Make no mistake about it. Health care reform is coming. But what’s the best way to fix our health care system, which is an inefficient, complicated mess of private actors, third-party payers, public subsidies, and innumerable state and federal regulations? Should we place our faith in the government or in the free market? more »

Wall Street Journal | by HOLMAN W. JENKINS, JR. | Sep. 29, 2009

The public wasn’t dumb enough to believe the public option would save money.

Someday this country will have a health-care debate that’s not abject in its idiocy. It will involve a term used by Congressional Budge Office chief Doug Elmendorf, who has become a notoriety for harping on the word “incentives.” The same word was used the other day by Warren Buffett, about what’s missing from the health-care plan on Capitol Hill. more »

Acton Institute | Hunter Baker | May 27, 2009

Those who promoted the War on Poverty and other grand plans to end poverty, writes Hunter Baker, “had no inkling that these good-hearted strategies would lead to enduring cycles of poverty and family disintegration that threatened to consume entire generations. Wishing for good outcomes resulted in disaster.” more »

The Wall Street Journal | February 17, 2009

If you thought Washington’s stimulus debate was depressing, take a look at the long-running budget spectacle in California. The Golden State’s deficit has reached $42 billion, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is threatening to furlough 20,000 state workers (go ahead, make our day), and as we went to press yesterday Democrats who control the legislature had blocked lawmakers from leaving until they finally get a deal. more »

Washington Post | Charles Krauthammer | Feb. 6, 2009

“A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe.” — President Obama, Feb. 4.

Catastrophe, mind you. So much for the president who in his inaugural address two weeks earlier declared “we have chosen hope over fear.” Until, that is, you need fear to pass a bill.

And so much for the promise to banish the money changers and influence peddlers from the temple. An ostentatious executive order banning lobbyists was immediately followed by the nomination of at least a dozen current or former lobbyists to high position. Followed by a Treasury secretary who allegedly couldn’t understand the payroll tax provisions in his 1040. Followed by Tom Daschle, who had to fall on his sword according to the new Washington rule that no Cabinet can have more than one tax delinquent. more »

American Thinker | Jim H. Ainsworth | Jan. 16, 2009

A lot of our economic troubles could be solved if we could just keep our emotions in check. Seriously. It seems that fear, greed and the thirst for power have swept the country like an airborne virus. The fear of doing nothing rules the day — not logic, not study, not knowledge or analysis. Certainly not patience. Our leaders, whoever they are, are acting like third grade schoolchildren who have been told by their teacher that a snake is loose in the room. And by the way, wouldn’t you like to know who that teacher is? Who is in charge? more »

Human Events | Oct. 10, 2008

Sen. John McCain’s 2006 demand for regulatory action on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could have prevented current financial crisis, as HUMAN EVENTS learned from the letter shown in full text below.

McCain’s letter — signed by nineteen other senators — said that it was “…vitally important that Congress take the necessary steps to ensure that [Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac]…operate in a safe and sound manner.[and]..More importantly, Congress must ensure that the American taxpayer is protected in the event that either…should fail.” more »

Yahoo! Finance | Ben Stein | Oct. 6, 2008

1) Have a fiscal policy that creates immense deficits in good times and bad, burdening America’s posterity with staggering burdens of repaying the debt.

2) Eliminate regulation of Wall Street and/or fail to enforce the regulations that already exist, instead trusting Wall Street and other money managers and speculators to manage other people’s money with few or no regulations and little oversight.

3) Have an energy policy that disallows producing our own energy and instead requires that we buy energy from abroad, thus making our oil prices highly volatile and creating large balance of payments deficits, lowering the value of the dollar and thus making the problem get progressively worse.

4) Have Congress mandate that banks and other financial entities lend money to persons they know in advance to have poor credit ratings or none at all. more »

Chris Banescu Blog | Chris Banescu | Sep. 30, 2008

I have just sent this appeal to my representatives in Washington. Feel free to copy and paste and send to your representatives.

Dear Representative,

Please do NOT support the $700 Billion Bailout Plan until the Banks and the Lending institutions indentify the Toxic Loans and DE-BUNDLE them.

It would take very little effort on their part to identify each loan based on a computer search of their existing loans:
1. Full Default = no payments in 3+ months (Toxic)
2. Partial Default = no payments in 1-3 months (Potential Toxic)
3. Good Standing = on-time payments more »

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Human Events | Dennis Byrne | Sep. 24, 2008

Never has the United States had to make such a momentous decision so quickly, except on more memorable dates such as December 7, 1941 or September 11, 2001. Is this really that urgent?

Our betters tell us that the “financial meltdown” leaves us only two choices: Either put this nation in hock in unspeakable amounts to who-knows-whom for how long. Or bring on another Depression. And we must pick our poison right now — no looking for reasonable alternatives. All the key players agree that we’ve got no time to spare; all us bit players can’t fully understand why. more »

American Thinker | Steven M. Warshawsky | Aug. 2, 2008

America recently marked the third anniversary of one of the most controversial Supreme Court decisions of recent memory: Kelo v. City of New London. Kelo is the now-infamous “takings” case, in which the Supreme Court declined to rule unconstitutional a Connecticut town’s decision to use the power of eminent domain to take property away from a group of working-class homeowners and give it to a private development corporation for use as part of a government-approved “economic revitalization” project. more »

Human Events | Brian Darling | July 21, 2008

Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) has pledged to block a Bush administration proposal being steamrolled through Congress to grant the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve sweeping new powers. Slowing things down would allow Congress to debate the issue fully before approving measures that could put taxpayers on the hook for billions in debt incurred by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-backed home-mortgage giants. more »

HumanEvents | Sen. Tom Coburn | Apr. 28, 2008

America became a great nation because at key moments in our history our national leaders were willing to make sacrifices to preserve freedom and opportunity for future generations. Yet, that tradition is being abandoned today in Washington. Congressional leaders have decided that sending money home for pet projects, appeasing special interests and catering to well-heeled lobbyists are more important than giving future generations the hope and opportunity that was sacrificed for us. Politicians have found it easier to make the easy decision now and hope they do not have to deal with the difficult decision tomorrow. more »

Most formerly communist countries are adopting capitalistic and fair Flat Tax systems, while the US continues with its socialist, unfair, and punitive Tax scheme.
Heritage Foundation | Daniel J. Mitchell, Ph.D. | Mar. 20, 2006

Thanks to globalization, many nations are adopting better tax policies. Certain politicians still believe in high tax rates, of course, but they feel compelled to move in the opposite direction since it is now increasingly easy for labor and capital to escape oppressive tax regimes by crossing national borders.

This is why so many nations had to lower personal income tax rates after the Thatcher and Reagan rate reductions – and why many nations have been lowering tax rates on business in response to Ireland’s incredibly successful 12.5 per cent corporate tax. They know the geese that lay the golden eggs will fly away if they impose bad tax law. more »

Human Events | Mark Skousen | Jan. 22, 2008

Anytime the government gives money back to the people, it’s a good thing, so I have no qualms about President Bush’s tax rebate of $800 per taxpayer, or $1,600 per couple. He ought to recommend it every year, not just when a recession threatens. more »

Acton.org | Dr. Donald P. Condit | Jan. 9, 2008

Daniel interpreted the writing on the wall for the decadent King Belshazzar. “You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting” (Daniel 5:27). Socialized medicine deserves similar judgment. more »

Human Events | Seton Motley | Dec. 21, 2007

Want to ensure the growth of government? Forever? The media does, and they have with Liberals devised the perfect way to do it. It is the “pay-as-you-go” Congressional budgeting rule — Pay-Go. It requires every move that Congress makes be “budget neutral”; every new spending initiative must be paid for – no more deficit spending. more »

Free Congress Foundation | Paul M. Weyrich | Nov. 15, 2007

Yesterday I wrote a column on the need to eliminate No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the massive federal program President George W. Bush signed into law in 2002 to overhaul America’s public schools and raise the standards for American education. That column was critical of NCLB because the program has failed to produce any significant achievement in public schools and is little more than a bloated national bureaucracy throwing money at states and local school districts. I urged Congress to phase out NCLB immediately, not to re-authorize it.

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The Heritage Foundation | Robert E. Rector | Nov. 13, 2007

What is rarely discussed is that the government’s own data show that the overwhelming majority of food insecure adults are, like most adult Americans, overweight or obese. Among adult males experiencing food insecurity, fully 70 percent are overweight or obese.[8] Nearly three-quarters of adult women experiencing food insecurity are either overweight or obese, and nearly half (45 percent) are obese. Virtually no food insecure adults are underweight.

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