True Grit… John Stossel

True Grit

Townhall.com ^ | May 15, 2013 | John Stossel

Posted on Wednesday, May 15, 2013 7:59:34 AM by Kaslin

Are you a real man (or woman)? Do you have “grit”?

Compare yourself to the man on the $20 bill: Andrew Jackson, our seventh president.

 

During the Revolutionary War, Jackson volunteered to fight. He was just 13 years old at the time. The British captured him and made him a servant for British officers. When one ordered Jackson to clean his boots, Jackson refused, and the officer slashed Jackson’s hand with a sword. When Jackson became president, he showed off the scar.

Train Wreck Ahead John Stossel…..

Train Wreck Ahead

Townhall.com ^ | May 1, 2013 | John Stossel

Posted on Wednesday, May 01, 2013 9:09:30 AM by Kaslin

gophum (Photo credit: GunnyG1345)

Most Americans — even those who are legislators — know very little about the details of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, so-called Obamacare. Next year, when it goes into effect, we will learn the hard way.

Many people lazily assume that the law will do roughly what it promises: give insurance to the uninsured and lower the cost of health care by limiting spending on dubious procedures.

Don’t count on it.

Consider just the complexity: The act itself is more than 906 pages long, and again and again in those 906 pages are the words, “the Secretary shall promulgate regulations …”

“Secretary” refers to Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius. Her minions have been busy. They’ve already added 20,000 pages of rules. They form a stack 7 feet high, and more are to come.

Our old health care system was already a bureaucratic and regulatory nightmare. It had 16,000 different codes for different ailments. Under our new, “improved” system, there will be more than a 100,000.

obamadash (Photo credit: GunnyG1345)

Government likes to think regulations can account for every possibility. Injured at a chicken coop? The code for that will be Y9272. Fall at an art gallery? That means you are a Y92250. There are three different codes for walking into a lamppost — depending on how often you’ve walked into lampposts.

A Post-Post Office World… “They have a near monopoly on first-class mail delivery. You want to deliver something to someone? You better not put it in their mailbox — that’s illegal. The U.S. Postal Service doesn’t pay sales tax or property tax. They don’t even pay parking tickets.”

A Post-Post Office World

 

Townhall.com ^ | April 17, 2013 | John Stossel

 

rprprprp (Photo credit: GunnyG1345)

 

 

 

Posted on Wednesday, April 17, 2013 9:25:16 AM by Kaslin

 

Even parts of government that look like a business never get run with the efficiency of a business. Just look at the post office.

 

They buy commercials and tout their services the way private businesses do. They offer a service that customers want.

 

 

 

 

 

But a real business can’t get away with losing billions every year. (I guess in the era of bailouts, I should say shouldn’t get away with it.) The post office lost $16 billion last year, despite having all sorts of advantages that most private businesses don’t have.

 

They have a near monopoly on first-class mail delivery. You want to deliver something to someone? You better not put it in their mailbox — that’s illegal. The U.S. Postal Service doesn’t pay sales tax or property tax. They don’t even pay parking tickets.

 

With advantages like that, how do they lose money?

 

 

 

Imperial Washington… John Stossel… “Politicians say, “I’m going to Washington to serve others.” Maybe they mean to. But after most “serve,” they never leave. When I visit Washington, I see politicians and bureaucrats serving themselves.”

Imperial Washington

FOXBusiness (via RCP) ^ | 3-27-2013 | John Stossel

Posted on Wednesday, March 27, 2013 7:43:15 AM by Sir Napsalot

Pete Souza, Official White House Photographer (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Senate did something this past weekend it hasn’t done in four years: passed a budget. The law requires the Senate to pass a budget, but Congress often ignores its own laws. For most of Barack Obama’s presidency, a series of continuing resolutions kept the money — your money — flowing.

Now the Senate wants to add a trillion dollars of new taxes, even more than President Obama seeks. Despite our growing debt, the Senate wants to fund things like the Senate barbershop, which loses a third of a million dollars every year.

 

Ron Paul Reacts to State of the Union Address… “Surely, Dr Ron Paul and our history since the ConCon of 1778 must be living proof that we should return to the Articles Of Confederation for the simple reason that we cannot trust a large governing body with the authority and responsibility involved in such a task. Ref http://gunnyg.wordpress.com/2013/01/31/the-daily-bell-axiom-3-back-to-the-articles-of-confederation-as-americas-central-government/” …(Articles of Confederation, etc.)

Ron Paul Reacts to State of the Union Address

Stossel on FBN via Youtube ^ | 2/12/2013 | Eduardo89rp

Posted on Wednesday, February 13, 2013 2:26:32 PM by Laissez-faire capitalist

obampoint (Photo credit: GunnyG1345)

Former presidential candidate Ron Paul reacted to President Obama’s SOTU address with John Stossel on Fox Business Network.

rprprprp (Photo credit: GunnyG1345)

Paul said in the speech, “certainly we didn’t get any answers tonight” to the key issues facing the nation.

Stossel called O’Reilly a “blowhard” tonight

Stossel called O’Reilly a “blowhard” tonight

Posted on Tuesday, July 17, 2012 11:37:58 PM by Kevin in California

English: Journalist John Stossel, outside Fox Studios in Manhattan after a taping of his TV series, Stossel, June 9, 2010. Photo by Luigi Novi. This photo may be used and modified, for any purpose, only if the photographer is visibly credited in each instance in which it is used. (See licensing information below.) For more information on my photos, you can contact me here. Category:John Stossel (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I guess they were talking about guns and the crime spree going on in Chi-town and O’Reilly said something (not sure exactly what) that brought a response from Stossel of “you’re just a blowhard in a studio!”

The Stossel Solution… (“Stossel’s show on Saturday, June 30 was a classic. It was called “Government, Incorporated” and focused on what private industry can do less expensively and more efficiently than government. “)

In order to get the correct answer to anything, one must ask the right question. That is what former ABC News and current Fox News TV host John Stossel does on his weekly program. If ever there was “must see-TV,” this is it.

Stossel’s show on Saturday, June 30 was a classic. It was called “Government, Incorporated” and focused on what private industry can do less expensively and more efficiently than government. After watching it, I wondered why this isn’t happening. Why does inefficient, costly and unresponsive government continue to grow while the people and companies that could do the work much better are regulated and taxed to death?

In part it’s because politicians speak only in poll-tested sound bites and rarely focus on what works. It isn’t as if we don’t have a history that can teach us. We know what works, but politicians too often prefer the issue to the solution. That’s where Stossel comes in.

At the top of the program Stossel established the underlying foundation of his libertarian philosophy when it comes to government vs. private industry: “…even though the private sector is more efficient, politicians and bureaucrats usually won’t let go. They want their tentacles on everything. And the public is usually happy to go along, because we’re imprinted to believe the specialists in Washington and state capitals know better. They’re from the government. They’re here to help. And they’re so smart.”

John Stossel (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

One of his guests was Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels. Forget for a moment that Daniels is a Republican. Focus on his accomplishments. “You were $78 million in debt,” Stossel said during the program. “Now you have a $1.5 billion surplus.” In a controversial decision, Indiana leaders leased a 157-mile toll road to foreign investors. “In exchange,” writes Ryan Holeywell of Governing.com, “for a $3.8 billion, lump-sum payment, the investors would get to keep toll road revenue for 75 years … a windfall for Indiana, with little downside to taxpayers.” Next year, Daniels announced recently, his state’s surplus will be at least $2 billion. Taxpayers can expect a credit on their 2013 taxes.

Daniels said he invokes what he calls “the Yellow Pages test. If it’s in there, then conceivably government shouldn’t be doing it itself.”

Prison Planet.com » 19 Signs That America Has Become A Crazy Control Freak Nation Where Almost Everything Is Illegal

Do you think that you are free? Most Americans would still probably answer “yes” to that question, but is that really the case? In the film Edge of Darkness, Mel Gibson stated that “everything is illegal in Massachusetts”.

Well, the same could pretty much be said for the United States as a whole. Our lives are governed by millions of laws, rules and regulations and more are being piled on all the time. In fact,40,000 new laws just went into effect in January. Every single new law restricts your freedom just a little bit more. The truth is that America has become a crazy control freak nation where virtually everything that we do is highly regulated. You have probably broken multiple laws today that you don’t even know exist. We have all become criminals and lawbreakers because almost everything is illegal at this point.

Our politicians are convinced that they are “making life better” by piling gigantic mountains of laws on to our backs, and law enforcement authorities are convinced that they are helping society by “cracking down on crime”, but the reality is that our liberties and our freedoms are being strangled by all of this government oppression. This is not the way that America is supposed to work.

Yes, every society needs laws. But the laws should be short enough and simple enough that everybody can read them and understand them.

In America today, there is no possible way that any of us could ever read all of the laws that apply to us. Most of us just live our daily lives and try to do the “right” thing. But there is no guarantee that men with guns will not show up at your door one evening because of some obscure regulation that you have broken.

The following are 19 signs that America has become a crazy control freak nation where almost everything is illegal….

#1 One California town is actually considering making it illegal to smoke in your own backyard.

#2 In Louisiana, a church was recently ordered to stop giving out water because it did not have a permit to do so.

#3 In the United States it is illegal to operate a train that does not have an “F” painted on the front. Apparently without that “F” we all might not know where the front of the train is.

A d v e r t i s e m e n t

#4 In many U.S. states is it now illegal to collect rain that falls from the sky on to your own property.

#5 In America today it is illegal to milk your cow and sell the milk to your neighbor. If you do this, there is a good chance that federal agents will raid your home at the crack of dawn.

#6 In Washington D.C. it is illegal not to recycle cat litter.

#7 It is illegal to give a tour of the monuments in Washington D.C. without a license.

#8 In the United States it is illegal to sell natural cures for cancer – even if they work.

John Stossel: The harm Obamacare’s already inflicting (keeping unemployment high)

 

President Obama says his health care “reform” will be good for business.

Business has learned the truth.

Image via Wikipedia

Three successful businessmen explained to me how Obamacare is a reason that unemployment stays high. Its length and complexity make businessmen wary of expanding.

Mike Whalen, CEO of Heart of America Group, which runs hotels and restaurants, said that when he asked his company’s health insurance experts to summarize the impact of Obamacare, “the three of them kind of looked at each other and said, ‘We’ve gone to seminar after seminar, and, Mike, we can’t tell you.’ I think that just kind of sums up the uncertainty.”

Brad Anderson, CEO of Best Buy, added that Obamacare makes it impossible to achieve even basic certainty about future personnel costs:

“If I was trying to get you to fund a new business I had started and you asked me what my payroll was going to be three years from now per employee, if I went to the deepest specialist in the industry, he can’t tell me what it’s actually going to cost, let alone what I’m going to be responsible for.”

A Libertarian Year Ahead?

A Libertarian Year Ahead?

Townhall.com ^ | December 28, 2011 | John Stossel

Posted on Wednesday, December 28, 2011 9:25:04 AM by Kaslin

As 2011 draws to a close, I wonder: Is freedom winning? Did America become freer this year? Less free? How about the rest of the world?

I’m a pessimist. I fear Thomas Jefferson was right when he said, “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.” That’s what’s happened. Bush and Obama doubled spending and increased regulation. Government’s intrusiveness is always more, never less. The state grows, and freedom declines.

But there were bright spots. We don’t yet know what will become of what people call the Arab Spring. But this year, for the first time in my life, there was hope that masses of people in the Middle East will embrace liberalism — in the original sense of people being left alone to pursue their own lives.

Another possible bright spot: President Obama declared the war in Iraq over. I don’t believe it because 17,000 embassy personnel remain, but at least he’s saying it, and troops have left. Some will also leave Afghanistan. But I’m confused. Obama was elected partly because he promised to end the wars. But then he almost tripled the number of American soldiers in Afghanistan, from 35,000 to 100,000.

I’m pessimistic about America going bankrupt, like Greece, thanks to ballooning spending on entitlements like Medicare. But terms of debate can change quickly. This spring, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan presented a timid plan that would have slowed the growth of government slightly. Even Republicans went bonkers. Newt Gingrich called it “right-wing social engineering.”

The FDA Kills

The FDA Kills

Townhall.com ^ | November 9, 2011 | John Stossel

Posted on Wednesday, November 09, 2011 7:34:07 AM by Kaslin

It would be nice if politicians and regulators left us alone. But they don’t. They always want to do more. Recently, there have been shortages of some medicines. Cancer patients can’t get drugs they need. Why not?

One reason is that a big drugmaker shut down for a year in part to meet Food and Drug Administration rules. The FDA makes it so expensive and difficult to sell drugs that there isn’t an eager pack of companies rushing to the fill the gap. The free market would provide that, but government intervention, such as low Medicare reimbursement, strangles it. So people suffer.

Does the FDA say it’s sorry for its part and back off? Of course not. Regulators almost never do that. In fact, the FDA wants more power.

It wants to regulate how your doctor uses his smartphone. I’m not kidding! The FDA wants the power to approve mobile medical apps that let doctors monitor patients’ vital signs over their phones. As one doctor put it, “Even though I’m away from the hospital, I can still look at … real-time wave form data just as if I were at the patient’s bedside.”

Take A Chainsaw To The Budget (Stossel Gets It)

On my show tonight at 10pm, I lay out a way to completely get rid of the deficit.

I don’t claim to be a budget expert. But others, such as Chris Edwards at Cato and Stuart Butler at Heritage, are. They found lots of serious cuts. My staff found a few more, and put together a list that would completely balance the budget:

Defense cut by 2/3: $475 billion (Federal Budget, pg. 58)

Medicare/Medicaid*: $441 billion (Cato Institute)

Social Security Means Testing: $170 billion (Heritage Foundation)

Eliminate Dept. of Education (includes Pell Grants): $106.9 billion (Cato Institute)

Social Security*: $85.7 billion (Cato Institute)

Eliminate Dept. of Transportation: $84.8 billion (Cato Institute)

Tax Amnesty: $80 billion (Rep. Jared Polis D-Co.) Eliminate Dept. of Labor*: $78.6 billion (Department of Labor and White House)

Eliminate HUD: $60.8 billion (Cato Institute)

Eliminate Dept. of Agriculture*: $33 billion (Cato Institute)

Cut civilian employee compensation: $30 billion (Cato Institute)

Stop maintaining vacant federal property: $25 billion (Heritage Foundation)

Eliminate Foreign Aid: $21.2 billion (Cato Institute)…

Read more: http://www.foxbusiness.com/on-air/stossel/blog/2011/07/29/take-chainsaw-budget-2#ixzz1TiFM9jWd

(Excerpt) Read more at foxbusiness.com …

via Take A Chainsaw To The Budget (Stossel Gets It).