MedWorm provides a medical RSS filtering service. Over 6000 RSS medical sources are combined and output via different filters. This feed contains the latest medical blog items that have been tagged with 'government'. Sat, 03 Sep 2011 01:47:29 +0100 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5181754&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FiE-w4yBV7BI%2F By Ilya ShapiroOver the last year and a half, I’ve blogged many times about Berkeley law professor Goodwin Liu, the controversial nominee to the Ninth Circuit, the federal appellate court with jurisdiction over the western states and territories.  Here’s an op-ed I published in the wake of that nomination — which happened to coincide with Obamacare’s enactment.  And here’s a taste of what I wrote when Republicans filibustered Liu, which ultimately led him to withdraw: I’m not going to weigh in here on the issue of whether judicial nominees ought to be filibustered in general . . . but if ever there were an “extraordinary circumstance” fitting into the Gang of 14agreement that broke the judicial logjam under President Bush, this is it. As I blog... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5181754 Fri, 02 Sep 2011 12:42:28 +0100 5181754 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5181759&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F30qWJ0GB2HI%2F By Daniel J. MitchellI’ve written extensively about the flaws of Keynesian economics, and I’ve even narrated a video on the flaws of Keynesian theory. But this clever cartoon may be more effective than anything I’ve ever done. If you like cartoons that teach economics, check out this gem. It’s not on Keynesianism, but it’s very good. Keynesian Economics in a Cartoon is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog (Source: Cato-at-liberty) Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5181759 Thu, 01 Sep 2011 16:21:21 +0100 5181759 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5181761&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FeASxPkf0FLg%2F By Chris EdwardsPresident Obama is planning to deliver a big speech on jobs and the economy. His wish list for Congress will likely include more government infrastructure spending. (Infrastructure spending is also on Rachel Maddow’s wish list). So that citizens know what the president is talking about, they should review the success of the government’s past infrastructure projects. Here’s one to consider: It’s the Yuma Desalting Plant in Arizona, built by the federal Bureau of Reclamation at a taxpayer cost of $245 million. After completing the plant in 1993, Uncle Sam said: “Whoops, we don’t need it after all.” The plant has sat idle for almost two decades, and taxpayers are getting hit for $6 million a year to maintain it. It gets worse. The purpose of the Yuma plant is to... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5181761 Wed, 31 Aug 2011 19:30:32 +0100 5181761 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5181765&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2Fr0cNjxl2pWc%2F By David RittgersThe controversy over the ATF’s ill-conceived scheme to “walk” guns across the border with Mexico finally resulted in the removal of one high-ranking official: Acting Director Kenneth Melson. The U.S. Attorney for Minnesota, Todd Jones, will fill the position for now. A quick review:  ATF supervisors ordered agents to facilitate firearm sales to known or suspected “straw buyers” that intended to move the guns across the border and give them to drug cartels. Gun dealers in the U.S. reported the suspicious transactions to the ATF, expecting to cooperate in apprehending the gunrunners. As it turns out, the suspect buyers had disqualifying conditions that should have shown up in federally mandated instant background checks…but didn’t. The firearms trafficked acro... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5181765 Wed, 31 Aug 2011 16:24:18 +0100 5181765 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5181766&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FmtVnZh_Nzj4%2F By David BoazDana Milbank of the Washington Post warns readers that “Rick Perry is no libertarian.” Good point. Now if only the Post had warned voters about Barack Obama back in 2007. And alas, Milbank could be kept busy for the next few weeks writing about presidential candidates who are “no libertarian.” He’s No Libertarian is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog (Source: Cato-at-liberty) Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5181766 Wed, 31 Aug 2011 16:10:30 +0100 5181766 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5181768&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F0FaWo2NWsUM%2F By Sallie JamesLast week I blogged about Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D-CA) proposal to devote $20 billion of the Export-Import Bank’s funds to promoting manufacturing exports, and why that was a bad idea. But I realize that my recent call to “X Out the Ex-Im Bank” will be facing some very entrenched interests in Washington, and some well-funded lobby groups. The Bank has historically attracted bipartisan support, and a renewal of its charter sailed through the House Committee on Financial Services earlier this year. The Washington establishment loves this program. My friend and long-time Ex-Im Bank supporter Gary Hufbauer of the Peterson Institute for International Economics published a critique a few weeks ago of my analysis, and calls for a doubling of Ex-Im’s authorization cap (f... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5181768 Tue, 30 Aug 2011 22:03:53 +0100 5181768 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5174597&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FFiy1IQMguDM%2F By Daniel J. MitchellThe White House has announced that it is nominating Alan Krueger, a professor at Princeton, to be the new Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. In a Freudian copy-editing slip, the Fox News story (at least as of 8:44 a.m.) says “Krueger’s job will be to provide policy prescriptions on ways to spur unemployment.” That’s obviously tailor-made for a joke about the Obama Administration not needing any help when it comes to stimulating joblessness. On a more serious note, though, I’m worried about Krueger’s sympathy for a value-added tax (VAT). Here’s what he wrote back in 2009. …a 5 percent consumption tax would raise approximately $500 billion a year, and fill a considerable hole in the budget outlook. In addition, a... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5174597 Mon, 29 Aug 2011 14:00:06 +0100 5174597 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5174704&cid=t_92030_113_f&fid=34634&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FEmrAndHipaa%2F%7E3%2FMJr4_oLHBIQ%2F Time to touch on a few popular topics that I found being discussed on Twitter. First, I’ll put the tweets and then a little but of my own commentary on these hot button issues in healthcare IT. @GovHIT Does a nationwide #EHR lower healthcare costs? Social media reactions | #GovHIT Blog http://ow.ly/64DL1 I always love when people talk about a nationwide EHR. I actually think that it’s a bad title by Government Healthcare IT, but that it’s a very good question. To me a nationwide EHR implies that there is one EHR for the entire nation. I think a number of other countries which are much smaller and less complex than the US have proven quite well that a nationwide government run EHR is a bad idea. I think the Government HIT article actually refers more to widespread adoption... EMR and HIPAA blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5174704 Mon, 29 Aug 2011 07:20:12 +0100 5174704 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5174600&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FxGPFr-wh3gM%2F By David BoazOh, dear. Oh, dear. No matter how many times economists debunk the broken window fallacy, not a natural disaster goes by that journalists don’t try to cheer us up by saying “at least it will stimulate economic growth.” This time it’s Josh Boak (no relation!), the economics reporter (!) at Politico, who was “educated at Princeton and Columbia.” And Sunday afternoon he posted this story: Irene: An economic blow or boost? The power outages and shuttered airports may stop the engines of commerce for several days, but Hurricane Irene might have provided some short-term economic stimulus as billions of dollars will likely be spent to repair the damage to the East Coast over the weekend. Cumberland Advisors Chairman David Kotok saw the storm as li... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5174600 Mon, 29 Aug 2011 01:44:33 +0100 5174600 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5169545&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=39187&url=http%3A%2F%2Fgetbetterhealth.com%2Fdo-physicians-have-a-role-in-controlling-healthcare-costs%2F2011.08.27 The Role of Physicians in Controlling Medical Care Costs and Reducing Waste by the RAND Corporation and David Geffen, University of California Los Angeles School of Medicine, Santa Monica was just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).  I do not think the JAMA should have published this article. 1.Why would the JAMA publish such an article? 2. Why are physicians blamed for all the waste in the system? 3. Why is it the physicians’ responsibility to eliminate waste when they are not the cause of the greatest percentage of the waste? “The amount of money spent on medical care is increasing faster than the gross domestic product (GDP), and the federal deficit is increasing.” The initial statement assumes that the government deficit is increasing because phy... Better Health blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5169545 Sat, 27 Aug 2011 21:05:19 +0100 5169545 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5169588&cid=t_92030_112_f&fid=34971&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.drmalpani.com%2F2011%2F08%2Fbromocriptine-is-used-for-treating-high.html Bromocriptine is a drug which is used specifically to treat women with hyperprolactinemia - a condition in women fail to ovulate because the pituitary is producing too much of the hormone called prolactin. Hyperprolactinemia is the cause of menstrual disturbance in about 10% of anovulatory women. Bromocriptine lowers prolactin levels to normal (the normal range in most laboratories being less than 20 ng/ml) and allows the ovary to get back to normal. Some doctors sometimes misuse bromocriptine by using it to treat marginally elevated prolactin levels. This is not a good idea. Side effects: The drug often causes nausea and dizziness during the first few days of treatment but the chances of these symptoms occurring can be reduced by starting the drug at a very low dose and gradually buildi... The Patient's Doctor blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5169588 Sat, 27 Aug 2011 02:45:00 +0100 5169588 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5169525&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2Fl2kOXrzr-Q4%2F By Tim LynchThere has been increasing attention this week on Texas governor and Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry, as well as his book Fed Up! and his record in Texas.  With respect to criminal justice, most of the talk concerns the number of executions on Perry’s watch.  In a recent column, Cato senior fellow Nat Hentoff notes that Perry has brought  enlightening reforms to the juvenile justice system in that state — the gist being more focus on concentrated rehabilitation instead of prison isolation — and that this aspect of Perry’s  record ought to be part of the conversation. And where is Nat Hentoff on Mr. Obama and his record?  I don’t ask President Barack Obama for any change I can believe in, except to clear out his office and make room in t... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5169525 Fri, 26 Aug 2011 18:51:27 +0100 5169525 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5169527&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FiJw-R41i5MA%2F By Daniel J. MitchellI’ve commented on the failure of Obamanomics, with special focus on how both banks and corporations are sitting on money because the investment climate is so grim. Not exactly flattering to the White House. Using Minneapolis Federal Reserve data, I’ve compared the current recovery with the expansion of the early 1980s. Once again, not good news for the Obama administration. And I’ve shared a couple of cartoons — here and here — that use humor to show the impact of bad public policy. But here’s a Bloomberg story that provides what may be the most damning evidence that the President’s big government agenda is a failure: U.S. regulators have asked some banks to take more deposits from large investors even if it’s unprofitable, and ... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5169527 Fri, 26 Aug 2011 17:09:27 +0100 5169527 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5169528&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FWBHczrxLYz8%2F By Chris EdwardsAverage private sector wages in the United States rose 3.1 percent in 2010, slightly more than the 2.5 percent increase in average wages of federal civilian government workers. The growth in federal wages was the slowest in at least two decades, and it coincided with a rebound in private wages after the recession, according to new Bureau of Economic Analysis data (see Table 6.6D). Figure 1 shows average wage growth in recent years for private sector workers (blue line), federal civilian government workers (red line), and employees of the U.S. military (black line). The figure reveals the remarkable “Bush Boom” in government wages that occurred between 2001 and 2005. Over the last decade, annual average military wages rose 6.6 percent, federal civilian wages rose 5.0 pe... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5169528 Fri, 26 Aug 2011 17:01:14 +0100 5169528 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5169530&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FfMPzwg78cb8%2F By Gene HealyIn a Washington Examiner column Tuesday, reviewing Texas governor and 2012 GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry’s book, I wrote: It’s clear from Fed Up! that the guy with a degree in animal science from Texas A&M understands the Constitution better than Barack Obama, former president of the Harvard Law Review. I said that because Fed Up! is pretty radical for a campaign tract. At times it reads like a call to restore what legal analyst Jeffrey Rosen—borrowing from Judge Douglas Ginsburg’s 1995 Cato article—has dubbed “the Constitution in Exile”—which is to say, the original Constitution, whose doctrine of enumerated powers, Fed Up! notes, effectively vanished after the New Deal. Alas, there isn’t a lot of room for nuan... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5169530 Fri, 26 Aug 2011 15:00:43 +0100 5169530 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5158939&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2Fmkw5pOBQhwc%2F By Chris EdwardsIs Rachel Maddow sure she wants the government to “think big,” as she says here standing in front of the Hoover Dam? Maddow’s advertisement on MSNBC caught my eye because it captures the naïve liberal belief in the goodness of large government projects. Liberal pundits keep telling us that we need a giant boost in federal infrastructure spending to aid the recovery. But the pundits never seem to worry about the quality of government investments. And they seem blissfully unaware of the history of damage caused by governments that have thought big on infrastructure. Hoover Dam was built by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, an agency with an appalling history of environmental damage and support of boondoggle projects. For most of the 20th century, the agency ran amok pou... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5158939 Thu, 25 Aug 2011 17:57:32 +0100 5158939 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5158941&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FeZHya3-8Lo0%2F By Justin LoganDo yourself a favor and click on over through this link to read Bill Kauffman’s WSJ review of a new edited collection of Ambrose Bierce’s work, including his famous Devil’s Dictionary. As Kauffman writes: Bierce’s politics amount to an aristocratic libertarianism. “In a republic,” he writes, the rabble are “those who exercise a supreme authority tempered by fraudulent elections.” The “dominant and controlling” tribe in human affairs is that of the “idiot.” A revolution is “an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.” Bierce emerges from his dictionary not so much a misanthrope as a man who expects the worst and makes the best of it. He possesses a marvelously large vocabulary, which he dep... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5158941 Thu, 25 Aug 2011 15:19:10 +0100 5158941 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5158943&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FkYybUa_rHFo%2F By Daniel J. MitchellThe Congressional Budget Office has just released the update to its Economic and Budget Outlook. There are several things from this new report that probably deserve commentary, including a new estimate that unemployment will “remain above 8 percent until 2014.” This certainly doesn’t reflect well on the Obama White House, which claimed that flushing $800 billion down the Washington rathole would prevent the joblessness rate from ever climbing above 8 percent. Not that I have any faith in CBO estimates. After all, those bureaucrats still embrace Keynesian economics. But this post is not about the backwards economics at CBO. Instead, I want to look at the new budget forecast and see what degree of fiscal discipline is necessary to get rid of red ink. Th... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5158943 Wed, 24 Aug 2011 20:34:41 +0100 5158943 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5158871&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=34765&url=http%3A%2F%2Fhcrenewal.blogspot.com%2F2011%2F08%2Fwhy-cultivate-weldons-confidence-ceo.html Earlier this month, US President Barack Obama met "with eight business leaders to hunt for ideas to revive the economy," according to the Wall Street Journal.  At the session, the President asked "what he and his administration could do to improve their confidence...."  The reporters' White House informants emphasized that the point was "listening to the CEOs and not telling them what to do."Included amongst the eight CEOs was "Bill [William] Weldon of Johnson & Johnson."  Why would the US President want to improve Mr Weldon's confidence?Johnson and Johnson's Latest Guilty PleaAfter all, two days earlier, Bloomberg noted how Mr Weldon's company was ready to plead guilty, yet again.Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) said it reached an agreement to settle a misdemeanor criminal c... Health Care Renewal blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5158871 Wed, 24 Aug 2011 20:08:00 +0100 5158871 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5158949&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F-rwtMJquWYA%2F By Daniel J. MitchellJust last week, I made fun of Paul Krugman after he publicly said that a fake threat from invading aliens would be good for the economy since the earth would waste a bunch of money on pointless defense outlays. Yesterday, there were rumors that Krugman stated that it would have been stimulative if the earthquake had been stronger and done more damage, but he exposed this as a prank (though it is understandable that many people — including me, I’m embarrassed to admit — initially assumed it was true since he did write that the 9-11 terrorist attacks boosted growth).  But while Krugman is owed an apology by whoever pulled that stunt, the real problem is that President Obama and his advisers actually take Keynesian alchemy seriously. And since Presid... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5158949 Wed, 24 Aug 2011 14:44:30 +0100 5158949 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5158950&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FcvKvxt3eLnU%2F By Daniel GriswoldA survey released this week found that almost 80 percent of members of Congress have no academic training in business or economics. Yet they debate and pass all kinds of legislation seeking to steer the economy, business and trade in one direction or another. For those four out of five members, my column in the Washington Times this morning, “Free Trade 101 for members of Congress,” offers a crash course in the benefits of free trade and globalization for Americans. Here’s an excerpt from the lecture, er, column: Protectionism is really a tax on the poor. Our highest remaining trade barriers unfairly tax products made and grown by poor people abroad and consumed disproportionately by poor families at home. We still impose unconscionably high tariffs on imported food... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5158950 Wed, 24 Aug 2011 14:00:42 +0100 5158950 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5158952&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FkQigOwj8WT0%2F By David BoazOr, as Timothy Egan titles it at the New York Times: “Nature Without the Nanny State.” After reporting on a higher level of deaths this year at Yosemite, and an increased level of warnings and lawsuits, Egan notes: My experience, purely anecdotal, is that the more rangers try to bring the nanny state to public lands, the more careless, and dependent, people become. That point might have broader application than national parks. Paternalism and Parks is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog (Source: Cato-at-liberty) Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5158952 Tue, 23 Aug 2011 19:02:17 +0100 5158952 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5158953&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FxqV5lMD7Pyk%2F By Chris EdwardsIn his run for the Republican nomination, Texas Governor Rick Perry is positioning himself as a staunch fiscal conservative. Does his spending record match his recent campaign language in favor of smaller government? I awarded Mr. Perry grades of “B” in the last two Cato governor report cards. My analyses revealed a pretty good tax and spending record, but Perry certainly fell short of the reform-minded zeal shown by former “A” governor, Mark Sanford of South Carolina. Recent articles by Shikha Dalmia of Reason and Aman Batheja of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram suggest that Perry’s fiscal record is a mixed bag. Let’s look at the numbers. Rick Perry came into office in December 2000, which was in the middle of Texas fiscal year 2001. Texas general fund spending has... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5158953 Tue, 23 Aug 2011 19:01:30 +0100 5158953 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5158954&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FEHThyrS5C9w%2F By Gene HealyMy Washington Examiner column this week is on Rick Perry’s 2010 book Fed Up! Stylistically, if Conscience of a Conservative is Merle Haggard, Perry’s manifesto is Lee Greenwood. Still, like Goldwater’s book, it contains some fairly radical ideas, coming from a top-tier candidate. As Ezra Klein puts it, the book’s big idea is that “most everything the federal government does is unconstitutional.” And, indeed, most of what it does is unconstitutional — no surprise to those familiar with Cato’s constitutional work. Still, it’s surprising to hear a major national candidate indict the New Deal, call Social Security “a Ponzi scheme,” and identify — correctly, I think — the combination of the 16th and 17th ... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5158954 Tue, 23 Aug 2011 18:59:10 +0100 5158954 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5139685&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FT-TKoQ0r31g%2F By Gene HealyFormer Catoite Chris Moody has a fun piece up on the Yahoo News site: “If elected president, Rick Perry could still jog with his gun.” If you haven’t heard the famous anecdote about Perry shooting a coyote during a gubenatorial jog in Austin last year, you can read about it Chapter Two of his book Fed Up! He praises federalism for giving the people of the several states the ability to elect leaders befitting the states’ respective characters: “in Massachusetts, they elect people like “Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, and Barney Frank repeatedly–even after actually knowing about them and what they believe!” He continues: “Texans, on the other hand, elect folks like me. You know the type, the kind of guy who goes jogging in the morni... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5139685 Thu, 18 Aug 2011 19:15:30 +0100 5139685 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5139748&cid=t_92030_88_f&fid=38153&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ozemedicine.com%2Fblog%2F%3Fp%3D992 THE HON NICOLA ROXON MP Minister for Health and Ageing MEDIA RELEASE 15 August 2011 ACCENTURE TO BUILD AUSTRALIA’S PERSONAL EHEALTH SYSTEM Accenture, a world leader in IT, has been selected to lead the building of the IT infrastructure for Australia’s national personally controlled electronic health record (PCEHR) system in another major milestone for national health reform. “A consortium led by Accenture has been selected as the National Infrastructure Partner for the development of the PCEHR system,” Minister for Health and Ageing Nicola Roxon said. “Accenture will be responsible for designing and building the physical PCEHR system, which will be used by people to register for and view their eHealth record. “People will also use this system to allow their GP and other health ... Oz E Medicine - emergency medicine in Australia blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5139748 Wed, 17 Aug 2011 06:51:28 +0100 5139748 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5139694&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2Fw0BZieNHsaM%2F By Emily EkinsSeveral recent polls have shown Americans are becoming increasingly skeptical of of Washington’s economic planning capabilities. According to a recent Washington Post poll, 73 percent of Americans doubt Washington’s ability to solve economic problems. In fact, these numbers have leapt from 52 percent last year and from 41 percent in 2002. It appears that the more the government has tried to fix the U.S. economy, the less confident Americans are that the government is capable of doing such things. When the government in Washington decides to solve economic problems, how much confidence do you have that the problem actually will be solved: A lot, some, just a little, or none at all?  Source: Washington Post Poll Another example of this skepticism toward government economi... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5139694 Tue, 16 Aug 2011 21:24:22 +0100 5139694 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5139695&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FOehssZVSty8%2F By Tad DeHavenThe Washington Post’s editorial board issued a challenge to the president and his Republican opponents: “show us your plans” for deficit reduction. In fact, the Post says it would be “delighted” to receive plans from its readers. However, the Post isn’t interested in “meaningless promises” to cut “waste, fraud, and abuse”—it wants specifics: Here’s what we’re not looking for: pablum about eliminating unnecessary spending without identifying where. Gauzy rhetoric about making hard choices without making them. Meaningless promises about eliminating waste, fraud and abuse. Broad assertions about where to find the money — “Medicare savings,” “tax reform” — without specifics. Arbitrary spending caps without accompanying details about how those... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5139695 Tue, 16 Aug 2011 21:16:31 +0100 5139695 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5139697&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2Fs0GZFEFvci8%2F By Sallie JamesPresidential Candidate Ron Paul has a decidedly mixed record on trade policy. He often votes against trade agreements because he sees them as “managed trade” and  an interference with true free trade. Well, ok, but that’ s like voting against income tax cuts because you think the IRS shouldn’t exist. I get the point, but c’mon… In any event, he was the only participant in Thursday night’s debate between the Republican presidential candidates who spoke about trade with any sense at all. As Inside US Trade [subscription required] points out, trade policy was not a prominent theme of the debate, but that didn’t stop Mitt Romney from (again) spouting nonsense about balanced trade: Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney late las... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5139697 Tue, 16 Aug 2011 19:16:35 +0100 5139697 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5139699&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F6BxVK7muBgc%2F By David BoazPresident Obama says that we are a  ”generous and compassionate” country and that “through government, we should do together what we cannot do as well for ourselves.” And to fulfill that “progressive vision,” he’s going to work on “making government smarter, and leaner and more effective. ” Today, under the rubric “Breakaway Wealth/Reaping Riches from Federal Spending,” the Washington Post gives us a front-page picture of where a lot of those generous and compassionate federal dollars actually go: Millions of dollars worth of federal contracts transformed Anita Talwar from a government accounting clerk into a wealthy woman—one who can afford a $2.8 million home in the Washington suburbs with its own elevato... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5139699 Tue, 16 Aug 2011 18:08:13 +0100 5139699 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5139700&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2Fjc6_ifTclLk%2F By Daniel IkensonRhetorically, President Obama is a champion of industry—as long as it’s green. To put our money where his mouth is, the president has already devoted over $100 billion in direct subsidies and tax credits to promote investment in solar panel, wind harnessing, lithium ion battery, and other industries he deems crucial to “winning the future.” (See Economic Report of the President, 2011, P. 129, Box 6-2 “Clean Energy Investments in the Recovery Act” for a list of some of those subsidies.) Concerning those industries, the president said in his 2010 SOTU address: Countries like China are moving even faster… I’m not going to settle for a situation where the United States comes in second place or third place or fourth place in what will be ... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5139700 Tue, 16 Aug 2011 17:57:17 +0100 5139700 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5130727&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FdPEw5_rzjh0%2F By Daniel J. MitchellWarren Buffett’s at it again. He has a column in the New York Times complaining that he has been coddled by the tax code and that “rich” people should pay higher taxes. My first instinct is to send Buffett the website where people can voluntarily pay extra money to the federal government. I’ve made this suggestion to guilt-ridden rich people in the past. But I no longer give that advice. I’m worried he might actually do it. And even though Buffett is wildly misguided about fiscal policy, I know he will invest his money much more wisely than Barack Obama will spend it. But Buffett goes beyond guilt-ridden rants in favor of higher taxes. He makes specific assertions that are inaccurate. Last year my federal tax bill — the income tax I paid, as well as payroll... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5130727 Mon, 15 Aug 2011 18:45:01 +0100 5130727 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5130729&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FWFqHs1F_CRs%2F By David BoazIn my weekly Britannica column, I respond to the charge that I am dumb and expand the discussion of sweeping legislation, the apparently increasing use of waivers by Cabinet officials, and how that comports with the rule of law: We’ve been reminded in the past few weeks that we live in a world where Congress passes vast, expansive laws that make grand promises and that few if any members of Congress actually read, and then inserts into them the power for the president or his appointees to waive sections of them when they become unworkable or bump up against the interests of the well connected. … Over the past decade Congress has passed many such expansive and aspirational laws—the Patriot Act, the No Child Left Behind Act, TARP, the stimulus bill (“the Democrats’... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5130729 Mon, 15 Aug 2011 18:06:12 +0100 5130729 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5130731&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FACZVys0b-YU%2F By Alan ReynoldsIt is hard to imagine, but some people actually thought it was perfectly reasonable (and Constitutional) for the government to dictate to business what they should charge for their products and dictate to workers what their time was worth. I was working at J.C. Penney in Sacramento and going to grad school at night, but I took time out to send “The Case against Wage and Price Controls” to National Review in July. It became the cover story on September 24, and Bill Buckley later hired me over lunch in San Francisco. If anyone is interested, I scanned it at SCRIBD in three parts – pages 1&2, pages 3&4 and page 5. More on the 40th Anniversary of Nixon’s Wage and Price Controls is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog (Source: Cato-at-liber... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5130731 Mon, 15 Aug 2011 17:37:37 +0100 5130731 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5130736&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FsjXCImxiQ5Y%2F By David BoazConservatives have become so furious with President Obama that they forget just how bad some of his predecessors were. One Jeffrey Kuhner, whose over-the-top op-eds in the Washington Times belie the sober and judicious conservatism you might expect from the president of the “Edmund Burke Institute,” writes most recently: A possible Great Depression haunts the land. Primarily one man is to blame: President Obama. Mr. Obama has racked up more than $4 trillion in debt. Yes, he has. And that’s almost as much as the $5 trillion in debt rung up by his predecessor, George W. Bush. True, on an annual basis Obama is leaving Bush in the dust. But acceleration has been the name of the game: In 190 years, 39 presidents racked up a trillion dollars in debt. The next thr... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5130736 Sat, 13 Aug 2011 19:13:43 +0100 5130736 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5125717&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F1PB3a5VQALI%2F By Ilya ShapiroMitt Romney’s explanation of why he’s against raising taxes on corporations — indeed, America already has some of the highest corporate tax rates in the developed world — at the Iowa State Fair was a bit awkward but not wholly incorrect.  Reason‘s Katherine Mangu-Ward has a good post with video and transcript, but here’s the salient bit: ROMNEY: We have to make sure that the promises we make — and Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare — are promises we can keep. And there are various ways of doing that. One is, we could raise taxes on people. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Corporations! ROMNEY: Corporations are people, my friend. We can raise taxes on— AUDIENCE MEMBER: No, they’re not! ROMNEY: Of course they are. Everything corporations earn also g... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5125717 Fri, 12 Aug 2011 16:12:32 +0100 5125717 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5118610&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2Ffr7x6uGcJwg%2F By Daniel J. MitchellI wrote earlier this year about the connection between a morally corrupt welfare state and the riots in the United Kingdom. But what’s happening now is not just some left-wing punks engaging in political street theater. Instead, the UK is dealing with a bigger problem of societal decay caused in part by a government’s failure to fulfill one of its few legitimate functions: protection of property. To make matters worse, the political class has disarmed law-abiding people, thus exacerbating the risks. These two photos are a pretty good summary of what this means. On the left, we have Korean entrepreneurs using guns to defend themselves from murdering thugs during the 1992 LA riots. On the right, we have Turkish entrepreneurs reduced to using their fists (and some hid... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5118610 Wed, 10 Aug 2011 14:31:49 +0100 5118610 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5118612&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FI7N0AIflcIg%2F By Tad DeHavenDavid Boaz’s post on bizarre and utterly preposterous claims that the federal government’s “social safety net” has been shrinking brought to my mind James Madison’s position that “Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.” “The Father of the Constitution” wasn’t being cold-hearted when he took this position during a 1794 debate in the House of Representatives over federal aid to refugees. Rather, he was merely recognizing that “the government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects.” Charity just wasn’t one of the specified objects. Of course, future politicians decided otherwise. Today, most young Americans grow up in federally subsidized schools offering federally subsidized meals. They are i... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5118612 Tue, 09 Aug 2011 21:01:59 +0100 5118612 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5118614&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FSySMAOLX3OM%2F By Sallie JamesI don’t know which part of this truly dismaying interview is more upsetting: the joy in their voices as these girls describe the “fun” they are having at the riots and their hope that they continue the next day, the class-warfare-based justification they feel for the looting and burning of shops, or their almost comic ignorance of which party holds control of the government (“Conservatives. Yeah. Whatever who it is. I dunno…”). Listen and Weep, courtesy of the Beeb. Disgraceful Soundbite from the London Riots is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog (Source: Cato-at-liberty) Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5118614 Tue, 09 Aug 2011 16:53:24 +0100 5118614 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5118615&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FxUA4OoCH_wM%2F By Aaron Ross PowellFifty years ago, Joseph Heller published Catch-22, giving us a new idiom and forging a new perspective on the business of war. While other novels—such as Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front—stripped warfare of its romance, Catch-22 exposed it as just another form of the fundamental absurdity of bureaucracy. Writes Walter Kirn in Slate: Then, that fall, Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 appeared, abruptly downgrading war’s special status as an existential crucible and also, unwittingly, beginning the process of rendering four-star male novelists irrelevant. The book treats war on a par with business or politics (to Heller they were very much the same), portraying it as a system for alienating people from their own interests and estranging... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5118615 Tue, 09 Aug 2011 16:46:35 +0100 5118615 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5107485&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FER-GWYuse8w%2F By David BoazLiz Marlantes of the Christian Science Monitor joins other pundits in proclaiming “America’s Big Shift Right” in politics and governance. “In Washington today, when it comes to the size of government, the debate isn’t over whether to cut spending, but by how much,” she writes.  That’s true, but it’s because the federal budget has doubled in just 10 years, with half the increase coming in the past three. Politics may be more conservative, but government is still getting bigger. Some of Marlantes’s arguments are mystifying: “Instead of coming on the heels of a great liberal expansion of government, today’s shift comes after three decades of the unraveling of elements of the social safety net.” Really? The C... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5107485 Tue, 09 Aug 2011 13:59:22 +0100 5107485 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5107488&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2Fd-_JZPNS-0c%2F By David BoazBack in 2009 there was a lot of hysteria over the Obama administration’s many “czars,” and we at Cato tended to dismiss it; as Gene Healy said in the Washington Examiner, “the conservatives’ current bout of czar mania elevates symbolism over substance…. Often, czars are mere figureheads, appointed to signal concern over the latest hot-button issue. ” But just this week I’ve noticed a couple of examples of actual czardom — the exercise of arbitrary and autocratic power — from two of President Obama’s Cabinet secretaries. Last week Sen. Harry Reid and House Speaker John Boehner made a deal under which the Senate would pass the House’s bill to fund the Federal Aviation Administration through September and e... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5107488 Mon, 08 Aug 2011 19:38:21 +0100 5107488 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5107490&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FsIIy7QIG65A%2F By Daniel J. MitchellPresident Obama just spoke about the downgrade and his remarks were very disappointing. He uttered some empty platitudes, offered no plan, (amazingly) called for more government spending, and continued his advocacy of class-warfare taxation. So what does this mean? Other than expecting volatility, I have no idea what will happen in financial markets over the next few days. But I can opine about the downgrade, Obama’s unserious response, and what it means in terms of public policy over the next few years and into the future. Notwithstanding the President’s cavalier attitude, America is in trouble. But while the crisis is severe, we have some breathing room. Our fiscal crisis is akin to a very dangerous, but slow-developing cancer. It is not a car wreck with ... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5107490 Mon, 08 Aug 2011 18:59:48 +0100 5107490 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5107492&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FKTBMGBPk7xM%2F By Daniel J. MitchellEven though I predicted it had to happen at some point because of the Bush-Obama spending binge and America’s giant long-run entitlement crisis, I confess that I’m somewhat surprised that the United States has suffered a debt downgrade for the first time. That being said, I don’t think the downgrade will matter. Everyone knew the U.S. was heading in the wrong direction before the announcement by Standard & Poor. Moreover, big investors have very few attractive options for where to place their money – thanks to a weak global economy. As such, I suspect the federal government will still be able to borrow money at very low rates. What does matter, however, is that the American economy is burdened with a bloated public sector that is sapping the nation’s econ... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5107492 Mon, 08 Aug 2011 15:12:13 +0100 5107492 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5107493&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FH_7njf0d_Wg%2F By David BoazA letter in the Washington Post from Dale Everett of Ashburn, Va., makes a point about the sustainability of our entitlements programs: At 80, I am a “poster boy” for what is wrong with Medicare and Social Security. I worked full time from 1950 until 1993, when I retired. I paid the maximum amount annually required by law. My payment from Social Security in 1993 was $1,170 per month, and it now exceeds $1,500. I paid $47,377 into the fund and have so far received more than $288,000 from it. As for Medicare I paid $14,350 into the fund from 1966 to 1993. I have been very healthy but had cancer several years ago and a craniotomy five years ago. The costs of those exceeded $1 million. Even minor surgery would far exceed what I paid to the fund. Please tell me how such a syste... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5107493 Mon, 08 Aug 2011 14:19:01 +0100 5107493 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5107495&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FBtm7frCiE1c%2F By David BoazPeople keep saying — as George Will does in today’s Washington Post — that Ron Paul will do well in next weekend’s Ames, Iowa straw poll because of his small but intense base of support. Will writes: If Paul finishes first or second, the political community will shrug: There he goes again, the Babe Ruth of straw polls. Well, maybe they will. But they shouldn’t. Because in fact, Ron Paul finished fifth in the 2007 Iowa Straw Poll. So if he finishes first or second or even third this year, it will in fact signal a major increase in his ability to reach and turn out voters. That might be because he’s making a far more intense effort to actually organize in Iowa than he did in 2007-8. Or it might be because, as Will did acknowledge, “event... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5107495 Sun, 07 Aug 2011 17:46:30 +0100 5107495 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5103326&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FuHWTMteFnt0%2F By Caleb O. Brown… which makes this video out of date by about 20 minutes, but it’s instructive nonetheless. U.S. Credit Rating Downgraded by S&P is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog (Source: Cato-at-liberty) Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5103326 Sat, 06 Aug 2011 00:36:50 +0100 5103326 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5103328&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F9Vuhjuw4Qh8%2F By Jim HarperThat was my inner conversation when I heard that the “Super Congress”* (or “Super Committee”) created by the debt ceiling deal might operate behind closed doors. Congress is free to create any committee it wants, of course. Congress determines the rules of its proceedings. But ordinary committees and subcommittees are too opaque. A “Super Committee” should lead—not lag—in transparent operations. In a forthcoming report on government transparency, we’ll be looking at the kinds of things committees should be publishing in computer-useable formats, and in real time or near-real-time: meeting notices, transcripts, written testimonies, live video, original bills, amendments to bills, motions, and votes. There are ways that many ... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5103328 Fri, 05 Aug 2011 18:39:23 +0100 5103328 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5097081&cid=t_92030_150_f&fid=35777&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FPharmalot%2F%7E3%2F6qpt6RDLE8I%2F Hired someone new and exciting? Promoted a rising star? Finally solved that hard-to-fill spot? Share the news with us and we’ll share with it others. That’s right. Send us your announcements and we’ll find a home for them. Don’t be shy. Everyone wants to know who is coming and going, especially with all the layoffs. Despite the downsizing, there is movement. Here are some of the latest changes. Recognize anyone? And here is our regular feature. Send us a photo and we will spotlight a different person each week. This time around, we note that Avalere Health hired Leigh Ann Bruhn as a director. Previously, she was a director of managed care marketing at Abbott Laboratories, where she led both managed care and brand marketing teams. Prior to Abbott, she held various marketing and fina... Pharmalot blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5097081 Fri, 05 Aug 2011 12:34:12 +0100 5097081 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5096686&cid=t_92030_125_f&fid=34819&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FFullosseousflapsDentalBlog%2F%7E3%2F2-4j9LKSDHU%2F These are my links for August 2nd through August 4th: Sarah Palin Hacker Moves to Halfway House – The man convicted of hacking Sarah Palin's e-mail account was released from federal prison and is now spending time in a halfway house. David Kernell left a fenceless minimum-security federal prison in Ashland, Kentucky, where inmates are put to work on landscaping and building maintenance for between $0.12 and $0.40 per hour for the halfway house, according to a Tennessee television station. Kernell was convicted last year of breaking into to Palin's Yahoo e-mail account during the 2008 presidential election. He outsmarted Yahoo's password reset system by correctly answering questions using information about Palin that was easily available on the Internet — a techn... FullosseousFlap's Dental Blog blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5096686 Fri, 05 Aug 2011 02:02:52 +0100 5096686 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5096159&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F3T6iEtg8-Ls%2F By John SamplesAs the Balanced Budget Amendment once again comes to the front of political debates, I wondered what David Primo thought about the return of the BBA to public notice. Primo is the author of Rules and Restraint: Government Spending and the Design of Institutions. John Samples: David, you have studied the history and politics of budgeting by Congress and the federal government. Your studies led to your book Rules and Restraint which, as I recall, was somewhat skeptical of the constitutional solutions requiring a balanced budget. What did you think of the importance the House Republicans attached to the Balanced Budget Amendment? David Primo: Supporters of the BBA are certainly correct that constitutional restraints on Congress will help restore fiscal discipline to the feder... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5096159 Thu, 04 Aug 2011 19:14:54 +0100 5096159 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5096163&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FAOgPxXQoppA%2F By Ilya ShapiroThat’s how I describe the individual mandate in my contribution to SCOTUSblog‘s online symposium on Obamacare, which Trevor Burrus has already highlighted.  Here’s an excerpt: All the Obamacare legal challenges boil down to Congress’s authority – or lack thereof – to require people to buy private insurance.  Although unfortunately not dispositive of modern judicial decisions, the text of the Constitution demands that the Supreme Court strike down the individual mandate as an unconstitutional exercise of Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce.  Finding the mandate constitutional would be the first interpretation of the Commerce Clause to permit the regulation of inactivity – in effect requiring an individual to engage in an economi... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5096163 Thu, 04 Aug 2011 16:00:47 +0100 5096163 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5096165&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FQhw6yaMzoPU%2F By Chris EdwardsEveryone agrees that it’s rather stupid for a federal funding dispute to idle about 70,000 workers on airport-related construction. Just as absurd, there have been 20 stop-gap funding bills passed for the FAA since 2007. News stories are digging into the political disputes surrounding the FAA, but they aren’t addressing the root problem. The root problem is that we have federalized the funding of airports in this country, when there is absolutely no need to. Airports are generally owned by state and local governments, and it should be up to them to figure out how to finance them. By federalizing infrastructure financing, we are simply encouraging the misallocation of resources through the political pork barrel. We should get the federal government out of financing airpo... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5096165 Thu, 04 Aug 2011 14:58:49 +0100 5096165 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5096167&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FMY14bfXq1HU%2F By Neal McCluskeyToday the good folks at the journal Education Next released their annual survey of education opinion. What follows is a quick summary of many of the things the pollsters found, followed by a little commentary about the national-standards results.  (Adam Schaeffer, I have it on good authority, will be flogging the tax credit and voucher findings in an upcoming post.) Bottom line: The public usually has the right inclinations, but gets some answers wrong as a result. One note: As is always the case with polls — but I won’t go into great detail with Education Next’s questions – remember that question wording can have a sizable impact on results. So what did Education Next find? Almost everybody reports paying at least some attention to e... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5096167 Wed, 03 Aug 2011 17:35:03 +0100 5096167 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5096168&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FsQf6f1NHF7Q%2F By Chris EdwardsCentrist and liberal columnists are lamenting the lack of tax increases in the debt deal. But the hollowness of the deal itself provides a good justification for Republicans to oppose all tax increases in such bipartisan deals. The federal debt crisis is being caused by spending increases, not revenue shortfalls. When the economy recovers, revenues will rise to the normal level of about 18 percent of GDP, even with all current tax cuts in place. It is spending that is projected to rise to abnormal levels, as I discussed in my recent Senate testimony. However, let’s say a fiscal conservative in Congress was willing to swap, say, $1 of tax increases for $3 of spending cuts in a deficit-reduction deal. Most likely, the tax increases would turn out to be real and damaging, bu... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5096168 Wed, 03 Aug 2011 17:20:39 +0100 5096168 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5096170&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FUsuyz3dsdQo%2F By David BoazPeople in Washington are hurling harsh words at other Americans: words like terrorists, Satan, suicide bombers, Hezbollah, gone off the deep end, “recklessly diminished the power and reach of the United States.” No doubt the president and the mainstream media have denounced this sort of divisive, extremist language, right? Yes, they have, many times. Except this week the divisive, extremist language has been directed at Tea Party members, the House Republican freshmen, libertarians, and other people determined to rein in federal spending, after deficits of $4 trillion in three years. The political and media establishments just can’t believe that anybody would actually try to use a debt ceiling increase to get a commitment to fiscal responsibility in the futur... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5096170 Wed, 03 Aug 2011 13:53:56 +0100 5096170 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5096173&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FF6-7Vn4OSSM%2F By John SamplesGreg Sargent cites a CNN poll question: As you may know, the agreement would cut about one trillion dollars in government spending over the next ten years with provisions to make additional spending cuts in the future. Regardless of how you feel about the overall agreement, do you approve or disapprove of the cuts in government spending included in the debt ceiling agreement? Approve 65 Disapprove 30 Sargent continues: Sixty five percent approve of deal’s spending cuts. But it gets worse. Of the 30 percent who disapprove, 13 percent think the cuts haven’t gotten far enough, and only 15 percent think the cuts go too far. One sixth of Americans agree with the liberal argument about the deal. About 20 percent of Americans self-identify as liberals. This would suggest that ... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5096173 Tue, 02 Aug 2011 20:18:10 +0100 5096173 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5086142&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2Fvob1l9ZUg34%2F By Christopher PrebleThe budget deal announced last night offers two sets of potential cuts in military spending. The first set of potential cuts, created by the budget caps, target “security” spending. That includes the Pentagon, State, foreign aid, the Department of Homeland Security and Veterans (the discretionary portion of Veterans spending, to be precise). The deal caps “security” spending at $684 billion for this fiscal year and $686 for the next. That requires little pain; the 2012 security cap is only $5 billion below what we’ll spend on those categories in fiscal 2011. The White House claims that the caps will generate $350 billion in savings from base defense spending for ten years. They get there, dubiously, by projecting security spending at the capped le... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5086142 Mon, 01 Aug 2011 18:15:34 +0100 5086142 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5086148&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FHxN0VDfJsuQ%2F By Daniel J. MitchellPoliticians last night announced the framework of a deal to increase the debt limit. In addition to authorizing about $900 billion more red ink right away, it would require immediate budget cuts of more than $900 billion, though “immediate” means over 10 years and “budget cuts” means spending still goes up (but not as fast as previously planned). But that’s the relatively uncontroversial part. The fighting we’re seeing today revolves around a “super-committee” that’s been created to find $1.5 trillion of additional “deficit reduction” over the next 10 years (based on Washington math, of course). And much of the squabbling deals with whether the super-committee is a vehicle for higher taxes. As with all k... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5086148 Mon, 01 Aug 2011 12:27:49 +0100 5086148 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5086114&cid=t_92030_86_f&fid=34445&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwomenshealthnews.wordpress.com%2F2011%2F07%2F31%2Fsunday-news-round-up-attack-kitty-edition%2F I haven’t done one of these in a while, having been distracted by the heat, the carless situation, dad’s cancer, mom’s hip replacement re-replacement, work, leveling my first character in Warcraft (now a level 71 undead frost mage – I don’t want to duel you!), and life in general. Tonight, though, I’m at my parents’ house (sitting with mom after said re-replacement), in a town with <30 thousand people that gets really, truly dark at night, World of Warcraft won't run on this computer, and I think I've reached the end of the internet. Might as well do something. The FDA has issued a warning not to use emergency contraception labeled as Evital. The agency says, These products may be counterfeit versions of the “morning after pill” ... Women's Health News blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5086114 Mon, 01 Aug 2011 04:40:55 +0100 5086114 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5086459&cid=t_92030_133_f&fid=35452&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.graphictruth.com%2F2011%2F07%2Fthis-or-in-canadian-peace-order-good.html I found this in the comments section of  a TPM post; an otherwise forgettable rhetorical drive-by of an entirely deserving target. The thread was mostly partisan, and mostly well-aimed jibes at a target that more than deserves to be mocked, because she's an insult to the intelligence and principles of anyone who actually should be engaged in the process.Now, this assumption was inherent in the post and the reaction; it is of course the underpinning of the Resistance ... I mean, the rather incoherent gasp of horror that is the US Progressive movement. But I've never really seen the resistance to the tea-tards put so well. It's not enough to mock and resist; one really should know why, or one's disdain can and perhaps should be dismissed as mere partisan sniping... Graphictruth blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5086459 Mon, 01 Aug 2011 01:01:00 +0100 5086459 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5086149&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F4iF1ARFK_3I%2F By Daniel J. MitchellWhile driving home last night, I had the miserable experience of listening to a financial journalist being interviewed about the anemic growth numbers that were just released. I wasn’t unhappy because the interview was biased to the left. From what I could tell, both the host and the guest were straight shooters. Indeed, they spent some time speculating that the economy’s weak performance was bad news for Obama. What irked me was the implicit Keynesian thinking in the interview. Both of them kept talking about how the economy would have been weaker in the absence of government spending, and they fretted that “austerity” in Washington could further slow the economy in the future. This was especially frustrating for me since I’ve spent years... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5086149 Sun, 31 Jul 2011 13:13:51 +0100 5086149 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5077651&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2Fk-GVclYFIbo%2F By Daniel J. MitchellIn a perverse way, I’m glad that there are places such as Greece and Illinois. These profligate jurisdictions are useful examples of the dangers of bloated government and reckless statism. There also are some cities that serve as reverse role models. Detroit is a miserable case study of big government run amok, so I enjoyed a moment or two of guilty pleasure as I read this CNBC story about the ongoing decay of the Motor City. Here are some excerpts: Detroit neighborhoods with more people and a better chance of survival will receive different levels of city services than more blighted areas under a plan unveiled Wednesday that some residents fear may pit them against each other for scarce resources. …[T]he boundaries of the 139-square-mile city aren’t ... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5077651 Fri, 29 Jul 2011 20:12:19 +0100 5077651 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5077654&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FGVNLZMp-uPk%2F By Tad DeHavenOver at Downsizing the Federal Government, we focused on the following issues this past week: If it is true that a failure to increase the debt limit on August 2nd has the potential to bring about economic Armageddon, shouldn’t we be asking ourselves if it’s a good idea to allow the political class in Washington to continue to collectively play God with our lives? The ratchet effect: agriculture edition. Chris Edwards testifies to the Senate Finance Committee on federal spending and debt. These are the times that try budget analysts’ souls—especially budget analysts who’d like to see Washington dramatically cut spending. House Speaker John Boehner’s first budget plan wouldn’t have cut spending. His new plan won’t cut spending either. Chris Edwards... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5077654 Fri, 29 Jul 2011 18:51:00 +0100 5077654 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5077660&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F_ghTb79j36M%2F By Chris EdwardsHouse Speaker John Boehner has revised his budget plan in response to an unfavorable analysis by the CBO. The CBO has examined Boehner’s new plan and finds that it would cut spending by $917 billion over 10 years. Of the total, only $761 billion would be cuts to programs. The rest of the savings would be from reduced interest costs. Actually, the revised Boehner plan doesn’t cut spending at all. The chart shows the discretionary spending caps in the new Boehner plan. Spending increases every year—from $1.043 trillion in 2012 to $1.234 trillion in 2021. (These figures exclude the costs of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan). The “cuts” in the Boehner plan are only cuts from the CBO baseline, which is an assumed path of constantly rising spending. If Congress wanted ... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5077660 Thu, 28 Jul 2011 15:40:45 +0100 5077660 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5077661&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FWp3y4aV9HqI%2F By Ilya ShapiroLast week, a federal court in Louisiana ruled that a state law prohibiting sales of caskets by non-licensed merchants was unconstitutional.  A monastery that has made caskets for over a century sued the state to protect their modest casket business. It should come as no surprise that our friends at the Institute for Justice were leading the charge against the law: Under Louisiana law, it was a crime for anyone but a government-licensed funeral director to sell “funeral merchandise,” which includes caskets.  To sell caskets legally, the monks would have had to abandon their calling for one full year to apprentice at a licensed funeral home and convert their monastery into a “funeral establishment” by, among other things, installing equipment for embalming. The Honor... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5077661 Thu, 28 Jul 2011 15:22:32 +0100 5077661 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5077663&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FFMK7vuFbtV0%2F By Ilya ShapiroThe federal government is currently engaged in a misguided attempt to use a noneconomic statute — the Endangered Species Act — to regulate under its Commerce Clause authority a noneconomic activity, the potential “take” of the noncommercial, wholly intrastate delta smelt.  Acting under this purported authority, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued an opinion in 2008 that requires a reduction of critical water deliveries in California for the alleged benefit of the threatened delta smelt species.  The delta smelt-based water cutbacks have resulted in substantial hardship to farmers and other water users in Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley.   In 2009, the Pacific Legal Foundation filed a lawsuit contending that regulation of the delta smel... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5077663 Thu, 28 Jul 2011 12:43:00 +0100 5077663 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5077664&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F5l-dpRVXrKU%2F By Daniel J. MitchellI testified yesterday before the Joint Economic Committee about budget process reform. As part of the Q&A session after the testimony, one of the Democratic members made a big deal about the fact that federal tax revenues today are “only” consuming about 15 percent of GDP. And since the long-run average is about 18 percent of GDP, we are all supposed to conclude that a substantial tax hike is needed as part of what President Obama calls a “balanced approach” to red ink. But it’s not just statist politicians making this argument. After making fun of his assertion that Obama is a conservative, I was hoping to ignore Bruce Bartlett for a while, but I noticed that he has a piece on the New York Times website also implying that America&#821... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5077664 Thu, 28 Jul 2011 12:40:44 +0100 5077664 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5069432&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FPAqdTkCxgCg%2F By Chris EdwardsThe USPS is proposing to close 3,700 post office locations across the country, as mail volume falls and the agency is losing billions of dollars. Kudos to Postmaster Patrick Donahoe for cutting costs, but he missed at least one location. He should add to his list one of the two offices in my neighborhood, which are only a mile apart. For its story today, the Washington Post went looking for citizens who would complain about the reform, and they found some. One lady in Chevy Chase, Maryland, groused that the post office near her is “part of the culture of the town.” Boy, does that town’s culture ever need help if a sterile government office plays a key role! Anyway, my neighborhood lost its “culture” when the Borders book store closed last weekend. But that’s lif... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5069432 Wed, 27 Jul 2011 18:58:17 +0100 5069432 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5069433&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FSnsANkDbsNY%2F By Michael F. CannonThe New York Times Magazine has a lengthy (and not entirely unflattering) feature on James O’Keefe, founder of Project Veritas.  Here’s what the profile says about Project Veritas’s ongoing string of Medicaid-fraud sting videos: It isn’t exactly a secret that some Medicaid money winds up in unqualified hands, but it was surprising to see how willingly minor officials turned a blind eye and, in some cases, even offered advice on how to game the system. Actually, it’s not just minor officials.  And when one understands Medicaid, it’s not surprising either. NYT Magazine: ‘Surprising…How Willingly’ Medicaid Officials Enable Fraud is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog (Source: Cato-at-liberty) Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5069433 Wed, 27 Jul 2011 18:19:07 +0100 5069433 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5069434&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F_a7Tyv-Z7Y8%2F By Roger PilonEncouraging President Obama to play Robin Hood—as if he needed encouragement—a group of religious leaders met with the president at the White House last week where they admonished him “to protect Medicaid, food stamps, aid to poor women with infant children, international development aid and other programs specifically targeted to the poor,” the Washington Post reports. Led by the progressive evangelical group Sojourners, and joined by other Christian organizations from across the political spectrum, these are the folks about whom I wrote in the Wall Street Journal last April after they ran ads with the headline, “What Would Jesus Cut?” Now that they’re using not simply the budget debates but the debt ceiling battle to promote their agenda, two points are worth ... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5069434 Wed, 27 Jul 2011 16:22:49 +0100 5069434 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5069435&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F9z_db8dIDdQ%2F By Chris EdwardsHouse Speaker John Boehner is scrambling to revise his budget plan after the CBO found that it would only cut spending by $850 billion, not the $1.2 trillion promised. However, the Boehner plan doesn’t actually cut spending at all. The chart shows the discretionary spending caps in the Boehner plan. Spending increases every year—from $1.043 trillion in 2012 to $1,234 trillion in 2021. (This category of spending excludes the costs of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan). The “cuts” in the Boehner plan are only cuts from the CBO baseline, which is an imaginary path of future spending designed as a planning tool for Congress. Boehner can propose to spend any amount in any future year he wants, and in this plan he choose to have a steadily rising spending path. The Boehne... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5069435 Wed, 27 Jul 2011 16:05:21 +0100 5069435 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5069436&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FdZtIG8KLKH0%2F By Michael F. CannonOn NPR this morning, I heard White House chief of staff Bill Daley say, “The president cannot usurp the power that’s in the Congress.” What a relief! Also, this: I don’t think the American people would find it appropriate for the president of the United States to defy the laws of the nation and its Constitution, without their belief that that president should be impeached. And this president isn’t going to do anything against the Constitution, against the laws of the United States of America. So if the president were to defy, say, the War Powers Resolution by ridiculously redefining “hostilities,” or if he were to defy the Constitution by signing a law that claims for Congress a power the Constitution does not grant (say, Obama... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5069436 Wed, 27 Jul 2011 15:38:22 +0100 5069436 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5069437&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2Fvy7iOhTmm4w%2F By David BoazOn the front page of today’s Washington Post, above the fold, a news story begins: If nothing else, the crisis over the debt ceiling is reminding the country of the astonishing reach of the federal spigot, encapsulated by a figure that President Obama tossed out recently: The government sends out “70 million checks” every month. Reporter Alec MacGillis went on to note that the president underestimated: The figures used by Obama and Geithner were, if anything, too low. They relied on Treasury Department figures from June that include Social Security (56 million checks that month), veterans benefits (4.5 million checks), and spending on non-defense contractors and vendors (1.8 million checks). But those numbers do not include reimbursements to Medicare providers and... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5069437 Wed, 27 Jul 2011 15:36:43 +0100 5069437 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5069438&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FWaVA9VLjGkM%2F By Michael F. CannonI’m still trying to figure out what I think about the debt-limit fight. As a policy matter, I want to cut the federal government’s claim on the people’s economic resources by much more than 40 percent.  (Dear critics, please note that it’s no kind of objection to say that cuts of that magnitude would cause vulnerable people pain.  The alternatives — higher taxes or a Greek-style debt crisis — would also cause vulnerable people pain.  In my estimation, they would cause more pain to greater numbers of vulnerable people.) Where I get queasy is when people make credible arguments that not raising the debt limit would result in such a political backlash that it would  compromise efforts to cut federal spending. Which is why I found t... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5069438 Wed, 27 Jul 2011 15:28:49 +0100 5069438 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5069441&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F-ptqhNzL54Q%2F By Daniel J. MitchellI testified before the House Ways & Means Committee yesterday. As always, my trip inside the belly of the beast was an interesting adventure. The tax-writing committee was holding a hearing on the value-added tax. I was on a panel with five other witnesses, and all of the other people testifying were sympathetic to a VAT. But since I had truth on my side, that made it a fair fight (though it did cross my mind that it’s not a good sign when a Republican-controlled committee stacks the witnesses in favor of a European-style tax system). I made two points. First, a VAT is less destructive than the current income tax. As such, if we somehow repealed the 16th Amendment and replaced it with something ironclad that would prevent the income tax from ever again haunti... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5069441 Wed, 27 Jul 2011 12:35:13 +0100 5069441 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5069446&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FS8CVnEiPgT4%2F By Michael F. CannonAvailable here. Something about Medicaid employees coaching faux Russians on how to hide income and assets so as to enroll their father in Medicaid. I’m not sure how much of what Project Veritas has found counts as fraud. But I’m pretty sure it’s chump change compared to this stuff: It is interesting, and consistent with the thesis of this video and my National Review article, that Project Veritas’s Medicaid-fraud videos haven’t garnered nearly as much attention as their other “stings.” ‘Project Veritas’ Releases New Medicaid Fraud Video is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog (Source: Cato-at-liberty) Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5069446 Tue, 26 Jul 2011 18:23:39 +0100 5069446 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5069449&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FBjcOn1sbcrE%2F By Michael F. CannonI’m a few days behind on this, but over at The Corner Yuval Levin has written an important post about how health care entitlements are the real cause of the debt crisis facing the federal government. Using Congressional Budget Office projections, Levin creates this magnificent chart, which I plan to steal over and over again: If Republicans want to conquer the federal debt, they need to embrace health policy like they embrace tax cuts. Health Care Entitlements Are the Real Debt Bomb is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog (Source: Cato-at-liberty) Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5069449 Tue, 26 Jul 2011 16:55:19 +0100 5069449 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5062223&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F0lOqIPCKq-k%2F The New Republic has an interesting article explaining “How Campaign Finance Laws Made the British Press so Powerful.” Basically, only British newspapers are free of regulations that suppress political speech. The author suggests adding more controls (including content restrictions) on the British newspapers to enforce “impartial” coverage. In other words, the media should be just as repressed as everyone else, and political leaders should be free of criticism. Like many others, I have long thought that U.S. newspapers editorialize in favor of campaign finance restrictions to control competing speech and thereby become more powerful. After Citizens United, other organizations now enjoy the same First Amendment protections as media corporations like The New York Time... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5062223 Mon, 25 Jul 2011 17:23:23 +0100 5062223 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5062224&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FJaLoWD9QdGE%2F In this week’s Encyclopedia Britannica column I write: Headlines this week reported a slight decline in reported expenditures by federal lobbyists. Of course, it would have been hard to keep up the pace set as companies and other interest groups fought to get a piece of the TARP bailout, the massive stimulus bill, the omnibus appropriations bill, the health care bill, and other spending and regulatory bills that passed during the 2008-2010 legislative frenzy. But don’t worry about the big lobbying firms. They’ll do fine. I explain why those reports can be misleading, cite Adam Smith and F. A. Hayek and lots of recent news stories, and conclude: Lobbying is one of the costs—not the worst cost, but certainly a galling one—of a government that is “generous and compassion... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5062224 Mon, 25 Jul 2011 15:47:02 +0100 5062224 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5062228&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F_DLOOm8e3pY%2F Lost in all the concerns over how Moody’s and S&P will view any deal to raise the debt ceiling and whether such a deal addresses our country’s long term budget imbalances is the fact that at least three rating agencies have already downgraded U.S. government debt.  One of these agencies, Weiss Ratings, treats U.S. government debt as barely better than “junk” or speculative grade. It would be easy to dismiss these agencies as irrelevant and attempting to simply grab attention, but at least one of these agencies, Egan-Jones, has a track record of correctly predicting problems at such companies as Enron, WorldCom, Global Crossing, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers that the major rating agencies missed until it was too late.  Egan-Jones also employs a business mode... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5062228 Mon, 25 Jul 2011 12:49:04 +0100 5062228 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5057712&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FMkqGhuZSPhU%2F Over at Downsizing the Federal Government, we focused on the following issues this past week: It’s time to repeal New Deal labor laws. A new Cato video on the “Cut, Cap, and Balance” proposal. $2 trillion in spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt ceiling isn’t enough. Congratulations to Sen. Tom Coburn’s staff for producing a massive study chock-full of specific spending-cut ideas. The Gang of Six deficit reduction plan is lousy. Chris Preble on the hysteria over potential cuts in military spending. Follow Downsizing the Federal Government on Twitter (@DownsizeTheFeds) and connect with us on Facebook. This Week in Government Failure is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog (Source: Cato-at-liberty) Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5057712 Fri, 22 Jul 2011 19:34:39 +0100 5057712 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5057713&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2Fh5njg4-TRIw%2F If it is true that a failure to increase the debt limit on August 2nd has the potential to bring about economic Armageddon, shouldn’t we be asking ourselves if it’s a good idea to allow the political class in Washington to continue collectively play God with our lives? After all, these people are fallible human beings. In a similar vein, Sheldon Richman reminds us of what government really is in a new column on the issue of federal debt. I like Richman’s statement because one need not be a hardcore libertarian to appreciate the message: Government is not some higher super-competent entity like the man pretending to be the Wizard of Oz wanted the people to think he was. It’s a coercive organization of limited, flawed, and essentially ignorant men and women who, having been anointed ... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5057713 Fri, 22 Jul 2011 19:03:16 +0100 5057713 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5050791&cid=t_92030_113_f&fid=34621&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FHealthcareGuy%2F%7E3%2Fx-LpDDL2QwY%2F The FDA released the (currently non-binding) “Draft Guidance for Industry and  Food and Drug Administration Staff on Mobile Medical Applications” earlier this week. I knew many of my clients and readers would be asking about the ramifications of this new guidance so I read the document as soon as it came out. In general I was impressed by the FDA’s balanced approach to patient safety and their desire not to stifle competition; overall I thought they were not looking to overreach their purview and I think they succeeded (except for the part on clinical decision support, discussed further below). Unlike many regulations that come out of DC, this guidance document is quite readable by us mere mortals: it’s written in plain English  and not legal-speak so I recommend picking ... The Healthcare IT Guy blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5050791 Fri, 22 Jul 2011 01:50:04 +0100 5050791 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5050522&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FxdqfWo5Zzkw%2F Yesterday Cato hosted a book forum on Joe Gibson’s new book, A Better Congress: Change the Rules, Change the Results. The author had a lot of thoughtful ideas, and the event is worth watching (its also a short book, easy read). Several of the book’s proposals move toward getting greater consensus in Congress and more agreement across the parties. Which got me thinking, if you want consensus, why don’t you start by just requiring it. Something like a 300 vote requirement in the House with a 80 vote requirement in the Senate. There’s nothing in our Constitution that requires simple majorities (or 60 for that matter), at least for routine business (yes there are rare exceptions). This would not stop every bad law, far from it, but it would require laws to have... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5050522 Thu, 21 Jul 2011 16:18:38 +0100 5050522 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5050523&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FaJpLqZdEme8%2F Chicago’s new mayor, Rahm Emanuel, has followed in the footsteps of President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan, choosing to send his kids to the elite private UC Lab School. It’s a very good school by all accounts, so it’s probably an excellent choice. So why did Rahm get so grouchy when asked about it? I think it might have something to do with the obvious hypocrisy of cherishing and exercising educational choice for one’s own kids while advocating a one-size fits-few state monopoly school system that makes private schooling unaffordable to the majority of your fellow citizens. Just a thought. Rahm Emanuel Practices School Choice… Grouchily is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog (Source: Cato-at-liberty) Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5050523 Thu, 21 Jul 2011 16:16:34 +0100 5050523 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5050452&cid=t_92030_86_f&fid=34445&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwomenshealthnews.wordpress.com%2F2011%2F07%2F21%2Finstitute-of-medicine-recommendations-released-birth-control-could-become-a-copay-free-preventive-service%2F The Institute of Medicine released its recommendations of which women’s health services should join the list of copay-free preventive services under the Affordable Care Act health care reform legislation. Birth control was included, along with services related to STIs, breastfeeding, and domestic violence. Over at OBOS, I have more information and links to some good commentaries and coverage of the news. Filed under: Abuse, Rape, & Safety, Access, Rights, & Choice, Breastfeeding, Contraception, Government, HIV/AIDS, HPV (Source: Women's Health News) Women's Health News blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5050452 Thu, 21 Jul 2011 12:39:41 +0100 5050452 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5050529&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F01Hsa0pm0OM%2F The “Gang of Six” senators has released an outline of budget reforms that would supposedly reduce deficits by $3.7 trillion over 10 years. Revenues would rise by at least $1 trillion, while spending would be theoretically trimmed by various procedural mechanisms. The plan promises to “strengthen the safety net,” “maintain investments,” and “maintain the basic structure” of Medicare and Medicaid, which doesn’t sound very reform-minded to me. The Gang of Six plan is a grander version of Sen. Mitch McConnell’s recent debt-limit proposal, which was aimed at putting off any spending cuts. The Gang outline has a few specific cuts, but the document mainly consists of promises to restrain spending and raise taxes in the future. I’m surprised that Sen. Tom Coburn supports the ... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5050529 Wed, 20 Jul 2011 18:24:21 +0100 5050529 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5050531&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FR5XxUP18JOM%2F Cato’s crack filmmakers have just released this video based on my National Review article, “Entitlement Bandits — How the Ryan Plan Would Curb Medicare and Medicaid Fraud.” The message is simple.  Medicare and Medicaid don’t just tolerate massive amounts of fraud.  They protect it.  Members of Congress care so little about fraud that they can’t be bothered to measure the problem properly and even block effective anti-fraud efforts.  It’s not because they are evil.  They are simply following the incentives the political system creates.  The result is that the rate of fraud in these programs is hundreds of times larger than in credit cards, for example. Short of repeal, nothing is going to alter those incentives in a way that would bring such... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5050531 Wed, 20 Jul 2011 16:37:25 +0100 5050531 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5050583&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=39187&url=http%3A%2F%2Fgetbetterhealth.com%2Fwhy-doctors-should-participate-in-the-debt-ceiling-debate%2F2011.07.20 Joe Scarborough reminds us that the divisions in American government are hardly new, paraphrasing Benjamin Franklin’s observation that “When you assemble a number of men, to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble . . . all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an assembly can a perfect production be expected?” (This comes from a September 17, 1787 speech by Mr. Franklin to urge ratification of the U.S. Constitution, read on his behalf because he was too ill to deliver it in person. The Constitution was ratified the same day.) I suppose we should be encouraged that Congress’s prejudices, passions, errors of opinion, local interests and selfish views are as American as apple pie,... Better Health blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5050583 Wed, 20 Jul 2011 16:00:00 +0100 5050583 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5050534&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FzE5hTHeZnEM%2F The American welfare state has been in crisis for decades. Many of the problems faced in 1995 fight have become less tractable problems today. John Samples comments in yesterday’s Cato Daily Podcast. One notable difference between 1995 and today, Samples says, is that the GOP of 1995 kept Social Security off the chopping block for spending cuts. Subscribe to the podcast here (RSS) and here (iTunes). Parallels to 1995 in Spending Fight is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog (Source: Cato-at-liberty) Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5050534 Wed, 20 Jul 2011 12:44:31 +0100 5050534 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5050537&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FtukJttLWUFI%2F The on-again, off-again “Gang of Six” has come back on the scene and is offering a “Bipartisan Plan to Reduce Our Nation’s Deficits.” The proposal is quite similar to the one put forth by the President’s Simpson-Bowles Commission, which isn’t too surprising since some of the same people are involved. At this stage, all I’ve seen is this summary (A BIPARTISAN PLAN TO REDUCE OUR NATIONS DEFICITS v7), so I reserve the right to modify my analysis as more details emerge (and since I fully expect the plan to look worse when additional information is available, the following is an optimistic assessment. The Good Unlike President Obama, the Gang of Six is not consumed by class-warfare resentment. The plan envisions that the top personal income tax rate will fall to no higher than ... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5050537 Tue, 19 Jul 2011 18:36:45 +0100 5050537 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5050540&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F_KmJFhIq-So%2F Robin Hanson has a post on the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment over at Overcoming Bias.  He concludes: So far, the new Oregon Health Insurance Experiment shows that for very poor and sick folks who go out of their way to request medical insurance, giving them such insurance makes them report feeling healthier. Two-thirds of this effect appears immediately on granting their request, and before they actually got more medical treatment. It remains to be seen if these healthy feelings will be reflected in more direct health measures, though that seems plausible, and we’ll probably never see mortality effects. The main results of the RAND [health insurance] experiment, which looked at all sorts of people, suggests doubts about presuming that if medicine helps the very poor and sick, it on... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5050540 Tue, 19 Jul 2011 16:11:53 +0100 5050540 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5036219&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F-sTuIxycJF0%2F By Tad DeHavenOver at Downsizing the Federal Government, we focused on the following issues this past week: People here in Washington are now considering military spending cuts that they thought strategically unwise and politically impossible just a few years ago. And conservatives are joining in. Federally funded spaceflight is the quintessential neoconservative project: a giant, wasteful crusade designed to fill Americans’ supposedly empty lives with meaning. The Obama administration wants to send bureaucrats from federal agencies that are notorious for wasting other people’s money to help local bureaucrats do a more “efficient” job of spending other people’s money. President Obama’s Fiscal Commission handed Republicans ready-made spending cuts on a silver platter — R... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5036219 Fri, 15 Jul 2011 20:06:46 +0100 5036219 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5036220&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FVKuTAMhLV_c%2F By Daniel J. MitchellIn my speeches, especially when talking about the fiscal crisis in Europe (or the future fiscal crisis in America), I often warn that the welfare state reaches a point of no return when the people riding in the welfare wagon begins to outnumber the people pulling the wagon. To be more specific, if more than 50 percent of the population is dependent on government (employed in the bureaucracy, living off welfare, receiving public pensions, etc.), it becomes difficult for taxpayers to form a majority coalition to fix the mess. This may explain why Greek politicians have resisted significant reforms, even though the nation faces a fiscal death spiral. But you don’t need me to explain this relationship. One of our Cato interns, Silvia Morandotti, used her artistic sk... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5036220 Fri, 15 Jul 2011 16:02:43 +0100 5036220 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5028142&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FeqERmfPy4Hk%2F By Daniel J. MitchellThe United States has been on a decade-long spending binge. Thanks to the profligate policies of both Bush and Obama, the burden of federal spending has climbed to about 25 percent of economic output, up from 18.2 percent of GDP when Bill Clinton left office. The political class tells us that more government is good for the economy since it an “investment” and/or a “stimulus.” The academic research, however, tells a different story. Here are some brief excerpts from a recent study by two Swedish economists, including a critically important observation about the impact of bigger government on economic performance. …most recent studies typically find a negative correlation between total government size and economic growth. …the most co... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5028142 Thu, 14 Jul 2011 13:36:25 +0100 5028142 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5028144&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F2MXjYuRQoP8%2F By Michael F. CannonA fantastic video based on this fantastic article by Jonathan Rauch: And it would work like this, if the government made travel arrangements for one third of the population and penalized anyone else who didn’t let an employer make theirs. If Air Travel Worked Like Health Care is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog (Source: Cato-at-liberty) Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5028144 Wed, 13 Jul 2011 20:37:23 +0100 5028144 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5028145&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FrvUTZuVihO4%2F By Ilya ShapiroThat’s the title of an essay I wrote for SCOTUSblog as part of their symposium on United States v. Arizona.  This is the big immigration case that will hit the Supreme Court’s doorstep later this month when Paul Clement, recently hired by Arizona, files his cert petition. Here’s an excerpt: …state governments, feeling tremendous pressure from their citizens to address the consequences of the federal failure to meet this nation’s immigration needs, are acting for themselves.  Arizona happens to be the “tip of the spear,” but we’ve also seen various other immigration-related laws passed in states as different as Utah, Georgia, and California.  Whether related to enforcement, expanded work permits, sanctuary cities, or other types of policy i... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5028145 Wed, 13 Jul 2011 18:35:55 +0100 5028145 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5028148&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2Fz1Zx0QAvbHM%2F By Daniel J. MitchellThere are three reasons why I’m not very hopeful about the outcome of the debt-limit battle. 1. There is no unity in the GOP camp. Republicans have been all over the map during this fight. Some of them want a balanced budget amendment. Some want a one-for-one deal of $2 trillion of spending cuts in exchange for a $2 trillion increase in the debt limit. Others want some sort of spending cap, akin to Senator Corker’s CAP Act. Some want to mix all these ideas together in a cut-cap-balance package. Others want Obamacare repeal.  And the latest proposal is Sen. McConnell’s proposal to let Obama unilaterally raise the debt limit. These are mostly good ideas, but the failure to coalesce around one proposal – preferably one that is easy to understand – has made the ... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5028148 Wed, 13 Jul 2011 15:00:25 +0100 5028148 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5028149&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2Fy3jgVAHhD_M%2F By Michael F. CannonA non-statist would never write something like this: We had a big surplus. It was time to do something with it. Brad DeLong, a former Clinton administration official and an economist at the University of California at Berkeley, didn’t want to see the surplus spent on tax cuts. He wanted to see it spent on public investments. To a statist, all resources belong to the state.  The government doesn’t tax 40 percent of your earnings; it magnanimously spends the other 60 percent on you.  When the government reduces your taxes, it isn’t taking less money from you; it’s spending more of its money on you. The above quote comes from an article titled, “We Have a Taxing Problem, Not Just a Spending Problem.”  But since statists believe that not tax... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5028149 Wed, 13 Jul 2011 14:52:12 +0100 5028149 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5028151&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FfZcv4U6Ao18%2F By Michael F. CannonUSA Today’s Kelly Kennedy is going to town on Medicare & Medicaid fraud.  Today, she writes: In California, as English-as-a-second-language Medicare recipients line up for other services, a person will approach them in line and “They’ll say, ‘The government would really like for you to have a wheelchair,’” said Julie Schoen, director of special projects for California’s Senior Medicare Patrol. Then, she said, the scammer will take the Medicare recipient to a “clinic” for an exam. The patient will often receive a wheelchair, but not a motorized wheelchair worth about $3,600 for which Medicare will be billed, Schoen said… “It’s a big problem,” Schoen said. “The scammers really know how to do ... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5028151 Wed, 13 Jul 2011 14:45:24 +0100 5028151 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5028152&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FeOrreUZjNME%2F By Michael F. CannonThat’s the title of this week’s column for Kaiser Health News.  An excerpt: As luck would have it, we have a home-grown model for Medicare reform that would contain spending and improve the quality of care. This model appeals to both Republican and Democratic ideals: it satisfies the Republican desire for individual ownership and control, but emulates a social insurance program revered by Democrats. The key to improving health care for seniors is … to make Medicare look more like Social Security. With this column, I have finally managed to work my favorite Seinfeld quote into my professional writing. A Medicare Reform Model Everyone Can Love is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog (Source: Cato-at-liberty) Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5028152 Wed, 13 Jul 2011 14:44:35 +0100 5028152 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5028153&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F2BZuoMHpplg%2F By Chris EdwardsSenate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has offered the president a way to raise the debt ceiling by $2.5 trillion without having to cut spending. The WaPo reports that “McConnell’s strategy makes no provision for spending cuts to be enacted.” This appears to be an epic cave-in and completely at odds with McConnell’s own pronouncements in recent months that major budget reforms must be tied to any debt-limit increase. House Republicans should obviously reject McConnell’s surrender, and they should do what they should have done months ago. They should put together a package of $2 trillion in real spending cuts taken straight from the Obama fiscal commission report and pass it through the House tied to a debt-limit increase of $2 trillion. Then they shouldn’t budge... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5028153 Wed, 13 Jul 2011 14:37:47 +0100 5028153 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5028157&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F0mz-qkeeVw4%2F By Gene HealyMy Washington Examiner column this week is on the final flight of the Space Shuttle, and what looks to be the withering away of the manned space program. In 2004, President Bush announced plans for a moonbase and an eventual Mars mission. But last year President Obama effectively cancelled the moonbase, and has exhibited little desire to liberate Mars. That’s good news, I argue: “We are retiring the shuttle in favor of nothing,” Michael Griffin, Bush’s NASA administrator, wailed to the Washington Post recently. Here, as usual, “nothing” gets a bad rap. I’ll be “in favor of nothing” until the advocates of federally funded spaceflight can come up with an argument for it that doesn’t make me spray coffee out my nose. NAS... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5028157 Tue, 12 Jul 2011 20:36:37 +0100 5028157 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5028158&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F1bQcSKcql2Y%2F By Walter OlsonThe New York Times has an article today on the plight of Central Falls, Rhode Island, a 19,000-population industrial city that may declare bankruptcy under the fiscal weight of $80 million in pension obligations for police and fire officers. Unlike some coverage of municipal fiscal woes, this one does not dance around the way some of the problem originates in misguided labor policy: The city, just north of Providence, is small and poor, but over the years it has promised police officers and firefighters retirement benefits like those offered in big, rich states like California and New York. These uniformed workers can retire after just 20 years of service, receive free health care in retirement, and qualify for full disability pensions when only partly disabled. “Promi... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5028158 Tue, 12 Jul 2011 20:27:20 +0100 5028158 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5008131&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FKZ0H0PYiFrE%2F By Neal McCluskeyYesterday, Rep. John Kline (R-MN), chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, introduced the first new legislation aimed at breaking down the prescriptiveness of the No Child Left Behind Act. It’s a small step in the right direction, but there are two serious problems with it: It doesn’t come nearly close enough to the reform we need. Democratic reaction to it illustrates why it is so hard for politicians to obey the Constitution. First the insufficiency of the bill. The State and Local Funding Flexibility Act would, essentially, allow states and districts to take federal funding that comes through numerous streams and apply it to different streams. For instance, if a state wanted to take dollars slated for the 21st Century Communi... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5008131 Fri, 08 Jul 2011 15:39:49 +0100 5008131 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5008133&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FmFnpbYYYuyg%2F By Michael F. CannonOr at least, that’s what The Daily Caller says a Republican pollster says: A year may have passed since Obamacare passed, but conservatives are still angry as hell about it. Expect the legislation to play a large role in the 2012 elections, according to John McLaughlin, who recently conducted a series of focus groups for the research group Resurgent Republic. The group is run by some of the country’s best-known Republicans. “My guess it it’s going to be a big election issue next year,” McLaughlin said in an interview… When it comes to President Obama’s health care law among these voters, the perception of these voters has hardly changed: the intensity remains strong and they still want it repealed, McLaughlin said. ObamaCare‘s overall numbe... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5008133 Fri, 08 Jul 2011 14:44:43 +0100 5008133 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5008135&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FE2fY8CBciNM%2F By Daniel J. MitchellIt’s hard to imagine how we would get through life without necessities like bacon and duct tape. But have you ever thought about how the free market gives you so much for so little? Here’s a video that should be mandatory viewing in Washington. Too bad politicians didn’t watch it before imposing government-run health care. And since we’re contemplating the big-picture issue of whether markets are better than statism, here’s some very sobering polling data from EurActiv: A recent survey has found deep pessimism among European Commission staff on a wide range of issues, including the course of European integration over the past decade and the likelihood of success of the EU’s strategy for economic growth. Some 63% partially or totally agreed that “the Euro... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5008135 Fri, 08 Jul 2011 13:05:32 +0100 5008135 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5008137&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2Fhi868lAU5aE%2F By Michael F. CannonMatt Yglesias writes: a new rigorous study from Oregon confirms that Medicaid does, indeed, save lives As The Atlantic‘s Megan McArdle writes: “This is exactly what the study does not find.”  Like McArdle, I read the study, and can confirm this.  Or perhaps Yglesias can direct us to the part of the study where he read that…. If Yglesias could see in this rigorous study something that isn’t actually there, does that mean there’s a chance that the motivations he assigns to ObamaCare opponents — they “want to deny life-saving medical care to the poor” — may not comport to reality either? More on Over-Interpreting the Oregon Medicaid Study is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog (Source: Cato-at-li... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5008137 Fri, 08 Jul 2011 01:52:34 +0100 5008137 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5008139&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F6jdRyezxVhw%2F By Michael F. CannonFrom their editorial the other day: There is no doubt that Medicaid… has to be cut substantially in future decades to help curb federal deficits. For cash-strapped states, program cuts may be necessary right now. But in reducing spending, government needs to ensure any changes will not cause undue harm to millions. How would the Times cut Medicaid spending? The magic of central planning! The best route to savings — already embodied in the reform law — is to make the health care system more efficient over all so that costs are reduced for Medicaid, Medicare and private insurers as well. Various pilot programs to reduce costs might be speeded up…. And if government were smart, rather than stupid, that would work. I’ve got a better idea for cutting Me... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5008139 Thu, 07 Jul 2011 15:58:44 +0100 5008139 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5008140&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FweK8xfT7oaw%2F By Neal McCluskeyOver at Jay Greene’s blog, Sandra Stotsky riffs off an Education Week report about educators around the country not seeing the difference between their old state standards and new, “Common Core” standards. Stotsky offers a theory for why this is: Common Core — as far as anyone can tell because the standards-drafting process was so opaque — was put together largely by the same people responsible for the bad old state standards. As a result, maybe they really aren’t all that different. The general ignorance about the standards brings up an important point. As Mike Petrilli at the Fordham Institute has pointed out, yes, the $4.35-billion federal Race to the Top pushed a lot of states to adopt the Common Core standards, but that doesn&#8... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5008140 Thu, 07 Jul 2011 15:41:53 +0100 5008140 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5008142&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F6usEuUaq3lA%2F By Michael F. CannonColumbia Business School economist Ray Fisman has a piece at Slate.com discussing the first-year results of the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment.  In brief, when Oregon transferred an average of $3,000 from taxpayers to poor people in the form of Medicaid coverage, it did those poor people some good. Fisman’s interpretation of the results is different from mine in mainly two respects.  First, I describe the one-year benefits of Medicaid coverage as modest; he says they’re “enormous.” A more fundamental difference concerns whether expanding Medicaid was a cost-effective use of the taxpayers’ money.  Fisman writes: Given the added expense, did the Medicaid expansion prove to be cost-effective? That is, did the treatment group actually... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5008142 Thu, 07 Jul 2011 15:18:54 +0100 5008142 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5008145&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FjXYSHkY0CKg%2F By Michael F. CannonThe Oregon Health Insurance Experiment is the first experiment since the dawn of time that randomly assigns some households to receive health insurance (Medicaid) for purposes of comparing their medical consumption, health outcomes, and financial security to similar households that do not receive Medicaid coverage.  Some of the nation’s top health economists have released the first batch of results from the OHIE. At National Review (Online), I summarize the OHIE’s first-year results and offer the following analysis: Supporters of President Obama’s health-care law may tout these benefits, but the OHIE does not provide the vindication they seek. First, despite being eligible for Medicaid, 13 percent of the control group had private health insurance — s... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5008145 Thu, 07 Jul 2011 12:46:38 +0100 5008145 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5008147&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FFLm7kkThP6Y%2F By Daniel J. MitchellThe President has issued an ultimatum that more tax revenue must be part of budget negotiations. Indeed, he endlessly repeats his desire for a “balanced approach,” implying that as much as 50 percent of the deficit reduction in any agreement should come from higher revenues. Because I am a thoughtful, middle-of-the-road, pragmatic guy, I’m willing to accept the President’s ultimatum. I do have one tiny request, however, and that is for any such deal to be based on honest math. What I mean by this is that I don’t want politicians to approve a budget that results in more spending, but then claim that they “cut spending” because the budget didn’t grow even faster. I want a spending cut to mean less spending (gee, what a novel idea). And when they talk abou... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5008147 Wed, 06 Jul 2011 19:57:21 +0100 5008147 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5008153&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FLhBm0V0Ev4U%2F By David BoazThe Washington Post says that “there is a real question as to whether [Texas governor Rick] Perry has waited too long” to begin a presidential campaign. And that Sarah Palin is dithering “even as the window for announcing narrows” and “time is running out for her.” Fox News agrees that “time is running out” for any new presidential candidates. That’s the conventional wisdom. But I’m old enough to think about history. Barry Goldwater announced his candidacy for president on January 3, 1964, about nine weeks before the New Hampshire primary. A decade later, Ronald Reagan announced his challenge to President Gerald Ford on November 20, 1975. After that unsuccessful race, he announced another, this time successful candida... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5008153 Wed, 06 Jul 2011 17:03:30 +0100 5008153 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5008154&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FmVGiKiO_QOc%2F By Tim LynchMiss Manners has some useful advice today for any American who might encounter the Queen of England. DEAR MISS MANNERS: As an American, if I meet the Queen of England, am I required to bow to her? GENTLE READER: Where were you during history class? Never mind. Here is what you missed: We Americans fought a revolution against the British crown. As Miss Manners trusts that you will be relieved to hear, we won. Therefore, we do not prostrate ourselves before someone who is not our sovereign — just as the British bow to no sovereign but their own. But we do not even bow to our own leaders. Although we believe that all human beings are worthy of respect, we do not believe that any one of them is born at a higher level than the rest of us. Thomas Jefferson caused a stir when, as p... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5008154 Wed, 06 Jul 2011 15:20:03 +0100 5008154 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=5008155&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FZM20phiwWic%2F By Daniel J. MitchellI’m not a big fan of the rating agencies. I’ve warned in TV interviews that they generally wait too long before downgrading profligate governments. So when the rating agencies finally catch up to everyone else and lower their outlook for failing welfare states such as Greece and Portugal, one would think that this would be seen as a useful – albeit late – warning sign. But European politicians are not very happy about this development. At the risk of mixing metaphors, they want everyone to keep their heads buried in the sand and to continue complimenting the emperor on his new clothes. Here are some excerpts from a BBC report. The European Commission has strongly criticised international credit ratings agencies following the downgrade of Portugal by Moody�... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=5008155 Wed, 06 Jul 2011 14:29:15 +0100 5008155 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4997518&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=39187&url=http%3A%2F%2Fgetbetterhealth.com%2Fthere-are-only-four-ways-to-reduce-healthcare-spending%2F2011.07.04 Everyone agrees that national spending on healthcare is on a trajectory to bankrupt America during the lifetimes of even Old Farts like DrRich. And therefore, most folks* agree that we ought to do something to reduce our national spending on healthcare. ____ *The reason it’s only “most folks” who agree is that, apparently, some folks are still partial to the Cloward-Piven strategy, and continuing to spend on healthcare as we are doing today is the quickest and surest way to get there. ____ Unfortunately, our national “discussion” on how to achieve this reduction in healthcare spending has devolved into a spectacle of accusations and counter-accusations, vituperation, abuse, and scurrility. Accordingly, not much useful has so far been achieved. Worse, the back-and-forth contumelie... Better Health blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4997518 Mon, 04 Jul 2011 18:00:51 +0100 4997518 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4997513&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FuimXbRgu1h8%2F By David BoazAt the Britannica Blog I take a look at the founding ideas of the United States and the Communist Party of China, both of which are celebrating anniversaries this weekend: The ideas of the Declaration, given legal form in the Constitution, took the United States of America from a small frontier outpost on the edge of the developed world to the richest country in the world in scarcely a century. The country failed in many ways to live up to the vision of the Declaration, notably in the institution of chattel slavery. But over the next two centuries that vision inspired Americans to extend the promises of the Declaration—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—to more and more people. China of course followed a different vision. Take the speech of Mao Zedong on July 1,... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4997513 Mon, 04 Jul 2011 13:43:57 +0100 4997513 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4992650&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FIt6jNJaNGKk%2F By David BoazIn the apparent belief that the Tea Party movement and Americans’ general aversion to higher taxes are conjured out of thin air by master manipulator Grover Norquist, Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick offers this devastating riposte to Norquist’s support for limited government: I remember sitting in the Dunster House dining hall at Harvard with Norquist when we were sophomores or juniors in college, while he explained his view of government, or lack thereof. It sounded logical — the notion that we could live independently of each other, making our own decisions in our own self-interest. But then who puts out the fires? Who answers the calls to 911? Who educates poor children? Who helps people with disabilities? Good point. And we could go on. Without governmen... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4992650 Sat, 02 Jul 2011 14:50:08 +0100 4992650 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4992653&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FH3Clc-AJ5EU%2F By John SamplesCampaign finance regulation met celebrity culture for one morning this week. I was not completely bemused. Stephen Colbert and the FEC is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog (Source: Cato-at-liberty) Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4992653 Fri, 01 Jul 2011 19:54:48 +0100 4992653 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4992655&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FxEO8B7rjBn8%2F By Tad DeHavenOver at Downsizing the Federal Government, we focused on the following issues this past week: As Congress scours the budget looking for spending cuts, federal employment and training programs would be good targets. If Republican and Democratic lawmakers were really discussing major spending cuts, then the media would be full of stories mentioning particular changes to entitlement laws to reduce benefits and stories about abolishing programs widely regarded as wasteful, such as community development grants. Indexing the tax code to the chained Consumer Price Index = stealth tax increase. Putting $2 trillion in spending cuts in perspective. Not only is individual financial literacy not an appropriate concern of the federal government, but the federal government itself is a mo... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4992655 Fri, 01 Jul 2011 16:48:51 +0100 4992655 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4992657&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FPQmrKnjF2wg%2F By Daniel GriswoldThe Chinese Communist Party celebrates its 90th birthday today. Pardon me if I do not attend the party. It is undeniably true, as the authorities in Beijing are trumpeting, that the Chinese Mainland under one-party communist rule has enjoyed spectacular economic success during the past 30 years. China’s rapid growth was unleashed by the reforms of the late communist leader Deng Xiaoping that began in the late 1970s, but those reforms—private ownership of business, farms and housing, market pricing, foreign investment, and trade liberalization, among others—were hardly an extension of the Communist Party’s agenda. In fact, those reforms were a direct repudiation of everything the Chinese Communist Party and its co-founder Mao Tse-tung believed and practiced before ... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4992657 Fri, 01 Jul 2011 15:50:30 +0100 4992657 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4992660&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FMs8uLWDUeq0%2F By Jason KuznickiNPR’s Morning Edition today ran a surprisingly sympathetic report on “libertarian summer camp“ — the Porcupine Freedom Festival, held every year in New Hampshire. How did it go? There was a lot of bacon, apparently. And a good time was had by all — many of whom, I gather, are a shade or two more radical than I am. It sounded like a fun, slightly zany, and not completely unworkable experiment in living, right down to the alternative currencies in gold and silver. Correspondent Robert Smith seems to have set out looking for “nasty, brutish, and short,” and what he found was just… different. The main complaints? First: “There are no guarantees in a free market,” which is nothing if not obviously false. Businesses offer gua... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4992660 Fri, 01 Jul 2011 14:13:43 +0100 4992660 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4992661&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FVYLgI9h4gXQ%2F By David BoazA strong majority of voters in Virginia, a state that is home to the Pentagon, Naval Station Norfolk (the world’s largest naval base), U.S. Joint Forces Command, and the fourth highest percentage of veterans of any state, want American troops out of Afghanistan and Libya. According to a Quinnipiac University poll, 55 percent of Virginians polled think the United States “should not be involved in Afghanistan now,” and 60 percent oppose involvement in Libya. According to the poll, fewer Virginians support those wars than any of the other people or topics the poll asked about. Only 38 percent now support the Afghan war, and 31 percent support the Libyan military involvement, compared to 42 percent who don’t want to repeal the 2010 health care law, 43 percent ... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4992661 Fri, 01 Jul 2011 13:53:47 +0100 4992661 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4992662&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FaF-AQlQNX1Y%2F By Daniel J. MitchellFor both political and policy reasons, the left is desperately trying to maneuver Republicans into going along with a tax increase. And they are smart to make this their top goal. After all, it will be very difficult – if not impossible – to increase the burden of government spending without more revenue coming to Washington. But how to make this happen? President Obama is mostly arguing in favor of class-warfare tax increases, but that’s a non-serious gambit driven by 2012 political considerations. Moreover, there’s presumably zero chance that Republicans would surrender to higher tax rates on work, saving, and investment. The real threat is back-door hikes resulting from the elimination and/or reduction of so-called tax breaks. The big spenders on the left a... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4992662 Fri, 01 Jul 2011 02:12:15 +0100 4992662 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4992663&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FWDPbtvqoKXw%2F By Michael F. CannonObamaCare expands coverage mostly by cramming tens of millions of Americans into Medicaid, about which the Government Accountability Office just released these data: Click here for the full Government Accountability Office report. That’s Not Healthy: the GAO on Medicaid’s Lousy Access to Care is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog (Source: Cato-at-liberty) Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4992663 Thu, 30 Jun 2011 20:49:38 +0100 4992663 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4992664&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FVJ1uklflLnM%2F By Michael F. CannonFrom the June 2011 Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll (by “health reform” they mean ObamaCare): That’s Not Healthy: KFF Poll Results Not Kind to ObamaCare is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog (Source: Cato-at-liberty) Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4992664 Thu, 30 Jun 2011 20:48:37 +0100 4992664 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4992665&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FtFB6CH_fkyo%2F By Tad DeHavenAlmost 600 pages into the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act is a provision directing the Government Accountability Office to assess the feasibility of the federal government certifying organizations that provide financial literacy. The GAO released its report this week and concluded that “While a federal process for certifying financial literacy providers appears to be feasible, doing so would pose challenges.” The challenges cited by the GAO are generally of the bureaucratic variety: What agency or agencies would be in charge? What criteria would be used? How would oversight be conducted? And most importantly, how much would it cost [taxpayers] to implement and operate a federal process for certifying financial literacy providers? Fortunately... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4992665 Thu, 30 Jun 2011 19:17:43 +0100 4992665 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4984393&cid=t_92030_86_f&fid=34445&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwomenshealthnews.wordpress.com%2F2011%2F06%2F29%2Fwho-knows-or-cares-how-planned-parenthood-cuts-affect-nashville-womens-health-care%2F Not the Governor who pushed for the move, apparently. Earlier this month, I wrote about how Republican-led efforts to defund Planned Parenthood in Tennessee will affect women in Nashville – one of two TN cities where the state usually gives federal family planning and cancer prevention money to Planned Parenthood. In Nashville, that money will now go to the local health department, which explicitly said that it doesn’t expect to serve the same number of women for the money. Planned Parenthood made up the gap between the federal funds and what it takes to actually serve Nashville’s women by raising funds from donations. The health department does not expect any additional funds to make the shortfall, and would need local tax increases to make up the difference. As at le... Women's Health News blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4984393 Thu, 30 Jun 2011 00:44:39 +0100 4984393 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4984424&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FtX8A0d1ktBg%2F By Caleb O. BrownSome smart folks have drawn strongly on the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World Annual Report to put together a short video extolling the virtues of economic freedom. Enjoy! The Fraser Institute report is published in the United States by the Cato Institute. Economic Freedom is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog (Source: Cato-at-liberty) Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4984424 Wed, 29 Jun 2011 15:53:45 +0100 4984424 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4975824&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FLxsNmT_itv0%2F By Jim HarperPresident Obama went to Puerto Rico two weeks ago. If you missed it, that might be because the trip was so brief—a mere four hours. Observing how the president “SEAL-Team-Sixed” it, Jon Stewart speculated that the president was not motivated by love of the island or a campaign promise to revisit it, but by courting Puerto Rican voters in important electoral states. It could be all of the above, of course. It all reminded me of the president’s “Sunlight Before Signing” promise to post bills Congress sends him online for five days before signing them. After the president’s dismal start with the promise at the beginning of his term, I speculated once or twice that he would focus on fulfilling campaign promises like Sunlight Before Signing af... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4975824 Tue, 28 Jun 2011 21:39:44 +0100 4975824 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4975827&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2Ffsa2Wum2Vxs%2F By Julian SanchezI note that I’m not hearing many critics of Citizens United decrying yesterday’s very welcome Supreme Court ruling, in which the majority held unconstitutional a California statute prohibiting the sale or rental of violent video games to minors. Perhaps that’s just because they’re concerned with corporate influence on elections as a policy matter, and not so much about Grand Theft Auto, but as a matter of First Amendment interpretation, it seems as though the elements that supposedly made Citizens United a travesty are present here. As the conservative Justice Alito notes in dissent, for example, the statute at issue here does not prohibit anyone from creating, possessing, freely loaning, or playing violent video games: It regulates only their renta... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4975827 Tue, 28 Jun 2011 16:39:05 +0100 4975827 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4975829&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FRiV-GAJmBbo%2F By Michael F. CannonHere we have the spectacle of a former Republican Health and Human Services secretary getting rich by helping states implement ObamaCare. Leavitt Partners (among other consultants) is helping states create the law’s health insurance “Exchanges.” Or the non-ObamaCare-compliant health insurance Exchanges that will by law become ObamaCare-compliant Exchanges.  Via Politico: More than $300 million in exchange grants has already flowed into the states since the Affordable Care Act passed. That number will grow exponentially in the coming months, as states move from the initial steps of passing exchange legislation to the more lucrative task of setting them up. For health consultants and information technology vendors, it’s already shaping up to be a gold mine&#8... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4975829 Tue, 28 Jun 2011 15:41:55 +0100 4975829 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4975830&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F5wSlBN3174w%2F By Daniel J. MitchellIt appears that American taxpayers are about to subsidize another Greek bailout (via the Keystone Cops at the IMF). This is way beyond economically foolish. It is also morally offensive. To turn Winston Churchill’s famous quote upside down, “Never have so many paid so much to subsidize such an undeserving few.” Let’s start with a few facts: Greece’s GDP is roughly equal to the GDP of Maryland. Greece’s population is roughly equal to the population of Ohio. Despite that small size, in both terms of population and economic output, Greece already has received a bailout of about $150 billion (actual amount fluctuates with the exchange rate). Don’t forget the indirect bailout resulting from purchases of Greek government bonds by the European Central Bank. No... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4975830 Tue, 28 Jun 2011 15:11:00 +0100 4975830 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4975831&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FbzPa0WW5aBI%2F By Michael F. CannonThat’s the subject of my latest Kaiser Health News column: Obamacare passes two milestones this month. It has been exactly two years since the first version of the legislation appeared in Congress. And it has now enjoyed exactly two years of solid public opposition. Yet this month has been harsher than most. It is almost enough to make you feel sorry for ObamaCare.  Almost. For ObamaCare, June Has Been a Very Cold Month is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog (Source: Cato-at-liberty) Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4975831 Tue, 28 Jun 2011 14:29:49 +0100 4975831 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4975832&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2F95kWXhww15U%2F By Gene HealyMy Washington Examiner column this week is on TSA, the federal agency that’s its own reductio ad absurdum. In the latest TSA atrocity, the agency forced a wheelchair-bound, 95-year-old leukemia patient to remove her adult diaper, for fear she might be wired to explode. “It’s something I couldn’t imagine happening on American soil,” her distraught daughter told the press: “Here is my mother, 95 years old, 105 pounds, barely able to stand, and then this.” My God, what is she on about? Proper procedure was followed! As I point out in the column: in a classic case of “mission creep,” TSA is taking its show on the road and the rails. Remember when, pushing his bullet-train boondoggle in the 2011 State of the Union, President Obama cracked that it would... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4975832 Tue, 28 Jun 2011 13:29:46 +0100 4975832 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4975836&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FSPKxQcM8ajk%2F By Ilya ShapiroWith its last opinion on the last day of the term, the Supreme Court brought things back to constitutional basics by striking down a state law that punished political speech. Whatever the motivations behind Arizona’s so-called Clean Elections Act, giving a publicly funded candidate more taxpayer-provided money every time his privately funded opponent—or his supporters—have “spoken too much” clearly chills speech. In elections, where there is no effective speech without spending money, matching funds provisions triggered by speech fail First Amendment scrutiny. And this result should’ve been obvious to the entire Court, not just a five-justice majority, in the wake of the Davis v. FEC “Millionaires’ Amendment” case from 2008. Davis struck down the part of Mc... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4975836 Mon, 27 Jun 2011 16:54:47 +0100 4975836 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4975838&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FvJgnjNUGgPE%2F By Mark A. CalabriaI wasn’t in the mood Friday to celebrate the 73rd birthday of the federal minimum wage, created under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.  Looking at youth unemployment numbers can be a little depressing.   Those figures should, however, sober up anyone who is still drunk under the spell of thinking the minimum wage has no impact on unemployment. The chart above shows the increase in unemployment overall (right axis) and the unemployment rate for workers age 16 to 19 (left axis).  The difference between these two numbers usually runs about 10 percent, even in good times.  Notice that when the minimum wage was raised in July 2009, overall unemployment had started to level off, while youth unemployment sky-rocketed.  We also witnessed a big spike in youth un... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4975838 Mon, 27 Jun 2011 16:12:13 +0100 4975838 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4975839&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FjqIiiUmeSBM%2F By David BoazSince New York passed a law extending marriage to same-sex couples, Republican presidential candidates have been mostly silent. But not Rep. Michele Bachmann, who has had a long and strong interest in gay rights issues. In an interview on Fox News Sunday she endorsed both New York’s Tenth Amendment right to make marriage law and the federal government’s right to override such laws with a constitutional amendment, confusing host Chris Wallace: WALLACE: You are a strong opponent of same-marriage. What do you think of the law that was just passed in New York state—making it the biggest state to recognize same-sex marriage? BACHMANN: Well, I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. And I also believe—in Minnesota, for instance, this year, the legislature... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4975839 Mon, 27 Jun 2011 15:50:06 +0100 4975839 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4975840&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FobqD34Uv_fw%2F By Ilya ShapiroThe Supreme Court scored an epic win for the First Amendment in striking down California’s prohibition on selling violent videogames to minors. The law was both overly broad—sweeping in a wide variety of games based on no objective standard and no age-based gradations—and underinclusive—with no restrictions on other types of media. With a few strictly drawn exceptions for historically unprotected speech—obscenity, incitement, fighting words—government lacks the power to restrict expression simply because of its content. And a legislature cannot create new types of unprotected speech simply by weighing its purported social costs against its alleged value. “Reading Dante is unquestionably more cultured and intellectually edifying than playing Mortal Kombat,” Ju... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4975840 Mon, 27 Jun 2011 15:28:28 +0100 4975840 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4975841&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2Fm_tMpvIn4JY%2F By Daniel J. MitchellThis new video, based in large part on the good work of Michael Cannon, explains why Medicaid should be shifted to the states. As I note in the title of this post, it’s good federalism policy and good fiscal policy. But the video also explains that Medicaid reform is good health policy since it creates an opportunity to deal with the third-party payer problem. One of the key observations of the video is that Medicaid block grants would replicate the success of welfare reform. Getting rid of the federal welfare entitlement in the 1990s and shifting the program to the states was a very successful policy, saving billions of dollars for taxpayers and significantly reducing poverty. There is every reason to think ending the Medicaid entitlement will have similar positive... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4975841 Mon, 27 Jun 2011 14:55:48 +0100 4975841 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4975842&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FhZMAKvVn9vA%2F By David BoazAt the Britannica Blog today I note President Obama’s concern over ATMs, Hillary Clinton’s support for the candlemakers’ petition, John Maynard Keynes’s simple solution to the problem of unemployment—and how Bastiat refuted all their arguments more than 150 years ago: And there’s your question for President Obama: Do you really think the United States would be better off if we didn’t have ATMs and check-in kiosks? . . .  And do you think we’d be better off if we mandated that all these “shovel-ready projects” be performed with spoons? In his 1988 book The American Job Machine, the economist Richard B. McKenzie pointed out an easy way to create 60 million jobs: “Outlaw farm machinery.” The goal of economic policy should not be job cre... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4975842 Mon, 27 Jun 2011 13:56:48 +0100 4975842 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4975846&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FI7c-rTbplTw%2F By Chris EdwardsIn the Washington Post Friday, Ezra Klein partly confirmed what I fear the Republican strategy is for the debt-limit bill—get to the $2 trillion in cuts promised through accounting gimmicks. As I have also noted, Klein says that there is about $1 trillion in budget “savings” ($1.4 trillion with interest) to be found simply in the inflated Congressional Budget Office baseline for Iraq and Afghanistan. Klein says, “I’m told that a big chunk of these savings were included in the debt-ceiling deal” that Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) and Sen. Jon Kyl (D-AZ) are negotiating with the Democrats. Republican leaders have promised that spending cuts in the debt-limit deal must be at least as large as the debt-limit increase, which means $2 trillion if the debt-limit is extended ... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4975846 Mon, 27 Jun 2011 12:52:43 +0100 4975846 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4968455&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FQ_UXIePt7DU%2F By John SamplesThe House of Representatives has taken two votes on the war in Libya. In the first, the House voted 295 to 123 against authorizing the war. 70 Democrats voted or 36 percent of the caucus voted against authorization. That’s pretty impressive given that the Secretary of State made a personal appeal to her fellow partisans prior to the vote. Eight Republicans said “yes” to war in Libya, a smaller number than I would have expected. Partisanship, deficits, and elections do matter, I suppose. On the other hand, the House also refused to cut off most funding for the war by a vote of 180-238.  Some 36 Democrats voted to cut off most funding; 144 Republicans joined them. This bill was said to be gaining strength but in the end, not nearly enough votes came over. ... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4968455 Fri, 24 Jun 2011 20:49:05 +0100 4968455 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4968461&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FW7IHueScpvE%2F By John SamplesAs Congress begins (perhaps!) to hold up its end of the invitation to struggle over the Libyan adventure, Chris Preble, Gene Healy and I have prepared a video explaining what’s at stake in this latest American war. The War in Libya and Limited Government is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog (Source: Cato-at-liberty) Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4968461 Fri, 24 Jun 2011 15:32:37 +0100 4968461 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4968462&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FI38-OG5orMM%2F By Chris EdwardsIn a 1975 interview, Nobel prize-winning economist Milton Friedman said, “One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.” In writing and editing essays on www.DownsizingGovernment.org, I see that mistake in department after department. It is an important reason why policymakers find it so hard to control their spending appetites. They want to believe that programs work, and so they internalize the bedtime stories sold to them by program advocates. In Politico today, I examine federal employment and job training programs. From FDR to Obama, and from Reagan to Ryan, policymakers have wanted to “do something” to help labor markets. However, jobs programs are not a proper exercise of federal pow... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4968462 Fri, 24 Jun 2011 13:55:50 +0100 4968462 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4968421&cid=t_92030_86_f&fid=34445&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwomenshealthnews.wordpress.com%2F2011%2F06%2F24%2Fthe-fdas-new-report-on-silicone-breast-implant-safety%2F Did you know that women who get silicone breast implants should “assume that you will need additional surgeries,” and should get follow-up MRIs every couple of years? Over at Our Bodies Our Blog, I have summary of this and other information from the FDA’s new report on the safety of silicone breast implants, along with links to the agency’s additional resources on the topic, such as things to consider before getting implants, questions to ask your surgeon if you’re thinking of getting them, and more information on complications and adverse outcomes. Filed under: Body Image & Eating Disorders, Boobs, Government (Source: Women's Health News) Women's Health News blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4968421 Fri, 24 Jun 2011 12:42:25 +0100 4968421 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4968470&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2Fzi2qAyxyu4s%2F By Chris EdwardsNew projections from the Congressional Budget Office show that without reforms rising federal spending will fundamental reshape America’s economy, and not in a good way. Under the CBO’s “alternative fiscal scenario,” the federal government will consume an 86 percent greater share of the economy in 2035 than it did a decade ago (33.9 percent of GDP compared to 18.2 percent). The CBO report and many centrist budget wonks focus more on the problem of rising federal debt than on rising spending. As a result, many wonks clamor for a “balanced” package of spending cuts and tax increases to solve our fiscal problems. But CBO projections show that the long-term debt problem is not a balanced one—it is caused by historic increases in spending, not shortages of revenues... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4968470 Thu, 23 Jun 2011 16:20:12 +0100 4968470 http://www.medworm.com/index.php?rid=4960039&cid=t_92030_87_f&fid=36438&url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2F%7Er%2FCato-at-liberty%2F%7E3%2FMwSOG5P2eGc%2F By Tad DeHavenThe Congressional Budget Office released the latest edition of its annual forecast of where the federal government’s budget is headed. The numbers are new but the message is the same: the budget is on an unsustainable path. According to the CBO’s more politically-realistic “alternative scenario,” federal debt as a share of GDP will hit 109 percent in 2021 and would approach 190 percent in 2035. For those mistaken souls who believe that merely eliminating “waste, fraud, and abuse” in government programs can solve the problem, the CBO has news for you: In the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO’s) long-term projections of spending, growth in noninterest spending as a share of gross domestic product (GDP) is attributable entirely to increases in spending on severa... Cato-at-liberty blogs http://www.medworm.com/rss/comments.php?id=4960039 Wed, 22 Jun 2011 20:39:09 +0100 4960039