LIFE IN OBAMA’S AMERICA: Federal agents took more money and stuff from Americans in 2014 than burglars did.

In 2014, the federal government confiscated some $4.5 billion from Americans through civil asset forfeiture, according to a recent report from the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit libertarian law and research organization.

That’s a figure which has been growing rapidly in recent years—as recently as 2008 it was “just” $1.5 billion, and there’s compelling evidence that law enforcement agencies use this license to bolster their budgets in lean years.

In the words of one officer, civil asset forfeiture funds are “kind of like pennies from heaven. It gets you a toy or something that you need is the way that we typically look at it to be perfectly honest.”

That $4.5 billion figure is shocking on its own.

But it’s even more shocking when you put it in this perspective: in that same year, FBI records show burglars took only $3.9 billion from Americans.

So in 2014, the federal government took more money and stuff from Americans than actual burglars did.

Our government is “getting really good at separating the citizen from their property — not just really good, criminally good.”

Think of the state as a band of thieves and you will not go far wrong.