Monthly Archives: August 2015

Hillary Clinton: White House or Jail House?

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Hillary Clinton will not be the Democratic nominee for president.  I think there is a fairly good chance she will not even be in the race by the time of the Iowa Caucus.  The findings from government inspectors and the FBI of top secret documents on her unsecured server may very well be the nail in her coffin.HillaryClinton

The Democrats  will not want to risk nominating someone who may be under indictment by the time of the election.  Will there be an indictment?  There are two factors needed for there to be an indictment.  There needs to be an indictable crime and the justice department needs to be willing to make an indictment.

The inspector’s statement that Ms. Clinton had top secret information on her unprotected server, assuming this is true, means there is unquestionably an indictable crime.  My understanding of the law is that intent to misuse the information is not necessary for this to be a crime; it is a crime to put classified data in an unprotected location.  General David Petraeus and many others were convicted for much less.  The big question is will the Justice Department indict?

Up to this point the Obama administration has been highly consistent in that it will not even investigate, much less indict, Democrats who are loyal to the president.  The fact that there has not even been an investigation, much less an indictment, of the IRS harassment of conservatives is the prime example of this.  President Obama, however, does not like Hillary Clinton.  This is documented in Edward Klein’s book “Blood Feud: The Clinton’s vs. the Obamas.”  Obama doesn’t need to do anything to free the path to an indictment.  All he needs to do is step aside, do nothing, and let the FBI do their job.

While her handling of unclassified emails currently appears to be her largest legal problem, it is not the only legal problem.  Her destruction of emails under subpoena could subject her to obstruction of justice charges.  Hillary and Bill have also amassed a fortune of over $150 million dollars since Bill left office.  Much of this derives from speaking fees from foreign sources who “coincidentally” had major issues before the state department at that time.  These sources also gave many more millions to the Clinton foundation.  Investigation into these donations could also lead to criminal charges.

It seems that every day something new comes out about Hillary’s illegal activities and showing that her denials are lies.  If you were a leader in the Democratic party, would you want to risk going into the next election with all of your eggs in the Hillary basket?

Top Ten Bad Assumptions: 10 – Welfare is charity.

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Alternate Assumption:  Welfare is nothing like charity.

Most of my extended family and many of my good friends are Democrats.  I think that a primary reason is that they perceive the Democrats as the political party that tries to help people.  Such programs as welfare, Medicare and Obamacare are seen as a form of charity.  If we are good people, we must support these programs.  I’d like to challenge this assumption.  There are three big differences between welfare and charity.

Donating to charity is voluntary.  Paying taxes is not.

By definition, charity is voluntary.  Other people may have a different experience, but my understanding is that paying taxes is not exactly voluntary.  One can argue that if we are members of society and society democratically votes to pay taxes to help others then this is voluntary.  We can always elect to leave that society.

This argument has validity if everybody who votes pays taxes and everybody potentially benefits from the spending.  For example, if a city votes a 1% sales tax to support city parks, one can argue that even if I never go to a park, I have the right to use the park and the whole city benefits from having a park.  I think it has less validity if everybody pays and only a few benefit.  If this same sales tax is used  to subsidize favored corporations or for welfare payments, then it moves into what I would consider a gray area.

If, however, the majority of people vote for a tax paid only by a minority, then it  totally ceases to be voluntary.  For example, if 90% of the people vote for a tax that is only paid by the top 10% and then redistributed to the other 90% then this isn’t charity.  This is theft by taxes. We fought a revolution against the British because of taxation without representation.

Charity is much more efficient than welfare.

When you give to a good charity, a high percentage of the money actually goes to the recipients.  I know that my favorite charity that provides many services to the poor, including a food bank, cites that over 85% of donations go to the poor and less than 15% goes to administrative overhead.  James Rolph Edwards did a study in 2007 published in the Journal of Libertarian Studies in 2007 that stated that typically charities target 75% of the their spending directly on services to the poor and 25% goes to overhead.  In contrast, with welfare programs only 25% of the money goes directly to the poor and 75% goes to overhead.  Welfare is a very inefficient way to get services to the poor.1

This becomes particularly worrisome because many supporters of welfare believe that because government helps people, they don’t have to.  For example, Vice President Joe Biden is a big proponent of government spending on welfare.  This chart shows Biden’s tax donations for the ten years before he became Vice President:

Biden_tax_returns_2

When we direct money to welfare, we often direct money away from charity.  As a result, the bureaucrats prosper and the poor suffer.

Welfare is addictive.

The most insidious difference between charity and welfare is that welfare is addicting. We now have multi-generational welfare.  People spend all their lives on welfare and don’t know anything else.  Welfare does not cure poverty.  Welfare causes poverty.  The following graph charts welfare spending in constant dollars against the official poverty rate since the war on poverty started in 1964.

Welfare Spending vs. the Poverty Rate

As the chart shows, the poverty rate fell dramatically from 35% in 1950 to  less than 20% in 1964 before the war on poverty started.  It continued to fall to approximately 10% in the early 70s.   Since then, despite dramatic increases in welfare spending the rate has stayed within the 10 to 15% range ever since.  We are spending more and more money on welfare to fight poverty, but we are not reducing poverty.  Since Obama became president, we have dramatically increased welfare spending, but instead of poverty going down, poverty has gone up.

The addictive quality of welfare in the long term make poverty worse instead of better..  Each charity can decide how it wishes to help people.  If the charity isn’t being effective, it can change what it does.   If the donors think the charity is ineffective, the donors can give elsewhere.  Welfare is a government program that is locked into what it does.  It doesn’t change when it isn’t effective.  And the “donors”, the taxpayers, certainly don’t have the choice to give elsewhere.

Conclusion

Welfare is not charity.  It is not Tzedakah.  Welfare replaces Tzedakah, and welfare is a poor substitute.  Assuming that welfare is charity is a very bad assumption.  The people who suffer the most from this bad assumption are the poor, the people we are trying to help.

1Normally, I always like to cite reference data from mainstream sources.   In this case, after extensive googling I was unable to find any data from a well-known, unimpeachable source.  This data is typical of what I found.  I will leave it to the reader to evaluate the merit of this claim and I would appreciate it if anybody else can provide data from a more mainstream source.