Liberty Maven

I’m not sure how they got the hidden cameras in the room, but here is Peter Schiff, donning a cowboy hat discussing economics with President Barack Obama. There seems to be something odd about their speech patterns and use of profanity though. This must be how they talk when they think cameras aren’t around.

Once again Rand Paul was kind enough to agree to be interviewed by Liberty Maven as the latest and perhaps greatest money bomb of his campaign approaches.

Be sure to pledge at ISupportRandPaul.com and donate on August 19th and August 20th (Thursday and Friday) at RandPaul2010.com.

Now the interview…

LM: With the overblown “Aqua Buddha” story spreading around the media like wildfire, it’s obvious your opponent’s attack machine is in full gear. How beneficial is it to respond to attacks of this kind? If your campaign staff find any “dirt” about Jack Conway’s past, will you respond in kind?

Rand Paul: No matter how the drive by media tries to distract from the issues in this race – the real issues facing Americans every day – we are committed to running a campaign of substance and real issues, and we will not engage in the politics of character assassination.

LM: When you become the next U.S. Senator from Kentucky what specific legislation would you introduce in your first year in office? How will that legislation benefit Kentuckians?

Rand Paul: There are a few things I want to do, for one I will propose and force a vote on an Enumerated Powers Act, to force Congress to point to the part of the Constitution that justifies their bills. That would benefit not only Kentuckians but everyone who has been affected by this out-of-control government forcing unconstitutional laws on us like Obamacare. Another will be a Balanced Budget Amendment with strict tax and spending limits.

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by Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital and author of the new best-selling economic fable, How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes

This week, national attention was fixated on JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater, whose bold, creative, and controversial exit strategy could revitalize his future prospects. Not nearly as noticed was the Federal Reserve’s decision on Tuesday to avoid finding an exit strategy for its own never-ending career trap. Unfortunately, the Fed’s choices affect our lives much more than Slater’s.

Just a few weeks ago, pundits were asking how Ben Bernanke would shrink the Fed’s bloated post-crisis balance sheet. But in its August 10th decision, the Fed signaled that it would “recycle” its debt holdings; in other words, there would be no exit strategy for the foreseeable future. Given the fact that monetary stimulus will not only fail to spark a genuine recovery, but create a never-ending need for successively larger doses, Bernanke should grab a few beers and head for the nearest available emergency slide.

About a year ago, economic forecasters claiming insight into Fed deliberations spread the word that the central bank had devised a methodical exit strategy to unwind its balance sheet. The only question they thought worth discussing was when the plan would begin. Some even speculated that it already secretly had. In a July 2009 commentary entitled “No Exit for Ben,” I argued that Bernanke and his cohorts never had any serious intention of implementing such a policy. I suggested that the Fed would continue to play the role of money-pusher – making sure the addicts were never denied a fix, even if an overdose threatened.

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No, this isn’t the punchline to a joke. The Institute For Justice has filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of a group of monks from Saint Joseph Abbey to permit them to participate in an unfettered market for selling caskets in Louisiana.

Mark Meranta from IJ writes:

To sell caskets legally, the monks would have to abandon their calling for one full year to apprentice at a licensed funeral home, learn unnecessary skills and take a funeral industry test. They would also have to convert their monastery into a “funeral establishment” by, among other things, installing equipment for embalming human remains.

The monks face crippling fines and up to 180 days in jail. This is classic economic protectionism, and this case has a great chance of making it to the Supreme Court.

Here is a short video about the case:

The Institute for Justice does some wonderful work. This is no exception. For more information see their page regarding the suit.

Quote of the Day: “Politicians are worse than thieves. At least when thieves take your money, they don’t expect you to thank them for it.” — Walter Williams

Congressional leaders are calling the House of Representatives back for a special session. They want to hold one vote on one bill on Tuesday, and then leave for recess again. What is this bill? It’s another bailout — a $26 billion bailout of wasteful, incompetent state governments.

It’s also a pay-off to Democratic special interests like government employee unions (but please don’t think for a minute that the Republicans aren’t just as bad about this kind of thing).

This bill has already passed the Senate, but it isn’t necessarily certain that it can pass the House. Many House Democrats are worried about their re-election prospects, and don’t want to vote for another big spending bill. For instance, here’s what Collin Peterson (D-Minn) says . . .

“I don’t know how they’re going to pass it. I haven’t really checked with people, but there are a lot of guys who aren’t going to vote for it.”

And, according to Politico, this kind of concern is starting to be a real roadblock for the Democratic spending orgy . . .

“Their fiscal-policy meltdown included the unprecedented failure to consider an annual budget resolution in its usual form and the approval of only two of the scheduled 12 appropriations bills prior to the August recess.”

This means we have a real chance to defeat this bailout bill, but only if we register our disapproval now. Make Congress nervous about passing another bailout this close to the election. Send a letter to Congress using our No Bailouts campaign.

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As fiscal conservatives continue to seek avenues through which to derail the federal gravy train, it helps from time to time to take a look at the mind-numbingly long list of federal departments and agencies that are on board. Of course, this list is hardly exhaustive – just one that is publicly available – but it can certainly give us some concrete ideas on how and where to cut the spending.

Today: Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA)

About: “[The FHFA seeks to] provide effective supervision, regulation and housing mission oversight of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks to promote their safety and soundness, support housing finance and affordable housing, and support a stable and liquid mortgage market. The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) was created on July 30, 2008, when the President signed into law the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008.”
FY 2010 Budget: $139.3 million (Source)

In response to the housing crisis in 2008, media pundits and politicians were quite convinced that there simply wasn’t any regulation in the housing market. Pay no attention to the fact that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – two monstrosities created and backed by the federal government to “encourage affordable housing” – were the main culprits in driving the demand for housing astronomically above the free-market levels. Pay no attention to the fact that we already set up a regulating body – the FHFB – in the wake of the S&L crisis of the late 1980′s. (Apparently, changing the “B” to an “A” will solve our problems.) The solution is to regulate the government with more government! Surely, there will be no conflict of interest here. The fact that the director can call the FHFA an “independent regulator” while keeping a straight face truly boggles the mind.

The $139.3 million budget for the FHFA seems small, but is fairly misleading. Part of their mission statement is to “support a stable and liquid mortgage market.” This means calling on Congress and the President to throw more money at Fannie and Freddie if, in the opinion of the FHFA director, they could become insolvent. Their cost to taxpayers goes far beyond their own budget, as they are tasked with regulating the agencies which back more than $5 trillion in mortgages – most of which should have never been made.

Of course, the mission statement of the FHFA itself is a collection of laughable contradictions. On the one hand, the agency wishes to “support housing finance and affordable housing.” They are not ashamed to admit that the goal is to continue the same easy credit policies of Fannie and Freddie that caused the housing boom and subsequent bust. However, with their attempts to prop up housing prices to prevent an increasing number of mortgage defaults, by bailing out homeowners and extending tax credits, they are doing just the opposite of making housing prices affordable. While the pain of foreclosures would hurt many Americans, it would also accelerate the recovery by allowing people who had accumulated savings to buy the cheaper housing, even without the phony credit of the GSEs.

The best way to ensure a stable housing market is to stop distorting it with trillions of dollars of money in mortgages, impossibly low interest rates set artificially by the Fed, and regulators on top of regulators who obviously don’t have a clue. Rather than setting arbitrary goals that make us feel warm and fuzzy about helping the underprivileged in the boom, maybe we should be observing the plight of those same people in the bust – people who are now not only underprivileged, but underwater on their mortgages or bankrupt to boot.

One could argue that, as long as Fannie and Freddie exist, it is “Necessary and Proper” to regulate them, and thus constitutional for the FHFA to exist. Of course, I’d counter that with “Are Fannie and Freddie constitutional themselves?” The “necessary and proper” clause applies only to functions pursuant to “the foregoing powers” in Article I, Section 8. One would be hard-pressed to find the clause authorizing the federal government’s backing of mortgages, financing of banks with money to make more mortgages, or packaging of mortgages for sale as financial assets. Get the federal government out of the mortgage and loan industry, and perhaps the banks who make these mortgages have a bit more incentive to be prudent and cautious with their lending standards.

Of course, we know that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” I’d add that those who choose to blatantly ignore the past deserve what they have coming to them. After all, it isn’t as if we couldn’t see this coming the first time.

Results
Constitutionality: None
Visibility: Moderate
Ease of Abolishing: Fairly difficult
Taxpayer Expense: Deceptively high
Priority: Fairly high

As fiscal conservatives continue to seek avenues through which to derail the federal gravy train, it helps from time to time to take a look at the mind-numbingly long list of federal departments and agencies that are on board. Of course, this list is hardly exhaustive – just one that is publicly available – but it can certainly give us some concrete ideas on how and where to cut the spending.

Today: Grain Inspection, Packers, and Stockyards Administration

About: “The Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) facilitates the marketing of livestock, poultry, meat, cereals, oilseeds, and related agricultural products, and promotes fair and competitive trading practices for the overall benefit of consumers and American agriculture. GIPSA is part of USDA’s Marketing and Regulatory Programs, which are working to ensure a productive and competitive global marketplace for U.S. agricultural products.”
FY 2010 Budget: $84 million (Source)

You read that correctly. The USDA essentially has a marketing department called GIPSA, established in 1994. While they speak of a “competitive global marketplace,” however, they don’t deal with foreign marketing or exports; no, for that, you’d have to go down a couple floors to the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS). But that’s another article for another day. If GIPSA is in the business of marketing, but there’s a separate agency to improve American agriculture in foreign markets, then what does that leave GIPSA tasked with?

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The Senate will vote on the  Frank-Dodd financial (non)reform bill (H.R. 4173) this week and possibly as soon as today. Although it has the votes to pass, it doesn’t yet have the 60 votes needed to break a filuster.

This bill will only strangle our already-ailing economy, and will do nothing to prevent future financial collapses or bailouts. Please tell your Senators to support the filibuster and oppose Frank-Dodd through our Reduce Regulations campaign.

You may borrow or copy from this letter . . .

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Obama campaigned on “Yes, We can!”, but he’s governing on “Yes, You Will.”

He’s so similar to George W. Bush, and in some cases worse (drone bombing fetish?), on foreign policy that I expect to hear him start mis-pronouncing the word “nuclear” any day now.

He, like his fellow progressives, believes government is the solution to all the problems of the world. Will it take someone hurling a shoe at him to wake him up to the fact that the government doesn’t have such a great track record when it comes to solutions? That probably wouldn’t work. He’d just accuse the shoe-thrower of being a Right-wing extremist and/or a Tea Party racist and/or a domestic terrorist and/or a misguided soul who has been brain-washed by “my opponents” to believe that government is the problem.

Then he may calm down a bit and suggest that perhaps he just needs to explain things better so the stupid peasants that live around his DC castle and beyond understand that the proper role of government is to be involved in every aspect of their lives.

For instance, let’s investigate the health welfare individual mandate.

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The House and Senate are expected to vote on the final version of the fraudulent “financial reform” bill this week.

We need to defeat this bad bill, HR 4173, which is a whopping 2,319 pages long.

To achieve REAL financial reform we need to pass Ron Paul’s Free Competition in Currency Act instead. Please send a letter to Congress pushing for both of these outcomes.

You may borrow from or copy the following sample letter for this purpose . . .

In addition to supporting the “Free Competition in Currency Act” please vote NO on the big Obama-Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill, HR 4173. Ron Paul’s currency bill addresses the root causes of the financial crisis, while the regulation bill does not.

The financial crisis was caused by . . .

* The Federal Reserve keeping interest rates artificially low
* The Federal Reserve inflating the money supply to satisfy Congress’s deficit spending
* Government policies encouraging or forcing financial institutions to issue credit to undeserving people

Together, these policies caused the sub-prime mortgage crisis and the mal-investment of easy money. The result was the Great Recession.

What does the Obama-Dodd-Frank bill do to address these problems?

NOTHING!

Instead, it sets up a “Consumer Protection” agency whose regulations will conflict with other regulatory agencies:

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