USA Ranked #2 in Internet Freedom (tiny Estonia #1)

The U.S. is essentially the best country in the world when it comes to Internet freedom. Which is why the federal government needs to regulate it, obviously.

How much did your vote for Obama cost you?

In this post I determine how much your vote (or someone else's vote) for Obama will cost you throughout your working career to pay for the interest on Obama's massive deficit spending. The results may astound you. I welcome suggestions and attempts to help refine my calculations. But first, just how massive is Obama's deficit spending? This massive:

To do the following calculations, I assumed you are a college student graduating this year (2011), and you will have a 40 year working career ending in 2051. I also made the safe assumption that between now and 2051 the principal on the federal debt will not be touched, but only the interest payments will be made each year. Why did I include only the interest? You can argue all day about the cost vs. benefit of Obama's deficit spending, but one thing is certain: taxpayers get nothing from paying the interest on the national debt.

Sources:

All my budget data came directly from the Office of Management and Budget's 2010 analysis, or the excellent website usgovernmentspending.com, which aggregates the same OMB data into easily downloadable spreadsheet format. My tax calculations used the 2006 IRS tax brackets, FICA rates, and standard deductions (I wanted to pick a pre-recession tax code) -- in other words, I assumed your actual tax rates will NOT go up any time in the next 40 years, which is a very generous assumption. Nationwide average wage/salary data by occupation came from the Bureau of Labor Statistics database. Inflation rates came from inflationdata.com.

Methodology and analysis:

I calculated the average annual interest rate paid on the national debt from 1980-2010 by dividing the yearly federal interest payment by the gross public debt for each year. That average comes to 5.875%. The 2010 interest rate was very low at 2.19%, but OMB projections have interest rates increasing in the coming years, and given historical trends and the S&P's recent downgrading of the U.S. financial outlook, I think 5-6% interest on our national debt is a good estimate for the next 40 years.

Next I needed to estimate total federal spending from 2011-2051. I did this by taking the OMB estimate for federal outlays from 2012-2016 and extrapolating that trend to 2051. I did the same for federal revenues. The OMB projects both revenues and outlays to increase linearly from 2012-2016, and extrapolating those trends, the federal budget will be balanced in 2029, and from 2030 on revenues will exceed spending. By 2051, revenues will have exceeded spending by a total of $815 billion. Looking at the historical spending and revenues trends back to 1980, I think a linear extrapolation is quite reasonable, and is the most fair and politically balanced estimate -- e.g. it does not include any massive increases or cuts to spending or revenues. By this method, total federal spending from 2011-2051 will be $321,845 billion, or $321.8 trillion. This may seem like a huge number (and it is!), but this was arrived at with a linear spending increase each year, and we can project GDP growth will increase by a constant percent each year -- which means GDP grows exponentially instead of linearly. From 1980-2010 the average rate of GDP growth was 5.68%. Assuming this is the average growth rate from 2011-2051, that $321.8 trillion in federal government spending will account for only 16.6% of the total GDP for that period. At the peak of the US economy in 2000, federal spending was 18.0% of GDP (it is 24.9% in 2011). So the financial outlook from these projections is actually pretty favorable, and in fact may be a little too much so.

Now on to the cost of Obama's deficit spending. I calculated the total public debt added by Obama's deficit spending from 2009-2012 using the OMB data (2011 and 2012 are estimated of course). To be as fair as possible, I subracted from each year the 2008 deficit of $459 billion. Even though the 2008 budget was passed by Democrats when Obama served in the Senate, it cannot be ascribed to him. In other words, $459 billion was the annual deficit "baseline", and I included only the 2008-2012 deficits over that amount in determining the cost of Obama's spending. The total debt from 2009-2012 is $5.45 trillion, and Obama's portion of that is $3.62 trillion.

Next, I used the average annual interest rate of 5.875% to calculate the total cost of the interest payments on the $3.62 trillion in Obama debt. From 2011-2051, interest payments on Obama's 2009-2012 deficit spending will total $8.72 trillion. To look at it another way, when Obama sold us his 2009 "Stimulus" bill at a cost of $1 trillion, he failed to mention its true cost to taxpayers is actually $3.4 trillion ($1 trillion principal + $2.4 trillion in interest over 40 years). When the government is running a deficit, any politician's sales pitch for new spending is a bait-and-switch scam so massive it should be illegal.

We now have enough information to calculate the cost of a vote for Obama. The $8.72 trillion in interest payments on Obama's 2009-2012 deficit spending will account for 2.7% of total federal spending from 2011-2051.

Using IRS data, I calculated the total federal taxes (income tax + Social Security and Medicare taxes) paid by heads of household earning incomes between $10,000 and $240,000. I then matched and interpolated these numbers with Bureau of Labor Statistics data to calculate the average total taxes paid during a 40-year working career for each occupation in the BLS database, and adjusted for an annual inflation rate of 4.1%, which is the historical average rate from 1980-2010. Finally, I calculated the fraction of those tax dollars that will go to pay for the interest on Obama's 2009-2012 deficit spending. The results for various occupations are given in the table below. The first entry, average of all college graduates, assumes a lifetime average salary of $45,000 (in 2010 dollars).

According to these results, the average college student graduating this year will pay $25,941 just to cover the interest on Obama's deficit spending. Many students will pay much more. If you voted for Obama, that 30-minute trip to the polling station was probably the most expensive 30 minutes of your life.



Table: Scroll down to find your occupation and see how much your vote (or someone else's vote) for Obama cost you.

Your occupation	Your vote for Obama cost you	Days of lost income to pay for it
Average of all college graduates	$25,941	89
College professors	$53,189	97
Kindergarten teachers	$34,038	94
Elementary school teachers	$34,447	94
Middle school teachers	$34,506	95
Secondary school teachers	$34,743	95
Chief executives	$137,415	122
Sales managers	$88,514	114
Engineering managers	$98,317	116
Education administrators	$61,797	108
Social and community service managers	$43,215	100
Financial analysts	$61,585	108
Loan officers	$43,464	100
Tax examiners, collectors, and revenue agents	$34,543	95
Computer programmers	$52,600	105
Mathematicians	$70,379	110
Architects, except landscape and naval	$53,065	105
Aerospace engineers	$70,588	110
Biomedical engineers	$61,320	107
Chemical engineers	$70,180	110
Civil engineers	$61,185	107
Computer hardware engineers	$79,091	112
Electrical engineers	$61,684	108
Environmental engineers	$61,142	107
Materials engineers	$61,626	108
Mechanical engineers	$61,126	107
Microbiologists	$52,300	104
Astronomers	$79,198	112
Physicists	$88,489	114
Chemists	$52,384	104
Economists	$70,592	110
Sociologists	$52,767	105
Anthropologists and archeologists	$35,050	96
Historians	$34,920	95
Political scientists	$79,062	112
Community and social services occupations	$25,648	89
Child, family, and school social workers	$25,751	89
Lawyers	$98,780	116
Paralegals and legal assistants	$33,993	94
Librarians	$34,819	95
Art directors	$70,167	110
Fine artists	$34,075	94
Multi-media artists and animators	$43,413	100
Fashion designers	$52,569	105
Graphic designers	$26,310	90
Interior designers	$34,276	94
Reporters and correspondents	$25,715	89
Broadcast news analysts	$44,069	101
Technical writers	$43,768	101
Writers and authors	$43,635	101
Sound engineering technicians	$34,564	95
Chiropractors	$61,107	107
Dentists, general	$127,700	121
Orthodontists	$180,268	129
Optometrists	$79,538	112
Pharmacists	$79,512	112
Anesthesiologists	$191,092	130
Family and general practitioners	$137,487	122
Obstetricians and gynecologists	$180,178	129
Pediatricians, general	$137,081	122
Psychiatrists	$137,209	122
Surgeons	$191,494	130
Physician assistants	$61,544	108
Podiatrists	$107,960	118
Registered nurses	$43,885	101
Audiologists	$43,925	101
Physical therapists	$52,770	105
Radiation therapists	$52,894	105
Recreational therapists	$25,454	88
Respiratory therapists	$34,602	95
Speech-language pathologists	$44,115	101
Veterinarians	$70,042	110
Dental hygienists	$44,053	101
Radiologic technologists and technicians	$34,599	95
Emergency medical technicians and paramedics	$18,991	86
Pharmacy technicians	$13,698	89
Massage therapists	$20,031	90
Fire fighters	$26,238	90
Police and sheriff's patrol officers	$34,747	95
Private detectives and investigators	$26,220	90
Chefs and head cooks	$25,842	89
Janitors and cleaners	$12,709	84
Hairdressers, hairstylists, and cosmetologists	$13,314	87
Flight attendants	$25,726	89
Sales representatives, technical and scientific products	$61,203	107
Real estate brokers	$53,007	105
Real estate sales agents	$34,440	94
Executive secretaries and administrative assistants	$25,812	89
Legal secretaries	$25,672	89
Carpenters	$25,764	89
Electricians	$34,107	94
Plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters	$26,577	91
Structural iron and steel workers	$26,395	90
HVAC mechanics and installers	$25,768	89
Commercial divers	$35,173	96
Airline pilots, copilots, and flight engineers	$88,943	114
Air traffic controllers	$79,541	112
Truck drivers, heavy and tractor-trailer	$19,951	90

Note: my original post contained some errors in the interest and inflation rate calculations, which have been corrected now.

Public Vs. Private Sector: Not Two Sides of the Same Coin

Somebody asked me this question the other day, with regards to government jobs vs. private sector jobs:

Isn't it two sides of the same coin? Taxes make more gov't jobs and public services, which puts money in the economy. Isn't that the same as investments in corporations who provide jobs, etc...? Do you know why one stimulates the economy better than the other?

Here is my reply:

There are many ways to answer this question.  I'll go with the most simple one.  The private sector involves a feedback loop that incentivizes productivity and efficiency, and punishes waste and inefficiency.  The private sector is centered around making a profit.  And what is a profit?  It is the transformation of things of lesser value into things of greater value.  That is the essence of human progress, and the free market capitalist system quantifies it with money.  If you're doing work and you don't make a profit, it means you've transformed things of greater value into things of lesser value.  Whoever does that in the private sector loses money and eventually goes out of business.  The profit motive is a feedback loop that ensures that activities done by, and money invested in, the private sector will contribute to economic expansion, not economic contraction.

This feedback loop is not present in the government.  Unlike the private sector, the government does not generally have a competitor, and where it does (e.g. the postal service and UPS/FedEx), it does not compete fairly.  The private sector depends on customers making willful choices to buy from them or to buy from someone else who provides a better product or better value, and on investors making willful choices about where they think their money will produce the most value.  The government takes its money by force.  The government can never go out of business.  If it needs more money it simply confiscates it by force.  There is no punishment in the government for the action of taking things of greater value and turning them into things of lesser value; the government can (and does) do this all day, month, and year, ad infinitum, destroying wealth instead of creating it.

Even when it comes to creating jobs, not all jobs are beneficial to the economy.  If I pay somebody $100/hr to dig a hole and then fill it again, nothing will be accomplished by that work and eventually I run out of money.  If I pay somebody to go around breaking everybody's windows in order to create 10,000 new jobs in the window repair business, I haven't done a service to the economy; I have destroyed wealth instead of creating it.  The private sector has that feedback loop that ensures the jobs it hires people to do create wealth and grow the economy, because the private sector will only hire you if your work produces more value than what it costs to pay you; otherwise the company would lose money on your work and lose out to its competitors.  With the government, on the other hand, there is nothing at all stopping it from hiring people to do work that produces less value than the money paid to do it.

That is why money invested in, and jobs created by, the private sector stimulates the economy, and money/jobs in the government do not.

That is not to say that SOME jobs in the government produce value and create wealth.  But the federal government employs more people than the entire manufacturing, construction, and farming industries COMBINED -- and pays its workers significantly more than the private average.  Think of all the value created for our society from those private industries: just about everything you use, eat, wear, and live in every day.  Compare all of that to the things of value you encounter every day that are made or provided by the federal government.... there's really not much of that, is there?  There is no comparison.  We're spending way too much on government and that's a big part of why our economy is struggling.

Canadian "Human Rights Court" Fines Comedian $15,000 for Lesbian Insult

More human rights abuse by the Orwellian "human rights" tribunals in Canada. The tribunal ordered a stand-up comedian to pay $15,000 to a lesbian audience member he insulted at an open-mic night. Canada, you've gotta put an end to these disgusting tribunals and their abuse of basic human rights.


For some background on these Canadian "human rights" courts, check out the story of human rights hero Ezra Levant and watch the videos as he awesomely attacks this abusive legal system.

The Anti Dog-Eat-Dog Rule Becomes Reality

I can't believe it.  It's the "Anti Dog-Eat-Dog Rule" from Atlas Shrugged come to life!  Boeing is building its factory for the new 787 Dreamliner in South Carolina, a "right to work" non forced unionization state.  The Obama Administration is trying to force Boeing to built the factory in Washington instead, where the workforce will be unionized.  Boeing originally wanted to build the plant in Washington, but after long negotiations it was unable to accept the demands of that state's labor unions, and so decided to build the plant elsewhere.

In the words of John Galt, "The removal of a threat is not a payment, the negation of a negative is not a reward, the withdrawal of your armed hoodlums is not an incentive, the offer not to murder me is not a value."

If our nation is ever to recover, we must put an end to this insanity.

Crony Capitalism costs US taxpayers another $11,000,000,000

Our bailout of Government Motors is looking to cost taxpayers at least $11 billion. What a terrible, terrible deal. We should have let that company fail. Here's to 2012 and the end of Crony Capitalism! (If one can be so optimistic.)

Let's give this a try

I might have _just_ enough free time these days to update this blog regularly. We'll see how it goes!

Don't compare Egypt's rioters to the American revolutionaries

There is nothing inherently good about "democracy". Democracy is simply mob rule, in which the will of the majority can oppress the minority. The reason we view our own democracy as good is because it is a Constitutional democracy, in which the will of the majority is severely limited by a set of supreme laws. Our Constitution was designed to insure that, whatever the will of the majority, individual liberty will remain the basis of our society. When our government was created, we deliberately set up roadblocks against democracy. Read the Federalist Papers. They argue extensively of the perils of Democracy, and explain why a Representative Republic with a separation of powers (one of those powers being the States) helps eliminate the problems of mob rule and an uneducated populace.

Whatever you say about the fundamental "right to vote", no such right really exists. You do not have a right to vote to oppress your neighbor. The wellbeing of the people is not served by a government mandated to follow the uninformed temporary whims of the majority.

The danger of the situation in Egypt is that their "revolutionaries" are in no way similar to those that fought for freedom in America. Our revolution was debated and decided by representatives of the people, which happened to include some of the greatest minds of the generation. When it moved forward it was for the noble principles declared in one of the greatest political documents in human history. Our revolution had strong leaders, an organized army with a chain of command. American revolutionaries were not a spontaneous angry mob rioting in the streets, burning and looting. When our revolutionary goals were complete, we built a Republic based on the doctrine of individual liberty, not "democracy".

What doctrine or principle is guiding Egypt's revolutionaries? Who are their leaders? What is the great and noble principle they are fighting for? If it is for nothing but "democracy", than we have every reason to be worried. If it is for the principles of the Muslim Brotherhood, then the rioters are tools of oppression worse than anything Mubarak ever employed.  I'm not saying we should not support the struggle for democracy in Egypt.  I'm saying we should not support it blindly.

Translating the State of the Union

Despite his supposedly renouned oratory skills, it's sometimes difficult to understand exactly what President Obama is talking about.  To facilitate better communication of some of the finer nuances of his State of the Union Address, I've provided the following translation.

Obama on green energy:
I know we have abundant resources of coal, oil, and natural gas here in America, which we could use right now for cheap, profitable, private-sector, no-government-spending-(er, I mean "investing"), job-creating energy.  But if we do that, we'll release more plant food into the atmosphere -- the horror!  So instead, I want to spend (er, I mean "invest") billions of tax dollars on alternative "green energy".  Sure, "green energy" has been an economic disaster everywhere it's been tried, killing 2 regular jobs for every "green" job created, but hey, it'll mean less plant food in the atmosphere!  Oh, and those billions of dollars spent (er, I mean invested) will actually be borrowed from China, and payed back 3 times over in interest by our children and grandchildren.  But making those payments will be tricky because switching to "green energy" will double our electric bills and slow our economy.  But it'll be worth it to get rid of that plant food!

Obama on the deficit:
I just got finished raising government spending to an all-time-high, and now I want to freeze it there! Suckers!

Obama on the economy:
Look guys, I know in my first year of office I promised that if you passed my trillion dollar stimulus bill, it would create millions of new jobs and keep the unemployment rate under 6%.  I also know that I promised that if we did nothing, the unemployment rate would go all the way to 8%.  And I know that after you passed my stimulus bill, unemployment skyrocketed to 10%, and it has stayed there for 2 years.  You could say we'd be better off if we'd done nothing.  And I know that my stimulus bill was filled with spending on infrastructure and "green jobs".  Now stay with me here... today I want to do exactly the same thing again!  It'll work this time, I promise.

Obama on health care:
I heard today that 27 states are suing the government to stop Obamacare, and the House just voted to repeal it by a wider margin than they voted to pass it.  And my local SEIU, which donated over $20 million to my campaign, applied for and got an Obamacare waiver.  Maybe it's because the bill will do none of the things I promised it would.  Maybe it's because I totally misidentified the problems with our health care system, and now my bill is causing costs to go up instead of down, and coverage to get worse instead of better.  But it's still a good bill, because it spends half a trillion dollars and taxes even more!  Come on, tax and spend, what's not to like?

Obama on the Internet:
I propose spending tax dollars to give wireless Internet to every American, because the real reason our economy is growing so slowly is because not enough people have access to Facebook.

Obama on taxes:
When I say we passed tax cuts in December, what I mean is I tried to pass a tax increase and was blocked by Republicans.  But I promise if I get my way, you'll get your tax increase! Oh, and taxes aren't about punishing success; they're about giving your money to me, because no one knows how to spend it better than people who didn't earn it!

Obama on earmarks:
I just got finished signing every record-setting earmark-laden bill the Democratic Congress sent to my desk these past two years, despite my campaign promise to ban earmarks.  But now that Congress is controlled by Republicans, my promise is renewed!

Obama on education:
I want schools to compete for money! No, I don't mean "school choice". *I* need to be the one who decides the winner.  Sure, letting consumers decide winners works for everything else, but things will be much better if politicians and bureaucrats decide where the money goes for our public schools.  I mean, it's worked so far, right? 

Obama on college tuition:
Look, everyone knows the only reason college tuition keeps going up is because colleges know the government will just pick up the tab with taxpayer dollars.  That's why I'm proposing we pick up even more of the tab.  It's not like it's a vicious circle or anything.

Obama on illegal immigration:
The people who break our laws by entering our country illegally, and consume tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars by enrolling their children in our taxpayer-funded schools, need to be rewarded!  Let's make their kids U.S. citizens.  It certainly won't encourage more illegal immigration, and after all, these well-trained moochers will surely vote Democrat. 

Obama on infrastructure:
Sure there isn't a single business in America that's struggling because they can't deliver their goods to market, or a citizen who can't get to work for a lack of roads.  But I want to spend even more money, borrowed from China of course, into our nation's perfectly adequate infrastructure.  It'll create jobs -- union jobs paid for with your children's money!

Obama on the TSA:
Sexual assault is a joke. Seriously, I think it's funny.

Obama on the War on Terror:
We must continue our wars abroad.  I guess I really shouldn't have accepted that Nobel Peace Prize.

Obama on foreign policy:
We stand with freedom.  Except in Honduras.  There, we stand for Marxist would-be dictators and an attempted coup funded by Hugo Chavez.

Obama on securing the boarder:
We must secure the boarder! The Afghan boarder.  Not our own.

Political rhetoric and the Tuscon shooting

My article on political rhetoric and the Tuscon shooting is up on the Orlando Sentinel website here.  I will probably be contributing frequently to that blog over the next year.  The text of my article is below:

Colorful rhetoric has been part of politics since the dawn of civilization. The term “campaign” itself is of military origin. Military metaphors are common not only in politics, but in business, sports, medicine, science, and every-day life. In 2009, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee published on their website a map of the country with bulls-eyes over the districts of “targeted Republicans”. Nobody complained, because the word “target” and associated symbolism have long been accepted in the non-violent American lexicon. We do not presume advertisers intend to actually kill their “target audience”. We all know that Target superstores do not sell guns and ammo. On October 23, 2010, Democratic Congressman Paul Kanjorski said of Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott, “they ought to have him and shoot him. Put him against the wall and shoot him.” Inappropriate? Yes. An actual call to violence? Of course not. Yet when Sarah Palin published her own now-famous “target map”, Democrats accused her of inciting violence. At the time, conservatives laughed off these accusations as being childish, disingenuous, and hypocritical. With the eruption of new accusations against conservatives after the tragedy in Tuscon, we must address this issue head-on.

Political rhetoric becomes heated because people are passionate about politics – and rightly so. When our government is squandering our national wealth, committing generational theft, and destroying an opportunity for prosperity built by generations of Americans, anger is an appropriate response. For Liberals, anger was an appropriate response to “war for oil”, at least while a Republican was President. What we have in American politics is not a climate of hate; it is a climate of passion. We cannot not allow the tragic violence of a lone madman to quell our passions, or use it to lay false accusations of hatred on our fellow Americans.

But that’s exactly what Democrats did after the Tuscon massacre. Within literally minutes of the shooting, the leftist blogosphere and media organizations were saturated with articles and commentary accusing Republicans and the Tea Party of inciting the shooter to violence. In an epiphany, the Left came to believe that, despite non-stop exposure to guns and violence in movies, TV, and video games, it is non-violent military metaphors on conservative websites and radio talk shows that incite lunatics to kill and turn ordinary men into murderers. When the Tuscon shooter turned out to be an anti-Christian, anti-Semetic, God-hating, anti-Constitution, Flag-burning, Marxist, George W. Bush hating, pothead 9-11 Truther, intellectually honest Democrats should have then argued he was incited by their own “violent rhetoric”. Instead, the charlatans on the Left continued to promote the idea of a conservative “climate of hate”, and are using the Tuscon tragedy to push for new restrictions on free speech, including a modern-day Sedition Act. The truth is Jared Loughner never listened to talk radio. He was not motivated by any political ideology or rhetoric, and the only real climate of hate was the one in Loughner’s own deranged mind.

Canada 1 USA 0: the tale of two housing markets

Today the Associated Press asserts, correctly, that Canada's economy is now the envy of the world.  However, the AP misses the big picture as to why.  Take a look at this graph, from the Canadian economics blog Worthwhile Canadian Initiative, showing income-adjusted housing prices in the US and Canada:

There was no housing bubble in Canada.

All the banking regulation in the world won't make me pay more or less for a house unless it changes the size and terms of the mortgage loan I can get. In the USA, our government enacted a major housing stimulus in the 1990s (via Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Community Reinvestment Act), getting banks to lend people more and more money at lower and lower rates. This caused the decade-long housing bubble, which took our economy down when it inevitably burst. The Canadian government never enacted a housing stimulus, so their housing market remained stable. Canada had no bubble to burst, so they recovered quickly from this recession. That is the lesson we should learn from Canada -- not, as the article suggests, that their centralized and highly-regulated banking system is somehow superior to our own.

Demonizing the "far-right" in Europe

The Telegraph yesterday published an entire article comparing Hungary's "far-right" Jobbik Party to Nazis and Fascists. But the article's only mention of an actual Jobbik policy is their desire to stop people from "sponging off the state", and to force "anyone claiming benefits to perform public service in return."

The Telegraph states the Jobbik Party identifies the Roma, a.k.a. the "gypsies", as a big part of the "sponging" problem, which I guess could remind people of the anti-ethnic-minority positions of the Nazis and Fascists. But it seems Jobbik's solution is simply to get the Roma, and everyone else, off the public trough. That's a far cry from the Fascists' policy of shipping people "to Hitler's death camps". In fact, considering Hungary's financial situation, getting people off the public trough seems like common-sense good policy.

So why is the Jobbik's rise to power "disturbing" to the Telegraph? Is there really something ugly about them? Or is it the Telegraph's default editorial position that anyone arguing for more personal responsibility and less dependence on government should be compared at length to Nazis and Fascists?

The meaning of "general welfare" in the Constitution

In honor of Constitution Day, I am presenting a short lesson on the meaning of the term "general welfare" in the Constitution. The term appears twice. In the Preamble:

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

and in Article 1 Section 8:

Section 8. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

Over time, Liberals and Progressives have used these references to "general welfare" to justify unlimited expansion of federal government power. They argue that, despite the Constitution's limit on the scope of the federal government to specific enumerated powers, the government has the power to do anything if it merely states it is to benefit the "general welfare". Therefore, they argue, the federal government has the power of taxation for the purpose of redistributing wealth, of mandating the purchase of health insurance, and so on.

James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, and Thomas Jefferson, the writer of the Declaration of Independence, wrote extensively about what is meant by the term "general welfare" in the Constitution. Their views reflect the original intent of the Constitution, which is its only meaning until it is amended otherwise. Madison was very specific in regards to Art.1 Sec. 8 and the words "general welfare". He said:

"To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators".

The following is a selection of additional quotes by Madison and Jefferson on "general welfare" and the Constitution:

"With respect to the two words 'general welfare', I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators." James Madison in a letter to James Robertson

"If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their Own hands; they may a point teachers in every state, county, and parish, and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision for the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress; for every object I have mentioned would admit of the application of money, and might be called, if Congress pleased, provisions for the general welfare." James Madison

"Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated." Thomas Jefferson

"To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it." Thomas Jefferson, letter to Joseph Milligan, April 6, 1816

"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." Thomas Jefferson

"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents." James Madison, 4 Annals of Congress 179, 1794

"[T]he government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government." James Madison

The Framers of the Constitution explicitly stated that charity is no duty or power of the federal government. They were not against charity, at the private or state government level, but they understood that if the federal government is given the power to do anything in the name of charity, it will inevitably use charity as an excuse to expand its own size and power, and the power and liberty of the states and of the people will be diminished and eventually destroyed. We are far down that path today. It would be good on this Constitution Day for Liberals and Conservatives alike to consider the above words and wisdom of our Founding Fathers and re-evaluate their views on the proper role and power of the federal government.

Update:
I forgot to include another quote from James Madison, which encapsulates the entire spirit of the Constitution and the intended legal role of the federal government:

"Powers delegated to the federal government are few & defined. Those which are to remain in the states are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects: war, peace, negotiation & foreign commerce.... The powers reserved to the several states will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties & properties of the people" James Madison

Obama unveils his plan to kill tens of thousands of American civilians

Today, the Obama administration unveiled its plan to raise car fuel efficiency requirements to 35.5 mpg by 2016.  CAFE standards force Americans into smaller, lighter cars that fail to protect passengers in collisions.  The National Academy of Sciences has linked current fuel efficiency standards with about 2,000 additional deaths per year by traffic accidents.  From USA Today:

To hit the 2016 targets, automakers plan to field more small cars and smaller engines with advanced technology. Ford Motor plans to bring an array of its small, European-market cars. Fiat-controlled Chrysler will sell versions of the Italian maker's small cars. General Motors plans to boost its offerings rated 30 mpg or more on the highway by 65%.

Apparently the Obama administration is willing to sacrifice tens of thousands of American lives in order to reduce the atmospheric content of a compound that's essential to life on Earth and has no detrimental effect on anything.

Obama's health care savings estimate off by a factor of 4

In his speech last night on health care, President Obama stated:

Reducing the waste and inefficiency in Medicare and Medicaid will pay for most of this plan.

I've done a simple calculation to check the accuracy of this statement.  The Congressional Budget Office estimates Obamacare will add $1 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years.  In 2007-2008 there were 43 million and 49 million Medicare and Medicaid recipients, respectively.  The average annual administrative cost per person in Medicare was $509 in 2005 (the most recent data available), and we can assume a similar number for Medicaid.  If Obamacare succeeds beyond everyone's wildest dreams, in fact beyond what is physically possible, and reduces waste and inefficiency in Medicare and Medicaid by 100%, it will save $509 x (43 + 49 million) * 10 years = $468 billion over 10 years.  That's less than half the net cost of Obamacare.

A more reasonable estimate would be a waste reduction of 50%*, which would mean $234 billion in savings.  That's less than 1/4 the net cost of Obamacare.  Also note that the CBO's $1 trillion estimate already takes into account the cost savings proposed in H.R. 3200, so in reality Obama's savings estimate is off by a far greater amount.  There is no way reducing waste and inefficiency in Medicare and Medicaid could pay for Obamacare.

*Many conservatives argue there will be no savings at all.