Trump’s Big Lie about Medicare and Social Security by Laurence M. Vance February 21, 2023 In a recent brief video message to his supporters, former president and current 2024 presidential candidate Donald Trump warned Republicans about cutting Medicare or Social Security: Under no circumstances should Republicans vote to cut a single penny from Medicare or Social Security to help pay for Joe Biden’s reckless spending spree. . . . Do not cut the benefits our seniors worked for and paid for their entire lives. Save Social Security. Don’t destroy it! The Democrats are looking to destroy Social Security. We’re not going to let them do it. Senator J. D. Vance (R-Ohio) tweeted that Trump was “100 percent correct.” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has said that “cuts to Medicare and Social Security are off the table in talks around raising the debt limit.” Trump and the Republicans don’t just want to spare Medicare and Social Security from cuts so that Biden and the Democrats don’t have extra money ...
The Roots of American Dysfunctionality, Part 1 by Jacob G. Hornberger February 1, 2023 Part 1 | Part 2 Among the best examples of the dysfunctional nature of American society are the mass killings that take place on a regular basis. As everyone knows, many of them occur without any rational motive. Someone just decides that he is going to go out and kill a bunch of people. Whenever one of these mass killings take place, inevitably there are those who call for gun control. If only America had stricter gun-control laws, or if only America could cause all guns to disappear, the argument goes, the mass killings would stop. It’s all because of guns, they say. Yet, practically every family in Switzerland is armed to the teeth. The Swiss certainly don’t have daily mass killings. The same holds true for nineteenth-century Americans. They had virtually no gun-control laws, but they didn’t experience this daily mass-killing phenomenon. Moreover, some of today’s mass killings take place in states or localities that have strict gun-control laws. If we ...
Republican Déjà Vu by Laurence M. Vance February 1, 2023 The year was 1994. A Democratic president had been in the White House for two years. The Democrats controlled the Senate and the House of Representatives. House Republicans issued a document detailing the actions they would take if they gained control of the House. Republicans were projected to win big. A midterm election was held. A red wave then swept the country. The Republicans gained control of both houses of Congress. A Republican revolution was proclaimed. The Democratic president was prevented from implementing his liberal agenda. The Republican faithful were ecstatic. The Democratic president had to work with Republicans in Congress. And nothing of substance happened that had any real effect on federal spending, the size and scope of government, or the welfare/warfare state. In 2022, we experienced a Republican déjà vu. A Democratic president had been in the White House for two years. The Democrats controlled the Senate and the House of Representatives. House Republicans issued a document detailing the ...
End the Welfare-Warfare State by Jacob G. Hornberger January 27, 2023 By any measure, the conversion of America to a welfare-warfare state has been a disaster. It is time to end this deadly and destructive political and economic experiment. Consider some examples: 1. After embroiling America in forever wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, and other parts of the world, the Pentagon has succeeded in getting us closer to ...
The Republican Debt-Circus Charade by Jacob G. Hornberger January 20, 2023 It seems like just yesterday that the debt-ceiling circus returned to Washington. Actually, it was October 2021, a little more than a year ago. That circus was just like all the ones that preceded it. The mainstream press and other acolytes of the welfare-warfare state issued all sorts of dire predictions if the debt ceiling wasn’t raised. As ...
The Conservative Cradle-to-Grave Welfare State by Laurence M. Vance January 17, 2023 Although conservatives are commonly characterized as being against welfare and government intervention in the economy, nothing could be further from the truth. But don’t take my word for it: Just look at the latest plan put out by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a beltway conservative think tank. According to AEI’s Organization and Purposes: The American Enterprise Institute ...
My Favorite Period in History by Jacob G. Hornberger December 29, 2022 My favorite period of history is the United States in the years 1870-1915. Why? Because it is the freest period in the history of man. Was it a libertarian panacea? Nope. There were, in fact, infringements on liberty, such as the violation of women’s rights, the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1870, compulsory school-attendance laws in Massachusetts, ...
Biden’s Newfound Love of the Constitution by Jacob G. Hornberger December 5, 2022 President Biden and other leftwing statists are up in arms over a comment made by former President Trump calling for "the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution" in order to declare him the winner of the 2020 presidential election, which he claims was stolen from him. As they condemn Trump for ...
The Free Market Can and Should Be Absolute by Laurence M. Vance December 1, 2022 The 1932 Democratic Party platform advocated “the removal of government from all fields of private enterprise except where necessary to develop public works and natural resources in the common interest.” But since the advent of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal — a raw deal for Americans that raised taxes; forced most manufacturing industries into cartels with codes that regulated prices; paid ...
Wallowing in Welfare-Warfare State Prison by Jacob G. Hornberger November 18, 2022 REMINDER: This is our end-of-year fundraising drive. Your support today will help us advance liberty in the year head. We could never do our work without those of you who help us out in a bigger way. If you are already an FFF donor, we hope you will renew your support with a generous end-of-year donation. If you ...
Five Trillion Dollars Is Not Enough by Laurence M. Vance November 17, 2022 The federal government seized from the American people almost $5 trillion ($4.896119 trillion) in fiscal year 2022 (Oct. 1, 2021 through Sept. 30, 2022), according to The Monthly Treasury Statement of Receipts and Outlays of the United States Government (MTS), published by the Bureau of the Fiscal Service. But this was still not enough to quench Uncle ...
The GOP Had It Coming by Jacob G. Hornberger November 14, 2022 REMINDER: Join us this evening (Monday, November 14) for the penultimate (i.e., second to the last) presentation in our online Zoom conference "End Inflation and the Fed." Our speaker this evening will be the great Ron Paul, who electrified people on the right, left, and libertarian in his presidential races with his call to "End the Fed." This is one ...
