Fifty Years of Failure for U.S. Foreign Aid

Why U.S. Foreign Aid Fails….from the National Center for Policy Analysis
May 31, 2013

For upwards of 50 years the U.S. federal government has been sending developmental aid to other countries trying to create vibrant economies. Yet, there have been no recorded monumental successes with the use of developmental aid. Based on the high standard of living enjoyed in the United States, you might think that the U.S. government would know how to replicate that standard of living, but they don’t, says Christopher Coyne, F. A. Harper professor of economics at the Mercatus Center.

In the minds of many first world leaders, development of impoverished nations does not come from going through the same long process first world countries did. Instead, it contains a top-down approach that promises great things like ending poverty. However, there are multiple reasons why state-provided aid cannot bring nations out of poverty:

•Policymakers do not have access to the knowledge needed to allocate scarce resources to their best uses. In his critique of socialism in the 1930s and 1940s, Nobel Laureate Friedrich Hayek made this exact point, noting that even the most qualified and benevolent planners lack the knowledge to produce even the most basic items in a cost-effective manner.
•Aid creates the incentive for already dysfunctional governments to remain ineffective. A cross-country study by Stephen Knack of the World Bank found that foreign aid undermines the quality of political institutions in recipient countries through weakened accountability of political actors, more corruption, greater chances of conflict, and a weakening of the incentive to reform inefficient institutions and policies.
•Government agencies tend to focus on spending money as quickly as possible on observable outputs to signal their importance and the need for more money. In the absence of clear lines of accountability, money is often wasted.
The current operations of aid to foreign countries fail because there is not enough supervision as to where the funds go, or how the funds are spent specifically. The real solution to these problems is the guarantee of person liberty and property for citizens in those impoverished nation. Human nature will do the rest.

Source: Christopher Coyne, “Why Government Aid Programs Aren’t the Best Way to End Poverty,” Mercatus Center, May 21, 2013.

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Krauthammer on Obama’s Childlike View of Concluding Wars

OBAMA’S DOROTHY DOCTRINE by Charles Krauthammer

at the National Review:

This war, like all wars, must end. That’s what history advises. . . . ”

— Barack Obama, May 23

Nice thought. But much as Obama would like to close his eyes, click his heels three times, and declare the War on Terror over, war is a two-way street.

That’’s what history advises: Two sides to fight it, two to end it. By surrender (World War II), by armistice (Korea and Vietnam), or when the enemy simply disappears from the field (the Cold War).

AdvertisementObama says enough is enough. He doesn’t want us on “a perpetual wartime footing.” Well, the Cold War lasted 45 years. The War on Terror, twelve so far. By Obama’s calculus, we should have declared the Cold War over in 1958 and left Western Europe, our Pacific allies, the entire free world, to fend for itself — and consigned Eastern Europe to endless darkness.

John F. Kennedy summoned the nation to the burdens of the long twilight struggle. Obama, agonizing publicly about the awful burdens of command (which he twice sought in election), wants out. For him and for us.

He doesn’t just want to revise and update the September 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, which many conservatives have called for. He wants to repeal it.

He admits that the AUMF establishes the basis both in domestic and international law to conduct crucial defensive operations, such as drone strikes. Why, then, abolish the authority to do what we sometimes need to do? Because that will make the war go away? Persuade our enemies to retire to their caves?

This is John Lennon, bumper-sticker foreign policy – “Imagine World Peace.” Obama pretends that the tide of war is receding. But it’s demonstrably not. It’s metastasizing to Mali, to the Algerian desert, to the North African states falling under the Muslim Brotherhood, to Yemen, to the savage civil war in Syria, now spilling over into Lebanon and destabilizing Jordan. Even Sinai, tranquil for 35 years, is descending into chaos.

It’s not war that’s receding. It’s America. Under Obama. And it is precisely in the power vacuum left behind that war is rising. Obama declares Assad must go. The same wish-as-policy fecklessness from our bystander president. Two years — and 70,000 dead — later, Obama keeps repeating the wish even as the tide of battle is altered by the new arbiters of Syria’s future — Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia. Where does every party to the Syrian conflict go on bended knee? To Moscow, as Washington recedes into irrelevance.

But the ultimate expression of Obama’s Dorothy Doctrine is Guantanamo. It must close. Must, mind you.

Okay. Let’s accept the dubious proposition that the Yemeni prisoners could be sent home without coming back to fight us. And that others could be convicted in court and put in U.S. prisons. Now the rub. Obama openly admits that “even after we take these steps one issue will remain — just how to deal with those Gitmo detainees who we know have participated in dangerous plots or attacks but who cannot be prosecuted.”

Well, yes. That’s always been the problem with Gitmo. It’s not a question of geography. The issue is indefinite detention — whether at Gitmo, a Colorado supermax, or St. Helena. Can’t try ’em, can’t release ’em. Having posed the central question, what is Obama’s answer? “I am confident that this legacy problem can be resolved.”

That’s it! I kid you not. He’s had four-plus years to think this one through — and he openly admits he’s got no answer.

Because there is none. Hence the need for Gitmo. Other wars end, at which point prisoners are repatriated. But in this war, the other side has no intention of surrender or armistice. They will fight until the caliphate is established or until jihadism is as utterly defeated as fascism and Communism. That’s the reason — the only reason — for the detention conundrum. There is no solution to indefinite detention when the detainees are committed to indefinite war.

Obama’s fantasies are twinned. He can no more wish the detention away than he can the war.

We were defenseless on 9/11 because, despite bin Laden’s open written declaration of war in 1996, we pretended for years that no war against us had even begun. Obama would return us to pre-9/11 defenselessness — casting Islamist terror as a law-enforcement issue and removing the legal basis for treating it as armed conflict — by pretending that the war is over.

It’s enough to make you weep.

To view video, click here: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/349733/obamas-dorothy-doctrine-charles-krauthammer

— Charles Krauthammer is a nationally syndicated columnist. © 2013 the Washington Post Writers Group

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Do Obama’s Bureaucrats Coddle Known Terrorists?

Keeping Tabs
By Mark Steyn

article sent by Lisa Rich:

In his big speech the other day, President Obama said, “Much of our best counterterrorism cooperation results in the gathering and sharing of intelligence.” And much of the gathering and sharing results in …nothing.

The Woolwich butcher was deported from Kenya on suspicion of terrorism and captured on video calling for the beheading of British soldiers …but that didn’t prevent him beheading a British soldier.

Just as Tamerlan Tsarnaev was brought to the US Government’s attention by the Russians, but that didn’t prevent him blowing up the Boston Marathon.

And the Pantybomber was fingered by his own dad to the CIA, but that didn’t prevent him boarding the plane to Detroit.
And Major Hasan was tracked by not one but two joint terrorism task forces in regular email communication with Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen but they concluded that this lively correspondence was consistent with his “research interests”, so that didn’t prevent him standing on a table at Fort Hood yelling “Allahu Akbar!” and killing 14 Americans, which was also consistent with his “research interests”.

Surveillance, said President Obama in his speech, raises “difficult questions about the balance that we strike between our interests in security and our values of privacy.” Au contraire, privacy-wise it seems to be working out just great for Messrs Hasan, Tsarnaev & Co. And “surveillance” doesn’t seem quite the word when the enemy is hiding in plain sight flaunting his “research interests”, posting terrorist videos to his YouTube channel, getting deported as a suspected member of al-Shabaab, putting “Soldier of Allah” on his US Army business card – and still we can’t see him.

Segregate the Willing to be Civilized from the Unwilling!

School Choice: Will It Create a Segregated America?

from the National Center for Policy Analysis:

Education is one the most important elements of a free and democratic society. Many politicians and political think tanks have been debating back and forth about the merits of school choice, and whether or not it would create benefits for U.S. children or increase segregation and disadvantage some U.S. children. Based on recently exposed data, the argument that segregation increases in schools when parents are given an ability to choose the school for their children is flawed, says Matthew M. Chingos of the Brookings Institution.

Consider:

•A study done by UCLA Civil Rights Project claims that black charter school students were twice as likely to attend a school that enrolled less than 10 percent non-minority students compared to classmates in traditional public schools.
•Although this evidence might be convincing on first glance, this type of analysis says little to nothing about segregation caused by educational choice. It compares charter schools to schools nationwide, when charter schools are usually located in areas that contain large concentrations of minority students.
•A reanalysis of the data presented in UCLA’s Civil Rights Project indicates that there are much smaller differences between charter and traditional public schools when more applicable standards were considered.
Analysis based on the Common Core of Data (an annual federal government census over all public schools) indicates that:

•The average minority student attends a school that is 33 percent non-minority. Essentially, the typical minority student attends a major minority school.
•Likewise, the student that is eligible for free lunch benefits attends a school where more than half of the students are also eligible for a free lunch.
•As a result, the UCLA study shows us nothing about whether or not segregation is increased when families utilize charter schools.
Based on the data, there is a lack of any consistent relationship between charter schools and segregation. While this doesn’t mean there isn’t one, it suggests it is extremely unlikely. No politician or political think tank will advocate that there isn’t a problem with segregation in American society, but whether or not school choice will potentiate that problem is another story, and based on the evidence it is highly unlikely.

Source: Matthew M. Chingos, “Does Expanding School Choice Increase Segregation?” Education Next, May 16, 2013.

Obama Covers Rear End while Americans Die in Benghazi

Krauthammer: Obama Was Constructing A Cover Story For Benghazi While Last Two Americans

video from realclearpolitics:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/05/29/krauthammer_obama_was_constructing_a_cover_story_for_benghazi_while_last_two_americans_were_fighting_for_their_lives.html

A Typical Obamaling Trashing of Michele Bachmann

The following article, “Michele Bachmann Wasn’t Funny. She Was Awful”, was written by Jim Newell at the New Republic, apparently written with its lefty readers in mind:

I used to think Michele Bachmann was hilarious, and so did you: I know because you clicked the blog posts that I wrote about her. It didn’t matter what she did. She could make a funny face, pronounce a word incorrectly, pronounce a word correctly—the traffic would always come. She provided a constant fix of comical escapism that readers loved. Like Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann was always a sure success.

It became part of the daily routine: Post a 20-second clip of Michele Bachmann saying something silly, secure ten trillion page views, then work on a lengthier piece with actual value that five or six people would read. Many young political writers were able to have their jobs because traffic was heavily subsidized by Michele Bachmann saying something weird at a barbecue in Ames or whatever, everyday.

Many commentators will miss her for this reason. James Carville, for one, called her retirement announcement a “sad day.” Who will deliver the funnies now? Texas Representative Louie Gohmert, Carville suggested. We’ve still got Gohmert.

Yeah, I don’t know. It’s difficult to call Bachmann’s retirement a “sad” event right now, even with tongue in cheek. Face it: The show had been getting less and less worth watching in recent seasons. Almost entirely infuriating, really, if worth caring about at all. Let’s not remember Michele Bachmann as the goof she got away with portraying for so many years, while she was really doing so much damage. Her “legacy,” which, hope against hope, will eventually prove nil, was a very nasty, egomaniacal one, rife with smears and dark innuendo. The harm she caused to the political culture far outweighs the lift of a daily laugh. Peak Bachmann coincided with her political career’s high-water mark—that period in the summer of 2011, when she briefly led the polls for the Republican presidential nomination, before collapsing. Inflated, perhaps, by her success, she began to flaunt her uglier beliefs. Bachmann’s tumble from the top (which would have happened over one thing or another, eventually) accelerated into free fall during an early September 2011 debate, when she attacked fellow eventual loser Rick Perry over his 2007 gubernatorial mandate for all sixth-grade Texas girls be vaccinated against HPV. There were legitimate angles to work here—Perry’s close ties with a lobbyist from Merck, the pharmaceutical company that made the HPV vaccine Gardasil. She made that point during the debate. Afterwards, however, she went on television to describe her encounter with a woman in the audience:

“She told me that her little daughter took that vaccine, that injection, and she suffered from mental retardation thereafter,” Bachmann said. “There is no second chance for these little girls if there is any dangerous consequences to their bodies.”
Repeating this without qualification wasn’t just sloppy; it was pernicious and wholly inappropriate. Medical professionals are constantly working to swat back such rumors that embed in the mind quickly and are difficult to erase. And here was a presidential candidate, bizarrely trusted by a not insignificant number of parents, voicing it as truth on national television. That’s not stupidity, or whimsy, or comical ineptness. It’s viciousness. This was the year of the debt ceiling crisis, as well. Perhaps you remember it? It was that fantastic time when Congress considered arbitrarily destroying the credit of the United States and, along with it, the entire global economy, all because Republican politicians thought it would be too much of a hassle to explain what the debt ceiling was to their constituents. (Or, in a scary number of cases, to learn what it was themselves.) Michele Bachmann was a prominent player in that group. And even after the crisis had passed, at the non-fatal but still very avoidable cost of an S&P downgrade of U.S. debt, Bachmann was still out there, explaining to America that she had witnessed the crisis and proudly learned no lessons from it:

“I think we just heard from Standard & Poor’s. When they dropped—when they dropped our credit rating, what they said is, we don’t have an ability to repay our debt. That’s what the final word was from them. I was proved right in my position: We should not have raised the debt ceiling. And instead, we should have cut government spending, which was not done. And then we needed to get our spending priorities in order.”
And so she pledged repeatedly to never sign a debt ceiling hike if she were elected president. To call this position of hers, or her personally, stupid, would have let this off the hook too easily. What if she wasn’t? What if she was just awful? Her most egregious move may have come last summer, when she smeared Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s longtime aide Huma Abedin as being in cahoots with the Muslim Brotherhood’s perceived attempts to infiltrate “the highest reaches of the federal government.” Her evidence was … limited. She relied upon lunatic sources like Frank Gaffney, who likely checks for Muslims under his bed each night before going to sleep. Per Salon:

In case Abedin hasn’t already been through enough already, Bachmann is now questioning her loyalty to the U.S. by asserting that Abedin has three family members who are connected to the Muslim Brotherhood (Abedin is Muslim). She’s been targeted before by anti-Muslim activists, and Bachmann notes that Abedin’s position “affords her routine access to the Secretary and to policy-making.” Bachmann also claims the state has “taken actions recently that have been enormously favorable to the Muslim Brotherhood and its interests.”
At some point in the last year, the voters in Bachmann’s district decided that maybe they would be better served by an alternate member of Congress. She won with only 50.4 percent of the vote in 2012, and now, facing a more difficult rematch for 2014, Bachmann is choosing to make the exit on her grounds. Nevertheless, she managed to win a whole four terms to the House of Representatives. What many laughed at for the early years were the same things that others took as reasons to support her candidacies.

Maybe it’s because I no longer have the pleasure of scrambling to meet traffic quotas each day, but right now, I see no cheeky reasons to mourn Bachmann’s loss from public service. She’s not funny anymore. She’s only terrible. Louie Gohmert isn’t funny anymore. Chuck Grassley’s Twitter isn’t funny anymore. Sarah Palin isn’t funny anymore. (Okay, she was sort of funny at CPAC.) If you never thought any of these sure-things were ever even slightly funny, consider our caps doffed. And join us in being content to see that for Bachmann, it’s all over.

Jim Newell is a political writer in Washington. He has written for Wonkette, Gawker, The Guardian, The Baffler, and Salon.

Comment: Wow…..If Michele Bachmann indeed might be guilty of one or two of the above, whether in visciousness or stupidity, WHERE DOES THAT PLACE BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA?

Atheism Dominates Prayer at Lincoln, Kentucky School

If prayer is not permitted by Atheist fiats, Atheism becomes America’s state religion. Check out this ‘history’ lesson from Lincoln, Kentucky:

STANFORD — Despite the opposition of at least six students, Lincoln County High School kept to its tradition of student-led prayer during its graduation ceremony Friday.

Class of 2013 President Jonathan Hardwick received a standing ovation after he prayed for about one minute during Friday’s commencement ceremony at the school. Many audience members echoed his closing of “Amen.”

A video of Hardwick’s prayer quickly hit social media websites such as YouTube and Topix, with most online comments supporting Hardwick’s decision.

Part of the class president’s prayer was the following, “Thank you for helping us get here safely today, Lord, and thank you for the many blessings you have given us.”

In an interview with The Advocate-Messenger earlier this month, Principal Tim Godbey acknowledged that six students — including at least one atheist — had pleaded with him not to allow student-led prayer to be a part of the school’s graduation ceremony. Godbey, a self-professed Christian who says he prays for each of his students daily, said under separation of church and state laws, faculty members have never been able to pray publicly on school grounds or during school-sponsored functions. However, he noted that the U.S. Constitution does not prohibit students from doing so as long as they are not otherwise disruptive.

Some local residents with signs demonstrated outside the school in favor of prayer and Kentucky State Police troopers were patrolling in several areas of the school grounds, according to Danville resident and activist Ricky Smith, an atheist, who attended the ceremony Friday at the request of several concerned parents and students.

“Having church groups at the entrance of the school makes non-Christian students as well as their family members and friends feel uncomfortable and even threatened,” Smith said.

Earlier this year, Smith privately asked Boyle County Judge-Executive Harold McKinney to stop magistrates from saying Judeo-Christian prayers during government meetings. After being “outed” on social media websites as an atheist and the man responsible for magistrates switching to a “moment of silence,” Smith went public with his cause. Magistrates ultimately voted to return to their long-standing tradition of opening meetings with a prayer, but said they would keep Judeo-Christian terms out of their public prayers.

After listening to Smith’s request for commissioners to switch to a moment of silence, Danville City Commission declined to significantly alter its long-standing tradition of prayer; the commission has continually followed the law and kept its prayers non-denominational, according to City Attorney Stephen Dexter. Over the past two months, Smith along with other area residents including Danville resident and Christian J.P. Brantley have been respectfully walking out of the prayer portion of commission meetings. Smith made a similar protest during Friday night’s graduation ceremony in Stanford.

Smith intends to notify the American Civil Liberties Union and the Freedom From Religion Foundation about Lincoln’s public prayer, which he feels violated the civil rights of students who are not Christians. Smith – a former Christian – pointed out that some students represent a variety of faiths or lack thereof, including Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, paganism, atheism and agnosticism.

“Every student should feel safe at their graduation and should not have to worry about religious bullying,” Smith said.

Due to the holiday weekend, Lincoln school officials could not be immediately reached for comment.

Were the Middle Ages Dark?

from Prager University:

When you think of the Middle Ages, what words come to mind? How about: dark, barbaric, and oppressive. You probably learned that women were treated like objects, everyone believed the earth was flat, and progress in art and architecture was at a standstill.

But what if what you were taught is inaccurate? In this week’s video — Were the Middle Ages Dark? — Professor Anthony Esolen of Providence College explodes some common myths about the Middle Ages. For example, he names one major invention of the Middle Ages that is still with us today-something that we moderns consider essential in the life of every young person (hint: it’s not religion).

Prof. Esolen also talks about the cutting-edge advances in art, music, and architecture during the Middle Ages. Watch the video, and in just five minutes, you’ll have a better grasp of the so-called “Dark Ages.” You may even learn a fact or two that winners of Jeopardy don’t know.

Make July 4th Meaningful

Yesterday was Memorial Day. For many Americans, it was just another day off from school or work. It should be a day of remembrance of America’s fallen heroes who sacrificed their lives for the cause of personal freedom. Well, in just a few weeks, we Americans have a chance to imbue with meaning another important holiday–Independence Day. If you want to make July 4th more than just burgers, hot dogs, and fireworks, and if you want to enjoy a fun and meaningful family activity, order our original Fourth of July kit. This is especially useful for families who are looking for something that’s both educational and that honors our country’s unique values.

Sincerely,

Jared Sichel
Dean of Students
Prager University

Obama, IRS Chief “Chat” 118 Times at White House

IRS CHIEF’S 118 WHITE HOUSE VISITS MUST BE EXPLAINED

from Investors.com:

One IRS commissioner visited Obama’s White House 118 times in 2010 and 2011. His successor also dropped in often. But under George W. Bush, the tax chief visited once in four years. Time for an audit.

As the Washington Examiner noted last weekend, ex-commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service Douglas Shulman went to the White House some 118 times in 2010 and 2011, while Steven Miller, the acting director who took over from Shulman last November, himself made numerous trips there, White House visitor logs show.

Business as usual for one of the most powerful arms of the federal government, you might think. Not so.

Mark Everson, who ran the IRS during most of the George W. Bush administration, from 2003 to 2007, apparently visited a single time, grousing that he felt like he had “moved to Siberia” because the tax collection agency was so out of the policy loop.

The alibi the White House has wedded itself to is that it had to work closely with the IRS to implement ObamaCare. But House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., says “it’s hard to believe” the IRS’ abusive targeting of Tea Party and other conservative groups did not enter into the conversations that took place at these meetings, at least “in passing.”

But the Bush administration actually did some IRS revamping during its tenure, to “provide IRS with the modern tools needed both to deliver first-class customer service to America’s taxpayers and to ensure that compliance programs are administered efficiently,” with one of the major goals being to address “the drop in customer service … over the past several years.”

Yet that didn’t seem to require the IRS commissioner to scurry to the West Wing more than 100 times, or anything close to it.

Commentary’s John Steele Gordon points out that the managerial post of IRS commissioner coming over to the White House once a week on average might make sense if President Obama had been planning a big tax code restructuring. But that was not the case, and “Obama’s sole interest in the tax code has been to raise rates on high earners,” Gordon notes.

Shulman admits he knew by spring 2012 that the IRS was targeting conservative groups.

So, “Is it really believable that someone who had a Wall Street career before coming to Washington five years ago was so politically naive that he didn’t see the potential for scandal in that information and give the White House a heads-up?” Gordon asks. And that no White House staffer then passed it on to the president?

Then again, Shulman is the same guy who, with a straight face, answered Congress’ questions about the 118 visits with the alibi that he visited the White House to attend “the Easter Egg Roll, with my kids.”

That’s a lot of Easter Eggs — but not a lot of credibility.

There is a lot the American public do not yet know about communications between the White House and IRS. The integrity of free government demands a full, serious investigation.

Read More At Investor’s Business Daily: http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/052813-657927-irs-heads-118-white-house-visits-suspicious.htm?ref=HPLNews#ixzz2Uk270t3v

Senator Levin, Big Tax Lefty Denounces as Stingy, CEO Paying $16 million a Day in Taxes

We have truly entered the world of “Alice in Wonderland” when the CEO of a company that pays $16 million a day in taxes is hauled up before a Congressional subcommittee to be denounced on nationwide television for not paying more.

Apple CEO Tim Cook was denounced for contributing to “a worrisome federal deficit,” according to Senator Carl Levin — one of the big-spending liberals in Congress who has had a lot more to do with creating that deficit than any private citizen has.

Because of “gimmicks” used by businesses to reduce their taxes, Senator Levin said, “children across the country won’t get early education from Head Start. Needy seniors will go without meals. Fighter jets sit idle on tarmacs because our military lacks the funding to keep pilots trained.”

The federal government already has ample powers to punish people who have broken the tax laws. It does not need additional powers to bully people who haven’t.

What is a tax “loophole”? It is a provision in the law that allows an individual or an organization to pay less taxes than they would be required to pay otherwise. Since Congress puts these provisions in the law, it is a little much when members of Congress denounce people who use those provisions to reduce their taxes.

If such provisions are bad, then members of Congress should blame themselves and repeal the provisions. Yet words like “gimmicks” and “loopholes” suggest that people are doing something wrong when they don’t pay any more taxes than the law requires.

Are people who are buying a home, who deduct the interest they pay on their mortgages when filing their tax returns, using a “gimmick” or a “loophole”? Or are only other people’s deductions to be depicted as somehow wrong, while our own are OK?

Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes pointed out long ago that “the very meaning of a line in the law is that you intentionally may go as close to it as you can if you do not pass it.”

If the line in tax laws was drawn in the wrong place, Congress can always draw it somewhere else. But, if you buy the argument used by people like Senator Levin, then a state trooper can pull you over on a highway for driving 64 miles per hour in a 65 mile per hour zone, because you are driving too close to the line.

The real danger to us all is when government not only exercises the powers that we have voted to give it, but exercises additional powers that we have never voted to give it. That is when “public servants” become public masters. That is when government itself has stepped over the line.

Government’s power to bully people who have broken no law is dangerous to all of us. When Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department started keeping track of phone calls going to Fox News Channel reporter James Rosen (and his parents) that was firing a shot across the bow of Fox News — and of any other reporters or networks that dared to criticize the Obama administration.

When the Internal Revenue Service started demanding to know who was donating to conservative organizations that had applied for tax-exempt status, what purpose could that have other than to intimidate people who might otherwise donate to organizations that oppose this administration’s political agenda?

The government’s power to bully has been used to extract billions of dollars from banks, based on threats to file lawsuits that would automatically cause regulatory agencies to suspend banks’ rights to make various ordinary business decisions, until such indefinite time as those lawsuits end. Shakedown artists inside and outside of government have played this lucrative game.

Someone once said, “any government that is powerful enough to protect citizens against predators is also powerful enough to become a predator itself.” And dictatorial in the process.

No American government can take away all our freedoms at one time. But a slow and steady erosion of freedom can accomplish the same thing on the installment plan. We have already gone too far down that road. F.A. Hayek called it “the road to serfdom.”

How far we continue down that road depends on whether we keep our eye on the ball — freedom — or allow ourselves to be distracted by predatory demagogues like Senator Carl Levin.
Copyright 2013, Creators Syndicate Inc.

Related Topics: Taxes, Congress

Read more: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/05/28/the_bullying_pulpit_118569.html#ixzz2UdPlCkFi
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