The ongoing attempts by the race hustlers on the Left and in
the black community to commit massive theft in the name of reparations for
slavery got me thinking about the costs we suffer as a consequence of the
policies and practices brought about by our fellow citizens. While there are no longer any slaves or even
children of slaves left, nor slave masters or children of slave masters that
would legitimize the hustlers’ dreams of race reparations, there is a group of people who are even now routinely
victimized by another group at a cost that is nearly incalculable. For the sake of restoring what’s been stolen,
and since a very good lawyer can always translate the “nearly incalculable” into
recoverable dollars and cents, I think we should take a hard look at what the
policies and practices of liberalism have cost that segment of Americans who’ve
been forced to pay for their schemes. Here are just a few of the costs that spring
to mind:
The Left’s “War on Poverty” and the lost productivity of the welfare
class
In 2014 Rachel Sheffield and Robert Rector of The Heritage
Foundation issued a stunning report
on the costs of the Left’s “War on Poverty” to mark the 50th anniversary
of this great boondoggle. What did it
cost U.S. taxpayers to reduce the instance of poverty in this nation from 17%
down to 14% (per the Census Bureau) over 50 years? A mere 22 TRILLION dollars, that’s all. That’s the total, in 2012 dollars, of what’s
been spent on anti-poverty programs in the U.S.
Per the report, “Adjusted for
inflation, this spending (which does not include Social Security or Medicare)
is three times the cost of all U.S. military wars since the American
Revolution.” That sort of puts the
scope of this scam in perspective, eh?
It also occurred to me, when reading the Heritage report, to
wonder what the cost was to this nation for all of the lost productivity resulting
from the inaptly-named “War on Poverty.”
When you dis-incentivize able-bodied people from working by rewarding
them for not working, you not only cost Americans the amount spent on their welfare
but you also lose the value to the economy of what that person might have otherwise
produced. It would entail a lot of
analysis to put a dollar figure on this but I think it would be reasonable to
estimate that the cost of lost productivity was at least as much as the amount spent on anti-poverty programs. Cha-ching!
And what about the cost to taxpayers for all of the
government bureaucrats we’ve paid to manage our useless anti-poverty
programs? How much insult did that add
to our injury?
Cost of incarcerating criminals produced by war on poverty and other
liberal policies
A CBS News report from 2014 puts the annual price tag for
incarceration of criminals at 80 BILLION dollars and, as we’ve heard ad nauseam,
blacks and Hispanics account for a disproportionately high number of the
incarcerated. From a liberal perspective
(i.e. absent truth and normal logic) the higher incarceration rates of blacks,
in particular, is owed to the drug wars and the fact that every person involved
in the American justice system is a red-necked racist. This lie is why the problem can never be
solved, which makes liberals doubly responsible.
The rest of us know the truth. The liberals’ “War on Poverty” not only
failed to end poverty in any meaningful way it also made poverty – and the culture
of crime that goes with it - a way of life for many blacks, and that includes selling
drugs to enjoy the things that are otherwise elusive in the cycle of
poverty.
Once again we must consider not just the billions of dollars
spent every year to incarcerate the criminals produced by decades of liberal
policy and suppression of truth but also the lost productivity to this nation as
millions of young, black men have wasted time in prison. See this piece in Prison Policy Initiative for a chart
showing what incarceration does to a person’s earning potential in life.
Costs of Encouraging illegal immigration
“The cost of harboring
illegal immigrants in the United States is a staggering $113 billion a year --
an average of $1,117 for every “native-headed” household in America --
according to a study conducted by the Federation for American Immigration
Reform (FAIR).” Foxnews.com, July 2, 2010.
The burden of illegals on the American welfare system is
confirmed by Judicial
Watch, which found:
“Census Bureau data
reveals that most U.S. families headed by illegal immigrants use
taxpayer-funded welfare programs on behalf of their American-born anchor
babies. Even before the recession,
immigrant households with children used welfare programs at consistently higher
rates than natives, according to the extensive census data collected and
analyzed by a nonpartisan Washington D.C. group dedicated to researching legal
and illegal immigration in the U.S.”
While much of these costs might be duplicated in the summary
of liberal anti-poverty policy addressed above, the Fox News piece also noted
that, “The single largest cost to the government of illegal immigration,
according to the report, is an estimated $52 billion spent on schooling the
children of illegals. ‘Nearly all those costs are absorbed by state and local
governments.’”
“The most important
finding of the study is the enormous cost to state and local governments due to
lack of enforcement of our immigration laws,” Martin wrote.
Liberals have predictably disputed these numbers over the
years, claiming that illegal immigrants add more to the economy than they cost,
but the proof is in the pudding my friends.
If illegals were truly adding a net benefit to the U.S. economy in the
billions of dollars, Mexico and other Latin countries would be fighting us to
keep them on their side of the border. The reality, though, is that they make little
to no effort to assist the U.S. with border enforcement because they get a
financial boon in the form of remittances sent back by illegals to family
members back home without the economic burden of caring for them. Reality has a way of revealing the truth even
when people try to obscure it.
Regulation, regulation
and more regulation
The Competitive
Enterprise Institute (CEI) is out with its annual report that estimates that
the U.S. economy was hit by $1.88 trillion in 2014 from the cost of complying
with federal regulations and higher prices. It argues the cost of complying
with federal regulations extends beyond taxes, deficits and borrowing. ‘Federal environmental, safety and health, and
economic regulations affect the economy by hundreds of billions of dollars
annually,’ CEI Vice President Clyde Crews said. The government, in a sense,
does create jobs in the private sector—a massive vegetative, unproductive
universe of workers dedicated to dealing with federal rules.” FoxBusiness,
5/13/15
Various analysts have broken the cost of over-regulation
down by household and it equates to thousands of dollars for every American
every year. What might we have done with
that money? There are regulations that
are necessary to a free and functioning society, and then there are those that
advance the pet projects and insatiable egos of the Left at the unnecessary expense
of ordinary Americans, many of whom are struggling just to get by. Let’s demand to be made whole for that.
The Wasteful and Unconstitutional spending of our BIG federal government
Heritage.org: “50
Examples of Government Waste”
The Daily Caller: “Report:
Wasteful Spending Adds Over $600 BILLION To Debt”
Must I go on? You’ve
all seen these yearly lists that inspire lots of outrage but little or no
action. Virtually all of the serious
studies and reports on waste and fraud and frivolous spending in the federal
government are done by conservative groups, while liberal Democrats fight tooth
and nail against any suggestion of spending cuts except when it comes from the
one function that the federal government must perform and that’s national defense. The federal government has
grown so big and unruly that it can’t police itself when it comes to spending,
and that’s courtesy of liberals both Republican and Democrat.
While the sin of slavery in the U.S. ended long ago, the crime
of liberalism is still going strong and we pay the price for it every day. What did it cost local residents when the
liberal race-baiters encouraged rioting in cities like Baltimore and
Ferguson? What’s happened to costs at
our universities since the Left has co-opted our institutions of higher
learning? What’s happened to the costs
of healthcare with the introduction of liberal mandates and policies? What price do we assign to the lives lost
from liberal policies on abortion or liberal leniency towards violent criminals
who are let back on the streets to hurt and kill again?
Even the most calculating of lawyers might have trouble
wrapping their minds around the true cost of liberalism upon this nation but I
know this: If anyone is entitled to
reparations, we are.
~CW
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