HIV Testing Opens Door to Abortion Restrictions

Senate Bill 179 would require pregnant women to be tested for HIV or opt out.

The fact that State Senator David Schultheis's case against the bill is shameful and ludicrous does not imply that the bill is a good idea. In fact the bill represents an illegitimate use of state power to interfere in private medical decisions. It violates freedom of contract and private property. Moreover, the bill creates a dangerous precedent that could be further abused by those with more insidious agendas.

David Harsanyi writes:

I suppose, it's possible to oppose a bill mandating HIV testing for pregnant women if you believe it's a gratuitous coercion of the individual. But I can absolutely appreciate the argument that the state has a responsibility to protect children from the negligent behavior (and contracting HIV isn’t always a matter of reckless behavior) of adults. And since the bill features an op-out clause, I don't see it as particularly worrisome.

I'm surprised that Harsanyi, a critic of the Nanny State, doesn't take the "gratuitous coercion" of the bill more seriously.

Here's what 179 actually says in modifying Statute 25-4-201, which already requires pregnant women to be tested for syphilis:

Every licensed health care provider authorized to provide care to a pregnant woman in this state for conditions relating to her pregnancy during the period of gestation or at delivery shall take or cause to be taken a sample of blood of the woman at the time of the first professional visit or during the first trimester for testing pursuant to this section. The blood specimen thus obtained shall be submitted to an approved laboratory for a standard serological test for syphilis and HIV. Every other person permitted by law to attend pregnant women in this state but not permitted by law to take blood samples shall cause a sample of blood of each pregnant woman to be taken by a licensed health care provider authorized to take blood samples and shall have the sample submitted to an approved laboratory for a standard serological test for syphilis and HIV. A pregnant woman may decline to be tested as specified in this subsection (1), in which case the licensed health care provider shall document that fact in her medical record.

Having the opt-out clause is much better than not having one. However, it's still a bad bill.

The proper purpose of government is to protect individual rights, including the right to contract voluntarily. This bill instead violates the right of contract by placing political requirements on what should be a decision between doctors (and other care providers) and their patients.

Women know in advance whether they are at risk of HIV. My wife is at zero risk of HIV infection. To "encourage" her to get tested for HIV is ludicrous and insulting, insofar as legislators attempt to replace her judgment with their own.

Moreover, this is largely a solution in search of a problem. A Rocky Mountain News article begins, "The head of Denver's HIV prevention program said Wednesday he doesn't recall the last time an HIV-positive baby was born here."

Paul Hsieh addresses the "nudge"-like opt-out allowance:

The basic premise of libertarian paternalism is that the government should use its power to "nudge" people into acting in their best interest, while leaving them the choice to "opt out."

However, nudging represents an assault on freedom, because it undermines man's basic tool of survival -- his mind. By creating a default, libertarian paternalism in essence says, "Don't worry -- we'll do your thinking for you." Sunstein's book explicitly compares Americans to a bunch of Homer Simpsons in need of such guidance. If Americans surrender their minds to the government, they become easy prey for demagogues and dictators.

Once we concede the legitimacy of "nudging," nudges will inevitably escalate. Over time, libertarian paternalism will become less "libertarian" and more "paternalistic."

Once it is accepted that the state legislature should be in the business of telling my wife (and all other women who may become pregnant) to get an HIV test, it is only a matter of time before a future legislator decides that the opt-out clause is useless.

In recent years, Republicans opposed to abortion have been most interested in politically managing pregnancy care, as by trying to require ultrasounds prior to an abortion. Former Governor Bill Owens criticized Schultheis on the following grounds: "It's extremely inconsistent for any person who is pro-life to oppose this effort to potentially save the life of a child."

If the state legislature "encourages" women to be tested for HIV, for the purported sake of the fetus, legislators open the door to future efforts to politically control medicine to restrict abortions.

Leftists who endorse 179 while wanting to keep abortion legal are incapable of thinking in principle or seeing more than a few months down the legislative road.

Colorado GOP Self-Destructs

It was just Monday (February 23) that Colorado State Senator Scott Renfroe, on the Senate floor, quoted scripture that demands the death penalty for homosexuality, called homosexuality an abomination, and said it is equal to the sin of murder in God's eyes.

Today (Wednesday, February 25), Colorado State Senator Dave Schultheis argued against a bill encouraging pregnant women to get tested for HIV on the grounds that the bill would "remove the consequences" of "sexual promiscuity."

These two cases illustrate the fundamental problem with Colorado politics. The Republican Party is, to a large degree, the Party of God, complete with Bible readings on the Senate floor. Such Republicans declare homosexuality a sin, attempt to completely ban abortion, and generally try to promote their religious faith by force of law. The Democrats, on the other hand, want to expand political control of the economy. Because the Democrats are the less crazy of the two, they win by default. (Ayn Rand's 1973 essay anticipates the state of modern Colorado politics.)

I am still waiting for the Colorado Republican Party to condemn Renfroe's remarks. Now the party needs to condemn the remarks of Schultheis as well.

Schultheis's Statements

I have not been able to find a complete recording or transcript of Schultheis's statements. The most complete remarks I've found come from the Rocky Mountain News.

During the Senate debate, Schultheis said, "This stems from sexual promiscuity for the most part and I just can't go there. We do things continually to remove the consequences of poor behavior, unacceptable behavior, quite frankly. Sexual promiscuity we know causes a lot of problems in our state, one of which obviously is the contraction of HIV."

Later, he told the Rocky:

What I'm hoping is that yes, that person may have AIDS, have it seriously as a baby and when they grow up, but the mother will begin to feel guilt as a result of that.

The family will see the negative consequences of that promiscuity and it may make a number of people over the coming years begin to realize that there are negative consequences and maybe they should adjust their behavior.

We can't keep people from being raped. We can't keep people from shooting each other. We can't keep people from jumping off bridges. There are a lot of things we can't do that have negative consequences in our society. People drink and drive and they crash and kill people. Poor behavior has its consequences.

HIV is spread by blood transmission, and sex is the primary means of that. Schultheis conflates "promiscuous sex" with sex at high risk of transmitting HIV, though of course most premarital sex is at low risk of HIV infection. Moreover, some monogamous women get HIV from their partners.

Schultheis is arguing that an HIV-infected baby constitutes punishment for women who get HIV through promiscuous sex. Schultheis does not wish to "remove the consequences" for such sex. The notion that any woman should be so punished is grotesque. But what about the infant? Isn't the HIV-positive infant the one being punished the most?

David Harsanyi is on target in his critique of Schultheis:

The Republican Party, no matter how many fresh or smart ideas it may have, isn't going to get anywhere in this state -- or nationally -- if it continues to spew the hateful gibberish we've heard from Scott Renfroe and Dave Schultheis the past couple of days. ...

Are these [remarks of Schultheis] the words of a person who should be representing anyone?

The Republican Party has to get rid of these people, pronto. They aren't conservatives; they're nihilists. Can anyone imagine a Ronald Reagan or Barry Goldwater claiming that a child should live with AIDS to teach the mother a lesson? (If that is what Schultheis meant. And I still hold out a slim amount of hope that this was a matter of incoherence.)

If Schultheis apologizes for his remarks and explains that he really believes something else, we can follow up on Harsayni's slim hopes. As of 11:38 p.m. on February 25, Schultheis has not issued a media release on the matter.

Schultheis: Bad for Liberty

Schultheis has a track record of assaulting our liberties. He has tried to restrict the right to get an abortion. He endorsed the 2008 measure that would have defined a fertilized egg as a person, laying the groundwork for banning abortion. He opposes embryonic stem-cell research.

Schultheis wants for forcibly prohibit employers from hiring workers by mutual consent, on protectionist grounds.

Schultheis is fiscally conservative, but often he is antagonistic toward free markets and individual rights.

Renfroe's Sorry Appeal

Meanwhile, Renfroe said in defense of his comments: "Our First Amendment allows freedom of speech and I should be allowed to say what I want on any issue." He sounds remarkably like Ward Churchill.

Renfroe's invocation of the First Amendment is off point, because nobody is threatening his First Amendment rights. At issue is not what Renfroe has a right to say as a private citizen; everybody agrees he has every legal right to his bigotry. The point is that what he said is wrong, the fact that he said it as a state senator on the senate floor undermines the separation of church and state, and his critics also have a First Amendment right to condemn his statements and call for his resignation.

The Republican Party of Colorado is at a cross-roads. It can shake off the leash of the religious right, or it can remain the justly ridiculed minority party.

Renfroe Should Resign Over Bigoted Remarks

In a just world, State Senator Scott Renfroe's constituents would rise up and throw the bum out of office. If he had a lick of sense, he would resign. Of course, if he had a lick of sense, he wouldn't have called homosexuality an abomination and a sin comparable to murder on the Senate floor in a blatant attack on church-state boundaries.

I have seen no sign of Renfroe's repentance, however, and so I call on the Republican Party of Colorado to publicly condemn Renfroe's remarks. It's the right thing to do, and it's also the prudent political move, if the GOP wishes to be taken seriously as a political force in Colorado.

At issue is a "bill to allow gay and lesbian state employees to share health benefits with their partners," reports the Denver Post. Here I do not wish to discuss the arguments for and against the bill, but only to condemn Renfroe's tirade against it.

Mike Littwin has written about the sorry affair for the Rocky Mountain News. And my good friends over at Progress Now Colorado, having actually discovered a wolf this time, have posted the entire speech on YouTube. Following is the complete transcript:

Transcript of State Senator Scott Renfroe's Speech to the Senate on February 23, 2009

Thank you madame chair. Members, I also come down here to oppose this bill. Look at some of the declarations in the bill, some of those arguments used here to do this, I guess.

Number One, is that there are employers that offer this are at a competitive advantage over those employers that do not offer such benefits. And, number one, employers, that's the private sector, and I believe in that choice, and the private sector should be allowed to do that. And businesses should have that opportunity to choose how they run their business and what they want to do.

The state, on the other hand, we are here to represent the people of Colorado, and do the state's business. And like Senator Brophy said, the state did actually speak almost directly to this issue two years ago, and the last three years we've had bills that contradict what the people of the state of Colorado voted on directly in 2006. So with that, I think that part of the declaration should be considered, in that what the will of the people was.

And, for me personally, I guess I oppose this bill because of what the vote of the people was. And then I also oppose this bill because of what my personal beliefs are. And I think that what our country was founded upon was those beliefs also.

You know, in the beginning, God created our Earth, and the structure for creation, when you have God, you have the Son, and then you have the Holy Spirit, you have that trinity. You also have that same trinity, which is in my opinion a mimic over to what we have within the family. You have the father, the husband, you have the wife, and then you have the children. And I think when you look at that scenario, that is what we were created for. And I think that's what the Bible says.

Through the whole beginning of Creation, it talks about how things were created, and that it was good, it was good, it was good. It says over and over, that it was good. Then we get to verse 18 in Genesis 2, "The Lord God said it is not good for man to be alone. And so he made him a helper, suitable for him. And that was woman."

And then if you go on, and talk about that, God blessed them and said, "Then be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea, over the birds, over the sky, over every living thing that moves on the earth."

And then in Genesis 9 he said to Noah again, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth." And I think that that goes back to this whole picture of family, which God created us for. And we need to honor that.

Homosexuality is seen as a violation of this natural, created order. And it is in a sense to God, the creator, who created men and women, male and female, for procreation.

Leviticus 18:22 says, "You shall not lie with a man as one lies with a female. It is an abomination."

Leviticus 20:13 says, "If there is a man who lies with a male as though to lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act, and they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltness is upon them."

Then Romans 1:18: "For the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteous men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness."

And that's what we're doing here. We're suppressing the truth. The truth is what the family was created for in the beginning. That is the a husband, a wife, and children. And that is why we are here, and this goes against that. And this is just a continuation of the traction of the family.

And I say all that to back up my beliefs in where we're going with this. I believe government is here, we are here, to create the laws of our land, and when we create laws that goes against what Biblically we are supposed to stand for, I think we are agreeing or allowing to go forward a sin which should not be treated by government as something that is legal.

And that is what we are going to do with this, and what we've done in the past. We are taking sins and making them to be legally okay, and that is wrong. That is an abomination, according to scripture.

And I'm not saying that this is the only sin that's out there. Obviously we have sin, we have murder, we have all sorts of sin. We have adultery, and we don't making those legal, and we would never think to make murder legal.

But what I'm saying that for, is all sin is equal. That sin there is as equal to any other sin that's in the Bible, to having wandering eyes, to coveting your neighbor's things. Whatever you do, that sin is equal, and it can be forgiven because of that.

So with that, I think I need to go back and say that I stand in my belief, that this is wrong, and we should not condone it as a government. And I think the verses that I quoted you in Leviticus back that up in a strong way, and I'd ask you to vote no on this bill.

Renfroe here explicitly calls for the laws of Colorado to be based on Old Testament scripture. This, obviously, violates the separation of church and state. The proper purpose of government is to protect individual rights, not enforce religious dogma, whether or not the majority agrees with it. Murder and theft are properly illegal because they violate individual rights. Homosexuality between consenting adults does not. Moreover, many Coloradans reject Renfroe's religious views or his particular interpretation of Christianity.

For Renfroe to quote a religious text calling for the murder of homosexuals is outrageous, and it is wrong. It is no more appropriate than if a member of some other religion took the floor and read different texts calling for murder.

By Renfroe's account, the divine purpose of marriage is procreation. Never mind the fact that many heterosexual couples choose not to have children or cannot have them. Are their marriages similarly tainted in Renfroe's account?

Renfroe's claim that the 2006 election had anything to do with the bill at hand is nonsense. That year, voters banned gay marriage and voted against domestic partnerships. I think the majority was wrong on both counts, but that has no direct connection to extending benefits to the partners of state employees.

Renfroe's tirade illustrates why the Republicans are the minority party in Colorado. In attempting to impose their religious doctrines by force of law, such Republicans undermine individual rights and alienate mainstream voters.

Again I call on the Republican Party of Colorado to publicly condemn Renfroe's remarks. Whether the party does so will say a great deal about whether the party wishes to win competitive elections here again. And, more importantly, whether it deserves to win.

9News Covers 'Low-Carb Food Stamp Diet'

From February 4-10 I went on the "Low-Carb Food Stamp Diet," during which I ate nutritiously for around $4 per day, after subtracting the estimated value of the leftover food. Tonight, after interviewing me on February 18, 9News (Denver's NBC station) broadcast a story about it.



It's a great story, and obviously I'm thrilled with it. I do want to expand on a couple of points, however.

In the text version of the story, Shawn Patrick, the reporter, makes the potentially confusing claim that "even Armstrong admits it was an extreme low-carbohydrate diet." The whole point of the diet was to be low-carb. I was trying to cut carbs. I estimate I was eating between 100 and 150 grams of carbs per day, whereas the USDA recommends around 300.

To counter the claim that those on a tight budget can only afford carbs, starch, and bad fat, I spent the week eating a diet totally free of grains, potatoes, hydrogenated fat, and vegetable oils. Obviously, a low-carb diet must make up calories through increased proteins or fats. Part of the argument behind (at least some) low-carb diets is that eating a little more fat is not a problem, health-wise. However, some argue that vegetable fats -- canola oil, especially hydrogenated fats, etc. -- aren't really that great for you. So I ate fat only from olive oil, meat, dairy, eggs, and nuts (and trace amounts in produce and chocolate). (Usually I also eat coconut fat.)

A diet higher in carbs is less expensive, if those carbs take the form of low-cost flour, rice, oats, and potatoes. Obviously things like soda, sugary cereal, and frozen pizzas can cost a lot more and dramatically increase carb loads. The primary reason my wife and I were able to spend a month in 2007 each eating for only $2.57 per day is that we ate a diet higher in carbs.

If I were on a true emergency budget, I'd pick a diet combining elements of the 2007 diet and the low-carb one. I'd buy healthy but low-cost fruits and vegetables, meat, dairy, eggs, and olive oil along with low-cost grains like brown rice and oats. I think that would be the best balance between good nutrition and low cost, and it's close to the diet I eat normally.

Nutritionist Dr. Carolyn Ross was somewhat complimentary of the diet, yet she worried that I wasn't meeting my calorie loads. But I estimated my daily calorie intake, and it was within USDA guidelines. Remember, I ate an entire turkey by myself in a week. I boiled the scraps to make soup stock. (Patrick suggested that I bought soup; I made soup from my purchased supplies.) I ate olive oil, which carries 130 calories per tablespoon. I drank whole milk and ate whipped cream on bananas. I ate grapefruit. I ate eggs. I added a few walnuts for the Omega 3 fats. Even though I cut carbs, I still got carbs especially in my fruit, and I made up calories in protein and fat. We can continue to debate the optimal calorie split, but, according to the low-carb assumptions, I did very well.

The broadcast story shows me dicing an onion. Perhaps viewers will be interested in what I made out of that. (This was on February 18, after my week's diet had ended.) I added olive oil, various diced vegetables, pureed peppers and spinach, diced chicken, quinoa (a grain known for its protein), and various spices, including curry. I made enough of it for several meals for both my wife and me, demonstrating that cooking need not consume a great deal of time per meal. The results were inexpensive, delicious, and healthy:

Around Colorado: 2/23/09

No Health Czar

Congratulations to Paul Hsieh, MD, for his article published today by the Washington, D.C., Examiner:

... The concept of a health czar follows naturally from the welfare statists' premise that government should guarantee health care to all Americans. Whenever the government attempts to guarantee universal medical care, it must also control its costs. Hence, someone must determine how health care dollars may be spent.

The Obama administration would control costs by creating a new Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research to determine which treatments are deemed most effective and thus eligible to be paid for by government. These decisions would be based on statistical averages that cannot take into account specific facts of individual patients. ...

The fundamental problem with universal health care is the faulty premise that health care is a right. Health care is a need, not a right. Rights are freedoms of action (such as the right to free speech), not automatic claims on goods or services that must be produced by others. ... In socialized medical systems, health care is never truly a right, but just another privilege dispensed at the discretion of bureaucrats.

Hsieh goes on to summarize the free-market reforms that would bring down health-insurance costs while restoring freedom and individual rights in medicine.


The Food Stamp Bureaucracy

Another problem with food stamps is that they are distributed by a clunky bureaucratic system. The Denver Post reports, "Thousands more people applying for food stamps mean wait times in 10 Colorado counties have pushed beyond 30 days, in violation of federal law."

True, on a free market, in which individuals voluntarily funded food banks and other programs and personal efforts to feed the poor, a recession would stress the system as needs rose. However, people cooperating voluntarily would tend to be faster and more caring in addressing such needs.

By the way, Boulder Weekly published my article on my "Low-Carb Food Stamp Diet," and Westword published my letter following up on that paper's story.


Go Slumdog

I was pleased that the Oscars recognized Slumdog Millionaire, a little film eminently worthy of the recognition. I'm also pleased that Heath Ledger won.


Real Six Packs

Occasionally the Denver Post will actually editorialize in favor of liberty. The paper did so just yesterday, arguing that grocery stores should be allowed to sell regular beer. I've said so myself. Unfortunately, the Post hardly makes a principled case, conceding the law "no longer makes sense." But violating individual rights never "makes sense;" it is always wrong.

Speaking of beer, Boulder Police Chief Mark Beckner has sensibly argued that the drinking age should be lowered to 18. If you're old enough to fight wars and vote, you're certainly old enough to drink a beer. Such a move would also move at least some drinking from party houses to bars, which would improve safety. Of course, as one who was no stranger to binge drinking in my younger days, I realize that there is a deeper cultural problem here, but that problem is not being addressed by the discriminatory drinking age.


Follow Up on Pork Roast Rally

The left keeps unjustly beating up the organizers of the Pork Roast Rally, so I keep responding (though I doubt I'll need to say anything more about it). As I've pointed out, the same leftist organization blaming the rally's organizers for an unknown person's sign calling Obama a Nazi itself features comments on its web page calling Bush a Nazi.

Jon Caldara has blogged about this, Face the State has covered it, and Vincent Carroll has written about it:

[T]hanks to Ari Armstrong of freecolorado.com, there's one delicious postscript. It turns out -- and this will surprise no one who has lived through the past eight years -- that ProgressNow Colorado has a Web site whose blogs and reader comments have included a number of Nazi and fascist references to former President George W. Bush and other conservatives -- which Armstrong has listed on his own blog.

What? The group can't be held responsible for every nutty leftist who comments on the site? Maybe not, but it exerts more control over them than the organizers of an open-air political rally have over their crowd.

The protest of the stimulus is growing. A blogger from Kansas writes about a rally in Overland Park:

The protest was held outside of the office of Representative Dennis Moore, who voted for the so-called “stimulus” bill. I almost didn’t go to the protest out of concern that it would be more of an anti-Democrat, pro-Republican protest, but it wasn't that way. There were some people who were obvious Republicans, but most of those that I saw and talked to where people who were against the massive spending that the government is pushing. Though the temperature was 10 degrees with the wind chill, I think probably 300-400 people showed up, and there was a LOT of great response from drivers who saw us.

Keep it rolling, brothers.

ColoradoPols.com Misreports 'Pork Roast Rally'

A February 19 entry at ColoradoPols.com, posted "by: Colorado Pols" -- I don't know the poster's identity -- misstates some facts and offers even more distortions. At issue is a February 17 rally organized by Jon Caldarda in protest of the so-called "stimulus" package. At that rally, a person unknown to Caldara and every other speaker showed up with a sign calling Obama a Nazi by putting a swastika with Obama's name. In its post, ColoradoPols.com lied about me and distorted my views, so I request a correction and a public apology.

ColoradoPols.com wrongly refers to "II [Independence Institute] blogger Ari Armstrong." I am not now, nor have I ever been, an "II blogger." FreeColorado.com is a completely independent entity that I have run for more than a decade. ColoradoPols.com is simply lying, unless it is operating on George Costanza's theory that "it's not a lie if you believe it." Regardless, ColoradoPols.com is playing fast and loose with the facts, and that's just bad reporting. (Years ago I worked on a single project for Caldara's Independence Institute as an independent contractor, and I continue to submit an occasional guest op-ed to the Institute, for no pay.)

Yesterday I issued a media release pointing out that Progress Now Action, the organization of Michael Huttner attacking the rally's organizers, itself features numerous comments calling George W. Bush and other conservatives Nazis or fascists.

ColoradoPols.com claims "Ari Armstrong, unlike Malkin, isn't upset with the still-anonymous 'Swastika Guy.'" This ignorers the fact that I condemned the sign in my media release about Huttner. I said, "Obama is obviously not a Nazi, so tagging him with a swastika is wrong." In another post I wrote that "the Nazis were particular sorts of fascists with a genocidal racist bent. Does that in any way describe Obama? No. ... So, again, dumb idea." ColoradoPols.com is willfully distorting my views.

It is outrageous for ColoradoPols.com to selectively quote my media release, ignore my condemnation of the sign within that media release, and then claim that I'm not "upset" over the sign. I request that ColoradoPols.com correct its post and offer a public apology.

ColoradoPols.com claims that "the examples cited by Armstrong consist of a bunch of anonymous comments and community blog posts from the general public." Some, but not all, of the examples are anonymous reader comments. To take the first example, a "Post from Richard Myers's Blog" links Bush to Hitler. This is a primary post, not a reader's comment, and certainly not anonymous. The fact that it is a "community blog post" does not alter the fact of what it says or where it appears.

ColoradoPols.com also misrepresents the context of the sign. The post quotes Westword's Melanie Asmar, who wrote that the guy carrying the sign "stood right at the top of the steps during the protest. He was one of the first people I noticed as a reporter covering the event." Well, that says more about Asmar than it does about the rally. This was a public rally. As such, the event's organizers had absolutely no control over who attended. As Huttner himself proclaimed, any effort to remove any participant would have been a violation of free-speech rights. Or does ColoradoPols.com endorse the policy of forcibly removing peaceful ralliers at a public venue?

As is obvious to anyone who has seen the state capitol, the west steps are quite broad. The guy with the sign stood at the side of the stairs -- not that Caldara had any control over where the guy stood. (Some lady with an anti-immigration sign stood right behind Caldara during the rally, even though that had nothing to do with the theme of the day.) I actually have a photo of the west steps that includes the guy in question (I've drawn in an arrow):



ColordoPols.com can pretend that the guy was somehow the center of what was going on, but that's obviously nonsense.

But what about Malkin? ColoradoPols.com reproduces a photo with Malkin smiling for a photo-op with the guy and his sign. I grant that Malkin ought not have suggested the guy is some sort of "plant" without evidence. (I don't think he was a plant, but I don't know who he is.) Did Malkin do anything wrong? Again, it would be useful for the left to recall the goose-gander rule. Has anybody ever worked a photo op with a famous leftists using imagery or language the leftist disapproved of? I saw people hoarding Malkin. I don't know whether Malkin even saw the sign prior to the photo. But the guy approached Malkin from the side, and he pointed his sign forward, away from Malkin. I doubt very much that, at the time of the photograph, Malkin was aware of what was on the sign. ColoradoPols.com can joyously celebrate the photo if it wants, but it should remember that the next time a leftist is caught in a similarly embarrassing pose.

ColoradoPols.com notes that, when Malkin attacked the left for similar offenses, she was "not exactly what you'd call apologetic." Yet she condemned the sign, and that is the extent of her responsibility.

(By the way, while I agree with Malkin on many fiscal issues, I profoundly disagree with her on abortion and immigration, as I wrote last year.)

ColoradoPols.com's conclusion is absurd:

Bottom line? There's a difference between a public blog where anybody can anonymously rant and a stage full of highly embarrassable public figures at an event you organize. And if that difference isn't stone-cold obvious to you, for the sake of those same embarrassable public figures you should really consider getting the hell out of the event organizing business.

True, there is a difference -- the difference is that, while the organizers of a public rally cannot legally eject any peaceful rallier, Progress Now owns its own web page and thus can control its content. Again, unless ColoradoPols.com wishes to argue that peaceful ralliers should be forcibly thrown out of a public venue, it can't blame Caldara for the appearance of the guy with the sign.

It is unfortunate that ColoradoPols.com, Huttner, and many others have obsessed about a random rallier's sign, when there are so many more important issues to cover. In contrast with these leftists, I (who am neither right nor left, neither conservative nor "liberal") wrote two substantive articles criticizing various aspects of the rally (see the first and second article). For example, I criticize Caldara for inviting Tom Tancredo, who ranted against immigration. I also point out the problem of partisans selectively supporting the "bailout" of their party man while condemning the "bailout" of the other party. I have responded to the ridiculous sign story only to the degree that the left has promoted it. Now I suggest that we get back to discussing real issues. Such as, was the "stimulus" a good idea? It so happens that there are some important things going on in the world, so perhaps we should talk about something that matters.

Huttner's Hypocrisy

February 19, 2009

MEDIA RELEASE

WILL HUTTNER APOLOGIZE FOR COMMENTS AT PROGRESS NOW COLORADO CALLING CONSERVATIVES FASCISTS OR NAZIS?

On February 17, Michelle Malkin attended a "Pork Roast Rally" in Denver organized by Jon Caldara to protest the so-called "stimulus" package. Republican State Senator Josh Penry also spoke at the rally. A rallier unknown to Malkin and the event's organizers carried a sign calling Obama a Nazi by putting a swastika with Obama's name. This person, along with many others, approached Malkin and had his photograph taken with her.

Michael Huttner, Executive Director of Progress Now Action, also attended the rally.

On February 18, Huttner issues a media release stating, "Does Penry support the misuse of the Nazi swastika for political self-gain? We do not need Penry and Malkin to return Colorado to the hate state."
http://tinyurl.com/b7yfnj

Penry indeed condemned the sign, the Rocky Mountain News reports:
http://tinyurl.com/bbo94h

The Rocky Mountain News also reports: "One of the groups criticizing Malkin over the photo is Progress Now Colorado. Michael Huttner, who heads the group, said the organizers of Tuesday's rally should condemn the sign and offer an apology."

Yet Huttner's own web page features numerous comments calling George W. Bush and other conservatives fascists or Nazis:

"So what are the issues the right wingers decry? Overland High School instructor Jay Bennish sees some similarities between President Bush and Adolf Hitler. My response: who doesn't?"
http://www.progressnowcolorado.org/page/community/post/richardmyers/CLTP

"Is The BushAdmin The Fourth Reich?"
http://www.progressnowcolorado.org/page/community/post/michaelcollins/CHSj

"the fascist NeoCon, Owens"
http://www.progressnowcolorado.org/page/community/post/waterflaws/CLyJ

"arch-fascist Peter Boyles"
http://www.progressnowcolorado.org/page/community/post/waterflaws/CqSN

"the republicans have become an inchoate fascist enemy."
http://www.progressnowcolorado.org/page/community/post/jencaltrideraction/C2VD

"What do you get when you put lipstick on a fascist?" (a Palin reference)
http://www.progressnowcolorado.org/page/community/group/FrontPage/www.thebell.org/pdf/OpNOTE06-1327?page=13

"is our school a microcosm of conservative fascism?"
http://media.progressnowaction.org/img/benson021808.pdf

Ari Armstrong, editor of FreeColorado.com, said, "Huttner has brought 'gotcha' politics to a new low. The organizers of public rallies, whether on the right or the left, cannot possibly keep out strangers. Indeed, Huttner himself complained that his free-speech rights were threatened when someone suggested that he leave the rally.

"I personally witnessed Michelle Malkin being approached by numerous individuals seeking photos with her, as is common with well-known personalities. Would Huttner appreciate it if a random stranger worked a photo op with a well-known leftist using inappropriate imagery or language?

"For Huttner to drag Penry into the debate is absurd. He had nothing to do with it. But, as Jason Salzman, who attended the rally with Huttner, acknowledged to me, he anticipates that Penry will run for higher office. So Huttner is starting in early with the character assassination.

"Obviously, people from the left call George W. Bush and other Republicans fascists or Nazis practically on a daily basis. Why is it news when the right does it, but not when the left does it?

"As Huttner's own web page demonstrates, the left commonly attacks Republicans and conservatives by likening them to fascists. Has Michael Huttner condemned each of those comments and apologized for them?"

Armstrong critically reviewed the rally in two articles at FreeColorado.com:
http://tinyurl.com/dx58jv
http://tinyurl.com/bmcehw

This is not the first time that Huttner's own web page has featured the same comments for which he has condemned others. In 2008, Huttner condemned Caldara for using the term "bitch slap" on the radio, despite the fact that Huttner's web page also featured the phrase:
http://tinyurl.com/bpds6p

Armstrong said, "Obama is obviously not a Nazi, so tagging him with a swastika is wrong. But we shouldn't blame people for the actions of complete strangers, and that goes for the right and the left. Huttner's hypocrisy is getting more than a little old."

Stimulus and Partisanship

Partisans to the left of me, partisans to the right. It was a sea of party politics. The partisans of good ideas, the searching thinkers, those who criticize the errors of their friends with the same enthusiasm that they criticize the errors of their enemies, were hard to find.

This is my third article about yesterday's "Pork Roast Rally" in protest of the so-called "stimulus" package. I've also published photos of the event and extensive commentary about it (along with an audio recording). As I mentioned, the event was overly partisan, in the party sense, to fulfill its potential as a pro-liberty rally. But the few left-wing activists in attendance were no less devoted to party politics.

The Swastika Sign

Take, for example, the sign with the swastika. Mark Wolf writes about this and displays a photograph. Michael Huttner and Jason Salzman, the two left-wingers who attended, noticed this sign, took multiple photographs of it, and made a big deal out of it.

The sign was a dumb idea. Okay, the technical economic definition of fascism is political control of nominally private property, so in that sense Obama is moving in the direction of fascism (as was Republican George W. Bush before him). But the Nazis were particular sorts of fascists with a genocidal racist bent. Does that in any way describe Obama? No. So why go there? Besides that, using Nazi imagery tends toward shrillness in the course of normal American politics, and it is imagery that is easily misinterpreted (either innocently or willfully). So, again, dumb idea.

But the left's treatment of the sign is ridiculously hypocritical. Let's think back... did anyone on the left ever, at any point, call Bush a fascist or equate him with Hitler? Obviously. Many, many times. So why is it okay for the left to do it but not the right? (I think both sides ought to calm down a bit and stick to the substantive issues.) Did Huttner and Salzman condemn their fellow leftists with equal vigor? Hardly.

Huttner's organization has also made a big deal out of the fact that Michelle Malkin had her photograph taken with the guy and his sign. But the guy approached Malkin, as did many others. If a guy with a "Bush = Hitler" sign had his picture taken with a prominent left-wing pundit, what would Huttner and Salzman have to say about that? I imagine they would say something like, "Look, you can't condemn a whole crowd, or a popular pundit, for one random rallier's stupid choice in imagery." And that would be the sensible view. Whatever happened to the goose-gander rule?

Bailout Madness: Bush Versus Obama

My view is consistent: the Obama "stimulus" package is bad, and so was Bush's. This is a view rooted in the ideas of liberty, not party politics. I am perfectly happy to condemn Republicans and Democrats alike for violating economic liberty and individual rights.

My Democratic and Republican friends were less eager to do so. Huttner actively promoted the Obama "stimulus" while condemning Bush's. Jon Caldara and State Senator Shawn Mitchell opposed Obama's "stimulus" and expressed opposition to Bush's stimulus -- just before explaining why it was more justified than Obama's. I found their respective attempts to defend their parties humorous.

To their credit, both Caldara and Mitchell came out strongly against the federal expansions of the Republican Bush. Meanwhile, I have yet to meet a Democrat who does not treat Obama as something approaching Messianic.

Here is an audio recording of Huttner's comments. Huttner's position of opposing the Bush "bailout" while endorsing Obama's "bailout" makes no sense whatsoever.

Listeners will also notice that a couple of misguided ralliers started shouting down Huttner in the middle of my interview. Salzman is saying, "Let him speak!" in the background. I'm saying, "hey, hey," trying to shut up the rallier as he was telling Huttner to "get the hell out of here." Look, I understand that passions tend to run high during rallies, but Salzman and Huttner had every right to be there. The entire purpose of the rally was to capture some of Obama's media on the "stimulus" signing. Salzman and Huttner, likewise, were trying to capture some of the ralliers' media, and they succeeded. That's the way the game works, so keep those tempers in check.

I've compiled the comments of Caldara and Mitchell on the respective "stimulus" packages (sorry about the wind, which was incredibly strong in Denver yesterday, prompting me to joke that the "winds of change" aren't so pleasant).

Caldara argued that, while he opposed the Bush bailout, at least the money is supposed to be paid back. That struck me as a weak defense; clearly taxpayers won't get back a good chunk of that money. Plus, Caldara included tax breaks as part of Obama's "stimulus" package; shouldn't those be treated differently than straight spending, if we're going to treat "loans" differently?

Mitchell made a more sophisticated argument about liquidity (while again opposing the Bush bailout). But the argument is bogus. What the Bush bailout accomplished was to reward failing banks and prevent the financial restructuring that would have put the economy on sounder footing. Bush also oversaw a massive assertion of more federal control over the banking industry, re-writing private contracts as he went. The long-term result of this will be to further socialize banks, leading to less economic stability and more political manipulation. As for the general liquidity argument, clearly the Federal Reserve -- itself a political intrusion in the market -- ought not artificially reduce the money supply, as it did during parts of the Great Depression. But that's far different than just handing out "free" money to banks, which in some cases were essentially blackmailed into taking the funds whether they wanted them or not.

In general, a recession is not a primary economic problem: it is a symptom of previous malinvestment promoted by the federal government. As George Reisman exlpains, a recession is the period of readjustment, in which businesses tend to slash (nominal) prices and wages in the process of getting the economy going again. Not only is federal "stimulus" unnecessary for recovery, it damages real economic recovery.

I realize both Caldara and Mitchell were playing devil's advocate while opposing the Bush bailout. Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that their first reaction was not to blast Bush's bailout and explain why it was a bad idea, but to defend it relative to Obama's bailout. That is a party instinct that I do not share.

Notes on Partisanship

Salzman and Huttner carried around a ridiculous sign blaming the recession solely on George W. Bush and Colorado State Senator Josh Penry, neglecting the obvious fact that the federal congress as well as the entire state government have been in the hands of Democrats for some time. Their logic -- that rising unemployment in the last year of Bush's presidency proves that Bush and his fellow Republicans alone caused the recession -- is laughably simplistic. In fact both Democrats and Republicans had a hand in forming the federal policies over many years that ultimately culminated in the recession. To blame Bush alone is silly enough; to add Penry to the mix is just partisan stupidity. (As Salzman acknowledged, they expect Penry to run for higher office next year.)

I've also spliced together comments of Huttner, Caldara, and Mitchell on partisanship.

Huttner's idea of moving beyond partisanship is for everybody to follow Obama. Well, no thanks. Certainly I advocate partisanship for good ideas, if not for parties.

Caldara defended his speaking list without adding much new.

Mitchell came out strongly against Bush, saying, "George Bush was a terrible domestic president in many ways. Actually I think he was pretty good on supporting growth-oriented tax policies, and on at least raising the issue of Social Security. Beyond that, he was a big-spending, over-regulating mistake."

Now that was a good answer that went beyond party politics.

The GOP's Faith-Based Problem

Unfortunately, when I asked Mitchell about the GOP's problems with social issues, his answer was less convincing. I have argued that the GOP's faith-based politics, in addition to being wrong, is a huge political obstacle.

Mitchell tried to downplay the social issues:

It's a real conflict, but the juxtaposition is grossly exaggerated. When you talk about social policy, we're talking basically about abortion and marriage policies. ... Even if you hold socially conservative views on those two issues, it doesn't thrust the state nearly as heavily into everyone's doings as liberal economic control does.

Anyone who has read the paper I coauthored against Amendment 48 knows why I disagree with Mitchell on that point. The tendency toward theocracy is at least as dangerous as the tendency toward left-wing socialism.

To me, Mitchell is the prime example of the Republican tragedy. He's very smart, and he truly gets the economic case for liberty. At the same time, he promotes rights-violating government in personal areas. Republicans who could combine Mitchell's economic sense, public grace, and brains with the corresponding social views of liberty would be unstoppable in Colorado. Such candidates could make clean, thoughtful, partisan politics something to again savor.

Unless that happens, I say a pox on both parties' houses.

Dollhouse

Joss Whedon's new television show, Dollhouse premiered last Friday, and the first episode is now available online. I've seen it twice, and it held my interest both times. Whedon is obviously planting the seeds for a lot of backstory and plot lines, including the apparently criminal mistake made by the lead character, known as Echo once she enters the Dollhouse. (Eliza Dushka of Buffy the Vampire fame plays Echo.) The first episode also hints at something interesting -- and disturbing -- in the past of a doctor at the facility played by Amy Acker, another of Whedon's top finds from Angel.

What is the Dollhouse? It's an illegal operation that signs up semi-willing participants to have their personalities erased so that they can be reprogrammed for particular missions -- er, "engagements" -- ranging from high-end escort services to mercenary-type actions. In the first episode, Echo helps negotiate the release of a kidnapped girl.

I'm looking forward to more. Just don't screw it up, Fox. By the way, Universal, where are the Serenity sequels? If you get your marketing act together, I'm confident two additional films would make money, especially now that the stars are better-known actors.

On a completely unrelated note, we watched Blindness, an awful, terrible, grotesque little film to be avoided at all costs.

Pork Roast Mixes Liberty, Populism, and Partisanship

It was a hugely successful rally today at Denver's state capitol to protest the so-called "stimulus" package that President Obama signed while in town. Hundreds of people showed up. Jon Caldara ripped up dollars as an act of civil disobedience to protest the "stimulus." The hugely popular Michelle Malkin arrived with roasted pork. A live pig trotted about. Speakers denounced the federal spending, guiding the crowd alternately in cheering, booing, and chanting. The media attended, and some even covered the event.

Despite the overwhelming media cheerleading for Obama's "stimulus" package, a lot of regular people remain angry about it, very angry, and the success of today's rally shows only a little of that bubbling to the surface.

At the same time, the rally sent a few mixed messages, a few of the participants stepped out of line, and Republican partisanship carried the day. Former congressman Tom Tancredo spent several minutes of the rally ranting against immigration, both legal and illegal. Several others wore anti-immigration shirts or carried anti-immigration signs. These folks don't want economic liberty: they merely want the federal government to control the economy in different ways. A couple of guys shouted down Michael Huttner, a left-wing activist, as I was trying to interview him. The fact that Dick Wadhams, chair of the state GOP, took the stage indicates the partisan flavor of the event.

A personal anecdote suggests why I felt a bit out of place. I had printed a few signs with two messages: "Stimulus? Try Liberty," and "What Would Mises Do?" Yes, I know that, in the general culture, Mises is an obscure figure recognized by few. Yet I still like the quote, as it might provoke some to look him up. I figured that Mises would be widely recognized by those at the rally and that the signs would elicit knowing glances of solidarity. Yet when I offered somebody a sign, I heard, "Who's Mises?" I explained with understatement, "He's a free-market economist."

Perhaps I shouldn't make too much of it; after all, somebody else had a sign referring to Hayek's Road to Serfdom, while another sign referred to Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. Still. "Who's Mises?" At a rally supposedly about economic liberty? That's a bit like asking "who's Jesus" at Catholic mass or "who's Lars" at a Metallica concert.

But on with the rally. My photos of the event are available, and Slapstick provides video of the event. For those who prefer lower-bandwidth mp3 audio, I've provided a recording of the entire formal event.

Jim Pfaff from Americans for Prosperity kicked off the event:

Is everybody stimulated? [Crowd chants "no!"] Why not? Because it's not stimulus. We're here today today to say, Barack Obama, you don't know stimulus.

Stimulus is when individuals and businesses are able to take their own decisions and go out and make a life for themselves. To pursue life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Now do you pursue happiness through big-government programs? You make your decisions for happiness.

You should be able to make those decisions, and this stimulus package takes decision-making away from individuals like yourselves. And we want to say no more pork. ...

We want real stimulus, and that's what we're here to talk about today. When you consider Barack Obama's program, he takes money from current and future taxpayers, promising to "invest" -- so-called -- in the economy. Except that it's not going to work. He's going to have to come back and ask for more money, and we're here today to say, no more money.

That, to me, guys, looks like a Ponzi scheme. And in my opinion, Obama, Pelosi, and Reed are the Burnie Madoff Democrats who want to take our money and use it for their purposes, and we're here to say, no more!

Next, Jon Caldara of the Independence Institute took the microphone:

So, are we feeling stimulated yet? Let's make this clear: this is not what we usually do. Usually at this time of day, we're at work. All we want to do is get back to work -- and keep what we earn. According to the CBO, the long-term impacts of this is going to be about $30,000 per family. ...

Caldara introduced Michelle Malkin, who ripped also the Republicans who supported the stimulus:

Thank you, my fellow un-Patriots. You know, Barack Obama gave special phone calls to the members of what I call the turn-coat caucus, Specter, Snow, and Collins, who were behind the engineering of this trillion-dollar sell-out. And he praised them for their patriotism. And my response is, if selling out our children and our grandchildren's future is patriotism, I am very proud to be an un-Patriot in the age of Obama.

When President Obama signs the bill here in Denver, it will represent an unprecedented act of generational theft in this country.

Chuck Schumer said that there wasn't anybody in this country who cared about the pork in this bill. And I think that the most important reason that we're here today is to say, yes, we do care. ...

Caldara next introduced Tancredo. He said, "If President Obama wanted to do one thing for American workers... he would stop the illegal immigration into this country. He would reduce the number of people coming here every day legally." Wow. Not a single word about restoring economic liberty, because that is not a goal that the Tancredo wing of the GOP shares. Why Caldara invited Tancredo is beyond me.

Shawn Mitchell thankfully and predictably stuck to theme:

Today is unfortunately historic. It marks one of the biggest, most expensive mistakes in the history of American domestic policy. Obama-Reed-Palosi couldn't decide if they wanted a bill that was an economic boost, a big-spending welfare wish-list, or a politician free-for-all pork fest. So they did all three. I don't get it. If the problem is that people are borrowing too much on credit cards and on home equity, how does it help things for the federal government to shove us aside and show us what a world-class credit binge looks like?

We today, sadly, are betting our grandchildren's future on the falsehood that you can spend your way to prosperity. You cannot. The Obama-Reed-Palosi lurch to the left is not the change that Americans voted for. We need to remember, we need to get involved, and tell the federal government, live within your means. Thank you.

State Senator Nancy Spence, having to compete with the introduction of the live pig, made some noncommittal remarks about how politicians have to do something, just not what this bill states.

State Senator David Schultheis complained that the "stimulus" package does not sufficiently crack down on illegal immigration. It is a shame that Mitchell had to compete with such off-topic nonsense.

State Senator Kevin Lumberg again got back on track but offered no new substance.

State Representative Cindy Acree said, "Thank you Coloradans for joining together to say that we don't expanded government intervention in our lives. We can manage our lives, our businesses, our health care better than the government can."

Josh Penry, showing good stage presence, said, "I believe that history will remember this vote, this moment, this bill as the moment when Republicans reclaim the mantle of fiscal discipline that is rightfully ours." That would certainly be a nice change of pace.

Wadhams pointed out that many Republicans opposed the so-called bailout. Caldara followed the state GOP chair's brief remarks with the unconvincing note that "this is not a Republican or Democrat event." He then introduced yet another Republican politician, State Representative B. J. Nikkel, who delivered a nice if generic speech. Then Pfaff predicted that Colorado would again be a "red state."

State Senator Kent Lambert said:

We're going to start the road back this afternoon; I'm introducing a bill, we're going to have it here in committee this afternoon, to do something that many of you will find very interesting and will support. That's to put the state checkbook back on the gold standard. Starting this afternoon we're joining with other states to do this. We're going to bring fiscal responsibility back to the United States of America.

I have absolutely no idea what he's talking about. States cannot possibly reinstate the gold standard; that is a federal matter.

Peggy Littleton from the state board of education tried unsuccessfully to tie the "stimulus" to her position. (By this time I was wondering just how many speakers Caldara had invited. I guess it's good to get them on record.)

State Representative Frank McNulty repeated the same stuff. He did let slip, "How can a president who campaigned on change give us so much more of the same?" Do you mean, more of the same of what George W. Bush gave us?

Finally -- thank God it was nearly over -- Pfaff regained the microphone, which he passed off to Caldara to close out. Caldara said, "We believe we can spend our money better than government can. In order to support this package, you must believe one simple truth: that somehow Washington can spend your money better than you can."

Again, it was overall a great rally. Still, while it is totally legitimate to criticize pork-barrel, special-interest spending, the fundamental issue is not pork. The fundamental issue is that people have the right to control their own income and associate voluntarily, and therefore forced wealth transfers and political controls of the economy are wrong. The issue, then, individual rights, as manifest in a free market, the system of economic liberty. Yet, by my count, all the speakers combined mentioned the word "liberty" exactly once, and they did not mention free markets or individual rights. Caldara and Pfaff did say that people should be able to control their own resources, and several other speakers at least hinted that economic liberty is a good thing. Yet two of the speakers concentrated their remarks on further violating economic liberty through protectionist immigration restrictions. Thus, as successful as the rally was, it was also a missed opportunity in many ways.

I'll continue the discussion in a subsequent post, "Stimulus and Partisanship."

Pork Roast Rally in Photos

Here are my photographs of today's "Pork Roast" Rally in opposition to the so-called "stimulus" package that President Obama signed today. Both events took place in Denver. My photos may be reproduced if credited to FreeColorado.com. See Slapstick and Michelle Malkin for additional photos and notes. In a future post, I'll include audio of the event and extensive commentary.


The $30,000 estimate of the total per-household cost for the "stimulus" comes from Representative Paul Ryan.


















Jim Pfaff of Americans for Prosperity prepares to address the crowd congregated at the State Capitol.


Left-wingers Jason Salzman and Michael Huttner come out for the show.




Jon Caldara of the Independence Institute fires up the crowd.




Michelle Malkin delivers a short but feisty talk.


"One Trick" Tom Tancredo does what he does best: lament immigration.


State Senator Shawn Mitchell, on the other hand, addresses the matter of the day with his cold logic and passionate ideals.


State Senator Josh Penry, the man on the radar of Salzman and Huttner, may run for higher office next year.


Brad Jones of Face the State (with the still camera) and Michael Sandoval of Slapstick Politics (with the video camera) cover the event.




This was the lucky pig at the rally, who seemed to be enjoying himself. (Or herself.)


This was the unlucky pig, served with a smile by Michelle Malkin to protest the pork-laden "stimulus" package.

Cell Phones and Driving

The following article originally was published February 16, 2009, by Grand Junction's Free Press.

We're from the government, and we're here to help you drive

by Linn and Ari Armstrong

Recently we had a flat tire and found that the spare was also flat, so we hitched a ride to the gas station. We sat in the back seat while the driver held the following conversation with the other passenger.

"I was driving south on 30 Road the other day when a young woman with a cell phone stuck to her ear cut me off just before I was turning onto D Road!

"I've never given the one-finger salute, but, boy, let me tell you, if I were inclined this would have been the perfect time. But I guess I learned the fine art of profanity while driving around with my father, so I really let loose. The EPA could have closed commercial air space above the Valley because of that rant! I probably made Al Gore's global-warming ticker speed up.

"I'm so glad the legislature is finally looking to put an end to holding cell phones while driving.

"Anyway, this young 'lady' had no idea how much danger she had placed us in. I was looking at the newspaper ads for yard sales, and I was eager to beat everyone else to the best buys. I had to step on the gas to make up time.

"The week before, I had arrived late to the best yard sale in town, and the earlier risers had grabbed up all of the best buys! Not only did they take the best stuff, but they took all the best parking. So I just pulled in real close to another parked car for a spell so I could get in on the bargaining. Some guy driving by sneered at me, but it's not like he didn't have plenty of room to drive around. Sheesh!

"But I didn't make the next yard sale on time, either. When the lady with the cell phone cut me off, I spilled my coffee all over the paper! That was some hot coffee, boy, and it turned my classifieds, along with the world's news, to mush.

"The little *&%@ didn't realize that I was having a heck of time getting one of those little creamers open and into my coffee. But I have the problem licked, now; I get the lids with the drinking hole so I can poor my cream into that, along with the sugar. And I rip the cream open with my teeth.

"I hope the lady who cut me off was making a hot date or something. I hope it was worth it, because Spot's poor little doggie feet got burned by the coffee. He started dancing all over the dash.

"Poor Spot still won't get in my lap anymore, and he used to look so cute with his little paws on the wheel. All the kids used to love watching him help me drive! But my insurance company said it won't pay for Spot's counseling.

"Not only that, but I had little Suzie for the day, and she was a mess after that, let me tell you. She was in her car seat right behind me, so I couldn't find her pacifier till I got to a stop light.

"I don't know what the lady's cell phone cost her, but she cost me plenty. With Spot jumping around with burned little paws, he knocked my brand new electric razor right out the window. I had just bought that razor, too, on sale for 89 bucks. If the little twit had cut me off just a couple days earlier, all I would have lost is a cheap blade shaver.

"You would have laughed yourself silly -- I upgraded after I reached for the shaving rinse cup instead of the coffee mug. Yuck.

"Look here for a sec -- did I just smudge this eye-liner?

"They ought to pass a law. They just don't have enough laws. Let's pass a law to stop people from using cell phones in the car. Let's really get tough on the young teenagers. They're terrible drivers, and they can't vote, anyway.

"Hold on a minute -- I want to find that country-western station on the radio... There it is. I had it on the classical station because it really relaxes Spot. Sometimes he likes to climb up in the back window and take a little snooze. His little chew-blankie is in the back seat; I like to tuck him in with it.

"Getting back to the law. I'm just sick and tired of people driving around chatting on cell phones, paying no attention to their driving. The police need to be spending their time looking for people using cell phones!"

The driver let us off at the gas station, where we breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that our safety rests in the hands of our state legislature.

Around Colorado: 2/16/09

Keynes Belongs in Museum

"The Denver Museum of Nature & Science, with its 465 solar panels and focus on education, makes 'a perfect venue' for President Barack Obama to sign a historic $787 billion economic stimulus bill, Gov. Bill Ritter said Sunday."

I couldn't agree more. The so-called "stimulus" bill, and the Keynesian economics on which it rests, belongs in a museum, properly stuffed and mounted for display along with all the other failed ideas of the 20th Century.

Notice that the Rocky Mountain News blithely refers to this federal monstrosity as a the "economic stimulus bill," as though that were perfectly noncontroversial, straight news. Perhaps such lap-dog "journalism" is one reason why the Rocky also appears headed for the museum.


Food Stamp Abuse

"Nadya Suleman, the mother of the octuplets born last month, gets $490 a month in food stamps, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday evening." Suleman also has six other children.

So, in other words, my wife and I are scraping by, trying desperately to climb out of debt so that we can responsibly afford a single child before my wife hits "Advanced Maternal Age," even as we are forced to subsidize this lady's fourteen children. That's an -- interesting -- sort of public policy.

Earlier this month I spent a week eating the Low-Carb Food Stamp Diet, in which my daily food expenses, discounting the food left over, were around $4 per day. But our normal food budget is not a lot more than that.


Dems Ramp up Property Rights Abuses

Mike Krause explains, "In 2007, the Democrat controlled legislature (with plenty of Republican support) approved HB 1275 which designates the Colorado National Guard as a law enforcement agency for the purpose of 'sharing in the federal asset forfeiture program' as part of the Guard's counter drug operation in Colorado. ... According to the Guard's Joint Counter Drug Task Force web page, 'Our primary function is to provide military unique skills and equipment as a force multiplier for law enforcement agencies involved in narcotics enforcement.' ... In Colorado, the 'war on drugs' has gone from metaphor to actual military action."

When law enforcement agencies get the booty from taking people's property, they have all sorts of perverse incentives to skirt justice as they fight their "war." If Colorado Democrats can't even stand up for basic civil liberties, then what good are they?


Andrews Defends Spending Restraints

John Andrews writes, "The state is in a $600 million hole because Gov. Bill Ritter and Democratic legislators ignored advice from Republicans -- and even some fellow Democrats -- to restrain spending and save for a rainy day. Now those same spendthrifts want us to remove constitutional guardrails so they can rev the budget again when good times return."

The fact is that the left, driven by special interests, will always want more political spending, regardless of how high it is at any given moment.


Car Fees

"Many Coloradans could see their annual state vehicle-registration fee more than double if a major transportation-funding proposal making its way through the state Capitol becomes law." Again, where's all the gasoline tax money going? Doesn't that better match use to funding?

Obama Then and Now

I ran across this hilarious line at Barack Obama's web page: "Obama and Biden believe that a critical step in restoring fiscal discipline is enforcing pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) budgeting rules which require new spending commitments or tax changes to be paid for by cuts to other programs or new revenue."

I guess I didn't realize that the new trillion-dollar "stimulus" package will be covered by cuts in other programs. Or, Obama is a damned liar, one of the two.

We're now operating on the spend-as-you-go (SAYGO) paradigm, otherwise known as the seat-of-your-pants approach (SOYP), or the special-interest-welfare-expansion program (SIWEX).

Around Colorado: 2/12/09

The Anti-Stimulus

Jon Williams writes, "The spoils of this government largess will accrue to politically connected unions, new government 'workers' and, amazingly, to the bankers and Wall Street sharks who have already pillaged their firms and investors." And other special interests.

George Will at least plays a note of skepticism about the bailout madness.


Raiding the Cash Funds

Peter Blake writes, "Gov. Bill Ritter has asked the legislature to shift up to $300 million from more than 20 state-run cash funds to the general fund... Cash funds are financed by special fees, surcharges and assessments paid by those who supposedly benefit from the governmental service each fund finances."

We wouldn't possibly want people to get what they pay for.


Plastic Bag Ban Advances

"A Senate committee Wednesday night voted 4-3 for a bill that would ban plastic bags in large retail stores within three years."

Never mind that such a ban violates people's rights, generates hassles and inefficiency, and harms the environment. This is about legislation, not reasons. Ah, but it's inanity for the children, so it's okay. We must teach students the proper lessons about government.


Campaign Deform

Jessica Peck Corry explains some of the absurdities of Colorado's campaign finance laws. But let's not lose sight of the central issue: such laws violate the fundamental right of free speech. They should not be tweaked or reformed, but entirely repealed.

Westword Covers Low-Carb Food Stamp Diet

Westword's Joel Warner razzes me a bit for writing about food stamps when there are obviously bigger issues at play. In addition to the bailout, I noted to Warner that Social Security is a pending financial crisis.

If I could think of a week-long project to protest the bailouts, or Social Security, or the rapid expansion of federal power, a protest that the media would cover, I would do it. But there was an obvious way for me to disprove the claims that a food-stamp budget can only buy unhealthy food, so that's what I did.

Anybody who wants to read my voluminous writings against the bailout or Social security need merely search my page.

There is a broader point here: the bank bailouts operate on the same principle as food stamps: the needs of some impose a claim on the resources of others. I oppose the bank bailouts for the same reason I oppose food stamps: they violate individual rights. So there is a unity in my various campaigns.

Warner is a fun writer; here I'll merely highly a few of his comments.

He mentions my "dismally green turkey-stock soup;" ordinarily I add carrots, potatoes, brown rice, and beans to my soups. However, because of the artificial constraint of the seven-day timeline, I had to limit the number of products I could buy. However, even without the extras, the soup was pretty good.

What about the time it takes to prepare meals? I pointed two things out to Warner. First, I suspect that food-stamp recipients, on average, watch at least their share of television, so I don't feel too bad about asking them to divert a bit of that time to food-prep. Second, my usual routine is to cook a huge batch of something, which my wife and I eat over several days. So the per-meal food-prep time is minimal. I know busy people who cook on one day every week or two, then freeze portions to reheat later.

Are critics of food stamps a**holes? (I've committed myself to avoiding profanity on this page, though Westword's use of it obviously doesn't bother me.) Warner recorded my answer:

"I oppose the welfare state across the board. With a position like that, people are going to call me an a**hole in general. This will give them one more excuse to do that," he replies. "But what I think being an a**hole is, is locking someone in a cage if they don't want to give to the charity you think is acceptable. That is the root of the welfare state."

Does this need clarification? Let's say that you wanted to divert all your food-stamp spending to the local food bank. Can you do that? No; it's illegal. If you write a letter to the IRS saying, "This year I've reduced my tax payments to account for my diversion of resources to the local food bank," the IRS won't let you get away with that, and the ultimate penalty is that you go to jail.

I was unfortunately unclear in the online comments I left about payroll taxes. I wrote, "I wish Joel would have included a point that I mentioned to him: the payroll taxes, which lop off a combined 15.3 percent of one's pay check, create a terrible hardship for the poor and middle class. I favor repealing all payroll taxes (at least) for the poor." However, Warner did note my complaint about "the government's policy of lopping off a huge percentage of working-class paychecks to pay for unreasonable programs, many of which only benefit the wealthy."

I'm glad that Westword is around. It publishes some great investigative journalism. I do wish the paper would expand its scope a bit; it tends to cover sex, drugs, and rock and roll at the expense of other important issues. The paper does a fantastic job covering regional media. Given that it is largely an entertainment paper, perhaps we should consider ourselves fortunate that it devotes as much space as it does to important news.

Low-Carb Food Stamp Diet a Success

MEDIA RELEASE

LOW-CARB FOOD STAMP DIET A SUCCESS
Week's Diet Proves Good Nutrition Possible on Low Budget

Ari Armstrong ate nutritious food February 4-10 for less than food stamps provide. For the week, he ate only meat, dairy, eggs, olive oil, vegetables, fruit, walnuts, chocolate, tea, and spices. He did not eat any grains, vegetable oils, hydrogenated fat, potatoes, or processed sugar.

For compete details about the diet, including receipts and photographs of select meals, see http://tinyurl.com/a9l7z3.

Armstrong spent $33.07 for the week, or $4.72 per day. (He added 78 cents of bananas to preliminary figures.) However, he had around $5.30 worth of food left at the end of the week, bringing the daily total to around $4. Food stamps provide $5.68 per day to a single individual -- see http://www.fns.usda.gov/FSP/faqs.htm.

Armstrong said, "With this diet, I wanted to prove again that eating well on a low budget is possible. I also wanted to protest increases in the food-stamp budget. People should not be forced to fund the unhealthy food-stamp program. Instead, I favor voluntarily funded food banks, which are better able to offer nutritious food to those in need."

Ari and his wife Jennifer spend a month in 2007 eating a higher-carb -- but still nutritious -- diet for $2.57 per day each.

* * *

My meals for the week obviously consisted of various combinations of the ingredients I purchased at the outset. It would be a little tedious, I think, to reproduce my meal-by-meal log here. A typical breakfast consisted of half a grapefruit, a cup of milk, and scrambled eggs with onion, garlic, tomato, and turkey. A typical lunch was soup. A typical dinner was a salad with red leaf lettuce, cabbage, olive oil, turkey, and a dash of pepper. My desserts were bananas with chocolate and cream.

My appetite was a little bigger on Saturday, as Jennifer and I sawed up and moved some large tree logs to the back yard.



On Saturday we also went into King Soopers to pick up stuff for Jennifer; the store was offering free samples of various foods, which I couldn't accept due to my self-imposed restrictions. Obviously, those on a true emergency budget would accept free food.

Last night I had a conversation with Diana Hsieh about carbs. She has researched diets a lot more than I have, and she largely inspired the low-carb approach for my week's diet. She claims that sprouted wheat is better for you than regular wheat flour. It's obvious to me that there's a huge difference between whole grains and, say, corn chips. But, within the category of whole grains, it's not at all obvious to me whether some carbs are better than others. Anyway, my approach will continue to be to eat a nutritious diet fairly low in carbs but still with some grains and a bit of cane sugar. I'll refine this as I learn more details.

At the end of the week, I had around $5.30 worth of food left.



Here are my estimates of the left-over values, in cents:

* Garlic: 30
* Salt: 45
* Pepper: 90
* 2 Eggs: 25
* 2 Pints Soup: 50
* Chocolate: 20
* Tea: 45
* Olive Oil: 180
* Cabbage: 10
* Onion: 20
* Lettuce: 25

I consumed almost an entire turkey during the week. So I think I'll lay off the turkey for a while. Today I'm going to make spaghetti squash with tomato sauce, hamburger, and various vegetables and spices. The squash cost me 49 cents per pound; the tomato sauce was on sale for 29 cents for 15 ounces. The hamburger is "all natural" beef on mark-down (I don't recall the exact price), so it was more expensive than regular hamburger but considerably less than the usual cost for "all natural" meat.

The upshot is that the diet was a complete success. I imagine it will be, oh, five or six minutes before somebody else is whining that it's just not possible to eat nutritiously on a food-stamp budget. My readers, at least, will know better.

Around Colorado: 2/11/09

Bailout Madness

The Denver Post believes that the problem with the alleged "rescue plan" is that it lacks detail. No, the problem is that it exists. Which special-interest group gets how many dollars is rather beside the point.

Thankfully, Hannah Krening has a nice letter in the (online) Post:

[W]e need a drastic reduction in taxes and government spending. Those who really produce in this country are “thanked” by being branded as villains, then taxed and regulated to death. Their money is then given to failing companies. Those badly run companies should face the realities of a global marketplace, evaluate their failures, and make necessary changes without government help -- not be bailed out!

The government should protect individual rights, including the right to succeed (and reap the benefits of success), and also to fail (and bear full responsibility for that failure). The government should be limited to police, courts and national defense -- not picking economic winners and losers.

Forcible Wealth Transfers Don't Create Jobs

It would be pleasant if news reporters would stick to reporting news, and leave the editorial remarks to the editorial section.

Jerd Smith writes for the Rocky Mountain News, "Colorado water projects are in line to receive at least $67 million of federal stimulus money, funds that could help ease water woes from small towns to big cities and create jobs."

But even calling it "stimulus money" unjustifiably grants Obama's case. And claiming that it will "create jobs" is simply nonsense. If the Rocky can't do any better than that, it frankly deserves to fail.

This so-called "stimulus" money does not just fall from the sky. The funds come from somewhere. In this case, it comes from deficit spending, which reduces the amount of investments available for free-market industry. So the "stimulus" will "create" some jobs only by destroying others.

Yes, we are in a recession, and unemployment is higher than normal. The recession was caused by easy-money policies of the Federal Reserve and laws encouraging risky mortgages. Even under relative economic freedom, it takes time to unwind all the federally-promoted malinvestment and get the economy back on track. But the best, surest, and fastest route to sound, long-term economic recovery is to return to free markets; the U.S. currently is taking the opposite course. The "stimulus" will help some people at least in the short run, but only at the expense of longer term recovery.

As for water spending, politicians at multiple levels control the water industry. If it's a good idea to spend more money on some of these projects, it's a good idea whether or not we're in a recession, and "stimulating" the economy properly has nothing to do with it. The larger problem of the political takeover of the water industry is far too complicated a matter for today's post.


"It's Working"

Lynn Bartels makes the same mistake in a blog posting. Her headline: "New energy economy: Hey, it's working." It's "working" to accomplish what? Sure, if you subsidize something and legislatively harm its competitors, you'll get more of it. So we have more wind farms. But this comes at the expense of higher total energy costs, lost production elsewhere in the economy, and lost economic liberty.


The Conservative Attack on Free Speech

Conservatives and liberals seem to be competing for which side can more viciously attack free speech. Today Tom Lucero, a supporter of Amendment 54, writes, "'Campaign contributions are the equivalent of political speech,' the Rocky boldly proclaims, despite consistent Supreme Court rulings to the contrary. Independent expenditures can be considered protected speech, but not political contributions." Did you get that? Lucero is explicitly attacking not only free speech but property rights. The fact that the Supreme Court sanctioned such violations of rights does not change the basic facts.

Lucero supports Amendment 54 in the name of "clean government." Nothing could be dirtier than violating the right -- the right! -- of free speech.


Grocery Bags

Okay, so plastic bags are more environmentally friendly than paper bags, and they're more convenient for many shoppers. But, argue Scott Vickers and Mark Waddell, they contribute to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. But how much of this is due to plastic bags? Our authors claim it consists of "80 percent plastic products." (I have no idea where they're getting this information, or whether it's accurate.) Well, "plastic products" do not equal "plastic bags."

Perhaps our authors have noticed that Colorado is a land-locked state. Seriously, what fraction of the ominous Great Pacific Garbage Patch consists of plastic bags from Colorado? The fraction must be vanishingly small.

If the problem is littering, then we should address that problem directly, not ban useful products.

And yet the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is the reason these authors offer for fining, and then banning, plastic bags at grocery stores in Colorado. Pathetic. Unless the writers are intentionally writing a parody, in which case, funny.



Barack Obama High

"A Boulder High student group is pushing to rename the school after a hot new historic figure: Barack Obama High School."

Well, why in the hell not? We should also carve his face into Mount Rushmore. Strike that: he deserves his own mountain. We can get on that right after we repeal the Constitutional limit of presidential terms. All Hail Caesar Obama.

Around Colorado: 2/10/09

Stop Nudging Me

Colorado's own Dr. Paul Hsieh has an excellent op-ed out with Pajamas Media criticizing Cass Sunstein's Nudge. As Hsieh makes clear, Sunstein's "nudge" is euphemism for "Do it or else;" it is a bridge to a full Nanny State and worse:

The basic premise of libertarian paternalism is that the government should use its power to “nudge” people into acting in their best interest, while leaving them the choice to “opt out.” ... However, nudging represents an assault on freedom, because it undermines man's basic tool of survival -- his mind. ... If Americans surrender their minds to the government, they become easy prey for demagogues and dictators. Once we concede the legitimacy of "nudging," nudges will inevitably escalate. Over time, libertarian paternalism will become less "libertarian" and more "paternalistic."

The basic problem is that, ultimately, the people doing the nudging can send in their armed thugs to make sure the "nudge" sticks.


Health Insurance: Relaxing the Grip

One problem with health insurance is that politicians have dramatically raised its cost by imposing all host of controls. At least one Colorado legislator is trying to slightly mitigate those controls. This is from the Colorado House GOP press secretary:

State Rep. Spencer Swalm, R-Centennial, believes that offering a low-cost alternative is an essential first step to ensure that Coloradans have access to affordable health care. Swalm will introduce his measure to allow health insurance companies to offer basic health care plans this afternoon.

"There are too many Coloradans who can’t afford insurance the way it stands," Swalm said. "We need to make sure everyone has access to quality care and to health insurance."

House Bill 1143 would provide a low-cost option to Colorado’s uninsured by creating a benefit plan with basic coverage for a low monthly premium. The plan was designed for working class employees who otherwise couldn’t afford health insurance.

Let the Socialism Begin

So the so-called bailout passed the Senate. This is a shameful day for that body, and a tragic day for our nation. It's also a sad day for the generally sycophantic media.

But there are still some strong and independent voices out there. This morning the Rocky Mountain News editorialized: "The bill threatens even greater damage to the nation's fiscal health by expanding health-care entitlements. These new obligations would saddle future taxpayers with untold costs, potentially making millions of Americans - even those recently earning six-figure salaries - eligible for taxpayer subsidies."

Senators Udall and Bennet both voted to pass the monstrosity. That sounds like a challenge to me, friends. But who will rise to meet it?


Legislative Updates

In a letter to the Rocky Mountain News, Peter Gross blasts corporate welfare for tourism. D. Padilla criticizes the proposal to fine plastic bag use.

Max Noel writes to the Denver Post in defense of political spending restrictions.

The legislature blocked an attempt to modestly limit the reach of oil drilling controls. Of course the larger problem is that politicians own practically all the land on which oil is drilled.

Around Colorado: 2/9/09

Subprime Suit

Tim Hoover writes for the Denver Post, "Countrywide Financial Corp. will pay $6 million as part of a settlement with the state stemming from litigation over its home-loan practices. ... The complaint against Countrywide alleged that it deceived borrowers by placing them in loans that had high risks of delinquency or default. The lawsuit alleged the lender used lax underwriting standards to give loans that borrowers soon found they could not repay as introductory rates expired and their mortgage payments skyrocketed."

If there was actual, demonstrated fraud in play, then a settlement may have been appropriate. However, surely the borrowers deserve some of the blame as well. Were not all the loan details available to the borrowers before they signed? Were they not aware of the "lax underwriting standards?" Were they not capable of figuring out a responsible mortgage load? A snake-oil salesman who commits fraud should be shut down. But the people who buy the snake oil are still idiots who deserve their share of the blame.

If the underwriting practices were fraudulent, then wasn't Countrywide victimizing itself by putting homes at risk of foreclosure?

I checked the Attorney General's web page and found a media release on the matter. "...Countrywide will make nearly $6 million available to eligible Colorado borrowers and to the State, including $500,000 for the Colorado Department of Local Affairs Division of Housing to support the continued operation and expansion of the Colorado Foreclosure Hotline." Well, the state was not a victim of any fraud, so the state should not get any of the funds. Unfortunately, the release does not demonstrate that Countrywide's practices were fraudulent. Instead, the release complains about "marketing of subprime and other high-risk mortgage products in Colorado." But selling risky things is not a crime, nor is it fraudulent, provided the risks are not intentionally hidden. It's a pity that neither the newspaper article nor the media release shed much light on the matter.

Hoover also reports that Governor Ritter is promoting a bill to "allow a homeowner to contact a foreclosure counselor within 20 days of foreclosure. If the counselor determines the borrower is eligible, the homeowner would get an extra 90 days to work with a lender in order to keep the house." But government has no legitimate role in such negotiations. If banks understandably want to stem foreclosures, they have every right and ability to negotiate with mortgage holders free from political "help."


Bard David Balmer

Remember how House Speaker Terrence Carroll wanted legislators to be properly addressed? Here's what Representative Balmer had to say: "Mr. Speaker, Your excellency, the most high speaker, protector of thee, this chamber, protector of our most sovereign state of Colorado and defender of the faith. My lords and my ladies, I pray, lend me thine ears."

If only legislators were always so funny...


Legislative Updates

Here's a twist on the beer battle: it turns out that, while grocery stores may only sell low-alcohol beer, liquor stores cannot legally sell it. You know, it would be easier for people to respect the law if the law weren't so often completely ridiculous.

The Daily Sentinel also has a story about the fight over beer controls. I've already made my case for liberty.

The House wants to forcibly interfere with employment contracts.

Wow, this is news: the legislature is actually considering phasing out the business personal property tax.

The Gazette editorializes, "The bill [1012], co-sponsored by Rep. Amy Stephens, a Republican from Monument, would allow insurance companies to offer discounts to customers who enroll in programs that help lower cholesterol, relieve stress and reduce other behaviors detrimental to their health." However, this bill is just trying to fix a problem caused by existing controls that force insurance providers to take all comers at similar rates in many cases.


Bailout Humor

When something is as horrible as the so-called bailout, sometimes all you can do is laugh. Here's one by Ed Quillen:

My bartender daughter Columbine told me last week that she had come up with a joke. She posted a sign that read: "Try our new drink, the Bailout. You don't know what's in it, and it's very expensive."

She figured it would be good for a few chuckles, and it was. But to her surprise, some people wanted to order a Bailout. Now she's trying to figure out the price and the ingredients -- sort of like Congress.

Here's a Bailout Application Form.

And here's an idea for a new national symbol, perfect for the bailout.


Voices for Reason

Okay, this isn't about Colorado, but the Ayn Rand Center has a new blog that promises a steady stream of interesting commentary. For example, Alex Epstein summarizes his defense of Standard Oil.

Around Colorado: 2/8/09

Hillman on TABOR

Mark Hillman writes, "In Colorado's current budget crunch, leading Democratic lawmakers wouldn't dream of admitting that they should have socked away a little money when the economy was growing or that they should have been more conservative in adopting this year's budget. Now, it's time to blame the state constitution -- namely, the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights."

This may become a huge fight over the next year or two. Again.


Corporate Welfare

Sean Paige points out something that should be obvious: corporate welfare is inherently politicized.


Tax Obscenity

"The nonpartisan Tax Foundation estimated the cost of tax-code compliance last year at $300 billion. Meanwhile, the IRS reports individuals and businesses spend roughly 7.6 billion hours a year tracking receipts, accounting for expenses and performing all the other exercises that are necessary to file accurate tax returns."

Such figures may not seem so high given the recent spate of profligate federal spending, but it still amounts to around a thousand dollars for every person. The cost may be somewhat inflated because, absent an income tax, people might still do much of the same tracking for other reasons, but still. Our political leaders seem hell-bent on driving our economy into the ground.


'Stimulus' Summary

Charles Krauthammer succinctly summarizes the so-called "stimulus" package: "[S]o much for the promise to banish the money changers and influence peddlers from the temple."


Kopel Versus Amateur Media

Dave Kopel points out that professional journalists tend to write better stories than amateurs. Hardly a surprise. But his example doesn't do justice to his case: he discusses coverage of a hockey game. Nobody will care who won a hockey game five or fifty years from now. I don't care if all sports and entertainment "news" is written by amateurs.

But real news is very difficult to gather. Covering the state legislature, for example, is a full-time job, and a difficult one to do right. Of course, ambitious amateurs can and do produce good material, but they are necessarily limited by time constraints. The huge problem is that paid journalists often produce amateurish content.

Take, for instance, an article by Bernie Morson for the Rocky Mountain News. It is essentially cheer-leading for environmentalist causes.

Morson writes, "At the legislature, HB 1126 by Rep. Dickie Lee Hullinghorst, D-Boulder, and HB 1149 by Rep. Michael Merrifield, D-Colorado Springs, encourage solar energy." "Encourages?" As in, the bills state, "Resolved: The legislature would really like to encourage people to think about using solar energy"? I somehow doubt it.

Maybe if newspapers produced professional content more often, more people would read them.

Low-Carb Food Stamp Diet: $4.72 Per Day

The big news is that I decided to buy some more bananas, so I added 78 cents to my weekly total, bringing me to $33.07 for the week, or $4.72 per day, or 17 percent less than the $5.68 that food stamps allow for a single individual. (See the collected links.)

I had been 89 cents under budget, so I figured I might as well pick up some more sugary fruit for desserts. Again, the point of this diet was not to minimize expenses, but to eat the best, low-carb diet I could within the self-imposed budget.

Following are some general notes, in no particular order, followed by new photos and descriptions of the diet.

Double Ad Day

I didn't realize until after I went on my main shopping spree that both Sprouts and Suflower have "double ad day" on Wednesday. That means that the ads for two weeks' sales are honored. My wife told me about this. (I had actually benefitted from the policy without realizing it.) So, if you live near one of those stores, Wednesday is definitely the day to go.

Taxes

I can think of nothing more stupid than charging poor people taxes on their basic groceries. (Okay, taxing poor people 15.3 percent of their income through payroll taxes is more stupid.) Combined, I payed $1.34 in sales taxes on my food purchases, or 4 percent of my weekly budget. That may not seem like much, but it could have added (for example) more than a half-pound of bananas to my diet per day. Or a loaf of bread, if my diet had allowed it. (I'm grain free for the week.) Or two to four pounds of vegetables.

Stress

In retrospect, I have a much better appreciation of the elevated stress levels during my 2007 diet, during which my wife and I each ate for $2.57 per day for a month. This time, the diet contributed more hours of work to my already-busy schedule, gave me a lot more details to contemplate, and subjected my every bite to public review. As a result, I didn't sleep very well Tuesday or Wednesday nights (though I started to catch up last night).

It occurred to me that this begins to simulate the stress that comes with a real low-budget diet, such as if one gets laid off and has nothing in savings. Obviously I realize those stress levels can be much higher and longer lasting. Stress interferes with sound sleep, suppresses appetite, and interferes with digestion. Thus, stress over food can actually make eating more of a problem.

Usually I don't calculate my food spending or monitor my eating habits; I just buy good food on sale and eat it. On Tuesday, suddenly worried about my week's calorie load, I spent some time estimating my daily calories, which are fine. Real money problems require more planning, again contributing to stress.

So those who suddenly find themselves in a financial bind will probably experience more stress, and it's important to think about how to deal with it. I'm notoriously bad at dealing with stress, yet I've found a number of things that seem to work reasonably well: yoga stretching, breath control, exercise, sunshine, sex, massage (my wife and I purchased a used table so we can work on each other easier), and good novels and movies. (We watched Secret Life of Bees last night, which I quite enjoyed.)

Carbohydrates

In my last diet, I learned a lot about fat, as initially that's what I cut too much. For this diet, I'm learning more about carbs, which I have intentionally limited. (Again, I'm not offering dietary advice here; please read my disclaimer.)

I am not trying offer a model food-stamp diet here. With the 2007 diet, I was intentionally trying to get expenses as low as I could and still maintain a basically healthy diet. This week, my goal is to eat a nutritious, minimally processed, low-carb diet within a set budget. If I were actually on an emergency food budget, I'd combine the two diets, mixing healthy fats, protein, and produce with reasonable amounts of inexpensive, high-carb foods such as rice and flour. I think that would offer the best balance of cost and nutrition.

Wiki suggests that a "paleo" diet could contain as many as 200 grams of carbs per day. I'm between 100 and 200 per day this week. So I could actually boost my carb load and still be "low-carb" by this standard. (That's one reason I bought more bananas.)

The USDA recommends 300 grams of carbs per day. Hard-core low-carb diets recommend 20 to 60 grams of carbs per day. Frankly, I'm skeptical of arguments for either extreme. The USDA's recommendations have helped create a nation of fat, diabetic people with heart problems. On the other hand, 20 carbs per day seems quite low. Among my concerns is that modern man has more body mass and a bigger brain than our paleo ancestors; might not this require more carbs? I certainly don't claim to be an expert on the matter, but as an initial stance it strikes me that in this case moderation may be the best policy. My guess is that my normal carb load over the last few months has been somewhere in the range of 200 per day, and I don't plan to change my regular diet.

There's obviously a huge difference between whole-grain bread or cereal and potato chips or soda. Not all carbs are created equal. Following is a list of common carb-loaded foods, with their carb loads:

Banana, Medium: 27 grams
Apple, Medium: 25 grams
Oatmeal, 1 Cup Cooked: 32 grams
Bread, Slice: 12 grams (half the weight of the bread)
Rice, Brown, 1 Cooked Cup: 45 grams
Orange Juice, 1 Cup: 25 grams
Soda, 12 Ounce: 29 grams
McDonald's French Fries, Medium: 46 grams
Cake, Chocolate, Slice: 35 grams

Obviously, sugary fruits and whole grains have a lot better general nutritional value than soda and such.

It's not hard to see how somebody could easily rocket past 300 carbs in a day with a diet heavy in grains and sugar. (Sugar cane is actually the world's number one crop.) But it's also not hard to see how somebody could keep carbs down to a reasonable level without much difficulty. You can still eat six or seven modest portions of carb-loaded food and still come in considerably below USDA guidelines.

Diet Updates

Here's the receipt for the bananas:


On Wednesday, I didn't have any meat till the evening, when I could roast the turkey. Thus, I ate vegetables and olive oil throughout the day.


I cooked the eggplant with onion and garlic according to directions I found through a search.


By evening I was fully carnivorous again. I started with a frozen turkey and cooked it according to these directions. Having cooked a turkey thawed and frozen, I definitely prefer starting with a frozen bird.



The turkey meat filled a 9 by 13 inch glass dish.


Then I boiled the remaining pieces for a couple hours to make stock.


Breakfast for Thursday was light.


I had an earl lunch, therefore, of soup made with the stock, turkey, cabbage, an onion, and garlic.


I had over a gallon of soup left for the rest of the week.


I also ate more of the eggplant dish on Thursday with another cup of milk. For dessert, a sliced banana with chocolate sauce and cream. Normally, I'll add a few blueberries or strawberries to the mix. The chocolate sauce is just chocolate powder and water, cooked on the stovetop for a spell. You can also add sugar if you like.


Here are the new bananas:


Thursday night I had a deluxe salad with tomato, turkey, walnuts, and olive oil.


This morning (Friday) I had a larger breakfast of eggs and tomato, half a grapefruit, and milk.


Also today I finished the eggplant dish with turkey, drank another cup of milk, ate a couple bananas, and had a cup of tea. I'm getting ready to eat another big salad with turkey.

I probably won't take any more photos for the week, as they'd just be duplicates. Part of the constraint of the diet is that I have to buy and eat all my groceries within a seven-day period, resulting in less diversity. Normally a shopper can look ahead several weeks, buy things on sale, put certain foods in the freezer, and eat a more varied diet. I will, however, track my daily meals. I can basically coast through Tuesday with minimal effort.

Udall Squishes

Previously I have been impressed with Mark Udall, now Senator for Colorado. As Congressman, he voted against the earlier bailout. Now that the Democrats are in charge, he's all for the new bailout. Apparently he's more interested in playing the role of Partisan Puke than in defending the rights of his Colorado constituents.

Notice the difference between Udall's sincere, informative letter on church and state, the single best letter I've ever received from any politician, and the senseless, pandering, gobbledegook he sent me today:

Friday, February 06, 2009
Dear Armstrong, Ari,

Thank you for contacting me regarding the economic recovery bill being debated in the United States Senate. I appreciate your taking the time to write and expressing your specific concerns about this important legislation. Several thousand Coloradans have contacted me to share their views.

With the worst economic crisis facing our nation since the Great Depression, it is important that we do all we can to give a boost to our economy. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the national unemployment rate has increased to over 7%, a problem that is adversely affecting many Colorado families. Along with rising unemployment, many Coloradans are struggling to stay in their homes as a direct result of the hardships they have faced because of the current economic crisis.

I believe that we must act to keep Coloradans working, but we must be thorough and get every assurance we can from the best minds, best historians, and best economists to ensure that this legislation will provide the necessary boost to our economy. This package must be transparent and restore accountability to the expenditure of federal monies. Importantly, I want to make sure that the bill is heavily weighted towards creating jobs to stimulate the economy as soon as possible. We have a talented workforce in Colorado and I believe that with the right federal policies, we will be able to keep Coloradans at work and keep them in their homes.

During debate of the economic recovery bill thus far, I have partnered with senators from both parties to improve the bill so that the federal government will spend taxpayer dollars effectively. Moreover, I have filed several amendments that would help re-direct federal monies into job-creating projects that would help put Colorado back on the right economic path. As the bill is being considered you can be sure that my staff and I will keep your suggestions and concerns in mind.

Thanks again for contacting me. My job is not merely about supporting or opposing legislation. It is also about bridging ideological divides and bringing people together to solve problems. I welcome your letters and e-mails and always listen closely to what you and other Coloradans have to say about matters before Congress, the concerns of our communities, and the issues facing our state and nation.

Warm Regards,
Mark Udall
United States Senator, Colorado

Around Colorado 2/6/09

Low-Carb Food Stamp Diet

Face the State published a short article about my Low-Carb Food Stamp Diet. Diana Hsieh also mentioned it on her blog, as did Monica on her FA/RM blog. Walter in Denver also discusses the diet, writing, "My monthly grocery bill is often less than a food stamp allotment. I'm careful with my grocery shopping but not particularly miserly."


Socialized Medicine -- Again

"A plan to lay the groundwork for a Canadian-style, single-payer universal health care system in Colorado has been introduced by a group of Democrats. House Bill 1273, sponsored by Rep. John Kefalas, of Fort Collins, and co-sponsored by 18 legislators, would create a privately funded commission to study how a government-funded health care system could work. The goal is to send a single-payer bill to the General Assembly in 2011, he said."

Here we go again...


Unemployment Welfare

"Colorado's unemployment system... is simply under siege. This year, it is expected to face a record number of claims and to pay out a record $500 million to $600 million in benefits. ... Reforms instituted a generation ago appear poised to keep the system solvent... Even so, what Colorado is facing is staggering when compared with recent years."

Meanwhile, John Lott points out that paying people not to work encourages some people not to work -- surprise, surprise.

Of course, those forced to pay into the system may rightly take money back from the system as a simple matter of justice and restitution.

However, people should not be forced to finance any unemployment system. Instead, they should be left free to prepare for hard times as they see fit. If taxes were lower, people could save money for a rainy day. Notably, in addition to restoring individual responsibility, this would also make more funds available for economic growth.


Protectionism

Interestingly, during the Great Depression, Republicans were the ones trashing the economy with protectionist tariffs. Today's Democrats, apparently keen on combining the worst aspects of both parties, also promote protectionism.

Vincent Carroll writes about "Colorado's two new Democratic senators, Mark Udall and Michael Bennet. Given a chance Wednesday to strip the Senate stimulus package of a highly provocative 'Buy America' provision, Udall and Bennet joined 63 of their colleagues in saying no."


'Stimulating the Welfare State'

Mike Rosen writes a nice critique of the stimulus package, pointing out that it's largely about expanding the welfare state.

Meanwhile, Democratic governors are busy begging for their share of the loot.

In a blog post, David Harsanyi quotes a Washington Times article: "CBO, the official scorekeepers for legislation, said the House and Senate bills will help in the short term but result in so much government debt that within a few years they would crowd out private investment, actually leading to a lower Gross Domestic Product over the next 10 years than if the government had done nothing." That's because any "short term help" would be entirely artificial, not anything that contributes to true prosperity.

Harsanyi also points out that "in Obama's trillion-dollar 'stimulus plan' rushing through Congress, nearly every sector of the economy will, at one point, have allegedly benefited from taxpayer bounty. Does this mean that all industries can be subjected to similar central control?" The Denver Post openly endorses political control of industry.

The so-called "stimulus" plan would in fact harm the economy into the indefinite future. It should be rejected, shred, torched, and buried.


Just Desserts

The Denver Post claims that colleges "deserve" gambling taxes. No, they don't. They deserve to accept money only from voluntary contributers, whether students or donors. And casinos deserve to operate without being forced to finance welfare programs on a free and open market.


Legislature at Work

When the legislature is at work, you can rest assured that it's trying to make other people's work harder. For instance, the legislature is trying to further violate the right of free association by forcing employers to give employees leave for school events. Many employers already do so, and those who don't typically have good reasons not to. The only result of the bill will be to marginally increase the cost of labor for some businesses, thereby marginally contributing to unemployment. Our economy suffers from a million such tiny cuts.

Meanwhile, "Speaker Terrance Carroll, a Denver Democrat, issued a memo Friday demanding 'all lobbyists, governor's staff, executive staff, visitors, Capitol staff and press' show some respect by use representatives' proper titles."

Their proper titles? That could be an interesting exercise...

Low-Carb Food Stamp Diet: Disclaimer

I need to finish up a project today, so I won't write extensively about my "Low-Carb Food Stamp Diet" until tomorrow.

For now, I want to offer a disclaimer: While I recommend that people buy healthy food at modest prices if they're on a tight budget, I am not advising readers on what foods they should eat or in what quantities. I am not a doctor or a dietician. I urge readers who are considering dietary changes to consult a recognized expert, as some dietary changes may result in negative health consequences.

I also need to clear up a possible misconception, based on a comment I got yesterday. I am not offering my diet as a model food stamp or low-budget diet. Rather, the purpose of my week's diet is to refute the claim that a low-budget diet implies a diet high in carbohydrates, starches, and hydrogenated fats. I do think a diet should eliminate hydrogenated fat and even vegetable oils, but I don't have a problem with modest carb and starch consumption. My usual diet includes whole grains, occasional potatoes, some sugary fruits, and limited cane sugar. I'll have more to say about this tomorrow.

I am considering buying three more bananas for the week to pad my carbs. I still have 89 cents left on my self-imposed budget. So my daily total may increase a bit by week's end.

Low-Carb Food Stamp Diet: $4.61 Per Day

Today is the first day of my "Low-Carb Food Stamp Diet," and this morning I purchased groceries for the entire week. The total cost was $32.29, or $4.61 per day. Following is the media release, then documentation of my shopping trips.

[February 6 Update: I purchased another 78 cents worth of bananas, bringing my daily total up to $4.72. Read the details.]

MEDIA RELEASE: February 4, 2009

LOW-CARB FOOD STAMP DIET COSTS $4.61 PER DAY
Diet Proves Great Nutrition Possible on Small Budget

Today Ari Armstrong purchased a week's worth of highly nutritious groceries for $32.29, or $4.61 per day. That's 19 percent less than the $5.68 that food stamps allow for a single individual -- see http://www.fns.usda.gov/FSP/faqs.htm.

Armstrong will eat his "Low-Carb Food Stamp Diet" from February 4-10, and he will document his receipts, purchases, and meals online -- see http://tinyurl.com/a9l7z3.

"My grocery purchases today explode the myth that food-stamp recipients can only afford unhealthy foods," Armstrong said.

A recent CNN report -- see http://tinyurl.com/d2lb5g -- quotes several individuals who falsely claim a low budget means a bad diet.

Armstrong purchased meat, dairy, eggs, olive oil, vegetables, fruit, walnuts, chocolate, tea, and spices. He did not purchase any products with grains, vegetable oils, hydrogenated fat, potatoes, or processed sugar. The diet roughly follows the advice of such writers as Gary Taubes and is similar to "paleo" or "cave-man" diets.

Receipts and Photos











Narrative

The key to eating well on a budget is simply to eat what's on sale.

A week's budget isn't a true test of this, as true budget shopping looks ahead several weeks. For example, a couple months ago I bought a dozen or so assorted squash for 49 cents per pound. Some of this squash is now in my freezer, pureed, awaiting its place in some dish or other, ala Jessica Seinfeld. Squash hold up very well over time, so I still have three spaghetti squash awaiting the oven. To take another example, last week King Soopers sold strawberries for a dollar per pound, so I bough extra and froze some.

Today I shopped at three grocery stores, Sprouts, Target, and King Soopers. I chose Sprouts by reading store ads online; that store is having particularly good vegetable sales this week. (Last week King Soopers had a sale for red-leaf lettuce, but that didn't help me today; grocery sales run from Wednesday through Tuesday.)

I had never been into Sprouts before, and I like it. It has on open, light feel, and it has some great prices. The speculate, I think the business model is something like, "Lure in the yuppies with loss-leaders and a hip environment, then the yuppies will spend all the money they saved on higher-priced specialty goods." This is great for people shopping on a budget. As the photos illustrate, I cleaned up on produce for a mere $6.80. I got a large eggplant for 50 cents. Cabbage, tomatoes, and onions for 33 cents per pound. Grapefruit three for a dollar -- each weighs over a pound. Red-leaf lettuce for 69 cents each; I bought two head. And I got some Walnuts to give me some Omega 3. (Normally I take fish oil for the DHA Omega 3, but I'll skip those for the week. I buy a large, inexpensive bottle of capsules at Costco, so they can definitely be part of a low-budget diet.) I'll definitely be going back to Sprouts.

Next up was Target. The produce at Target sucks. The quality isn't too bad, but the quality-cost combo isn't great. But the store has great deals on things like chocolate, tomato sauce (which I skipped this week), and, as you can see, turkey. Milk costs the same at Target and King Soopers, so I grabbed a gallon at Target. I was surprised to find that Newman's olive oil was the least expensive of any I saw.

Finally I swung by King Soopers, a.k.a. the Store of Markdowns. I left a $2 gallon of milk sitting in the cooler; the short dates of dairy mark-downs don't allow for a week's keep. I did buy a bunch of marked-down bananas for 35 cents per pound. I plan to eat these for desert with chocolate sauce and cream -- yum. As you can tell, I got hundreds of times as much salt as I need for the week, as, believe it or not, that was the cheapest way I found to buy it. Tea wasn't on my list, but I knew I was under budget, so I splurged and spent 89 cents on a box of 16 bags. Two cloves of garlic -- 49 cents. A cup of cream. Pepper. And that completed my week's purchases.

The two most expensive purchases on my list were the turkey, at $7.77 for an 11.26 pound bird, and the olive oil, at $4.48.

Oh, the final picture is my breakfast: two eggs and a diced tomato scrambled in olive oil, a cup of milk, and a mug of black tea.

The main thing I learned from my 2007 diet was the importance of fat. At the time, I was eating from a "fat is bad" mentality. Now I understand that good fat is a cornerstone of a healthy diet. Of course there's a big difference between monounsaturated fats and Omega 3 oils versus "partially hydrogenated soybean and/or cottonseed oil." My usual diet includes butter and coconut oil in addition to olive oil, but I couldn't get all three for a single week.

Recently I read in a book about thrift -- I forget the title -- claiming that you should never buy off-list at a grocery store. That's terrible advice for saving money. All the time I find fantastic sales that I wasn't expecting. To take another example, recently I purchased around 20 peppers for 20 cents each. I ate some and pureed and froze the rest to add to dishes. I would have been nuts to skip the peppers just because they weren't on my list.

So, to summarize my advice:

1. Buy real food, not processed junk. That means you're really only shopping about 20 percent of the typical grocery store.

2. Buy food at the lowest prices you can find.

3. When you come across great deals, buy as much as you can reasonably eat or fit in your freezer.

This is pretty much common sense. So nobody better tell me the only thing they can afford is junk macaroni and cheese with hydrogenated fat. As I've said before, what is lacking is not access to good, modestly priced food, but the will to eat it.

Around Colorado 2/4/09

Seeing Red Over Green Jobs

One more time: transferring money from the free economy to politically-favored jobs does not "create jobs," it destroys some jobs and replaces them with others. Brad Collins, executive director of the American Solar Energy Society in Boulder, joins the list of those who apparently have never heard of Henry Hazlitt. His famous book is called Economics In One Lesson. Read it.

Collins writes,

During these precarious economic times marked by declining business revenues, widespread job losses and struggling families, we need to identify and support industries that are well-positioned for growth. ... Colorado's share of that impact is $10.2 billion annually, with 91,285 jobs, and the state is now widely recognized as a national leader in the rapidly growing green economy.

Sure it's positioned for growth: that's what happens when politicians subsidize an industry while strangling the competitors. But if "green" energy were truly good for the economy, it would succeed on a free market. Only then would the resulting jobs and revenues signal net economic gains.


Wage Controls

Vincent Carroll describes some of the problems with Colorado's perpetually increasing wage floor. Because the measure was poorly written, it will hammer restaurants harder every year. Carroll is far to kind to the measure, though. Waiting tables is for many an entry-level job requiring no special skills. How many kids pay for college that way? Everyone who voted for the measure voted to throw some of those workers out of a job. There's nothing understandable or excusable about that. Wage controls hurt entry level workers. Wage controls are immoral, and they should be repealed.


Legislature: Cells, Roads

The legislature is considering "banning drivers from talking on cellphones without a hands-free device." Never mind the fact that driving while using a hands-free device is just as dangerous. This is about tears, damn it, not logic. Obviously we also need a bill to ban talking to other passengers while driving, eating and drinking while driving, daydreaming while driving...

I'm a little confused as to why Republicans are pushing higher car fees. What happened to the gasoline tax?


Spending Restraints, Shmending Restraints

The Denver Post is positively giddy about the prospects of wiping out Colorado's restraints on political spending. If the Post gets its way, Colorado citizens will pay increasingly more in taxes into the future.


Transparency

Face the State has out an article on "transparency," the move to put all records of political spending online. The Gazette has editorialized in favor of transparency. I fully endorse the move. The costs are trivial relative to the benefit of permitting citizens who pay for the whole mess to look at where their money is going.

Voters should regard this issue as the standard by which they decide whether Democrats stay in power. What's more Democratic than giving information to the people? If Democrats fail to pass full transparency, for every branch and level of government, we'll know that they care more about special interests than about the people. It's our money, and we deserve to see how it's spent. The only reason to keep that information from the public is if there's something to hide.

Low-Carb Diet, Food Stamp Budget

See links to updates below.

MEDIA RELEASE

ACTIVIST PLANS LOW-CARB DIET ON FOOD STAMP BUDGET
New Diet Protests Food Stamp Increases

A healthy diet is achievable on a food stamp budget, and Ari Armstrong plans to prove it, again. Armstrong, who previously spent a month eating for $2.57 per day -- see http://tinyurl.com/c35e8q -- will spend February 4-10 eating a highly nutritious, low-carb diet for less than food stamps provide.

Armstrong said, "Not only has Congress increased the food stamp budget since my $2.57 per day diet, but the so-called 'stimulus' package calls for additional food-stamp funds. Enough is enough. I oppose any increases to the food stamp budget, and call for the program to be replaced with voluntarily funded food banks, which offer more nutritious food at lower cost."

Armstrong's new diet, unlike his previous one, will be low-carb, roughly following the advice of such writers as Gary Taubes and similar to "paleo" or "cave-man" diets. The diet will consist of meat, dairy, eggs, vegetables, fruit, nuts, olive oil, chocolate, and spices. It will not contain any grains, vegetable oils, hydrogenated fat, potatoes, or processed sugar.

Armstrong will limit his daily budget to $4.74 per day, less than food stamps provide to a single individual. The Department of Agriculture -- see http://www.fns.usda.gov/FSP/faqs.htm -- offers a family of four $588 per month, or $4.74 per person per day. (The food stamp allotment is reduced for those deemed able to fund some of their own food.) Armstrong will not accept any free food, and he will shop only at nearby regular grocery stores. He will track all his purchases and receipts at FreeColorado.com.

"With the previous diet, my goal was to minimize daily expenses. With the new diet my goal is to show that a very healthy diet is possible on a limited budget. The cost of my diet will actually be inflated, not only because I'll be eating no free food, but because a week's diet is not able to take advantage of bulk purchases of sales items," Armstrong pointed out. "I've been known to purchase 40 pounds of bananas, a dozen squash, or twenty pounds of meat when they're on sale; obviously that's not possible for a single week."

Part of the motivation to track the new diet was a recent CNN report -- see http://tinyurl.com/d2lb5g -- in which a woman on food stamps complains, "We get like the mac and cheese, which is dehydrated cheese -- basically food that's no good for you health wise... Everything is high in sodium and trans fats... and that's all we basically can afford. There's not enough assistance to eat healthy and maintain a healthy weight."

Armstrong replied, "That's nonsense, and I'm prepared to prove it. I'm frankly irritated that some food stamp recipients waste our tax dollars on overpriced junk food, then complain about their grocery budget. I'll make the following offer. For anybody on food stamps who complains that they can't afford good food, I'll be more than happy to evaluate your entire monthly budget, including your grocery budget, and recommend judicious cuts, limited to the first five people who reply."

* * *

February 4: Low-Carb Food Stamp Diet: $4.61 Per Day

February 5: Disclaimer

February 6: $4.72 Per Day

February 11: Low-Carb Food Stamp Diet a Success

Westword Covers Low-Carb Food Stamp Diet

February 19: Boulder Weekly Op-Ed, "Eating Well on Food Stamps"

9News Covers 'Low-Carb Food Stamp Diet'

New Deal Harmed Economy: Two More

Economists Harold Cole and Lee Ohanion unjustifiably praise welfare spending under the New Deal, and they unjustifiably lament the lack of antitrust prosecution. (Government-induced cartels are bad, but successful free-market mergers take advantage of economies of scale and better management.) However, the economists' unemployment figures tell the basic story about the New Deal:

The goal of the New Deal was to get Americans back to work. But the New Deal didn't restore employment. In fact, there was even less work on average during the New Deal than before FDR took office. Total hours worked per adult, including government employees, were 18% below their 1929 level between 1930-32, but were 23% lower on average during the New Deal (1933-39). Private hours worked were even lower after FDR took office, averaging 27% below their 1929 level, compared to 18% lower between in 1930-32.

The economists correctly note that wage and business controls raised unemployment and harmed the economy.

Amity Shlaes also criticizes the New Deal in an article for the Washington Post:

But many of the jobs that the early New Deal produced were not merely temporary but also limited in economic value. It was in these years that the political term "boondoggle," to describe costly make-work, was coined. It came from "boondoggling," the word for leather craft projects subsidized by New Deal work-relief programs. As was the case for the Troeller brothers, work-relief earnings were usually not sufficient to offset other Depression losses.

Shlaes also points out that, as FDR pushed out private utilities with tax-subsidized ones, so Obama is trying to push out private internet with subsidized service.

Around Colorado 2/3/09

Rosen, Tancredo Take Financial Losses

Both the Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post report that Mike Rosen, former Congressman Tom Tancredo, and other clients of the Boulder-based Agile Group took big financial losses. Apparently the company had some of its investments tied up with Bernard Madoff and Tom Petters, both of whom have been accused of fraud. As Westword notes, Al Lewis broke the story.

Rosen mentioned on his radio show this morning that some people called him to blast conservatives and capitalism. Well, the current financial crisis is partly the fault of conservatives, to the extent that they sanctioned or endorsed the federal economic interventions that encouraged risky loans and real-estate spending and promoted an easy-money policy by the Federal Reserve. But certainly this is not a failure of capitalism.

To the extent that the losses are the result of fraud, that's properly a crime, and the government's legitimate role is to root out fraud. To the extent that the losses are the result of legal risk, well, that's the market, though the market has become a lot more capricious due to political controls. People who think they can outperform the market routinely lose money, though of course sometimes they make a lot of money. My wife and I have already decided that we're going to first focus on paying off our mortgage, then invest a portion of our earnings in a straight S&P 500 fund. I'm smart enough to realize that I'm not smart enough to beat the market.

If somebody is asking to take your money, your first reaction should be deep skepticism, followed by a request for complete information. Returns that sound too good to be true probably are, at least in the long run.


Democratic Tax Problems

The Rocky reminds us that Democrats such as Tom Daschle have trouble figuring out and paying their taxes. The worst "punishment" they face is the possibility of not getting appointed to a high-paying cabinet job where they get help spend the tax dollars of everyone else. Meanwhile, the rest of us face fines and potential criminal penalties. The income tax should not be simplified, it should not be replaced, it should be scrapped.


Long Live Henry Hazlitt

Alice Madden, our new "climate change coordinator," said, "One of the most exciting aspects to this challenge is that almost every solution has the added benefit of creating jobs. In these tough economic times, I can't think of a better win-win for us all." Would it be too much to ask that a single Democrat bother to learn basic economics? I guess Madden's new middle name is "In Wonderland." Look, robbing Peter to pay Paul does not create jobs; it just replaces a market job with a politically-favored one.


Legislature

A bill to force use of carbon-monoxide detectors advanced, even though it's a bad idea.

At the federal level, Democrats are trying to increase welfare spending on mental health.

"The state Senate president on Monday cautiously threw his support behind a Republican plan to phase out the widely loathed business personal-property..."

Some legislators want to remove state spending cap: "And they have found new hope in a legal opinion that says their target, known as the Arves-choug-Bird limit, is not protected by the state constitution... [T]he provision limits growth in spending from the state's general fund... to no more than 6 percent a year." Or we could try, you know, letting people use their own money as they see fit.

Stop the Bailout: Salazar Promotes Special-Interest Warfare

The following article originally was published February 2, 2009, by Grand Junction's Free Press.

Salazar promotes special-interest warfare

by Linn and Ari Armstrong

Shame on Congressman John Salazar for voting to pass the special-interest monstrosity deceptively called the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, passed by the House on January 28. Barack Obama and the Democrats are following in George W. Bush's footsteps in expanding the power of the federal government at the expense of the free economy.

If politicians actually cared about economic recovery, they would remove the political controls that have caused the recession and hampered economic growth. Through myriad controls, politicians have encouraged risky home loans, discouraged the formation of new companies, pushed up the cost of health care and energy, and buried businesses and taxpayers under mountains of paperwork. True economic recovery would consist of repealing those controls and curbing the diversion of precious resources to bureaucrats.

The whole idea that politicians can right the economy with "stimulus" spending is a fallacy. The economy is not a wind-up toy.

The recession is not the fundamental problem: it is the consequence of malinvestment promoted by the federal government. For example, through such measures as the Community Reinvestment Act and easy-money Federal Reserve policies, the federal government encouraged many to buy homes they couldn't afford and weren't prepared to maintain. Federal politicians thus encouraged too much investment to flow to properties, construction, home-improvement stores, etc., and away from other industries. A recession is a period when people recognize the nature of the malinvestment and act to correct it by adjusting investment, production, and employment.

All federal "stimulus" spending accomplishes is to replace earlier malinvestments with new ones, while robbing the free economy of the resources it needs for true, long-term recovery. After all, that "stimulus" money comes from somewhere. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the bill "would increase federal budget deficits... by $816 billion over the 2009-2019 period."

Deficit spending means the federal government is borrowing money that its earners would otherwise spend or invest in the free economy. Deficit spending must be repaid through future taxes or inflation, the most insidious form of taxation.

So where is that money headed, anyway? We don't know quite what the final bill will look like, and we do not doubt that the Senate will further load it up with pork. Part of the package consists of tax breaks, which we don't have a problem with, though we point out that tax breaks without commensurate spending cuts again leads to deficit spending. Figure that new government spending will amount to around three-quarters of a trillion dollars.

Of that money, only a portion will be spent within the next couple of years, while the rest will supposedly "stimulate" the economy into 2019, though we hope the recession has ended well before then. This indicates the basic problem with the bill. It is not fundamentally about "stimulating" the economy, it is about paying off special interests.

The most popular spending is for infrastructure. The Associated Press reports figures of "$30 billion for highway and bridge construction and repair," "$31 billion to build and repair federal buildings and other public infrastructure," "$19 billion in water projects," and we might include here "$21 billion for school modernization." That's about $100 billion, a small fraction of the package.

One thing we can count on is that even infrastructure spending will be wasteful, as funds are spent for political purposes rather than economic ones. Anyway, don't we already pay the gasoline tax for roads and property taxes for schools? Where's all that money going? The federal "stimulus" spending will help free up that money for yet more special-interest payoffs, so that Obama can help Democrats all the way down the line.

Meanwhile, federal politicians want to spend around $150 billion more on health welfare, $43 billion more to pay people not to work, and $20 billion more on food stamps. In other words, the "stimulus" spending devotes more than twice as much resources to expanding the welfare state than for building infrastructure. But rewarding people for not working and for remaining poor does not stimulate the economy. You get more of what you subsidize, and that goes for unemployment and poverty as well.

Do you see how the game works? First, federal politicians eat up a huge portion of people's paychecks in payroll and income taxes, so that many struggle to pay off debt and save for hard times. Then, having largely destroyed people's ability and incentive to save, the same federal politicians kindly step in to help their victims through the recession that federal policies caused. And this is what is known today as "stimulating" the economy.

The American people have trusted the likes of John Salazar for far too long. Some become blinded by the misleading rhetoric of "stimulus." Others just want a handout.

But for Americans who care about economic liberty and individual rights and who want to preserve a free country, now is the time to say enough is enough. Give us liberty.

Around Colorado 2/2/09

Wish List for Funds

"A community hearing Sunday on the proposed federal economic stimulus package drew a shopping list of requests ranging from smart energy grids and wildfire fighting help to Medicaid funds and a single payer health system."

The headline for this Rocky Mountain News story is, "Boulder hearing offers Polis wish list for stimulus money." Isn't it great that people have so many wishes for how to spend other people's money. Here's my wish list:

1. I wish we lived in a nation in which more people acted like citizens rather than leeches.

2. I wish politicians thought of their job as protecting individual rights rather than robbing some to pay off others.

3. I wish journalists would stop calling the scheme to massively redistribute more wealth a "stimulus package."

"If wishes were horses,
Beggars would ride;
If wishes were fishes,
We'd all have some fried."


Saving Ba-a-a-a-d

Here's one from the Associated Press: "Americans are hunkering down and saving more. For a recession-battered economy, it couldn't be happening at a worse time. Economists call it the 'paradox of thrift.' What's good for individuals -- spending less, saving more -- is bad for the economy when everyone does it."

What a load of nonsense. The only paradox here is why newspapers wonder why they're failing when they keep publishing such pathetic articles.

As George Reisman explains, a recession naturally gives rise to price breaks (unless politicians hamper the process), which eventually gets people back to regular rates of savings and spending.

Of course, some people might figure out that they actually need a long-term savings plan, in which case the rate of savings may permanently move up. This is not a problem, but rather a healthy development to which the economy, left unhampered, will adjust. A major problem we have in our economy is that the Federal Reserve has largely destroyed the natural link between savings and investment.

The AP is looking at short-term economic statistics while utterly ignoring the relevant economic processes.


Free Speech

The Rocky Mountain News correctly editorializes: "Only one section of Amendment 54 should survive: the provision setting up a searchable online database of sole-source government contractors. That's an unobjectionable, good-government measure. The rest of the amendment, however, raises serious constitutional issues. To begin with, campaign contributions are the equivalent of political speech..." It's pretty sad that "conservatives" have gotten into the game of limiting free speech through campaign laws.


The Seen and the Unseen

State Senator Dan Gibbs obviously has never read his Hazlitt. Gibbs writes, "By infusing millions of dollars into critical bridge and road projects in every corner of Colorado, FASTER [Funding Advancements for Surface Transportation & Economic Recovery] will create tens of thousands of jobs." No, it won't. It will redirect resources away from other jobs to politically-favored ones.


The Greed Card

Letter writer Richard M. Wright of Lakewood argues: "The contention by Barry W. Poulson that the state can save as much as $600 million a year by program suspension, consolidation and reform and thereby balance the budget without raising taxes or gutting TABOR is simply another trussed up diatribe by a greedy, self-centered individual with no apparent sense of social responsibility."

Yes, it's "greedy" to think that people should be able to keep more of their own money to spend, invest, or give away as they see fit. Bad, bad, Barry.

Around Colorado: 2/1/09

Udall Squishes on Bailout

"U.S. Sen. Mark Udall says he’s open to adding more money for infrastructure projects to the Senate version of the stimulus package."

This is a profound disappointment. When Bush was in office, Udall voted against the bailout. Now apparently he's voting for it. I guess the difference is that now the special-interests are his special buddies.

We do not need more federal spending. It will not "stimulate" the economy. It will only divert precious resources away from the market spending and investment that would establish a basis for long-term economic recovery.

It is also misleading of the Associated Press article to focus on "infrastructure," when that is but a small portion of the total package.

Vote "no," Senator, if you have any principles.


School Drills

The Rocky Mountain News editorializes about a bill to establish expanded school safety drills that one "superintendent was concerned that, considering that many violent incidents in schools are perpetrated by students, the drills would simply alert a would-be assailant of the evacuation zone and lockdown procedures.

This is not a legitimate concern, if the drills are properly conducted. I heard a presentation from Alon Stivi, who described safety drills as involving select adults with communication tools who could change evacuation routes and procedures based on the nature and location of the threat. Any student who knew this would be less likely to try an attack, as it would be far less likely to succeed.


Will on Social Security

George Will points out that Social Security, by inflating the cost of hiring somebody, "suppresses job-creation." Currently the tax takes in more than is needed for the program, diverting resources to other federal spending, but the burden will soon surpass the tax, meaning that "the true national debt is $56 trillion, not the widely reported $10 trillion."

As I've written, the real answer to Social Security is to slowly phase it out. Everybody currently collecting benefits should continue to collect them. But the pay-out age for new recipients should slowly be increased, say by three or four months every year, until the system is phased out. This would be the least-painful way to reduce the tax burden while giving people time to prepare for retirement.

Absent reform, not only will the costs of hiring employees rise to debilitating levels, but fewer younger workers will want to work and see such a huge portion of their paycheck sucked up by the welfare state.


Health Welfare

The Denver Post reports that the poor economy is stressing not only health welfare but service providers who are forced by the federal government to offer care without compensation.

The federal government seems set to massively fund health welfare this year. Many in the state are already clamoring for higher taxes to fund welfare spending. The left argues that increased "need" justifies more forcible redistribution of wealth. Those who continue to take economic liberty seriously point out that more forcible redistribution of wealth increases claims of need while undermining the ability of producers to meet it.


Post Gets Nervous

When even the Denver Post gets nervous about the proposed federal special-interest spending, we know something's up.



Bell Muffles Liberty

The Bell Policy Center, absurdly named after the Liberty Bell, promotes the opposite of liberty, political economic controls. Amazingly, the Bell's Wade Buchanan actually acknowledges that state politicians can cut some programs without causing the sky to fall. However, he wants to maintain health welfare, tax-funded education, corporate welfare (programs to "help stimulate economic and business activity"), and "programs that expand opportunities for kids and working families," whatever that means.

Wade tweaks the Independence Institute for "dust[ing] off a 4-year-old report" on spending cuts. He does have a point: we need in-depth analysis of this year's budget. It's too bad that the news media have failed to provide it.


Sign of the Times

A Colorado legislator wants to send a lobbyist to Washington, D.C. As in, Colorado taxpayers would get to fund a lobbyist so that state politicians could beg for more handouts from federal politicians, again funded with tax dollars.

Or we could decide that we live in America and that this nonsense has gotten quite out of hand.