Below is a copy of an e-mail sent to Jack Welch and his response:
Dear Jack and Suzy,
First off, I really enjoy reading your columns; you are the most significant reason I continue to subscribe to BusinessWeek. Thank you for all you do.
Your Feb 25 article entitled "Immigration: A Reality Check", however, invoked a strong reaction and I felt I must respond to your thoughts. First, I felt it was irresponsible to consistently characterize this as in "immigration" issue rather than what it is - an "illegal immigration" issue. It is the "illegal" aspect that I object to, and by not including that important distinction, you distort the issue.
In the article you characterize the illegal immigration debate as an economic issue and a matter of realistic response. While the issue certainly has economic impacts, it is first and foremost a legal issue. If we are to ignore the law on the basis it will benefit us financially, we cross a moral and ethical boundary. Economic benefit does not confer legality upon an illegal act.
The law must be upheld. If we allow individuals do decide what laws should be followed and what laws can be ignored, the law loses all effect. We live in a society where the laws are agreed upon in advance. If laws are unjust, America provides the ability to change them going forward, but the current law must be enforced for us to have any confidence in the processes that provide our safety and security.
You say "[...] our borders were obviously not secure enough. So let's just say accountability for the problem can be shared and move on to solutions." While I am all for moving on to solutions, I believe it is improper to to say the US government shares in the responsibility when individuals make the decision to behave in an illegal manner. When I speed on the highway, I am able to do so because I realize there is a low probability I will be caught. This does not mean that the police are responsible for my actions, and I speed with the full recognition that, if caught, I will be subject to punishment under the law. The same should be true for those that weight the costs and benefits of entering the country illegally.
I am all for fixing the legal immigration pathway that is so woefully ignored in this debate. It is clearly broken and, if fixed, would lessen the incentive for those seeking a better life to break the law. But allowing more immigrates to enter this country legally is a separate issue from the enforcement of the existing law and dealing with those who chose to break the law to enter this country.
Of course, I am not suggesting that we send teams of bounty hunters out to round up all illegal immigrants and deport them. I do, however, suggest that we make every effort to identify illegal immigrants over the course of everyday actions (speeding tickets, traffic accidents, work applications) and to deport them when identified, as well as providing them a way to apply for legal immigration once they arrive in their native country.
You are right - this is a complex issue. I hope our elected officials are up to the task. Thank you for sharing your thoughts through your article and for being open to those who might hold a different opinion. I look forward to your future columns.
Response:
Thanks for your thoughtful response to our immigration column. All in, we received 436 emails about that column and 434 of them disagreed with us, most very, very strongly. I cannot say we would change our opinion now, but we do have a more complete sense of why people oppose our point of view. Like you, we hope the next administration can turn this complex mess into a workable solution for our country.
Thanks also for your nice words about our column.
Best,
Jack and Suzy
31 March, 2008
Fiscal Responsibility
Am I the only person that thinks it is a little hypocritical that the Republicans now want to enforce "Fiscal Responsibility"? I mean, isn't this the same party that allowed the budget deficit and the national debt to explode? (Granted, the Iraq war had a lot to do with that, but still does not account for such a sharp increase - see graph above) I just find it rather silly that now Democrats are in office and the Republicans have decided it's time
to batten down the hatches. If only they had done that years ago.
I hope the next president vetoes every earmark bill that contains the
ridiculous pork that has, sadly, become commonplace. I do not
have a problem with the goal - clearly spending needs to be reigned in -
I just think Republicans have lost all credibility on this issue.
to batten down the hatches. If only they had done that years ago.
I hope the next president vetoes every earmark bill that contains the
ridiculous pork that has, sadly, become commonplace. I do not
have a problem with the goal - clearly spending needs to be reigned in -
I just think Republicans have lost all credibility on this issue.
My thoughts on Senator Obama
Can someone please explain to me how any rational, logical voter could select Senator Obama for President? He is a fantastic speaker, and is capable of connecting with listeners on a visceral, emotional level - I understand the attraction there. But his relative lack of experience is overwhelming to me. He has yet to finish his first term at the national level of government! I have great respect for those who can admit that voting for Obama is a vote by the heart and not the head, but I don't see how anyone could make a rational, fact-based case for his presidency.
The beginning of the end for Afirmative Action?
It is about time. You would think that people would be tired of a race-based preference system that is supposed to eliminate the possibility of showing preference based on race. Now, if we want to talk about afirmative action based on socio-economic status, that's a discussion I would invite. Time to do away with pigment preference.
Obama’s Postracial Test
Article here
How will the Democratic candidate deal with potentially divisive ballot initiatives calling for an end to affirmative action?
Seth Colter Walls
Updated: 4:36 PM ET Mar 27, 2008
The next test of Barack Obama's "postracial" persona may come from some unlikely places: Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma. That's where Ward Connerly, the country's most innovative and successful opponent of affirmative action over the past decade, is launching an effort to get an initiative on the ballots that would prohibit public institutions from considering race, sex or ethnicity in areas such as hiring and college admissions. Connerly's political savvy on matters of race is worth considering. Since cutting his teeth in 1996 as a key backer of the California ballot initiative known as Proposition 209--which amended the state Constitution to prohibit affirmative action in the public sphere--Connerly has steered successful ballot drives in Washington and Michigan to do the same.
His decision to target these five states in 2008 has less to do with their electoral impact than the fact they allow for ballot initiatives and that Connerly thinks he can win big in all of them. But given Obama's oft-declared intention to redraw the political map, it's hard to see how he can avoid the issue of affirmative action in some, if not all, of the states Connerly is targeting.
Mounting a ballot initiative in even one state, much less five, can be prohibitively expensive and logistically tough. Thousands of voter signatures have to be gathered in support and verified months ahead of time, all while building a war chest to pay for issue ads in the fall. But Connerly, who describes himself as one-quarter black, appears to have a wealthy donor base; his nonprofit American Civil Rights Institute has drawn big contributions from right-wing tycoons like Rupert Murdoch (two donations totaling $300,000 during one 2003 campaign) and Joseph Coors (a $250,000 loan for the same race). (Connerly is not required to disclose current donations. Those donor disclosures were compelled due to a California lawsuit over that particular campaign, though current contributions to his group are private by law.)
Obama has yet to take a definitive public stance on affirmative action in this campaign, but he did voice a radio ad in opposition to Connerly's successful 2006 campaign in Michigan. Darren Davis, a professor of political science at Notre Dame, calls the emerging Connerly question "one of the most profound" of Obama's campaign--especially in the wake of the controversy over his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. "Basically, on every racial issue Barack Obama is walking the tightrope," Davis says. "The more he supports traditional black issues like affirmative action, the more that will eat into his white base of support." Obama has been careful when broaching this issue; in a 2007 ABC News interview he suggested that the affirmative action of the future should consider economic status more than race.
If Connerly's successful in making this an issue for Obama, it wouldn't be the first time state ballot initiatives affected a presidential campaign. In a forthcoming study, political scientists Todd Donovan, Caroline Tolbert and Daniel A. Smith claim that in 2004, voters in the 13 states that offered anti-gay-marriage initiatives or referenda were more likely to consider that issue as being important in the presidential race, compared with voters in states with no such campaigns. Stephen Nicholson, author of "Voting the Agenda," says other research suggests that the initiatives' influence spilled over into the national electorate at large. "By putting an issue on the ballot, what you wind up doing is giving an institutional push to an issue that voters may not have deemed relevant," Nicholson says. "By qualifying an initiative on a ballot, or multiple ballots, you are putting it side by side with the candidates." This year, that is exactly what Connerly wants to do.
Some Democrats suspected the GOP of coordinating the gay-marriage initiatives as a way of rallying support and getting out the vote of the right. Connerly, however, appears to be a genuinely independent actor, if one with a wealthy donor base. Given his perfect record thus far in passing initiatives where they have qualified for the ballot, and his high-profile support from pillars of the right (including National Review president Thomas Rhodes), it's a good bet that Connerly will have the resources to mount serious campaigns this year in the states he's targeted.
Moreover, Connerly says the strength of Obama's candidacy only highlights why affirmative action is no longer relevant. "How can you have a self-identified black man running for the highest office for the land [while] defending preferences based on race?" Connerly asks. "It reinforces the logic of our initiatives."
Calling this kind of analysis "a very big leap of faith," Davis says Obama's individual rise tells us little about the value of affirmative action to average African-Americans--though he admits this is nevertheless the way in which many voters will evaluate the phenomenon of his viability. "This is the exact type of information that voters use to confirm what they already believe about race," he says. What's more, Davis claims, Obama's campaign tactics have, in an ironic twist, invited Connerly's challenge. "Obama himself has not attributed his success to any of the structural success [on race] in American society," Davis says. "The Obama campaign exudes this individualism and this perseverance that people who are against affirmative action have used against the African-American community."
In his March 18 speech on race, Obama recounted his first experience of the biblical stories being voiced at Trinity United Church of Christ as being both "black, and more than black." To many, it proved an inspiring riff on Walt Whitman's American notion of containing multitudes. But when it comes to affirmative action, many voters may continue to see the issue in stark shades of black and white.
Obama’s Postracial Test
Article here
How will the Democratic candidate deal with potentially divisive ballot initiatives calling for an end to affirmative action?
Seth Colter Walls
Updated: 4:36 PM ET Mar 27, 2008
The next test of Barack Obama's "postracial" persona may come from some unlikely places: Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma. That's where Ward Connerly, the country's most innovative and successful opponent of affirmative action over the past decade, is launching an effort to get an initiative on the ballots that would prohibit public institutions from considering race, sex or ethnicity in areas such as hiring and college admissions. Connerly's political savvy on matters of race is worth considering. Since cutting his teeth in 1996 as a key backer of the California ballot initiative known as Proposition 209--which amended the state Constitution to prohibit affirmative action in the public sphere--Connerly has steered successful ballot drives in Washington and Michigan to do the same.
His decision to target these five states in 2008 has less to do with their electoral impact than the fact they allow for ballot initiatives and that Connerly thinks he can win big in all of them. But given Obama's oft-declared intention to redraw the political map, it's hard to see how he can avoid the issue of affirmative action in some, if not all, of the states Connerly is targeting.
Mounting a ballot initiative in even one state, much less five, can be prohibitively expensive and logistically tough. Thousands of voter signatures have to be gathered in support and verified months ahead of time, all while building a war chest to pay for issue ads in the fall. But Connerly, who describes himself as one-quarter black, appears to have a wealthy donor base; his nonprofit American Civil Rights Institute has drawn big contributions from right-wing tycoons like Rupert Murdoch (two donations totaling $300,000 during one 2003 campaign) and Joseph Coors (a $250,000 loan for the same race). (Connerly is not required to disclose current donations. Those donor disclosures were compelled due to a California lawsuit over that particular campaign, though current contributions to his group are private by law.)
Obama has yet to take a definitive public stance on affirmative action in this campaign, but he did voice a radio ad in opposition to Connerly's successful 2006 campaign in Michigan. Darren Davis, a professor of political science at Notre Dame, calls the emerging Connerly question "one of the most profound" of Obama's campaign--especially in the wake of the controversy over his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. "Basically, on every racial issue Barack Obama is walking the tightrope," Davis says. "The more he supports traditional black issues like affirmative action, the more that will eat into his white base of support." Obama has been careful when broaching this issue; in a 2007 ABC News interview he suggested that the affirmative action of the future should consider economic status more than race.
If Connerly's successful in making this an issue for Obama, it wouldn't be the first time state ballot initiatives affected a presidential campaign. In a forthcoming study, political scientists Todd Donovan, Caroline Tolbert and Daniel A. Smith claim that in 2004, voters in the 13 states that offered anti-gay-marriage initiatives or referenda were more likely to consider that issue as being important in the presidential race, compared with voters in states with no such campaigns. Stephen Nicholson, author of "Voting the Agenda," says other research suggests that the initiatives' influence spilled over into the national electorate at large. "By putting an issue on the ballot, what you wind up doing is giving an institutional push to an issue that voters may not have deemed relevant," Nicholson says. "By qualifying an initiative on a ballot, or multiple ballots, you are putting it side by side with the candidates." This year, that is exactly what Connerly wants to do.
Some Democrats suspected the GOP of coordinating the gay-marriage initiatives as a way of rallying support and getting out the vote of the right. Connerly, however, appears to be a genuinely independent actor, if one with a wealthy donor base. Given his perfect record thus far in passing initiatives where they have qualified for the ballot, and his high-profile support from pillars of the right (including National Review president Thomas Rhodes), it's a good bet that Connerly will have the resources to mount serious campaigns this year in the states he's targeted.
Moreover, Connerly says the strength of Obama's candidacy only highlights why affirmative action is no longer relevant. "How can you have a self-identified black man running for the highest office for the land [while] defending preferences based on race?" Connerly asks. "It reinforces the logic of our initiatives."
Calling this kind of analysis "a very big leap of faith," Davis says Obama's individual rise tells us little about the value of affirmative action to average African-Americans--though he admits this is nevertheless the way in which many voters will evaluate the phenomenon of his viability. "This is the exact type of information that voters use to confirm what they already believe about race," he says. What's more, Davis claims, Obama's campaign tactics have, in an ironic twist, invited Connerly's challenge. "Obama himself has not attributed his success to any of the structural success [on race] in American society," Davis says. "The Obama campaign exudes this individualism and this perseverance that people who are against affirmative action have used against the African-American community."
In his March 18 speech on race, Obama recounted his first experience of the biblical stories being voiced at Trinity United Church of Christ as being both "black, and more than black." To many, it proved an inspiring riff on Walt Whitman's American notion of containing multitudes. But when it comes to affirmative action, many voters may continue to see the issue in stark shades of black and white.
The Senator and the Reverend
Apparently Senator Obama's speech did not put this issue to rest and he is feeling the need to further distance himself from his pastor and the philosophies preached at his church. To me, this is too little, too late.
Obama: Had Wright not retired, I'd have left church
(CNN) -- Sen. Barack Obama says in an interview scheduled to air on TV Friday that he would have left his church if his pastor had not retired and had not acknowledged making comments that "deeply offended people." (Sure, he says that now...)
Obama talked about the dispute as it continued to brew over some of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's sermons and comments, which many viewed as anti-American and racist toward whites. (Um...what do you mean "viewed"? Have you read some of the quotes? If not, click here for a sample...)
Bulletins from Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ in 2007 include comments -- reprinted from other sources -- that maintain South Africa and Israel worked on "an ethnic bomb that kills blacks and Arabs." They also quote a historian who said that "what the Zionist Jews did to the Palestinians is worse than what the Nazis did to the Jews."
The articles appeared in a church bulletin section called the "Pastor's Page," and include one that originally ran in The Los Angeles Times. That article was written by a senior official with Hamas, which the U.S. government considers a terrorist organization. (To me, the Israel angle is a red-herring, a distraction to get people to stop focusing on the racist, Anti-American comments that have come out in previous weeks)
Obama denounced the articles this week, telling the Jerusalem Post that the church was "outrageously wrong" in reprinting the pieces. (You have to ask yourself, why does he feel the need to denounce these view now, after years 20 years of sitting silently in the pews?)
In an interview scheduled to air Friday on ABC's "The View" -- excerpts of which aired on CNN on Thursday night -- Obama talks about Wright's reaction to the controversy.
"Had the reverend not retired and had he not acknowledged that what he had said had deeply offended people and were inappropriate and mischaracterized what I believe is the greatness of this country, for all its flaws, then I wouldn't have felt comfortable staying there at the church," the senator said. (I don't see how his retirement is relevant. Senator Obama was fine with this message for 20 years, even donating $20,000 last year to the church. His retirement was not a factor in the decision to attend, continue to attend, or to support the church for the past two decades)
Wright retired earlier this year, before events erupted.
Obama also said on the ABC talk show that he has spoken with Wright since the uproar over the pastor's comments.
"I think he's saddened by what's happened, and I told him I feel badly that he has been characterized just in this one way and people haven't seen the broader aspect of him," Obama said. (So basically, Senator Obama is depicting the preacher as a victim while continuing to defend of this type of speech. Can you imagine the reaction if the preacher had been white and spoke that way of African Americans?)
Mark Halperin of Time magazine told CNN's Anderson Cooper on Thursday night that aides to the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain, believe the controversy will give their candidate an opening if Obama becomes the Democratic nominee.
"If you talk to McCain's people about it, they are -- choose your metaphor -- licking their chops," he said. "They believe that if this does not derail his chances of becoming the Democratic nominee, it will be invaluable to them in gaining support among key constituencies -- that's code for white voters -- in the general election."
Even so, polls show that Democrats believe that Obama has responded very well, CNN's Jessica Yellin reported. She cited a Thursday poll showing Obama with a 10-point lead over his rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton. Yellin said polls showed that "Obama appeared to rise in Democrats' estimation after the controversy -- after he addressed the Wright controversy."
Obama leads Clinton in the race for the Democratic nomination, with 1,622 delegates compared with 1,485 for Clinton, according to CNN estimates. A candidate needs 2,024 delegates to win.
One of the church bulletins that came to the fore Thursday, from July 22, 2007, includes an article by Mousa Abu Marzook, deputy of the political bureau of Hamas. "Why should anyone concede Israel's 'right' to exist?" he wrote.
Another bulletin, from June 10, 2007, contains on the "Pastor's Page" an "Open Letter to Oprah" by Ali Baghdadi, an Arab-American activist. He refers to "Israeli death squads" in a letter urging Oprah Winfrey to explore Palestinian suffering on a trip to the Middle East.
"Arnold Toynbee, the world-renowned historian, stated that what the Zionist Jews did to the Palestinians is worse than what the Nazis did to the Jews, because, as he stated, Jews should have learned from their tragic experience," Baghdadi wrote.
Wright's old sermons came under fire after a news report turned some of his most contentious comments into a YouTube phenomenon.
In one, the minister said America had brought the September 11 attacks upon itself. In another, he said Clinton had an advantage over Obama because she is white. He also accused the U.S. government of adopting policies to systematically oppress African-Americans. (Um...this is the PG rated version of his comments. Once again, click here for the adult version)
Obama: Had Wright not retired, I'd have left church
(CNN) -- Sen. Barack Obama says in an interview scheduled to air on TV Friday that he would have left his church if his pastor had not retired and had not acknowledged making comments that "deeply offended people." (Sure, he says that now...)
Obama talked about the dispute as it continued to brew over some of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's sermons and comments, which many viewed as anti-American and racist toward whites. (Um...what do you mean "viewed"? Have you read some of the quotes? If not, click here for a sample...)
Bulletins from Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ in 2007 include comments -- reprinted from other sources -- that maintain South Africa and Israel worked on "an ethnic bomb that kills blacks and Arabs." They also quote a historian who said that "what the Zionist Jews did to the Palestinians is worse than what the Nazis did to the Jews."
The articles appeared in a church bulletin section called the "Pastor's Page," and include one that originally ran in The Los Angeles Times. That article was written by a senior official with Hamas, which the U.S. government considers a terrorist organization. (To me, the Israel angle is a red-herring, a distraction to get people to stop focusing on the racist, Anti-American comments that have come out in previous weeks)
Obama denounced the articles this week, telling the Jerusalem Post that the church was "outrageously wrong" in reprinting the pieces. (You have to ask yourself, why does he feel the need to denounce these view now, after years 20 years of sitting silently in the pews?)
In an interview scheduled to air Friday on ABC's "The View" -- excerpts of which aired on CNN on Thursday night -- Obama talks about Wright's reaction to the controversy.
"Had the reverend not retired and had he not acknowledged that what he had said had deeply offended people and were inappropriate and mischaracterized what I believe is the greatness of this country, for all its flaws, then I wouldn't have felt comfortable staying there at the church," the senator said. (I don't see how his retirement is relevant. Senator Obama was fine with this message for 20 years, even donating $20,000 last year to the church. His retirement was not a factor in the decision to attend, continue to attend, or to support the church for the past two decades)
Wright retired earlier this year, before events erupted.
Obama also said on the ABC talk show that he has spoken with Wright since the uproar over the pastor's comments.
"I think he's saddened by what's happened, and I told him I feel badly that he has been characterized just in this one way and people haven't seen the broader aspect of him," Obama said. (So basically, Senator Obama is depicting the preacher as a victim while continuing to defend of this type of speech. Can you imagine the reaction if the preacher had been white and spoke that way of African Americans?)
Mark Halperin of Time magazine told CNN's Anderson Cooper on Thursday night that aides to the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain, believe the controversy will give their candidate an opening if Obama becomes the Democratic nominee.
"If you talk to McCain's people about it, they are -- choose your metaphor -- licking their chops," he said. "They believe that if this does not derail his chances of becoming the Democratic nominee, it will be invaluable to them in gaining support among key constituencies -- that's code for white voters -- in the general election."
Even so, polls show that Democrats believe that Obama has responded very well, CNN's Jessica Yellin reported. She cited a Thursday poll showing Obama with a 10-point lead over his rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton. Yellin said polls showed that "Obama appeared to rise in Democrats' estimation after the controversy -- after he addressed the Wright controversy."
Obama leads Clinton in the race for the Democratic nomination, with 1,622 delegates compared with 1,485 for Clinton, according to CNN estimates. A candidate needs 2,024 delegates to win.
One of the church bulletins that came to the fore Thursday, from July 22, 2007, includes an article by Mousa Abu Marzook, deputy of the political bureau of Hamas. "Why should anyone concede Israel's 'right' to exist?" he wrote.
Another bulletin, from June 10, 2007, contains on the "Pastor's Page" an "Open Letter to Oprah" by Ali Baghdadi, an Arab-American activist. He refers to "Israeli death squads" in a letter urging Oprah Winfrey to explore Palestinian suffering on a trip to the Middle East.
"Arnold Toynbee, the world-renowned historian, stated that what the Zionist Jews did to the Palestinians is worse than what the Nazis did to the Jews, because, as he stated, Jews should have learned from their tragic experience," Baghdadi wrote.
Wright's old sermons came under fire after a news report turned some of his most contentious comments into a YouTube phenomenon.
In one, the minister said America had brought the September 11 attacks upon itself. In another, he said Clinton had an advantage over Obama because she is white. He also accused the U.S. government of adopting policies to systematically oppress African-Americans. (Um...this is the PG rated version of his comments. Once again, click here for the adult version)
The no-name Generation
The No-Name Generation
By BENJAMIN MANASTER
March 25, 2008; Page A23
"The young need old men. They need men who are not ashamed of age, not pathetic imitations of themselves."
-- Peter Ustinov
Once upon a time there was a no-name generation that went about its business and did not call attention to itself. While the Greatest moved offstage and the Boomers ran amuck, it raised and educated families, laying the groundwork for a prosperous future. Overlooked, ignored by those who followed it, and alone among its peers, this generation may soon see one of its members become president.
Of course, the road will not be smooth. The attack on John McCain's age has only just begun. A mere tittering at present, it will be shouted from rooftops come the fall. In our youth-obsessed society, newness trumps experience. Media central casting gives this older generation a thumbs down, favoring the novel and the different. But Sen. McCain, who will turn 72 in August, still goes about his business with the dogged determination that sustained him through long years in a North Vietnamese prison.
Those of us born in the late 1930s retain only a weak memory of the Great Depression. But we noted well the solemn eyes of our parents and felt, in the marrow of our bones, the values of steadfastness and endurance they embodied.
Mr. McCain's most intense early memories are likely of a time when most men under 40 wore the uniform; and there is a difference, I believe, between those who remember it and those who don't. His country was enmeshed in a battle for its survival. Mr. McCain is the grandson and son of admirals, and Pearl Harbor and the great carrier battles in the South Pacific made a deep and lasting impression upon his childhood.
We remember when the German army had a stranglehold on Europe, and the Japanese on Asia. Those who lived through that eventful period understood the greatness of our nation -- our indispensable nation -- and knew that without it the future of mankind would be dark indeed.
The nightmare of a world at war and the ghastly revelations in its wake are deeply imbedded in Mr. McCain's psyche. Our generation recoiled at the depths of human cruelty -- we saw emaciated Jews liberated by our troops from Hitler's Belsen, and starved death-march survivors of Bataan emerging from incarceration in Japanese hellholes.
Those born later have barely an inkling of the impression those events made, and the deep bond it created with our country. At a time of reckoning, America rose up "in righteous wrath" against history's most evil villains. To have no pride in that significant accomplishment surely seems to John McCain, as it does to me, no less than moral blindness.
In his formative years, Mr. McCain experienced the dawn of a frightening new age. Murderous dictators, with nuclear arms at their disposal, threatened to annihilate those who opposed them. This country, foremost among nations, paid the price to check them. He saw what ill-preparedness and hubris wrought in Korea: We could not withstand the initial incursion, and after finally overcoming it, provoked a Chinese invasion that led to our tragic winter retreat.
Troubled by American complacency in the mid-1950s, Mr. McCain chose to follow his father and grandfather to Annapolis. He earned his flying wings, became a squadron leader on the carriers Forrestal and Oriskany, and was shot down in combat over North Vietnam.
His bones broken by a mob that beat him half to death, Mr. McCain was thrown into the Hanoi Hilton where Ho Chi Minh's sadistic henchmen tormented him unmercifully. In a display of character that boggles the imagination, he somehow managed to survive with his identity intact.
While others talk of courage, honor and dedication, John McCain exemplifies those virtues. At a time when America's integrity and purpose were being questioned, his fortitude helped reaffirm our core beliefs. A nation that could produce young men of his caliber could right itself and overcome whatever obstacles it faced. After more than five years of imprisonment, he finally came hobbling home, and with a broad smile and a firm salute, took our collective breath away.
A society that views the tempering of time as an infirmity is a society in trouble. The no-name generation is more vital in its late 60s and early 70s than previous ones in their 40s and 50s. It may struggle for a "misremembered" name on occasion, but it knows far better than its juniors who it is, where it comes from, and for what it stands.
No one better represents this than Mr. McCain. His authenticity, unlike that of his Democratic Party counterparts, is beyond question. What you see is what you get, and what you get is the real thing.
By BENJAMIN MANASTER
March 25, 2008; Page A23
"The young need old men. They need men who are not ashamed of age, not pathetic imitations of themselves."
-- Peter Ustinov
Once upon a time there was a no-name generation that went about its business and did not call attention to itself. While the Greatest moved offstage and the Boomers ran amuck, it raised and educated families, laying the groundwork for a prosperous future. Overlooked, ignored by those who followed it, and alone among its peers, this generation may soon see one of its members become president.
Of course, the road will not be smooth. The attack on John McCain's age has only just begun. A mere tittering at present, it will be shouted from rooftops come the fall. In our youth-obsessed society, newness trumps experience. Media central casting gives this older generation a thumbs down, favoring the novel and the different. But Sen. McCain, who will turn 72 in August, still goes about his business with the dogged determination that sustained him through long years in a North Vietnamese prison.
Those of us born in the late 1930s retain only a weak memory of the Great Depression. But we noted well the solemn eyes of our parents and felt, in the marrow of our bones, the values of steadfastness and endurance they embodied.
Mr. McCain's most intense early memories are likely of a time when most men under 40 wore the uniform; and there is a difference, I believe, between those who remember it and those who don't. His country was enmeshed in a battle for its survival. Mr. McCain is the grandson and son of admirals, and Pearl Harbor and the great carrier battles in the South Pacific made a deep and lasting impression upon his childhood.
We remember when the German army had a stranglehold on Europe, and the Japanese on Asia. Those who lived through that eventful period understood the greatness of our nation -- our indispensable nation -- and knew that without it the future of mankind would be dark indeed.
The nightmare of a world at war and the ghastly revelations in its wake are deeply imbedded in Mr. McCain's psyche. Our generation recoiled at the depths of human cruelty -- we saw emaciated Jews liberated by our troops from Hitler's Belsen, and starved death-march survivors of Bataan emerging from incarceration in Japanese hellholes.
Those born later have barely an inkling of the impression those events made, and the deep bond it created with our country. At a time of reckoning, America rose up "in righteous wrath" against history's most evil villains. To have no pride in that significant accomplishment surely seems to John McCain, as it does to me, no less than moral blindness.
In his formative years, Mr. McCain experienced the dawn of a frightening new age. Murderous dictators, with nuclear arms at their disposal, threatened to annihilate those who opposed them. This country, foremost among nations, paid the price to check them. He saw what ill-preparedness and hubris wrought in Korea: We could not withstand the initial incursion, and after finally overcoming it, provoked a Chinese invasion that led to our tragic winter retreat.
Troubled by American complacency in the mid-1950s, Mr. McCain chose to follow his father and grandfather to Annapolis. He earned his flying wings, became a squadron leader on the carriers Forrestal and Oriskany, and was shot down in combat over North Vietnam.
His bones broken by a mob that beat him half to death, Mr. McCain was thrown into the Hanoi Hilton where Ho Chi Minh's sadistic henchmen tormented him unmercifully. In a display of character that boggles the imagination, he somehow managed to survive with his identity intact.
While others talk of courage, honor and dedication, John McCain exemplifies those virtues. At a time when America's integrity and purpose were being questioned, his fortitude helped reaffirm our core beliefs. A nation that could produce young men of his caliber could right itself and overcome whatever obstacles it faced. After more than five years of imprisonment, he finally came hobbling home, and with a broad smile and a firm salute, took our collective breath away.
A society that views the tempering of time as an infirmity is a society in trouble. The no-name generation is more vital in its late 60s and early 70s than previous ones in their 40s and 50s. It may struggle for a "misremembered" name on occasion, but it knows far better than its juniors who it is, where it comes from, and for what it stands.
No one better represents this than Mr. McCain. His authenticity, unlike that of his Democratic Party counterparts, is beyond question. What you see is what you get, and what you get is the real thing.
Senator Clinton did not mispeak
Wow, ok a few thoughts here.
1) Clearly this was not a misunderstanding; Senator Clinton was trying to inflate the importance of the situation.
2) The article implies that this incident is meant to bolster the senator's foreign policy credentials. This is a serious sign of trouble for Democrats. If the best example of foreign policy experience they can point to is running from a transport helicopter, they are not going to fare very well against Senator McCain's lifetime of legitimate foreign policy experiences. I hope he is recording each of these comments to make the contrast clear in the coming general election.
Clinton says she 'misspoke' about sniper fire
(CNN) -- Sen. Hillary Clinton said she "misspoke" last week when she gave a dramatic description of her arrival in Bosnia 12 years ago, recounting a landing under sniper fire.
Clinton was responding to a question Monday from the Philadelphia Daily News' editorial board about video footage of the event that contradicted her assertion that her group "ran with our heads down" from the plane to avoid sniper fire at the Tuzla Air Base.
Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for rival Sen. Barack Obama's campaign, said the Bosnia claim was part of "a growing list of instances in which Sen. Clinton has exaggerated her role in foreign and domestic policymaking."
Clinton told the paper's editorial board it was a "minor blip."
"I say a lot of things -- millions of words a day -- so if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement," she said.
In a radio interview that aired Tuesday, Clinton said she wasn't worried about the incident hurting her credibility.
"I have been in the public eye for many, many years, and this is something that I think happens to anybody," she told radio station KDKA in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
In a foreign policy speech last week at George Washington University, Clinton used the description of the dangerous arrival to bolster her argument that she has the foreign policy experience needed to be commander in chief.
She said when she arrived in Bosnia on March 25, 1996, "I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."
But news video footage of her arrival at Tuzla shows Clinton, then the first lady, calmly walking from the rear ramp of a U.S. Air Force C-17 transport plane with her daughter, Chelsea, then 16, at her side. Both Clintons held their heads up and did not appear rushed as they walked toward the group waiting on the tarmac to welcome them.
The video shows Clinton spending several minutes talking with the group, including an 8-year-old Bosnian girl who presented her with a poem, and later greeting U.S. troops.
Clinton has mentioned the sniper fire at least twice earlier in the campaign, including in December in Dubuque, Iowa, before the caucuses in that state.
"We landed in one of those corkscrew landings and ran out because they said there might be sniper fire," Clinton said. "I don't remember anybody offering me tea on the tarmac when that was happening."
Clinton's campaign has made foreign policy experience a centerpiece of her effort to come back against Obama, whom she is trailing in delegates for the Democratic presidential nomination.
During Monday's editorial meeting -- in which Clinton was seeking the Daily News' endorsement ahead of Pennsylvania's April 22 primary -- she was asked about the apparent discrepancy. The newspaper reported her response:
"Now let me tell you what I can remember, OK -- because what I was told was that we had to land a certain way and move quickly because of the threat of sniper fire. So I misspoke -- I didn't say that in my book or other times but if I said something that made it seem as though there was actual fire -- that's not what I was told," she told the newspaper.
"I was told we had to land a certain way, we had to have our bulletproof stuff on because of the threat of sniper fire. I was also told that the greeting ceremony had been moved away from the tarmac but that there was this 8-year-old girl and, I can't, I can't rush by her, I've got to at least greet her -- so I greeted her, I took her stuff and then I left. Now that's my memory of it."
The first lady's official schedule for the day -- made public by the National Archives last week -- said U.S. Ambassador John Menzies would introduce Clinton to the greeters, the Bosnian girl would read her poem and Clinton would meet a seventh-grade class.
The schedule noted that Ejup Ganic, the acting president of Bosnia, would be among those greeting the first lady.
Video footage showed Clinton walking on the tarmac with about a dozen young people, but it was not clear if they were the seventh-graders mentioned on her schedule.
American comedian Sinbad and singer Sheryl Crowe were also on the trip with Clinton, the schedule said.
Meanwhile, as Clinton backpedaled from the description of her Bosnia trip, the senator from New York is keeping her focus on the economy with a town hall-style meeting Tuesday in Greensburg, Pennsylvania.
Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, also is focusing on the economy. He's participating in a roundtable Tuesday in Santa Ana, California.
Obama has no public events scheduled Tuesday. The senator from Illinois is wrapping up a brief vacation to the U.S. Virgin Islands.
He resumes campaigning Wednesday, with stops scheduled in North Carolina.
1) Clearly this was not a misunderstanding; Senator Clinton was trying to inflate the importance of the situation.
2) The article implies that this incident is meant to bolster the senator's foreign policy credentials. This is a serious sign of trouble for Democrats. If the best example of foreign policy experience they can point to is running from a transport helicopter, they are not going to fare very well against Senator McCain's lifetime of legitimate foreign policy experiences. I hope he is recording each of these comments to make the contrast clear in the coming general election.
Clinton says she 'misspoke' about sniper fire
(CNN) -- Sen. Hillary Clinton said she "misspoke" last week when she gave a dramatic description of her arrival in Bosnia 12 years ago, recounting a landing under sniper fire.
Clinton was responding to a question Monday from the Philadelphia Daily News' editorial board about video footage of the event that contradicted her assertion that her group "ran with our heads down" from the plane to avoid sniper fire at the Tuzla Air Base.
Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for rival Sen. Barack Obama's campaign, said the Bosnia claim was part of "a growing list of instances in which Sen. Clinton has exaggerated her role in foreign and domestic policymaking."
Clinton told the paper's editorial board it was a "minor blip."
"I say a lot of things -- millions of words a day -- so if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement," she said.
In a radio interview that aired Tuesday, Clinton said she wasn't worried about the incident hurting her credibility.
"I have been in the public eye for many, many years, and this is something that I think happens to anybody," she told radio station KDKA in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
In a foreign policy speech last week at George Washington University, Clinton used the description of the dangerous arrival to bolster her argument that she has the foreign policy experience needed to be commander in chief.
She said when she arrived in Bosnia on March 25, 1996, "I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."
But news video footage of her arrival at Tuzla shows Clinton, then the first lady, calmly walking from the rear ramp of a U.S. Air Force C-17 transport plane with her daughter, Chelsea, then 16, at her side. Both Clintons held their heads up and did not appear rushed as they walked toward the group waiting on the tarmac to welcome them.
The video shows Clinton spending several minutes talking with the group, including an 8-year-old Bosnian girl who presented her with a poem, and later greeting U.S. troops.
Clinton has mentioned the sniper fire at least twice earlier in the campaign, including in December in Dubuque, Iowa, before the caucuses in that state.
"We landed in one of those corkscrew landings and ran out because they said there might be sniper fire," Clinton said. "I don't remember anybody offering me tea on the tarmac when that was happening."
Clinton's campaign has made foreign policy experience a centerpiece of her effort to come back against Obama, whom she is trailing in delegates for the Democratic presidential nomination.
During Monday's editorial meeting -- in which Clinton was seeking the Daily News' endorsement ahead of Pennsylvania's April 22 primary -- she was asked about the apparent discrepancy. The newspaper reported her response:
"Now let me tell you what I can remember, OK -- because what I was told was that we had to land a certain way and move quickly because of the threat of sniper fire. So I misspoke -- I didn't say that in my book or other times but if I said something that made it seem as though there was actual fire -- that's not what I was told," she told the newspaper.
"I was told we had to land a certain way, we had to have our bulletproof stuff on because of the threat of sniper fire. I was also told that the greeting ceremony had been moved away from the tarmac but that there was this 8-year-old girl and, I can't, I can't rush by her, I've got to at least greet her -- so I greeted her, I took her stuff and then I left. Now that's my memory of it."
The first lady's official schedule for the day -- made public by the National Archives last week -- said U.S. Ambassador John Menzies would introduce Clinton to the greeters, the Bosnian girl would read her poem and Clinton would meet a seventh-grade class.
The schedule noted that Ejup Ganic, the acting president of Bosnia, would be among those greeting the first lady.
Video footage showed Clinton walking on the tarmac with about a dozen young people, but it was not clear if they were the seventh-graders mentioned on her schedule.
American comedian Sinbad and singer Sheryl Crowe were also on the trip with Clinton, the schedule said.
Meanwhile, as Clinton backpedaled from the description of her Bosnia trip, the senator from New York is keeping her focus on the economy with a town hall-style meeting Tuesday in Greensburg, Pennsylvania.
Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, also is focusing on the economy. He's participating in a roundtable Tuesday in Santa Ana, California.
Obama has no public events scheduled Tuesday. The senator from Illinois is wrapping up a brief vacation to the U.S. Virgin Islands.
He resumes campaigning Wednesday, with stops scheduled in North Carolina.
The Lawyers' Party?
I think the author rakes the rhetoric a bit far, but it is an interesting observation...
Article here
The Lawyers' Party
By Bruce Walker
The Democratic Party has become the Lawyers' Party. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are lawyers. Bill Clinton and Michelle Obama are lawyers. John Edwards, the other former Democrat candidate for president, is a lawyer and so is his wife Elizabeth. Every Democrat nominee since 1984 went to law school (although Gore did not graduate.) Every Democrat vice presidential nominee since 1976, except for Lloyd Benson, went to law school. Look at the Democrat Party in Congress: the Majority Leader in each house is a lawyer.
The Republican Party is different. President Bush and Vice President Cheney were not lawyers, but businessmen. The leaders of the Republican Revolution were not lawyers. Newt Gingrich was a history professor; Tom Delay was an exterminator; and Dick Armey was an economist. House Minority Leader Boehner was a plastic manufacturer, not a lawyer. The former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is a heart surgeon.
Who was the last Republican president who was a lawyer? Gerald Ford, who left office thirty-one years ago and who barely won the Republican nomination as a sitting president, running against Ronald Reagan in 1976. The Republican Party is made up of real people doing real work. The Democratic Party is made up of lawyers. Democrats mock and scorn men who create wealth, like Bush and Cheney, or who heal the sick like Frist, or who immerse themselves in history like Gingrich.
The Lawyers' Party sees these sorts of people, who provide goods and services that people want, as the enemies of America. And so we have seen the procession of official enemies in the eyes of the Lawyers' Party grow. Against whom do Hillary and Obama rail? Pharmaceutical companies, oil companies, hospitals, manufacturers, fast food restaurant chains, large retail businesses, bankers and anyone producing anything of value in our nation.
This is the natural consequence of viewing everything through the eyes of lawyers. Lawyers solve problems by successfully representing their clients, in this case the American people. Lawyers seek to have new laws passed, they seek to win lawsuits, they press appellate courts to overturn precedent, and lawyers always parse language to favor their side.
Confined to the narrow practice of law, that is fine. But it is an awful way to govern a great nation. When politicians as lawyers begin to view some Americans as clients and other Americans as opposing parties, then the role of the legal system in our life becomes all consuming. Some Americans become "adverse parties" of our very government. We are not all litigants in some vast social class action suit. We are citizens of a republic which promises us a great deal of freedom from laws, from courts, and from lawyers.
Today, we are drowning in laws, we are contorted by judicial decisions, we are driven to distraction by omnipresent lawyers in all parts of our once private lives. America has a place for laws and lawyers, but that place is modest and reasonable, not vast and unchecked. When the most important decision for our next president is whom he will appoint to the Supreme Court, the role of lawyers and the law in America is too big. When lawyers use criminal prosecution as a continuation of politics by other means, as happened in the lynching of Scooter Libby and Tom Delay, then the power of lawyers in America is too great. When House Democrats sue America in order to hamstring our efforts to learn what our enemies are planning to do to use, then the role of litigation in America has become crushing.
We cannot expect the Lawyers' Party to provide real change, real reform or real hope in America. Most Americans know that a republic in which every major government action must be blessed by nine unelected judges is not what Washington intended in 1789. Most Americans grasp that we cannot fight a war when ACLU lawsuits snap at the heels of our defenders. Most Americans intuit that more lawyers and judges will not restore declining moral values or spark the spirit of enterprise in our economy.
Perhaps Americans will understand that change cannot be brought to our nation by those lawyers who already largely dictate American society and business. Perhaps Americans will see that hope does not come from the mouths of lawyers but from personal dreams nourished by hard work. Perhaps Americans will embrace the truth that more lawyers with more power will only make our problems
Article here
The Lawyers' Party
By Bruce Walker
The Democratic Party has become the Lawyers' Party. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are lawyers. Bill Clinton and Michelle Obama are lawyers. John Edwards, the other former Democrat candidate for president, is a lawyer and so is his wife Elizabeth. Every Democrat nominee since 1984 went to law school (although Gore did not graduate.) Every Democrat vice presidential nominee since 1976, except for Lloyd Benson, went to law school. Look at the Democrat Party in Congress: the Majority Leader in each house is a lawyer.
The Republican Party is different. President Bush and Vice President Cheney were not lawyers, but businessmen. The leaders of the Republican Revolution were not lawyers. Newt Gingrich was a history professor; Tom Delay was an exterminator; and Dick Armey was an economist. House Minority Leader Boehner was a plastic manufacturer, not a lawyer. The former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is a heart surgeon.
Who was the last Republican president who was a lawyer? Gerald Ford, who left office thirty-one years ago and who barely won the Republican nomination as a sitting president, running against Ronald Reagan in 1976. The Republican Party is made up of real people doing real work. The Democratic Party is made up of lawyers. Democrats mock and scorn men who create wealth, like Bush and Cheney, or who heal the sick like Frist, or who immerse themselves in history like Gingrich.
The Lawyers' Party sees these sorts of people, who provide goods and services that people want, as the enemies of America. And so we have seen the procession of official enemies in the eyes of the Lawyers' Party grow. Against whom do Hillary and Obama rail? Pharmaceutical companies, oil companies, hospitals, manufacturers, fast food restaurant chains, large retail businesses, bankers and anyone producing anything of value in our nation.
This is the natural consequence of viewing everything through the eyes of lawyers. Lawyers solve problems by successfully representing their clients, in this case the American people. Lawyers seek to have new laws passed, they seek to win lawsuits, they press appellate courts to overturn precedent, and lawyers always parse language to favor their side.
Confined to the narrow practice of law, that is fine. But it is an awful way to govern a great nation. When politicians as lawyers begin to view some Americans as clients and other Americans as opposing parties, then the role of the legal system in our life becomes all consuming. Some Americans become "adverse parties" of our very government. We are not all litigants in some vast social class action suit. We are citizens of a republic which promises us a great deal of freedom from laws, from courts, and from lawyers.
Today, we are drowning in laws, we are contorted by judicial decisions, we are driven to distraction by omnipresent lawyers in all parts of our once private lives. America has a place for laws and lawyers, but that place is modest and reasonable, not vast and unchecked. When the most important decision for our next president is whom he will appoint to the Supreme Court, the role of lawyers and the law in America is too big. When lawyers use criminal prosecution as a continuation of politics by other means, as happened in the lynching of Scooter Libby and Tom Delay, then the power of lawyers in America is too great. When House Democrats sue America in order to hamstring our efforts to learn what our enemies are planning to do to use, then the role of litigation in America has become crushing.
We cannot expect the Lawyers' Party to provide real change, real reform or real hope in America. Most Americans know that a republic in which every major government action must be blessed by nine unelected judges is not what Washington intended in 1789. Most Americans grasp that we cannot fight a war when ACLU lawsuits snap at the heels of our defenders. Most Americans intuit that more lawyers and judges will not restore declining moral values or spark the spirit of enterprise in our economy.
Perhaps Americans will understand that change cannot be brought to our nation by those lawyers who already largely dictate American society and business. Perhaps Americans will see that hope does not come from the mouths of lawyers but from personal dreams nourished by hard work. Perhaps Americans will embrace the truth that more lawyers with more power will only make our problems
Airbus v. Boeing
I find this rather ridiculous. Unless there is a national security threat posed by having our Air Force Tankers manufactured by a foreign government, we should not be discriminating based on the country of origin. How hypocritical of us to claim we are for free trade and globalization, but then play favorites and only award big contracts to domestic businesses. As I wrote the last time this issue came up - I believe it is improper for the government to play favorites with my tax dollars. I want the best product at the lowest price possible, period (unless there is a security issue, which in this case, there isn't). Notice how there is no mention of the relative size of Boeing's bid vs. the bid put forth by Airbus. If Boeing really wanted the contract, they should have made the best offer. That's how it is supposed to work.
Article Link
Airbus v. Boeing: What Do Voters Think?
By Hugh Hewitt
Thursday, March 20, 2008
The recent award of a $35 billion dollar contract to Airbus-Northrop Grumman shocked more than the Boeing executives and employees who have always supplied the United States Air Force's tanker fleet.
It also sent the Pentagon-watchers into a tizzy of speculation and gossip.
Was Boeing being punished for the past corrupt practices of long-gone and rightly punished bad executives?
Had Boeing arrogantly ignored pushes and nudges from the Air Force?
Had the Air Force changed the rules in the middle of the process?
All these questions and more will be answered via the bid protest process launched by Boeing. But assume for the moment that the general Accounting Office rejects the protest and allows the contract to stand. Should the United States Congress intervene even if the GAO delivers a clean bill of health for the process. (Let me answer that one - NO)
There are lots of reasons to shake your head at the prospect of a French-led consortium building the next fleet of supertankers for our air force. The French have not exactly been the best of allies in the long war, and have been of almost no help at all in Afghanistan. The new president is a sharp uptick, yes, but even if became the new John Howard, would it send a good signal to our allies concerning the costs and benefits of cooperating with U.S. foreign policy to cut Airbus in on the biggest contract in a long, long time? (Are we now using contracts to reward behavior? This is supposed to be an objective bidding process, not a popularity contest. How petty would we be if we said, "well, the government didn't support us on issue X, so we are going to punish private enterprise in that country - of course, if you want to say the gov subsidies make Airbus a semi-public company, I will listen to that argument)
Doesn't selecting Airbus suggest that there is no way the Americans will ever put bad conduct of an ally ahead of its bottom line, and thus increase the likelihood of future bad conduct by other allies? (So disagreement constitutes "bad conduct"? No wonder foreign governments think we are arrogant. Additionally, if America feels the need to levy sanctions against all French imports from a diplomatic/political perspective, then go that route, but you can't single out an individual firm and hold them accountable for the actions of that country's government.)
Then there is the question of national industrial policy -or rather the lack of it. Even confirmed free traders --and I am one of them-recognize the difference between massive military contracts and the ordinary flow of goods and services across global markets. To have a preference for retaining the basic industrial capacity that allows for a robust national defense sector is not to contradict free trade principles, but is rather to limit their application at that point where the national security may be eroded by shipping jobs and capacity overseas. I asked one friend within Boeing for an assessment of this argument. His reply:
It is yet one more blow to our aerospace capability, and in this case, a big blow in terms of loss of skilled jobs. A continuing erosion of our capabilities has other long term consequences such as fewer engineering students. (Right, because people choose to enter the engineering field based on the nationality of the firm supplying our aircraft refueling jets. What a bunch of fear-mongoring crap. Are we really to believe that the awarding of this tanker contract is going to cripple our technological advantage over the rest of the world? Or that this contract going to Airbus is going to play a significant role in the continuing outsourcing of jobs for the economy as a whole? And even if it does, is it the job of the government to stop such a trend? If so, we should do away with imports and force all consumers to only buy American all the time.)
Any transaction involving critical infrastructure or technologies should be subjected to heightened scrutiny; particularly, where the real parties in interest are foreign governments. If the DoD did make a national security determination, we should know that and the basis for their determination, and if not, why not. If Airbus had tried to enter the US market through the front door by acquiring an interest in Northrop Grumman, the transaction would have been subjected to a CFIUS review. (I think the awarding of the contact to Airbus proves that it was not a national security determination - what is his point here?)
There are only two countries that have the ability to project force around the world - Russia and the US - and tankers are the key. Why would we want to put that capability in the hands of others.
He added: "It strikes me as absolutely absurd that the US would give an award to Airbus at the same time that the US has a huge trade case against the Europeans for subsidizing Airbus." (This, to me, is the only legitimate point raised in this article)
Of course a Boeing man will put forward's Boeing's point-of-view, but these are all compelling points to which I invite the response of Airbus fans.
In the meantime, though, the issue will become a factor in the politics of 2008. It seems likely that voters will react to this deal as they did to the ill-fated Dubai ports deal of two year ago. Americans believe in free trade, and they certainly welcome economic growth. (First of all, many people are ignorant and behave irrationally when it comes to economics and trade, as evidenced by the very port deal Hewitt mentions. This will only be a voting issue for uninformed people who are susceptible to manipulation and rhetoric.)
But they have a deep belief in maintaining a vibrant, independent defense sector, of which Boeing has always been a leading participant. (Oh, I see, so they should just receive all future military contracts outright? What a clown)
Article Link
Airbus v. Boeing: What Do Voters Think?
By Hugh Hewitt
Thursday, March 20, 2008
The recent award of a $35 billion dollar contract to Airbus-Northrop Grumman shocked more than the Boeing executives and employees who have always supplied the United States Air Force's tanker fleet.
It also sent the Pentagon-watchers into a tizzy of speculation and gossip.
Was Boeing being punished for the past corrupt practices of long-gone and rightly punished bad executives?
Had Boeing arrogantly ignored pushes and nudges from the Air Force?
Had the Air Force changed the rules in the middle of the process?
All these questions and more will be answered via the bid protest process launched by Boeing. But assume for the moment that the general Accounting Office rejects the protest and allows the contract to stand. Should the United States Congress intervene even if the GAO delivers a clean bill of health for the process. (Let me answer that one - NO)
There are lots of reasons to shake your head at the prospect of a French-led consortium building the next fleet of supertankers for our air force. The French have not exactly been the best of allies in the long war, and have been of almost no help at all in Afghanistan. The new president is a sharp uptick, yes, but even if became the new John Howard, would it send a good signal to our allies concerning the costs and benefits of cooperating with U.S. foreign policy to cut Airbus in on the biggest contract in a long, long time? (Are we now using contracts to reward behavior? This is supposed to be an objective bidding process, not a popularity contest. How petty would we be if we said, "well, the government didn't support us on issue X, so we are going to punish private enterprise in that country - of course, if you want to say the gov subsidies make Airbus a semi-public company, I will listen to that argument)
Doesn't selecting Airbus suggest that there is no way the Americans will ever put bad conduct of an ally ahead of its bottom line, and thus increase the likelihood of future bad conduct by other allies? (So disagreement constitutes "bad conduct"? No wonder foreign governments think we are arrogant. Additionally, if America feels the need to levy sanctions against all French imports from a diplomatic/political perspective, then go that route, but you can't single out an individual firm and hold them accountable for the actions of that country's government.)
Then there is the question of national industrial policy -or rather the lack of it. Even confirmed free traders --and I am one of them-recognize the difference between massive military contracts and the ordinary flow of goods and services across global markets. To have a preference for retaining the basic industrial capacity that allows for a robust national defense sector is not to contradict free trade principles, but is rather to limit their application at that point where the national security may be eroded by shipping jobs and capacity overseas. I asked one friend within Boeing for an assessment of this argument. His reply:
It is yet one more blow to our aerospace capability, and in this case, a big blow in terms of loss of skilled jobs. A continuing erosion of our capabilities has other long term consequences such as fewer engineering students. (Right, because people choose to enter the engineering field based on the nationality of the firm supplying our aircraft refueling jets. What a bunch of fear-mongoring crap. Are we really to believe that the awarding of this tanker contract is going to cripple our technological advantage over the rest of the world? Or that this contract going to Airbus is going to play a significant role in the continuing outsourcing of jobs for the economy as a whole? And even if it does, is it the job of the government to stop such a trend? If so, we should do away with imports and force all consumers to only buy American all the time.)
Any transaction involving critical infrastructure or technologies should be subjected to heightened scrutiny; particularly, where the real parties in interest are foreign governments. If the DoD did make a national security determination, we should know that and the basis for their determination, and if not, why not. If Airbus had tried to enter the US market through the front door by acquiring an interest in Northrop Grumman, the transaction would have been subjected to a CFIUS review. (I think the awarding of the contact to Airbus proves that it was not a national security determination - what is his point here?)
There are only two countries that have the ability to project force around the world - Russia and the US - and tankers are the key. Why would we want to put that capability in the hands of others.
He added: "It strikes me as absolutely absurd that the US would give an award to Airbus at the same time that the US has a huge trade case against the Europeans for subsidizing Airbus." (This, to me, is the only legitimate point raised in this article)
Of course a Boeing man will put forward's Boeing's point-of-view, but these are all compelling points to which I invite the response of Airbus fans.
In the meantime, though, the issue will become a factor in the politics of 2008. It seems likely that voters will react to this deal as they did to the ill-fated Dubai ports deal of two year ago. Americans believe in free trade, and they certainly welcome economic growth. (First of all, many people are ignorant and behave irrationally when it comes to economics and trade, as evidenced by the very port deal Hewitt mentions. This will only be a voting issue for uninformed people who are susceptible to manipulation and rhetoric.)
But they have a deep belief in maintaining a vibrant, independent defense sector, of which Boeing has always been a leading participant. (Oh, I see, so they should just receive all future military contracts outright? What a clown)
Universal Healthcare
I believe this article helps explain some of the challenges facing implementation of universal healthcare. I especially liked the question of "what do we do to people who still refuse to participate?" Please respond if you so desire...I would like to hear your thoughts.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/02/mandate_me_baby.html
Mandate Me, Baby
By Rick Moran
I am not much of a policy wonk. Rarely do I don my pointy hat and delve into the mysteries of exactly how government tries to run our lives. Usually it is enough for me to spout generalities while railing against bureaucrats, liberals, and eager beaver do gooders who often act as surrogates for government policy in lieu of direct intervention by agencies.
No, I have eschewed covering policy for the most part. I am not smart enough and fear if I cram my head with too much of that stuff, other more important things will dribble out of my ears. Why take a chance on losing vital information like what Eva Longoria likes to do in bed or the name of Britney Spears' favorite psychiatrist?
But I'll take that chance by delving into what promises to be the number one controversy that will hit the internet if a Democrat is elected president next November; mandates and the drive to coerce the American people into buying health insurance.
What is a health insurance mandate? Basically, it is government forcing you to purchase insurance even if you don't want it or feel you have no need for it. The principle is based on the idea that those who do not have health insurance are getting a "free ride" from the rest of us when they get sick or injured. Since hospitals are forced to treat you even if you have no money, the cost of treating your sorry butt if you are uninsured is born by the rest of us who carry insurance or, in 85% of cases, by local, state, and federal government. As a result, health care costs skyrocket and premiums become more expensive.
Apparently around 21% of people out of the 44 million who don't purchase health insurance are young, single, healthy workers who can afford individual premiums but refuse to cover themselves. This drives the price of health insurance up even more because it leaves older, less healthy people in the insurance pool who are more likely to need health care.
So the thinking is if we get everyone covered under an insurance program, premiums will come down and we will be able to get health care costs under control.
And we all live happily ever after...
Not exactly. For instance, what do you do with people who despite the gentle entreaties of government, refuse to buy insurance? No Democrat will give a straight answer to this question and for good reason; the only cost effective, efficient way to round up the health insurance deadbeats is to garnish their wages or assess a penalty by using the IRS to enforce the law. The idea is that taxpayers would provide proof of insurance when they file their tax return. Scofflaws would have the premium come out of their refund or the IRS could simply bill them for the amount owed. Failing to get the money that way, wage garnishment would be in the offing.
But there is a huge problem with using the IRS to ensure we're insured; nearly 18 million low income tax payers aren't required to file a tax return while another 9 million Americans refuse to do so. That's 27 million Americans who could potentially fall through the cracks of any enforcement regime. One plan advanced by The New America Foundation would mandate that all Americans file a proof of insurance with the IRS whether they pay taxes or not. But that plan doesn't allow for people who simply refuse to file. And, after all, some of the uninsured are elderly, homeless, or mentally ill. Others may have changed their address multiple times.
Perhaps looking at compliance rates for other mandates might give us an idea of what we might expect with health insurance strictures. Most of us are mandated to pay for auto liability insurance. Compliance varies but ranges from between 66% - 96% depending on the state. Also, in states where there is a childhood immunization requirement, compliance reaches an average of 77%.
Authors of this paper published in Health Affairs journal found several factors affecting the rate of compliance with mandates:
"Compliance is easy and relatively inexpensive; penalties for non-compliance are stiff but not excessive; and enforcement is routine, appropriately timed, and frequent."
Using the above criteria, one can see problems immediately. For instance, has government ever made anything "easy and relatively inexpensive?" Even if mandates started out that way, there is every reason to believe that the cost would rise swiftly with more and more rules promulgated and exceptions made.
And those who have dealt with the IRS can attest better than I whether any enforcement done by the agency is "routine" or "appropriately timed." Congress and others have been trying to change the corporate culture at the IRS for years and have failed utterly. It seems far fetched to expect the agency to change in the matter of collecting for health insurance.
Both Democratic candidates would probably use the IRS to enforce their idea of universal coverage. The difference is that Hillary Clinton's plan specifically calls for mandates to coerce people and businesses to purchase insurance while Obama's plan relies on a somewhat more voluntary (and probably less successful) belief that making insurance affordable will automatically cause the vast majority of those who don't have insurance presently to buy some.
Both plans would call on healthy insureds to subsidize unhealthy insureds by ignoring such supposed trivialities as pre-existing conditions or other actuarial criteria. Instead of those who are more likely to use the health care system paying more in premiums, those less likely to be sick are asked to pay the same amount as those actually using the system. It's like telling someone with three drunk driving convictions and a history of accidents that he doesn't have to pay any more in insurance than someone who has never had so much as a speeding ticket.
Both plans would subsidize those who can't afford health insurance through tax credits or direct federal subsidies. As mentioned previously, most poor people do not pay any taxes at all which would make a tax credit an interesting exercise in government coercion. Those who currently don't need to file a tax return would be forced to do so in order to claim the tax credit.
Even a direct subsidy as proposed by Obama has problems. One must assume a mechanism to insure that the subsidy is spent on health insurance and not some other less vital household expense like food or cable TV.
Both candidates offer plans that would coerce businesses to give health care benefits to their employees. Which is more draconian? Both would penalize businesses through increased taxes if they failed to cover their employees. Obama would give a break to the very small business by making them exempt. Clinton would offer a tax break to smaller businesses to encourage them to offer insurance. If they don't, they pay a penalty.
Obama's plan differs from Clinton's not only on mandates but also by his proposing a "National Health Insurance Exchange" - nanny statism run wild:
The Obama plan will create a National Health Insurance Exchange to help individuals who wish to purchase a private insurance plan. The Exchange will act as a watchdog group and help reform the private insurance market by creating rules and standards for participating insurance plans to ensure fairness and to make individual coverage more affordable and accessible. Insurers would have to issue every applicant a policy, and charge fair and stable premiums that will not depend upon health status. The Exchange will require that all the plans offered are at least as generous as the new public plan and have the same standards for quality and efficiency. The Exchange would evaluate plans and make the differences among the plans, including cost of services, public.
Why doesn't the government just take over the health insurance industry? Under this "Exchange," all market forces would be corrupted because of interference by this quaisi-government board of inquisitors.
Both plans make grandiose claims about bringing down the cost of health care through "preventive" measures. Unfortunately, that idea has limited use both for improving health and bringing down the cost of health care.
Ezra Klein, who has written extensively on the health care issue from a liberal perspective, outlines the problems with preventive care:
First, the impacts of preventive medicine are often overstated. It's not that cleaning up the air or putting everyone on a gym regimen would greatly improve health-but people don't follow gym regimens, and business doesn't let you clean air. Furthermore, not all interventions are created equal. Better parenting might be beneficial, but it's unlikely to be more effective-either on economic or biological grounds-than the use of statins, or hypertensive drugs, or daily tablets of aspirin. There are a lot of highly effective medical interventions which are very, very cheap. But our system is very poor at incentivizing their use.
Meanwhile, the reason doctors are constantly prescribing statins along with admonitions to exercise and eat better is because using public policy to change diet and exercise habits is really, really, hard, unless you're prepared to be very heavy-handed (i.e, outlawing trans fats in restaurants, setting portion limits, etc). Indeed, part of the problem with preventive health measures is that, rather often, they don't work very well. Like with traditional health care, some things really succeed (stripping lead out of gasoline, giving people antibiotics), and lots of things...don't. And that's to sidestep the weird reality that what drives health care politics is concern over money which, in fact, is quite rational: Folks don't want to go bankrupt, and smart politicians don't want the government to lose all space for spending on other priorities.
All of these measures to bring down the cost of health care and insure more Americans basically come down to this; government coercion on a level rarely seen in America. And it only promises to get worse. Neither the Clinton or Obama plan will cover everyone simply because people - millions of people - will refuse to take part. The Massachusetts plan which mandates people buy insurance is failing to cover those who don't have insurance simply because half of them refuse to sign up - despite the penalties:
A group of doctors and health policy analysts, including a number of Obama advisers, pointed out in a letter released Thursday that Massachusetts, the only state with an insurance mandate, has thus far failed to enroll nearly half of its uninsured despite imposing a modest first-year tax penalty of $219 (the fine increases significantly this year). Because the Massachusetts program is less than a year old, it is not yet possible to fully judge the effectiveness of its mandate.
Mr. Obama raised the Clinton campaign's ire late last week by charging in a voter mailing that "Hillary's health care plan forces everyone to buy insurance, even if you can't afford it... and you pay a penalty if you don't."
And that brings us back to questioning the efficacy of health insurance mandates - not as a vehicle to solve the problem of "free riders" or those who can't afford the cost of health insurance. The rock bottom, basic reality is that in a free society, when government forces people to do something they do not wish to do, liberty is lost and individual rights are trampled upon.
The argument that "We already have mandates for auto insurance among other things so what's the big deal?" doesn't hold water either. Every additional mandate initiated by government cuts into the notion of individual responsibility and substitutes collective will. The Congressional Budget Office put it thusly:
An individual mandate has two features that, in combination, make it unique. First, it would impose a duty on members of society. Second, it would require people to purchase a specific service that would have to be heavily regulated by the federal government.
As this Cato Institute policy analysis points out, mandates are a "slippery slope" to national health care insurance. And the plans offered by both Democratic candidates promise little in the way of relief while virtually guaranteeing that the quality of health care for the average American will go down.
In future years - as with all government run health care plans in the industrialized world - costs will rise, benefits will go down, and some form of rationing health care services will be inevitable.
There are free market solutions to many of our problems with affordable health insurance and rising health care costs. But in the rush to pile the responsibility on the back of government, no one seems willing to even try them. The Democrats have successfully spun the narrative that only government can solve these problems, that the market doesn't work and that therefore, only mandates and "Exchanges" can save the American family from the health care monster.
If one of them is elected next November, we will probably see the biggest change in the American citizen's relationship to government since the income tax amendment was ratified. Intrusive, coercive government polices will become the law of the land. And we will be poorer in liberty and individual freedom because of it.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/02/mandate_me_baby.html
Mandate Me, Baby
By Rick Moran
I am not much of a policy wonk. Rarely do I don my pointy hat and delve into the mysteries of exactly how government tries to run our lives. Usually it is enough for me to spout generalities while railing against bureaucrats, liberals, and eager beaver do gooders who often act as surrogates for government policy in lieu of direct intervention by agencies.
No, I have eschewed covering policy for the most part. I am not smart enough and fear if I cram my head with too much of that stuff, other more important things will dribble out of my ears. Why take a chance on losing vital information like what Eva Longoria likes to do in bed or the name of Britney Spears' favorite psychiatrist?
But I'll take that chance by delving into what promises to be the number one controversy that will hit the internet if a Democrat is elected president next November; mandates and the drive to coerce the American people into buying health insurance.
What is a health insurance mandate? Basically, it is government forcing you to purchase insurance even if you don't want it or feel you have no need for it. The principle is based on the idea that those who do not have health insurance are getting a "free ride" from the rest of us when they get sick or injured. Since hospitals are forced to treat you even if you have no money, the cost of treating your sorry butt if you are uninsured is born by the rest of us who carry insurance or, in 85% of cases, by local, state, and federal government. As a result, health care costs skyrocket and premiums become more expensive.
Apparently around 21% of people out of the 44 million who don't purchase health insurance are young, single, healthy workers who can afford individual premiums but refuse to cover themselves. This drives the price of health insurance up even more because it leaves older, less healthy people in the insurance pool who are more likely to need health care.
So the thinking is if we get everyone covered under an insurance program, premiums will come down and we will be able to get health care costs under control.
And we all live happily ever after...
Not exactly. For instance, what do you do with people who despite the gentle entreaties of government, refuse to buy insurance? No Democrat will give a straight answer to this question and for good reason; the only cost effective, efficient way to round up the health insurance deadbeats is to garnish their wages or assess a penalty by using the IRS to enforce the law. The idea is that taxpayers would provide proof of insurance when they file their tax return. Scofflaws would have the premium come out of their refund or the IRS could simply bill them for the amount owed. Failing to get the money that way, wage garnishment would be in the offing.
But there is a huge problem with using the IRS to ensure we're insured; nearly 18 million low income tax payers aren't required to file a tax return while another 9 million Americans refuse to do so. That's 27 million Americans who could potentially fall through the cracks of any enforcement regime. One plan advanced by The New America Foundation would mandate that all Americans file a proof of insurance with the IRS whether they pay taxes or not. But that plan doesn't allow for people who simply refuse to file. And, after all, some of the uninsured are elderly, homeless, or mentally ill. Others may have changed their address multiple times.
Perhaps looking at compliance rates for other mandates might give us an idea of what we might expect with health insurance strictures. Most of us are mandated to pay for auto liability insurance. Compliance varies but ranges from between 66% - 96% depending on the state. Also, in states where there is a childhood immunization requirement, compliance reaches an average of 77%.
Authors of this paper published in Health Affairs journal found several factors affecting the rate of compliance with mandates:
"Compliance is easy and relatively inexpensive; penalties for non-compliance are stiff but not excessive; and enforcement is routine, appropriately timed, and frequent."
Using the above criteria, one can see problems immediately. For instance, has government ever made anything "easy and relatively inexpensive?" Even if mandates started out that way, there is every reason to believe that the cost would rise swiftly with more and more rules promulgated and exceptions made.
And those who have dealt with the IRS can attest better than I whether any enforcement done by the agency is "routine" or "appropriately timed." Congress and others have been trying to change the corporate culture at the IRS for years and have failed utterly. It seems far fetched to expect the agency to change in the matter of collecting for health insurance.
Both Democratic candidates would probably use the IRS to enforce their idea of universal coverage. The difference is that Hillary Clinton's plan specifically calls for mandates to coerce people and businesses to purchase insurance while Obama's plan relies on a somewhat more voluntary (and probably less successful) belief that making insurance affordable will automatically cause the vast majority of those who don't have insurance presently to buy some.
Both plans would call on healthy insureds to subsidize unhealthy insureds by ignoring such supposed trivialities as pre-existing conditions or other actuarial criteria. Instead of those who are more likely to use the health care system paying more in premiums, those less likely to be sick are asked to pay the same amount as those actually using the system. It's like telling someone with three drunk driving convictions and a history of accidents that he doesn't have to pay any more in insurance than someone who has never had so much as a speeding ticket.
Both plans would subsidize those who can't afford health insurance through tax credits or direct federal subsidies. As mentioned previously, most poor people do not pay any taxes at all which would make a tax credit an interesting exercise in government coercion. Those who currently don't need to file a tax return would be forced to do so in order to claim the tax credit.
Even a direct subsidy as proposed by Obama has problems. One must assume a mechanism to insure that the subsidy is spent on health insurance and not some other less vital household expense like food or cable TV.
Both candidates offer plans that would coerce businesses to give health care benefits to their employees. Which is more draconian? Both would penalize businesses through increased taxes if they failed to cover their employees. Obama would give a break to the very small business by making them exempt. Clinton would offer a tax break to smaller businesses to encourage them to offer insurance. If they don't, they pay a penalty.
Obama's plan differs from Clinton's not only on mandates but also by his proposing a "National Health Insurance Exchange" - nanny statism run wild:
The Obama plan will create a National Health Insurance Exchange to help individuals who wish to purchase a private insurance plan. The Exchange will act as a watchdog group and help reform the private insurance market by creating rules and standards for participating insurance plans to ensure fairness and to make individual coverage more affordable and accessible. Insurers would have to issue every applicant a policy, and charge fair and stable premiums that will not depend upon health status. The Exchange will require that all the plans offered are at least as generous as the new public plan and have the same standards for quality and efficiency. The Exchange would evaluate plans and make the differences among the plans, including cost of services, public.
Why doesn't the government just take over the health insurance industry? Under this "Exchange," all market forces would be corrupted because of interference by this quaisi-government board of inquisitors.
Both plans make grandiose claims about bringing down the cost of health care through "preventive" measures. Unfortunately, that idea has limited use both for improving health and bringing down the cost of health care.
Ezra Klein, who has written extensively on the health care issue from a liberal perspective, outlines the problems with preventive care:
First, the impacts of preventive medicine are often overstated. It's not that cleaning up the air or putting everyone on a gym regimen would greatly improve health-but people don't follow gym regimens, and business doesn't let you clean air. Furthermore, not all interventions are created equal. Better parenting might be beneficial, but it's unlikely to be more effective-either on economic or biological grounds-than the use of statins, or hypertensive drugs, or daily tablets of aspirin. There are a lot of highly effective medical interventions which are very, very cheap. But our system is very poor at incentivizing their use.
Meanwhile, the reason doctors are constantly prescribing statins along with admonitions to exercise and eat better is because using public policy to change diet and exercise habits is really, really, hard, unless you're prepared to be very heavy-handed (i.e, outlawing trans fats in restaurants, setting portion limits, etc). Indeed, part of the problem with preventive health measures is that, rather often, they don't work very well. Like with traditional health care, some things really succeed (stripping lead out of gasoline, giving people antibiotics), and lots of things...don't. And that's to sidestep the weird reality that what drives health care politics is concern over money which, in fact, is quite rational: Folks don't want to go bankrupt, and smart politicians don't want the government to lose all space for spending on other priorities.
All of these measures to bring down the cost of health care and insure more Americans basically come down to this; government coercion on a level rarely seen in America. And it only promises to get worse. Neither the Clinton or Obama plan will cover everyone simply because people - millions of people - will refuse to take part. The Massachusetts plan which mandates people buy insurance is failing to cover those who don't have insurance simply because half of them refuse to sign up - despite the penalties:
A group of doctors and health policy analysts, including a number of Obama advisers, pointed out in a letter released Thursday that Massachusetts, the only state with an insurance mandate, has thus far failed to enroll nearly half of its uninsured despite imposing a modest first-year tax penalty of $219 (the fine increases significantly this year). Because the Massachusetts program is less than a year old, it is not yet possible to fully judge the effectiveness of its mandate.
Mr. Obama raised the Clinton campaign's ire late last week by charging in a voter mailing that "Hillary's health care plan forces everyone to buy insurance, even if you can't afford it... and you pay a penalty if you don't."
And that brings us back to questioning the efficacy of health insurance mandates - not as a vehicle to solve the problem of "free riders" or those who can't afford the cost of health insurance. The rock bottom, basic reality is that in a free society, when government forces people to do something they do not wish to do, liberty is lost and individual rights are trampled upon.
The argument that "We already have mandates for auto insurance among other things so what's the big deal?" doesn't hold water either. Every additional mandate initiated by government cuts into the notion of individual responsibility and substitutes collective will. The Congressional Budget Office put it thusly:
An individual mandate has two features that, in combination, make it unique. First, it would impose a duty on members of society. Second, it would require people to purchase a specific service that would have to be heavily regulated by the federal government.
As this Cato Institute policy analysis points out, mandates are a "slippery slope" to national health care insurance. And the plans offered by both Democratic candidates promise little in the way of relief while virtually guaranteeing that the quality of health care for the average American will go down.
In future years - as with all government run health care plans in the industrialized world - costs will rise, benefits will go down, and some form of rationing health care services will be inevitable.
There are free market solutions to many of our problems with affordable health insurance and rising health care costs. But in the rush to pile the responsibility on the back of government, no one seems willing to even try them. The Democrats have successfully spun the narrative that only government can solve these problems, that the market doesn't work and that therefore, only mandates and "Exchanges" can save the American family from the health care monster.
If one of them is elected next November, we will probably see the biggest change in the American citizen's relationship to government since the income tax amendment was ratified. Intrusive, coercive government polices will become the law of the land. And we will be poorer in liberty and individual freedom because of it.
Commencement
Welcome to my blog. In this space we will discuss many topics but a majority of posts will focus on politics and economics. My main motivation for starting this blog is to provide a forum for people to share their ideas as well as discuss current events of social, economic, and political importance. I believe part of the reason politics is a taboo subject in our society is because many individuals do not feel safe sharing their opinions and people have difficulty keeping a debate from dissolving into an argument. Debate is welcome, but please keep dialogue civil and relevant to the topics at hand. Thank you for visiting - I hope you will return to view and respond to subsequent posts.
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