WSJ.com - A 'Conservative Problem-Solver'

I continue to be completely undecided in the GOP primary race, and this article is not my endorsement.  However, Huntsman is a player we should be familiar with, and I believe he’ll be competitive in this race.

WSJ.com - Opinion: A 'Conservative Problem-Solver'

 

No Republican presidential candidate stirs more curiosity than Jon Huntsman. "What about Huntsman?" You hear it all the time. Who is Jon Huntsman and where is he coming from?

If there's a short version of Mr. Huntsman's core message, it is that America needs to start competing again, and aggressively, in the global marketplace.

Jon Huntsman, a discursive talker, brings a lot to the table. What remains to be seen is how he presents it all in a way Republican voters will want to buy. He's been pegged as the man running toward the middle—with past positions in favor of cap-and-trade regimes (now repudiated) and gay civil unions. But to win, he still has to pull votes from the conservative base. How?

"When people look at what we've done," he says, "they're going to say, 'He's a conservative problem solver.' I'm going to point people in the direction of what we've done as governor. I'm pro-life, strongly pro-Second Amendment. I think there are enough voters who will say, 'I may not like everything, but there's enough here to like.'"

 

 

 

WSJ.com - The Food-Stamp Crime Wave

WSJ.com - Opinion: The Food-Stamp Crime Wave

 

Millionaires are now legally entitled to collect food stamps as long as they have little or no monthly income. Thirty-five states have abolished asset tests for most food-stamp recipients. These and similar "paperwork reduction" reforms advocated by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) are turning the food-stamp program into a magnet for abuses and absurdities.

The Obama administration is far more enthusiastic about boosting food-stamp enrollment than about preventing fraud. Thanks in part to vigorous federally funded campaigns by organizations urging people to accept government handouts, the number of food-stamp recipients has soared to 44 million from 26 million in 2007, and costs have more than doubled to $77 billion from $33 billion.

Lax attitudes toward fraud are spurring swindles across the nation…  Looser federal rules are spurring a bureaucratic crime wave.

The explosion in the number of food-stamp recipients tilts the political playing field in favor of big government. The more people who become government dependents, the more likely that democracy will become a conspiracy against self-reliance.

 

 

 

WSJ.com - Obama vs. ATMs: Why Technology Doesn't Destroy Jobs

 

WSJ.com - Opinion: Obama vs. ATMs: Why Technology Doesn't Destroy Jobs

 

The story goes that Milton Friedman was once taken to see a massive government project somewhere in Asia. Thousands of workers using shovels were building a canal. Friedman was puzzled. Why weren't there any excavators or any mechanized earth-moving equipment? A government official explained that using shovels created more jobs. Friedman's response: "Then why not use spoons instead of shovels?"

Businesses relentlessly look for ways to replace workers with machines. The machines get better and smarter. We go from spoons to shovels to excavators, not the other way around.  The president calls this a structural issue—we usually call it progress.

But should we call this progress? In a sense it sounds like a deal with the devil. Replace workers with machines in the name of lower costs. Profits rise. Repeat. It's a wonder unemployment is only 9.1%. Shouldn't the economy put people ahead of profits?

Well, it does. The savings from higher productivity don't just go to the owners of the textile factory or the mega hen house who now have lower costs of doing business. Lower costs don't always mean higher profits. Or not for long. Those lower costs lead to lower prices as businesses compete with each other to appeal to consumers.

The result is a higher standard of living for consumers. The average worker has to work fewer and fewer hours to earn enough money to buy a dozen eggs or a pair of shoes or a flat-screen TV or a new car that's safer and gets better mileage than the cars of yesteryear. That higher standard of living comes from technology. It isn't just the rich who get cheaper TVs and cars, plus the convenience of using an ATM at midnight.

 

 

WSJ.com - Don't Know Much About History

I love history, and agree that my grade school education did a poor job teaching it to me.  Luckily I had parents that dragged me to many historic sites and I picked up some glimmers of understanding.  I think my love of history didn’t really set in until I started to realize how much better I understand my world today by understanding history.  

 

WSJ.com - Opinion: Don't Know Much About History

 

The popular historian David McCullough says textbooks have become 'so politically correct as to be comic.' Meanwhile, the likes of Thomas Edison get little attention.

'We're raising young people who are, by and large, historically illiterate.  I know how much these young people—even at the most esteemed institutions of higher learning—don't know." Slowly, he shakes his head in dismay. "It's shocking."

He's right. This week, the Department of Education released the 2010 National Assessment of Educational Progress, which found that only 12% of high-school seniors have a firm grasp of our nation's history. And consider: Just 2% of those students understand the significance of Brown v. Board of Education.

Mr. McCullough began worrying about the history gap some 20 years ago, when a college sophomore approached him after an appearance at "a very good university in the Midwest." She thanked him for coming and admitted, "Until I heard your talk this morning, I never realized the original 13 colonies were all on the East Coast." Remembering the incident, Mr. McCullough's snow-white eyebrows curl in pain. "I thought, 'What have we been doing so wrong that this obviously bright young woman could get this far and not know that?'"

Answer: We've been teaching history poorly. And Mr. McCullough wants us to amend our ways.

One problem is personnel. "People who come out of college with a degree in education and not a degree in a subject are severely handicapped in their capacity to teach effectively," Mr. McCullough argues. "Because they're often assigned to teach subjects about which they know little or nothing." The great teachers love what they're teaching, he says, and "you can't love something you don't know anymore than you can love someone you don't know."

Another problem is method. "History is often taught in categories—women's history, African American history, environmental history—so that many of the students have no sense of chronology. They have no idea what followed what."

What's more, many textbooks have become "so politically correct as to be comic. Very minor characters that are currently fashionable are given considerable space, whereas people of major consequence farther back"—such as, say, Thomas Edison—"are given very little space or none at all."

 

 

 

WSJ.com - The Secret of Dads' Success

In honor of the Fathers out there (and with a big THANKS for mine)!

 

WSJ.com - The Secret of Dads' Success

 

As an estimated 70.1 million fathers prepare to celebrate Father's Day in the U.S., recent research shows that their distinct style of parenting is particularly worth recognition: The way dads tend to interact has long-term benefits for kids, independent of those linked to good mothering.

Beyond rough-and-tumble play, men tend to challenge crying or whining children to use words to express themselves. Men are more likely to startle their offspring, making faces or sneaking up on them to play.

The benefits of involved fathering are known: improved cognitive skills, fewer behavioral problems among school-age children, less delinquency among teenage b oys and fewer psychological problems in young women…

 

 

 

WSJ.com - A Welfare State or a Start-Up Nation?

 

WSJ.com - Opinion: A Welfare State or a Start-Up Nation?

 

Who you vote for in the next election will largely be determined by how you answer the following question: Should we encourage more productive use of resources or more social welfare? Higher taxes to support a larger welfare state means a larger share of national resources pay for a Medicare system that everyone recognizes as expensive and inefficient. More spending reduction, especially for Medicare and Medicaid, allows a more productive use of resources for growth.

Capitalist development and open economies lifted vastly more people out of poverty in a decade than welfare state policies had achieved in 50 years.  The welfare of the citizens—poor, middle-class and wealthy—is best improved by using resources more productively.

After one generation, a one percentage point difference in growth rate becomes a 25% difference in per-capita income. Low growth significantly lowers real wages and living standards for everyone, which in turn lessens tax receipts and resources for redistribution.

Mr. Obama and his followers claim they want a solution that is "fair." Why is it fair to distribute more welfare to today's voters at the expense of their children and grandchildren who will pay for this less productive use of resources? This is the same "fair" approach that Europeans chose decades ago, and which led to chronic low growth and high unemployment.

It isn't fair to tax future generations just because they can't vote. We have a choice between a brighter future for our descendants and more social spending now. The missing words "more productive use of resources" are critical for a rational choice. To realize the promise that the U.S economy has always offered, we must choose less social spending, less intrusive regulation, and more efficient use of resources in both the public and private sectors.

 

 

 

WSJ.com - Europe's Organic Food Scare

Factory farms have their own problems, but this example provides a counter-weight to the “organic is always better” argument.

 

WSJ.com - Opinion: Europe's Organic Food Scare

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German Greens and their European Union acolytes have long fought scientific advances in food production and protection. After a spice manufacturer in Stuttgart employed the world's first commercial food irradiation in 1957, West Germany banned the practice in 1959 and has since allowed few exceptions. So it's no small scandal that the latest fatal E. coli outbreak has been linked to an organic German farm that shuns modern farming techniques.

But both harmful and harmless E. coli strains are present in the intestines of most animals, as well as human beings. No amount of standardizations or certifications will guarantee E. coli's eradication from food.

The best practice for doing so would be, well, irradiation, which involves sending gamma rays or electron beams into meat, poultry and produce. The process can deactivate up to 99.999% of E. coli, and was declared safe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration almost 50 years ago. Even so, less than 10% of the global food supply is irradiated.

The problem is largely that the term "irradiation" sounds like what might have happened to Blinky, the three-eyed fish that Bart Simpson caught downstream from the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant in a 1990 "Simpsons" TV episode. Yet study after study has turned up no evidence that zapping food with low doses of radiation damages human health.

This latest E. coli outbreak is painful real-life evidence that natural foods are not always better, nor safe for consumption.

 

 

WSJ.com - The Lone Star Jobs Surge

 

WSJ.com - Opinion: The Lone Star Jobs Surge

 

The Texas model added 37% of all net U.S. jobs since the recovery began.  Using straight nonfarm payroll employment, Texas accounts for 45% of net U.S. job creation.

What explains this Lone Star success? Texas is a big state, but its population of 24.7 million isn't that much bigger than the Empire State, about 19.5 million. California is a large state too—36.9 million—and yet it's down 11,400 jobs. Mr. Fisher argues that Texas is doing so well relative to other states precisely because it has rejected the economic model that now prevails in Washington, and we'll second that notion.

All states labor under the same Fed monetary policy and interest rates and federal regulation, but all states have not performed equally well. Texas stands out for its free market and business-friendly climate.

Capital—both human and investment—is highly mobile, and it migrates all the time to the places where the opportunities are larger and the burdens are lower. Texas has no state income tax. Its regulatory conditions are contained and flexible. It is fiscally responsible and government is small. Its right-to-work law doesn't impose unions on businesses or employees. It is open to global trade and competition.

Yet the core impulse of Obamanomics is to make America less like Texas and more like California, with more government, more unions, more central planning, higher taxes. That the former added 37% of new U.S. jobs suggests what an historic mistake this has been.

 

 

 

WSJ.com - Power to the People? How Déclassé

WSJ.com - Opinion: Power to the People? How Déclassé

 

In Colorado and elsewhere, the concept of citizen ballot initiatives is under attack.

Twenty-four states currently allow voters to write their own laws through the initiative process, sidestepping gridlocked legislatures to pass statutes or constitutional amendments. Conservative voters have used the tool to impose term limits and curb racial quotas. At the same time, liberals have used initiatives to pass minimum-wage laws and tobacco taxes that were often blocked by legislatures where lobbyists held sway.

It's just such citizen democracy that has irked the establishment in states such as Colorado, California and Oregon—so the political class is trying to rein it in.

It's fashionable these days for elites to disparage popular democracy. "The longer that people live in California, it seems, the more likely they are to be misinformed, and possibly brainwashed into ignorance," sniffed the Economist last April in a 16-page special report slamming that state's initiative process. But in reality, the initiative process serves as a popular check on out-of-touch legislators and reminds everyone that it's the voters who should be in charge of the politicians, not the other way around.

 

 

 

WSJ.com - Beware, a Big Headache Is Coming

I know several of my readers suffer from migraines.  Perhaps something here may be new info…

 

WSJ.com - Beware, a Big Headache Is Coming

 

A migraine is among the most debilitating conditions in medicine—a blinding, throbbing pain that typically lasts between four and 72 hours. There is no cure.

Yet, a few hours or days before the dreaded headache sets in, subtle symptoms emerge: Some people feel unusually fatigued, cranky or anxious. Some have yawning jags. Others have food cravings or excessive thirst.

If migraine sufferers can learn to identify their particular warning signs, they may be able to head off the headache pain with medication or lifestyle changes before it begins, experts say.

 

 

Text of Pawlenty's Speech on His Economic Plan

I’m still very undecided on the 2012 GOP presidential race, but yesterday’s speech by Tim Pawlenty gets a big thumbs up from me.  I’m the first to agree that a good speech does not a good president make (see POTUS, current), but if we can get the electorate talking about and debating these issues we’re moving in the right direction.  Below are a few of my favorite soundbites.

 

Text of Pawlenty’s Speech on His Economic Plan

 

·         I’m willing to tell Americans the hard truth. And I believe Americans are ready to hear it.  But the truth about our economy isn’t hard at all. Markets work. Barack Obama’s central planning doesn’t. 

·         We should start by overhauling the tax code. Its currently an anti-growth nine thousand page monstrosity that’s chock full of special deals for special interests. It’s main goal — seems to be to generate campaign contributions. Not jobs. 

·         Business success should depend on winning over customers. Not winning over Congressman.

·         A balanced federal budget shouldn’t be a political sound bite.  It should be the law of the land…  We have to face the truth  — Congress is addicted to spending.    And that’s true regardless of which party is in control.    

·         We can start by applying what I call “The Google Test.”  If you can find a good or service on the Internet, then the federal government probably doesn’t need to be doing it.  

·         Finally — even if we are successful in changing the way Washington taxes, spends, and regulates, many of the gains we’d realize could be lost by the continued debasement of the dollar — as a result of the loose-money policies of the Fed.  We need monetary policy that is focused like a laser on curbing inflation and maintaining price stability.  That should be the role of the Fed.  And nothing more.

WSJ.com - The Real Cost of the Auto Bailouts

WSJ.com - Opinion: The Real Cost of the Auto Bailouts

 

The government's unnecessary disruption of the bankruptcy laws will do long-term damage to the economy.

If the government hadn't stepped in and dictated the terms of the restructuring, the story goes, General Motors and Chrysler would have collapsed, and at least a million jobs would have been lost. The bailouts averted disaster, and they did so at remarkably little cost.

The problem with this happy story is that neither of its parts is accurate. Commandeering the bankruptcy process was not, as apologists for the bailouts claim, the only hope for GM and Chrysler. And the long-term costs of the bailouts will be enormous.

If the government wanted to "sell" the companies in bankruptcy, it should have held real auctions and invited anyone to bid. But the government decided that there was no need to let pesky rule-of-law considerations interfere with its plan to help out the unions and other favored creditors.

 

 

 

WSJ.com - More Calls for a Drug War Cease-Fire

Brings the mind the common statement that those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them. 

 

WSJ.com - Opinion: More Calls for a Drug War Cease-Fire

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An increasing number of world leaders are concluding that laws against drug consumption do more harm than good.

Tomorrow marks the 79th anniversary of the beginning of the end of the U.S. prohibition on alcohol. On that day in 1932 John D. Rockefeller Jr., a vociferous advocate of temperance, called for the repeal of the 18th amendment.

Rockefeller had not changed his views on the destructiveness of drink, and he asked for ongoing "support of practical measures for the promotion of genuine temperance." But he insisted that lifting prohibition was essenti al if America was to "restore public respect for the law."

Rockefeller's reversal came to mind last week when the Global Commission on Drug Policy issued a joint report "describ[ing] the drug war as a failure and call[ing] for a paradigm shift in global drug policy."

Like Rockefeller, the commission members do not embrace a laissez-faire policy toward drug use. But they recognize, as he did, that the attempt to use force to halt consumption has been disastrous. They recommend alternative approaches to controlling substances and more emphasis on treatment for addicts.

The parallels between the situation Rockefeller faced and today's scandalous war on drugs are dramatic. The wealthy philanthropist had begun his campaign against alcohol with great expectations. "When the Eighteenth Amendment was passed I earnestly hoped—with a host of advocates of temperance—that it would be generally supported by public opinion" and, he wrote, that teetotaling would eventually take hold.

"That this has not been the result but rather that drinking generally has increased; that the speakeasy has replaced the saloon, not only unit for unit, but probably two-fold if not three-fold; that a vast army of lawbreakers has been recruited and financed on a colossal scale; that many of our best citizens, piqued at what they regarded as an infringement of their private rights, have openly and unbashed[ly] disreg arded the Eighteenth Amendment; that as an inevitable result respect for all law has greatly lessened; that crime has increased to an unprecedented degree—I have slowly reluctantly come to believe."

He noted that any "benefits" from the 18th amendment were "more than outweighed by the evils that ha[d] developed and flourished since its adoption, evils which, unless promptly checked," were "likely to lead to conditions unspeakably worse than those which prevailed before."

Sound familiar?

 

 

 

 

WSJ.com - Republicans and Mediscare

Here’s a two-fer on Medicare.  The key takeaway is that any politician who thinks Medicare can be saved as-is doesn’t understand math.  Unfortunately, a large chuck of America doesn’t understand math, thus the politics is often at odds with reality.

 

WSJ.com - Opinion: Republicans and Mediscare

 

Underneath Newt Gingrich's rhetoric last week about Paul Ryan's "right-wing social engineering" was a common anxiety about the politics of Medicare: Is this the right moment for entitlement reform? Is Mr. Ryan's proposal really too "radical" after all?

Entitlement reform is the hardest challenge in politics, which is one reason we oppose all new entitlements. But Republicans now tempted to retreat at the first smell of cordite need to understand that they are taking even larger political and policy risks than Mr. Ryan is. The Medicare status quo of even two years ago, much less 20, is irretrievably gone, and anyone pining for its return is merely making President Obama's vision of government-run health care inevitable.

As a matter of simple arithmetic, this problem can't be solved with tax increases, because health costs and thus government spending on health care are rising so much faster than the economy as a whole is growing. The U.S. capacity to pay for Medicare on present trend diminishes every year.

With ObamaCare, Democrats offered their vision for Medicare cost control: A 15-member unelected board with vast powers to set prices for doctors, hospitals and other providers, and to regulate how they should be organized and what government will pay for. The liberal conceit is that their technocratic wizardry will make health care more rational, but this is faith-based government. The liberal fallback is political rationing of care, which is why Mr. Obama made it so difficult for Congress to change that 15-member board's decisions.

Republicans have staunchly opposed this agenda, but until Mr. Ryan's budget they hadn't answered the White House with a competing idea. Mr. Ryan's proposal is the most important free-market reform in years because it expands the policy options for rethinking the entitlement state.

The reality is that Medicare "as we know it" will change because it must. The issue is how it will change, and, leaving aside this or that detail, the only alternati ves are Mr. Ryan's proposal to introduce market competition or Mr. Obama's plan for ever-tightening government controls on prices and care.

 

 

WSJ.com - Opinion: The Medicare Test for President

 

Medicare reform has risen to the top of the national agenda and will be the defining issue of next year's elections. The outcome of this debate will greatly shape America's fiscal future, because without substantial Medicare savings the budget cannot be balanced. Period.

The second largest federal program and the fastest growing—with long-term liabilities in excess of $38 trillion—Medicare now threatens to bankrupt the U.S. government in the next few decades. The window is closing fast on our ability to reform it without touching current retirees' benefits.

But which part [of the Ryan plan] is the radical one? Is it the provision that guarantees that today's Medicare benefits and eligibility remain exactly as they are for seniors born before 1956, and for everyone else for the remainder of this decade? Or is it the part that gradually raises the retirement age to 67 from 65 over a period of 12 years starting in 2022? Or is it the section that gives all beneficiaries a lot more coverage options, similar to the array of health-plan choices currently enjoyed by members of Congress?

The answer, we suspect, is none of the above. For the Democrats, the real concern is that requiring health-insurance plans to compete for seniors' business would actually work to hold down costs, proving once again that markets are more efficient than government. In other words, for the party of government, it's about maintaining the government's monopoly.

The politics of spending has changed. Most Americans understand the math and recognize the challenge. They want to get behind bold, principled entitlement reforms that can save the country from a debt collapse while making the safety net stronger and individuals freer. The Ryan plan plus Medicare freedom is such a reform.

Any serious GOP presidential candidate must be absolutely clear on this issue. Kicking the can down the road is no longer an option. A candidate who is timid on entitlement reforms is not qualified to be president.

 

 

 

 

WSJ.com - Stephen Colbert's Free Speech Problem

 

WSJ.com - Opinion: Stephen Colbert's Free Speech Problem

 

Comedy Central funnyman Stephen Colbert, like most of his friends and allies on the left, thinks that last year's Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. FEC is, literally, ridiculous. To make his case that the ruling invites "unlimited corporate money" to dominate politics, Mr. Colbert decided to set up a political action committee (PAC) of his own. So far, though, the joke's been on him.

Campaign-finance laws are so complicated that few can navigate them successfully and speak during elections—which is what the First Amendment is supposed to protect. As the Supreme Court noted in Citizens United, federal laws have created "71 distinct entities" that "are subject to different rules for 33 different types of political speech." The FEC has adopted 568 pages of regulations and thousands of pages of explanations and opinions on what the laws mean. "Legalese" doesn't begin to describe this mess.

So what is someone who wants to speak during elections to do? If you're Stephen Colbert, the answer is to instruct high-priced attorneys to plead your case with the FEC: Last Friday, he filed a formal request with the FEC for a "media exemption" that would allow him to publicize his Super PAC on air without creating legal headaches for Viacom.

How's that for a punch line? Rich and successful television personality needs powerful corporate lawyers to convince the FEC to allow him to continue making fun of the Supreme Court. Hilarious.

Of course, there's nothing new about the argument Mr. Colbert's lawyers are making to the FEC. Media companies' exemption from campaign-finance laws has existed for decades. That was part of the Supreme Court's point in Citizens United: Media corporations are allowed to spend lots of money on campaign speech, so why not other corporations?

Whether Mr. Colbert understands that he has made the Supreme Court's point is anyone's guess. But there's nothing funny about what he has had to go through to set up a PAC, because real people who want to speak out during elections face these confounding laws all the time. And as his attempt at humor ironically demonstrates, the laws remain byzantine and often impossible to navigate, even after Citizens United.

 

 

 

WSJ.com - The Coming Postal Bailout

I think the first step should be to cut delivery days, and not just Saturday, to significantly save on personnel costs.   Snail mail 3 days a week (or less) should be fine in this digital age.  There is no good logic for a taxpayer bailout.  The postal service monopoly is not a good reason for this type of largess and waste.

 

WSJ.com - Opinion: The Coming Postal Bailout

 

One thing we'll say about federal bailouts—if you pay attention, you can usually see them coming a mile away. It was true of Fannie Mae and General Motors, and it's increasingly clear that the next candidate will be the U.S. Postal Service.

The odds of a multibillion-dollar rescue package went way up this week when Postal Service management reported a $2.2 billion loss for the first quarter, more than 25% higher than last year despite the economic recovery. It now appears that the $15 billion line of credit the feds have offered USPS will be used up by the end of this year, with low odds on ever being paid back.

Postal workers already enjoy a 30% to 40% edge in pay and benefits over comparably skilled private workers, according to the Postal Service's own economic analysis. Bureau of Labor Statistics data indicate the average hourly compensation for postal union members is $41 versus $28 for private industry. Postal workers also contribute far less than private workers and even less than other federal workers to cover health-care costs.  Moving to pay parity—as well as shutting down thousands of outdated post offices and ending Saturday mail delivery—would do a lot to lower USPS losses.

Thanks to the digital revolution, mail can be delivered with the click of a mouse and snail mail will continue to slowly fade away. The obligation of postal management is to negotiate this inevitable transition while protecting taxpayers from another union raid.

 

 

WSJ.com - The Millionaire Retirees Next Door

 

WSJ.com - Opinion: The Millionaire Retirees Next Door

 

The typical husband and wife who reach age 66 and qualify for Social Security, receiving the average benefit, will begin collecting a combination of cash and health-care entitlement benefits that will total $1 million over their remaining expected lifetime.

The benefactors will be a generation of younger workers who are trying to support themselves and their families while paying taxes to finance the rest of government spending.  We cannot even remotely afford to make good on these promised benefits.

Social Security and Medicare were the result of natural human impulses to create safety-net programs to prevent poverty in old age and to help needy senior citizens with their medical bills. But the programs are flawed.

To fix Social Security, Congress should start by limiting the increase in benefits of future retirees to the rate of inflation. Congress should then gradually raise Social Security's normal retirement age.

To fix Medicare, we must move away from the current system of fee-for-services and low copayments. First and foremost, copayments should be increased significantly. Medicare recipients need to have more skin in the game if they are to become cost-conscious medical consumers.  Competition among providers, not government-administered prices and government boards of experts to determine coverage, is the best way to ensure high quality and reasonably priced health care.

Many of the million-dollar couples believe they rightfully deserve the benefits they have been promised. They have, after all, spent all of their working years paying into Social Security and Medicare. And true enough, the typical 66-year old couple and their employers, on their behalf, have contributed nearly $500,000 in payroll taxes (in today's dollars) toward these benefits during their working careers.

But regardless of how much they have contributed, the hard reality is that the federal government has already spent it. No matter how deserving they are, it is younger generations of workers who have to come up with the money.

 

 

 

WSJ.com - Scenes From the New York Education Wars

 

WSJ.com - Opinion: Scenes From the New York Education Wars

 

Politicians—especially Democratic politicians—generally do what the unions want. The unions, in turn, are very clear about what that is: They want happy members, so that those who run the unions get re-elected, and they want more members, so their power, money and influence grow. The effect of all this? As Albert Shanker, the late, iconic head of the UFT, once pointedly said, "When schoolchildren start paying union dues, that's when I'll start representing the interests of schoolchildren."

Union power is why it's virtually impossible to fire a teacher for non-performance….  The extent of the problem is difficult to overstate.

Of course money, a stable family and strong values typically make it easier to educate a child. But we now know that, keeping those things constant, certain schools can get dramatically different outcomes with the same kids.

Take Texas and California. The two states have very similar demographics, yet Texas outperforms California on all four national tests—across demographic groups—despite spending less money per pupil. The gap amounts to about a year's worth of learning. That's big.

At individual schools, differences can be breathtaking. One charter in New York City has students who are demographically almost identical to those in nearby schools, yet it gets entirely different results.  Eighty-eight percent of Harlem Success students are proficient in reading and 95% are proficient in math. Six nearby schools have an average of 31% and 39% proficiency in those subjects, respectively.

Critics try to discredit these differences. Ravitch argued that schools like Harlem Success aren't the answer because, as a group, charter schools don't outperform traditional public schools. Yet even Ms. Ravitch had to acknowledge that some charter schools get "amazing results." If that's the case, shouldn't we be asking why they get much better results—and focusing on how to replicate them?

 

 

 

 

 

WSJ.com - Political Privacy Should Be a Civil Right

 

WSJ.com - Opinion: Political Privacy Should Be a Civil Right

 

Suppose that during the civil rights movement segregationist governors ordered all state contractors to disclose their political donations in an attempt to expose civil rights supporters to harassment and retaliation. The Supreme Court would have had none of it.

In NAACP v. Alabama (1958), the court barred Alabama from forcing the NAACP to disclose its members. Those justices would have struck down a similar effort to force the release of the NAACP's financial supporters. They would have rightly viewed it as an infringement of the constitutional right to free association and free speech.

Today President Obama is ignoring the lessons of the civil rights era he claims to revere. According to a draft executive order leaked last week, Mr. Obama plans to require any company seeking a federal contract to disclose its executives' political contributions over $5,000—not just to candidates, but to any group that might make "independent expenditure" or "electioneering communication" advertisements.

If a small businesswoman wants to sell paper clips to the Defense Department, Mr. Obama would force her to reveal contributions to groups such as Planned Parenthood or the National Rifle Association. These donations are obviously irrelevant to whether she made the most reliable bid at the lowest price. The only purpose of the executive order is to dangle the specter of retaliation (by losing her contracts) and harassment (from political opponents).

This order represents the latest salvo in the Obama administration's war on the First Amendment rights of its political opponents.

 

 

WSJ.com - The Debt Ceiling: Myths and Facts

WSJ.com - Opinion: The Debt Ceiling: Myths and Facts

 

Since 1962, the U.S. has reached its debt ceiling 74 times, about once every eight months. Every time, the ceiling has been raised with little notice outside Washington and little, if any, change in the trajectory of government spending. But when opposing parties have held the White House and Congress, the process has always resembled a Kabuki dance. What should be a debate becomes an exercise in scoring political points.

The difference today is that the world is watching. Observers around the globe can expect to hear many old myths:

• The Treasury is certain that there will be wrenching dislocations in the capital markets if the ceiling is not raised. In fact, there is no secret Treasury analysis suggesting the world will collapse. Because we've always raised the ceiling, we simply don't know the consequences of not doing so. Four times the ceiling has been reached, remaining in place for months while Congress found consensus, and there was no disruption to the capital markets.

• The Treasury will raid pension funds to avoid exceeding the debt ceiling. When the ceiling is reached but not exceeded, the Treasury has lawful tools to free up borrowing capacity and prolong the time until the ceiling's technical breaching. The Treasury correctly calls the tools "extraordinary" since they are out of the ordinary course of business, but in reality they are neither extreme nor dangerous.

• The government will default on Treasury obligations if the ceiling is not raised. It is critical that we not default, but we don't have to. Hitting the ceiling means that we can spend only what we collect in taxes. According to the Congressional Budget Office, tax revenues for 2011 will be around $2.2 trillion, with net interest on the debt costing $225 billion. We can afford that interest and therefore not default.

 

 

 

 

WSJ.com - Medicare As We've Known It Isn't an Option

I agree with the analysis in this article, but I think it misses the larger fact that the average senior gets about 3 times more benefits from Medicare than they contributed.  This fact alone should show that Medicare is unsustainable and must be fixed.  We can help the poor without bankrupting this country, but that requires ending the notion that health care is something we all are “entitled” to from the government.

 

WSJ.com - Opinion: Medicare As We've Known It Isn't an Option

 

The Democratic Party is urging Americans to choose Medicare as we've always known it rather than a new plan by Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) that would enroll seniors in private health insurance beginning in 2022. This choice is a hoax: Medicare as we've always known it is already gone. It was eviscerated by President Obama's health law. The 2012 election could turn on this falsehood.

The truth is that the Obama health law reduces future funding for Medicare by $575 billion over the next 10 years and spends the money on other programs, including a vast expansion of Medicaid.

The fact is that Mr. Obama's law raids Medicare. Mr. Ryan's plan, on the other hand, stops the Medicare heist and puts the funds "saved" in this decade toward health care for another generation of retirees.

So what can retiring Americans count on in 2022 and after? The Obama health law leaves that up to an unelected board of presidential appointees called the Independent Payment Advisory Board, a cost-cutting panel.

The board is a radical departure from Medicare as we've known it. Congress cedes nearly all control of Medicare spending to the board on the rationale that budgeting decisions should be shielded from outraged seniors and political pressures. On April 13, the president reiterated that the board would decide what care is "unnecessary" for seniors. Even the CBO cautioned that as the nation's debt crisis worsens, benefits will be put on the board's chopping block.

 

 

 

WSJ.com - The Gas Price Freakout

WSJ.com - Opinion: The Gas Price Freakout

 

Mr. Obama usually begins his gas price narrative, now a campaign trail staple, by explaining that there aren't easy solutions. That's true—there's not a lot the political class can do to change gas prices in the short run—but then the President goes on to mention that there happens to be one easy solution: raising taxes on the oil and gas industry. This is also his stock answer on the budget deficit, world hunger and everything else. The junk economic theory is that increasing the U.S. costs of investor-owned oil producers—which together hold a mere 6% of world reserves—is supposed to lower the price of a global commodity.

The liberal drive to tax Big Oil is rooted in an ideological commitment to higher energy prices, not consumer relief.

Rising gas prices are stealing the gains of middle-income voters, so this is an important debate to have. Too bad Mr. Obama's Washington can't seem to escape the energy incoherence—phantom speculators, easy villains—of his predecessors.

 

 

 

WSJ.com - When Big Government Goes to College

 

WSJ.com - Opinion: When Big Government Goes to College

 

The more the feds try to lower the cost, the worse the problem becomes.

"Right now the incentives for our colleges and universities are all wrong.  It's wrong for colleges, who have no incentive to keep down costs. It's wrong for students, whose needs are ill-served by loans and grants that go directly to the school. And it's wrong for taxpayers, whose dollars are making education more expensive without expanding opportunity for those who most need it."

Translation: If you are a mom or dad with college-age kids and you think the system is rigged against you, you're right.

A good start would be a new structure for college financing that promoted genuine opportunity without feeding the inflation it is supposed to solve. President Obama, alas, seems wed to the same government-heavy approach he had for health care. Indeed, the "reform" he signed last spring—restructuring federal grants and loans—will likely fuel rising costs as schools absorb that money, spend it on their own priorities, and continue to raise tuition at rates that outstrip the Consumer Price Index.

That's unfortunate because with a little imagination and the right incentives, the possibilities are endless.

 

 

 

WSJ.com - The Other Medicare Cutters

 

WSJ.com - Opinion: The Other Medicare Cutters

 

The debate over Paul Ryan's Medicare reform ideas has largely been healthy, even amid the liberal distortions. But why has there been so little scrutiny of President Obama's new Medicare proposal? Anyone worrying about more individual choice and responsibility in health care might be interested to learn that the alternative is turning every one of these decisions over to a 15-member central committee.

It sounds absurd, but there the President was last week, gravely conceding Mr. Ryan's analysis of Medicare's balance sheet and then claiming that the solution is to give a lot more political power to an unelected board to control health costs. Democrats believe this board will play doctor and actuary and allocate health resources better than markets, so allow us to fill in some of the details of this government-planned future.

***

Messrs. Ryan and Obama agree that Medicare spending must decline, and significantly. The difference is that Mr. Ryan would let seniors decide which private Medicare-financed insurance policies to buy based on their own needs, while Mr. Obama wants Americans to accept the commands of 15 political appointees who will never stand for election.

 

 

 

 

WSJ.com - The 30-Cent Tax Premium

A double dose of tax articles today – but don’t start to expect it J

 

WSJ.com - Opinion: The 30-Cent Tax Premium

 

Taxpayers must spend significantly more than $1 in order to provide $1 of income-tax revenue to the federal government.

To start with, individuals and businesses must pay the government the $1 in revenue plus the costs of their own time spent filing and complying with the tax code; plus the tax collection costs of the IRS; plus the tax compliance outlays that individuals and businesses pay to help them file their taxes.

In a study published last week by the Laffer Center, my col leagues Wayne Winegarden, John Childs and I estimate that these costs alone are a staggering $431 billion annually. This is a cost markup of 30 cents on every dollar paid in taxes. And this is not even a complete accounting of the costs of tax complexity.

Like taxes themselves, tax-compliance costs change people's behavior. Taxpayers, whether individuals or businesses, respond to taxes and tax-compliance costs by changing the composition of their income, the location of their income, the timing of their income, and the volume of their income.

Citizens should be able to comply with the tax code without having to spend absurd amounts of money to do so. The fact that there is such a large compliance markup in our tax s ystem indicates that the tax system has gone awry. All of these hours could have been used for something a lot more productive than just making sure our taxes are filed and paid correctly.