Reno Hayek Symposium

Mark Steyn gives forth with a little holiday humor in his NRO May 23rd column: While on a recent Vermont jaunt he mistakenly picked up a local paper in which a rare quarter page ad caught his eye. This help wanted ad was from SEVCA, South-Eastern Vermont Community Action, an anti-poverty agency, community organizers, just like our president. Seems that SEVCA is advertising in all the local papers seeking applicants for positions funded by the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act (ARRA), you know the “stimulus,’ our president’s promise to “create or keep” 2.5 million jobs. By golly, he’s actually CREATING eight new positions according to the ad. These included “ARRA Project Coordinator,” “Grantwriter,” and “Marketing Specialists,” all of which had to do with getting more money from the federal trough. Mark’s piece proceeds:

I don’t want to give the impression that every job funded by the stimulus is a job coordinating the public awareness of programs for grant applications to coordinate the funding of public awareness coordination programs funded by the stimulus. SEVCA is also advertising for a “Job Readiness Program Coordinator.” This is a job coordinating the program that gets people ready to get a job. For example, it occurred to me, after reading the ad, that I might like to be a “Job Readiness Program Coordinator.” But am I ready for it? Increasing numbers of us are hopelessly unready for jobs. Ever since last November, many Americans have been ready for free health care, free daycare, free college, free mortgages — and, once you get a taste for that, it’s hardly surprising you’re not ready for gainful employment. I only hope there are enough qualified “Job Readiness Program Coordinators” out there, and that they don’t have to initiate a Job Readiness Program Coordinator Readiness Program. As the old novelty song once wondered, “Who Takes Care of the Caretaker’s Daughter While the Caretaker’s Busy Taking Care?” Who coordinates programs for the Job Readiness Program Coordinator while the Job Readiness Program Coordinator’s busy readying for his job? If you hum it, I’ll put in for the stimulus funding.

Oh, and let’s not forget the new job of “VITA Program Coordinator.” VITA? That’s “Volunteer Income Tax Assistance.” It’s an IRS program designed “to help low and moderate-income taxpayers complete their tax returns at no cost.” The words “no cost,” by the way, are used in the new Webster’s–defined sense of “massive public expenditure.” Whoops, I mean massive public “investment.” You might think, were you a space alien recently landed from Planet Zongo, that, if tax returns are so complicated that “low and moderate-income taxpayers” have difficulty filling them in, the obvious solution would be to make the tax code less complex. But that’s just the unfamiliar atmosphere on Planet Earth making you lighthearted and prone to cockamamie out-of-this-world fancies. Put in for a Job Readiness Program, and you’ll soon get with the program.

Of course, it’s not just “low and moderate-income taxpayers” who have difficulty completing their tax returns. So do high-income taxpayers like Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner. Tragically, they’re ineligible for the “Volunteer Income Tax Assistance” program. Indeed, the Treasury secretary seemed under the misapprehension that it was a “Volunteer Income Tax” program, which would be a much better idea. But, being ineligible for VITA, Secretary Geithner was forced to splash out $49.95 for TurboTax and, simply by accidentally checking the “No” box instead of “Yes” at selected moments, was able to save himself thousands of dollars in confiscatory taxation! Oops, my mistake, I meant that, tragically, by being unable to complete his tax return due to a lack of Volunteer Income Tax Assistance, Timothy Geithner was the only one of 300 million Americans to pass the Treasury Secretary Job Readiness Program.

via What Are We Stimulating? by Mark Steyn on National Review Online.

I too have had a taste of the “stimulus.” On returning home from a recent vacation I found 27 voice mail messages on my office phone, a full 19 of these were offers to help me refinance my mortgage, but only if I met the necessary deadbeat credit criteria. Wonderful world!

The sad part is that real tax money-either current or borrowed-is used to fund this crap. What we don’t pay, our children and grandchildren will. And, at the end of the day, Obama will rightly claim that he has indeed “created of kept” 2.5 million jobs. And the American public is too dumb to see Obama’s “sleeves off your vest” turn of phrase: with the size of our employment base there will always be 2.5 million jobs kept! Bravo.

Tom Motherway, tom@renohayek.com