President Obama wants to dispense with prohibitions on government spending taxpayers' money to lobby for bigger government. Stephen DeMaura of the Washington Times: In his 2013 budget proposal, President Obama erased three critical anti-lobbying provisions that protect taxpayers from funding their own tax increases. Without this language, the federal government can more easily use our tax dollars to pay local governments and third-party groups to hire lobbyists, advocate publicly for a bill that will increase taxes, impose more government oversight and stifle individual freedoms, using such tools as television and radio advertising, pamphlets, and presentations. Government agencies have already found loopholes in existing law that allow for taxpayer-funded lobbyists, but removing the provisions as Mr. Obama's 2013 budget does only gives an endorsement of such manipulative tactics. So government takes our money and uses it to bend the legislature toward enlarging itself, devouring...(Read Full Post)