A Nation of Moochers (31 page)

6
. Ibid.

7
. Thomas Sowell,
Economic Facts and Fallacies
(New York: Basic Books, 2008), 129.

8
. Ibid.

9
. Ibid., 128.

10
. Matt Richtel, “Providing Cellphones for the Poor,”
New York Times,
June 14, 2009.

11
. Alfred Lubrano, “Advocates Say Poor Need Available Free Cell Phones,”
Philadelphia Inquirer,
June 14, 2010.

12
. R. S. McCain, “Free Cellphones for the Poor!”
TheOtherMcCain.com
,
October 9, 2008,
http://rsmccain.blogspot.com/2008/10/free-cellphones-for-poor.html
.

13
. Kiki Bradley and Robert Rector, “Confronting the Unsustainable Growth of Welfare Entitlements, Principles of Reform and the Next Steps,” The Heritage Foundation, Backgrounder #2427, June 24, 2010.

14
. Siegel,
The Future,
46.

15
. Voegeli,
Never Enough,
9.

16
. Kiki Bradley, “Expanding the Failed War on Poverty: Obama’s 2011 Budget Increases Welfare Spending to Historic Levels,” the Heritage Foundation, WebMemo #2838, March 21, 2010.

17
. Ibid.

18
. Beach and Tyrell, “The 2010 Index.”

19
. Bradley and Rector, “Confronting the Unsustainable Growth.”

20
. Ibid.

21
. John Cassidy, “Relatively Deprived: How Poor Is Poor?”
New Yorker,
April 3, 2006.

22
. Schmidtz,
Elements of Justice,
118.

The Kindness of Strangers: A Moocher Manifesto

1
. Helen Rubinstein, “Won’t You Be My Wireless Neighbor?”
New York Times,
January 13, 2011.

Chapter 5. Addicted to OPM (Other People’s Money)

1
. Eric Lipton, “‘Breathtaking’ Waste and Fraud in Hurricane Aid,”
New York Times,
June 27, 2006.

2
. Tim Reid, “Katrina Response Beset by Epic Fraud,”
Times of London,
February 13, 2006.

3
. Ibid.

4
. Spencer S. Hsu, “Waste in Katrina Response Is Cited; Housing Aid Called Inefficient in Audits,”
Washington Post,
April 14, 2006.

5
. Hope Yen, “GAO Probes Katrina Credit Card Bills; Audits Examine Purchases by Federal Workers for Abuse, Overpayment,” Associated Press, December 27, 2005.

6
. Mark Ballard, “Blanco Orders Remodeling Just After Storms,”
The Advocate,
December 31, 2005.

7
. Shaila Dewan, “Storm Evacuees Remain in Grip of Uncertainty,”
New York Times,
December 6, 2006.

8
. Matthew Philips, “A Very Late Checkout: New York’s Last Katrina Evacuees Prepare to Depart (Under Duress) from the JFK Airport Holiday Inn,”
New York
magazine, May 28, 2006.

9
. Nicholas Confessore, “Storm Evacuees Seek Money for Vacating Queens Hotel,”
New York Times,
February 4, 2006.

10
. Associated Press, “Oil Spill Adds to Housing Woes for Katrina Victims in Mississippi,” August 21, 2010.

11
. Brendan Miniter, “LBJ’s Other Quagmire: Long Before Katrina, the Welfare State Failed New Orleans’s Poor,”
Wall Street Journal,
September 13, 2005.

Chapter 6. Feed Me

1
. Alfred Lubrano, “In City Schools, Breakfast’s Now on the Principal; The Head of Each School Will Be Held Responsible for Ensuring That Students Are Well-fed,”
Philadelphia Inquirer,
October 8, 2009.

2
. Martha Moore, “Breakfast in Class: Fight Against Kids’ Hunger Starts at School,”
USA Today,
September 15, 2010.

3
. Ibid.

4
. Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, “Evers Announces Winners of the Wisconsin School Breakfast Challenge,” press release, December 2, 2009.

5
. University of Wisconsin Extension, “Attracting More Kids to School Breakfast Programs,” press release, April 9, 2010.

6
. Liam Julian, “Why School Lunch Is ‘Nasty!’”
Policy Review,
Oct/Nov 2010.

7
. Ibid.

8
. Voegeli,
Never Enough,
249.

9
. Ibid., 3.

10
. Associated Press, “Congress Sends Child Nutrition Bill to Obama,” December 3, 2010.

11
. Moore, “Breakfast in Class.”

12
. “Schools Encouraged to Take the Wisconsin School Breakfast Challenge,” WKOW-TV, November 11, 2008,
http://www.wkow.com/Global/story.asp?S=9331100&clienttype=printable
.

13
. Rector, “How Poor Are America’s Poor?”

14
. Ibid.

15
.
Wall Street Journal,
“In U.S., 14% Rely” (see chap 1, n. 15).

16
. DeParle and Gebeloff, “Food Stamp Use Soars” (see chap 1, n. 14).

17
. Bradley and Rector, “Confronting the Unsustainable Growth.”

18
. DeParle and Gebeloff, “Food Stamp Use Soars.”

19
. Matthew Boyle, “Universities Encouraging Students to Receive Welfare Benefits,”
The Daily Caller,
December 7, 2010,
http://dailycaller.com/2010/12/07/thedc-investigation-universities-encouraging-students-to-receive-welfare-benefits
.

20
. Jennifer Bleyer, “Hipsters on Food Stamps: They’re Young, They’re Broke, and They Pay for Organic Salmon with Government Subsidies. Got a Problem with That?”
Salon.com
,
March 15, 2010,
http://www.salon.com/life/pinched/2010/03/15/hipsters_food_stamps_pinched
.

Chapter 7. Harvesting OPM

1
. Alan Wirzbicki, “Is the Massachusetts Film Tax Credit Worth the Cost?”
The Angle, Boston Globe
blog, January 14, 2011,
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/blogs/the_angle/2011/01/film_tax_credit.html
.

2
. Steve Leblanc, “Mass. Tax Credits Used to Cover Movie Stars’ Wages,” Associated Press, January 12, 2011.

3
. Robert Tannenwald, “State Film Subsidies: Not Much Bang for Too Many Bucks,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, December 9, 2010.

4
. Michael Cieply, “States Weigh Cuts in Hollywood Subsidies,”
New York Times,
January 19, 2011.

5
. Robert Tannenwald, “State Film Subsidies.”

6
. John Stossel,
Give Me a Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media
(New York: HarperCollins, 2005), 140.

7
. Ken Cook, “Government’s Continuing Bailout of Corporate Agriculture,” Environmental Working Group, May 2010.

8
. Ibid.

9
. Stossel,
Give Me a Break,
141.

10
. Cook, “Government’s Continuing Bailout.”

11
. Morgan, Gaul, and Cohen, “Farm Program Pays” (see “Scenes from Moocher Nation,” n. 7).

12
. Ibid.

13
. Gilbert M. Gaul, Sarah Cohen, and Dan Morgan, “Federal Subsidies Turn Farms into Big Business,”
Washington Post,
December 21, 2006.

14
. Gilbert M. Gaul, Dan Morgan, and Sarah Cohen, “No Drought Required for Federal Drought Aid,”
Washington Post,
July 18, 2006.

15
. Ibid.

16
. Ibid.

17
. Cook, “Government’s Continuing Bailout.”

18
. Dan Morgan, Sarah Cohen, and Gilbert M. Gaul, “Growers Reap Benefits Even in Good Years,”
Washington Post,
July 3, 2006.

19
. Cook, “Government’s Continuing Bailout.”

20
. Stuart Butler, “Farmer Bailouts Must Be Revised,” The Heritage Foundation, April 10, 2009.

21
. Morgan, Gaul, and Cohen, “Farm Program Pays.”

22
. Cook, “Government’s Continuing Bailout.”

23
. Gilbert M. Gaul, “Claims Strain Federal Flood Insurance,”
Washington Post,
October 11, 2005.

24
. Thomas Frank, “Insurance Underwater,”
USA Today,
August 26, 2010.

25
. J. Scott Holladay and Jason A. Schwartz, “The Distributional Consequences of the NFIP,” Institute for Policy Integrity, Policy Brief No. 7, April 2010.

26
. Frank, “Flood Insurance Claims.”

27
. Holladay and Schwartz, “The Distributional Consequences.”

28
. Ibid.

29
. Frank, “Flood Insurance Claims.”

30
. Holladay and Schwartz, “The Distributional Consequences.”

Chapter 8. Crony Capitalism (Big Business at the Trough)

1
. David Boaz, “The Stimulus Lobbying Frenzy,” Cato Institute blog, February 2, 2009,
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/the-stimulus-lobbying-frenzy
.

2
. Jeffrey H. Birnbaum, “Mickey Goes to Washington,”
Washington Post,
February 17, 2008.

3
.
Wall Street Journal,
“The Great Misallocators: What Barack Obama and General Electric Have in Common,” January 26, 2011.

4
. George Stigler, “The Theory of Economic Regulation,”
Bell Journal of Economics,
Spring 1971.

5
. Joseph L. Bast, “Why Regulate,” The Heartland Institute, policy brief, October 2010.

6
. David Kocieniewski, “G.E.’s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether,”
New York Times,
March 24, 2011.

7
. Timothy P. Carney, “Barack Obama and the Miracle on K Street,”
Washington Examiner,
December 24, 2009.

8
. Barry Ritholtz,
Bailout Nation: How Greed and Easy Money Corrupted Wall Street and Shook the World Economy
(Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley and Sons, 2009), 273.

9
. Birnbaum, “Mickey Goes to Washington.”

10
. Roger Yu, “Obama Signs New Law to Help Promote U.S. Tourism,”
USA Today,
March 4, 2010.

11
. Birnbaum, “Mickey Goes to Washington.”

12
. Olson,
The Rise and Decline,
73 (see chap. 2, n. 2).

13
. William Kristol, “Did You Get My Message? Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton Makes a Phone Call,”
Weekly Standard,
September 27, 2010.

14
. Birnbaum, “Mickey Goes to Washington.”

15
. Timothy P. Carney,
Obamanomics
(Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 2009), 54–55.

16
. James Gattuso, “Chrysler’s Creditors and Offers You Can’t Refuse,”
The Foundry,
the Heritage Foundation, May 1, 2009.

17
. Mary Williams Walsh, “Government Takes Over Delphi’s Pensions,”
New York Times,
July 23, 2009.

18
. Ibid.

19
. Carl Horowitz, “Nonunion Delphi Retired Employees Get Shaft in Auto Bailout,” National Legal and Policy Center, December 31, 2009.

20
. Walsh, “Government Takes Over.”

21
. Horowitz, “Nonunion Delphi Retired Employees.”

22
. Cited in “TARP Enables Big Labor Crony Capitalism Again,”
The Foundry,
the Heritage Foundation, November 5, 2009.

23
.
Wall Street Journal,
“Uncle Sam, Venture Capitalist,” August 17, 2010.

24
. Thomas Content, “ZBB Energy Says Annual Loss Widens,”
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel,
September 7, 2010.

25
. John Stossel, “Big Government’s Cronies,” RealClearPolitics, February 3, 2010.

26
. Carney,
Obamanomics,
144–45.

27
. Stephen J. Dubner, “The Verdict on Cash for Clunkers: A Clunker,” Freakonomics blog,
New York Times,
September 14, 2010,
http://www.treakonomics.com/2010/09/14/the-verdict-on-cash-for-clunkers-a-clunker/
. See Atif Mian, Amir Sufi, “The Effects of Fiscal Stimulus: Evidence from the 2009 ‘Cash for Clunkers’ Program,” NBER Working Paper No. 16351, September 2010.