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The deeming has resumed

Posted by Richard on July 2, 2010

Only 12% of likely voters think Congress is doing a good or excellent job. Lopsided majorities want the deficit drastically reduced (82%), but also think the country is already overtaxed (66%) and blame politicians' unwillingness to cut spending (83%) for the deficit. And the Congressional Budget Office has just released a grim long-term outlook (PDF) predicting things are going to get much worse.

In this climate, Congressional Socialist Democrats, already facing a tough election year, are reluctant to have to defend yet another monstrously bloated budget with yet another trillion-plus-dollar deficit. So, what to do? As Connie Hair reports, they've decided "we don't need no stinkin' budget" and have instead resurrected a sleazy strategy they were considering during the health care takeover debate: 

Last night, as part of a procedural vote on the emergency war supplemental bill, House Democrats attached a document that "deemed as passed" a non-existent $1.12 trillion budget. The execution of the "deeming" document allows Democrats to start spending money for Fiscal Year 2011 without the pesky constraints of a budget.

The procedural vote passed 215-210 with no Republicans voting in favor and 38 Democrats crossing the aisle to vote against deeming the faux budget resolution passed.

Never before — since the creation of the Congressional budget process — has the House failed to pass a budget, failed to propose a budget then deemed the non-existent budget as passed as a means to avoid a direct, recorded vote on a budget, but still allow Congress to spend taxpayer money.

House Budget Committee Ranking Member Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) warned this was the green light for Democrats to continue their out-of-control spending virtually unchecked.

"Facing a record deficit and a tidal wave of debt, House Democrats decided it was politically inconvenient to put forward a budget and account for their fiscal recklessness. With no priorities and no restraints, the spending, taxing, and borrowing will continue unchecked for the coming fiscal year," Ryan said. "The so-called ‘budget enforcement resolution' enforces no budget, but instead provides a green light for the Appropriators to continue spending, exacerbating our looming fiscal crisis."

The Socialist Democrats and their media mouthpieces call it a "continuing budget resolution" so people will think this is no different than the continuing resolutions passed in the past when the end of the fiscal year approached and one or more of the funding bills used to enact the budget had not yet been agreed on. But as the Republicans pointed out, this "deeming" meets none of the Congressional Budget Act criteria for a budget resolution. 

The only criteria the Socialist Democrats' "deeming" meets are the criteria for a fraud and charade. 

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The right argument for our time

Posted by Richard on June 29, 2010

In the wake of the electoral collapse of the Labour Party, the British are having a robust debate about welfare reform in particular and the size and scope of government in general. Janet Daley writes in the Telegraph:

At last, we are having the right argument for our time. Virtually everybody who is in touch with political reality now accepts that the old contest – socialism vs capitalism – is over. We all believe, with greater or lesser degrees of enthusiasm, in free-market economics. So the real source of contention that remains is the size and role of the state.

Anyone who thinks that this is a puny arena – that the boundaries of debate have shrunk to a less inspirational, purely managerial scale – is mistaken. The passion with which those on the Left are now defending their new turf should make it clear: this fight will be to the death because the power of government to control social and economic outcomes is seen by them as the last plausible incarnation of their moral world-view. The current arguments about welfare reform which the Government has robustly initiated are going to bring this abstract confrontation into the day-to-day experience of national life.

Now it is perfectly understandable that those who have a vested interest in state power – public sector trade union leaders, for example – should be prepared to risk everything to preserve it, but have the more thoughtful Left-liberal proponents really thought this through? Are they actually prepared to go down fighting for the idea that the state is the source of social virtue and must be the answer to all of our civic problems?

If we learnt anything from the terrible ideological crimes of the 20th century, it was that over-powerful states were dangerous: that even if they did not commit murder or enslave their own populations, their good intentions ended up producing perverse effects simply through the gross, insensitive interventions of central bureaucracy which could take no account of individual needs. Can anyone still believe that the largely catastrophic consequences of Big State solutions to poverty, to housing shortages, to unemployment, to educational disadvantage, have been pure coincidence?

Read the whole thing. 

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U.S., Europe on different paths

Posted by Richard on June 26, 2010

US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner told the BBC that the United States can "no longer drive global growth," and that the world "cannot depend as much on the US as it did in the past." There's a good reason for that.

The administration of which Geithner is a part apparently has as its goal cutting the US down to size — hobbling our economy, reducing our standard of living, slashing the "disproportionate share of the world's resources" we consume, and driving us toward a stagnant society that's more egalitarian because the successful have been forcibly impoverished.

Geithner also said that Europe and the US are taking "different paths, at a different pace," and he's not kidding. As most other developed nations are moving away from socialism in an attempt to restore economic growth and fiscal responsibility, the Obama administration is moving the US as fast as it can in the opposite direction.

So now we have the ironic situation of European socialist countries defending their government spending cuts against attacks from Obama and arguing against Obama's calls for more government "stimulus" programs. For instance: 

Germany and the United States appear set for a heated showdown at this weekend's G20 summit in Canada after Chancellor Angela Merkel flatly rejected warnings from President Barack Obama that Europe's attempts to save its way out of the debt crisis could put fragile global economic growth in danger.
…

She added in a recent rebuttal of economic stimulus packages: "If we don't go for sustainable growth, but just create puffed-up growth, we will pay for that with another crisis." 

Merkel isn't alone. While the Obama administration embraces protectionism and fiscal profligacy, Britain's David Cameron calls for progress in the Doha free trade talks and embraces the fiscal conservatism that's becoming increasingly popular around the world:

"Delivering progress on Doha will not be easy. However, I’m also impatient for change and people in Britain, Canada, Asia, Africa and elsewhere can't wait for negotiators to come to agreement.

"World leaders have made previous commitments on Doha in good faith – but despite almost a decade of talks, there’s been no breakthrough."

The comments come as America noticeably distances itself from the economic agenda of most other world powers.

Once internationally isolated, Mr Cameron's fiscal conservatism now constitutes something akin to a consensus among world powers, and president Barack Obama is isolated in his desire for further spending – a plan he has been struggling to get through domestically.

Heck, even China has repeatedly chided the Obama administration about its fiscal irresponsibility. You know we're in trouble when the Chicoms are saying our government is getting too big.

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Another boot on another neck

Posted by Richard on June 25, 2010

The Democrats have reconciled House and Senate financial legislation differences, crafting yet another 2000-page bill that no one has read. They're prepared to pass it next week: 

After more than 20 hours of continuous wrangling, congressional Democrats and White House officials reached agreement on the final shape of legislation that would transform financial regulation, avoiding last-minute defections among New York lawmakers that had threatened to upend the bill.

Fannie and Freddie aren't much affected — the Socialist Democrats want to regulate everything except government. I'm guessing that their friends at Goldman Sachs and other liberal-dominated, generously-contributing firms will make out OK, too. As for the rest of the financial services industry, especially the little guys buried under a new mountain of regulations and red tape, and their customers — well, I suspect this observation is accurate: 

"My guess is there are three unintended consequences on every page of this bill," Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R., Texas) said of the nearly 2,000-page bill.

If passed into law, this abomination will give the Obama administration yet another boot on the neck of yet another industry. Apparently, the Socialist Democrats aren't going to rest until they fulfill Orwell's dystopian vision of a boot stomping a human face forever. 

They're calling this the Dodd/Frank Act. And they gave those two weasels, who share a significant portion of the blame for the housing bubble and resulting financial meltdown, a standing ovation. 

Patrick Dorinson had the best comment about this that I've seen: 

"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.”

– Speaker Nancy Pelosi on the health care bill, March 2010

"No one will know until this is actually in place how it works.”

– Sen. Chris Dodd, on House-Senate conference approval of financial reform, June 2010

“Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”

– Mark Twain

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Concealing the grim budget news

Posted by Richard on May 26, 2010

Rick Manning of Americans for Limited Government:

House Democrats plan to leave the country without a budget according to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer who stated, “It’s difficult to pass budgets in election years because they reflect what the [fiscal] status is.”

Now that’s courage, leadership and transparency.

…

Remember, the Democrats hold 59% of the seats in the House with a 255 to 176 advantage over the Republicans, yet it is too hard to put a budget together?

For perspective, consider election year 2002 when Speaker Dennis Hastert enjoyed a slender 222 to 211 advantage, yet our nation was not left without a budget.

The ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, Paul Ryan, has called this decision, “an unprecedented failure to govern.”

I call it unprecedented cowardice and dereliction of duty.

I call it a calculated and cynical attempt to hide the ugly truth from the American people during the run-up to the November elections. Will it work? Maybe not this time. Michael Barone thinks there's something different about the current mood of the country: 

It has long been a maxim of political scientists that American voters are ideologically conservative and operationally liberal. That is another way of saying that they tend to oppose government spending in the abstract but tend to favor spending on particular programs.

…

In the past, rebellions against fiscal policy have concentrated on taxes rather than spending.

…

The rebellion against the fiscal policies of the Obama Democrats, in contrast, is concentrated on spending. The Tea Party movement began with Rick Santelli's rant in February 2009, long before the scheduled expiration of the Bush tax cuts in January 2011.

What we are seeing is a spontaneous rush of previously inactive citizens into political activity, a movement symbolized but not limited to the Tea Party movement, in response to the vast increases in federal spending that began with the TARP legislation in fall 2008 and accelerated with the Obama Democrats' stimulus package, budget and health care bills.

The Tea Party folk are focusing on something real. Federal spending is rising from about 21% to about 25% of gross domestic product — a huge increase in historic terms — and the national debt is on a trajectory to double as a percentage of gross domestic product within a decade. That is a bigger increase than anything since World War II.

I hope Barone is right — and that this long-overdue revolt against government spending is not too little or too late. 

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Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Posted by Richard on April 24, 2010

"Who shall watch the watchmen?"

On Wednesday, I posted about Gerald P. O'Driscoll's Wall Street Journal column arguing that regulations and bureaucrats can't protect consumers and investors. O'Driscoll based his argument on public choice theory. Now there's yet another explanation for regulatory failure: the regulators, confident that they're virtually immune from any consequences for failing to do their jobs, may just decide to spend their days watching porn instead of doing all that tedious number crunching.

So, in the face of all the theoretical arguments and empirical evidence that armies of bureaucrats and mountains of regulations have utterly failed to protect us from fraud, does the Obama administration say, "Maybe we ought to rethink this; let's talk to this O'Driscoll fellow and explore some fresh ideas"? 

Of course not! Instead, they're going to create new regulatory agencies to watch over the existing regulatory agencies and provide us with the "protection" that those regulatory agencies have failed to provide. They're going to address the problem of unmotivated, unaccountable, almost-impossible-to-fire bureaucrats by hiring a new army of unmotivated, unaccountable, almost-impossible-to-fire bureaucrats.

What could possibly go wrong?

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Crony capitalism

Posted by Richard on April 21, 2010

This week, the Senate is considering the 1300-page Dodd financial services "reform" bill, another bloated piece of legislation that purports to fix an industry by smothering it with an army of new bureaucrats, a sea of new regulations, and a bewildering and foul-smelling stew of taxes and subsidies.

Gerald P. O'Driscoll contends that regulations and bureaucrats don't protect us from frauds and liars — quite the contrary:

The idea that multiplying rules and statutes can protect consumers and investors is surely one of the great intellectual failures of the 20th century. Any static rule will be circumvented or manipulated to evade its application. Better than multiplying rules, financial accounting should be governed by the traditional principle that one has an affirmative duty to present the true condition fairly and accurately—not withstanding what any rule might otherwise allow. And financial institutions should have a duty of care to their customers. Lawyers tell me that would get us closer to the common law approach to fraud and bad dealing.

Public choice theory has identified the root causes of regulatory failure as the capture of regulators by the industry being regulated. Regulatory agencies begin to identify with the interests of the regulated rather than the public they are charged to protect. In a paper for the Federal Reserve's Jackson Hole Conference in 2008, economist Willem Buiter described "cognitive capture," by which regulators become incapable of thinking in terms other than that of the industry. On April 5 of this year, The Wall Street Journal chronicled the revolving door between industry and regulator in "Staffer One Day, Opponent the Next."

Congressional committees overseeing industries succumb to the allure of campaign contributions, the solicitations of industry lobbyists, and the siren song of experts whose livelihood is beholden to the industry. The interests of industry and government become intertwined and it is regulation that binds those interests together. Business succeeds by getting along with politicians and regulators. And vice-versa through the revolving door.

We call that system not the free-market, but crony capitalism. It owes more to Benito Mussolini than to Adam Smith.

Read the whole thing.

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Regulation Reality Tour hits Colorado

Posted by Richard on April 19, 2010

Americans for Prosperity is bringing its Regulation Reality Tour to Colorado April 19-21. It sounds like a fun event with a serious message. "Carbon Cops" in SMART cars will drive home the message that the EPA's efforts to regulate carbon emissions (without congressional action) threaten to burden us with onerous regulations, taxes, and fines for activities that harm no one, further harming our economy.

I plan to drop by the Denver event at the State Capitol Monday evening (5-6 PM) after work. There'll be free hot dogs and something called "moon bounce." I don't know about the latter, but I'll definitely grab a free hot dog. If you're in the neighborhood, please join me.

Other Colorado events are scheduled in Ft. Collins and Aurora on Monday, Highlands Ranch and Colorado Springs on Tuesday, and Montrose, Grand Junction, and Wheat Ridge on Wednesday. All offer free food and most offer the mysterious "moon bounce." Get more info and sign up to attend here (you don't have to sign up to attend, but the free food supply is more likely to be adequate if you do). Bring the family — I'm guessing "moon bounce" is something the kids will like. 

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Controlling the people and redistributing the wealth

Posted by Richard on March 26, 2010

For a long time, the Socialist Democrats have hidden their true agenda from the American people. No more. They're now so cocky and confident (and so contemptuous of their opposition) that they're dropping the facade of moderation and centrism.

On Tuesday, Rep. John Dingell (SD-MI) was asked on a Michigan radio program why Obamacare would not be fully implemented until 2014 when so many people are dying each year due to lack of insurance (a claim based on a totally bogus study, BTW). Dingell explained that "it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people."

The same day, a New York Times story (I'll link to the excellent fisking at Sweetness & Light) made it clear that the government takeover of the health care industry is "the federal government's biggest attack on economic inequality since inequality began rising more than three decades ago" and the centerpiece of Obama's plan to reverse the Reagan Revolution and redistribute wealth. 

And just today, as the Senate was preparing to pass the "reconciliation" bill containing the House "fixes" for Obamacare, Sen. Max Baucus (SD-MT) addressed the Senate as follows: 

Too often, much of late, the last couple three years the mal-distribution of income in America is gone up way too much, the wealthy are getting way, way too wealthy, and the middle income class is left behind. Wages have not kept up with increased income of the highest income in America. This legislation will have the effect of addressing that mal-distribution of income in America.

So. Now that it's a done deal, the Socialist Democrats are proudly proclaiming what they previously and angrily denied, what they previously denounced as right-wing lies and fear-mongering: the government takeover of the health care industry is intended to control the people and redistribute the wealth. It's intended to turn citizens into subjects and to ensure equality of misery.

They're slightly less crazy-sounding, but fundamentally not all that different from Hugo Chavez.

But don't worry about the constitutionality.  Rep. John Conyers (SD-MI), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and noted constitutional scholar, has assured us that it's all authorized by the Constitution's "Good and Welfare Clause."

Costa Rica's looking better all the time. Or maybe Honduras, where they still respect the rule of law.

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Sowell and Williams on the health care vote

Posted by Richard on March 23, 2010

Two of my favorite living economists have slightly different takes on the House vote for government-controlled health care. Dr. Thomas Sowell, as I would have guessed, has a somewhat pessimistic take:

With the passage of the legislation letting the federal government take control of the country's medical care system, a major turning point has been reached in the dismantling of America's values and institutions.

Even the massive transfer of crucial decisions from millions of doctors and patients to Washington bureaucrats and advisory panels — as momentous as that is — does not measure the full impact of this largely unread and certainly unscrutinized legislation.

…

With politicians now having access to our most confidential records and having the power of granting or withholding medical care needed to sustain ourselves or our loved ones, how many people will be bold enough to criticize our public servants, who will in fact have become our public masters?

…

The corrupt manner in which this massive legislation was rammed through Congress, without any of the committee hearings or extended debates that most landmark legislation has had, has provided a road map for pushing through more such sweeping legislation in utter defiance of what the public wants.

Too many critics of the Obama administration have assumed that its arrogant disregard of the voting public will spell political suicide for congressional Democrats and for the president himself. But that is far from certain.

Dr. Walter Williams, predictably, is somewhat more optimistic: 

If there is anything good to say about Democrat control of the White House, Senate and House of Representatives, it's that their extraordinarily brazen, heavy-handed acts have aroused a level of constitutional interest among the American people that has been dormant for far too long.

Part of this heightened interest is seen in the strength of the Tea Party movement around the nation. Another is the angry reception that many congressmen received at their district town hall meetings.

Yet another is seen by the exchanges on the nation's most popular radio talk shows such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin and others. Then there's the rising popularity of conservative/libertarian television shows such as Glenn Beck, John Stossel and Fox News.

 Read both columns, please. I think both make valuable points. I agree with Sowell that this is a terrible turning point, and one that could usher in a new era in which this country permanently abandons the ideals and principles that have made it unique among nations.

I also agree with Williams that there are reasons for optimism — that the brazen and outrageous nature of this bill's passage and the contempt Democrats have shown for the will of the people will serve to awaken the populace and lead to a wide-spread public reaction and "Constitutional reawakening." 

Of course, I hope Dr. Williams is right. But I won't just hope. I'll do what I can to help make it come to pass. 

I hope you will, too. 

And keep an eye out for that new Reagan or Thatcher, too. We could really use one. 

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House passes socialist health care takeover

Posted by Richard on March 22, 2010

Concluding the most corrupt and sleazy legislative process of my lifetime, the House moments ago passed a 2700-page bill enacting the complete government takeover of the health care industry. A bill that will lead inexorably to America's decline.

Tonight, I weep for my country. 

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ObamaCare will create jobs

Posted by Richard on March 19, 2010

The inimitable Mark Steyn (emphasis added):

Last Thursday, the California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board voted to set up a committee to examine whether condoms should be required on all pornographic film shoots.

California has run out of money, but it hasn't yet run out of things to regulate.

For a government regulatory hearing, the testimony was livelier than usual. Porn star Madelyne Hernandez recalled an especially grueling scene in which she had been obliged to have sex with 75 men. The bureaucrats nodded thoughtfully, no doubt contemplating another languorous 18-month committee assignment looking into capping the number of group-sex participants at 60 per scene.

The committee will also make recommendations on whether the "adult" movie industry should be subject to the same regulatory regime and hygiene procedures as hospitals and doctors' surgeries. You mean with everyone in surgical masks? Kinky.

If you've ever been in the filthy wards of Britain's National Health Service, it may make more sense after the passage of ObamaCare to require hospitals to bring themselves up to the same hygiene standards as the average Bangkok porn shoot.

One can make arguments for permitting porn and banning porn, but there isn't a lot to be said for the bureaucratization of porn. Hard to believe there will be California bureaucrats looking forward to early retirement on gold-plated pensions who'll be getting home, sinking into the La-Z-Boy and complaining to the missus about a tough day at the office working on the permits for "Debbie Does The Fresno OSHA Office."

Meanwhile, ObamaCare will result in the creation of at least 16,500 new jobs. Doctors? Nurses? Ha! Dream on, suckers. That's 16,500 new IRS agents, who'll be needed to check whether you — yes, you, Mr. and Mrs. Hopendope of 27 Hopeychangey Gardens — comply with the 15 tax increases and dozens of new federal mandates about to be "deemed" into existence.

This will be the biggest expansion of the IRS since World War Two — and that's change you can believe in. This is what "health" "care" "reform" boils down to: fewer doctors, longer wait times, but more bureaucrats. …

Read. The. Whole. Thing.  

And then go here for the Code Red list of representatives to contact to stop this economy-destroying government takeover of the health care industry. And go here to email your representative and the 58 Blue Dog Democrats. And then go here to add to the more than 1 million faxes sent  to Washington opposing government-run health care. 

We're coming down to the wire, folks, and the Socialist Democrat leaders are trying to paint this as a done deal in order to sway some fence-sitters into voting their way. But they still don't have the votes — if they had the votes, they'd have started the roll call immediately instead of waiting until Sunday. This Obamination of a bill can still be stopped if you make your voice heard loud, long, and often, and start right now.

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Why voters are rejecting ObamaCare

Posted by Richard on March 10, 2010

In Tuesday's Wall Street Journal, Scott Rasmussen (president of Rasmussen Reports) and Doug Schoen (pollster for President Clinton) examined the polling numbers on ObamaCare. They noted that the numbers have been remarkably stable. For the past four months, the percentage opposed has ranged from 52% to 58%. More significantly, the percentage strongly opposed has been about double the percentage strongly in favor (41% to 20% in the most recent survey).

A deeper analysis suggests some reasons why, despite their best efforts, the President and his lackeys minions allies haven't been able to budge the numbers (emphasis added): 

… Polling conducted earlier this week shows that 57% of voters believe that passage of the legislation would hurt the economy, while only 25% believe it would help. That makes sense in a nation where most voters believe that increases in government spending are bad for the economy.

When the president responds that the plan is deficit neutral, he runs into a pair of basic problems. The first is that voters think reducing spending is more important than reducing the deficit. So a plan that is deficit neutral with a big spending hike is not going to be well received.

But the bigger problem is that people simply don't trust the official projections. People in Washington may live and die by the pronouncements of the Congressional Budget Office, but 81% of voters say it's likely the plan will end up costing more than projected. Only 10% say the official numbers are likely to be on target.

As a result, 66% of voters believe passage of the president's plan will lead to higher deficits and 78% say it's at least somewhat likely to mean higher middle-class taxes. Even within the president's own political party there are concerns on these fronts.

None of this matters to the socialist ideologues determined to "transform" America, as I noted on Sunday. They're going to try to defy the American people no matter what the political cost.

Tea Party Patriots announced today that National Coordinator Jenny Beth Martin has been told by two "reliable sources" in Washington that the Blue Dog Democrats are starting to cave and that House Speaker Pelosi may soon have the votes to pass the Senate bill. If you want to help stop this "Obamination" from destroying our country, take action now! Follow that link to see TPP's recommendations for what you can do now, along with lists of congresscritters to contact and how to do so. Check their calendar for scheduled events in your area. A personal visit to a representative's local office is the best thing you can do, as TPP noted: 

The absolute most effective thing that you can do is to go to the office of the Congressmen who are on the fence and still undecided on this government takeover of health care bill. Let the Undecided Congressmen see the live faces of the people who do not want this health care bill shoved down our throats. Make them look in your eyes.

But if you can't do that (or you know it's pointless with your particular congresscritter), phone calls are good. So are emails. Even blast emails and blast faxes sent through one of the many organizations that make that easy for you (here's one) are better than sitting back and doing nothing.

As Mark Steyn explained in the column I quoted from on Sunday, the stakes are immense.

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Dems want fundamental change at any price

Posted by Richard on March 8, 2010

A few days ago, I saw Bob Beckel argue that if the Republicans really believed that passing ObamaCare will be a disaster for the Democratic Party, they'd lay off a bit and let it pass to assure themselves of success in November. Beckel is a political hack, not a man of ideas. His argument is based on the assumption (itself no doubt based on projection) that people like John Kyl, Steve Shadegg, and Paul Ryan would put their party's success ahead of the nation's future.

The people in power in the Democratic Party aren't like Beckel. They're hard-core ideologues, and they're willing to sacrifice their strong majorities in Congress and even a second Obama term in order to fundamentally transform America. The inimitable Mark Steyn understands what's at stake: 

… I've been saying in this space for two years that the governmentalization of health care is the fastest way to a permanent left-of-center political culture. It redefines the relationship between the citizen and the state in fundamental ways that make limited government all but impossible. In most of the rest of the Western world, there are still nominally "conservative" parties, and they even win elections occasionally, but not to any great effect (Let's not forget that Jacques Chirac was, in French terms, a "conservative").

The result is a kind of two-party one-party state: Right-of-center parties will once in a while be in office, but never in power, merely presiding over vast left-wing bureaucracies that cruise on regardless.

Republicans seem to have difficulty grasping this basic dynamic. … The Democrats understand that politics is not just about Tuesday evenings every other November, but about everything else, too.

…

Once the state swells to a certain size, the people available to fill the ever-expanding number of government jobs will be statists – sometimes hard-core Marxist statists, sometimes social-engineering multiculti statists, sometimes fluffily "compassionate" statists, but always statists. The short history of the post-war welfare state is that you don't need a president-for-life if you've got a bureaucracy-for-life: The people can elect "conservatives," as the Germans have done and the British are about to do, and the Left is mostly relaxed about it because, in all but exceptional cases (Thatcher), they fulfill the same function in the system as the first-year boys at wintry English boarding schools who, for tuppence-ha'penny or some such, would agree to go and warm the seat in the unheated lavatories until the prefects strolled in and took their rightful place.

Republicans are good at keeping the seat warm. A bigtime GOP consultant [ed.: the Republican equivalent of Bob Beckel] was on TV, crowing that Republicans wanted the Dems to pass Obamacare because it's so unpopular it will guarantee a GOP sweep in November.

OK, then what? You'll roll it back – like you've rolled back all those other unsustainable entitlements premised on cobwebbed actuarial tables from 80 years ago? Like you've undone the federal Department of Education and of Energy and all the other nickel'n'dime novelties of even a universally reviled one-term loser like Jimmy Carter? Andrew McCarthy concluded a shrewd analysis of the political realities thus:

"Health care is a loser for the Left only if the Right has the steel to undo it. The Left is banking on an absence of steel. Why is that a bad bet?"

A commenter at Big Journalism put it well: 

A lot of conservatives seem to grasp the idea of Islamic extremists who proclaim "we love death more than you love life", but don't allow for the possibilty that extreme leftists may cherish "the fundamental transformation of America" more than a reelection.

Don't sit back and say, "Just wait until November." And don't tolerate anyone who does. Our values, our liberty, our way of life — all the things that make the United States better than the sclerotic Eurosocialist states are at stake in this battle. ObamaCare must be stopped!

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Restoring fiscal sanity in New Jersey

Posted by Richard on February 17, 2010

Newly elected New Jersey Governor Chris Christie addressed the legislature last week on the state's budget crisis, and I finally got around to reading the speech*. Wow. It's a humdinger — refreshingly honest, with no punches pulled and no shying away from the tough decisions. Christie quickly made clear just how dire the state's situation is:

New Jersey is in a state of financial crisis. … For the current fiscal year 2010, which has only four and one-half months left to go, the budget we have inherited has a two billion dollar gap. The budget passed less than eight months ago, in June of last year, contained all of the same worn out tricks of the trade that have become common place in Trenton, that have driven our citizens to anger and frustration and our wonderful state to the edge of bankruptcy.

What do I mean exactly? This year’s budget projected 5.1 % growth in sales tax revenue and flat growth in corporate business tax revenues. In June of 2009, was there anyone in New Jersey, other than in the department of treasury, who actually believed any revenues would grow in 2009-2010? With spiraling unemployment heading over 10%, with a financial system in crisis and with consumers petrified to spend, only Trenton treasury officials could certify that kind of growth. In fact, sales tax revenue is not up 5%, it is down 5.5 %; and corporate business tax revenue is not flat, it is down 8%. Any wonder why we are in such big trouble? Any question why the people don’t trust their government anymore and demanded change in November? Today, we must make a pact with each other to end this reckless conduct with the people’s government. Today, we come to terms with the fact that we cannot spend money on everything we want. Today, the days of Alice in Wonderland budgeting in Trenton end.

…

Our Constitution requires a balanced budget. Our commitment requires us to begin the next fiscal year with a prudent opening balance. Our conscience and common sense require us to fix the problem in a way that does not raise taxes on the most overtaxed citizens in America. Our love for our children requires that we do not shove today’s problems under the rug only to be discovered again tomorrow. Our sense of decency must require that we stop using tricks that will make next year’s budget problem even worse.

Christie cut spending in 375 state programs — practically everything he could legally cut by executive action — in order to close the $2 billion current-year shortfall. Then he took aim on the years to follow and made it clear that biggest problem is an absurdly generous pension and benefit program for the state's unionized workers: 

… I am encouraged by the bi-partisan bills filed in the Senate this week to begin pension and benefit reform. … 

These bills must just mark the beginning, not the end, of our conversation and actions on pension and benefit reform. Because make no mistake about it, pensions and benefits are the major driver of our spending increases at all levels of government—state, county, municipal and school board. … 

Let’s tell our citizens the truth—today—right now—about what failing to do strong reforms costs them.

One state retiree, 49 years old, paid, over the course of his entire career, a total of $124,000 towards his retirement pension and health benefits. What will we pay him? $3.3 million in pension payments over his life and nearly $500,000 for health care benefits — a total of $3.8m on a $120,000 investment. Is that fair?

A retired teacher paid $62,000 towards her pension and nothing, yes nothing, for full family medical, dental and vision coverage over her entire career. What will we pay her? $1.4 million in pension benefits and another $215,000 in health care benefit premiums over her lifetime. Is it “fair” for all of us and our children to have to pay for this excess?

The total unfunded pension and medical benefit costs are $90 billion. We would have to pay $7 billion per year to make them current. We don’t have that money—you know it and I know it. What has been done to our citizens by offering a pension system we cannot afford and health benefits that are 41% more expensive than the average fortune 500 company’s costs is the truly unfair part of this equation. …

New Jersey isn't the only state being sunk by public employee unions and the politicians who buy their votes and support with future taxpayers' money. As Doug Ross pointed out, California, New York, Illinois, and Massachusetts, to name just a few, are in the same leaking boat. And those union workers who think they've got it made now are going to end up all wet.

Herb Stein famously said, "If something can't go on forever, it won't." Retirees collecting more than they ever earned while working, 50-year-olds retiring at 90% of their highest salary (indexed for inflation), employee pension and health plan contributions in the single digits (and declining in some places) while unfunded pension liabilities have grown into the trillions — these things simply can't go on forever. Taxes can't be raised high enough to let this continue. Something's going to have to change, and soon. 

In addition to a more balanced mix of employer and employee contributions and an actuarially sound schedule of benefits, I suggest one simple rule change for all government workers (heck, for everyone with a defined-benefit pension plan): Retire after 30 years if you want, but pension payments don't begin until age 65. If you're only 50, go get another job for the next 15 years (that's what many of them do anyway, collecting both a paycheck and a pension, and eventually getting two pensions). 

* In Firefox 3.5, this website doesn't lay out properly, and some of the text is cut off. It's fine in IE 7. Or you can click Print this page, which opens a new window containing the whole speech. Just cancel the Print dialog and start reading (that trick also saves you a lot of clicking, since otherwise the speech spans 9 rather short pages). 

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