February 09, 2021

More On The "Stimulus": We're About To Get Scammed Yet Again On "Poverty"

February 09, 2021/ Francis Menton

In my post a couple of days ago on the impending “stimulus” disaster, I only covered a handful of its larger squanderings of hard-earned taxpayer money.
Needless to say, there are many, many more. $1.9 trillion is a lot of money to waste.
Today comes news of a thoroughly co-ordinated effort to push a different big piece of this catastrophe, this one apparently in the range of up to $250 billion out of the $1.9 tril. As you read a little about it, you quickly realize that the $250 billion will just cover this year, and that the advocates intend that sum to be annually renewable.
The particular subject of this initiative is said to be “fighting child poverty.” Now, what kind of monster could possibly be against that?
What the initiative is really about is spending an additional $250 billion per year in the name of “fighting child poverty,” but specifically structured in a way that child poverty as measured cannot and will not be reduced in even the slightest amount.
In whatever articles you read about the subject over the next days or weeks while the bill is pending, you will not see that aspect of the new spending mentioned. Except here.

February 07, 2021

Is There Any Hope For Staving Off The Next "Stimulus"?

February 07, 2021/ Francis Menton

Of all President Biden’s potential legislative initiatives, the first up in Congress is the latest round of so-called “stimulus” — some $1.9 trillion to be borrowed by the government and promptly wasted.
Somehow, we are supposed to believe that this is a good idea. Over at CNN, they call it the “rescue package,” as if the economy is failing, and the only possible route to salvation is borrowing and then immediately wasting this vast sum.
It goes without saying that all the grandees of the left support the plan. After all, these people have gone to the fanciest schools and have the fanciest advanced degrees. They are the “experts,” to whom we must all defer.
Nothing illustrates the foolishness and ignorance of our so-called “experts” better than this “stimulus” bill.

February 03, 2021

February 03, 2021/ Francis Menton

On January 1, 2021, our progressive true-believer mayor, Bill de Blasio, began his eighth year in office. Since he is limited to two terms under current law, this will be his last year, unless something changes.
Now that another crowd of progressive true-believers has just swept to power in Washington, it seems like an appropriate time to look at how the seven years of super-progressive government have served us in New York.
Recall that when de Blasio became Mayor in January 2014, he followed 20 years of at least nominally Republican mayors, Rudy Giuliani (1994-2001) and Mike Bloomberg (2002-2013). Those 20 years saw dramatic improvements in New York City’s fortunes, including reductions in crime (the murder rate, for example, fell by over 80%), and resumption of a healthy rate of population increase after previous declines. Would the progressive de Blasio instead bring about some kind of immediate disaster and collapse?
For better or worse, that’s not really how it works with bad progressive public policy. Instead of immediate disaster and collapse, what we see is gradual but steady decline, particularly when compared to other jurisdictions that follow policies of, for example, lower taxing and spending and disciplined law enforcement.
So on to an overview of de Blasio’s “accomplishments.”

January 31, 2021

January 31, 2021/ Francis Menton

They say that President Biden vomited forth as many as forty Executive Orders in the past week and a half. Many subjects were covered, but the big two were climate change and racial “equity.”
So then, surely, now that the progressives are firmly in charge, and are able to have their figurehead issue Executive Orders for anything and everything, directing that the world become perfect, we can expect that those two “crises” in our public life will be fully solved within the next four years.
Just kidding. As all readers here will likely recognize, the official progressive programs to address climate change and racial inequities are just exercises in reality denial. Those official progressive programs may well have serious adverse effects on our personal freedoms and on our economic success, but the chances that those programs can improve either the climate or racial “equity” are about zero.
So I’m going to go way out on a limb here and make two official Manhattan Contrarian predictions for the next four years: (1) World carbon emissions will increase, not decrease. (2) All the new rounds of affirmative action and other “racial equity” initiatives will achieve no more than all the prior rounds.

January 28, 2021

January 28, 2021/ Francis Menton

We’re barely a week into the Biden presidency, and it’s been a literal blizzard of Executive Orders, so many that nobody can even keep up with them.
Trying to review them in at least a general way, I can’t find a single one that is a good idea. They range from bad to catastrophic.
The overall summary is that the dopes have taken full control. All adult supervision has now been banished from the vast federal government, and the wokest (and stupidest) of the woke progressives are to have the full run of the place.
Resources are now infinite, tradeoffs among competing priorities are no longer necessary, and all human problems are to be solved and perfect fairness and justice instituted within a matter of weeks if not days.
Best of all, the Bidenistas think that all this will work because they are so “smart.”

January 25, 2021

January 25, 2021/ Francis Menton

If you were to consider a job description of the President of the United States, about 80% of it would involve issues of national defense and foreign policy — dealing with the other countries of the world, and keeping America safe. All of the responsibility for defense and foreign policy of the United States is under the personal control of whoever is the President.
Whatever else you might have thought of him, and whether or not you agreed with his approach on any given issue, President Trump at least took his responsibilities in these areas seriously.
Now we have Joe Biden.