Before I start today's news, let it be known there is a story I am not covering: The Academy Awards were presented last night. I have a personal boycott in place since the Academy Awards snubbed the original Star Wars for the best picture award, giving it instead to Woody Allen's awful Annie Hall.
This is also why I don't listen to Hollywood for political advice.
Now for the real news...
Fox News:
Actor Bill Paxton, a prolific and charismatic actor who had memorable roles in such blockbusters as "Apollo 13" and "Titanic," has died. He was 61.For all his roles, the one I most remember Paxton for was his role as Private Hudson in one of the best sequels ever made, Aliens:
“It is with heavy hearts we share the news that Bill Paxton has passed away due to complications from surgery,” a family representative said in a statement.
Sadly, Paxton's death was not the only celebrity death this past weekend:
CNN:
Judge Joseph Wapner, of the popular reality television program "The People's Court," died at age 97 on Sunday at his home in Los Angeles, California, according to his son, Los Angeles County Judge Fred Wapner. He died of natural causes.The People's Court first aired in 1981, long before the phrase "reality television" was even coined. Wapner's influence on our culture is unquestionable, as he took legal dispute resolution and turned it into non-fictional drama.
The famed judge taped more than 2,000 episodes of "The People's Court" during his 12-year tenure on the program, inspiring decades of similar courtroom shows, including "Judge Judy" and "Judge Joe Brown."
Prior to stardom, Wapner graduated with both his undergraduate degree in 1941 and his law degree in 1948 from the University of Southern California, and served in the US Army as a lieutenant. He was awarded the Purple Heart and Bronze Star for his service in World War II.
On top of that, another member of the greatest generation of World War II has been lost to us.
In other news...
Washington Post:
In 1960, when John Kennedy was elected president, America’s population was 180 million and it had approximately 1.8 million federal bureaucrats (not counting uniformed military personnel and postal workers). Fifty-seven years later, with seven new Cabinet agencies, and myriad new sub-Cabinet agencies (e.g., the Environmental Protection Agency), and a slew of matters on the federal policy agenda that were virtually absent in 1960 (health insurance, primary and secondary school quality, crime, drug abuse, campaign finance, gun control, occupational safety, etc.), and with a population of 324 million, there are only about 2 million federal bureaucrats.Now you know how government grows without actually employing more people.
So, since 1960, federal spending, adjusted for inflation, has quintupled and federal undertakings have multiplied like dandelions, but the federal civilian workforce has expanded only negligibly, to approximately what it was when Dwight Eisenhower was elected in 1952. Does this mean that “big government” is not really big? And that by doing much more with not many more employees it has accomplished prodigies of per-worker productivity? John J. DiIulio Jr., of the University of Pennsylvania and the Brookings Institution, says: Hardly.
In his 2014 book “Bring Back the Bureaucrats,” he argued that because the public is, at least philosophically, against “big government,” government has prudently become stealthy about how it becomes ever bigger. In a new Brookings paper, he demonstrates that government expands by indirection, using three kinds of “administrative proxies” — state and local government, for-profit businesses, and nonprofit organizations.
Since 1960, the number of state and local government employees has tripled to more than 18 million, a growth driven by federal money: Between the early 1960s and early 2010s, the inflation-adjusted value of federal grants for the states increased more than tenfold. For example, the EPA has fewer than 20,000 employees, but 90 percent of EPA programs are completely administered by thousands of state government employees, largely funded by Washington.
This leads us to some other issues:
USAWatchdog:
[Former Reagan Administration White House Budget Director David Stockman] drops this bomb and says, “I think what people are missing is this date, March 15th 2017. That’s the day that this debt ceiling holiday that Obama and Boehner put together right before the last election in October of 2015. That holiday expires. The debt ceiling will freeze in at $20 trillion. It will then be law. It will be a hard stop. The Treasury will have roughly $200 billion in cash. We are burning cash at a $75 billion a month rate. By summer, they will be out of cash. Then we will be in the mother of all debt ceiling crises. Everything will grind to a halt. I think we will have a government shutdown. There will not be Obama Care repeal and replace. There will be no tax cut. There will be no infrastructure stimulus. There will be just one giant fiscal bloodbath over a debt ceiling that has to be increased and no one wants to vote for.”While I have a great deal of respect for Stockman, I also think he over-rates the political potential for the Republicans to increase the debt ceiling. That is one of the few things they can do without incurring the wrath of the Leftist mainstream media, which considers fiscal conservatism a quaint notion from the 19th century.
Regardless, expect much "sturm und drang" prior to the Republicans raising the debt ceiling anyway.
Finally, in other budget-related news...
Associated Press:
When Republicans say they want to lower taxes and get rid of loopholes to make up the lost revenue, they're talking about eliminating some very popular tax breaks enjoyed by millions of people.
...A look at the biggest tax breaks enjoyed by individuals, along with The Associated Press' assessment of how safe they are as Congress works to overhaul taxes. All estimates are from the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation, the official scorekeeper for Congress.
- RETIREMENT SAVINGS...RATING: Safe.
- EMPLOYER-PROVIDED HEALTH INSURANCE...RATING: In danger.
- CAPITAL GAINS AND DIVIDENDS...RATING: Safe, as long as Republicans are in charge.
- EARNED INCOME CREDIT...RATING: Safe, but there could be changes.
- STATE AND LOCAL TAXES...RATING: In danger.
- MORTGAGE INTEREST...RATING: Safe, but it could get a haircut for high-priced homes.
- CHARITABLE CONTRIBUTIONS...RATING: Safe.
- CHILD TAX CREDIT...RATING: Safe. Some proposals would increase it.
- SOCIAL SECURITY AND RAILROAD RETIREMENT...RATING: Safe.
- PROPERTY TAXES...RATING: In danger.
Notice how two of the three deductions labeled as "in danger" involve the deduction of taxes. In other words, expect government theft to no longer be an excuse to limit your theft by government.
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