs, interim Chief Executive Officer Alex Sorokin said in the petition.

Like Solyndra, Ener1 was a company touted by President Obama as being a shining example of his vision for taxpayer-subsidized clean energy.

The day following President Barack Obama’s 2011 State of the Union Address, Vice President Joe Biden toured Ener1’s lithium-ion battery system manufacturing facility in Greenfield, Indiana and said:

As you heard President Obama say last night, this Administration is forging a new path forward by making sure America doesn’t just lead in the 21st Century, but dominates in the 21st Century. We’re not just creating new jobs-but sparking whole new industries that will ensure our competitiveness for decades to come-industries like electric vehicle manufacturing.

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This past weekend marked the two-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United.  Protesters, dubbed Occupy the Courts, gathered at the Court to voice their disapproval of the decision:

As Institute for Justice campaign finance expert Paul Sherman explains in the video above:

The irony of those protests is that you had groups of people getting together to speak out against a Supreme Court decision that protected the right of people to get together and speak out.

Indeed, people should not lose their right to free speech simply by exercising their right to freely associate.   And when people group together—be it on the steps of a courthouse, in the form of a trade union or as a corporation—they don’t lose their freedom to speak out.

Occupy the Courts protesters also mistakenly believed that the Citizens United ruling held that “money is speech.”  In fact, the Court never said that.  Rather, it ruled correctly that money facilitates speech.  And if the government has the power to control how much money you can spend speaking, then it effectively can control your speech.

Importantly, the law in question in the Citizens United case empowered the government to fine and even imprison ordinary people for engaging in certain types of speech.   The government argued in court that it had the power to ban videos and books.  I don’t believe that many Americans, including the Occupy the Courts protesters, think the government should be in the business of banning books.

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After the headline rate of unemployment (U-3) reached 8.5 percent in December 2011 ( the most recent month reported), some commentators began to talk as if the employment situation is now improving rapidly. Some have gone on to suggest that those of us who have emphasized the role of regime uncertainty in retarding the current recovery are now barking up the wrong tree, if indeed we ever had a valid point. To speak of employment woes as old news, however, is highly premature.

The Labor Department has recently made public its preliminary estimate of nonfarm employment for 2011. I have added the department’s data for previous years, back to 1999, to construct this table.

Employees on nonfarm payrolls, 1999-2011

(annual average, in thousands)

Year Total Private

1999…… 128,993 108,686

2000….. 131,785 110,995

2001…… 131,826 110,708

2002…… 130,341 108,828

2003…… 129,999 108,416

2004…… 131,435 109,814

2005…… 133,703 111,899

2006…… 136,086 114,113

2007…… 137,598 115,380

2008…… 136,790 114,281

2009….. 130,807 108,252

2010…… 129,818 107,337

2011(p).. 131,159 109,080

The good news is that private nonfarm employment has grown since its recent trough in 2010: the increase in 2011 amounted to 1.6 percent. This is not much, but it’s better than continued decline.

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I’ve already bragged that the Cato Institute is America’s best think tank, highlighting the fact that we took the lead in battling against Obama’s faux stimulus at a time when many were dispirited and reluctant to fight big government.

I’m biased, of course, so I’ll understand if you discount what I say. But I hope you’ll agree that my colleagues have put together an excellent video response to the President’s state-of-the-union speech.

As part of my contribution to the video, beginning around 6:35, I debunk the President’s class-warfare tax agenda by citing IRS data from the 1980s to explain that higher tax rates don’t necessarily mean higher tax revenue.

After a night’s sleep, here are a few additional observations on the President’s remarks.

• I was disappointed, but not surprised, that he repeated the economically foolish assertion that Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary.
• I also was not surprised that he didn’t say much about jobs and the economy. These four charts show he doesn’t have much to brag about.
• It was also noteworthy that he didn’t spend much time talking about Obamacare, which suggests that White House pollsters understand that government-run healthcare isn’t very popular.
• It was equally revealing that he didn’t spend much time on the so-called income inequality issue. Redistribution was implicit in what he said, to be sure, but the Occupy-Wall-Street crowd is probably disappointed that he didn’t explicitly embrace their agenda. More evidence that the pollsters played a big role in this speech.
• I’m definitely not surprised that he talked about eliminating Osama bin Laden. Kudos to the Commander-in-Chief.
• I was amazed that he had the gall to say “no bailouts,” particularly given his support for TARP, the Dodd-Frank bailout bill, and the giveaway to GM and the auto unions. And if the GM bailout is supposed to be a success, I’d hate to see his definition of failure.
• And I was stunned that he could talk about the housing meltdown and mortgage crisis without mentioning the Federal Reserve, Fannie Mae, or Freddie Mac. Sort of like analyzing World War II and pretending Germany and Japan didn’t exist.

Since most of the previous observation are critical, I want to stress that I’m not being partisan. I also was disappointed in the Republican response. Was the GOP smart to showcase a governor who was part of the big-spending Bush Administration? Especially one who has said nice things about the value-added tax?

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I’ve written a couple of times about the Food Stamp program, citing ridiculous examples of waste, fraud, and abuse. These include:

• Using food stamps to buy luxury coffee at Starbucks.
• Buying steaks and lobster with food stamps.
• The Obama Administration rewarding states that sign up more food stamp recipients.
• Proposals to make it easier to use food stamps at fast food restaurants.
• College kids scamming the program for handouts.
• New York City giving food stamps to newly released prisoners and running foreign-language ads encouraging more people to sign up for the program.

As a taxpayer, I get upset about these examples. But as a public policy economist, I’m much more worried about the fiscal and economic impact of the program.

As a human being, though, my primary concern is the way redistribution saps the spirit of self reliance and traps people into lives of dependency. That’s the very first point I make in this debate on CNBC.

By the way, my opponent in the debate is Jared Bernstein, who is infamous for being the co-author of the Obama Administration claim that enacting the s0-called stimulus would keep the unemployment rate from rising above 8 percent.

I’ve had lots of fun mocking that claim. Every couple of months I post Jared’s predictions and compare them to the real-world results.

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President Barack Obama will deliver his fourth State of the Union address on Tuesday, January 24th–the very day that marks the 1,000th day since the Democrat-controlled United States Senate last bothered to pass a budget.

On Monday, the Ranking Republican of the Senate Budget Committee Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and the Chairman of the House Budget Committee Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) released a joint statement blasting Democrats for their budgetary inaction and contrasting it with Republican efforts:

Senate Democrats abandoned their official duty to prioritize Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars and tackle our nation’s most pressing economic challenges—dealing a painful blow to fiscal progress that may be felt for some time.  This contrasts sharply with the record of the House Republicans. Last spring, the new House Majority publicly produced a budget plan before the nation, brought it forward in committee, and passed it on the floor. The budget’s principled solutions honestly confront our nation’s most difficult challenges, putting the budget on a path to balance and the country on a path to prosperity.

To mark the inauspicious 1,000-day anniversary, the Heritage Foundation released a series of budget facts and urged the Senate to meet its Constitution requirements for fiscal stewardship:

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The German Chancellor and French President have put together a plan to boost growth. Sounds like a good goal, but what specifically are they proposing?

Some of the obvious ideas include:

• Lowering tax rates to boost incentives for productive behavior.
• Reducing the burden of government spending to allow more efficient allocation of labor and capital.
• Cutting back regulation and red tape to boost market efficiency.

But those are only obvious ideas if you want a growth plan that actually leads to…(drum roll, please)…more growth.

Merkel and Sarkozy must have some other objective in mind, because they’ve proposed a plan comprised of new taxes, higher taxes, and tax harmonization.

This is beyond satire. Even if I was trying to make fun of the French and Germans (perish the thought), I wouldn’t be able to make up something this absurd.

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Republican voters don’t just want a nominee who can fight Barack Obama. They also want a fight, period. That’s the lesson of Newt Gingrich’s stunning victory in South Carolina, which seemed improbable just a few days ago.

The Gingrich campaign seems to understand the pugilistic mood among conservative voters, e-mailing picture of boxing gloves to supporters as the final votes were counted, asking voters to deliver a “knockout punch” in Florida.

Gingrich campaign e-mail: in a pugilistic mood

It’s not quite clear that Republicans want the fight to be over, however. Though a long, drawn-out primary risks bruising the eventual nominee, it also allows Obama’s opponents to hold onto the spotlight, airing criticisms of the president–and the media–that might otherwise be muffled.
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I don’t blame the Democrats for wanting to seduce Republicans into a tax-increase trap. Indeed, I completely understand why some Democrats said their top political goal was getting the GOP to surrender the no-tax-hike position.

I’m mystified, though, why some Republicans are willing to walk into such a trap. If you were playing chess against someone, and that person kept pleading with you to make a certain move, wouldn’t you be a tad bit suspicious that they weren’t trying to help you win?

When I talk to the Republicans who are open to tax hikes, they sometimes admit that their party will suffer at the polls, but they say it’s the right thing to do because of red ink.

I suppose that’s a noble sentiment, though I find that most GOPers who are open to tax hikes also tend to be big spenders, so I question their sincerity (with Senator Coburn being an obvious exception).

But even if we assume that all of them are genuinely motivated by a desire to control deficits and debt, shouldn’t they be asked to provide some evidence that higher taxes are an effective way of fixing the fiscal policy mess?

I’m not trying to score debating points. This is a serious question.

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The Obamas have developed quite the reputation for wasting taxpayer dollars on unnecessary global trips. Michelle Obama’s family vacation to Africa is one very recent example. Another is the Obamas’ failed bid to bring the Olympics to Chicago back in 2009.

Just to set the stage, while the nation was facing a large-scale crisis involving Iran’s nuclear ambitions, two wars abroad and a failing economy at home, the Obamas decided to take an extraordinary excursion to Copenhagen, Denmark, to visit the International Olympics Committee (IOC). Their goal was to persuade the committee to choose Chicago, the Obamas’ hometown, for the next Olympics games. It was the first time a sitting president was present for an Olympics vote (they usually have better things to do).

Michelle Obama reportedly made an “impassioned” plea to the IOC, but it fell flat. Chicago did not make it past the first round of voting, and the Obamas came home empty-handed and utterly embarrassed.

Judicial Watch immediately launched an investigation to find out how much this “embarrassment” cost the American taxpayers.

And after more than two years of stonewalling and obfuscating, JW investigators finally got hold of records detailing costs associated with the two-week trip. According to these records obtained from the Obama Department of Defense (DOD), expenses for the trip appear to have far exceeded $467,175. And this number doesn’t even cover the in-flight costs associated with the aircraft ‒ two Boeing 747s and several Air Force cargo planes – which have not been made available. (more…)

(Reuters) – Solyndra LLC failed to attract any bids on Tuesday from buyers who could have restarted production, brought back some laid off staff and kept the bankrupt solar panel maker operating, according to a company adviser.

Solyndra, which owes more than $500 million to the U.S. government, has said a turnkey buyer is the best hope for getting the most money for the government and other creditors. However, no turnkey bids were submitted by a Tuesday deadline, said company adviser Eric Carlson of Imperial Capital LLC.

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Cross-Posted: TobyToons.com (Conservative Political Cartoons)

At the South Carolina GOP Forum on January 14, conservatism shined as Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney, and even former candidate Jon Huntsman, talked about shrinking the size of government, reducing taxes, repealing Obamacare, repealing Dodd-Frank, and eliminating the EPA’s regulatory overreach.

Yet during the event, moderated by FOX NEWS’ Mike Huckabee, the most memorable moment came from Gov. Perry, who asked the pertinent question: “Are you better off now than you were four [trillion dollars] ago?” The question was timely, and it not only harkened back to Ronald Reagan’s great 1980 campaign, but drew much needed attention to the hole Obama has dug for himself as well.

One week before voting took place in the contest between Reagan and Jimmy Carter, the Great Communicator looked into the camera and posed the following question to the American people: “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” It proved to be a powerful question, because Americans as a whole weren’t better off. In fact, they were far worse off thanks to Carter and his economy-crushing policies.

Reagan followed that question with a series of others:

Is it easier for you to go and buy things in the stores than it was four years ago? Is there more or less unemployment in the country than there was four years ago? Is America as respected throughout the world as it was? Do you feel that our security is as safe, that we’re as strong as we were four years ago?

On Saturday, Perry’s question was basically a synopsis of all these questions put together. And by including the dollar amount ($4 trillion) it makes the point that should stick with all voters as they head to the voting booth later this year. Namely, are you better off now that Obama has spent us into oblivion or were you better off before?

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Conservative Senator Jim DeMint (R-S. Carolina) is not hoping that libertarian Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas) drops out of the GOP race for the presidential nomination…at least not for the time being. In fact, he’s hoping that the other GOP candidates will learn something from him.

Sen. DeMint told The Daily Caller, “I really don’t want Ron Paul to drop out until whoever our front-runner is is collecting some of the ideas that he’s talking about.”

Though the senator has predicted that Mitt Romney will win the South Carolina primary, he himself has not endorsed any of the “not-Romney” candidates. Yet, Mr. DeMint has a suggestion for his party:

The debate in the Republican Party needs to be between libertarians and conservatives. … There’s no longer room for moderates and liberals because we don’t have any money to spend, so I don’t want to be debating with anyone who wants to grow government.

Sen. DeMint, who has spent much of his political career fighting against big government, went on to say, ““I’d like to see a Republican Party that embraces a lot of the libertarian ideas.”

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In a recent column for the Wall Street Journal, I explained why Mitt Romney’s interest in a value-added tax is deeply troubling.

One of my key points was that the VAT is a money machine for big government.

But don’t believe me. Look at Japan, where the politicians see increases in the VAT as a way of financing a much larger burden of government spending. Here’s some of what is being reported by Bloomberg.

Noda reshuffled his cabinet last week, aiming to win support for doubling Japan’s 5 percent national sales tax by 2015… Japan’s finances are “getting worse and worse every day, every second,” Takahira Ogawa, Singapore-based director of sovereign ratings at S&P… Japan’s aging population is also weighing on Noda’s struggle to achieve fiscal health. Social-security expenses have more than doubled in two decades and will account for 52 percent of general spending for the year starting in April, according to a budget proposal the cabinet approved last month.

The key point in this excerpt is that the VAT is a substitute for entitlement reform. Without the VAT, politicians might actually reform the welfare state. But because of the VAT, they want to take the easy (but extremely destructive) route and boost the tax burden.

This is why I get so agitated about the threat of a VAT in America, as illustrated by this recent appearance on Larry Kudlow’s show.

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With only one congressman and two senators, Vermont’s congressional delegation may be small.  But that isn’t stopping Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), and Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT) from doling out big dollars–$236,830, to be exact–to members of their staffs.

As the Burlington Free Press reports:

Of the three lawmakers, Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Democrat, gave the most in bonuses. Twenty-nine of his personal office staffers received bonuses ranging from $1,500 to $5,000 last year, totaling $138,830. Leahy, who heads the Senate Judiciary Committee, also gave bonuses to 25 committee staffers, totaling $112,048.

Leahy’s spokesman, David Carle, said many other lawmakers use Leahy’s office salary structure “because it is flexible and fair and rewards good work.”

Sanders gave $2,000 bonuses to 32 people on his personal staff, totaling $64,000. He also gave $2,000 bonuses to two staffers on the Senate health subcommittee on Primary Health and Aging, which he chairs.

Rep. Peter Welch, a Democrat, gave each of his 17 staffers a $2,000 bonus, totaling $34,000. House office budgets are authorized by calendar year and Senate office budgets are authorized by fiscal year.

News of the taxpayer-funded big bonuses comes at a time when state budgets are being slashed, the nation’s unemployment is still above eight percent, and the U.S. government is $15 trillion in debt.

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On Friday, Reps. Howard McKeon (R-CA) and Elton Gallegly (R-CA) were named as recipients of discounted mortgage loans from the now-defunct Countrywide Financial Corp., previously the nation’s largest mortgage lender before being bought out by Bank of America.

Reps. McKeon and Gallegly both claim they did not know their loans were processed through the so-called “Friends of Angelo’s” VIP division, a reference to Angelo Mozilo, the former head of Countrywide whom TIME magazine named as one of its “25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis” report.

The two California Republicans join Democratic Congressman Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-NY) as the three of four House members identified by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee as having had loans processed through Countrywide’s VIP loan program.  Rep. Towns also says he was unaware that his loan had been routed through Countrywide’s VIP loan division.   The fourth House member the Committee has identified as having received a discounted loan has yet to be publicly identified.

Rep. McKeon’s spokesperson, Alissa McCurley, says Rep. McKeon was “shocked and angry” when he learned his $315,000 mortgage loan had been processed through Countrywide’s VIP loan division.  Ms. McCurley stated that Rep. McKeon, who serves as the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, “had no knowledge of the Friends of Angelo designation” and “has never met or spoken to Angelo Mozilo.  Mr. McKeon is going back trying to figure out what Countrywide did to this loan 13 years ago.”

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As President I will stop one of the biggest wastes and frauds ever perpetrated on the American people – the trillion dollar war on drugs. While falsely promising us a safer, more sober society, the war on drugs is bankrupting our state and local coffers and costs the Federal government $15 billion dollars per year. That’s five hundred dollars every second – mostly for possession of marijuana, a relatively harmless drug the effects of which are certainly no worse than alcohol, the sale of which is legal and regulated.

Think how many tax cuts we could have with the money we are spending. If you’re a Republican – think how many tax cuts (federal, state and local) could be bought with the money you’re spending to lock people up for something as dangerous as drinking. Think how many poor people could be helped with that money. We need to reform our drug laws as soon as yesterday by stopping the prohibition of marijuana and regulating its sale.

If you think the drug war makes you and your children safer, think again. The International Center for Science in Drug Policy stated: “Drug prohibition likely contributes to drug market violence and higher homicide rates.” But you don’t need to be a scientist, or the governor of a border state, to understand why: the drug war creates violent criminals.

Criminals deal drugs because drugs make them money, a lot of money. When that kind of money is in play, people kill for it. Entire armies of crime have built up on our streets and across the border in Mexico. But we can stop that tomorrow – with drug policy reform. We know that prohibition makes prices higher. Our own history with prohibition proves that. When we make something illegal, we keep the supply artificially low, and that keeps the price artificially high – and that means violence.

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