{"id":8072,"date":"2015-02-28T22:35:29","date_gmt":"2015-03-01T03:35:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=8072"},"modified":"2016-09-29T11:37:41","modified_gmt":"2016-09-29T15:37:41","slug":"federal-policies-huge-financial-burden-american-families","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2015\/02\/28\/federal-policies-huge-financial-burden-american-families\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal Policies Are Huge Financial Burden on American Families"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.presstv.ir\/Detail\/2015\/02\/27\/399489\/US-govt-made-life-harder-for-Americans\">Press TV<\/a> posted a monologue I did last night\u00a0responding to a new <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usnews.com\/news\/business\/articles\/2015\/02\/26\/pew-study-americans-still-stressed-despite-improved-economy\">Pew poll<\/a> indicating that most Americans are feeling financially stressed and that 82% of households reported suffering\u00a0a financial shock last year.\u00a0 My riff focused on how U.S. government policies make life more difficult for average Americans:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">\u00a0If you listen to Congress and the Obama appointees, you get the impression that Americans are doing great because the official unemployment rate has fallen and some\u00a0other indicators have rebounded. But there is not a broad sense of prosperity outside the Capital Beltway. The Federal Reserve has driven the interest rates down to zero &#8212; people who\u00a0rely on their savings have been crucified as part of the government&#8217;s plan to make things better for businesses and the housing market.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Politicians have piled on taxes on gasoline and other things\u00a0 and there are so many government restrictions that make it difficult for people to live cheaper and easier.\u00a0 Most of the things that Washington has done in the last 15 years has made life more difficult and expensive for the average family.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Politicians are doing very well. The average member of Congress is a millionaire and has very good prospects (as a lobbyist after leaving Congress). They don&#8217;t need to work that hard, they have much longer vacations than the average worker in this country. So it is no surprise that Washington doesn&#8217;t pay attention to the suffering of average Americans.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0Here is an MP3 file of the rambling monologue from last night:<\/p>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-8072-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/PressTV-US-govt.-\u2018made-life-harder-for-Americans\u2019.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/PressTV-US-govt.-\u2018made-life-harder-for-Americans\u2019.mp3\">http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/PressTV-US-govt.-\u2018made-life-harder-for-Americans\u2019.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Press TV posted a monologue I did last night\u00a0responding to a new Pew poll indicating that most Americans are feeling financially stressed and that 82% of households reported suffering\u00a0a financial shock last year.\u00a0 My riff focused on how U.S. government policies make life more difficult for average Americans: \u00a0If you listen to Congress and the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[15,52,497,137,38,179],"class_list":["post-8072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-congress","tag-democracy","tag-economics","tag-george-w-bush","tag-obama","tag-taxes"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Federal Policies Are Huge Financial Burden on American Families - James Bovard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2015\/02\/28\/federal-policies-huge-financial-burden-american-families\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Federal Policies Are Huge Financial Burden on American Families - James Bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Press TV posted a monologue I did last night\u00a0responding to a new Pew poll indicating that most Americans are feeling financially stressed and that 82% of households reported suffering\u00a0a financial shock last year.\u00a0 My riff focused on how U.S. government policies make life more difficult for average Americans: \u00a0If you listen to Congress and the [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2015\/02\/28\/federal-policies-huge-financial-burden-american-families\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"James Bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jim.bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-03-01T03:35:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-09-29T15:37:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jim\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@jimbovard\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jim\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2015\\\/02\\\/28\\\/federal-policies-huge-financial-burden-american-families\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2015\\\/02\\\/28\\\/federal-policies-huge-financial-burden-american-families\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Jim\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/79550830ad81c14be529a2c37469974f\"},\"headline\":\"Federal Policies Are Huge Financial Burden on American Families\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-03-01T03:35:29+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-09-29T15:37:41+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2015\\\/02\\\/28\\\/federal-policies-huge-financial-burden-american-families\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":279,\"commentCount\":0,\"keywords\":[\"Congress\",\"Democracy\",\"Economics\",\"George W. 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \\\"the roving inspector general of the modern state\\\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \\\"one-man truth squad.\\\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism &amp; Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \\\"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\\\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. Bovard\u2019s writings have been publicly denounced by FBI director Louis Freeh, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the Postmaster General, and the chiefs of the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as by many congressmen and other malcontents.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\\\/\\\/www.jimbovard.com\",\"https:\\\/\\\/www.facebook.com\\\/jim.bovard\",\"https:\\\/\\\/x.com\\\/jimbovard\"],\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/author\\\/admin\\\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Federal Policies Are Huge Financial Burden on American Families - James Bovard","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2015\/02\/28\/federal-policies-huge-financial-burden-american-families\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Federal Policies Are Huge Financial Burden on American Families - James Bovard","og_description":"Press TV posted a monologue I did last night\u00a0responding to a new Pew poll indicating that most Americans are feeling financially stressed and that 82% of households reported suffering\u00a0a financial shock last year.\u00a0 My riff focused on how U.S. government policies make life more difficult for average Americans: \u00a0If you listen to Congress and the [&hellip;]","og_url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2015\/02\/28\/federal-policies-huge-financial-burden-american-families\/","og_site_name":"James Bovard","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jim.bovard","article_published_time":"2015-03-01T03:35:29+00:00","article_modified_time":"2016-09-29T15:37:41+00:00","author":"Jim","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@jimbovard","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Jim","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2015\/02\/28\/federal-policies-huge-financial-burden-american-families\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2015\/02\/28\/federal-policies-huge-financial-burden-american-families\/"},"author":{"name":"Jim","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/79550830ad81c14be529a2c37469974f"},"headline":"Federal Policies Are Huge Financial Burden on American Families","datePublished":"2015-03-01T03:35:29+00:00","dateModified":"2016-09-29T15:37:41+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2015\/02\/28\/federal-policies-huge-financial-burden-american-families\/"},"wordCount":279,"commentCount":0,"keywords":["Congress","Democracy","Economics","George W. 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \"the roving inspector general of the modern state\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \"one-man truth squad.\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism &amp; Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. Bovard\u2019s writings have been publicly denounced by FBI director Louis Freeh, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the Postmaster General, and the chiefs of the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as by many congressmen and other malcontents.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.jimbovard.com","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jim.bovard","https:\/\/x.com\/jimbovard"],"url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/author\/admin\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8072"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9697,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8072\/revisions\/9697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}