| Insider Report from Newsmax.com Headlines (Scroll down for complete stories):
1. War on Poverty Wages War on Marriage
2. Number of Billionaires at All-Time High
3. E-Cigarette Regulations Jeopardize Public Health
4. FBI: 50,000 Law Enforcement Officers Assaulted Last Year
5. Obama Trip: 32 Minutes for Speech, 9 Hours for Golf
1. War on Poverty Wages War on Marriage The wide range of welfare programs implemented to wage the "War on Poverty" has had the unintended effect of sharply reducing the marriage rate in America. The reason: Welfare benefits are largely based on family income, and raising that income by marrying a working spouse can significantly reduce or even eliminate those benefits. When the War on Poverty began in 1964, there was only one program that provided aid to single parents — Aid to Families with Dependent Children. At that time, out-of-wedlock births comprised just 6 percent of all births — and of course out-of-wedlock birth rates directly correlate with marriage rates, which hit a high of 72.2 percent in 1960. Today, the federal government runs more than 80 means-tested welfare programs that provide cash, food, housing, medical care, and more to low-income families, reports The Daily Signal, a news outlet of the Heritage Foundation. These include food stamps, child nutrition programs, Medicaid, the Earned Income Tax Credit, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Supplemental Security Income, public housing and Section 8 housing. By far, most of the benefits to families with children go to single-parent households, mainly families headed by a single woman. The out-of-wedlock birth rate last year stood at 40.6 percent, and the marriage rate was around 50 percent. Welfare promotes single parenthood in two ways. First, it reduces the financial need for marriage. "Since the beginning of the War on Poverty, less-educated mothers have increasingly become married to the welfare state and to the U.S. taxpayer rather than to the fathers of their children," The Daily Signal observes. Second, means-tested welfare programs penalize low-income parents who do marry. If a low-income mother weds an employed father, her benefits will in most cases be substantially reduced. She can maximize her benefits by remaining unwed and keeping the father's income "off the books." Daily Signal author Robert Rector offers the example of a single mother who earns $20,000 per year. If she marries a man earning $20,000, the couple will lose about $12,000 a year in benefits. "In effect, the welfare system makes it economically irrational for most low-income couples to marry," Rector concludes. "The anti-marriage incentives built into the welfare state are indefensible." Editor's Note:
2. Number of Billionaires at All-Time High Another 155 people around the world became billionaires in the year that ended in June, a 7 percent increase from 2013 that brings the total to a record high of 2,325, a new survey reveals. The United States is home to 57 of those new billionaires, according to the survey by Wealth-X and UBS Billionaire Census 2014 released on Nov. 17. In Asia, 52 people reached billionaire status in the new survey, as did 42 in Latin America and the Caribbean. In Africa and the Middle East, the overall number of billionaires decreased due largely to sociopolitical upheavals, CNBC reported. But the combined wealth of the world's billionaires still increased 12 percent to $7.3 trillion, more than the combined market capitalization of all the companies that make up the Dow Jones Industrial Average. "The fastest growing segment of the billionaire population, in terms of wealth source, are those who inherited only part of their fortunes and became billionaires through their own entrepreneurial endeavors," according to the report from the survey sponsors. The average billionaire is 63 years old, with a net worth of $3.1 billion, the report noted. Eighty-nine percent of male billionaires are married, 6 percent are divorced, 3 percent are single, and 2 percent are widowers. Among women billionaires, 65 percent are married, 10 percent divorced, 4 percent single, and 21 percent widows. How rich is rich? Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and his $76.6 billion fortune could purchase every one of the 114,212 homes in Boston. The number of individuals with more than $30 million in assets also reached a new record in 2014, as 12,040 new members of the $30 million-plus club pushed the total to 211,275 globally — including 69,560 in the United States. And the number of people with at least $1 million rose by nearly 2 million last year to reach a record 13.7 million, according to a report from consultant Capgemini and the Royal Bank of Canada. These millionaires have an estimated combined net worth of $53 trillion. A report in 2012 disclosed that at that time, 1.5 percent of American adults were millionaires. In Switzerland, almost 4 percent were millionaires. Editor's Note:
3. E-Cigarette Regulation Jeopardizes Public Health A U.S. Food and Drug Administration proposal to expand its regulatory authority over tobacco products to include electronic cigarettes would be detrimental to public health, a new report asserts. E-cigarettes are battery-powered nicotine delivery devices that produce a water-vapor plume resembling smoke. The new regulation would require product registration, listings of ingredients, government pre-approval of new products, labeling requirements, and bans against providing free samples. The FDA currently regulates cigarettes, cigarette tobacco, roll-your-own tobacco, and smokeless tobacco. With the new proposal, the FDA would also regulate electronic cigarettes, cigars, pipe tobacco, and water pipe tobacco. "Once the proposed rule becomes final, FDA will be able to use powerful regulatory tools, such as age restrictions and rigorous scientific review of new tobacco products and claims to reduce tobacco-related disease and death," the FDA states. But the FDA "jeopardizes its own public health goals" with the new regulation," writes Michael L. Marlow, a professor of economics at California Polytechnic State University, in the report from the Heartland Institute. He notes that the American Medical Association earlier this year pointed out that tobacco is what makes regular cigarettes so harmful, but e-cigarettes do not contain tobacco. They may discharge nicotine vapor into the air, but the vapor is much less toxic than secondhand tobacco smoke. Most importantly, evidence indicates that e-cigarettes help some smokers reduce or quit smoking, with success rates reported between 7 and 20 percent of smokers trying to quit smoking by using e-cigarettes, according to Marlow. But the FDA's proposed rule would retard development of the e-cigarette market by banning manufacturers from touting them as safer than cigarettes, and by prohibiting manufacturers from informing consumers that e-cigarettes do not contain tobacco. "Prohibiting sales to youth and requiring a clear description of product ingredients may be appropriate, but prohibiting any information regarding potential efficacy in harm reduction is hard to justify, given substantial benefits reported in currently available studies," Marlow concludes. The FDA, he writes, needs to consider "the potential benefits that smokers receive from e-cigarettes and the many unintended adverse effects on public health associated with how this proposed regulation slows the evolution of a promising harm reduction tool." Editor's Note:
4. FBI: 50,000 Law Enforcement Officers Assaulted Last Year On Nov. 24, the day news broke that a grand jury had declined to indict a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, who shot and killed a teenager he said was attacking him, the FBI reported that 76 law enforcement officers were killed in the line of duty in 2013. Another 49,851 officers, 136 a day, were assaulted while on duty last year, according to the FBI report. Of the officers who were attacked, 14,565, or 29.2 percent, were injured, and 31.2 percent of the injured officers were attacked while responding to a disturbance call, such as domestic disputes or a bar fight. According to the FBI, assailants used hands, fists, or feet in about 80 percent of cases, firearms in 4.5 percent, knives or other cutting tools in 1.8 percent, and other weapons in the rest of the cases. For the 15th straight year, the largest percentage of attacks on officers occurred between midnight and 2 a.m. Last year 27 of the 76 officers killed in the line of duty died in "felonious acts," and of those officers, 26 were shot and one was hit by a vehicle. Most of the officers killed accidentally in the line of duty were killed in car crashes. The average age of the officers killed in felonies was 39. Two were female, 25 were white, and two were black. According to CNS News, the FBI report was based on data collected from 11,468 law enforcement agencies employing 533,895 officers. Editor's Note:
5. Obama Trip: 32 Minutes for Speech, 9 Hours for Golf After President Barack Obama flew to Las Vegas to tout his amnesty plan for illegal immigrants, he spent 32 minutes delivering a speech — and more than nine hours playing golf. Obama arrived in Las Vegas on Friday, Nov. 21, and spoke to students at Del Sol High School from 12:50 p.m. to 1:22 p.m. The next day, he traveled by motorcade to Shadow Creek Golf Course in North Las Vegas, a very exclusive course built by casino magnate Steve Wynn and owned by MGM Resorts International, which brings high-rolling gamblers to the course via limousine. He arrived at 9:50 a.m. and took about five hours to play 18 holes in a foursome that included retired New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter, Obama campaign supporter Stephen Cloobeck, who is chairman of Diamond Resorts International Inc., and Brian Greenspun, owner of the Las Vegas Sun. After that, Obama decided to play an additional nine holes of golf, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. He left at 4:47 p.m. On Sunday, he arrived at the Reflection Bay Golf and Beach Club in Henderson, a Las Vegas suburb, at 7:37 a.m. to use the driving range and putting green. He was joined by his travel director, Marvin Nicholson, and former Tiger Woods coach Butch Harmon. The course had reopened just three weeks earlier after being shut for about five years due to the recession and soaring water prices, Bloomberg reported. The course, designed by Jack Nicklaus, is across a lake from a gated housing development that is home to celebrities including Britney Spears and Celine Dion. His motorcade left the course at 10:15 a.m. The presidential trip was, of course, on the taxpayers' dime. Last week the Insider Report disclosed that Obama's Labor Day 2014 weekend trips for fundraising, personal business, and politicking "gouged" taxpayers for $1,539,400 in transportation expenses alone, Judicial Watch asserted. The irony of Obama's Vegas trip lies in the fact that back in 2009, he criticized companies that received federal money for taking corporate junkets to Las Vegas.
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