The Government Class Makes A Startling Admission
In case it wasn't clear enough that the Government Class is in the business of using government power to enrich themselves at the expense of taxpayers, this idiot spelled it all out for you:
“These transactions are the largest opportunities for people to make money off of government, and so we want to make sure that everybody is included,” Ald. Walter Burnett, 27th, said. “It’s a lot of money. It’s enough for everybody. Folks should make sure everybody is included.”
If you don't think corrupt management and Government Class self-enrichment can't turn Chicago into another Detroit, you're kidding yourself.
An Exercise in Misdirection
Last night's State of the Union address, which even many among the Talking Left seemed to agree was a pointless execise, struck me as an exercise in misdirection.
The President started off talking about teachers spending extra time with students, autoworkers working hard, farmers, doctors, fathers and mothers and soldiers. The theme seemed to be "the real state of our union is in our hearts," and it was an attempt to divert attention away from real, empirical measurements of how well we're doing, which is pretty awful.
Consider:
Why Raising the Minimum Wage Is a Bad Idea
On the subject of the minimum wage, people seem almost immune to objective, empirical arguments, but one has to state them anyway, if almost only for the record:
Wages are the price of labor. Higher skilled labor is worth a higher price. Lower skilled labor is worth a lower price.
When you set a legal price control on labor, which is what a minimum wage is, you make it illegal for low skill workers to sell their labor. It's as simple as that.
People generally seem to understand that prices reflect value, except when it comes to labor.
What if we made a law that said fast food hamburgers could cost no less than $20? People would be outraged, and would (correctly) argue that this made it impossible for low-income folks to afford fast food hamburgers.
Well, if you pass a law that says people who work in fast food places can make no less than $20, you make it impossible for low-skill workers to sell their labor to the fast food place. The owner of the business must respond to the price control, just like the consumer must respond to price controls.
On Outside Pressure Groups And Political Influence
One thing a lot of people seem to be missing is that this past week's new, stubborn determination on the part of elected Republicans in the House to follow their own strategy calculation and to not cave in to outside pressure groups is a direct result of the disastrous experience House Republicans had the last time they caved into pressure from these groups in the effort to shutdown the government in order to fail at defunding Obamacare.
Leadership knew there was no chance that effort would succeed. It didn't take much smarts to game that out. But a sufficient number of members were intimidated by a small number of outside groups and felt they had no choice but to go down that road and crash into that wall.
Predictably the effort failed, not for lack of principles or courage, but because of obvious political reality that anyone with any sense already knew ahead of time. Elected members got burned by caving in to unwise and flawed strategic pressure from the outside groups.
The strategic mistake here was a small number of outside groups taking a predictably flawed strategic position and then intimidating elected officials into following that flawed strategy. It was a mistake, and the repercussion is that their influence going forward is diminished.
The Next Battle
Okay, so the good guys lost this battle. On to the next one.
With “this battle,” of course, I’m referring to the government shutdown over . . . what was it over again? Defunding Obamacare? Delaying the individual mandate? It seems like it was over three or four things before it was . . . over.
Look, you don’t win every battle. This one, we lost. We tried to take a hill, and we failed. You pick yourself up, you address your wounds, you assimilate the lessons, and you move on.
Some argued that we should not have charged this hill—that we knew there was little to no chance of success, and that we should not lead our troops into a battle without at least a decent chance of winning. Others argued that the fight was a noble one, the cause a just one, and that it should be taken on regardless of the chances of success, which turned out to be a kamikaze strategy. Regardless, it was a debate over strategy and tactics, not principle. A tactic or two was tried, they failed, and now we hopefully learn from it and move on without shooting too many of our own in the process. Because they’ll be needed for the next battle.
So Which Country Is in a Place to Laugh at the U.S. Shutdown?
The latest “wisdom” about the government shutdown is that the impasse is making the U.S. a laughing stock around the world. If there is any country laughing at the U.S., it’s either a hypocrite or it hasn’t looked at its own financial situation—or that of many other countries.
Does President Obama Understand Congress At All?
Late yesterday, after House leaders said that their strategy will be to send separate appropriations bills to the Senate, President Obama derided the strategy as a "piecemeal approach" that he would veto as inadequate. Instead, he demanded a "clean CR" (continuing resolution) to fund the federal government.
This is truly stunning. The "piecemeal approach" President Obama dissed is regular order in Congress. The way Congress is supposed to operate is for thirteen separate appropriations bills to be debated, passed, and sent on to the other body. These thirteen separate bills fund the various departments of the federal government.
Observations and some conclusions on the proposed Syria intervention
When President George W. Bush took America into Iraq to invade the country, overthrow its government and install a new one more to our liking, he provoked a major crisis on the center-right regarding foreign policy; i.e., what should be our governing principles for such military intervention. Bush’s policies were, undeniably, a departure from any recent past calculus by Republican presidents.
[It’s important to note that Bush’s attack on Afghanistan did not cause consternation on the Right. We were attacked by a foe being provided safe harbor and resources by Afghanistan. All of the wealth and treasure that should have been directed at the Taliban and al-Queda in Afghanistan were misdirected at Iraq in the opinions of many conservatives.]
Conservatives like principles by which to make our decisions. We’re uncomfortable making emotional decisions, and we’re uncomfortable simply defending whatever “our guy in the White House” wants to do or, for that matter, we’re uncomfortable simply opposing whatever “their guy in the White House” wants to do. We value principles, intellectual consistency, and putting country above party. We know that, ultimately, military involvement overseas is always going to be a judgment call, but we want to feel good about how the judgment was made.
But such principles have been hard to come by in recent practice. For better or worse, the crisis in Syria and the opportunity for congressional debate has created a chance for conservatives to think through how such decisions ought to be made.
IPI's response to Senator Durbin
The story so far, told through a series of links in chronological order:
Told you so! (on the sequester)
So IPI went out on a limb on the sequester. We wrote a paper praising the sequester and explaining that the sequester represented the mildest down payment on the kind of spending restraint that is necessary if we have any hope of setting our fiscal house in order. We created charts to explain just how small the sequester restraints were. We blogged and gave speeches and did TV and went on the radio to sell the sequester. We got coverage in print media. We did our part--we more than did our part.
And we were right.
Check out Steve Moore's piece in today's Wall Street Journal.
The $150 billion budget decline of 4% is the first time federal expenditures have fallen for two consecutive years since the end of the Korean War.
Here's what political intimidation looks like
If you want to know what political intimidation looks like, this link will take you to a PDF of the letter sent to IPI (and allegedly over 300 organizations) about their support of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
I'm not going to excerpt any language from the letter in this blog entry, because you just have to read the entire thing.
Durbin's office probably made a major mistake sending this letter to think tanks like IPI (and the Cato Institute), because we don't cow to things like this--in fact, we see them as opportunities to point out political intimidation. The letter was reallly designed for corporations who are members of ALEC, to make the occupants of the executive suite call up their government affairs office and ask what the heck Company X is doing with this organization that generated a letter from a U.S. senator. It's subtle but strategic intimidation of free speech and freedom of association, and IPI intends to respond along these lines.
A Way Around the Law
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has taken a lot of heat for asking--some would say shaking down--health insurance executives for money to help implement ObamaCare. So it has changed the messenger, but not the message.
Governor Perry vetoes SB 346
Texas Governor Rick Perry has today vetoed SB 346, the bill sponsored by a couple of RINO Republicans that supposedly was designed to increase transparency in Texas elections, but really was designed to punish Texans for Fiscal Responsibility for holding Republicans accountable for their RINO ways.
Here is an article in the Fort Worth Star Telegram about the veto, and here is a blog by Empower Texans on the veto.
And earlier this week the Wall Street Journal editorialized about SB 346 here.
This legislation was, as I said, designed to punish a single group that has held Republicans accountable. If you doubt my characterization, then tell me why the legislation specifically exempts labor unions and organizations related to labor unions from the new requirement.
I pointed this out Thursday morning on the Mark Davis Show, and the audio of my interview goes into some more detail about what all is wrong with the bill. I think Mark was fairly neutral on the legislation until he heard the blockbuster about labor unions being exempt.
The simplest observation about the Benghazi emails
The simplest observation about the Benghazi emails is that the Obama administration spent a lot more time discussing how they were going to spin the situation than they did deciding whether or not to try to save American lives under attack by terrorists.
The evidence thus far suggests that the Obama administration decided almost immediately to stand down and not send in forces to try to support the embassy under attack. And there has to be more there, since as of yet we've not been able to get a clear answer to who, exactly, was in the situation room that night and who made the decision. One person who clearly DOES know the answer, General Carter Ham, mysteriously decided to retire just a few years before his mandatory retirement date, and 18 months into a 3 year rotation.
Another military official who would have knowledge of the episode, Admiral Charles M. Gauoette, was also removed by the Pentagon around the same time.
I think we all want to hear more from General Ham and Admiral Gauoette. I think the decision process that led to our abandoning Americans in Benghazi is more important, or at least logically precedes, the cover-up scandal.
Meanwhile, the administration spent four days and twelve drafts deciding how they were going to spin Benghazi.
Covering their own tails was clearly a greater concern that covering the lives in Benghazi for which they were responsible.
Ted Cruz for President?
There's an article leading the National Review website this morning on the fact that Senator Ted Cruz and his intimates are considering making a run for the Republican Presidential nomination in 2016.
Just the thing we need to justify yet another reminder that IPI's 25th Anniversary Celebration dinner tomorow night features Senator Cruz as our keynote speaker.
There is still time for you to get your tickets and even your table sponsorships in order to meet and hear Senator Cruz. Certain sponsorships will get you into the VIP Reception, where you'll have an opportunity to have your picture taken with Senator Cruz.
We hope you can join us.
Total Records: 75
