U.S. Representative Joe Barton agrees. Barton, whose district borders TCU’s hometown of Fort Worth, has even gone so far as to compare the Bowl Championship Series to communism. And nothing gets a Republican congressman more worked up than the threat of communism. Hence his anti-BCS bill, which has now passed in a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Joe Barton, R-Arlington, is not the BCS-destroying solution envisioned by millions of college football fans. But if it were to eventually become law, it would turn up the pressure on the BCS by preventing the group from calling its title game a “national championship game” unless it was the result of a playoff system. …

“What our friends and fans need to know about the Bowl Championship Series is that it is not about choosing the champion or competition on the gridiron,” Barton said. “It is about revenue sharing for the schools that are in the BCS conferences.”

In other words, instead of keeping all that revenue within the BCS conferences, we’re supposed to force them by law to give some of it Robin-Hood-style to the poor non-BCS conferences. Because that’s the American way, I suppose.

No, regardless of how you feel about the BCS, Barton’s bill is not the answer. Congress needs to stay out of it. Whatever changes come about need to happen because of pressure from coaches, universities, and the NCAA. And of course from the fans, since they are what the corporate sponsors (you know, the companies that provide the millions of dollars in payouts to the schools?) really care about.

Not that I’m expecting anything to change. But we don’t need Congress screwing it up any more than it already is.

As a sidenote, notice that Nebraska Congressman Lee Terry only supported the bill after the Cornhuskers lost the Big 12 title game against Texas. So is this about correcting a moral injustice or pouting because your team didn’t win?

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Previously:
‘Fairness Index’ doesn’t prove the BCS is fair
The BCS: ‘Communistic’ or not?
Yes, the BCS is flawed. What’s your point?

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

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.

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.

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

The Cybersecurity Act of 2009 (PDF) gives the president the ability to “declare a cybersecurity emergency” and shut down or limit Internet traffic in any “critical” information network “in the interest of national security.” The bill does not define a critical information network or a cybersecurity emergency. That definition would be left to the president.

The bill does not only add to the power of the president. It also grants the Secretary of Commerce “access to all relevant data concerning [critical] networks without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule, or policy restricting such access.” This means he or she can monitor or access any data on private or public networks without regard to privacy laws. …

Jennifer Granick, civil liberties director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says that granting such power to the Commerce secretary could actually cause networks to be less safe. When one person can access all information on a network, “it makes it more vulnerable to intruders,” Granick says. “You’ve basically established a path for the bad guys to skip down.”

The bill’s scope, she says, is “contrary to what the Constitution promises us.”

I’m all in favor of increasing cybersecurity but clearly not at this cost. The Obama administration already has proved it has no qualms about removing executives from private sector companies, despite having absolutely no constitutional authority to do so. If this bill were to pass as-is, what’s to stop the White House from seizing control of AT&T, Verizon, and other ISPs and dictating what information is allowed and not allowed to pass over their networks? As it stands now, nothing.

And you thought the Bush-era NSA wiretapping was bad.

Previously:
Privacy and free speech in an online world
‘Great Firewall’ coming to Australia. Is the U.S. next?
Stimulus bill includes medical databases for ‘biosurveillance’

So what are we getting for all that money? Just ask Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn, who’s been detailing some of the earmarks on Twitter:

• $4.6 million for oyster restoration in Maryland and Virginia
• $10 million for blue crab disaster assistance in Maryland and Virginia
• $8.5 million for grants to zoos and aquariums
• $25 million for the DOJ’s Weed & Seed program
• $7 million to NASA for science museums
• Another $7 million to NASA for visitor centers
• $1.5 million for pinniped research, marine mammal rescue, and Resurrection Bay salmon enhancement in Alaska
• $1 million to “collect accurate, reliable data on red snapper catch, bycatch and mortality”
• $250,000 for Bluefin Tuna Tagging
• $150,000 for lobster research
• $139,000 for the Interstate Shellfish Sanitation Conference
• $7.1 million for conservation of Hawaiian sea turtle populations
• $2 million for the Center for Grape Genetics in Geneva, NY
• $250,000 for Lahontan cutthroat trout restoration

And according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, the bill also includes:

• $713,625 for Woody Biomass at SUNY-ESF
  
• $951,500 for Sustainable Las Vegas
  
• $24,000 for A+ for Abstinence
  
• $300,000 for Montana World Trade Center
• $950,000 for Myrtle Beach International Trade and Convention Center
• $200,000 for Oil Region Alliance
• $190,000 for Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, WY for digitizing and editing the Cody collection
  
• $143,000 for Las Vegas Natural History Museum, Las Vegas, NV, to expand natural history education programs
  
• $238,000 for the Polynesian Voyaging Society, Honolulu, HI, for educational programs
  
• $381,000 for Jazz at Lincoln Center, New York, NY for music education programs

And my personal favorite: $200,000 for a “tattoo-removal violence outreach program” in Los Angeles.

Whew! That’s a lot of bacon!

So much for President Obama’s pledge of no earmarks for 2009. (What, you didn’t think he was serious, did you?)

Billions will be handed to companies creating these databases. Billions will be handed to universities to incorporate patient databases “into the initial and ongoing training of health professionals.” There’s a mention of future “smart card functionality.” …

The databases will, “at a minimum,” include information on every American’s race and ethnicity. They will be used for “biosurveillance and public health” and “medical and clinical research,” both of which raise privacy questions. They will become part of a “nationwide system for the electronic use and exchange of health information.”

Plus, the federal government will use its vast purchasing power–think Medicare and Medicaid–to compel adoption of e-records that meet government “standards and implementation specifications.” …

The bill punishes physicians who are not “meaningful users” of a government-certified e-record database, and specifies certain procedures and information exchanges that will “satisfy” the requirement.

Starting in 2015, government reimbursements to physicians who are not participating in the federal e-record effort will begin to decline.

I’m sorry, did I miss something? Has no one brought this up until now? Because this seems like it’s kind of a big deal to me. The federal government wants every American’s entire medical history to be shared in massive databases for “biosurveillance” and “medical and clinical research,” and no one is just a little uncomfortable with that?

Who can legally access these databases? Certainly the federal government, probably the state government, along with any doctors and hospitals. What about insurance companies? What about your employer or potential employer? Will credit agencies eventually want access to it to decide how much of a credit risk you are?

No one knows.

What about terrorists? What if someone wanting to attack America was able to infiltrate these databases, destroy data or cripple the system? How much damage would that cause? What about hackers who figure out how to add, delete, or modify patient records? That could easily put people’s lives in danger. And of course, it greatly increases the danger of identity theft.

Then there’s the obvious privacy question. Doctors and hospitals won’t be able to opt-out of the system without incurring severe penalties from the government. But what about individuals? Is this a voluntary opt-in option for patients or must we choose to opt-out? Or can we opt-out?

I hate to sound alarmist, but I just don’t have any confidence in the federal government to implement something like this in a way that puts American citizens’ interests first. Of course, one could make the valid argument they shouldn’t be implementing it at all.

But then again, we did vote for “change,” didn’t we?

Previously:
The ‘savior-based economy’

Now, I’m pretty sure no one on Capitol Hill is reading this, but can I offer a quick suggestion anyway? How about requiring some, I don’t know, oversight on how that money is to be used before you release it? I’m not saying you should necessarily delay authorizing the funds, just require the banks to use them as they’re intended.

Is that so hard?

Obama’s economic advisor stated that the administration “has no intention of using any funds to implement an industrial policy.” Well, that’s nice. Glad to hear they have good intentions. But with $350,000,000,000 on the line, Congress shouldn’t just rely on other people’s intentions. Put it in writing.

Just a suggestion.

Previously:
‘Dude, where’s my $700 billion?’
$700 Billion bailout ‘letting’ the banks win?

Salon.com has the easy answer: the banks are holding on to it.

With the benefit of hindsight, lawmakers now express regret about the way the bailout was handled — with few provisions for oversight of the banks or the Bush administration — and the public hates it more than ever. The feeling that money and political capital were squandered even helped endanger the far cheaper and more popular bailout of the auto industry. So what went wrong — and where did all that money go?

A lot of it is, apparently, just sitting in the bank. A Government Accounting Office audit released earlier this month showed the Treasury Department doling out buckets of cash: $15 billion for Bank of America, $45 billion for Citigroup, $3.5 billion to Capital One, nearly $6.6 billion to U.S. Bancorp. …

“There is a black box where that checkbook is, and we can’t see into it,” Ellis said. “Once the money leaves Treasury’s hands, we have very little knowledge as to what the heck we’re getting for the billions of dollars.”

Now, even the people who designed the bailout say they’re not happy about it. In the rush to action they didn’t place enough controls on how the administration doled out the money, or what the institutions did with it once they got it.

Is anyone really surprised by this? Congress rushes to push through the biggest bailout in U.S. history — which didn’t even pass the first time around! — with almost no debate and without specific language as to how the banks were to use the money, and we’re supposed to just assume the banks will do the right thing?

Of course they’re going to hold on to the money as long as they have a say about it! The banks are for-profit companies like anyone else, and they’ve been losing money — lots of it — like anyone else. They haven’t been able to borrow from other banks and aren’t thrilled about lending to banks themselves. They can’t repackage and sell their current loans like they have been, and they know a lot of loans they issue to consumers will likely be defaulted on.

So now the federal government comes in and hands them several billion dollars with almost no strings attached. They can either loan it out to other banks and/or consumers and probably never see it again, or they can stick it away in order to weather the storm. If you were a bank, what would you do?

Earlier in the year, the government handed out tax rebates to everyone with the intention they would turn around and spend all the money, but what happened? A lot of people didn’t spend it; they put it back into savings or paid off debt with it. Isn’t that pretty much the same thing the banks are doing now with the billions in bailout money?

Salon is quick to echo the arguments of Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats that this is all the fault of the Bush administration, but if you’re going to blame anyone in this, blame Congress. They were the ones who wrote the legislation and they were the ones who passed it. Don’t forget, Pelosi voted for the bailout herself and also has been one of the more vocal proponents for an auto industry bailout.

Related:
$700 Billion bailout ‘letting’ the banks win?