Jon Caldara (see sidebar) gets this healthcare debate going in the correct direction, as The Independence Institute always does. Enjoy!
Archive for the ‘Economics’ Category
More on healthcare…
August 11, 2009More on obamacare
August 11, 2009“What has been most unsettling is not the congressmen’s surprise [at the passions of the protesters] but a hard new tone that emerged this week. The leftosphere and the liberal commentariat charged that the town hall meetings weren’t authentic, the crowds were ginned up by insurance companies, lobbyists and the Republican National Committee. But you can’t get people to leave their homes and go to a meeting with a congressman (of all people) unless they are engaged to the point of passion. And what tends to agitate people most is the idea of loss — loss of money hard earned, loss of autonomy, loss of the few things that work in a great sweeping away of those that don’t. People are not automatons. They show up only if they care. What the town-hall meetings represent is a feeling of rebellion, an uprising against change they do not believe in. And the Democratic response has been stunningly crude and aggressive. It has been to attack. Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the United States House of Representatives, accused the people at the meetings of ‘carrying swastikas and symbols like that.’ (Apparently one protester held a hand-lettered sign with a ‘no’ slash over a swastika.) But they are not Nazis, they’re Americans. Some of them looked like they’d actually spent some time fighting Nazis. Then came the Democratic Party charge that the people at the meetings were suspiciously well-dressed, in jackets and ties from Brooks Brothers. They must be Republican rent-a-mobs. Sen. Barbara Boxer said on MSNBC’s ‘Hardball’ that people are ‘storming these town hall meetings,’ that they were ‘well dressed’, that ‘this is all organized,’ ‘all planned,’ to ‘hurt our president.’ Here she was projecting. For normal people, it’s not all about Barack Obama.” –columnist Peggy Noonan
“So what has the White House told supporters to do when you run across those who spread ‘disinformation’ about the new attempt by the Obama administration to install the anti-competitive practices of a ‘public option’ into a federalized universal health care initiative? Report them. … Pardon me for asking such an obvious question, but what concern is it to the President or his administration if private citizens have disagreements, discussions, and dissections of his proposed take over of the health care industry? Last I checked I had the constitutional right to do so. But now he wishes to turn one citizen against another? … The mistake this White House continues to make, seemingly on a daily basis, is that they reveal very much what they truly think of freedoms of the American political process.” –radio talk-show host Kevin McCullough
“For years, Democratic politicians said the health-care problem was about ’47 million uninsured Americans.’ Whatever the merits, many people were willing to do something for those with no health insurance. Suddenly, these voters discovered that ObamaCare is about them. When did that happen? Every policy wonk in America may have known this was always an everybody-into-the-pool proposal, and Mr. Obama has talked himself blue saying people could stay with the insurance they’ve got or the doctor they’ve got, ‘if you’re happy with that’ and don’t like the public option. A lot of people simply don’t believe this. How come? White House adviser David Axelrod said this week, ‘Our job is to help folks understand how this will help them.’ It could be they’ve already thought about that. For many people, the first six Obama months already have been an unsettling Dantesque tour through levels of government ‘help’ they never knew existed. Normally government activity flows by like unnoticed sludge, but Obama’s celebrity got everyone watching. What people have seen is: an $800 billion stimulus package designed by Congress, a $4 trillion budget, massive outlays by an alphabet soup of Treasury and Federal Reserve programs, Barney Frank the symbol of Democratic goals, and then the federal absorption of GM, an American icon. After all this, ObamaCare looks like a bridge too far. They are proposing the biggest federal social program in a generation, which no one can understand (or explain), and which requires permanent federal tax increases starting with the wealthiest but threatening to engulf the middle class. The harder the White House and Democrats push this idea, the worse it could get for them. Americans may have arrived at the limit of how much government they want or will pay for. If Barack Obama can’t sell more of it, no one can.” –columnist Daniel Henninger
“Any serious discussion of government-run medical care would have to look at other countries where there is government-run medical care. As someone who has done some research on this for my book ‘Applied Economics,’ I can tell you that the actual consequences of government-controlled medical care is not a pretty picture, however inspiring the rhetoric that accompanies it. Thirty thousand Canadians are passing up free medical care at home to go to some other country where they have to pay for it. People don’t do that without a reason. But Canadians are better off than people in some other countries with government-controlled medical care, because they have the United States right next door, in case their medical problems get too serious to rely on their own system. But where are Americans to turn if we become like Canada? Where are we to go when we need better medical treatment than Washington bureaucrats will let us have? Mexico? The Caribbean?” –Hoover Institution economist Thomas Sowell
The right-wing extremist Republican base is back!
August 11, 2009“‘The right-wing extremist Republican base is back!’ warns the Democratic National Committee. These right-wing extremists have been given their marching orders by their masters: They’ve been directed to show up at ‘thousands of events,’ told to ‘organize,’ ‘knock on doors’ … No, wait. My mistake. That’s the e-mail I got from Mitch Stewart, Director of ‘Organizing for America’ at BarackObama.com. But that’s the good kind of ‘organizing.’ Obama’s a community organizer. We’re the community. He organizes us. What part of that don’t you get? When the community starts organizing against the organizer, the whole rigmarole goes to hell. … Decrying the snarling, angry protesters, liberal talk-show host Bill Press … says that ‘Americans want serious discussion’ on health care. If only we’d stuck to the President’s August timetable and passed a gazillion-page health care reform entirely unread by the House of Representatives or the Senate (the world’s greatest deliberative body) in nothing flat, we’d now have all the time in the world to sit around having a ‘serious discussion’ and ‘real debate’ on whatever it was we just did to one-sixth of the economy. But a sick, deranged, un-American mob has put an end to all that moderate and reasonable steamrollering by showing up and yelling insane, out-of-control questions like, ‘Awfully sorry to bother you, your Most Excellent Senatorial Eminence, but I was wondering if you could tell me why you don’t read any of the laws you make before you make them into law?’ The community is restless. The firm hand of greater organization is needed.” –columnist Mark Steyn
Wet Dreams and Hopolophobes: No cure in sight!
August 10, 2009The hopolophobes in my home state are sad. At least it surely appears that way. They thought that they had a dead sure thing in their never ending quest to stifle liberty and freedom. Never mind that this will do nothing at all to deter the gangsters, rapist, and other assorted criminal ilk that roam among them.
It could though, make the Police unable to stay up to date on the weaponry that gives the good guys any edge at all. One major manufacturer has already refused to honor warranty’s to any California Agency because of the draconian laws the state has passed. Not to mention what is sometimes the back bone that is the first responder when there is that hated airing over the radio “Officer down.” The common citizen…
Having been a “Tactical Paramedic” the one thing I never wanted was to have to use my weapon. The only thing that could have been worse would be having to use it, and the damned thing refusing to go BANG!
I’ve been in no less than five shit or get off the pot situations in non-military situations, and I can assure anyone on earth or in heaven that I want my weapons safe and reliable as they possibly can be.
As I read the blogs and the MSM I see, as clear as day, that distraction is in place. Health care is a decoy friends… These big government people really want to shut down your Second Amendment UNALIENABLE RIGHTS so that they can do the same to your FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS!
Read about the California model for the destruction of Liberty
States Rights: 10th Amendment Primer
August 10, 2009Not since the rebellion in America was quashed in 1865 with the surrender of Robert E. Lee to Ulysses S. Grant has so much attention been paid to state sovereignty as is being paid today.
More than 35 states have passed or are considering state sovereignty amendments, according to the Tenth Amendment Center. Just before leaving office, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin signed a bill declaring that state’s sovereignty, joining Tennessee Gov. Phil Bresdesen in that regard.
States are finally becoming fed up with the increasingly dangerous non-Constitutional overreach of the Federal Government, and State Legislatures are working to stop it.
Unfortunately, many of today’s voting-age Americans have never even read the U.S. Constitution. Apparently, most civics classes in public schools today dwell on other things. So far too many people have no clue how far their government has overreached and taken away their liberty.
But here’s the truth: the Constitution gives the three branches of government certain enumerated powers. Those not enumerated are reserved to the states, and to the people.
The 10th Amendment describes it: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, or prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Yet despite that, since the Southern states were prohibited from removing themselves from an alliance that no longer worked in their favor—an alliance they entered into voluntarily—the U.S. government has grown increasingly more powerful. It could do so because the last remaining restraints on its power—the option that states had to leave the union—had been eliminated.
Here’s what has transpired since: During reconstruction the Republican Party centralized government, subsidized railroads, raised taxes on Southern property and businesses—then confiscated the property when taxes couldn’t be paid—and established an education system that taught a revisionist history of the run-up to and causes of the war (and the government-run education system continues this today). Congress also continued the first income tax—an unconstitutional act—that had been implemented by Pres. Abraham Lincoln.
In 1917 Congress established the Federal Reserve, a non-Constitutional entity with the power to control the U.S. money supply. In the 1930s, in response to The Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt pushed through New Deal provisions that further empowered the Federal Government while enriching certain constituencies. And now, in response to the global financial crisis, first President George W. Bush then President Barack Obama pushed through extra-constitutional spending bills. Obama then compounded the problems by nationalizing the financial and automobile markets; an action, again, that benefitted certain constituencies.
And now the Federal Government is proposing an even further overreach by attempting to enact legislation to cap carbon dioxide emissions and tax energy companies that exceed arbitrarily set limits of the element, and to restrict your access to adequate healthcare.
It seems from the mood of many in our country we may have reached a tipping point as a result of these latest actions. Radio talk shows are alive with voices proposing—demanding even—that America return to the Constitutional roots. Protests denouncing the growing government are increasing in frequency and support.
Unfortunately, many in America still don’t understand what all the hubbub is about. So, to help them understand, here are 10 talking points from the Tenth Amendment Center:
- The People created the federal government to be their agent for certain enumerated purposes only. The Constitutional ratifying structure was created so it would be clear that it was the People, and not the States, that were doing the ratifying.
- The Tenth Amendment defines the total scope of federal power as being that which has been delegated by the people to the Federal Government, and also that which is absolutely necessary to advancing those powers specifically enumerated in the Constitution of the United States. The rest is to be handled by the State Governments, or locally, by the people themselves.
- The Constitution does not include a congressional power to override state laws. It does not give the judicial branch unlimited jurisdiction over all matters. It does not provide Congress with the power to legislate over everything. This is verified by the simple fact that attempts to make these principles part of the Constitution were soundly rejected by its signers.
- If the Congress had been intended to carry out anything they claim would promote the “general welfare,” what would be the point of listing its specific powers in Article I, Section 8, since these would’ve already been covered?
- James Madison, during the Constitutional ratification process, drafted the “Virginia Plan” to give Congress general legislative authority and to empower the national judiciary to hear any case that might cause friction among the states, to give the congress a veto over state laws, to empower the national government to use the military against the states, and to eliminate the states’ accustomed role in selecting members of Congress. Each one of these proposals was soundly defeated. In fact, Madison made many more attempts to authorize a national veto over state laws, and these were repeatedly defeated as well.
- The Tenth Amendment was adopted after the Constitutional ratification process to emphasize the fact that the states remained individual and unique sovereignties; that they were empowered in areas that the Constitution did not delegate to the Federal Government. With this in mind, any Federal attempt to legislate beyond the Constitutional limits of Congress’ authority is a(n) usurpation of state sovereignty—and unconstitutional.
- Tragically, the Tenth Amendment has become almost a nullity at this point in our history, but there are a great many reasons to bring it to the forefront. Most importantly, though, we must keep in mind that the Founders envisioned a loose confederation of states—not a one-size-fits-all solution for everything that could arise. Why? The simple answer lies in the fact that they had just escaped the tyranny of a king who thought he knew best how to govern everything—including local colonies from across an ocean.
- Governments and political leaders are best held accountable to the will of the people when government is local. Second, the people of a state know what is best for them; they do not need bureaucrats, potentially thousands of miles away, governing their lives. Think about it. If Hitler had ruled just Berlin and Stalin had ruled just Moscow, the whole world might be a different place today.
- A constitution which does not provide strict limits is just the thing any government would be thrilled to have, for, as Lord Acton once said, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
- We agree with historian Kevin Gutzman, who has said that those who would give us a “living” Constitution are actually giving us a dead one, since such a thing is completely unable to protect us against the encroachments of government power.
If you want to first halt then reverse the tide of government overreach, pass these points around to your friends and send them to your state and U.S. representatives.
Global Warming Redux number: I forget!
August 10, 2009I received this email from a friend that works at NOAA. I hope the graphs and such come through.
Subject: FUN FACTS about CARBON DIOXIDE
FUN
FACTS about
CARBON DIOXIDE
Of the 186 billion tons of CO2 that enter earth's
atmosphere each year from all sources, only 6 billion tons are from human
activity. Approximately 90 billion tons come from biologic activity in earth's
oceans and another 90 billion tons from such sources as volcanoes and decaying
land plants.
At 368 parts per million CO2 is a minor constituent of
earth's atmosphere-- less than 4/100ths
of 1% of all gases present. Compared to former geologic times, earth's
current atmosphere is CO2-
impoverished.
CO2 is odorless, colorless, and tasteless. Plants
absorb CO2 and emit oxygen as a waste product. Humans and animals breathe
oxygen and emit CO2 as a waste product. Carbon dioxide is a nutrient, not a
pollutant, and all life-- plants and animals alike-- benefit from more of it.
All life on earth is carbon-based and CO2 is an essential ingredient. When
plant-growers want to stimulate plant growth, they introduce more carbon
dioxide.
CO2 that goes into the atmosphere does not stay there
but is continually recycled by terrestrial plant life and earth's oceans-- the
great retirement home for most terrestrial carbon dioxide.
If we are in a global
warming crisis today, even the most aggressive and costly proposals for
limiting industrial carbon dioxide emissions would have a negligible effect on
global climate!
The case for a "greenhouse problem"
is made by environmentalists, news anchormen , and special interests who make
inaccurate and misleading statements about global warming and climate change.
Even though people may be skeptical of such rhetoric initially, after awhile
people start believing it must be true because we hear it so often.
"We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified,
dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. Each of
us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being
honest."
Stephen Schneider (leading advocate of the global warming
theory)(in interview for Discover magazine, Oct
1989)
"In the United States...we have to first convince the
American People and the Congress that the climate problem is real."
former
President Bill Clinton in a 1997 address to the United Nations
Nobody is interested in solutions if they don't think
there's a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to
have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous (global
warming) is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the
solutions are...
former Vice President Al Gore(now, chairman and
co-founder of Generation Investment Management--a
London-based business that sells carbon credits)(in interview with
Grist Magazine
May 9, 2006, concerning his book, An
Inconvenient Truth)
"In the long run, the replacement of the precise and disciplined
language of science by the misleading language of litigation and advocacy may be
one of the more important sources of damage to society incurred in the current
debate over global warming."
Dr. Richard S.
Lindzen(leading climate and atmospheric science expert-
MIT) (3)
"Researchers pound the global-warming drum because
they know there is politics and, therefore, money behind it. . . I've been
critical of global warming and am persona non grata."
Dr. William Gray(Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Colorado State University, Fort
Collins, Colorado and leading expert of hurricane prediction )(in
an interview for the Denver Rocky Mountain News, November 28,
1999)
"Scientists who want to attract attention to
themselves, who want to attract great funding to themselves, have to (find a)
way to scare the public . . . and this you can achieve only by making things
bigger and more dangerous than they really are."
Petr Chylek(Professor of Physics and Atmospheric
Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia)Commenting on
reports by other researchers that Greenland's glaciers are melting.(Halifax Chronicle-Herald,
August 22, 2001) (8)
"Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will
be doing the right thing -- in terms of economic policy and environmental
policy."
Tim Wirth , while U.S. Senator, Colorado.After a
short stint as United Nations Under-Secretary for Global Affairs (4)he now serves as President,
U.N. Foundation, created by Ted Turner and his $1 billion
"gift"
"No matter if the science is all phony, there are
collateral environmental benefits.... Climate change [provides] the greatest
chance to bring about justice and equality in the world."
Christine Stewart, Minister of the Environment of Canadarecent quote from the Calgary Herald
Unraveling the Earth's Temperature Record
photo by: Vin MorganPalaeo
Environment (Ice Cores) Field Work
Because
accumulating layers of glacial ice display annual bands which can be
dated, similar to annual rings of a tree, the age of ice core samples can
be determined. Continuous ice cores from borings as much as two miles long
have been extracted from permanent glaciers in Greenland, Antarctica, and
Siberia. Bubbles of entrapped air in the ice cores can be analyzed to
determine not only carbon dioxide and methane concentrations, but also
atmospheric temperatures can be determined from analysis of entrapped
hydrogen and oxygen.
Based on historical air temperatures inferred from ice core analyses from the
Antarctic Vostok station in 1987, relative to the average global temperature in
1900 it has been determined that from 160,000 years ago until about 18,000 years
ago Earth temperatures were on average about 3° C cooler than today.
Except for two relatively brief interglacial episodes, one peaking about
125,000 years ago (Eemian Interglacial), and the other beginning about 18,000
years ago (Present Interglacial), the Earth has been under siege of ice for the
last 160,000 years.
Compiled by R.S. Bradley and J.A. Eddy based on J.
Jouzel et al., Nature vol. 329. pp. 403-408, 1987 and published in
EarthQuest, vol. 5, no. 1, 1991. Courtesy of Thomas
Crowley, Remembrance
of Things Past: Greenhouse Lessons from the Geologic
Record
As illustrated in this final graph, over the past 800,000 years the Earth
has undergone major swings in warming and cooling at approximately 100,000
year intervals, interrupted by minor warming cycles at shorter intervals. This
represents periods of glacial expansion, separated by distinct but relatively
short-lived periods of glacial retreat.
Temperature data inferred from measurements of the
ratio of oxygen isotope ratios in fossil plankton that settled to the sea
floor, and assumes that changes in global temperature approximately tracks
changes in the global ice volume. Based on data from J.
Imbrie, J.D. Hays, D.G. Martinson, A. McIntyre, A.C. Mix, J.J. Morley, N.G.
Pisias, W.L. Prell, and N.J. Shackleton, in A. Berger, J. Imbrie, J. Hats,
G. Kukla, and B. Saltzman, eds., Milankovitch and Climate, Dordrecht,
Reidel, pp. 269-305, 1984.Courtesy of Thomas Crowley, Remembrance
of Things Past: Greenhouse Lessons from the Geologic
Record
The Polar Ice Cap Effect
As long as the continent of Antarctica
exists at the southern pole of our planet we probably will be repeatedly pulled back
into glacial ice ages. This occurs because ice caps, which cannot attain
great thickness over open ocean, can and do achieve great thickness over a
polar continent-- like Antarctica. Antarctica used to be located near the
equator, but over geologic time has moved by continental drift
to its present location at the south pole. Once established, continental polar
ice caps act like huge cold sinks, taking over the climate and growing bigger
during periods of reduced solar output. Part of the problem with shaking off
the effects of an ice age is once ice caps are established, they cause solar
radiation to be reflected back into space, which acts to perpetuate global
cooling. This increases the size of ice caps which results in reflection of
even more radiation, resulting in more cooling, and so on.
Continental polar ice caps seem to play a particularly important role in
ice ages when the arrangement of continental land masses restrict the free
global circulation of equatorial ocean currents. This is the case with the
continents today, as it was during the Carboniferous
Ice Age when the supercontinent Pangea stretched from pole to pole
300 million years ago.
Stopping Climate Change
Putting things in perspective,
geologists tell us our present warm climate is a mere blip in the history of
an otherwise cold Earth. Frigid Ice Age temperatures have been the rule, not
the exception, for the last couple of million years. This kind of world is not
totally inhospitable, but not a very fun place to live, unless you are a polar
bear.
Some say we are "nearing the end of
our minor interglacial period" , and may in fact be on the brink of
another Ice Age. If this is true, the last thing we should be doing is
limiting carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere, just in case they may
have a positive effect in sustaining present temperatures. The smart money,
however, is betting that there is some momentum left in our present warming
cycle. Environmental advocates agree: resulting in a shift of tactics from the
"global cooling" scare of the 1970s to the "global warming"
threat of the 1980s and 1990s.
Now, as we begin the 21st century the terminology is morphing
toward"climate change," whereby no matter the direction of temperature
trends-- up or down-- the headlines can universally blame humans while
avoiding the necessity of switching buzz-words with the periodicity of solar
cycles. Such tactics may, however, backfire as peoples' common sensibilities
are at last pushed over the brink.
Global climate cycles of warming and cooling have been a natural phenomena
for hundreds of thousands of years, and it is unlikely that these cycles of
dramatic climate change will stop anytime soon. We currently enjoy a warm
Earth. Can we count on a warm Earth forever? The answer is most likely...
no.
Since the climate has always been changing and will likely continue of its
own accord to change in the future, instead of crippling the U.S. economy in
order to achieve small reductions in global warming effects due to manmade
additions to atmospheric carbon dioxide, our resources may be better spent
making preparations to adapt to global cooling and global warming, and the
inevitable consequences of fluctuating ocean levels, temperatures, and
precipitation that accompany climatic change.
Supporting this view is British scientist Jane
Francis, who maintains:
" What we are seeing really is just another interglacial phase within
our big icehouse climate." Dismissing political calls for a global
effort to reverse climate change, she said, " It's really farcical
because the climate has been changing constantly... What we should do is be
more aware of the fact that it is changing and that we should be ready to
adapt to the change."
THIS PAGE
BY:
Monte Hieb
This site last updated October 5, 2007
Previous
Table of Contents
...EMAIL COMMENTS TO: mhieb@geocraft.com
References
(1) A scientific Discussion of
Climate Change, Sallie Baliunas, Ph.D., Harvard- Smithsonian Center for
Astrophysics and Willie Soon, Ph.D., Harvard- Smithsonian Center for
Astrophysics.
(2) The Effects of Proposals
for Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction; Testimony of Dr. Patrick J.
Michaels, Professor of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia, before
the Subcommittee on Energy and Environment of the Committee on Science, United
States House of Representatives
(3) Statement Concerning
Global Warming-- Presented to the Senate Committee on Environmental and
Public Works, June 10, 1997, by Dr. Richard S. Lindzen, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology
(4) Excerpts from,"Our
Global Future: Climate Change", Remarks by Under Secretary for Global
affairs, T. Wirth, 15 September 1997. Site maintained by The Globe - Climate
Change Campaign
(5) Testimony of John R.
Christy to the Committee on Environmental and Public Works, Department of
Atmospheric Science and Earth System Science Laboratory, University of Alabama
in Huntsville, July 10, 1997.
(6) The Carbon Dioxide Thermometer and the Cause of Global
Warming; Nigel Calder,-- Presented at a seminar SPRU (Science and
Technology Policy Research), University of Sussex, Brighton, England, October
6, 1998.
(7) Variation in cosmic ray flux and global cloud coverage: a missing
link in solar-climate relationships; H. Svensmark and E.
Friis-Christiansen, Journal of Atmospheric and Solar- Terrestrial Physics,
vol. 59, pp. 1225 - 1232 (1997).
(8) First International Conference on Global Warming and the Next Ice
Age; Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, sponsored by the Canadian
Meteorological and Oceanographic Society and the American Meteorological
Society, August 21-24, 2001.
Additional Reading
Understanding
Common Climate Claims: Dr. Richard S. Lindzen; Draft paper to appear in
the Proceedings of the 2005 Erice Meeting of the World Federation of
Scientists on Global Emergencies.
Geological
Constraints on Global Climate Variability: Dr. Lee C. Gerhard-- A variety
of natural climate drivers constantly change our climate. A slide format
presentation. 8.5 MB.
Thoughts of Global
Warming: "The bottom line is that climatic change is a given. It is
inescapable, it happens. There is no reason to be very concerned about it or
spend bazillions of dollars to try and even things out.
NOAA
Paleoclimatology: An educational trip through earths distant and recent
past. Also contains useful information and illustrations relating to the
causes of climate change.
Cracking the Ice Age: From the
PBS website-- NOVA online presents a brief tour of the causes of global
warming.
Little
Ice Age (Solar Influence - Temperature): From the online magazine, "CO2
Science."
Solar Variability and Climate
Change: by Willie Soon, January 10, 2000
Earth's
Fidgeting Climate: NASA Science News "It may surprise many people that
science cannot deliver an unqualified, unanimous answer about something as
important as climate change"
Broken Window Economics: Redux
August 8, 2009The Truth About Cash-for-Clunkers
The Obama administration has been raving about the success of “Cash for Clunkers” (officially named the Car Allowance Rebate System, or CARS), and this week Congress dutifully approved $2 billion more for the program. Why the popping of champagne corks? First, the demand for the program was so great that consumers burned through the $1 billion allotted for the rebates in a matter of days. Second, with the amount of flak the administration has taken for its mismanagement of the economy and the health care debate, any perceived victory is welcome. But this is simply not the victory that Obama wants us to believe it is.
Even in the handful of days that the program was active, CARS was plagued by administrative problems — just like any other government program. The government Web site that dealers were told to use to submit buyers’ rebate applications crashed repeatedly due to the high volume of requests. Dealers also had a difficult time registering for the program. Fine-print stipulations about the types of cars and light trucks that could be turned in and which ones could be bought led to customer confusion. Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) said, “If this is how the government is going to handle billion-dollar programs affecting all Americans, I ask, whatever will we do if this administration takes control of our health care?”
Meanwhile, the positive impact on the automotive industry and the economy, and indirectly on energy consumption and the environment, is grossly overstated. The upsurge in new vehicle sales that CARS is expected to bring will likely to be short lived — all it did was condense several months of expected new vehicle sales and old vehicle trade-ins into a shorter period of time. No new wealth is being created; it’s just moving from one pocket to another. And destroying thousands of older, cheaper automobiles negatively affects the economy. Having trouble finding an inexpensive used vehicle for your newly driving son or daughter? Thank the CARS program.
Beyond all these issues, Fox News’ Glenn Beck reported that the federal government posted an ominous message at the Clunkers Web site stating that while logged into the Department of Transportation CARS system, users’ computers would be considered property of the federal government and therefore all materials on the computers could be scanned, recorded, monitored, inspected and disclosed to any element of the government, including law enforcement. After Beck’s program aired, the government quickly “clarified” that users who logged into the site had no explicit or implicit expectation of privacy, which sounds essentially like what Beck reported, just in better legalese.
This should be considered an outrage of epic proportions, but the response from watchdog groups has been muted. The ACLU, which challenged every move the Bush administration made during his eight years in office, had this to say: “[I]t is hard to believe that [the Obama administration] would do something like this.” Unfortunately it’s not hard to believe that the ACLU’s selective view of civil liberties would cause them to be asleep at the switch while Socialists run the White House.
Calling All Informants
August 8, 2009More from the Patriot Post.
THE FOUNDATION
“In politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution.” –Alexander Hamilton
GOVERNMENT & POLITICS
Calling All Informants
The White House this week took to quoting John Adams in an effort to “debunk” criticism of and opposition to ObamaCare. “Facts are stubborn things,” said the administration. After videos resurfaced of Barack Obama saying in 2003, “I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care program,” and in 2007, “I don’t think we’re going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately. There’s going to be potentially some transition process,” damage control became imperative.
Linda Douglass, the communications director for the White House’s Health Reform Office, came to the rescue with a video of her own, claiming that opponents were simply cherry-picking quotes to create a “very false impression.” The trouble is, simply repeating Obama’s claims about Americans keeping their insurance plans isn’t the same as disproving the critics. Facts are stubborn things, Linda.
Not only is this administration intellectually lazy, it is thuggish. “There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care,” says the aforementioned post. “These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.” Got that? Team Obama wants you to be a snitch; they want you to report even casual conversation with those who oppose ObamaCare directly to the White House itself.
Red State blogger Erick Erickson says that could be illegal. “According to 5 U.S.C. § 552a, United States agencies, including the Executive Office of the President, shall ‘maintain no record describing how any individual exercises rights guaranteed by the First Amendment unless expressly authorized by statute or by the individual about whom the record is maintained or unless pertinent to and within the scope of an authorized law enforcement activity.'”
Next, the erstwhile community organizer and his Chicago thugs attacked community organizers around the country for attending town hall meetings hosted by congressmen and expressing their disapproval of Washington’s takeover of health care. According to some Democrats, American citizens, when they actively protest the policies of the ruling party and the president, are a “mob” that is out to “hurt our president,” not Americans exercising their constitutional rights to free speech, free assembly and petition to the government. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) went so far as to claim that the protesters were “carrying swastikas and symbols like that.” Class act, that Speaker of the House.
Meanwhile, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) strongly implied that ObamaCare opponents are all just pawns of the insurance companies: “I hope my colleagues won’t fall for a sucker punch like this. These health insurance companies and people like them are trying to load these town meetings for visual impact on television. They want to show thousands of people screaming ‘socialism’ and try to overcome the public sentiment, which now favors health care reform.” He added, “There are health insurance companies that are … very profitable and they don’t want to see this reform so they are helping to organize these rallies.”
To recap then, more than half the population is opposing massive, unconstitutional government intervention in health care only because profit-making health insurers told us to. And Obama supporters are supposed to rat out their friends and family for opposing this unprecedented Socialist power grab. Witness the Democrats’ version of America.
Quote of the Week
“‘Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.’ We have heard that many times. What is also the price of freedom is the toleration of imperfections. If everything that is wrong with the world becomes a reason to turn more power over to some political savior, then freedom is going to erode away…. Ultimately, our choice is to give up Utopian quests or give up our freedom. This has been recognized for centuries by some, but many others have not yet faced that reality, even today. If you think government should ‘do something’ about anything that ticks you off, or anything you want and don’t have, then you have made your choice between Utopia and freedom.” –economist Thomas Sowell
News From the Swamp: ObamaCare Costs More
The House Energy and Commerce Committee voted 31-28 last Friday to approve health care legislation. The Senate Finance Committee is nearing a “compromise” bill, as well. The only real compromising going on, however, is that of the principles of so-called fiscally conservative “Blue Dog” Democrats. A public option insurance plan still dominates the House bill and the estimated cost is still about $1 trillion over 10 years, though we don’t believe that low-ball figure for a moment. As The Wall Street Journal notes, “The press corps has noticed the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate that the House health bill increases the deficit by $239 billion over the next decade. But government-run health care won’t turn into a pumpkin after a decade. The underreported news is the new spending that will continue to increase well beyond the 10-year period that CBO examines, and that this blowout will overwhelm even the House Democrats’ huge tax increases, Medicare spending cuts and other ‘pay fors.'”
According to CBO director Douglas Elmendorf, new revenue to pay for health care would grow at 5 percent per year for the decade following 2019, while spending will increase at more than 8 percent per year. Worse, the Journal adds, “[T]he CBO score almost surely understates this deficit chasm because CBO uses static revenue analysis — assuming that higher taxes won’t change behavior. But long experience shows that higher rates rarely yield the revenues that they project. As for the spending, when has a new entitlement ever come in under budget?” Democrats may indeed win approval for their plan by claiming it will be “deficit neutral” through 2019, but that’s what we call the BIG lie.
From the ‘Non Compos Mentis’ File
“President Obama and I are working closely with Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate and health care experts to make sure we get the details of health reform right. But we can’t let the details distract us from the huge benefits that reform will bring.” –Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who admitted that she has “no idea” about a provision in the health care bill that requires her to “develop standards for the measurement of gender.” Details, details…
Best of the web
August 8, 2009Here’s a compilation from The Patriot Post of this weeks Best of the Web.
On ObamaCare:
Utopia Versus Freedom by Thomas Sowell
Impossible Promises by John Stossel
Health Politics Quagmire by Tony Blankley
Sebelius: Don’t Sweat the Details by Cal Thomas
Hazardous to America’s Health by Debra Saunders
Fat Load by Jacob Sullum
Tea Party-Bashers Gone Wild by Michelle Malkin
The Villains of Health Care by Paul Greenberg
On politics:
Obama’s Great Race to Change America by Victor Davis Hanson
The Global Redistributionist at Obama’s Left Hand by Terence Jeffrey
On foreign policy:
Russo-Georgia One Year On: From Reset to Repeat? by Austin Bay
On the birth certificate kerfuffle:
Obama Birth Certificate Spotted in Bogus Moon Landing Footage by Ann Coulter
Obamacare Redux:
August 1, 2009Being a free market supporter it not hard for people to believe that I am totally against taking health care out of the hands of the people and placing it under governments control. It’s just bad medicine, pun intended. I also believe it to be unlawful, as in un-Constitutional to the hilt. Nor, am I alone in these beliefs. This latest from The Patriot Post sums it all up pretty well.
Friday Digest
31 July 2009
Vol. 09 No. 30
THE FOUNDATION
“[T]he government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.” –James Madison
GOVERNMENT & POLITICS
Red October Looms for ObamaCare
Americans can breathe a sigh of relief, however briefly, because Congress will not pass health care legislation before lawmakers depart for recess on August 7. “This bill, even in the best-case scenario, will not be signed — we won’t even vote on it probably until the end of September or the middle of October,” said President Barack Obama.
In a sense, Obama is admitting the unpopularity of the major proposals being bantered about in Congress. “This has been the most difficult test for me so far in public life,” he complained, “trying to describe in clear, simple terms how important it is that we reform this system. The case is so clear to me.” And the case is equally clear to us that Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress are acting unconstitutionally. Look it up — health care ain’t there. Economist Walter E. Williams points to the Founders’ own words on the lack of constitutional authority for such actions, adding, “What we’re witnessing today is nothing less than a massive escalation in White House and congressional thuggery.”
That said, Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) asked rhetorically, “Is health care a constitutional right?” He answered, “Well, we believe that people do and we’re introducing a constitutional amendment just to make it real clear so that you don’t have to infer or assume that that’s a given and all that.”
What Conyers and other Democrats don’t understand is that, as columnist Rich Hrebic explains, “A right is not a guarantee that the government (i.e., other people) will provide you something for free. We have the right to engage in religious expression, but that doesn’t mean that the government pays for the construction of the church. We have the right to peacefully assemble, but the government doesn’t promise to supply your transportation. You have the right to keep and bear arms, but don’t expect the government to provide you with a free firearm and bullets. You have the right to free speech, but the government won’t grant you free radio or TV air time. What makes something a right is not whether the government can force somebody else to pay for it.”
But back to the proposal. House and Senate negotiators are working to cut the cost of the bill by $100 billion — cuts that have suddenly allayed the concerns of so-called fiscally conservative “Blue Dog” Democrats. The compromise still includes major tax increases and a public option health entitlement, which were supposed to be deal killers for these “principled” Blue Dogs.
The Senate Finance Committee claims that its package now comes with a price tag of $900 billion over 10 years. Such projections are laughable for several reasons: The unpredictability of how many will switch to the “public option,” how that plan will affect other plans on the market, and the cost of actual medical care in general. Beyond that, the Congressional Budget Office said that Obama’s plan to cut medical costs by shortchanging providers in order to offset the cost of the bill is a hoax. “In CBO’s judgment, the probability is high that no savings would be realized.” No savings. So what’s the point, Mr. President?
Democrats have proposed one way to raise money for the bill — tax payroll. The Wall Street Journal writes that the tax could reach 10 percent. So much for “no tax increases for those making less than $250,000 a year.”
Democrats have also proposed yet another creative way to raise money for the bill — tax soda (known simply as Coke down here in the South). The CBO estimates that a three-cent tax on soda, including Gatorade and other sugary or energy drinks, would generate $24 billion in the next four years, all while fighting obesity. We have been through this before. If Congress taxes something expecting people to stop using that something for their health, the revenue source dries up. Brilliant. We say, “No taxation on carbonation!”
All in all, if the public option is so good, why don’t Democrats in Congress want it to be their health plan? Amendments requiring them to be covered by the plan have been defeated in both the House and Senate. One reason for the defeat might be the example of Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), who, if his case went before a review board, could be denied his current level of cancer treatment. One might say he’d be left to sink or swim.
The BIG Lie
“We spend about $6,000 per person more than any other industrialized nation on earth — $6,000 more than the people do in Denmark, or France, or Germany, or — every one of these other countries spend at least 50 percent less than we do, and you know what, they’re just as healthy.” –Barack Obama
The American Spectator’s Philip Klein explains why this is a lie: “Obama is correct that all of those countries spend less per person on health care, but it isn’t anywhere near $6,000 less. The widest gap among the countries mentioned, between the U.S. and Denmark, is $3,778 per person. Of course, other systems don’t keep costs down with magic wands, but with rationing care to the sick — something Obama denies he wants to do in the U.S.” Indeed, there’s no question that our system needs some treatment, but ObamaCare is not the right prescription.
This Week’s ‘Alpha Jackass’ Award
“I love these members, they get up and say, ‘Read the bill.’ What good is reading the bill if it’s a thousand pages and you don’t have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?” –Rep. John Conyers
The Wall Street Journal’s John Fund responds, “Perhaps Mr. Conyers has a point. A bill that seeks to reorder one-seventh of the nation’s economy is probably too complex and convoluted for any single human being to fully comprehend and can’t possibly capture all the unintended consequences of such sweeping changes. Maybe Mr. Conyers has latched on to the main reason why big government can’t work and why less sweeping health care reform is in order.”
Conservative Libertarian Outpost 