Because So Few People Know About Christmas Trees...

The Obama Administration has decided to tax every Christmas tree in America with a $.15 tax that will rise to $.20 per tree eventually.  While this sounds like very little money, when you multiply it across tens of millions of households who buy Christmas trees it's just another revenue grab.  Plus, if you get enough of these "little" money grabs it all adds up to a significant drain on American families.  We are being taxed to the point that it has become obvious that the federal government thinks of all money as theirs and they just decide how much you get to keep.

The justification behind the tax is to create a Christmas Tree promotion program.  You know, because almost no one knows about Christmas trees.  They're such a new development in American life and we really want to make sure that they catch on.  According to a Heritage Foundation post, "Some in the Christmas tree industry sought to develop a promotional program to assist its industry. After three failed attempts to set up a voluntary system, they turned to the federal government to do what it couldn’t: Force Christmas tree producers and importers to pay for a Christmas tree promotion program."

So really, like most legislation in today's America, this is just a bunch of industry whiners using the government to enforce their will on the others in their industry who don't like listening to them.  Cronies really are the lowest form of life.  They're also the kind of people that we used to tar and feather and ride out of town on a rail.  Ahh, those were the days.

Independence Hall: First Amendment-Free Zone

This video is about 13 minutes but it is incredibly enlightening about the capacity of government employees to infringe on the Constitutional rights of citizens and feel absolutely no compunction about it.  It is a vivid reminder of why the Founding Fathers counseled us to "eternal vigilance".  There are a significant number of simple-minded, unthinking order-followers among the ranks of federal employees.  They are a threat to your freedom and, let's be honest, they're a much more likely threat to you and me on a daily basis than the terrorists that our government would have us constantly fear.  The last 3 minutes in particular are enlightening and disturbing.  Please share with your friends.

Freedom For Me, But Not For Thee

This is classic hypocrisy, this time coming from lunatics who claim to "fight to the death to have everybody be able to say their opinions!"  You know, unless we don't like you.  That means you, Koch brothers, you filthy animals!

Social Security: Really Our Best Retirement Option?

Learn Liberty and Antony Davies put together a great 4 minute illustration of how poorly your Social Security "investment" is serving you.

Apple Grilled for Paying Less in Taxes Than McCain Thinks They Should

Today Apple CEO Tim Cook and other Apple executives were dragged in front of a Senate committee to answer for not paying as much in taxes and Senators Carl Levin and John McCain think it should.  Just as a quick reminder, corporations don't pay taxes.  Now Mr. Levin and Mr. McCain may be forgiven for not knowing this because they are, you know, senators.  We as taxpayers, however, need to know the truth.  That is, corporations don't pay taxes, people do.

Corporations are a structure for the purpose of running a business. Corporations are owned by the shareholders and sell goods or services to their customers. When a corporation "pays taxes" it is either excess money that they have collected from their customers or part of the profit margin that would go to the shareholders. In other words, the taxes that are paid by corporations are really paid by the shareholders of that corporation or the customers. Corporations don't pay taxes. People pay taxes.  Whatever percentage of the total U.S. tax burden was paid by corporations was actually paid by you instead. You paid for it in the price of the goods and services you bought or you paid for it in lower earnings from the stocks that you own.

For a couple of great videos on this from Walter Williams and Milton Friedman just look below.

David Boaz: Scandals Erode Faith in Benevolent Government

David Boaz of the Cato Institute (who also wrote a great book on Libertarianism) highlighted today the natural consequences that are coming from the three scandals plaguing President Obama's administration right now.  President Obama and Eric Holder wield the "I didn't know anything about it" defense as if it provides them a golden halo.  Instead it highlights the inherent problem of letting the federal government assume too much control and power.  As it grows larger its abusive nature becomes more obvious.  Most of the powers that the federal government has assumed over the past 50 years should be retained by the states and counties of our great nation.

MAY 16, 2013 9:07AM

Scandals Keep Eroding Our Faith in Benevolent Government

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DAVID BOAZ

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George Will, Michael Gerson, and our own Gene Healy are among the columnists who reminded us – in the wake of the IRS and AP snooping scandals – of President Obama’s stirring words just two days before the IRS story broke:

Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity. . . . They’ll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices.

No road to serfdom here. Just us folks working together, to protect ourselves from sneaky reporters and organized taxpayers.

And now lots of people are noting that a series of scandals in government just might undermine people’s faith in government. John Dickerson of Slate writes:

The Obama administration is doing a far better job making the case for conservatism than Mitt Romney, Mitch McConnell, or John Boehner ever did. Showing is always better than telling, and when the government overreaches in so many ways it gives support to the conservative argument about the inherently rapacious nature of government….

Conservatives argue that the more government you have, the more opportunities you will have for it to grow out of control.

And Paul Begala, the Bill Clinton operative, notes:

This hurts the Obama Administration more than similar issues hurt the Bush administration because a central underpinning of the progressive philosophy is a belief in the efficacy of government. In the main almost all of the Obama agenda requires expanding folks’ faith in government, and these issues erode that faith.

“Faith in government” indeed. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, putting your faith in government is, like a second marriage, a triumph of hope over experience.

But most particularly this week I’m reminded of Murray Rothbard’s comment in 1975 about what the era of Vietnam, Watergate, and stagflation had done to trust in government:

Twenty years ago, the historian Cecelia Kenyon, writing of the Anti-Federalist opponents of the adoption of the U.S. Constitution, chided them for being “men of little faith” – little faith, that is, in a strong central government. It is hard to think of anyone having such unexamined faith in government today.

Another 38 years later, it should be even more difficult to retain such faith.

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