The Free Market and Technology Innovation

Yesterday I received the new iPad from Apple. It is a truly impressive piece of technology. It is entirely a product of the free market. Apple's achievement of developing the iPad is a testament to the company's ingenuity and creativity.

I am not suggesting everyone go out and buy one, I am saying as Americans we should be proud of a company such as Apple. We should celebrate the achievements of the free market.

We should continually fight for less regulation on businesses so that they can continue to develop and create new technologies. We should continue to fight for lower taxes on businesses so they can create more jobs. We should keep on fighting for lower taxes on our citizens to keep these businesses viable.

So I salute those businesses that continue to bring us new technologies despite having to jump through all the hoops our government makes them jump through.

Muir Boda



-- Post From My iPad

Today Counts: Census Encourages Participation With Fanfare

Below is the article that appeared in the Daily Times and Circulated by Capital News Service to other local newspaper and online news services in Maryland.


Posted on March 31, 2010
By DIANA NGUYEN


WASHINGTON (March 31, 2010) -- National Census Day is Thursday -- the federal government's reminder to get those census forms in post haste and save money.

To promote the day and its message, the U.S Census Bureau and its community partners will sponsor a slew of events across the nation to "empower communities" and remind residents that $400 billion in federal assistance is at stake.

"This is the push," said Census Bureau spokeswoman Sylvia Ballinger. "We use this day to rally people, encourage and remind them to fill out the 2010 census form" so that someone won't have to show up and knock on their doors after May 1. 


Those census takers will cost a pretty penny.

To send back a completed form takes 10 minutes and costs a mere 42 cents. But it costs taxpayers $25 per person to send a census taker door-to-door to collect the same information, according to the Census Bureau.

Every 1 percentage point increase in mail-back rates saves taxpayers $85 million in follow-up costs.

To follow up on those who fail to respond costs an estimated $2.74 billion, which is the largest portion of the projected $14.7 billion needed to operate the 2010 census.

To keep follow-up costs down and spread census awareness to "Hard to Count" areas, the Census Bureau spent $62.7 million on television, $18.1 million on radio, and $21.1 million on print ads.

But critics say census publicity is unnecessary.

"The census happens every 10 years," said Muir Boda, communications director of the Libertarian Party of Maryland. "It's another extreme waste of taxpayer money to promote something we know is already going to happen."

Although Maryland continues to surpass the national participation rate, about half the state still needs to answer the 10-question survey as of Wednesday.

Census Bureau and Maryland officials expect a wave of forms to return after April 1 because there is usually an uptick from residents waiting until Census Day to send back their forms, said Jane Traynham, manager of the Maryland State Data Center. 


Traynham predicted there will be a big effort from the counties to encourage communities with low response rates after the first week of April.

That's because the count counts: A community's population count will determine the area's legislative and congressional representation and serves as a major factor in the allocation of federal funds to jurisdictions.

Census numbers are also used in other ways.

For example, the Census Bureau produces about 100 surveys a year based on census data; companies use housing and income figures to locate ideal consumers; and non-profit organizations look at the data to determine important statistics in their communities when applying for grants.

While census takers battle low response rates in rural and urban communities, they will also have to deal with suspicious residents who consider census questions intrusive and unconstitutional.

"They are asking questions that are private. And oftentimes (the government) uses the information for purposes that it's not intended for," Boda said. "Race and ethnicity are irrelevant and information the government doesn't need."

The only necessary question, Boda said, is the one that pertains to how many people are living in the household.

The Census Bureau said it plans to follow up several times if questions are left unanswered or an occupied household fails to respond. It's important that every person living in your household is counted as of April 1, said Ballinger. "It's not too late."

Capital News Service contributed to this report.

Executive Board Member Interviewed About the Census

I received a phone call from a reporter at Capitol News Service.  It got picked up by the Daily Times in Salisbury.  Check it out and share it.

How to Oppose ObamaCare

What critics of the president's health care plan can learn from Gandhi's methods of nonviolent resistance

Shikha Dalmia | March 26, 2010

President Barack Obama came into office promising hope and change. But he might get more change than he hoped for. By foisting ObamaCare on a deeply unwilling country he might have set the stage for the largest civil disobedience movement since the civil rights era, which, if it plays its cards right, could undo his legislation and his legacy.

President Obama is betting that come November the bruising, year-long battle that he has just dragged the country through will be a distant memory. But that profoundly underestimates the dismay of a large segment of the public that sees what he signed Tuesday as a fraudulent piece of legislation based on fraudulent thinking backed by fraudulent facts enacted through a fraudulent process. (Yes, Americans do care about "process," Mr. President. It's another name for representative government.)

President Obama tried for a year to convince the country that the cure for rising health care costs and the swelling ranks of the uninsured was a de facto government takeover of the health care system—only to be rebuffed in poll after poll. And if there was any doubt as to where the public stood, it was put to rest by Republican Scott Brown's stunning December victory in Massachusetts, the land of Big Government.

But instead of backing down President Obama went for broke using tactics more reprehensible than the "business as usual politics" that he had pledged to change when he came to office.

First, there were the budgetary magic tricks that he and his Congressional enablers got the highly respected Congressional Budget Office to perform. The last CBO assessment—that pushed the bill through—showed that the Obama plan would reduce the federal deficit by $138 billion over 10 years. The reality, once all the double counting and fantasy savings are eliminated, is that it will add $562 billion.

But the CBO is not the only entity whose honor Democrats have violated—perhaps beyond repair. Federal taxpayers will also get royally screwed when they have to pay for all the sweetheart deals that Obama's Cogressional minions cut behind closed doors and whose true scope will only become apparent in the coming months. (Bart Stupak is rumored to have gotten $700,000 for airport repairs as his sell-out price.)

Worst of all were the shameless parliamentary tactics that Democrats deployed. The Founders deliberately constructed many roadblocks for new laws to prevent elected officials from straying too far from the will of the people. But Democrats could care less about parliamentary niceties.

They are poised to use the so-called nuclear option or "reconciliation" to square the House and the Senate bills. This option will allow the Senate to circumvent the normal committee process to make fixes to the House bill through a simple majority without risking a filibuster. But reconciliation is meant exclusively for budgetary matters—not ramrodding sweeping social legislation on a party-line vote. This is why the Senate parliamentarian—a completely nonpartisan figure—has to approve its use for every fix. But Democrats are poised to have Vice President Joe Biden overrule him should he dare to stand in their way. In short, instead of bending the cost curve, President Obama is bending the rules of accountable government.

READ MORE REASON

The Entitlement Rip-Off

How unfunded liabilities drain the treasury

John Stossel | March 25, 2010

Bernie Madoff took money from people who thought he'd invested it, gave some to others who thought it was a partial return on their earlier investments, and kept much for himself. That's called a Ponzi scheme, and his $50 billion fraud was called the biggest ever. But it wasn't the biggest. Social Security and Medicare are much bigger ones.

These are trillion-dollar scams. Medicare has a $36 trillion unfunded liability. Social Security's is $8 trillion. There's no money to keep those promises.

But Congress isn't investigating this scam. Congress runs it. That FICA money you thought government had saved for your retirement is gone. There's nothing left but IOUs backed by nothing. Your money was spent not only on current retirees but on wars, welfare, corporate bailouts, earmarks, and all the other stuff Congress wants. For years, this was possible because the FICA tax brought in surpluses that allowed government to pay retirees more than they contributed and still help buy those other things.

Those days are gone. The huge group of baby boomers has started to retire, and that means trouble. In 2008, for the first time, Medicare paid out more than it took in.

So instead of filling the government's coffers and hiding the real size of the budget deficit, the entitlement programs have now begun to drain the treasury. Part of the "problem" is that we live longer. When Social Security started, most people didn't live to 65. Now we average 78.

READ MORE REASON

Obamacare's First Patient