David McElroy

Last fall, Rick Perry published a book called “Fed Up!” in which he called Social Security “a crumbling monument to the failure of the New Deal.” He was telling the truth then, but he’s running from the truth now — because he wants to be elected president.

In the book, Perry asserted that Social Security is unconstitutional, and he said the program was an affront to respect for the Constitution and limited government. He compared it to a “bad disease” that’s continued to spread. Perry said that individuals should be allowed to own and control their own retirement plans, so they could have “a retirement system that is no longer set up like an illegal Ponzi scheme.”

Every word he said there was accurate, but he’s now running from that truth. According to the Wall Street Journal, his campaign claims that the views in last year’s book — published less than a year ago — don’t reflect Perry’s current views:

“His communications director, Ray Sullivan, said Thursday that he had ‘never heard’ the governor suggest the program was unconstitutional. Not only that, Mr. Sullivan said, but ‘Fed Up!’ is not meant to reflect the governor’s current views on how to fix the program.”

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We found out this week that the Federal Reserve Bank’s secret lending to the blue chip banks of Wall Street in 2008 added up to $1.2 trillion. Not million. Not billion. That’s trillion.

Just in case you’re numb from hearing numbers such as this all the time lately, let’s put that into perspective. In 2008, the federal government brought in $2.5 trillion in all forms of revenue. So the government did the equivalent of handing out nearly half of every penny it collected from us and handed it to Wall Street banks.

The story told by the advocates of this financial insanity is that their actions “saved the economy” when the crisis hit, but what’s their evidence? The things they keep predicting don’t happen. The things they prescribe as solutions don’t solve the problems. So why do governments keep listening to these voodoo masters?

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What does a government agency do when it finds out that it has unspent money? Does it give the money back to taxpayers? Does it find another department with more important needs? Or does it find some way to spend the money — to make sure it can get the same money next year?

If you made the third choice, you might have a bright future ahead as a bureaucrat. If you made the first choice, you’re living your life on Fantasy Island.

In Camden, N.J., the city finds itself with $63,000 burning a hole in its bank account, because the grant from which the money comes expires on Sept. 30. Here’s the story. The state Department of Criminal Justice made the grant to the County Prosecutor’s Office, which didn’t know what to do with the money, because its “community justice director” — yes, that’s the title — was laid off in May. So that office agreed to give it to the city, which is required to spend it immediately. Why? Here’s the key:

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