Everyone who has heard a Democratic politician speak in the last decade has heard the mantra, “We can balance the budget (or fund a pet new social program) if we just make the billionaires pay their fair share of taxes.” So let’s see what it would look like. Let’s balance the budget―not even taking the extreme of creating and paying for any new social programs―with higher taxes on billionaires. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) baseline budget predicts a deficit of nearly $1.851 trillion in fiscal year 2026 (which begins October 1, 2025)―without President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful...

Government-Funded Research: Bad for American Health, Wealth, and Freedom
A lifelong family friend brought up the subject of government-funded science at a family cookout recently, and was surprised to hear my opposition to it. “Well, I don’t think we should be taxing people to study the sex life of quails on cocaine,” I responded jokingly. As best as I can remember, the conversation that followed with this brilliant woman in her 50s—who in younger days was just a dissertation away from a PhD in chemistry—went along these lines: “That’s just the problem. You don’t know the incredible benefit of all this research. Even the quail study has a scientific basis that...

Trump Calls Big Government ‘Beautiful’
“I’m a fiscal hawk,” Trump announced to the press on May 21, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson in tow, with typical Trumpian humbuggery. “I’m a bigger fiscal hawk. There’s nobody like me as a fiscal hawk.” Of course, only the last part of that statement was true. Truly, nobody who is anything like Trump could be labeled a fiscal hawk. And the video shows even the ordinarily stoic Speaker Johnson couldn’t help but crack an open mouth laugh at Trump’s bullshitting. Everyone who has even bothered to look at Trump’s “beautiful” budget bill knows it is the “Big Government Bill,” as it creates the...

Trump Vindicates Horton’s Law
Every president is a disappointment when compared to his predecessor; even, as in Donald Trump’s case today, when compared to himself. Trump 45 got an income tax reduction passed, while Trump 47 raised tariffs across the board. Trump 45 didn’t start any new wars, while Trump 47 started bombing Yemen. But Trump has taken his current presidency to the next level, once again proving that Horton’s Law, i.e., that presidents only keep their bad promises, remains valid. Every president disappoints, but who would have figured Trump would have locked up the title so quickly? Trump promised America...
Trump Revives the Alien and Sedition Acts
President Donald Trump promised to revive the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 during his campaign last fall. “To expedite removals of this savage gang,” Trump pledged in an October campaign stop, “I will invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to target and dismantle every migrant criminal network operating on American soil.” The Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a long dormant law passed by Federalist Party militants but still on the federal legal books, stated “whenever there shall be a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government, or any invasion or predatory incursion...
Zombie Congress: The Democracy of the Dead
How does Congress pass budget spending levels these days? It doesn’t. It’s really that simple. The federal government’s $6.95 trillion budget will spend more than $52,000 per household in America in 2025 and it is spending more than $38,000 of that without a single vote, and passing the remaining $13,000 with a single up-or-down, “should-the-government-shut-down-entirely?” vote, just like it does every year. Gen Xers grew up watching Saturday morning cartoons, with ABC-TV’s School House Rock shorts during the commercials explaining to us then-youngsters how the process of passing a law...
The Deep State Manages Elections, At Home and Abroad
Blatant election corruption is now the rule rather than the exception across the western world, including in the United States. Elections now serve only one purpose in modern government: They perpetuate the illusion of an elected government that makes decisions. This means the “right kind” of people need to be elected, compliant politicians who will keep the corporate subsidies and bailouts flowing to the five-fingers of our fascist economy without raising too much alarm. The problem is that the voters are not always compliant in that regard, so the Deep State has created a three-step way of...
How Bernie Sanders and the Democrats Made Elon Musk the Richest Man in the World
Just before Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) started their ongoing series of rallies against Elon Musk and President Donald Trump, Sanders stopped by Face the Nation on CBS and hilariously exclaimed in feigned outrage: “We're looking at a rapid growth of oligarchy. We're looking at a rapid growth of authoritarianism. And I fear that we're looking at a rapid growth of kleptocracy as well. And I'm going to do everything I can to work with my supporters all over this country to stand up and fight back to make sure we have an economy that works for...