Episode 226 Show Notes- The Reason Why Big Government is the Problem, Not the Solution
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Episode Description
Understanding how big government evolves is fairly easy as human beings’ natural inclination is to look to the government to solve problems. However, at what do we recognize that the bigger government grows, the problems continue to metastasize. While government is a necessary entity, we must recognize its limitations. We must also recognize that big government itself is the problem, not the solution.
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Show Transcript- The Reason Why Big Government is the Problem, Not the Solution
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Intro
Welcome everyone to The P.A.S. Report Podcast.
I hope everyone is enjoying their week. I have a great episode lined up for you, and there are so many things I want to talk about. One of the things I’ve noticed over the last several years is that it’s so hard to just focus on one thing at a time because the news cycles are changing so rapidly, and life is so much more complicated than it was just 20-years ago.
It’s really amazing. Remember when we were told that all this emerging technology is going to make our lives easier. That it would simplify our lives. I don’t know about you, but my life is far more complicated. It never stops. We have all these distractions, and we have information overload where the amount of information we’re taking in each day is overwhelming.
Cutting through the noise is not so easy. It’s actually one of the reasons why I started the podcast. If you’ve noticed, one of the central themes of the podcast is about big government and bureaucratic overreach. It’s about the abuses of power, and how big government is out of control.
Obviously, I talk about a variety of issues, but they all tie into this recurring theme because as our government continues to grow, it seems like the problems we face metastasize.
Also, the idea of big government goes directly against the intent of the founding fathers and the founding principles of this country.
There are too many people who think government exists to solve each and every problem we face. They believe that the government exists to make our lives easier. Well, how’s that working out for everyone? Are we better off today or worse off?
We’ve been debating issues like healthcare, education, immigration, energy, and so many others for the last 50-60 years, and more. Yet here we are still discussing the same problems even though numerous pieces of legislation have been passed in regards to these issues. We’re still discussing the same problems even though these same pieces of legislation were supposed to solve them.
We are constantly told that the federal government is the only entity that can solve these problems. We’re told that the states lack the resources to tackle these critical issues, and so, we’ve federalized just about every issue at the expense of state and local governments.
And these problems continue to grow. It should be abundantly clear that big government hasn’t worked. That big government is not the solution. In reality, we can point a lot of the blame on the big government apparatus that has grown out of control and is impossible to manage. I’ll show you how big government actually creates the problems, and then we empower them further to solve the problem they created.
That’s going to be the focus of this episode.
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The National Institute for Health
So, one of the things I want to bring up is the National Institute of Health (NIH), and the fraud that lord Fauci is. Before I get into the issue, I want to set it up for you.
The NIH was established as the primary agency. This agency took shape in the 1880s serving as the primary agency responsible for public health research. The motto of the NIH is It’s About Life, and their mission statement reads, “NIH’s mission is to seek fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and the application of that knowledge to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce illness and disability.”
It goes on to state, “Among the goals of the agency are to develop, maintain, and renew scientific human and physical resources to ensure a continued high return on the public investment in research, and to exemplify and promote the highest level of scientific integrity, public accountability, and social responsibility in the conduct of science. In realizing these goals, the NIH provides leadership and direction to programs designed to improve the health of the Nation by conducting and supporting research in various areas.” (NIH)
Sounds harmless, right? Sounds like this agency exists for noble intent. I mean who wouldn’t want to advance human life? Who wouldn’t want to cure diseases? Who wouldn’t want to reduce illnesses and disabilities? And who wouldn’t want to promote scientific integrity and public accountability?
Now, let’s take a look at what the NIH really does? On Friday, reports surfaced over what is being defined as “cruel” puppy experiments, but it’s actually worse than that. The NIH approved a study that provided $375,800 where 44 puppies had their heads were locked in mesh cages and filled with sand flies. (The Hill) Some of these dogs had their vocal cords removed, and the sand flies would eat them alive.
The reports are horrifying and grotesque, and there is no good justification for a study like this. You don’t have to be an animal rights activist to realize how immoral and unethical this is. A study like this provides no benefit to the NIH mission of advancing human life.
And guess whose department was responsible for approving this money and study? If you guessed lord Fauci, you’d be correct. The person who is the embodiment of science approved this study, just like he approved the funding of gain-of-function at the Wuhan laboratory.
You know how much a despise this man, but putting all biases aside, why is he still in his position? It’s not like he’s an asset. In fact, he has become a liability to this administration, and nearly half the country has tuned him out.
Mark my words, lord Fauci will end up like emperor Cuomo. The bigger the ego. The more narcissistic and arrogant they are, the harder they fall.
In all honesty, lord Fauci should have been fired long ago with all the contradictory information he put out there. And lord Fauci should be charged for committing perjury in his testimony before Congress. Lord Fauci said that he and the United States did not fund gain of function research, but that was a lie. However, just last week, the NIH came out and publicly acknowledged that under Fauci’s leadership, the United States did fund this research.
However, like emperor Cuomo, it wasn’t the deadliest decision of his March 25th executive order, forcing nursing homes to take in COVID patients even though one of the main things we knew about the virus was how older people are the most vulnerable, that got him fired. It wasn’t how emperor Cuomo used taxpayer state resources to write his book that got him fired. It wasn’t how Cuomo’s family and friends received special privileges during the coronavirus at the expense of ordinary New Yorkers that brought him down. It was sexual harassment claims that took him down.
The same thing will hold true with lord Fauci. He won’t be ruined by lying before Congress or funding gain of research. It will be this story that takes him down. I can almost guarantee it. Watch, three weeks from now, lord Fauci will come out and say that because of the Republicans, he is deciding to step down, and because his holiness also embodies the highest virtue, he doesn’t want to become a distraction for the administration.
Getting back to my point about big government. When you look at the NIH, you’ll find tons of studies that provide no benefit to humanity. Waste taxpayer dollars. Are morally and ethically questionable, and routinely engage in animal cruelty. Just think, Michael Vick went to jail for animal cruelty, yet the NIH routinely funds studies like this.
The NIH funded a study to the tune of $850,000 to learn how cocaine enhances the sex drive of Japanese Quail.
The NIH spent $387,000 providing Swedish massages to rabbits to see if massage therapy helped when recovering from an injury. At the end of the study, the rabbits didn’t get their happy ending. Instead, they were killed.
The NIH also funded a study forcing monkeys to drink alcohol excessively in order to determine the long-term effects on their body tissue. Why did they need to use monkeys, I have no idea? They have found plenty of humans, who are alcoholics, to do this study on.
The NIH spent $4.5-million spraying bobcat urine on alcoholic rats.
There are far more studies than this, but I just wanted to highlight a few when it comes to animal abuse. They also spent $32-million for a study to determine why people’s hair turns gray as they get older.
So, I ask each and every one of you, is this the big government you asked for? Are these studies really necessary? Do you support your tax dollars going to such useless studies, especially considering we have a nearly $30-trillion debt?
Every one of you, regardless of your political affiliation, regardless of whether you’re a republican or democrat, everyone should be outraged.
Instead of talking about defunding the police, maybe we should start talking about defunding the NIH.
Merrick Garland and the Justice Department
When it comes to big government, it’s not just about the ridiculous studies that I mentioned above. Just look at Attorney General Garland’s testimony on Capitol Hill last week.
The Republicans grilled the Attorney General over his memo targeting parents at school board meetings, and potentially labeling them as domestic terrorists. Unfortunately, most republicans grandstand. God forbid they actually ask probing questions. So many of the republicans are pathetic. They would have been better off yielding their time to Congressman Jim Jordan and just let Jordan take the lead.
But they repeatedly asked the Attorney General about who the memo targets. Garland repeatedly stated that the memo is only intended to target those who are engaged in violence or call for violence. This was the go-to answer, and I was going to cut a sound clip of Garland repeating this over and over, but it was just getting me more annoyed and frustrated.
The fact is that the Attorney General was lying. The memo doesn’t just say it will target those engaged in violence or threats of violence. The memo explicitly states that it will also target those trying to intimidate school boards.
From the parts of the hearing I watched, not a single member asked the Attorney General to define what intimidate actually means under this memo. What is the Attorney General’s definition of intimidation? That’s pretty important to know, but not a single Congressmember asked that.
See, the vagueness is the problem because anyone can be ensnared. As I said, what they really don’t like is the tone of the parents, and the ruling class elites don’t like to be criticized. Because so many parents disengaged from the education system and took a hands-off approach, many of these school boards have gotten used to that, and they believe we exist to serve them as opposed to the other way around.
But the republicans, and nearly just about everyone in the media, are missing the bigger picture. The Attorney General’s memo is a direct result of the National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism. No one brought that up at the hearing, and of course, the media never brought it up.
The Attorney General should have been asked about this document. They should have asked the Attorney General to define anti-government and anti-authority sentiment. They should have asked him to define incitement. They should have asked about pillar 1 of the National Strategy where it talks about the private sector serving as the eyes and ears of the government. They should have asked about pillar 2 where it discusses how the government must control the supply and demand of information online. They should have asked about pillar 3, and ask the Attorney General how the terror watchlist will be expanded as vaguely stated in the National Strategy. The Attorney General should have also been asked about pillar 4, where it lays out all democrat and far-left policies necessary to prevent domestic terrorism. He should have been asked point-blank if someone opposes those policies, are they a domestic terrorist?
See these are all questions that should have been asked but weren’t. If the Attorney General was boxed into a corner, he would have had to provide specific definitions on the public record.
Either way, the National Strategy, and school board memo should be withdrawn immediately because this is the natural evolution of big government. When government gets too big, they start targeting its own people.
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Monitoring Americans Financial Transactions.
Just look at what democrats want to put into the $3.5-trillion social welfare bill where they want banks and financial institutions to notify the IRS of any transactions $600 or above, which would pretty much target every single American.
And what would the government do with this information? Would they question us about these transactions? Would we be forced to justify our purchases? To everyone out there, regardless of party, do you really believe that the government should have a right to monitor your spending habits?
They justified this power grab by saying they want to target millionaires and billionaires trying to avoid paying taxes. Does $600 sound like they’re targeting millionaires and billionaires? Now, because of the backlash, the Democrats modified it to transactions totaling $10,000 a month, but that still captures a hell of a lot of middle-class people out there.
Also, I can ensure you that will be the starting point. Once the program is operational, you’ll see that threshold get lower and lower because that’s what big government does.
And I’ll remind everyone that we have something called the Bill of Rights, particularly the 4th and 5th Amendments.
The 4th Amendment states, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
They want to completely do away with the 4th Amendment. If you read the 4th Amendment, it clearly states that Americans will not be subjected to unreasonable search and seizures and that warrants shall not be issued but upon probable cause. What would you call the government looking at our financial transactions where there is no allegation of a crime?
The 5th Amendment states, “…nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law…”
Obviously, this completely violates our due process. Big government wants to see our transactions without any allegations of a crime, and instead of placing the burden of proof on government, we now have to show the burden of proof that we’re doing nothing wrong.
The Temptation of Big Government
Last week, I focused on Eisenhower’s farewell address, and I want to piggyback on the part where Eisenhower talks about how there will always be crises, and there will always be the temptation to look to the government to solve these crises. I just want to play that part of the speech one more time.
Sound Clip Eisenhower
You notice how with every single problem out there; many politicians say they can solve the problem. They always say in order to solve the problem, the government needs more money. We need to expand the bureaucracy, and once the new program is created, the problem will be fixed.
Yet here we are 50, 60, 70-years later, yet we’re still debating the same issues. At what point do we recognize that big government can’t solve the problem. What if big government is actually the one who creates the problem because that’s what normally happens.
Again, this is not something new. President Reagan warned us about this.
Sound Clip Reagan Government is the Problem
2007/2008 Housing Market Collapse
Take the 2007/2008 housing market collapse which led to what some have deemed, “the Great Recession.” Now there are some who think that it was the markets and the financial institutions that created the housing market. They blamed the financial institutions for predatory lending which many were guilty of. But ask why these banks were giving out such risky loans?
When you ask that question, you’ll quickly find that the government was the one that actually created the problem. See, the government was pushing the idea that we need to increase homeownership, and that everyone should own a home regardless of people’s ability to pay for those homes.
With that, the government gave the green light to financial institutions to give mortgages with little money down, and virtually no income verification. Many of these institutions made the calculation that if they give these high-interest, sometimes interest-only loans, then it’s a win-win. The people will make their payments and once they can’t afford to, the banks will simply foreclose and resell the house at an increased value.
Now it’s not to say ordinary people don’t bear any responsibility. If you’re making $50,000 a year and buying a half-million-dollar house, you have to take responsibility as well.
But the whole point is that the government was the one that actually created the problem. And then what happened. The government created the problem, and then when the house of cards collapses, the government says only they have the power to fix the problem.
What did we get? Our taxpayer money was used to bail out irresponsible financial institutions sending us further into debt, and we empowered big government even further consolidating the big banks making them even more powerful, but with the government/taxpayer bailouts, the government now had considerable leverage to force the banks to do what they want.
See how that works.
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Supply Chain Issues
Just look at all the supply chain issues. You now have government officials and the media pushing the idea that there is a huge surge in demand. And now they’re blaming you. They say these issues are the fault of the private sector. That it’s the fault of the unvaccinated. But now they broadened it out to everyone. They say the reason we have these issues is because Americans simply consume too much. They say we’re too materialistic.
I’m not denying that we’re a materialistic culture, and that’s not a good thing, but don’t think for a second that the supply chain issues are because we consume too much. Our consumption hasn’t really changed all that much. Think pre-coronavirus. We never had these massive supply chain bottlenecks. The movement of goods was like clockwork. In the port of Los Angeles and Long Beach, you would have 0-1 container ships waiting to unload. Today there are over a hundred.
Understand. These cargo ships are 3 football fields long, and two football fields wide. They hold thousands of containers with goods waiting to be unloaded, picked up, and distributed throughout the United States.
They’re also trying to blame the supply chain issues on our crumbling infrastructure. They’re pushing this talking point to put pressure on members of Congress to pass the $1.2-trillion infrastructure bill and the $3.5-trillion social welfare monstrosity of a bill that they keep calling “soft” infrastructure.
Understand, the supply chain issues are a direct result of the draconian decrees of, not just little wannabe dictators in our country, but because of authoritarians around the world. See, when you have politicians who have no clue how the economy works, yet they’re the ones determining what’s essential and what’s not. Which businesses can open and which ones can’t, it’s a recipe for disaster.
There are plenty of things that may not seem essential during a pandemic, but they are in fact essential. So again, you have a situation where the government creates the problem in the first place, and now they say only big government can solve the problem.
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Education
Just pick an issue and it’s the same thing. Take education. We spend more on education than nearly every country combined. We spend over $1-trillion a year in education when you factor federal, state, and local spending on K-12 and higher education. (U.S. Government Spending) And that doesn’t even account for all the private spending that takes place.
If you look at a state like New York, according to state officials, we spend over $25,000 per student, and that’s based on the 2018-2019 school year so you can bet it’s a lot higher. (NYS)
We spend all this money, and if you’ve heard me before, you would know that according to the National Report Card, which is issued by the Department of Education, student proficiency levels are a national embarrassment. The National Report Card is the largest assessment of what U.S. students know and can do.
- 23% of graduating seniors are proficient in government and civics
- 19% of graduating seniors are proficient in geography
- 23% of graduating seniors are proficient in math
- 36% of graduating seniors are proficient in reading
- 21% of graduating seniors are proficient in science
- 11% of graduating seniors are proficient in American history, and
- 25% of graduating seniors are proficient in writing (The Nation’s Report Card)
That’s disgraceful. Even worse, something that most media outlets have not reported is that we’ve seen a pretty big drop in the most recent assessment. So, the numbers I provided you were for graduating seniors.
However, for the first time in a half-century, we have witnessed a major decline in 13-year old’s when it comes to reading and math, and that’s pre-covid so just imagine how much worse these numbers are going to be with all the online learning. Well over 50% of American public schools shut down for a year and a half.
And the government talks about the academic gap and the wealth gap. So, it was the government that shut down the schools, and guess what? The academic gap and the wealth gap are going to increase between the haves and have notes. And trust me, as the gap increases, Democrats will scream that it’s due to systemic racism and discrimination, yet it’s their own policies that create this problem.
It Was Never Intended to Grow This Large
I ask each and every one of you out there, with the growth of big government has your life gotten better or worse? As big government continues to get bigger, and the federal apparatus federalizes every issue, have the problems we face dwindled? Have the problems been alleviated, or have they gotten worse?
Of course, many on the left will argue that it’s because the government hasn’t done enough, but when you look at it, the government’s tentacles are on just about everything. How much more do you want the government to manage and control?
It really is amazing. Think about universal healthcare. They harp that they want to get rid of the evil insurance companies. What they don’t tell you is that instead of insurance companies, the government becomes the gatekeepers of your healthcare.
Think about it logically, what do you think, if the government controls healthcare, do you really believe you won’t have to get approvals? Do you really believe that the government won’t deny services? Do you really think the quality of care will improve?
The government has gotten more and more entrenched in healthcare, yet costs continue to soar. Do you think that maybe there is a correlation? It’s not to say we can’t improve the healthcare system, the quality of care, or bring down the cost. There are certain things we can do, and we should develop smart policies.
But putting the government in charge of healthcare will only make things worse because that’s what happens.
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Closing
Do you really believe that government has the ability to manage all these things? The founding fathers created a system where the government would be slow, awkward, inefficient, and complex. They institutionalized conflict as a safeguard to make it more difficult to get anything done.
They created the system of federalism where we have two levels of government, neither of which are created by the other, and both operate independently of each other.
In this system, the federal government will have its powers as defined in the Constitution, and according to the 10th Amendment, which explicitly states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
We have to stop federalizing every issue. We have to stop the knee-jerk response that whenever a problem or issue arises, we run to the government to solve the problems.
Governments, particularly one like ours, were never supposed to be the be-all-end-all. They were never meant to tackle all these issues and we’ve lost sight of this. We’ve also lost sight of the balance that President Eisenhower spoke about. The idea of balance. The balance between what is desirable vs. what we need. The balance between essential requirements of government vs. our responsibilities as individuals. The balance between action of the moment vs. the national welfare of the future.
We’ve also lost sight of the separation of powers, where at both the federal and the state level, we have three branches of government that fulfill different philosophical purposes, serve for different terms, and serve different constituencies.
The legislative branch exists to make laws. The executive branch enforces the law, and the judicial branch serves as the referee making sure that the legislative and executive branches don’t overstep their constitutional boundaries.
Sadly, all three branches have abdicated their responsibilities. The legislative branch has rendered itself irrelevant by allowing chief executives to rule by decree. They’ve also failed to provide an ounce of oversight and hold administrative agencies and officials accountable in any way.
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Chief executives have become petty tyrants who believe they have the power and ability to rule by decree. They believe the legislative branch exists to simply validate their agendas.
Then you have the judicial branch that has shown way too much deference to chief executives and the bureaucracy where they give the benefit of the doubt to the government over the people.
We continue down this path, what are you really going to leave to future generations? Do you really think your children, and your children’s children, will be better off with more and more government in their lives? Do you think they will live better lives if their servants to the government?
You name the problem or issue, and I can show you how big government has made the problem worse. I’ll show you how, in a lot of cases, big government actually created the problem.
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