Category: Politics

Dude, Where’s My Gas Tax?

Charles Krauthammer starts off with a great premise from his Friday column:

Is there anything more depressing than yet another promise of energy independence in yet another State of the Union address? By my count, 24 of the 34 State of the Union addresses since the oil embargo of 1973 have proposed solutions to our energy problem.

The result? In 1973 we imported 34.8 percent of our oil. Today we import 60.3 percent.

Most everything else in his essay is worth reading. The bit about ethanol, in particular, is useful because we’re not getting the full picture. There are unintended consequences, as the cost to feed livestock increases (not necessarily a bad unintended consequence for vegans). More farmland must go to grow corn. And few in power will acknowledge how government protections irrationally impact decisions regarding ethanol since sugarcane can be used to make ethanol at a significantly more efficient, effective cost in dollars and energy expended. But we must prop up our sugar industry from foreign trade. As Mr. Krauthammer says, we’re not really serious about tackling the issue of oil dependence as much as we’re interested in making the politically correct choices that appear responsible.

As good as it is, I’m still left with questions from Mr. Krauthammer’s essay. Particularly, from this:

First, tax gas. The president ostentatiously rolled out his 20-in-10 plan: reducing gasoline consumption by 20 percent in 10 years. This with Rube Goldberg regulation — fuel-efficiency standards, artificially mandated levels of “renewable and alternative fuels in 2017” and various bribes (er, incentives) for government-favored technologies — of the kind we have been trying for three decades.

Good grief. I can give you 20-in-2: Tax gas to $4 a gallon. With oil prices having fallen to $55 a barrel, now is the time. The effect of a gas-tax hike will be seen in less than two years, and you don’t even have to go back to the 1970s and the subsequent radical reduction in consumption to see how. Just look at last summer. Gas prices spike to $3 — with the premium going to Vladimir Putin, Hugo Chávez and assorted sheiks rather than the U.S. Treasury — and, presto, SUV sales plunge, the Prius is cool and car ads once again begin featuring miles-per-gallon ratings.

No regulator, no fuel-efficiency standards, no presidential exhortations, no grand experiments with switch grass. Raise the price, and people change their habits. It’s the essence of capitalism.

I’d quibble that the essence of price increases mandated by the government is not capitalism, but that’s not really my point. I haven’t refueled my car in several weeks¹, so I can’t really say what the current average is. Also, I’m too lazy to look it up on The Internets. I’m just going to assume $2.50, since it’s an easy number to work with. My assumption means that, to reach Mr. Krauthammer’s suggestion, the government must increase the current gas tax by $1.50 per gallon. Done. And then?

Where does the money go? When the actual, untaxed price of oil fluctuates higher the next time some crisis arises, will the government adjust the extra tax down to keep the price stable at $4? The goal is to reduce consumption, not bankrupt the economy, I assume. So what do we do when capitalism interferes with the essence of capitalism? I don’t trust politicians to be noble with that extra $1.50 per gallon, if nothing else. (Don’t tell me that $1.50 per gallon would go to “energy independence” programs or whatever. Two words: Social Security.)

I agree that this would have at least the effect that Mr. Krauthammer and other supporters suggest. But I’m skeptical. There will be unintended economic consequences, as well as waste by politicians. I don’t like artificially unleashing these demons to make us do what we “should” do.

¹ Public transit is great, except when it leaves me stranded in the cold for an hour, as it did Friday morning.

Coalition of the Willing and Unwilling

From yesterday’s Washington Post, this report on a new “consensus” on healthcare reform:

On the surface, it looked to be just another Washington news conference, part of the white noise of the political and policy process.

But this one was different. There, at the National Press Club, stood the president of the Business Roundtable, representing the country’s largest corporations; the president of the Service Employees International Union, the country’s most vibrant union and one of its fastest-growing; and the president of AARP, the formidable seniors lobby. They put aside their usual differences to deliver a clear, simple message to President Bush and congressional leaders of both parties:

We stand ready to give you the political cover you need for a centrist, bipartisan fix for a broken health-care system.

Or, if you refuse, we stand ready to embarrass you and run you out of office.

That’s interesting enough, if it were actually true. But I reject any claim that those three groups have the authority to speak for the nation as a whole. Only the AARP represents a sizeable portion of the nation, and that’s not enough to provide any claim to policy making. Populist rent-seeking never appeared so obvious.

In my case, I’m a small-business owner. I’m only 33. I’m not in a labor union. Who’s got my voice? Me, of course, and willingly so. But this is no one’s concern. The only outcome that matters is coming up with a solution that represents 20th century forces in the 21st century. This press conference could have just as easily occurred in 1907 as 2007.

What does that consensus look like?

It starts with universal coverage, accomplished either through a mandate on everyone to purchase basic health insurance or a mandate on all employers to offer it.

That much we already know, because we think people just aren’t motivated enough (the former proposal) or that more of what we already have will fix the problem (the latter proposal). There is no need to understand why we got here. Once we have a solution worked out, we’ll find the path backwards to where we are to tell the correct story. It’s insanity.

A few of suggestions warrant consideration, and by consideration, I mean outright dismissal.

Finally, it sets a deadline for physicians and hospitals to switch to computerized health records, along with a program to provide no-interest loans to buy the necessary hardware and software.

I’m sure that physicians and hospitals have delayed computerizing health records because no-interest loans were not available. Or it could be that the economic efficiency created by the process wasn’t supported by the cost. Or maybe it’s that physicians and hospitals are in the business of providing care instead of information technology. Only in a world where universal assumptions pass as analysis for the multitude of scenarios in which physicians provide care can an outcome that a universal solution will work. Of course, it’s a lot easier to say that when you impose a no-interest loan requirement. I’m certain “no-interest” means taxpayers will pick up the cost to subsidize this. It would be important to remember that something economically-justified would pay for itself, despite the cost of interest. It’s silly to let that get in the way, though. PEOPLE ARE DYING IN THE STREET!

Hospitals and insurers would have to agree that 85 percent of their revenue would go to providing direct care, capping profit and administrative expenses at 15 percent.

Wow. Central planning at its most crass. We know what expenses should be, as well as a fair profit. There need not be a direct tie to quality here. Fifteen percent for admin expenses and profit is enough. This will not end well.

Health insurers would have to accept the obligation to sell insurance to everyone, with only modest variation in rates for age and health status.

I guess actuaries should start looking for other work. It hasn’t proven to be useful, anyway, since risk can just be ignored. What could go wrong?

Pointing fingers will help, I’m sure.

I guess if I want to be in with the cool kids in the blogosphere, I need to talk about Dinesh D’Souza’s new book, The Enemy At Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11. The problem is, with a title like that, I don’t care. It says everything necessary to dismiss the book without further contemplation. I haven’t read it, nor will I. But Mr. D’Souza’s first column for Townhall.com warrants a comment.

As I returned home to the United States, I wondered: are these students right? I don’t think American culture as a whole is guilty of the charge of moral depravity. But there is a segment of our culture that is perverse and pornographic, and perhaps this part of American culture is the one that foreigners see. Wrongly, they identify one face of America with the whole of America. When they protest what they see as the glamorization of pornography and vice, however, it’s hard to deny that they have a point.

“They hate us for our freedoms” is a tired slogan, but it takes an especially perverse anti-liberty sentiment to add on “they’re right to hate us for that freedom.” It’s absurd and should be shunned from the public sphere of ideas by everyone. Unfortunately, not everyone hates assaulting the Constitution. (There’s a nuance involving freedom in quotes, but that makes no sense because we’re talking about consensual choices.)

I think Mr. D’Souza’s mistake becomes clear here:

Groups like the ACLU have taken the approach that pornography rights, like the rights of accused criminals, are best protected at their outermost extreme. This means is that the more foul the obscenity, the harder liberals must fight to allow it. By protecting expression at its farthest reach, these activists believe they are fully securing the free speech rights of the rest of us.

There is no flaw in what Mr. D’Souza attacks. All rights must be protected at their extremes. Whatever limitations the majority desires still leaves the minority grasping to retain what inherently belongs to everyone. The right to not do something must include the corresponding right to do that something. No one will fight publishing “the bunny is grey.” But when the bunny starts attacking the chickens in the coop with a machete and blood and feathers are flying all over the page, someone must defend it when the moralists come charging to society’s rescue.

Mr. D’Souza believes that whatever is an outlier, especially if it’s repugnant to most, must therefore be unworthy of protection. Unfortunately, there are principles of rights and liberty that are more vision-impaired than Mr. D’Souza’s belief that his 20/20 analysis is enough.

Who defines “satisfactorily”?

The given title is “Seven Tough Choices We Will Not Make”, but the Washington Post should’ve titled Robert Samuelson essay in today’s newspaper to accommodate the fact that at least two choices are stupid. Consider:

Let me engage in a fantasy. Let me assume that Democrats and Republicans actually intended to address two serious national problems: first, our huge dependence on insecure sources of foreign oil; and second, the persistent mismatch between public resources (taxes) and public obligations (spending). What might they do? Herewith, a package of proposals:
…

  • Increase the top tax rate on dividends and capital gains (profits on stocks and other assets) from today’s 15 percent to at least 25 percent.

This list is clearly doomed, because Mr. Samuelson accepts the same garbage that the economically ignorant love to perpetuate, namely that only the rich have dividends and capital gains, and anyone rich enough to receive them is rich enough to pay their “fair share” without concern. No data actually backs this up, and principles of economics and fairness disprove it, but a lie told often enough, and with enough pleasant motivations can overcome truth.

  • Raise the eligibility ages for Social Security and Medicare gradually to 70 by 2029. At 65, people would have to buy into Medicare (that is, pay for coverage) until they reached eligibility for subsidized benefits.

If we’re going to force people to buy into Medicare for those five years before they turn 70, wouldn’t it make sense to stop the charade and let them spend the money they would currently contribute to Medicare (and Social Security) on their own private insurance? This is a better-than-nothing approach, but Mr. Samuelson’s solution offers little more than a blatant acceptance that Social Security is a shell game in which no one is much interested in correcting the foundational flaw. It’s stupid.

Reading Mr. Samuelson’s conclusion, much of this becomes obvious:

That something like this won’t soon be proposed — let alone passed — speaks volumes about our politics. Both parties have marketed government as a source of aid and comfort. Benefits are to be pursued, burdens shifted and choices avoided. Problems are to be blamed on scapegoats (“the liberals,” “the rich”). There is little sense of common interests and shared obligations. Politicians resort to symbolic acts that seem more meaningful than they actually are: the minimum wage, for instance.

Mr. Samuelson’s analysis of the problem seems to coincide nicely as an explanation for his recommendations.

We should use this opportunity to regain what’s been lost.

On Monday, I tangentially referenced statements made by Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs Cully Stimson earlier this week. In summary, he said that corporate America should boycott any firms that provide legal representation to the detainees in Guantanamo because such assistance amounts to siding with the terrorists. It was stupid and offensive to anyone who values American ideals and liberty. Everyone is entitled to express hold such opinions. Unless they work in the government, for the people of the United States, anyone may express them. For such a disgusting disregard for the Constitution of the United States, Stimson should be fired immediately. Instead, of course, the Administration has done nothing more than disavow his statements. And now, Stimson is doing the same, in the Letters to the Editor section of today’s Washington Post:

During a radio interview last week, I brought up the topic of pro bono work and habeas corpus representation of detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Regrettably, my comments left the impression that I question the integrity of those engaged in the zealous defense of detainees in Guantanamo. I do not.

I believe firmly that a foundational principle of our legal system is that the system works best when both sides are represented by competent legal counsel. I support pro bono work, as I said in the interview. I was a criminal defense attorney in two of my three tours in the Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps. I zealously represented unpopular clients — people charged with crimes that did not make them, or their attorneys, popular in the military. I believe that our justice system requires vigorous representation.

I apologize for what I said and to those lawyers and law firms who are representing clients at Guantanamo. I hope that my record of public service makes clear that those comments do not reflect my core beliefs.

And I’m sure it was really the alcohol that made Mel Gibson an anti-Semite. All that happened here is Stimson got his hand caught in the totalitarian cookie jar that he and the administration so desperately want to raid for all of its goodies. The outcry, while surprising given how indifferently much of the nation has looked the other way over the last six years, is entirely justified. We’ll accept some offensive rights violations, but this is too far. I’m saddened by where it is, but at least there’s still a line.

Despite his apology, Stimson should be shown the door. Now.

An Execution Chamber in Every Courthouse

Anyone want to read that Texas is considering the death penalty for repeat sex offenders and suggest that capital punishment serves any other function greater than revenge?

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, a Republican who won a second four-year term, has led the charge for tougher penalties for child molesters, calling for a 25-year minimum sentence after the first conviction when a victim is less than 14 and the death penalty option for repeat offenders.

“The idea is to prevent these kinds of crimes,” said Dewhurst spokesman Rich Parsons. “It sends a clear signal and maybe these monsters will think twice before committing a crime.”

Gov. Rick Perry, also a Republican, said Texas is a “tough on crime” state and he’s open to tougher penalties, including the death penalty.

From the article, the plan is obviously in its initial stages, and there appears to be some resistance. But this is what counts as resistance.

“We support the intent,” said Torie Camp of the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault. “We’re concerned about the unintended consequences.”

This is a brilliant move for covering against looking weak in the “war on crime”. “Kill ’em all, except it might create situations we don’t like.” Why is institutionalized murder acceptable when a punishment without revenge killing will serve just as well? It’s perplexing because offenders murdering their victims is the feared unintended consequences. Admittedly, if someone must be murdered, it should be the offender, but it’s a fool’s intellectual blindness that believes murder must occur for justice to prevail.

Lt. Gov. Dewhurst should provide evidence that capital punishment offers any deterrence. Note, of course, that this is the same type of rhetoric that suggests sexual offenders are powered by uncontrollable urges that almost guarantee they’ll sexually assault another child. Otherwise, why would we have sex-offender registries and restrictions on how close to schools such persons can live? Isn’t this almost like guaranteeing that Texas will execute people under this proposal, if they’re right? And if they’re right, why not make capital punishment available on the first offense? At least then we could save all of the children who might will be harmed after the sex offenders first jail term is finished.

Capital punishment does nothing more than satiate the public’s thirst for the blood of the bad men.

Source: Fark.

Catching up on events

I’ve been busy over the last week or so, which meant that I didn’t have enough time to give blogging enough mental energy. That’s over, so it’s time to catch up on a few interesting stories before moving to new stuff. Without further delay:

Kudos to Sen. John Sununu for challenging the unhealthy, anti-consumer partnership between content owners and the FCC known as the Broadcast Flag. (Source)

Senator John Sununu (R-NH) has just announced that his office is working on legislation that would prevent the FCC from creating specific technology mandates that have to be followed by consumer electronics manufacturers. What’s his target? The broadcast flag.

Television and movie studios have wanted a broadcast flag for years. The flag is a short analog or digital signal embedded into broadcasts that specifies what users can do with the content. It would most often be used to prevent any copying of broadcast material, but there’s an obvious problem with the plan: it requires recording devices to pay attention to the flag. Because no consumers wander the aisles at Best Buy thinking, “You know, I would definitely buy this DVD recorder, but only if it supported broadcast flag technology,” the industry has asked the federal government to step in and simply require manufacturers to respect the flag.

Exactly the right analysis. The FCC should not be restricting innovation before any potentially illegal action can even occur. The onus should be on the businesses to engineer solutions that meet their needs, not regulation. That’s dinosaur thinking and should not be reward.

Next, just ponder this photograph’s implications. It’s posted in London, so there’s no concern for the United States, except there is concern. We move closer to this mentality with every newly brushed aside civil liberty. (Source)

Next, sometimes a cheap shot is easier than analysis. From Glenn Reynolds:

A CITIZEN’S ARREST BY PAUL HACKETT: A pro-gun anti-crime Democrat — I’m surprised the party didn’t get behind him.

Just like claiming that there’s a war on crime, this requires little thinking and says more about the writer than the facts. Who honestly believes that Democrats are not “anti-crime”? Not tough enough crime, we could argue. But it’s posts like these that prove Glenn Reynolds is little more than a Republican with some libertarian leanings. That’s not surprising, but this is an unflattering proof.

Next, North Korea has a hunger problem. Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of economics understands that this has as much to do with the country’s political structure as anything. Socialism doesn’t work, and can never provide for everyone’s needs. When the failure extends to famine, this moves from oppression to murder. But the North Koreans have a solution, courtesy of a German breeder (Source):

An east German pensioner who breeds rabbits the size of dogs has been asked by North Korea to help set up a big bunny farm to alleviate food shortages in the communist country. Now journalists and rabbit gourmets from around the world are thumping at his door.

It all started when Karl Szmolinsky won a prize for breeding Germany’s largest rabbit, a friendly-looking 10.5 kilogram “German Gray Giant” called Robert, in February 2006.

Images of the chubby monster went around the world and reached the reclusive communist state of North Korea, a country of 23 million which according to the United Nations Food Programme suffers widespread food shortages and where many people “struggle to feed themselves on a diet critically deficient in protein, fats and micronutrients.”

Any reasonable analysis would point out an obvious point of why this will fail to alleviate suffering.

“I’m not increasing production and I’m not taking any more orders after this. They cost a lot to feed,” he said.

The rabbits apparently feed eight. How much food will be used to feed the rabbits until they’re ready to become that one-time meal that feeds eight? How much land that could be better used to grow crops for North Koreans will be used to grow feed for these rabbits, as well as house them while they grow? This is a central-planning solution at its ugliest.

Next, religion will continue getting a free pass for unnecessary medical procedures under a socialist health system.

The NHS should provide more faith-based care for Muslims, an expert says.

Muslims are about twice as likely to report poor health and disability than the general population, says Edinburgh University’s Professor Aziz Sheikh.

Writing in the British Medical Journal, he called for male circumcision on the NHS and more details over alcohol derived drugs.

Leaving aside the obvious questions of whether or not routine/ritual circumcision of children should be allowed, it’s an unnecessary medical procedure that drains resources. As an ethically-questionable procedure, it’s also unacceptable to force taxpayers to fund such surgeries. This is why current U.S. funding under our relatively free market system is objectionable. This call from Britain just seeks to double the mistake. It’s absurd.

Because the system isn’t bureaucratic and dysfunctional enough already, Democrats want to allow unionization by TSA employees. That won’t end well.

Sorry, folks, hospital’s closed. Moose out front shoulda told ya.

More single-payer “goodness”, this time from the U.K.

Patients are being denied basic operations, including treatments for varicose veins, wisdom teeth and bad backs, as hospitals try frantically to balance the books by the end of the financial year, The Times can reveal.

NHS trusts throughout the country are making sweeping cuts to services and delaying appointments in an attempt to address their debts before the end of March. Family doctors have been told to send fewer patients to hospital, A&E departments have been instructed to turn people away, and a wide range of routine procedures has been suspended.
…

A letter from [North Yorkshire and York Primary Care Trust] chief executive, Janet Soo-Chung, says that all non-urgent admissions must be approved by an assessment team or they will not be paid for. A&E departments in Harrogate, Scarborough, South Tees and York have been told that they will not be paid for treating patients with minor ailments who could go elsewhere.

No patients will be given a hospital appointment in less than eight weeks, and none admitted for elective surgery unless they have waited a minimum of 12 to 16 weeks. Those treated quicker will not be paid for.

The United States will be no different if we implement a single-payer system. Given the timeline progression of other single-payer systems, I’m probably at the perfect age (33) for our system to break down around the time I retire. Wonderful. I’ll pass, thanks.

Source: Socialized Medicine

A Vision of a Future America

Smokers receive little sympathy for their habit and its consequences. Some of that is warranted, as I’ve told both of my brothers who smoke. It’s a stupid habit that’s known to cause serious health problems. Who in their right mind would start today, knowing what we know. But there are no apparent bounds to human stupidity, so smoking survives¹. That informs the public debate, but should not dictate it. It does, though, an it will increase if we move to a single-payer health care system. Are we immune to liberty-despising lunacy like this?

Smokers who refuse to give up the habit should be denied some types of surgery, a respiratory expert says.

Matthew Peters said denying smokers joint replacement surgery, breast reconstructions and some other types of elective surgery was justified because the operations were more risky and costly when performed on smokers.

“In healthcare systems with finite resources, preferring non-smokers over smokers for a limited number of procedures will deliver greater clinical benefit to individuals and the community,” Associate Professor Peters said in the latest issue of the British Medical Journal.

“To fail to implement such a clinical judgment would be to sacrifice sensible clinical judgment for the sake of a non-discriminatory principle.”

To be fair, in the context of a silly idea, it has its logic. But the rules must be convoluted to get there.

To Mr. Peters, greater clinical benefit to individuals results from denying procedures to smokers. I’m quite certain that the smokers will not derive greater clinical benefit. What Mr. Peters really means is the community. There is no individual in single-payer health care, just a utilitarian cost-benefit analysis where the parameters are set by an outside party. Perhaps the smoker values hip replacement surgery enough to pay for it himself, where the non-smoker will only have it done because it’s paid for by the government. There are only two people who can make that decision, and the bureaucrat isn’t one of them.

In a private market, the smoker would pay the added insurance expense for his habit, and would weigh the risk decision with his physician. All people are not alike, so it’s feasible that smoker X will have a different risk than smoker Y. Again, who is better qualified to make that individual decision, based on relevant facts, the doctor or the bureaucrat?

“Therefore, so long as everything is done to help patients stop smoking, it is both responsible and ethical to implement a policy that those unwilling or unable to stop should have low priority for, or be excluded from, certain elective surgical procedures,” he said.

I have no interest in seeing this in America. I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, and I’m a vegan. According to the standards of a bureaucrat, I probably come out alright, unless a bureaucrat deems insufficient milk intake a danger to bone health, for example. Then, like everyone else in America who isn’t perfect, I’m screwed. Should I be sent for dairy re-education to make sure my bones don’t become brittle? Extreme, yes. Impossible, no. “So long as everything is done to help patients stop …” and “those unwilling or unable to stop” are the clues.

I’ve determined the possible effects of my health choices. I understand what I could face and I’ve compensated as well as I can. And I’m willing to pay for the consequences, both in health and dollars if I’m wrong. That individual calculation gets pushed aside in the world of single-payer health care. Liberty demands that we not embrace that nonsense, but economics and quality of care dictate the same. Pick your preference. Unless you hate both, the choice is easy.

Source: Bodyhack

¹ I’m not talking recreational smoking, although that’s dangerous. I’m talking about addiction. When smoking begins to cause serious health problems and the smoker can’t quit, that’s the where stupidity can lead. Or should I say excess stupidity. And yes, as the rest of this entry will show, people are entitled to what is in my opinion excess stupidity to harm themselves.

I know who’s carrying the oil can.

We knew this was coming, so only minor credit is warranted:

On its second day under Democratic management, the House yesterday overwhelmingly approved new rules aimed at reining in deficit spending and shedding more light on the murky world of special-interest projects known as earmarks.

Under the new provisions, the House will for the first time in years be required to pay for any proposal to cut taxes or increase spending on the most expensive federal programs by raising taxes or cutting spending elsewhere. And lawmakers will be required to disclose the sponsors of earmarks, which are attached in virtual secrecy to legislation to direct money to favored interests or home-district projects.

Admirable, although I don’t trust anyone in Congress to pick spending cuts in the equation. Balanced budgets are better than deficits, but barely under the principle-free government that’s emerged out of abandoned understanding of the Constitution. The only safeguard we have right now is the veto pen, and we know how well that isn’t working under the current administration.

In recent months, with revelations that lawmakers had earmarked funds for projects with little public benefit, earmarks had became a political embarrassment and a symbol of fiscal profligacy.

Revelations? Who didn’t know this was going on? That’s a bizarre way for a journalist to phrase the recent attention to the long-standing problem of reckless spending. But, in case anyone feels we need new evidence that Congress (i.e. Democrats) will botch the implementation of Pay-as-You-Go, consider:

So far, fiscal restraint appears to be gaining the upper hand. As he left the House chamber yesterday, [House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B.] Rangel said he is scouring the tax code for tax breaks that benefit special interests. If the beneficiaries “don’t put their hands up, it’s out,” he said, suggesting that the money saved could go toward paying for the repeal of the alternative minimum tax.

Good grief. The squeaky wheel gets the oil is not wise fiscal policy. All Rep. Rangel is saying here is that he’s seeking political contributions for his re-election campaign. If you have a tax loophole that you’re fond of, it’s available for a price. The more things change…