The conclusion is as heart-breaking as it is unavoidable: There are people out there —- reporters, pundits, Senators and Congressmen —- who hate the President and the Republican Party so deeply and with such passion that they would rather see the United States defeated and Iraq collapsed into a failed state than support what they see as George W. Bush’s war.
I don’t quite share Jeff’s pessimism regarding tonight’s speech, unless that pessimism means the expectation that the President will simply remind the American people that he has said all along that this war wouldn’t be finished overnight, that it was a long-haul project, that we should remember there are still people out there who want to hurt and kill us, but right now we are winning. The President has been consistent with regard to the prosecution of the war against terror in general, and in Iraq specifically. There is no timetable for withdrawal, because we have not yet achieved total victory. Which is something the left, and increasingly the Democratic Party specifically, cannot allow.
Tag: liberty
Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m too simple-minded to get it. Perhaps because I didn’t go to law school, spend years on a judicial bench, and have half a dozen clerks doing all of my research for me, I just don’t understand the intricacies and nuances of the Constitution of the United States of America. Or maybe there simply aren’t the intricacies and nuances the Supreme Court would have us believe there are.
Amendment I of the Bill of Rights says, in part: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…”
Now, I challenge any legal scholar on the planet to explain how a monument to the Ten Commandments, or the posting of the Ten Commandments on the wall of a courtroom, is Congress establishing a state religion. Or even a state government establishing a state religion. Religious aspects aside, the Ten Commandments are an important legal document, important to the legal history of Western civilization. Again, with religious aspects aside, the Ten Commandments contain some pretty healthy codes of conduct for everyone, believers and non-believers. What’s wrong with suggesting that people do not steal from one another?
Amendment V of the Bill of Rights states, in part: “…nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”
Kelo vs. New London is not about “public use.” Public use is a road, a school. Public use is not a new shopping mall, new condos, new office space. I have to disagree with Jeff on this decision; both sides of the Court are not right in their opinions. Simply because there is precedent leading up to the decision in Kelo doesn’t make the decision proper. It simply means that all of the precedent is itself unconstitutional. If the Court has, in the past, rejected the “narrow interpretation of the public use requirement,” then the Court was wrong. The Court was negligent in its duty to uphold the Constitution, and it was negligent in Kelo. If the town of New London can’t come up with enough tax revenue without confiscating people’s legally-purchased private property, then perhaps the town should dissolve its charter and let the county take over basic services.
Prices are advertised everywhere. From newspapers to billboards to websites, we are forever being told how much things cost. Want to buy contact lenses? A cruise to Alaska? A pedicure? The price of almost any product or service is readily available, and vendors vie for business by keeping their prices competitive.
But not when it comes to health care.
In this second part of his look at health care, the first part of which I noted on Thursday, Jacoby argues that by de-linking health care from employment, through tax reform, prices will be driven down. The tax reform in question is to make health care coverage one purchases oneself tax deductible; it currently is not. Here’s the kicker:
Based on RAND Corporation research, they estimate that making medical expenses deductible would reduce health care spending by $40 billion — all without forcing a single benefit cut on anyone.
[Emphasis added. –R]
Politicians of all stripes, take note:
“Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties which may make anything mean everything or nothing at pleasure.” –Thomas Jefferson
Since my post on the subject, I’ve been thinking of Tom’s comments, and watching as TiVo snags Thomas the Tank Engine, Bob the Builder, and Clifford for my nearly-two-year-old’s viewing pleasure. Then Peggy Noonan comes along with brilliant commentary on the continued need for PBS, just without the politics. Her suggestions are certainly some I’m sure everyone could live with. Get PBS out of the news and opinion business, and back to what made it so vital in the first place: science and the arts.
I am man enough to admit it when I’m wrong. So let’s keep PBS and NPR around; so long as they dump the political angles, and stick to the classics.
Detailing the woes GM is facing in providing health care to only 160,000 current workers, but 1 million others, Jeff Jacoby provides a microcosm of the problems the citizenry would face should health-care fall under the purview of the government.
GM’s hourly workers undoubtedly have a sweet deal — who wouldn’t love health insurance that comes with a $0 deductible and no premiums? But such sweet deals drive up the cost of health care for everyone. When somebody else is picking up the tab, there is little incentive to economize — that is as true of medical care as of anything else. The price of prescription drugs, hospital stays, and medical procedures has skyrocketed in part because tens of millions of Americans are insured through their employers with low-deductible medical plans. Why not run to the doctor for every minor ailment when the out-of-pocket cost to do so is minimal? Why inquire whether a procedure can be performed less expensively when it’ll be covered by insurance either way?
In no other area do we rely on insurance for routine expenses or repairs. Auto insurance doesn’t cover oil changes; no one uses homeowner’s insurance to repoint the chimney. That’s because most of us pay for those policies ourselves, and therefore get only the insurance we really need — generally against catastrophic events, like a car being stolen or a house burning down.
Only when it comes to health care do we expect insurance to cover nearly everything.
But today, people expect insurance to cover everything, even routine things like eyeglasses and dental treatment. This is a terrible idea. Insurance is a lousy way to pay for anything.
Once some faceless stranger is paying for what you do, you don’t have an incentive to control costs. On the contrary, you have an incentive to get as much as you can and leave the other person with the bill. Doctors also have an incentive to run up the bills. Patients rarely complain, but they might complain if the doctor skips a test. Insurance companies know this, of course; hence the torturous bureaucracy: the paperwork, the phone calls where you beg them to pay, the times they refuse to pay for what you thought was covered.
I can’t blame them. They’re just trying to protect themselves from fraud and hoping to have enough money left over to stay in business.
Government insurance is worse than private insurance. A private insurer has an incentive to cut costs; every dollar wasted comes out of profit or must be recovered by raising prices, which drives customers away. Government just raises taxes or increases debt.
So when our bloated government picks up the tab for poor people’s health costs, guess what it buys: Viagra! In 2004, Medicaid spent $38 million on drugs for erectile dysfunction.
Funny. I always thought one of the Left’s battle cries was for the government to stay out of the private citizen’s bedroom. Here’s a great place to start.
Social liberalism seeks to promote a “live and let live” society wherein all types of deviant behavior is tolerated and accepted. Those on the left have thrust their notion of a “civilized,” amoral society upon all of us. The fact of the matter is that “live and let live” directly contradicts the notion of communal society; we all have to abide by certain rules to live together. An amoral society minimizes the rules under which we live together; any change in those rules is bound to affect all of us.
And it has. By discarding traditional morality in favor of amoralism, we have catered to the lowest common denominator.
[…]
We have successfully defined deviancy down; the deviant is now considered normal. Meanwhile, we have defined deviancy up; the normal is now considered deviant. And the effects upon my generation — the porn generation — have been disastrous. We are apathetic about morality, and that apathy translates into nihilism and narcissism — and in the end, into generational self-destruction. Like it or not, the porn generation is the future of this country.
Senator Tom Coburn (OK-R):
One of the greatest impediments to the president’s vision of an ownership society is an inside-the-Beltway entitlement society, in which federal agencies expect ever-increasing budgets, regardless of their performance.
The Washington Times article linked above notes the creation of the “Sunset” and “Results” Commissions, which will look in to eliminating waste within, and possibly closing down, federal agencies or departments. It’s about time.
Whenever school choice programs are proposed in the United States, they face fierce opposition from critics who claim that school choice benefits mostly wealthy parents, drains money from the public system, and segregates students into racial or economic groups.
But the experiences of countries that have experimented with school choice indicate that these claims are unfounded. In most cases, the main beneficiaries have been poor families living in inner cities. In Hungary, where vouchers were introduced after the fall of communism, most new private schools have emerged in poor inner-city or rural areas, where access to good public schools is most limited.
Although private schools receive public funds on a per-child basis, they typically cost less than what the government pays to educate children in the public system. When more children choose private schools, public schools actually have more money to spend on students.
In Alberta, Canada, where children can attend either a private or public school, public schools have improved the quality and diversity of their programs. They have also focused more attention on parental satisfaction and academic outcomes. As a result, Alberta public schools continue to attract the bulk of local students.
Rather than segregate students into racial, educational, or economic groups, school choice seems to do just the opposite.