…as demonstrated by Japan. But Paul Krugman thinks that we didn’t borrow enough money.
Category Archives: Economics
Questions For “Progressives”
A little gentle Socratic method.
More Health-Care Unconstitutionality
The Medicare mandates violate the General Welfare clause.
[Update a few minutes later]
ObamaCare criminalizes medicine. Yeah, HillaryCare tried to do that, too. But that time there were enough Dems smart enough to keep it from happening. No such luck last year.
[Update a while later]
Well, Queen Nancy warned us that we had to pass the bill to see what was in it. But it was important. Who had time to read it?
A Good Place To Start Trimming The Federal Budget
America spends far more on education than countries like Germany, Japan, Australia, Ireland, and Italy, both as a percentage of its economy, and in absolute terms. Yet despite this lavish government support for education, college tuition in the U.S. is skyrocketing, reaching levels of $50,000 or more a year at some colleges, and colleges are effectively rewarded for increasing tuition by mushrooming federal financial-aid spending. Americans can’t read or do math as well as the Japanese, even though America spends way more (half again more) on education than Japan does, as a percentage of income, according to the CIA World Fact Book.
Definitely another bubble about to pop.
The Lost DREAM Opportunity
In the piece in which Victor Davis Hanson defended himself against Jeffrey Sachs’ nasty ad hominem smears, he also discussed the DREAM act and immigration issues. Here are some excellent thoughts from a “Patriotic Hispanic” along those lines. And more from Mickey Kaus on the continued false consciousness (or mendacity) of the radical Hispanic community.
Me, Too
What Santa wants for Christmas.
Actually the Worst.Congress.Evah did give me a Christmas present yesterday — they (finally) adjourned. I wish though, that I’d gotten it for my birthday, in January 2009.
Politifact?
…or PolitiFiction?
In fact—if we may use that term without PolitiFact’s seal of approval—at the heart of ObamaCare is a vast expansion of federal control over how U.S. health care is financed, and thus delivered. The regulations that PolitiFact waves off are designed to convert insurers into government contractors in the business of fulfilling political demands, with enormous implications for the future of U.S. medicine. All citizens will be required to pay into this system, regardless of their individual needs or preferences. Sounds like a government takeover to us.
…As long as the press corps is nominating “lies of the year,” ours goes to the formal legislative title of ObamaCare, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. For a bill that in reality will raise health costs and reduce patient choice, the name recalls Mary McCarthy’s famous line about every word being a lie, including “the” and “and.”
I’ll go with politifiction.
[Update a while later]
Pere Suderman isn’t impressed, either:
If you had to rank the biggest political lie of 2010, what would it be? The utter horse-hockey that we’ve somehow proven that the stimulus created a zillion-billion long-term jobs and acted like a fiscal-policy Powerbar for the economy? The president’s oft-repeated and flatly untrue statement that under the health care overhaul, if you like your doctor or your health plan, you can keep it? The contrived justifications for describing ObamaCare as indisputably “fiscally responsible” despite a hotly contested and thoroughly gamed budgetary scoring process? How about the administration’s repeated but totally false claim that the CBO backs up its Medicare accounting, when in fact the CBO has said that the administration’s numbers constitute a form of “double counting”?
Say what you will about the rest of its accomplishments (or lack thereof), but the White House has proven a remarkably consistent and high-quality bullshit factory this year. The way they churn this stuff out, you might think they’d be up for an award! No such luck…
PolitiFiction.
Here’s Hoping
Are the days of big-spending bills over? Killing that omnibus in the lame duck was a good sign. And Harry’s going to have an even tougher time reaming us once the new Senate comes in.
The Great Recession Wasn’t A Market Failure
It was a government failure. But they blame free enterprise and “deregulation,” and use it as an excuse for more disastrous government policies.
The Waste Of Money
…that is our educational system It’s run for the benefit of the administrators and teachers’ unions, not the children.
[Update a while later]
It’s not just a waste of money, it’s criminally stupid:
Skylar Torbett, also a junior, said administrators told him, “They said the candy canes are weapons because you can sharpen them with your mouth and stab people with them.” He said neither he nor any of their friend did that.
Next thing they knew, they were all being punished with detention and at least two hours of cleaning. Their disciplinary notices say nothing about malicious wounding but about littering and creating a disturbance.
“It was at 7 in the morning, before school even starts, so I don’t what we’d be really disrupting,” said Cameron Gleason, also a junior.
And they wonder why people home school.