Archive for December, 2009
Recklessness in the Senate
This morning, Politico Arena asks:
“The Senate health care vote: An ‘awesome achievement?’”
My response:
Far from being an “awesome achievement,” as Paul Krugman exclaims in this morning’s New York Times, the Senate’s 1:00 a.m. health care vote marks a new low in government recklessness. Even Krugman admits that “it’s a seriously flawed bill” and “we’ll spend years if not decades fixing it” – like we’ve “fixed” Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, presumably. To put it simply: Would any responsible person handle his own affairs the way the Senate has handled this affair?
For starters, no one knows, much less understands, what’s in this bill. For months, we’ve been fed ever-changing bits and pieces supposedly contained within its 2,000-plus pages, only to find that a “manager’s amendment” has emerged from Harry Reid’s secret enclave. The promises that the bill will expand coverage while reducing health care costs and the federal deficit are simply laughable. Just this morning the Washington Post‘s Dana Milbank reported that yesterday the Congressional Budget Office said “it goofed and overstated the cost savings from the bill by half a trillion dollars.” When you have to resort to starting taxes next year but holding benefits off until 2014, among other such budgetary gimmicks, you know you’re dealing with one gigantic fraud.
The Wall Street Journal notes this morning that according to the National Journal‘s composite of all health polling, some 51 percent of the public is now opposed to this scheme. As the details seep out over the coming months, and taxes kick in, one can only hope that November 2 will be the day of reckoning for this reckless bunch.
Sen. Reid Pulls a Fast One
The more the American people learn about Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) government takeover of health care, the less they like it:
Rather than go back to the drawing board and write a better bill, Reid instead did something that much of the U.S. Constitution and the rules of the U.S. Senate exist to prevent: he quickly rammed a sweeping and unpopular bill through the Senate before the American people could learn how it would affect them.
Reid’s strategy was cynical, undemocratic, and corrupt. Reid systematically suppressed a full CBO cost estimate of his legislation. He bought senators’ votes with billions of the American people’s tax dollars. Yesterday, Maine’s moderate Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe wrote:
Only three weeks ago the Senate received a more than 2,000 page bill on one of the most complex issues in our history, and we have since considered fewer than two dozen amendments out of more than 450 filed. A little over 24 hours ago, the Senate received a final, nearly 400 page manager’s amendment that cannot be changed or altered, with more than 500 cross references including to other statutes and will be voted on at 1 am Monday morning. It defies logic that we are now expected to vote on the overall, final package before Christmas with no opportunity to amend it so we can adjourn for a three week recess even as the legislation will not fully go into effect until 2014, four years from now.
When Democrats leave Olympia Snowe decrying how the bill was crafted “in the shadows, without transparency, just to garner the necessary 60 votes and nothing more” and that “legislation affecting more than 300 million Americans deserves better than midnight votes on a bill that cannot be further amended and that no one has had the opportunity to fully consider,” you know you are witnessing a raw partisan power play.
Reid’s power play succeeded, if that’s the right word. Around 1:00 this morning, Reid cleared the toughest procedural obstacle to approving the bill. He cleared it on a strict party-line vote, without a single vote to spare. Barring some unforeseen snag, the Senate will approve Reid’s bill before Christmas.
Yet this thing ain’t over. The Reid bill must be reconciled with the House bill, which passed by a similarly narrow margin, in a House-Senate conference. And there are significant differences between what the two chambers seem willing to support — on taxpayer funding of abortions, taxing union health plans, creating a government rationing board, subsidies for undocumented workers, creating a so-called “public option,” et cetera.
That House-Senate conference may take weeks. During that time, the American people will do what Reid does not want them to do: they will learn more about how his bill would affect the deficit, their health insurance premiums, their tax burden, and the quality of their care. If so, it will be harder, not easier, for Reid to get 60 votes the next time around.
Every step of the way, Democrats have tried to portray this thing as being inevitable. The extremely narrow House and Senate votes, and the remaining tensions and acrimony that exist among Democrats, positively scream that ObamaCare is not inevitable.
Filed under: Cato Publications; General; Government and Politics; Health Care
Good News on Housing!
The Wall Street Journal reports that some mortgage insurers and lenders are beginning to relax their down-payment requirements, so that buyers in some parts of the country can now borrow 95% instead of 90% of a property’s value. Buyers who can’t come up with even a 5% down payment can turn to the Federal Housing Administration, which will make loans with as little as a 3.5% down payment. Unsurprisingly, the FHA is increasing its market share.
Meanwhile, the Treasury department is pressuring mortgage companies to reduce payments for many more troubled homeowners, averting foreclosures. So, good news: people who lack income and assets will be able to take out loans to buy houses, and if they can’t make the payments they signed up for, the government will pressure their lenders to accept lower monthly payments in return. We’re back on the road to easy, universal homeownership.
Postal Employees Live It Up
The U.S. Postal Service lost $3.8 billion last fiscal year and expects to lose $7.8 billion this year. That hasn’t prevented employees from indulging in fancy foods and booze on the USPS’s dime. A recent audit by the USPS inspector general found $800,000 in unjustified and “imprudent” purchases, most of which occurred in just a five month span.
The following are some highlights lowlights:
- “No business justification was provided for $355,451 of food provided at a September 2008 national sales educational conference attended by over 600 employees…We noted that beer and wine were served on one occasion, a bartender charge of $500 was included on one occasion, and one dinner for 650 guests totaled $62,714, which is $96 per guest.”
- “A postmaster installation celebration and reception held in October 2008 included unallowable food purchases totaling over $17,000. The menu included crab cakes, beef wellington, shrimp, and scallops.”
- A two-day meeting in September 2008 that cost $27,567, including a per dinner cost of $93. In addition, employees were provided paid lodging “even though their official duty station was within nine miles of the conference facility.”
- Five employees purchased gift cards from unauthorized vendors totaling $31,791. Two districts purchased almost $15,000 worth of movie tickets. Another district purchased thirty retirement watches at $216 a pop.
- “Three meetings included expenses for flowers, linens, candles, and red carpets totaling $4,579.”
These are not rare lapses by a usually frugal USPS management. The inspector general has issued fourteen audits in the last three years with similar findings.
Of course, private companies spend money on conferences, meetings, and events. But they don’t force people to buy their products or use their services. The USPS has a government-granted monopoly over first-class mail. It’s time to put an end to the government mail monopoly, and this audit is one more reason why.
Properly Extending the Right to Keep and Bear Arms to the States
I recently blogged about an interesting op-ed in which Ken Klukowski and Ken Blackwell of the American Civil Rights Union argue that the Supreme Court need not overturn The Slaughter-House Cases while “incorporating” the right to bear arms against the states. (Josh Blackman fisked the article in more depth here.) This piece was essentially a distillation of the ACRU’s amicus brief in McDonald v. City of Chicago, which ultimately argues, like Cato’s brief, that Chicago’s gun ban is unconstitutional.
It has come to my attention, however, that I mischaracterized one aspect of the Kens’ op-ed (sorry about that): while they are indeed against overturning Slaughter-House, the authors still seek to apply the Second Amendment right through the Privileges or Immunities Clause (like Cato and most libertarians), rather than through the Due Process Clause (like many conservatives and gun rights proponents). This is the ACRU’s main argument, and it is based largely on Ken Klukowski’s recent law review article – indeed, the brief’s body cites Klukowski article some 20 times, often for propositions that find no further support in case law or academic literature. (Josh has also provided a short critique of the ACRU brief/Klukowski article, so I won’t do that here.)
In any event, this clarification gives me an opportunity to name and outline the five possible ways a justice could come down in the McDonald case:
Read the rest of this post »
George W. Bush: Biggest Spender Since LBJ
The Congressional Budget Office has released final budget numbers for fiscal year 2009. The numbers allow us to take a last look at the Bush administration’s record on spending from a statistical point of view.
The following three charts show annual average real (or constant dollar) outlays during the tenures of recent presidents. Presidents were in office for either 4 or 8 budget years, except JFK (3 years), LBJ (5 years), Nixon (6 years), and Ford (2 years).
President George W. Bush’s last year was fiscal 2009. Outlays that year were $3.522 trillion, according to the CBO. However, $108 billion was spending for the 2009 economic stimulus package passed under President Obama. Bush was thus roughly responsible for $3.414 trillion of spending in 2009, which includes outlays for the financial bailouts enacted under his watch. (For FY2009, $154 billion for TARP and $91 billion for Fannie and Freddie).
Spending in Bush’s first year (FY2001) was $1.863 trillion, thus he presided over an 83-percent increase in overall federal spending, which includes defense, domestic, entitlements, and interest. Even without TARP and Fannie/Freddie, spending was up a huge 70 percent under Bush over eight years. By contrast, total spending under eight years of President Clinton increased just 32 percent. These are the overall increases in nominal dollars.
Now let’s look at the real annual averages. Figure 1 shows the average increase in total spending under recent presidents. Bush II was the biggest spender since LBJ. His spending increases were far larger than the three prior presidents.
Of course, presidents share spending power with Congress and it is easier for presidents to control discretionary spending than entitlement spending. Nonetheless, the results in these charts reflect the general spending approach taken by the presidents quite well. For example, Bush II was instrumental in adding the Medicare drug benefit, which by 2009 was adding more than $60 billion a year to federal spending.
Figure 2 shows total federal spending without interest payments. Presidents have the least discretionary control over interest. The biggest spenders by this measure were again LBJ and Bush II. Note that Bush’s record by this measure is worse than in Figure 1. That is because Bush lucked out with relatively low interest rates on the federal debt and relatively low amounts of federal debt because of four years of surpluses under President Clinton.
For Figure 3, I took out both interest payments and defense spending from the totals. So spending includes domestic discretionary spending and so-called entitlement spending–in other words, mainly spending on the growing federal welfare state. By this measure, Eisenhower, JFK, LBJ, and Nixon had awful records. These were the years of massive creation and expansion of federal subsidy programs for the elderly, state governments, and many other groups. By the late-1970s, the creation of new programs had slowed but existing programs continued to grow.
The 1980 election of Ronald Reagan represented a revolt against the rapidly expanding welfare state. His record shown in Figure 3 of just 1 percent real spending growth over eight years was impressive, at least relative to the other presidents of the last half century.
What about Bush II? Figure 3 shows that he was the biggest domestic spender since Nixon. He set the stage for the explosive spending growth we are seeing under President Obama. Big spending was a key cause of Bush’s failure as president both economically and politically, and it is proving just as damaging and unpopular under President Obama.
Great Moments in Foreign Government
German politicians apparently have been hot on the trail of evil evaders who did not pay tax on coffee ordered over the Internet. To address this terrible crisis, the government spent 800,000 euro and tracked down 4000 dangerous criminals. Shockingly, a few cynics, including the folks at Reuters, are trying to diminish this triumph by pointing out that the government spent 30 times more than it collected:
Germany spent more than 30 times as much collecting taxes on coffee beans ordered online from abroad than it received in the tax revenues, the accounting office said on Tuesday. Some 4,000 Germans who bought coffee over the Internet from other EU countries but failed to pay the coffee tax have been charged between a few cents to 10 euros ($14.81) in taxes and fees, said Dieter Engels, head of Germany’s Federal Accounting Office. Tax collectors ended up with just 25,000 euros, way below the 800,000 euros in the costs of staff charged with collecting the payments, Engels said.
I Am Not Making This Up
Dec. 17 (Bloomberg) — World leaders flying into Copenhagen today to discuss a solution to global warming will first face freezing weather as a blizzard dumped 10 centimeters (4 inches) of snow on the Danish capital overnight.
Copenhagen (CNN) –- In a strange twist, a Washington snowstorm is forcing Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, to make an early departure from a global warming summit here in Denmark.
Pelosi told CNN that military officials leading her Congressional delegation have urged the 21 lawmakers to leave Copenhagen several hours earlier than scheduled on Saturday.
The Speaker said she has agreed to the new travel plan so that lawmakers can get back to Washington before much of the expected storm wallops the nation’s capital.
Washington Post: Before long, we will be buried by several times that amount making this a record breaking December storm. Double digit accumulations have already been reported to our south in central Virginia. This is a dangerous, severe storm with the worst still to come.
…
True enough, as President Obama’s courtiers at Media Matters remind us, one day’s weather doesn’t change the climate. Indeed, they quote Pat Michaels making that point last year in the New York Times:
Patrick J. Michaels, a climatologist and commentator with the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington, has long chided environmentalists and the media for overstating connections between extreme weather and human-caused warming. (He is on the program at the skeptics’ conference.)
But Dr. Michaels said that those now trumpeting global cooling should beware of doing the same thing, saying that the ”predictable distortion” of extreme weather ”goes in both directions.”
Still, I think we know that if it were unseasonably warm this week, there’d be people pointing that out on television from Copenhagen.
Sunlight Before Signing: Turning the Corner!
As I noted on Monday, the White House has begun posting the bills Congress sends down Pennsylvania Avenue so they can get a final public review. This was a promise President Obama made on the campaign trail.
The posting of bills actually began some time ago. I mistakenly believed that a promise administration officials made to the New York Timeshad been broken. But with no link trail leading from the Whitehouse.gov homepage to the posted bills, there was no way to find them. This was only technical sunlight, not the actual warming, disinfecting rays the president promised. So, sadly, we can’t put the many bills that got posted this way in the “win” column.
With a link on the homepage pointing to bills awaiting the president’s signature, a new era in Sunlight Before Signing is about to dawn. The White House’s current dismal SBS percentage (1 for 114, or .009) will be rising soon, and could ultimately be quite high!
Did the administration fail to execute on this simple promise from the beginning? Yes. But the good news is that we’re going to see implementation: average Americans will get a look at the bills that come to the president’s desk before he signs them, with an opportunity to say their piece.
That’s simple transparency, and as I’ve articulated elsewhere it will have salutary effects, reducing last-minute shenanigans in Congress.
Before we take a look at the full Sunlight Before Signing chart, here are some of the numbers:
- President Obama has signed 114 bills into law.
- Of those, 86, or 75%, have been held at the White House for five or more days as a matter of course. Simply posting them accessibly on Whitehouse.gov for comment would have fulfilled the president’s pledge.
- Forty-seven bills (41%) have been posted on Whitehouse.gov for five days, but without links leading visitors or search engines to them, they can’t be counted as fulfillments of the Sunlight Before Signing promise.
- One bill has been posted online for for five days, accessible to the public for their review, before receiving the president’s signature: The DTV Delay Act, Public Law 111-4.
Without further ado, the chart that lays out the Obama administration’s Sunlight Before Signing record so far: Read the rest of this post »
Copenhagen Agreement Is Just More Hot Air
Late Friday afternoon, the White house announced a “meaningful agreement” at the Copenhagen climate summit. Details are currently unavailable, but a White House official said that developed and developing countries have agreed to list their national actions and commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions with a “target” of a two degree (Celsius) limit to any further global warming.
In other words, there are no specific emissions reductions targets and timetables. A country may choose no national reductions, or maybe a national program and that would be their “list.” And just what carbon dioxide level will stop warming over two degrees?
No one knows, at least until computer models stop forecasting warming that isn’t happening and/or drastically overstating the warming that is verifiable.
It sounds like the Copenhagen agreement is just more hot air. But not to worry, it will be hailed as a “breakthrough” by all the participants.
In reality, nothing much was accomplished and any significant agreement for emissions reductions has been punted to the next UN climate confab, beginning on November 8, 2010 in Mexico City, six days after our congressional election.
(No) Surprise! REAL ID Deadline Extended Again
In a classic example of the 5:00 Friday news drop, the Department of Homeland Security has announced that it is extending the REAL ID compliance deadline. Forty-six of 56 jurisdictions, it reports, were not able to implement even the interim measures it proposed requiring by December 31st when it last extended the deadline in May of 2008.
The DHS statement insists that a full compliance deadline on May 10, 2011 remains in effect. What that really means is that there will be another false crisis as that deadline approaches, and the DHS will extend the deadline yet again.
The better alternative is to repeal the national ID law and the worthless, expensive pseudo-security it represents. It is not to revive REAL ID under its alternative name “PASS ID.”
Selectively Small-Government
Yesterday, David Boaz riffed off of Michael Petrilli’s recent Wall Street Journal piece on the need for Republicans to stop denigrating well-educated, social-progressive types and make them feel welcome in the party. That is, make them feel welcome as long as they don’t try to impose their progressivism on everyone else through government.
That’s certainly good stuff — I’m all for making the GOP as libertarian as possible — but libertarianism extends far beyond just saying nice things about people who eat arugula or who own their own wind farms. Fundamentally, it means government leaving people alone in all facets of their lives as long as they aren’t inflicting harm on others.
Unfortunately, as Petrilli’s Thomas B. Fordham Foundation — perhaps the foremost neoconservative education think tank in the nation — has made clear for years, that’s definitely not something Petrilli and Co. are prepared to do.
Petrilli’s piece was a nice first step, but both he and the GOP still have a long way to go.
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