In a post discussing why spending, not revenue, is the problem:
Here is a good bipartisan idea: Congress should repeal any piece of legislation that was passed last year on party lines only. I can think of a few.
Simple and smart. And as for the objection that the president will simply veto them, fine. It will provide clarity for the next election.
The Titanic passengers didn’t vote to hit the iceberg.
Privatizing liquor would increase revenue and decrease consumer costs, but it would result in government layoffs:
As I noted in August, privatization advocates also have been known to argue, with a logic familiar to fans and foes of President Obama’s stimulus package, that the business of distributing alcoholic beverages should be designed to maximize jobs—i.e., to be as inefficient as possible.
Why do we have to be ruled by economic ignorami? And why is it that only places like Reason point things like this out? Why can’t the lame-stream media think, just a little, when they report this stuff?
I’m pretty much on the same page as Jonathan Adler:
Hendricks’ effort to scare conservatives into supporting big government now to avoid bigger government later rings particularly hollow. Why is it that everything requires bigger government? Climate change is a threat? Extend government tentacles throughout the economy. Climate change is already happening? Ditto. Adaptation is necessary? More of the same. Were climate change not happening at all, I suspect Hendricks would still endorse a substantial expansion in government power.
Admittedly some on the right are equally reflexive, assert government is never the answer, and go to lengths to deny climate change poses any threat whatsoever. Yet there are also plenty of conservatives and libertarians who are deeply skeptical of government intervention, but are nonetheless willing to believe global warming might be a problem. It’s perfectly reasonable to believe that reducing greenhouse gas emissions does not require the enactment of monstrous, pork-laden, regulatory statutes like Waxman-Markey. And it’s not at all clear that climate adaptation necessitates a massive expansion of government power. In many areas, such as water, climate adaptation requires more reliance on markets, not less. Climatopolis author Matthew Kahn also blogged here about how successful climate adaptation will be driven by market forces, not government planners.
I share Hendricks’ and Farber’s frustration that more conservatives don’t take climate change or other environmental concerns seriously. But I also believe some of this is the environmentalist movement’s own doing. If everything calls for the same big government solution, why does it matter what the problem is?
Concern about the environment has always been hijacked by socialists, going all the way back to the early “progressive” movement, and the trend just got worse with the end of the Cold War, and socialism discredited, after which they changed brands and became watermelons. Policy has to be based on a rational calculation of the costs and benefits
Could Congress start one? I hope so. The unelected bureaucrats have to be reined in. Starting, of course, with ObamaCare, but the EPA is out of control as well. I wonder if this is a propitious time to get a categorical exclusion for spaceflight to put it on the same level as aviation with respect to NEPA?
…the Lindsay Lohan of states. One of the many good things about Tuesday’s result is that there is now no prospect for the state to be bailed out by the federal taxpayers. The moronic electorate here is about to have a hard collision with reality.
[Update early afternoon]
What happens when a state goes bankrupt? I guess we’re going to find out, because California (and other states, such as Illinois) are essentially already there.
I want one that is for the free market.
Yes, I know that I’ve been complaining that the administration has been anti-business, and it has been, particularly with all of the uncertainty that it’s engendered, with businesspeople not knowing what new atrocity and attack on profits it’s going to commit. But that doesn’t mean that I want it to be subsidizing politically favored business (including energy businesses, of all flavors) either.
…when it comes to space. My thoughts over at PJM.
…from an unwashed hillbilly:
Those words mean two things to this unwashed hillbilly: (1) I have doubts that Obama is “the smartest guy ever to become President,” and (2) he lies.
When Obama was trying to sell the plan, he said it would bring the cost curve down. Once his plan was signed into law, he said he knew that it was “going to increase our costs.” At least that sure looks like a lie to this ignorant know-nothing. Maybe there’s some nuance I don’t understand. Or does “down” mean “up” in actuarial science? Maybe Katie Couric could enlighten me; she knows pretty much everything about climate science.
I guess I’m an unwashed hillbilly, too.
We seem to have reached a tipping point here. Too many Californians think that they can have both lunatic environmental and economic policies, and a viable economy. Almost every initiative went the wrong way, as did the gubernatorial and senatorial elections, though the former was partly a result of an awful Republican candidate — Jerry Brown might have been beatable by Chuck DeVore.
It’s a positive feedback situation with increasingly negative results. The economic ignorami in the electorate vote for idiotic propositions, and send economic ignorami to Sacramento in the legislature and governor’s mansion, resulting in flight by the sensible, continuing to distill and concentrate the idiocy in the electorate. It will end in bankruptcy (the state is basically already there), and then they’ll demand a bailout from the rest of the country. Fortunately, with the new Congress, they won’t get it. But I don’t know if the state is salvageable at this point. It’s some of the best real estate on earth, but its current inhabitants don’t deserve it, and have squandered a great legacy.
It’s an opportunity for other states to poach a lot of space companies, I think.
[Update early afternoon]
California, winner of the Dumbest State Award, by a landslide.