Invest in Yourself

Posted on 2010-01-05 by David

photo credit: Cambodia Trust

I drove in to work later than usual today and caught a bit of Glenn Beck. Like many conservative talk radio hosts I have heard he was promoting the value of gold as an investment. What caught my attention was the way he started out. I’m going to paraphrase here but essentially he started out by saying:

I don’t know what the future holds for this nation, nobody does. I don’t know what you should be investing in right now.

My immediate reaction was to say to myself that I know exactly what the vast majority of people should be investing in right now – they should each invest in themselves. To his credit Glenn said that gold was not the right investment for everyone and suggested that before investing in gold people should invest in food storage, paying down debt, and having some cash reserves. I think that’s a great start but investing in yourself is more than that.

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New Year’s Resolution

Posted on 2010-01-04 by David

My New Year’s resolution for this election year is to be elected as a GOP state delegate in my neighborhood caucus meeting in March. It’s amazing to think that it’s only a few weeks away now. I can’t wait to see what all the candidates will have to send me as they try to win my vote at the state convention. I’ll happily try to be selected as a county GOP delegate  as well, but if I had to choose one I would prefer to be a state delegate.

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Public to Private is a One Way Economic Street

Posted on 2009-12-31 by David

photo credit: taberandrew

A post entitled The New Robber Barons got me thinking about what happens when public and private enterprises compete in a marketplace. Thinking about that led to some interesting observations. The first of which is that progressives are right in their assertion that public and private enterprises can compete without eradicating each other. The problem is that the progressives don’t seem to recognize that this only works in limited cases. They like to point to the post office as an example – let’s go explore that.

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Term Limits in a Nutshell

Posted on 2009-12-30 by David

I read what must be the most succinct summary of the term limit debate over at Utah Policy. LaVarr Webb said:

I am a big fan of congressional term limits if they are applied across the board. It would be foolish, however, for Utah to unilaterally impose term limits.

As long as power in Congress is amassed in its most senior members, Utah needs to play that game or be badly disadvantaged.

But term limits for all makes sense.

The response from trgrant:

I don’t agree in a legislated term limit.  There are people you will want to keep in office for longer than a certain term.

I would respond to trgrant by asking a question inspired by someone who had previously opposed term limits. How many hundreds of incumbent get reelected after “a certain term” despite widespread dissatisfaction with their service – now compare that to the number of people who you would really want to keep in after that time. I would bet the benefits of term limits in terms of removing entrenched and undesirable incumbents would outweigh the loss of established and desirable incumbents by at least 100 to 1. Besides that, of those who you wish to keep in, how much of the reason for keeping them is based mainly on seniority rather than irreplaceability?

To LaVarr Webb I would ask – if Congressional term limits are good, why not set the example by imposing term limits at the state legislature so that voters can begin to see the benefit locally and have more inclination to implement it federally.

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A Bit Late But Welcome to 1984

Posted on 2009-12-29 by David

I wanted to gag this morning when I heard the suggestion on the Wall Street Journal This Morning that those who needed health care had the option to go on the internet to purchase it. Since when was Viagra, or even Advil, considered health care?

Of course I understand what they meant – those who need health insurance can go on the internet and find more and better options than they might otherwise encounter and we have been repeatedly exposed to the notion that “health insurance is health care.” Admittedly that’s not quite “War is Peace” or “Freedom is Slavery” but January 1 is approaching and by the time it arrives we might just find that we have another 26 years until 2010.

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A Real Christmas Gift

Posted on 2009-12-25 by David

President Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and other congressional leaders among the Democrats hailed the passage of the Senate health “reform” bill as a Christmas gift to the American people. That’s about the equivalent of trying to convince the chief income earner(s) in a home that the real gift of Christmas for them is the increased balance on the credit card (or the reduced balance of their checking and/or saving’s accounts) rather than the presents they got.

In response to the news that the bill had finally passed my wife had a great idea for a real gift that the Senate could give us for Christmas some year (besides repealing that bill). If they have the authority to mandate that we buy insurance that opens up a world of possibilities. First and foremost her suggestion is that they should mandate that everyone in America should get an answering machine. Just imagine and end to:

Ring . . .

Ring . . .

Ring . . .

Ring . . .

Ring . . .

Ring . . .

Ring . . .

Ring . . .

The person you are calling is not available. *click*

I’m quite confident that universal telephone answering machines would have a positive impact on interstate commerce.

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Reid Has a Moment of Sanity

Posted on 2009-12-24 by David

I was very surprised when reading about the results of the Senate vote on health care.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., initially cast a “no” vote.

The explanation we are given is that he was exhausted – which makes sense considering the amount of all-night negotiations and arm-twisting that he has been doing recently.

It reminds me of a friend of mine who grew up in Boston. By the time I knew her she had been out of Boston long enough to lose the accent. one time I called her early enough in the morning that she was still waking up and her natural Boston accent was prominently on display in her voice. When the defenses are down the truth shines through.

I guess it just goes to show that when his defenses are down even Harry Reid knows that this is a horrible piece of legislation.

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It’s Not Too Late to Change Your Mind

Posted on 2009-12-22 by David

Conservatives, for right reasons and wrong reasons, are united in opposition to the current health care reform legislation. Unfortunately many liberals are falling into the trap of “stand by our guys” that already landed us in NCLB, Medicare Part D, and Iraq during the last administration (for which I apologize to all my liberal friends even though I opposed all of those). Of course liberals have little reason to listen to a conservative like me so rather than make my own argument today I’ll share the conclusion from Fire Dog Lake:

The Senate bill isn’t a “starter home,” it’s a sink hole. It needs to die so something else can take its place. It doesn’t matter whether people are on the right or the left — once they understand the con job that’s about to be foist upon them, they agree. That’s why Harry Reid and President Obama are trying to jam it through as fast as they can, before people get wise. So email the list to your friends and family, tweet it and spread the word.

I was going to add my own perspective when I first started reading that, but it is too well done to be condensed. Go read all 10 Reasons to Kill the Senate Bill.

Many people, liberal and conservative, seem ready to give up because the Senate already cleared their first 60-vote hurdle. That’s exactly what Reid and his company of non-representative public officials would love to see. Please don’t give up yet or settle for this poor excuse for reform. We may not agree on all the right directions, but almost everyone who’s paying attention knows that this legislation is not anything close to what we need. Let’s not allow the Senate to pass this just so they and the president can say they passed something – that is simply not a good enough reason.

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Harry Reid the Insomniac

Posted on 2009-12-21 by David

“Senator” Reid must suffer from insomnia to schedule a vote at 1:00 AM on a Monday to torture his fellow members of the Senate as they vote on a bill to torture their constituents throughout America. That is how Harry Reid fits the definition of “insomniac” as a noun.

The definition of “insomniac” as an adjective also fits because his actions will cause a lot of sleepless nights among people who previously believed they had some freedoms left in this country. Even more dangerously, every lawyer and CEO in the health care industry will undoubtedly suffer from insomnia as they try to figure out how to profit from the 2700 page bill that has not even been released online yet as far as I can find (I can only see the “original” 2074 page version of the bill).

I understand the urgency of meeting an artificial deadline on Christmas day for a bill that won’t take effect for another 4 years but I wonder why this could not have waited another 6 or 8 hours until a decent time for a vote. I’m always distrustful of a fast moving legislative body but more than any other rushed vote this move is reminiscent of some other midnight political proceedings that were driven by a desire for power.

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GOP Sheep with No Shepherd

Posted on 2009-12-21 by David

Yet Another Fire Dog Lake post led me to this Progressive Change Campaign Committee poll. My interest in the poll focused on the results of two questions:

Would you favor or oppose a health care bill that does NOT include a public health insurance option and does NOT expand Medicare, but DOES require all Americans to get health insurance?

and

Would you favor or oppose a health care bill that does NOT include a public health insurance option and does NOT expand Medicare and does NOT require all Americans to buy health insurance — but DOES provide significant subsidies to low- and middle-income families to help them buy insurance?

I was specifically interested to compare the Republican responses to these two questions. The first question offers essentially what the health care bill has been boiling down to – a mandate with no public option or alternative. The second offers no mandate, no public option or alternative, but offers subsidies for those who cannot afford insurance. Republican leaders have been fighting against the first option openly without really talking about the second possibility. The results in the republican response are interesting. Those opposed to either option were virtually identical (61% and 60% respectively). Those who were undecided nearly doubled from the first question to the second because they had not been told what to think, had never considered the possibility themselves, and could not think on their feet. Because of that, the number who favored the first question – which is clearly the worst of the two – was 5 points higher than those who favored the second.

This party needs shepherds who know where to lead rather than goats who know only to oppose.

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