Paul Ryan Reviews Liberal Economist Jeffrey Sachs' "The Price of Civilization"

Wisconsin Republican Representative, and chairman of the House Budget Committee, Paul Ryan, wrote a review of Jeffrey Sachs' new book, The Price of Civilization, in last weekend's edition of the Wall Street Journal. Ryan entitled his piece America's Enduring Ideal, with the sub headline,


"Jeffrey Sachs is only the latest in a long line of thinkers to reject the values of our commercial republic."


In order to provide my readers with an unedited sense of Mr. Ryan's thoughts and writing style, I've reposted his review in its entirety.


"Free enterprise has never lacked for moral critics. In the mid-18th century, for instance, the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau rejected the proposition that the free exchange of goods and services, and the competitive pursuit of self-interest by economic actors, result in general prosperity—ideas then emanating from Great Britain. In a commercial society, according to Rousseau, the people are "scheming, violent, greedy, ambitious, servile, and knavish . . . and all of it at one extreme or the other of misery and opulence." Only a people with "simple customs [and] wholesome tastes" can be virtuous.


In "The Price of Civilization," Jeffrey Sachs carries Rousseau's argument into the 21st century. Mr. Sachs, a development economist at Columbia University, believes that "at the root of America's economic crisis lies a moral crisis: the decline of civic virtue among America's political and economic elite." The book's veneer of economic analysis cannot conceal what is essentially a crusade against the free enterprise ethic of our republic.


Only through a reshaping of our principles and a reordering of the American economy, Mr. Sachs believes, can we become "a mindful society." We must abandon a culture that is defined by hard work and the striving for upward mobility and an economy that has unleashed unparalleled prosperity. Hard work impedes leisure. Ambition is a vice. Economic growth hurts the planet.


The corporation is the antagonist in this morality play. Mr. Sachs refers early and often to widespread "suffering from the decline in corporate tax rates" and properly identifies a pernicious trend that both political parties have fallen victim to over the years: crony capitalism. But it is not just the rapaciousness of corporate interests that disturbs the author. He sees a deeper conspiracy at play. The marketing industry is referred to as the "dark arts of manipulation," and television has been dangerously left "almost entirely to the private sector." Our commitment to limited government and free enterprise has allowed "market values [to] trump social values." We are scolded time and again for letting business interests encourage our faults and fallibilities.


"Through clearer thinking," Mr. Sachs writes, "we can become more effective both as individuals, and as citizens, reclaiming power from corporations." This reclamation will come primarily from punitive tax and regulatory measures. Mr. Sachs is undaunted by any thought that such a regime might worsen unemployment. The trained economist assures us: "Economic theory indeed supports the view that high tax rates can actually spur, rather than hinder, work effort." He argues that financial incentives ought not to matter in a mindful society and is confident that well-intentioned social engineers can suspend the laws of economics.


One need not look far to find the inspiration for the America that Mr. Sachs seeks. He is explicit about his ideal, and it is Europe. America should match the high tax and "active labor market policies" found in the German and Scandinavian economies. The Constitution imposes too many restrictions on government interference for Mr. Sachs, and we'd be better served if we moved toward a "French-style" constitution that consolidated the executive and legislative branches and empowered experts to help us manage the "complexity of our economy." On the most effective means of petitioning one's government, Mr. Sachs sounds eerily Greek (A.D. 2011, not 500 B.C.): "A new political party can be combined with other forms of political agitation—consumer boycotts, protests, media campaigns, and social networking efforts—to put the most egregious leaders of the corporatocracy on notice."


Advocating for the European model seems particularly ill-advised at the moment, given the current state of affairs across the Atlantic. Yet Mr. Sachs is untroubled by the contradictions between the Europe of his imagination and the crisis-ridden continent as it exists today. He writes: "The countries that failed to raise taxes adequately—such as Greece—are now paying the price in a massive fiscal crisis, as in the United States." Too many industrialized countries, in his view, have fallen victim to the "race to the bottom" mentality of lowering corporate tax rates and depriving their governments' coffers of the money needed to pay their mounting bills.


The "price" of civilization, we find out, is quite steep.


A "civilized" society will cost Americans roughly $12 trillion in higher taxes over the next decade. Mr. Sachs concedes that he could lower the bill if the economy were to grow fast enough to stabilize the debt, at which point a roughly $8 trillion tax hike would suffice. The proposed means by which the federal government can expand as the economy shrinks: raise corporate tax rates (and plead with our global competitors to stop reducing their business taxes); raise the top individual income tax rate; raise taxes on investment, energy, bank balance sheets and financial transactions; and impose a national sales tax.


Mr. Sachs is honest enough to acknowledge that the "rich" are not nearly rich enough to pay for his ever-expansive vision of government. We're told that "each of us with an above-average income" (i.e., $50,000 per household) must "understand that if we are prudent, we can make do with a little less take-home pay."


Such appeals to the citizenry to make sacrifices might be more compelling if Mr. Sachs coupled them with calls for spending restraint in Washington. Instead, his budget proposal insists on the need to "augment" government spending by trillions of dollars in the years ahead. Thus the sacrifices of citizens are to be made to increase the size and scope of a federal government that Mr. Sachs admits has demonstrated little aptitude for allocating resources efficiently or even fairly. This conundrum leads him to a conclusion that would be comical if he were not deadly serious: "Yes, the federal government is incompetent and corrupt—but we need more, not less, of it."


Yet at its core "The Price of Civilization" is not about taxes or economics. It is about the "pursuit of happiness" as one academic understands it.


Enshrined in the country's founding documents, "the pursuit of happiness" has long been recognized in America as a natural right to be secured by good government. As the Founders understood it, "happiness" referred to human fulfillment, to a well-lived life of virtue in this world and ultimate fulfillment in the next. In ensuring that its citizens are free to seek their happiness, government was to promote neither hedonism nor materialism. It was to secure the right to pursue happiness by not interfering with either normal commercial transactions or freedom of worship.


In "The Price of Civilization," Mr. Sachs is asking the right questions. What is a life well lived? What should our government's role be in building a more virtuous society? What policies should it pursue to promote fulfilling lives for its citizens? If such questions direct us to the moral wisdom of our cultural traditions, they can indeed help to balance the excesses of capitalism and so help us to extend its benefits to all.


Yet Mr. Sachs's gospel of happiness draws not on the inspired tradition of the Founders but rather on the Utilitarian philosophy of Jeremy Bentham. In the 1780s, Bentham proposed that "happiness," which he equated with "pleasure," could be mathematically measured. It was not sufficient, he thought, for government to protect our rights if it was to vouchsafe our pursuit of happiness. Government must instead quantify "the greatest happiness of the greatest number" and set policies and goals accordingly. There was a science to satisfaction, Bentham claimed, and it was a puzzle that trained experts could solve.


Channeling Bentham, Mr. Sachs calls for the establishment of a national metrics for life satisfaction and sets a 10-year goal to "raise America's happiness." Although the specific measures are hazy, the steps are clear: For people to be happy, their government must increasingly shield them from the challenges of life. The good life is thus defined as one of ever-more pleasure at the expense of work.


But happiness in this world results not from avoiding challenges but from meeting them. Happiness is the recompense of real effort, whether intellectual or physical, and of earned success. It comes from achievement—from doing something of economic, artistic or emotional value. The satisfaction to be taken in producing valuable things brings with it a lasting sense of personal fulfillment. Mr. Sachs's design for paternalistic government will only impede the pursuit of happiness.


Mr. Sachs is more accurate when he argues that economics is not merely about making money. It must serve the higher cause of human well-being and moral development. He is right to dislike the greed and vulgarity that can accompany bourgeois life. But he is wrong to attribute these phenomena to capitalism uniquely. Discord and imperfection arise from human nature. The question is how they can be contained and redirected. Capitalism, together with our moral traditions, has long offered a solution consistent with individual freedom. Mr. Sachs's approach does not.


Mr. Sachs likely overstates Americans' enthusiasm for restrictions on work, for the denial of constitutionally protected freedoms or for government controls over media and technology. His conception of the good life could perhaps be mutually agreed to in a small, isolated and homogeneous society. But here in the United States it would have to be imposed on a diverse and globally integrated nation of more than 300 million people. That is neither possible nor desirable.


The freedom and independence of the American population can best be guaranteed by allowing the people to govern themselves through their elected representatives; by keeping limits on the size of government; and by encouraging each of us to take responsibility for our own well-being. We can best be aided by our families, communities, churches and local institutions—and by the government only as a last resort.


For, ultimately, Mr. Sachs's quarrel is with our founding principles of equality and liberty. Underlying the arguments in "The Price of Civilization" is a contention that the Constitution is too conducive to freedom, that it endorses an economic system too friendly to growth and the satisfaction of appetite, that it creates political institutions too inattentive to our national character.


In his first inaugural address, Thomas Jefferson defined "a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned." The contrast with Mr. Sachs's idea of "good government" could not be more stark.


The Founders thought of America as exceptional, but Mr. Sachs thinks that this claim is a myth and that the country's present greatness a historical aberration. Our decline is, thankfully, inevitable, he says: "America will not again dominate the world economy or geopolitics as it did in the immediate aftermath of World War II. That was a special historical moment; we can be glad that economic progress throughout the world is rapidly creating a more balanced global economy and society."


It is through this prism of decline that we may better understand Mr. Sachs's calls for an overbearing government to take more earnings from you and make more decisions for you, as well as his instructions for hard-working Americans to restrain their ambitions and accept their current place in life. He seeks nothing less than to replace the vision of the Founders—the ideals of individual liberty that have enabled America to achieve the unrivaled social, material and spiritual flourishing of the past two and a quarter centuries—with one that relies almost solely on the wisdom and beneficence of an intrusive, unlimited government.


The dialogue between capitalism and its critics is an old one, and it will continue. But as citizens of a self-governing nation, Americans must choose from time to time between alternative visions for our future. This book's budget proposals and economic policies are profoundly revealing. They lay bare the real agenda of those who wish us to abandon the American idea and consign our nation to the irrevocable path of decline. If only in that sense, "The Price of Civilization" is a useful contribution to the conversation we must have in order to make informed political choices in the years ahead."


I think Ryan's review speaks for itself. He does an excellent job at three things. First, he casts Sachs' prescriptions for the US as being incredibly socialist, pro-big-brother government, and expensive. Second, he places Sachs in a long line of similarly-reasoning statists who either distrust or despise the 'little people' who, in the US, actually vote for who will govern them. Finally, he ties what appear to be just choices concerning economics and the functioning market economy of the US into, ultimately, a choice of fundamental values by which each person may, or may not, be free to pursue her/his own happiness as s/he sees it.

My own commenst on Ryan's review and, indirectly, Sachs' ideas, takes a different tack.

Jeffrey Sachs' bio includes 19 years teaching at Harvard. In all that time, surely he should have, or could have, sat down with Harvard's Robert Nozick to discuss the nature of the state, utopia and, well, as Nozick's famous book title expressed it, anarchy.

You see, what I see Sachs doing is saying something like this,

'The US is a marvelous society. If we could only just radically change the Constitution or, better yet, just tear it up and run a socialist, command society, it would be perfect. All the resources, size, geographic benefits, and a large population, only requiring the removal of individual freedom, and we've got the perfect society.'

Nozick, in contrast, would probably reply,

'No, Jeffrey. This is the US. If you want to form your envisioned high-tax, high-spending, government-by-command society, you and your ilk should go freely associate elsewhere with your own, new set of rules and form that utopia. But not here, thanks. Those of us here are keeping the Constitution. You must go elsewhere with your own merry band to found your new society.'

Nozick is all for each group of similarly-thinking people to establish its own free association.

So what I don't get, in a theoretical sense, is why progressives keep trying to hijack the US and its Constitution, or simply ignore the latter, rather than go found their own alternative association/society.

Well, I do know why not. Because it's harder in this day and age to collect a few million people, find desirable land that isn't already someone else's country, and found a new society.

Ryan does a service by revealing that Sachs and his kind are trying a stealth hijacking of America, because if they simply produced their entire plan and values publicly, they'd be rejected.

And should be. Because to do what they want, well, they can probably just fly to any of several European nations and feel right at home.

The Last Resort of Liberals When "Democracy" Fails Them? Suspend It!

Here's the Notable & Quotable entry in Friday's Wall Street Journal:

"From a Sept. 28 editorial in the Washington Examiner:



Most Americans complain that government is unresponsive to their wishes. But not everyone feels that way. In the space of two days, two prominent Democrats have called for less responsive government that ignores public input.


One of them, former White House Budget Director Peter Orszag, penned a piece this week in the New Republic arguing, as the title says, "Why we need less democracy." Orszag wrote that "the country's political polarization was growing worse—harming Washington's ability to do the basic, necessary work of governing." His solution? "[W]e need to minimize the harm from legislative inertia by relying more on automatic policies and depoliticized commissions for certain policy decisions. In other words, radical as it sounds, we need to counter the gridlock of our political institutions by making them a bit less democratic." . . .


[S]imilar comments by Gov. Bev Perdue, D-N.C., are far more troubling. "I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won't hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover," Perdue told a Rotary Club gathering in suburban Raleigh this week. "I really hope that someone can agree with me on that." "

I actually saw the video in which Bev Perdue said what is quoted above. It is a correct quote. The audio appears below, from YouTube. Later, Fox News reported, her press aides claimed she was joking.

Judge for yourself- does Bev sound like she's joking?

Is it not disturbing that the liberal Democrats, having had 2 years of complete control of the federal government, were not satisfied with their accomplishments? Now that they lost the House, and may lose either or both the Senate and White House in 2012, they are agitating to suspend or dumb-down our Republican form of government, usually mis-labeled as a democracy.

We're not talking about a few hacked-up House members. We're talking about the former budget director and one of the 50 state governors.

More Spending Ideas From Two Liberal Women Senators

Liberal Democratic Senators Mary Landrieu (LA) and Patty Murray (WA) wrote an editorial in Wednesday's edition of the Wall Street Journal entitled How to Close the Skills Gap.

It's a study in how liberals see a failure of an existing system as a reason for government to spend billions more elsewhere.

The hapless duo begin with,

"According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. currently has approximately three million job openings, all waiting to be filled. With so many Americans out of work, what is the delay? Workers want to work, and so many businesses want to hire—but there is a widening "skills gap" that prevents many Americans from filling the jobs of the 21st century economy. If we want to get our economy back on track and get workers back on the job, we will have to address this issue in a better way.



Consider this: According to a report by the National Commission on Adult Literacy, 90 million adults have literacy skills so low that success in postsecondary education and training is becoming more and more challenging. Anthony Carnevale of Georgetown University, using Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data, reports that of the nearly 50 million new jobs the BLS projects to be created by 2018, 30 million will require recognized postsecondary credentials. However, there will be three million too few workers with these credentials. Meanwhile, high-school graduation rates are falling—1.2 million students in America drop out of school every year, and young adults are now less educated than their parents' generation was.


A recent report on this issue from the perspective of CEOs and college presidents found that more than half of the companies surveyed reported a challenge in finding candidates with the right skills. Of the smaller businesses, 67% said finding skilled workers was difficult. A Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index Survey reveals that while half of small-business owners hired new workers in 2010, 42% of these hired "fewer" [employees] than needed." Sixty-two percent of that group said this was because it was "hard to find qualified employees for [the] positions available."  "

Now, to most sensible observers and readers, this information would lead one to conclude that Landrieu and Murray are going to, or should be, advocating fixing US education. You know, some NEA or AFT union-busting, endorsing the privatization of primary and high school education. The sort of thing that would focus teachers and schools on students' education, instead of teachers' administrators' and union officials' compensation and careers. Because the obvious problem isn't a lack of skills among US residents, so much as, according to the above information, a failure of the existing education system to provide said skills.

They continue,


"Adding to the urgency of the situation is the reality that the U.S. competes in a global economy, and businesses today take stock of assets around the globe when they make investment decisions. The sad fact is that we spend considerably less than other developed countries on labor-market policies, including work-force training and job-search programs. At the individual level, the U.S. invested only $908 per labor-market participant—$84 dollars, or 9.2%, less than the average amount spent by other member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).


We believe that the skills gap is a consequence of our failure to seriously invest in the education of America's work force. Without an educated pool of workers from which to hire, small businesses are bearing the financial burden of teaching these skills."

Wow. Color me hopeful here. Could these two liberal Democratic stalwarts actually be about to take on entrenched unionized educators and their union bosses? Let's see.....they proceed to write,

"John Russo, the president of Scientific Analytical Solutions in North Kingston, R.I., recently talked to the AP about the problem his small business faces: "It's very difficult to find the right person, and there's all walks of life trying to find jobs. I honestly think there's a large swath of unemployable. They don't have any skills at all."


The Small Business Administration (SBA) hears the same sentiments from those on the front lines in its field offices across the country. At a recent roundtable organized by the Senate Small Business Entrepreneurship Committee, SBA district directors repeatedly cited the alarming, widening skills gap in the nation as preventing small businesses from expanding.


As we work to create jobs and get our economy back on track, closing this skills gap needs to be a top priority. A critical first step: reauthorizing and reforming the Workforce Investment Act, our nation's foundational federal work-force development policy. We also need to expand innovative approaches that have produced results, such as career pathways programs that provide labor-market information to students and job seekers about in-demand jobs, and the skills and education necessary to get them.


Other important elements of tackling this problem include integrating education and work-based learning, and supporting strategies that allow learners to work while receiving training (also known as "earn and learn" strategies). We should also support public–private partnerships that draw on the expertise of successful members of the business community to help provide assistance and job-preparation advice to our work force.


Building a bigger and more highly skilled work force will help our small businesses step up to global competition. There's no excuse to delay getting to work on the problem any longer."


Sadly, no, they don't. In fact, they veer sharply away from discussing current schooling, opting, instead, to advocate creating more post-education federal programs on which to spend billions more. With no basis, in effect employing a non sequitor. A (public education) is flawed, so let's create B (more federal training programs for adults), rather than bother discussing A, because A is a liberal pet campaign funding honeypot.

Here's a newsflash- people like me were actually able to find white-collar employment and advancement solely on the basis of our primary, secondary, college and, in some cases, graduate educations. For which either public taxes, our parents, or we paid.

Why do we need successive layers of new training and education programs to try to correct the flaws of the existing systems?

Let's just rip the current, failed US public schooling systems apart and let towns and districts contract with private firms to provide teachers and administrators to work at public-owned facilities.
However, let's avoid Landrieu's and Murray's baseless suggestions to create yet another adult training program in order to avoid addressing yet another liberal failure- US public schooling.

Like a Broken Record.....

Let's see...S&P downgraded US debt to AA+ last Friday. The most recent GDP numbers were dismal. Unemployment remains stubbornly high while net new jobs are pathetically low. Europe's own debt crisis is now so bad that the ECB is pledging to buy Italy's and Spain's sovereign debt, if necessary.

In the midst of this global economic and financial sluggishness, what do Wonderboy and his minions do?

Why, call for more spending, of course!

One of the Democrat's more liberal Representatives was on a cable news network calling for more stimulus spending. Wonderboy himself spent a good part of his Monday afternoon speech regarding the downgrade pleading for higher spending and taxes.

These people must be living on a different planet. The entire developed economic world is grappling with excessive public debt, pension and healthcare spending while their GDP growth rates have slowed.

There's insufficient private wealth being generated by business activity to pay for more government spending.

That's part of what S&P's downgrade was about- future fiscal budgets which strained credulity.

Apparently liberal Democrats really can only sing one tune- tax and spend. No matter what the context.

How Liberal News Anchors Slant Terms of the Debt Limit/Spending Debate

As I was writing this post yesterday morning, I happened to be listening to Dick Armey, former GOP House Majority Leader, guest-hosting on CNBC's morning program for an hour.

He and the co-anchors were discussing the very subject of my post- the debt limit talks.

Armey had just finished explaining why taxes should not be raised and spending should be cut when network co-anchor and liberal Becky Quick began to cut in with,

".....but if spending is cut then the economy will....."

Her remark's end was lost amidst Armey's continuing comments and her realization that her words weren't getting any attention.

But notice what Quick's baseline hypothesis is. The elevated levels of federal spending under Wonderboy, up to 24% of GDP, are now to be considered sacrosanct by such liberal apologists as CNBC's liberal anchors.

Any attempt to cut the bloated spending is criticized as what Quick was trying to say- causing economic contraction because spending is removed from the economy.

Of course, last I read, the Keynesian 'C+I+G' equation still obtained, meaning that if government spending is decreased, then that money can be used by consumers to either spend, or save, in which case it can be used for investment.

Just because government doesn't spend money doesn't mean it disappears. Granted, deficit spending is spending that may not occur otherwise. But, then, perhaps it shouldn't.

But it's noteworthy that Quick and her ilk no longer recognize freeing up government spending for other uses as legitimate or appropriate but, rather, risky. So much for investing for growth. Instead, these media Keynesians are for more government spending now and forever, but calling it investment. That way, cutting it will seem bad- either because demand is lessened, or, heaven forbid, government investment in key technologies and projects has been eliminated.

They no longer see any room for non-government economic activity.

Wonderboy's True Colors

If you happened to see Wonderboy's press conference yesterday, or clips of it, later, you probably saw/heard him say something which was perhaps an unconsciously naked, unvarnished expression of his true political desires. After complaining about having to handle the debt limit crisis, which he ignored until the 11th hour, he went on to say he would,

"....want to be talkin' about things everybody wants....like new programs!"

Thank you Mr. Obama, for revealing your raw, unspun view of the role of government.

To create new programs.

Further, Wonderboy doesn't get the message of Tea Partiers and the independents who joined them to shrink the Democrats' Senate majority and hand the House to the GOP last November, i.e., "everybody wants" these new, undefined programs.

This is why there hasn't been a simple compromise on spending and the debt limit as Pat Toomey described recently. In the First Rookie's mind, anything that derails the creation of new federal programs isn't to be seriously considered.

That's why this president will never oversee federal government behavior which reverses losses of personal liberty and freedom, not to mention shrinking federal spending and intrusion into the economy.

People often accidentally engage in candor beyond what they would normally allow when speaking extemporaneously, and Wonderboy, gifted orator that he is said to be, is apparently no different.

Regarding Anthony Weiner's Twitter Troubles

I refrained from writing about New York Democratic Representative Anthony Weiner's Twitter-based troubles until now because I felt he would eventually admit to that of which he was accused. Yesterday, he did.

The backstory is probably familiar by now. Andrew Breitbart, the conservative new media publicist and crusader, broke the story of Weiner's Twittering a suggestive picture of himself in briefs, and his leg, to a young woman in Seattle. Breitbart asserted last night on Hannity's Fox New program that several people were addresses of the retwitted message and picture, among them radical left-wing publisher Ariana Huffington.

Breitbart was the one who ran with the story, and instantly became smeared by the left wing new media and blogs as having hacked Weiner's Twitter account.

I've seen Weiner's appearances on CNBC and Fox News quite a few times. He's aggressive, rabidly liberal and kind of geeky. But he's not stupid.

So I took particular notice of Weiner's carefully-phrased excuses, imagined causes for the sent image, and adroit evasion of answering "yes," or "no," to the simple question,

"Is that you in the picture?"

You see, I think Weiner realized that if he lied, saying it was not a picture of himself, and then, as would eventually have to occur, he later admitted it was, he'd be disgraced and out of a job. Maybe he'd even have gone so far as to perjure himself before a House Ethics Committee.

So Weiner grew testy and combative, castigating Fox's Bret Baier and others for continuing to simply ask if the picture was of him, without ever answering it. Then saying he had answered all questions and spent enough time on the topic. Had to get back to work ,don't you know?

That behavior led me to believe that the reality would be far worse, and the picture was, of course, of Weiner, sent by him.

Now we know, after Weiner's tearful admissions yesterday, that the married Representative had sent lewd pictures of himself to as many as six young women via Twitter. Brietbart, again on Hannity last night, promised that he would not publish the worst of the Weiner pictures sent to him by women who'd received them from the Congressman. But when pressed, he basically described one image as Weiner's naked body sporting an erect appendage.

As part of his long, tearful press appearance yesterday, Weiner rapidly glossed over a brief four word apology to Breitbart, who'd been pilloried in the press and left-wing blogosphere, while Weiner sat back and allowed the damage to Breitbart to grow, knowing the smear was unfounded.

Weiner's very Clintonian initial denials and reaching for the 'I've been hacked' excuse, then carefully avoiding handing the matter over to the FBI or a House committee, and, instead, turning to a private attorney and security firm, told you all you really need to know. Weiner knew the FBI would discover the truth quickly, and be uncontrollable.

What drives such bizarre, arrogant behavior by federal elected officials who become media darlings? Carl Albert, Jim Wright, Newt Gingrich, Bob Livingston, Wilbur Mills, John Edwards, Eliot Spitzer. They all seem to lose their bearings when the media spotlight shines, don't they?

It's possible that Weiner's marriage and political career are not over. But his days as a model spokesman in Congress for the far left are definitely over.

A liberal pundit on Hannity last night noted that New York has to eliminate one upstate and one metro-area Congressional district for 2012- why not Weiner's, thus removing him from the scene painlessly? In the meantime, the pundit, Bob Beckel, predicted Weiner will get a call from Bubba Clinton and resign by month's end.

As a coda to the story, Breitbart warned anyone who would attempt to persecute the women who had retweeted Weiner's photos "not to go there." Similar to attempts to attack the credibility of rape victims, Breitbart was worried that the far left bloggers would attempt to smear the women with whom Weiner had been Tweeting and to whom he'd sent pictures.

So perhaps the entire affair isn't really over just yet.

Alan Blinder's Smear of Paul Ryan & His 2012 Budget Proposal

Last week, the Wall Street Journal published a political editorial by Princeton's Alan Blinder entitled Paul Ryan's Reverse Robin Hood Budget. The piece was notable because Blinder is an economist, yet the bulk of the article is unsubstantiated political attacks on Ryan and his 2012 budget proposal.

Here's how Blinder began his screed,

"Why do I oppose Rep. Pauly Ryan's plan for reducing the federal budget deficit, the one House Republicans approved overwhelmingly last week? Let me count the ways. Actually, since there is not enough space on this page to count them all, let me just hit the highlights."

He does, however, understand the key issue, when he writes,

"The no-so-hidden agenda is clear: to shrink the government drastically."

Blinder describes Wonderboy's second, reaction budget, as "another huge improvement over the Ryan plan."

Unlike an economically-oriented piece by, say, John B. Taylor, Alan Reynolds or Brian Wesbury, Blinder simply goes political, with a few selected statistics to support whatever he is ranting over in a particular paragraph.

That's odd, since Blinder is usually given space on the Journal's editorial pages for economics pieces.

Since he didn't bother to ground his editorial in economics, Blinder may be fairly judged on simply the politics and logic of his arguments.

Looking back over the past few weeks of posts, including this one concerning irrational expectations for social spending programs, as well as posts discussing Journal editorials by Taylor, Reynolds and Phil Gramm, it's easy to see that Blinder is one of those liberals living in a dream world.

Specifically, he has fallen into the Democratic party's deception that has been underway since 1935, when Social Security began. Simply put, unsustainable social welfare promises were made by some half-witted members of Congress, to be implemented in one of the nation's, if not the world's worst-designed systems.

Once these promises had been in place for 30 years, they became immutable social compacts. Sacred promises from a federal government newly-empowered in the 1930s and by WWII.

The trouble is, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, as designed, were never sustainable or affordable. At best, they should have been designed as current-year funded social spending in the manner of proportional contribution, not defined benefits.

Further, they should have been billed as good-faith attempts by the federal government to help the least fortunate in the country, to the ability that the rest of the citizens could afford, modified going forward by best ideas.

Instead, we got a set-in-cement, common-pool, defined benefit approach for the ages.

Someone of Blinder's intellect and education should know better than to demagogue Ryan's plan as unfair and mean-spirited. The truth is, Ryan is right when he says that if we don't radically alter these programs now, they'll never survive another 25 years without bankrupting the US.

It's pointless to compare an existing plan which recognizes reality with 50 year old promises grounded in ignorance and false assumptions.

More Blatant Liberal Bias On CNBC

As I write this, Wonderboy is probably beginning his budget speech which has been reshaped by Paul Ryan's Path To Prosperity budget.

CNBC's flaming socialist political reporter, 'Red' John Harwood, assured one and all that, just like Clinton won the budget debate of his term by planning to reach targets over 10 years, rather than the GOP's 7 years, so, too, will Wonderboy win this time by taking 12 years, instead of Ryan's 10, to reach his budget targets.

Windbag and generally empty-headed, uncredentialed economics reporter Steve Liesman then chimed in that 'the bond market just wants to see a plan,' so Wonderboy's plan will win, and it won't matter that it takes longer to cut deficits.

For the record, we'll see how the bond market reacts to prospects of continuing extravagant spending on social programs while, according to reports, defense spending gets the axe. Doesn't sound like something markets will feel all the comfortable with, but time will tell.

According to pre-speech leaks, the First Rookie will eschew Ryan's move to a defined-contribution approach to Medicare, in which the government will subsidize the purchase of private insurance, rather than be the ultimate 3rd party payer. This morning, also on CNBC, Democratic Senator Kent Conrad, who took payoffs in the form of sweetheart mortgages from Angelo Mozillo's Countrywide Finance, while chairing the Senate committee that regulated the firm, contended that all Medicare needs is a little spending restraint that some panel can provide. He declared that Ryan's approach is unnecessary, and that seniors won't really have to feel any pain at all.

Conrad then recalled Clinton forming some panel to do this, and assured viewers that it would work this time, too.

Of course, nearly 20 years ago, federal spending and deficits were mere fractions of what they are today. Ratios such as spending/GDP and debt/GDP were significantly lower, too.

It goes to show how arrogant Wonderboy and his handlers are that they think nobody will recall that, just a week ago, he was still calling for higher spending and more 'stimulus.'

One pundit quoted an administration source as saying that 'a week from now, nobody will remember that Ryan's budget plan came first.'

That's pretty cynical, isn't it?

But with media buddies like those on CNBC, I guess Wonderboy's staff figures they can lie all they want and the public will be fooled for at least another eighteen months.

Continuing Turmoil In Wisconsin

In the weeks since the initial hooplah over Wisconsin's legislation limiting teachers' unions' powers, a more interesting drama has unfolded.


The unions are promising recall efforts against the Republican legislators who voted for the legislation, while a key state Supreme Court election has become another battleground. The public unions are also coercing businesses to post union-supporting signs in their windows, or face boycotts. Reports are that the unions made it clear that 'neutral' means 'boycott.'


The court election has gone back and forth, with initial results favoring the liberal Democrat and friend of the state Supreme Court's chief justice, then back to the incumbent when several thousand votes were found.


To me, the outcomes of these union-backed efforts matter less than the simple fact that they are occurring. We are seeing the full panoply of democratic institutions employed to try to bend laws to various parties' wills. And while public unions have the right to fight for the ability to continue to extort lavish contract terms and compensation from taxpayers/voters, what interests me is the result if they succeed.

To hear governor Walker explain things, the state must cut spending and have more flexibility to roll back expensive work rules and the ability of teachers to bargain collectively on such rules, as well as, importantly, having the state collect union dues.

So with the judicial elections, recall efforts, and union boycotts, we'll soon see just what Wisconsin voters really want, and how much they are willing to pay for it.

Since Wisconsin was the most public of the states engaging in measures to curb public union excesses, with Ohio and Indiana also active in this area, it's sort of the stage on which this newly-important battle is playing out.

If voters yield to public unions and stymie governor Walker's efforts, the state's next few years will tell a tale of fiscal choices. Higher taxes? Continued spending on teachers?

I'm actually somewhat more excited by the ongoing, multi-pronged struggle between newly-empowered conservatives in Wisconsin and the increasingly-desperate public unions than I would have been had the legislators and Walker simply won the issue by passage of the legislation that started the fight.

This way, we'll really get to see how voters weigh the options they have, as public unions use several channels to try to stop the state government from regaining control over spending on their services. And we'll see the consequqnces of those choices.

If the Wisconsin situation is truly a foreshadowing of the 2012 Congressional, presidential and state election issues, then its resolution may tell us a lot about how much more pain and suffering we are all going to endure before sanity prevails and public unions are finally confronted, and, themselves, forced to confront the reality of spending limits and undeliverable pension promises.

The NPR Sting

You have to marvel at how NPR's Ron Schiller's unguarded lunch comments prematurely ended his stint there, and took down the firm's CEO, Vivian Schiller (no relation), as well.

Here's the long version of the lunch video that did the trick. The scheme was concocted by the conservative ambush artist who outed Planned Parenthood last year for helping self-identified pimps of under-aged teen girls.

This video, following on the heels of the Juan Williams fiasco, evidently rendered CEO Schiller's position untenable.

But what really ought to be clear to anyone with any amount of intelligence is how vulnerable all people in positions of influence and power now are. No lunch is a private lunch any longer. Effectively, everyone wears a wire.

If you are the leader or a senior executive of a company or well-known non-profit, any meeting with anyone other than a close friend could be a trap. The video and audio transmitters which could be entrapping you would not be obvious.

Every little aside or casual remark by your guest could be calculated to elicit or provoke your embarrassing rejoinder, to be preserved, then blasted out on YouTube the next day or week.

Good or bad, it's true.

Ever since Virginia Senator George Allen was caught on video uttering an ethnically-questionable term to a heckler at a campaign rally, we've been living in this world of secret video entrapment.

How about Jesse Jackson's open mike remarks about Wonderboy a few years ago?

The NPR escapade is just the latest example of the new world in which we live. A world in which anybody with a public image is vulnerable to being lured into candid, embarrassing private remarks that could end up on the internet within days.

Democrat Capuano Advocates Protesters Get "A Little Bloody!"

Peacefully assembly seems to be in short supply. Consider this, from James Taranto in the Wall Street Journal,

"The rhetoric around Wisconsin's government labor dispute is getting more violent. NHJournal.com reports that Rep. Michael Capuano, a Massachusetts Democrat, said this yesterday at a Boston "solidarity" rally: "I'm proud to be here with people who understand that it's more than just sending an email to get you going. Every once and awhile you need to get out on the streets and get a little bloody when necessary."

The Boston Globe reports that the union crowd responded to Capuano's exhortation with "cheers, whistles and applause."

So much for calls from the left for more civil discourse, now that one of their own is in the Oval Office.

Keith Olbermann's Departure

Bret Stephens wrote a refreshing editorial in the Wall Street Journal last week commenting on MSNBC's Keith Olbermann's imminent departure. Like me, Stephens expressed support for explicit political purity in media.

Stephens wrote of Olbermann,

"He put MSNBC on the map. He pushed CNN into third place. He earned his $30 million contract.

Nor was Mr. Olbermann only good for capitalism. For a long time, the dominant mode of liberal argument was to ironize, or tut-tut, or dissemble, or manipulate the terms of discourse, or stack the deck in debates that are supposed to be balanced. The "Countdown" host did away with the old-fashioned liberal snigger and replaced it with a full-frontal snarl.

Put simply, Mr. Olbermann had a genuine faith in populism, something liberals more often preach than practice."

Contrary to the incumbent mentality which, at the FCC, now seeks to mandate balance within either networks or programs- I'm not sure which- I agree with Stephens in preferring that programs simply espouse what they wish, and let consumers choose.

I don't personally find Olbermann's views sensible nor attractive. Nor am I fond of his manner, what little I've seen of it. But I do think it's best to let him have whatever pulpit the market will offer, on mutually-agreeable terms.

He'll probably land somewhere with his trademark narrow-minded, wrong-headed liberalism. But, so be it. Better he gives an unvarnished view of ultra-liberal zaniness and insensibility than that he be muzzled or governmentally 'balanced.'

Howard Dean's Taxation Delusions On CNBC

I happened to view an exchange this morning on CNBC between former CBO head Douglas Holz-Eakins and former Vermont governor and DNC chair Howard Dean. It was most illuminating.

In a discussion regarding fiscal responsibility and tax policies, Dean railed against 'giving tax cuts to the rich' while borrowing the money for them from China.

It was truly laughable that Dean didn't see the warped perspectives embedded in his comments. To wit, Dean, being an uber-liberal, naturally assumes all of your income is, in reality, the government's. Letting you keep any of it is a gift for which you should be on bended knee, kissing the feet of your political masters.

Thus, letting you keep any more of your income than you already do, while liberals- and conservatives- spend more than the government collects in taxes, and cover the difference by borrowing from our enemies, like China, is considered folly by said uber-liberals, Dean included.

When confronted by co-anchor Joe Kernen and Holz-Eakins with the reality that soaking the income of the upper percentiles of income-earners still only generates about $94B, assuming no changes by said wealthy in declared income, against the trillions in deficits, Dean only continued to wail that we were borrowing from the Chinese to 'give tax breaks to the rich.'

Standard far-left stuff, but ludicrous when contrasted with the fact that all of the incomes of the wealthy still won't make a dent in the spending binge on which our liberal Democratic Congress and Wonderboy have been.

If you think about it, aren't our wealth-transfer payment programs the ones which are deemed 'non-discretionary' and breaking our budgets? Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and related transfers, enacted with no global or macro budgetary conditionality? As communal, unlimited spending pots, the withdrawals from which are on individual eligibility bases, not apportioned and pro-rated based upon budgetary limitations?

It's ridiculous! Thanks to Congressional idiocy in the 1930s and 1960s, we've elevated the poor and destitute ahead of every other need of our Republic. They never are required to share in the economies and belt-tightening shared by our other national governmental spending and taxation realities.

I don't think I've ever seen so clear a picture of the nonsensical liberal ethos and belief system than in Howard Dean's hysterically comical attitude and comments this morning on CNBC. It was straight out of Socialism 101.

'All income belongs to the people. The government is the people. The poor receive first consideration for spending by the government, on behalf of the people, i.e., the government.'

The actual value-producing income-earners are simply presumed to be fatted cattle to be milked and, in time, through death taxes, slaughtered for the benefits of the non-working and/or poor.

Joe Crowley's Nonsensical Rant On CNBC

Yesterday morning, I witnessed an interesting exchange between Steve Forbes and NY Democratic Congressman Joe Crowley.

Forbes was a guest host for an hour, mostly to discuss the current support building in Congress for a sweeping tax code overhaul. If you recall, Forbes ran for president some years ago on the flat tax issue. Or perhaps just simplified- I don't recall the details anymore. But I do recall tax comprehensive tax reform as his salient issue.

Crowley, however, exhibited the type of behavior which makes you realize why you want small government. He ranted a now-familiar line about how Bill Clinton was a god-like president leaving a budget surplus. George Bush, of course, spent it all, and then some, leaving Wonderboy with a sorry mess.

Taxes, of course, must rise, as must spending.

Crowley must be an idiot. His refusal to listen to Forbes' reminders of the context of the various points that Crowley made showed him to be a mindless demagogue. No acknowledgement of the booming, post-Reagan economy Clinton inherited. Nor the famed 'peace dividend' from the Soviet Union's collapse.

Nor Bush' inheriting a war on terror, thanks to Clinton's turning a blind eye to the building pressures and events.

When you hear guys like Crowley spout such ill-informed, small-minded nonsense, you realize why you want Congress doing as little as possible, influencing as little of American life as possible, and generally keeping focused on spending, taxes and foreign affairs. Not business, wealth transfers, nor other important social issues.

Crowley exemplifies the type of mediocre people who populate Congress, because the smarter, more motivated among us are busy making money and pursuing our American Dreams. Leaving morons like Crowley minding the government, and making mischief by increasing their power over the lives of the rest of us.

The Juan Williams-NPR Flap

I realize I'm about a week late to this story. That should give you some idea of how trivial I think it is.

Basically, NPR canned liberal Juan Williams because he stated his feelings of anxiety when seeing people dressed in burkas on airplanes, when on a Fox News program.

The firestorm which erupted cast NPR in a bad light because it chose some innocuous little rule on which to base its firing of Williams. Critics trotted out Nina Totenberg's decade-old clip wishing Jessie Helms' grandchildren an unpleasant death from AIDS as proof that the network was playing favorites.

Okay. News flash- NPR is really liberal. Williams isn't the most liberal guy there. So they found a very public instance of his behavior that they felt they could attack and used it to fire him.

Now, for Christ sake, you'd think Williams was dead, gone to heaven, then rose from the dead and is a canonized Saint.

Honestly, this guy is nothing special. Like most liberals, he's not too bright. If he were, well, he'd be conservative, wouldn't he?

Like most liberals, he has no sense of how real people behave in society. He, too, seemed to be missing in action the day God handed out the common sense about people's economic and general social motivating behaviors.

Some liberals are just plain stupid. That would be, say, Alan Combs. Others are smart, but missing that ability to understand how most real people behave. That would be Williams.

If you've seen Williams on Fox, he typically gives a knee-jerk defense of any liberal elected official, like Wonderboy or Frisco Nan, in response to reasonable, informed remarks by people like Steven Hayes or Charles Krauthammer. No matter how inane he looks, he always comes to the defense of his ideological kin.

When I hear people like O'Reilly and Krauthammer say what a great guy Williams is, and how they are friends, I wonder what they are smoking. Maybe they're just spouting a Fox News line to keep Williams on board.

After all, let's face it, Williams is a two-for. Not simply liberal, but a black liberal. Even Colmes isn't that valuable.

And how much richer can it get than for Fox to rush to Williams' defense, then give him a new contract as the networks official token in residence, at NPR's expense?

Sure, let's defund NPR. It's way past time. And, yes, NPR is now basically on Soros' payroll. Williams' firing at an inopportune time, right before the mid-term elections, probably won't help Democrats, either.

But c'mon. Let's not go overboard. Juan Williams is hardly God's gift to journalism or cable news and opinion programs. What he is is a tolerable liberal who serves a purpose of providing Fox with more balance than their rivals.

Stealth Liberal Bias on CNBC

This morning on CNBC, retiring New Hampshire Republican Senator Judd Gregg guest-hosted. I watch/listen to the channel  most mornings for business purposes, but often race to hit the 'mute' button when the more egregiously liberal pundits- John Harwood, Ed Rendell, Howard Dean, Tim Cane, Don Peebles- begin to speak.

As the conversation meandered through various aspects of fiscal and social policy, and the upcoming Congressional elections, one of the co-anchors asked Gregg a question phrased something like this,

'With you and a Democratic moderate, Evan Bayh, retiring, how will Congress get work done, govern, compromise, if both parties send increasingly-ideological extremists to Congress?'

The questioner went on to assert that compromise was so important, yet those pesky Republicans and their Tea Party friends don't seem to show any intent on compromising with the president!

See the bias inherent in the question and comment?

Now that the Democrats have taken giant steps forward socializing medicine and health care, owning big chunks of American business, doubling the debt in just two years that it took our Republic from 1789-2008 to amass, and causing massive regulatory uncertainty, it's time for compromise!

So why can't/won't/don't Republicans come to the table and bargain?

After all, the Democrats rammed through massively-unpopular social and spending legislation over the objections of Republicans. Now that Republicans might be in control of the House, perhaps even the Senate, well, it's time for compromise.

Amazing, isn't it? And nobody in the media seems to think this is an abnormal attitude.

Ohio Democratic Congressman Tim Ryan's Bizarre Alternative Universe

This morning's CNBC program, Squawkbox, featured an interview with Democratic Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan. Listening to Ryan made me wonder if he doesn't live in some bizarre, alternative universe.

For example, he defended Wonderboy's healthcare bill, blithely claiming that 'much middle class suffering would have been avoided if we'd passed this years ago.'

Really? It's already resulting in rising premiums and, yesterday, McDonalds Corporation's internal email regarding dropping its employee healthcare plans. More expensive coverage of fewer people before the plan has even hit its stride. Just great.

Then Ryan assailed the Chinese yuan, claiming that they are dumping because, thanks to lower wage rates, some specific good they produce hits US shores at a price that equals the US cost to simply produce the same item.

Ryan then bizarrely launched into a diatribe about green energy, and how its use would make the US competitive in some heavy industry product sectors. Too bad Ryan seems not to understand that wind and solar can't be reliably used for heavy power applications, never mind their higher prices, sans subsidies.

In Ryan's world, real economics don't matter. Only what politicians want to attempt to create with subsidies, transfer payments and other schemes which make King Canute's command of the sea to retreat look reasonable, by comparison.

It evidently doesn't occur to Ryan that we shouldn't want growth in jobs in the US which rely on trade wars or subsidies to make them "competitive" with low-end Chinese jobs. That this is a losing battle.

Ryan happily identified himself with Wonderboy's entire agenda. But, then again, he was named by Frisco Nan to the House Democratic leadership team, so you'd expect nothing less from a true believer.

A true believer in a solidly blue Ohio district, at that.

Still, it's a troubling but revealing portrait of how screwed up and out of touch the ruling liberal Democrats are on important matters of economics, trade and healthcare.

Do As I Say.....Not As I Do: Bono Meets The Fashion Biz

This is just too precious.

The headline on an article in today's Wall Street Journal reads Out of Africa, Into Asia, with the subheadline "A brand started by Bono and his wife to boost African manufacturing now produces mainly in China."

Here are the lead sentences in the half-page Journal piece,

"Five years ago, U2 front man Bono and his wife, Ali Hewson, founded fashion brand Edun with the lofty mission of revitalizing apparel manufacturing in sub-Saharan Africa.

But when Edun designer Sharon Wauchob unveils her new vision for the label Saturday, most of the clothes on the runway- some featuring African touches like beads from Kenya- will be produced in China.

It's a big about-face for Edun, which launched to great fanfare but quickly ran into problems with soucring and delivery. Shipments from Africa arrived late, and retailers complained about the clothes' design and fit, leading to poor sales."

I guess even the wealthy liberalati eventually succumb to economic reality when it's their own money at risk.

Hewson is described as admitting,

"that she and her husband, known for his advocacy of debt relief in addition to his music, were naive about what it takes to build a fashion brand.

"We focused too much on the mission in the beginning. It's the clothes, it's the product. It's a fashion company. That needs to be first and foremost," Ms. Hewson says. "The aesthetic we always knew would be important...but we didn't realize how difficult it was going to be to achieve quality." "

You have to laugh at this precious arrogance.

Hewson and Bono apparently thought that his fame and their money would simply cause barriers to fall, existing problems to vanish, and sales of their mission-based company to magically blossom.

Mind you, the initial problems weren't even about margin, i.e., Bono and Hewson making filthy lucre, or not making it, on healthy sales of quality merchandise.

No, the couple and their managers found that African-sourced product just wouldn't sell. Period.

The article contains too many funny passages to quote them all. Suffice to say, you can't make up stuff this good.

Bono and Hewson invested $20MM into Edun, then sold 49% of the firm to LVMH Moet Hennessy for only $7.8MM. How's that for good business sense so far?

But the firm now has a new CEO, Janice Sullivan, formerly president at Liz Claiborne's DKNY Jeans unit. She relates a priceless story involving a planned fashion show,

"I felt like a schoolmarm," says Ms. Sullivan. "I sounded like his math teacher saying, 'OK now, Bono, let's just regroup here. We are having a fashion show. Show is the second word. Fashion is the first word." Ultimately, they compromised: the show is taking place in a semi-outdoor space in Chelsea."

The article concludes with this line,

" "So you can see how this brand, in the wrong hands, could go haywire." says Ms. Sullivan."

No doubt implying if the majority owners were the managers, Edun would be an endless financial sinkhole.

Figures.

Fact is, Ms. Hewson's reported belief, along with her husband, in making the concept work, the African-sourcing just isn't. Despite her insistence that the brand will return to more African fashion over time, we'd all be forgiven for waiting to see it to believe it.

One very much suspects that other companies without Bono's money and fame aren't doing this concept because it simply isn't economically feasible.

You don't see Ms. Sullivan denying that, or rushing back to Africa, do you?

Welcome To The New Soviet Union: The Socialist Republic of the United States

In response to an email I sent to a colleague recently which included an attachment of Ruth Marcus' Washington Post article concerning Charlie Rangel's and Maxine Waters' ethics charges, he replied,

"There’s no doubt that we have a institutional political class that prominently includes all members of Congress, publicly corrupt or otherwise, which is an elite and self-sustaining parasite not unlike the respective senior Communist party committees that so successfully control the peoples of Russia and China."


I agree, but it's far worse than just that.


In the old Soviet Union, selected groups were given perks and better treatment, e.g., better healthcare, living quarters, more compensation, cars, access to food stores stocked with better selections, and so on.


Now, in America, municipal and certain private-industry unions, such as those for teachers, firemen and policemen, and the UAW, receive special favors and treatment. Sometimes totally in violation of existing law.


For example, lawfully protected GM bondholders were summarily coerced into silenced and forced to surrender their senior position by the federal government, so that the UAW could be given a share of the reorganized firm's assets.

Despite clear language in the Constitution that laws must apply to all citizens, just last week Congress passed, at the administration's insistence, a special stimulus bill to fund teacher salaries in the states, mandating no cuts in state funding, and the requirement that such funding must rise in future years.

Yes, like the Soviet Union of old, it's clear that in Wonderboy's Socialist United States, special union membership gets you perks and claims on the federal Treasury.

But if you educated yourself into a management position, or work as a blue-collar laborer in a right-to-work state, tough luck. You don't get to be one of Wonderboy's favorite classes, and have to pay higher taxes for those who are.