Over the last year,
the Obama administration has aggressively pushed a $433-million plan to buy an
experimental smallpox drug, despite uncertainty over whether it is needed or
will work.

Senior officials have taken unusual steps to secure the
contract for New York-based Siga Technologies Inc., whose controlling
shareholder is billionaire Ronald O. Perelman, one of the world’s richest men
and a longtime Democratic
Party donor.

When Siga complained that contracting specialists at the
Department of Health and Human Services were resisting the company’s financial
demands, senior officials replaced the government’s lead negotiator for the
deal, interviews and documents show.

When Siga was in danger of losing
its grip on the contract a year ago, the officials blocked other firms from
competing.

Siga was awarded the final contract in May through a
“sole-source” procurement in which it was the only company asked to submit a
proposal. The contract calls for Siga to deliver 1.7 million doses of the drug
for the nation’s biodefense stockpile. The price of approximately $255 per dose
is well above what the government’s specialists had earlier said was reasonable,
according to internal documents and interviews.

Once feared for its
grotesque pustules and 30% death rate, smallpox was eradicated worldwide as of
1978 and is known to exist only in the locked freezers of a Russian scientific
institute and the U.S. government. There is no credible evidence that any other
country or a terrorist group possesses smallpox.

If there were an attack,
the government could draw on $1 billion worth of smallpox vaccine it already owns to
inoculate the entire U.S. population and quickly treat people exposed to the virus.
The vaccine, which costs the government $3 per dose, can reliably prevent death
when given within four days of exposure.

By Jordy Yager and Pete Kasperowicz – 11/08/11 10:20 AM ET

Attorney General Eric Holder admitted Tuesday that a federal gun-tracking operation was “flawed” and said it “should never have happened.”

In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Holder condemned the controversial Operation Fast and Furious, which has been under intense congressional scrutiny for its use of “gun walking.”

Holder said the effects of Fast and Furious will be felt for years to come as the thousands of firearms sold to known and suspected criminals are used in future crimes.

 

“I want to be clear: Any instance of so-called ‘gun walking’ is unacceptable,” Holder said.

“This operation was flawed in concept, as well as in execution. And, unfortunately, we will feel its effects for years to come as guns that were lost during this operation continue to show up at crimes scenes both here and in Mexico. This should never have happened. And it must never happen again.”

 

Holder faced questions Tuesday about whether he misled Congress on May 3 when he testified about Fast and the Furious to the House Judiciary Committee.

 

At the House hearing, when asked when he first became aware of Fast and Furious, Holder said, “I’m not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.”

On Tuesday, Holder clarified his remarks, saying that he first learned about Fast and Furious and its gun-walking tactics after news reports emerged based on the concerns of whistleblowers. He said he immediately asked for an inspector general (IG) investigation.

---

 

One of America’s top generals in Afghanistan was fired
last Friday for making “inappropriate public remarks.”

Major General Peter Fuller’s career-destroying offense
was to publicly criticize Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai for saying during
an October 22^nd interview with Pakistani news media that that if the
U.S. and Pakistan got into a war, he and Afghanistan would side with Pakistan in
fighting against the United States.  The general’s critical comments were made
during an interview Thursday with the left-leaning news website
Politico.

“Why don’t you just poke me in the eye with a needle?
You’ve got to be kidding me. … I’m sorry, we just gave you $11.6 billion, and
now you’re telling me, ‘I don’t really care?’ ” Fuller
said.

General Fuller also referred to Karzai’s being
“erratic,” expressed hope that Afghanistan’s next leader will be more
“articulate,” said he thought Afghan government leaders are “isolated from
reality” in their expectations of what America should expend in that country,
and said those Afghan leaders “don’t appreciate” the sacrifice that the United
States is making in “blood and treasure” for the people of their
country.

The general could have — but didn’t — mention that
Karzai is forever demanding apologies from us; that he has referred to the U.S.
and other foreign soldiers protecting him and  his country as “occupiers;” that
he has publicly threatened to join the Taliban; that he now and then demands our
“immediate” withdrawal; that his is a highly corrupt operation; that he is
scheming to dismantle his country’s constitution to perpetuate himself in power;
that when an October 29^th Taliban suicide bombing attack against a
NATO bus in Kabul resulted in the deaths of some thirteen persons, most of them
Americans, Karzai again insulted us by expressed condolences only for the four
who were Afghans; and that it took our leaning on him to extract belated
inclusion of the Americans and others.

The elite media is treating as a fairly big story
General Fuller’s being fired for saying what he said in public.  Fair enough.
But what the elite media have been missing and continue to miss — and likely
will keep right on missing — is the bigger story of the bigger picture
here.

Everything General Fuller said that got him fired is
true and needs to be understood by the public and by the media.  Bear in mind
that General Fuller, a man who has served our country as a U.S. Army officer for
more than 30 years, was the deputy commander charged with turning Afghan’s
military into an effective fighting force.  Knowing this, there is something
lacking in anyone’s sense of patriotism who does not understand and share the
general’s annoyance and frustration about Karzai’s revealing that he would have
no qualms about ordering Afghan soldiers trained by Americans to fight and kill
Americans.

And yet…it is not the place of General
Fuller to presume without authorization to make and conduct U.S. foreign policy.
Clearly he crossed the line.  Thus, it is beside the point and matters not one
bit that what he said in public is true and very likely echoes what the superior
officer who fired him and just about every other American military official in
Afghanistan says in private.

We can expect that most of the debate about the firing
of General Fuller will center on the point just made and answered.  Big
mistake.

The firing of General Fuller raises a much larger
unanswered question, the question that should have been raised and discussed in
the media all along from the very moment that Hamid Karzai publicly made his
inappropriate, insulting remarks at which General Fuller and every other clear
thinking American rightly takes great offense: what should U.S. leaders say and
do when a foreign leader who owes his country’s freedom, and perhaps even his
own life, to American goodness acts towards America as one would act towards an
enemy?

This bigger question remains unanswered in the public
mind — because the media does not discuss it, does not bother to put the
question to those who should be made to answer it.

What did the president of the United States say or do
about Karzai’s volunteering a promise to fight against us?  No one seems to have
any idea.  A good guess is that Barack Obama either went golfing or went
fundraising, but that’s only a guess.  Did Obama issue a statement expressing
his displeasure and calling upon Karzai to apologize and retract?  No.  Did the
media ask him why not?  No.

What did the Obama administration’s secretary of state
say or do?  Hillary Clinton says she promptly called the U.S. ambassador to
Afghanistan and asked him to “go in and figure out what it means,” “it” being
these words uttered by Karzai on Pakistani media: “If fighting starts between
Pakistan and the U.S., we are beside Pakistan.”

Now, most people would take Karzai’s statement as
unequivocally declaring which side he would take in a war between America and
Pakistan — and that it would be against us.  Pakistan’s double-dealing
government understood it — and loved it.

But when the president of the United States is so
weak, apparently his secretary of state felt that the best course was to try to
protect him from embarrassing himself yet another time.  So Secretary Clinton
covered for Karzai, claiming that his remarks were “taken out of context and
misunderstood.”  She gets it that what nowadays passes for journalism is not
likely to run interference against a Democratic administration’s attempt to
hoodwink the American people.

What never got properly reported — because the media
never pressed the matter — is that the Obama State Department contends that
Karzai was merely making the observation that Afghanistan and Pakistan are
nextdoor neighbors, and thus, anyone fleeing Pakistan during a war with the U.S.
would not have to travel far to find welcome refuge.  This is not a joke.  This
is Obama administration foreign policy in action. Try to imagine how the media
would have played this had Condoleezza Rice resorted to such a cockamamie claim
to spare George W. Bush from having to act in the face of such an affront to
American honor.

Did Karzai ever issue a clarification explaining just
why it is a “misunderstanding” to think he said what he said, that he would side
with Pakistan against us in a war?  No.  Did the U.S. government demand it of
him?  No.  Why don’t the U.S. media ask?  Can’t they figure how to track down
the ambassador of Afghanistan in Washington?  Do you think the Pakistanis
believe that Karzai didn’t mean it when he said he’d side with them against us?
Shouldn’t the elite media ask?

When NATO and American commander in Afghanistan, Gen.
John
R. Allen,
explained that he was firing General Peter Fuller because of “inappropriate
public comments,” he may not have caught the irony.  General Fuller’s
“inappropriate public comments” were a reaction to Karzai’s wildly
“inappropriate public comments” that insulted our country and are an affront to
any and every American who has aided the people of
Afghanistan.

General Allen also used the word “unfortunate” in his
statement announcing the firing of General Fuller.  It is indeed unfortunate for
us all that it was General Fuller rather than President Obama who took Hamid
Karzai to task for insulting America.

A president worthy of respect would have been man
enough to take Karzai to task himself and not permit this sad spectacle of a
long-serving soldier ruining his career for defending American honor when the
president should have but didn’t.

Barack Obama should have picked up the phone and told
Hamid Karzai something like this: “I am alerting you that your life is
suddenly in much greater danger and I urge you to take prompt action to lessen
this increased danger. I expect you to appear on television and radio at the
earliest possible opportunity and announce to the world that not only would you
never side against America in a war but, rather, you would stand with us. Until
you have done this, I have ordered the complete withholding of all personal
safety protection provided by US military that you, your family and your
colleagues have relied upon to keep you alive.  The other affected parties are
being informed of this in private.  As soon as I learn that you have taken this
step necessary to correct your insult to my country I will restore protection –
but not one moment sooner. If you do not act swiftly, I shall begin working on
drafting eulogy remarks.  Have a nice day.”

I wonder — don’t you? — which, if any, of the
Republican candidates for president would handle things in such a firm and
highly persuasive manner.

Don’t you wish that someone in the media — hey, it
could certainly be one of the conservative outlets — would approach Barack
Obama or at least his press secretary plus each of the Republican presidential
contenders, point to the firing of General Fuller, and then raise the big
question this whole issue needs discussed and answered?
Namely:

What should U.S. leaders say and do when a foreign
leader who owes his country’s freedom and perhaps even his own life to American
goodness acts towards America as one would act towards an
enemy?

It would be foolish of the media and the rest of us to
now only focus on whether General Fuller should have taken it upon himself to be
the one to publicly confront Harmed Karzai over his reprehensible insult to
America (already asked and answered).

It’s time to demand that the current president of the
United States and anyone who might be president come 20 January 2013 be asked –
and forced to answer — how they would deal with such an affront to American
honor.

Fred J. Eckert is a former
conservative Republican congressman from New York and twice served as a U.S.
ambassador (to the U.N. and to Fiji) under President Reagan, who called him “a
good friend and valuable advisor.”  He’s retired and lives with his wife in
Raleigh, NC.

In 2008, a group of more than 31,000 scientists signed a petition dissenting from the
position of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
that man-made CO₂ emissions are destroying our planet.  More than
9,000 of them have Ph.D. degrees in fields like atmospheric science,
climatology, earth science, and environmental science.  That’s fifteen times
more Ph.D. scientists than are involved in the IPCC campaign.

 

One of the group’s leaders, the late Professor
Frederick Seitz, said:

 

The United States is very close to adopting an
international agreement that would ration the use of energy and of technologies
that depend upon coal, oil, and natural gas and some other organic compounds.
… This treaty is, in our opinion, based upon flawed ideas.  Research data on
climate change do not show that human use of hydrocarbons is harmful.  To the
contrary, there is good evidence that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is
environmentally helpful.

 

Seitz was a first-rate scientist who served as
president of Rockefeller
University and president of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.  Seitz
was also a recipient of the National Medal of Science.  The agreement to which
he referred is the Kyoto Protocol.

 

Ivar Giaever, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, resigned from the American Physical Society because of its
position on global warming.  So did University of California professor Hal
Lewis.  When Lewis resigned, he said that the global warming movement was a “scam” and a
“pseudoscientific fraud.”

 

Even so, our government is imposing strict controls to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions in hopes of staving off global warming even
though earth’s atmosphere is cooling.  Meanwhile, the cost to you and
me is higher energy prices, higher inflation, a lower standard of living, and
fewer new jobs, since every product we buy has an energy cost component.  Under
orders from the president, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is moving ahead aggressively with regulations to reduce
CO₂ emissions.  President Obama’s misguided effort to stay the course
by fiat or by executive order is very expensive, and it’s a price that we can
ill afford to pay — especially now, as our economy is struggling to recover
from the Great Recession.

 

Global warming alarmists have resorted to fixing data, hiding data, and other things to keep people from learning the
truth.  They are motivated by blind faith in a theory that isn’t supported by
the facts.  It’s a perfect example of anti-science at work in the scientific
community.  To deny that our climate is cooling, you have to ignore a mountain
of hard data, and the facts are mounting year by year.  For example, it was
comical to watch the participants at the December 2010 U.N. Global Warming
Summit in Cancún, Mexico dress for winter as temperatures plunged to a 100-year record low.  That kind of thing is happening all over
the world, and it’s not anecdotal data.  It’s a global trend that only die-hard
global warming alarmists refuse to accept.

 

Did you know that the number of global weather
tracking stations has been reduced, and disproportionately, the eliminated stations are
in colder regions?  Global warming alarmists have continued to report data
showing global temperatures rising despite the fact that colder locations have
been taken out of the data set, and they haven’t bothered to divulge that fact.
If you take cold readings out of the data set, average temperatures rise, but it
has absolutely nothing to do with the climate.  Similarly, if you included the
temperature inside my oven in the data set, average temperatures would
rise…but it would be an act of fraud.

 

The climate is cooling, and it’s been
cooling since 1998.  Eventually, the truth will prevail, but in the
meantime, President Obama continues to retard progress at great cost to the
American people.  The only people profiting from global warming hysteria are
global warming alarmists who are selling a pig in a poke.  President Obama is
firmly in their camp.  In fact, he is their champion.

 

The United States has been blessed with enough
resources to meet our energy needs and to export our surpluses, but we have not
developed them the way we should.  Instead, we have been cowed by liberal
progressives who would rather see our economy go down the tubes than develop
what they consider “dirty energy.”

 

In 2008, the U.S. imported almost 13,000,000 barrels of oil per day, or about 57% of our total
oil consumption.  Although our energy needs have been increasing rapidly, the
U.S. didn’t build a new refinery between 1998 and 2008, even then
over the strong objections of liberal progressives.  In 2008 alone, the U.S.
spent almost $500,000,000,000 on imported oil.  That’s half a trillion
dollars that we didn’t need to spend.  Our dependence on foreign oil is putting
our economy (not to mention our national security) at risk.

 

Saying that the U.S. is rich in energy resources is an
understatement.  At today’s consumption levels, we have enough coal to meet our
needs for the next 500 years.  We have 22,450,000,000 barrels of proven oil reserves, and we are
finding new oil reserves all the time.  The U.S. has 250 trillion cubic feet of proven natural gas reserves.  We
are finding new gas reserves daily, and we are discovering new ways to tap into
hard-to-get gas deposits.  Putting that in perspective, the U.S. has more energy
in natural gas than the entire Middle East has in oil.  It’s disgraceful that
we’re putting our economic and national security at risk to import strategic
resources that we have in abundance.

 

T. Boone Pickens, one of the world’s leading oil and
gas men and an energy investor, has launched a campaign to reduce our dependence
on foreign oil by developing our natural gas reserves.  His plan is called
the Pickens
Plan.  Pickens deserves our support, but we need to do more.  We must
develop our coal, oil, and natural gas reserves.  We also need to develop wind
energy, solar energy, and hydrogen energy.  There is absolutely no excuse for
the United States to import oil and gas from another nation.

 

We have already spent more than $2,000,000,000,000 on a vast array of stimulus programs since
President Obama took office.  That’s several times more than will be needed to
fully develop all of our energy resources.  We have squandered our wealth to
reward individuals and groups that supported candidate Obama in 2008 while our
critical economic and security needs have gotten scant
attention.

 

Green energy alternatives may satisfy our energy needs
one day, but this much is certain: today, green energy is little more than a way
for President Obama to dole out federal dollars to his favorite firms at the
expense of coal, oil, and natural gas producers.  The science and technology do
not exist in green energy areas to meet even a smidgen of our energy needs.
That’s what the facts tell us, and ignoring the facts is costing us jobs and tax
revenue.

 

Neil Snyder is a chaired professor
emeritus at the University of Virginia.  His blog, SnyderTalk, is posted
daily.  His latest book is titled If You Voted for Obama in 2008 to Prove You’re Not a
Racist, You Need to Vote for Someone Else in 2012 to Prove You’re Not an
Idiot.

 

Nearly 15 percent of the population — 45.8 million people
-  were on the food-stamp dole in August, the Wall Street Journal
reported. How come?

According to the paper, it’s all because of the horrible
economy, with the number of people on food stamps having risen 8.1 percent in
the past year.

What the WSJ doesn’t mention is that the exploding use of
food stamps has much to do with changing attitudes over the years about what
food-stamp recipients are entitled to — and that now includes junk food and
sugary drinks. In addition, soaring levels of fraud have helped to drive soaring
food-stamp use, according to a recent Op-Ed in The Journal, “The Food-Stamp Crime Wave.” (Do WSJ
reporters read their paper’s Op-Ed page?)

Interestingly, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg tried some
months ago to stop the use of food stamps for sugary beverages like soda pop in
an effort to curb exploding levels of diabetes and obesity among New Yorkers. However, the
Obama administration rejected Bloomberg’s proposal for eliminating soda. Among other
things, administration bureaucrats claimed Bloomberg’s plan lacked “a clear and
practical means to determine product eligibility, which is essential to avoid
retailer confusion at point-of-sale and stigma (emphasis added) for
affected clients.”

Stigma? Now that’s an interesting word, because there is no
stigma left anymore for those using food stamps, which incidentally are no
longer actually “stamps” but debit cards that you swipe like a credit card. And
food-stamp cards can buy just about anything your stomach
desires. Nationwide, 6 percent of
food stamp benefits are spent on sugary beverages, according to the United
States Department of Agriculture, which administers the food stamp program and
that was the source of the WSJ’s statistics about soaring levels of food-stamp
use.

As to fraud, that WSJ Op-Ed by James Bovard noted that “The
number of food-stamp recipients has soared to 44 million from 26 million in
2007. Not surprisingly, fraud and abuse are rampant.”

Among other things, he explained:

Millionaires are now legally entitled to collect food
stamps as long as they have little or no monthly income. Thirty-five states have
abolished asset tests for most food-stamp recipients. These and similar
“paperwork reduction” reforms advocated by the United States Department of
Agriculture (USDA) are turning the food-stamp program into a magnet for abuses
and absurdities.

Ultimately, soaring food-stamp use is not just another
anti-poverty program for the Obama administration. It’s all about “spreading the
wealth around.”

Unfortunately, poor people who really need food stamps must
now endure the “stigma” of being lumped together with the many deadbeats now on
the food-stamp dole.

Having taught in a state university for thirty years, I’m not surprised by the ignorance on display among the Occupy Wall Street protestors. From kindergarten to university, for decades our schools have abandoned the teaching of basic facts and foundational thinking skills, and replaced both with leftish received wisdom and stale mythologies, all the while they have anxiously monitored and puffed up students’ self-esteem.

This lack of critical understanding and ignorance of simple fact characterize the main theme of the protests, that the wealthy “1%” of Americans have gamed the system to enrich themselves at the expense of everybody else, an analysis redolent of Scrooge McDuck cartoons or Frank Capra’s portrait of Old Man Potter in It’s a Wonderful Life. But these caricatures are woefully uninformed about how a global, free market economy works. For example, the protestors rail about growing “income inequality,” but they forget that this expansion of the wealth of top earners has been accompanied by that same cohort’s paying more and more of the total federal tax bill, so that today nearly half of tax-filers pay nothing. Nor do they consider the issue of income mobility: from 1999-2007, about half of households in the bottom quintile had moved up the income ladder, while nearly half of households in the top quintile had moved down.

As for those greedy “millionaires” who refuse to pay their “fair share,” in this same period, half were millionaires only once, and only 6% were millionaires for the whole nine years. Indeed, as the Treasury Department reports, among the top 1/100 of 1 percent in 1996––the group Mother Jonesdemonized for obscenely increasing their wealth over the last 30 years–– only 25% remained in this group in 2005, and the median real income of these taxpayers declined over this period. Finally, according to the Treasury Department, “Median incomes of all taxpayers increased by 24 percent after adjusting for inflation. The real incomes of two-thirds of all taxpayers increased over this period [1996-2005]. In addition, the median incomes of those initially in the lower income groups increased more than the median incomes of those initially in the higher income groups.” No doubt things have gotten worse for many because of the recession, but there are plenty of people to blame beyond the “1%” and Wall Street villains, from the federal appointees running Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to the home buyers lying on mortgage applications.

This obsession with income inequality, moreover, reflects profound ignorance of capitalism’s revolutionary genius. To the protestors, the fact that top earners increased their income more than others did is prima facie evidence of capitalist skullduggery. They seem to think that a Steve Jobs or a Bill Gates has a zillion dollars because they somehow purloined money that in a just world other people would have had. Of course, in reality Microsoft and Apple have created hundreds of thousands of jobs and enriched others at the same time the corporations enriched themselves. That’s how capitalism works: it creates wealth that indeed spectacularly benefits the few, but that also raises the living standards of the many by creating jobs. More important, it is a dynamic, open system, one that creates opportunities for the clever and hardworking. And it has been wildly successful, so much so that today, young people who in the past would have started work at 16, can now spend several years of extended adolescence in colleges and universities, where they can earn impecunious degrees in subjects like Medieval French Poetry or Postcolonial Literature, and then loaf about lower Manhattan protesting the evil system that has rescued them from the drudgery of farm labor or factory work, and given them nutritious cheap food, healthy bodies, straight white teeth, and gadgets like X-Boxes and I-Pads.
But to the therapeutic sensibility and the entitlement mentality cultivated by the schools, this success in spreading wealth to historically unprecedented numbers of people is not as important as the system’s failure to measure up to utopian standards and equally enrich everybody no matter how lacking in virtue or talent. The “creative destruction” of capitalism––which promises not wealth and success for everybody, but the opportunity for everybody to strive for success and wealth through their talents and virtues––is an intolerable injustice, one that must be remedied by the coercive power of the state. Hence according to a survey conducted by Democrat pollster Douglas Schoen, 65% of the Manhattan protestors believe that “government has a moral responsibility to guarantee all citizens access to affordable health care, a college education, and a secure retirement—no matter the cost.” Of course, that attitude is exactly what has created the looming economic crisis fueled by runaway entitlement costs that if not reined in, will double by 2050 and consume every dollar of federal tax revenues. The protestors are also ignoring the federal government’s role in creating the housing crisis by coercing and enabling banks to issue sketchy mortgages. And let’s not forget the fed’s role in inflating via federal subsidies the higher education bubble that has doubled tuition every nine years, and saddled so many of the protestors with the “injustice” of student loan debt, which since 1999 has increased 511%, and now totals $1 trillion.

In the protestors’ desire to empower the federal government even more, we see how the ignorance of history enables such delusional utopianism. For underlying these demands is the necessity for redistributing income in order to advance the idea of radical egalitarianism, and that is a notion whose resultant tyranny and bloody failure is documented on every page of history, from the French Revolution to the Soviet gulags. But how would the protestors know that history? What passes for history in most schools today is a melodrama of Western wickedness against the oppressed “other,” accompanied by feel-good romances about the achievements of marginalized minorities. It reminds me of Jane Austen’s satiric History of England, in which she says her purpose is to “vent my spleen against & shew my hatred to all those people whose parties and principles do not suit with mine, & not to give information.” The result is the sensibility we see among many of those camping out in Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park: a penchant for decrepit ideas that are seductive to immature and undeveloped minds steeped in a sense of entitlement and an arrogant assurance of their own righteousness.

Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle. Click here.

 

Nearly 15 percent of the population — 45.8 million people
-  were on the food-stamp dole in August, the Wall Street Journal
reported. How come?

According to the paper, it’s all because of the horrible
economy, with the number of people on food stamps having risen 8.1 percent in
the past year.

What the WSJ doesn’t mention is that the exploding use of
food stamps has much to do with changing attitudes over the years about what
food-stamp recipients are entitled to — and that now includes junk food and
sugary drinks. In addition, soaring levels of fraud have helped to drive soaring
food-stamp use, according to a recent Op-Ed in The Journal, “The Food-Stamp Crime Wave.” (Do WSJ
reporters read their paper’s Op-Ed page?)

Interestingly, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg tried some
months ago to stop the use of food stamps for sugary beverages like soda pop in
an effort to curb exploding levels of diabetes and obesity among New Yorkers. However, the
Obama administration rejected Bloomberg’s proposal for eliminating soda. Among other
things, administration bureaucrats claimed Bloomberg’s plan lacked “a clear and
practical means to determine product eligibility, which is essential to avoid
retailer confusion at point-of-sale and stigma (emphasis added) for
affected clients.”

Stigma? Now that’s an interesting word, because there is no
stigma left anymore for those using food stamps, which incidentally are no
longer actually “stamps” but debit cards that you swipe like a credit card. And
food-stamp cards can buy just about anything your stomach
desires. Nationwide, 6 percent of
food stamp benefits are spent on sugary beverages, according to the United
States Department of Agriculture, which administers the food stamp program and
that was the source of the WSJ’s statistics about soaring levels of food-stamp
use.

As to fraud, that WSJ Op-Ed by James Bovard noted that “The
number of food-stamp recipients has soared to 44 million from 26 million in
2007. Not surprisingly, fraud and abuse are rampant.”

Among other things, he explained:

Millionaires are now legally entitled to collect food
stamps as long as they have little or no monthly income. Thirty-five states have
abolished asset tests for most food-stamp recipients. These and similar
“paperwork reduction” reforms advocated by the United States Department of
Agriculture (USDA) are turning the food-stamp program into a magnet for abuses
and absurdities.

Ultimately, soaring food-stamp use is not just another
anti-poverty program for the Obama administration. It’s all about “spreading the
wealth around.”

Unfortunately, poor people who really need food stamps must
now endure the “stigma” of being lumped together with the many deadbeats now on
the food-stamp dole.

Mike Brownfield

November 3, 2011 at 9:37 am

 

Imagine a high-speed train zooming down hundreds of miles of glistening train track stretching across sunny California, connecting Anaheim to San Francisco. It’s a bullet train dream, and it’s a prime example of President Barack Obama’s latest plan to create jobs in America. The trouble is that this dream is far from reality.

The Los Angeles Times reported this week that the California high-speed train–which is funded in part by $3 billion in federal grants from President Obama’s stimulus–is now expected to cost $98 billion, twice what was expected, and will take an additional 13 years to complete, extending the project to 2033. Questions remain about where the funding will come from, whether the project is viable, and whether the projected ridership will even materialize.

But projects like these are central to President Obama’s plan to put Americans back to work. Speaking yesterday from Georgetown Waterfront Park in Washington, D.C., Obama declared that his plan will “put hundreds of thousands of construction workers back on the job rebuilding our roads, our airports, our bridges and our transit systems.” And that is, of course, all at the expense of the American taxpayers.

The President once called these projects “shovel ready,” meaning that as soon as money arrived from the federal government, workers could be on the job. He made it sound as easy as flipping a switch, but unfortunately it didn’t work as planned. Despite a $787 billion stimulus package, America’s economy continues to languish with 14 million out of work and a 9.1 percent unemployment rate. The President joked, “Shovel-ready was not as shovel-ready as we expected.” Though he didn’t use the phrase “shovel-ready” in his remarks yesterday, the implication was still there. If Congress approves his jobs plan, he argued, all the construction workers sitting on the sidelines will be put back to work overnight.

But that’s not the way things work in the real world. Associated Press and Congressional Research Service reports show that infrastructure spending does not create jobs and, in fact, can even have a negative effect. Heritage’s Patrick Knudsen explains:

Building and repairing roads and bridges neither creates net job growth nor boosts the economy in the near term.

First, increasing government spending on these projects simply moves resources from one place to another — it may employ construction workers, but only by reducing jobs in other sectors. Further, the money never gets out the door soon enough to promote near-term job growth.

And then there’s the President’s flawed argument that since others are doing it, the United States should be, too. “How do we sit back and watch China and Europe build the best bridges and high-speed railroads and gleaming new airports, and we’re doing nothing?” he asks. It’s not a new line of argument from the President, and it leaves out some very important facts.

Dating all the way back to the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama spoke of the need to “invest” in infrastructure in order to be competitive with the likes of China. At the time, Jim Geraghty reported at National Review Online that while Obama puts China on a pedestal, he entirely overlooks some serious problems with transportation in China–namely, stories of severe power shortages affecting the country’s exports, an episode where 500,000 train passengers were left stranded for days, and outbreaks of violence where airplane travelers were left grounded without accommodation. And that’s not to mention the working conditions under which China builds its infrastructure.

Meanwhile, Europe, which heavily subsidizes its passenger rail systems, receives a poor return on its investment. Heritage’s Ron Utt explains that despite massive spending, passengers are opting for more efficient transportation in the air:

In Europe as a whole (EU-27), rail accounted for only 6.1 percent of passenger travel in 2007, including travel by air and sea. Buses accounted for 8.3 percent of the market, and air travel accounted for 8.8 percent. Despite Europe’s huge investment in passenger rail, its market share declined from 6.6 percent in 1995 to 6.1 percent in 2007. Over that same period, commercial air increased its share from 6.3 percent to 8.8 percent. By providing faster service and competitive prices, it took passengers away from rail, buses, and autos.

But to hear President Obama tell the story, building a European- or Chinese-style infrastructure is the key to the future–and to creating new jobs. Workers are ready to go, and all they need is your money to get started. But this is something we tried once already with the last stimulus, it didn’t work, and it’s not going to work this time, either. Obama’s infrastructure plan is a train that shouldn’t leave the station, headed for a bridge to nowhere, and jobs are the last thing that it will deliver.