Tales From the Over Regulated State #19 - Your Property Belongs to Threatened Species

I should say threatened, endangered or whatever critter has gotten favor from the Over Regulated State.

A friend living a few blocks over, I'll call him "Tim", tells me one of those stories that sends ice through the hearts of homeowners.  One night a few weeks ago, Tim's wife told him she saw a gopher tortoise near a back corner of their house.   Gophers are called that because they're borrowing tortoises and he became concerned about it perhaps digging enough that it undermines the foundation.  The next day he went out and found piles of sand next to a burrow apparently going directly under the house.  Some research showed that they ordinarily tunnel at a shallow angle and probably wouldn't endanger the foundation, but after considering the possibility concluded that they'd rather the critter not be under their house.  That's when the "fun" started.

That's when he found out that it's illegal.  Gophers are considered endangered both by the state of Florida and the Fed.gov, and one doesn't simply pick up the tortoise and move it as they please.  Oh, no.  There's a process.  The Fish and Wildlife Commission states:

If you have gopher tortoises on your property, you need to get a FWC relocation permit before disturbing the burrows.  A disturbance includes any type of work within 25 feet of a gopher tortoise burrow. Most typical activities associated with residential lawn and landscape maintenance do not require a permit, provided they do not collapse gopher tortoise burrows or harm gopher tortoises.

I read that to say if you don't get a permit and you do accidentally collapse a gopher tortoise burrow while mowing, or God forbid hurt one, "you're in a heap of trouble".  Continuing...

The 10 or Fewer Burrows Relocation permit is for projects, usually single residential construction, which require the relocation of five or fewer tortoises (10 burrows or less).

If tortoises are going to be relocated on-site (within the boundary of the development specified in the application) the individual capturing and relocating the tortoises must complete the FWC online training prior to capturing gopher tortoises. If tortoises will be relocated off-site (outside the boundary of the development specified in the application) a permitted authorized agent must capture and relocate the tortoises.

Notice that all a homeowner is allowed to do, even after taking the one course and getting the state's permission, is to move the tortoise within the boundaries of their property.  If they want to move the animal off their property, they can't just drive it to a nearby park, for example, they're only allowed to use a state-certified recipient site.  And the homeowner can't just capture the tortoise, put it on a pillow, and have a helper fan the tortoise with a palm frond while they drive it to the recipient site; the transfer can only be done by an Authorized Agent.  Being an affair of state, don't expect to get away with doing this at no cost, either:

To obtain a 10 or Fewer Burrows permit, the individual handling the gopher tortoise(s) must either complete the online e-Learning curriculum or have an Authorized Gopher Tortoise Agent permit, and submit a $207 mitigation contribution.

Tim had to take the one hour online FWC training to get the permit to capture his new (rent-free) tenant.  He took the course and found that the system didn't credit him for taking it.  Annoyed by this point, he sat back and waited.  A few days later, an email from the State FWC's IT department told him they fixed it and he was given his due credit.

The tortoise, though, remains under the house.  Tim says that in the early morning quiet, he can hear the sound of the tortoise's home theater system coming through the concrete slab and in the mornings, it smells of stale beer outside.  No, that last sentence isn't true.  I totally made that up.   

The disturbing part of this is how common it is.  All across the country, we hear stories of threatened or endangered species interfering with people's activities.  Consider how the diminutive delta smelt's threatened status led to stopping irrigation in California's central valley, some of the richest farmland in America.  The resulting man-made drought continues to this day.  Need I point out that the real problem is conflict between people using the smelt to argue for restoration of a "Garden of Eden", pre-human California, and people who argue humans have rights, too?  The irrigation pumps were stopped despite genuine debate that they were responsible for the smelt's decline.   It's a recurring theme around the country.

Tales From the Over Regulated State # 18 - Redefining Employment

The National Labor Relations Board issued a ruling that will dramatically impact franchise agreements, and could lead to franchises completely going away.  Franchising has always been based on an independent business model; that is, compared to a company opening another branch or office, a franchisee got the benefit of the name but was essentially an independent business who (for fees) could operate essentially as they wanted.  This ruling turns that upside down.  From PJ Media:

The National Labor Relations Board issued a ruling that revised its “joint employer” standard, making the parent company of independently owned franchises responsible for many labor practices.

The case at issue involved a California Teamsters local who asked the NLRB to declare Browning-Ferris and a staffing agency “joint employers.” The staffing firm, Leadpoint Business Services out of Phoenix, had been supplying Browning-Ferris with temporary workers and the Teamsters wanted the board to recognize the bargaining rights of the subcontracted labor.

Years ago, in my first "supervisor" position, I was sent to a seminar on unions, who were trying to unionize the electronics company I was in at the time.  The saying then (under Jimmy Carter) was, "never assume the NLRB arbitration is fair or objective".  Damn near 40 years later, no real change.

What the NLRB has done here is to say that the franchising corporation is jointly responsible for the actions of a franchisee.  It also means unions no longer need to be concerned with organizing every franchisee in the country (for giants like Burger King or McDonald's); they could unionize entire operations by simply organizing at the "home office".  Rueters reports,

The board, in a 3-2 decision that will likely be appealed in U.S. court, said the existing standard, under which companies had to have “direct and immediate control” over employment matters such as hiring and firing to be considered employers, was outdated and did not reflect the realities of the 21st century workforce.

“We will no longer require that a joint employer not only possess the authority to control employees’ terms and conditions of employment, but also exercise that authority,” Board Chairman Mark Pearce wrote.

The decision means large companies that use a franchise model or staffing agencies will in many cases be required to bargain directly with unions and employees, potentially making it easier for them to win higher wages and better working conditions.
...
Michael Lotito, a lawyer at Littler Mendelson in San Francisco who works with industry groups, said companies will have two main options moving forward: take more control over workers, which would upend existing business models, or back away and risk losing control over brand identity.

“The NLRB has totally upset the apple cart with respect to an understanding over accepted business risk,” he said
...
The decision came as McDonald’s Corp (MCD.N) is facing a series of NLRB cases brought against dozens of its franchisees around the country. The fast food giant has argued that it is not a joint employer because it does not hire and fire franchise workers, and Thursday’s decision may make it more difficult for the company to make its case.

The articles focus on companies like McDonald's and Burger King, but franchising is very wide spread and by no means ends with food services.  There are franchise systems in education, home furnishings,  clothing, oil change chains, gas stations, convenience stores, fitness stores, coaching, tanning salons; essentially "you name it".  When I was about 10 or 15 years younger and contemplating other things to do in life, I considered buying a franchise for a Woodcraft store, so add woodworking stores. 

In essence, as the dissenting members of the NLRB said, they've redefined employment.  PJ Media states:

Franchises account for more than $2 trillion of America’s economy. There are more than 800,000 franchises nationwide with more than 18 million employees. All of that is threatened by the ruling of the labor board that seeks to destroy independent franchise business owners.

Why should any business want to sell franchises anymore if they become responsible for everything the franchisees do?  It implies the franchisers will be responsible for (read: subject to lawsuits over) hiring and firing decisions, and possibly every aspect of policies and procedures the franchisees will implement.  If a franchise holder fires an employee, that employee can apparently sue both their "local" boss and the national corporation.  Franchise owners buy franchises as a way to get national name recognition as they start a business while still usually retaining more flexibility over these sorts of mundane policies.  That freedom goes away under this ruling.

This is yet another example of the problem of the effects of government agencies writing law on their own without going through congress.  This ruling will be appealed, but assume for a moment they get a friendly judge and the ruling is upheld.  They've then changed the nature of full time employment nationwide, not just for the 18 million people working for a franchise, but for everyone.  It's impossible to estimate what sort of effect it would have, but one possibility is that full time employment eventually ends. People contract to some business and are self-employed small businesses for their entire working lives.  It's something I think I've seen coming for years.

(source)

Note to really long time readers: I knew I've done a lot of these "Tales From the Over Regulated State", but since I never started to number them, they were always hard to search for.  I just used the search tool in the upper left to search on Over Regulated and see how many there have been.  This seems to be number 18, so I'll use this number and try to number from now on.

Tales From the Over-Regulated State

The Over-Regulated State doesn't sound quite as dramatic as Police State, but what are those police going to enforce except regulations?  One of Ayn Rand's more memorable quotes is:

"There's no way to rule innocent men.  The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals.  Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them.  One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws."

There's a joke picture going around; perhaps you've seen this referred to a "The Compleat Guide to Women, Volume 1" (for example, here)

 

When I saw it, I thought "Code of Federal Regulations, Volume 1 of 9247, Abridged Edition"  

From the TechDirt pages, it seems the Fed.gov hydra wants to make it illegal to embed videos.   Naturally, if they're going to say such a thing they have to define the terms, so our Glorious Betters have decided:

If you embed a YouTube video that turns out to be infringing, and more than 10 people view it because of your link... you could be facing five years in jail.

Now, as for why it's a 5 year term if 10 people watch but not punishable if 8 people watch it, you'll have to ask our insect overlords.  Since having 20 people watch it is not materially worse than 10, that means 10 is some sort of magic number.   But just think of all the criminals they can create this way.  It's fantastic!

Does your head hurt?

How about Net Neutrality?  I've blogged on this a bunch of times (just enter the term in the search bar and you can read them in reverse chronological order), especially the incestuous relationship between FCC Chairman Julius "Seizure" Genachowski, and Robert McChesney of the openly Marxist "Free Press".  The two go way back.  I've said a bunch of times (in more words) that McChesney and "Free Press" would write the laws and the FCC will copy them onto their letterhead.

Who would have guessed? 

(Judicial Watch President Tom) Fitton added that "the FCC is supposed to be an independent agency that follows the law. The American people should be deeply troubled by the fact that the Obama administration, on issue after issue, seems to be run by shadowy leftist organizations."

Word.

More Tales From the Over Regulated State - A Series

Are you from the People's Republic of Massachusetts?  Do you vacation there?  (For God's sake, why, man?)  Then perhaps you've been to or heard of Great Brook Farm State Park in Carlisle, Mass.  Serious criminal activity has been taking place there.  You see, someone has modified their ice cream stand without the proper approvals from the Authoriteh and they had to be put in their place! (source) 

The park's popular ice-cream stand was unexpectedly shut down by state officials over the weekend, after the stand's operator made building improvements at the site without getting permission first.

Mark Duffy, who has operated the dairy farm at the state-owned park for 26 years and has a lease with the state to run the stand, said armed Environmental Police officers showed up at stand on Friday evening and stood guard throughout the weekend, turning away customers craving delectable sundaes and frappes. [emphasis mine - GB]

See, they discovered that Mr. Duffy had done "improvements" to the buildings without paying his tribute to the state for their blessings, so the state officials (in this case, properly referred to as "Mass-holes"), deprived of their licensing fees, responded in the only way they know: armed and in force.  I'm sure they would look at you as if you had the proverbial lobsters crawling out of your ears if you questioned what good this process did for anyone involved, other than the state.  And then they'd ask you if you had a permit for the lobsters in your ears out of season and fine you for not having it. 

I'm sure that PRM is such a paradise with so few problems that the crime of "unauthorized construction" simply must be top shelf.  I'm equally sure that if you said that to them, you'd get a rifle butt in the face.  Edward Lambert, commissioner of the Department of Conservation and Recreation, said he is trying to protect the public's health and safety while tests are conducted at the site.  It's all about public safety.  You never can tell when shoddy work is going to hurt someone. 

I realize that most people would say they want building inspectors  and some sort of "independent body" (as if states ever are) to vouch that generally recognized building practices are used, but come on, Massachusetts, do you really need to shut down a business, send 13 kids home with no pay and remove a reason for visitors to go to the park?  Do you really need to stage an armed raid?  And why does the "Environmental Police" even have armed officers?  Jealous because the Department of Education had guns and you didn't? 

More Tales From the Over Regulated State - A Series

wherein tonight's episode can be called, "You Owe Us".

It's one thing to live in a state with income tax, as most folks do (and I don't).  You expect a tax bill and you budget to pay it.  But what do you do when you get taxed by a state you don't live in?  Worse yet, what if they just raid your bank account for the alleged tax - and make you pay for the privilege?

I was tipped in a private email from GardenSerf to two articles on Charles Hugh Smith's blog, "Of Two Minds".  In "Welcome to the Predatory State of California - Even If You Don't Live There"  Charles opens the story this way:

On March 14, he received a letter from the California Franchise Tax Board (the agency that collects income taxes) claiming that he owed $1,343 for the tax year 2006. This was the first notification he'd ever received of this claim. This was an interesting claim given that R.T.:

-- Did not reside in California in 2006

-- Did not file a State income tax return in California in 2006

-- Did not have any outstanding tax issues with California in 2006

-- Did no business in California in 2006

-- Owned no property in California in 2006

He goes on to say:

But the truly interesting part of the story is that the state took $1,343 out of R.T.'s Wells Fargo bank account on March 2, prior to notifying him of the claim. Wells Fargo charged R.T. $100 for handling the removal of his $1,343.  

Round about this point,  my chin was reaching almost record separations from my upper teeth.  By the next day, in Part 2 of the article, other folks had emailed to tell similar stories!

1. The old "you didn't pay a $25 filing fee, the fine is now $499 which we took from your bank account." Never mind you have the cancelled check endorsed by the state, proving they received it and cashed it; the Board of Kafkaesque Authority claims "we didn't get the check" and loots your account for the $499 (true story.)

2. "Fishing expeditions" where companies and citizens are dunned for taxes and fees they might owe, though there is no evidence they do in fact owe fees and taxes. I received many emails describing these fishing expeditions, for example, merely having a license is "evidence" that you must have unreported income.

3. Enforce all sorts of dubious claims, most importantly:

A. That anyone collecting a pension from work performed while residing in California is liable for California taxes on that pension, regardless of where they live;

B. Any income resulting from something invented in California must be reported as income in California, regardless of where the income is derived from or where the inventor now lives. [emphasis added - GB]

I read that as California claims that if you thought of something simply while passing through their state that they are owed income tax on it no matter where you set up shop to make money off your idea, or where you live.  What power!  Anyone who invents something that makes them enough money to stand out from the crowd had better hope it can never be shown that they went through California on a trip - or (I imagine) even just changed planes.  How can anyone prove where the creative spark occurred? 

Lest you think this far-fetched, please consider this report sent to me by correspondent J.J.: Will California Gamble in Las Vegas? The Stakes are High in the Gilbert Hyatt Case:

To summarize, the California FTB sued Gilbert Hyatt, an inventor of a microprocessor chip, for tax fraud. The FTB claimed that Mr. Hyatt did not file a return for the income derived from his invention. Mr. Hyatt claimed he was already a Nevada resident at the time he invented the chip; California claimed otherwise. Whether that case has merit is still to be decided and could lead to a recovery of around $50M for the FTB, including penalties and interest, which account for over 80% of the total.

The real issue, however, is the FTB’s misconduct in pursuing Mr. Hyatt in Nevada. According to Bill Leonard, a member of the California State Board of Equalization, as published in his newsletter:

Tax agents rummaged through his trash without warrants, visited business partners and doctors, and shared his Social Security Number and other personal information with the media. This is outrageous behavior and I call on the FTB to rein in their agents. What really galled me is the FTB testified in open court that this level of harassment was only a typical audit. If true, then the stormtroopers are alive and well at the FTB.

This case appears unusual. Most of them seem to be stealing money at a level where it just doesn't make sense to hire lawyers and fight to the death.  They take $500 and make you spend $2000 to get it back - most people give up and write off the loss.  Which is what they're counting on, of course.  

As usual, California is merely the first to do insane or corrupt things, and similar attempts are showing up around the country as bankrupt governments at all levels scramble to get more money.   This is banana republic stuff.  Welcome to the Fascist States of Amerika.

Tales From the Over Regulated State # 24 - Respect Our Authoritah

Does your area have those automated red light cameras that generate automatic traffic tickets if it "thinks" you've run a light?  Pushed by a handful of companies that sell the cameras as revenue streams (once they take their third - or half), they spilled into the country a decade ago.  Some had infiltrated my area at one time, but now appear to be going away.  This story, though takes place in Oregon, which is nearly as far as you can get from here and still be on the CONUS.  Reason Magazine online has the story.

When Mats Järlström's wife got snagged by one of Oregon's red light cameras in 2013, he challenged the ticket by questioning the timing of the yellow lights at intersections where cameras had been installed.

Since then, his research into red light cameras has earned him attention in local and national media—in 2014, he presented his evidence on an episode of "60 Minutes"—and an invitation to present at last year's annual meeting of the Institute of Transportation Engineers.

It also got him a $500 fine from the Oregon State Board of Examiners for Engineering and Land Surveying.

According to the board, Järlström's research into red light cameras and their effectiveness amounts to practicing engineering without a license. No, really. Järlström had sent a letter to the board in 2014 asking for the opportunity to present his research on how too-short yellow lights were making money for the state by putting the public's safety at risk. "I would like to present these fact for your review and comment," he wrote.

Are you familiar with the term PE, or Professional Engineer?  In some disciplines of engineering, notably civil engineering, state governments started regulating who may design or sign documents accepting responsibility for designs.  Wyoming appears to have been the first, in 1907.  As an electrical engineer designing products for a few military and commercial suppliers, I've never needed to apply for a PE, so I never went through the process, but it's required in certain areas.  For example, if someone is going to design a house, a PE must sign off on the drawings for the building inspectors.  I like to think of it this way:

• Teams that designed NASA's Saturn V or the SpaceX Falcon 9 - PE not required 
• Team that designed the Kansas City Hyatt Regency Walkway - PE required 

That may seem like I'm making fun of PEs, but I'm not.  I'm making fun of the bureaucrats who think having a PE sign drawings will keep bad things from happening.

In this case, the Oregon State Board is saying that because Järlström doesn't have their blessing, he not only isn't allowed to look at their designs, it's illegal for him to do so.  Järlström has sued the state, as you might expect, and is being aided by the Institute for Justice.

"Criticizing the government's engineering isn't a crime; it's a constitutional right," said Sam Gedge, an attorney at the Institute for Justice, in a statement. "Under the First Amendment, you don't need to be a licensed lawyer to write an article critical of a Supreme Court decision, you don't need to be a licensed landscape architect to create a gardening blog, and you don't need to be a licensed engineer to talk about traffic lights."

It turns out the reliably leftist utopia of Oregon guards their authority over engineering quite jealously.  The board

investigated a Republican gubernatorial candidate for using the phrase "I'm an engineer and a problem-solver" in a campaign ad. The candidate in question, Allen Alley, had a degree in engineering from Purdue University and worked as an engineer for Boeing (and, of course, wasn't trying to lie about his lack of an Oregon-issued licensed but merely was making a freaking campaign ad), but

It doesn't stop there. In 2010, the state board issued a $1,000 fine for illegally practicing engineering to a local activist who told the La Pine, Oregon, city council that a proposed new power plant would be too loud for nearby residents.

The board once investigated Portland Monthly magazine for running a story that described a young immigrant woman as "an engineer behind Portland's newest bridge." The woman in the story did not describe herself as an engineer, but the magazine's editors included that description in the headline, the board concluded.

In Järlström's case, what he did was what thousands of other engineers or techno geeks have done.  He looked at the design for how long lights remained yellow, found it was outdated so he figured out how to make it work better.  In stories like this, someone finds a better way, starts a company and sometimes even becomes the next Gates, or Woz or Musk.  But not in Glorious Peoples' Republic of Portlandia.  In Portlandia, it got him fined. 

He did a little Googling and found the formula used to set traffic-light times. The length of time a traffic light stays yellow is based on a relatively straightforward mathematical formula, originally drafted in 1959. Mats realized that the formula is incomplete, because it fails to capture the behavior of drivers making right turns. After developing a modified formula and even corresponding with one of the formula’s original creators, Mats started to reach out to others in the scientific community, government officials, and the media.

It's truly a ridiculous case.  The Oregon State Board of Examiners for Engineering and Land Surveying said  “critiquing” the length of yellow lights and talking about his ideas with “members of the public” made Mats a lawbreaker because he’s not an Oregon-licensed professional engineer.  They also told Mats that he couldn’t refer to himself using the word “engineer” either.  Järlström actually is an engineer by degree from Sweden, and has held various problem-solving jobs that go with that training, he just doesn't have the state's blessings. 

It may be ridiculous, but it's classic leftist elitism.  Much like how blessings from the wise and wonderful state magically grant "The Only Ones" in law enforcement the ability to always handle firearms with near-infinite wisdom and safety, the board is saying only their blessings in the form of their PE license magically allow thinking.   

Tales From the Over Regulated State # 22 - When Federal Agencies Ignore Federal Law

There was a complex case of Federal overreach in the last month, in which the US Fish and Wildlife Service seized control of 77 Million acres of Alaska to gain Federal control over Alaskan wildlife.  The president of the Sportsmen's Alliance, Evan Heusinkveld, said, “We’re talking about an area larger than 45 of our 50 states”.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and its appointed director, Dan Ashe, have issued new regulations closing 77 million acres of land in Alaska to state wildlife management, including effective predator control and other established means and methods of hunting and trapping.

Historically, control of the wildlife in every state has been left to the states; we buy our hunting and fishing licenses from our state, not the Fed.gov.  It's a recognition that the wildlife doesn't belong to landowners, it belongs to the people closest to it, the state.  In this case, when Alaska was granted statehood in 1959, they were guaranteed ownership and control of game populations by Congress.  No other state is more legally entitled to manage its game populations, including on federal lands within its border, than Alaska.

It is spelled out in multiple laws and agreements, and was debated three times by Congress, ultimately resulting in giving Alaska precedence, including:

• the Alaska Statehood Act (1959),
• the Alaska Lands Act (1980) which created most of the 77-million-acres of refuges at the center of this unprecedented power grab, and
• the Refuge Improvement Act (1997) which also made hunting and fishing priority public uses on all refuge lands

With the vested power of Congress, these acts were clearly approved.

So that's three separate Federal laws the FWS is violating.  You might ask why?  Why now?  It turns out it's the same sordid story as we find everywhere else with this administration: cronyism.  Undue influence by left wing groups; in this case the HSUS - the Humane Society of the United States.  Behind the scenes, the HSUS – the most powerful anti-hunting lobby in the world and a group that despises all forms of hunting and hunters – was thanked by FWS director Ashe in a tweet.

"For ... ALL Americans" except the public's voice has been systematically silenced.  This was pure, banana republic, bureaucratic power grab, backed by the HSUS, an organization the country almost completely disagrees with.  In my mind, I can hear the FWS director Ashe saying,  " So what if we broke three acts of Congress?  We're the Feds!  Who's gonna stop us?  You... punk?".

The stench gets stronger. The rule changes include provisions that abruptly deny American citizens of their collective voice relative to management of the National Wildlife Refuge through the following:

• Doubling the length of emergency closures of refuge lands from 30 to 60 days
• Removing requirements for public hearings on such closures
• Complete elimination of the maximum length of a temporary closure

[emphasis added: SiG]

For the second point, they're saying the public has no voice whatsoever in how their wildlife refuge is managed.  Typical.  As for the third point, if there is no maximum length, then how can it be a temporary closure?  I'm sure you can envision a temporary closure that extends into years or decades just as easily as I can.  When has a federal regulation not been stretched to benefit those in control?

If Ashe and Pacelle were being honest with their Tweets and blogs, they’d say what these rule changes actually were: a successful usurpation of power by the federal government to advance an anti-hunting agenda in the bulwark state for hunters’ rights; an offensive move that will allow them to invade Western states and assume control of large swaths of federal public lands to eliminate hunting, trapping and other management methods with ease. 

Since this a violation of at least those three federal laws, in a sane world, this should be easily defeated.  It does, however, require going to court, which invokes the massive legal expenses that are incurred whenever anyone fights the infinite checkbook of the Fed.gov.  The Sportsmen's Alliance has already filed protests about this ruling.  I don't know if this ruling is a "done deal" or if it's open for comments, but it appears to be a final ruling.  The FWS, like every other federal agency, is required to follow the Administrative Procedures Act of 1946 when they announce new rules.  I've been unable to find anything open for comment on Regulation.Gov, so it appears this may be too late to comment on.  Or they figure that since they just violated three other major federal laws, what's one more?

An Alaskan Grizzly (source) 

Tales From the Over Regulated State # 20 - Concierge Bureaucracy Managment

Thanks to Chris Muir at Day By Day Cartoon, I find a link to a topic I've been talking about for quite a while in a deep article by Skipsul at Ricochet: Cartels and Concierge Bureaucracy Management.  The author begins by recounting a story heard on NPR's Planet Money about a Concierge Bribery business in India and goes on to link it to things going on here.

My opinion, and I know I've expressed it here many times (sample), is that the continuing mandates from government agencies are destroying full time employment as we've always known it.  It's not just the Federal government, but states, counties, local - all of them - that are increasingly adding regulatory burdens.  The load being put on companies is getting so odious that the companies respond by not hiring full time employees any more, simply hiring self-employed contract workers.  Skipsul points out that these regulations have resulted in the development of companies who exist to help employers handle the regulatory overload.  Skipsul starts by talking about how Obamacare is ravaging the medical profession and industry and forcing one man practices to fold and join into the creation of big practices, which he calls medical cartels.  I assume the description means that these regional cartels control most of the medical practice (including pricing!) in an area.   He then enlarges the view.

The complexities of complying with the myriad kludges of federal, state, and local income taxes, payroll taxes, workers’ comp systems, and unemployment taxes have already driven most employers to contract with specialized firms for handling payroll. Only larger corporations have the budget to acquire and maintain the complicated accounting packages for running payrolls internally, so most smaller companies have, for years, offloaded this work on companies such as ADP or Paychex. With every added employee comes a new set of filings, and more potential for error. Just within my own company, we have have employees from two states and seven different local taxing jurisdictions, each of which has its own income tax, to be submitted on its own form, and by its own arbitrary deadlines. Say what you will about the virtues of federalism, each of those various towns, cities, and counties is a petty fiefdom unto itself, and all must be paid whether I actually do business there or not.
...
In short, businesses in America run a gamut of risks to their well-being, and the laws and regulations today put them, almost by default, on the hook for actions that in another time would have fallen on individual actors. And just as Obamacare has driven the medical industry into cartels to cope with the bureaucracy, so now general employers now are consolidating their employee pools for protection. The payroll firms of old are now changing into something new: The Professional Employment Organization, or PEO.

The PEO is the logical extension to outsourcing payroll processing. The way a PEO works is simple: A business shifts its employees from direct employment to the PEO. The business then no longer directly employs anyone, but contracts its employees back from the PEO — for a fee, of course. In return, the PEO not only assumes the administration of payroll, but handling of benefits, the creation of HR policy, and all of the overhead thus entailed. The PEO, being effectively a national employer, can offer health and retirement benefits that my own little company cannot possibly offer, and liability concerns shift as well. The PEO is the ultimate concierge service in employment. However, PEOs are by their nature employment cartels, consolidating the employment pool into just a few firms.

The concept of the PEO isn't new: think of old companies like Manpower or Kelly Services, agencies where an employer can hire temporary workers for specialized positions.  The field has existed for decades, but Skipsul puts it this way:

I was informed by one PEO that PEOs in general have seen their employee pool grow nationwide by 15-20 percent per year since Obamacare was shoved down our throats (prior to that, their main markets were in the usual lefty bastions of California, New York, and Illinois). This is an alarming trend, not because the PEO concept is somehow wrong in itself, but because it is a sign that even small businesses are now economically unable to keep up with the burden of our government. ... Just as small medical practitioners have found themselves driven into large regional medical cartels, so now American businesses are finding themselves drawn to employment cartels.

I recommend you read the whole thing.  It's not much longer than this.  This is the Law of Unintended Consequences writ large, as it pertains to the ever growing government Hydra (cut off one head, two more grow back); the over regulated state.  Create a law to protect company retirement plans from being raided and fewer companies offer them.  Create a host of laws to protect workers from firing, and companies respond by hiring contractors for entry level jobs; contractors that can be dropped at will; as one engineering director once colorfully described it to me, "contract engineers are like toilet paper... use 'em and throw 'em out".  Create laws saying health care insurance must cover everything imaginable, from preventive exams and flu shots to sex change and treatment for substance abuse, and then recoil in horror at the increased premiums and outrageous deductibles. 

The world of full-time work for a corporate employer is ending - it has already ended for many.  I can imagine a time in the not-too-distant future when there will be a handful of large corporations with full time employees, and everyone else will either work for a small PEO, or will be self-employed by contract to small and mid-sized corporations. 

Tales From the Over Regulated State - A Series

Today, a couple of classic examples of how our government favors large businesses over small businesses.

Their thinking goes like this: large businesses can give us more money.  Large businesses don't like small businesses.  Let's create laws that small businesses can't afford.  That will destroy them and allow the large businesses to make more money, which we can demand in tribute.

This story comes from PJ Tatler.  Meet Sabrina Loving.  Ms. Loving was working in the mortgage industry as it came to a crashing collapse in 2007/08. Unemployed, she started a small business on Chicago’s South Side to provide financial advice to low income minority customers.  Watch her story here:



Quoting from the PJ Tatler piece:

Now the IRS is saying these rules are necessary to root out unscrupulous tax return preparers and to cut down on erroneous reports, but the solution the IRS proposes does not solve the problem: it would only drive bad tax preparers underground with no way to regulate them at all. And worse, it would put honest accountants out of business.

And if that’s not enough, let’s look at how the IRS is applying these rules. Large tax chains like H&R Block and Jackson Hewitt don’t need to meet these requirements — yet small tax prep companies do. And if you are registered with the CPA you also don’t have to worry about adhering to the new regulations.

Simply put, these new rules will not make independent tax preparers better at their jobs, they are in place to force them out of business for the benefit of larger tax prep chains.

This is a simple example of a common tactic.  The big tax preparers are exempt, and the professional society-blessed CPA preparers are exempt: only the small business just trying to help people (and make a living, of course) are the targets.  It's like the consumer product safety bill I talked about two years ago, where small American businesses are shut down because they can't afford the tests, but China.com continues to ship toys made out of every kind of toxic crap this side of radioactive waste.

Probably the most common tactic that businesses use to suppress competition is to get licensing laws passed.  There has been a nationwide push to force women who do hair braiding - these are typically poor African women immigrants - to get state cosmetology licenses  (summary here).  The money quote:

Who is snitching to the feds about these illegal shops? Surprisingly, licensed cosmetologists are up in arms about these "illegal" braiding businesses.

These licensed cosmetologists want to force these women to fork out money, which the local governments are only too eager to take, to protect the citizenry from... incompetent braiding?  Srsly?  How much money do these low end businesses need to put up?  That post offers only one example:

In Illinois, it takes a total of 1,500 hours and $15,000 to legitimize yourself as a braider, then a person can apply for her license.

How much licensing is necessary?  I can't say.  In my state (Florida) they regulate roofers and other construction businesses primarily because of shoddy workers making the rounds after hurricanes.  Although I still believe caveat emptor should rule as a policy, insurance companies will only pay for roofers who the state certifies.  A three way business/government back scratching.  Have some people been subjected to shoddy work when they needed a roof rebuilt?  I'm sure.  Does this really help?  I'm much less sure.

An acquaintance of mine used to do manicures for women who couldn't pay for it; to help them look better or feel better for a job interview or "just because".  She was shut down because she wasn't state licensed.  Did this serve the state's best interest?

This sort of law is always going to pass.  There is simply no political downside to saying we want better trained tax preparers, hair braiders, or roofers.  It sounds reasonable. No one votes against a toy safety act because they don't want to be painted as someone who feels kids should get hurt by unsafe toys.  No one ever questions whether the laws actually do any good, they just write more laws.  And the noose around our collective necks tightens just a little more with every new regulation.    

On Letting Felons Vote From Prison

Short version - aw hell no.

Longer version, I assume everyone with a pulse heard Crazy Bernie say felons should be able to vote while they're still incarcerated during a CNN Town Hall Monday night.  Sanders is quoted as saying,

“If somebody commits a serious crime, sexual assault, murder, they're going to be punished. … But I think the right to vote is inherent to our democracy. Yes, even for terrible people.”

This actually stunned the CNN talking heads, with this exchange captured by Steve Guest making the rounds on Twitter:

While discussing Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris' comments on felons & terrorists voting from prison, Don Lemon says he was “stunned” Democrats are ok with terrorists voting from prison, & Chris Cuomo said it shows that “these people are way out there.” pic.twitter.com/LkyKnPQ6e2 

It shouldn't be extremely surprising because Bernie's from Vermont.  Vermont allows felons to vote while still incarcerated and has for the entire history of the state.  Felons may even run for office while incarcerated in the Green Mountain State. 

Still, Cuomo and Lemon are right: proposing this is going to have most of America thinking the party has slipped too far.  It's interesting that another presidential candidate, South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, (I believe that's pronounced "booty judge" - at least, that's how I pronounce it) countered Sanders, saying, “When you’re convicted of a crime and you’re incarcerated … you lose certain rights.”

I think that's the starting point.  The example of capital crimes, like the Boston Marathon Bomber that Sanders was questioned about, is particularly egregious.  This guy deprived other people of all of their rights by killing them, and I don't think it's appropriate to talk about giving the murderer more rights than his victims.  By that standard, no felon who commits murder should ever get any of their rights back.

Longtime readers will know that one of the drums I beat regularly is the Over Regulated State, including how everything is becoming a felony, and how the average American now commits three felonies a day.  I should point out that lawyer Harvey Silvergate wrote that book back in 2011; I wouldn't be surprised if one could argue that it's up to four or five felonies a day by now.  Central to this story is that there are felonies which are minor crimes compared to the Boston bombing, murder, rape or other capital crimes.  Do you remember the story of inventor Krister Evertson?

Consider small-time inventor and entrepreneur Krister Evertson, who will testify at today's hearing. Krister never had so much as a traffic ticket before he was run off the road near his mother's home in Wasilla, Alaska, by SWAT-armored federal agents in large black SUVs training automatic weapons on him.

Evertson, who had been working on clean-energy fuel cells since he was in high school, had no idea what he'd done wrong. It turned out that when he legally sold some sodium (part of his fuel-cell materials) to raise cash, he forgot to put a federally mandated safety sticker on the UPS package he sent to the lawful purchaser.

Pulled over by SWAT team in full gear, pointing guns at him, because he forgot a sticker?   The story gets a bit worse because while the jury for this trial sided with Evertson, the prosecutor was not going to let a small time mistake dangerous thug like this embarrass him, nosiree.  He came up with another crime to charge Evertson with: "abandoning" his "dangerous" fuel cell materials while he was in jail for the label incident.  Although they were stored as the valuable materials they were, and not abandoned in some sort of dangerous state, he was convicted and spent a couple of years in Federal prison because of running afoul of this prosecutor, backed by the infinite checkbook of the Fed.gov.

Where am I going with this?  I think of someone like Evertson when I hear about felons in Federal prison, not the Boston Bomber (yeah, I know: really "terrible people" - as Bernie said - are there, too).  I think of some ordinary working guy who committed one of the countless felonies that happen everyday, but caught the attention of a zealous prosecutor.  When you're in prison, you lose many of your rights, and the right to vote doesn't seem like a major loss to me.  I lean to saying that while someone is in prison, they don't get normal citizen's rights.  Once they're released, and their "debt to society" is considered paid, they should get those rights back, including the right to legally buy a firearm, vote and all the rest.  The reality is that if someone is not in prison they can get a gun.  If the purpose is to keep them from hurting someone, and there's a genuine concern they will, keep them in prison!  Once they're out, once they've been declared ready to go back into society, they should get their rights back.

If everything is becoming a felony such that we're all committing three felonies a day, then we're all one random encounter with a zealous prosecutor from being a prohibited person and we all lose our 2nd amendment rights. This would allow us to get them back. 

(From the Daily Caller) 

Over-Regulation Nation

If you've been here a few times, you'll know that beside common sense economics and playing with guns, one of my favorite topics is over regulation, and especially the costs it imposes on us - dollar costs, or costs in freedom.  In addition to my series "More Tales From the Over Regulated State", I posted back in March about a web site we could go to, Regulations.gov, that tells us how many regulations are being created.  That post had this line:

In the last 90 days, the Fed.gov has issued 5999 new regulations. 

It's interesting that this wasn't some sort of unusual number.  They weren't rushing to meet some deadline, some sort of perverse "rush job", and put out a lot of extra regulations; no, they do it all the time.  Here's today's screen capture:

You can see in the last 90 days (it has been about 120 since that post on March 5th), they have issued 6083 new regulations.  I've checked it now and then since March and always found it around 6000 regulations in 90 days; 2000 per month, 125-ish per day.  Some of these are just bureaucratic flotsam and jetsam; mind-numbingly routine things like "Olives Grown in California: Increased Assessment Rate" - others will bring major, expensive changes.

John Ransom, over at Townhall.com is on this topic, too, today in "The Last Socialist in America"; wishfully thinking that Americans are so disgusted by the mess the current administration is making that there will never be another socialist in office in this country.  He talks about a study "Red Tape Rising" from the Heritage Foundation on the impacts and cost of these regulations:

“Overall, the Obama Administration imposed 75 new major regulations from January 2009 to mid-FY 2011, with annual costs of $38 billion,” reports Heritage.  In contrast, there were only six deregulatory actions by the Obama administration saving $1.5 billion says the Heritage report.  (emphasis added)

Before I drop the next sentence, I want to remind you that our annual budget deficit is about $1.3 trillion dollars.

In terms of the overall impact on the economic health of the country, the figure is much higher.  “More specifically, the total cost of federal regulations has increased to $1.75 trillion,” writes the federal government’s own Small Business Administration

Which, of course, says the cost of regulation is bigger than the budget deficit.  That's how much more money could be flowing into the pockets of Americans without this regulatory burden.  Furthermore, with an administration that has demonstrated cronyism over and over, it shouldn't be a surprise that small businesses bear a bigger chunk of this regulatory cost - a tax by any other name - than the big campaign donors - um - big companies.   According to the Small Business Administration:

Because it prevents the creation of more jobs, however, it hits the poor and middle class particularly hard, “while the updated cost per employee for firms with fewer than 20 employees is now $10,585 (a 36 percent differ­ence between the costs incurred by small firms when compared with their larger counterparts),” says the SBA  In other words, small employers take it on the chin even harder than the big guys. While Obama’s rhetoric panders to the little guys, his actions seemed geared to favor the big guys instead.  

The Code of Federal Regulations expanded to 163,000 pages in 2009, and the rate of growth is accelerating.  The number of "major" regulations continues to grow.

A year ago, I asked, "How Many Federal Crimes Did You Commit Today?", quoting author Harry Silvergate from Reason Magazine saying the average person commits three federal crimes per day.  Don't think that not knowing if something is illegal is any excuse;  there are many people in jail who had no idea they were doing anything wrong. 

The register Code of Federal Regulations hit a record 163,000 pages in 2009 and the number of pending regulations costing more than $100 million has more than doubled according to Heritage. And once on the books, regulations are almost impossible to get rid of. One regulation that’s been requested for elimination for over four years, says Heritage, is one that treats “milk as an ‘oil,’ thus requiring dairy spills to be treated as hazardous. According to the agency, exempting milk from the regulation will save dairies around $1.4 billion over the next 10 years.” And yet this regulation still sits on the books four years later, even with the support of the Obama administration in getting rid of it. 

Now, according to the Center for Fiscal Accountability, when we add in the costs of [implementation] of just Obamacare over the next ten years the costs soar another $230 billion per year.

Not including the costs of premiums going up - which is already the case for many people.

We are becoming a country bound by our regulations, unable to move, and society is becoming a make work program for lawyers in which whether you are free or in prison is just a matter of luck.  Everyone violates three federal laws per day, some just happen to get caught in the "system".  You are at the mercy of whoever decides to find something to charge you with, because anything can be argued to be illegal. 

The 163,000 ++ page Code of Federal Regulations must be cut down in size.  I swear you could throw out 3/4 of it and not negatively impact a single person's life - except for the lawyers and prosecutors who would need to find honest work.
 

More Tales From the Over Regulated State - A Series

Wherein tonight's episode may be called, "Beef prices at a 20 year high?  We haven't even started, yet".

Thanks to catching a few minutes of Mark Steyn sitting in for Rush today, I became aware of a ruling from the FDA that is going to affect beef prices.  Most people haven't thought of it, with the possible exception of folks who have brewed their own beer or wine, but commercial breweries have a big problem with the fermented grain they produce as a byproduct.  They also treat the grain a bit differently than home brewers.  After the most intense period of the fermentation cycle, the major breweries take the beer off the grain and sell the result to cattle farmers as feed, while the home brewer leaves the grain in to ferment out all of the sugars.  Selling the mostly-fermented grain ends up being good for the breweries, good for the farmers and good for "the environment".  The breweries make some money from the mash, instead of paying to landfill, compost or otherwise recycle it; the environment doesn't get industrial quantities of this waste, and the farmers get high quality feed for their cattle.

Farmers have been procuring and feeding their livestock spent brewing grains and grapes for centuries.  These livestock “happy hour” arrangements advance environmental sustainability, engender bonds among local businesses, and financially benefit both parties.  Farmers get low cost whole grain feed packed with fiber, protein, and, of particular importance to livestock in arid climates, moisture.  Alcohol makers save millions by not having to landfill the by-products.
...
On average, one gallon of beer will yield about a pound of spent grain. One gallon of bourbon yields more than nine pounds.
...
Brewers and distillers have tons of wet grain left over from making alcohol, and cows just happen to love it. 

The change is that the FDA decided that when a brewery soaks the grain (or grapes) for a short period of time, and sells the residue, they have become food producers and fall under FDA regulations for that.  The new regulations and record keeping the FDA seeks to impose is going to increase the cost of this feed.  I haven't seen it being referred to as becoming cost prohibitive, but any increase ends up in the cost of beef from these cows.

The problem is that the FDA is regulated by a duly passed law called the Food Safety Modernization Act, and FSMA section 116 specifically exempts activities at facilities which “relate to the manufacturing, processing, packing, or holding of alcoholic beverages” which this clearly is.  As one reviewer said, the FDA is rewriting the laws they're supposed to be bound by and striking that exception out of the FSMA.  (And not to pat myself on the back too much, but I warned against trouble from this law long before it was passed.)

There's a couple of possible explanations.  The first is the simplest: the government is expanding like a virulent cancer and the agency sees more ways to dominate industries.  The more rules they write, the more power they have.  Alternatively, as Forbes put it, they are the hammer and everything looks like a nail to them; in this case, they see something that isn't regulated to absurd levels, so they need to make sure it is.  They can't allow anything to happen that isn't regulated, right?  Again, as Forbes put it,

[The] FDA is overstepping its constitutional authority to impose unnecessary controls on a centuries-old, local, safe, and environmentally sustainable practice which financially benefits all parties involved. 

Let's see... proven, traditional technology; safe, environmentally better than alternatives; free market agreement that benefits everyone... how could a Fed.gov agency like something like that?  It needs to be destroyed.  Going to raise your food prices?  Go on food stamps like a good little comrade! 

Of course after a little too much of that Happy Hour grain mix...

(source)

More Tales From the Over Regulated State - A Series

Wherein tonight's installment can be called, "You can tune a piano but you can't tuna fish."

Carlos Rafael, by everything I can find, is an ethical small businessman who owns a small fleet of fishing boats, and attempts to navigate the waters of excessive federal regulations.  Those waters are ending up far more treacherous than the waters offshore Cape Cod, where his business is based.  I say he's an ethical fisherman because he purchased permits for 15 of his boats to allow them to take a giant bluefin tuna.  Bluefins are ordinarily caught on hook and line after great amounts of effort - but his boats are bottom fishing boats that deploy nets.  To catch a bluefin that way is a "once in a blue moon" event, as Rafael says.  The story begins on November 12th: 

Boat owner Rafael, a big player in the local fishing industry, was elated when the crew of his 76-foot steel dragger Apollo told him they had unwittingly captured a giant bluefin tuna in their trawl gear while fishing offshore.

Bluefins, you see, are highly valued in Japan as sushi; their flesh looks more like beef steak than just about any other fish and commands a very high price.  "A 754­pound specimen fetched a record price at a Tokyo auction in January this year, selling for nearly $396,000."  The fish on Rafael's boat was estimated at more than a hundred pounds bigger than that fish.  If I were him, my thoughts would be running along the lines of "Ca Ching!" over and over.

As the Cape Cod News reports:

However, when Rafael rolled down the dock in Provincetown there was an unexpected and unwelcome development. The authorities were waiting. Agents from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Office of Law Enforcement informed him they were confis­cating his fish — all 881 pounds of it.

Even though the catch had been declared and the boat had a tuna permit, the rules do not allow fishermen to catch bluefin tuna in a net.

“They said it had to be caught with rod and reel,” a frustrated Rafael said.“We didn't try to hide anything. We did everything by the book. Nobody ever told me we couldn't catch it with a net.”

In any case, after being towed for more than two hours in the net, the fish was already dead when the Apollo hauled back its gear, he said.

“What are we supposed to do?” he asked. “They said they were going to give me a warn­ing,” Rafael said. “I think I'm going to surrender all my tuna permits now. What good are they if I can't catch them?”

The Feds, as always, told him he was expected to know that he could only use rod and reel.  It's his responsibility to know every little piece of every regulation in the Federal bible.  "Ignorance of the law is no excuse". What?  There's no mens rea?  That is so last century. 

No charges have yet been filed in connection with the catch, but a written warning is anticipated, according to Chris­tine Patrick, a public affairs specialist with NOAA who said the fish has been forfeited and will be sold on consignment overseas. Proceeds from the sale of the fish will be held in an account pending final reso­lution of the case, NOAA said. No information on the value of the fish was available Friday.

“The matter is still under investigation,”said Monica Allen, deputy director with NOAA Fisheries public affairs. “If it's determined that there has been a violation, the money will go into the asset forfeiture fund.”

I just love the passive voice.  No person, no individual ever "determines if there has been a violation".  Don't want any petty bureaucrat to attract attention for this, do we?  

This is a serious issue, not just for Mr. Rafael, but for anyone who goes fishing.  There are federal rules and state rules that don't usually say the same things.  You are expected to know them all and be in compliance with them all or not go fishing.  If you inadvertently catch the wrong type of fish or catch it in the wrong way, perhaps it's better to just dump the carcass at sea. Protein is never wasted in the sea.

Florida Legalizes "Medicinal Marijuana" But Don't Go There

In the election two weeks ago, Florida voters overwhelmingly approved the constitutional amendment to legalize so-called medical marijuana.  A few people have written about this, and I want to add my voice.  Using your medical marijuana will end your second amendment rights.  Period.  (Hat tip to Gun Free Zone). 

Simply, there appears to be ample legal precedent that states being able to legalize drugs is not a settled matter.  To the Feds, it doesn't matter what your state does: marijuana is a schedule 1 narcotic, and they preempt the state.  If the feds decide not to prosecute most users, no matter how temporarily, that's prosecutorial discretion, not agreeing it's legal.  If you're a going to buy that new gun and fill out a 4473 form, it specifically asks about marijuana use.

To the Federales, any use of marijuana is unlawful.  There is precedent that if you answer 4473 with "yes", your purchase will be denied even in a state that allows recreational use of marijuana.  You may choose to lie here, and like all lies on a form 4473, if that's found out, it's a federal felony, which will bar you from buying guns.  You can argue the semantics that "are you an unlawful user" is present tense, and since you don't currently have a joint in your mouth "no" is the truth.  You can argue that federal drug laws have no legal sway in the states.  Have really deep pockets if you want to try this.  The feds have the Infinite Checkbook (tm) and can outspend anything you have if they want to put you away.  In the first case, they'll argue that "user" means "someone who uses" and doesn't imply a time limit.  In the second, you're bucking about a hundred years of "settled case law".

I voted against the amendment for several reasons, and this was one.  The way our law is written, the marijuana may be obtained by a "caregiver", who doesn't need to be an RN, LPN or any of the recognized medical titles.  The way it was explained to me, a caregiver can apply for medical marijuana for a patient and make that patient into a liar if they answer "no" on a 4473.  Say you have some emergency surgery and require an aide to help you for six weeks or so: that aide could get the marijuana in your name, use it themselves or sell it, and jeopardize your rights.  It has been estimated there will be over 2000 pot shops in Florida soon, turning into a nearly $1.6 Billion/year industry, so someone anticipates lots of business and lots of money being made of it.

The big money behind the passing this amendment was a lawyer named John Morgan (known for his smarmy TV and radio commercials) who seems to have pushed it so he can be the lawyer to go to when someone wants to establish their pot shop.  As I say, lots of money to be made in the business.  This is the second time they've tried to pass it.  I note it's easy to find that the biggest funders for the 2014 campaign were John Morgan and George Soros.  Yeah, that George Soros.

I voted against it for a variety of reasons: I don't like the way Florida handles constitutional amendments, again, for a variety of reasons (nice discussion here).  I don't like the way the amendment was written.  And I don't like that whole "make it legal and tax it" thing.  Why should we want to hand that money over to the state?  Why should pot get a higher rate than any other sales tax?  If it's legal, sell it in the wine aisle in Publix, or in the local liquor store.  The state will make enough money taking down their drug enforcement squads.  Alcohol taxes make no sense to me anyway, but I know that's bucking well over a hundred years of "settled case law".  Consider this:  alcohol created by a chemical reaction in a chemical plant sells by the 55 gallon drum and is exempt from taxes.  Alcohol created by yeast fermenting something (grapes, barley, potatoes, whatever) is taxed.  Same exact chemical; one is taxed, one isn't.   

Do the federal drug laws need fixing?  Absolutely.  As does about 75% of the Code of Federal Regulations.  The haphazard way marijuana is being regulated across the country, where obeying your state's laws still violates federal laws, has got to go.  As it stands today, Federal prosecutors are in the position of being able to bring drug charges against anyone using medical marijuana whenever they feel like it.  Any prosecutor who wants to can charge any American with "three felonies a day" (that should probably be updated to four by now; that book is five years old).  It ends up  being at the discretion of the prosecutor, who may prosecute or not depending on whether the Attorney General is working for the drug cartels (cough, cough, Eric Holder) or just another crime family (Loretta Lynch).

EDITED 11/19/16 at 10:30 AM EST:  The BATFE just released a new version of the form 4473 that specifically addresses this issue.  It adds a sentence in bold font just below the question 11E cited above.  It states:  Warning:  The use or possession of marijuana remains unlawful under Federal law regardless of whether it has been legalized or decriminalized for medicinal or recreational purposes in the state where you reside.  

That's about as clear as they can make it. If you use marijuana, regardless of what your state says, they maintain their laws take precedence and you will be denied the sale.  If you use pot, no guns for you.

The Structural Problems Taking Down The US

An essay by John Hawkins on Townhall yesterday got me thinking about the structural problems that are combining to take down the US.   Hawkins opens with a quote from Machiavelli that is the root - the thing we need to focus on the most:

“And what physicians say about disease is applicable here: that at the beginning a disease is easy to cure but difficult to diagnose; but as time passes, not having been treated or recognized at the outset, it becomes easy to diagnose but difficult to cure. The same thing occurs in affairs of state; for by recognizing from afar the diseases that are spreading in the state (which is a gift given only to a prudent ruler), they can be cured quickly; but when they are not recognized and are left to grow to the extent that everyone recognizes them, there is no longer any cure.” — Niccolo Machiavelli

Now, Hawkins lists demographics as the biggest problem: in particular, the baby boomers.  He talks about the number of retirees in the next couple of decades: "In 2010, there were 40 million Americans 65 and older. By 2020, that number is projected to be 55 million; by 2030, 72 million.".  That is absolutely a problem, but it's inherently a self-limiting problem.  The problem is that various agencies have promised $124 Trillion in unfunded liabilities and there is simply no way to pay those obligations.  Since things that can't go on won't go on, those promises simply won't be paid.  That wouldn't be so bad if the social structures of a hundred years ago were in place.  Just as I live a few hundred miles from my surviving parent, my kids live over a thousand from me.  A hundred years ago, or 150, families stayed closer together.  Parents worked until they died, yes, but the pace and amount slowed down with age and children helped support their parents.  While the current "twenty-somethings", at least the ones I can see, seem to be tending toward larger families, it's hard to estimate if they can contribute to helping grandparents whom they hardly know to survive. 

In my mind, you can't be intellectually honest about the demographic problems without talking about "the A word" - abortion.  A recent study out of New York said an incredible (to me) 41% of all pregnancies in the city are aborted.  It's probably hard to get really accurate numbers, but even Wikipedia reports that since Roe-v-Wade was decided, approximately 50 million abortions have been performed in the US.  50 million more people in the US, and their offspring, would have a large effect on paying for those unfunded liabilities.  And while the majority polled seem to agree that an abortion should be "safe, legal and rare", only a tiny percentage of abortions, 0.5 to 1.0%, are due to the classic, emotionally-charged argument; "you wouldn't want to deny an abortion to a teenaged girl raped by an adult?" which we hear all the time.  The vast majorities cited in the polls summarized on Wikipedia cite reasons more related to inconvenience to the mother. 

Still, going back to the opening paragraph, this is an easy problem to recognize.  To use Machiavelli's medical analogy, it's not finding a clump of cells the size of pencil point, it's a tumor the size of a watermelon.  The root cause is political: politicians making promises that they can't possibly deliver on.  Being lawyers, for the most part, they don't understand exponential functions (I'm being charitable here).  Because it's always easier to promise more and let someone else worry about it - "kick the can down the road" - they have an incentive to be irresponsible.  They promise future payments and benefits to keep getting elected, when to keep those payments going requires exponentially increasing numbers of people.  To butcher a quote, "hard work and discipline pay off in the long run, but laziness and spending pay off now". 

If you've visited here before, you know I'm a deficit hawk.  I think our debt, today 107.1% of GDP, is a threat to the very existence of our country.  But the deficit is a symptom, not the disease.  The disease is politics and, to be honest, at least partly the result of us - we, the people - being willing to believe the con men.  These promises are too good to be true, and we all know "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is" (too good to be true).  From the view of the congress critter, he has someone paying him if he adds just a little more spending on one side, and on the other side a small part of the population that wants him to cut spending.  For reasons I'll get to in a few lines, the spending has a very visible good outcome and a not very likely negative outcome.  Of course they'll spend more.   

Just as our large debt is a threat to our very survival, our constantly growing government is a threat to our survival.  The number and cost of government regulations is growing every day, the difficulty of starting a business is getting ever harder and our choices about everything from what soda to drink to what light bulb to have in our house are slowly, but surely being taken away from us.  I've often quoted Harvey Silverglate's idea that the average American commits three federal felonies every day.  And it's a central theme to my recurring "Tales From the Over Regulated State".  From their standpoint, it's a feature, not a bug. 

The corruption of our political system, with gerrymandering and voter fraud, makes politicians even less concerned about voters.  With reelection rates approaching certainty, unless they're found with "a dead girl or a live boy" (as they used to say) they're in office for life; consequently, it's more frightening for Michael Bloomberg to threaten to find primary opponents for Democrats that won't follow his directives than to face the normal voting process.  Hawkins says,

Nancy Pelosi could NEVER be beaten by a Republican, but if Planned Parenthood or United Auto Workers got angry at her, either could conceivably fund and support another Democrat who could beat her. What all this means in practice is that politicians in both parties are far apart ideologically and have a strong incentive (their job) not to cooperate with each other on anything that may upset a special interest.

While I disagree that politicians in both parties are far apart ideologically - with some exceptions for one or two true conservatives - his point that the system is in the hands of people like Bloomberg and Soros, or special interest groups like the UAW and SEIU, is absolutely right (or the Koch brothers and big oil, or whomever leftists currently think are running everything).  

Ever heard of root cause analysis?  It's a structured technique for problem solving, in which a problem is investigated until the most fundamental root cause of the problems is found.  A very common implementation is the "five whys?"; the idea is you keep asking why? to every problem that comes up, and typically hit the root cause in no more than five "why?" answers.  The root cause here is the growth of the federal government and concentration of power in it that results.  When it becomes easier and more profitable for companies or groups like those to lobby the government than to try to win in the market, that's when things go downhill.  This structural problem is what has to be unwound to save the country.  Returning to Machiavelli's observation on problems again:

"...when they are not recognized and are left to grow to the extent that everyone recognizes them, there is no longer any cure."

And that appears to be where we are. 
  

More Tales From the Over Regulated State - The Horror of Civil-Forfeiture

Back in May, I wrote about the case of the Motel Caswell, a piece of property that was being sued by the city of Tewksbury, Massachusetts in a rather obvious attempt to seize the motel for a city asset.

Welcome to the world of civil-forfeiture, where anything you own can be seized by increasingly desperate governments to obtain operating funds - or luxuries for the government workers.  It's not that this is a new problem, but the problems is only getting worse.

David Codrea links to a Washington Times post, GHEI: ATF's Latest Gun Grab.  

The Obama administration is making it easier for bureaucrats to take away guns without offering the accused any realistic due process. In a final rule published last week, the Justice Department granted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) authority to “seize and administratively forfeit property involved in controlled-substance abuses.” That means government can grab firearms and other property from someone who has never been convicted or even charged with any crime.

Don't jump at the "property involved in controlled-substance abuses", that's a red flag to distract you.  The problem is the last sentence, that Fed.gov, "can grab firearms and other property from someone who has never been convicted or even charged with any crime".  There is no evidence the prosecutors ever roll things like this back in the direction of more liberty and if you believe this will only apply to "the war on drugs", I've got a bridge to sell you.  Fed.gov prosecutors always push for seizing more property.  The Washington Times, again:

It’s a dangerous extension of the civil-forfeiture doctrine, a surreal legal fiction in which the seized property — not a person — is put on trial. This allows prosecutors to dispense with pesky constitutional rights, which conveniently don’t apply to inanimate objects. In this looking-glass world, the owner is effectively guilty until proved innocent and has the burden of proving otherwise. Anyone falsely accused will never see his property again unless he succeeds in an expensive uphill legal battle.
...
James Lieto found out about civil forfeiture the hard way when the FBI seized $392,000 from his business because the money was being carried by an armored-car firm he had hired that had fallen under a federal investigation. As the Wall Street Journal reported, Mr. Lieto was never accused of any crime, yet he spent thousands in legal fees to get his money back.  (emphasis added - SiG)

This guy loses $392,000 and has to spend thousands at trial to get his money back because he hired someone that the Fibbies were investigating?  Something that, as far as I can find he was absolutely not responsible for?  What kind of crap is this?  As I said in that post last May,

Governments bully small guys who can't afford teams of high-powered lawyers.  They're easier to screw over.

Add it up and there's a fantastic opportunity for the raiding authorities to line their pockets and screw over people who were never convicted of doing anything wrong, indeed, were never even charged with doing anything wrong.

Online publication Directory Journal takes it farther with "They ARE Coming for YOUR Car, Your Land, Your House"  They link to the story of Donald Scott, killed by police in 1992, in what appears to be a case motivated by wanting to acquire his property. 

In Malibu, California, park police tried repeatedly to buy the home and land of 61-year-old, retired rancher Don Scott, which was next to national park land. Scott refused. On the morning of October 2, 1992, a task force of 26 LA county sheriffs, DEA agents and other cops broke into Scott's living room unannounced. When he heard his wife, Frances, scream, he came out of his upstairs bedroom with a gun over his head. Police yelled at him to lower his gun. He did, and they shot him dead.

Police claimed to be searching for marijuana which they never found. Ventura County DA Michael Bradbury concluded that the raid was "motivated at least in part, by a desire to seize and forfeit the ranch for the government . . . [The] search warrant became Donald Scott's death warrant."

They include stories of people like breast cancer survivor Lisa Lindsey who is in modern debtor's prison for not paying a medical bill she received in error, and was told to ignore.   Or the people who have lost their homes over an unpaid utility bill.  Or people who lost their home over imminent domain so that cities could generate more tax income.  Or the several stories of people who lost cash they were carrying - life's savings or an insurance payout or government-demanded cash bail - because a drug sniffing dog reacted to the money (or, more likely, reacted to their handler's mood). 

The ISIL quotes Brenda Grantland, asset-forfeiture defense attorney as saying:

• Suffolk County, New York. District Attorney James M. Catterton drives around in a BMW 735I that was seized from an alleged drug dealer. He spent $3,412 from the forfeiture fund for mechanical and body work, including $75 for pin-striping.
• Warren County, New Jersey. The assistant chief prosecutor drives a confiscated yellow Corvette.
• Little Compton, Rhode Island. The seven member police force received $3.8 million from the federal forfeiture fund, and spent it on such things as a new 23-foot boat with trailer, and new Pontiac Firebirds.

If you read those links in here, including the ISIL and Directory Journal, and your blood doesn't boil, you might want to check your pulse.  You're probably dead.

And if you think it can't or won't happen to you because you've done nothing wrong, congratulations; you are dead. 

(source)