While the Democrats in Congress will try to spin it otherwise, the truth about the CBO numbers released today can be found on the first page of CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf’s letter to Speaker Pelosi:

Although CBO completed a preliminary review of legislative language prior to its release, the agency has [...]

The Economist Free Exchange blog points me to Steve Waldman and an interesting question:
Suppose the good guys win. Better yet, suppose they had never lost. Suppose banks had never ventured beyond conservatively prudent lending; that there had been no housing, internet, or credit bubble. Forlorn cul-de-sacs surrounded by mouldering homes were never cut from the [...]

Those of us who truly believe in limited government* tend to be simultaneously amused and irritated hearing the folks at CPAC speak of limited government as though it’s a principle they truly support. Yesterday, the Libertarian Party’s Executive Director Wes Benedict, monitoring the CPAC festivities from afar, said some of the things that many of [...]

Seems many Republicans are looking to change their narrative. Just in case there is an actual economic recovery (I’m personally still betting double-dip), they want to start blaming Obama for the deficits and spending rather than the pathetic jobs numbers. To this, Kevin Drum asks:
Well, at least we’ve been prepared. If the economy [...]

In my post on whether America is ungovernable, one comment from CJS stuck out. It illustrates what I think is a common misconception of the average consumer, who sees a Starbucks on every corner, chooses between Microsoft and Apple for their operating system, and chooses whether to shop at the Super Wal-Mart or Costco [...]

Politicians all try to sell spending by underselling the true cost:
1) They determine a plan to spend money, sell it as low spending.
2) Despite pundits claiming it will be much higher than projected, they claim it’s not true.
3) When the spending is actually measured, it’s often higher than pundits’ estimates.
We’ve all seen the trajectory of [...]

“I mean, say what you like about the tenets of the Republican party, Dude, at least it’s an ethos…”
Apologies to Joel and Ethan Coen…
There has been a recent meme circulated by the leftosphere, that the Republicans… in fact any opponent of the Obama agenda… are nihilists.
Now, I have to say, I don’t think most of [...]

You might have heard the old saying “The best measure of a mans intelligence and wisdom, is how closely he agrees with you on any given subject”…
Well, by that measure, Kommander is a damn genius (from a thread discussing Obamas abandonment of manned space flight):
The problem with exploring and colonizing space, as opposed to exploring [...]

When I heard there was going to be a Hayek vs. Keynes rap battle, I was amused. And then I watched it, and realized it’s actually pretty good.
Enjoy.

Catastrophe Denied: The Science of the Skeptics Position (studio version) from Warren Meyer on Vimeo.

Warren is local to me (he lives about three miles away actually), and runs both the excellent libertarian small business and economics blog CoyoteBlog, and the absolutely essential climate blog Climate Skeptic.

Ezra Klein links an interesting story by econoblogger Ryan Avent about declining cities. His post is a fairly interesting read about how (or whether to) try to save dying manufacturing cities.
But one of his passages discusses a greatly different topic. As a California resident, I’m stuck with a very high-tax, heavy-regulating, dysfunctional state [...]

…Doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have any choice at all. The first freedom is the freedom to fail…
And when it comes to choosing our leaders in this country… whoooo boy have we failed big time, for a long time.
So fellow gunblogger Tam, being an Ovarian American, got a bit tweaked at a comment over at Travis [...]

Democrats are addicted to saying that there is a right to health care, and subsequently hammering anyone who opposes their disastrous reform bill as opposing that right. The truth is, there is a right to health care, and it is consistently opposed by the left, not the right.
Put simply, each person has the right [...]

As a libertarian, I spend a lot of time railing against idiotic government giveaways. The TARP, the Porkulus Stimulus, and Cash For Clunkers all took copious levels of heat. I derided them for various reasons:
TARP: Notwithstanding the wide-ranging areas this money was targeted to (i.e. auto bailouts) and the fact that when it [...]

Anyone who is really paying attention to the global warming debate will notice that reducing carbon emissions and wealth distribution go hand-in-hand.
Or do they?
Dick Morris and Eileen McGann wrote a very interesting article which makes very much the opposite point.
The goals of the climate change crowd are not reduction in global warming but [...]

from RJ Matson, NY Observer
Hat Tip: Ritholtz, The Big Picture

Here’s a perfect song to complement my recent call to action to pass the National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009.

System of a Down
“Prison Song”
Toxicity (2001)
Written by: Tankian, Serj;Malakian, Daron;Odadjian, Shavarsh; and Dolmayan, John
They’re trying to build a prison,
They’re trying to build a prison,
Following the rights movements
You clamped on with your iron fists,
Drugs became conveniently
Available [...]

Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning: not a fan of Helicopter Ben:
Four years ago when you came before the Senate for confirmation to be Chairman of the Federal Reserve, I was the only Senator to vote against you. In fact, I was the only Senator to even raise serious concerns about you. I opposed you [...]

In April of 2009, I wrote a post entitled “Reforming America’s Prison System: The Time Has Come”
A full 8 months later, the time has truly come. Sen. Jim Webb’s (D-VA) bill S.714, the National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009, is scheduled to be before the Senate Judiciary Committee tomorrow.
The purpose of the bill [...]

Goldbugs have long-believed that central banks try to manipulate the price of gold, i.e. dumping gold onto the market at certain times to keep the price down, then slowly re-acquiring it after the spike passes, etc. But in an era where the goldbugs are predicting $2000/oz and higher (I’ve seen predictions of $5000/oz), I [...]