Last July Tennessee raised the state tax on cigarettes to 62 cents per pack - a 42-cent per pack raise. That made Tennessee’s cigarette tax higher than any of the eight states it borders, in some cases, much higher.

And Tennessee’s ruling class seems surprised - but shouldn’t be - that smokers living within an hour’s drive of the border, which is almost all Tennesseans, are cruising to another state the buy their smokes. Maybe smokers (I am not one) drive more than an hour, I dunno. But drive they do, even though their purchase savings are greatly offset, if not eliminated, by the cost of the fuel they use and the wear and tear on their autos.

Unles,, of course, they buy a lot of cigarettes. And therein lies the problem. It is also against the law in Tennessee to bring more than two cartons per person (I think, but it could be per vehicle) of cigarettes into Tennessee.

Under state law, bringing more than two cartons of cigarettes into the state without paying Tennessee taxes is a “Class B” misdemeanor, carrying punishment of up to six months in jail and/or a $500 fine. Bringing 25 or more cartons is a “Class E” felony, with minimum penalty of one year in prison and a maximum of six years plus a fine of up to $3,000. In addition, the specific state statute dealing with untaxed cigarettes provides that vehicles used to transport more than two cartons “are considered contraband and are subject to seizure,” says a Department of Revenue statement.

Farr said that agents have been instructed to seize any vehicle carrying more than 25 cartons of cigarettes without Tennessee tax stamps. In cases where three to 24 cartons are involved, he said vehicle seizure is “at the officer’s discretion.”

As one wag remarked somewhere on the Internet, Tennessee’s increased revenue from the rise in taxes will be used to pay for stopping freelance bootleggers. James Joyner (whence the cite) asks, reasonably enough,

How this can possibly be constitutional is beyond me. First, what gives Tennessee police officers the authority to operate across state lines? Second, surely seizing a vehicle potentially worth upwards of $40,000 for the “crime” of possessing more than two cartons of cigarettes amounts to excessive punishment under the 8th and 14th Amendments?

First, Tennessee revenooers can’t make arrests outside their legal jurisdiction, but they may cross state lines in the otherwise performance of their duties. But the Constitutional questions are compelling, I think. I’d argue against what Tennessee is doing because of the Commerce Clause of the main body of the Contitution:

Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution, known as the Commerce Clause, reads as follows:”The Congress shall have Power …To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.”

I think it’s simply beyond arguing that Tennessee is attempting to regulate commerce across state borders, authority for which is reserved by the Constitution to the US Congress, and is thereby usurping a federal power.

Where does personal use end and bootlegging begin? Bootlegging meaning reselling the smokes in Tennessee for profit, not buying a dozen cartons for Aunt Esmerelda, who is too weak to drive because of her emphysema, and who pays back the exact amount of the purchase.

Tennessee does have a legitimate interest in prohibiting bootlegging of cigarettes, and for that the 25-carton limit seems reasonable to me. But conviction for actual bootlegging would require more than possession of some arbitrary number of cartons, would it not? If a legger bought other-state cigs, saving $4.50 per carton (45 cents per pack), then he’d have to charge his illicit customers at least half that to recoup costs and make a profit. So, 25 cartons bought at $4.50 discount = $112.50, call half of it profit at resale, or $66. Do that six days per week and the legger nets almost $400 per week.

But the state has brought all this on itself because it raised the tax and thereby generated the incentive for the majority of Tennessee smokers to buy across state lines. That’s the trouble with vice taxes, they require inordinate resources to enforce and often criminalize what would otherwise be seen as quite reasonable behavior. Tennessee’s standard sales tax is already one of the highest in the nation, why not just tax cigarettes at that rate (9.25 percent where I live) and be done with it?

Oh, I know, I know, don’t bother to try to enlighten me.

Captain’s Quarters provides a snippet of a debate between Sen. Dick Durbin and Sen. Norm Coleman on the so-called “fairness doctrine,” which was once law and empowered the federal government to regulate media broadcasts regarding political coverage to ensure (it was claimed) “dalance” and “fairness.” There are member os the Congress of both parties who want the “fairness doctrine” reestablished in law. So over to Dick Durbin:

Since the people who are seeking the licenses are using America’s airwaves, does the government, speaking for the people of this country, have any interest at that point to step in and make sure there is a despair balanced approach to the -a fair and balanced approach to the information given to the American people?

Get that? “… does the government, speaking for the people of this country… .”

Senator, here’s a clue. You do not speak for the people of this country. Nor do your 99 colleagues, nor do the 435 members of the House.

The people of America speak for themselves. That’s why the states required the guarantees that the government would stay away from speech regulation to be amended to the Constitution before they would ratify it. Hence the First Amendment.

Why does Durbin think he speaks for the people? Because of Den Beste’s Law: “The job of bureaucrats is to regulate, and left themselves they will regulate everything they can.” But not everyone is infected with regulatory disease. Sen. Coleman responded,

We’re at a time where we’ve got 20,000, you know, opportunities for stations and satellite, where you have cable, you have blogs, you have a whole range of information. I think it would be — I — I can’t even conceive — I can’t even conceive that the market could not provide opportunities for differing positions because it does. And in the end — in the end, consumers also have a right based on the market to make choices.

Now, Norm’s close but still doesn’t the cigar. The “market” has nothing to do with this. Consumers making choices, right or wrong, have nothing to do with this. This is not a mercantile issue. This is about a fundamental human right that strikes to very heart of democracy: the unhindered right of the people to speak, publish, post or broadcast without government constraint about matters relating to their government. If the First Amendment is intended to protect anything, it’s intended to protect political speech. But as Radley Balko wrote, “This is all thinly-disguised posturing for what’s really bothering the senators: They don’t like that people are allowed to criticize them on public airwaves.” Yep.

So Durbin and allies want to regulate the people’s speech because they incredibly believe that they speak for us and therefore must protect us from our own speech.

(Linked at OTB’s Traffic Jam.)

Bill Hobbs says that on the only part of the speech that really matters, the war, President Bush “absolutely nailed the big issues at stake.”

In that part of the speech, Bush said,

And whatever you voted for, you did not vote for failure. Our country is pursuing a new strategy in Iraq, and I ask you to give it a chance to work.

Stephen Green, who sadly (luckily?) does not think governmentally, observes of Bush’s plea, “I don’t remember any stories about FDR talking up D-Day before the fact, and trying to weasel support out of Congress for it.” Well, back then, no one was claiming that FDR and the US military were the ones who carried out the Pearl Harbor attack and that the “New York money people” (cough , Jews, cough) had engineered America’s entry into war to stop the Holocaust or something. Neither was more than a third FDR’s opposition party - and tenth of his own - actually wanting FDR’s military strategy to defeat the Axis to fail. Nor was anyone of either party calling for the withdrawal of US troops from the combat theaters before the enemy was beaten.

Jules Crittenden, blogger and bona fide journalist (excelling at both), is less impressed by media reportage of the speech than by the speech itself. Read it all. He also quotes Stratfor’s excellent point:

“Bush’s poll ratings have now become a geopolitical issue. …

“Bush’s strategy in Iraq, to the extent that it has any viability, depends on the Iraqi — and Iranian — perception that Bush retains control of U.S. policy and that he has freedom to maneuver. Iraqi and Iranian politicians are watching the polls and watching Congress. …

“Bush is now edging from the area where we can call him a crippled president — if not a failed one — to an area where he could genuinely lose the ability to govern.”

Folks, this is not a good thing, no matter where you stand politically.

Joe Gandelman says that Bush’s speech was “less partisan” than before (as if he had a choice) and offers other thoughts as well as a typically link-rich survey of thoughts across the media and the b’sphere.

My own take: despite that the president delivered the speech well, despite its clarity and simplicity, and despite its actual forcefulness on the stakes of the war, the speech was that of a clearly hobbled lame duck. My evidence? When Bush asked Congress to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act, Republicans applauded tepidly and Democrats not at all. This despite the fact that NCLB was the most bipartisan intiative this president has ever achieved and the Act itself was practically written by Teddy Kennedy. I was genuinely mystified why the Democrats were silent at this point - not only was NCLB written mainly by their party but it strengthens the federal grip on local education more than ever. Then at Instapundit I read Ruth Marcus’s observation regarding the health care part of the speech:

Listening to Democratic reaction to Bush’s new health insurance proposal, you get the sense that if Bush picked a plank right out of the Democratic platform — if he introduced Hillarycare itself — and stuck it in his State of the Union address, Democrats would churn out press releases denouncing it.

That sounds about right. This president is so politically isolated that the opposition party neither wants nor needs to appear to support him, even when he’s carrying their water.

Stephen Green is live blogging the SOTU and wrote when the president set the goal of reducing gasoline usage by 20 percent in five years. Observes Stephen:

9:32 “Let’s reduce gasoline usage by 20 percent in the next ten years.” Or did he say 20? Or five? It doesn’t matter. Even with increased CAFE standards, demand is going to go up for gas. We’ll be lucky just to stay even. Very lucky.

I’m reminded of Doc Brown saying to Marty McFly in the “Back to the Future” series, “You’re not thinking fourth dimensionally.”

Well, Stephen, you’re not thinking governmentally. When federal government factotums talk about reducing something over 10 years (or five or 15, etc.), they aren’t talking about actually, you know, reducing something. They’re talking about reducing the rate of increase over 10 years from its present projection.

So “reduce gasoline usage by 20 percent in the next ten years” really means increase usage over 10 years by 80 percent of what we think right now is the amount that usage will be increased.

Just wait - that’s how the White House will wind up spinning it. Because no matter what, as Stephen says, “demand is going to go up for gas.” A lot, and that’s if we’re lucky. If we are unlucky, demand for gas will not go up a lot. And if it doesn’t, well, I’ll see you in the bread line.

ABC News:

WASHINGTON Jan 19, 2007 (AP)— The House rolled back billions of dollars in oil industry subsidies Thursday in what supporters hailed as a new direction in energy policy toward more renewable fuels. Critics said the action would reduce domestic oil production and increase reliance on imports.

Yes, it will. One of the fundamentals of economics is, “That which is subsidized, increases.” Likewise, remove the subsidy and its beneficiary will fall. Without arguing here whether oil companies should even get industry-specific subsidies in the first place, if the whole Congress votes to remove them, and the president signs, the economic effect will be to reduce oil companies’ financial incentive to explore and pump domestic oil. The reason is that the House’s measure targets for deletion exactly the tax breaks that provide incentives for domoestic production.

The legislation would impose a “conservation fee” on oil and gas taken from deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico; scrap nearly $6 billion worth of oil industry tax breaks enacted by Congress in recent years; and seek to recoup royalties lost to the government because of an Interior Department error in leases issued in the late 1990s.

What the House, or at least the Members who voted aye, seem not to understand is that the price of petroleum is completely internationalized because the market is, too. If US oil companies can produce oil wholesale cheaper than its retail, or spot market, price on the international market, then they will sell the oil on the market and make a profit. At least the oil company will sell internationally the oil it produces that is excess to its domestic-retail capacity.

But if the cost of producing domestic oil is greater than its price on the international market, then companies shut down domestic production (never entirely, of course, because the restart costs would be prohibitive when/if the world price rose again and companies need a retained production capacity to surge production in that case). Since federal taxes are a major part of overall production costs for the US oil industry, increasing those taxes by removing subsidies simply raises the costs of domestic production. That makes it more likely that the oil companies will simply cut domestic production and make up the difference in imports.

But let gets real, folks. This whole thing isn’t about the money anyway, not really. It’s about eeevvviiiillll oooiiilll. They are simply making too much money, many people think, and therefore must be punished. Well, any product that is consumed by 100 percent of the population is certainly going to return huge revenues to its producer. Just wait until agri-fuels become Big Agrifuel or hydrogen becomes Big Hydrogen and see what their revenues are. (Yes, every person in the country, without exception, uses petroleum products, including persons who don’t own a car or use air conditioning and heat their homes only with wood.)

But wait, one may object, it’s not the gross revenue that is the point about hitting Big Oil, it’s the fact that their profits are so high.

Really? In October 2005 the Washington Post put oil company profits into context:

[I]n 2004 Exxon Mobil earned more money — $25.33 billion — than any other company on the Fortune 500 list of largest corporations. But by another measure of profitability, gross profit margin, it ranked No. 127. …

A $9.9 billion quarterly profit is mostly a function of Exxon Mobil’s size. It had sales of $100 billion this quarter, more than any other U.S. company. … Even so, many companies smaller than Exxon Mobil “earn” more, depending on what measure is used.

Most financial institutions, such as commercial banks, are routinely more profitable than Exxon Mobil was in its third quarter. For example, Exxon Mobil’s gross margin of 9.8 cents of profit for every dollar of revenue pales in comparison to Citigroup Inc.’s 15.7 cents in 2004. By percentage of total revenue, banking is consistently the most profitable industry in America, followed closely by the drug industry.

Altria Group, the maker of Marlboro and other cigarettes, made 22 cents for every dollar of revenue in 2004, and pharmaceutical company Merck made 25.3 cents for every dollar of revenue in 2004.

By other measures, such as profit per employee, return on invested capital and free cash flow, Exxon Mobil is nowhere near a standout.

Let’s compare oil to iPods:

Apple, Inc. on Wednesday reported record revenue of $7.1 billion and record net quarterly profit of $1.0 billion, or $1.14 per diluted share, for the quarter that ended Dec. 30 2006, the company’s first fiscal quarter of 2007.

That’s a profit of more than 14.3 percent, five points higher than Exxon Mobil’s. Yet there’s no bill in Congress to impose windfall-profit taxes on Big Computer - or Big Banking, either. Congress may also need to consider that it might be about to bite that hand that feeds it. Business & Media Institute:

The Tax Foundation’s Scott Hodge and Jonathan Williams noted in an October 26 report that “in recent decades governments have collected far more revenue from gasoline taxes than the largest U.S. oil companies have collectively earned in domestic profits.” In fact, “since 1977, there have been only three years (1980, 1981, and 1982) in which domestic oil industry profits exceeded government gas tax collections.”

When pump prices rose to record levels in the months after Hurricane Katrina, some states cut gas taxes to give consumers relief. Will imposing higher production costs through higher federal taxes put that pressure on state governments again?

Back to the ABC News story:

Democrats said the legislation could produce as much as $15 billion in revenue. Most of that money would pay to promote renewable fuels such as solar and wind power, alternative fuels including ethanol and biodiesel and incentives for conservation.

Just where do the think that $15 billion will come from? Reduced oil company profits? Not a chance: company managers are ethically bound to maximize profits for their shareholders. CEOs who deliberately decline to do so get fired, and should be. No CEO of any kind of company would fail to pass on to the consumer the cost of increased corporate taxes as much as possible. This supposed $15 billion windfall (why is it okay for the feds to get a windfall but not private businesses?) will come from the only place all taxes can possibly come from in a free-market economy: the pockets of consumers, you and me. “Corporate taxes” is a myth, a piece of bookkeeping legerdemain . All taxes in America, of whatever nature or name, all always really paid by consumers. Why? Because that’s where the money is.

Thanks, House - just at a time when pump prices are finally falling, you couldn’t resist meddling. Way to look out for the little guy, the painters and plumbers and pizza drivers and salespersons who have to buy gas to make a living. Thank you also for smacking the aviation industry with higher fuel prices when they have just begun to return to profitablity.

What you have done, House, is effectually impose a highly regressive sales tax. And like all sales taxes, its marginal costs will be highest for the poor and low-income people of the country. Oh, how you cried that the minimum wage wasn’t enough to support a family of four, but oh, how eager you are to gobsmack those min-wage workers with higher heating and transportation and food prices by raising the price of oil production! Well done, well done! You have, as usual, lived down to our ever-decreasing low expectations.

I have written at some length on my opposition to the draft, especially and most recently that being proposed by US Representative Charles Rangel (D-NY 15th), HR 163.

For the record, I thought I’d post the doctrinal position of the United Methodist Church on conscription. It is found in the UMC’s Social Principles (link):

V. Military Conscription, Training, and Service

(1) Conscription. We affirm our historic opposition to compulsory military training and service. We urge that military conscription laws be repealed; we also warn that elements of compulsion in any national service program will jeopardize seriously the service motive and introduce new forms of coercion into national life. We advocate and will continue to work for the inclusion of the abolition of military conscription in disarmament agreements.

Note well: it is not only a military draft that the UMC officially opposes, but exactly what Rangel and 15 other Members want to make law: universal federal service.

Hey buddy, can you spare $800,000,000,000 for Rangel’s mandatory-service corps?

Barry Goldwater ran for president in 1964 as the Republican nominee. I was was not even 10 then so obviously didn’t vote in that election. In the late 70s I was a first lieutenant in the Army and was passing time with my NCOs one day. The topic turned, in a non-serious way, to politics. A staff sergeant commented, “The Democrats told me that if I voted for Goldwater in ‘64, I’d wind up fighting in Vietnam. They were right.”

I suppose it was an old joke even then (at least in form if not in specifics) for just yesterday Glenn Reynolds wrote, “PEOPLE TOLD ME IN 2004 THAT IF I VOTED FOR BUSH, before you know it there’d be moves to bring back a draft. And, sure enough, I voted for Bush and now they’re talking about bringing back the draft. . . .”

He is referring, of course, to US rep. Charlie Rangel’s (D.-NY) bill to reinstate the military draft. Rangel has had such a bill before Congress before, and in fact the Republicans actually managed to bring his bill to a floor vote in October 2004, where, interestingly, Rangel voted against it. But before we heap the scorn upon Rangel that he so richly deserves for this stupidity, let us also observe that three Republicans beat Rangel to the punch with their introdction of the “Universal Military Training and Service Act of 2001, Bill # H.R.3598,” which is still alive in the House Armed Services Committee. (”Alive” being a very generous term since it’s been glued to the bottom of the committee’s in-box for five years.) The bill,

Makes it the obligation of male citizens and residents between 18 and 22 to receive basic military training and education as a member of the armed forces unless otherwise exempt under this Act. Permits female citizens and residents between such ages to volunteer for enlistment in the armed forces, with acceptance at the discretion of the Secretary of the military department concerned. Limits the period of training to between six months and a year. Permits transfers after basic training of such conscripts/volunteers to national and community service programs to finish the term of service. Provides educational services and Montgomery GI benefits to persons upon completion of their national service. Uses the existing Selective Service System and local boards for induction. Sets forth criteria for deferments, postponements, and exemptions, including high school, hardship, disability, and health. Entitles inductees to request a particular service branch. Excludes conscientious objectors from combatant training, but otherwise requires them to take basic training before a permitted transfer to a national service rogram.

To be fair, this bill was introduced only three months after 9/11, when no one knew what the extent or duration of America’s new war would be or what manpower would be required. It was probably meant as a “just in case” measure that, having already been written and staffed, could be put through the Congress fairly quickly if the defense department asked for it. Since no one in DOD or the rest of the administration has ever asked for a draft, and since President Bush promised bluntly in the 2004 campaign that his second term would not see one, this bill is dead as Julius Caesar.

Rangel first introduced his draft legilsation in January 2003. It is HR 163, “Universal National Service Act of 2003.”

Declares that it is the obligation of every U.S. citizen, and every other person residing in the United States, between the ages of 18 and 26 to perform a two-year period of national service, unless exempted, either as a member of an active or reserve component of the armed forces or in a civilian capacity that promotes national defense. Requires induction into national service by the President. Sets forth provisions governing: (1) induction deferments, postponements, and exemptions, including exemption of a conscientious objector from military service that includes combatant training; and (2) discharge following national service. Amends the Military Selective Service Act to authorize the military registration of females.

Get that? Rangel wants women to be subject to the draft as well as men. Everyone would have to serve two years. The text of the bill itself provides for exemptions of military service only if someone is mentally or physically unfit “under section 505 of title 10, United States Code,” the legislation that presently governs enlistment in the armed forces. No such exemption is stated for service other than military service. Anyone who volunteers for service in the armed forces or is enrolled at a service academy is likewise exempted from mandatory induction, provided s/he completes the term of service satisfactorily. There is no exemption for coscientious objection except that those person, “when inducted, [will] participate in military service that does not include any combatant training component.”

There is a deferment for high school students until they graduate or turn 20, whichever comes first. There is no deferment at all for college students.

Read the text of the bill for yourself. I see no loopholes for anyone to weasel out of some kind of service, although do wonder how many more exemptions the Congress will be able to think of by the time this bill ever passed (if it ever does pass).

There are so many dumb things about this bill that I hardly know where to begin. But we have to start somewhere.

The bill says, “It is the obligation of every citizen of the United States, and every other person residing in the United States, who is between the ages of 18 and 26 to perform a period of national service as prescribed in this Act… .”

A. The bill only defers, does not exempt, persons from induction because of extreme hardship physical or mental disability. Although section 5 of the bill does require “every person” before induction to be “physically and mentally examined” and “classified as to fitness to perform national service.” The executive branch determines fitness standards.

B. The bill dragoons US citizens, resident aliens and illegal aliens alike into its compulsory-service net. I suppose one might argue that it would provide a disincentive for illegals to stay or come, but let’s get real. Almost all of them are in an underground mode now and the government does not even know who they are, their names or where they live.

C. Absent truly dire national emergency, this coercive form of service is not “service” at all. It is, charitably, involuntary servitude to the all-powerful State. No wonder Scott Horton of Anti-war.com characterized it thus:

Charles Rangel thinks that having a society where human beings own each other is perfectly okay as long as the slaves are destroying lives and property for the state rather than producing things for private plantation owners.

….Don’t you see? Conscription will deter wars by providing the politicians with a bottomless supply of cannon fodder. And by the new magic principle of “everything works how Charlie wants,” the rest of the politicians will be somehow unable to swing exemptions for their own children.

D. The cost would be astronomical. The US Census data for 2000 show that there are approximately 7,900,000 men aged 18-21 inclusive, and Rangel’s bill persecutes both men and women the prime years for a draft. So the bill sweeps up tens of millions of people, all of whom must be paid. Does Rangel think they will be paid a “living wage” or a slave wage? They also have to be fed and housed and transported and care for medically. Can you say, “biggest ongoing budget deficit in the history of the world”?

The number of women age 18-21 is very close to that of men. So men and women between 18-21 number about 16,000,000. We won’t even worry for now about the five years’ worth of people between 21-26. Because Rangel’s bill ends high-school deferments between ages 18-20, it would seem that up to 4,000,000 men and women per year would be eligible for induction into either the armed forces or civilian service. Note that Rangel’s bill gives the executive the authority to limit only the number of inductees into the armed services, but not the authority to limit the number inducted into civilian, national service (”Persons covered by subsection (a) who are not selected for military service under subsection (d) shall perform their national service obligation under this Act in a civilian capacity pursuant to” … “national or community service and homeland security.”)

So we have 8,000,000 men and women on active duty or service at any one time, including we would assume the NCOs and officers of the armed forces and their career equivalents in civilian service. What might the total be for directly-paid salaries alone, not including associated costs?

Brand new privates in the Army receive $1,178 per month for the first four months and $1,273 per month after that. By the end of their second year they pay grade E3 and make - again, this is directly-paid salary - $1,501 per month. In the middle is pay grade E2, which pays $1,427. Let’s use that figure as the overall average.

Eight million salaries paying $1,427 per month equals an astonishing 1.3699 to the 11th power dollars. That’s $136,990,000,000 per year just for salaries.

One Hundred Thirty-Six Billion, Nine Hundred Ninety Million dollars per year for salaries alone. But almost a million careerists, at least, will each be making considerably more. So a more realistic salary figure is a cool quarter-trillion dollars.

Overhead costs could easily add another 50 percent to that, although probably most overhead would be sunk costs that would be incurred at the beginning and at a much lower levellater. Even so, we may charitably add $25 billion per year. Now we’re up $275 billion per year.

And this is almost certainly a very low estimate. In 2006, of the defense department’s total budget of $416 billion, more than one-fourth is categorized as “Grand Total Direct - Military Personnel Costs.” That $109 billion (rounded). Some of those costs are military-specific, but most would have direct equivalence in a drafted civilian-service corps. DOD has about 1.7 million military of all types and a large civilian-employee base, all totaling about a fourth of the number of active duty that Rangel envisions. By the time operating and maintenance costs are folded in - and certainly the pork that every Senator and Representative would tack on - the costs of Rangel’s folly would surely nudge $800 billion per year and only go up from there.

No wonder Joe Gandelman asks, “Just who is ADVISING Rangel? Karl Rove?”

What is this man thinking? That he can score points against Bush and the Republicans by trying to get everyone on the government dole for at least two years, or that 18-20 year olds should all have a turn on the Statist plantation for two years?

Finally, can you imagine the enormous mischief six million or so 18-20 year old men and women will cause on America if they are loosed to do something, darn it, to earn their keep? Do what? No, really - apart from the two million military members, what are six million teenagers going to do every year working for the government. What?