The Citizens Against Government Waste applauded Jeff Sessions for his efforts to help reduce the amount of federal pork.  They released their annual “Pig Book” today and thanks to the GOP led Congress only passing two of the eleven spending bills they saw the amount of pork was down last year.  Here are some of the pork projects that CAGW highlighted:

• $5,500,000 for the Gallo Center to study the effects of alcohol and drug abuse on the brain;
• $1,650,000 to improve the shelf life of vegetables;
• $1,350,000 for the Obesity in the Military Research Program; and
• $1,000,000 for a telescope searching for extra-terrestrial intelligence.

An economics professor at Jacksonville State University and adjunct scholar at the Ludwig von Mises Institute named Chris Westley had some less than flattering things to say about Sessions’ plan to create a government mandated savings plan.

Westley took issue with the plan’s “free” $1,000 deposit to all children born in the U.S.  There are about 4.1 million people born here every year.  For those of you that the government left behind that comes out to $4.1 billion every year.  Even Sessions had to admit that his $1,000 estimate might be a bit high.

The worker’s contribution would be withheld pre-tax, with the mandatory employer match being tax deductible. The mandatory contribution would apply only to the first $100,000 of a worker’s annual wages. Taxes would be withheld from the amounts withdrawn at the account holder’s income tax rate at that time.

Westley said the contribution from the employer is largely a fiction, as employers will pass the cost to employees in the form of lower wages or reduced hiring.

I take issue with the language of calling the compulsory savings a “contribution.”  The dictionary defines contributing as an act of giving, and giving is defined as presenting something “voluntarily,” which is the polar opposite of this plan.

Westley is dead on about the employer contribution really coming from the pockets of employees, which I pointed out about a week ago.

Westley also pointed out something I hadn’t considered.  The PLUS funds might be restricted to stocks of select companies, which will create a two tiered market of government approved, and presumably less risky, companies that see a huge influx of capital from citizens who have no choice but to invest their money and non-approved companies that will be put at a competitive disadvantage by not being able to access the PLUS capital.  The government approved companies would, of course, have to subject themselves to even greater scrutiny than what Sarbanes-Oxley imposes.  Westly suggests that this could lead to government control of capital markets.

Sessions’ plan does have a bright spot of sorts:

Westley said the main advantage of the plan might be one Sessions cannot politically acknowledge: erosion of the Social Security system.

“It seems to be based on the hope that it will so outperform Social Security that it will create political demand to restrict Social Security or abolish it in the future,” Westley said.

The acronym for PLUS is Personal Lifelong Universal Savings, by the way.  Why the hell is every politician throwing the word universal into every policy name these days?  The ironic thing is that every plan they propose is decidedly non-universal since they only pertain to this country.  I think we should call the Sessions accounts Mandated Individual Never-ending Universal Savings, or MINUS accounts.

Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions thinks he has found the cure to America’s saving problem: compulsory savings.

Here is how his plan works.  The government will take 1% of your paycheck from you before you ever see it and put it into an investment account.  The government will also take 1% of your pay from your employer and put it into the same account.  You will not be able to access your money until you retire.

I am disgusted that he is even floating this idea.  It is a horrible plan.  The problem he is trying to address is simple: people are spending more than they earn.  Does he really think that by reducing everyone’s take home pay by 2% will automatically snap people into fiscal sanity?  I would hazard a guess that people will go ever more into debt buying roughly the same amount of stuff, maybe a little less, as before except then they will have less money in their pocket when they start the shopping spree.

And don’t think for one second that the whole 2% isn’t coming out of your pocket.  1% is direct and the other 1% is hidden.  Whether your employer reduces your wages by 1% or passes the cost on to consumers, which causes prices to rise by about 1% and eroding the purchasing power of that “free” money, it is your money.

Going back to the root problem of people spending more than they are making, I have a novel solution.  How about the government not take so much in taxes to begin with so that people have more money in their pocket that they can choose to save if they so desire.

I wrote a post about China’s very high savings rate not too long ago.  One of the reasons their citizens save a substantial percentage of their income is that they don’t have the same welfare net that we do (social security and medicare/medicade).  Their citizens actually have to plan for the future and be prepared to be able to pay for it themselves, which they do.  Our own rickety system is ripe for meltdown long before people of my generation are eligible due to cowardly politicians not taking the appropriate steps to measure out the benefits in an affordable manner.  Maybe if our citizens didn’t have such a feeling of (false) security then they might actually save for the future as well.

Let’s also not avoid the elephant in the corner, which is the penchant for the American consumer to purchase things that they A) do not need and B) cannot afford.  This isn’t the government’s fault except for the apparent fact that the government schools did nothing to educate children about financial responsibility.  Yes, that should be the responsibility of the parents, but lets not kid ourselves.  The government schools already broach a number of subjects that are the responsibility of the parents (such as sex education) so that is a poor excuse.  I don’t think there is a short term solution for this one.  I suppose the government could implement draconian, aconstitutional restrictions on advertising or use an income scale to determine if you are capable of purchasing a particular item, but those are unrealistic options.  The sad fact is that only time and circumstance can justly reward and punish individuals for their own decisions and bring about a change in habits.

Courtesy of Jeff Sessions regarding Bush’s SOTU address:

“There was a bit of a different feel in the room.  It maybe didn’t have the same electricity as in those first few years.”

More and more legislators from both sides of the political aisle are looking at Massachusetts’ “landmark” healthcare plan as a way to expand coverage to all Americans.  Even Jeff Sessions is expressing interest.

Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama and a member of the HELP Committee, said, “It has aspects I’m interested in. I think it merits some examination.”

The jury is still out on the plan in my opinion.  I have some philosophical misgivings with it, but it may be the most attractive compromise available.  The federal government should move slowly and allow the MA plan to mature so flaws (especially copious red ink) and fixes can be identified.

Good op-ed on the topic here.

Wahl notes that, in 2004, 115 countries supported a resolution before the United Nations General Assembly to study international taxes to finance development.

…

While there is a drive for international taxation to finance international development goals, it’s worth asking just how well the UN is managing the money it now has.

…

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has been critical of the lack of transparency and adherence to sound management principles at the UN. Thomas Melito, Director of International Affairs and Trade at GAO, testified earlier this year before the Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, chaired by Senator Thomas Coburn, M.D. (R-OK). Melito stated that “experts have called on the UN to correct serious weaknesses in its procurement process for more than a decade, including the lack of an independent process for considering vendor protests and ensuring selection of qualified vendors. However, recent audits and investigations have uncovered evidence of corruption and mismanagement in the UN’s procurement activities.”

…

Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) recognizes the dangerous folly of international taxation. Fortunately, Inhofe, like Coburn, dares to take action when others simply sit back. Inhofe has introduced S. 3633, the “Protection against United Nations Taxation Act of 2006” (PUNT Act).  It would “…require the withholding of United States contributions to the United Nations until the President certifies that the United Nations is not engaged in global taxation schemes.”  Thirty-two United States Senators are co-sponsors, including leading conservatives Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Coburn, as well as a leading moderate, Olympia P.  Snowe (R-ME). Ben Nelson (D-NE), a moderate Democrat, also is a co-sponsor.

…

We see the folly of sending hard-earned income to Washington via our income taxes, only to see it wasted and squandered by the Federal Government. Now are we supposed to send money to the United Nations, to a bureaucracy over which we have even less say and which has proven itself to be even more unaccountable and inefficient than the Federal Government? Now are we supposed to send our money to an international organization to which we already contribute 22% of the UN’s regular biennial budget but in which we are regularly outvoted on the floor of the General Assembly?

From Slate.com:

In federal court, crack offenses generate sentences 100 times greater than comparable powder-cocaine crimes. In other words, while it takes 500 grams of cocaine to trigger a five-year mandatory minimum sentence, 5 grams of crack earns the same punishment. Last month, four senators introduced a bill to close that gap. The proposed bipartisan legislation, sponsored by Republicans John Cornyn and Jeff Sessions along with Democrats Mark Pryor and Ken Salazar, would reduce the penalty ratio from 100-to-1 to 20-to-1 by increasing powder penalties slightly while decreasing crack sentences significantly.

The 100-to-1 penalty ratio dates from 1986, when lawmakers established mandatory minimum sentences in response to widespread fear of a crack epidemic. For years judges have railed against the heavy crack sentences as unfair, and Congress has considered amending them before. What’s different this time is that the judges are doing more than complaining. Seizing on a Supreme Court decision that expanded their discretion over sentencing, judges have justified less harsh punishments for some crack offenders by trumpeting the sentencing scale’s many faults. And rather than ignoring the judges or trying to silence them, Congress may actually be listening, for a change.

From Porkbusters:

Senators Tom Coburn and Barak Obama have proposed S.2590, legislation that would create a single website with access to information on nearly all recipients of federal funding. The bill cannot proceed, however, because one or more Senators placed a “secret hold” on it.

Who is the secret holder? We want to know, and we want your help finding out. Call your Senator, and ask them to go on the record denying that they placed the hold. Then e-mail Porkbusters and let us know what they said! Senators who issue denials will be removed from the suspect list — and those who do not, won’t!

By the way, both Alabama Senators, Sessions and Shelby, are listed as “in the clear,” which means they were willing to go on record as saying they are not responsible for holding up the bill.  The list of co-sponsors of this bill is quite diverse - Frist, Reid, Clinton, and McCain.

Riehl World Veiw speculates that Trent Lott may be the guilty party.  While he has appropriate motive, I didn’t see the same thing Riehl saw on Thomas.  It looks like the bill is in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs  Committee, which Coburn is a member of.

Contact your senator and get the straight answer!

Sen. Sessions points out the problems with the Pence-Hutchison immigration reform proposal in an op-ed in today’s Washington Times.  See excerpts below.

The Pence-Hutchison immigration-reform proposal, like the other prominent plans, fails to address critical issues relating to meaningful immigration reform. It must not become law.

This plan swallows hook, line and sinker the idea that as long as there is a foreign worker wanting to come to America, and an American company that wants to hire the individual, the foreign worker should be admitted, allowed to work and put on a path to citizenship.

…in establishing a good immigration policy for the United States through comprehensive reform, it is critical to decide the number of immigrants we can accept and the skills we want them to possess. Clearly, these decisions should be based on the national interest, not special interests. 

Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) interviewed Congressman John Linder (R-GA) about the FairTax on the May edition of his monthly televised interview forum, “In Session with Jeff Sessions.” 

This interview is a direct result of those of us in Alabama who support the FairTax calling and writing Sen. Sessions’ office and requesting that he interview Congressman Linder about the FairTax.  Sen. Sessions is currently listed as “Leans For” on the scorecard, but he is a strong fiscal conservative and (in my opinion) will very likely sign the FairTax Bill when it reaches the Senate.

Because of this interview we at least know that he is aware of the FairTax and is knowledgeable about how and why it will work. It is also proof that our elected representatives listen when we petition them about an important issue.

Please fax, call, or e-mail Sen. Sessions office and express your appreciation for him addressing the FairTax legislation and encourage him to sponsor S. 25.