Government Shutdown May Actually Increase Productivity Of Private Sector

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – I’m going to ask the question again: What productivity?  What do they produce?  What do they produce other than regulations that hamper the production of every other living soul on the continent, hell, across the world?  According to this, the 1996-96 shutdown cost $1.4 billion, roughly $2.1 billion in today’s dollars.  One of the things we know federal workers are really good at producing is inflation and currency devaluation.  Check out today’s transcript for the rest…

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  I saw your story of the $300 million a day from ABC News.  I don’t know how they calculated that.  It says, “The government shutdown comes with a hefty price tag — $300 million per day.”  I think that’s a bargain.  The federal leviathan costs about $13 billion a day, so $300 million per day, that’s a bargain.  We’re making money here.  Like my friend Bill Terry likes to say: Dude, you’re making money.  Does it cost $300 million or are you saving $300 million?  Of course, this is from the economic consulting firm IHS Global Insight.  I would like to know who paid IHS Global Insight.  I wonder if the government paid IHS Global Insight to project what the government would lose if it had to shut itself down or partially shut itself down per day.  You budding young researchers out there, if you’re looking for something to sink your teeth into, that would be a great thing to sink your teeth into.  ABC News has not figured out how to proficiently allow the printing of their news stories, so you almost have to read them from screen.  I can’t print them out.  “The IHS analysis, shared with ABC News, accounts only for the lost wages and productivity from the nearly 800,000 furloughed federal workers.”

I’m going to ask the question again: What productivity?  What do they produce?  What do they produce other than regulations that hamper the production of every other living soul on the continent, hell, across the world?  According to this, the 1996-96 shutdown cost $1.4 billion, roughly $2.1 billion in today’s dollars.  One of the things we know federal workers are really good at producing is inflation and currency devaluation.  Man, they produce that like they are making acme widgets.  I knew there was something I wanted to throw into this discussion today.  When I finish with this list, I’ll get to it.  Going back down the list of federal agencies and those that will be furloughed from same, Smithsonian Institute, 4,202, number estimated furloughed, 3,514.

Somewhere in the annals of the early days of Congress, the question arose as to the Library of Congress.  In the Constitution we find that Congress is empowered to promote the arts and sciences by assigning copyrights, patents, and trademarks, something to that effect.  In the necessary and proper clause, one of the early congresses said: If we’re going to promote patents and copyrights, we’re going to have to have someplace to store them and someone is going to have to keep track of them.  It was determined in an early act of Congress that they would create this thing called the Library of Congress.  The Library of Congress is not a library in the sense that you think it is or might think it is, that it’s a library where Congress goes to read.  It was actually created, if memory serves correctly, as a storehouse.  AG, have you ever applied for a copyright?

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AG:  I have not, no.

Mike:  I have about 60 of them lying around here.  One of the things you do when you apply for a copyright, you download the form.  This is actually a legitimate function of the constitutional government.  Here it is “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.”  You have intellectual property rights included in the enumerated powers for the national legislature of the federal government.  The Necessary and Proper Clause would say: If we’re going to do that, how are you actually going to execute that power?  It was discussed and then it was determined that one of the ways to do this was to create this thing called the Library of Congress.

Here’s how the copyright process — back in the day before we had electronic transmission, you would go to the post office or wherever and procure a copy of a patent, copyright, or trademark application form.  You would fill it out in its entirety.  One of the things you must do in order to obtain the copyright is you must send, and it says on the form you aren’t going to get this back if you send it to us.  You must send a copy of the work you are trying to protect.  If it’s a book, you send a copy of the book or manuscript.  If it’s a piece of art, you copy the piece of art and send it to the copyright office.  This stuff starts piling up and somebody in Congress decides: Hey, man, we gotta find someplace to store all this stuff.  So the Library of Congress is created.  I’m not sure the exact history of how the Smithsonian got created, but I know that there was a discussion after the fire that destroyed the White House that the Brits set in 1814.  I know there was a discussion about where to store the artwork in the future.  I also know that President Madison said it would not be a proper use of the Necessary and Proper Clause and the Copyright Clause for the Feds to start a museum.  I don’t know how the Smithsonian got around to being funded by Congress but it is.

I’m going down the list.  Housing and Urban Development, here’s an agency that has never housed and has never urban developed anything.  If you look at where HUD’s fingerprints are, there’s not urban development, there’s urban decay.  It ought to be Housing and Urban Decay.  I’ll tell you what else they do.  They sit around in offices all day long and they dream up of new ways to torture homeowners or prospective homeowners that are going to go to mortgage closings.  Have you tried to buy a house lately?  Oh my heavens!  You will sit with a lawyer with a pen in your hand for two and a half, maybe three hours, depending on what state it is, signing your life away, HUD form after HUD form.  You’re going: Why do I have to sign this?  I already made a deal with the bank.  No, HUD’s got to keep track of it.  Why does HUD need to keep track of it?  Why does HUD need to know how many people are going to be in this house?  Why does HUD need to know about termites?  Why does HUD need to know about any of this stuff?  Well, the answer to the question is that they don’t, but they’ve got to find something to do with the time.  They have all these employees lying around, so they’ve got to figure out something to occupy them.  Housing and Urban Decay Department, 8,709 employees, 8,360 of whom have been furloughed.  They will not be missed.  Good riddance!  Why don’t we permanently shutter that agency?

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The Department of Education, which has never educated a solitary soul or caused one brain molecule in any human being to ever absorb any education, 4,225 alleged employees, 3,983 of whom are not educating anyone today, meaning they are probably watching reruns of Judge Judy.  There are some smaller agencies, for example the FCC.  Andrew, this is one that would be near and dear to our hearts.  The FCC employs 1,754 souls, 1,716 of whom are not at work today.  AG, today would be a really good day if you were in broadcast radio or television, today would be a really good day to slip and drop an F bomb.

AG:  Terrestrial radio has curse words flying out the wazoo.

Mike:  Who are you going to rat out the guy that slipped and dropped the F or S bomb or whatever?

AG:  Rush is just cursing up a storm.

Mike:  There’s your rundown of employees that aren’t actual employees.

End Mike Church Show Transcript

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