Along with the cherry blossoms, hordes of bureaucrats descended on Washington for the spring meeting of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The meeting concluded with, among other things, a communique from the International Monetary and Financial Committee urging the United States and the European countries, including the United Kingdom, to keep the money spigots flowing and ease up on austerity.
Freedom means different things to each of us, but in New Jersey, California and New York, shrinking personal and economic freedom means shrinking population. In the decade since 2001, New York has lost 9 percent of its population, California 4.5 percent, and New Jersey 5.6 percent.
In Beltway terms, the Federal Communications Commission's $350 million budget request for 2013 is practically a rounding error. Yet it costs the American people a lot more than that. In fact, it is the third-most-expensive federal agency, but thanks to a lack of transparency, very few people are aware of that fact.
Whenever the government offers the poor man a helping hand, he might better serve himself by slapping it away. Uncle Sam can be a meddlesome coot. Nanny state regulations to guide and protect the underserved usually do them considerable harm.
Nobody believes anything coming out of Capitol Hill, and for good reason. According to a survey by Indiana University's Center on Congress, released last month, the congressional approval rating hit 9 percent, an all-time low.
Congress packed its bags and left town last week without resolving the "fiscal cliff." As things stand, the George W. Bush tax rates will expire Jan. 1, leaving us all liable for sending trillions more to Uncle Sam each year.
Combine a Midwestern drought with pointless ethanol mandates, and the supplies of corn inevitably dwindle, driving prices sky high. Politicians like Sen. Claire McCaskill, Missouri Democrat, are citing the crop crisis as an excuse to ram through a near-$1 trillion farm bill.
Just this week, several brand-new reasons have emerged for repealing Obamacare. Like proper, government-designed straitjackets, they come in three sizes: hefty, huge and humongous. The hefty reason to repeal Obamacare arrived just in time for the April 17 tax-filing deadline.
In his jobs speech before Congress, President Obama missed a golden opportunity to deal with looming new regulatory burdens that threaten the American economy. During his brief discussion of regulation, the president declared, "We should have no more regulation than the health, safety and security of the American people require. Every rule should meet that common-sense test." Nobody can argue with that goal. The problem is, our current regulatory system won't get us there.
