Voice For Liberty

Tag: Barack Obama

  • Debt ceiling poses challenge and opportunity

    As the U.S. government’s borrowing approaches its statutory limit, the House of Representatives has a decision to make: does it support raising that limit so that the government can continue borrowing? Some warn of disastrous consequences if the limit is not raised, such as government shutting down or suffering a drop in its credit rating. Below, Americans for Limited Government’s Bill Wilson says this is a moment of decision for three players: Speaker John Boehner, Majority Leader Harry Reid, and President Barack Obama. Either we go along as we have, or we use this moment to make serious change.

    Use Debt Ceiling Increase to Cut Spending by $800 Billion

    by Bill Wilson, Americans for Limited Government

    This is where we are. With the national debt topping $14 trillion, it stands at 95 percent of the Gross Domestic Product, which is almost a full year of all goods and services the entire economy can produce. As it approaches the $14.294 trillion debt ceiling, incoming House Speaker John Boehner has a decision to make. Attaching $100 billion of spending cuts to that vote may sound nice, but it isn’t one-tenth enough of what needs to be done.

    Instead, House Republicans should use that leverage to extract at least $800 billion of across the board cuts, bringing the budget to 2007 spending levels of $2.7 trillion. Then if lawmakers wished to keep entitlement and defense spending where they currently are, they would have to find about another $200 billion of cuts or so to make from the discretionary budget. And then after that, keep cutting until the budget is balanced, no more debt needs to be contracted, and the debt can finally begin to be paid off.

    The way to begin to do that is to attach the $800 billion of spending cuts to the debt ceiling increase legislation. That includes ending the bailouts, “stimulus”, and selling government ownership of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The House will have done its job and increased the debt ceiling to help refinance current debts. Then Harry Reid and Barack Obama will have the choice to make: Accept the spending cuts or block the debt ceiling increase and default. The burden will be on them, and the blame will be on them should they fail to raise the debt limit. Those are the terms of the American people.

    The alternative is to just kick the can and raise the ceiling without any cuts or too little cuts attached, and watch as the debt becomes larger than the entire economy this year or next. As the Federal Reserve becomes the government’s top lender, printing hundreds of billions of dollars just to refinance the debt. And, as the national credit rating is eventually downgraded. The dollar will continue to sink, interest rates will have nowhere to go but up, and the ultimate collapse that occurs will be on the heads of every politician who refused to cut spending when they had the chance.

  • Kansas and Wichita quick takes: Monday January 3, 2011

    This week at Wichita City Council. Roger Smith will be sworn in to take the place of Jim Skelton. Smith’s term will end in April, when the voters will select a permanent member of the council from district 3. Of course, Smith could be that person. … The council will hear from an independent fact-finder regarding the firefighters. See Wichita Eagle Wichita firefighters union stresses staffing in contract requests with city. … Also improvement of two south Wichita intersections will be considered. See Wichita City Council to consider $4 million in street work on S. Broadway.

    Last meeting for two commissioners. This Wednesday will be the last meeting for two members of the Sedgwick County Commission, Gwen Welshimer and Kelly Parks. New members will be sworn on this Sunday.

    Legislators to hear from citizens. The South-Central Kansas Legislative Delegation will be taking public comments Tuesday January fourth from 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm in the Jury Room of the Sedgwick County Courthouse, 525 N. Main in Wichita. (Use the north entrance to the courthouse). This is your opportunity to let local legislators know your wishes on issues that will be considered during the 2011 legislative session. In the past, each person wishing to talk has been limited to between three and five minutes depending on the number of people wishing to speak.

    State GOP chief to speak in Wichita. This Friday (January 7th) Amanda Adkins, who is Chair of the Kansas Republican Party, will speak at the Wichita Pachyderm Club. The topic is “Conservative Leadership Now — 2020: Building Long-term Political Infrastructure for the State of Kansas.” The public is welcome and encouraged to attend Wichita Pachyderm meetings. For more information click on Wichita Pachyderm Club. Upcoming speakers include Bob Lamke, Director of the Sedgwick County Division of Public Safety on January 14th, and Ed Flentje, Professor at the Hugo Wall School of Urban and Public Affairs at Wichita State University, will be discussing a book he co-authored titled “Kansas Politics and Government” on January 21.

    Repeal of sales tax. Many of the new members of the Kansas House of Representatives ran on opposition to the statewide sales tax increase that took effect in July. I had speculated in an appearance on This Week in Kansas that the House would entertain a bill to repeal the sales tax, while another — more experienced, I might add — observer of Kansas politics felt that leadership would tamp down such an effort. Today David Klepper of The Kansas City Star takes a look at the prospects for legislative action on this issue. Some would like to repeal the sales tax right away, while others say that repeal needs to be part of a broader, long-term look at Kansas tax policy. Senate Vice President John Vratil — not a supporter of limited government and economic freedom — is quoted as saying tax reform is a “multi-year project.”

    Net neutrality advances. Almost lost in all the congressional activity before Christmas was the fact that the Federal Communications Commission voted to pass new rules on net neutrality. Writing in The Wall Street Journal, John Fund says: “The Federal Communications Commission’s new ‘net neutrality’ rules, passed on a partisan 3-2 vote yesterday, represent a huge win for a slick lobbying campaign run by liberal activist groups and foundations. The losers are likely to be consumers who will see innovation and investment chilled by regulations that treat the Internet like a public utility.” Fund explains the radical political views of those behind the net neutrality campaign. He also explains that President Barack Obama is ignoring the will of Congress and court rulings, seeking to impose internet regulation through the executive branch.

    Wichita noticed in Boston. A writer from the Boston Globe visits Wichita and writes on his tourist experiences. It follows a predictable template: First, put away the Toto jokes and overlook the city’s problematic reputation. Then — I found public art, lattes, and a restaurant! Wow! Who would have figured?

  • Rationing of health care, now and on the horizon

    A Wall Street Journal article explains that — contrary to the promises of President Barack Obama and supporters of his health care plan — rationing of health care is happening and will become more pervasive.

    Citing the story of Avastin (see below), the authors write “The Avastin story is emblematic of the government’s broader agenda to ration care based on cost and politics. Once ObamaCare comes into full force, such rationing will be pervasive. When the government sees insufficient benefit, all but the wealthiest and most politically connected will have to go without.”

    The article explains the doctrine of “comparative effectiveness,” used in England to ration health care, and how the 2009 stimulus bill allocated $1.1 billion to study this.

    Additionally, end-of-life counseling has been revived through regulation, not legislation. This, the authors write, “might coax the elderly away from life-sustaining but expensive treatments.”

    Where I might disagree with the authors is in this passage:

    There’s an enormous difference between government-imposed rationing and treatment decisions in the private sector. When insurance companies deny coverage — for example, on grounds that treatment is “experimental” or not “medically necessary” — they do so based on contract language agreed to in advance by subscribers. If you don’t like what a particular insurer offers, you’re free to shop around.

    The idea that people can shop around for health insurance is not a reality for most people. For those who receive insurance from their employers, they get what the boss offers, maybe with a few choices. Contrast this with the lightly-regulated automobile insurance market, where policies are available with many options, and insurance companies actively compete for customers. Those on Medicare get what the government provides, although many seniors shop around for a supplemental policy that meets their needs.

    If the health insurance market were less regulated, particularly eliminating the perverse practice of insurance being tied to employment, a market would likely develop where customers would be able to shop for or specify policies that meet their needs. If someone wanted a policy that would pay for experimental, cutting-edge treatments, they could pay an additional amount for such a policy. I have no idea how much extra this option would cost, but I imagine we would be surprised at how little it would be.

    Or, if someone has signed an advance directive indicating that they do not want extraordinary and expensive care at the end of their life, shouldn’t they be allowed to buy policies that specify this as part of the contract between the insurance company and the insured? That could save a lot of money.

    The rationing of health care has implications for economic development in Wichita. The State of Kansas and Wichita are making a large investment in Center of Innovation for Biomaterials in Orthopaedic Research. This center seeks to make advancements in medical devices, including artificial hips and knees. These types of operations, however, are the type of medical care that we can easily foresee will be restricted as the federal government seeks to control spending on health care.

    ‘Death Panels’ Come Back to Life

    The FDA’s restrictions on the drug Avastin are the beginning of a long slide toward health-care rationing.

    By David B. Rivkin Jr. and Elizabeth Price Foley

    Earlier this month, the Food and Drug Administration banned doctors from prescribing Avastin, a potent but costly drug, to patients with advanced-stage breast cancer. According to the FDA, the drug doesn’t offer “a sufficient benefit in slowing disease progression to outweigh the significant risk to patients.” Yet in some clinical trials Avastin has halted the spread of patients’ cancer for months, providing respite to women and their families wracked by physical and psychological pain.

    Ponder the FDA’s justification—there wasn’t “sufficient” benefit in relation to Avastin’s risks. Sufficient according to whom? For your wife, mother or daughter with terminal breast cancer, how much is an additional month of good-quality life worth? And what costs should be weighed? Like all drugs, Avastin has side effects including bleeding and high blood pressure. But isn’t the real cost to these women a swifter, less dignified death? The FDA made a crude cost calculation; as everyone in Washington knows, it wouldn’t have banned Avastin if the drug cost only $1,000 a year, instead of $90,000.

    Continue reading at The Wall Street Journal or at Rivkin’s site.

  • Obama’s spending stimulus failed

    The school of thinking known as Keynesian economics holds that government should actively and aggressively manage the economy, most importantly by stepping up spending when demand is low. Through this deficit spending, it is said that government action can increase employment. This government spending purportedly accomplishes this through a multiplier effect, as dollars are spent again and again.

    The value of the spending multiplier — is it big or small? — is an important question. Also, the multiplier effect may be different for government spending versus private spending.

    Now, we’re starting to understand why Keynesian economics doesn’t work. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Stanford economist Michael J. Boskin summarizes recent research that finds that the spending multiplier is small, and actually turns negative by the start of the second year. Furthermore, the government spending crowds out private sector spending. The effect of Obama’s 2009 stimulus bill is estimated at 0.2 percent of GDP, an amount described as “puny.”

    Tax cuts, however, are estimated to have a multiplier of 3.0, with “substantial tax cuts” having a multiplier of up to 5.0.

    In context, Obama’s economic advisers, at the time he took office, estimated that the spending multiplier for government purchases was 1.57, while the multiplier for tax cuts was 0.99.

    Of the new studies finding a small spending multiplier, Boskin writes: “These empirical studies leave many leading economists dubious about the ability of government spending to boost the economy in the short run. Worse, the large long-term costs of debt-financed spending are ignored in most studies of short-run fiscal stimulus and even more so in the political debate.”

    In conclusion, he writes: “The complexity of a dynamic market economy is not easily captured even by sophisticated modeling (an idea stressed by Friedrich Hayek and Robert Solow). But based on the best economic evidence, we should reject increased spending and increased taxes.” He calls for reductions in personal and corporate marginal tax rates and an “enforceable gradual phase-down of the spending explosion of recent years.”

    We should note that Obama and many of those in government are easily seduced by the allure of Keynesian deficit spending. It’s government, after all, that gets to spend the money. Republicans, even those who consider themselves conservative, have been seduced in this way, too.

    Tax cuts, on the other hand, leave money and spending decisions in the private sector.

    Why the Spending Stimulus Failed

    New economic research shows why lower tax rates do far more to spur growth.

    By Michael J. Boskin

    President Obama and congressional leaders meeting yesterday confronted calls for four key fiscal decisions: short-run fiscal stimulus, medium-term fiscal consolidation, and long-run tax and entitlement reform. Mr. Obama wants more spending, especially on infrastructure, and higher tax rates on income, capital gains and dividends (by allowing the lower Bush rates to expire). The intellectual and political left argues that the failed $814 billion stimulus in 2009 wasn’t big enough, and that spending control any time soon will derail the economy.

    But economic theory, history and statistical studies reveal that more taxes and spending are more likely to harm than help the economy. Those who demand spending control and oppose tax hikes hold the intellectual high ground.

    Continue reading at the Wall Street Journal (subscription not required)

  • Kansas and Wichita quick takes: Thursday December 2, 2010

    Kansas lags in charter schools. It won’t be a surprise to regular readers of this site, but Kansas is way behind most states in taking advantage of charter schools. This is a school reform measure that, while not perfect and doesn’t succeed in all cases, provides a way to increase opportunity for often the most disadvantaged students. It also increases opportunity for those students who don’t directly use them. Paul Soutar takes a look at how Kansas earns such a poor evaluation regarding charter schools in his article Weak Charter School Law Works Against Taxpayers’ Interests.

    Bureaucrats Gone Wild in Cancun. Global warming alarmists are meeting, and Americans for Prosperity is there to keep an eye on them. AFP says: “The United Nations Climate Change Conference is meeting in Cancun, Mexico from November 29 — December 10, 2010 where bureaucrats will work to transfer wealth and technology from developed to developing nations by raising the cost of traditional energy. But before these international bureaucrats get to ‘work’, they decided to throw a lavish party for themselves.” A news headline spotlighted in a video produced by AFP reads “Cancun climate change summit: scientists call for rationing in the developed world. The video is here: Bureaucrats Gone Wild in Cancun. AFP is taking its Hot Air Tour there. There are two ways to view this event: online, or by attending a watch party. There’s one in Wichita Thursday evening. Click on Hot Air Tour: Live from Cancun for more information and to register.

    Obama federal employee pay freeze — or not. President Barack Obama has been praised for instituting a pay freeze for federal employees. But the freeze may not be all it seems to be. Vincent Vernuccio of the Competitive Enterprise Institute reports: “President Obama’s proposal of a pay freeze for federal employees is a small step towards curbing government spending. However, a closer look shows there is less to it than meets the eye. In fact, many federal employees will still see their salaries increased. While Obama’s plan would stop the annual across-the-board cost of living adjustment (COLA) for all federal workers, it will not stop workers from getting raises altogether. The freeze will not affect pay raises for job classification upgrades. As an official at the Office of Management and Budget told Federal News Radio, ’employees will still be eligible for step increases.’” The full analysis is at the Daily Caller in Federal workers will still receive raises despite pay freeze.

    The moral case against spreading the wealth. From The Moral Case Against Spreading the Wealth by Leslie Carbone: “After two years, the results of President Obama’s wealth-spreading policies have confirmed centuries of economics, political philosophy, and common sense: Forced wealth redistribution doesn’t make things good for everybody; it makes things worse, both fiscally and morally.” Carbone explains the two reasons: Government-mandated wealth distribution does create prosperity, and it’s not a legitimate function of government. On the type of behavior we’d like to see in people, she writes: “Wealth redistribution discourages the virtuous behavior that creates wealth: hard work, saving, investment, personal responsibility.” After explaining other problems that progressive taxation — wealth redistribution — causes, she sounds a note of optimism: “Through Tea Parties and popular protests, millions of Peters and Pauls, and Joe the Plumbers are rejecting what F.A. Hayek so aptly called the fatal conceit of paternalistic government. Decades of federal expansion have demonstrated what history, economics, philosophy, and common sense have told us all along: People, working through the market, are the engines of prosperity, both moral and financial — but only if we get government out of their way.” Leslie Carbone is the author of Slaying Leviathan: The Moral Case for Tax Reform. That book expands on the ideas presented in this article.

  • Myth of Obama tax cuts

    As the nation’s attention is focused on whether Congress will extend the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, some are calling attention to the Obama tax cuts and calling for their extension.

    These tax “cuts” — and I use quotes deliberately — are part of the stimulus bill passed in February 2009. Polls show that very people know of these tax cuts.

    So what are the Obama tax cuts? There was one program that qualified — sort of — as a “cut,” and several tax credit programs. More information about these programs from the Obama Administration is at Recovery.gov,

    The largest item that benefited most people is the Making Work Pay Tax Credit, a two-year program that rebates $400 per year to individual taxpayers, or $800 per year for married couples. This is not a reduction in marginal tax rates, although the program will reduce the average tax rate that people pay. At its core, it is simply a reduction in the overall amount of tax someone must pay.

    This tax credit is not associated with any positive effort or activity by the recipients other than doing what they already do. The same criticism applies to the Bush tax rebate in 2008, too.

    Besides the Making Work Pay Tax Credit, the Obama tax cuts consist of other tax credits that apply not to everyone, but only to people who qualify.

    For example, a child care tax credit pays up to $1,200 per year in child care expenses. Obviously, the only people who can claim this credit are working people with children who chose to place them in daycare. Beyond that, it is not a “tax cut” by any stretch of the imagination. Properly, it is a spending program implemented through the tax system. Sometimes called tax expenditures, these measures often escape the usual scrutiny that spending receives. Since they’re billed as a “tax cut,” they sound like a good thing to most people, as few like paying taxes.

    If we need any more evidence that these programs are really spending disguised as tax cuts, consider the description of the child care tax credit as provided by the Internal Revenue Service: “It is a refundable credit, which means taxpayers may receive refunds even when they do not owe any tax.”

    That’s right. Even if you have no income tax liability, you can still get a tax credit — that is, a payment from the government.

    For tax cuts to be productive in growing the economy, they have to be associated with something positive, namely with work, saving, or investment. What many people positively respond to is a reduction in marginal tax rates, that is, the tax that must be paid on the next dollar earned.

    Programs that reduce the average tax rate like Obama’s Making Work Pay Tax Credit and the Bush tax rebates of 2008 aren’t effective because they don’t affect the marginal rate — the rate paid on the next dollar earned. This is not to say that I am not in favor of these programs. Anything that reduces the burden of taxes is welcome. But they are not the type of tax cuts that spur economic growth.

    Who responds most positively to reductions in marginal tax rates? As Jeffrey A. Miron explains, it is the most economically productive members of society:

    The Bush cuts provided lower taxes on ordinary income, especially for taxpayers at the high end of the income distribution. These are some of the most energetic and productive people in society; raising tax rates would discourage their effort and entrepreneurship. High-income taxpayers also have multiple ways of avoiding high tax rates, so any revenue gain from raising rates would be modest. The Bush cuts also lowered taxes on dividend and capital gains income; maintaining these lower rates is even more important for economic performance. Capital is mobile: when it is taxed heavily here, it flees somewhere else, meaning lower investment and employment in the United States. And because capital income taxes discourage investment or drive it overseas, they generate little if any tax revenue. (Jeffrey A. Miron, “Why the Bush Tax Cuts Worked”)

    It is these “energetic and productive” people that are responsible for a great deal of business activity and job creation. When these people take steps to avoid taxes it means less productive economic activity and more unproductive tax shelters.

    In Slaying Leviathan: The Moral Case for Tax Reform, author Leslie Carbone explains the harm of high marginal taxes, especially progressive taxes, where rates become higher as more income is earned:

    The discouragement of earning money by working, saving, or investing inherent in any income tax is exacerbated by progressivity. While any high tax rates are economically destructive, high marginal rates are even worse, because high marginal rates particularly discourage productivity and inhibit economic growth. … By lowering potential pay off, high investment taxes especially discourage risky investment. Discouragement of risky investment squelches technological advancement, because new technologies are the most risky. This means our progressive tax system actually reduces progress and inhibits improve quality of life.”

    If the goal of the Obama Administration is to create private sector economic growth instead of growth in government, it needs to keep the Bush tax cuts in place and avoid increases in marginal tax rates for everyone, especially the most productive members of society. A better strategy would be to reduce these tax rates farther to create even more economic growth.

    There is a lesson to be learned locally, too. Kansas needs to cut its marginal tax rates, both for personal income and for corporations. Miron spoke of capital leaving the United States because of high taxes. It’s even easier for capital — and its accompanying jobs — to move from one U.S. state to another. States with low tax burdens are experiencing growth in jobs and population, while high tax states have losses in both areas. Kansas is in the middle of the pack, but moving in the wrong direction.

    The current economic development strategy of Kansas and many of its cities and counties is to offer targeted incentives to attract new industry and keep current companies from leaving. A better strategy in the long run is to join the ranks of low tax burden states.

  • Kansas and Wichita quick takes: Friday November 12, 2010

    Dilts drops campaign for city council. Jason Dilts has announced that he is ending his campaign for a position on the Wichita City Council. He had been running for the district 4 position currently held by Paul Gray, who is precluded from running again by the city’s term limit law. While Dilts’ politics are liberal and might have been expected to depart from those of the incumbent, Gray voted for nearly every spending measure that came before the council. … Dilts’ departure leaves this district without any publicly declared candidates. The filing deadline for city and school board elections is January 24, 2011. The primary election is March 1, and the general election is on April 5. These elections are non-partisan, meaning that candidates run without party identification, although everyone who cares knows who belongs to which party. In the primary, the top two vote-getters advance to the general election.

    OTB: One-term Barack. Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia Center for Politics predicts a dim future for President Barack Obama and his chances for reelection. Sabato’s most recent “Crystal Ball” column starts off with “The wreckage of the Democratic Party is strewn just about everywhere. President Obama’s carefully constructed 2008 Electoral College breakthrough is now just broken, a long-ago memory of what might have been a lasting shift in partisan alignment.” After presenting the evidence, Sabato concludes: “There’s only one logical conclusion to be drawn: President Barack Obama is down for the count, will have an early lame duck presidency, and will be out of the White House in two years.”

    Project Downtown: The Master Plan for Wichita. The “final draft” version of the plan for the revitalization of downtown Wichita is now available. Click on Project Downtown: The Master Plan for Wichita. Perhaps after the “final draft” comes the “first permanent version?” Next week the Metropolitan Area Planning Commission will hold a public hearing to consider adoption of the plan. The meeting is at 1:30 pm Thursday Nov. 18, in the tenth floor conference room at Wichita City Hall, 455 N. Main. This is an opportunity for the public to comment on this project. I’m thinking I’ll be there.

    Wichita city hall garage closing. Letter to Wichita Eagle, in part: “The bureaucrats reserve for themselves convenient services, while those they are supposed to serve do without and are exposed to parking-meter violations and parking fines. Wichita government has a history of poor service to its citizens. Recent examples include the mismanagement of the Wichita water utility and resulting increases in our water bills, and the increased fees assessed to homeowners for home protection alarms. Yet we see good-old-boy deals on below-market rate loans and tax incentives to every project that comes before city officials, worthy or not.”

    Some Kansas counties voted against judges. Last week’s elections in Kansas offered voters the opportunity to vote whether several Kansas Supreme Court and Kansas Court of Appeals justices should be retained in office. Voters decided to retain all by roughly a two-to-one margin. But some Kansas counties voted against retaining the judges. In particular, some western Kansas counties, Cherokee county in extreme southeastern Kansas, and Coffey county in east-central Kansas voted against the judges. A Kansas Watchdog story asked Fort Hays State University political science professor Chapman Rackaway for his analysis. He said “I think you’re seeing more an expression of a philosophy than a particular agenda against these particular justices.” He noted “A more libertarian streak runs strong in western Kansas, and along with that comes a philosophy of ‘throw the bums out.’” He also says that “I think if you ran a correlation of votes you’d find that the strongest Libertarian and Republican results would come from some of the counties you’ve pointed out. In the end, then, this is more about general change than it is a specific policy or judge.”

    Health insurance profits. Watching liberal media so you don’t have to: Cenk Uygur, who appears on the liberal television network MSNBC, reported on the profits of health insurance companies. He said that health insurance companies earned $9.3 billion in profits for the first three months of the year, up 41 percent in the last year, adding “Do we really want to leave decisions about our health and our lives to a corporation whose sole purpose is to make money off of us? They get billions in profits by taking in more money from us than they pay out for our care. I’m not sure that makes a lot of sense.” First: citing a number like these profit figures without providing context means very little. Health insurance company profits — in terms of the industry’s size — have been low in recent years. Second: Have the insurance companies figured out how to the “game” the Obamacare plan? It wouldn’t be the first time large companies have co-opted government regulation for their own profit. Third: Do you — as does Uygur — trust the government to make decisions regarding your health care? The idea of a benevolent government paternally caring for our best interests is dangerous. Profit is a more reliable motive. The problem is that health insurance companies compete in a highly regulated market, where the profit motive is not fully able to express itself. Contrast the market for automobile insurance, where companies compete vigorously for business. In that industry, complaints of companies refusing to pay legitimate claims are rare. That’s because with auto insurance, consumers have a wide variety of companies to select from. That’s not the case with health insurance, where the choice for many people is made by their employer. Dissatisfied consumers have little ability to switch to another company.

    KansasOpenGov.org revamped. The Kansas Policy Institute announces a major revision of its government transparency website KansasOpenGov.org. I’ll have a longer article about this website next week.

  • Kansas and Wichita quick takes: Friday November 5, 2010

    Political attacks on tap at Pachyderm. Wichita State University political science professor Mel Kahn will be the presenter at today’s (November 5) meeting of the Wichita Pachyderm Club. The always-interesting professor will speak on the topic “Do Political Attacks Help or Harm our Republic?” This seems like a timely topic given the recent general and primary elections. The public is welcome at Wichita Pachyderm meetings. For more information click on Wichita Pachyderm Club.

    Hold the celebration “A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds, in fact, that 59% of Likely U.S. Voters think it is at least somewhat likely that most voters will be disappointed with Republicans in Congress before the next national elections. That includes 38% who say it is Very Likely.” More at Most Voters Think House GOP Likely To Disappoint By 2012. Is this evidence of a deeply-ingrained cynicism by American voters? I hope not — but I can’t blame people for thinking so.

    We understand, that’s why we resist. The incredibly insightful George Will discusses in the Washington Post what he calls the “nationwide recoil against Barack Obama’s idea of unlimited government” and explains why progressives (the people who used to be called liberals) are so confused and unable to accept the political reality of the day: “The progressive agenda is actually legitimated by the incomprehension and anger it elicits: If the people do not resent and resist what is being done on their behalf, what is being done is not properly ambitious. If it is comprehensible to its intended beneficiaries, it is the work of insufficiently advanced thinkers.” I added the emphasis to make sure we grasp the essence of Will’s description of the progressive mindset: that we regular people are just not capable of understanding what is in our own best interests. That is the working belief of Obama and the progressives. As an aside, it’s amazing the the Post can have a columnist as good as Will and as corrupt as Dana Milbank at the same time.

    Obama really doesn’t get it. In a preview of a 60 Minutes interview to be broadcast on Sunday, CBS News reports: “After a [sic] suffering a ‘shellacking’ in the midterm elections, President Obama acknowledges what many have seen as his chief weakness — failing to sell the importance of several legislative milestones to the American people. … ‘Making an argument that people can understand,’ Mr. Obama continued, ‘I think that we haven’t always been successful at that.’” In other words, it’s a marketing problem for Obama. Others have said the same. Recently Jonathan Alter wrote “It’s a sign of how poorly liberals market themselves and their ideas that the word ‘liberal’ is still in disrepute despite the election of the most genuinely liberal president that the political culture of this country will probably allow.” But I think that people understand perfectly well the liberal or progressive agenda — if not at a deeply intellectual level than by instinct — and I agree with George Will: “Is political power — are government commands and controls — superseding and suffocating the creativity of a market society’s spontaneous order? On Tuesday, a rational and alarmed American majority said ‘yes.’”

    Kansas Republicans a spry bunch. After January, ten of the 12 Kansas statewide or federal offices will be held by people under the age of 55. Exceptions are Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger and Senator Pat Roberts. Roberts has indicated he’ll run again in 2014.

    Kansas Senate after the election. The Kansas Senate, unlike the House, was not up for election this year, although there were two special elections. In one, the appointed incumbent was elected, and in another, a replacement for Jim Barnett was selected. While the composition of the Senate remains 31 Republicans and nine Democrats, not all the Republicans are conservatives. Quite a few — including the Senate leadership and two Wichita-area members — have voting records indistinguishable from many Democrats. A good guess at the number of conservative-voting senators is 17, short of a majority. Upcoming: There will be at least three new senators selected. In two cases — to replace Tim Huelskamp and Jeff Colyer — the likely replacements will be conservative, as are the two resigning members. In the third case, to replace majority leader Derek Schmidt, it is likely that the replacement will be more fiscally conservative, although Schmidt did vote against the big-spending budget and sales tax increase this year. With a conservative governor taking office and the House controlled by conservatives, might a few senators decide to adopt a more conservative view? Those left-leaning members who are looking to run for reelection in 2012 have a decision to make.

    Kansas City Star on Parkinson’s pollution. The Kansas City Star laments outgoing Kansas Governor Mark Parkinson‘s decision to fire Kansas Department of Health and Environment chief Rod Bremby. The issue is Parkinson’s desire to get a coal-fired electricity plant in Kansas permitted before new rules come into effect. There are several problems with the Star’s editorial. First, cabinet secretaries like Bremby serve at the pleasure of the executive. If they don’t do what the boss wants, they’re gone. Second, the Star refers to the “tons of new pollution” that will “drift eastward across Kansas.” The editorialist should remember that Bremby denied the permit for the plant based on its carbon dioxide emissions, not for emissions of actual pollutants like sulfur dioxide. To the extent that carbon dioxide is harmful, it is because of its (alleged) impact on global warming, and that impact is disputed. Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant in the sense that it is poisonous or harmful to those who breath it, as it is naturally abundant in the atmosphere. By the way, Bremby’s decision to deny the permit was entirely political, as he was apparently willing to approve a permit for an oil refinery that would emit 17 million tons of carbon a year, when he denied the power plant solely because of its emissions of 11 million tons. See Rod Bremby’s action drove away the refinery.

  • Kansas and Wichita quick takes: Tuesday November 2, 2010

    Only conservative and Tea Party candidates cast as extreme. “Congressional Democrats and President Obama are facing voters’ wrath because of their extreme agenda over the past two years: government-run health care; massive unsupportable spending; a proposed ‘cap-and-trade’ tax on energy, higher income taxes, etc. But MRC analysts found 35 evening news stories which conveyed the Democratic spin point that conservative and Tea Party candidates are ‘extreme,’ ‘fringe,’ or ‘out of the mainstream,’ vs. ZERO stories conveying the charge that left-wing Democrats are ‘out of the mainstream.’” Also, the label “liberal” is not used as often as is “conservative,” and “ultra-liberal” was not used at all during the study period. More from the Media Research Center findings at MRC Study: “News” Media Aid Democrats’ Tea Party Trashing.

    Divisive Obama undercuts the presidency. This is the view of two Democrats, Patrick H. Caddell and Douglas E. Schoen, writing in the Washington Post: “Instead, since taking office, he has pitted group against group for short-term political gain that is exacerbating the divisions in our country and weakening our national identity. The culture of attack politics and demonization risks compromising our ability to address our most important issues — and the stature of our nation’s highest office. Indeed, Obama is conducting himself in a way alarmingly reminiscent of Nixon’s role in the disastrous 1970 midterm campaign. No president has been so persistently personal in his attacks as Obama throughout the fall.” On campaign finance, the authors say they favor complete disclosure and a reversal of Citizens United, but note that there is little evidence that there have been “improper or even unusual” activities. The authors also say that Obama’s attacks on individuals such as David H. Koch for his role in founding Americans for Prosperity are harmful and reminiscent of Richard M. Nixon’s enemies list, on which author Caddell was listed.

    Why Obama is no Roosevelt. “Whatever the outcome of today’s election, this much is clear: It will be a long time before Americans ever again decide that the leadership of the nation should go to a legislator of negligible experience — with a voting record, as state and U.S. senator, consisting largely of ‘present,’ and an election platform based on glowing promises of transcendence. A platform vowing, unforgettably, to restore us — a country lost to arrogance and crimes against humanity — to a place of respect in the world.” Continuing, the Wall Street Journal’s Dorothy Rabinowitz describes FDR’s famous “map speech” — in which he asked Americans to have a map ready while he explained developments in the world war. “No radio address then or since has ever imparted a presidential message so remarkable in its detail, complexity and faith in its audience.” write Rabinowitz. What if Obama had done the same with the health care bill?

    Left-wing echo chamber at work. A billboard message displayed by a Mike Pompeo supporter generated an instant flurry of echo messages in the left-wing blogosphere. Posts appeared on Democratic Underground, Huffington Post, Think Progress, Newsvine, Pitch Weekly, 1whp.com, and Ski Dawg’s Pound. Locally the left-wing Forward Kansas and Kansas Free Press chipped in, and the Wichita Eagle Editorial Blog threw some red meat to its band of regulars. This issue made it onto left-wing television, where MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow commented on it using her thick-as-pine sap snarkiness — not that many people take Maddow seriously. Even the Goyle campaign, in its fundraising email based on Maddow’s show, used scare quotes when describing her program as “analysis.” (Scare quotes, according to Wikipedia, “are quotation marks placed around a single word or phrase to indicate that the word or phrase does not signify its literal or conventional meaning.” When used as Goyle’s email used them — to indicate scorn, sarcasm, irony, disagreement, or disdain — they might be called “sneer quotes.”)

    Kansas advance ballots analyzed. Earl Glynn of Kansas Watchdog contributes analysis of advance ballots cast in Kansas. The table breaks down the numbers by county and party. Voters registered as Republican returned about twice as many ballots as Democratic voters. Getting Republicans to vote early was a major initiative of the Brownback Clean Sweep program.

    Criminal Justice Coordinating Council a Pachyderm topic. This Friday (November 5) the Wichita Pachyderm Club features Bob Lamkey, who is director of the Sedgwick County Division of Public Safety. His topic will be “An Overview of the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council (CJCC). The public is welcome at Wichita Pachyderm meetings. For more information click on Wichita Pachyderm Club.

    Topeka TIF district behind on taxes. The Topeka Capital-Journal reports in College Hill taxes go unpaid: But developer says project is gaining new momentum. Locally, Wichita has a TIF district in our own College Hill neighborhood which is also behind on paying its property taxes.

    Wednesdays in Wiedemann. Tomorrow Wichita State University’s Lynne Davis presents an organ recital as part of the “Wednesdays in Wiedemann” series. These recitals, which have no admission charge, start at 5:30 pm and last about 30 minutes. The location is Wiedemann Recital Hall (map) on the campus of Wichita State University. For more about Davis and WSU’s Great Marcussen Organ, see my story from earlier this year.