Guess who introduced one of the most expensive bills to Congress this year?

The National Taxpayers Union Foundation (NTUF) routinely scores legislation based upon how much money the bill will spend or save. During this 113th Congress, more than 2800 bill have been introduced in the House and Senate.

They recently did a top 10 list of the bills that would enact the largest spending increases - and guess who ended up on the list?

Our very own Rep. Marcy Kaptur.

Her bill, H.R. 188, to create a new Civilian Conservation Corps, comes in at $16 billion, making it the sixth most expensive bill introduced so far. She introduced it on January 4th and it was referred to the Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Training on March 23rd.

The official title:

21st Century Civilian Conservation Corps Act: To authorize the President to reestablish the Civilian Conservation Corps as a means of providing gainful employment to unemployed and underemployed citizens of the United States through the performance of useful public work, and for other purposes.

So Kaptur wants the federal government, which is trillions of dollars in debt, to spend another $16 billion each year to hire people to do work like planting trees, clearing paths and trails in parks and preventing forest fires. Oh - and while they're doing the work, the government will provide housing and transportation for them as well.

Why don't we just hire a bunch of people to dig holes and fill them up?

This would not 'solve' the unemployment problem. It just takes more money from the productive people (those individuals and businesses who are paying taxes) and diverts it to the government for 'busy work.'

And what happens when companies and individuals have less money? They don't hire people to do work for them.

It's a vicious cycle: the more the government takes, the less the people have to spend on purchasing, which means the less demand for products which means the less need for new employees to create the products which means less hiring.

Some would say that government can stimulate an economy by creating a demand. While that is technically true on a temporary basis, it doesn't lead to real growth. We've seen that in the green energy boondoggle where the companies fail the minute the government subsidies (fake demand) end.

So, given the facts of history, why would we spend $16 billion a year for the next four years to pay people to do busy work when we know it won't address the real problem of a lack of jobs?

Economist Thomas Sowell, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute, has the answer (emphasis added):

Back in the 1930s, Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration hired more young men in the Civilian Conservation Corps than there were in the U.S. Army. But that never brought unemployment down into single digits at any point during that entire decade. As late as the spring of 1939, the unemployment rate was 20 percent.

Government-created jobs did not mean a net increase in jobs then -- or now. But this is only mundane reality. What makes a great political talking point is government coming to the rescue of the unemployed by creating jobs. That talking point helps politicians get reelected, even if it does nothing for the economy in general or for the unemployment rate.

Indeed.


Here's what NTUF said about the bill:

In 1933, President Roosevelt created the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) as one New Deal solution to mass unemployment during the Great Depression. Through 1943, when it was disbanded, the public program employed a total of 2.5 million men to develop natural resources in rural areas (on government lands) and to build infrastructure for conservation purposes. The CCC provided workers with food, clothing, medicine, and barrack-style housing. Workers received a monthly stipend and the the majority of an enrollee's wages would be sent to their families back home.

Now, almost eighty years later, Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) has introduced legislation to reestablish the CCC. H.R. 188 would employ an unspecified number of jobless citizens to construct and maintain public works. The bill authorizes the President to provide enrollees with "subsistence, clothing, medical attendance and hospitalization, and cash allowance, as may be necessary, during the period they are so employed." Workers would not only labor on projects similar to the original CCC but also on control of plant disease and pests. There is also a provision that would allow the President to assign tasks not explicitly outlined in the bill as he sees fit, as long as it employs otherwise unemployed people.

Here is the complete list of the top 10 most expensive bills introduced to Congress so far:

* H.R. 676, the Expanded & Improved Medicare For All Act
Sponsor: Rep. John Conyers (D-MI)
Cost: $1.16 trillion

* H.R. 1200, the American Health Security Act of 2013
Sponsor: Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA)
Cost: $824.5 billion

* S. 627, the Medical Innovation Prize Fund Act
Sponsor: Senator Bernard Sanders (I-VT)
Cost: $108.5 billion

* H.R. 870, the Humphrey-Hawkins 21st Century Full Employment and Training Act of 2013
Sponsor: Rep. John Conyers (D-MI)
Cost: $100.5 billion

* H.R. 1617, the Emergency Jobs to Restore the American Dream Act
Sponsor: Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL)
Cost: $45.6 billion

* H.R. 188, the 21st Century Civilian Conservation Corps Act
Sponsor: Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH)
Cost: $16 billion

* H.R. 152, the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act, 2013
Sponsor: Rep. Harold Rogers (R-KY)
Cost: $10.02 billion

* H.R. 808, the Department of Peacebuilding Act of 2013
Sponsor: Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA)
Cost: $10 billion

* H.R. 974/S. 387, the MOVE Freight Act of 2013
Sponsors: Rep. Albio Sires (D-NJ) and Senator John Rockefeller (D-WV)
Cost: $5.6 billion

* S. 108, the IDEA Full Funding Act;
Sponsor: Senator David Vitter (R-LA)
Cost: $5.4 billion

*** Bills are scored as introduced. The NTUF scores are preliminary, subject to change, and annualized.

Miscellaneous Monday Matters

* Chris Stirewalt, of the Washington Examiner, has an interesting column about President Barack Obama and his relationship with the media. I recommend you read "The thrill is gone for Obama and the media" and note toward the end of the column where he says something similar to my comments in this post about how Obama is still in campaign mode.

* Thomas Sowell, one of my all-time favorites, has a (currently) four-part series called "Whose Medical Decisions?" which are a must-read for anyone who'd like a fresh perspective on the health care bill components currently being considered by Congress.

His first one emphasizes what Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, Obama's own "Special Advisor for Health Policy," has to say about the type of medical care Americans get and how a government-run program will end up rationing care:

Americans also have more of what the article calls "amenities" with their medical care. "Hospital rooms in the United States offer more privacy, comfort and auxiliary services than do hospital rooms in most other countries."

In other words, it is not quantity but quality that is different — and more expensive — about American medical care. This is what Dr. Emanuel's "over-utilization" consists of.

At one time, it would have been none of Dr. Emanuel's business if your physician prescribed the latest medications for you, rather than the cheaper and obsolete medications they replaced. It would have been none of his business if you preferred to have a nice hospital room with "amenities" rather than being in an unsanitary ward with inadequate nursing care, as under the National Health Service in Britain.

The involvement of government gives Dr. Emanuel the leverage to condemn other Americans' choices — and a larger involvement of government will give him the power to force both doctors and patients to change their choices.

His second one explains why it is important that you get to decide how to spend your own money, regardless of how 'society' (meaning politicians) thinks you should spend it - especially when it comes to your health care. He also makes a distinction between 'health' care and 'medical' care - which is rather important when it comes to the legislation.

His Part III column points out Congress's 'bait and switch' - saying the legislation is supposedly to address the 'millions' of Americans who don't have health insurance, but the actual language in the bill has "nothing whatever to do with insuring the uninsured — and everything to do with taking medical decisions out of the hands of doctors and their patients, and transferring those decisions to Washington bureaucrats." He also points out the overlooked fact that many people without insurance can afford it, but choose a different priority for the money - a priority Congress doesn't like and wants to control.

His Part IV urges us to really think not only about the legislation, but about the mindset that leads to such rules, regulations and elimination of our freedom.

What we also should stop to think about is the mindset behind this legislation, which is very consistent with the mindset behind other policies of this administration, whether the particular issue is bailing out General Motors, telling banks who to lend to or appointing "czars" to tell all sorts of people in many walks of life what they can and cannot do.

The idea that government officials can play God from Washington is not a new idea, but it is an idea that is being pushed with new audacity.

Take the time to read the entire columns - it's well worth it.

* I remember reading an article once about how political decisions overrode medical/scientific ones when the issue of AIDS and H.I.V.-infection first became known. I've looked for the article, but cannot find it on line. However, the premise was that standard or routine medical protocols for treating an infectious disease were not implemented in the early days of knowledge of the disease because of political considerations having to do with the gay community and many of the civil rights issues they were bringing forward at the time. Even the original name given the illness - Gay-Related Immune Disease (GRID) - was changed to Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) to address some of these political concerns as well as the spread of the disease among intravenous drug users and hemophiliacs who'd received blood transfusions.

As I remember it, the concern of the article was that a push to make the disease seem more mainstream than it really was prevented a reduction in the spread of the disease because it focused efforts on reducing the stigma of associating the illness with the homosexual lifestyle.

I couldn't help but recall this perspective on the disease as I read this article about potentially requiring circumcision for all baby boys to reduce the risk of H.I.V., even though "the procedure does not seem to protect those at greatest risk here, men who have sex with men."

I suggest you read the news story for more details on the issue.

* Two quotes to remember when it comes to freedom:

"Whatever the individual motives of the censors may be, censorship is a form of social control. It is a means of holding a society together, of arresting the flux which censors fear. And since the fear cannot be appeased, the demands for censorship mount in volume and intensity. And one form of censorship can easily lead to other forms." ~ Carey McWilliams

"As Hitler showed us, a press suppressed does not make a recovery. As Lenin indicated, a press controlled does not revert to a critic’s role. As history reminds us, free speech surrendered is rarely recovered." ~ William J. Small

Sowell: Obama nothing but ego and mouth

Wow - talk about directness! I would say that Thomas Sowell calls a spade a spade, but someone would probably accuse me of some sort of racist comment.

But this column is hard-hitting, direct, and factual, starting with:

"After the big gamble on subprime mortgages that led to the current financial crisis, is there going to be an even bigger gamble, by putting the fate of a nation in the hands of a man whose only qualifications are ego and mouth?

Barack Obama has the kind of cocksure confidence that can only be achieved by not achieving anything else."

He highlights Obama's lack of experience in running any type of enterprise and the corresponding lack of maturity:

"The kind of self-righteous self-confidence that has become Obama's trademark is usually found in sophomores in Ivy League colleges-- very bright and articulate students, utterly untempered by experience in real world.

The signs of Barack Obama's self-centered immaturity are painfully obvious, though ignored by true believers who have poured their hopes into him, and by the media who just want the symbolism and the ideology that Obama represents."

And then he hits just about every issue, in a concise, but biting, way.

On 'redistribution':

"For someone who has actually accomplished nothing to blithely talk about taking away what has been earned by those who have accomplished something, and give it to whomever he chooses in the name of "spreading the wealth," is the kind of casual arrogance that has led to many economic catastrophes in many countries."

On judicial appointments:

"The equally casual ease with which Barack Obama has talked about appointing judges on the basis of their empathies with various segments of the population makes a mockery of the very concept of law."

On the military and foreign relations:

"After this man has wrecked the economy and destroyed constitutional law with his judicial appointments, what can he do for an encore? He can cripple the military and gamble America's future on his ability to sit down with enemy nations and talk them out of causing trouble.

Senator Obama's running mate, Senator Joe Biden, has for years shown the same easy-way-out mindset. Senator Biden has for decades opposed strengthening our military forces. In 1991, Biden urged relying on sanctions to get Saddam Hussein's troops out of Kuwait, instead of military force, despite the demonstrated futility of sanctions as a means of undoing an invasion."

On his choice of a liar as his running mate:

"Flashing his special phony smile, Biden said, "I think I have a much higher IQ than you do." He added, "I went to law school on a full academic scholarship" and "ended up in the top half" of the class.

But Biden did not have a full academic scholarship. Newsweek reported: "He went on a half scholarship based on need. He didn't finish in the 'top half' of his class. He was 76th out of 85." "

Of course, many of these details were conveniently overlooked by the media - and most of Obama's adoring fans. Many have said they'll vote for Obama because he makes them 'feel good.' But that feeling cannot last forever, and eventually, the feelings have to be able to be supported by the acts - and Obama doesn't have a record of such follow-through.

Sowell's column gives all Obama supporters something to THINK about, rather than just bask in the glow of the Obama aura.