Over twenty-five hundred people showed up for a Tucson Tea Party event. It’s still a long way toward election time, but they’ll have to maintain the momentum. Of course, Obama continues to make it easy to do so, on the way to his loss next year.
Category Archives: Economics
Space Policy, Part 4
The latest installment of the follies on Capitol Hill.
Radio Warning
I’ll be polluting the airwaves with crazy talk about space policy over at The Space Show this morning, from 9:30 to 11:00 PDT.
The Big Climate Push
On The Lousy Value
…of many college degrees. At Cracked.
I don’t know if this is the next bubble to pop, but pop it will.
Demagoguery
The president is now trying to distract from his own policies by blaming the oil companies for high gas prices, and he wants to increase their taxes, by taking away “subsidies.”
a) Does he really think that increasing oil companies’ costs will reduce gas prices? Apparently the question tied Jay Carney up in verbal knots.
b) Do oil companies get much in the way of “subsidies” that other companies don’t? If he’s talking about things like accelerated depreciation and R&D tax credits, this is helpful to any company, not just an oil company. If he is proposing to take it away from them alone, isn’t he simply punishing a vital industry because it’s making him look bad?
Ramesh Ponnoru makes a good point:
The big energy subsidies, on a per-unit-of-energy basis, are for ethanol, solar, and wind power. Get rid of the oil subsidies — and the “oil subsidies” — and nothing much changes. Get rid of the subsidies for those other energy sources, and those industries disappear. Just ask their lobbyists.
And good riddance, too, if they can’t make it without Uncle Sugar.
[Update mid afternoon]
“The president doesn’t know squat about energy production.” Which, unfortunately, doesn’t distinguish it in any way from most other subjects.
The Politics Of Star Trek
Thoughts from Ilya Somin:
Instead, it is the Federation that turns out to be a sort of kinder, gentler Soviet Union. Both are multicultural, federal, socialist states with an official ideology of egalitarianism. But the Federation lacks the Gulags, secret police, and mass murder (or at least we never see them on-screen!). Meanwhile, the Romulans represent several of the negative qualities that many leftists associate with the present-day West: elitism, arrogance, and intolerance for other cultures. The same can be said of many other Star Trek villains, such as the Ferengi, who represent the supposed evils of capitalism. At some level, of course, Star Trek is a projection of Western values. After all, egalitarian socialism is a Western ideology. However, Trek is far more hostile to the present-day West than Nussbaum and some other left of center critics recognize.
Some say Roddenberry was a dreamer. But (sadly) he’s not the only one. Imagine.
NASA Over A Russian Barrel
I have a piece over at Pajamas Media today about the Russians’ latest attempt to stifle competition in crew transportation.
[Update mid morning]
I have related thoughts over at the Washington Examiner.
[Bumped]
The Climate Coverup Continues
Also, there’s a double standard in Virginia when it comes to releasing emails:
UVA and the interest groups have been in Mann’s corner, fighting Ken Cuccinelli’s request for documents for months. But it was that Greenpeace request of UVA for Pat Michaels’ work product that has legs. The environmental group filed similar requests with other institutions seeking the records of climate skeptics, and in a couple of cases, mounted campaigns to have those skeptics fired from their positions. Where were the voices of academic freedom of expression during those campaigns? Sitting on their hands.
Now, though, they have sprung into action because Michael Mann, who shares their climate change beliefs, is under what they deem to be attack. Horner says these groups are “a little bit late to the party,” because, as noted above, UVA has already said it’s willing to release an academic’s emails, “so long as he’s a climate skeptic.”
As Norman Leahy writes, we now have half a million reasons to want to see them.
Obama’s Plan To Reduce The Deficit
He doesn’t have one:
The president keeps promoting an “adult conversation” about the budget, but that can’t happen if the First Adult doesn’t play his part. Obama is eager to be all things to all people. He’s against the debt and its adverse consequences, but he’s for preserving Social Security and Medicare without major changes. He’s for “tough cuts,” but he’s against saying what they are and defending them. He pronounces ambitious goals without saying how they’d be reached. Mainly, he’s for scoring political points against Republicans.
And doesn’t really want one.
That’s been obvious for a long time. Reducing the deficit will require cutting non-defense spending and entitlements, and Democrats can’t bring themselves to do it. People forget, but Bill Clinton never had a plan to balance the budget, either. He was forced to do it by a Republican congress.
[Mid-morning update]
He may not have a plan to eliminate the deficit, but he sure had one to jack up gas prices, and it’s working pretty damned well.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Jim Manzi has some thoughts on demand elasticity of fuel, and why forcing the prices higher is not a good way to wean ourselves off fossil fuels.
[Another update a couple minutes more later]
Why have taxes at all? Why even have a debt limit? Keynesianism has failed, and the “liberals” remain economically incoherent.
[Update a while later]
Because most Americans aren’t as stupid as the Democrats want us to be, they think that the problem is too much spending, not taxes too low.