Two other Toms on the Instant Situation

"Current U.S. fiscal policy, including the recently concluded 'fiscal cliff' debt deal," writes Jagadeesh Gokale at the Cato Institute, "is placing an enormous financial burden on today'’s children and on future generations in order to deliver government benefits to current middle-aged workers and their elders." Or to put it a different way, as he does in the title of the piece, "We Are Bankrupting Future Generations."

That's a fairly common theme among libertarian commentators when it comes to government spending and government debt. For example, in a column last week, 2012 Libertarian Party vice-presidential nominee James P. Gray asserted that "[o]ur children will have to shoulder our debt during the rest of their lives ..."

Problem is, it just ain't so. I'm not saying that by way of supporting government indebtedness, but just because it's a fact. A couple of quotes from other eminent personages also named "Thomas" make it clear why:

As we are not to live for ever ourselves, and other generations are to follow us, we have neither the power nor the right to govern them, or to say how they shall govern themselves. -- Thomas Paine, Dissertations On Government; the Affairs of the Bank; and Paper Money

and ...

I suppose that the received opinion, that the public debts of one generation devolve on the next, has been suggested by our seeing habitually in private life that he who succeeds to lands is required to pay the debts of his ancestor or testator, without considering that this requisition is municipal only, not moral, flowing from the will of the society which has found it convenient to appropriate the lands become vacant by the death of their occupant on the condition of a paiment of his debts; but that between society and society, or generation and generation there is no municipal obligation, no umpire but the law of nature. We seem not to have perceived that, by the law of nature, one generation is to another as one independant nation to another. -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison

It's true that "we're bankrupting our CHILDREN!!!!!" makes for a pretty good propaganda line in a policy fight.

But I think it's more practical to address those who continue investing, through the purchase of government bonds, in the debts run up by Obama, Reid, Boehner et. al. and let them know that the likelihood of making their money back over the long haul passed "slim" quite some time back and as of now is right at "none."

Sooner or later -- probably much sooner than most people think -- that debt is going to be defaulted upon and repudiated. There is no "if" involved, only an unspecified "when." Heck, it may even be this generation! Regardless of when the when is, one thing is certain: You don't want to be holding T-Bills when it arrives.

Of course, none of us -- except for those who are or have been among the 435 members of the US House of Representatives, the 100 members of the US Senate, and the President of the United States --  have any obligation whatsoever to pick up the ObamaReidBoehner check.

But that's especially and doubly true of future generations of Americans who've never yet taken, nor yet been asked to take, any part in the "consent of the governed" charade that supposedly "legitimizes" enslaving them to pay for Nancy Pelosi's airplane rides and Lindsay Graham's theatrical productions.

Step 1: Arrest Colonel Denise Lind

Step 2: Charge her with violations of Article 92 (Failure to Obey an Order or Regulation), Article 98 (Non-Compliance with Procedural Rules) and Article 134 (the "General Article," specifically "conduct of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces") of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Step 3: Give her the speedy trial she continues to allow the military to deny Bradley Manning, then let her spend some quality time making big rocks into smaller rocks.

Article 98 is the most relevant one:

Any person subject to this chapter who --

(1) is responsible for unnecessary delay in the disposition of any case of a person accused of an offense under this chapter; or

(2) Knowingly and intentionally fails to enforce or comply with any provision of this chapter regulating the proceedings before, during, or after trial of an accused; shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

The "speedy trial" provisions of the Rules for Court Martial are not unclear: The military had 120 days, from the date of his arrest, to arraign Bradley Manning. They took 638.

It doesn't matter if the prosecution, as Lind puts it, has "worked diligently" to build a case against Manning. You throw someone in the slammer and keep him there without bail after you have a case to prosecute, not for nearly two years while you try to figure out whether or not you can come up with something to charge him with.

For the sake of comparison, Scooter Libby never served a day in jail even after he outed a CIA agent and was convicted of perjury (just like Alger Hiss). Israeli spy Lawrence Franklin bailed out twice prior to trial, and after he plead guilty ended up serving 10 months -- not in prison, but on "house arrest" -- and giving some speeches to high school students about how breaking the law is bad.

Manning's been in jail for 1008 days now, and the prosecution still shows no sign of having its head and its ass wired together. Apparently they have a problem. Their problem shouldn't be Bradley Manning's problem.

English: Slogan for the support of the persecuted American ex-soldier who is claimed to have leaked secret documents to WikiLeaks Deutsch: Slogan für die Unterstützung und Freilassung von Bradley Manning, der beschuldigt wird, geheime Dokumente an WikiLeaks weitergegeben zu haben (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Maybe It's Time Florida Got Off the "Defense" Teat

Florida governor Rick Scott complains that the upcoming* federal budget "sequestration" would hurt Florida because:

Florida is one of America’s most defense centric states. Florida hosts three unified combatant commands, 20 major Air Force and Navy installations, and very large segments of the nation’s defense industry which annually contributes over $73.4 billion and more than 754,000 defense industry jobs to the economy.

This is precisely the wrong way -- 180 degrees ass-backwards -- to look at "defense" spending.

For the sake of argument, let me temporarily (very temporarily, and purely for the sake of argument -- I'm an anarchist) stipulate to the claim that "national defense" as written is a "legitimate government activity."

If that's the case -- if "defense" spending is "necessary" -- let's treat it as what it is: Overhead. A cost, not a "contribution." That money isn't appearing out of thin air. It's coming out of the pockets of the very Floridians whose interests Scott claims to have at heart. And from that standpoint, any analysis of whether the money should or should not be spent should be conducted solely on the basis of how it affects the government's ability to discharge the explicit duty (the meat), not on how many jobs might land in Florida as a result of it doing so (the gravy).

And if we're going to analyze it from that standpoint, well, we should be demanding far larger cuts than the sequestration provides for. The current US "defense" budget is -- and I consider this estimate very conservative -- at least four to five times the size required under any plausible scheme pertaining to "national defense." At least 75-80% of US "defense" spending  is a dog's breakfast of corporate welfare, congressional pork as district "jobs programs," and the kind of featherbedding that's only to be expected in a bureaucracy that's had seven decades to perfect the practice of lobbying for its own perpetual growth.

The US government spends more on "defense" than the next 20 national governments combined, even though it hasn't faced a credible external military threat in decades that wasn't entirely of its own making (largely due to that over-spending -- the military is so obese that the knotheads in DC can't resist the temptation to throw its weight around in places where it has no business).

The sequestration would temporarily (again, very temporarily -- when these things end, they always end in back pay for furloughed employees, etc.) reduce DoD spending to 2005 levels. I'm sure that all of you remember, as I do, those dark days of eight years ago: Pentagon employees paying for new tanks by putting on bake sales and car washes, pan-handling in Taco Bell parking lots to raise the money for aircraft carriers, etc.

If Rick Scott is serious about improving Florida's economy, he'll ask DC to shut down the military bases, cancel the procurement contracts, and refund the money saved to Florida's taxpayers so that they can spend it on real goods and actually useful services instead of on bureaucrats in Washington and make-work "jobs" for constituents and welfare payments to "defense contractors" in Florida.

* I went with "upcoming" instead of "looming" or "imminent" because the latter two make the thing sound a lot bigger scarier than it actually is.