In the past 30 years, the U.S. Federal Government Seized $51 Trillion from its citizens

The U.S. Federal government has taken in $51 Trillion (or $51,000,000,000,000) from its citizens over the past 30 years, official White House numbers show.

According to "Table 1.1—Summary of Receipts, Outlays, and Surpluses or Deficits (-): 1789–2020" on the White House's Office of Budget and Management website, from the years 1985, when Ronald Reagan was president, to 2014, under our current President Obama, the Federal government took in $51,784,162,000,000 -- to be exact.

In other words, five presidents -- President Reagan (Republican), one-term President George H.W. Bush (Republican), two-term President Bill Clinton (Democrat), two-term President George W. Bush (Republican), and two-term President Barack Obama (Democrat) -- presided over the biggest private-to-public wealth transfer in American history.

Nearly every year federal spending went up.

In total, from 1985 to 2014, the U.S. Federal Government outspent more than they took in, spending $62,039,599,000,000 over the 30 year span.

This blog post comes at a time where a constantly resurfacing blog post (true or not) about black Christian churches voluntarily receiving hundreds of billions of dollars over a similar 30 year time span keeps grabbing people's attention on social media.

This blog post attempts to put that in context, if not set it straight altogether.

Despite multiple websites such as AllChristianNews and Urban Intellectuals posting the article, the original source of both posts is a 2009 blog post by HarlemWorldMagazine. The current link is broken. But the original post was archived thanks to the Wayback Machine.

Such blog posts talk about a so-called "return on investment" that black communities are receiving from their churches...

...but one has to wonder what is the real return on "investment" -- because we all know taxes are for investments -- that the black communities are receiving from the U.S. Federal Government.

So black churches have received $420 billion over 30 years (on average $14.3 billion per year) according to the 2009 blog post.  The government took $420 billion over seven times in 2014, or 7.194016 to be more precise.

Over seven times.

Does anyone care?

In fact, the last time the Federal Government took less than $420 billion in a year from its citizens (and remember, this is still by force; non-compliant citizens will go to jail) was 1978.

The HarlemWorldMagazine blog post notes:

“The church has gotten caught up in materialism and greed, a lifestyle. Many ministers today want to live like celebrities and they want to be treated like celebrities. In other words, instead of the church standing with the community, the church has become self-serving. It has strayed away from its mission” according to Dr.Love Henry Whelchel, professor of church history at The Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta.

Ahh yes, materialism....greed...things the Federal government is not guilty of.

It goes on:

LiveSteez’s investigative series will take a forensic editorial approach to quantifying the return to Black America for the $350 billion in tax-favored donations it has given to the Black Church, examining the arguments on both sides of the pulpit. In this series we will seek answers and advisory to the following questions:

- How often and how much do church leaders take advantage of the faith of poor black people?

-We will investigate and indentify (sic) the churches they are showing a strong return on investment that goes beyond inspiration.

- What does the black community have to show for the $350 billion in tax free dollars?

- Expert analysis on what could potentially be done with such a huge amount of money and how it could improve the state of our communities.

- Why do some church leaders refuse to participate in the Grassley congressional Investigation, which requested the financial records of several mega-churches.

And as a counter investigation, the Goins Report will investigate the return of "investment" to all of the United States for prying $51 trillion out of the hands of its citizenry.

We will ask the following questions:

A) How often and how much do politicians take advantage of the faith of poor black people?

B)We will investigate and identify the communities that are showing a strong return on investment that goes beyond inspiration.

C) What does the black community have to show for the $51 trillion in private wealth stolen from them and their fellow non-black citizens?

D) Expert analysis on what could potentially be done with such a huge amount of money and how it could improve the state of our communities.

E) Why do some political institutions, such as the Department of Defense and the U.S. Federal Reserve, refuse to participate in an audit?

Answer Key:

A) All the time.

B) Washington DC and the surrounding Maryland and Virginia suburbs, according to a 2013 report. According to a 2011 report,  Washington DC was the Richest city in the country. Could that be because there is a buzzing bureaucratic state surrounded by tons of lobbyists and workers in the defense and security industries? 

C) Twice as much unemployment as whites.

D) The African-American community would be so rich that they could spend their money on their own education, food, healthcare, etc. 

E) The Fed would claim that an audit interferes with their allegedly politically independent nature. But Rand Paul provides a better answer. And I don't know where to start with the Pentagon, but there is trans-partisan support for an "Audit the Pentagon" bill. Rand Paul supports that too.

 In the end, all of the hysteria over churches is about comparatively nothing. Comparatively.

The author still has serious exegetical problems (scriptural interpretations) of the prosperity preaching. But however "fruitful" misguided prosperity preaching is in convincing people to voluntarily give their income to religious institutions, it pales in comparison to the against the sophistry and use of force by the Federal Government to take money from its citizens.

Not a single person went to jail for not paying their tithes.

But try not paying your taxes and watch what happens.

Secondly, look at how much of a stretch the biased anti-Christian blog posts have to take. They have to go back 30 years to make the Black Church try to resemble anything that looks bad.

On a year-by-year basis, the Black Church on average voluntarily received $14.3 billion, or 14,333,333,333.33 per year.

But one only has to look back to last quarter to make the government look monstrous. In fact, the more you look back at how much the government spends, the more you question. The more you put the church numbers in perspective, the less you feel bad about it.

Religion, in this case, is a red herring -- a distraction -- from the larger issue of state power. In fact, if you want to keep religion involved, then I would say it is the false religion of the state that is at issue here; not true religion; not Christianity.

LiveSteez, by the way, is defunct.

Liberals: Gun Control leads to violation of other rights; Conservatives: The right to bear arms is violated with Stop-and-Frisk

Anthony Gregory of the Independent Institute explains:

Even today, gun laws are much like drug laws in that they are disproportionately used against minorities. Gun control is the chief impetus behind New York City’s Stop-and-Frisk program, which in 2011 ensnared young black men more times than there are young black men in the city, and targets minorities by a ratio of nine to one. Conservatives who defend this program are defending gun control at its most invasive—the wholesale profiling and searching of people in the attempt to procure guns, which conservatives claim people have a natural and constitutional right to carry in the first place. Liberals opposed to this program should recognize that to violate gun rights, government must violate other rights.

He also quotes a former Black Panther party leader on the matter:

Elaine Brown, head of the Black Panther Party in the 1970s, recently explained:
The position of the Black Panther Party was that black people live in communities occupied by police forces that are armed and dangerous and represent the frontline of forces keeping us oppressed. We did not promote guns, but rather, the right to defend ourselves against a state that was oppressing us — with guns. There were innumerable incidents in which police agents kicked in our doors or shot our brothers and sisters in what we called red-light trials, where the policeman was the judge, the jury and the executioner. We called for an immediate end to this brutality, and advocated for our right to self-defense.  

On Reagan:

As governor of California, Reagan signed the Mulford Act into law in 1967. Written by Republican Assemblyman Don Mulford, the legislation was the most sweeping state edict in all the country, prohibiting the more or less free carrying of firearms in public. It went along with the rest of his heavy-handed entire law-and-order agenda and inspired an avalanche of new gun laws nationwide.The purpose of the law was to disarm the Black Panthers, a radical leftist group that openly carried firearms, kept an eye out on the police, and even took their rifles to the state Capitol to protest what they decried as racist legislation. (bold edits are my own ~GR)

The Tea Party and the Black Panthers have something in common. Strange bedfellows.

Reagan's Homeboy: His Legacy Stinks

I really enjoyed writing this article. Here's an excerpt:

The former budget director under President Ronald Reagan said something you don’t hear often from people who have worked under Reagan or from conservative politicians.  That is, that the conservative idol and oft-referred to leader of a bygone era left a “horrible legacy.”

“The thing that came out of the Reagan era, which really was a horrible legacy, was the notion that deficits didn’t matter and the rationalization that we were only trying to starve the beast and if the deficit got big enough or persistent enough or extended far enough in time, surely they would wake up and shrink the government,” said David Stockman, former Director of the Office of Management and Budget from 1981-1985, at the Cato Institute Wednesday.

 Read More: Former Reagan Official: "Reagan Era Was A Horrible Legacy" || Politic365

The chief and most original insight is his analysis of Reagan's defense build up and its connection to the Iraq war of the 1990s. I never heard anything like it before this lecture. It's pure gold. Read it for yourself.

Former Reagan Official: Bain Capital less likely to exist in a free-market

(GoinsReport.com) -- Bain Capital, the company Republican Presidential Candidate spearheaded for XX years, is a product of years of a rigged crony capitalist system, not true free-markets, says former Reagan budget director David Stockman.

[Editor's Note: The link is, admittedly, from an article published in October 2012.]

Video: Christopher Hitchens "Hitchslaps" Ronald Reagan

Ron Paul's 1987 Resignation Letter to the RNC

Ron Paul excoriates the Reagan regime (thank you Wikisource):

As a lifelong Republican, it saddens me to have to write this letter. My parents believed in the Republican Party and its free enterprise philosophy, and that's the way I was brought up. At age 21, in 1956, I cast my first vote for Ike and the entire Republican slate.

Because of frustration with the direction in which the country was going, I became a political activist and ran for the U.S. Congress in 1974. Even with Watergate, my loyalty, optimism, and hope for the future were tied to the Republican Party and its message of free enterprise, limited government, and balanced budgets.

Eventually I was elected to the U.S. Congress four times as a Republican. This permitted me a first-hand look at the interworkings of the U.S. Congress, seeing both the benefits and partisan frustrations that guide its shaky proceedings. I found that although representative government still exists, special interest control of the legislative process clearly presents a danger to our constitutional system of government.

In 1976 I was impressed with Ronald Reagan's program and was one of the four members of Congress who endorsed his candidacy. In 1980, unlike other Republican office holders in Texas, I again supported our President in his efforts.

Since 1981, however, I have gradually and steadily grown weary of the Republican Party's efforts to reduce the size of the federal government. Since then Ronald Reagan and the Republican Party have given us skyrocketing deficits, and astoundingly a doubled national debt. How is it that the party of balanced budgets, with control of the White House and Senate, accumulated red ink greater than all previous administrations put together? Tip O'Neill, although part of the problem, cannot alone be blamed.

Tax revenues are up 59 percent since 1980. Because of our economic growth? No. During Carter's four years, we had growth of 37.2 percent; Reagan's five years have given us 30.7 percent. The new revenues are due to four giant Republican tax increases since 1981.

All republicans rightly chastised Carter for his $38 billion deficit. But they ignore or even defend deficits of $220 billion, as government spending has grown 10.4 percent per year since Reagan took office, while the federal payroll has zoomed by a quarter of a million bureaucrats.

Despite the Supply-Sider-Keynesian claim that "deficits don't matter,"the debt presents a grave threat to our country. Thanks to the President and Republican Party, we have lost the chance to reduce the deficit and the spending in a non-crisis fashion. Even worse, big government has been legitimized in a way the Democrats never could have accomplished. It was tragic to listen to Ronald Reagan on the 1986 campaign trail bragging about his high spending on farm subsidies, welfare, warfare, etc., in his futile effort to hold on to control of the Senate.

Instead of cutting some of the immeasurable waste in the Department of Defense, it has gotten worse, with the inevitable result that we are less secure today. Reagan's foreign aid expenditures exceed Eisenhower's, Kennedy's, Johnson's, Nixon's, Ford's, and Carter's put together. Foreign intervention has exploded since 1980. Only an end to military welfare for foreign governments plus a curtailment of our unconstitutional commitments abroad will enable us really to defend ourselves and solve our financial problems.

Amidst the failure of the Gramm-Rudman gimmick, we hear the President and the Republican Party call for a balanced-budget ammendment and a line-item veto. This is only a smokescreen. President Reagan, as governor of California, had a line-item veto and virtually never used it. As President he has failed to exercise his constitutional responsibility to veto spending. Instead, he has encouraged it.

Monetary policy has been disastrous as well. The five Reagan appointees to the Federal Reserve Board have advocated even faster monetary inflation than Chairman Volcker, and this is the fourth straight year of double-digit increases. The chickens have yet to come home to roost, but they will, and America will suffer from a Reaganomics that is nothing but warmed-over Keynesianism.

Candidate Reagan in 1980 correctly opposed draft registration. Yet when he had the chance to abolish it, he reneged, as he did on his pledge to abolish the Departments of Education and Energy, or to work against abortion.

Under the guise of attacking drug use and money laundering, the Republican Administration has systematically attacked personal and financial privacy. The effect has been to victimize innocent Americans who wish to conduct their private lives without government snooping. (Should people really be put on a suspected drug dealer list because they transfer $3,000 at one time?) Reagan's urine testing of Americans without probable cause is a clear violation of our civil liberties, as are his proposals for extensive "lie detector" tests.

Under Reagan, the IRS has grown bigger, richer, more powerful, and more arrogant. In the words of the founders of our country, our government has "sent hither swarms" of tax gatherers "to harass our people and eat out their substance." His officers jailed the innocent George Hansen, with the

President refusing to pardon a great American whose only crime was to defend the Constitution. Reagan's new tax "reform" gives even more power to the IRS. Far from making taxes fairer or simpler, it deceitfully raises more revenue for the government to waste.

Knowing this administration's record, I wasn't surprised by its Libyan disinformation campaign, Israeli-Iranian arms-for-hostages swap, or illegal funding of the Contras. All this has contributed to my disenchantment with the Republican Party, and helped me make up my mind.

I want to totally disassociate myself from the policies that have given us unprecedented deficits, massive monetary inflation, indiscriminate military spending, an irrational and unconstitutional foreign policy, zooming foreign aid, the exaltation of international banking, and the attack on our personal liberties and privacy.

After years of trying to work through the Republican Party both in and out of government, I have reluctantly concluded that my efforts must be carried on outside the Republican Party. Republicans know that the Democratic agenda is dangerous to our political and economic health. Yet, in the past six years Republicans have expanded its worst aspects and called them our own. The Republican Party has not reduced the size of government. It has become big government's best friend.

If Ronald Reagan couldn't or wouldn't balance the budget, which Republican leader on the horizon can we possibly expect to do so? There is no credibility left for the Republican Party as a force to reduce the size of government. That is the message of the Reagan years.

I conclude that one must look to other avenues if a successful effort is ever to be achieved in reversing America's direction.

I therefore resign my membership in the Republican Party and enclose my membership card.

Ron Paul, "Dear Frank" Letter (1987)

Let's deflate the myth of Ronald Reagan

This from a comment thread on the Charleston Tea Party blog. Apparently, he compared Herman Cain to Ronald Reagan and I took him to task on it:

I think all these comparisons to Reagan are irrelevant to the young people who didn’t even know who he was. And besides Reagan may have had so-called leadership, but what did he lead us in to? And how far away did Reagan stray away from his conservative principles? Reagan was horrible on paper–and judged by traditional conservatism–and yet his myth still lives on today.

I think these Reagan comparisons will back fire when people read about his horrible record.

And I’ll give them a hand:

The Sad Legacy of Ronald Reagan
http://mises.org/freemarket_detail.aspx?control=488

The Reagan Fraud
http://mises.org/daily/5009

The Myth of Reaganomics
http://mises.org/daily/1544

The Reagan Phenomenon
http://mises.org/daily/5011

Ron Paul's Reagan

Matt Welch's thinking on this issue is aligned with my own (emphasis in italics mine):

Rick Perry and his supporters this week are firing back at Paul's Reagan-repudiating record, quoting from his 1987 resignation letter from the Republican Party and other comments from Paul's 1988 Libertarian Party run for president. These gotcha attempts actually bolster Paul's credentials as a limited-government conservative, and highlight an important libertarian critique of Reagan (and by extension, the modern GOP) that has mostly been washed away by decades of Republican nostalgia for The Gipper.

He goes on:

There's plenty more in there about inflationary monetary policy, the drug war, arms-for-hostages, insufficient tax reform, failing to abolish the Selective Service and various federal departments, and so on. Conclusion? "There is no credibility left for the Republican Party as a force to reduce the size of government. That is the message of the Reagan years."

Ron Paul's Reagan