From Diseases to Recessions, Government Failure Is Endemic

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Massive government intervention in the aftermath of the global financial crisis has not prevented the Great Recession, but had actually deepened and prolonged it until the covid-19 pandemic and government lockdowns sent the economy into a tailspin in 2020. Larger monetary and fiscal growth stimuli followed, exacerbating previous economic distortions. In the same way that countercyclical macroeconomic policies have turned the financial crisis into depression, the authorities’ health response has been good at crippling markets but never seems to deliver what is promised.

A Counterintuitive and Risky Health Response

Early on, governments embraced an overambitious paradigm of reaching herd immunity via hard lockdowns and vaccination. The famous “flatten the curve” slogan promoting lockdowns as the only solution to avoid a collapse of the health infrastructure quickly morphed into “lockdown until vaccine.” Convincing arguments that hard lockdowns are not producing better health results, but unduly restrict civil liberties, create economic havoc, and cause severe social and health long-term problems were largely ignored. Most governments in the West kept the lockdowns into place until late spring 2021, when the mass vaccination campaign was well underway.

Vaccination has been the main pillar of the government’s health response while doctors were discouraged from experimenting and using early treatments. When confronted with a problem, most rational individuals are looking for a quick, simple, and cost-effective solution. But not the Western health bureaucracies. Inexpensive early treatments pioneered with promising results were dismissed and outright prohibited.

The only early treatment promoted by Anthony Fauci and endorsed by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was Remdesivir, a drug with unproven efficiency and likely side effects. The drug is also very expensive at about $3,500 per treatment. This raises serious questions about unorthodox financial interests and the role of Big Pharma in steering the government health response.

The almost exclusive reliance on vaccination in the middle of the pandemic seemed over-optimistic and risky to many experts from the very beginning. It takes many years to develop an efficient vaccine for a virus that may suffer rapid mutations, and lengthy testing is also necessary to ensure vaccine safety, in particular for an epidemic with a low mortality rate. Such concerns have not been heeded by the health authorities, which poured dozens of billions of US dollars into subsidizing the development of covid-19 vaccines. About 5.6 billion doses have already been administered globally and billions more have been ordered to cover all population and booster jabs. Pfizer/BioNTech alone expects to produce 3 billion jabs this year and 4 billion next year, with sales estimated at about $50 billion in 2021 only. If corona vaccination becomes periodical like flu vaccination, it would become a highly lucrative business worth hundreds of billions of US dollars for the Big Pharma.

Mass Covid-19 Vaccination Is No Silver Bullet

Government health experts touted mass vaccination as the only way to cut the transmission of the virus and overcome the pandemic. Yet, other scientists doubted it, because the coronavirus mutates rapidly and vaccines were not certain to block its transmission. Experts such as Dr. Joseph Mercola, Dr. Robert Malone, and others even argued that “leaky” vaccines, i.e., those preventing the disease without stopping infections, would incite the virus to evade the stronger immune response in vaccinated people and mutate into more virulent strains. In other words, individual benefits of a lower risk of hospitalization and death could be counterbalanced by more dangerous virus mutations worsening the pandemic.

It is obviously not easy for the general public to assess the scientific evidence regarding the pros and cons of covid-19 mass vaccination. Governments have not allowed such a debate to take place in the mainstream mass media, anyway. In any case, the rapid spread of the delta variant in countries with high vaccination rates has raised serious doubts about whether mass vaccination could end the pandemic, in particular, if vaccine efficacy drops to worrisome levels after about six months and both the vaccinated and unvaccinated can show similarly high viral loads of the delta variant that are able to spread around.

If covid-19 vaccines have more therapeutic benefits rather than stopping the infection, then how could herd immunity ever be achieved? And if herd immunity cannot be reached, why segregate people by vaccination status or vaccinate children and teenagers, who are known not to get seriously ill from covid-19? These are relevant questions also due to the large number of immediate severe adverse effects and deaths linked to covid-19 vaccination in the US and the EU, and potential long-term side effects entailed by the use of relatively new vaccine technologies.

What Next?

Several experts advocate a shift in focus from mass vaccination to building up immunity and early treatments that reduce the number of patients developing severe symptoms. Voluntary vaccination should be recommended primarily to vulnerable people for whom benefits clearly exceed risks.

Yet many health authorities continue pushing for mandatory mass vaccination. Several countries, such as Israel, the UK and the US, have already started offering booster shots, while adjusting accordingly the validity of sanitary passes and extending vaccination to children. Recently, President Biden has unveiled plans to force all companies with more than a hundred workers to require coronavirus vaccinations or test employees weekly. This mandate would affect as many as 100 million Americans and has been criticized as both authoritarian and unconstitutional. President Biden claims that the vaccine is “safe, effective and free” and yet nearly 80 million Americans remain unvaccinated, allegedly undermining the government health response. This seems to defy reality given that the vaccine doesn’t prevent infection or transmission of the disease, loses its efficiency within a few months, and has been associated with numerous side effects and deaths. It is not “free” either, because the cost of the vaccination campaign, going into dozens of billions of US dollars, will be paid eventually by the American taxpayer, who is pressed hard to take the shot. By the way, when was the last time millions of consumers refused a useful good or service offered to them for free?

The covid-19 health strategy leaves us with an acute sense of déjà vu. Governments have stubbornly tried to “stimulate” economic growth for almost fifteen years to no avail. All along, mainstream economists have remained blind to arguments that government intervention is making things worse by prolonging resource misallocation and fostering long-term impoverishment. We can only hope that a similar story is not playing out with far more severe consequences in the medical field.

*****

This article was published on September 20, 2021, and is reproduced with permission from the Ludwig von Mises Institute.

How the Left Is Spreading Global Warming Alarmism on the Right

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If there’s one thing the Left knows cold, it’s deception. From Vladimir Lenin to Saul Alinsky, leftists are unparalleled masters of the art of victory through hoodwinking: Defeating opponents by fooling them into false agreement.

Owning the battlefield in this war starts with controlling the language. We’ve seen this play out in the debate over abortion access, with pro-choice activists redefining “pro-life” to mean anything but the conviction that life begins at conception—and swindling unwitting Christians into their ranks.

Now it’s spreading to the debate over climate change, with environmental activists claiming there’s nothing “partisan” about their one-sided campaign to fundamentally transform America. Radicals, socialists, and authoritarians know that global warming offers them the best chance to weaponize Big Government and dictate where Americans live and work, what they drive, eat, and buy, and even what beliefs they’re allowed to hold—all through fear.

Truth-loving skeptics are all that stand in their way. So what better way to defeat them than by undermining the skeptics’ unity with false promises?

Meet the “eco-Right,” the collection of lobbying, litigation, and activist nonprofits that identify themselves as free market yet who have bought the Left’s argument that the Earth is getting dangerously hot and we’re to blame. Groups like ClearPath, Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions, and the Climate Leadership Council disagree over specific policies—some want a devastating carbon tax to reduce emissions, others want federal subsidies for expensive lithium batteries—but all want skeptical Republicans to compromise with uncompromising leftists on their global warming policies.

By doing so they threaten to undermine both affordable energy in America and the future of the conservative movement—which is why they’re often funded by the likes of George Soros as well as the Ford and Hewlett Foundations.

My colleagues and I at the Capital Research Center first broke the news on the secret liberal mega-donors bankrolling the eco-Right in order to rebrand radical environmentalism as “conservative.” Our new report, Rise of the Eco-Right, compiles years of research and investigative reporting to expose the funders, leadership, and lobbying of the eco-Right, exposing a web of overlapping boards and shared donors in service to a destructive and cynical agenda.

We’ve studied the professional Left for decades and are all too familiar with activists’ use of deception and misdirection to camouflage their agenda to the casual glance. Unlike Activism Inc., we believe that Americans should be free from fearmongering to listen to arguments from both sides and come to their own conclusions in the global warming debate. Rise of the Eco-Right aims to make it clear that climate-conscious conservatives cannot compromise with the Left because activists aren’t interested in anything less than a “green” socialist revolution.

Don’t take my word for it—that’s the crux of an open letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) signed by 263 activist groups in November 2019, urging Congress to pass the Green New Deal—arguably the most sweeping legislation ever proposed in America—to combat “increasing income/wealth inequality and rising white nationalism and neo-fascism” in America.

Today’s environmentalists are more interested in “environmental racism” and “restitution for Black and Indigenous farmers” than the environment, and they’re no longer hiding it behind the fig leaf of saving the planet from greenhouse gases.

Recall the explanation that Green New Deal author Saikat Chakrabarti’s gave to the Washington Post: “Do you guys think of [the Green New Deal] as a climate thing? Because we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing.”

Here’s the bottom line: carbon taxes, “green” tech subsidies, and greenhouse gas pledges will never be enough for Big Green because the debate isn’t really about those things, but power. Activists know this, which is why they’ve abandoned these “market-friendly” proposals for the ultimate prize: the utopia of socialized medicine, federal jobs for everyone, slavery reparations, and more.

The eco-Right offers the Left a backdoor for the kind of statist policies that conservatives would never support—if they weren’t falsely labeled. It’s a siren’s song that promises free-market answers to climate change but will only result in tyranny. Conservatives, you have nothing to gain and everything to lose by listening to the eco-Right—so don’t give up the ship.

*****

This article was published on September 17, 2021, and is reproduced with permission from Capital Research Center.

Tax and Spend: Arizona’s Battle over Proposition 208 Goes to the Courts

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How progressives are using ballot initiatives to raise taxes.

Last year, as part of their efforts to expand government subsidies to teacher unions, progressives across the country targeted Arizona’s ballot box with an unusual initiative to impose a potentially devastating new income tax on the state. Fortunately, the Arizona Supreme Court effectively ruled the initiative unconstitutional last month. But the ruling won’t stop progressives from targeting other states.

Euphemistically called “Invest in Education,” Arizona’s Proposition 208 levied a burdensome tax “surcharge” that would have nearly doubled income taxes on anyone earning more than $250,000 — which sounds like a high figure until one realizes that it didn’t distinguish between the personal income and the business income of small-business owners, and included no provision to adjust for inflation. That meant owners of small businesses — the chief employer in Arizona, as in all other states — were deemed “rich” (as in “tax the”) based not on their actual earnings, but on how much their business earned.

The initiative also forced the state to send this money to school districts without regard to what the legislature was already spending on education. In other words, Prop. 208 imposed a devastating new tax on the state’s primary generator of economic growth and then deprived the legislature of power to make responsible funding decisions.

Prop. 208 marked the climax of years of agitation that first peaked in 2018 when activists staged an illegal strike to close the state’s schools and then tried to ram through their massive tax increase on Arizonans via an initiative just months later. The state’s Supreme Court threw this first attempted money grab off the ballot, ruling that the Yes campaign was fudging the numbers in voter-information materials. The second time around, however, the “Invest in Education” tax hike was narrowly adopted as Prop. 208 on the November 2020 ballot, thanks to the backers’ false claims that state lawmakers were depriving schools of funding.

In reality, Arizona lawmakers had just poured over a billion dollars of new funding into public schools, for 20 percent teacher-pay raises and other purposes. Nonetheless, the Prop. 208 campaign claimed with a straight face that Arizonans “have waited years for action from their leaders and got nothing.”

But Arizona made a prime target for tax-raisers, thanks to the fact that the state has an unusually low threshold for voter initiatives. Where other states require supermajorities to approve an initiative — or require initiatives to be approved in two separate elections — in order to ensure that voters are really sure they want to do whatever the initiative proposes, no such safeguards exist in the Grand Canyon State. That means a mere 51 percent of voters can dramatically alter important aspects of state law. That attracts demagogues who seek to manipulate voters with misleading ballot initiatives and, as was the case last year, impose policies that could wreck the state’s economy, just when it’s poised to break out of the doldrums imposed by a year of nationwide shutdowns…..

*****

Continue reading this article, published September 13, 2021 at National Review.

Elizabeth Warren Revives Terrible Pandemic Policy

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In late August, the Supreme Court struck down the Centers for Disease Control’s so-called “eviction moratorium.” The justices ruled that the federal agency did not have the legal authority to unilaterally extend a prohibition on the eviction of non-paying tenants in many circumstances. This was a win for both the rule of law and for a rental market destroyed by the order—but the victory could prove short-lived, if a new coalition of progressive lawmakers gets its way.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Cori Bush, progressive Democrats, just co-sponsored legislation to revive the eviction moratorium: the “Keeping Renters Safe Act of 2021.”

Their bill would explicitly give the CDC the authority to re-enact the moratorium and compel it to do so. This new moratorium would potentially go even further, applying automatically to all rentals without tenants applying, as previously required. So, too, it would remain in place until 60 days beyond the “conclusion of the public health emergency.”

“This pandemic isn’t over, and we have to do everything we can to protect renters from the harm and trauma of needless eviction, which upends the lives of those struggling to get back on their feet,” Warren said in a statement. “Pushing hundreds of thousands of people out of their homes will only exacerbate this public health crisis, and cause economic harm to families, their communities, and our overall recovery.”

While Bush and Warren’s compassion for hypothetical struggling renters is commendable, the alleged ongoing pandemic-fueled eviction crisis their law responds to does not, in fact, exist. An internal report from the Biden administration even found that the financial situation of renters actually improved, on average, during the pandemic.

Meanwhile, COVID-19 vaccines are available at no cost to almost all Americans who want them, and there are more than 10 million unfilled job openings waiting for anyone seeking work.

The evictio​​​n moratorium was always an unjustifiable overreach, but it has absolutely zero legitimate justification left at this point. If revived, though, it would have drastic consequences.

In stark contrast to progressive misconceptions, many landlords and property owners are not “rich” or members of “the 1%.” In reality, the eviction moratorium bankrupted and devastated countless working-and-middle-class landlords. Yet it wasn’t just hurting landlords; it was blowing up the rental market on both ends.

In response to the moratorium, which deprived them of any way to enforce rent collection, landlords were responding by leaving units empty and off the market, requiring 6 months rent upfront, raising rent, and selling off their properties. They’re only now finally regaining their feet with the crushing weight of the moratorium lifted. Reviving it would once again deliver a gut punch to landlords and devastate the supply of rental housing— increasing rent prices, fueling the housing shortage, and ultimately leaving more people unhoused.

If Elizabeth Warren, Cori Bush, and other progressive lawmakers really want to make housing more affordable, bringing back the eviction moratorium is the last thing they ought to pursue. Only getting the government out of the way and letting the housing market recover can get us out of this mess.

COLUMN BY​​​​​

Brad Polumbo

Policy correspondent. (@Brad_Polumbo)

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. Read more

Tax Increases Cannot Pay for the Democrats’ Reconciliation Bill

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With a projected deficit of $3 trillion for this year already, congressional Democrats are moving full speed ahead to spend an additional $3.5 trillion over the next 10 years with no clear plan to pay for it.

Despite claims by Speaker Pelosi and key Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) that the Democrats’ $3.5 trillion spending package will be fully paid for, it’s simply not possible. The math doesn’t add up.

This spending spree is too large to be funded through tax increases. That means the federal government will have to finance it through deficit spending. This additional borrowing will just raise already soaring inflation rates and raise the tax burden on future generations.

Joe Biden has repeatedly said that he would fully repeal the 2017 tax law to pay for his spending plan, but that alone would not come close to paying for this level of spending. The entire 2017 tax cut cost $1.456 trillion according to the Joint Committee on Taxation — that’s before taking into account the law’s positive economic effects that reduced its cost. Repealing the bill entirely would still leave Democrats over $2 trillion in the hole. And that doesn’t even take into account the crippling economic effects that higher corporate taxes would have on investment, productivity, and wages.

Democrats recognize the negative economic effects that a high corporate tax rate has on the economy, which is why President Biden is proposing “only” raising the corporate income tax rate to 28 percent, and why House Democrats have proposed a 26.5 percent rate. While these proposals are better for the economy than returning the US to the uncompetitive days of a 35 percent tax rate, they still raise less money.

Some House Democrats are also demanding that the spending package repeal the 2017 tax law’s $10,000 cap on the State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction. This repeal would cost the federal government $700 billion over the next 10 years and would benefit mostly high-income earners. It increases the price tag of the reconciliation bill, necessitating more tax hikes or deficit spending, for a huge tax subsidy to the rich.

New taxes on the rich could pay for this reconciliation bill, right? Wrong. Take President Biden’s proposal to tax carried interest as ordinary income as an example. According to the Tax Foundation, this proposal would raise only $7.4 billion over 10 years — that’s less than a quarter of one percent of the revenue needed to pay for the $3.5 trillion package, and it carries with it the negative economic consequences of raising the cost of investment and distorting financial markets.

The math does not lie. The Democrats’ spending bill won’t be fully funded. It will increase the federal deficit, possibly by trillions of dollars. With inflation rising already, all this spending will do is add fuel to the fire of already high inflationary pressures.

This package means that the value of Americans’ wages will decrease over time because inflation and interest rates will rise. And it will be middle-class Americans who feel the negative effects of this deficit spending most keenly.

This spending will also put pressure on American entitlement programs that are already nearly insolvent. Medicare Part A is projected to go broke in five years, Social Security in 13. Increased deficit spending, especially to this extent, just speeds this timeline along. All we will get is closer to what seems to be an unavoidable debt crisis.

An additional consequence that should scare lawmakers away from supporting this bill is the impact it will have on our children. This package, along with the bipartisan infrastructure bill, will increase federal debt per U.S. household from $179,000 today, to $288,000 by 2031.

Lawmakers who support this bill are marching the born and unborn into further debt and economic despair. Whether it be through job-killing tax hikes, or through slower economic growth resulting from increased borrowing and less private investment, our children will pay for this bill.

The United States needs major budget reform, not another underfunded multi-trillion-dollar spending bill that puts major burdens on Americans and future generations. During the pandemic, Congress passed multiple trillion-dollar bills to help keep the economy afloat. With the economy recovering, America does not need another one.

*****

This article was published on September 19, 2021, and is reproduced with permission from AIER, American Institute for Economic Research.

ANALYSIS: Biden’s Vaccine Mandate Hurts Working Class America The Most

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  • President Joe Biden’s executive action requiring most U.S. workers to get vaccinated hurts working class Americans the most, according to polling and vaccination data.
  • “Unfortunately, this disproportionately harms people of lower socioeconomic groups,” Jeffrey Singer, a health policy expert at the Cato Institute, told the Daily Caller News Foundation when asked about Biden’s vaccine mandate. “A significant number of people who don’t want to get vaccinated are mainly of lower socioeconomic status.”
  • Just 66% of U.S. adults with less than a college degree have been vaccinated, significantly fewer than the 76% of total adults who have received a vaccination, according to a Sept. 10-13 Morning Consult poll.

President Joe Biden’s executive action requiring most U.S. workers to get vaccinated hurts working class Americans the most, according to polling and vaccination data.

Americans with lower levels of education are less likely to get and be more hesitant about COVID-19 vaccinations, according to survey data from the Census Bureau. Separate polling data showed that those Americans are also more likely to oppose vaccine mandates including Biden’s recent order requiring the jab for millions of workers.

“Unfortunately, this disproportionately harms people of lower socioeconomic groups,” Jeffrey Singer, a health policy expert at the Cato Institute, told the Daily Caller News Foundation when asked about Biden’s vaccine mandate. “A significant number of people who don’t want to get vaccinated are mainly of lower socioeconomic status.”

“At this point, I think it runs the risk of doing more harm than good,” Singer added.

Just 66% of U.S. adults with less than a college degree have been vaccinated, fewer than the 76% of total adults who have received a vaccination, according to a Sept. 10-13 Morning Consult poll. Meanwhile, 84% and 88% of adults with a bachelor’s degree and graduate degree respectively have been vaccinated.

About 11% of adults with some college education or an associate degree, 14% of adults with a high school diploma and 14.6% of those with less than a high school diploma reported being hesitant to get vaccinated, the Census Bureau Household Pulse Survey found. By comparison, 5% of those with at least a bachelor’s degree are hesitant.

Biden ordered the Department of Labor last week to issue a rule forcing businesses with 100 or more employees to mandate vaccinations at their workplace. The order, which applies to more than 81.1 million Americans, allows workers to choose to submit weekly tests to their employer instead of getting vaccinated.

The White House hasn’t clarified if private sector workers who choose not to be vaccinated will be expected to pay for the weekly tests. Some experts have predicted that employers will be allowed to choose whether to pay for the tests or not, The New York Times reported.

The Labor Department didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment on how weekly tests will be paid for.

Biden’s vaccine mandate for private sector workers doesn’t apply to those who work from home, according to the Miami Herald.

The president also issued executive orders requiring federal employees and contractors to be fully vaccinated by Nov. 22, 2021, the White House said. There are an estimated 4.2 million full-time federal employees, according to the Congressional Research Service.

“Many of us are frustrated with the nearly 80 million Americans who are still not vaccinated, even though the vaccine is safe, effective, and free,” Biden said during Sept. 9 remarks at the White House.

“We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin,” he added later in his speech.

Thirty-six percent of Americans with less than a college degree said they opposed Biden’s rule forcing private sector employees to get vaccinated, the recent Morning Consult poll showed. Those with a Bachelor’s degree and those with a graduate degree opposed it at a rate of 29% and 23% respectively.

On the question of vaccine mandates more broadly, 43% of adults with less than a college degree agreed that mandates violate the rights of Americans, according to the poll. Thirty-one percent of adults with a Bachelor’s degree and 25% with a graduate degree agreed.

Labor unions and trade groups representing working class Americans have come out in opposition to Biden’s vaccine mandate.

“These proposed requirements—however well-intentioned—threaten to cause further disruptions throughout the supply chain, impeding our nation’s COVID response efforts and putting the brakes on any economic revival,” American Trucking Associations President and CEO Chris Spear said in a statement.

“If these mandates are designed to protect Americans, then why the discriminatory 100-employee threshold, picking winners and losers for both employees and employers?” he continued.

COLUMN BY

Thomas Catenacci

Reporter

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EDITORS NOTE: This The Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Biden Tax Proposal Would Cost Arizona Thousands of Jobs, ASU Report Estimates

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President Joe Biden’s proposal to increase the United States’ Global Intangible Low-Tax Income (GILTI) tax will lead to job losses at 266 public companies in Arizona, according to research from Arizona State University.

The proposal doubles the GILTI rate to 21% from 10.5%. Ninety-four percent of U.S manufacturers believe the increase will harm their business, according to a National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) survey on Sept. 9.

The study by the Seidman Institute at ASU’s W. P. Carey School of Business and Ernst & Young’s Quantitative Economic and Statistics Team (QUEST) said the tax “is specifically targeted at the income earned by foreign affiliates of those companies from intangible assets including intellectual property such as patents, trademarks, and copyrights.”

The Seidman Institute and QUEST predicted a low of 1,508 direct annual job losses and a high of 27,728 direct annual losses if the current GILTI proposal is implemented, placing up to 47,000 jobs at risk in the next five years.

A $276.7 million loss to the state GDP was estimated in the first year after the tax increase implementation, rising to $348.9 million in the tenth year. This would mark an annual loss of 0.07% to 0.08% of GDP in Arizona, the study said.

The study concluded that the proposed GILTI changes could slow economic growth in the Grand Canyon state, resulting in a total annual job loss of 0.06% to 1.14% in Arizona.

NAM President and CEO Jay Timmins released a statement about the proposal’s potential effect on American businesses.

“The proposed tax increases would result in 1 million job losses in just the first two years,” he said.

*****

This article was published on September 20, 2021, and is reproduced with permission from The Center Square.

Democrats Aim To Choke Off Arctic Drilling With Provision Tucked Into Reconciliation Package

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Tucked into the massive legislation are restored protections to bar drilling within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s 1002 Area.

House Democrats are seeking to exploit the reconciliation process with a $3.5 trillion dollar package in pursuit of high-priority progressive programs. That wish list includes a litany of items on the left-wing green agenda, with protections against Arctic oil exploration at the top.

Tucked into the massive legislation last week by the House Natural Resources Committee are restored protections to bar drilling within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s (ANWR) 1002 Area, a nearly 1.6 million-acre patch along Alaska’s northern coast opened for oil and gas extraction in 2017.

“There isn’t a more clear example of congressional confusion than the current move by ‘wildlife-above-human-life’ extremists to ban oil and gas drilling in ANWR’s Coastal Plain,” said Rick Whitbeck, the Alaska state director for the energy nonprofit Power the Future. “They forget that Congress authorized and encouraged development in that exact area previously, and that banning future development puts the local indigenous people in peril of having to out-migrate from their village to find jobs to sustain their families.”

If passed, the package would likely seal the fate of drilling prospects in ANWR until Republicans reclaim both chambers of Congress and the White House to reverse course. The Biden administration, meanwhile, has continued to pull every lever to keep operations offline, from suspending oil and gas leases on federal lands to ordering new environmental reviews reassessing proposed projects.

The 1.6 million-acre stretch opened for exploration in 2017 amounts to less than 10 percent of the total refuge (which is roughly the size of South Carolina) off limits to development in northeast Alaska. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, somewhere between 4.3 and 11.8 billion barrels of recoverable oil remain underneath the surface of the 1002 Area, which would make it one of the most productive oil fields in the country as gas prices reach seven-year highs.

The only tribe living within the proposed boundary for drilling, the Iñupiat, have lobbied Congress for decades to allow development projects to move forward. Radical environmentalists seeking to preserve the entire state — which constitutes nearly a fifth of the entire nation’s landmass — as an untouched museum they’d maybe like to visit one day, however, have successfully exploited the opposition of a rival tribe hundreds of miles south of the 1002 Area to cloak opposition under the moral righteousness of environmental justice.

“The Gwich’in Nation, living in Alaska and Canada and 9,000 strong, make their home on or near the migratory route of the Porcupine caribou herd, and have depended on this herd for their subsistence and culture for thousands of years,” wrote California Democrat Rep. Jared Huffman as he re-introduced legislation in February to permanently ban the Iñupiat from harvesting the resources in their own backyard.

A look into the Gwich’in tribe’s past, however, raises questions about its genuine opposition to drilling in the Arctic Refuge, which remains entirely outside the tribe’s territory.

In the early 1980s, the Gwich’in sought to lease every last inch of its Alaskan Venetie Reserve to oil companies seeking to drill what many thought would be lucrative underground reserves. After exploration turned up short of any prospects for profitable drilling, the Gwich’in became vehemently opposed to oil and gas development across the state and partnered with progressive interests in the campaign.

The caribou, meanwhile, remain unbothered by the oil and gas activity on the North Slope 60 miles southwest of the 1002 Area, with populations continuing to rise and decline with their natural cycle.

Matthew Rexford, the tribal administrator for the Iñupiat village of Kaktovik within the 1002 Area, labeled his own people “refugees on their own lands,” prohibited from accessing the lucrative resources under them even though they are located on a flat plain rarely even visited by Alaskans, let alone elites who can afford the high-dollar trip.

“We are frustrated that we are not being heard and the Iñupiat living in Kaktovik and elsewhere on the North Slope are an ‘inconvenient truth’ to an administration dead set on shutting down Arctic development,” Rexford told The Federalist.

In an August interview, Alaska Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy shared the tribe’s frustrations.

“If we were able to do what we wanted to do, we’d be one of the richest states by far,” Dunleavy told The Federalist.

*****

This article was published on September 18, 2021, and is reproduced with permission from The Federalist.

Democrats’ “Climate Change” Is Fake But Their Taxes Are Real

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Climate alarmism provides an excuse for increased taxation of fossil fuel companies, which inevitably shift this cost burden to the consumer.

Sports coaches preach having “no memory.”  Meaning you have to forget your mistakes.

A football quarterback has to forget his last pass was an interception. Because he needs to think about his next pass.

Most, unfortunately, some of the least athletic people on the planet have taken this sports axiom to heart.  And unlike in sports – they demand we don’t remember either.

Behold the Democrats – and their “imminent doom” climate change predictions.

It is quite possible there has never been a more error-prone business – than the climate alarmism prediction business.

Wrong Again: 50 Years of Failed Eco-pocalyptic Predictions(Editor’s Note:  You need to read this.)

As the article demonstrates, Big Media has long been doing its part.  It has spent the last half-century jamming climate alarmism down our throats.  Trying to have us forget about the last failed prediction – by immediately pivoting to the next failed prediction.  No memory, remember?

A fun part of Big Media: They incessantly lie to us – and then poll us to see if the lies have taken.  And then they lie about the poll results – when their lies haven’t taken.

But Big Media doesn’t have to conduct the poll themselves.  They’ll happily lie in support of other Leftists polling and lying about it.

Progressive Pollster: 65 Percent of Likely Voters Would Back Polluters Tax

It’s a progressive pollster, so…

The progressive pollster and Big Media lyingly mash together two very different groups of respondents:

“A survey of likely voters found that 77 percent believe fossil fuel companies have “a lot” or “some” responsibility to address climate change, including 86 percent of Democratic respondents, 66 percent of Republicans and 75 percent of independents.

“When pollsters described a proposal to levy a $500 billion fee against major creators of emissions like Exxon, BP, Shell and Chevron, respondents “strongly” or “somewhat” supported such a measure, 65 percent to 25 percent. This included 83 percent of Democrats and 65 percent of independents in support.”

I have “a lot” of interest – and am “strongly” interested – in five million dollars.  I have “some” interest – and am “somewhat” interested – in five dollars.  Lumping these two groups together – is a lie.  The actual breakout – reveals the hugeness of the lie.

43% of all voters say energy companies have “a lot” of responsibility.  The rest (34%) say “some responsibility.”  So in fact a strong majority of voters agree that fossil fuel companies bear no – or a little – responsibility for the fake premise that is “climate change.” 

And the “a lot” alarmist number – is almost entirely made up Democrats.  They’re at 62% – compared to 39% of independents and 24% of Republicans.

So the entire presentation of this poll – is a lie.

Of course, Big Media does nothing in a vacuum.  Everything they do is in support of everything other Leftists-Democrats are doing.

And, of course, Leftists-Democrats never allow facts to get in the way of a good beating.  “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste” – no matter how fake and un-serious the “crisis.”

This fake story on a fake poll on real taxes imposed in the name of fake “climate change” – follows immediately on the heels of Democrats proposing real taxes in the name of fake “climate change.”

Why should a half-century of climate alarmism being very, very wrong – get in the way of Democrats really taxing the crap out of us in the name of climate alarmism?  No memory, remember?

Senate Democrats to Introduce Measure Taxing Major Polluters:

“Senate Democrats are set to unveil legislation that would tax energy companies responsible for major greenhouse gas emissions to pay for the costs of climate disasters.”

Never mind the fact that NONE of the predicted climate disasters over fifty-plus years – have ever actually happened.

Never mind the fact that taxing real energy producers – means they will have to pass along the taxes to us…the real energy users.

So we will pay a lot more for energy – and the government will get a lot more of our money.

Which does nothing for the climate. 

But does a lot for the government.

Of course, they’re hoping we’ll forget all of this.

*****

This article was published on September 15, 2021, and is reproduced with permission from The Heartland Institute.

Sorry, AOC, Rich Already Pay Their Fair Share

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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez donned an elegant gown with the slogan “Tax the Rich” painted on the back at the Met Gala in New York, where guests selected by Vogue’s Anna Wintour ponied up around $35,000 a pop for tickets. The scene was reminiscent of Tom Wolfe’s “radical chic” — though rather than being guests of the well-heeled in Park Avenue duplexes, today’s revolutionaries own luxury condos and drive around in government-subsidized electric cars that most Americans could never afford.

My first question, though, is: Who doesn’t want to “tax the rich”? Judging from my social-media feed, there seems to be a growing segment of people under the impression that the wealthy pay little or nothing in taxes. When you ask Americans if they support a wealth tax, a majority support the idea. One recent poll found that 80% of voters were annoyed that corporations and the wealthy don’t pay their “fair share.”

Polls rarely ask these people what a “fair share” looks like. Is a quarter of someone’s earnings enough? A third? Because the rich have been shouldering an increasingly larger share of the cost of government. The United States already has one of the most progressive tax systems in the free world. Those who make over $207,350 now pay 35% in income tax. Those who make $518,400 or more pay a 37% income-tax rate. At some point, taxation should be considered theft.

Despite perceptions, the highest-income strata of taxpayers are the only ones who pay a larger share of taxes than their share of income. In 2018, the top 1% of income earners made nearly 21% of all income but paid 40% of all federal income taxes. The top 10% earned 48% of the income and paid 71% of all federal income taxes.

On the other hand, in 2021, Americans making less than $75,000 are projected to have, on average, no tax liability after deductions and credits. The average income-tax rate for those making between $75,000 and $100,000 is expected to be 1.8%. More than 61% of Americans — around 107 million households — owed zero federal income taxes for the year 2020.

You don’t have to agree with me that (over)taxing the wealthy undermines job creation and growth, or that a tax system that relies so heavily on the fortunes of the few creates more cronyism in Washington and more volatility everywhere else. But the idea that the rich don’t pay their “fair share” is absurd.

At this point in the conversation, progressives will set aside their calls for a “wealth tax” and start complaining about capital gains. Here, we simply have a point of disagreement: Ocasio-Cortez would see investment profits in the hands of Bernie Sanders, head of the Senate budget committee. I would rather see them in venture-capital projects and private-equity funds that churn investment dollars and boost technology and jobs. Progressives grouse about accumulation of wealth and then want policies that dissuade risk.

Those who believe what I do will be accused of being “market fundamentalists” or beholden to the wealthy. Progressives — the kind that like to hang out at Met Galas — believe everyone is as class-obsessed as they are. I don’t give one wit about the wealthy. In fact, I hope today’s entrepreneurs are tomorrow’s new rich. We know they will be — without compelled redistribution.

How many voters do you think know that nearly 70% of the Forbes 400 richest Americans are self-made? Or that the share of the self-made wealthy had risen from 40% in the 1980s to nearly 70% by the 2010s? How many people who have fallen for the scaremongering worries of “inequality” — another leading reason for the wealth taxation —understand, as economist Mark Perry recently pointed out, that the middle-class isn’t “shrinking” because it’s getting poorer, but rather because of a long-term trend in upper-middle class growth? Ocasio-Cortez’s entire philosophy is a zero-sum fallacy.

No, progressive taxation isn’t socialism. But the policy justifications made for tax hikes these days certainly are. Ocasio-Cortez is a fraud, of course, but it’s her retrograde economic theorizing that’s the real problem. And in this age of populism, increasing numbers of Americans are accepting Marxist conceptions of American life, in which the successful are parasites and everyone else is a victim of their greed.

The reality is that no politician is going to advocate raising middle-class income taxes, despite the ever-increasing cost of government. There is only the rich to tax. Consequently, it’s become easier to pass massive expansions of the state. Everyone expects someone else to foot the bill — either future generations or their wealthier neighbors. Meanwhile, taxation has gone from being a means of funding communal needs and projects to a means of technocratic wealth reallocation. This is no way to run a country.

*****

This article was published on September 17, 2021, and is reproduced with permission from The Daily Signal.

Treasury Department Seeks to Track Financial Transactions of Personal Bank Accounts Over $600

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In May, the Treasury Department released the Biden administration’s revenue proposals for fiscal year 2022. One aspect of this document that has gone under-reported is the administration’s new plan for reporting requirements for financial institutions.

The document is unequivocal about the administration’s goal for financial reporting, stating, “this proposal would create a comprehensive financial account information reporting regime.”

The Biden administration’s goal here is to increase tax revenue by making sure no income avoids detection. How will the administration do this? It plans to leverage financial institutions like banks.

“[T]his requirement would apply to all business and personal accounts from financial institutions,” the proposal reads, “including bank, loan, and investment accounts, with the exception of accounts below a low de minimis gross flow threshold of $600 or fair market value of $600.”

In other words, financial institutions will report any flows in and out of business and personal accounts of more than $600.

This reporting requirement is far above any current requirements on financial institutions. As the document itself states, currently only information for certain types of revenue (including 1099 forms MISC, NEC, and K) require reporting.

Some may view this proposal by the Biden administration positively. After all, this isn’t an attempt at raising taxes. The goal of this policy is to ensure individuals pay what is legally required, isn’t it?

There are two issues with this way of thinking.

The first issue is highlighted by economist Ludwig von Mises’s insight that “capitalism breathes through [the] loopholes.” The great innovations and improvements in well-being made available through capitalism were not generated in a loophole-free system. Oftentimes, the most important innovations begin as small start-ups with razor thin margins. As loopholes close, the chance of these risky start-ups succeeding declines.

Entrepreneurs are not ignorant to the barriers of regulations and taxation. When something is taxed, you get less of it. If any entrepreneurs are right on the fence of whether a new business venture is likely to be worth it, increasing costs even a little bit may be enough to persuade them otherwise. Economists call this “being on the margin.”

Avoiding taxes and reporting on small dollar transactions (either intentionally or unintentionally) is another form of loophole. De jure businesses are required to follow strict tax reporting rules, but, much like driving the speed limit, the de facto reporting often departs from the official rule.

To understand the danger of making businesses comply with tax law to the letter, consider how difficult it would be for businesses to do so. The tax code is now so long that nobody, including government officials, are sure of its length. How can business-owners be sure they’re complying with a document of unknown length? Put simply, they can’t.

Therefore, not only will these increased financial reporting requirements raise taxes on entrepreneurs on the margin, they will also force businesses to expend more time and resources ensuring they pay the proper amount of taxes. Any tax audit with access to every account transfer over $600 will crush businesses without a team of accountants or lawyers able to justify every transfer.

The burden of this policy, then, will fall primarily on small businesses without access to a massive internal legal team. A policy that punishes small businesses like this may be good for large corporations, but it’s bad for market competition.

As Mises noted, capitalism suffocates without loopholes.

The second issue associated with Biden’s proposal is its effect on financial privacy. The administration’s focus on increasing financial reporting is becoming a consistent theme. For example, the “information reporting regime” document also includes proposals for cryptocurrency reporting which can be seen as a precursor to the crypto reporting requirements shoehorned into the “infrastructure” bill.

The increase in financial scrutiny provided by access to every transaction greater than $600 associated with personal accounts would provide an unprecedented look into the finances of many Americans. Even the powerful political will behind the 2002 “Patriot Act” only led to requirements that banks report suspicious transactions of $5,000 or more.

Much like small businesses, most individuals don’t have access to a team of lawyers and accountants the same way DC politicians and bureaucrats do. As such, these new requirements are likely to hurt poor and middle income Americans whose primary source of income is non-traditional. This is unsurprising given the Biden administration’s record of threatening gig work, for instance.

Some may argue that privacy is unnecessary because you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide. But, again, individuals cannot be expected to perfectly comply with a document of unspecified length. Unfortunately, as the government approaches perfect information, perfect compliance becomes the standard.

At one time, perhaps community banks or other small financial institutions interested in keeping customers around could’ve provided resistance to this by generating political pushback or work-arounds for customers.

However, government policies have effectively destroyed a more decentralized network of financial institutions. Since the early 1990s the number of small banks has fallen from over 10,000 to below 5,000. Now politicians are proposing to leverage their relationships with the few big players who are “too big to fail” to examine every aspect of Americans’ finances.

Especially with the lockdowns, the federal government already has small businesses, independent contractors, and the economy in general in a stranglehold. This new “Information Reporting Regime” will only tighten its economically lethal grip.

RELATED ARTICLE: House Progressives Unveil Massive Multi-Trillion-Dollar Tax Hike—Here’s How It’ll Impact You

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Pelosi Says Capitalism Has Not Helped U.S. Economy, Argues ‘We Have To Correct That’

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This is a communist coup on America.

Ayn Rand on Capitalism, 

“Capitalism did not create poverty — it inherited it.” For much of human history, the vast majority of the population was mired in poverty. All too often, the average individual lived in unimaginably wretched conditions. It was only in the nineteenth century, and then only in the West, that the masses started to enjoy prosperity because of capitalism.

“The nineteenth century was the ultimate product and expression of the intellectual trend of the Renaissance and the Age of Reason, which means: of a predominantly Aristotelian philosophy. And, for the first time in history, it created a new economic system, the necessary corollary of political freedom, a system of free trade on a free market: capitalism.”

“No, it was not a full, perfect, unregulated, totally laissez-faire capitalism—as it should have been. Various degrees of government interference and control still remained, even in America—and this is what led to the eventual destruction of capitalism. But the extent to which certain countries were free was the exact extent of their economic progress. America, the freest, achieved the most.”

“Never mind the low wages and the harsh living conditions of the early years of capitalism. They were all that the national economies of the time could afford. Capitalism did not create poverty—it inherited it. Compared to the centuries of precapitalist starvation, the living conditions of the poor in the early years of capitalism were the first chance the poor had ever had to survive. As proof—the enormous growth of the European population during the nineteenth century, a growth of over 300 per cent, as compared to the previous growth of something like 3 per cent per century.”

“The flood of misinformation, misrepresentation, distortion, and outright falsehood about capitalism is such that the young people of today have no idea (and virtually no way of discovering any idea) of its actual nature. While archeologists are rummaging through the ruins of millennia for scraps of pottery and bits of bones, from which to reconstruct some information about prehistorical existence—the events of less than a century ago are hidden under a mound more impenetrable than the geological debris of winds, floods, and earthquakes: a mound of silence.”

“Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.”

“The recognition of individual rights entails the banishment of physical force from human relationships: basically, rights can be violated only by means of force. In a capitalist society, no man or group may initiate the use of physical force against others. The only function of the government, in such a society, is the task of protecting man’s rights, i.e., the task of protecting him from physical force; the government acts as the agent of man’s right of self-defense, and may use force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use; thus the government is the means of placing the retaliatory use of force under objective control.”

“The moral justification of capitalism lies in the fact that it is the only system consonant with man’s rational nature, that it protects man’s survival qua man, and that its ruling principle is: justice.”

“In a capitalist society, all human relationships are voluntary. Men are free to cooperate or not, to deal with one another or not, as their own individual judgments, convictions, and interests dictate. They can deal with one another only in terms of and by means of reason, i.e., by means of discussion, persuasion, and contractual agreement, by voluntary choice to mutual benefit. The right to agree with others is not a problem in any society; it is the right to disagree that is crucial. It is the institution of private property that protects and implements the right to disagree—and thus keeps the road open to man’s most valuable attribute (valuable personally, socially, and objectively): the creative mind.”

“Capitalism demands the best of every man—his rationality—and rewards him accordingly. It leaves every man free to choose the work he likes, to specialize in it, to trade his product for the products of others, and to go as far on the road of achievement as his ability and ambition will carry him. His success depends on the objective value of his work and on the rationality of those who recognize that value. When men are free to trade, with reason and reality as their only arbiter, when no man may use physical force to extort the consent of another, it is the best product and the best judgment that win in every field of human endeavor, and raise the standard of living—and of thought—ever higher for all those who take part in mankind’s productive activity.” 

Pelosi Says Capitalism Has Not Helped US Economy ‘As Well As It Should,’ Argues ‘We Have To Correct That’

By Brianna Lyman, Daily Caller, September 17, 2021:

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said Friday capitalism “has not served our economy as well as it should” but insisted it is a system to improve rather than abandon.

“In America, capitalism is our system, it is our economic system, but it has not served our economy as well as it should,” Pelosi said at a Chatham House event in the United Kingdom, according to Reuters. “So what we want to do is not depart from that, but to improve it.”

Pelosi said “stakeholder capitalism” has historically been beneficial to the states as it has allowed both workers’ wages and management’s to rise as productivity increases, according to The Washington Post. Pelosi, however, criticized “shareholder capitalism” which she says causes employees’ salaries to remain the same despite a growth in productivity.

“You cannot have a system where the success of some springs from the exploitation of the workers and springs from the exploitation of the environment and the rest, and we have to correct that.”

Pelosi has remained steadfast in her commitment to capitalism, albeit with some adjustments to the system.

When asked by a left-leaning student in 2017 whether Democrats should move farther left with “a more stark contrast to right-wing economics,” Pelosi immediately clarified Democrats are capitalists.

“I have to say, we’re capitalists, that’s just the way it is,” she responded, according to NYU Local. “However, we do think that capitalism is not necessarily meeting the needs with the income inequality that we have in our country.”

“We’re a capitalist system. The free market is – is a place that can do good things.”

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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Lyft Puts Anti-Life Ideology on Display with Opposition to Texas’ Heartbeat Law

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State legislators have a duty to enact laws supported by their constituents. This foundational principle is core to America’s Constitutional, federalist system. But it’s also somehow controversial to woke social justice warriors, who rail against any state policy that goes against their vision of a progressive cultural utopia.

The latest state to end up in their crosshairs is Texas. Their newly enacted “Heartbeat Law” prohibits abortion after 6 weeks gestation, making it a civil offense to perform or aid in one after the unborn child has a heartbeat.

Never mind that a plurality of Americans support the law. It contradicts the authoritarian woke agenda, so woke corporations have dutifully fallen in line to express their opposition.

One of the most ridiculous responses is from ride-sharing app Lyft (1.00), whose CEO Tweeted that since their drivers could be considered “aiding abortion” by bringing women to their appointments, Lyft would cover legal fees for drivers sued under the law. They also gave a $1 million donation to Planned Parenthood.

For a company that waxes poetic about their employees’ value, Lyft cares little for their freedom of expression. Just weeks ago, they fired a driver for listening to a radio show a passenger deemed “racist.” Ironically, the show featured a Black host accusing Black Lives Matter of ignoring how abortion destroys more Black lives than any other demographic. Clearly, Lyft values their employees only when they dutifully adhere to pro-abortion ideology: acceptance earns applause; dissent gets you fired.

While Lyft put their hypocrisy on display, it isn’t the only company taking a stance against Texas’ new law. Dating app Bumble pledged to help Texas-based employees terminate their pregnancies out of state. GoDaddy Inc. (2.67), a website-hosting service, took down a site used to report violations of the new law.

These companies must get out of the business of policymaking and leave that to lawmakers and the courts. Until they do, take your money elsewhere. Perhaps when we hold Lyft accountable for their support of destroying human life, they’ll get out of politics and back to business.

Please reach out to Lyft, Bumble, and GoDaddy to share your collective thoughts on the pro-life issue and let your voice be heard!

EDITORS NOTE: This 2nd Vote column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

VIDEO: FDA Bought Fetal Organs, Heads and Tissue for ‘Humanized Mice’ Project

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Judicial Watch has uncovered more documents detailing the evil activities of your federal government – the trafficking of the remains of unborn human beings killed by abortion.

We received another 198 pages of records and communications from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) involving “humanized mice” research with human fetal heads, organs and tissue, including communications and contracts with human fetal tissue provider Advanced Bioscience Resources (ABR).

Most of the records are communications and related attachments between Perrin Larton, a procurement manager for ABR, and research veterinary medical officer Dr. Kristina Howard of the FDA.

We received the records through a March 2019 FOIA lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, of which the FDA is a part (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department Health and Human Services (No. 1:19-cv-00876)).

Our lawsuit asks for all contracts and related documentation on disbursement of funds, procedural documents and communications between FDA and ABR for the provision of human fetal tissue to be used in humanized mice research. After we successfully opposed the FDA’s redaction of certain information from its records, a federal court ordered HHS to release additional information about its purchases of organs harvested from aborted human fetuses – including “line item prices,” or the price per organ the government paid to ABR. The court also found “there is reason to question” whether the transactions violate federal law barring the sale of fetal organs. Documents previously uncovered in this lawsuit show that the federal government demanded the purchased fetal organs be “fresh and never frozen.”)

The records include an FDA generated contract with ABR, based on a “requisition” it issued on July 27, 2012, for $12,000 worth of “tissue procurement for humanized mice,” which indicates the requisition was for a “non-competitive award.” Although the initial award was for $12,000, the total estimated amount of funds allocated for the requisition was $60,000. Under “Justification for Other than Full and Open Competition,” the FDA writes:

Scientists within the FDA and in the larger field of humanized mouse research have searched extensively over the past several years, and ABR is the only company in the U.S. capable of supplying tissues suitable for HM research. No other company or organization is capable of fulfilling the need.

Costs are estimated [for the fetal parts] at $230 per tissue x two tissues per shipment = $460 plus $95 shipping = $555 per shipment. A total of 21 shipments = $11,655.00.

An April 1, 2013, “Amendment of Solicitation/Modification of Contract” form that shows the FDA purchased fetal livers and thymuses from ABR going back to at least October 2012, billing $580 per liver/thymus set, but later paying a unit price of $685.

A January 1, 2013, “Fees for Services Schedule” provided by ABR to the FDA includes:

FETAL CADAVEROUS PROCUREMENT                           SERVICE FEE
2nd trimester D&E
[Dilation and Evacuation abortion]
(13-24 weeks)                                                                      per specimen     $275
1st trimester aspiration [abortion] (8-12 weeks)          per specimen     $515
Intact Calvarium [baby’s skull] (8-24 weeks)”                per specimen     $515

The fees for services schedule also includes “Special Processing/Preservation” of the fetal parts, such as “Tissue ‘Cleaning,’” “Snap freezing,” and “Passive freezing (Dry ice).”

In a September 9, 2014, “Order for Supplies or Services,” the FDA writes regarding a $9,900 order:

The Contractors shall ship 2nd Trimester thymus $325, 2nd Trimester liver $325. Overnight deliver $150 and EFT wire transfer fee $25, for a total per delivery of $825. Total of this contract not to exceed $9,900.00.

As the result of an August 21, 2015, “Amendment of Solicitation/Modification of Contract,” ABR bumped up the price of baby livers and thymuses from $325 each to $340 each.

A “Tissue Acquisition Quote” sent by ABR to Howard on July 5, 2017, provided a quote of $5,440 each to provide 16 sets of second trimester (16-24 weeks) livers and 16 sets of second trimester (16-24 weeks) thymuses at $340 per “sample.” The request for the quote notes that “tissue known to be positive for HIV, HepA, HepB, HepC or chromosomal abnormalities are not acceptable.”

On June 28, 2017, a redacted FDA contract specialist sends Larton at ABR a request for a quote (RFQ) of pricing for human fetal tissue, aged “16-24 weeks,” including a “Statement of Needs”:

The HM [humanized mice] are created by surgical implantations of human tissue into mice that have multiple genetic mutations that block the development of the mouse immune system at a very early stage. The absence of the mouse immune system allows the human tissues to grow and develop into functional human tissues…. In order for the humanization to proceed correctly we need to obtain fetal tissue with a specific set of specialized characteristics.

A May 2018, report from a company named “LABS,” which was employed by ABR to test fetal parts and their mothers for hepatitis and HIV, notes in its “methodology description” that they are approved by the FDA “for living and cadaveric donor screening.”

The records include a recitation of requirements by the FDA for “Payment by Electronic Funds Transfer,” in which ABR must adhere to regulations relating to “Convict Labor” and “Child Labor-Cooperation with Authorities and Remedies.”

On September 24, 2018, the Trump FDA terminated its contract with ABR for human tissue purchases and began an audit of its acquisitions of baby body parts. The records include the FDA’s letter terminating the contract:

Based on the terms and conditions of the Purchase Order as awarded to Advanced Bioscience Resources, Inc. (“ABR”) on July 27, 2018, the Government is not sufficiently assured that the human tissue provided to the Government to humanize the immune systems of mice will comply with the prohibitions set forth under 42 U.S.C. § 289g- 2. Furthermore, the Government has concerns with the sufficiency of the sole-source justification. Therefore, pursuant to FAR [Federal Acquisition Regulation] clause 52.213-4(f), the Purchase Order is being terminated effective September 24, 2018.

Here’s some background.

In February 2020, we first uncovered through this lawsuit hundreds of pages of records from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) showing that the agency paid thousands of dollars to a California-based firm to purchase organs from aborted human fetuses to create “humanized mice” for HIV research.

In May 2021, this lawsuit uncovered FDA records showing the agency spent tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars to buy human fetal tissue from ABR. The tissue was used in creating “humanized mice” to test “biologic drug products.” The records indicated the FDA wanted tissue purchases “Fresh; shipped on wet ice.”

On August 3, 2021, we announced that The Center for Medical Progress (CMP) and Judicial Watch, through a separate lawsuit, received 252 pages of new documents from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that reveal nearly $3 million in federal funds were spent on the University of Pittsburgh’s quest to become a “Tissue Hub” for human fetal tissue ranging from 6 to 42 weeks’ gestation. The Pitt scientists note that, “All fetal tissue is collected through a collaborative process including Family Planning, Obstetrics and Pathology.” Pitt anticipated “being able to harvest and distribute quality tissue and cells … [and] do not anticipate any major problems related to the acquisition and distribution of the tissues.” Pitt’s target goal “is to have available a minimum of 5 cases (tissues and if possible other biologicals) per week of gestational age for ages 6-42 weeks.”

Chopping up aborted human beings for their organs and tissue is a moral and legal outrage. This issue should be front and center in any debate about America’s barbaric abortion industry.

EDITORS NOTE: This Judicial Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

New Plan Would Push Top Tax Rate to Almost 60 Percent In These 4 States

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If Congress’s new tax hikes come through, successful residents in high-tax states will be placed in a terrible position.

Successful residents of high-tax states are in for an ugly surprise if new tax legislation passes in Congress. Democratic legislators are currently proposing a multi-trillion-dollar tax hike to raise revenue for a massive welfare and climate change spending plan. Proposed tax hikes include raising the corporate tax rate, higher taxes on cigarettes and vaping products, raising the capital gains tax rate, and higher individual income tax rates.

On the last front, the proposed income tax increase would apply to income over $400,000 for an individual and raise the rate from its current 37 percent to 39.6 percent. The proposal also includes a 3 percent surcharge on all income above $5 million. The tax hikes could push Americans in states like New York, California, New Jersey, and Hawaii up to nearly 60 percent top income tax rates.

“For New Yorkers earning more than $5 million, the combined city, state and federal tax rate would skyrocket to 61.2% under the House plan,” Fox Business reports. “The combined rate in California, meanwhile, would spike to 59.7%, while the wealthiest individuals living in New Jersey could pay a rate as high as 57.2%. In Hawaii, the combined marginal rate would be an estimated 57.4%.”

That’s right: High-earning residents of these states could end up paying nearly 60 percent tax rates on their income earned above a certain level. That’s an obscene and fundamentally unfair level of taxation. But such punitive levels of taxation are also highly impractical and certain to have adverse economic consequences.

For one thing, successful residents can simply move to another state. It is only the combination of high federal income taxes and high state-level income taxes that leads to these combined rates of nearly 60 percent. Yet some states, such as New Hampshire and Florida, have no income tax at all.

We’ve already seen an exodus of wealth, people, and major businesses from states like California, and that trend will only accelerate if taxes are sent even higher by this new plan. It’s only logical: states that heavily tax something are discouraging it, while states that don’t tax it at all are welcoming it. Why would anyone want to discourage income-earning?

Punitive taxation has ramifications for more than just the high-earning individuals and families directly impacted by higher tax rates. If they leave the state, they take with them jobs, investment funds, and spending that would otherwise go back into their communities.

It’s true that not all high-earners will flee states with these punitively high taxes. Some, for a variety of reasons, will stay. But even for these individuals, the high tax rates will backfire, because they’ll create perverse incentives and discourage economic activity above a certain level.

Why?

Well, people make economic decisions “on the margin.” What this means is that they evaluate each additional hour worked on the basis of whether the potential benefits exceed the costs. Then, they work up until the point where the costs begin to exceed the benefits.

When the government applies 60 percent tax rates to income above a certain point, it drastically reduces the benefits of additional labor subject to that tax. Yet the costs of working remain the same. As a result, far less economic activity will happen beyond that threshold.

Think about it like this. A successful entrepreneur founded a restaurant and when it did well, opened up two other locations. Does he add a fourth or rest on his laurels?

Well, if he will only get to keep 40 percent of the income he earns from new locations, because he’s now already making $400,000, he probably won’t bother to expand. Who would want to work more and hustle harder only to hand over 60 cents of every dollar to the government? This economic disincentive hurts more than one entrepreneur—it means jobs never created, customers never satisfied, income never earned, and a community never enriched.

Another problem with highly progressive tax rates is that they discourage economic investment. The same “rich” citizens who would face these 60 percent tax rates are those who would otherwise save and invest that money into the economy. (Rather than simply spend it as low-earners tend to do). As the economist Ludwig von Mises put it, “Progressive taxation of income and profits means that precisely those parts of the income which people would have saved and invested are taxed away.”

Ultimately, 60 percent tax rates are confiscatory, unfair, and economically indefensible. If Congress’s new tax hikes come through, successful residents in high-tax states will be placed in a terrible position. Luckily, they have the option to move to less hostile states. Don’t be surprised when many take it.

WATCH: New Biden Vax Mandate Doesn’t Make ANY Sense (Here’s Why)

COLUMN BY

Brad Polumbo

Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is a libertarian-conservative journalist and Policy Correspondent at the Foundation for Economic Education.

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EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Burning Batteries Pose A Huge Risk To EV Mandates

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Editors’ Note: Progressives and the Green Industrial Complex are hell-bent on using your money (state subsidies) to force the public into “green energy” and particularly, electric cars. Instead of what occurred earlier at the turn of the 20th century when gasoline, kerosene, steam, and electric cars competed openly and fairly with each other, our elites want to cram their choices down our throats. But like every other decision, one must be aware of the trade-offs. One trade-off is that EV vehicles are not better for the environment. Another is the electrical grid is not prepared to support the widespread use of EVs. It appears that conversion to EVs favors China in many important ways. And now two other related issues:  The problem of intense and toxic fires and much higher overall insurance cost. Before you get bribed into using an EV, perhaps you should familiarize yourself with the negative trade-offs. Could it be the central planners don’t know any more about the environment than they did about Afghanistan, crime, inflation, and Covid? When the market makes a choice, trade-offs cannot be ignored as they play a key role in cost and consumer choice. Consumers voluntarily make choices and producers voluntarily comply with their wishes. What works can be maintained and that which does not work fails in the voluntary marketplace. This allowance for failure guides the market to correct and cost-effective conclusions. When the government makes the choice, it is one size fits all, backed by state subsidies and coercion. And as for failure, if recent history proves anything, it is that our elites that run our institutions are never held accountable for anything they do.

 

After a Volkswagen Golf (not an electric vehicle) caught fire in the underground car park in Eku-Platz, Germany, the city’s civil engineering department closed the car park for five months. Damages (all eventually paid for by insurance) amounted to 195,000 euros. As a condition for the reopening, however, the insurance company forbade the use of the underground garage by hybrid and electric vehicles.

There were several reasons. Lithium batteries can only be cooled with extinguishing water and continue to burn for several days. The car park’s ceiling is not high enough to pull out burning vehicles with heavy equipment. This means that every other vehicle in the car park, as well as the entire building, remains at risk of a fire or explosion that could have disastrous results. Yet as the fire protection report admitted, nobody had even considered the magnitude of the fire risk from lithium-ion batteries prior to the Golf fire.

The fire risk from electric vehicles is not just a German parking garage problem. Nearly a year ago the National Transportation Safety Board acknowledged that at least half of the nation’s fire departments are not equipped to put out battery-powered car (EV) fires. The NTSB too agreed that lithium-ion batteries burn with extraordinary ferocity; battery fires also release emissions of extremely toxic fluoride gas.

Last November Reuters reported that worldwide acceptance of EVs, despite government mandates and subsidies, is being threatened by a global string of fires from overheated batteries. The article included a list of recalls by major auto manufacturers and what their investigations found.

Hyundai recalled at least 74,000 Kona EVs, after 16 of them caught fire over a 2-year period, to upgrade their battery management systems. Of the first 23,000, Hyundai found 800 vehicles with battery defects requiring replacement of modules said the have a significant risk of an electrical short circuit.

Ford Motor Co. recalled 20,500 European Kuga plug-in hybrid EVs and suspended sales. Ford offered to replace the entire battery pack, identifying the root cause as a battery cell contamination in its supplier’s production process. The setback delayed the U.S. debut of the Escape SUV.

BMW’s recall was limited to about 4,500 plug-in hybrid EVs, admitting that debris may have entered the battery cells during production, which could lead to short-circuiting and a “thermal event.” BMW also recallefficd 26,000 other plug-in hybrids over potential battery problems.

In response to a petition filed pursuant to a class action lawsuit, the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration recently probed potential defects in certain Tesla vehicles that could result in non-crash fires. The plaintiffs claim that Tesla limited the battery range of older vehicles via a software update to avoid a costly recall to fix alleged defective batteries.

Capping the list is General Motors, which initially recalled nearly 70,000 Chevy Bolt EVs over fire risks, with the fix limiting battery charges (and thus mileage) to 90 percent capacity. The NHTSA has also investigated why three Bolts caught fire while parked. GM says the problem was traced to a torn anode tab and a folded separator, both of which could occur at the same time and create conditions that could lead to a short in affected cells.

In August, GM announced a second recall of 73,000 more Bolt EVs (every Bolt ever made) to replace new battery modules; the fix could cost GM $1.8 billion. Moreover, GM has decided to idle Bolt production “due to the impact of the global chip shortage.” Meanwhile, GM has recommended that Bolt owners park their vehicles outside and limit battery charges to 90 percent or lower, at least until replacement batteries are ready and service appointments are scheduled.

The problem with this mandate is obvious. Those whose in-home EV charging stations are in their garages cannot exactly park their EVs outside and charge the vehicle at the same time. The same goes for EV chargers now located in underground garages. Moreover, the fixes typically reduce battery charging by at least 10 percent, further shortening the vehicle’s range.

One supposes that some EV owners could just move their charging stations outside, but who leaves a vehicle out in winter cold or summer heat when they have a perfectly good garage? Yet who wants to risk burning down the house to avoid scraping the windshield or putting their tushes on a hot car seat?

Earlier this year Value Penguin reported that auto insurance for EVs is on average about 23 percent more expensive than for an equivalent internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle. This is despite the fact that the average EV is driven far fewer miles a year than ICE vehicles. In California, home to 40 percent of U.S. EVs, drivers average just 5,000 miles per year behind the EV’s steering wheel. For many, the EV is the second (or third) car. But will insurance companies also raise rates for EV owners with in-garage charging stations?

In the Golden State, embattled Governor Gavin Newsom a year ago issued an executive order that would ban the sale of ICE vehicles buy 2035, with enforcement left to state agencies. One problem with this mandate is that the California Air Resources Board may be able to implement rulemaking to ban ICE sales, but CARB has no authority over vehicle registration and no authority to set registration fees to make ICE vehicles more expensive.

President Joe Biden, too, has talked tough about a nationwide mandate for EVs, but he, too, may be in deep trouble with voters over a number of other issues. As more and more people learn that their EVs pose a fire risk by manufacturers telling them to park their EVs outside, it seems quite possible that voters will soon sour on any politician who mandates inconvenient outdoor charging to avoid the risk of setting their homes on fire.

*****

This article was published on September 10, 2021, and is reproduced with permission from CFACT, the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow.

Phony Math: Democrats $3.5 Trillion Spending Bill Is Actually More Like $5 Trillion

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True accounting shows many programs expire in 3 years, nearly doubling actual costs

Politicians are notorious for fudging numbers to keep from being held accountable by the people who hired them—us!

John Steele Gordon, a business and economic historian, gives a good reminder in The Wall Street Journal about these accounting gimmicks happening today over the so-called “reconciliation bill”.

“Congressional rules require that spending bills project their cost over 10 years. But the $3.5 trillion “social infrastructure” bill now before Congress calls for several of its most expensive programs (such as Medicare expansion) to lapse after three years. But everyone knows that such programs, once enacted, are politically untouchable and will be made permanent. The actual projected cost of the bill is probably north of $5 trillion.” 

The Committee For A Responsible Budget also gives more context:

“To fit $5 trillion to $5.5 trillion worth of spending and tax breaks into a $3.5 trillion budget, background documents to reporters explain that “the duration of each program’s enactment will be determined based on scoring and Committee input.”  In other words, tax credits and spending programs will be set to expire at some point before the end of the decade, in the hope that future lawmakers will extend these programs. While some provisions could also be scaled down or otherwise adjusted, these premature expirations appear to be a key source of cost reduction.

This budget gimmick, which would obscure the true cost of the legislation and put program beneficiaries at risk, was rightly criticized in 2017 when used for some of the 2017 tax cuts. It would be unwise and irresponsible to use arbitrary expirations and sunsets to obscure the true cost of this legislation.”

It’s easy to lose sense of how massive something is when we’re discussing such huge numbers. But the National Taxpayers Union divided up this and calculated it, saying the “spending amounts to $24,252 per U.S. taxpayer ($3.5 trillion divided by 144.3 million taxpayers in 2018, the latest year for which IRS data is available).”

I’ll do a rough calculation here and do the calculation for the $5 trillion divided by 144.3 million taxpayers—that amounts to $34,650 per taxpayer. And that’s on top of the enormous burden we already have.

The Web site USDebtClock.org has a running tally of our existing national debt, here’s a depressing snapshot from today:

We can’t afford to keep squandering our future—that’s how empires collapse.

*****

This article was published on September 14, 2021, and is reproduced with permission from the Independent Women’s Forum

Media Attempt to Downplay Alarming New Inflation Report

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Despite media spin, price inflation is still very much a problem.

It’s no secret that the mainstream media has a left-leaning bias. So it’s not exactly surprising that when alarming new inflation data were released on Tuesday, many journalists and media outlets attempted to downplay the story. After all, rising concerns about inflation could hamper the federal government’s ongoing efforts to massively increase government spending and expand the welfare state.

Here are just a few examples of countless reports that sought to downplay the just-released inflation figures. For one, the Washington Post dubbed the new numbers “an early sign that inflation could be easing.” And CNBC went with a different spin in its headline: “Consumer prices post smaller-than-expected increase in August.”

Meanwhile, many left-leaning commentators and analysts argued that the new data vindicate their claims that recent price inflation is just “transitory.” (Aka temporary.)

Yet when one looks at the actual report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, this rosy spin seems utterly unwarranted. It shows that the Consumer Price Index, an average sample of typical consumer prices, rose 0.3 percent in August. This is less than the 0.4 percent increase that had been predicted, prompting the media spin to suggest that August saw “less inflation than expected.” While perhaps true, this is misleading, because the new figures still show prices seriously on the rise.

On an annual basis, from August 2020 to August 2021, prices rose 5.3 percent. That’s nearly a 13-year high!

In particular, energy costs rose 25 percent year-over-year, while food prices rose 3.7 percent. Used vehicle prices rose a whopping 31.9 percent over the last year as well. These are just a few examples of the many ways Americans’ purchasing power—their real standard of living—eroded over the last year due to price inflation.

It might be true that inflation is easing or slowing down, but that’s not the main takeaway here. Prices have still risen significantly! And, as shown in the graph below, comparing August 2021 to August in years past shows that price inflation is still very much a problem. [VIEW CHART HERE]

Ultimately, prices are still rising in alarming ways. That can be traced back to government policies like the Federal Reserve’s printing of trillions of new dollars to fund COVID “stimulus” efforts. Those who want the feds to spend more and grow the welfare state have every incentive to downplay the consequences of fiscal and monetary recklessness.

But don’t fall for the media spin. Everyday Americans suffer the consequences of price inflation when their paychecks don’t stretch as far as they used to. It’s important to look beyond political narratives to understand just how much “stealth taxation” via inflation is really going on.

COLUMN BY

Brad Polumbo

Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is a libertarian-conservative journalist and Policy Correspondent at the Foundation for Economic Education.

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Bank of Japan Ends its Massive QE that Started When Abenomics Became Economic Religion of Japan

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One of the largest central banks ends QE. End of an era for Japan: Large-scale money printing was one of the three official legs of Abenomics.

In terms of the absolute mountain of assets the Bank of Japan purchased over the years, it is one of the top three QE monsters, along with the Fed and the ECB. In relationship to GDP, the BoJ’s total assets are #2, behind the tiny Swiss National Bank, which runs the unique racket of using the overhyped strength of the Swiss franc to print large amounts of it and buy securities denominated in foreign currencies, including large amounts of US stocks; but it’s not buying securities denominated in Swiss francs.

Total assets on the BoJ’s balance sheet generally decline every third month as large amounts of long-term bonds mature and are redeemed, which is when the BoJ gets its money back, and the bonds come off the balance sheet. For this reason, we look at the three-month moving average of the increases in total assets.

As of its balance sheet through August 31, the three-month moving average of total assets increased by an average of only ¥690 billion ($6.3 billion) per month, the smallest increase since 2012, before Abenomics became the economic religion of the land. This marks the end of Abenomics QE:

The BoJ’s blistering QE binge started with “Abenomics,” the economic religion imposed on the land in 2013 under Shinzo Abe, Prime Minister from September 2012 to September 2020. One of the three official legs of Abenomics was massive amounts of money printing. It culminated with the huge burst in the spring of 2020. But all that is now history.

While the Fed has set the stage to begin tapering its asset purchases later this year, and while the ECB is ogling the Fed for inspiration, the Bank of Japan, without making a lot of hoopla, has already cut its asset purchases to the bone.

*****

Continue reading this article, published September 7, 2021 at Wolf Street.

Manchin: Schumer ‘will not have my vote’ on $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill

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Bernie Sanders and the Democrats seeks to inject socialism into America with this monstrosity of a bill. In addition, it has been discovered that this bill would allow the IRS to monitor bank transactions, potentially violating the 4th Amendment. The bill will also grant amnesty to millions of people who have entered the United States illegally. And the bill would provide free community college to Americans, while funding  radical “green” projects in the years ahead. This bill must be stopped. Keep calling Senator Manchin and tell him to vote no.

Manchin: Schumer ‘will not have my vote’ on $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill

By Fox News, September 12, 2021

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said Sunday that he will not vote in favor of his party’s $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation package, which is a central part of President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda and needs the support of all 50 Democratic senators to pass.

Appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Manchin was asked by anchor Dana Bash to respond to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who said Democrats were moving “full speed ahead” on the package for which Manchin previously called for a “pause.” Manchin, who sits on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said his main issue with the package is its hefty price tag.

“He will not have my vote on 3.5 and Chuck knows that,” he said, adding that it should be more like $1.5 trillion. “It’s not going to be three and a half I can assure you.”

Manchin said the bill that Democrats should be primarily focused on is the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill that passed in the Senate and is awaiting House action. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said a vote on that bill would be held on Sept. 27, but progressives have threatened to vote against it if the reconciliation bill is held up in the Senate.

Manchin said there is “no way” the reconciliation will pass this month, and he said progressives are making a big mistake if they follow through on their threat.

“They have to do what they have to do,” he said. “And if they play politics with the needs of America, I can tell you America will recoil.”

Appearing later on ABC’s “This Week,” Manchin criticized Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., after the senator declared on Twitter the day before: “No infrastructure bill without the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill.”

“I just respectfully disagree with Bernie,” Manchin told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. “I’ve never seen this in legislation. I never thought the purposes of the progress we make in legislation was basically to hold one hostage over the other.”

Sanders, who appeared later on the same show, fired back, saying “the real question” is whether it is “appropriate for one person to destroy two pieces of legislation.”

Sanders said that regardless of the party infighting, he expected both bills to eventually pass.

Budget reconciliation rules prevent Republicans from filibustering the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill, so Democrats only need a simple majority to pass it. With a 50-50 Senate, Democrats need every senator in their party to vote yes, with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking the tie.

RELATED ARTICLES:

House Progressives Unveil Massive Multi-Trillion Dollar Tax Hike

Bernie Sanders calls Manchin’s refusal to back $3.5 trillion spending plan ‘absolutely not acceptable’

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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