Rogue Politics » Entries tagged with "Big Government"
Mitt forgets ‘other part’ of Tenth Amendment
It isn’t a secret that Mitt Romney has an individual mandate crisis with health care. Now it appears as though he’s got a Tenth Amendment problem, too. Romney is now attempting to defend the indefensible: Requiring people to have health insurance is “conservative,” GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney told MSNBC on Wednesday, but only if states do it. The argument aims to improve Romney’s appeal to Republican voters concerned about the healthcare reform plan he signed into law as governor of Massachusetts in 2006. The Massachusetts law contains an individual mandate similar to the one in President Obama’s healthcare law, which conservatives despise. “Personal responsibility,” Romney said, “is more conservative in my view than something being given out for free by government.” “There were two options in my state,” he said. “One was to continue … Read entire article »
Filed under: Featured
An Amazing Indictment of Obamanomics – Banks that Don’t Want Deposits
I’ve commented on the failure of Obamanomics, with special focus on how both banks and corporations are sitting on money because the investment climate is so grim. Not exactly flattering to the White House. Using Minneapolis Federal Reserve data, I’ve compared the current recovery with the expansion of the early 1980s. Once again, not good news for the Obama Administration. And I’ve shared a couple of cartoons – here and here - that use humor to show the impact of bad public policy. But here’s a Bloomberg story that provides what may be the most damning evidence that the President’s big government agenda is a failure. U.S. regulators have asked some banks to take more deposits from large investors even if it’s unprofitable, and lenders in return are seeking relief on insurance premiums and … Read entire article »
Filed under: Featured
The Keynesian Crackup Continues: From Space Aliens to Food-Stamp Stimulus
Paul Krugman recently argued that a fake threat from space aliens would be good for the economy because the people of earth would waste a bunch of money building unnecessary defenses. That was a bit loopy, as I noted a few days ago, but other Keynesians also have been making really weird assertions. Obama’s Secretary of Agriculture (another department that shouldn’t exist) just said that food stamps are a great form of stimulus (video at the link, for those who think this can’t possibly be true). Makes me wonder if they’re having some sort of secret contest for who can say the strangest thing on TV. And if that’s the case, Nancy Pelosi has to be in the running for her claim that you create jobs by subsidizing joblessness. Appearing on Judge Napolitano’s … Read entire article »
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What Would James Madison Say About Our Legal Code?
The only thing that has grown faster than the national debt is the number of laws and regulations with which a bloated federal government has burdened its beleaguered citizenry. The Obamacare bill ran 2,471 pages long, not including the thousands more pages of regulations (created by unelected bureaucrats) that come along with the new law. The recent Dodd-Frank financial reform bill was 2,323 pages long. Each year the federal government adds about 80,000 pages to the Federal Register. The tax code alone is over 70,000 pages long. What would the Founding Fathers say about this? James Madison wrote in April 1787, just prior to the Convention: Among the evils then of our situation may well be ranked the multiplicity of laws from which no State is exempt… The short period of independency has filled as many pages as the century which … Read entire article »
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Needless Budget Drama in Congress, Time Machines, and some Debt Limit Humor
In the spirit of the budget battle, readers have to eat their peas (i.e., endure my analysis) before getting to the dessert menu of jokes from the late-night comics. The big news today is that Speaker Boehner had to cancel a vote on his “Budget Control Act” last night. But other than the political-drama angle, I’m not sure why this is newsworthy. Senate Democrats were united against the plan, with all 53 members signing a letter of opposition. In other words, this was just a symbolic vote. But I must admit that I’m puzzled why the GOP leadership decided to even bother going down this path. Republicans were beginning to make progress with the theme of “We’ve passed two proposals, where’s Reid’s plan or Obama’s plan?” So why did they let the Democrats off … Read entire article »
Filed under: HalfBaked
The Gang of Six Is Back from the Dead: Contemplating the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in their Budget Plan
The on-again, off-again “Gang of Six” has come back on the scene and is offering a “Bipartisan Plan to Reduce Our Nation’s Deficits.” The proposal is quite similar to the one put forth by the President’s Simpson-Bowles Commission, which isn’t too surprising since some of the same people are involved. At this stage, all I’ve seen is this summary (A BIPARTISAN PLAN TO REDUCE OUR NATIONS DEFICITS v7), so I reserve the right to modify my analysis as more details emerge (and since I fully expect the plan to look worse when additional information is available, the following is an optimistic assessment. The Good o Unlike President Obama, the Gang of Six is not consumed by class-warfare resentment. The plan envisions that the top personal income tax rate will fall to no higher than … Read entire article »
Filed under: Featured
The Federal Government Has Been Bailing Out Romneycare, but Who Will Be Available to Bail Out Obamacare?
The Beacon Hill Institute in Massachusetts has just released a very good – but very depressing study. The research finds that costs have jumped under Romneycare, but that’s not surprising. After all, politicians always underestimate the cost of new entitlements. The important revelation in this new research is the degree to which the system has been propped up by the federal government (i.e., taxpayers in the rest of the nation). That’s probably good news for Bay State politicians, who get to shift a fiscal burden to people outside the state, And it’s probably good news for Mitt Romney, because it somewhat disguises the magnitude of the disaster he imposed on the taxpayers of his state. But it doesn’t bode well for the United States. Who will be available to bail out Obamacare? The … Read entire article »
Filed under: Featured
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