The cure for sinking poll numbers - more lollipops!
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And my very own newspapers!

If you get your news primarily from the typical newspapers and alphabet-soup TV networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, et al) then:

• Van Jones must be some kind of NBA center or NFL lineman, just like Johnny Malibu, Truck Johnson, or Tractor Traylor.
• The words ACORN, hidden cameras, underage prostitution, and tax cheating are not especially related to each other
• Republicans are racists because they oppose health care for poor people.
• People who protest are racists.
• But that didn’t become true until this January.
• Democrats could get more done if those 40 Senators and 178 House Republicans would quit blocking everything.
• You hear the word teabagger in your dreams, and are unaware of a site called urbandictionary.com
• Honduras overthrew their president in a coup, but Obama is standing up to them.
• Hugo Chavez is misunderstood.
• All the world’s thugs and dictators are now learning to appreciate how warm and fuzzy America is, and at any moment are about to break into Kum-Ba-Ya and will probably wish us Happy Winter Observance around mid-late December.
• America sucks, but Obama is changing that by apologizing to everybody, and fixing all the broken stuff like the banking industry, the auto industry, the health industry…and anything else he can get his hands on.

And because you are so well-informed, the government would like to make it so you are always that well-informed.

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The argument from federalism: One of the great benefits of federalism is that the states can act as the laboratories of democracy.  If a new public policy is tried in the states and works (as happened with welfare reform in Michigan and Wisconsin), then a similar program has a good chance of succeeding at the national level.  The welfare reform went national and proved to be one of the most successful public policy initiatives of the last half century.  On the other hand, major governmental healthcare initiatives have been tried in Tennessee and Massachusetts.  Neither of those have panned out.  That should be a cautionary sign to avoid rushing ahead to just get a bill done!

The argument from misery: I cannot think of any encounter with my government that I willingly seek out.  I hate going to the DMV.  I hate going to the post office.  I hate getting my car inspected.  I hate getting a passport renewed.  All of these things eat up productive time in my day and are filled with useless, inefficient waiting.  This basic situation also applies to people who rely on the government for their healthcare.  When my wife did indigent care in Houston, her clients did not pay for her services.  They paid with their time.  LOTS OF WAITING.  I don’t need more waiting in my life.  And because government employees are typically unionized, I don’t need to be at the mercy of a bunch of unionized employees any more than I already am.

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The standoff in Albany between State Senate Republicans and Democrats continues, as Democrats refuse to acknowledge the new reality that they are no longer in control of the chamber after two of their members voted with Republicans to oust Malcolm Smith as majority leader. The latest act to appear in the center ring of this circus is New York Governor David Paterson. After alternately vowing to not let the Senate takeover stand and admitting that there is really nothing he can do about it, Paterson said Sunday that he will call the Senate into special session.

At his press conference, Paterson chided the Senate, saying that the impasse has “inconvenienced the lives of every New Yorker.”

“Over the last couple of weeks, the senators’ conduct has been laughable, but what’s going on around here these days is no joke and I don’t find it funny. There will be no excuses and there will be no tolerance for noncompliance with this order. And as they have inconvenienced all New Yorkers for the past few weeks, maybe we’ll see how they like feeling the same way.“

For all his bluster, however, Paterson has no authority to force the Senate to debate bills or take votes. He can only make them sit in the chamber. And as for his assertion that the standoff has “inconvenienced” New Yorkers, there is no evidence of this. Despite the great tragedy of the New York State Senate holding no official sessions for a couple of weeks, all the traffic lights still work, and all the government offices are still open. How exactly has even one New Yorker been directly affected by the Senate standoff?

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This should be required reading by everyone under the sun.

In 1913, for instance, thinking it was being overcharged by the steel companies for armor plate for warships, the federal government decided to build its own plant. It estimated that a plant with a 10,000-ton annual capacity could produce armor plate for only 70% of what the steel companies charged.

When the plant was finally finished, however — three years after World War I had ended — it was millions over budget and able to produce armor plate only at twice what the steel companies charged. It produced one batch and then shut down, never to reopen.

The reasons listed for why government can’t run businesses include:

1. Governments are run by politicians, not businessmen.
2. Politicians need headlines.
3. Government does not tolerate competition.
4. Government enterprises are almost always monopolies and thus do not face competition at all.
5. Successful corporations are run by benevolent despots.
6. Government is regulated by government.

Our stern and earnest president told us that it is time for Americans to sacrifice. Gone are the good times, he’s told us. We are in for austere days, he says. Sacrifice, people, sacrifice. That is the word of the day.

Well, it’s the word for we commoners, anyway. For if you happen to be looking at government don’t expect to find any “sacrifice” going on at any level. In fact, government seems to be a boom business under the president of change and “sacrifice.”

Even CBS News scoffed at the president’s claim that we all must sacrifice when it looked into the flush times that government workers are discovering. CBS found that the average federal worker will see his benefits and pay “leap from $72,800 in 2008 to $75,419 next year.”

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Looks like Washington Post Editorial Page Editor Fred Hiatt sort of put his foot in his mouth — or his pen as the case may be — in an April 27 editorial where he as much as called America’s older workers “lumbering” and less talented than “younger, nimbler” employees. In a nation that has one of its largest blocks of citizens in the “older” category, those over 40, it seems like Hiatt just insulted the largest number of Americans. Not the best way to sell newspapers, eh?

In his headlined “600,000 Bad Hires? Making Federal Jobs Cool Once Again,” Hiatt seems to be urging The One to come to the rescue of the jobs market. Well, not real jobs, but government jobs, anyway.

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I will admit it. I am a subscriber to the Claremont Review of Books. Whatever you make of that, don’t imagine that I am one of those pointy-headed, University types that sit about in tweed jackets with leather elbow patches, drawing on a pipe, and pontificating about the Greek Classics. On the other hand, I ain’t no anti-intellectual neither. Just consider me one of those fellows that knows just enough to be dangerous.

In any case, one thing that always strikes me about The CRB is that I always find at least one article that proves to me that while eggheads might make for wonderful support for policy, that they may be ideal for an intellectual underpinning of ideas, they would be horrible implementers of it should they be the ones in charge– yes even those ostensibly on our own side of the issues. As it happens, the Winter issue of the CRB did not disappoint me in this area.

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Who the Heck Elected YOU, anyway? Whether it be among friends or family, we’ve all heard that phrase tossed about by someone who found his pet idea left by the wayside. It’s a question of “official” authority, in most cases. Say your friends get together for a movie, say you make a film choice and everyone begins to agree. But there’s always that one guy that doesn’t agree with your movie choice. He wants to go somewhere else and when he finds no one siding with him he asks in frustration who elected you to make the decision? After all, there was no election so why did you get to make the movie choice over his druthers? It’s easy to laugh off that frustration in most cases and settle for a community decision among friends. But it is another thing when that concept is applied to decisions made by government placemen and appointees. And it’s even worse when our tax money is spent by the billions because of the requirements imposed by government workers unions that the polity did not elect to have the power to spend our money.

And we are seeing this illicit decision making by unelected union bosses grow at exponential rates these days. Take for instance the trouble that Governor John Corzine of New Jersey is having. His state budget is wildly over allocated and he’s decided to lay off some government workers to save precious cash, cash, it should be remembered, that IS the people’s tax money. This is a move that every business is confronted with at some time or another. When times are flush and a lot of work is in the offing, business hires. But when times get tight and the need for workers flails, unnecessary employees are let go. It’s a fact of life that cannot be avoided. Oh, but not government! Once you get a government job it is, for some unexplainable reason, assumed to be a permanent job.

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