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.

Two American companies have announced plans to create around 60 “high calibre” jobs in Ireland (approx. $50-60K/year). That’s not really the big story here, though, as 60 jobs is just a drop in the 9.6% unemployment bucket.

In recent weeks, there have been several jobs announcements from US companies investing in Northern Ireland.

Now why would American companies be interested in creating those jobs overseas instead of here? It’s simple, really. Our current administration and its lackeys in Congress are anti-business. Every time Republicans have suggested cutting the corporate tax rate in order to encourage business expansion on our shores, the left lobs accusations that Republicans: are in the pocket of the ueber-evil big business, favor Wall Street over Main Street, etc., ad nauseum. The truth is that Ireland has a corporate tax rate of 12.5% compared to our 39%. Sometimes economic reality is stunningly obvious.

In a townhall meeting with NJ Governor Christie, a teacher whined that, “You’re not compensating me for my education, and you’re not compensating me for my experience.” His response was simply sublime: “You know what? Then you don’t have to do it.”

Ma’am, step away from the left and join us in the real world.

You see, out here in the real world, we don’t get automatic pay increases based on the number of years we’ve worked, how many degrees we hold, or the number of initials and acronyms that follow our names. We get paid based on two things: perceived value and scarcity of skill. Until there are more teacher openings than applicants, the law of supply-and-demand is going to hold your salary down. And until the taxpayers believe you are providing something of increased value, they aren’t going to pony up more of their hard-earned cash.

Like those of us in the real world, you—along with the rest of us who haven’t had pay raises in years—have two basic options: find a higher-paying career, or quit whining and be thankful that in an economy running 10% unemployment you still have a job. Me? I live here in the real world. I choose the latter.

The Greek government is broke. No big news there, as it’s been a top international headline for months. Now there are major strikes planned for this week to protest the massive budget cuts required in order to right the sinking Greek ship of state. Who’s striking?

Government employees.

Clue: Government does not create wealth. Government siphons wealth off of its productive citizens and channels that money to people who don’t produce anything tangible. Some provide valuable services, e.g., the military, police, firemen, and (some) teachers. But none of the government’s employees actually produces anything that generates revenue. So, when the government is broke, there are only two options: increase taxes on the citizens who are productive, or cut pay for those who are not. In the case of Greece, there aren’t enough of the former to support the latter. Here in America we are moving all to quickly toward the same situation. There’s a lesson here somewhere.

It’s a sad day when I have to quote a socialist government in order to make a common sense point.

experts say the lack of a credible plan threatens to push up interest rates and undermine the recovery.

Duh. It’s really pretty simple. You have to spend less than (or at worst equal to) what you take in. The real lefties are starting to get it. When will ours?

In his address to Congress Wednesday, President Obama asserted once again that his health care plan would not fund abortion. Let’s examine that claim using the most widely quoted current proposal.

HR3200 Subtitle B Section 2511 (p. 992) provides for “School-Based Health Clinics” (SBHC) to be funded with your tax dollars. This sounds great on the surface. Who doesn’t want to provide health care for our kids? The problem is that the language is, deliberately, overly broad and opens the door for groups such as Planned Parenthood, our top abortion provider, to open clinics in our schools.

(c) USE OF FUNDS.—Funds awarded under a grant under this section may be used for—

(1) providing training related to the provision of comprehensive primary health services and additional health services;

What, exactly, are the “additional health services” here? We don’t really know, as the bill does not specify. You can, however, connect the dots. Oversight of the clinics is left to the Secretary of Health & Human Services (SHSS), currently Kathleen Sebelius who is a radical pro-abortion advocate and supporter of late-term abortionists (e.g., the late George Tiller).

(d) CONSIDERATION OF NEED.—In determining the amount of a grant under this section, the Secretary shall take into consideration—

…

(3) other factors as determined appropriate by the Secretary.

This gives quite a bit of leeway to the SHSS. She could, for example, grant greater funding to SBHCs that provide “family planning” counseling of the sort she approves.

(l) DEFINITIONS.—In this section:

(1) COMPREHENSIVE PRIMARY HEALTH SERVICES.—The term ‘comprehensive primary health services’ means the core services offered by SBHCs, which shall include the following:

…

(C) OPTIONAL SERVICES.—Additional services, which may include oral health, social, and age-appropriate health education services, including nutritional counseling.

Sounds innocuous enough but what, exactly, are “age-appropriate health education services” under this definition? Would pro-abortion counseling qualify? Given the current SHSS you can count on it.

(3) SCHOOL-BASED HEALTH CLINIC.—The term ‘school-based health clinic’ means a health clinic that—

(A) is located in, or is adjacent to, a school facility of a local educational agency;

…

(4) SPONSORING FACILITY.—The term ‘sponsoring facility’ is—

…

(D) a nonprofit health care agency;

Bingo! Planned Parenthood qualifies. In fact, they wouldn’t even have to operate on school grounds. Any Planned Parenthood clinic near a school would qualify under this plan.

Now back to Obama’s claim that our tax dollars would not fund abortions. First note that nothing in this bill excludes abortion and great leeway is given to the SHSS to determine how funds are meted out. There is no guarantee here that funds would not be used directly for abortion. Assume, for the sake of argument, that none are. Even in that case Planned Parenthood clinics on or near school grounds would qualify for these funds. In practice every dollar they receive for even legitimate purposes frees up another dollar to fund the rest of their practice…being America’s number one provider of abortions.

Republican Congressman Charles Wilson may have been out of line concerning the venue of his outburst, but he was correct. Mr. Obama, you lie.

No pun intended, but our federal government is spending almost $500K to determine just why men don’t like to wear condoms during sex. You have absolutely got to be kidding me! Seriously, have you ever worn one? Did you like it? Is this really that complicated?

The European (Socialist) Union has decided to fine Intel Corp. for roughly $1.5 billion for “antitrust” activities. (No, I’m not going to provide easy links this time. Look it up.) This is problematic to traditional Americans on a number of levels.

Anti-trust and -monopoly laws were enacted in order to protect consumers against companies that garnered a corner on a market and then raised their prices. Yes, I italicized and bolded that word. For a number of years I was a big critic of Intel, not because of their success, but because they tried to cover up the mathematical issues with the first generations of their Pentium processors. (Said cover ups are well documented on the web if you do a little homework.) In recent years, however, Intel has done consumers a great benefit by providing processors which provide greater processing power with less electric power consumption at a lower cost.

Reread that last sentence. More power. Less electricity. Fewer $$ out of my wallet. Where, exactly, is the harm to consumers? Do you really understand that the average American company can now construct (out of off-the-shelf components) a computer that would rival the power of a multi-million dollar Cray supercomputer of just 10 years ago at a fraction of the cost? Intel is entirely responsible for that.

Disclaimer: I’m currently employed as a factory automation software engineer by a French/Italian semiconductor manufacturer who stands to benefit if Intel is punitively fined by the EU.

Back to that italicized, bolded word: raised. The fact is that as Intel has made their processors more powerful and simultaneously power-efficient (i.e., more miles less gas). If, in the process, they had garnered a corner on the market and raised prices, there might conceivably be a legal argument that they had violated some anti-trust laws. The fact is, however, that as Intel has made its processors more attractive for technological reasons, they have simultaneously made them cheaper. No matter how loudly AMD may scream that Intel is a monopoly (or whatever) the truth is that Intel has made its processors better and less expensive. (Are there specific applications for which AMD processors are better? Sure. But in general, Intel CPUs are cheaper for the same power.)

Second disclaimer: I’m a long-time Macintosh fan and have both an Intel-powered laptop and an old IBM/Motorola-powered G5 tower. My older G5 machine is used to perform video and audio processes that the current Intel CPUs still don’t match (Apple and Intel propaganda notwithstanding). The Intel laptop is used for the easy, daily stuff (where most consumers live) like email and FaceBook.

So let’s count it up. I’m a Mac fan who works for a company that would benefit from a big Intel fine. Not exactly a good profile for a defender of Intel, eh? But that’s what I am. Intel stands for everything that the lefties in Europe hate & that I love. Performance. Power. Low cost. Hyundai is going to beat BMW & Chrysler/GM/Ford in America for that very reason (they own that trifecta).

Aaargh! I got away from the main point again. The bolded, italicized word was, “raised.” The truth is that, wherever you live on this planet, Intel has made it possible for you to do things with your personal computer (whether you use Windows, Linux or OS X) that you could not have imagined doing just 10 years ago at a fraction of the cost. The only issue this raises is the opportunities for “the rest of us”.

Punish that at your peril.

Maybe I misjudged the man. Consider his take on the AIG executive bonuses:

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Tuesday said taxpayer bailout recipient AIG would be forced to pay the government to compensate taxpayers for $165 million in employee bonuses as a condition for receiving a further $30 billion in government funds.

Let’s do the math. AIG pays the government back $165 million. The government gives AIG $30 billion. Sounds like a good deal to me.

Folks, we’re really screwed when the bright people Obama puts in his cabinet come up with stuff like this. Hold on. It’s going to be a rough ride.

Over a 4 year period a hospital in the UK had around 400 unnecessary death due to horrendous emergency care. Per an inquiry into the outrage,

managers pursued targets at the detriment of patient care.

Targets, in this context, being financial targets set in order to keep costs down. This is what happens when medicine becomes more about cutting costs than treating patients. What else do you expect when the government runs the (increasingly expensive) show?

Gotta love the quotes from British politicians.

Liberal Democrat Shadow Health Secretary, Norman Lamb, called for a “cultural change so that every part of this trust has open and transparent systems in place to ensure patient safety”.

and

Bill Cash, Conservative MP for Stone, said: “There have been systemic failures in the organisation and I have asked for resolute action to be taken.”

Mr. Lamb, that “cultural change” would be called the Hippocratic Oath. It makes the patient’s health a pretty darned high priority. There must be someone in the UK who’s heard of it.

Mr. Cash, how about this for “resolute action”: scrap socialized medicine. Otherwise you’ll just keep fighting this battle over and over again.

This is, of course, what you get when medical decisions are made by bureaucrats. Obama’s proposal for universal healthcare includes provisions for decisions regarding the availability and coverage for specific treatments. This will lead to denial of care and a reduction in the quality of healthcare we receive…just like we see in the UK.