Minor Thoughts from me to you

Mississippi governor Haley Barbour wants to run for President. As governor, he's supported farm subsidies, corporate welfare, and eminent domain abuse. Why would I want to vote for him, exactly?

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I took a lot of heat after my last post, Are Teacher's Overpaid?. That's okay. I'm used to it. Let me quickly reiterate my main point from that post: I have no idea idea whether or not teachers are overpaid. Without a functioning marketplace for teachers and employers, it's impossible to know if teachers are overpaid or underpaid. What we really need in education is more information. And only a switch away from a monopoly educational system will give us that. We can start arguing over pay after we get a market.

I was told that, given the hours teachers work and the bureaucracy teachers deal with, it's only common sense that teachers are underpaid. I was told that I didn't need a market to tell me what any teacher could tell me. I was told that teachers take the jobs they do because they don't have any choice and they endure horrific working conditions because they truly believe in education.

Well, most jobs are crappy in some degree or another — just ask the poor sucker actually working the job. By that logic, should everyone get an awesome salary and gold-plated benefits? Who decides whose job is suckier, to merit awesomer pay? This is why you need a market, to settle those questions openly. And, of course teachers will tell you that they're underpaid. How many people really, honestly, say "Nope. I'm well paid. Give my raise to someone else" or "Nope. I'm overpaid. Want 5% back this year? It really wasn't my best effort, you know."

If teachers were as underpaid as they constantly claim, they'd leave for a different job. Period. They do have choices. Every teacher I've ever met has the smarts and skills to succeed in a different field, if they wanted to. They're not trapped in a job that they're being forced to work in. They're not slaves. They can leave anytime they want.

Don't misunderstand me here. I am saying teachers are whiners. I'm not saying that teachers are the only employees that whine about working conditions. I'm saying that every worker in every industry is a whiner. Even in my industry. Especially in my industry. I've been part of after-work bull sessions where we all gripe about how unfair we have it and how we're being worked like Mike Vick's dogs. We whine. And yet we still like our jobs enough to go back and do it with a mostly cheerful heart. Whining proves nothing. Actions prove words.

Actions like quitting. That's serious. If enough teachers leave, schools will have to offer wages sufficiently high enough to entice the teachers back. Salaries and benefits will rise. That's exactly the way it works in any other sector of the economy.

I've been accused of listening to someone cry "Fire!" from a burning building and merely responding with a callous "Move somewhere else!". I've been accused of telling teachers to just "Shut up and teach". But neither accusation is true.

The implication is that if I hear a shout of "Fire!", I should immediately spring into action. I disagree with that. If someone is shouting "Fire!", I'd first look to see if there was, in fact, a fire. If there wasn't, I'd shrug and move on. Performance art, or something, you know? You would too, unless you wanted to join in the art performance.

I also don't think teachers should just "Shut up and teach". I fully believe in the right of any worker to quit any job that he or she thinks is unjust or unfair. I fully support the right of every worker to quit a job and move to another job that has better pay, better benefits, a better work environment, more job satisfaction, or that's just more convenient.

Teachers and other public employees should have exactly the same rights as any other employee in any other sector of the economy. No one is chaining them to their desks, forcing them to work. No once is "forcing them to bend over and take it in the ass". They can leave. The same way I can leave my job, if my benefits and salary get slashed below a level I'm willing to accept.

When 40% of teachers start walking off of the job for good, I'll gladly admit that they're underpaid and start working to figure out what pay and benefit package they do want. But they're not doing that.

Sadly, most teachers have only themselves to blame for the fact that their education work choices are limited to the government or the government. Through the unions, they constantly fight any attempt whatsoever to end government monopoly control of education. They scream to the high heavens whenever someone talks about introducing multiple employers into the education world (through Charter schools, voucher schools, or through increased scholarships to privates schools). Then they scream to the high heavens when that one employer (the local School District or the State) talks about doing something they don't like. It's short sighted.

There are no other employers to compare the government to, to help decide whether or not teachers are being abused. That's why teachers need a market with more than one employer. A market where they would actually have multiple businesses competing to hire them. Then they could have a choice of employers, pay packages, benefits, etc.

I'm perfectly willing to pay teachers more. I'm eager to pay great teachers a lot more. But, before I do, I want proof that the extra money is actually needed. Especially since that money comes out of my property taxes each and every year. If there were more employers, if teachers supported ending the employer monopoly, there would be proof. They could say "Hey, pay me more or I walk across the street to accept a job that pays 10% more and gives me a TA to help with the workload".

And, you bet anything you want, I'll send my kids to the schools that gives teachers a nice pay/benefits package and has happy teachers teaching good classes. Absolutely I would. I'm a Mac user for Pete's sake. I've bought 3 Toyota's in a row. I hardly ever pick the cheapest option when I'm looking to buy something new. I buy quality. I've always bought quality and I'm completely willing to pay for it.

I'm talking favorably about taking away some power from a union — not from teachers themselves — that has tried to block every single major reform proposal set forth over the last 30 years. Charter schools. Voucher schools. Virtual (online) schools. Teacher merit pay. Teacher quality rankings. Alternative routes for teacher certification. Every. Single. One.

The union does not want quality. It wants higher pay for teacher's doing the exact same thing thing that they've always done. It won't allow progress. It won't allow change of any kind. It just wants me to fork over more money for salaries year after year.

Again. Teachers are complaining because the monopoly employer is offering a pay package that they think sucks. And everytime someone proposes ending the monopoly employer and giving teachers a choice of employers with a choice of pay packages, they throw a temper tantrum and demonize the person who suggested doing so.

I've wanted teachers to have a choice of employers for 15 years. I've wanted schools, that have less bureaucracy and better working conditions, to have a chance to thrive. I've wanted schools where parents can have more of say in policies and where parents and teachers can have better working relations.

Who's really being unreasonable here?

Are teachers underpaid or overpaid? I have absolutely no idea. And, let's face it, you don't really know either. No one can. Without a market to create information, no one can possibly know how much money a teacher is worth.

Markets create information through the process of hundreds or thousands of individuals bidding for jobs. As each individual looks for a job, she or he generates information about what salary they'd love, what they'd like, what they're willing to accept, what they'll grudgingly accept, and what they won't accept under any conditions.

Markets also create information through the process of hundreds or thousands of businesses bidding for employees. As each employer looks for employees, it generates information about what salary they'd love to pay, what they'd like to pay, what they're willing to pay to get the teacher they really want, what they'll reluctantly pay if they have to, and what they won't pay under any circumstances.

This two-way flow of information allows people to quickly see how much a particular job is worth and how much a particular employee is worth. This information can't be created any other way. Only through a market.

Education, for the most part, lacks this market. Somewhere around 85% of all students attend public schools. (10% attend private schools and 5% are homeschooled.) Public schools are a government run, monopoly provider. If you are a teacher, there aren't really a lot of options about which employer you'll work for. You can, to some extent, pick which district you'll work for, but most of the districts tend to have similar benefits and pay packages. So, there's not much (any?) competition among employers, for employees.

School districts face a similar problem. The huge, vast, overwhelming number of teachers in the U.S. are unionized. Every teacher gets the exact same employment package, working under the exact same rules. There is little competition, among teachers, for the best job.

Without competition and choce, there is no information. Without information there is no knowledge. How much is a teacher worth, in salary? No one knows. Teachers have never truly competed for the top jobs and school districts have never really competed for the top teachers.

Teachers today could be vastly overpaid and in need of severe pay cuts. Or teachers today could be vastly underpaid and in need of massive raises. Until there's true competition in the labor market, we'll never know which is true.

Oh, government. There you go again, making life miserable for everyone.

The CPSC's Defective New Complaints Database:

We are told constantly that government can play a beneficial role in the marketplace by taking steps to make sure consumers are more fully informed about the risks of the goods and services they use. But what happens when the government itself helps spread health and safety information that is false or misleading? That question came up recently in the controversy over New York City's misleading nutrition-scare ad campaign, and it now comes up again in a controversy over a new database of complaints about consumer products sponsored by the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).

As part of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA), Congress mandated that the CPSC create a "publicly available consumer product safety information database" compiling consumer complaints about the safety of products. Last week, by a 3-2 majority, the commission voted to adopt regulations that have dismayed many in the business community by ensuring that the database will needlessly include a wide range of secondhand, false, unfounded or tactical reports. The Washington Times editorializes:

... [Under the regulations as adopted last week] anybody who wants to trash a product, for whatever reason, can do so. The commission can leave a complaint on the database indefinitely without investigating its merits "even if a manufacturer has already provided evidence the claim is inaccurate," as noted by Carter Wood of the National Association of Manufacturers' "Shopfloor" blog ...

Trial lawyers pushing class-action suits could gin up hundreds of anonymous complaints, then point the jurors to those complaints at the "official" CPSC website as [support for] their theories that a product in question caused vast harm. "The agency does not appear to be concerned about fairness and does not care that unfounded complaints could damage the reputation of a company," said [Commissioner Nancy] Nord.

This law was, let us remember, passed before President Bush left office. It was atrocious then, it remains atrocious now. I hold to my main political theme: whenever government gets involved, things get worse.

We have to cut spending, so that we can stop borrowing, so that we can start paying down our existing debt. Why? Well, if we don't, the interest payments on our debt will soon be the only thing left in our budget.

Is this fear mongering? No, that's actually the best case scenario.

Thanks to the Mercatus Institute and Veronique de Rugy for this info.

Michael Lewis writes about Greece, a collectivist nightmare:

The Greek state was not just corrupt but also corrupting. Once you saw how it worked you could understand a phenomenon which otherwise made no sense at all: the difficulty Greek people have saying a kind word about one another. Individual Greeks are delightful: funny, warm, smart, and good company. I left two dozen interviews saying to myself, "What great people!" They do not share the sentiment about one another: the hardest thing to do in Greece is to get one Greek to compliment another behind his back. No success of any kind is regarded without suspicion. Everyone is pretty sure everyone is cheating on his taxes, or bribing politicians, or taking bribes, or lying about the value of his real estate. And this total absence of faith in one another is self-reinforcing. The epidemic of lying and cheating and stealing makes any sort of civic life impossible; the collapse of civic life only encourages more lying, cheating, and stealing. Lacking faith in one another, they fall back on themselves and their families.

The structure of the Greek economy is collectivist, but the country, in spirit, is the opposite of a collective. Its real structure is every man for himself. Into this system investors had poured hundreds of billions of dollars. And the credit boom had pushed the country over the edge, into total moral collapse.

Contrast this to capitalism. When I see a well-off American, I can be reasonably sure that he got where he is through hard-work, thrift, and good luck. The vast majority of people in this land of cowboy capitalism are not cheating on their taxes, bribing the government, or lying.

Which society would you prefer to live in?

(Link and title idea from Russ Roberts.)

Kay S. Hymowitz wrote about the fragile family effect, 3 weeks ago.

One of the study's most surprising initial findings was that the large majority - 80 percent - of poor, unmarried couples were romantically involved at the time of their child's birth. In fact, 50 percent of the couples were living together. Fathers almost always visited the mothers and children in the hospital and usually provided financial support. Even better, most of these new parents said that there was a 50-50 chance that they would eventually marry each other. They spoke highly of their partners' commitment to their children and of their supportiveness.

But within five years, a tiny 15 percent of the unmarried couples had taken wedding vows, while 60 percent had split up. At the five-year mark, only 36 percent of the children lived with their fathers, and half of the other 64 percent hadn't seen their dads in the last month. One-half to two-thirds of the absent fathers provided little or no financial support.

These families -- and society as a whole -- would have been far, far, far better off had these parents stayed together, instead of splitting up.

I don't know the full story of why 85% of the unmarried parents parted ways. But I can speculate as to one cause. Is it possible, is it conceivable, that welfare and broad societal support for "single mothers" is making mom feel comfortable about life without dad? Is it possible that welfare is making Dad feel okay about walking out on Mom?

I can only speculate but it would seem that Dad doesn't have to deal with the guilt of leaving Mom penniless and unsupported if he knows that Mom can register at the welfare office. And Mom doesn't have to worry about the implications of life without Dad if she knows that she can get a monthly support check with or without him.

I think it's a question worth asking. Is our compassion towards single moms leading us into a policy that creates more single moms and more "fragile" (broken) families?

It turns out that the life insurance industry loves the estate tax.

The life insurance industry's lobbying presence in D.C. is huge - larger than almost any other industry sector. According to the report, life insurers spent $10 million per month on lobbying in the first half of 2010. Only the pharmaceutical, electric utilities and oil and gas sectors, the heaviest of heavy hitters, spent more.

Life insurers spent more on lobbying than even bankers and health insurers.

One of the most outspoken voices urging a higher estate tax, Warren Buffet, owns six life insurance companies, the report says.

The report was produced by the American Family Business Foundation, an ardent opponent of the estate tax, and written in part by Tim Carney, a senior political columnist at the Washington Examiner.

It's really not hard to understand why the life insurance companies would love the estate tax. Most wealthy people don't have banks and mattresses stuffed full of money. They own expensive assets: businesses, houses, artwork, the Yankees, the Cowboys, etc. When they die, and their estate is suddenly taxed at 55%, the heirs are left with unpalatable choices. Do you sell the Yankees, to pay the tax man?

In steps the helpful life insurance company. For a hefty annual premium, they can help provide the money to pay the tax man, without needing to sell cherished family assets. If the estate tax goes, how many of these wealthy individuals will need life insurance? None, probably. Poof. There goes 10% of the industry's revenues.

Fight "the man". Fight oligarchic "capitalism". Fight crony capitalism. Fight the estate tax.

Ken Pierce points to this satire of President Obama as an example of why he likes Sarah Palin.

I agree. There are many things not to like about Governor Palin. Her sense of humor isn't one of them. He also points out a great example of President Bush's humor.

Any advice for parents of teens? "Look them in the eye and say, 'I love you and there's nothing you can do to make me stop loving you. (pause) So, stop trying!'"

As I was reading President Bush's memoir, I was reminded that I do like his sense of humor and his personality. It was just his policies that I mostly disliked.

Last Tuesday, the Senate passed a food safety bill. The House is expected to pass it easily and the President plans to sign it.

They shouldn't. It's a bad bill.

One of the biggest problems with food safety is that different agencies are responsible for different parts of the food supply.

In the case of the Wright County Egg salmonella outbreak which resulted in the recall of half a billion eggs earlier this year, the USDA was aware of problems such as dirt and mold in the Iowa facility. But the USDA did not notify the FDA, which has overall authority.

Moreover, the regulatory responsibilities often overlap, leaving agencies unsure who is in charge of what. As an example, Coburn pointed to frozen pizza:

Do my colleagues realize right now when we buy a pizza at the grocery store, if you buy a cheese pizza it comes through the FDA, but if you buy a pepperoni pizza, it gets approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture? How many people in America think that makes sense?

This bill does nothing to change that. It should be rejected on that basis alone.

Second, food safety just isn't that big of a problem.

Indeed, according to the Centers for Disease Control, no more than three-thousandths of one percent of food-borne illnesses are fatal in the United States.

Senator Tom Coburn remarked on that as well.

We could spend $100 billion additionally every year and not make food absolutely safe. There are diminishing returns to the dollars we spend. But if you look at what the case is: In 1996, for every 100,000 people in this country, we had 51.2 cases of food-borne illness -- the best in the world, by far. Nobody comes close to us in terms of the safety of our food . But, in 2009, we only had 34.8 cases -- three times better than anybody else in the world. So the question has to be asked: Why are we doing this now when, in fact, we are on a trendline to markedly decrease it?

Third, this bill will be expensive.

The legislation will cost $1.4 billion over 5 years. This cost does not include an additional $230 million in expenditures that are directly offset by fees collected for those activities (re-inspections, mandatory recalls, etc.). The total cost of the bill is over $1.6 billion over 5 years. Of these costs, $335 million are for non-FDA programs - the food allergy grant program, implementation grants to assist producers, assistance grants to states and Indian Tribes.

Fourth, this bill gives the FDA new powers that it doesn't need and that it will probably abuse.

Most worrisome is the fact the bill as it currently is written would give the FDA the authority to require mandatory recalls of tainted food.

At first blush this seems reasonable, but the current system of voluntary recalls already resulted in a $100 million loss to tomato growers in the U.S. when a salmonella outbreak caused the FDA to recommend a recall. It turned out the problem was not tomatoes but jalapeno peppers, but by the time the real culprit was discovered the damage was already done.

Hart points out that bureaucrats with the power to order recalls would be very likely to jump the gun and order a huge recall before all the facts are in. Worse, it would precipitate a fight between the industry and regulators, who currently have a fairly good working relationship.

Coburn noted in his address that inspectors do not need the authority to order recalls

Why don't they need that authority? Because if you have a problem with your product in the food system in this country, you are going to get sued. You are going to get fined if you do not recall that product.

"You're going to see (inspectors) pull the trigger prematurely," Hart said, noting bureaucrats tend to be more worried about doing what's safe in terms of their jobs rather than what's right.

This is a bad bill. Rather than modernizing the food safety responsibilities of the federal government, it leaves authority split between more than 30 different agencies. It directly raises costs to small farms and producers. It gives the FDA a large incentive to order damaging recalls with no incentive to protect farmers from hysteria. Finally, it just isn't needed. America's food supply is already the safest in the world. Spending more money won't create any noticeable increase in food safety, only an increase in the price of our food.

For the good of the nation, the House should reject this flawed bill and President Obama should refuse to sign it.

(Note: The House was originally expected to pass the bill easily but now may not be able to, as the bill infringes on the House's constitutional rights. The Constitution states that all bills for raising revenue must originate in the House. This bill raises revenue and originated in the Senate. Oops.)

Everyone is discussing tax cuts -- and tax hikes -- right now. The prevailing opinion seems to be that the tax cuts for "the rich" (defined as anyone making more than $500,000 a year) have to go.

The problem, as I see it, is that the income tax rate essentially doesn't matter. Income tax revenues (the actual amount of money collected) have stayed flat over the last 50 years even as income tax rates have fluctuated wildly.

Cutting taxes for the rich hasn't led to a massive drop in tax revenues. When Bill Clinton left office, in 2000, income taxes made up 12% of GDP. In 2008, income taxes made up 10% of GDP. As a percentage of GDP, the Bush tax cuts led to a very small drop in tax revenue. In actual dollar terms, the Bush tax cuts didn't create any drop in tax revenues. In 2000, the government collected $1.5 trillion of incomes taxes. In 2008, the government collected $1.8 trillion of income taxes.

In fact, federal government revenues have more than tripled since 1965.

Note the uptick in federal revenue starting in 2004, after the Bush tax cuts were passed. Taxes as a percentage of GDP stayed relatively constant (or fell slightly) even as tax revenues were increasing dramatically. That's because the economy started growing as soon as the tax rates were cut. People paid more in taxes even as their tax rates fell. From a government's perspective, that looks pretty good to me. You could argue that the growth is coincidental to the tax rates. (I don't believe that but you could choose to argue that.) But I don't see how you can argue that the tax cuts actually cut federal revenues or hurt the economy.

The real problem with the federal budget isn't tax cuts it's spending. We don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem. In 2000, the federal government spent $3.2 trillion. In 2008, the federal government spent $5.3 trillion. In eight years, federal spending increased by an incredible 65%. Why do we even have anyone arguing that the government needs even more money? Does the government do everything so efficiently that there is no fat anywhere in the federal budget? When was the last time you saw legislators seriously looking for money to cut out of the budget instead of looking for more ways to tax citizens? When was the last time you saw a government agency get its budget truly cut instead of just getting a cut in the rate of increase?

Income tax rates aren't the problem. Government spending is the problem. Until we start talking seriously about cutting spending, we won't make any progress on cutting the federal deficit and the federal debt.

If you want some ideas about what spending to cut, I'd start with Downsizing the Federal Government.

(Numbers from US Government Revenue and the Heritage Foundation.)

It's popular these days to say that "you can't legislate morality". I've even said it a time or two myself. But is it true?

I read an article a couple of days ago that challenged my thinking on that question: Why We Can't Help But Legislate Morality. In it, Micah Watson argues that morality underlies every law that's passed.

It is of course true that some laws will be better conceived than others, and many may fail entirely to achieve their purpose. But that they have a purpose, and that the purpose includes at least an implicit moral element, is incontrovertible. One need only ask of any law or action of government, "What is the law for?" The answer at some point will include a conception of what is good for the community in which the law holds. The inversion of the question makes the point even more clearly. What would provide a rationale for a law or governmental action apart from a moral purpose?

...

Of course, some choices will fall within the discretion of a polity's citizens. Not every decision has profound moral consequences. But even drawing the line between morally innocent choices and morally culpable choices demonstrates our moral understanding. Abraham Lincoln made this clear in his debates with Stephen Douglas when he noted that Douglas' professed ambivalence about whether states voted for or against slavery showed that he did not think slavery belonged in that category of actions that are truly morally wrong. If you don't care which way a state votes on slavery, then you clearly don't view it as a horrendous moral evil. Rather, you treat it like a state lottery: it is fine if the people want it and vote for it, and it is fine if they don't.

The logic of morals, then, means that there can be no right to do a wrong. Built into the notion of wrong is the corresponding truth that an authority is right to punish perpetrators of the wrong. The idea that government can act as a neutral arbitrator between competing notions of the good life is ultimately incoherent because the idea itself promotes an underlying conception that this arrangement will lead to the best state of affairs.

Every one acts on their understanding of what is moral -- what is best for society. People advocate for higher or lower taxes because of a belief that the rich either need to bear more of the burden or that people are entitled to keep what they've created. People advocate for more or less international trade because they either believe that it's more moral to buy from others no matter where they're located or they believe that it's more moral to buy from your own countrymen. Morality underlies all laws.

The true question is not whether or not a law is legislating morality. The true question is whether that moral issue is critical enough to justify creating a law against it.

Obamacare represents the biggest expansion of taxpayer-funded abortion in American history.

Thankfully John Boehner, our probable next Speaker of the House, is one of the most pro-life people in Washington. Boehner would like to pass a bill "to codify the Hyde amendment ... which would prohibit all taxpayer funding of abortion across the board." I hope he's successful.

Thanks Z, for the link to this video.

Don Boudreaux talks about the two ways to be 'pro-business':

There are two ways for a government to be 'pro-business.' The first way is to avoid interfering in capitalist acts among consenting adults - that is, to keep taxes low, regulations few, and subsidies non-existent. This 'pro-business' stance promotes widespread prosperity because in reality it isn't so much pro-business as it is pro-consumer. When this way is pursued, businesses are rewarded for pleasing consumers, and only for pleasing consumers.

The second, and very different, way for government to be pro-business is to bestow favors and privileges on politically connected firms. These favors and privileges, such as tariffs and export subsidies, invariably oblige consumers to pay more - either directly in the form of higher prices, or indirectly in the form of higher taxes - for goods and services. This way of being pro-business reduces the nation's prosperity by relieving businesses of the need to satisfy consumers. When this second way is pursued, businesses are rewarded for pleasing politicians. Competition for consumers' dollars is replaced by competition for political favors.

Just for the record, I believe in the first kind of pro-business policies. I'm adamantly, vehemently opposed to anything that involves tariffs, subsidies, or special incentives. Businesses should rise and fall based on only two factors: how happy they make their customers and how well they do at predicting the future and planning accordingly. Businesses shouldn't be succeeding or failing on any other basis.

Obamacare delenda est

Richard Hannon, an executive for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona, wrote an opinion editorial for the Wall Street Journal yesterday. In How Medicare Killed the Family Doctor he talked about how Medicare's costs exploded between 1965 (when it was created) and 1990. In 1966, the Medicare budget was a mere $3 billion. At that time, the House Ways and Means Committee estimated that the budget would grow to only $12 billion by 1990. Instead, it was $107 billion by 1990.

To fix the cost problem, Medicare in 1992 began using the "resource based relative value system" (RBRVS), a way of evaluating doctors based on factors such as education, effort and specialized training. But the system didn't consider factors such as outcomes, quality of service, severity or demand.

Today most insurance companies use the Medicare RBRVS because it is perceived as objective. As a result of RBRVS, specialists--especially those who perform a lot of procedures--do extremely well. Primary-care doctors do not.

In short, this is one of the major problems of a third-party payment system. Doctors aren't evaluated and paid by patients based on how good they are, how popular they are, or how effective they are. Instead, someone other than the patient judges a doctor's value and pays him according to a strict pay scale. Doctors have little to no ability to raise or lower prices or to set one price for a bundle of services.

This third party payment system sharply limits the way doctors can compete for patients or appeal to patients for business. It also sharply limits the ability of the patient to reward the doctor for good service or punish the doctor for poor service. When that kind of feedback is eliminated, is it any wonder that we spend more time waiting in clinic waiting rooms than we do actually seeing the doctor? Or that the doctor can often seem more interested in hustling us out the door instead of listening to our medical history?

Our doctors do not work for us, they work for the insurance companies. And that's a big problem with third-party payment for medical care.

Obamacare delenda est

If you hanker for a more civilized era in politics, this snappy video will give you what you're looking for.

For more on this, check out a Minor Thoughts favorite: Scandalmonger. (Though I have no idea why the paperback edition is $11.90 and the Kindle edition is $17.99. It's sheer highway robbery, if you ask me.)

How Many 'Flood' Synonyms Do You Know?

Well, given the fit of pique being thrown by most political reporters, the thesaurus isn't adequate to describe the sums of money being spent this election cycle. Four billion dollars? Yes, it is a lot, but consider the stakes. Here's another interesting number: $414 billion -- the interest the Treasury paid on our national debt this year. Worried about foreign money? Try that on for size.

Allison Hayward is the vice president of policy at the Center for Competitive Politics, a nonpartisan, nonprofit group dedicated to protecting First Amendment political rights.

I'm no fan of President Obama. But I believe I have good reason for disliking him.

For instance, take the appointment of Dr. Don Berwick to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Dr. Berwick was nominated for the post just a few months ago, back in April. Yesterday, the President decided to bypass the Senate entirely and just give him the job through a recess appointment. Why? Well, the White House Communications Director made the President's position quite clear:

Many Republicans in Congress have made it clear in recent weeks that they were going to stall the nomination as long as they could, solely to score political points.

Yes, it was all the fault of those evil and nasty Senate Republicans, the source of all evil in this country. Now, that may very well be true. Most Senate Republicans are rather spineless, greedy, and craven. But, as the Senate Republican Policy Committee pointed out, they never even got a chance to stall, prevaricate, or vacillate.

In this context, it's worth pointing out that Democrats never called a hearing on Dr. Berwick's nomination. Republicans have no ability to "stall the nomination" in committee - and nothing prevented the majority from calling a hearing, or voting to report the nomination out of committee. They chose to do neither.

In fact, they were quite eager to have a conversation about the importance of the post and the merits of the nominee.

Second, CMS is one of the largest agencies in the federal government. This fiscal year, it will disburse $803 billion in benefits - making CMS larger than all but 15 of the world's economies. And of course, its responsibilities will only grow under the health care law, as the CMS Administrator will be responsible for implementing more than $500 billion in savings from the Medicare program, and an unprecedented expansion of Medicaid as well. Yet both Republicans and Democrats will be denied any opportunity to question Dr. Berwick about how he plans to implement the law, and manage CMS, because the President decided to make a recess appointment before the confirmation process began in earnest.

This recess appointment is more about our President's moral cowardice than it is about the Republican's moral cowardice. Dr. Berwick, together with the President, is a proponent of some ideas that a majority of Americans don't like.

Dr. Donald Berwick has been awaiting a nomination hearing in Congress since Mr. Obama tapped him for the post in April. Since then, Republicans have attacked the Harvard professor and health policy expert for making favorable statements about Britain's government-run health system and for endorsing certain health spending cuts.

Democrats have been concerned that Dr. Berwick's confirmation hearing would be a bruising battle. Republicans indicated they would use the hearing to revive their arguments that the health-overhaul law will lead to a government takeover of the health system.

ABC reported that Republicans were rather looking forward to this nominating hearing.

But Republicans were not delaying or stalling Berwick's nomination.

Indeed, they were eager for his hearing, hoping to assail Berwick's past statements about health care rationing and his praise for the British health care system.

"The nomination hasn't been held up by Republicans in Congress and to say otherwise is misleading," said Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, which would have held Berwick's hearing.

Grassley said that he "requested that a hearing take place two weeks ago, before this recess."

Berwick's nomination was sent to the Senate in April, and his hearing had not been scheduled because he was participating in the "standard vetting process," a Democratic aide on the Senate Finance Committee told ABC News.

But speaking not for attribution, Democratic officials say that neither Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., nor Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., the chair of the Senate Finance Committee, were eager for an ugly confirmation fight four months before the midterm elections.

Even the New York Times managed to notice that something wasn't quite right.

The recess appointment was somewhat unusual because the Senate is in recess for less than two weeks and senators were still waiting for Dr. Berwick to submit responses to some of their requests for information. No confirmation hearing has been held or scheduled.

The holding and scheduling of confirmation hearings is at the discreation of the Senate majority. Democrats have a 59-41 advantage in the Senate. If they truly wanted to, they would have no problem scheduling a hearing, voting the nominee out of committee and then approving the nominee with a full Senate vote. Senate Republicans would have had little real opportunity to stop the process.

Instead, the President and Senate leadership ignored their Constitutional duties out of fear of the American public. They were afraid of political fallout from letting the American public watch the hearings and see what their nominee really believed -- what the President really believes. This isn't a mark of a great leader. It's the mark of a political coward. And it's just one of the many reasons why I don't like President Obama.

I just heard about this today, courtesy of PJTV (the May 26, 2010 episode, "Euro-Style Liberalism Leads to Euro-Style Violence").

Three die in bank during Greek riots - USATODAY.com

Riots over harsh new austerity measures left three bank workers dead and engulfed the streets of Athens on Wednesday [May 5, 2010], as angry protesters tried to storm parliament, hurled Molotov cocktails at police and torched buildings. Police responded with barrages of tear gas.

The three bank workers a man and two women died after demonstrators set their bank on fire along the main demonstration route in central Athens. As their colleagues sobbed in the street, five other bank workers were rescued from the balcony of the burning building.

A senior fire department official said demonstrators prevented firefighters from reaching the burning building, costing them vital time.

"Several crucial minutes were lost," the official said, visibly upset. "If we had intervened earlier, the loss of life could have been prevented."

Demonstrators set a bank on fire, trapping 3 people inside, and then prevented fire fighters from getting to the people to either release them or put out the fire before they burned to death.

This is absolutely unaccceptable. It's mob rule. Mobs cannot be allowed to firebomb buildings and then prevent the fire department from reaching the building. The solution: the next time it happens, give the police the authority to fire into the crowd to disperse it. With real bullets, not rubber bullets.

I almost wish I lived in New Jersey. (Almost.) I'd like to vote for this guy.