Your Tax Dollars

The stimulus package killed D.C. school vouchers. But maybe it was worth it, given that it also funded this:


source: FedBizOps

(via Vodkapundit)

"Oceana Was Always At War With Eurasia" of the Day

The promise, by President Barack Obama on January 21, 2009:

My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.

Government should be transparent. Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing. Information maintained by the Federal Government is a national asset. My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use. Executive departments and agencies should harness new technologies to put information about their operations and decisions online and readily available to the public. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public feedback to identify information of greatest use to the public.

The reality, reported by Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) on July 8, 2009 (footnote omitted):

Mary Nichols, the head of the California Air Resources Board (CARB), revealed that the White House had held a series of secret meetings as they were crafting the new Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. Nichols admitted that there was a deliberate "vow of silence" surrounding the negotiations with the White House on vehicle fuel standards. According to Nichols, "[Carol] Browner [Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change] quietly orchestrated private discussions from the White House with auto industry officials." Negotiators were instructed to "put nothing in writing, ever." Clearly, Browner’s actions were intended to leave little to no documentation of the deliberations that lead to stringent new CAFE standards.

Remember when leftists "howled when Dick Cheney met in private with energy producers (as well as environmental groups) when developing the Bush administration’s first attempt at energy policy in 2001"? Neither do they.

(via Right Wing News)

Conservative Chances

As a follow-up to this quote, here's Chris Palko on The Next Right:

One of the overlooked downsides to the electoral wipeout the Republican Party has endured in the past two election cycles is how those elections have drastically shrunk the amount of Republicans who are nationally prominent. Without the Presidency, and the loss of Governors, Senators, and Representatives, there aren't very many potential leaders left among Republicans. Also, even the most loyal party man surely isn't enamored with every Republican elected official. What you hear these days is a cry wondering where Republican leadership is. Debates about who is the "leader" of the Republican Party are distracting at this point, but there seems to be a paucity of those who could even be in the discussion. Republicans have a short bench problem, which hurts their ability to have national leadership in Congress, in the states, and in the future, in the White House. . .

Romney seems a near lock to run again and would have to be considered the frontrunner. Huckabee will never be President, but he may run, especially if no Southerner is in the race. I think Palin's resignation indicates she won't run in 2012, but she still is young and already has a big national following. I don't think we'll see another Wesley Clark/Fred Thompson fantasy candidate next time.

The Republican bench is very thin at this point. If you are looking towards 2012, I would predict right now the only serious candidates who will run are Romney, Pawlenty, and Barbour. Daniels would certainly be in that grouping if he decided to run. Sure, you would get the Tom Tancredos of the world running no shot campaigns, but those candidacies are irrelevant. I think beyond 2012 Jindal, Huntsman, Thune, and perhaps Palin 2.0 would be serious Presidential candidates. There really is a leadership vacuum in the Republican Party right now.

And see Max Borders' 20 innovations that might return Republicans to power.

Charts of the Day

UPDATE: below

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the current downturn is tougher than the last recession on state budgets:


source: CBPP, "State Budget Troubles Worsen"


So which states are taking the biggest hits (as a percentage of total budget)? And what else do many of them have in common?:


source: NOfP chart, via CBPP, "State Budget Troubles Worsen" (numbers), Wikipedia (votes)


Notes: Oregon's budget is a two-year estimate; Wikipedia's color classification is based on "the average margins of victory in the last five presidential elections"; and Alaska's current shortfall has been absorbed by that state's $7 billion long-term budget surplus.

Prior classification of state finances here. See also WILLisms.

MORE:

Assistant Village Idiot's suggested "bumpah stickah": "New Hampshire: Gone Blue. Gone Broke."

(via Moonbattery, via ABC News)

Martin Crutsinger: Propaganda Czar

So I am reading the news this weekend and I come across this so-called 'report' by Martin Crutsinger. It is one of those Q&A items that ostensibly provides a quick summary of major issues. In this case, the issues are the budget deficit and the national debt.

Propaganda
What is your first clue that this is a propaganda piece? He blames the deficit on the military activity in Afghanistan and Iraq. "Then the government's budget picture darkened even further after the 2001 terrorist attacks as government spending was increased to pay for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq." Now, where is the evidence to support this? Couldn't we just as easily blame any spending for the deficit?

But, he doesn't really get going until the end of his article:

What is the deficit outlook going forward?
Economists say it is OK to run massive deficits to stabilize the banking system and get the economy growing again. But they are fearful that the administration and Congress will not do enough to get future deficits under control, despite Obama's pledge to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term in office. They warn that the administration and Congress need to get more serious about attacking future deficits once the economic crisis is past. They argue that the only way that can be done is through some combination of spending cuts and tax increases to placate foreign investors.

"Economists say..." Which ones? When? Isn't there another opinion? And Martin, how many economists are saying it is a bad idea?

What Martin Didn't Tell You
Martin's bias is showing. In fact -- there is huge disagreement by economists with his assertion that it is "OK to run massive deficits..." to wit:

...we do not believe that more government spending is a way to improve economic performance. More government spending by Hoover and Roosevelt did not pull the United States economy out of the Great Depression in the 1930s. More government spending did not solve Japan's "lost decade" in the 1990s. As such, it is a triumph of hope over experience to believe that more government spending will help the U.S. today. To improve the economy, policy makers should focus on reforms that remove impediments to work, saving, investment and production. Lower tax rates and a reduction in the burden of government are the best ways of using fiscal policy to boost growth.

Over three hundred economists signed that letter. Martin's fallacious characterization of "Economists" is giving his 'report' a credibility hit to the first degree. Is it no wonder that Martin Crutsinger's rap sheet over at NewsBusters.org is a mile long?

You and I know propaganda when we see it... the harm comes from robotic repetition of propaganda (like that from Martin Crutsinger) by the talking heads -- it placates the hoi-polloi into taking this propaganda as gospel. It is anything but gospel... it is in fact, just lies.

Moreover, I am of the opinion that the out-of-control spending by the government is the number one contemporary issue. The only cure for that ill is the will of the people to change the system. A propaganda-placated public will not act, or perhaps will only act when it is too late.

Opinion Round Up on Martin
Aside from the hundred-odd stories at NewsBusters.org that point to Mr. Crutsinger as the number one shill in the media, here is a roundup of my contemporaries in the blogosphere, their independent observations:

Wolf Howling says Crutsinger is spinning for the President
Slate29: Martin Crutsinger From The AP Failed Math Class
According to MediaMatters, Mr. Crutsinger is not just an Obama Administration shill, he's just lazy.
1115.org agrees: AP REPORTER MARTIN CRUTSINGER IS NOTHING MORE THAN A STENOGRAPHER

He is so good at repeating crap, we might as well nominate Crutzinger for Propaganda Czar.

Martin Crutsinger I Presume?

If you agree, head over to NewsCred and give him a thumbs down.

The Health of America, Part 14

Instead of expensive and ineffective ObamaCare, Max Borders suggests five relatively simple "fixes" for American healthcare:

1. Let people buy health insurance across state lines.

2. Give poor and working class people tax credits (vouchers) to buy insurance.

3. De-couple health insurance from our jobs.

4. Give greater access to health savings accounts for use on the small stuff.

5. Stop driving up costs with regs and mandates.

Agreed--read the whole thing.

The Persistence of Politics, Union Style

Politics lives on and, as a result, D.C.'s experiment with school vouchers apparently is over. The program was passed by a Republican Congress and signed by a Republican President in 2004, over the objection of teachers unions but to the applause of local leaders and parents. The vouchers were both popular and effective.

Last year, then-Senator Obama first praised vouchers, then flip-flopped to oppose the program. In March, Senate Democrats deleted continued voucher funding from the stimulus package; thereafter, President Obama "cheerfully signed." Recently, Obama's Secretary of Education killed some D.C. vouchers a year early. When the First Daughters return to Sidwell Friends private school this fall, a couple of their less-privileged classmates will be MIA--forced back to the failed public schools.

What's behind the decision? Not upholding District "home rule"--progressives knew a D.C. Council majority supported vouchers. Rather, President and party were "flexing for the unions", specifically the teachers' unions. They have front-row seats in the liberal coalition--the largest such union, NEA, gave 90 percent of its 2008 election cycle contributions to Democrats. Unionized teachers always and forever scorn vouchers as "an ongoing threat to public education." Uh--but what about choice, specifically educational choice?

More generally, secular communitarians see voucher funding as "tax dollars . . . diverted from public schools" to benefit the private sector and religions. Uh--but, hey, wasn't it a stimulus package?

Besides, the D.C. voucher program saved money. At a maximum of $7,500 each, vouchers were cheaper than the around $28,000 per-pupil the District spent on K-12 public education during the 08-09 school year. Uh--doesn't President Obama care about deficits any more?

The D.C. vouchers program aided education: voucher kids showed significantly improved reading proficiency, especially compared to D.C. public schools (see page 35-36). But, instead of vouchers, the stimulus law "pumps $2.9 billion into Head Start, the early childhood literacy program, and another $53.6 billion in Title I for state budgets." Head Start provides no provable long-term educational benefit; in the March City Journal, Marcus Winters calls Head Start "a glorified daycare program that has no real impact on student learning." Winters also says increased state aid will offset mooted state budget cuts--not improve public education, but instead postpone meaningful public education reform. Yet in his February 9th initial prime-time press conference, President Obama faulted Democrats for being "too resistant to reform," suggested we "experiment with things like charter schools that are innovating in the classroom," and vowed to adopt "whatever arguments are persuasive and backed up by evidence and facts and proof, that they can work." Uh--have press conference promises become "inoperative"?

Conclusion: I'm not surprised that domestic policies--especially economy, healthcare and environment--turned left. The majority of voters supported change.

But politics is much the same. The death of D.C. vouchers was another triumph for the liberal special interest agenda. Forget "restoring science to its proper place." So much for "what works". Improving education for D.C. kids didn't matter. Vouchers vanished because teachers unions hate vouchers, Democrats love unions, and the Hill and White House are Democrats.

My surprise was that progressives and press genuinely expected the Obamessiah to purify politics. My shock is the number of people who still say he has.

QOTD

Prof Glenn Reynolds (a/k/a Instapundit) in the July 12th Washington Examiner:

The normal critique of socialized medicine is to point out that people have to wait a long time for these kinds of treatments in places like Britain. And that's certainly a valid critique. I'm sure my mom and daughter would still be waiting for their treatments, while my father and wife would probably be dead.

The key point, though, is that these treatments didn't just come out out of the blue. They were developed by drug companies and device makers who thought they had a good market for things that would make people feel better.

But under a national healthcare plan, the "market" will consist of whatever the bureaucrats are willing to buy. That means treatment for politically stylish diseases will get some money, but otherwise the main concern will be cost-control. More treatments, to bureaucrats, mean more costs.

It doesn't always work that way, of course. The rise of proton-pump inhibitors like Nexium or Prilosec has made ulcer surgery a thing of the past. But to the bureaucratic mindset, those pills are a cost, and ulcer-surgery expenses can be dealt with by rationing. Let 'em eat Maalox while they wait.

I exaggerate, but . . . well, maybe I don't. The truth is, despite the great promise of new medical technology out there now, in terms of new cancer treatments, biotechnology, nanotechnology, and more, the potential marvels of the next twenty years will never be developed unless some developer thinks there's a market.

And with bureaucrats in charge of deciding what treatments to pay for, the existence of such markets will be much less certain. Oh, sure, federally-funded medical research will still go on at the NSF, NIH, etc. But turning that research into actual products is a different story.

My family benefited from innovative treatments that probably wouldn't be around if the United States had adopted socialized medicine when that was first proposed over half a century ago. In 20 years from now, a lot more treatments -- and, probably, dramatically better treatments -- won't be around if we adopt a national healthcare program now.

It's ironic that the same Democrats who were pushing the medical prospects for stem-cell research during the last election are now pushing a program that will make such progress far less likely.

Agreed--as does the Mayo Clinic.

(via Don Surber)

Leftist Media Bias of the Day

You probably thought Ezra Klein's plea for newspaper subsidies was the ne plus ultra in excessive and specious press entanglement with the state. But on July 1st, Curtis Brainard highlighted an already existing government-media pipeline in the Columbia Journalism Review blog:

[T]he NSF--a federal agency that funds twenty percent of all federally supported, non-medical basic research in the United States--is now "underwriting" a wide array of media projects. Some of these are fairly traditional in nature. For example, the NSF has provided major funding for a number of PBS reports and plays no role in the editorial process or creating the final product. In partnerships with U.S. News & World Report and LiveScience, however, the outlets are posting content created by the NSF, researchers, or public information officers (all of which is labeled as having come from the NSF). There are also a few miscellaneous projects, such as Science Nation, a video series produced by members of CNN’s former science team (which the network axed last December); a recent panel event with Discover magazine; The Discovery Files, a series of podcasts that air on about 1,500 commercial radio stations in the U.S.; and Science 360, a Web site which aggregates all NSF-generated content (which, being publicly funded, is available to anybody that wants to use it).

A number of audience members stood up to challenge [Jeff] Nesbit [NSF's Public Affairs Director], arguing that the NSF is dangerously blurring the lines between journalism and PR, and is attempting to "disguise" publicity as objective reporting. Higham, the panel’s moderator, also asked whether or not it is "healthy for science journalism to be supported by NSF."

To his credit, Nesbit, a former journalist, seems to be well aware that the NSF’s media endeavors pose a threat to journalism. "We realize that there is high risk," he said in response to Higham’s question, "but at this point I would say that it’s a necessity."

No wonder "it is now 'effectively BBC policy' to stifle critics of the consensus view on global warming." There's nothing wrong with reporting on bureaucrats with an agenda--but sponsorship or reprinting Federal press releases should be attributed. Especially when strong-arming is the best a bureaucrat (or a scientist) can do.

(via Watts Up With That?, Maggie's Farm)

QOTD

Reacting to this New York Times editorial is Chris Horner at Planet Gore:

You may recall how for years the NYT's global-warming narrative was George W. Bush is standing in the world's way. The American Left promoted this meme gleefully, followed by the continent's sizable anti-American contingent and others seeking a distraction from their own woes, foibles, and ineptitudes. Bush did it!

Today, with no Bush to blame, well, let's just quietly say that the earnest Obama is finding the world in his way.

Sooo . . . in addition to "no time to debate!" because they are so right and all those skeptics are so wrong -- and with so many people conspiring against them on instructions from Big Oil (pant, pant) -- these people also have the world against them.

Obamessiah Suck-Up of the Day

Headline in the July 9th Daily Telegraph (U.K.):

Can Barack Obama save us from hell?

BTW, the answer is "no"--even NASA's nutty Dr. James Hansen talks of a U.S. "failure." Still, President Obama can inspire lefty followers like Greenpeace toward hellish acts.

(via The Corner, Watts Up With That?)

Videos of the Day

UPDATE: below

I rarely watch or recommend YouTube videos. But what "Auto-Tune The News" does with Katie Couric and Joe Biden is an exception; try number 4, number 2 and number 6.

MORE:

From the July 19th Washington Examiner:

Gregory Brothers: Which pol is best 'unintentional singer'?
By: Jeff Dufour and Kiki Ryan


You know the Gregory Brothers have made it big when they're not just using C-SPAN for raw material, but rather appearing on the political junkies' favorite network.

The brothers for the uninitiated, have created a web sensation with their remixed, mashed-up videos of politicians and talking heads, called "Auto Tune in the News."

"We had a feeling that if Paris Hilton had a recording contract, then why couldn't our nation's leaders, Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner, have their own recording contracts and pop careers?" asked Evan Gregory, as he appeared on C-SPAN's "Washington Journal" on Friday.

He explained how he, his wife and his two brothers mine C-SPAN for content. From there, it's a matter of determining "who is going to be the best unintentional singer" (Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., seems to be a popular choice, as are Pelosi and Boehner). Then, "we take their speaking voices and tune them to pseudo-singing voices," said using the infamous Auto-Tune software, which creates a robotic effect on the voice (for reference, think late period Cher).

(via reader Paul P.)

Climate Change Ate My Homework

First they said the Great Lakes would dry up. Now water levels have risen. What's next, shrinking sheep?

Global warming--is there anything it can't do? Especially when the theory's based on "climate model software [that] doesn't meet the best standards available."

My modest suggestion: call warming a miracle, forcing lefties to refute it. An improvement on the "global governance" Al Gore and the Greens favor.

(via Synthstuff, Watts Up With That?, Planet Gore)

Chutzpah of the Week

From CNN:

Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter called his fellow Democrat, Rep. Joe Sestak, a "flagrant hypocrite" and accused his rival of registering as a Democrat "just in time to run for Congress."

Sestak has said that he will challenge Specter, who has the backing of President Obama and party leaders, for the Democratic Senate nomination next year. Specter, a longtime Republican, switched his party registration to Democrat this year.

On Thursday, Specter's campaign sought to bring into question Sestak's roots to the Democratic Party. Specter's campaign sent out a list of Sestak's voting history in Delaware County, which the senator's campaign said showed that Sestak registered as an Independent in 1971, didn't vote in any primary elections from 1971-2005 and that he officially registered as a Democrat in February of 2006. Sestak was elected as a Democrat to the House in 2006.

"Congressman Sestak is a flagrant hypocrite in challenging my being a real Democrat when he did not register as a Democrat until 2006 just in time to run for Congress," Specter said in the statement. "His lame excuse for avoiding party affiliation, because he was in the service, is undercut by his documented disinterest in the political process."

(via The Corner)

Be Very Afraid

The number one priority of the United States Naval Academy isn't defense, says Bruce Fleming, an English professor there:

The Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead announced in Annapolis recently that "diversity is the number one priority" at the Naval Academy.

The Naval Academy superintendent, Vice Adm. Jeffrey Fowler, echoed him. Everyone understands that "diversity" here means nonwhite skins.

Fowler insisted recently that we needed to have Annapolis graduates who "looked like" the Fleet, where enlisted people are about 42 percent nonwhite, largely African American and Hispanic.

The stunning revelation last week was that the Naval Academy had an incoming class that was "more diverse" than ever before: 35 percent minority.

Sounds good, only this comes with a huge price tag. It's taxpayers who bankroll the military. Yet nobody has asked us if we're willing to pay this price. Instead we're being told there is no price to pay at all. If you believe that, you probably also believe in the Tooth Fairy.

A "diverse" class does not mean the Naval Academy recruits violinists, or older students (they can't be 23 on Induction Day), or gay people (who are thrown out) or foreign students (other than the dozen or so sent by client governments).

It means applicants checked a box on their application that says they are Hispanic, African American, Native American, and now, since my time on the Admissions Board of the Academy, where I've taught for 22 years, Asians.

Midshipmen are admitted by two tracks. White applicants out of high school who are not also athletic recruits typically need grades of A and B and minimum SAT scores of 600 on each part for the Board to vote them "qualified." Athletics and leadership also count.

A vote of "qualified" for a white applicant doesn't mean s/he's coming, only that he or she can compete to win the "slate" of up to 10 nominations that (most typically) a Congress(wo)man draws up. That means that nine "qualified" white applicants are rejected. SAT scores below 600 or C grades almost always produce a vote of "not qualified" for white applicants.

Not so for an applicant who self-identifies as one of the minorities who are our "number one priority." For them, another set of rules apply. Their cases are briefed separately to the board, and SAT scores to the mid-500s with quite a few Cs in classes (and no visible athletics or leadership) typically produce a vote of "qualified" for them, with direct admission to Annapolis. They're in, and are given a pro forma nomination to make it legit.

Fleming's accusation has sparked widespread debate. I haven't examined the admissions data; still, I wonder why preserving the world's strongest Navy ever could slip to priority two.

(via Powerline)

The Health of America, Part 13

UPDATE: below

Maria Cheng of the Associated Press:

[E]xperts say that before committing the U.S. to footing the bill for universal health care, Obama should consider it has cost Europe.

A World Health Organization survey in 2000 found that France had the world’s best health system. But that has come at a high price; health budgets have been in the red since 1988.

In 1996, France introduced targets for health insurance spending. But a decade later, the deficit had doubled to 49 billion euros ($69 billion).

"I would warn Americans that once the government gets its nose into health care, it’s hard to stop the dangerous effects later," said Valentin Petkantchin, of the Institut Economique Molinari in France. He said many private providers have been pushed out, forcing a dependence on an overstretched public system.

Similar scenarios have been unfolding in the Netherlands and Switzerland, where everyone must buy health insurance.

"The minute you make health insurance mandatory, people start overusing it," said Dr. Alphonse Crespo, an orthopedic surgeon and research director at Switzerland’s Institut Constant de Rebecque. "If I have a cold, I might go see a doctor because I am already paying a health insurance premium."

Cost-cutting has also hit Switzerland. The numbers of beds have dropped, hospitals have merged, and specialist care has become harder to find. A 2007 survey found that in some hospitals in Geneva and Lausanne, the rates of medical mistakes had jumped by up to 40 percent. Long ranked among the world’s top four health systems, Switzerland dropped to 8th place in a Europe-wide survey last year.

Government influence in health care may also stifle innovation, other experts warn. Bureaucracies are slow to adopt new medical technologies. In Britain and Germany, even after new drugs are approved, access to them is complicated because independent agencies must decide if they are worth buying.

When the breast cancer drug Herceptin was proven to be effective in 1998, it was available almost immediately in the U.S. But it took another four years for the U.K. to start buying it for British breast cancer patients.

"Government control of health care is not a panacea," said Philip Stevens, of International Policy Network, a London think-tank. "The U.S. health system is a bit of a mess, but based on what’s happened in some countries in Europe, I’d be nervous about recommending more government involvement."

Agreed. See also Forbes magazine, this WaPo chart and Megan McArdle: "The fact that you can imagine some perfect bureaucrat administering a beautifully-designed law does not mean that this is actually possible in the American political universe." More reasons to fix Medicare first.

MORE:

The costs of ObamaCare-style over-regulation to Massachusetts.

(via Don Surber)