Reality. Reason. Rights.

The short answer is “no.” This WSJ article exposes this common myth.

FDR did not get us out of the Great Depression—not during the 1930s, and only in a limited sense during World War II.

Let’s start with the New Deal. Its various alphabet-soup agencies—the WPA, AAA, NRA and even the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority)—failed to create sustainable jobs. In May 1939, U.S. unemployment still exceeded 20%. European countries, according to a League of Nations survey, averaged only about 12% in 1938. The New Deal, by forcing taxes up and discouraging entrepreneurs from investing, probably did more harm than good.

What about World War II? We need to understand that the near-full employment during the conflict was temporary. Ten million to 12 million soldiers overseas and another 10 million to 15 million people making tanks, bullets and war materiel do not a lasting recovery make. The country essentially traded temporary jobs for a skyrocketing national debt. Many of those jobs had little or no value after the war.

Roosevelt, and then Truman, pushed for a New Deal revival, but Congress said “no.”

Instead, Congress reduced taxes. Income tax rates were cut across the board. FDR’s top marginal rate, 94% on all income over $200,000, was cut to 86.45%. The lowest rate was cut to 19% from 23%, and with a change in the amount of income exempt from taxation an estimated 12 million Americans were eliminated from the tax rolls entirely.

Corporate tax rates were trimmed and FDR’s “excess profits” tax was repealed, which meant that top marginal corporate tax rates effectively went to 38% from 90% after 1945.

By the late 1940s, a revived economy was generating more annual federal revenue than the U.S. had received during the war years, when tax rates were higher. Price controls from the war were also eliminated by the end of 1946. The U.S. began running budget surpluses.

Congress substituted the tonic of freedom for FDR’s New Deal revival and the American economy recovered well. Unemployment, which had been in double digits throughout the 1930s, was only 3.9% in 1946 and, except for a couple of short recessions, remained in that range for the next decade.

In today’s TIA Daily, Robert Tracinski links to an article about the situation in Greece, and highlights the quote “you can’t mix Freedom and Free Lunch.” It’s a great line, no doubt, but the one that caught my attention was, “the spectacle of government workers, cranky retirees, militant unionists, and mad dog socialists locked arm in arm protesting reality is a sight we’d better get used to.”

Protesting reality. The futility of doing this is summed up in this vulgar yet pithy quote from Bad Santa. Ignoring and failing to understand the facts gets us nowhere. I take that back; it takes us in the wrong direction.

Wake up America! How many million unionists are we expected to carry on our public payrolls? How long can we keep government employees on defined-benefit pension plans while the rest of us scramble to fund our 401(k)s ? How many more people are we going to drop from the income tax rolls as we lean on a smaller and smaller slice of citizens to carry an ever greater percentage of the load, leaving the rest free to vote for tax increases? How large a swath of our population can we pretend to keep supplied with newly manufactured economic rights like free healthcare as Social Security and Medicare careen toward insolvency? How much more do we think we can borrow from the Chinese to fund day-to-day government operations? How long do we think we can afford to police the world?

What the world’s political leaders and those who elect them need most right now is a shocking example of the only possible outcome of trying to practice redistributive justice on a national or even global scale. Rescuing Greece is a mistake. What they deserve is a good hard dose of exactly what they are asking for – unvarnished socialism.

Throw Greece out of the European Union. Let them default on their debts. Teach buyers to beware before they invest in sovereign bonds. Dare Greece to print Drachmas by the wheelbarrow. Put the whole country on the public payroll then challenge them to demonstrate what a truly egalitarian society looks like. Maybe a dramatic spectacle of what a workers paradise looks like under the media’s glare will teach us what’s in store if we don’t change our ways.

Democracy is broken. You can’t mix Freedom and Free Lunch. One or the other has got to go.

Yes, let them default on their debts. Nobody is too big to fail. No bailouts. Ever. But let’s not ask them to give socialism another shot to prove it’s worth. It’s had enough goes. I wish a dose of “unvarnished socialism” would wake the world up, but if the current example of Cuba and past example of Soviet Russia, among many other examples, don’t do the trick, I doubt another failed collectivist experiment in Greece will.

TechCrunch has been mistakenly cheerleading the FCC lately. Earlier this month they said that FCC regulation of the internet would be “a huge win for consumers.” This article makes the usual error (as with health care, or bailouts) of asking for a government answer to a problem without realizing that the cause of the problem is government manipulation in the first place. The last line of that article blames the lack of competition on the monopolies held by the ISPs in many areas of the country. Of course, in a truly free market, there is no such thing as a monopoly. The reason these ISPs, like Verizon and AT&T, are the only players in certain markets is that these monopolies are government created. There is too much regulation for starting a telecom business and laying new fiber. These ISPs are protected from competition because regulations keep competitors out.

And today, they are applauding more government interference because the FCC says they want to tackle bill shock.

The FCC is taking a stand against absurd phone bills. The regulatory agency is requesting public comment on a new initiative that will force wireless carriers to notify consumers about high charges, like unanticipated roaming or data fees.

“We are hearing from consumers about unpleasant surprises on their bills,” Joel Gurin, FCC Chief of the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau said in a press release today. “This is an avoidable problem. Avoiding bill shock is good for consumers and ultimately good business for wireless carriers as well.”

If you go over your minutes, or are charged for texting too much, you have a couple of obvious options; use the services less, or upgrade to a better plan. Unfortunately, many people use a third option of complaining to the government and asking to be rewarded for their mistakes.

I guess I look at my phone bill a little differently. The “bill shock” I see is the 25% increase in cost due to “municipal and state telecommunications taxes.” And those costs will only increase with more government regulators to pay. It’s similar to the “paycheck shock” I feel when I see federal, FICA, Medicare, and state deductions.

In the video below, Jenny Beth Martin does a nice job explaining the core values of the Tea Party movement, while defending it against the media’s default smear of racism. The most egregious attempt at this smear in the video is when the host asks, because nearly 80% Tea Party supporters are Caucasian, ”what would you say to minorities who say, ‘is there really a place for me as part of the Tea Party movement?’”

Well here’s a news flash for the host; nearly 80% of the US population is White. Yes, her charge is this absurd. She is essentially calling the Tea Party a racist movement because it has the same demographic breakdown as the rest of the country! Is she prepared to ask minorities if they feel there is really a place for them in America (I hesitate to ask that question because I have a hunch how she and her comrades on the Left would answer)? It’s more clear everyday that the Left is unable to argue against the ideas of this movement, and is resorting to tactics like this, twisting numbers and putting words in others’ mouths, even when the facts don’t agree with what they want to believe.

If the numbers mentioned by the host are true, then they are a ringing endorsement of the Tea Parties and they show that the opposite of the media’s smear is true; that the Tea Party movement is a place for people of all backgrounds. It’s good to hear Martin, as one of it’s leaders, say there is no place for racism in the movement and that people that hold and espouse those beliefs are asked to leave.

As Martin said, the core values of the movement are Fiscal Responsibility, Constitutionally Limited Government, and Free Markets. I agree with these values completely, but would add that they stem from the one core value and “founding principle” of Individual Rights. I think that most tea party supporters have at least an implicit understanding of this, that they believe ”the smallest minority on earth is the individual [and that] those who deny individual rights, cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.” This is why the movement has no place for racism.

Information from census.gov

I’m not sure if Charles Johnson thinks that the rights of American’s are granted by government, or if the false dichotomy in his sentence is supposed to be attributed only to the way “people like” Rep. Peter King sees things. Either way, it’s worth touching on here.

People like Rep. King are usually the same ones who claim that the rights of Americans are granted by God, not by the government.

Individual Rights are not granted by anyone as they are no one’s to grant in the first place. They are a part of us, automatically and intrinsically, by our nature of being individual reasoning beings. They cannot be granted anymore than they can be changed or taken away. This is what unalienable means.

A government’s proper function is to protect the rights of individuals, ensuring that these rights are not infringed upon by others, not to decide who should be granted them at the expense of another. But I guess a government needs to understand the unalienable nature of rights before it can defend them.

The Broken Window Fallacy teaches us the important economic lesson that it is necessary to “take account of that which is not seen,” that when we see tax dollars being spent on a government project, we mustn’t forget all of the other ways that money could have been used if it wasn’t appropriated from it’s rightful owners. On John Stossel’s program this week, there was an astonishing example of this.

“Those of us who pay others to do our taxes spend more on that than the Fortune 500′s five biggest employers pay all their workers. In other words, what we spend on tax paperwork is greater than the pay of every worker at Wal-Mart, United Parcel Service, and McDonald’s, and IBM, and Citigroup – all those places combined!”

This means that there is an enormous void in our economy. Imagine all of the productive work that these companies do, all of the products they sell and create, and all of the families who rely on the jobs they provide. That is what is missing from our economy because it is wasted on tax preparation.

And the above example only takes into account the money spent, not the time spent. I shudder to think of what the true waste is if the IRS is right and “the average time required to complete and file the commonly used Form 1040 this year [2009] should be 26.4 hours.”

Well, yesterday’s news from the House wasn’t the birthday present I had hoped for. I don’t feel like saying much more than I haven’t already said before. One word will suffice; REPEAL.

Since this is the big weekend for the health care plan, let’s take a look at Paul Ryan taking the president to task for the “gimmicks, smoke and mirrors,” and shady accounting used to trick us into thinking this massive new government entitlement will save us money, let alone be budget neutral. Pay attention to the dishonest back-loading scheme that only counts 6 years of spending against 10 years of taxes as a way to say the first 10 years will save money.

We have more evidence than we need to know government initiatives grow well beyond their estimated cost, size, and scope (Social Security, Medicare, Fanny and Freddie, and oh does the list go on). To think this will be any different is delusional.

Ryan is correct in saying at the end that this all comes down to an ideological differerence; “we don’t think government should be in control of this, we think people should be in control.” I agree, though I would replace “people” with “individuals.”

When discussing health care, or hearing about it in the news, you are sure to come across the subject of “pre-existing conditions.” The Left rails against insurance companies for “discriminating” against potential clients because of their pre-existing conditions.

So what is a pre-existing condition? Let’s examine the phrase. Taking the last part first, it’s a medical condition, like diabetes, or asthma, or cancer, or any of a number of other maladies, that a patient needs to continue to treat because of its persistence. But what does the “pre-existing” part mean? That needs a little more explanation I think. What event took place that this condition existed before?

To the leftist politician, defining that part doesn’t matter. All they want you to believe is that insurance companies are unfairly withholding their service from innocent people. To them “pre-existing” only means the patient’s condition pre-existed their current search for coverage.

But this event, that makes the pre-existing modifier possible, is very important in understanding the mess the insurance industry is in. This event always has to do with someone’s job situation. It could be an employer changing providers, or it could be an employee switching jobs or losing a job altogether.

You see, the government has been meddling with the insurance industry for a while and in many ways. For this discussion though, we only need to look at the tax benefit given to employers for purchasing coverage for their employees. This is a leftover from WWII price and wage controls where employers weren’t allowed to offer bigger salaries to attract workers. Instead, America’s resourceful companies offered more benefits to employees that they wanted to hire. Eventually big tax benefits were attached to these benefits when offered by an employer, while individuals searching for insurance on their own couldn’t get the same benefits. So now it’s much cheaper to get your insurance through your employer than it is to get it on your own. This system has essentially killed the market for individually purchased insurance.

You might think this is a nice way to save a buck, but rather it has caused the situation we now have. It’s what we call “unintended consequences.” Because your insurance is attached to your job, you make employment decisions based on that insurance, instead of making employment decisions based solely on the employment situation. This is especially true if you have a pre-existing condition.

For example, let’s say you’ve had a decent job for a few years, and recently developed a medical condition (it’s not “pre-existing” yet!). You’ve had the same insurance at this job for a while and since your condition arose while under your current policy, your treatment is covered. But another company has seen your work and they are impressed enough to offer you a 15% raise along with a new title and bigger responsibilities. And your current company can’t match the offer. Without our government’s interference, this would be a no-brainer; you would take the new job, the new salary, and be excited about advancing your career. But as you see, government controls are affecting your decision. The new company’s insurance isn’t that great. You’ll have to pay a lot more for your treatments. Maybe they won’t cover it at all. What do you do? Do your own thought experiments for losing a job, or for having a child with a condition that grows up and has to leave your family’s coverage, and you’ll find similar government created predicaments.

And of course, this mess is driving up costs. People end up switching insurance companies more often than they would without government interference, especially today when we switch jobs more than people did a generation before. Every new policy creates more paperwork, and paperwork costs money. For an example of this waste, I didn’t have to look too far. I switched jobs recently. My new gig has the same insurance that the last one did, but still I had to get a new policy and I had the pleasure of filling out the same exciting paperwork. How ridiculous is that? I didn’t have to change my auto or home insurance because I took a new job.

Back to my main point though. The only reason we are familiar with the term “pre-existing condition” is because of government intervention in the economy. Incentivizing employer based insurance has created the problem and pushed the term onto the stage. If the government got out of the way, the problem, and the term, would practically disappear. And it only takes an ounce of economic imagination to see why.

Using the example from above, you would have shopped for your own insurance separately from your job (just like car insurance, life insurance, home insurance, boat insurance, or other non-insurance things like groceries), and when offered that new position at a different company you’d happily accept it, keeping your current insurance in tact. What if you lost your job and couldn’t pay your insurance? Well, insurance companies would be free to offer job-loss insurance for a higher premium. Maybe an extra $20 a month would cover you if you were out of work for a couple years (isn’t this what Aflac does?).

But what about the child that has grown too old to stay on his families insurance? After all, they’re not switching jobs? Well, I think the insurance companies would have this figured out as well. I actually think they would be banging on the delivery room door with offers for lifelong policies. Instead of being on your parent’s employer’s plan as a child, your parents might put you on your own plan that you can keep with you and pay for when you come of age. Under the current system, they’re not banging on anybody’s doors. They don’t have to. They don’t have to compete for our business.

Of course our government doesn’t understand this. They rarely take the time to understand the cause of a problem, especially when that cause is staring back at them in the mirror. Instead, they think of new laws, penalties, and subsidies (funded by ours truly) adding gasoline to the fire. Unintended consequences like this are pre-existing conditions of government intervention.

The right to protect yourself and your property is unalienable. I’m proud to share a belief in this right, as well as a surname, with one of the plaintiffs in today’s case before the Supreme Court, McDonald v. Chicago, which could render unconstitutional Chicago’s handgun ban. Beyond being the correct decision on an individual rights perspective, this would have immediate and long-term effects on crime.

It looks like it will be easier to use the due-process route, rather than the privileges and immunities option, to get the court to incorporate Second Amendment rights to state and local governments. The latter approach could have the added benefit of expanding economic liberty, but I’ll take whichever one that works.