The Candyman -- a.k.a., the so-called “Republican” Governor of Ohio -- Mike DeWine has introduced a series of Wonka-like “Golden Tickets” to the population of the state that, when viewed in conjunction with California Gavin Newsom’s claim of a $75 million budget surplus, help reveal one of the key problems of the U.S. political-economic system today.
As Calvin Freiburger reports for LifeSiteNews, DeWine announced on Wednesday a weekly lottery that’s almost as darkly comic as the wildest fantasy of Roald Dahl, author of “Charlie and The Chocolate Factory”:
Ohio’s Republican Gov. Mike DeWine unveiled Wednesday an unusual incentive to encourage more residents to take one of the experimental COVID-19 vaccines: entering recipients in weekly drawings for one million dollars.
Indeed, it seems that DeWine isn’t happy that some Ohioans aren’t willing to become test subjects for mRNA gene-vector injections, so…
DeWine’s solution is to enter adults who have at least obtained the first injection of a coronavirus vaccine into a lottery for one of five drawings of one million dollars apiece, announced every Wednesday for five weeks starting May 26.
And, of course, all those who wish to be included in the lottery will have to give up that medical information.
Actually, the state already can get it, because the 1996 HIPAA statute so many Americans think protects their medical privacy actually claimed for government the power to collect our medical data, something about which I’ve tried to warn people since the bill was passed by “bipartisan” government hypocrites who could care less about the Fourth Amendment.
So, that’s $5 million, to sucker people into taking one of many experimental jabs that have not been properly tested in order for them to receive anything other than a FDA “emergency use” permission – for those who care what the ridiculous and unconstitutional FDA says.
About his plan, DeWine tweeted:
I know that some may say, ‘DeWine, you’re crazy! This million-dollar drawing idea of yours is a waste of money,’ But truly, the real waste at this point in the pandemic — when the vaccine is readily available to anyone who wants it — is a life lost to COVID-19.
That’s a Republican. It’s not his money.
And that’s not the end of it, because DeWine -- the hero who in December last year ordained that kids could wrestle in high school, but NOT SHAKES HANDS before or afterward – also has proposed a college tuition lottery for kids to get jabbed.
Those would be KIDS. WHO ARE NEAR ZERO CHANCE OF GETTING ILL WITH (and, as a result spreading) COVID19.
Writes Cory Steig for CNBC (which categorized this story under the New Age style title of “Health and Wellness” rather than graft and corruption):
For teens ages 12 to 17, DeWine said the state has a separate lottery planned. The state will randomly award a ‘full, four-year scholarship’ to attend state universities in Ohio each Wednesday for five weeks starting on May 26, he said. ‘This will include tuition, room and board, and books.’
And this brings the potential accumulation of DeWine’s cash-showers to $6 million, all in a state that barely balanced its budget last year (thanks to infusions of federal Medicare and Medicaid “reimbursements”) and had projected a deficit of $2.4 billion for 2021.
As The Pretenders said in their song, “My City Was Gone”: “Ay, oh, way to go, Ohio.”
Meanwhile, a similar profligate spending phenomenon is appearing in California, where embattled Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom now is patting himself on the back forhaving a $75 billion “surplus” despite having sunk the state to a $54 billion deficit last year, and despite the economy tanking because of his COVID lockdowns, resulting in miniscule tax “receipts” for the state.
Ayelet Sheffey reports for BusinessInsider:
On Monday, Newsom announced that California has a $75 billion budget surplus which he plans to give back to the state's residents in the form of $600 checks for middle-income people and $500 checks for families with dependents, part of what he calls the Golden State Stimulus.
Political gamesmanship, with money that came not from “belt-tightening,” but from the federal government. Indeed, Newsom can use it to slick-up his image almost as much as he slicks his locks.
Along with direct aid to families, $27 billion of the surplus would go to K-12 schools and community colleges, while $11 billion would go toward debt payments, for instance paying 100% of back rent for low-income renters.
Because nothing says “respect the people” more than subsidizing certain groups and claiming a form of political sainthood by “helping” people.
Of course, none of this is helpful. It’s all a sham of payoffs and pandering that opens a window onto a long-standing problem in the U.S. political-economic system:
Federalism is virtually nonexistent in the U.S., has been for over a century, and will not reappear to any notable extent until people recognize how the central government buys-off state and local politicians with central-bank-created cash.
The problem goes all the way back to Alexander Hamilton’s push to eliminate the Articles of Confederation and replace it with the Constitution, and his thirst for a central bank that could facilitate US debt and federal government payoffs to special interests – especially, as we have seen, special interests on the state level who sit in state political seats.
Related: Groups of Ohioans Defy Gov. DeWine’s 'Stay At Home' Edict To Protest State Shutdown
Nullification of unconstitutional federal dictates is a principle that walked hand in hand with the passage of the Constitution, and for decades, the principle offered some resistance to Hamilton’s collectivist push to have the feds engage in “internal improvements,” aka pork projects and political payoffs. In 1798, Thomas Jefferson outlined the principle of state nullification in his famous Kentucky Resolutions.
But with the establishment of the Federal Reserve in 1913, and the tendency of most politicians to pander to more and more constituencies, handing them money and expecting political support, creating new agencies and bureaus, ratcheting up the size of state programs that all syphon away real cash from taxpayers who could spend their money on what THEY believe is valuable, state politicians have been unable to cover their expenses purely through taxation.
So, like DeWine and Newsom, they rely on the feds, who, in turn, rely on the Federal Reserve to pump out more fake cash, decreasing the buying/bidding power of the each unit of money as it increases the size of the money supply.
This is a major, major, major problem, not only because the central bank, fiat currency monopoly creates the boom-bust cycle of inflation, price spikes, and crashes, but because it makes it unlikely that state politicians will do what is constitutional – that they will forgo fed cash and, instead, will stand against federal authoritarianism.
This time in US history is a key moment to show us the massive problem, and tell others that federalism likely will only increase in a sizeable way if state politicians turn away from the payoffs from the central government.
Of course, it’s likely that DeWine and Newsom won’t hear a word.