Lies the government told you by Andrew Napolitano (big screen ebook reader .TXT) 📕

In the aftermath of Katrina, much debate occurred about rebuilding New Orleans. Should the government pay to rebuild a city on the Gulf Coast that is mostly below sea level? One commentator on economics and environmental issues wrote, “To me, though, it doesn’t seem to be a triumph of the human spirit to rebuild a city with a population of a half-million with most of the residences under sea level. These seem like the worst sort of government subsidies.”12

Should enormous amounts of taxpayers’ dollars really be given to a rebuilding effort, just so the same thing can likely happen all over again? This situation simply does not make good sense, but neither do most of the policies FEMA proposes. From one perspective, a below-sea-level city is almost definitely not safe, and we should not be encouraging people to move there. From another viewpoint, should American taxpayers have to pay to recover and rebuild a nearly infinite number of times? This is an especially frustrating cycle when FEMA squanders or uses most of that money so inefficiently.

The statistics prove FEMA’s ineptitude. The Greater New Orleans Community Data Center report on the rebuilding process in New Orleans shows that while the city has bounced back somewhat, it seems like growth has stagnated.13 For example, households actively receiving mail in Orleans Parish plummeted from 198,232 before Katrina to 133,966 two years after Katrina.14 Households receiving mail have increased, but gradually. In 2009, only 152,904 households were receiving mail in Orleans Parish, a far cry from the nearly 200,000 households pre-Katrina.15 Before Katrina, there were 275 child care centers in Orleans Parish, 98 two years after Katrina, yet only 142 in 2009.16 The average daily transit riders in New Orleans fell drastically from 71,543 before Katrina, to 19,744 two years after Katrina.17 Today, the New Orleans transit authority, on average, sees 31,007 transit riders per day.18 Finally, the fair-market rent for two-bedroom apartments in the New Orleans area was merely $676 per month before Hurricane Katrina.19 Over the last two years, rents have hovered near $1,000 per month.20 It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to recognize FEMA’s failures in New Orleans. Plenty of work is left before New Orleans experiences real growth again.

FEMA’S Public Relations Team Wins a “Prize”

Not only does FEMA lie to us, it doesn’t even do a spectacular job at covering it up. In 2007, Fineman Public Relations, a crisis communications firm, issued its list of Top 10 PR Blunders. First place was won by FEMA based on a fake press conference it held earlier that year during the Southern California wildfires. In October 2007, FEMA arranged to have its own employees role-play as independent reporters and ask soft questions to FEMA’s deputy director, Harvey E. Johnson. FEMA gave real reporters only about fifteen minutes notice about the press conference, and consequently not many came.

This boldfaced lie to the American people is inexcusable, and the public relations firm that bestowed this “prize” on FEMA’s staff commented, “Already troubled by continued claims of inadequate disaster response and wasteful use of funds, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) truly fumbled when it held what the Washington Post described as a ‘phony press conference’ in response to Southern California wildfires.”21

Moreover, one of the FEMA staffers involved in this debacle was actually promoted to deputy director of public affairs after the phony conference. So, yet again, FEMA was not even able to learn from its past blunders.

Through making us pay for FEMA’s faulty work, the federal government has created a contract between itself and American taxpayers. Yet, this is unconstitutional because it’s a contract we never agreed to or have any way of escaping. There is no constitutional argument to be made for the feds taking tax dollars and giving them to private persons, even if they are disaster victims. It is one’s personal choice to give money to a charity, not something that can be required by our federal government. Think about it: It is impossible to be charitable with someone else’s money.

Nothing in the Constitution authorizes the federal government to engage in wealth distribution, yet no one in Washington stopped Congress from dumping $200 billion of the taxpayers’ money into New Orleans. Nothing in the Constitution authorizes the federal government to bail out politicians who felt it unnecessary to maintain the levees that broke when Katrina struck, but Congress said to Louisiana politicians after Katrina, “Don’t worry. We’ll just steal from the American people.” So, keep working and earning money, America! Your money is going below sea level.

FDA

Medicine is prescribed primarily to make us healthy. And often it has that effect. But, sometimes prescribed or even over-the-counter drugs can go terribly wrong. Years after people have been taking them, the government goes ahead and says, “Oops!” Often, by the time it says, “Oops,” it is too late, and the American people have already paid the price.

Until the twentieth century, the federal government rarely regulated the content or sale of food and drugs. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was created in the 1920s under a climate of fear created by muckraking journalists like Upton Sinclair, who exposed the disgusting and unsafe conditions inside the meatpacking industry. By the 1950s, FDA bureaucrats had begun expanding their premarket approval process, meaning that they were enlarging the part of the agency that checks drugs “for safety” before they reach consumers.

Yet, only a nation of sheep would think that the government alone can keep us safe and healthy. The Framers obviously omitted from Congress’s powers all that FEMA and the FDA have done and tried to do. Despite the apparent congressional intent of reducing to zero the risk of using pharmaceuticals, unsurprisingly, the FDA has failed to do so. Instead, the FDA began the process of dictating standards for clinical drug trials and tests and conducting a lengthy approval process that a manufacturer needed to pass before bringing a new or modified drug to market.”22 So, instead of bringing the