Tag: Trump

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Accountability folly ideological culture moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies responsibility too much government U.S. Constitution

Tough Luck, Chumps

Obamacare, Affordable Care Act, Obama, Trump, Sanders, debate, CNN

Advertised as a big deal ahead of time, the debate didn’t get much play afterwards.

Especially from the Left blogosphere.

Why?

Billed as about the “future of ObamaCare,” it was really about what should replace ObamaCare.

The CNN debate pitted Sen. Ted Cruz, well-​known Republican opponent of the Affordable Care Act*, against Sen. Bernie Sanders, well-​known “independent” proponent of what he likes to call the “Medicare for All single-​payer program.”

Upshot? While either Bernie or Ted may possibly be construed to have won, there was indeed one certain loser, ObamaCare itself.

Sen. Sanders conceded nearly every charge Sen. Cruz lobbed at the program. He merely countered with his support for treating health care “as a right, not a privilege” (a leftist farrago from days of yore) and moving on to single-​payer medicine.

That’s how bad ObamaCare really is. Its chosen champion refused to champion it.

The basic tension was best summed up between “town hall” questioners Carol, suffering from multiple sclerosis, who asked Cruz to promise continued coverage for cases like hers, and LaRonda, a woman with a chain of hair care shops who cannot afford insurance for herself or her employees and also cannot expand her company because at 50 employees the ACA would force her to provide insurance.

Cruz expressed his sympathy for Carol, but seemed to meander around her request for a guarantee. He also evaded** a straightforward answer re: “healthcare as a right.”

Sanders was a tad more honest, in effect giving the “tough luck” answer that the entrepreneur just “should” pay*** for her employees’ medical insurance.

Well, we sure are all “paying” for ObamaCare, one way or another.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Which is the same thing as ObamaCare. Some folks purportedly hate ObamaCare but love the ACA. No reader of Common Sense, of course.

** Cruz concluded the debate better, alluding to an old SNL skit about a recording session wherein the cowbell ringer always wanted “more cowbell” in every take. “It was government control that messed this all up. And Bernie and the Democrats’ solution is more cow bell, more cow bell.”

*** “[I]f you have more than 50 people, you know what, I think — I’m afraid to tell you — I think you will have to provide health insurance.”

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Accountability crime and punishment moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies property rights too much government U.S. Constitution

Watcha Gonna Do?

civil asset forfeiture, forfeiture, police, abuse, theft, Trump, corruption, incentives, illustration, money, cops

At a White House meeting last week between President Trump and law enforcement officials, a Texas sheriff raised a concern about legislation introduced by a state senator to require a conviction before police could take someone’s property.

Mr. Trump asked for that senator’s name, adding, “We’ll destroy his career.” The room erupted with laughter.

“That joke by President Trump,” Fox News’s Rick Schmitt said on Monday, “has the libertarian wing of the Republican Party raising their eyebrows, instead of laughing.”

Not to mention the civil libertarians in the Democratic Party and the Libertarian Party itself.

Civil asset forfeiture, as we’ve discussed, allows police to take people’s cash, cars, houses and other stuff without ever convicting anyone of a crime — or even bringing charges. The person must sue to regain their property.

Lawyers aren’t free.

Two bedrock principles are at stake:

  1. that innocent-​until-​proven-​guilty thing, and
  2. Our right to property.

Since police departments can keep the proceeds of their seizures, they’re incentivized to take a break from protecting us — to, instead, rob us.

“Our country is founded on liberties,” offered Jeanne Zaino, a professor at Ionia College. “[G]overnmental overreach is not something that is natural for Republicans to embrace.”

Schmitt acknowledged that “Libertarians would hate this. They don’t want big government. But they don’t have a lot of pull.”

Libertarian-​leaning Republicans like Sen. Rand Paul and Rep. Justin Amash are trying to end civil forfeiture, but the president will likely veto their legislation.*

Let’s not wait. Activists in three Michigan cities put the issue on last November’s ballot and won. You can, too.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* FoxNews​.com reported that, “Trump signaled he would fight reforms in Congress, saying politicians could ‘get beat up really badly by the voters’ if they pursue laws to limit police authority.”

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

The Skinny on Trumponomics

ecomomics, economist, tariff, trade, protectionism, Trump

President Donald Trump does not trust economists. So he is demoting the Council of Economic Advisors, booting out of the Cabinet the Council’s chairperson.

If this were only because economists as economists cannot do what he has been able to do — make a big success in business and trade — we could give him something like a pass.

After all, successful entrepreneurs have a knack for guessing an unpredictable future. Economists, not so much. Why the difference? Maybe because entrepreneurs have “skin in the game.” Governments boards and bureaus — or endowed professorships — don’t risk anything like skin.

Besides, prediction is an art, not a science.

Could Trump be fooled by his knack for working with real risk?

But all this may be irrelevant.

Trump’s problem seems to be that he cannot find enough reputable economists to jump on board his protectionist bandwagon.

Trade barriers, high tariffs and punitive measures to control corporate behavior — among Trump’s most popular policies — aren’t big among economists.

According to Josh Zumbrun, writing in the Wall Street Journal, a “survey of every former living member of the CEA for both Republican and Democratic administrations found that not one member publicly supported Mr. Trump’s campaign.”

Economist Pierre Lemieux, writing in response to Zumbrun’s article, clarified Trump’s particular problem: economists “have methods and theories that prevent them from saying stupidities. They are difficult to turn into parrots. And they believe in the benefits of exchange.”

That latter notion, really basic, is what protectionists like Trump do not understand.

And the kind of predictions economists can successfully make run like this: “Well, that won’t work!”

It’s usually said about protectionism.

But whose skin is on the line now?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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folly government transparency national politics & policies political challengers responsibility

No Innocence Abroad

black pot, black kettle, pot calling the kettle black, Trump, Putin, Russia, interview, Super Bowl, killing, guilt, blame

After establishing, during the big Super Bowl day interview, that President Donald Trump respects Russian leader Vladimir Putin, Bill O’Reilly asked why. 

After all, the Fox News star challenged, “Putin’s a killer.”*

“We’ve got a lot of killers,” Trump replied. “What, you think our country’s so innocent?”

This disturbed just about everyone. On the left, it was more evidence of Russian influence. The right recoiled at Trump doing the leftist thing, equating our moral failings with the much worse failings of others.

“I don’t think there’s any equivalency between the way that the Russians conduct themselves,” insisted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R‑Ky), “and the way the United States does.” 

But is that really what Trump said? He merely pooh-​poohed America’s innocence.** 

And not without cause. His predecessor, after all, holds the world record (not Nobel-​worthy) in drone-​striking the innocent as well as the guilty in seven countries … none of which the U.S. has declared war upon. 

But wait: if “we’ve got killers” is the new acceptable-​in-​public truth, then why not “we’ve got currency manipulators”?

Yes, I’m shifting focus from east of Eastern Europe onto the Far East. According to a different Fox report, “Trump accused China and Japan of currency manipulation, saying they play ‘the devaluation market and we sit there like a bunch of dummies.’”

Despite incoherent objections from Japan***, let’s not forget the obvious: the U.S. manipulates currency, too. What do you think the Federal Reserve is for?

I mention this not to rub Trump’s nose in hypocrisy. It’s to establish an estoppel principle here.

How may we object when others do that which we do ourselves?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* The Russian State is asking for an apology from O’Reilly. Not for a retraction on the grounds of truth, mind you, but an apology. O’Reilly wryly balks.

** Which certainly doesn’t absolve Vladimir Putin of guilt.

*** Yoshihide Suga, a spokesperson for the Japanese Government, insists that “the aim of monetary policies that have pulled the yen lower is to spur inflation, not devalue the currency.” Nice distinction. Thanks.

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Accountability free trade & free markets general freedom government transparency nannyism national politics & policies responsibility too much government

Sledgehammer to a Bureaucracy

EPA, environment, pollution, climate change, Trump

The media hysterically pushes the line that the new Trump administration is so much “in chaos” it even frightens seasoned (salt-​and-​pepper?) heads in the Republican Party. But perhaps folks at the Environmental Protection Agency have more reason to panic.

“It looks like the EPA will be the agency hardest hit by the Trump sledgehammer,” writes Julie Kelly over at National Review.

Ms. Kelly offers striking reasons to hit the agency hard, quoting from Steve Malloy, the author of Scare Pollution: Why and How to Fix the EPA. “I can think of no agency that has done more pointless harm to the U.S. economy than the EPA — all based on junk science, if not out-​and-​out science fraud.” Malloy looks forward to the new president’s promised rethink and restructuring of the agency.

Just how bad is it?

Environmentalists often cry foul over any corporate funding of ecological research. But if one worries about money influencing results, the case against grants funded by regulatory agencies for regulatory purposes is even stronger.

Especially when the agency is run by ideologues.

Trump’s transition team seeks to make all the EPA’s relevant data public, for peer and public review, and would really like to curtail the agency’s research funding entirely.

Pipe dream? Better than the recent nightmare: “For eight years,” writes Kelly, “President Obama used the agency as his de facto enforcer of environmental policies he couldn’t pass in Congress even when it was controlled by his own party.”

The EPA needs to be checked. And balanced. And more.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment ideological culture judiciary national politics & policies Second Amendment rights Tenth Amendment federalism term limits U.S. Constitution

Perry Mason for the Court

Neil Gorsuch, Perry Mason, Supreme Court, Judge, nomination, Trump

Legend has it that a juror once ran up to attorney Neil Gorsuch, after Gorsuch won a case proving a gravel pit owner had been cheated, declaring, “You’re Perry Mason.”

These days, Gorsuch sits on the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, and is President Donald Trump’s nominee for the late Justice Scalia’s seat on the nation’s highest court.

And now Gorsuch is receiving testimonials worthy of the indefatigable TV lawyer.

Brad Smith, the chairman of the Center for Competitive Politics, expressed his pleasure “that President Trump has nominated someone who will defend a robust First Amendment.”

Ballot access expert Richard Winger noted that Gorsuch has a “good record in cases involving independent candidates and minor parties.”

“I am hard-​pressed to think of one thing President Trump has done right in the last 11 days since his inauguration,” wrote Neal Katyal in the New York Times. “Until Tuesday,” continued the Georgetown law professor, “when he nominated an extraordinary judge and man, Neil Gorsuch, to be a justice on the Supreme Court.”

Katyal, who had served as an acting solicitor general in the Obama administration, added that Gorsuch’s record of holding government officials accountable “should give the American people confidence that he will not compromise principle to favor the president who appointed him.”*

Even I have pertinent testimony: back in 1992, Gorsuch argued (in a co-​authored Cato Institute paper) that term limits were “constitutionally permissible” as “institutional constraints on the power of government” that “the Framers,” if alive today, would likely see as “necessary preconditions for liberty.”

No, Gorsuch is not actually Perry Mason — I never knew where Perry stood on term limits.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* On Reason’s Hit & Run blog, Damon Root strongly agreed.

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