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Yes, the military is strained. Yes, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are tiring out U.S. soldiers and equipment. And yes, defense spending is dangerously low. But these facts shouldn't give our enemies hope, yet. As Peter Brookes explains, U.S. forces are more than capable enough to respond to any of the three most likely threats: Iran, China, and North Korea.
Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker has issued strong warnings to Congress about repeat deployments and their toll on the army's health and welfare. The Marines, ever reluctant to complain, concur. The Army/Marine ops tempo should give us pause. But that doesn't mean Uncle Sam can't handle another fight if necessary--thanks to the Navy and Air Force. Sure, it would be tough, but let me explain...
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In 2003, Congress decided to boost funding for Medicare Advantage plans to attract private health plans that could introduce competition into Medicare. Cuts in those payments would disadvantage millions of beneficiaries who find that Medicare Advantage meets their needs better than traditional coverage. Enrollment in all private Medicare health plans has now reached an all-time high of 8.3 million beneficiaries, up from 5.3 million in 200331 and the percentage of beneficiaries who have chosen Medicare Advantage has grown from 12.1 percent of all Medicare beneficiaries in 2004 to 19 percent this year. The added funds also increase the options available for seniors living in rural areas. As we have seen with Medicare Part D, competition among private plans leads to more choices and greater value for seniors. Competing Medicare Advantage plans are offering more choices of plans, more generous benefits, and lower cost-sharing for beneficiaries than Medicare fee-for-service. Seniors who especially value this option are those with modest incomes who do not have supplementary coverage.
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The Wall Street Journal takes a very tough line on Iran's "act of war" and recounts the Islamic republic's experience seizing Western hostages.
It is worth recalling, however, that Iran was at its most diplomatically pliant after the United States sank much of Tehran's navy after Iran tried to disrupt oil traffic in the Persian Gulf in the late 1980s. Regimes that resort to force the way Iran does tend to be respecters of it. It is also far from certain that Western military strikes against Revolutionary Guards would move the Iranian people to rally to their side: Iranians know only too well what their self-anointed leaders are capable of.
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George Santayana said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Other times, people remember the past too well and seek to relive and recreate it. Communism is the greatest killer the world has ever known, as the Black Book of Communism documents thoroughly. But, all the same, it did confer almost absolute power on those who were "more equal" than others. This, no doubt, is Hugo Chavez's model.
President Hugo Chavez announced Sunday that his government's sweeping reforms toward socialism will include the creation of "collective property." Vowing to undermine capitalism's continued influence in Venezuela during his television and radio program "Hello President," Chavez said state-financed cooperatives would operate under a new concept in which workers would share profits. "It's property that belongs to everyone and it's going to benefit everyone," said Chavez, a close ally of Cuban leader Fidel Castro whom opponents accuse of leading Venezuela toward Cuba-style communism.
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Nile Gardiner takes a very tough line on Iran's seizure of British soldiers.
Iran'€™s seizure of 15 British Navy personnel in Iraqi coastal waters last Friday is a hostile act of war that should be condemned by the UN Security Council and by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). It was in addition a clear violation of Iraq's national sovereignty that should draw a firm response from the Maliki administration. Iran must be warned by London and Washington of the political and military consequences that would result from a failure to immediately release the British prisoners.
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What's in the House's supplemental legislation besides needed funding for the troops and some political posturing? The Politico notices a few choice items.
-$5 million for tropical fish breeders and transporters for losses from a virus last year. --$25 million for spinach that growers and handlers were unable to market, up to 75 percent of their losses. --$50 million "for asbestos abatement and other improvements"€ť to the Capitol Power Plant.... --$74 million "for the payment of storage, handling, and other associated costs for the 2007 crop of peanuts to ensure proper storage of peanuts for which a loan is made."
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Israeli forces discover Russian-made weapons supplied to Hezbollah militants, by way of Syria. Unfortunately, as the Washington Times notes, this is not an isolated thing...
Last summer, Israeli forces in Lebanon found evidence that Russian-made Kornet-E and Metis-M anti-tank systems had been provided to Hezbollah. In the final hours of the war last August, at least 24 Israeli soldiers died in a fierce battle to capture the Lebanese town of Ghandouriyeh. After the Israel Defense Forces captured the village, they found Syrian-supplied hardware near a Hezbollah outpost: eight Kornet anti-tank rockets. Written beneath a contract number on each casing, the London Telegraph reported, were the words: "Customer: Ministry of Defence of Syria. Supplier: KBP, Tula, Russia." Yet Russian officials dismiss such evidence as anti-Moscow propaganda.
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Now this is really troubling...and suspicious: Just as Democrats vow to put an end to earmarking, the Congressional Research Service gives up tracking earmarks in legislation. Good thing Sen. Coburn is on the case. Too bad the congressional majority will probably do everything in its power to keep CRS our of earmark analysis.
Democrats promised reform and instituted "a moratorium" on all earmarks until the system was cleaned up. Now the appropriations committees are privately accepting pork-barrel requests again. But curiously, the scorekeeper on earmarks, the Library of Congress's Congressional Research Service (CRS)--a publicly funded, nonpartisan federal agency--has suddenly announced it will no longer respond to requests from members of Congress on the size, number or background of earmarks. "They claim it'll be transparent, but they're taking away the very data that lets us know what's really happening," says Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn. "I'm convinced the appropriations committees are flexing their muscles with CRS." ... Sen. Coburn plans to fight back. He says he will attach an amendment to every appropriations bill demanding CRS prepare a full report on the earmarks in it. "Let senators vote for secrecy and prove they don't want a transparent process or let them deliver what they promised," he says. "The choice will be theirs and the American people will be watching."
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CBPP slams Colorado's TABOR. The Independence Institute sets CBPP straight on its facts. (Microsoft Word link)
TABOR does not say that government can never raise taxes. TABOR does not fix government revenues, but it does protect citizens' incomes from careless appropriation by government. It does this by shifting power to the people who pay the taxes. Before TABOR, those who wanted a tax increase to fund a pet project had only had to ask the legislature to pass a tax increase. Since tax increases give legislators more money to distribute and insulates them from the difficulties of cost cutting, raising taxes tends to be more popular with legislators than with the average taxpayer. TABOR simply requires that tax increase proponents seek approval from those who pay taxes rather than those who spend them.
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The big two issues cited by the Administration are pork and the President's power as Commander in Chief to manage the war effort. Congress needs to send a real bill that doesn't hamper the ability to make progress in Iraq and that isn't loaded with pork to the President soon so that the troops can get the funding they need.
This legislation would substitute the mandates of Congress for the considered judgment of our military commanders. This bill assumes and forces the failure of the new strategy even before American commanders in the field are able to fully implement their plans. Regardless of the success our troops are achieving in the field, this bill would require their withdrawal. In addition, the bill could withhold resources needed to enable Iraqi Security Forces to take over missions currently conducted by American troops.... The war supplemental should remain focused on the needs of the troops and should not be used as a vehicle for added non-emergency spending and policy proposals, especially domestic proposals, that should be fully vetted and considered on their own merits, such as minimum wage, various tax proposals, and changes in contracting policy. This bill adds billions in unrequested spending that is largely unjustified and non-emergency.
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USA Today reports on a new Urban Institute study showing that spending on seniors--particularly through the big entitlement programs--is crowding out spending on children's services, such as education. The entitlement squeeze is being felt throughout the budget and will only assert itself more as the baby boomers retire. Without entitlement reform or massive, unprecedented tax hikes, entitlement spending will crowd out all other federal spending well within the lifetimes of today's young workers. Every year that Congress puts off reform is a missed opportunity in so many ways.
The spiraling cost of benefits for seniors is limiting the federal government's ability to invest in kids. Despite Democrats' plans to boost spending on education and children's health insurance, the projected $2.9 trillion federal budget's tilt toward older Americans will only increase, a study out today from the Urban Institute says. The report, which examined more than 100 federal programs for children, shows that their share of domestic spending and tax breaks has dropped from 20% in 1960 to 15.4% today. Barring a change in policy, it would decline to 13% in 2017. As a share of the nation's economy, spending on kids would go from 2.6% to 2.1%. By contrast, spending for adults only in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid ? the major programs that benefit seniors ? would rise from 7.6% to 9.5% of the economy.
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So North Korea gets $25m that had been frozen in a Macau bank at U.S. insistence. Maybe this brings us a step closer to halting North Korea's nuclear activities. Or maybe--perhaps more likely--it's the prelude to still more demands and stalling by Pyongyang.
The US said $25m of North Korean funds, which were frozen in a Macau bank amid money laundering allegations, would be transferred to an account in Beijing. The North has not yet officially commented, but had warned it would not proceed with a deal to shut its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon without the money.... But there is still a long way to go. Ahead of Monday's resumption, Pyongyang condemned joint US-South Korean military exercises set for this month, saying they were intended to "poison the atmosphere of the talks".
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John Tkacik argues that "China's intent is to challenge the U.S. as a military superpower." Looking at the kind of arsenal that China is putting together, there's good reason to believe that he's right.
China is assembling a blue-water navy, with a fleet of 29 modern submarines, including 13 super-quiet Russian-made Kilo class subs and 14 Chinese-made Song and Yuan class diesel electric submarines. At least 10 more of these submarines are in China's shipyards, together with five new nuclear ballistic missile and attack boats. China's surface fleet is also undergoing a similar modernization. China's power in the air and in space is also on the rise. The People's Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force has about 300 Russian-designed fourth-generation Sukhoi-27 Flankers and a number of Chinese-built Jian-11 planes and 76 Sukhoi-30 multi-role jets. With Russian and Israeli assistance, the PLA Air Force has acquired an additional 50 or so Jian-10 fighters based on U.S. F-16 technology, and reportedly plans to build 250 more. China's rocket forces are also expanding at an unprecedented pace, with production and deployment of short-range ballistic missiles targeted at Taiwan increasing from 50 per year during the 1990s to between 100 and 150 per year today.
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Brian Riedl and Baker Spring explain what's wrong with the supplemental. So much for all those pledges of fiscal responsibility and all the lip service about supporting the troops...
The troops in Iraq and Afghanistan--whom this legislation was originally designed for--have become merely a bargaining chip for a Congress that could never pass this additional $21 billion [in pork-barrel spending] on its own. Lawmakers are effectively telling President Bush that the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan cannot have their body armor unless Congress gets $16 million for additional office space in the House of Representatives.
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Awfully disturbing news. This shows the importance of proactive intelligence and communications in homeland security. Every piece of infrastructure in the U.S.--even a school or school bus--is a potential target, and it can't be the government's job to dole out money to harden everything. But that's the rationale of too many current homeland security grant programs. They funnel money to influential constituencies, like ports, or the targets of yesterday's terrorist plots. This isn't an efficient or effective way to make Americans safer Limited funds are better invested in building up general capabilities, such as intelligence, border security, and disaster response. Hardening every school bus in the nation isn't the way to prevent an attack.
The bulletin noted "recent suspicious activity" by foreigners who either drive school buses or are licensed to drive them, the official told The Associated Press. Foreigners under recent investigation include "some with ties to extremist groups" who have been able to "purchase buses and acquire licenses," the bulletin says.
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Reason's Jacob Sullum explains the wisdom of the D.C. Circuit Court's ruling striking down D.C.'s gun ban.
In fact, as the court's 58-page opinion shows, gun controllers are the ones who have reinterpreted the Second Amendment, finding hidden meaninglessness. They insist that "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms" guaranteed by the Second Amendment, unlike the rights of "the people" mentioned in the First, Fourth, Ninth, and 10th amendments, is not a right that belongs to people. But as the D.C. Circuit pointed out, "The Second Amendment would be an inexplicable aberration if it were not read to protect individual rights as well."... The Washington Post called this ruling "radical." I suppose it is, in the sense that it goes to the root of what the Framers wanted to protect.
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Another example of why the definition of "earmark" matters. It is too bad to see the new congressional majority break its pledge of fiscal responsibility so soon.
Members of Congress used to know an earmark when they saw one. They used the term to describe any of the favored, parochial expenditures that lawmakers might tuck into a complicated spending bill — $35 million for a Mississippi space center, for example, $25 million for spinach growers or $74 million for peanut farms.... Democrats pointed to the new rule, which defined "Congressional earmark?"as any expenditure requested by a lawmaker, intended for a specific state, district or "entity," and outside the usual administrative process. None of the three allocations qualify as an earmark, Democrats said.
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A-PLUS--a plan to restore control over education to states and localities--gains some legislative momentum.
"Our idea would allow states to enter voluntarily into a charter agreement or contract with the U.S. Department of Education, to let state and local authorities identify their education needs and priorities," Cornyn said. "A state will have the flexibility to consolidate federal education programs and funding, and redirect resources to reform initiatives developed at the state level." The House plan received an unexpectedly robust level of support?52 original sponsors, including Republican Whip Roy Blunt (R.-Mo.). Senators Sam Brownback (R.-Kan.), Mel Martinez (R.-Fla.) and Jon Kyl (R.-Ariz.) also sponsored it. That could spell bad news for Sen. Kennedy and Rep. Miller?and others hoping to continue down the path of greater federal involvement in education.
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Shocking. But isn't there a "consensus"?!
Criticisms of Mr. Gore have come not only from conservative groups and prominent skeptics of catastrophic warming, but also from rank-and-file scientists like Dr. Easterbook, who told his peers that he had no political ax to grind. A few see natural variation as more central to global warming than heat-trapping gases. Many appear to occupy a middle ground in the climate debate, seeing human activity as a serious threat but challenging what they call the extremism of both skeptics and zealots. Kevin Vranes, a climatologist at the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado, said he sensed a growing backlash against exaggeration. While praising Mr. Gore for "getting the message out," Dr. Vranes questioned whether his presentations were "śoverselling our certainty about knowing the future."
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Heritage's Brian Riedl concisely outlines the top ten myths about the Bush tax cuts. This is a particularly dogged one:
Myth 10: The tax cuts tilted toward the rich. Fact: The rich now shoulder even more of the burden. Since 2000, the share of individual income taxes paid by the bottom 40 percent of taxpayers dropped from zero to minus 4 percent -- meaning the average family in this group got a subsidy from the refundable child tax credit or earned income tax credit. The share of income taxes paid by the top fifth of taxpayers climbed from 81 percent to 85 percent.
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As this Washington Post editorial explains, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has intricately crafted a plan to put limits on the U.S. efforts in Iraq. She has taken into account lots of polling data and the concerns of the members of her party. What's left out, though, is anything to do with the situation on the ground today and U.S. interests in Iraq. The Post puts this well.
The only constituency House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ignored in her plan for amending President Bush's supplemental war funding bill are the people of the country that U.S. troops are fighting to stabilize. The Democratic proposal doesn't attempt to answer the question of why August 2008 is the right moment for the Iraqi government to lose all support from U.S. combat units. It doesn't hint at what might happen if American forces were to leave at the end of this year -- a development that would be triggered by the Iraqi government's weakness. It doesn't explain how continued U.S. interests in Iraq, which holds the world's second-largest oil reserves and a substantial cadre of al-Qaeda militants, would be protected after 2008; in fact, it may prohibit U.S. forces from returning once they leave.
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In the midst of congressional action to raise the national debt limit, Senator Barack Obama laments the impact of the move on future generations. It is a similar "failure of leadership" that has led to our long-term spending crisis. We wonder what Senator Obama has to say about that.
"Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren," Obama said. "€śAmerica has a debt problem and a failure of leadership."
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Yet another state turns to Heritage for help setting up a state-based insurance exchange to promote individual ownership of health coverage and to help small businesses cover more of their workers.
A Montana House Republican began the bill-writing process over the weekend to create a state health insurance exchange with the goal of getting virtually every Montanan covered. A bill requested by Rep. Gary MacLaren, R-Victor, would work to create a state health insurance exchange, which would work through existing private insurance companies to make insurance more accessible to individuals.... G. Brian Zins, executive vice president of the Montana Medical Association, said the organization does not have a position on MacLaren?s bill, but he said he was intrigued by Haislmaier?s presentation and thinks Montana should look into such a system. ?(Haislmaier) has a unique point,? Zins said. ?Massachussetts did this. They have a program. That?s why we brought him in. That?s why we?re looking at it.?
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The Chicago Tribune reports on the United Nations Development Programme's operations in North Korea--since suspended--that involved the direct transfer of foreign currency to the brutal Kim Jong Il regime. Doesn't this situation sound all too familiar?
The United Nations Development Programme office in Pyongyang, North Korea, sits in a Soviet-style compound. Like clockwork, a North Korean official wearing a standard-issue dark windbreaker and slacks would come to the door each business day. He would take a manila envelope stuffed with cash--a healthy portion of the UN's disbursements for aid projects in the country--and leave without ever providing receipts. According to sources at the UN, this went on for years, resulting in the transfer of up to $150 million in hard foreign currency to the Kim Jong Il government...
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A good quote by Senator DeMint in this Rob Bluey column on A-PLUS, a conservative alternative to continuing on the NCLB path.
"No Child Left Behind started with some good ideas, but what Congress didn't mess up, the bureaucracy has messed up," said DeMint, who voted against the law while serving in the House in 2001. "There is so much absurdity now within No Child Left Behind that it's going to be difficult to tweak it and fix it. We need to look at a way to allow states to get out of it in a way that would let them do it responsibly."
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A Washington Times editorial explains why Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke is worried about the long-term budget scenario and why Republicans and Democrats should be worried, too.
By 2030 the unified budget deficit would approach 9 percent of GDP (more than four times its present level); the ratio of publicly held federal debt to GDP would soar from today's 37 percent to 100 percent (and then "grow exponentially after that"); and net interest outlays would nearly triple to 4.5 percent of GDP, which is proportionately greater than today's defense budget (4 percent of GDP). These outcomes would occur under four plausible assumptions: (1) retirement and health spending follows the intermediate projections of the Congressional Budget Office, (2) defense spending declines as a share of GDP, (3) other non-interest outlays rise at the rate of GDP and (4) federal revenues remain at their historic (and current) share of GDP.
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Doesn't it seem like the American aversion to waiting and queuing--a reflection of our individuality and can-do impatience--would undermine any attempt at single-payer government-rationed health care?
The first thing to remember is there are indeed substantial waiting times for treatment in the NHS. In fact, you can look them up... Using my UK address, my local hospital quotes 23 to 54 days for cardiac surgery. You might not think that too bad but please, realize that this is not the time you will wait for treatment. This is the time between your doctor saying "You know, you really ought to see a doctor about that" and your seeing said specialist. Looking at inpatient appointments, it can be up to 148 days: very useful don't you think if you've got a dodgy heart and need surgery rather than toppling over in the street? Again, that isn't the wait for your operation: that's the one to have a bed in hospital overnight if you need a series of intrusive tests.
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A Washington Post tech columnist says the proposed XM-Sirius deal would be bad for consumers because it would undercut competition. The two satellite radio providers are, he says, the only real competition against terrestrial radio because radio over wireless data services isn't up to snuff. But consider this: Total # of Sirius and XM subscribers: 12.5 million Total # of iPods sold: 88 million As a former satellite radio subscriber who now listens to radio podcasts on his iPod, I wonder whether the Post's tech columnist isn't a couple years behind the times.
In the case of satellite radio, more is at stake than the number of channels beamed down from orbit. Competition pushed Washington-based XM and New York-based Sirius to come up with innovations in pricing (Sirius's $500 lifetime subscription fee) and products (XM's Mini-Tuner plug-in module, which lets you use one account with multiple receivers). A merger undercuts the need for further innovation.
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U.S. laws and regulations make it near impossible for the U.S. to boost its domestic energy supplies--and cut back on oil imports--by drilling in coastal waters. But the Cubans, right in our backyard, are free to do as they like.
That's right: Cuba. The island nation long has been known for its aromatic cigars and sweet rums. But after years of limited oil production on lands around Havana and in neighboring Matanzas province, Cuba is poised for a significant expansion of its oil program into the waters that separate it from the United States. And thanks to U.S. law, Cuba's drilling partners will be working closer to Florida beaches than any American company ever could.
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Kudos to Del. Nancy Stocksdale for standing up for some of the most disadvantaged in the state ? foster children. The Republican from Carroll County, a former teacher, recently filed legislation in the General Assembly to make scholarships available for foster children in kindergarten through high school. They deserve them. Everything else in their lives works against them. Shuttled from home to home, the 11,000 foster children in the state ? 7,000 in Baltimore City ? lack stability in every corner of their lives. Many move into the system from sexually and physically abusive homes where surviving trumps all other goals. The least the state can do is give them a stable learning environment.
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It is interesting to see a prominent Democrat like Spitzer pushing a school choice measure. While this tax deduction is very modetst, its encouraging that Gov. Spitzer is supporting the idea of parental choice in education.
In addition to asking for a record increase in aid for public schools, Gov. Eliot Spitzer is proposing a tax break for the parents of private school students. And that's "great news" for Catholic school parents as they cope with tuition bills, said Mary Ellen Salanger, who along with her husband, Matthew, sends three children to Broome County Catholic schools. For families considering Catholic schools, the tax break could play a role in their decision, she said.
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Wow. And much of this money was carved out of funds that otherwise could have been spent on highways, which would benefit far more Americans.
Transit has been on the slide for well more than half a century. Even though spending on public transportation has ballooned to more than seven times its 1960s levels, the percentage of people who use it to get to work fell 63 percent from 1960 to 2000 and now stands at just under 5 percent nationwide.
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This wouldn't be the first Commonwealth study on HSAs to mislead or misrepresent its conclusions. We identified a similar thing here (trumpeting negative survey results as damning HSAs when the survey was conducted before HSAs even existed) and another one here (passing off a study's assumption that HSA take-up rates will be low as the study's conclusion). Shouldn't this kind of thing dissuade media outlets from relying on Commonwealth analyses? (Via NCPA's DPD)
An executive of an upstart airline recently described her company as having three 757s, more than 200 employees, and one big headache: rising health-care costs. Thus, they made the switch to HSAs in 2006, and premiums rose just 5%, compared with a national average of over 8%. Such successes aren't making the news, but overwhelmingly negative stories are. A much reported Commonwealth Fund survey, for example, concluded that enrollment in consumer-driven plans is stagnant, people are grossly dissatisfied, and care is delayed. But the report was flawed on its face: For one, it was unrepresentative, drawn from a pool of "Internet users who have agreed to participate in research surveys.
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More evidence that we need to readjust the incentives that Americans face to save. Part of that is no doubt Social Security, which crowds out some personal savings with its inferior promises. Outside of Social Security, the automatic IRA, a solution proposed by Heritage and Brookings experts, would make saving the default position for many workers and make it easier for firms to help their workers save. The latest personal savings numbers show how the great relevancy of such innovative solutions.
The Commerce Department reported Thursday that the savings rate for all of 2006 was a negative 1 percent, meaning that not only did people spend all the money they earned but they also dipped into savings or increased borrowing to finance purchases. The 2006 figure was lower than a negative 0.4 percent in 2005 and was the poorest showing since a negative 1.5 percent savings rate in 1933 during the Great Depression.
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Capital gains revenues are way up--well above CBO and JCT projections. The culprit? The Bush tax cuts.
The lower capital gains tax has raised stock values by raising the after-tax return on capital investment. It has also given stock owners a greater incentive to sell their shares, and then reinvest the proceeds, because the tax penalty on these transactions is lower. Class warriors like Mr. Webb often forget that the capital gains tax is voluntary. Investors can defer paying the tax for years by holding on to their stock. This creates what is called the "lock-in effect" that deters an efficient allocation of investment capital.
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A man worthy of study, reflection, and celebration.
Dr. Milton Friedman was perhaps the most influential economist of the 20th Century, and the impact of his ideas will extend far into the future. To honor the man, January 29th is declared as Milton Friedman Day – a celebration of the economist's positive impact on American life and business, and the spread of the benefits of free markets to nations around the globe. Milton Friedman Day will include a host of activities, including a "Day of National Debate"€ť at universities across the country, a live online discussion on The Economist'€™s Free Exchange blog, and the premiere of the PBS special, "€śThe Power of Choice: The Life and Ideas of Milton Friedman" (check local listings), among other events.
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Holocaust denial is alive and well in some parts of the world, as evidenced by a vote last week on a U.S.-proposed UN resolution that "condemns without reservation any denial of the Holocaust."
But who is refusing to learn from the mass slaughter? Who voiced objections to the UN resolution and who opposed it? Those who do not wish to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Unsurprisingly, Iran made a strong statement against the resolution, focusing instead on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the treatment of the Palestinians. None of the Arab nations, and most Muslim countries refused to co-sponsor.
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As Justice Brandeis wrote, "It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country." This strategy served the U.S. so well in welfare reform. Now it's time to rely on it once again for the day's most pressing issue: health care reform and the uninsured. In an insightful editorial, the Examiner makes this point:
In the interim, however, we think states should be freed and encouraged to reform their systems--and potentially serve as a model for the federal government. The bipartisan Health Partnership Act, introduced earlier this month in the Senate with a House counterpart, would do just that.... The approach has been used before. It mirrors pre-welfare-reform legislation waivers that were granted to individual states, including Wisconsin. So what became welfare reform at the federal level essentially was tested in Wisconsin.
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Our apologies.
The CBO does show how the budget could be in balance - indeed, have a surplus of $170 billion, in 2012 - but in ways that are politically impossible and economically improbable. But as killjoys like the Heritage Foundation like to point out, this is basically meaningless without reform of the major off-budget entitlements, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The big three are expected to grow $367 billion by 2012, meaning all other federal spending would have to be cut by $71 billion to achieve balance.
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The proposal to force doctors and other health care workers to move to electronic records has been on the table for some time. Initiatives like this, however, show that market forces can organically grow a solution. In this case, e-prescriptions may prove a foot in the door for e-records, the Holy Grail. If Congress wants to speed that process along, rather than enact new mandates, it should think about how to structure a market in medical data that gives patients ownership rights and provides medical providers with incentives to create e-records and use the data from them appropriately and fruitfully. Successful e-prescriptions will demonstrate that the market is well-equipped to provide these services.
To address the problem--€”and give the push for electronic medical records a shove--a coalition of health care companies and technology firms will launch a program Tuesday to enable all doctors in the U.S. to write electronic prescriptions for free. The National e-prescribing Patient Safety Initiative (NEPSI) will offer doctors access to eRx Now, a Web-based tool that physicians can use to write prescriptions electronically, check for potentially harmful drug interactions and ensure that pharmacies provide appropriate medications and dosages.
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The U.S. is seeking 104 sponsors out of the 192 UN General Assembly members. Which countries step forward will say a lot about worldwide freedom and the state of anti-Semitism around the world and within the UN, where anti-Israel resolutions appear with an unusual regularity.
The United States introduced a U.N. resolution on Tuesday condemning denials of the Holocaust, weeks after Iran sponsored a meeting dominated by speakers questioning the extermination of 6 million Jews in World War Two. Nearly 40 nations so far are sponsoring the resolution in the 192-member General Assembly, mainly in all parts of Europe, from Russia to Britain as well as Israel, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. The United States and its allies hope for a vote in the General Assembly on Friday.
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A groups called the National Sexual Violence Resource Center role is to "?identif[y] and disseminate[] information, resources, and research on all aspects of sexual violence prevention and intervention." It is a Centers for Disease Control grantee. It is also a big source of spin and apparent fabrications in the Duke lacrosse case. K.C. Johnson debunks NSRVC's puzzling "talking points" for "victims' rights" advocates and reveals what strange propaganda U.S. taxpayers may be funding.
The NSVRC itself obtains part of its funds from the federal government, through a grant from the Center for Disease Control... [P]osting inaccuracy-laced material such as Murphy?s undermines the [victims' rights] movement's credibility. How could anyone who has closely followed this case hereafter trust any statement from the NSVRC, knowing that the organization disseminated Murphy?s "talking points"? As for the Centers for Disease Control, perhaps it would be worth knowing how the federal government could, even indirectly, be funding the dissemination of Murphy's assertions on the case.
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The President's complete State of the Union policy agenda. We're especially looking forward to proposals for health care and spending reform.
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Richard Bennett explains why "net neutrality" would be a step backwards for the deployment of innovative network services. He also makes the point that, so far as we know, it's basically unneeded.
In the name of opening up the Internet for big content, the 'Net Neutrality' bills criminalize good network management and business practices. Why can't we have more than one service class on the Internet?... If we're honest, we don't know how to regulate the internet at a technical level. But we should stop pretending it's a telephone network, and see how it handles packets. The 'net neutrality' lobby is saying all packets are equal - but that's unsound and even inconsistent with common carrier law. There's nothing to stop a transport offering different service levels for different prices. They all seem to be worried that ISPs have secret plan to sell top rank - to pick a search engine that loads faster than anyone else's. But it's not clear that a), anyone has done that; b), that it's technically achievable; or c) that it is necessarily abusive; or d) that their customers would stand for it.
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It's a clever slogan, to be sure, but a slogan does not make an argument--especially when straightforward market economics and the status quo cut against it.
With the exception of Google's man in Washington DC, Vint Cerf (with whom Kahn developed TCP/IP), most of the senior engineers responsible for developing the packet switched internetworking of today oppose "Neutrality" legislation. Dave Farber, often called the grandfather of the internet, has been the most prominent critic. Engineers fear rash legislation would inhibit the ability of systems engineers to improve latency and jitter issues needed to move data at speed. "The internet is still pretty fragile today," said Kahn.
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The Washington Post strongly endorses the President's proposal to change the tax treatment of health coverage.
At present, people who get health insurance from employers pay no tax on the value of the benefit. Someone with a marginal tax rate of 35 percent and a generous insurance policy worth $20,000 a year gets a $7,000 tax break. But people who buy insurance on the individual market must usually do so with post-tax dollars, so their tax break is normally zero. The administration proposes to eliminate that unfairness by giving salaried workers and freelancers the same tax deduction.
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A sobering thought.
On Jan. 1, 2008 -- less than one year away -- the oldest member of the post-World War II generation will celebrate her 62nd birthday, opt for early retirement, quietly deposit the first Social Security check issued to a Boomer into her bank account, and the long national fiscal nightmare will begin. Three years later she will turn 65 and enroll in Medicare, the fiscal equivalent of riding downhill with no brakes.... Between now and 2030, the number of Americans age 65 and over will nearly double, from 40 million to 78 million.
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Unpack the story, and the alleged tax hikes are not what they seem. Yes, some workers with especially generous insurance plans--those costing about $4,000 more per year than the average family plan--would face tax increases. But even those facing potential tax hikes may be able to move to the individual market and, using the proposed tax deduction, reduce or eliminate the higher taxes. And in addition, millions of workers would gain the power to purchase affordable health insurance that is now denied to them because their employers do not pay for it. This sort of equal treatment would give all Americans choices about what sort of coverage they want--a far better state of affairs that today's prevalent one-size-fits-all employer-sponsored options and government programs.
About 30 million Americans could face a tax hike under President George W. Bush's plan to expand health insurance coverage and address rising health care costs, the White House said on Monday.
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But the president’s plan is solid. If enacted, it would be the boldest free-market health-care reform ever, and the biggest step toward tax reform in years.
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The Houston Chronicle looks at the current state of certainty in climate science. It's not nearly so strong as some radical environmentalist groups and politicians argue and as the press often reports. This makes sense in terms of sensationalism perhaps more than any political agenda: Would a story about a couple-degree rise in temperatures really capture the public imagination?
In their efforts to capture the public's attention, then, have climate scientists oversold global warming? It's probably not a majority view, but a few climate scientists are beginning to question whether some dire predictions push the science too far. "Some of us are wondering if we have created a monster," says Kevin Vranes, a climate scientist at the University of Colorado. Vranes, who is not considered a global warming skeptic by his peers, came to this conclusion after attending an American Geophysical Union meeting last month. Vranes says he detected "tension" among scientists, notably because projections of the future climate carry uncertainties — a point that hasn't been fully communicated to the public.
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According to a recent poll most Arizonans support school choice. There was no funny business in this poll. Prepared for the Alliance for School Choice, the poll asked if respondents supported or opposed school vouchers, and explained vouchers in plain language: vouchers are ?funded by the government, private organizations, or by some combination of both,? and provide money to parents ?to select which public or private schools they would like their children to attend.?
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Michael Medved effectively rebuts the New York Times's surprising and apparently inaccurate analysis on marriage.
According to the most recent available figures (from 2005), a clear majority (56%) of all women over the age of 20 are currently married. Moreover, nearly all women in this country will get married at one time or another. Among those above the age of 50 (a group that includes the celebrated Baby Boomers of the famously revolutionary ?60?s generation), an astonishing 94% have been married at one time or another and some 79% are either currently married or widowed. Even including the younger, supposedly ?post-marriage? generation, and considering all women above the age of 30, some 61% are currently married and another 12% are widowed. In other words, nearly three-fourths (73%, a crushing majority) of all women who have reached the tender age of 30 now occupy a traditional female role as either current wives or widows ? avoiding the supposedly trendy status of divorced, separated, co-habiting or single.
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Mike Franc offers a preview of the President's State of the Union Address scheduled for next Tuesday. Actually, it's more of a scorecard for what conservatives should expect of the President. Entitlements and taxes are the big domestic issues on the table. Winning the long war on terrorism dominates foreign policy.
President Bush should focus his State of the Union speech on the two policy challenges that will define his legacy and the legacies of those now serving in Congress: winning the War on Terror and meeting the fiscal challenge posed by the looming retirements of the Baby Boom generation. With respect to the Baby Boomer retirements, the question is how to meet the income and health-care needs of 77 million retired boomers without jeopardizing our prosperity or the security of our nation. To do this, the President must define very clearly just how dangerous it will be if we do nothing to alter the fiscal trajectory of the Big Three entitlement programs (Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security).
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So we've had a warm winter. Many meteorologists have used this as grist to talk about global warming. While they might favor this sort of discussion, not even the scientists who argue most forcefully that we must act to combat global warming believe that the recent warm spell is due primarily to it. A weather forecaster makes this point:
I have been in operational meteorology since 1978, and I know dozens and dozens of broadcast meteorologists all over the country. Our big job: look at a large volume of raw data and come up with a public weather forecast for the next seven days. I do not know of a single TV meteorologist who buys into the man-made global warming hype. I know there must be a few out there, but I can't find them.
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Dick Armey finds great fault in congressional Democrats' pay-as-you-go budgeting proposal.
Over time, that commitment to spending discipline was replaced by a commitment to get re-elected at any cost -- and new spending records were set. The Democrats now in charge have promised, to quote Nancy Pelosi, "no new deficit spending, no new bridges to nowhere." But deficit spending is caused by too much spending -- and under the House Democrats' paygo rule, entitlement spending, the lion's share of the federal budget, will grow unabated, as will the massive unfunded liabilities of Medicare and Social Security (currently approaching $70 trillion), which are not acknowledged under existing budgeting practices. Meanwhile, there are no enforceable caps on domestic discretionary spending -- and thus earmarks, even if restrained as promised, will do next to nothing to promote deficit reduction. Social Security reforms that turn empty promises into personally owned accounts -- real assets for retirement -- cannot be funded under paygo without massive tax increases or deep reductions in promised benefits. In effect, paygo makes serious entitlement reform politically impossible without a word of debate. Meanwhile, as surplus payroll tax dollars currently diverted into other spending programs continue to disappear, the pressure on the deficit will become insurmountable.
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Remember the current congressional majority's professed crusade against reckless spending and wasteful pork-barrel projects? Senator Byrd, self-professed "Pork King" and the first Member to obtain more than $1 billion for his (still poor) state, says that's all coming to an end.
[W.V.] Transportation Secretary Paul Mattox said Wednesday he misspoke when telling senators the day before the state would lose more than $100 million in federal road-building funds. U.S. Sens. Robert C. Byrd and Jay Rockefeller, both D-W.Va., let Mattox know the slightly more than $110 million has already been secured in the federal budget. In addition, Byrd's office explained that sometime in the summer, after first getting a hand on appropriations made by Republicans prior to the Democratic Senate takeover in November, earmarking funds for specific road projects will again take place.
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Will China's apparent new capability to knock out satellites change the minds of those who would deny the United States similar weapons and capabilities?
Details emerging from space sources indicate that the Chinese Feng Yun 1C (FY-1C) polar orbit weather satellite launched in 1999 was attacked by an asat system launched from or near the Xichang Space Center. The attack is believed to have occurred as the weather satellite flew at 530 mi. altitude 4 deg. west of Xichang located in Sichuan province. Xichang is a major Chinese space launch center.
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Reuters' account makes it sound like the Fed chief is ambivalent about raising taxes and letting the size of government increase versus reforming entitlements. But he is not, as this section of his testimony today makes clear:
First, the budget deficit by itself does not measure the quantity of resources that the government is taking from the private sector. An economy in which the government budget is balanced but in which government spending equals 20 percent of GDP is very different from one in which the government's budget is balanced but its spending is 40 percent of GDP, as the latter economy has both higher tax rates and a greater role for the government. Monitoring current and prospective levels of total government outlays relative to GDP or a similar indicator would help the Congress ensure that the overall size of the government relative to the economy is consistent with members' views and preferences.
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The Federal Reserve Chairman tells Congress what it needs to do to stave off the looming fiscal crisis. Reforming entitlements is necessary. Public awareness of the issue is rising fast. Will Congress listen to Bernanke and the growing grassroots concern his comments represent?
Left unchecked, the costs of so-called entitlement programs, such as Social Security and Medicare, are set to soar as increasing numbers of the baby boom generation retire. "Dealing with the resulting fiscal strains will pose difficult choices for the Congress, the administration, and the American people," Bernanke said. "However, if early and meaningful action is not taken, the U.S. economy could be seriously weakened, with future generations bearing much of the cost," he added.
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Cato's Neal McCluskey makes an excellent point on federal aid to college students:
According to data from the College Board, inflation-adjusted aid per full-time equivalent student grew to $10,113 in 2005-06 from $4,108 in 1985-86, a 146 percent jump that more than doubled the rate of cost increases and greatly inflated students' purchasing power. The result: "They want tuition increases to be basically nonexistent," Tulane University president Scott S. Cowen explained in November about many parents and students, "yet they want Jacuzzis in the dorms, small classes, and a number of other things. What gets lost on them is that these things cost money."... Which brings us back to the obvious: A fundamental cause of skyrocketing college costs is that student aid has simply been far too cheap and plentiful, pushing demand ever higher and allowing colleges to charge ever-more exorbitant prices.
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Some tech-heads say the government should strongarm ISPs into providing unlimited, unfettered, unthrottled service to Internet users, no matter what the costs to the ISP or to its other customers. With this kind of regulation, which seems favored by the current FCC, consumers might face price hikes due to bandwidth-intensive services that they do not use themselves; higher prices for integrated services, such a VOIP or IPTV, that ISPs; and no quality-of-service guarantees for priority services, such as VOIP or real-time video. But Bram Cohen, creator of the popular and innovative Bittorrent p2p protocol, has a better solution:
Switch. Competition is the best thing for the consumer. If you'€™ve got a couple of options, try the alternatives. If you have no alternatives or both alternatives suck, call customer service. And call them a lot. It turns out that angry customers are more expensive to ISPs than providing unadulterated access to popular applications and websites.
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Cutting narrow tax breaks is an interesting proposal but really only for the purpose of tax simplification. On the one hand, cutting these narrow breaks will reduce the bad incentives the muddled tax code now inflicts on Americans--such as employer-controlled health coverage. On the other, spending the additional revenue on new government programs--especially in the wake of years of major budget growth--would be a folly. The best solution, then, is revenue-neutral simplification or even an overall reduction in the tax burden. Simplification needs to be decoupled from the urge to fund yet more government programs that cause the same distortionary impacts as the too-complex tax code. Spending is the big problem now, and increasing it makes the problem worse. We need a better tax code, but that doesn't mean we need higher taxes and more spending.
The first step should be capping a number of existing tax breaks. Capping two of the largest breaks -- the home mortgage interest deduction and the exclusion for employer-provided healthcare, would easily provide over $50 billion a year in savings. Both of these changes would reduce the large subsidies that go to the highest earners while freeing up resources. Getting rid of a host of other tax breaks that subsidize certain businesses or industries could easily generate another $25 billion. A thorough review of the over 150 existing tax expenditures to determine which ones have outlived their usefulness would yield still more in savings. As Democrats search for ways to offset the costs of their new agenda, reducing the $800 billion tax loophole would be an excellent place to start.
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Very interesting. Jack Schaefer calls for an end to the FCC. Feasible? Looks like it. Politically practicable? We're not so confident.
Technology alone can't bring the spectrum feast to entrepreneurs and consumers. More capitalism—not less—charts the path to abundance. Hazlett and others, going back to economist Ronald H. Coase in 1959, have advocated the establishment of spectrum property rights and would leave it to the market to reallocate the airwaves to the highest bidders. Such a price system would tend to encourage the further expansion of spectrum capacity. Owners would be allowed to repurpose the spectrum they owned—using, say, AM radio frequencies to carry pictures—as long as they didn't interfere with the spectrum of others. Companies in control of spectrum would even be free to subdivide their frequencies and rent it out to customers by the minute for the broadcast and reception of data.
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Could there be any clearer example of the earmark-driven culture of cronyism?
The $450,000 of federal grant money that a grand jury charged former Mayor Jim Hayes and his wife, Chris, with misusing came from congressional earmarks provided by their longtime friend, Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska. Stevens provided almost $2.9 million over five years in congressional earmarks for the LOVE Social Services youth program that Chris Hayes managed and Jim Hayes helped found and guide.... The Hayes? son, James, went to work for Stevens in his Fairbanks office in the 1990s. Stevens then hired him as an aide in Washington, D.C., in 1999. The younger Hayes stayed at Stevens? home for a time after arriving. He earned his law degree while working as a Senate Appropriations Committee aide, but left Stevens' staff when the Alaska senator stepped down from the chairmanship of that committee in early 2005.
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Let's say the Rabbi's explanation below for a recent wave of violence in L.A. isn't exactly convincing. Fortunately, the city plans "g a renewed crackdown on gangs," albeit "particularly those responsible for hate-related crimes." Violent street gangs motivated by other urges will apparently face less scrutiny.
Rabbi Allen Freehling, executive director of the Los Angeles Human Relations Commission, a group created after the 1965 riots, said the recent growth in hate crimes reflected a failure by government and community leaders to prepare residents for socioeconomic changes in many neighborhoods, "€śand therefore people have a tendency to lash out, out of desperation."
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Mayor Bloomberg seeks to cut New Yorkers' property taxes and the sales taxes that they pay on certain goods. The cuts would be far, far less than the tax hikes that the mayor pushed through in his first term. The key issue here is incentives. First, keeping government spending down via tax cuts is a good in itself. Second, families should be able to keep more of their money--they can put it to better use than the government. Third, tax cuts may alter economic incentives, such as for working, in ways that make us all better off, such as by increasing economic growth or spurring job creation. As to the first, sure, Bloomberg's proposal would deny the city government a small bit of money. Concomitantly, New Yorkers who own homes (generally the relatively wealthier ones) would get to keep a bit more money. But what about incentives? The housing market in New York is already tight, and so this small cut is unlikely to spur much growth there. It won't affect the incentives on work or investment or other productive behavior either. Finally, those buying property will see the tax cut--if it is made permanent--factored into home prices as the prices of houses rise in response to the tax cut. Tax cuts, generally, are good but they vary tremendously in their worth. These appear to be small potatoes.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is proposing to cut property taxes by roughly 5 percent and eliminate the city sales tax on clothing and footwear as New York enjoys the bounty from its booming economy and real estate market, city officials said yesterday. Mr. Bloomberg plans to outline his proposals today in his annual address to the City Council. The property tax cuts, which would be in addition to an existing $400 annual rebate for homeowners, would apply for at least the next fiscal year, aides said, while the sales tax cuts would be permanent. The entire tax relief package, which also includes measures meant to benefit small businesses, would consume $1 billion of the city?s $55 billion budget.
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In the regulatory world, telephones and cable are often considered separate industries, and this assumption informs the limits placed upon them. The "net neutrality" debate, for example, focuses unduly on telecoms firms without considering other IP-service providers. But when markets turn out to be more competitive than imagined, extra regulation does more to raise prices and reduce flexibility and innovation than to help consumers. As the Journal reports (quoted below), cable and phone companies, among others, are engaged in a major war, with many large skirmishes, to out-compete one another by providing customers with the services they want at good prices. (War is not exactly the right metaphor because probably none will win decisively.) Whether a provider uses a coaxial cable, twisted pair, or some other wire or transmission medium matters less than ever before. It just doesn't make sense to assume that these players aren't in the same market; if any of them acted that way, they'd be out of business in a flash. What makes things like "net neutrality" so frustrating is that its proponents have such a simple view of markets, market boundaries, and the nature of competition. Maybe that made sense under Ma Bell, two decades ago. But boundaries are breaking down, and these old assumptions--e.g., that a government-sanctioned monopoly phone company owns and dominates the only wire into the house--need to be swept away because they no longer apply.
Operators such as Cablevision and Time Warner Inc., using networks originally designed for transmitting television signals, are making major pushes to offer packages of phone, TV and high-speed Internet service to small and midsize businesses, often undercutting local phone companies' prices. Comcast Corp., the country's largest cable operator by number of subscribers, says offering services geared to small and midsize businesses will be its top new priority of 2007 and 2008. Telecom companies sell all business customers about $115 billion of services annually, but most cable operators have their eye on businesses with one to 100 employees, currently a $25 billion market, cable executives say. Cable operators are hopeful they can carve out as much as a 20% market share partly by convincing business owners who take broadband service at home that it will work just as well, and for less money, at their offices. They claim they can do this with discount pricing and better service, although phone company executives have started to improve their own offerings to counter the threat.
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The market-driven pace of technological advancement and refinement never fails to amaze. Back in 1986-87, a 20-megabyte drive was the height of luxury. The latest drives are 52,428.8 times that size, a bit smaller, significantly faster, and significantly more reliable. And they're also less expensive, even in nominal terms. As the Journal notes, competition is what makes this happen.
Earlier this month, disk-drive maker Hitachi announced that it would soon be shipping a terabyte-capacity disk drive. Seagate, another big drive maker, quickly followed with its own announcement. A terabyte is 1,000 (actually, 1,024) gigabytes; the PC on your desk probably has 100 or so gigabytes in it; the biggest iPod nano has eight gigabytes. The new top-of-the-line terabyte drives are expected to cost around $400 at first -- in other words, what top-of-the-line disk drives have lately tended to cost, regardless of capacity.
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Expect the "media consolidation" loonies to come out of the woodwork on this one. But as the article notes, Sirius and XM face great competitive challenges that extend far beyond the satellite radio market. Also: - Satellite radio is a consumer option that didn't even exist a few years ago so having it at all still broadens the market for consumers' listening attention;
- The alternative may be one or the other exiting permanently--in other words, a somewhat worse result for consumers than a merger;
- Satellite radio is hardly an essential service that requires extensive government regulation; if it didn't exist at all, consumers would be worse off, but not in a way that would demand public action; and
- Economies of scale are likely for a variety of reasons; because the market for listener attention is so broad, these economies would likely lead to lower prices on satellite radios and satellite radio service.
Whatever happens, the FCC and DOJ should keep their hands off for the benefit of us all--except, of course, satellite radio's competitors, like terrestrial radio stations.
Winning approval for any deal, from both the FCC and the Justice Department, may rest in persuading regulators that the two companies face many more competitors than just each other. Competing technologies that have helped damp satellite radio's growth -- like iPods, podcasts and Internet radio -- may give the companies ammunition to persuade regulators that a merger of the only two satellite-radio players isn't a threat to competition.
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Raising of lifting the tax cap has to be taken off the table. It's bad for businesses, bad for workers, and especially bad for entrepreneurs and the self-employed. And for all that, it wouldn't even do much to address Social Security's coming fiscal shortfalls and drain on the budget. Serious people do not put this forward as a solution to Social Security's woes.
Here'€™s the problem with such scenarios: Eliminating the cap only delays the crisis about six years, according to the Social Security Administration's actuary. Instead of rupturing in 2017 as now projected, Social Security would rupture in 2024. The interim costs would be extremely painful, especially for the estimated 10 million Americans whose annual take-home pay would be reduced on average nearly $5,000 and the legions of small-business owners and self-employed people whose taxes and operating costs would spike. A recent Heritage Foundation econometric study projected 1.1 million lost jobs during the decade after the cap is removed.
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Protectionism in action. States say they're concerned about citizens' health care options and affordability, and some states are even working to offer socialist-style health coverage plans that provide low-income families with drug benefits. But let the market lower prices at no cost to taxpayers? Forget about it!
In an effort to protect retail pharmacies, a number of states are questioning whether Wal-Mart’s low-cost generic drug program violates their laws against unfair competition. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. announced last September that it would sell 291 generic drugs for $4 a prescription in the Tampa area at Wal-Mart, Neighborhood Market, and Sam's Club pharmacies. The Bentonville, Ark. company shortly thereafter announced the expansion of the program to all states and to 331 generics. According to published reports, however, several states have challenged the program. Wal-Mart has acquiesced to a certain degree to some states, agreeing to raise the price of 56 of the 331 generic drugs from $4 to $9 in California, Colorado, Hawaii, Minnesota, Montana, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
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The new House Speaker seems to understand that a higher minimum wage is bad for business, but that won't stop the new congressional majority from inflicting it on the country.
The House last week whooped through an increase in the minimum wage to $7.25, by a vote of 315-116. But, lo, included as part of this boon to the working man was a loophole: The new, higher wage floor applied to all of these United States and its territories -- save for the Pacific outpost of American Samoa. In the immortal words of Congressman Patrick McHenry (R., N.C.), "There's something fishy going on here." It turns out that American Samoa has a big fish and tuna canning industry, specifically operations run by StarKist and Chicken of the Sea. Both companies are headquartered in California, and StarKist's parent is located in none other than Ms. Pelosi's own San Francisco district.
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The numbers don't lie. Find the new Index here.
This good news for human progress is documented in the 2007 Heritage Foundation/The Wall Street Journal 2007 Index of Economic Freedom, released today. Neither another year of Islamic terrorism, nor record high oil prices, nor fear mongering on Capitol Hill about the China peril have been able to reverse a gradual global shift that reflects the basic human longing for individual liberty. While not all of mankind is participating in this advance, in those places where freedom has increased, people are becoming decidedly better off.
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Sometimes it's too easy for politicians to conflate apples with oranges unchallenged.
Furthermore, the basic idea that cutting student-loan interest rates will "€śmake college more accessible"€ť makes no sense. College affordability depends on family income and financial aid availability, relative to tuition and fees. The interest rate doesn't matter until after graduation when repayment begins. For a low-income student facing a $4,000 federal borrowing cap and an $8,000 tuition bill, lowering the post-graduation interest rate from 6.8 percent to 3.4 percent does nothing to help afford tuition today.
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A bad-faith rejection of a good-faith offer of debate. Murphy's actions do not speak well of his cause or institution.
One of the TJN's best-known leaders, Richard Murphy of Britain, recently chided an official of the Isle of Jersey (a low-tax jurisdiction) for refusing his offer of a debate. Whereupon, Dan Mitchell, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a highly regarded tax economist, challenged Mr. Murphy to a debate. Mr. Murphy initially agreed, but demanded Mr. Mitchell debate in London or Jersey (Isle of), and pay all of the expenses for the debate, including Mr. Murphy's. Mr. Mitchell agreed, and then Mr. Murphy reneged -- with the laughable excuse that Mr. Mitchell had not provided him with private financial information about thousands of
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