Quote of the Day
Hatred is the most destructive force on earth. It does the most damage to those who harbor it.
Nido Qubein
A couple of developments today where I, as a libertarian-conservative, differ from a number of other conservatives:
Unconstitutional Patriot Act Passed: Thumbs DOWN!
The Senate approved the expiring extensions 72-23, as did the House shortly thereafter 250-153; the President is approving it through a legally dubious "automatic pen" machine signature. (I have a personal pet peeve with procrastinators; I didn't procrastinate as a student, and I've never liked to see procrastinators as a professor. "Haste makes waste"--certainly in the current federal government.)
Let me simply quote my February 10 post on earlier discussion of the bill:
The issue has more to do with transparency of operations, consistent policy across contexts, and relevant judicial reviews protecting individual rights. In fact, the Obama Administration realizes that some safeguards of individual liberties may be in order, so long as they don't adversely effect effectiveness of the provisions. The basic points I don't think have been addressed include: (1) the "John Doe" nature of roving wiretaps (the law in other contexts would be suitably constrained); (2) under international law we are obligated to extend the same basic rights for foreign visitors; (3) records not directly related to criminal or terrorist activity might impair basic rights to counsel or rights of privacy which I believe are guaranteed by the Ninth Amendment.
I want to elaborate on the second point above: I also believe that foreign citizens not agents of their government are considered "persons" under the Fourteenth Amendment and (with the exception of a few minor nuances) should be extended relevant personal liberties.
Supreme Court: US Chamber of Commerce v Whiting:
Thumbs DOWN!
The state of Arizona decided it wanted to kill any business operating in the state that knowingly hires unauthorized aliens. To that end, it references a portion of 1986 immigration reform: "8 U.S.C. 1324a(h)(2)—which preempts 'any State or local law imposing civil or criminal sanctions (other than through licensing and similar laws) upon those who employ, or recruit or refer for a fee for employment, unauthorized aliens.'"
I consider this to be a material violation of economic rights, and the conservative Court decision was dead wrong here. Besides the obvious Shakespearean quote of "first killing all the lawyers" (note: I'm being sarcastic here), I believe that the Congress' intent was clear: the states have a right to regulate a criminal enterprise, e.g., a local supplier of unauthorized labor. The Congress reserves to itself all rights, e.g., to enforce civil rights policies, with respect to employers of unauthorized aliens, but the state is going to going to use a loophole in a federal statute as an illegal back door immigration policy to attack employers whom hire unauthorized aliens (no doubt rationalizing themselves as starving suppliers of unauthorized workers)? It is a federal responsibility to regulate businesses for immigration compliance. But Arizona decides effectively that the Congress has ceded to it a power that gives it the death penalty over employers. I argue the net effect subordinates higher ranking federal immigration policy to state policy. The US Chamber of Congress rightly objected through the unnecessary complexity of reconciling disparate employment verification processes (Arizona decided to mandate e-Verify, an optional validation measure from the federal level).
Herman Cain With Another Sarah Palin Moment
A Basic Lessons Learned With Ryan's Proposal Failure
Gretchen Carlson was having an interview with GOP Presidential candidate Herman Cain and made reference to the impasse between Ryan's Medicare reform and the Democratic/Obama non-plan. Carlson basically suggested that both sides were being tone-deaf in terms of getting something done.
Cain swerved on the question. He implied he agreed with Gretchen's framing of the issue and then reverses field to make clear he fully backs the Ryan reform. Now if Herman Cain wants to spend his political capital backing Ryan--probably a lessons learned from Gingrich's infamous gaffe on Meet the Press, when Gingrich implied the Ryan plan was extremist--I don't have a problem with that. But you have to answer the question that was asked, not reinvent your own stated question. That's like what Sarah Palin did during the VP debate where she effectively said, "Look, I know you want me to answer a different question, but this is my time, and I want to use it to get my points across."
What Herman Cain should have said was, "Gretchen, I disagree with your statement that both sides are equally at fault. Paul Ryan has presented a good plan, and the other side offers little more than the unsustainable status quo, punting the tough decisions down the road, where it'll be even harder and more expensive to fix. If the American people will elect a Republican President and put the GOP in charge of the Senate, we will make the difficult decisions needed to ensure the program's long-term sustainability."
Now personally, I think the Republicans, including Herman Cain, are playing incredibly stupid politics. Doubling down on the Ryan plan AFTER we just lost an election in a safe Republican district due to the Ryan reform in specifics and AFTER 5 GOP senators opposed the plan? As far as I know, there was only one substantive GOP plan--Ryan's plan. I never heard of or saw an alternative to the plan; there was no discussion or party endorsement.
If you go back to last year, Ryan and other Republicans argued that they had been essentially shut out of the health care reform legislative process; they hammered home the point to senior citizens that the Democrats were funding their federal health care expansion by using purported savings in Medicare--thereby risking the entitlement itself. The Democrats found themselves blown out last fall--based not only on a struggling economy but for the first time seeing Mediscare tactics used by the Republicans against them.
Ryan knew that the GOP had the votes to get his Medicare reform through the House, but the issue always was getting the opposition-led Senate and Obama. He needed to get enough buy-in from House Democrats for the bill to be seen as bipartisan. Part of the problem is that Ryan did a very poor job of selling the program: he lost control of the message. For example, it was falsely portrayed as a voucher system; it was seen as a crony capitalistic giveaway to Big Health Insurance with higher administrative costs than the government, where any subsidies would be offset by skyrocketing premiums; there is a lingering fear that subsidies will become a target for budget cuts (e.g., like welfare program expenditures), i.e., the program will be balanced on the backs of fixed-income senior citizens, etc.
In fact, Ryan's solution guarantees coverage, with conventional alternatives priced accordingly (e.g., PPO) and private sector providers just like federal employees have and can carry into retirement. Subsidies would be based on income and/or health condition (e.g., preexisting/high cost medical condition, such as heart disease, diabetes, etc.) Obama, on the other hand, wants an unaccountable, independent group of bureaucratic "experts" which would be empowered to make funding decisions: this is, de facto, rationing.
What Ryan needs to be clearer about is how his approach makes Medicare more solvent over the Democratic business-as-usual, given the fact that age correlates with health care expenditures. Clearly, means testing of subsidies makes a difference, and managed care models may be able to wring some efficiencies into the system. Things like raising deductibles, shifting ordinary expenses out of insurance or eliminating certain dubious gold-plated benefits (e.g., covering Viagra) can make a difference.
I think what Ryan should do is to expand an explanation given the somewhat disingenuous political attacks on Medicare Advantage. For example, Medicare conventionally offers the private-sector more expensive, generous select-any-physician plan. (Part of the problem deals with economies of scale in states with lower numbers of enrollees, e.g., Oregon, versus much larger numbers in retiree states, e.g., Arizona and Florida.) The Democrats are arguing that private-sector health care plans are intrinsically less efficient and the federal government is essentially propping an unprofitable business at the expense of regular Medicare enrollees. If, at the time of establishing Medicare Advantage, managed care programs were considered operating at a lower cost, say 95 cents on the dollar, why do they cost more now? This is a key issue for Ryan to address, if in essence he is arguing managed care options in the Medicare exchange will help make the system more sustainable.
What I would have said, versus what Cain said, is something like the following: "Look, we have problems in health care: we have an aging population that lives longer. We have not invested enough in these programs; everybody knows that there's no such thing as a free lunch (believe me: I ran a pizza chain). Many of the Democratic "reforms" put the burden of productivity increases on doctors' shoulders (which haven't worked in the past and simply result in "doc fixes"), and statistics show Medicare pays only 80% of the market price for medical services. Thus, doctors have increasingly lower incentives to take on Medicare patients just as the numbers of Baby Boomer enrollees are starting to explode.
"What we do know is that federal rules and regulations cost money not going to treat the elderly. What we know is that federal health bureaucracies have high costs, money not going to treat the elderly. What we know is the federal government has no competition, no profit incentive to look for its own production efficiencies, no natural incentive to prevent fraud. All the Democrats do is add more and more benefits which do little more than sap what little resources we've set aside for future recipients. We need to avoid inflation-causing overutilization of health care resources for routine or nonessential expenses.
"You say you don't like Ryan's plan. Tell me, Democrats, when you were trying to sell ObamaCare last year, you were talking some of the same types of ideas for other people: guaranteed coverage, subsidized care, too. The big difference seems to be ideological: Democrats don't want to give up any kind of single-payer system and they believe that Big Government makes Medicare work more efficiently, just like decades of massive domestic spending and governance by bureaucratic experts have resolved issues in American classrooms and the inner cities.
"I see some good things in Ryan's plan, and the Cain plan will build on those good things. What I'm not going to say to today's seniors is that the current program is sustainable."
It's Time To Give the Taxpayer Control Over Teacher Employment
Chicago: Home To More Than Oprah Winfrey
I had moved from the Chicago suburbs to the DC suburbs back in 2004. My prospective employer had negotiated in bad faith sharing my moving expenses, including one visit home to move out; I was provided 2 weeks of temporary lodging while leasing a new apartment and making moving arrangements. The employer required me to work through their vendor and balked after the fact to their vendor's estimates and dragged its feet. I was finally given their unilateral cap on expenses (which they eventually reneged on, claiming I turned in my expense documentation "too late") one or 2 days before I had to be back home, and I couldn't book a reasonably priced flight back. So I found myself, after a long day on work, finding myself on I-270 heading out in DC rush hour traffic towards Chicago. In a bad decision, I decided to drive straight through and found myself, tired, drive through CROWDED multi-lane traffic in the 4AM hour, and I found myself surrounded by impatient drivers jumping lanes in front of me to split left while I tried to maneuver myself into I-94N.traffic. (I still remember heading west on the Capitol Beltway and encountering stop-and-go driving at 5:45AM, but how do you have traffic jams in the 4AM hour?) I stopped in Ohio on my way back...
I didn't live in the city but used to commute via Metro in the west suburbs. I first moved to the area in the early 1990's for my first professional Oracle DBA gig as a federal government contractor at the regional EPA. There are all sorts of things, from the annual Taste of Chicago (where I got my first taste of African cuisine, some dish of roasted goat and banana) to a haunted house theme with spooky sounds in Daley Plaza to out-of-the-way lunch places where you could order a burger smothered in fried onions, a generous order of fries and a canned soda for less than to the cost of a meal bundle at McDonald's.
I mentioned in a past post that I'm pretty sure I walked past Ms. Winfrey (or a dead ringer for her) one day on the Miracle Mile. I was surprised because I thought she would have had an entourage around her. She studiously avoided eye contact with me. (I can't speak for her--maybe she was afraid I would say, "Are you HER? Hey, everybody: it's OPRAH! Can I have your autograph? Do you have any leftover cars to give away?". I was simply trying to say "hi". Oh, well... I have a very healthy ego: I would have been happy to give her my autograph...) Sorry, the lady just has a way with words... The last thing I expected to hear on her finale was a reference to Papa Winfrey's sperm... A little too much information...
How would I improve Chicago? Well, there are all those Democrats, starting with Mayor "Dead Fish"...
And, of course, as a road warrior I've flown in and out of O'Hare (and/or Midway) more often the vast majority of people, and I've probably heard United's version of Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" probably more than any other piece of music (I'm sure Father Lonergan would prefer Leonard Bernstein's version, but that's a two-parter on Youtube). I'm not sure where I first heard "Lake Shore Drive"--at the airport or perhaps on an adult contemporary radio station, but it's one of my favorite city songs, period....
Killebrew: Twins' Dugout Tribute
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Killebrew's Jersey/Number
Photo Courtesy AP Photo/Eric Risberg Twins' first baseman (Killebrew's old position) Justin Morneau in background at Oakland A's game May 19, 2011 |
Political Humor
"One of Sarah Palin’s supporters is about to release a documentary about her called “The Undefeated.” That’s like a documentary about Arnold Schwarzenegger called “The Faithful.”" - Jimmy Fallon
[I'm surprised to hear Governor Vice President Senate endorser Sarah Palin has decided to become an actress in her next career. I just hadn't seen the original book on the fiction bestseller list.]
Someone made a two-hour documentary about Sarah Palin’s political life. In case you’re interested in watching a movie that’s longer than Palin’s actual political life.” - Jimmy Fallon
[Well, even Sarah Palin couldn't sit through more than two-thirds of the movie...]
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Chicago, "If You Leave Me Now". The first of Chicago's 3 #1 hits. There never has a more worthy bridesmaid--4 top 5/11 top 10 /13 top 13 hits prior to finally hitting #1. Its previous high was #3 for "Saturday in the Park".
