The White House has announced that it needs to spend an additional 4 and a half billion dollars to implement a part of its new gun control agenda. The list of new expenses is at the Weekly Standard. Perhaps most revealing of the Washington mindset is the proposal to spend 4 billion to keep 15,000 police officers on the street. Do the math. That’s $266,000.00 per cop.

And, as we said yesterday when writing of the CDC and gun control, that agency gets and extra $10 million for research into gun violence. Another $20 million goes to t he CDC National Violent Death Reporting System to expand its work.

What’s missing? The deliberately nebulous assault weapons ban and the ban on high-capacity clips. Those numbers were not included. In 1994 when the first assault weapons ban was introduced in a package, the cost of the bill was about 45 billion in today’s dollars.

This is your monarchy at work America! You elected him and now we all suffer the consequences of a loss of liberty and more deficit spending.

The Obama/Biden gun control plan includes specific authorization to have the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study gun violence in the USA. It’s one of those seemingly harmless ideas that should be rejected by clear thinking Americans.

The CDC Is The Government

If we have learned anything in the past four years it is that government must be viewed with a healthy dose of suspicion. The massive encroachment into our private lives through healthcare legislation should be enough to remind us of the expansive view of government held by some of our leaders. The President’s declaration that he will act unilaterally via executive orders is also a telling act of the disdain this President has for political discourse and the checks and balances envisioned by our founders.

>”The focus on executive orders is the result of the White House and other Democrats acknowledging the political difficulty of enacting any new gun legislation…” Read more at Politico. 

By authorizing the CDC to collect data on gun crimes, the President is laying the foundation for another massive assault on your privacy. The CDC will also begin to collect data on gun owners too. There is no reason to believe that such data would be restricted or held in any kind of confidence. Already the Left’s minions in the press are publishing the names of gun permit holders. Now all of that information and more will be collected by a government agency. Suddenly, American’s second amendment right is subject to a health and safety review.

The Slope Is Slippery

One of the reasons many gun owners object to permits and licensing in the first place is because they object to a government database of people enjoying their Constitutional rights. The aforementioned publishing of permit holders addresses is precisely the reason why such objections exist.

The CDC idea is just another seemingly harmless way to gather more information about you and your lives.

The CDC Is Not the Only Researcher in Town

For some reason, having a government agency is supposedly better than having truly independent sources study guns and violence. A quick search of scholarly, peer-reviewed publications over the past 10 years shows over 300 articles on various aspects of gun violence, gun ownership and gun control. The research is being conducted by scholarly, academic researchers. Many of those researchers are not friendly to gun ownership. So why is President Obama so desirous of having the CDC collect the data? Perhaps it is because he wants a close-at-hand portfolio of information on gun owners and their habits.

The CDC’s mission has expanded over the years. Today, the CDC budget exceeds $11.2 billion. Does anyone think the CDC can carry out a new mandate and still remain within its budgetary confines? Surely not. Apart from any fear that the CDC will serve as a repository for governmental surveillance of gun owners, this is simply an activity they cannot afford.

Conservative lawmakers must oppose and strongly push back against this Presidential overreach.

The Greek financial crisis is instructive for the United States but it is not identical to where we now find our economy. So far as we know, no one has argued that the two economies are synonymous even though some, like Paul Krugman at the New York Times, seems to think we should pattern our recovery after their abortive attempts to correct a profound economic crisis.

Liberals, of whom Krugman is one, argue that the increasing austerity measures in Greece have worsened their problems. Increasing government spending would help by securing jobs and incomes. What the left misses is the small problem of funding. Greece cannot inject money into their system because they have none. It is also clear that no one, including their EU partners, wants to lend the now defaulted government any cash.

Resources are, by definition, scarce. That’s why they are so important and have even been used as a replacement for cash. The Greeks are out of money and cannot afford to increase spending.

The United States is not in the same mess. At least, not yet.

We have the luxury of making sound decisions now which will prevent us from arriving at the Grecian doorstep of insolvency and societal breakdown. We can do things now, things that may be painful, which will pay massive dividends in the future.

Shrink Government and the Debt

By decreasing the size of government we reduce spending. By decreasing dependence on  the government, we reduce spending even more. By decreasing government imposed red tape we free business to grow.

As business grows jobs increase. With lower taxation the job creators can create more jobs. When done with wisdom and prudence an expanding workforce satisfies the incentive for the job creator to hire even more people. It is a sustainable process which profits everyone and empowers the rising tide that lifts all boats.

Decrease Government and Stabilize the Economy

One of the major reasons businesses are not now expanding is because of uncertain futures. A business owner has no way of knowing what new regulations will cost him. He does not know how Obamacare will actually impact his business and his employees. He does not know if new taxes will soon drain his resources even more.

Tax breaks which are temporary in nature and reviewed every year or so provide no foundation for a stable business environment. Business needs stability to adequately forecast  future needs.

Greek Lessons

We ought learn now that increased government spending does not pay in the long run. While government may be able to briefly cause a spike in the economy it cannot sustain such growth. Indeed, there is a point where the spending and mounting debt becomes impossible to bear. That is where Greece finds itself. It is now forced to make decisions that will certainly shrink their economy at extreme pain. To date, the Greek populace seems unwilling to do the work needed to restore their economy. Trading and financial partners are done enabling their sloth. Pain is certain.

We need not go there. Making firm, solid adjustments now is far better than having harsh market forces making the decisions for us in  the future.