Neal Asbury began his nationally syndicated “Neal Asbury’s Made in America” show on Radio America (now on 47 stations) by revisiting the inherent waste and pork of the Farm Bill, which has almost no relationship to saving small farms—its original mandate. Now it is a $1 trillion program, 80 percent of which is allocated to food stamps.
Made in America welcomed back Lowell Ponte, futurist, author, Newsmax columnist, and former Editor of Reader’s Digest, who projected that America today has so many people on food stamps, that if placed two feet apart, the line would stretch 17,500 miles, or about 70 percent of the planet.
“Food stamps are not the solution when we only have 101 million Americans in full –time jobs while 108 million are receiving some type of welfare. In fact, at least one person in 49.2 percent of all U.S. households is receiving some sort of government payment,” said Ponte.
Ponte also noted that the U.S. banking system is out of control, imperiling the money of depositors. Making a deposit is essentially giving banks the permission to use your money as an IOU, and treating it as an unsecured asset. The FDIC recently was granted the authority to seize bank accounts, and Ponte predicted that we’re heading to the ‘Big Seizure’, similar to what took place in Argentina when the government stole ¾ of personal investments and converted them into government bonds.
“If you think the new Consumer Agency is going to protect consumers, think again. It is not funded by Congress, but by the Federal Reserve, so Congress has no say in how it is managed. They will be managing the new “MyRA” accounts, which allow Americans to buy savings bonds in a starter retirement account. But it is actually a program that will allow poor people to own more U.S. government debt,” proposed Ponte.
Ponte invited listeners to learn more about this pending threat by calling 800-630-1494 to order his book: The Great Withdrawal: How the Progressives’ 100-Year Debasement of America and the Dollar Ends.
Neal and co-host Dr. Rich Roffman returned to their ongoing discussion about the lack of jobs being created, prompted by the news that only 175,000 jobs were created in January, about half of what is needed just to replace the workers losing their jobs.
“Have people stopped paying attention? From the time Obama took office, we have taken on $6.66 trillion in debt. Instead of creating jobs the government is using handouts, which is a disincentive for people to look for work. The ACA alone is going to put 2.5 million more people on the street,” noted Neal.
Dr. Roffman agreed and proposed that people have caught on to the government’s manipulation of the job numbers, which continue to be readjusted every month to make it appear as if jobs are being created; but the job outlook is stagnating, not growing.
“We’ll see the impact of the ACA rippling through the retail and fast food industries, resulting in lost jobs and more part-time workers,” said Dr. Roffman.
The discussion turned to a sharp uptick in current and former government officials changing their minds about important initiatives.
For example, Gibson guitar, which in 2011 came under government fire for supposedly using wood from endangered trees, received the news that the investigation was over but they were never indicted and the situation was never resolved.
The Keystone XL Pipeline, the bane of many Democrats, has suddenly found new Democratic allies who understand that the pipeline is safer than rails and that it will create jobs without impacting carbon emissions.
The biggest surprise came from Ken Salazar, who served as the 50th United States Secretary of the Interior and was a leading voice against fracking, who recently disclosed his support for the process.
Fran Smith, member of the Competitive American Enterprise Institute, joined the show, to revisit the Farm Bill, which she characterized as the “dark side” of bipartisan support because it involved horse trading and pork, which did nothing to reform the costly program.
“Although it looked for a while that the House successfully split the Farm Bill into one regulating food stamps and a separate bill for farm subsidies, instead returned to its former pork-filled regulations and with a price tag of $1 trillion over 10 years. It’s the same old bill, with 80 percent going to food stamps,” said Smith, who noted that urban and rural congressmen and women will never be able to agree on this bill.
Dr. Roffman wondered if Congress tackled the sugar subsidy, which rewards sugar manufacturers but makes sugar in the U.S. three times more expensive than it is in other world markets.
Smith noted that the sugar subsidy punishes confectioners which are being forced to lay off workers to absorb the rising cost of sugar, while sugar producers continue to rake in money. The result is that for every new job created in the sugar industry, three jobs are lost in confectionary-related businesses.
Returning to “Made in America” was Peter Morici, economist and professor at the University of Maryland, who contends that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) “once again low-balls the impact of the Affordable Care Act on labor force participation and the economy. GDP, growth and employment for most workers will be harmed.”
“The Obama administration is heavily influenced by a single academic advisor who estimates employment will be cut by 1.5 to 2 percent, thanks to workers choosing to cut hours or not work at all to obtain ObamaCare subsidies for private insurance or maintain eligibility for Medicaid. But the report fails to adequately calibrate the impact of higher Medicare taxes and the surcharge on interest, dividends and capital gains on the participation of older workers,” proposed Morici.
Morici concluded that the impact on the economy from ObamaCare, beginning this year and escalating through the decade is likely to be in the range of $240 to $320 billion. This will damage the viability of the Social Security trust funds and shake state and local government finances.
Reminding listeners that cronyism hurts all of us, Neal and co-host Dr. Rich Roffman concluded the show by returning to ways that cronyism rewards the few at the expense of the many.
“If you think that CGI went away after wasting nearly $500 million to build the flawed ACA site, they not only didn’t go away, they received another $37 million for more IT. It’s nice when the CEO of CGI is a close friend of Michelle Obama,” noted Dr. Roffman, who revealed that Accenture, a big Obama supporter, was given an additional $90 million to try and fix another portion the ACA site created by CGI.
Dr. Roffman added that several other close friends of the Obama administration received profitable IT assignments, with varying results. Client Services Network, another favorite of the administration–is under investigation for bidding irregularities for an assignment in Louisiana. That didn’t stop the Feds from giving them millions!
Development C, run by Dave Koch, a former government official who took over whitehouse.gov was allowed to revamp a “perfectly running site” that was built for under $1 million, but Koch got a nice contract for $6.4 million to revamp it—even though it didn’t need to be—revamped. Pretty good job!
Each week Neal Asbury’s Made in America provides Neal’s insights into the week’s top news stories and their impact on the worlds of entrepreneurship, small business ownership and the overall economy. Neal’s analysis, together with co-host Dr. Richard Roffman, a veteran 30-year publisher with extensive domestic and international experience, takes a non-biased approach based on real life experience in business as an American manufacturer and exporter. Made in America airs nationally each Saturday from 7-8:00 PM on Radio America. Link to Made in America at http://www.nealasburysmadeinamerica.com.
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