Priorities

President Obama routinely spends five hours to play a round of golf. But he's only going to spend three hours in Louisiana when he goes down there tomorrow to get a look at the oil spill. The one that he's been in charge of from day one.

Way to show concern, big guy. Guess which party is going to carry Louisiana in the 2012 election?

Obama's National Security Advisor Tells Anti-Semitic Joke

If anyone in the Bush administration had told this joke, he would have been forced to resign. I'm just sayin'...

Diversity and the Supreme Court

“It is essential President Obama consider gender and ethnic diversity on the high court in an increasingly diverse America,” Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said in a statement Friday.

For once, I agree with Rep. Lee: Obama should carefully choose his nominee to ensure that the makeup of the Supreme Court reflects the diversity of our great country. And this diversity should not be limited to ethnicity and gender. Let's make sure the court is truly diverse.

Justice Stevens, who is retiring, is actually the poster child for diversity in the current court. Sure, he's a white male. He's also the only Protestant on the court, and the only member of the court who did not graduate from an Ivy League law school.

Let's look at the current make-up of the court, compared to the make-up of the USA:

SEX: This is the one of two areas where the court is far from matching the diversity of the country. Seven of the current nine justices are men, or 80%. The population of the US is 50.7% female.

RELIGION: Justice Stevens is the sole Protestant on the court. That means the current bench is 11% Protestant, while Protestants make up over 51% of the US Population. Two members, Breyer and Ginsburg, are Jewish. That makes the court 22% Jewish while Jews are less than 2% of the population. More surprising: the remaining six members of the court are all Roman Catholic. Catholics are 66.7% of the court, but only 23.9% of the US Population.

RACE/ETHNICITY: This is probably the area that most people think of when they hear the word "diversity," but the court already fairly reflects the population. According to the Census Bureau's 2008 population estimates, 66% of the US population is non-Hispanic whites, 15% is Hispanic, and 13% is black. The current court is 78% non-Hispanic whites, 11% Hispanic, and 11% Black. That's about as close as you can get with a nine-member court. One less non-Hispanic white would lower their percentage to 66.7%, which is actually a better match; but one more black or Hispanic would be a much higher percentage on the court than in the population.

So to maintain a court that reflects the diversity of the country, Obama's nominee should be a non-Ivy League educated, Protestant, white, female!

Obama orders assasination of American citizen

If this doesn't scare you, I don't know what will:

 The Obama administration has taken the extraordinary step of authorizing the targeted killing of an American citizen, the radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is believed to have shifted from encouraging attacks on the United States to directly participating in them, intelligence and counterterrorism officials said Tuesday. 

Source: New York Times

 So our government has now ordered the execution of an American citizen without a trial. Does the Constitution mean nothing to these people?

Wow, that was fast!

The health care bill was just signed into law two days ago, and we already have this:

Caterpillar Takes Hit On Health Care

Caterpillar Inc. said Wednesday it will take a $100 million charge to earnings this quarter to reflect additional taxes stemming from newly enacted U.S. health-care legislation.

The world's largest construction equipment manufacturer by sales, warned last week that provisions in the legislation would subject the company to federal income taxes on the subsidies it receives for providing prescription drug benefits for its retirees and their spouses.

I wonder how many more of these stories we'll be seeing in the near future?

Was he lying then, or is he lying now?

"Every year, the problem gets worse. Every year, insurance companies deny more people coverage because they've got pre-existing conditions." -- Barack Obama, March 8, 2010

"You can't demand insurance companies... take somebody who's sick, who's got a pre-existing condition, if you don't have everybody covered, or at least almost everybody covered. And the reason, if you think about it, is simple. If you had a situation where not everybody was covered but an insurance company had to take you because you were sick, what everybody would do is they'd just wait till they get sick and then they'd go buy insurance. Right? And so the potential would be there to game the system." -- Barack Obama, Feb. 3, 2010

Obama clearly understands why insurance companies cannot afford to take on customers with pre-existing conditions, yet he still uses it to paint them as villains.

Is the health care bill a plot to destroy the insurance companies?

When I hear questions like the one above, I think someone has their tin-foil beanie screwed on too tight. But on the other hand, if one wanted to create a law that would destroy the insurance companies, he could hardly have done a better job.

It's a basic concept in economics that people act rationally in ways that serve their own best interest. Let's look at some of the incentives in the health care bill, and the rational response to them.

First, there is the individual mandate that requires everyone to have a minimum level of insurance, or pay a penalty. In the Senate bill, this penalty starts at $95 per year and increases to $750 per year by 2016. Since no one can buy health insurance for $95 per year, or even $750 per year, the incentive is actually to NOT buy insurance. Especially combined with:

Mandatory coverage for pre-existing conditions. Both the House and Senate bill prevent insurance companies from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions.

Imagine a young couple, just out of college. Money is tight. Both are healthy. They can pay a $750 penalty at tax time, or they can spend $1,000 per month for insurance. It's pretty easy to see what the rational choice is. Even if they are planning to start a family, why buy insurance now? They can wait until the wife is pregnant and then get insurance that will cover the pregnancy. If one of them becomes ill, they can buy insurance then, so why bother with it now?

And what about employers? They will face essentially the same choice: provide medical insurance for all employees, or pay a $750 per employee penalty. Guess which choice is cheaper? Guess which choice they are going to make?

The insurance companies will have a huge adverse selection problem. The only people who buy insurance will be those who are going to use a lot of expensive medical services, and the healthy will just pay the penalty.

Pass the bill to find out what's in it?

When I saw the headline on the Drudge Report, I thought he must be misquoting her. Or taking her remarks out of context. "PELOSI HEALTHCARE: 'We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it'..."

Excuse me? The only way to find out what's in the bill is to pass it? Surely Nanci Pelosi is too smart to make such an asinine comment.

But no, there it is, right on her own website. As part of her remarks to the 2010 Legislative Conference of the National Association of Counties, Pelosi actually said "But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it. . ."

Or maybe we could just read the bill and decide if we want it passed or not? Hey, it's just an idea.

Why a health summit?

The general consensus seems to be that the health care bill is dead. So why is the president holding a "summit" with congressional Republicans today? I think there are a couple of reasons.

It gives him another opportunity to paint Republicans as "the party of 'No'" and blame them for the failings of the health care bill. Never mind that angry town hall meetings all over the country have shown that the people don't want the president's vision for health care. Never mind that the current bill passed a Democratic Senate. Never mind that the House has 255 Democrats and only 178 Republicans, so the GOP couldn't stop the Democrats from passing it, if they wanted to. In the president's mind (and in his reelection campaign) it is the Republicans who are being obstructionists.

It is an opportunity to possibly gain a couple of Democrat seats in the 2010 elections. With the public mood being what it is, any Republican who gets behind Obama's new health care bill is putting his job at risk. Obama will be glad to help him do it.

What should the Republicans do? They should stand resolute in stopping the current proposals. But they should also bring a couple of their own to the table. Here are two immediate steps that would vastly improve access to health care in America while bringing down costs:

1) Tort reform. Put a cap on malpractice awards, a cap on lawyer's fees, and enact a "loser pays" to stop frivolous lawsuits. If doctors don't have to practice "defensive medicine," that will eliminate a lot of unnecessary tests. We all pay for those huge malpractice awards, in the form of more expensive medical care -- the doctors and hospitals pay higher fees for malpractice insurance, that cost is passed on in higher fees for their services, and we pay for them in the form of higher medical insurance premiums.

2) Unleash the free market. End expensive mandates for insurers, and allow purchase of medical insurance across state lines. The same free market that gave us cheap cell phones and big-screen televisions can give us cheap insurance.

Victory for 1st Amendment.

Supreme Court Drop-Kicks McCain/Feingold, Scores Victory for 1st Amendment. Obama preparing "Forceful Response"

So there it is: the President and members of the Mandarin Class are preparing a “forceful response” to the First Amendment.

Had enough yet?

Let me see if I understand this...

We're going to pass a health care plan written by a committee whose head says he doesn't understand it, passed by a Congress that hasn't read it but exempts themselves from it, signed by a president that also hasn't read it and who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes, overseen by a surgeon general who is obese and financed by a country that's nearly broke.

What could possibly go wrong?

Jesus was NOT homeless

If I hear one more person say that Jesus was homeless, I'm gonna scream. Or maybe puke.

Every Christmas season we will hear the inevitable revisionist version of the Christmas story in order to further government programs. Jesse Jackson was the first to turn Joseph and Mary into a “homeless couple” when he claimed that Christmas “is not about Santa Claus and ‘Jingle Bells’ and fruit cake and eggnog,” of which all Christians would agree, but about “a homeless couple.”

Barbara Reynolds, a former columnist for USA Today, following Jackson’s early lead, scolded the Christian Right for opposing government welfare programs: “They should recall,” she writes, “that Jesus Christ was born homeless to a teen who was pregnant before she was married.” Hillary Clinton, in comments critical of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s homeless policies, sought to remind all of us that “Christmas celebrates ‘the birth of a homeless child.’”

Have these people never read the Bible?

• Mary did not engage in premarital sex. Her circumstances, to say the least, were unique (Luke 1:26-28). Many young girls got married as teenagers.
• Mary went to live with her cousin Elizabeth upon hearing about her pregnancy and “stayed with her about three months, and then returned to her home” (Luke 1:56). Presumably her parents owned a home and did not throw her out when they learned of her pregnancy.
• Mary and Joseph were actually married at the time she learned she was pregnant even though a formal ceremony had not taken place. Joseph is called “her husband” (Matt. 1:19).
• Joseph was a self-employed carpenter (Matt. 13:55).
• An edict from the centralized Roman government forced Joseph and Mary to spend valuable resources of money and time to return to their place of birth to register for a tax (Luke 2:1-7). Joseph’s business was shut down while he took his very pregnant wife on a wild goose chase concocted by the Roman Empire to raise additional tax money.
• Typical of governments that make laws without considering the consequences, there was not enough housing for the great influx of traveling citizens and subjects who complied with the governmental decree (Luke 2:1).
• Mary and Joseph had enough money to pay for lodging. The problem was inadequate housing. The fact that “there was no room in the inn” (Luke 2:7) did not make them homeless. If we follow liberal logic, any family that takes a trip and finds “no vacancy” signs, is technically homeless.
• Joseph and Mary owned or rented a home. It was in their home that the wise men offered their gifts: “And they came into the house and saw the Child with Mary His mother, and they fell down and worshipped Him; and opening their treasures they presented to Him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh” (Matt. 2:11).
• Joseph, Mary, and Jesus became a family on the run when Herod, a government official, became a threat to them (Matt. 2:13–15).

We would be more accurate to say, the Christmas story is about how taxes hurt the poor and government decrees can turn productive families into the disenfranchised by enacting and enforcing a counterproductive law.

Of course, the Christmas story is not about homelessness nor is it about taxes and government decrees. It's about God's interevention into history. It's about His plan to provide a savior, to reconcile sinners to Himself.

The President Gets It Right

Y'all know I'm no fan of Obama, but I thought his speech last night was nearly perfect. I was surprised by how many times I found myself nodding in agreement. I even said out loud "It looks like he finally grew a pair."

I was impressed that he recognized the reasons we were in Afghanistan, that he acknowledged the overwhelming support that congress gave to going there in the first place, and the urgency of winning the war there.

I could have done without the bashing of the previous administration for getting sidetracked in Iraq, but I had to admit he was correct in stating that it was Iraq that kept us from being successful in Afghanistan to date.

I think the Republican response, as voiced by John McCain, is disingenuous. They are correct that announcing a "date certain" for withdrawal gives strength to our enemies and distresses our allies. But I didn't hear that in Obama's speech. I heard him say that we would BEGIN to withdraw troops in 18 months. I also heard him say that the timetable to complete that withdrawal would depend on conditions in Afghanistan, that we would remain there until our mission is accomplished.

Kudos, Mr. President!

363,000 Words

That's how long the latest version of the health care bill is.

That's 80 times longer than the Constitution (not counting amendments).

That's twice as long as the Bible.

Can anyone know everything that is in there? Can anyone possibly have read the whole thing? I think we can agree that the answer to those two questions is "no." It's just not possible for any single person to have read every word in that document at this time.

Given that we don't know what's in it, is it really a good idea to make it the law of the land? Would you sign a 363,000 word contract without reading it?

What's wrong with this picture?

Taken during Veteran's day ceremonies at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers:

Perverse Incentives

The unintended consequence of America's anti-poverty program is to penalize poor people for working. When you take into account the loss of means-tested benefits (e.g., cash assistance, food stamps, housing subsidies, and health insurance), and the taxes that people pay on earned income, the return to working is essentially zero for those in the lower two quintiles of the income distribution.

This chart (Source) shows income after taxes and transfers as a function of earned income. Below about $38,000, income after taxes and transfers is roughly flat. Indeed, it could even fall. The bottom line: If you are poor, the government is ensuring that you have little incentive to try to improve your condition.

James Madison on the health care bill

Obviously, James Madison never wrote about the health care bill. But given that the current bill is 1,990 pages long and few of the representatives voting on it have actually read it, he seems remarkably prescient:

"It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they can not be read, or so incoherent that they can not be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man who knows what the law is today can guess what it will be tomorrow."

From The Federalist Papers

Cheaper health care without higher taxes

The problem with the government trying to "fix" healthcare is that it's the government that broke it in the first place. And they are trying to fix it by doing more of what they did to break it.

It's true that many Americans can't find affordable health insurance. But it's largely because of government-imposed barriers that keep the cost of insurance so high.

Here are a few ways we can provide lower-cost insurance without raising taxes:

1) Allow the purchase of health insurance across state lines. According to the University of Minnesota, 12 million more Americans would be able to buy coverage if this simple solution was enacted. Excessive state regulations artificially increase the cost of health insurance by requiring companies to provide coverage for such things as fertility treatments and massage therapy. Let's allow people to shop for the coverage they really need!

2) Let people take the cash their employer uses to purchase health care and shop for a plan on their own. Currently, employer-provided health insurance is not taxed. But if you opt out of your employer-provided coverage and shop for your own, you pay for it with after-tax dollars. If people could shop for the best deals, insurance companies would be forced to innovate and control costs (or lose market share to companies that do).

Those two ideas are just a start. They wouldn't cost a dime and would allow lower costs for those who have health insurance, and would allow more people to afford insurance.

Are Liberals Smarter Than Conservatives?

Jason Richwine points out a peer-reviewed study that indicates they are.

Lazar Stankov, a visiting professor at Singapore’s National Institute of Education, published “Conservatism and Cognitive Ability” earlier this year in the peer-reviewed journal Intelligence. Here is a quote from the article’s abstract:

Conservatism and cognitive ability are negatively correlated … At the individual level of analysis, conservatism scores correlate negatively with SAT, vocabulary, and analogy test scores. At the national level of analysis, conservatism scores correlate negatively with measures of education … and performance on mathematics and reading assessments.

But there are a couple of caveats worth noting: First, by “conservatism” Stankov does not necessarily mean people who favor free market economics. He has in mind a kind of traditionalism probably best described as social conservatism. The second caveat is that social conservatives do not always vote for conservative candidates. Most black Americans, for example, clearly exhibit “the Conservative syndrome” as Stankov defined it—70 percent voted to abolish gay marriage in California—but they routinely give about 90 percent of their votes to the Democratic Party.

The Obama Effect

From Gallup:

"Among blacks, optimism about an eventual solution to race-relations problems has decreased since last summer, from 50% to 42%. In fact, the current 42% is essentially the same percentage that Gallup measured among blacks on several previous occasions."