Public Option Support Surging In Senate

Public Health Care Option in the Senate?  Hmm...you know we've looked at this before, but it still astounds me that we fail to heed the lessons learned.  Robert E. Moffit, Ph.D., Director of Domestic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation, published a set of lessons learned regarding European government run healthcare back in 2001.  Some of his lessons learned are below.

Some Lessons: For Members of Congress and state legislators, there are some valuable lessons from the European experience:

• If you insist on government management of the health care system, do not expect freedom from waste, inefficiency, or inequity in the delivery of care (look at France).
• If you want to promise citizens a national or state program of universal insurance coverage, don't expect that you will be able to deliver universal access to high-quality health care. You won't and you can't (look at Britain).
• If you want to fix prices for medical services, prescription drugs, or other medical devices, don't expect demand for these goods and services to be met or investment in research and development to continue apace. It won't (look anywhere).
• If you insist, with a straight face, that in a government-run health care system, all of your fellow citizens will be treated equally--regardless of their class, station in life, or disease condition--you are not merely enthusiastic or well intentioned. You are lying.

If you haven't figured it out, health care policy is complex and difficult.  We'll fix one problem only to find we create an even bigger problem.  Why isn't anybody talking about limiting the size of mal-practice awards?  Why aren't we focusing on removing inefficiency in health care administration?  Why aren't we looking towards the more successful health care plans in the United States, such as with our military, veterans and members of Congress.

Man I wish we would spend more time talking about this instead of politicizing health care.


More Research from the Heritage Foundation:
Would Europe's health-care-for-all model work here?
Fiscal Policy Lessons from Europe

Other Health Care Resources:
President Obama's Health Care Plan
NPR's List of Health Care Stories
Health Care Stories from change.org

Another Take on the Political Spectrum

Derek Haynes had a better description of our political spectrum on his blog Conservative Thinker.  Here's a short summary.

"The political spectrum is a way of analyzing different political philosophies and describing how they are alike and different. Most of us are most familiar with the right-wing/left-wing portrayal of the American political spectrum. Typically we associate right-wing with conservatism and the Republican party and left-wing with liberalism and the Democratic Party. Often we assign colors to this spectrum: red = Republican and blue = Democratic."
"What many of us don’t realize is that the American political spectrum is much broader than this representation. In fact, conservatism and liberalism occupy only the center of the spectrum. Historically, the term liberalism encompassed both what we call today liberalism and conservatism – that is both modern conservatism and modern liberalism used to be under the classic liberalism banner."
"As we fill in the missing ends of the simple political spectrum model, we see the addition of socialism, libertarianism, communism, fascism, totalitarianism, etc. Once we add these to the simple model, the model seems to no longer describe the spectrum adequately. This is seen as we get to the outer edges of the model. When compared, the ends seem to be very similar instead of extremely different – almost as if the spectrum is a circle where the ends bend around and touch each other."

Global Warming – Is There Anything It Can’t Do?

Here is a delicious piece of sarcasm from Conn Carroll over at the Heritage Foundation's Morning Bell.  
"No snow, too much snow. It does not matter to the enviroleft crowd. For them, global warming always is to blame. That is the whole reason the movement made a deliberate decision earlier this decade to stop calling it “global warming” and start calling it “climate change.” That way they could expand the universe of terrible things they could plausibly blame on global warming. One British citizen even maintains a comprehensive list of everything the enviroleft has tried to blame on global warming including: Atlantic ocean less salty, Atlantic ocean more salty, Earth slowing down, Earth spinning faster, fish bigger, fish shrinking, and (most importantly) beer better, beer worse."
I think his post highlights the issue that many people have with global warming mania; is the Earth heating up, possibly.  Are humans causing it, maybe.  But the bottom line is that we are operating off of only 100 years of reliable data for a planet that has existed for 5 billion and has seen at least five ice epochs.  
Now I'm not saying that reducing our carbon footprint doesn't have benefits for the environment...I just wonder about the hype, and the desire some scientists have to bend the data to prove global warming.

Heritage Foundation Analysis of 2009 Federal Budget.

Greg Boone, an alert reader out in California posted this analysis of the Federal Budget from the Heritage Foundation.  It covers all aspects of Federal spending including revenues and entitlements, and gives an impact analysis of both the stimulus and the President's new spending proposals.  Although the Heritage Foundation tends to lean towards fiscal conservatism, the analysis seems balanced and spot on.  I'm interested in other's opinions.

Gays in the Military? Damage to Morale? Hmmmmmm....

Supporters of the "don't ask don't tell" policy often point to unit cohesion and morale as a sufficient reason to continue the ban against gays and lesbians serving openly in the military.  Steve Chapman, an editorial writer for the Chicago Tribune, thinks the cohesion and morale argument is at best a red herring.  Countries that have repealed their bans do not seem to be suffering from a great deal of discipline problems or a lack of unit cohesion, but then again they often do not face the same stresses placed on US Forces.  I agree with Admiral Mike Mullen, it's time to end the ban, but we need to go slow and smart to make the integration work.  Mind you, I do not think homosexuality is moral or correct (I place homosexuality on the same level as alcoholism), nor do I support gay marriage.  I do think gays and lesbians can serve, with honor, without impacting unit effectiveness, as long as privacy for both the straight and gay service members is respected.

Labeling the Political Spectrum: What is Left and Right? Who is a Conservative or a Liberal?

What does it mean to be on the left or the right of the political spectrum? Why are liberals on the left and conservatives on the right? Where did these definitions originate?

The political use of the terms right and left refer to the seating arrangements of the various law making bodies that existed during the early days of the French Revolution (1789-1796). The representatives of the aristocracy would sit in the seat of honor to the right of the parliamentary speaker, and representatives of the people to the left. Consequently those that were associated with protecting and supporting the old order, namely the monarchy and the church, were labeled right wing. Those agitating for a larger commoner voice in government, less influence of the church in social affairs and for more civil liberties were labeled as left wing.

So now we are stuck with labels that no longer adequately describe a political environment that has evolved by two hundred years. An environment economic evolution has become just as important as social revolution. Are communists really on the opposite ends of the spectrum from fascists or are they more similar than dissimilar? Is America a democracy or a republic?

I have my own opinions, but before I share, I think it would be interesting to look at two other political spectrums that are useful for classifying political ideology. The first is based on the research of Hans Eysenck, a German born Psychologist who tried to understand the similarities between Nazism and Communism. Called the “The Political Compass”, it splits political thought into two dimensions; an economic dimension and a social dimension, and attempts to measure the level of conservatism along each dimension. Interestingly, it show both Stalin and Hitler’s governments to be socially authoritarian, and only moderately different economically, with Hitler’s government allowing more economic freedom. The politicalcompass.org has a 10 minute quiz that can give you an idea on where you stand on this political spectrum.

A different point of view is the Nolan Chart which splits the two axes into degrees of economic freedom and individual freedom. Most Americans would probably identify with the point of views labeled in this chart. The World’s Smallest Political Quiz can give you a good indication on where you stand politically on the Nolan Chart. Famous Science Fiction writer, Jerry Pournelle, has a good modification to the Nolan Chart that you may find interesting.

Ultimately, we need to recognize that these are labels meant to identify where people’s equities lay, not philosophical walls meant to prevent ideological penetration. A social conservative may find that he or she is actually very economically liberal and may have more in common with a social liberal than previously thought. But we can’t make these discoveries until we get past these labels, and we hold up the development of real solutions when we cannot find common ground where all sides of the political spectrum can cooperate.

Interested in your representative in congress’ political views?  Take a look at where his or her voting record in congress places them in the political spectrum. This is based on the views of what left and right are typically considered, i.e. lying both economic and social spectrums next to each other, and the number of bills sponsored or co-sponsored in congress.

Yeouch!  I guess the hero worship is just about over.  Time to get to work and get this country out of the mess that's been made.  I wish the best for you Mr. President, but the over hype always concerned me a bit.

Can Government Spending Help Grow the Economy

I wonder, is President Obama's Budget really going to help the economy?  Friedman and Keynes are at odds on what effect government spending, specifically deficit spending, has on a nation's economy.  Keynes says you have got to increase consumption by increasing government spending.  This in effect puts more money back into the economy, especially when industries are not investing.  Friedman says that governments only get money one of two ways, by taxing or by borrowing.  In both cases he government crowds out investing by taking money that might have been legitimately invested in the economy and redistributing it to other economic sectors (i.e. borrowing money that would have been invested in buying factory equipment and providing it as a tax incentive to build roads).

I say there is a balance; government consumption can be used to help jump start an economy, but only if it leads to actual job creation.  President Obama's Budget seems to be trying to meet that mix, but the question is will it survive the pork barrel process of Congress.

Keynes vs Friedman: Why Governments Can't Spend Their Way Out of A Recession.

I always thought that John Maynard Keynes was right, that the when investment's contract during a recession or depression government needs to step in and increase consumption.  The following article, Why Government Spending Does Not Stimulate Economic Growth, talks about some of the fallicies of Keynesian Economics.  It had its time and place, but I think the moneterists lead by Milton Friedman have a more complete view on the role of government in managing economic fiscal policy.