Last Monday's Wall Street Journal contained an editorial describing Illinois' recent debacle with 'universal' health care.
Essentially, Governor "Blowdryavitch," as he is known in the state, attempted to push through a $7.6B tax increase, exclusively on businesses, to pay for health care.
A word to the wise liberals pre-2008. It backfired. So badly that, before the end of the story, Blagojevich was repudiating his own plan!
Along the way, the Illinois Democratic House Speaker, Madigan, the Lieutenant Governor, Quinn, and Chicago's Mayor, Dick Daley, all refused to support it. In the end, the legistlators nixed it because they realize that they have to go back to these businessmen for campaign funds. A law like this could give the Illinois legislature, or Governor's mansion (empty now, anyway..but that's for another post) back to the GOP.
To quote Daley,
"To describe every major CEO in Illinois as fat cats is a mistake...They don't have to be here. They can go to Wisconsin. They can go to Indiana. They can go to India. They can go to China. So if you want to beat up businesses, go beat 'em up, and when they leave, just wave to 'em and they're going to wave back to you."
Even Jesse Jackson went on record as preferring to keep jobs in the state to having health care without a way to pay for it.
John Edwards, of course, wants the equivalent of the Illinois plan nationally. Obama Bim Baden is curiously silent on the Illinois debacle. So is Hillary, who also occasionally claims the state as her 'home.'
Is it the liberal health care canary in the coal mine?
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Presidential Candidate Videos
Fred Thompson evidently received a letter from Michael Moore, inviting him to a debate. I didn't catch the opening act, but apparently Fred castigated Moore for visiting Cuba to make a one-sided video/film about the economically-wrecked island's great health care system.
Here is Fred's response, on YouTube.
Also featured in today's Wall Street Journal was this funny, mock job interview by Bill Richardson as a Presidential candidate.
Apparently, Hillary did one on finding a theme song for her campaign, with an allegedly humorous reference to her inability to sing. I won't bother posting that link, as I am not planning to view it. My stomach's a little tender for that kind of abuse.
Here is Fred's response, on YouTube.
Also featured in today's Wall Street Journal was this funny, mock job interview by Bill Richardson as a Presidential candidate.
Apparently, Hillary did one on finding a theme song for her campaign, with an allegedly humorous reference to her inability to sing. I won't bother posting that link, as I am not planning to view it. My stomach's a little tender for that kind of abuse.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Barney Frank's Mistaken View
I saw an interview of Barney Frank the other day on Larry Kudlow's CNBC program. Kudlow was discussing the House's intended bill to levy punitive taxes on owners/partners of private equity firms, "just because."
True to confiscatory form, Frank jocularly intoned that if someone made several hundred million dollars one year, he didn't personally see it as affecting to require that person to pay, say, thirty or thirty-five million of it to the Feds. Talk about incenting economic activity.
However, the House member from Massachusetts went on to articulate- if that's the right word for Frank's speech- his view of what measure best reflects the health of the US economy.
Are you surprised to hear that he focuses on the 'average wage'. Yes, the old-style, clock-punching average weekly/hourly wage measure.
However, economist Brian Wesbury has discredited this measure repeatedly, most recently in an article in the Wall Street Journal.
Wesbury's sensible contention is that many small businessmen have converted to subchapter S corporations or LLCs, so that their reported incomes roll up on a 1040 form, and escape characterization as wage income. Thus, these higher incomes don't flow into Frank's "average wage" numbers.
Further, as more companies pay incentive compensation, the 'average wage' is unlikely to reflect this, since it's a one-time income payment. Wesbury had other reasons for preferring the household incomes survey to the payroll data for assessing US worker incomes health. But, essentially, he argued, convincingly, that today's economy has moved away from the old 'wage' economy, such that much income escapes payroll surveys, but is captured in tax and household incomes survey data.
No wonder Congressman Frank is so out to lunch on good economic sense. He uses the wrong measure, from a bygone era, and pronounces our healthy economy to be sick, not to mention its incomes too skewed for social stability.
True to confiscatory form, Frank jocularly intoned that if someone made several hundred million dollars one year, he didn't personally see it as affecting to require that person to pay, say, thirty or thirty-five million of it to the Feds. Talk about incenting economic activity.
However, the House member from Massachusetts went on to articulate- if that's the right word for Frank's speech- his view of what measure best reflects the health of the US economy.
Are you surprised to hear that he focuses on the 'average wage'. Yes, the old-style, clock-punching average weekly/hourly wage measure.
However, economist Brian Wesbury has discredited this measure repeatedly, most recently in an article in the Wall Street Journal.
Wesbury's sensible contention is that many small businessmen have converted to subchapter S corporations or LLCs, so that their reported incomes roll up on a 1040 form, and escape characterization as wage income. Thus, these higher incomes don't flow into Frank's "average wage" numbers.
Further, as more companies pay incentive compensation, the 'average wage' is unlikely to reflect this, since it's a one-time income payment. Wesbury had other reasons for preferring the household incomes survey to the payroll data for assessing US worker incomes health. But, essentially, he argued, convincingly, that today's economy has moved away from the old 'wage' economy, such that much income escapes payroll surveys, but is captured in tax and household incomes survey data.
No wonder Congressman Frank is so out to lunch on good economic sense. He uses the wrong measure, from a bygone era, and pronounces our healthy economy to be sick, not to mention its incomes too skewed for social stability.
On Scandals
I was reading through the Wall Street Journal today, and happened upon a piece about Federal prison farms. It discussed the typical view of them as a cushy place where non-violent criminals do easy time. However, apparently some of the 'perks' have been reined in now.
One of the former inmates interviewed for the piece was Webster Hubbell. Hubbell's conviction on various charges while in Clinton's Justice Department landed him in a Federal prison farm.
And that got me to thinking.
I hear all these accusations George Bush's administration as corrupt or scandalous. I don't think any of his cabinet officers or deputy cabinet officers have been jailed for corruption. To my knowledge, none are currently serving time in a Federal prison, farm or otherwise.
For scandal, Clinton's administration was really up there. You had Hillary and her friend, Mickey Kantor, being investigated and charged by Judge Royce Lambert for being, then not being, Federal employees on Hill's Healthcare Taskforce, depending upon which classification suited her best that day. And let's not forget his Commerce Secretary, Ron Brown, in the midst of being investigated for gross and significant graft and bribe-taking. He died in rather suspicious circumstances while on a work-related trip.
How convenient.
But let's not forget the biggest embarrassment of them all. The big cheese of scandal- Bill himself. The infamous cigar and the intern on her knees. Bill's equally famous equivocations before a grand jury on the meaning of sex, so that he could say, with a straight face, "I did not have sex with that woman." Sure, Bill. Sure.
And for my liberal acquaintances' education, Bill was not impeached for adultery. He was impeached for obstruction of justice. If not for some procedural fumbling by the House team, he probably would have been convicted.
No, no matter what liberals tell you about the current administration, Clinton had it all over this one when it came to scandal and shameful behaviors in office.
One of the former inmates interviewed for the piece was Webster Hubbell. Hubbell's conviction on various charges while in Clinton's Justice Department landed him in a Federal prison farm.
And that got me to thinking.
I hear all these accusations George Bush's administration as corrupt or scandalous. I don't think any of his cabinet officers or deputy cabinet officers have been jailed for corruption. To my knowledge, none are currently serving time in a Federal prison, farm or otherwise.
For scandal, Clinton's administration was really up there. You had Hillary and her friend, Mickey Kantor, being investigated and charged by Judge Royce Lambert for being, then not being, Federal employees on Hill's Healthcare Taskforce, depending upon which classification suited her best that day. And let's not forget his Commerce Secretary, Ron Brown, in the midst of being investigated for gross and significant graft and bribe-taking. He died in rather suspicious circumstances while on a work-related trip.
How convenient.
But let's not forget the biggest embarrassment of them all. The big cheese of scandal- Bill himself. The infamous cigar and the intern on her knees. Bill's equally famous equivocations before a grand jury on the meaning of sex, so that he could say, with a straight face, "I did not have sex with that woman." Sure, Bill. Sure.
And for my liberal acquaintances' education, Bill was not impeached for adultery. He was impeached for obstruction of justice. If not for some procedural fumbling by the House team, he probably would have been convicted.
No, no matter what liberals tell you about the current administration, Clinton had it all over this one when it came to scandal and shameful behaviors in office.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Obama's Detroit Economic Club Remarks
Last week, Obama Bim Baden, the Illinois Democratic candidate for President, announced in a lunch speech at the Economics Club of Detroit, that, henceforth, 'expense is no excuse' for environmentally-driven changes to automobiles.
Get ready to have big government make a really big grab on your wallet. Nevermind that the manufacturers are already streaming more fuel-efficient vehicles to the market.
Rather than let people choose what to buy, and, thus, how they value environmentalism, Bim Baden would just force them to pay more for what he thinks they need. Sounds a bit like...well..fascism to me. In the technical sense. State-directed production means.
Hey, is he related to Ted Kennedy? Obama certainly seems to favor that kind of liberalism- nevermind what the people think, we'll tell them what they should have.
If he's elected in 2008, the poor and merely-average in this country are in for a big shock. Ed Begley, Jr. and Leo di Caprio might be able to afford the new vehicles, and enjoy the belief that they contribute to cleaner air. But for most voters, they're just going to have to hang on to their current ride a little longer, because a new one just moved out of their affordability range.
Get ready to have big government make a really big grab on your wallet. Nevermind that the manufacturers are already streaming more fuel-efficient vehicles to the market.
Rather than let people choose what to buy, and, thus, how they value environmentalism, Bim Baden would just force them to pay more for what he thinks they need. Sounds a bit like...well..fascism to me. In the technical sense. State-directed production means.
Hey, is he related to Ted Kennedy? Obama certainly seems to favor that kind of liberalism- nevermind what the people think, we'll tell them what they should have.
If he's elected in 2008, the poor and merely-average in this country are in for a big shock. Ed Begley, Jr. and Leo di Caprio might be able to afford the new vehicles, and enjoy the belief that they contribute to cleaner air. But for most voters, they're just going to have to hang on to their current ride a little longer, because a new one just moved out of their affordability range.
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