Right to Opine

The newly-elected Republican majority headed to the House of Representatives in January has one general mandate: reduce the size of government. This sounds good to voters, who are understandably upset by the massive expansion of the federal government during the last two years—and with the unaffordable price tag which accompanies it. When it comes to actual spending cuts, however, many Americans start to squirm. If you talk about cutting the defense budget you’re unpatriotic. Education? You’re racist or don’t care about the future of our country. Entitlements? You’re unsympathetic toward the poor.

The truth is that in order to get federal spending under control, we will likely have to make cuts in every area of spending, but the one area that is going to need the biggest overhaul—because it by far accounts for the largest portion of federal spending—is entitlements. Most thinking people agree that Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid are unsustainable in their current forms, but changing them is going to be a years-long process that may not have a visible impact for more than a decade. There is, however, one entitlement that should be cut significantly: food programs.

The Wall Street Journal headline was dire: “Hunger Afflicts More U.S. Households.”

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, around 15% of American households “struggled with low food security in 2009.”

The USDA defines food-insecure households as those that have difficulty at some time in the year providing adequate food for all of their members.

And

Roughly a fifth of the U.S. population participated in at least one federal food-assistance program

But are federal food programs really the solution? Obesity rates among the poor are significantly higher than in the middle and upper classes. While there are numerous reasons for this, as federal food programs have increased so has the rate of obesity in the lower classes.

One major problem is the way in which these programs are administered. The SNAP/EBT program gives out a card which is used like a credit card. Abuses of this system have been highly publicized, including purchasing such non-food items as alcohol, cigarettes, lottery tickets, and even cash withdrawals. (There are many such accounts from a variety of states.) The first step toward cutting waste in the program, then, should be to either distribute staple foods directly, or return to the food stamp system whereby stamps can only be exchanged for specific food items.

Another, larger, question is whether this program is necessary in its current scope. According to the Cellular Telephone Industries Association 91% of Americans have cell phones. And the Television Bureau of Advertising notes that 90% of American homes have satellite or cable TV. These are not necessities, but luxury items. In effect, food programs are a federal subsidy for the cable and cellular industries. Many recipients have money they could spend on food, but choose to spend it on other things because the government is feeding them. This level of technology penetration indicates that we could cut food programs by roughly one third—and require more Americans to take responsibility for their own needs.

No one wants the poor to go hungry, but federal food programs are not ensuring the health of the poor, are wide open to abuse, and are simply not necessary to the extent to which they are provided. Not only can we cut them back—we should.

The left—which for decades has dominated education in our country—has an obsession with race that never fails to fascinate (and disturb) me. While accusing the right of being racist, it is they who focus so consistently and intently on race. Consider a new study based on the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP) math and reading tests.

[A] new report focusing on black males suggests that the picture is even bleaker than generally known.

Race, race, race. The report compares blacks, whites, Hispanics, Asians. You can read it in its entirety here.

Just once I’d like to see an analysis of this data which investigates things that really matter rather than race.

• How do kids from intact families compare to those from divorced and single-parent homes?
• What about kids whose parents take them to church or synagogue regularly versus those who watch TV all weekend?
• Do kids who are involved in scouting and organized sports perform better than those who aren’t?

I mention these because in my experience they have a much greater effect on academic performance than do race and economics. For example, I have black friends who have been married for twenty years and go to church regularly. Their kids are doing really well in school. Meanwhile a white family I know has divorced and stopped attending church—their kids are struggling. Race is a non-factor while family cohesion is paramount. Yes, I know these are “merely anecdotes”, but I am quite willing to bet your personal observations are generally similar. (And at some point when you’ve collected enough anecdotes you have “data”.) Sadly, our society has come to substitute statistics for common sense and wisdom.

But I do suspect that these factors have a statistically significant impact on test scores. Unfortunately I can only surmise. Because I’m just an independent mathematician with a very good understanding of statistics—and not a “qualified researcher”—I can’t get access to the raw data. The real reason I suspect that these, and similar, factors other than race have a real effect on scores is the very fact that those factors are never reported. If they had a significant effect and that impact or a lack thereof agreed with the agenda of the researchers the results would be published in a heartbeat. (If you think educational researchers don’t have an agenda, with a list of acceptable pre-determined outcomes, you’re not awake.) That there is such eerie silence makes me suspicious.

There are a lot of factors that can greatly affect academic performance. Race isn’t one of them—unless you are a racist! That the left is obsessively focused on race speaks volumes.

At the G-20 meetings, President Obama is proving quite definitively before an international audience that he is tone deaf.

[H]is policies, contentious at home, have proved contentious overseas as well, and he faced stiff challenges during the Group of 20 gathering in Seoul, South Korea, from the leaders of China, Britain, Germany and Brazil over currency policy and his contention that the United States could pump money into its economy to stimulate growth before concentrating on reducing the deficit.

Of course these countries are upset. They own a lot of our debt, and Obama’s policies are devaluing their investment. They have every right to be contentious—it’s their money Obama is wasting.

”Part of the reason that sometimes it seems as if the United States is attracting some dissent is because we’re initiating ideas,” the president said

This would be funny if he didn’t truly believe it. Republicans—and conservatives in general—are frequently portrayed by liberals and the media (I know, often one and the same) as provincial rubes, ignorant of and uninterested in the “outside world.” With this one statement Obama gives the lie to that caricature. Other nations are criticizing his policies not because they’re somehow new or innovative, but because they have been tried elsewhere—and found lacking. Obama, by failing to acknowledge the recent history of western Europe, demonstrates that it is he who is willfully ignorant of reality. While other nations are backing away from the precipice of huge government deficit spending, he is rushing America headlong over the cliff.

When a reporter asked what kind of complaints he was hearing from fellow leaders, Mr. Obama laughed it off, asking, “What about compliments?” As to whether the elections at home have weakened him overseas, he served up a one-word answer: No.

His response was only natural, because in his hubris and utter narcissism he simply can’t acknowledge the true failures of his administration or the fact that the same Europeans who once feted him after his presidential campaign speech in Germany have now turned against him because of his policies. The truth is that America’s position in the world is much weaker under Obama—not because other nations are reluctant in principal to follow America’s lead, but because they are unwilling to follow where he is leading.

It was only six months ago that Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon, in an address to Congress, blamed the escalating drug war violence in his otherwise tranquil nation on lax American gun laws. He even called for reinstatement of the 1990s weapons ban—to thunderous applause from the leftists in the audience—even though the high-powered weaponry employed by the cartels doesn’t come from our shores and can’t be acquired here under current laws.

Now Arturo Sarukhan—Mexico’s ambassador to the U.S.—in an address to the Council on Foreign Relations, wants to tell a different story.

[Sarukhan] has criticised the international media for paying excessive attention to the drug-related violence in his country.

So which is it? Is the drug violence—rising murder rates, including beheadings and other gruesome and torturous executions—an impending disaster which can only be averted by undermining American sovereignty or is the reportage of the crisis overblown? You can’t have it both ways.

After a year of studying the incident—in which Muslim Army Major Nidal Hasan ruthlessly murdered a dozen fellow soldiers—and the events that lead up to it, the Army and Dept. of Defense have come out with their findings. The report focuses on information sharing between the military, FBI, etc.

The focus of the findings and recommendations in the Information Sharing area was the lack of policy, procedures and systems for the sharing of threat related information between the Services, Combatant Commands, DoD and other federal agencies such as the FBI.

Unsurprisingly for a government investigation, they reached exactly the wrong conclusion.

The Army report says no single action would have prevented Fort Hood.

And, of course, the Army notes changes which, while welcome, are still not the single action that could be taken to avoid a repeat.

The Army says it already has implemented changes, including having first responders move in quickly to respond to a shooting rather than cordoning it off and awaiting special teams.

And

[Military Police] are now authorized to use jacketed hollow point ammunition to reduce the risk of injury to innocent bystanders.

Those are certainly commendable, but they don’t address the real issue. Why not?

Major Hasan was able to carry out his murderous rampage for exactly one reason: he knew there would be no one able to return fire before he had accomplished his mission. You see, even though we trust soldiers with high-powered weapons in the field, they are not allowed to carry weapons on stateside bases. Just a few miles away, civilians walking the streets of Killeen have the ability to lawfully defend themselves with a firearm, but the very soldiers whose oath includes defense of the Constitution are denied the protection of the 2nd Amendment while on-base.

The DOD could take one “single action” which would with almost 100% certainty guarantee that such an incident is not repeated—allow our servicemen to carry sidearms on stateside bases. That the report does not include this recommendation (at least according to more than a dozen articles I read) is not surprising, but it is damnable.

There were a number of grandiose promises made during the push to pass ObamaCare, among them that millions of uninsured Americans would gain access to health insurance and that those who were underinsured would receive comprehensive insurance. Not so fast.

The health law passed in March says insurers must have a medical-loss ratio of between 80% and 85%, meaning they must spend at least that proportion of their revenue on actual care.

A couple months ago, McDonald’s and a few other large employers were granted waivers to the medical-loss ratio rules under threat of tens of thousands of employees losing their medical coverage entirely. Now the Department of Health and Human Services has announced

the agency plans to release “a special methodology that takes into account the special circumstances of mini-med plans in determining how administrative costs are calculated” for medical-loss ratio purposes.

So HHS is now changing the rules so that mini-meds can continue to operate as is. Did we really need to pass a trillion dollar healthcare bill just to leave the underinsured underinsured? Brilliant legislative work, that.