United Liberty

CNN is out with a new poll that shows Americans don’t trust the government when it comes to safeguarding their rights, and rightfully so:

A majority of Americans think the federal government poses a threat to rights of Americans, according to a new national poll.

Fifty-six percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday say they think the federal government’s become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens. Forty-four percent of those polled disagree.

The survey indicates a partisan divide on the question: only 37 percent of Democrats, 63 percent of Independents and nearly 7 in 10 Republicans say the federal government poses a threat to the rights of Americans.

Some would say that this is paranoia, but it’s not. Over the last several years, we’ve seen a dismantling of the Bill of Rights through restrictions on speech, attempted restrictions on the Second Amendment (Heller was a rare victory), a running over of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, which guarantees the right to privacy, due process and private property. There is also no protection of economic liberty by government anymore.

Hoping to deflect accusations that he is a socialist, President Barack Obama told reporters that he believes in the free market:

Speaking to the Business Roundtable, which groups some of the country’s top chief executives, Obama called for support of his administration’s efforts to overhaul financial regulation and create jobs.

Obama’s remarks were set against a backdrop of unease in the business community about his economic and budget policies as well as his legislative drive for healthcare, energy and financial regulatory reform.

“Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, I am an ardent believer in the free market,” Obama said in prepared remarks.

Obama said his efforts to enact sweeping legislation to overhaul financial regulations and set caps on carbon emissions to fight climate change were not aimed at thwarting businesses.

“We have arrived at a juncture in our politics where reasonable efforts to update our regulations, or make basic investments in our future, are too often greeted with cries of ‘government takeover’ or even ‘socialism’,” Obama said.

Reading over the CPAC straw poll results (H/T to Hot Air), which included more than just the presidential straw poll, I am encourage to see that the conservative movement, at least those in attendence at the conference, are focusing more on fiscal issues than social issues.

I still don’t believe that conservatives are serious about reaching out to libertarians, but this is encouraging.

From Politico comes an overview of First Lady Michelle Obama’s counter-obesity plan:

The first lady is undeterred and describes childhood obesity as an “imminently solvable” problem. Her ambitious plan is designed to improve the nutritional quality of school meals, get children to exercise more, provide healthier, affordable food to rural areas and the inner city and help people make healthier choices.

While there’s alot of good-intention government intervention going on here, of the sort that creates new problems for each one it “solves,” there’s one aspect here that is a common sense proposal.

I went to public schools for the duration of my upbringing. I can say from personal experience that the choice of food is deplorable. It never made any sense why the Seattle Public School District’s exclusive contract with Coca-Cola Corp. resulted in an abundance of soda machines with the closest “healthy” option being the sport drink Powerade. Pressure on companies to put healthier options (which a trip to their corporate website will show are available) in public schools is not unreasonable intrusion. After all, those companies are there with the consent of a public institution.

ABC News reports that $2 billion in “stimulus” funds went to pay for windmills as part of “green” energy initiatives. The only problem is the funding, which was supposed to be for jobs in this country (wasn’t that the point of all that spending?), went overseas:

Despite all the talk of green jobs, the overwhelming majority of stimulus money spent on wind power has gone to foreign companies, according to a new report by the Investigative Reporting Workshop at the American University’s School of Communication in Washington, D.C.

Nearly $2 billion in money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has been spent on wind power, funding the creation of enough new wind farms to power 2.4 million homes over the past year. But the study found that nearly 80 percent of that money has gone to foreign manufacturers of wind turbines.

I’m a free-trader, so I’m not bothered by jobs going overseas because it generally means better jobs are being created in our country. I do disagree with the government investing in this type of venture, I just find it funny, but sad too, that the Obama Administration, for it’s populist pandering on trade and penalizing American companies sending jobs overseas, is doing the same thing.

Last week, Carpe Diem wrote last week about consumers paying $2.5 billion in tariffs on imported sugar, which is part of the cost of protectionist policies.

CNBC recently had a free trader and someone from a special interest group to discuss the issue. Take notice how the guy representing farm interest immediately ties getting rid of these tariffs to importing oil and getting rid of the US sugar industry. He just doesn’t believe in competition:

H/T: Club for Growth

I know what you’re thinking: man that Pete is a positive guy. I like to describe myself as realistic, with a bit of fatalism throw in. Either way, I find it hard to look at the economic landscape and have any hope. It is especially dreadful when politicians have to get re-
elected, AND said politicians consult certain “economists”.

Economists have for years looked at what is happening in a society and sought to come up with solutions as to how an economic crisis can be “fixed”. The problem is, like in all fields, you have good economists, and you have the not so good (The latter seem to be the ones that always find their way onto the public payroll).

In extremely broad terms economists can be split into two categories:

If you are a student of American history your eyes should be opening as to which economist is most often chosen by our elected officials. The real question is “why”?

Well, why wouldn’t a politician pick economist #2?

The Heritage Foundation has released the 2010 Index of Economic Freedom,which measures the various different types of fiscal and economic freedoms (such as business freedom, fiscal freedom, free trade and property rights) in 138 countries.

Here is a look at the top 10 most free economies in the word:

1. Hong Kong
2. Singapore
3. Australia
4. New Zealand
5. Ireland
6. Switzerland
7. Canada
8. United States
9. Denmark
10. Chile

Notice how far down the United States is on the list. Unfortunately, our country’s score dropped from last year due to the government’s response to the 2008 economic crisis. As you can see below, scores dropped in seven out of 10 areas from the previous year.

Even though scores dropped in several areas, the main concerns (in my opinion) are government spending, fiscal freedom and monetary freedom.

On government spending:

Those of you that have been reading my posts here at UL for awhile know that I am a proponent of free trade. It one of our most basic economic liberties, the right to freely exchange the fruits of their labor without interference from any authority.

One of the more disappointing aspects of recent political discourse is the rhetoric that has so ignorantly tossed out by populists like Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee. Calls for
“fair trade” or new tariffs are, simply put, poor economic policy.

As Daniel Griswald explains, free trade is responsible for lifiting many of the world’s poor out of bleak conditions and given them opportunity:

For Americans worried about their jobs, it is a big lie that we have been surrendering middle-class manufacturing jobs for low-paying service jobs. In fact, since 1991, two-thirds of the net new jobs created in the U.S. economy have been in sectors such as health care, education and business and professional services where the average pay is higher than in manufacturing.

Knock on doors in a typical middle-class neighborhood in southern Florida and you will meet teachers, managers, engineers, computer specialists, truck drivers, accountants, insurance and real-estate agents, registered nurses and other health-care professionals and self-employed business owners. These are the occupations that now form the backbone of the American middle class.