Monthly Archives: May 2010

US drug war has met none of its goals

This great article from news.yahoo.com has some great data about our war on drugs:

Using Freedom of Information Act requests, archival records, federal budgets and dozens of interviews with leaders and analysts, the AP tracked where that money went, and found that the United States repeatedly increased budgets for programs that did little to stop the flow of drugs. In 40 years, taxpayers spent more than:

• $20 billion to fight the drug gangs in their home countries. In Colombia, for example, the United States spent more than $6 billion, while coca cultivation increased and trafficking moved to Mexico — and the violence along with it.

• $33 billion in marketing “Just Say No”-style messages to America’s youth and other prevention programs. High school students report the same rates of illegal drug use as they did in 1970, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says drug overdoses have “risen steadily” since the early 1970s to more than 20,000 last year.

• $49 billion for law enforcement along America’s borders to cut off the flow of illegal drugs. This year, 25 million Americans will snort, swallow, inject and smoke illicit drugs, about 10 million more than in 1970, with the bulk of those drugs imported from Mexico.

• $121 billion to arrest more than 37 million nonviolent drug offenders, about 10 million of them for possession of marijuana. Studies show that jail time tends to increase drug abuse.

• $450 billion to lock those people up in federal prisons alone. Last year, half of all federal prisoners in the U.S. were serving sentences for drug offenses.

At the same time, drug abuse is costing the nation in other ways. The Justice Department estimates the consequences of drug abuse — “an overburdened justice system, a strained health care system, lost productivity, and environmental destruction” — cost the United States $215 billion a year.

Nine Indicted on Charges of Accessing Obama Student Loan Records

Nine people were indicted Wednesday on federal charges of accessing President Barack Obama’s student loan records while they were employed for a Department of Education contractor in Iowa.

The U.S. attorney’s office said a grand jury returned the indictments in U.S. District Court in Davenport.

All nine are charged with exceeding authorized computer access. They are accused of gaining access to a computer at a Coralville office where they worked between July 2007 and March 2009, and accessing Mr. Obama’s student loan records while he was either a candidate for president, president-elect or president.

Why all the fuss?

Noam Chomsky denied entry into Israel and West Bank

No reason was initially given for the decision, but the Interior Ministry later said immigration officials at the Allenby Bridge border crossing from Jordan had misunderstood Chomsky’s intentions thinking initially he was also due to visit Israel.

Chomsky, who is on a speaking tour in the region, was scheduled to speak at Bir Zeit University in the West Bank on Monday. (Read more from haaretz.com)

Zoning Laws Destroy Communities

Very interesting analysis.

Zoning laws are a violation of property rights. They destroy the sense of community in neighborhoods, increase crime, increase traffic congestion, contribute to urban and suburban air pollution, contribute to poverty, contribute to reliance in government — and, thus, reduce self-reliance — and contribute to the ruin of our schools. Most of our urban and suburban problems arose with zoning and other antiproperty laws, to which welfare programs and public housing projects have contributed. Each of these policies came out of the idea that society could and should be engineered from the top down to give rise to efficiency, community, and prosperity. What in fact resulted was the opposite outcome.

I. Neighborhoods and Communities

With zoning laws, commercial, industrial, and residential areas are separated from each other. The result is blocks of houses, industrial parks, and strips of stores and restaurants. People have to drive miles to go to the store, to work, or even to the park. It is rare to go to the store and see anyone you know.

But imagine a neighborhood without zoning laws. It would then be possible to have, say, a small grocery store on the corner where you could buy fresh fruits and vegetables, bread, and meat. That store would likely be within walking distance, be owned by one of your neighbors, and be designed to serve the neighborhood.

. . . .

Conclusion

Zoning laws and other laws that restrict what people can do with their property do more harm than good. People argue that “I don’t want someone building a factory in my neighborhood,” but the fact is that nobody wants to build a factory in your neighborhood. They want to build a factory where it is easy to get supplies in and products out, and where there’s plenty of room for employees to park. That’s not your neighborhood. And in an increasingly post-industrial economy, that argument is mostly irrelevant.

I am arguing for allowing natural organization of communities and neighborhoods. I am arguing for healthier neighborhoods and communities.

The elimination of such anti-property-rights laws will allow this. It will make people more self-reliant and thus less dependent on government, meaning there will be more people contributing to the economy, to society, and to their neighborhoods and communities. People will also be healthier, happier, and less stressed.

Social engineering only works to destroy communities and make people more reliant on government programs. (Read more from mises.org)

Insane IRS Mandate Slipped into Health Bill

Most people know about the individual mandate in the new health care bill, but the bill contained another mandate that could be far more costly.

A few wording changes to the tax code’s section 6041 regarding 1099 reporting were slipped into the 2000-page health legislation. The changes will force millions of businesses to issue hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, of additional IRS Form 1099s every year. It appears to be a costly, anti-business nightmare.

Under current law, businesses are required to issue 1099s in a limited set of situations, such as when paying outside consultants.

. . . .

Basically, businesses will have to issue 1099s whenever they do more than $600 of business with another entity in a year. For the $14 trillion U.S. economy, that’s a hell of a lot of 1099s. When a business buys a $1,000 used car, it will have to gather information on the seller and mail 1099s to the seller and the IRS. When a small shop owner pays her rent, she will have to send a 1099 to the landlord and IRS. Recipients of the vast flood of these forms will have to match them with existing accounting records. There will be huge numbers of errors and mismatches, which will probably generate many costly battles with the IRS. (Read more from cato-at-liberty.org)

No more toys in happy meals!

Happy Meal toys and other promotions that come with high-calorie children’s meals will soon be banned in parts of Santa Clara County unless the restaurants meet nutritional guidelines approved Tuesday by the county Board of Supervisors.

Because parents should not raise children. The state should. The types of people attracted to politics tend to by pathological busy bodies who want a say in everything you do.

Small business lobby joins challenge to health law

The nation’s most influential small business lobby is joining a court challenge to President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, arguing that Americans cannot be required under the Constitution to obtain insurance coverage.

The National Federation of Independent Business will announce Friday it is joining a federal lawsuit filed in Florida by 20 state attorneys general and governors, NFIB President Dan Danner said in an interview.

. . . .

A groundswell of opposition to the law from small business owners prompted NFIB’s decision to join the court challenge, said Karen Harned, a senior lawyer for the group. “The second the law was signed, NFIB was hearing from its members: ‘What are you all going to do about this?’,” said Harned. “So we hunkered down. We looked around. This state attorneys general lawsuit made the most sense for us. It’s the only one that has a national presence.”