How Has Big Government
Stuck It to Us Lately?
Stuck It to Us Lately?
Are the following statements True or False? Be careful, some are “tricky.” All false statements are explained below.
#1 Barack Obama on the Today Show yesterday announced his suspicion that ATMs and airport shoeshine machines are a big part of the reason that his $787 Billion stimulus failed to prevent America’s unemployment (now at 9.1%) from exceeding his promised 8.0%.
#2 The LBJ “War on Poverty” was implemented in 1968 with 13% of Americans rated as “POOR people.” Social welfare payments increased to 500% of former levels (a 400% increase) so that by 1980 13% of Americans were still classified as poor .
#3 “Capitalism is leading humanity and the planet to extinction,” according to the prime minister of France.
#4 In Sweden where a cradle-to-grave nanny state supplies free health care; free education; welfare programs and unemployment programs covering 76% of their people at some time in their lives; not to mention big retirement packages . . . the enterprise minister and the government refused to bail out the Saab automobile company.
#5 Federal government employees are restricted in many ways even when they belong to unions. However, thanks to the U.S. Postal Service unions, the post office despite heading for bankruptcy is not being allowed to stop Saturday delivery a step that would immediately alleviate the problem because of their union’s clout in Washington, D.C. As a temporary band-aid, the post office is issuing a new series of 40 American Union Leaders stamps to raise needed money from philatelists (stamp collectors).
#6 541 clean air, water, and waste programs are found in 28 separate government agencies not including the monstrously redundant EPA.
#7 President Obama’s trademark legislation Obamacare actually created a few more federal agencies in just one law then Franklin Delano Roosevelt created in over a dozen years in office.
#8 In Texas, they have a part-time citizen legislature that works for about six months then goes back to real jobs for about 18 months. Our full-time federal law makers (Congress) have put some 62,000 new regulations on the books since GHW Bush left office in January, 1993. Any doubt why business is having such a nasty time creating new jobs?
#9 In 1956 President Eisenhower and Congress passed a 293- page bill authorizing a federal highway act which created our present interstate highway system. When the act was updated in 1991 it was only 28 pages long but the end result cost one third as much for 3% of the highway mileage.
#10 Ronald Reagan’s 1982 Grace Commission came up with 2,478 separate ways to “get the government off the backs of the American people designed to eliminate the deficits and national debt by 1990 in the face of $10.2 TRillion of inefficiency, stagnation, and smothering of the free market IF they were not acted upon. Virtually none of these was acted upon by the four progressive Democratic congresses and despite creating 21 million jobs, Reagan ran up huge deficits while in office.
#11 President Obama’s ‘Trickle-up Economic” ideas have been derided as “Trickle-up Poverty,” but compared to the utterly socialistic French, we are still led by a capitalism-inspired administration.
#12 It takes the average Estonian less than 12 minutes to fill out their income tax forms thanks to a national FLAT tax of 18%. Since the country escaped the clutches of the old USSR, they’ve been known as the “Baltic Tiger” for their incredible national productivity and “a sort of Silicon Valley on the Baltic Sea.” These things will happen when Soviet tanks stop patrolling your streets and communism is left in the dust. Mr. Obama is taken our country in the opposite direction and now wants to create a national police force answerable to him alone.
#13 One of the most succinct criticisms of Barack Obama is that “. . . he doesn’t understand that wealth must first be allowed to be created, before it can be shared.”
Answers: Only the even numbers are true. Here are the explanations for the odd numbered false statements:
#1 Actually shoe shine machines were not the guilty party according to Obama, but rather airport ticket kiosks. However, the real fallacy is Obama’s premise about “automation” in general: When bank ATMs rose by 150% over one ten year period, the number of bank tellers increased by 160%. Similarly, virtually all insurance companies and financial companies in the mid- and late-70’s added EDP (electronic data processing) a.k.a. computer departments on the promise of eliminating huge amounts of clerical staffing. When Rajjpuut worked for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas the company’s employment jumped from roughly 340 to 790 in four and a half years with 85% of the newly hired fitting into either the EDP or the clerical job description.
#2 TRUE
#3 Actually, this was many years ago. At the time the statement was made -- a combined statement from presiding leaders of six countries that could then be considered the armpits of the world: Cuba, Bolivia, Venezuela, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua -- all of which of kept or flirted with communism or abject near-communist socialism. Six countries that needed capitalism to boost their anemic economies were blaming capitalism for all the ills of the world.
#4 TRUE
#5 Only false because of the Union Leader Stamps unless they decided to create them today.
#6 TRUE
#7 Sorry, not just a “few” more but roughly 9.6 times as many new government agencies were created by Obamacare (one law) as FDR created in all his years in office . . . 384 new federal agencies from Obamacare. That’s why it took 2,770 pages . . . it’s not about providing health care, it’s about controlling every aspect of health care, hospitals and doctors and nurses.
#8 TRUE
#9 The original 1956 bill was the shorter one, 28 pages long. The 1991 bill was 293 pages long. And the final cost was close to the same (in constant dollars taking account of inflation) for only 3% of the mileage. In fairness: putting four-lane highways through places like Glenwood Canyon in Colorado does take a lot more effort than flat roads over the Great Plains. However, the strictly environmental considerations; as well as those related to mass transit; auto-pollution; seat belt use; motorcycle helmet use; preservation of historic sites; erosion control; billboard regs; women’s issues; Native American issues; disadvantaged individuals’ issues; use of recycled rubber in road bed asphalt; requirements for specific iron and steel; etc. etc. probably accounted for 66% of the total cost.
#10 TRUE
#11 President Obama in February 2009 weeks after taking office made his infamous “Trickle-up” speech. A month later French President Sarkozy said, “I was not elected to raise taxes (but) to reconcile France with the workplace and factory.” So even the French have turned their backs on redistribution of wealth as an answer to economic problems.
#12 TRUE
#13 Even thought the criticism would suit Barack Obama and 95% of progressive politicians to a “T,” it was actually aimed at the “archaic socialism” of France. Hope you enjoyed the quiz and understand a bit more about the connection between “small minds and big government.”
Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
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