January 2012

“ObamaCare’s Crippling Deficits”

by Hans Bader on September 9, 2009

in Healthcare, Politics as Usual, Stimulus to Nowhere

Martin Feldstein, an economic advisor to Obama, criticized “ObamaCare’s Crippling Deficits” in Monday’s Wall Street Journal, noting that “the higher taxes, debt payments and interest rates needed to pay for health reform mean lower living standards.”

Obama probably chose Feldstein as an adviser because of Feldstein’s support for big stimulus packages during recessions. But selecting him was politically unwise, since Feldstein has a history of candidly criticizing Presidents for allowing deficit spending to continue after recessions end (as an economic adviser to President Reagan, he warned against Reagan’s budget deficits), and Obama’s proposed budgets would result in massive, unprecedented budget deficits long after the current recession is over — despite major tax increases. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that Obama’s plans would produce an eye-popping $9.3 trillion in deficits, double the baseline left by the Bush Administration.

Earlier, Feldstein warned that the cap-and-trade energy-rationing scheme backed by the “Obama Administration and Congressional Democrats” would “have a trivially small effect on global warming while imposing substantial costs on all American households. And to get political support in key states, the legislation would abandon the auctioning of permits in favor of giving permits to selected corporations.” He notes that “the Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that the resulting increases in consumer prices” from capping the amount of carbon dioxide energy users can emit “would raise the cost of living of a typical household by $1,600 a year,” a figure that “would rise significantly” from year to year.

Unlike Feldstein, who sees Obama’s stimulus package as poorly-designed but nonetheless providing a modest short-term boost to the economy, I think that the stimulus package destroyed jobs even in the short run. The Congressional Budget Office predicted that the stimulus package would shrink the economy “in the long run,” by burdening the economy with increased national debt, but increase the economy in the short run, i.e., by the next election. That’s why Congress and Obama passed it: short-run political gain.

ObamaCare is full of special-interest giveaways and constitutionally-dubious provisions like racial preferences and set-asides, which has led to ObamaCare being criticized by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

The Obama Administration is also full of left-wing ideologues who can’t be counted on to competently manage something as vast as a national health-care system. (Recently, Obama’s Green Jobs Czar, Van Jones, resigned after revelations that he signed a petition alleging that George Bush may have been behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Jones was hired despite the fact that Obama was well aware that he had been a “self-avowed communist,” and had defended Al Qaeda and repeatedly engaged in race-baiting). And it has mismanaged things like the $60 billion in auto bailouts, which ripped off taxpayers and non-union retirees to enrich the UAW union, and the cash-for-clunkers program, which cost far more than predicted and ran out of money after just a few days.

Feldstein earlier called into question Obama’s claims about how ObamaCare will supposedly let you keep your health coverage while cutting costs. “ObamaCare is all about rationing,” says Feldstein. Feldstein also noted that Obama’s health-care plan would harm people with insurance, and massively raise taxes.

Feldstein, a Harvard professor, warns that “For the 85 percent of Americans who already have health insurance, the Obama health plan is bad news. It means higher taxes, less health care and no protection if they lose their current insurance because of unemployment or early retirement.” Obama’s plan would “cost more than $1 trillion,” and raise the top federal “income-tax rate from 35 percent today to more than 45 percent,” he notes.

Fact-checkers say Obama is lying about health-care. CNN Money says that ObamaCare will take away 5 freedoms.

ObamaCare is likely to be a costly boondoggle like his stimulus package, which funds waste like a $15 million border-crossing facility for a deserted area on the Canadian border that only 3 people cross per day.

I’ve criticized Obama Administration officials like Van Jones because they are wacky, not because they are liberal. Elections have consequences, and President Obama, being duly elected President, is entitled to pick liberal nominees to carry out his policies. Some conservatives seem to have forgotten this, in attacking even well-qualified liberal nominees to head executive branch agencies, like Obama’s nomination of leading liberal law professor Cass Sunstein to head the OIRA and be the Administration’s “regulatory czar.” There is no point in defeating his nomination; any replacement for Sunstein will be just as liberal, just less competent. In that sense, it would be as pointless as the filibuster that blocked the appointment of Henry Foster to be Surgeon General under Bill Clinton.

New Paper Shows Staggering Cost to Americans of Waxman-Markey

by Iain Murray on September 9, 2009 · 2 comments

in Economy, Environment, Global Warming, International, Politics as Usual

There’s a new cost:benefit study from New York University Law School’s Institute for Public Integrity that, its authors claim, shows that, “From almost any perspective and under almost any assumption, H.R. 2454 [Waxman-Markey] is a good investment for the United States to make in our own economic future and in the future of the planet.”  A good investment for the US? Really?

The authors recognize that the benefits they find are global, while the costs are located in the US.  So let’s see what benefits accrue to US citizens and at what cost. (I am working with the authors’ figures here, which derive from the EPA, and are significantly different from the figures provided by such groups as the Heritage Foundation or the American Council for Capital Formation, which find much, much higher costs.)

Highest possible benefit = $5.2 trillion / 6 billion people = benefits of $866 per person

Cost to US citizen = $660 billion / 300 million people = cost of $2200 per citizen

That means a best possible benefit to cost ratio for a US citizen of 0.4:1.

The report talks about thinking of the Waxman-Markey costs as a “highly effective, highly leveraged form of foreign aid.”  One has to doubt that, given that the benefits that accrue to the developing world do so mostly in the far future, while the developing world is in desperate need of greater wealth – and better access to energy – today.  Even if it were true, however, one wonders whether the American public will accept a de facto tax increase of around $1300 per person, or $400 billion total, to pay for such climate aid.

Yet that’s assuming that the “high end” benefits scenario is what occurs.  The global low end benefits are actually far outweighed by the American costs, leading to a benefit:cost ratio to America of something in the order of 0.05:1 (or a cost:benefit ratio of 20:1).

And, of course, there’s no guarantee that a reduction in American emissions will amount to a reduction in global emissions.  We have seen the response to European cap-and-trade schemes being the relocation of facilities to other jurisdictions.  If so, the effective foreign aid program of Waxman-Markey might actually be a loss of American jobs to be replaced by developing world jobs, with no emissions reduction at all.  That would be very generous of us, but not quite what the authors of this study have in mind.

To summarize, the authors of the study have conclusively demonstrated that the Waxman-Markey bill is actually a very bad deal for the United States, and their attempts to claim otherwise are just spin.

The New Organic and Out-of-the-Box Thinking

by Greg Conko on September 9, 2009 · 1 comment

in Agriculture, Culture, Environment, Nanny State, Nano & Biotech, Natural Resources, Precaution & Risk, Zeitgeist

Congratulations to Pamela Ronald, a UC Davis plant pathology professor, on winning one of this year’s Science in Society Journalism Awards, sponsored by the National Association of Science Writers.  The award is for a column Ronald wrote for the Boston Globe last year, and which was based in part on her wonderful book, Tomorrow’s Table: Organic Farming, Genetic and the Future of Food, co-authored with her husband Raoul Adamchak.

Ronald and Adamchak, who is an organic farmer, reject the dogma that only a narrow-minded organic approach to agriculture can be sustainable.  Instead, they suggest that “a judicious blend” of the best “organic” attitudes regarding soil health and respect for biodiversity on one hand and the best of new technologies and methods such as biotechnology and integrated pest management on the other, is the “key to helping feed the world’s growing population in an ecologically balanced manner.”

Read the Boston Globe column for a quick summary.  But, I very highly recommend the book as well.

The Washington Post discovers that poor people need more energy

by Myron Ebell on September 9, 2009 · 1 comment

in Energy, Global Warming

The Washington Post has discovered that poor people in poor countries need access to modern energy.  In an excellent article on today’s front page, Emily Wax details the energy poverty of Africa, India, and Pakistan.  And she draws the obvious conclusion that has evaded most of the establishment media for years: that’s why India and other developing countries aren’t going to sign on to any UN treaty that mandates reductions in their greenhouse gas emissions.  They don’t need an energy diet; they need thousands of coal-fired power plants.

Wax writes: “Just one in four Africans has access to grid electricity, according to the World Bank. More than 500 million Indians, roughly half the population, have no official access to electricity, and those who do are experiencing rolling brownouts as India’s Power Ministry tries to make up for a 25 percent shortfall in electricity generation. The developing world’s dearth of power hinders prosperity and adds another layer of difficulty to daily life.

“In much of Africa, families depend on generators, candles, kerosene lamps and firewood. Blackouts force shops to close early, schools to cancel classes and hospitals to turn away patients. Foreign investors become wary of parking their money in Africa, experts say.  ‘Big companies in Africa seem to get most of their electricity from generators, or they build their own power plants,’ said Thomas Pearmain, an Africa energy analyst for IHS Global Insight.”

Of course, environmental pressure groups say that poor countries need to avoid “our mistakes” and build a new energy economy using renewable sources and new technologies.  The problem is that most of these new sources provide a lot more sanctimonious self-satisfaction than energy.  I recently drove through upstate New York on a mild summer day.  I saw over seventy windmills in several groups along the way.  Not a single one was turning.  That’s because the wind doesn’t blow much in the summer (when demand is highest because of air conditioning).  In sub-tropical countries like India there isn’t much wind at any time of year.

Regulation of the Day 48: Barbers in Nevada

by Ryan Young on September 9, 2009 · 1 comment

in Deregulate to Stimulate, Economy, Employment, Legal, Nanny State, Odds & Ends, Personal Liberty, Regulation, Regulation of the Day

Want to be a barber in Nevada? You’ll need to get a license first. One of the requirements is a chest X-ray, of all things. And a blood test.

More onerous is the 18-month apprenticeship under a licensed barber, which requires its own license – plus another chest X-ray and blood test.

Occupational licensing regulations are rarely in place to benefit consumers. Their primary purpose is often to limit competition by putting up barriers to entry. Why do this? Because keeping the supply of barbers artificially low means that existing barbers can keep their prices artificially high.

Three of the four licensing board members must be licensed barbers. They write the apprenticeship rules and the license examination. They decide who gets in, and who gets left out. They have plenty of excuses built into the rules for excluding potential competitors.

Owing child support payments, for example, is by itself grounds for exclusion. What this has to do with cutting hair is beyond me. And getting a job cutting hair is one way to be able to make those payments. But there it is, encoded in state law. The board can legally keep you from being a barber if you owe child support.

A sure sign of an anti-competitive practice is using the force of law to prevent competitors from entering the marketplace. Where is the antitrust investigation into Nevada’s barber licensing?

NIMBY for me, not for you — Robert Kennedy, Jr.’s selective embrace of renewable energy

by Marlo Lewis on September 8, 2009

in Features, Global Warming, Sanctimony, Zeitgeist

Today’s Greenwire (subscription required) carries a lengthy article on a nasty spat between Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and California environmental groups over the proposed siting of solar electricity plants in the Sun-drenched Mojave Desert.

Kennedy — like his cousin-by-marriage Gov. Schwarzenegger — wants to allow ”alternative energy” companies to build solar power stations in the Mojave. As the Governator was widely quoted as saying, “If we cannot put solar power plants in the Mojave Desert, I don’t know where the hell we can put it.”

But according to Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA), David Myers of the Wildlands Conservancy, and others, the solar stations would wreck the habitat of the desert tortois, a threatened species under the California and federal Endangered Species Acts. Feinstein and Myers support legislation (not yet introduced) to designate 1 million acres of the Mojave as a national monument — an action that would preclude commercial development within the area.

On the surface, it looks like a conflict between those, like Kennedy, who believe that no merely “local” concern should interfere with the quest for a ‘clean energy future,’ and those, like Myers, whose loyalties are divided between saving a particular species and saving the planet.

Two tidbits from the Greenwire article reveal that the situation is a bit more complicated. One is that Kennedy has a financial interest in Brightsource, the company that would be building the solar plants if the Mojave project is approved. The other is that Kennedy opposes a major renewable energy project in his own backyard — a windfarm in Nantucket Sound, near the family compound in Martha’s Vinyard.

Of course, those with any experience of politics should not be surprised if sanctimony walks hand-in-hand with greed, or if the goose insists that sauce is only for the gander.

Regulation of the Day 47: Irish Potatoes

by Ryan Young on September 8, 2009

in Agriculture, Deregulate to Stimulate, Economy, Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Regulation, Regulation of the Day, Trade

Until last Friday, it was illegal for certain producers to sell or import U.S. No. 1 grade “Creamer size” (long and skinny) Irish potatoes. Creamer size potatoes are identical in taste, texture, and weight to their stouter, rounder counterparts.

In the Idaho-Eastern Oregon growing region, this led to over $7 million worth of potatoes to go unsold. That’s a lot of uneaten meals. Hopefully the USDA will repeal similar aesthetic restrictions on other types of food. It is bad policy to keep perfectly good food off the market because of its shape, especially during times of recession and high food prices.

‘The Times’ it is a changing

by Greg Conko on September 8, 2009

in Agriculture, Culture, Environment, International, Nanny State, Nano & Biotech, Precaution & Risk, Zeitgeist

On Saturday, The Times of London published a news article under the headline “Organic food is a waste of money”. The hard-copy print edition of Saturday’s Times also, I’m told, featured two pages of price and quality comparisons showing that, in a blind tasting, consumers generally preferred the taste of conventionally produced foods to that of organic foods.

“The most striking finding of our survey was that the organic ranges scored worst, or joint worst, at three out of the four supermarkets tested — being rated less tasty and satisfying than even the budget ranges at Waitrose, Tesco and Asda at about twice the price. At Sainsbury’s, organic goods came a poor third to Taste the Difference and standard.”

None of this is news to regulars at this site, who’ve read us discuss various comprehensive scientific studies — like this one, this one, and this one — concluding that organic food offers neither greater nutrition nor greater safety than conventionally produced food does.  Although much of the recent press attention to organic foods has centered around the repeated findings that organic foods don’t have any nutritional benefits, it is just as significant that, as I’ve written here before, it is simply not true that buying organic food gets you less exposure to pesticides.  While organic farmers do not use “synthetic” pesticides, they do use a variety of chemicals to control insects and plant diseases — including such potentially dangerous substances as copper sulfate, rotenone, pyrethrum, ryania, and sabadilla. These “organic” pesticides are derived from minerals or plants, are lightly processed, and thus are considered to be “natural” for the purposes of organic agriculture. Yet, ounce for ounce, most are at least as toxic or carcinogenic as many of the newest synthetic chemical pesticides.

Still, it is great to see articles such as this one in major mainstream papers like The Times — no matter how sketchy its taste test methodology may have been.  To be sure, The Times and other influential European newspapers and magazines have published opinion articles discussing the same point.  But, as a British colleague of mine wrote to me:

“The article suffered from all the faults of superficial comparison, in this case of taste as determined ‘blind’ (they said) by just a few people. It does not stand up to any sort of serious scrutiny.

What is more to the point is not the information per se but the fact that The Times saw fit to publish three pages under that headline – and for once the headline does really reflect the tenor of the article’s content.  The mood appears to be changing quite significantly in the UK.”

Pace Bob Dylan, The Times, it sure is a changin’.

President Obama’s Back-to-School speech to students

by Wayne Crews on September 7, 2009 · 2 comments

in Odds & Ends

Step aside Tony Robbins? Well, apart from it being on a topic that’s not properly the business of the federal government, President Obama’s “no excuses” back-to-school message to students was a welcome one about achievement, work and responsibility–and the lessons of failure. When kids hear that they can achieve great things without an elite background, and see examples besides, it’s always an uplift.

The best bit:

[A]t the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying.
Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.

That’s really great stuff, the kind I like my own nosepickers to hear. Now we can get back to the real business of the federal government–that of picking a state bird.

Racist, Communist, America-Bashing Obama Adviser Resigns, Over Wacky 9/11 Conspiracy Theory

by Hans Bader on September 7, 2009 · 1 comment

in Energy, Environment, International, Legal, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Sanctimony

Obama’s racist, communist, America-bashing Green Jobs Czar, Van Jones, has resigned after revelations that he was a 9/11 “Truther,” who believed that George Bush may have been behind the terrorist attacks on 9/11.

But Obama has long been aware of Jones’ extremism, wacky statements, and arrest record, which would have come to light months ago during the White House vetting process, as former White House staffer Jeffrey Lord and National Review‘s Andrew McCarthy note. The Secret Service would have investigated Jones’ past and Marxist views and informed Obama about them.

As the Washington Examiner‘s Byron York noted, most of the media systematically ignored revelations about Jones’ disturbing past and extremist views, seeking to prevent damage to the Obama Administration. Despite weeks of controversy over Jones’ extreme views on talk radio, blogs, and Fox News, newspapers like the New York Times, and TV networks like ABC and NBC, refused to cover the controversy until after Jones resigned, while the Washington Post and CBS covered the story only when his resignation was imminent.

Slate journalist Mickey Kaus, who voted for Obama but has been critical of the Administration, ridicules newspapers like the New York Times for deliberately concealing the Van Jones controversy in order to protect the Obama Administration. “‘Readers of the print edition will never have heard of the presidential appointee so controversial the President had to dump him. Is this a milestone in the decline of the NYT?’ . . .It seems this may be just another installment of the NYT’s running feature, ‘You Know That Guy You’ve Never Heard About? Well, He’s Gone.’”

Jones is a race-baiter, “self-avowed communist” and Truther who believed that George Bush may have been behind the 9/11 attacks.

Why even a Democratic White House would hire Jones is beyond understanding. In 1998, Jones defended Al Qaeda and bashed Bill Clinton. Why would Obama even think of hiring someone who said a few years ago that he was part of a “global struggle against the U.S.”?

Jones has also glorified convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal, in a campaign that likened supporters of the murdered police officer to the KKK.

Jones, who set up a group that is orchestrating advertiser boycotts of Obama’s media critics, was until recently a “member of a radical communist group that was dedicated to ‘organizing a revolutionary movement in America.’”

Jones also claimed that mass murder is a white characteristic, saying that the Columbine killers would not have committed their crimes had they not been white. “‘You’ve never seen a Columbine done by a black child,’ Jones, who’s African-American, said in the 2005 video. ‘Never. They always say, “We can’t believe it happened here. We can’t believe these suburban white kids.” It’s only them.’”

Many officials in the Obama Administration are sympathetic to Marxist regimes. For example, Obama’s appointee to be the FCC’s “diversity officer” is Mark Lloyd, a big fan of Venezuela’s socialist dictator, Hugo Chavez. Although Chavez has shot unarmed demonstrators, Lloyd has called socialist Venezuela a model, praised its authoritarian leader’s “incredible revolution” and defended his attacks on independent media.

Obama’s nominee to be Assistant Secretary of State, Arturo Valenzuela, has a reputation as a loud defender of Venezuelan dictator Chavez’s terrible record on freedom of the press. Valenzuela is a big supporter of imposing sanctions on Honduras, which ousted its left-wing would-be dictator. Americans for Limited Government says that “Arturo Valenzuela has never met a Marxist dictator that he didn’t embrace.” ALG’s assessment of Valenzuela is echoed by liberal Latin America expert Martin Edwin Andersen.

The Obama Administration is extremely hostile to non-communist Honduras and its democratically-elected legislature, demanding that they allow the return to power of Honduras’s bullying ex-president and would-be dictator. The ex-president’s removal was perfectly constitutional, say many experts, such as attorneys Octavio Sanchez, Miguel Estrada, and Dan Miller, former Assistant Secretary of State Kim Holmes, Stanford’s William Ratliff, and “even left-liberal analysts.”

The Obama Administration cites the UN’s support for the bullying ex-president to justify demanding that Honduras allow him to return. But the UN is openly biased in favor of left-wing dictators.

The UN has just declared Fidel Castro, the longtime Communist dictator of Cuba, the “World Hero of Solidarity.” Castro killed thousands and thousands of people during his rule, torturing some to death (including a few American citizens), and Cuba remains an oppressive dictatorship even today.

So it’s not surprising that the UN backs Honduras’s bullying ex-president Manuel Zelaya, given his fondness for left-wing rhetoric. (Two months ago, soldiers acting on orders of Honduras’s Supreme Court arrested Zelaya after he systematically abused his powers. After the Court quite legally declared that Zelaya was no longer president, he was duly replaced by Honduras’s Congress with a civilian, the Congressional Speaker).

The Obama Administration recently decided to impose sanctions on Honduras, and indicated it will not recognize future democratic elections in Honduras unless Honduras first lets ex-president Zelaya return to power.

“Green jobs” is a scam and excuse for vast amounts of corporate welfare, as is the cap-and-trade “global warming” scheme backed by Obama, which would rip off the public and do nothing to protect the environment, while enriching politically-connected companies like General Electric and destroying millions of jobs.

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