The idle musings of a former military man, former computer geek, medically retired pastor and now full-time writer. Contents guaranteed to offend the politically correct and anal-retentive from time to time. My approach to life is that it should be taken with a large helping of laughter, and sufficient firepower to keep it tamed!
Tuesday, January 2, 2018
Borepatch hits one out of the park
Fellow blogger Borepatch muses on President Trump's real agenda, and its possible impact if he succeeds. Go read his article for yourself. I think he's nailed it.
Peter
8 comments:
Anonymous
said...
If Trump lays off 10% or more of federal employees, I will agree he is working on this. Until then, the Trump revolution is as fake as the Reagan revolution.
How about the Post Office. Why does letter delivery have to be done by the government? Stop their tax funding.
If Trump lays off 10% or more of federal employees, I will agree he is working on this.
If Trump lays off 10% of federal employees the remaining 90% will make sure the lost 10% grows back, on steroids.
Federal agencies must be abolished, their former buildings demolished and the grounds turned into parks. Anything less will result in the tumors regenerating.
Example: Search the Constitution for the words "housing" and "mortgage;" you won't find them, yet we have the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and Sallie Mae buying and selling mortgages, FHA and VA federally-insured mortgages, farm Bureau loans through the Dept of Agriculture, the list goes on.
Then search the Constitution for "education" and tell me why we have a federal Dept of Education; search for "Agriculture," "Labor," and whatever else we have in Washington consuming dollars and issuing regulations.
As a final exercise, in 250 words or less, explain how you plan to get enough of the 535 lying, cheating thieves in Congress to agree to abolish those agencies and repeal large segments of the regulations they've inflicted us with.
They buy votes with those agencies, they're not going to get rid of them, and the people who contribute millions to re-election campaigns want to keep those agencies running as their pets to further their agendas and won't let them get shut down.
Regulation eats a huge amount of our productivity. Home construction runs 20% regulatory costs for instance. We need to shut these extra-constitutional agencies down.Start with the Federal Reserve counterfeiting scheme and every agency created since then.
Here's an approach. Get a million or two Americans to sign up under fake names like the Free State projects did. Promise that if the signup headcount is reached then on a certain date they will all stop paying taxes, remove the license tags from their cars, carry handguns, stop getting licenses and permits, and so forth.
The post office receives no tax dollars whatsoever. The federal government needs to be massively reduced, no question. But tilting at imaginary windmills is an excellent way to ensure that not a damn thing gets done. And if Trump fires *one or two* percent of all federal employees, he'd already be *leagues* ahead of many of his predecessors!
A reference for the post office thing: https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-facts/top-10-things-to-know.htm
Since the early 1980s, many of the direct tax subsidies to the Post Office (with the exception of subsidies for costs associated with the disabled and overseas voters) have been reduced or eliminated in favor of indirect subsidies, in addition to the advantages associated with a government-enforced monopoly on the delivery of first-class mail.
http://fortune.com/2015/03/27/us-postal-service/
But as Robert Shapiro—former Treasury undersecretary and chairman of the economic consultancy Sonecon—points out in a new analysis [http://www.sonecon.com/docs/studies/Study_of_USPS_Subsidies-Shapiro-Sonecon-March_25_2015.pdf], American taxpayers subsidize the USPS at a rate that surpasses the costs associated with any Congressional mandate. He estimates that, all told, the subsidies and legal monopolies that Congress bestows upon the post office is worth $18 billion annually.
[...]
Tax breaks. The Post Office is exempt from state and local property and real estate taxes, along with other burdens like tolls, vehicle registration fees, and parking tickets. These exemptions save the USPS $2.18 billion per year.
Cheap borrowing. The Postal Service, writes Shapiro, "can borrow from the U.S. Treasury through the Federal Financing Bank, at highly-subsidized interest rates." It currently borrows the legal limit of $15.2 billion at a rate of 1.2%. Without this access, it would be paying somewhere between $415 million and $490 million per year more in interest.
Pres. Trump has reduced the headcount at the State Department and the EPA. That's a terrific start. Now if he would just fire all the remaining Obama appointees, he'd really start getting things accomplished. Especially at ICE and DOD.
8 comments:
If Trump lays off 10% or more of federal employees, I will agree he is working on this. Until then, the Trump revolution is as fake as the Reagan revolution.
How about the Post Office. Why does letter delivery have to be done by the government? Stop their tax funding.
Thanks for the link, Peter.
If Trump lays off 10% or more of federal employees, I will agree he is working on this.
If Trump lays off 10% of federal employees the remaining 90% will make sure the lost 10% grows back, on steroids.
Federal agencies must be abolished, their former buildings demolished and the grounds turned into parks. Anything less will result in the tumors regenerating.
Example: Search the Constitution for the words "housing" and "mortgage;" you won't find them, yet we have the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and Sallie Mae buying and selling mortgages, FHA and VA federally-insured mortgages, farm Bureau loans through the Dept of Agriculture, the list goes on.
Then search the Constitution for "education" and tell me why we have a federal Dept of Education; search for "Agriculture," "Labor," and whatever else we have in Washington consuming dollars and issuing regulations.
As a final exercise, in 250 words or less, explain how you plan to get enough of the 535 lying, cheating thieves in Congress to agree to abolish those agencies and repeal large segments of the regulations they've inflicted us with.
They buy votes with those agencies, they're not going to get rid of them, and the people who contribute millions to re-election campaigns want to keep those agencies running as their pets to further their agendas and won't let them get shut down.
Regulation eats a huge amount of our productivity. Home construction runs 20% regulatory costs for instance. We need to shut these extra-constitutional agencies down.Start with the Federal Reserve counterfeiting scheme and every agency created since then.
Here's an approach. Get a million or two Americans to sign up under fake names like the Free State projects did. Promise that if the signup headcount is reached then on a certain date they will all stop paying taxes, remove the license tags from their cars, carry handguns, stop getting licenses and permits, and so forth.
The post office receives no tax dollars whatsoever. The federal government needs to be massively reduced, no question. But tilting at imaginary windmills is an excellent way to ensure that not a damn thing gets done. And if Trump fires *one or two* percent of all federal employees, he'd already be *leagues* ahead of many of his predecessors!
A reference for the post office thing: https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-facts/top-10-things-to-know.htm
(If that's not good enough, try Google.) ;-)
https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-facts/top-10-things-to-know.htm
The Postal Service receives NO tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations.
Doesn't say anything about capital expenses or legislated privleges.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Service
Since the early 1980s, many of the direct tax subsidies to the Post Office (with the exception of subsidies for costs associated with the disabled and overseas voters) have been reduced or eliminated in favor of indirect subsidies, in addition to the advantages associated with a government-enforced monopoly on the delivery of first-class mail.
http://fortune.com/2015/03/27/us-postal-service/
But as Robert Shapiro—former Treasury undersecretary and chairman of the economic consultancy Sonecon—points out in a new analysis [http://www.sonecon.com/docs/studies/Study_of_USPS_Subsidies-Shapiro-Sonecon-March_25_2015.pdf], American taxpayers subsidize the USPS at a rate that surpasses the costs associated with any Congressional mandate. He estimates that, all told, the subsidies and legal monopolies that Congress bestows upon the post office is worth $18 billion annually.
[...]
Tax breaks. The Post Office is exempt from state and local property and real estate taxes, along with other burdens like tolls, vehicle registration fees, and parking tickets. These exemptions save the USPS $2.18 billion per year.
Cheap borrowing. The Postal Service, writes Shapiro, "can borrow from the U.S. Treasury through the Federal Financing Bank, at highly-subsidized interest rates." It currently borrows the legal limit of $15.2 billion at a rate of 1.2%. Without this access, it would be paying somewhere between $415 million and $490 million per year more in interest.
Pres. Trump has reduced the headcount at the State Department and the EPA. That's a terrific start. Now if he would just fire all the remaining Obama appointees, he'd really start getting things accomplished. Especially at ICE and DOD.
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