As I write this, the latest episode of US Government Debt Ceiling Theater seem to be approaching its denouement: Congressional and White House negotiators report “progress” in talks to raise the government’s debt ceiling before (not especially fat) lady, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, sings “default.”

I say “episode,” but perhaps the proper term is “reboot.” The story never really changes. In each iteration, both sides dance on the brink of default until nearly the last minute, then agree to minor spending cuts now and big ones later in return for raising the “debt ceiling,” then cruise toward the next episode when those big spending cuts never arrive and Congress gets up against its credit card limit yet again. Rinse, repeat.

The big question, which never seems to get asked very loudly, is “why do we go through this over and over, with big blow-ups every few years, and nothing ever getting really settled?”

The answer, as popularized in several mid-20th-century songs:

“Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.”

Americans want all kinds of goodies, and American politicians want to hand out those goodies.

Americans don’t want to pay for those goodies, and American politicians don’t want to demand payment for those goodies.

For example, Americans want lower retirement ages, bigger retirement benefits, and better Medicare services, without paying higher FICA taxes.

If you suggest that they pay more in advance, wait longer to collect, make do with a smaller check, or pay a higher Medicare premium, don’t bother running for office (or, if in office, for re-election).

Ditto good highways but no tolls, mass transit with fares that don’t cover the cost of providing it,  “free” college, etc.

Politicians’ solution: No biggie! We’ll just BORROW the money, and let someone ELSE worry about it later!

It should be obvious that this can’t go on forever.

And, in fairness, other countries have all those things.

How do those other governments provide all those goodies? By taxing the bejeezus out of their “middle class” citizens.

France’s government takes 46.2% of the country’s Gross Domestic Product in taxes. Denmark takes 46%.  Sweden, 44%. Germany, 37.5%.

Apparently THEIR citizens are willing to die to go to heaven, and a  social-democratic welfare state strikes them as heaven.

The US government takes 27.1% of GDP in taxes, and does a pretty lousy job of replicating those welfare states. The people who want that kind of thing don’t want to pay nearly twice as much in taxes for the real deal, and even the insane level of borrowing we’ve seen since World War Two won’t cover the tab.

Neither will “taxing the rich.” There are only so many of them, they already pay most of the income taxes in the US, and confiscating every dime they have or earn wouldn’t come close to making up the difference between revenues and spending.

Personally, I’m not big on the social-democratic welfare state concept. But those “middle class” Americans who want it need to either cough up or shut up.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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In a May 15 talk in Toronto, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman called for a “global licensing and regulatory framework” for artificial intelligence (AI). As I write this, he’s preparing to offer similar recommendations in testimony before a US Senate subcommittee.

The whole idea of “regulating AI” fails on at least three levels.

Level One: Regulation wouldn’t prevent the development of AI to some notional “singularity” point beyond which it surpassed (and could, if it chose, control or even destroy humankind). If that’s going to happen, it’s going to happen no matter what we do.

Level Two: Even a “global” regulatory framework wouldn’t work — some regimes would openly ignore it, others would secretly evade it, and the regimes which did the best job of ignoring/evading it would enjoy the benefits of AI before, and to a greater degree than, other regimes.

Level Three: Regulation would be VERY effective at one, and only one, thing:  Protecting the current big players (like, say, OpenAI) from competition. Any set of government AI regulators would consist of “experts” in the field — “experts” on their way to or from lucrative jobs in the very industry they’d be regulating. If you don’t believe me, just look for yourself at any other highly regulated field (securities, aviation, and “defense,” to name three) and at the revolving doors between the regulatory authorities and the regulated industries.

If regulation won’t stop technological singularity — and the accompanying obsolescence or even extinction of humankind — what will?

Nothing.

“Unfortunately,” J. Mauricio Gaona writes at The Hill, “AI singularity is already underway. … the use of unsupervised learning algorithms (such as Chat-GPT3 and BARD) show that machines can do things that humans do today. These results, along with AI’s most ambitious development yet (AI empowered through quantum technology), constitute the last warning to humanity: Crossing the line between basic optimization and exponential optimization of unsupervised learning algorithms is a point of no return that will inexorably lead to AI singularity. ”

I’m not sure why Gaona considers that “unfortunate,” or why his recommendation is the same as Altman’s — ineffectual government regulation that won’t prevent it.

We’ve been hurtling toward the “singularity” for at least 3.3 million years, ever since one of our ancestor hominins  (probably Australopithecus or Kenyanthropus) started using tools to make their work easier.

Over those millions of years, we’ve continuously improved our tools … and our tools have continuously improved us. We’re not really the same animal we were before the automobile, let alone before the wheel. We can do things our grandparents, and those hominins, never dreamed of.

Once we started developing tools that could crack nuts better than us, speak across greater distances than us, travel faster than us, etc., it was inevitable that we’d eventually develop tools which could think better than us.

And having now done that, we’ll have to accept the consequences. Which may not be wholly negative. Maybe our AI descendants will like us and choose to assist us in continuing to improve our lives, instead of merely superseding us.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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I’m seeing a lot of back and forth lately on whether or not there’s a “crisis” at the border, with greatly increased migration and limited ability on the part of law enforcement to respond.

Personally, I don’t consider it a “crisis” at all. Immigration is just people moving from one place to another — maybe permanently, maybe temporarily — for any of various reasons.

Maybe they’re safer from criminal or government (but I repeat myself) violence in the new place than in the old place. Maybe there are more jobs. Maybe the jobs pay more.

Or whatever. Moving isn’t some kind of unnatural phenomenon. The average American does it 11 or 12 times in his or her life.

“Now, Tom,” I’ve been told many times, “if you think there’s no crisis at the border, you must not live near the border.”

In fact, I DO live near the border — fairly close to the US border in the form of the Gulf coast, and VERY close to the border separating Alachua County, Florida from Levy County, Florida.

On any given morning, I can watch literally hundreds of immigrants fleeing Levy County and crossing into Alachua County for better livelihoods on the other side of that border.

A lot of people live in Levy County, but work in Alachua County.

Why do they live in Levy County? Because it’s cheaper. Home prices are lower. Rent is lower. Taxes are lower.

Why do they work in Alachua County? Because wages are higher.

Is that a “crisis?” No.

Why isn’t it a “crisis?”

Because the meaning of “crisis” is “something politicians can use to make people fearful and demand bigger government.”

It’s hard to make Americans afraid of other Americans crossing city and town limits, county lines, and state borders, simply because hundreds of millions of us do that hundreds of billions of times per year. Most Americans can’t do their grocery shopping without crossing at least one or two “borders.”

The only way to make Americans afraid of “border” crossing is to pick a smaller subset of immigrants — the few million who cross the US-Mexico “border” on their way from Latin American countries each year — and make them sound like a threatening “other.”

Are those immigrants really any different than the Americans who do the same border-crossing stuff every day?

Well, they do tend to be more socially conservative, to commit fewer crimes, to pay more in taxes, and to consume less in government welfare benefits. But that’s not very frightening. Which is why the people who want you to stay frightened generally omit, or lie about, such facts.

If there’s a “border crisis” at all, it’s that so many Americans believe these demagogues’ scary “border crisis” stories.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter:@thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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