…and Nancy, and other economic ignorami, ObamaCare will not reduce the deficit.
[Update early afternoon]
Garbage-Out, Garbage-In budgeting.
Category Archives: Economics
A Beautiful Sight
[Afternoon update]
Something else to celebrate — the fall of the House of Waxman:
The committee was an unending source of ghastly new legislative proposals for regulatory manacles to be fastened on one or another sector of the economy , ideas that with any luck we may now be spared for the next two years. Thus it appears unlikely that the Republican-led committee will give its blessing to something called the Safe Cosmetics Act of 2010 (H.R. 5786), introduced by Reps. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.), which — by mandating that all compounds found in personal-care items at any detectable level be expensively tested for and disclosed on labels — could have added tens of thousands of dollars of cost overhead to that little herbal-soap business your sister is trying to start in her garage. (Fragrance expert Robert Tisserand explains why most small personal-care product makers would not survive if the bill passed). Nor is it likely that the new leadership of chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) will be in a hurry to adopt Rep. Schakowsky’s H.R. 1408, the Inclusive Home Design Act, which would mandate handicap accessibility features in most new private homes.
He really is one of the more odious creatures in that cesspool. It’s a shame that he didn’t lose his seat completely, but that’s probably a forlorn hope in his West LA district. But at least he’s been defanged.
“Cut And Grow”
I like the sound of this:
Cantor laid out a three-part rule he by which he would seek to abide in the new Congress, which would entail asking every day if the Republican majority’s actions are focused on 1) job creation and economic growth, 2) cutting spending, and 3) shrinking government while protecting and expanding liberty. And if not, to ask, “Why are we doing it?”
The new “results-driven” majority would act quickly to advance its “cut-and-grow playbook” in the next few weeks leading up to President Obama’s State of the Union address on Jan. 25, focusing primarily on reducing government spending — bringing new measures to the floor each week — and doing away with excessive government regulations. “To this day we continue to see the drum beat towards more and more reach by this government and it is impeding job growth and impeding the access to capital for small business,” he said.
Let’s hope they can stick to it.
Short And Sweet
A 2000+ page legislative atrocity can be repealed with a two-page bill. Won’t take long to read that one. Now that’s what I would call efficient government.
Increasing Gasoline Prices
Five things that Obama has done to make it happen. Only five?
And The Other Half Are Fools
Almost half the voters don’t believe Obama’s promise that if you like your health insurance, you can keep it. What’s wrong with the rest of them?
[Update a while later]
Goody. ObamaCare has stopped construction on forty-five hospitals. And the problem with this gang is that it’s always hard to tell if these kinds of consequences are intended, or not.
The Democrats And Health Care
An account of political self destruction.
[Update a few minutes later]
Well deserved, I should add. Maybe we can finish the job in a couple years.
Everyone I Know
As a native Californian, it no longer astonishes me how so many in this state, one bountifully blessed by nature, have become deaf to reason. I’ve grown sadly used to such alleged thinking. The people of California who determine government, business and societal direction have swallowed their own hype, firmly believing that California’s greatness cannot be damaged or destroyed by their actions. In this they are completely mistaken, utterly unaware of this being the case.
These people are committed to the philosophy that wealth is both to be obtained at all costs and the greatest of evils, something to be seized and redistributed to those unwilling to work toward bettering themselves. California is a nanny state on steroids, driving businesses away and mocking them as they leave for failure to be good citizens, never once stopping to note how their departure also means the loss of jobs and tax revenue. It preaches diversity but practices division, excuses all from personal responsibility and promotes itself as a godless church giving alms to the poor while not once noticing that not only in doing so does it keep them forever chained to government handouts, the donation basket is empty due to having driven away all followers from its pews.
There is no reason to believe any of this will change in the near future. Politically, the state is firmly in the hands of liberal Democrats who are blind to economic reality, forever beholden to overpaid and horribly over-pensioned state employees who accept no responsibility for the economic crisis. Unemployment is rampant due to the state’s anti-business attitude and insanely excessive regulatory addiction. Taxes are obscene; the highest in the nation. The California GOP is pathetic, unable to find and support quality candidates that stay on message while speaking honestly about the state’s problems. Sacramento gleefully doles out taxpayer dollars to illegal immigrants while strangling farms with inane environmental laws that solve nonexistent problems while creating authentic new ones. California is tens of billions of dollars in debt with no cohesive policy, let alone the courage, to do what is necessary to solve the problem: create jobs by easing regulations and slashing taxes while simultaneously making deep cuts across the board in government spending, starting with its state workers salaries and pensions. Instead, it will most likely beg for a federal bailout, which it won’t get, and then either declare bankruptcy, hiding behind judicial decisions as to what will be done to relieve the debt, or simply default on what it owes to most everyone.
Well, apparently, that’s what California wanted.
Botched Environmental Predictions
Here are eight.
Speaking of which, here’s some new research (yes, “peer reviewed”) indicating that most of the warming modelling done to date is invalid. I’m shocked, shocked.
Decades from now, scientists, real ones, are going to be amazed at the hubris of today’s generation of climate “scientists,” given how little we really understand this complex and chaotic phenomenon.
“Rethink”?
I don’t think we need to “rethink” public employee unions. The word he’s looking for is “outlaw.” There’s a reason, and a good one, that they used to be illegal (including under the Roosevelt administration). They’ve pretty much fiscally destroyed California.