the tindog coffeehouse

John Hinderaker at PowerLine makes a great point about how under Nancy Pelosi’s health care bill (full 1,990-page PDF here), private health insurance is technically really no longer insurance:

Under the House bill private health insurance companies will still exist, but to what end? They will be legally prohibited from competing in any meaningful sense. They will be required to issue substantially the same coverages at substantially the same rates, changes in which must be justified to the government. They will be prohibited from underwriting insurance risks in any rational way: they must pay all bills resulting from preexisting conditions, and they will be prohibited from charging lower-risk customers lower rates.

As I wrote here, you can force insurance companies to “cover” preexisting conditions, but the resulting product is not insurance. You cannot insure against something that has already happened. It is merely a bill-paying mechanism. …

Under the House bill, it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that health insurance companies are no longer in the insurance business. They can’t rate and underwrite risks, which is the essence of insurance. That’s illegal. They can’t decide to whom they will issue policies; that’s illegal, too. They can’t offer novel or innovative coverages; their coverages are dictated by law. To a limited extent they can make decisions on paying claims, but under the watchful eye of government regulators. Meaningful competition among insurance companies will be, in effect, illegal.

I’m not saying insurance reforms aren’t needed, but regulating any industry to this extent simply can’t be good.

A new report claims that the $700,000,000,000 bailout rescue plan known as TARP may have saved the economy (debatable), but it also severely damaged the credibility of the federal government:

The mixed and blunt assessment by Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general in charge of oversight for the bailout fund, appears in a quarterly report scheduled for release Wednesday. Barofsky said the Troubled Asset Relief Program has come at great cost to taxpayers, to the integrity of the financial system and to the public’s perception of the federal government.

“Despite the aspects of TARP that could reasonably be viewed as a substantial success,” he wrote, “Treasury’s actions in this regard have contributed to damage the credibility of the program and of the government itself, and the anger, cynicism and distrust created must be chalked up as one of the substantial, albeit unnecessary, costs of TARP.”

Of course, the report assumes that Americans had any faith in the government in the first place, which is questionable.

There’s a reason our currency says “In God We Trust”.

Previously:
‘Dude, where’s my $700 billion?’
TARP is the financial equivalent of the Vietnam War

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke thinks the U.S. should try to cut its budget deficits before Asia completely destroys us with its super economy-rebounding powers.

“As the global economy recovers and trade volumes rebound, however, global imbalances my reassert themselves,” Bernanke warned. For the United States’ part, “the most effective way” to boost national savings in this country “is by establishing a sustainable fiscal trajectory, anchored by a clear commitment to substantially reduce federal deficits over time,” Bernanke said. He didn’t suggest ways to do so.

Bernanke may not have any ideas for how to cut the deficit, but I have a few suggestions.  How ’bout no more bailouts for starters?  Maybe stop buying banks, auto companies, and insurance companies?  Also, we could stop paying people to trade in their old cars.  And — call me crazy! — maybe we should abandon plans for a massive, multi-trillion-dollar health care overhaul.

Just a few ideas off the top of my head.  You’re welcome.

Previously:
The real ‘death panel’? The federal budget

The Dallas Morning News would like you to know that 1100 jobs have either been saved or created because of federal stimulus money.  Hooray!  They would also like you to know that Texas lost 44,700 jobs in September.

Wait, wha?

Have we gained jobs or haven’t we?

See, this is why you should never let politicians do math.

Educational policy expert Joel Spring spoke at TCU on Wednesday to advocate a constitutional amendment which would guarantee academic freedom in U.S. classrooms.

Spring’s proposed amendment to the Constitution, focusing on education, features three primary goals, he said. The first goal is equality in education, especially in funding. The second component in the proposed amendment would center on the right for education in different languages and cultures. The third concentrated on academic freedom for teachers and students, Spring said. This would allow teachers to choose their own methods and materials to teach, while still following a curriculum guide.

Spring’s primary argument for such an amendment is that the textbook publishing industry is more interested in maximizing profits than in furthering education, and through political contributions, they’ve forced schools into using their products, thereby removing the freedom to choose other methods.

While that argument sounds good on the surface, though, it isn’t really necessary.  First off, teachers, while bound to the curriculum chosen by the state and school district, do have some degree of freedom with how they teach that curriculum; it’s just that many of them don’t deviate too far from the norm.  Second, if you really wanted to give teachers and school districts more freedom, there are a couple of other things you can do that would be much more effective and wouldn’t require a vague constitutional amendment: (1) eliminate or at least de-emphasize standardized tests, and (2) get rid of No Child Left Behind and other federal regulations.

Ideas such as guaranteeing academic freedom or extending the number of hours kids are in school may be good soundbites, but they’re not necessarily good solutions.  Instead, we should be looking at using the time our kids are in school more effectively.  And besides, any solution should be left up to the states and local school districts to decide, not mandated at the federal level.

Previously:
Bill would protect the grades of students who disagree with evolution
History to be (re)written by the victors?
How much emphasis should be placed on Christianity when teaching history?

Apparently, education is a popular topic this week.  Yesterday, I mentioned the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act being debated in the U.S. House, which would give the Department of Education the authority to “develop” and “disseminate” high school curricula.

Today, the Texas State Board of Education begins debating social studies curriculum standards that would affect history, government, and economics classes in public schools for the next 10 years.  And naturally, the debate isn’t without controversy.

One of the biggest questions is how much emphasis should be placed on the role of Christianity in history books.  Critics argue that the Board is showing a clear Christian bias, including appointing conservative Christian experts to review current standards.

Some of the board-appointed reviewers are picking and choosing certain people and events from history to make an argument that America is a Christian nation, said John Fea, a history professor at Messiah College, a Christian school in Grantham, Pa.

“Students are not learning history. They are learning the facts about the past that suit some larger agenda, a cultural and political agenda,” said Fea, who has been following the Texas curriculum process.

“My best advice would be to respect the historians, respect the voice of historians,” said Fea, “and try to keep politics out of the teaching of history.”

A few observations here:

First, it’s impossible to teach history or government without discussing politics and religion.  Go on, try it.  It can’t be done.  It’s a proven fact that 99% of history involves politics and/or religion to some extent.  The other 1% mainly involves men in funny hats, but even that often is related to politics and religion.

Second, all historians have an agenda.  Don’t be fooled by their stunning good looks, these folks are serious.  And as someone with a History degree, I know of what I speak.  The reality is that history, while comprised of objective facts and statistics, is largely subjective.  What history “is” depends on how the historian interprets those facts and statistics.  So any time an “expert” tells you a history book is completely unbiased, they’re lying.  The bias might not be great, but it’s there.  The critics in Austin simply want to trade a bias that they don’t like for one that they do.

Third, the United States is a Christian nation, so to downplay the role of Christianity in our history is pretty reckless.  Now, when I say the U.S. is a “Christian nation”, what I mean is that Christianity has played a critical role throughout our existence.  Christopher Columbus, the Puritans, the Founding Fathers, the U.S. Constitution, slavery, the Civil War, Manifest Destiny, the Enlightenment, Prohibition, the Civil Rights Movement, abortion, gay rights.  Every single one of these topics was influenced in one way or another by Christianity.

Does that mean we should ignore the role of Judaism, Islam, or other religions in U.S. and world history?  Absolutely not.  But just because you discuss a particular religion in an historical context doesn’t mean you’re promoting it.

Finally, I’m struck by the irony of this debate.  This is the same Board of Education who only 6 months ago voted to eliminate the “strengths and weaknesses” requirement when teaching evolution in science classes, pretty much guaranteeing that evolution will go unquestioned in public schools.  The critics who argue that the Board is being biased with social studies now didn’t seem to mind them being biased with science back then.  I’m sorry, but you can’t have it both ways.

As I said back in January regarding the evolution question, I think students need to be able to do their own research and come to their own conclusions, and they should be free to question and debate as part of the process.  That’s true with science, and it’s just as true with history.

Previously:
Should evolution be debated in public schools?
Bill would protect the grades of students who disagree with evolution
History to be (re)written by the victors?

“History is written by the victors.” — Winston Churchill

Now it looks like it might be rewritten by those who won the 2008 election.

The House of Representatives is expected to pass the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act (HR-3221), which, in addition to expanding federal grants and other education initiatives, would allow the Department of Education to get in the business of creating high school curricula, something previously not allowed by federal law.

Section 505 of the bill states (emphasis mine):

(a) Open Online Education- From the amount appropriated to carry out this section, the Secretary is authorized to make competitive grants to, or enter into contracts with, institutions of higher education, philanthropic organizations, and other appropriate entities to develop, evaluate, and disseminate freely-available high-quality online training, high school courses, and postsecondary education courses. Entities receiving funds under this subsection shall ensure that electronic and information technology activities meet the access standards established under section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (29 U.S.C. 794d).

Yet, under federal law the Department of Education is specifically disallowed from creating or controlling curricula taught in schools (emphasis mine):

(a) Rights of local governments and educational institutions
It is the intention of the Congress in the establishment of the Department to protect the rights of State and local governments and public and private educational institutions in the areas of educational policies and administration of programs and to strengthen and improve the control of such governments and institutions over their own educational programs and policies. The establishment of the Department of Education shall not increase the authority of the Federal Government over education or diminish the responsibility for education which is reserved to the States and the local school systems and other instrumentalities of the States.
(b) Curriculum, administration, and personnel; library resources
No provision of a program administered by the Secretary or by any other officer of the Department shall be construed to authorize the Secretary or any such officer to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, program of instruction, administration, or personnel of any educational institution, school, or school system, over any accrediting agency or association, or over the selection or content of library resources, textbooks, or other instructional materials by any educational institution or school system, except to the extent authorized by law.

By allowing the ED to create high school and other courses, the federal government is specifically infringing upon rights previously reserved for state and local entities.  Exactly what curricula would be “developed” or “disseminated”, of course, remains to be seen.  But parents might want to scrutinize their children’s history books a little closer going forward.

It’s official: Hybrid cars cost more than fuel-efficient non-hybrids.

OK, so you knew that already. But now with an online calculator from the Rocky Mountain Institute (the independent, entrepreneurial, nonprofit think-and-do tank™), you have proof.  With graphs!

For example, compare a (base) Toyota Corolla, which gets between 26 and 35 mpg, to a Toyota Prius, which gets between 48 and 51 mpg.  At $2.61/gallon for gas, if you drive each car 15,000 miles for 5 years, the total cost of ownership of the Corolla is $5400 less than the Prius.

(Click to enlarge.)

And even with gas prices at $5.00/gallon, the Corolla would still be over $3400 cheaper.

In fact, at $5.00/gallon, you’d have to drive the Prius 27,625 miles a year for 5 years before it begins to be a better bargain than its non-hybrid competitor.

Of course, with any calculator like this, there are all kinds of caveats, not the least of which is the fact that no one would ever buy the base-model Corolla with no additional options.  But still, it drives home the fact that hybrids are great for tree-huggers with money to burn, but not necessarily for those of us watching our monthly budgets.

Previously:
What the auto mileage bill really means for consumers

Forget any talk about rationing or “death panels” or whether the government is gonna rifle through your wallet before deciding whether you’re worth saving.  That’s irrelevant.  You want a simple answer as to why ObamaCare is bad for America?

We can’t afford it.

Wednesday night President Obama claimed that his health care plan would (only) cost $900,000,000,000 over 10 years while not increasing budget deficits.

In the words of Congressman Joe Wilson, “You lie!”

The Congressional Budget Office’s initial estimate of the cost of Senator Ted Kennedy’s health care plan estimated that it would cost about $1.3 trillion over 10 years and still leave 37 million people uninsured.  The CBO also noted that the House plan would increase the deficit by $239 billion over that same 10-year time period.  And then from 2019 to 2029, the CBO says, spending would increase by 8% while revenue would only increase by 5%, creating even larger deficits over time.

Further, writes Martin Feldstein, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under Ronald Reagan:

The House health-care bill gives a large subsidy to millions of families with incomes up to three times the poverty level (i.e., up to $66,000 now for a family of four) if they buy their insurance through one of the newly created “insurance exchanges,” but not if they get their insurance from their employer. The CBO’s cost estimate understates the number who would receive the subsidy because it ignores the incentive for many firms to drop employer-provided coverage. It also ignores the strong incentive that individuals would have to reduce reportable cash incomes to qualify for higher subsidy rates. The total cost of ObamaCare over the next decade likely would be closer to $2 trillion than to $1 trillion.

The administration’s claim that the health-care plan would be “self-financing” is both false and irrelevant. It is false because it would only be self-financing if one counts a variety of President Obama’s proposed tax increases—and even those would produce much less revenue than is assumed in the budget calculations. The claim is irrelevant because those tax increases have nothing to do with health care and could be used instead to reduce other projected deficits.

(Emphasis mine.)

(Ah, remember the good ol’ days when $700 billion seemed like a lot of money?)

So forget debating about whether the government is gonna kick grandma to the curb because she’s too old to treat or whether the public option covers illegal immigrants.  The simple reality of President Obama’s health care plan is that it is too expensive.

Period.

Back in April, Senators Jay Rockefeller and Olympia Snowe introduced two bills, 773 and 778, which would’ve essentially given the President the unilateral ability to shut down any services on the Internet — even those from the private sector — in the case of a “cybersecurity emergency”.  But the bills didn’t stop there.  They would’ve also given the Commerce Department “access to all relevant data concerning [critical] networks without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule, or policy restricting such access.”

As Wired points out, S-773 has been revised significantly since then, removing much of the controversial language and replacing it with more sensible (albeit general) guidelines for dealing with with cyber attacks on the U.S.:

(2) [I]n the event of an immediate threat to strategic national interests involving compromised Federal Government or United States critical infrastructure information system or network—
(A) [the President] may declare a cybersecurity emergency; and
(B) may, if the President finds it necessary for the national defense and security, and in coordination with relevant industry sectors, direct the national response to the cyber threat and the timely restoration of the affected critical infrastructure information system or network;
(3) shall, in coordination with various critical infrastructure industry sectors, develop detailed cyber emergency response and restoration plans for each critical infrastructure industry sector;

(Full text of the bill here.)

Further, the revised bill seems to negate S-778, which called for the creation of an Office of the National Cybersecurity Advisor.  Instead, S-773 calls for a Cybersecurity Advisory Panel, which would be comprised of “representatives of industry, academic, non-profit organizations, interest groups and advocacy organizations, and State and local governments who are qualified to provide advice and information on cybersecurity research, development, demonstrations, education, personnel, technology transfer, commercial application, or societal and civil liberty concerns”.

All in all, it’s a vast improvement over the original bill.  It gives the President the ability to quickly respond to critical threats to the nation’s information infrastructure, and in emergencies such as those of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, such a response is absolutely vital.  And when you consider how vulnerable we are to a targeted cyber attack, it’s obvious we must be prepared to deal with those crises.

That said, the bill is certainly not ideal.  First, it still gives the White House authority over private-sector networks and information systems in the event of an emergency without specifically limiting that authority.  In other words, the definition of what constitutes a “cybersecurity emergency” is still at the sole discretion of the White House, opening the door to potential abuse.  And as I pointed out in April, President Obama has proven time and again that he is more than willing to seize control of private corporations if given the chance.

Second, the inclusion of “interest groups” on the Advisory Panel should raise an immediate red flag.  Think ACORN, the ACLU, RIAA lobbyists, and other groups.  How much influence groups like that would have is unclear, but do we really want to find out?

The revision of S-773 has definitely eased some concerns, but there is still more room for improvement.

Previously:
Bill would give government unrestricted control over the Internet

Whether he went on with the diary, or whether he did not go on with it, made no difference.  The Thought Police would get him just the same.  He had committed — would still have committed, even if he had never set pen to paper — the essential crime that contained all others in itself.  Thoughtcrime, they called it.  Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed forever.

– George Orwell, 1984

First, it was the bailout of the financial industry, leading many to speculate that it was the end of American capitalism.  Then came the bailout of the auto industry, including the takeover of General Motors.  Then there was the mandate for the creation of massive medical databases to be used for “biosurveillance”, as well as a cybersecurity bill that would give the president virtually unrestricted control over the Internet.  But none of those recent actions coming from the White House and the Democrat-controlled Congress can possible compare to the audacity of Obama’s latest shenanigans: the creation of George Orwell’s Thought Police.

In an August 4th blog post on the Whitehouse.gov site (ironically titled “Facts Are Stubborn Things”), the Obama administration appealed to American citizens to report those who might be spreading “disinformation” about the administration’s plans for universal health care:

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care.  These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation.  Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

Read that last sentence again.  “If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.”

Why, may I ask, is it any of the government’s business?  First of all, the ones spreading the most amount of disinformation are President Obama and a handful of Democrats in Congress such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Congressman Barney Frank.  Turn them in.  Second, even if I or anyone else were flat-out lying about a particular piece of legislation currently being debated by Congress, since when does that constitute a crime?  And if it’s not a crime, then why does the Executive Branch of the federal government need to know about it?

Meanwhile, the ones who are possibly committing a crime are administration officials themselves:

According to 5 U.S.C. § 552a, United States agencies, including the Executive Office of the President shall, “maintain no record describing how any individual exercises rights guaranteed by the First Amendment unless expressly authorized by statute or by the individual about whom the record is maintained or unless pertinent to and within the scope of an authorized law enforcement activity.” …

This is another example of the Obama administration ignoring long time precedent when it is no longer convenient for them. And ignoring this precedent lets them collect data on and potential harass individual American citizens.

Funny how Liberals were quick to demonize President Bush for his NSA wiretapping program (which the Obama administration has defended), yet they’re perfectly fine with citizens turning each other in for writing or saying things that might sound “fishy”.

Double-standard anyone?

But of course facts are stubborn things, aren’t they?

Nearly all children nowadays were horrible.  What was worst of all was that by means of such organizations as the Spies they were systematically turned into ungovernable little savages, and yet this produced in them no tendency whatever to rebel against the discipline of the Party.  On the contrary, they adored the Party and everything connected with it…  All their ferocity was turned outwards, against the enemies of the State, against foreigners, traitors, saboteurs, thought-criminals.  It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children.

– George Orwell, 1984

When comparing Texas and California, this cartoon from The Economist tells you everything you need to know:

Never mind the Economist’s statement that they are the “nation’s two biggest states” (I think Alaska might have something to say about that) or that the Dallas-Fort Worth area is made up of “flat, ugly countryside” (OK, that might not be too far off).  The fact remains that CAHL-EE-FOR-NEE-A is old and busted, while the Lone Star State is the new hotness.

These days California’s unemployment rate is running at 11.5%, two points ahead of the national average. In such Californian cities as Fresno, Merced and El Centro, jobless rates are higher than in Detroit. Its roads and schools are crumbling. Every year, over 100,000 more Americans leave the state than enter it.

The second worry has to do with dysfunctional government. No state has quite so many overlapping systems of accountability or such a gerrymandered legislature. Ballot initiatives, the crack cocaine of democracy, have left only around a quarter of its budget within the power of its representative politicians. (One reason budget cuts are inevitable is that voters rejected tax increases in a package of ballot measures in May.) Not that Californian government comes cheap: it has the second-highest top level of state income tax in America (after Hawaii, of all places). Indeed, high taxes, coupled with intrusive regulation of business and greenery taken to silly extremes, have gradually strangled what was once America’s most dynamic state economy. Chief Executive magazine, to take just one example, has ranked California the very worst state to do business in for each of the past four years.

By contrast, Texas was the best state in that poll. It has coped well with the recession, with an unemployment rate two points below the national average and one of the lowest rates of housing repossession. In part this is because Texan banks, hard hit in the last property bust, did not overexpand this time. But as our special report this week explains, Texas also clearly offers a different model, based on small government. It has no state capital-gains or income tax, and a business-friendly and immigrant-tolerant attitude. It is home to more Fortune 500 companies than any other state—64 compared with California’s 51 and New York’s 56.

(Emphasis mine.)

The article goes on to point out Texas’ weaknesses (education, immigration) and says that we can learn a lot from the “inventive” Golden State.  Sounds like the only thing they’ve “invented”, however, is big government with excessive taxation and regulation.  Thanks, but no thanks.  I think I’ll stick with the state where the inventions come from the private sector.

Oh, and one other thing:

Previously:
Chuck Norris for President of Texas