Someone sent me this video, and I thought I'd share it. This is my favorite part:

By the time everyone was equal, they were equally poor. By the time everyone received their free education, it was worth nothing.

You know the size of government, even local government, has gotten out of control when 56 government employees manage to run a prescription drug ring and go undetected for five years.

In April, we celebrated Tax Freedom Day, or the day by which the average American has worked to pay all of his income taxes for the year and could now spend the remaining eight months making money for himself and his family.

Well, yesterday was Cost of of Government Day! As explained by Grover Norquist, it celebrates the day on which Americans have worked enough to pay the total cost of all levels of government.

How depressing.

A new bill in Mississippi would revoke the license of any restaurant that feeds obese people. It is quite possibly the most asinine bill I have heard of in months, on so many levels. Are restaurant owners supposed to weigh their diners? And even if rejected, what do you think the obese people will do? Might they not go buy doughnuts in bulk or ask their friends to pick up the easiest carry out food for them: fast food? Besides, irrelevant of all of this, who do Mississippi legislators think they are, telling people whether or not they can buy food from private establishments?

Of course, if Mississippi didn't spend $220 million on "free medical care," as the article notes, people just might begin to have true incentives to remain healthy.

HT: Club for Growth

Almost overnight, London managed to switch from having one of my least favorite politicians as its mayor to one of my favorites. Reading this piece by Boris Johnson, London's new Conservative mayor, has made him one of my top politicians today.

In it, Johnson mocks the uproar he faced when he rode a bicycle helmet-less (the accusation being that he was setting a bad example). This kind of reminds me of Fred Thompson's (another favorite) silly hat rule. Neither of these men is going to B.S. the world by doing something ludicrous with themselves just so that the media can get a high off of it.

But perhaps the most exciting part of this piece is Johnson's understanding of economics:

I have also brooded on the results of some study in Australia, which showed that making bike helmets compulsory deterred so many people from cycling that there was a rise in obesity - and more people ended up dying of heart attacks than were saved by the head-gear.

This, of course, is reminiscent of the seatbelt laws that increase pedestrian deaths, the laws forcing children to have their own seats on airplanes thereby increasing children's highway deaths, and a million other laws designed by "wise"  and "knowledgeable" politicians who know what is best for us yet fail to look at the unintended consequences of their intrusive government policies.

And, of course, Johnson provides the icing on the cake:

I was negotiating Knightsbridge with extreme caution when a French tourist walked across the road without looking (you could tell he was French by the noise he made on impact) and, though I sprained my wrist, I felt the real lesson was about teaching tourists to look the right way. If I'd had a foghorn, it might have come in handy, or possibly a cow-catcher fitted to the front of my bike. But a helmet?

I'd like to see an American politician write something like this some time. 

One thing I have particularly liked about John McCain for many months now is his tough stance on subsidies. I remember when in the Iowa debate, he spoke out in no uncertain terms about the problems with agricultural subsidies, when the likes of Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney were pandering to Iowans despite the obvious harms of such subsidies. That has always stuck in my mind, because if we rewind to December, we can see how badly each of the candidates needed to perform well in Iowa.

Now, he's back with more. Here is what McCain said in Iowa yesterday, which, as a swing state, is also an important general election state:

Some things never change: Republican John McCain dislikes farm subsidies. "I have to give you a little straight talk about the farm bill that is wending its way through Congress," McCain said Thursday at the Polk County Convention Center.

"I do not support it. I would veto it," he said. "I would do that because I believe that the subsidies are unnecessary."

McCain was in the heart of farm country, a place where subsidies for corn and ethanol fuel are wildly popular.

His long-held position against subsidies has cost him in Iowa, the state that traditionally begins the presidential nominating process and is a potential swing state in the fall. Yet the Arizona senator didn't hesitate to bring up the issue.

That really impresses me. Conservatives might not be happy with McCain on issues across the board, but on the issues where they are in agreement, he's gonna go all the way to make it happen. And if he does succeed in eliminating subsidies, our country and the world will be much, much better off for it.

The city council in Atlantic Cityvoted 9-0 to ban smoking in casinos. Casino employees cheered, because although casino players might be gambling away their daughters' college tuition, it would be really, really bad if they were smoking while doing so.

What these employees don't get is that no one forced them to work for the casinos. They knew precisely what they were getting into when they applied for a job there. It's like applying to be a dancer at a strip club and then petition the city council to make it so dancers have to be fully dressed while dancing.

The same goes for casino patrons. No one forced them to be at a place where others are smoking. You can't go to someone's house where you know smoking occurs, and when they refuse to stop smoking, go to the government to force them to stop doing it. Just don't go to the person's house. And the government has no business telling people what to do and how to make their own place more hospitable to others.

And all of this is coming from an avid non-smoker. 

My column today addresses Obama's philosophy on taxes. An excerpts:

Barack Obama would rather embrace the social cost of imposing the high tax, which hurts everyone and slows down the economy, rather than see everyone get ahead at different speeds.

It is like saying you would rather not send your three children to college at all than have one of them get into the Ivy League and the other two merely attend second-tier schools. There are so many words for this disquieting mentality, but “hopeful” is not one of them. Perhaps “bitterness” is.

From Obama:

"It was over 200 years ago that a group of patriots gathered in this city to do something that no one in the world believed they could do," Obama said. "After years of a government that didn't listen to them, or speak for them, or represent their hopes and their dreams, a few humble colonists came to Philadelphia to declare their independence from the tyranny of the British throne."

I would like to see a quote from any of the Founding Fathers asking for a government to "represent their hopes and their dreams."

I'm fairly certain that the whole point was that they had too much government that it was precluding them from achieving their hopes and dreams.

And one more point on that. The Founding Fathers included God wherever they can, and went out of their way to highlight the importance of gun rights. Or as Barack would say, they were "bitter." 

If you're a renter, then you have an excellent reason to oppose a government bailout of those who took out mortgages they could not handle - as does everyone who took out mortgages in a responsible manner.

Check out Angry Renter, a website that speaks for itself. If you like what you see, join the Facebook group Renters Against Government Bailouts.

I just noticed this truly astounding excerpt from the New York Times piece on the food crisis:

Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts, said he had come to realize that Congress made a mistake in backing biofuels, not anticipating the impact on food costs. He said Congress needed to reconsider its policy, though he acknowledged that would be difficult.

“If there was a secret vote, there is a pretty large number of people who would like to reassess what we are doing,” he said.

They made a mistake in not "anticipating" the impact on food prices? They would fix it only in a "secret vote?" Is this for real?

What does it tell us?

First, it tells us that Congressmen must take a mandatory economics class before being inaugurated. He didn't anticipate the rising food costs? What did he think would happen when you take land away from food production? This is a classic - just classic - example of Congressmen's complete disregard for the concept of unintended consequences, and for the fact that government meddling can only help something by hurting something else even more.

Second, the fact that Congressmen would behave differently if there was a "secret vote" is purely a demonstration of how corrupt and nauseating some of these people are.

Third, it reflects poorly on us, the American people, who keep putting these people in office year after year. 

The Boston Globe agrees:

 CORN should be used for food, not motor fuel, and yet the United States is committed to a policy that encourages farmers to turn an increasing amount of their crop into ethanol. This may save the nation a bit of the cost of imported oil, but it increases global-warming gases and contributes to higher food prices.

...

And it's not as though ethanol improves the environment. When emissions inherent in the production process are included, ethanol consumption generates more carbon dioxide per gallon than gasoline, according to a recent report in Science magazine. Conversion of other cultivated biomass, such as sugarcane or soy, presents the same problem. The only biofuel that produces a net benefit is agricultural waste, an uncertain source. The best way for American motorists to use less gasoline is to drive fewer miles in lighter vehicles, rather than rely on the false promise of biofuels.

Here are some pleasantly surprising poll results from Rasmussen:

-48% of Americans say the best thing the government can do for the economy is to get out of the way by reducing taxes and regulations. Only 36% disagree.

-53% oppose a federal bailout for homeowners who took out bad loans, while 29% disagree.

-61% oppose a federal bailout for banks who gave out bad loans, while 15% disagree. What is interesting is that Democrats are more supportive of bailing out the "big bad banks" than Republicans are.

-And thankfully, 59% believe it is more important to create economic growth than to reduce the income gap between rich and poor. An unfortunate 35% disagree.

The Heritage Foundation's 2008 Federal Revenue and Spending Book of Charts can be found here.

I particularly like the charts addressing corporate and individual income tax rates, knocking down the myth about tax breaks for the rich, demonstrating the need to cut spending, and proving, once again, that despite two important wars, our defense spending is at historically very low levels.

A humorous story from Victorville, California tells how due to the candy ban in public schools, some clever kids are making a killing by selling candy to their friends. In the end, everyone who wants candy is getting candy.

Sound familiar? It is the exact same phenomenon we saw during the Prohibition in 1920-1933. Banning something popular for the sole reason that it could be harmful when abused while not make it impossible to get, it will just make it more expensive to get, and will reward the trouble-makers who provide it. It is also useful to think about gun control in the same way. Thank you for the lesson, children!