Utopia, you are standing in it!

Writing about federal spending last week, I shared five charts illustrating how the process works and what’s causing America’s fiscal problems.

Most important, I showed that the ever-increasing burden of federal spending is almost entirely the result of domestic spending increasing much faster than what would be needed to keep pace with inflation.

And when I further sliced and diced the numbers, I showed that outlays for entitlements (programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare) were the real problem.

Let’s elaborate.

John Cogan, writing for the Wall Street Journal, summarizes our current predicament.

Since the end of World War II, federal tax revenue has grown 15% faster than national income—while federal spending has grown 50% faster. …all—yes, all—of the increase in federal spending relative to GDP over the past seven decades is attributable to entitlement spending. Since the late 1940s, entitlement claims on…

According to leftists like Bernie Sanders, European nations have wonderfully generous welfare states financed by high tax rates on the rich.

They’re partly right. There are very large welfare states in Europe (though I wouldn’t use “wonderfully” and “generous” to describe systems that have caused economic stagnation and high levels of unemployment).

But they’re wrong about how those welfare states are financed. Yes, tax rates on the rich are onerous, but not that much higher than in the United States. Instead, the big difference between America and Europe is that ordinary people pay much higher taxes on the other side of the Atlantic.

Indeed, I’ve previously cited Tax Foundation data showing that the United States arguably has the most “progressive” tax system in the developed world. Not because we tax the rich more, but simply because we impose comparatively modest burdens on everyone else.

And now we have…

I periodically warn that the United States is on a path to become a European-style welfare state.

That sounds good to some people since it implies lots of goodies paid for by other people.

So I always explain that there’s a downside. The economic data clearly show that there’s been less growth in Europe and this has real-world consequences.

• Europe is diverging from the United States economically, not converging.
• The average American enjoys much higher levels of income and better quality of life.
• America’s poor people have incomes equal to middle-class Europeans.

This is why it’s so depressing that Joe Biden has a radical agenda of higher tax rates and much bigger government.

He wants us to copy an approach that has produced inferior outcomes.

The editorial page of the Wall Street Journal has been sounding the alarm.

In a recent column, Professor Josef…

The Departed (1996) Director: Martin Scorsese

“When I was your age they would say we can become cops or criminals. Today, what I’m saying to you is this: when you’re facing a loaded gun, what’s the difference?“

★★★★☆

Based on a reimagining of the Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs, The Departed brings together an all-star cast to deliver one of the best films of the 2000s. Producer Brad Pitt helped acquire the rights to Infernal Affairs, and with Martin Scorsese on board along with a soup of A-List Hollywood talent (Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Wahlberg, Jack Nicholson, Vera Farmiga, Martin Sheen, and many others), The Departed delivers a compelling, intellectually engaging movie that explores deep themes of identity, belonging, upward mobility, and hope. The title The Departed comes from a Catholic prayer for souls in purgatory (Martin Scorsese was raised Catholic) and in many ways…

Destroying this ….

You know it’s a cult when followers happily justify clear-felling forests to make way for giant industrial wind turbines.

Those that worship wind power have set new standards in cognitive dissonance. One minute they’re ranting about saving the planet; the next they’re leading the charge in its immediate and permanent destruction.

Germany’s so-called ‘Greens’ were the characters that chained themselves to bulldozers in the 1970s; now they’re working the controls, wiping out thousands of acres of Germany’s once lush forests.

That Germany has already been overrun by 30,000 of these things is hardly surprising. It was, after all, their jack-booted ancestors that started it.

But, as the environmental chickens come home to roost, there appear to be at least a few Germans ready to mount a challenge against the destruction wrought by hypocritical ‘Greens’.

Baden-Württemberg Government Announces Plans To Clear Cut State Forest, Build 1000 Turbines

The  Ardern government is  clinging  to  its Covid elimination strategy, even  as  the  Ministry of  Health   is  looking  at the  need for  booster shots for  those  who were  vaccinated  six months  ago.

A new  study  by researchers  in Britain has found that  protection offered  by the Pfizer vaccine,  which is 88% effective  in  the first  month,  begins  to  fade  within five to six months  of  the  second injection.  By  then  it is  only  74%  effective   The Astra-Zeneca  vaccine   is  only  67%  effective   after  about  five  months.

New Zealand’s Director-General of Health, Ashley Bloomfield, today confirmed officials are considering booster injections for those who received their Pfizer vaccines in  February, March  and April.

Among NZ  experts  there  has  been debate  on  whether    booster  shots   would be  necessary. They  agree the Pfizer vaccine is highly effective at preventing serious disease, hospitalisation and death.

Vaccines continue to perform well, including against the Delta…