…has gone from The Nation to Cato. That should make for some interesting economics discussions around the water cooler.
Category Archives: Political Commentary
President Above-It-All
Some thoughts on the president’s latest campaign speech:
A less self-consciously grandiose figure might feel the need to reflect on the fact that his simplistic prior positions had not fully taken account of the difficulties inherent in fighting the War on Terror. Not Obama. On the commissions, he explicitly denied changing his view, instead trumpeting cosmetic changes he’s proposed as major reforms that will bring them in line “with the rule of law.”
For all his championing of nuance, Obama comes back to one source for every dilemma: Bush, as though without his predecessor every question about how a nation of laws protects itself from a lawless enemy would be easy. Under Bush, according to Obama, we set our “principles aside as luxuries we could no longer afford.” Even now, there are those — are you listening, Mr. Former V.P.? — “who think that America’s safety and success require us to walk away from the sacred principles enshrined in this building.” What a shoddy smear.
It’s of a pattern. I wonder when this man is going to stop campaigning, and start to seriously govern?
The Contest For The Stupidest Congressman
Is the winner Alan Grayson? Would that it were true — it would be nice to think that he establishes a floor, but I think that he’s unfortunately typical, particularly among Democrats.
[Afternoon update]
Considering all of the trollery in comments, in which people desperately want to change the subject from economic ignorance to BUSH! and TORTURE! of INNOCENT TERRORISTS!, I wonder if any of them even bothered to follow the link, or just decided to pathetically play pin the tail on the Republican?
Canada
The Great Right North.
It will be amusing if, after all the overwrought talk about leftists fleeing Jesusland after the 2004 election to head off to the progressive paradise north of the border, it instead becomes a haven for the fiscally sane. And I write this from the perspective of someone who may in fact be relocating to Toronto in the near future, though not for that reason.
Orphans Of Apollo
Alan Boyle doesn’t review the movie per se, but rather talks about its making and makers.
Why Government Can’t Run A Business
This isn’t really news, of course, but apparently, the lesson has to be relearned over and over.
I heard an interview a couple days ago with the Democrat who’s planning to challenge Chris Dodd in the primary, and he pointed out that he had started and managed several successful businesses, whereas Dodd had done nothing but be a politician his entire life. I wonder what he thinks of the Democrat president and vice president…, neither of whom has run so much as a lemonade stand? Or maybe Obama did when he was a kid, and his communist mother subsidized it?
The Problem With Soaking The Rich
They can vote with their feet:
We believe there are three unintended consequences from states raising tax rates on the rich. First, some rich residents sell their homes and leave the state; second, those who stay in the state report less taxable income on their tax returns; and third, some rich people choose not to locate in a high-tax state. Since many rich people also tend to be successful business owners, jobs leave with them or they never arrive in the first place. This is why high income-tax states have such a tough time creating net new jobs for low-income residents and college graduates.
One has to be particularly pig headed not to understand this.
[Thursday morning update]
Adios, New York:
Last week I spent 90 minutes doing a couple of simple things — registering to vote, changing my driver’s license, filling out a domicile certificate and signing a homestead certificate — in Florida. Combined with spending 184 days a year outside New York, these simple procedures will save me over $5 million in New York taxes annually.
By moving to Florida, I can spend that $5 million on worthy causes, like better hospitals, improving education or the Clinton Global Initiative. Or maybe I’ll continue to invest it in fighting the status quo in Albany. One thing’s certain: That money won’t continue to fund Albany’s bloated bureaucracy, corrupt politicians and regular special-interest handouts.
I thought it was stupidly amusing the other week when “Governor” Paterson expressed such glee that he was chasing Rush Limbaugh away with his policies. Well, there are a lot of other people who won’t be any more happy than Rush is to continue to fund these parasites.
[Bumped]
[Evening update]
A disgusting but apt metaphor from Mark Steyn:
As Miss McArdle notes, whether you bail out states “too big to fail” or let them go bankrupt, it will cause pain to taxpayers. But the pain of the latter is relatively short-term. Passing Sacramento’s buck to Washington will accelerate the centralizing pull in American politics and eventually eliminate any advantage to voting with your feet.
Not to be too gloomy, but the country feels like it’s seizing up. It’s as if California and New York have burst their bodices like two corpulent gin-soaked trollops and rolled over the fruited plain to rub bellies at the Mississippi. If you’re underneath, it’s not going to be fun.
I hope that a bailout of California and New York will have huge electoral blowback (including from many Californians, like the ones who voted down the continued state tax and spending on Tuesday, and New Yorkers).
A Bill Of Federalism
This is long overdue, I think. I’d sure like to see it go somewhere.
EmBoldening The Budget
There are rumors that during the Bolden meeting with Obama, the subject of a potential need to decrease NASA’s future budget came up, and that Bolden discouraged the president from doing so.
One of the ways that Goldin ingratiated himself with the Clinton administration was to actually take pride in and volunteer for budget cuts, which simply strained the agency, and some think, led to the Columbia disaster. But it is possible to spend less money on space, and it’s even possible to get more for less than we’re currently getting (simply getting NASA out of the launch-vehicle development business would go a long way toward that goal). The problem is that it’s not politically possible, because the primary goal of the money remains keeping cafeterias and parking lots full in Huntsville, Houston and the Cape
Contrarian
In the midst of all of the celebration of the successful repair mission, I’m going to dash a little cold water here. While I criticized the O’Keefe decision to not do the Hubble repair, it wasn’t a criticism of the decision itself, but rather of the rationale for it. I’ve never supported the mission, because I think that there were much better uses for the money, even for astronomy. But cancelling it because of risk to the crew was a dumb reason to do so (particularly because it made it easy for Griffin to reverse it when he came in). As always in these cases, it’s the money, stupid. And while I’m sure that we’ll get spectacular results from the fix, I remain convinced that there were better uses for the money.
Anyway, Rocketman agrees. Though I would note that the cost of a Shuttle flight isn’t a billion dollars for the purpose of determining the cost of this mission. What’s important for this analysis is the marginal cost of the flight, which, ignoring the cost of the telescope upgrade hardware, was less than a couple hundred million, including crew training. But it was still a lousy deal.