Category: national politics & policies

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ideological culture media and media people national politics & policies

Free Money

If an email popped up offering free money, what would you do?

Delete it? And wonder how it got past your spam filter?

Me, too.

Well, some Washington wags — call them re-distribution professionals — say we’re crazy.

As are Republicans in the 19 states that have refused to expand their states’ Medicaid rolls as part of Obamacare, and in the five states — Indiana, New Hampshire, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia — still debating whether to do so.

Republicans are “rejecting what is more or less nearly free money from the federal government,” says a baffled Josh Barro of the New York Times.

Karen Finney, host of MSNBC’s Disrupt, sneers that these GOP-led states are “leaving money on the table.”

“It’s free money!” exclaims an exasperated Joan Walsh of Salon.com, adding that, “It’s stimulative money.”

Under Obamacare, the federal government first demanded and now urges states to expand the Medicaid rolls well beyond those at the poverty line, with our central government generously offering to pay the cost for the massive expansion fully for three years . . . and then 90 percent after that.

One local newspaper identified one major issue, trust: “The trademark of Obamacare is broken promises.”

Will the federal government keep paying nearly all the cost? In Virginia, before any expansion, Medicaid already accounts for nearly one out of every four dollars in state spending.

“This is another picture of how extreme this Republican Party has become,” according to Walsh, “that you had this organized backlash to taking money that once would have been a no-brainer.”

This is the new GOP extremism, refusing to be bought off?

It’s no vice.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
insider corruption national politics & policies

Professor of Dumbocracy

“It’s not enough for governments to simply be democratic,” Oxford professor Stein Ringen recently wrote in the Washington Post, “they must deliver or decay.”

Deliver what, you ask?

Ringen isn’t clear — surprise, surprise — but attacks “Thatcherite inequality” — though, he admits it’s worse today in Great Britain than when Margaret Thatcher was prime minister (1979-1990). Why no progress to his apparent ideal of economic equality? According to Ringen, “concentrations of economic power . . . have become unmanageable.”

He advances the same analysis of U.S. “democracy,” claiming that power has been “usurped by actors such as PACs, think tanks, media and lobbying organizations.”

Think tanks are a problem?

Ringen doesn’t explain how these additional voices serve to undercut “democracy.” Instead, he simply hurls broadsides against our “mega-expensive politics,” warning that, “When money is allowed to transgress from markets, where it belongs, to politics, where it has no business, those who control it gain power to decide who the successful candidates will be — those they wish to fund — and what they can decide once they are in office.”

There is generally money on both or numerous sides of any given policy question. There is certainly no monolithic “they” constituting “the rich” who decide our public policy over tea at the club. Pretending there is won’t help democracy.

“It is a misunderstanding to think that candidates chase money,” writes the professor from his ivory tower. “It is money that chases candidates.”

Really? Ringen can easily test his hypothesis: run for office and wait for all that money to chase him down.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights judiciary national politics & policies

Limiting the Little Guy

Last week’s U.S. Supreme Court decision in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission correctly struck down limits on the total amount of money a person can contribute to all federal candidates and to political parties and PACs in a two-year election cycle.

After all, what part of “Congress shall make no law” provides the specific authority for Congress to limit what a person may give to a political party?  Or the number of candidates one may support?

But in his dissent, Justice Stephen Breyer argued that, “Where enough money calls the tune, the general public will not be heard.”

“No matter what five Supreme Court justices say,” announced Public Citizen, “the First Amendment was never intended to provide a giant megaphone for the wealthiest to use to shout down the rest of us.”

I want the public to be heard, not shouted down.

Which is why it is not Breyer, but Justice Clarence Thomas who is right: this ruling didn’t go far enough. While justly removing the limits on the aggregate amount a wealthy person can contribute, the Court upheld the limit of $2,600 on what you or I can give to a single candidate.

The super-wealthy can spend millions in an independent expenditure for their preferred candidate. Fine. It’s their money. Yet, a person of more modest means doesn’t have the dough to launch an effective independent effort.

Instead, if you felt strongly enough, you could dip into savings or work a second job to afford to give, say, $3,000 or $4,000. Except that our campaign finance laws prevent it. This is the limit that affects the most people. Non-rich people.

Stop limiting the little guy.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets national politics & policies

Maximum Mixed Feelings

If a man with a gun claims he can get your boss to increase your pay, but that doing so might have the unfortunate result of killing your boss and/or ending your job altogether, what would you say?

“I have mixed feelings on it,” Rebecca Pentz-Jones told the Washington Post regarding legislation to increase Maryland’s minimum wage. It’s a case whereby a man with a gun (government) forces a pay raise, but accordingly risks her job and her employer’s business.

Mrs. Pentz-Jones works at Dollar Tree earning $7.95 an hour, but would rather make $10.10 an hour, the minimum being pushed by President Obama.

Polls show public support for upping wages, but Maryland Senate President Mike Miller argues, “We don’t just pass things because they’re popular.” Perhaps Miller has a larger perspective in mind. When pollsters ask people what they think of raising the minimum if the raise would increase unemployment, support for the hike flags.

Maryland Democrats haven’t downed enough of the president’s Kool-Aid. They fear the Congressional Budget Office analysis correctly predicts Obama’s higher minimum wage would cost 500,000 to a million people their jobs.

“I feel like I’m on a battleground,” explains Sen. Katherine Klausmeier of Baltimore County, “between trying to help a person make a living and trying to save my small businesses.”

Prince George’s County Del. Dereck Davis notes that a higher wage “will benefit some people, but at the expense of others” and “could result in the elimination of jobs.”

“It gets very confusing,” adds Sen. John Astle. “Sometimes it makes me wonder why we even have a minimum wage.”

Me, too, Senator.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets national politics & policies too much government

Demanding Demand

Midnight tonight marks another witching hour for Obamacare: the deadline for individuals to sign up for insurance on the federal and state exchanges.

Well, sorta . . . kinda.

The deadline was extended last week.

The dominant feature of the misnamed Affordable Care Act’s tedious rollout has been the incessant presidential fiddling with deadlines, especially those that might otherwise precede a national election. We’re told this extension is only for a couple weeks, though, and only for those who have attempted but been unable to sign up on the creaky websites.

Then again, there is absolutely no way to determine whether an individual actually attempted to purchase insurance. So, if you started the signup process but didn’t finish or just wish to so claim, you now have until mid-April.

Last week’s other big news was the administration’s self-congratulatory announcement that healthcare signups had surpassed the goal of six million.

This “success” comes only after downgrading the original goal of seven million, meaning one could more honestly claim the administration is nearly a million short of its goal. Additionally, these signups include people who “signed up” in the sense of having clicked “Yes, I can” but not having actually paid for it — something required by health insurance companies even under Obamacare.

Amidst all the boasting about how “popular,” how much “demand” there is for the taxpayer-subsidized insurance, a stark, but unspoken reality looms: There is no sign of legitimate demand for Obamacare.

It’s called “the individual mandate.” Mandate doesn’t mean free choice. Even forcing folks to sign up by penalty of law, the signups come slowly.

That’s popular?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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free trade & free markets national politics & policies

Government Delivers Pizza

Pizza is popular. It hardly needs advertising, much less government subsidy.

And yet the federal government does, indeed, subsidize the promotion of pizza.

Apparently, our government wants us to eat more of the scrumptious (but fattening) stuff.

Has this has been cleared with Michelle Obama?Pie Chart

The program is the business of a much more power group, the USDA. In recent years, according to the U.S. Food Policy Blog,

USDA’s dairy checkoff program has spent many millions of dollars to increase pizza consumption among U.S. children and adults. Using the federal government’s taxation powers, the checkoff program collects a mandatory assessment of 15 cents on every hundredweight of milk that is sold for use as fluid milk or dairy products.

The goal is to promote cheese. (It promotes milk, too, but milk consumption is going down, steadily over the long term.) And, since the pizza industry is the biggest single user of cheese, those checkoff funds wind up in the advertising coffers of Domino’s Pizza, which soaks up about three-quarters of the dough. Ahem.

The federal government seems especially concerned to promote the eating of cheap delivery pizza.

But, good or bad, just talking about pizza makes me hungry for pizza. And yet, to prevent my corporeal presence from ballooning into a behemoth approximating the dimensions of the U.S. national debt, I don’t eat pizza very often.

In view of both of these truths, the USDA could afford to stop promoting the nominally Italian (but actually very American) foodstuff.

Get the government out of food advertising. Particularly (but not limited to) pizza.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

*Pie chart not made from a pizza from Domino’s.

Categories
national politics & policies political challengers

One Man Walkout

A famous poem ends “‘You lie,’ he cried, And ran on.” One of the better moments of modern televised State of the Union addresses was when a lowly member of Congress had the audacity to shout “You lie!” after a controversial immigration point.

Last night, Representative Steve Stockman (R-Tex.) did not run or shout, but merely walked out of the room.

Months ago, Stockman had handed out a book to each member of the august two-branched body he serves in, a book entitled Impeachable Offenses: The Case for Removing Barack Obama from Office.

What’s his beef with the president?

Tonight I left early after hearing how the President is further abusing his Constitutional powers. I could not bear to watch as he continued to cross the clearly-defined boundaries of the Constitutional separation of powers.

Even worse, Obama has openly vowed to break his oath of office and begin enacting his own brand of law through executive decree. This is a wholesale violation of his oath of office and a disqualifying offense.

Stockman is not alleging that all executive orders are dangerous or unlawful — just that some are indeed unconstitutionally usurping legislative powers.

The Prez certainly did imply that he was going to use them beyond their place in the Executive Branch, that is, instead of legislation from the Legislative Branch. Every Congressman should be concerned.

On the bright side, President Obama may be just blowing smoke. He’s just puttin’ on a show to appear more powerful.

On the dark side, a lot of people applauded. The idea of a leader with unilateral power, the culture of dictatorship, is never far enough away. . . .

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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national politics & policies too much government

The State of the Union of the States

Politicians know all about lying with statistics. But it’s more effective to lie with anecdotes — using stories to ignore the biggest Statistic in the Room.

President Barack Obama delivered his constitutionally obligatory State of the Union address to Congress last night. He told a lot of stories, and most of them may have been mostly true, for all I know. But what we do know for sure is that these stories distracted us from the one statistic that matters.

You know, to the actual state of the union.

Which is not sound.

The rising level of debt is putting the finances of the union in grave jeopardy. Politicians have promised too much — delivered too much — courtesy of borrowing from future tax revenues. The current debt is larger than the nation’s annual GDP. (That’s the stat that matters.) The federal government owes more than all of us, together, earn in a year.

This, of course, is unsustainable.

And yet the president is doing precious little to curb this unhappy meeting with destiny. Deficits are down a tad. He took credit for that. He didn’t credit the Republicans, his recalcitrant enemies.

But, in a State of the Union address filled with programs to expand and goals to “guarantee,” he didn’t offer to cut anything, did he? (Other than promise, yet again, to close Guantanamo.)

Indeed, in Obama’s most recent bickering “negotiation” with the House had his bid for extending unemployment benefits met with an ask price of an offsetting cut elsewhere in the budget. The prez balked.

Our “state”? In a deep debt hole, oblivious, and still digging.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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national politics & policies too much government

Grasping for a Legacy

Rush Limbaugh recently characterized United States President Barack Obama as a narcissist — and not for the first time.

On the surface, Limbaugh’s complaint about presidential narcissism seems ludicrous: people are thinking about the president “all the time” — the man is in the position to be contemplated by millions every hour, every minute. He’s thought about in Arkansas and Zimbabwe, Alaska and Kenya, Washington, D.C., and every potential drone target in the mid-East.

So, whatever existential crisis runs through the president’s brain should worry us, too. This isn’t narcissism. Or messianism. It’s simply the position of power he’s in, and the position of null-power we’re in.

Nick Gillespie, at Reason, thinks that the prez is going through a major crisis of self-confidence. As nearly everything around Obama has turned to lead, his personal charm has shown to be something less than alchemical. He may be golden tongued, but nothing he touches upgrades to noble. The prez understandably would want a legacy, and Obamacare ain’t going to be it.

Gillespie suggests that Obama begin to end the war on marijuana. That would be a legacy!

And it would. Alas, Obama may have had some inclination to do this earlier, but likely feared that, just as it was Nixon who had to go to China, it would be best if someone other than an admitted former toker begin the legalization of drugs.

Too bad. Now’s the time.

Though neither Rush nor Nick nor I know the president’s heart, this seems certain: Obama rests most of his hopes for change on massive government programs, not on the repeal of programs. Wrong direction for a progressive!

But the right — responsible — direction for America.

Let’s hope “narcissism” trumps ideology.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
national politics & policies term limits

Abiding by Term Limits

U.S. Senator Tom Coburn would easily win a third term in 2016, if he chose to run. But just as he stepped down from the U.S. House after three terms, after having pledged to do, so he is stepping down after winning two terms in the U.S. Senate.

Coburn had affirmed his commitment to serve no more than two terms before winning re-election in 2010. But now he has announced that he is leaving at the end of 2014, two years early.

He was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer, but says “this decision isn’t about my health, my prognosis or even my hopes and desires. My commitment to the people of Oklahoma has always been that I would serve no more than two terms. Our founders saw public service and politics as a calling rather than a career. That’s how I saw it when I first ran for office in 1994, and that’s how I still see it today. I believe it’s important to live under the laws I helped write, and even those I fought hard to block.”

Expect to hear from Tom Coburn after he leaves office. A prominent former office-holder can easily exert influence on public policy debate if that is what he wants to do. And Coburn rightly observes that many Americans “with real-world experience and good judgment” can fill either his shoes directly in Washington, or make their voices heard in other ways.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.