Category: nannyism

We Demand Inefficiency

Price, Warren, hearings, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Elizabeth Warren, Tom Price

It’s all about the money.

Well, that is what Senator Elizabeth Warren believes.

Grilling Republican Congressman Tom Price, the physician turned congressman Donald Trump picked to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, Warren demanded that Price answer a simple question: would he swear on a stack of medical books that he would never, ever “carry out a single dollar of cuts to Medicare or Medicaid eligibility or benefits.”

Trump had said he would not cut either program. But Price, who is known for his skepticism about the efficiency of government programs and has proposed cuts to the programs before, worries Warren.

So she demanded an answer, using words like “guarantee” and “safeguard.”

Price said neither “yes” nor “no.” Instead, he evaded the question.

Thoughtfully.

“What the question presumes is that money is the metric,” Dr. Price replied. “In my belief … from a scientific standpoint, if patients aren’t receiving care, even though we’re providing the resources, then it doesn’t work for patients.”

Elizabeth Warren, the doyen of progressive politicians for several years now, was mighty upset about Price’s attempt to switch the standard (“metric” is the buzzword for this) for judging a program to the practical from the simple, easy-to-demagogue-with disbursement tally.

She could have said, “We demand inefficiency; all we care about is the money. Actually helping people? Too complicated. But we sure can score points in debate when you try to cut something.”

What she said* was, “The metric is money.”

Same thing, actually.

Thus it is that government grows while real human welfare is ignored.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Peter Suderman, over at Reason, sums it up like this: “What Warren seems to want from Price is a commitment to spend more regardless of a program’s results.” Suderman calls Warren’s reaction “a surprisingly blunt expression” of a view “that undermines the programs it is designed to defend.”

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free trade & free markets general freedom meme moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies Popular too much government

Is Denmark Socialist?

Democratic Socialism, meme, problems, solve

First… some definitions:

Socialism advocates the public ownership (or control) of business and industry in service of a more equal distribution of wealth.

Bernie Sanders and his version of “democratic socialism” places emphasis on redistribution and downplays the public ownership and control part of the system.

However… Bernie seems never to have met a government monopoly he didn’t love, or a free market enterprise he didn’t distrust or despise.

What are the problems (dangers) of socialism?

It idealizes envy.

It rationalizes theft.

It idealizes state power.

It penalizes accomplishment.

It rewards indolence.

It promotes obedience to the state.

It encourages dependence on the state by treating citizens as children.

It dismisses the protection of individual rights with a vague appeal to the “collective good” or “public good.”

It has repeatedly led to economic collapse, oppression, poverty and starvation. So how have Scandinavian democratic socialists managed to overcome these problems?

Quote from the current Prime Minister of Denmark:

“I know that some people in the US associate the Nordic model with some sort of socialism. Therefore I would like to make one thing clear. Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy.”
—Speech, Harvard Institute of Politics

From “Scandinavian Unexceptionalism” (from the Institute of Economic Affairs):

Today the Nordic economies are again growing, following a return to broadly free-market policies that served them well before policies changed during the 1960s and 1970s.

The countries are changing in the face of serious long-term problems that have developed over the last 30 years.

Finland, Sweden and Denmark have…introduced far-reaching market reforms. These changes include greater openness to trade, clear reductions in the tax burden, private provision of welfare services, the introduction of personal retirement accounts and, in Denmark, even a shift towards a liberal labour market.

—Scandinavian Unexceptionalism (highly recommended!)

And the moral hazards?

The development of Scandinavian welfare states has led to a deterioration in social capital.

Nordic societies have for hundreds of years benefited from a strong Lutheran work ethic, a strong sense of individual responsibility and high levels of trust and civic participation.

In the early stages of their transition to “democratic socialism”, safety nets DID exist, but few used them. Over time, an increasing share of the population became dependent on government transfers. The welfare states moved from offering services to the broad public to transferring benefits to those who did not work.

The situation that exists in Nordic societies today is one in which ethics relating to work and responsibility are not strongly encouraged by the economic systems. Individuals with low skills and education have limited gains from working. This is particularly true of parents of large families, which gain extra support if on welfare.

It is true that welfare systems have reduced poverty. However, especially in the second generation, they have also created a form of social poverty of the same type that is apparent in the countries from which many of the admirers of the Scandinavian systems come. Detailed research clearly shows that welfare systems have formed a culture of dependency which is passed on from parents to children.

MUCH MORE HERE on the moral and economic capital that preceded the welfare state, and its gradual disintegration over time…

Do you believe that socialism is a good idea that has simply been corrupted by ruthless dictators? Consider the story of the Chinese Cultural Revolution… a mass movement of Chinese youth dedicated to eradicating capitalism and advancing socialism. Its bloody history tells us quite a lot about the logic of this flawed political philosophy… “Socialism’s Idealistic Youth”

Useful References

Scandinavian Unexceptionalism (Institute of Economic Affairs)
This paper is especially valuable because it was written by someone who actually favors a large welfare state. His willingness to concede the problems inherent in such a state are refreshingly honest… and useful for anyone interested in the issues.

What Can the United States Learn from the Nordic Model? (CATO Institute)

Myth: The Scandinavian countries are proof socialism works (Being Classically Liberal)

The Myth of the Scandinavian Model

Economic Freedom of the World: 2013 Annual Report

International government spending (Wikipedia)

Index of Economic Freedom (Heritage Foundation)

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Tags Democratic Socialism, democratic socialist, meme, Scandinavia

general freedom meme nannyism too much government

Government

You can’t feed a part of it without feeding the whole damn thing.

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Tags abuse, bureaucracy, Drug War, government, libertarian, statism, war

free trade & free markets general freedom moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies

Best Plan Is No Plan

Obamacare, ACA, Healthcare, reform, replace, policy, insurance

“Republicans would create chaos in the health care system because they are stuck,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer says, “between a rock and a cliché.”

Oh. Off by a word or two. But I don’t need to fix it.

What needs to be fixed is the whole system. “Head clown”* Schumer gloats that it cannot be done. The “delicate balance” that is the Affordable Care Act makes it impregnable. For all Republicans’ talk of repeal, “for five years now they’ve had nothing to put in its place.”

Schumer sees the trap. He set it when he and his comrades voted Obamacare in without reading it. Any new program with any new constituency always presents a set of … political hurdles … that quickly become “impossible” to jump.

The President-elect, he notes, has supported three of the “most popular” regulations in Obamacare: “pre-existing conditions,” “26-year-olds on parents’ plans,” and sex equality re: insurance rates.

What Schumer fails to mention is that these are three huge drivers of spiraling insurance prices. The Affordable Care Act “delicately balances” medical markets by shifting who pays for what, hoping that the biggest losers† don’t complain too much and the obvious winners never cease protesting‡ any change.

The truth? Obamacare can be repealed. But replacing it would be a disaster. The best plan is no plan. Repeal all the regulations. The federal government should completely deregulate the markets, and prevent states from ruining interstate markets in insurance and health care.

Do what the Commerce clause was designed to do.

Schumer is counting on Republicans to do nothing. Despite signs they’re cooking up something.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

*What Trump called Schumer. And in the same tweet dubbed Obamacare “a lie.” Truer words never spoken?

† Obamacare presents a huge burden on the self-employed, self-insured, and on the previously insured, since it is these people who most obviously pay for all the newly insureds. Of course, in the end, everybody pays … from increasing prices and decreasing rates of progress.

‡ At least they are the focus of advocacy groups. The poor neatly serve as innocent shields of the spoliators.

N. B. Adapted from this weekend’s Townhall column.

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Tags ACA, healthcare, insurance, ObamaCare, policy, reform, replace

folly general freedom ideological culture nannyism privacy property rights too much government U.S. Constitution

Democratic Socialism…

Because BIG BROTHER is okay as long as enough people vote for him!

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Tags Big Brother, Democratic Socialism, egalitarian, meme, socialism, vote, voting

meme nannyism national politics & policies too much government

“Regulation” should not be confused with “rule of law”

Post author By CS Admin
Post date January 7, 2017
No Comments on “Regulation” should not be confused with “rule of law”

regulations, rule of law, control, bureaucracy, law, meme, Common Sense, Paul Jacob, Jim Gill

A “rule of law” is based on general principles, and makes room for — or, better yet, is based upon — the protection of individual rights.

It used to be common to say, “a rule of law, not of men”; it was even as common in political oratory as was spouted out over drinks at the Rotary. But as the modern Regulatory State has grown in scope and power, most folks seem to have lost track of the notion. It is now not even a cliché. Few even of our most educated folks can explain this idea. Vast swaths of the mis-educated public appear not to “get” the idea of limiting government to the enforcement of a few general principles; instead, they cry for more “regulations” (along with additional spending and maybe even a whole new division of the executive government) every time a crisis, tragedy or atrocity occurs.

So we are left with a political culture in which the words of Tacitus seem to a majority as implausible at best, evil at worst: “The more the laws, the more corrupt the State.” Contrary to today’s trendy prejudice, we do not need “more laws” — edicts legislated by representatives, or regulations concocted by bureaucracies — we need Law.

As in, “a rule of Law.”

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