Saw this (original comic by Wuerker of Politico) at The Big Picture: My question… In what world is it fair that any entity stakes a forcible claim to 40% of your income? It doesn’t matter that the number was higher in the past, the number is simply too high. Again, that number is 40%! You [...]

Sometimes this gets tiring. I’m getting a bit sick of showing that bad consequences, entirely foreseeable (and possibly planned) and predicted, are coming to fruition — and the power-brokers in Washington have the gall to actually act appaled? The great mystery surrounding the historic health care bill is how the corporations that provide coverage for [...]

As we all know, most of ObamaCare is pushed out to 2014 or so. But Ezra Klein, ever helpful, points out this nice PDF which explains what will occur nearly immediately. Ezra is always celebrating the cost-control measures of ObamaCare, so let’s see how these provisions stack up: 1. SMALL BUSINESS TAX CREDITS—Offers tax credits [...]

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.

…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 [...]

Ezra Klein quotes approvingly from Bruce Bartlett’s new book, The New American Economy: The Failure Of Reaganomics And A New Way Forward: The reality is that even before spending exploded to deal with the economic crisis, the government was set to grow by about 50 percent of GDP over the next generation just to pay [...]

In the lead up to the vote on H.R. 3962, the “Affordable Health Care for America” Act (scare quotes intentional), Barack Obama offered this encouragement to legislators to vote for the bill: “This is their moment, this is our moment, to live up to the trust that the American people have placed in us,” Obama [...]

So it is done: 220-215. Two-hundred and twenty United States Representatives put their support behind 20 pounds and 2,000 pages of abusive legislation in the form of innumerable mandates enforced by 110 new government agencies. One of those mandates, though, cuts so violently to the core of our freedoms that it cannot go unanswered: Buy [...]

Hugo (via Cato): Every day I’m more of a revolutionary, every day I’m more socialist… I’m going to take Venezuela toward socialism, with the people and the workers…The revolution is not negotiable, socialism is not negotiable, because every day I’m more convinced that socialism is the kingdom of God on earth. That is what Christ [...]

My old representative when I lived in Georgia, Tom Price, has offered competing health care legislation to the Democrats’ bills. I’m not a health-care wonk, so I’m not going to get into the meat of his proposal, but apparently one of the key points is limiting the employer-provided health insurance tax deduction and extending a [...]

Peter Suderman writing for The Wall Street Journal has written an excellent article about the (apparent) unlearned lessons of government run healthcare. But unlike many others who use Canada and the UK as examples, Suderman insists that we only need to look at states like New York, Massachusetts, Washington, and Tennessee for their respective failed [...]

Ahh, the infamous strawman. Take one aspect of an argument, assume it is not part of a cohesive whole, and argue against it as if it negates everything else at hand. I.e. libertarians and conservatives argue that capping drug prices just MIGHT reduce drug innovation, and Ezra Klein acts as if we’d keep everything else [...]

The “Ambulance Commercial” from AARP claims that the “special interest groups” are “trying to derail” the healthcare debate. Those who oppose “reform” are “spreading myths” about rationing of care. In case you’ve missed it, here’s the ad: One of the things that really makes me angry about this debate is the way groups like AARP, [...]

Hmm, I guess we can see once again that our Congress is not in any way trying to manage our car companies (and their unions) for political gain: The latest example is the $10 billion taxpayers will be asked to shell out to prop up the United Auto Workers’ retiree health insurance program. That provision [...]

For decades the cost of medical care has risen relative to prices in general and relative to people’s incomes. Today [1994] a semi-private hospital room typically costs $1,000 to $1,500 per day, exclusive of all medical procedures, such as X-rays, surgery, or even a visit by one’s physician. Basic room charges of $500 per day [...]

Satisfaction levels of Medicare beneficiaries are pretty high. This surprises Kevin Drum: There’s a pretty obvious political dynamic that’s responsible for this. Seniors, who actually use Medicare, know perfectly well that it’s a good program. They can see any doctor they want, they get care when they need it, and the quality of service is [...]

We’ve already reported on Venezuelan food shortages, which are going to make the population too weak to fight Chavez. Now it appears they’ll be too tired as well: Venezuela, a traditional coffee exporter that boasts one of the best cups of java in South America, may have to import coffee for the first time ever [...]

As I’ve noted in the past, sales of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged have increased significantly over the past year. Now it appears that the same is happening to Frederich Hayek’s seminal work: So far this year the most popular edition of Road to Serfdom has sold 11,000 copies. That compares with 3,000 copies at the [...]

At Cafe Hayek, a letter to the editor by Andy Morriss to the Wall Street Journal is posted: Holman Jenkins asks “Does Obama Want to Own the Airlines?” (Business World, July 8). I am sure he does not. Rather than own them, the president and his congressional allies want to control the airlines — a [...]

As reported (circumspect) by QandO: One of the district attorneys that participated in the operation that took place this Friday showed reporters an official voting result from the Technical Institute Luis Bogran, of Tegucigalpa, in which the specific number of people that participated in table 345, where there were 550 ballots, 450 of which were [...]