Posted by Frank Staheli, Feb. 08, 2010
One of the grossest distortions in American history is the claim that Herbert Hoover was a much different kind of president than Franklin D Roosevelt. He wasn’t. In reality, FDR picked up his interventionist government policies right where Hoover left off–with the same sorry results.
Posted by David Miller, Feb. 03, 2010
For some time I have been internally conflicted on the issue of congressional earmarking. Many people, including such diverse characters as President Obama and Congressman Chaffetz, have been vocal about calling for an end to earmarks. Others such as my own Congressman, Rob Bishop, reply that earmarks are not an addition to the total size of our federal expenditures – but simply a direction regarding the spending of money already appropriated. Believers in small government who make that argument say that our focus should be on reducing total expenditures rather than shutting down the earmarking process. Personally, I would like to see an end to earmarking and a significant reduction in total spending. (Earmarks alone are an insignificant portion of our spending.)
Posted by David Miller, Feb. 02, 2010
While candidate Mike Lee acted like a senator on the issue of confirming Ben Bernanke for another term as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Bob Bennett acted like a marionette under the control of the mystical wizard of Washington D.C. With a short press release and a predictable vote, our “Senator” Bob Bennett plainly demonstrated the cancerous logic that is rampant among Washington insiders. Here is how he justified his vote to confirm Ben Bernanke:
I reluctantly cast a vote in favor of Ben Bernanke because I do not want to give President Obama the opportunity to put someone who shares his leftist views in charge of the Federal Reserve. I am aware of the mistakes that have been made at the Fed while Chairman Bernanke has been there, but I fear an alternative would be worse for the country’s economic future.
So our elected Marionette is simply trying to save us from having the president nominate someone else. Cute. Perhaps he should have engaged his brain and realized two simple facts – first, if Bernanke was not confirmed by the senate there is little chance that President Obama would have name a more extreme nominee (the natural reaction would be to nominate a safer pick); second, considering the makeup of the Senate (not to mention the final vote tally) opposing Bernanke would have been unlikely to prevent his confirmation but at least it would not have demonstrated approval for his performance (a vote to confirm sends that message more strongly than any press release about your supposed reluctance to cast the vote).
Posted by David Miller, Feb. 01, 2010
A couple of days ago I heard Jason Lewis on the radio talking about how socialism does not create wealth (after Obama’s “where opportunity is absent government must create it” comment it’s obvious that some people just don’t understand that fact) and that the only way that socialism can seem to work is if there are people in society selfishly creating wealth to be redistributed. While Jason started going on about how much better natural self interest is for society than synthetic altruism (my terms, not his) I began thinking that the right to be charitable is one that we must each earn in life.
As an example, I cannot donate a million dollars to help the relief efforts of Haiti. No matter how much I might want to I simply don’t have the money. There are other people who, through some combination of hard work and chance, have amassed a million dollars or more of money they don’t need for themselves and they can choose to donate that much money to help in Haiti. They have earned the right to make a decision about whether they will do something that generous, but I have not earned that right.
Posted by Frank Staheli, Feb. 01, 2010
A hoax is defined as “something intended to deceive or defraud”. A pandemic is something that is “prevalent throughout an entire country, continent, or the whole world; epidemic over a large area”. Pharmaceutical companies made enormous amounts of money by getting the World Health Organization to declare H1N1 a pandemic when it wasn’t. That sounds like a hoax to me.
[Read the rest of this entry...]
Posted by Connor, Jan. 29, 2010
Almost half the world—over three billion people—live on less than $2.50 a day. The condition of humanity’s well-being is, in the aggregate, a story of poverty, suffering, and deprivation.
Sympathetic Americans have, to their credit, and due to their more affluent position resulting from their relative economic freedom and capitalist system, been a major factor in trying to correct this imbalance. A recent Hudson Institute study (PDF) notes that yearly private philanthropy from individuals in the United States of America stands at an impressive $37 billion.
Contrasted with government aid at $21.8 billion, we immediately can put to rest the erroneous assertion, often made, that people do not donate enough and government can do more. Indeed, as the study further shows, the aid offered by the government pales in comparison to the total financial flow from the USA to developing countries. When the $79 billion of yearly remittances (money transferred by individuals to their families/friends in another country) are factored in along with private investment in these countries, government aid accounts for only nine percent of the pie.
Posted by David Miller, Jan. 28, 2010
Back in October I wrote about the dangers of a crisis mentality and tried to show that the abuse of crisis was not a one-party trait. I see that Will Wilkinson did a better job of showing that this month in Let the next crisis go to waste:
The Aughts began in crisis when the second plane hit the second tower on Sept. 11, 2001. The Bush administration, loath to let a serious crisis go to waste, managed to parlay the nation’s alarm and credulity into an ill-conceived invasion of an entirely unrelated country, wasting over a trillion dollars and many tens of thousands of lives, all while losing control of the fight in Afghanistan and failing utterly to bring down Osama bin Laden.
Bush’s botched attempts to capitalize on crisis—the ugly aftermath to which Obama is heir—might have made an alert leader wary. But instead, Obama set up shop in the Oval Office and proceeded immediately to use crisis as (Emanuel’s words again) “an opportunity to do things you’d think you could not do.”
Rather than acting as a prudent guardian of the public good in a time of economic turbulence and hardship, Obama and the Democratic Congress have hurried to check the boxes on their partisan wish list precisely when the nation most needed a restorative break from transformative ambition.
Posted by Connor, Jan. 25, 2010
By the time their reign of terror had finally come to an end, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazis) had murdered roughly 20 million people. So abhorrent were these crimes (though they pale in comparison to Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong’s), that in an attempt to distance themselves from the sins of those responsible, Germany has made it a criminal offense to even display or use the Swastika (the party’s symbol), except for academic purposes. Documentaries have been made, books written, and a cultural disgust for all things Nazi has permeated society—and rightly so.
What, then, has been the cultural reaction to the collective mass murder of over twice the number felled by the Nazis? Today marks the 37th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, a Supreme Court case that serves as a large stain on America’s heavily-soiled standard of liberty. Since that time, the lives of roughly 52 million unborn children have been extinguished outright with the blessing of the federal government.
Posted by David Miller, Jan. 22, 2010
After the town hall meeting I attended on Wednesday I have been thinking about pension plans generally. The state of Utah is looking at changing their pension offerings for new employees to save the state from future financial ruin. I have seen other companies go through that process already. As a nation we have seen the cost of defined benefit pensions contribute mightily to the downfall of GM and Chrysler as well as having a hand in the struggles throughout the airline industry not so many years ago.
As I thought about all these examples I realized that even a fully funded defined benefit pension program is a gamble for any organization. Employees like the security, but it is an inherently risky proposition to offer such a plan.
Posted by David Miller, Jan. 21, 2010
Nearly three years ago I publicly wondered where I fit politically. Since then I have solidly concluded that the Republican party is the best fit for me, but now I have found a term for my general political view – I’m a Whole Foods Republican who Michael Petrilli describes as:
independent-minded voters who embrace a progressive lifestyle but not progressive politics. These highly-educated individuals appreciate diversity and would never tell racist or homophobic jokes; they like living in walkable urban environments; they believe in environmental stewardship, community service and a spirit of inclusion. And yes, many shop at Whole Foods . . .
What makes these voters potential Republicans is that, lifestyle choices aside, they view big government with great suspicion. There’s no law that someone who enjoys organic food, rides his bike to work, or wants a diverse school for his kids must also believe that the federal government should take over the health-care system or waste money on thousands of social programs with no evidence of effectiveness. Nor do highly educated people have to agree that a strong national defense is harmful to the cause of peace and international cooperation.
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