Mental Hiccups

Obama's Version of "Read My Lips"

2009-07-10T13:20:00.002-04:00

Throughout his campaign President Barack Obama repeatedly promised the American people: “If you’re a family that’s making $250,000 a year or less you will see no increase in your taxes. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your personal gains tax, not any of your taxes.” Just 15 days into office, President Obama signed a bill expanding Medicaid eligibility that was paid for with a 156% tax hike on tobacco. Since slightly more than half of today’s smokers (53%) earn less than $36,000 per year, Obama’s first effort at expanding government’s role in health care also became his first broken promise. But that first Medicaid expansion was minor league compared to the estimated $1.5 trillion health care plan Congress is considering now.

And how does Congress plan on paying for this $1.5 trillion in new spending. Tax hikes. Some of these tax hikes even conform to Obama’s promise. They only punish our most productive workers and investors. Proposed tax hikes in this category include: 1) capping the value of itemized deductions including gifts to charities; 2) a 3% surtax on households earning more than $250,000; and 3) a millionaires tax.
But the left is beginning to figure out that you can only squeeze so much revenue from class warfare taxation. So Congress is also considering a slew of other taxes that will, again, force Obama to break his not tax hike promise. These include: 1) a tax on soda; 2) a tax on beer; 3) an increase in employer and employee payroll taxes; 4) a flat tax on health insurance companies; 5) broaden the Medicare tax on investment income; 6) an employer mandate; and 7) a value added tax on everything but food, housing, and Medicare. And we’re sure we missed some. The left sure can be creative when they are desperate to raise revenue.

So, no tax increase on 95% of Americans . . . except for all those, um, taxes. I wonder if this will get as much coverage as Bush 41's "read my lips" pledge. No wait, I don't.

Today's Presidential Forecast: Mostly Cloudy

2009-07-10T12:54:00.002-04:00

From barackobama.com:

Sunlight Before Signing: Too often bills are rushed through Congress and to the president before the public has the opportunity to review them. As president, Obama will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days.

Jim Harper: "At this point, only one of 39 bills that the president has signed has been posted for five days in advance. "

The Cost of Preventive Medicine

2009-07-08T19:55:00.002-04:00

Yuval Levin:

There are now literally decades of data on this question, and the answer is very clear: prevention does not save money. It does sometimes save lives, of course, it’s not bad medicine. It’s often very good medicine. But like a lot of good modern medicine, it’s very expensive. We can decide if it’s worth the cost or not, but let’s not ignore the cost, let alone imagine it will save us money.
The most recent serious scholarly review of the data on this question was an article in the journal Health Affairs earlier this year (here’s the link, but it requires a subscription). The author’s conclusion:

Over the four decades since cost-effectiveness analysis was first applied to health and medicine, hundreds of studies have shown that prevention usually adds to medical costs instead of reducing them. Medications for hypertension and elevated cholesterol, diet and exercise to prevent diabetes, and screening and early treatment for cancer all add more to medical costs than they save.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t pursue preventive medicine, it just means we shouldn’t pretend it’s going to reduce health care costs.

Where the Stimulus Money is Going

2009-07-08T19:26:00.002-04:00

Stephen Spuriell:

James Pethokoukis links to a GAO report that surveyed 16 states and the District of Columbia to see how stimulus funds are being spent. The study found that 90 percent of the stimulus funds spent so far have gone toward bailouts for fiscally irresponsible state governments. These states made commitments on health care and education spending commensurate to what they could afford during the boom years. When the economy crashed and tax revenues dried up, they had no way to pay for these commitments short of raising taxes, which none of them wanted to do. (Most states' constitutions restrict their ability to run deficits.)
This is what the stimulus was really all about — not creating or "saving" jobs, but preventing states from suffering the consequences of their profligacy.

Journalistic Malpractice from George Stephanopoulos

2009-07-06T17:52:00.003-04:00

George Stephanopoulos did a poor job of reporting on his recent interview with Joe Biden. He let a lot of Biden's false and misleading statements go unchallenged. It's one thing to let these statements slip by during a live interview; it's another to recycle them without correction in a written follow-up summary.

Stephanopoulos quotes Biden as saying, "The truth is, we and everyone else misread the economy."

No, the truth is that hundreds of prominent economists disagreed with President Obama's read on the economy and went on record advising against his massive "stimulus" package. It's irresponsible for Stephanopoulos to let Biden's statement to go unchallenged.

Stephanopoulos writes:

Biden acknowledged administration officials were too optimistic earlier this year when they predicted the unemployment rate would peak at 8 percent as part of their effort to sell the stimulus package. The national unemployment rate has ballooned to 9.5 percent in June -- the worst in 26 years.

Fair enough, but shouldn't Stephanopoulos have pointed out that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) ran Obama's numbers and concluded that we'd be better off doing nothing than passing the "stimulus" plan?

Back to Biden:

We misread how bad the economy was, but we are now only about 120 days into the recovery package," he said. "The truth of the matter was, no one anticipated, no one expected that that recovery package would in fact be in a position at this point of having to distribute the bulk of money.

This is the part where Stephanopoulos should have pointed out that Obama spent weeks talking down the economy while trying to push his "stimulus" package through Congress. It's tough to buy the excuse that they didn't know how bad it was when they were daily throwing around words like crisis and catastrophe and describing this as the worst economy since the Great Depression.

Stephanopoulos should also have pointed out that one of the key criticisms opponents had of the "stimulus" package was that most of the "stimulus" wouldn't come until after the economy had recovered. In fact, the CBO concluded exactly that. For the administration to now say that it's too early to expect results because the bulk of the money hasn't been spent is pure humbug.

Remember, this is the bill Obama argued had to be passed immediately -- legislators weren't even given a chance to read it before they were forced to vote on it -- because any delay would be "inexcusable and irresponsible." Now that we aren't seeing the results they promised, it's become convenient to admit that the bill that couldn't be delayed doesn't really do much for the first year.

I don't know whether bias, laziness, or incompetence is to blame for Stephanopoulos not doing his job, but it's obvious that he didn't do it. The whole "we report; you decide" approach to journalism is damaging the country. It's a journalist's job to provide context and basic fact checking. If they won't do that, what good are they?

Exploding Health Care Costs

2009-07-04T19:15:00.003-04:00

I've been posting a lot of graphs lately, because they show so clearly what's going on with various aspects of the economy. Here's another, from the Goldwater Institute (via John Stossel), which shows health care cost skyrocketing as patients pay a diminishing share of those costs.

Updated Unemployment Graph

2009-07-04T00:43:00.003-04:00

I posted an earlier version of this graph a while back. The good news is that there has been a slowing of job losses. The bad news remains that unemployment continues to track at a much higher rate than President Obama said it would without his stimulus package.

Re-analyzing the housing crisis

2009-07-03T15:13:00.005-04:00

Stan Liebowitz says the accepted explanation of what caused the housing crisis is wrong and that, therefore, our approach to solving it is also wrong:

What is really behind the mushrooming rate of mortgage foreclosures since 2007? The evidence from a huge national database containing millions of individual loans strongly suggests that the single most important factor is whether the homeowner has negative equity in a house -- that is, the balance of the mortgage is greater than the value of the house. This means that most government policies being discussed to remedy woes in the housing market are misdirected.
Many policy makers and ordinary people blame the rise of foreclosures squarely on subprime mortgage lenders who presumably misled borrowers into taking out complex loans at low initial interest rates. Those hapless individuals were then supposedly unable to make the higher monthly payments when their mortgage rates reset upwards.
But the focus on subprimes ignores the widely available industry facts (reported by the Mortgage Bankers Association) that 51% of all foreclosed homes had prime loans, not subprime, and that the foreclosure rate for prime loans grew by 488% compared to a growth rate of 200% for subprime foreclosures. . . .

[T]he most important factor related to foreclosures is the extent to which the homeowner now has or ever had positive equity in a home. . . . A simple statistic can help make the point: although only 12% of homes had negative equity, they comprised 47% of all foreclosures.

We need real sunlight in Washington

2009-06-28T11:17:00.003-04:00

President Obama's "Sunlight before Signing" pledge, in which he promised to post all new legislation online and wait five days before signing it in order to give Americans a chance to review it, was a promise empty of any real meaning. With no expectation that this policy would affect whether or not the president signs a bill, it matters not whether the "viewing period" comes before or after the actual signing. It seems clear that the promise was purely a political one, a nod to "transparency" with no tangible effect.

Still, it's disappointing that Obama has been unable to keep even his token promise. At a time when trust in government is fragile, the breaking of even a vacuous promise -- possibly especially a vacuous promise -- isn't helpful.

What would be helpful, in terms of both transparency and trust, would be to build some meaningful delays into the legislative process. Congress has become increasingly irresponsible in its willingness to rush through pieces of legislation without due deliberation. We saw this with the "stimulus" bill, where legislators were forced to vote on a 1000-plus page bill to cost taxpayers $787,000,000,000 within a few hours of its becoming available to them.

This was clearly done for political reasons. Polls showed that the more the public learned about the bill, the less they supported it. Democrats had to ram it through before we figured out what was in it. Three months later, we're still being surprised by what is in it, and how ill-conceived it was.

The Democrats were properly criticized for not allowing enough time for reams of legalise to be read (let alone digested, considered, and debated) before forcing a vote. Their response was to hire speed readers to read subsequent bills into the record. This is what passes for responsible government in our nation's capital.

The handling of the cap-and-trade bill, passed by the House yesterday is an even more egregious example. In this case it wasn't merely a matter of not allowing the time to read a bill, but the fact that there was no actual bill to read. Apparently, the only "copy" of the bill was two separate stacks of paper, the first being a 1000-plus page earlier draft of the "bill," the second being a 300-page "amendment," comprised of statements which take the form: "Page 15, beginning line 8, strike paragraph (11)..."

It's outrageous that our government is enacting a massive energy policy that will cost over $1,000,000,000,000 in this reckless manner. Even the most trivial of laws should deliberated upon. That it has become commonplace for $1,000,000,000,000 bills to be slapped together in this way is beyond irresponsible; it is obscene. Any member of Congress who voted for this bill should be removed from office for malfeasance and violation of the public trust.

If Obama wants to do something meaningful in the area of transparent and responsible government, he should be pushing Congress to enact some meaningful policies which ensure that all bills that come before his desk have been well researched, well considered, and well debated. These are not unreasonable requirements. This is what our representatives are elected for. It is their job to know what they are voting on, and it's sickening that that they can't be trusted to do it.

[h/t Andy McCarthy, Powerline]

High cost of government schools

2009-06-26T11:10:00.003-04:00

Andrew Coulson reports that Washington D.C. spends over $27,000 per student on public education. Meanwhile, the tuition in D.C. private schools averages $6,600 per student, and those students read two grade levels ahead of their public school peers.

Having it Both Ways

2009-06-24T02:08:00.005-04:00

Washington Post:

Obama's approach to Iran, including his assertion that the unrest there represents a debate among Iranians unrelated to the United States, is an acknowledgment that a U.S. president's words have a limited ability to alter foreign events in real time and could do more harm than good. But privately Obama advisers are crediting his Cairo speech for inspiring the protesters, especially the young ones, who are now posing the most direct challenge to the republic's Islamic authority in its 30-year history.

Obama has justified his timid and tardy response to the violence in Iran as an attempt to avoid being seen as meddling. He has also complained that the Iranian mullahs have mistranslated his remarks in order to falsely claim that America incited the protests there. Yet here we have Obama's advisers boasting of his doing exactly that which he denies.

Prison Rape

2009-06-24T01:46:00.002-04:00

Given the prevalence of prison rape, it seems to me that the mere sentencing of someone to incarceration amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. It's an uncomfortable subject, but I've always wondered why this gets so little attention.

I hope these efforts to alleviate the problem are successful.

[h/t: Eli Lehrer]

Beginning of a Trend?

2009-06-24T00:40:00.005-04:00

Arizona will be voting on a proposition which will protect residents from being forced to participate in government-run health care plans.

The Healthcare Freedom Bill provides for two fundamental rights:
The right to spend your own money to seek out and receive health care services that are otherwise legal.
The right to choose NOT to participate in any health care system, of any type.

As always, I'm astounded that such a law is necessary. The notion that government can hold a gun to your head and force you to participate in a health care program that you don't want is a fundamental violation of freedom. It makes no sense that a state should have to pass a law to prevent government from doing something it doesn't have the authority to do in the first place.

I wonder if we'll see other states following suit.

Hot Dog Diplomacy

2009-06-23T23:53:00.005-04:00

From an AFP report: [emphasis mine]

The United States said Monday its invitations were still standing for Iranian diplomats to attend July 4 celebrations at US embassies despite the crackdown on opposition supporters.
President Barack Obama's administration said earlier this month it would invite Iran to US embassy barbecues for the national holiday for the first time since the two nations severed relations following the 1979 Islamic revolution.
"There's no thought to rescinding the invitations to Iranian diplomats," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters. . . .
The State Department has said that the invitations are largely a symbolic gesture of goodwill and that the July 4 barbecues were not intended to take up substantive policy matters.

So while Iranian mullahs are beating and killing their own people for holding peaceful protests of a blatantly rigged election, the U.S. is throwing a wienie roast for them as a "gesture of goodwill."

Indefensible. Damn, I miss George Bush.

Update:

The White House has rescinded the invitations to Iranian diplomats to attend July 4 celebrations at U.S. embassies around the world.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said nobody from Iran RSVPed to come, and at this point, the invitations are no longer valid. "

Given the events of the past many days, those invitations will no longer be extended," Mr. Gibbs said.

Again, Obama comes around, but only after getting cornered on this issue at yesterday's press conference. Another case of too little, too late -- "leading" by bringing up the rear.

Leader Prevaricator of the Free World

2009-06-23T16:02:00.004-04:00

There's been a lot of discussion about what the proper response should have been from President Obama to the recent election in Iran and the protests and violence that followed. I come down on the side of those who believe the president's response was both timid and tardy. I wasn't looking so much for hard language as I was moral clarity.

Obama defended his approach by saying that he didn't want to be seen as taking sides, and that it is up to the Iranian people to determine their country's course. This would make sense if Iran wasn't under the control of an oppressive regime, if it held free elections, and if its people were actually able to choose their destiny. The reality of the situation, however, is just the opposite: the Iranian government is brutally oppressive, its elections are blatantly rigged, and its people are being beaten and killed in the streets in response to their peaceful protests.

So Obama should be taking sides -- not in so much as to be choosing winners and losers, but he should be standing clearly on the side of freedom, democracy, and fundamental human rights -- the things, as JFK put it, "to which this Nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world."

Obama often stresses the important of remaining true to America's values, yet he's been hesitant to state those values clearly and openly. He says it's because he fears such words would be used to blame America for the conflict in Iran. This is belied by his admission that, even in the absence of such words, the Iranian regime has simply lied about Obama's statements and accused America of inciting the protests anyway.

Obama certainly has the rhetorical skills to provide clarity and leadership, yet he chooses not to, instead favoring a more "neutral" stance. But neutrality is vice in the face of evil, and what Obama offers is neutrality in name only.

While giving a most feeble voice to the principles of liberty and human dignity, Obama flatly proclaimed that it doesn't matter who emerges as the victor in Iran, and that the United States is just as willing to sit at the table with the murderous mullahs as it is with those who are risking their lives to throw off the yokes of oppression. These statements are not only an abdication of American values, they are a betrayal of those who value the freedoms we hold dear and are willing to die for them. Obama's statements are a de facto endorsement of the status quo.

It's all good, he says. No price worth paying, no burden worth bearing, no hardship worth meeting, no friend worth supporting here. Just let us know when you've sorted it out, and its back to business as usual.

It is good to see that Obama has come around to some extent. He's beefed up his rhetoric of late, pressured and embarrassed by the fact that France, Germany, and both houses of Congress have displayed a truer moral compass than his own.

Better late than never? Or too little, too late? Either way, it's a sad thing when the "leader of the free world" is unwilling to show leadership in the cause of freedom.

Charter schools in name only

2009-06-23T14:08:00.008-04:00

It's well established by now that charter schools are a success. Students who attend them do better than their counterparts in traditional government schools, and parents with kids in charters are much more satisfied. There is even evidence that traditional public schools benefit from the competition charters provide.

Assuming that liberals don't kill the charter movement, as they are attempting to do in Michigan and Washington D.C., the key question becomes whether the charter philosophy can be expanded to act as a model for all of public schooling. I strongly believe that it can't, because those who wield power -- "educrats" and their union allies -- won't allow it. Once it becomes clear to them that the public is rallying behind charters, those who control traditional schools will embrace the charter movement, assume power, then proceed to devolve charters back into something that looks very much like the public schools system that dis-serves us now.

Andrew Coulson blogs about this phenomenon on the Cato blog, stating, "If you want to know what charter schools will look like in a generation or so, just look at the public school status quo."

The defining characteristic of charters is a greater degree of autonomy. Charter school principals have much more freedom over how their schools operate. They have control over such things as hiring and firing practices, school scheduling, and discipline. These are the things that make a school work. And these are the very things the Obama administration and the teachers union are steadily working to undermine.

The proposed new restrictions, regulations, and oversight will strip away the things that allow charters to succeed. At that point, they will be charter schools in name only, and those who have worked to destroy them will credibly be able to argue that they have failed.

The Other Great Depression

2009-06-22T16:52:00.004-04:00

I don't write much about my depression, mostly because it's, well, depressing. I think that others don't want to be brought down by it, and I don't want to come across as whining.

Another reason I don't write about my depression is because I don't think it's all that interesting. Yes, it consumes me. It is the single most defining characteristic of my life. It's with me all day, every day, and there is nothing that I do that is not in some way diminished by it. But what's there to say about it, especially when the precious energy required to say it could be put to better use?

Things have been particularly tough lately. In addition to the funk and all that goes with it, my depression is keeping me from doing the things I need to do to take care of my diabetes. I'm not exercising. I'm not eating well. I'm skipping medicines.

I know these behaviors will literally kill me, and make me suffer while I live. But even as my eyes continue to deteriorate, my kidneys fail, and I continue to lose sensation in my legs and feet, I lack the motivation to do the right things. The fact that my father lost his leg and his sight to diabetes, and the knowledge that I am accelerating toward that same end should light a fire under me, but it no longer does. It's damn frustrating, and I curse myself for it.

Blogging is my escape, for now. It's increasingly difficult to read, think, or write. But, out of fear, I try to keep my head down and plow ahead until I can find some other addiction to hide behind.

I used to like myself, but now I just feel damaged, and I don't at all like this thing that I've become. I know the fear and insecurity and anger have always been there, but I've been worn so far down that they now lay raw and exposed.

I've known for a while that I won't get better, but as I decline that knowledge gets harder to deal with. Yet that's who I am. That's what I do.

Government-run means more expensive

2009-06-22T16:11:00.005-04:00

Jeffrey Anderson @ Investors.com:

The centerpiece of President Obama's plan is a "public option," described by Tom Daschle as "a government-run insurance program, modeled after Medicare." The president asserts that this new Medicare-like program would cut costs.
But there are nearly 40 years of experience to consult, and they offer a resounding rebuttal. Across the years, Medicare's costs have risen far more than the costs of privately purchased care.

The article includes a nice graph of the growing gap between Medicare spending and non-Medicare spending.

Journalistic Malpractice

2009-06-22T13:31:00.003-04:00

From a New York Times article whose headline proclaims "Wide Support for Government-Run Health" :

Americans overwhelmingly support substantial changes to the health care system and are strongly behind one of the most contentious proposals Congress is considering, a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. . . .

The national telephone survey, which was conducted from June 12 to 16, found that 72 percent of those questioned supported a government-administered insurance plan . . .

The problem? This is a dishonest poll. As Bruce Kesler discovered, the NYT poll surveyed twice as many people who voted for Obama than voted for McCain.

Not too surprising that Obama supporters would support an Obama policy, is it?

[h/t: Noel Sheppard]

Quote of the day

2009-06-22T13:17:00.001-04:00

"Reality is a country song." --Stephen Green

Obama-care won't reduce health care costs

2009-06-22T12:05:00.007-04:00

Robert Reich @ Tapped:

Momentum for universal health care is slowing dramatically on Capitol Hill. Moderates are worried; Republicans are digging in; and the medical-industrial complex is firing up its lobbying and propaganda machine.
But, as you know, the worst news came days ago when the Congressional Budget Office weighed in with awful projections about how much the leading health-care plans would cost and how many Americans would still be left out in the cold. Yet these projections didn't include the savings that a public option would generate by negotiating lower drug prices, doctor fees, and hospital costs, and forcing private insurers to be more competitive.

I'm not aware of evidence that savings would be realized from any of the things on Reich's list. Proponents of government-run health care make the claims, but real world examples suggest that costs will rise rather than fall. Just this morning, I heard a report on the massive rise in health care costs in Massachusetts. This is the plan which is to be used as a model for national health care, yet health care costs in Massachusetts have increased at twice the rate of the rest of the nation. The report also noted that the Massachusetts plan still leaves about 5% of the population uncovered. That extrapolates to about 15 million uncovered Americans if the Mass plan were scaled up to the national level.

A public option may indeed lower drug prices, since a single-payer government could effectively put a gun to the head of the pharmaceutical companies. But, as Thomas Sowell so often points out, lowering the price of something doesn't change it's cost. A company whose profits are stripped away will be forced to downsize and cut back on research. This will cost jobs in the short term, and lives in the long term. There are no short cuts, just trade offs.

Forcing doctors to accept lower fees will have unintended consequences as well. We see evidence of this already with Medicare and Medicaid. Many doctors simply refuse to accept patients under these plans, since payouts often aren't enough to cover expenses. If a Medicare-type of system is forced onto the medical profession as a whole, we can expect to see fewer people entering the field and a rationing of the services offered.

That government-run health care would "force private insurers to be more competitive" is a canard. There are already hundreds of companies competing to offer medical insurance. Adding another (the government) won't increase competition in any real way. What is far more likely is that the government option will be heavily subsidized by taxpayer dollars. Rather than create competition, this will simply give the government an unfair advantage and make it unprofitable for insurance companies to stay in business. The government will ostensibly be offering a cheaper product, while the real costs are hidden in various forms of taxation.

If the goal is to increase competition in the insurance business, this can be accomplished more effectively, and at no cost to taxpayers, by allowing Americans to purchase insurance across state lines. But competition isn't the goal, and the illusion of competition is being used to justify shifting the industry from the private market to the government.

I'm not an expert on health care. But the more I learn about the effort to nationalize our health care system, the more I realize that it has nothing to do with either saving money or improving health care. If it did, we wouldn't be ignoring all the evidence that it will increase costs and lower quality. It's as if the evidence just doesn't matter.

Obama's Gamble

2009-06-20T15:52:00.004-04:00

James Pethokoukis at Reuters Blogs: [emphasis mine]

Obama took a tremendous economic and political gamble last January. The new president had the option of putting forward a stimulus plan that would attempt to reverse or significantly dampen America’s terrible economic downturn ASAP. The quickest and most effective approach would have been a big cut in payroll taxes. For $800 billion, combined Social Security and Medicare taxes could have been slashed by 6 percentage points, or 40 percent. That would have put $1,500 in worker paychecks and, according to one credible study, increased employment by 4 million jobs in 2009.

Instead, Obama chose to listen to Rahm “Never let a crisis go to waste” Emanuel and put forward an $800 billion plan that advanced his healthcare [sic], energy and education policy goals — but pretty much neglected the economy in 2009. Team Obama had to fully understand this. Indeed, a study from the Congressional Budget Office study — when led by current Obama budget chief Peter Orszag — concluded that an Obama-like economic stimulus package would be “totally impractical” because it would take so long to implement. (True enough, only seven percent of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has been doled out so far.)

Presidential gamble. In short, Obama wagered that the deluge of money coming from the Federal Reserve would do the heavy lifting as far as stabilizing the financial sector and keeping the already apparent recession from turning into a real disaster. Voters would, thus, continue to support his policies to assert more government control over healthcare [sic], heavily regulate energy through a costly cap-and-trade program and further intervene into the financial industry.

The gamble appears to have failed miserably, both economically and politically.

That it would fail economically isn't surprising, as many cautioned that Obama was spending too much money, directing it at the wrong things, and funding projects that wouldn't be implemented until long after the economy was expected to recover.

Whether Obama's gamble will fail politically remains to be seen. If the media ever starts doing its job, holding Obama accountable for his policies and fact checking what he says against the reality, we may be looking at a one-term president.

Obama on Fatherhood

2009-06-20T11:48:00.004-04:00

It's good to see President Obama speaking out on the issue of fatherhood. I can't tell from the article the context of the remarks or how extensive they were, only that he's made such remarks in the past:

Father's Day 2007: "Let's admit to ourselves that there are a lot of men out there that need to stop acting like boys; who need to realize that responsibility does not end at conception; who need to know that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child but the courage to raise a child."

Father's Day 2008: "Any fool can have a child. That doesn't make you a father. It's the courage to raise a child that makes you a father."

Father's Day 2009: "We need to step out of our own heads and tune in. We need to turn off the television and start talking with our kids, and listening to them, and understanding what's going on in their lives."

The president is in a powerful position to send these important messages. They are especially needed in the black community, where so many kids are born out of wedlock and raised without fathers. I hope he will continue to press this issue after Father's Day has passed and throughout his presidency. Keeping fathers engaged and marriages intact is vital to a wide variety of economic and social issues.

Poll dancing

2009-06-19T12:39:00.004-04:00

A couple of recent polls are being used to conclude that Americans are more concerned about the increasing debt than they are about the faltering economy.

From a New York Times/CBS poll:

Which comes closer to your own view? The federal government should spend money to stimulate the national economy, even if it means increasing the budget deficit, OR The federal government should NOT spend money to stimulate the national economy and should instead focus on reducing the budget deficit.
Stimulate the economy: 41
Reduce budget deficit: 52
DK/NA: 7

From an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll:

Which of the following two statements comes closer to your point of view?

Statement A: The President and the Congress should worry more about boosting the economy even though it may mean larger budget deficits now and in the future.

Statement B: The President and the Congress should worry more about keeping the budget deficit down, even though it may mean it will take longer for the economy to recover.

Statement A/Worry more about boosting the economy: 35
Statement B/Worry more about keeping budget deficit down: 58
Depends (VOL): 2
Not sure: 5

I have a problem with these poll questions. Each leads the respondent to start from the premise that more government spending will improve the economy. This is particularly true of the NYT/CBS poll, which explicitly frames the question as a choice between spending government money to stimulate the economy and not doing so.

By definition, an economy grows when it creates wealth. Government doesn't create wealth, it consumes wealth. The economy and the deficit are not mutually exclusive. Any money that is added to the deficit must be got from taxation or borrowing. This means that money that would otherwise be used to create wealth is being siphoned out of the economy.

So it isn't an either/or. The way to both strengthen the economy and reduce the deficit is to keep as much money in the private sector as possible. Then stand back and let the American people do their thing.

I acknowledge that not all economists see things this way, but a great many do. And that alone should be sufficient reason to frame these questions in a less leading way, and more meaningful, way.

Shopaholic in Chief

2009-06-19T09:51:00.007-04:00

Bloomberg.com: [emphasis mine]

President Barack Obama said he is “confident” that he won’t have to raise taxes on most Americans to close the budget deficit as long as the economy picks up steam.
“One of the biggest variables in this whole thing is economic growth,” the president said in an interview with Bloomberg News at the White House. “If we are growing at a robust rate, then we can pay for the government that we need without having to raise taxes.”

These comments expose Obama's economic policies as unsound. First, note that they are contingent upon the economy picking up -- not just improving, but growing at a robust rate. So the essential argument is that if the economy gets really good we'll be fine. Well, of course.

A robust economy is one that creates wealth. Wealth is created by the private sector, whereas government consumes wealth. By putting all his efforts, and our money, into growing the government, Obama is building a house of cards on a deteriorating foundation. If our economic well being is contingent upon a growing economy, we should be putting money into the private sector, not funneling it off into the the government maw.

Second, there's this business of the government we need. Budgeting requires discipline. Government programs are expensive (especially the "free" ones), and the money supply is limited. Obama has it in his head that everything he would like is absolutely necessary and that we must tax or borrow whatever it takes to buy it. This is irresponsible. It is the mentality of a shopaholic. We need to be prioritizing, not running up a charge card in the hope that someday, somehow, we'll be able to pay for it.

Obama has repeatedly said he would keep his campaign pledge to cut taxes for 95 percent of working Americans while rolling back tax breaks for households making more than $250,000 a year.

And yet the reports keep flooding in that Obama is proposing increased taxes on energy, alcohol, tobacco, even employer-provided benefits. He may cut income taxes, but if he simply reinstates those taxes, and more, in other forms, what good is his pledge?

Obama warned that if economic growth remains “anemic” and Congress fails to adopt his plans to hold down the cost of health care, work on alternative energy sources and improve the U.S. education system, “then we’re going to continue to have problems.”

This is pure politics. What government program has ever held down costs?

Health care: take a look at Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. These programs are increasing our debt at an alarming rate and are on the brink of collapse. Any reason to think government-run health care will be any different?

Energy: In Obama's own words: "Under my plan of a cap and trade system electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. "

Education: Obama has proposed nothing that will reduce education costs. To the contrary, he vows to increase education funding and fails to support options like vouchers which provide better results at a lower cost.

Fiscal discipline that leads to lower budget deficits is important, Obama said, to ensure investors around the world keep buying U.S. government debt.

Obama said a large part of the current budget deficit was inherited from the administration of former President George W. Bush, his predecessor, and that extra spending was needed to address the worst global financial crisis since World War II.

This disconnect between what Obama says he's doing and what he's actually doing is astounding. He claims to be a champion of the free market while he imposes massive new restrictions. He claims he isn't interested in owning or running GM, then proceeds to assume ownership and micromanage personnel, salaries, production, and plant and dealership closings. He calls for fiscal discipline while quadrupling the national debt.

I'm deeply concerned at the financial position this president is putting us in, but I'm more concerned about the way he's transforming our government. As long as we stay free and capitalistic, I believe we'll land on our feet in the long run. But if the tools of liberty and the free market are compromised, I fear even the spirit of the American people won't be enough to save us.