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Friday, January 8, 2016

Miscellany:1/08/16

Quote of the Day
I can't give you a sure-fire formula for success, 
but I can give you a formula for failure: 
try to please everybody all the time.
Herbert Bayard Swope

 Chart of the Day

Map of US ranking the states on how prepared they are to weather the next recession

Tweet of the Day
Rant of the Day: David Stockman
There has been no real business investment growth for 15 years; productivity is sliding down the tubes; there are still fewer full-time, full-pay breadwinner jobs than in December 2007; and the Federal debt and entitlement monster has been left completely unattended, meaning a massive fiscal crisis is coming in the years ahead.
Image of the Day

The federal government spent $5,000 on studying Hello Kitty, pictured. / AP
via Free Beacon
Unlike the womb and the reach of murderous doctors....

My Choice for CAGW 2015 Porker of the Year: McDonald, Secretary, VA

Here are the nominees:
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro, for putting taxpayers at risk for yet another housing-related bailout by obscuring the increasingly dicey lending practices of the Federal Housing Administration.
Rep. Stephen Fincher (R-Tenn.), for his leading, and unfortunately for taxpayers, ultimately successful efforts to resurrect the Export-Import Bank - a wasteful and unnecessary haven for corporate welfare.
Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.), for his misguided and costly proposal to gut the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Recovery Audit Contractor program - the most successful auditing tool that Medicare, and perhaps the entire federal government, has ever had for identifying improper payments.
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, for his long litany of ineptitude and obstruction as head of the reviled IRS and his dubious track record of evasive, incompetent, and hostile behavior to taxpayers and their elected representatives.
Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald, for bungling the management of a department ravaged by scandal, abdicating responsibility for its condition, and failing to provide a clear plan for resolving its problems.
Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), for his absurd attack on Government Accountability Office investigators who discovered gaping holes in Obamacare’s enrollment verification system that make it vulnerable to waste and fraud.
Anyone who read last month's minor blog awards post should not be surprised by this selection (hint: scumbag public servants). I  don't need to repeat the horror story of covered-up wait times that led to deaths of veterans and McDonald's subsequent appointment to lead the VA. But even National Review's Rich Lowry, no DoD dove, labels the department a "socialist paradise". Naturally, some veterans resent such rhetoric. Keith Brown angrily responded on Free Republic, not exactly a left-wing portal with this rant:
As the healthcare debate continues I write to refute the notion that the care received by US Veterans from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and or VA benefits in are socialist. I have heard this argument by non veterans with political agendas. So here are the facts that prove the VA is not socialist.
1. VA care and benefits are earned by honorable services rendered via enlistment contract, not given. Socialist care is given to everyone in a geopolitical area. 2. Veterans have the choice to not use VA care. Socialists don’t. 3. The VA discriminates in the levels of care it gives. Care levels are decided by many factors including levels of disability, economic status, age, eras, and theaters of service. Socialist care is one and all. 4. The VA can send veterans to private care. In socialist care if they don’t provide it, you are out of luck. 5. The VA doesn’t manufacture its own drugs or medical equipment. Socialist care does. 6. Although rare, VA medical care can be revoked. Socialist care can’t refuse the most abusive user.
Although the VA has many of the negative aspects of Socialized care….(decisions made by bureaucrats not doctors, weeks and month long waits, chronic troublemakers slowing the system with frivolous care requests, years of appeals, little personal connection with doctors…) it’s not socialized care. No, I’m not a doctor, I’m a former US Marine who’s worked around the VA medical system and has seen all of the above firsthand.
With all due respect to Brown's sensitivity on this topic, the classic characterization of socialist economies involves State ownership of production. The VA facilities are owned, staffed, and operated by the government; there is no meaningful competition, and whether or not the government directly manufactures drugs, it heavily controls the procurement process, not unlike how Canadian and European nationalized systems negotiate, which leads to only a facade of a free market. The idea that a socialistic economy is an autarky is odd; even North Korea has trade pacts with existing/former socialist regimes. (The Soviets often bought American grains, and the Chinese have become largely dependent on foreign oil.) The idea that patients died waiting for services available at closer, more convenient non-government facilities speaks for itself; whether in theory the VA could approve treatment at a non-VA facility doesn't mean approval. For example, the business models of the VA facility depend on a sufficient scale of patients which made true choice for most veterans a sham. I could go on but the general point has been made.

I do think the government has an obligation to make veterans whole for injuries or other hardships during years of service; these costs should be covered by the taxpayer, but that doesn't mean a centralized administration over government facilities is effective, efficient or desirable. What we need is competition for veteran services, not throwing scarce taxpayer money at a dysfunctional institution.

The VA managers cited above who gamed the system to rip off taxpayers for personal gain up to six-figures are just a symbol, the tip of the iceberg. When McDonald doesn't even go after immoral employees (firing them and taking action to recover wrongful disbursements and bonuses), heaven knows what wrongdoings remain undiscovered. We need largely privatized operations and the department coalesced and streamlined under DoD HR operations.

Not to mention the most effective way to control veteran operational costs is to minimize our meddling in global hotspots.

 Rand Paul On Bipartisan Spendthrifts



Choose Life: Daddy/Baby Bonding















Political Cartoon

Courtesy of the original artist via IPI
Courtesy of Steve Kelley via Townhall
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

Aretha Franklin, "Jimmy Lee"

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