Category Archives: Republicans

UPDATED: Why Government ‘Care’ Will Never, Ever Work

Free Markets, Government, Healthcare, Objectivism, Private Property, Republicans

“Why Government ‘Care’ Will Never, Ever Work” is the current column, now on WND. An excerpt:

At every opportunity, Jedediah Bila, a regular among the pig-ignorant panelists paraded on the Fox News and Business channels, parroted Bill O’Reilly’s “not ready for prime time” line. The premise of that fatuity is that given time, Obamacare could be readied for prime time.

A “scandal” bleated another cipher in a skirt—a Republican, naturally—about the error-riddled Obamacare website, when she should have been explaining that HealthCare.gov not working is no more a “scandal” than waste, fraud and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid, perpetrated by program administrators, program recipients, elected and unelected officials alike.

Failure and fraud is business as usual in government.

Liberals are incapable of grasping economic truths. That goes without saying. But why are “conservatives” every bit as dumb about the dynamics in a nationalized enterprise as opposed to the workings of a market society? Republicans appear incapable of articulating why it is that centrally planned systems fail.

The gold standard for stupid is this Republican riff: “Government would work much better if it were run like a business.” It is in violation of the Law of Identity. A is A. Things are what they are. Government is government; it is not business. The task of a rational man, advised Ayn Rand, is to perceive reality, not to create or invent it.

Rep. Fred Upton does Jedediah Bila one better. “Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars [have been] spent for a system that still does not work,” complained the Republican from Michigan.

Wrong. Government spends trillions of taxpayer dollars on systems that don’t work (the military included). That’s what government does by definition; by virtue of being government.

The problem is not so much the 55 contractors involved in designing Barack Obama’s signature Web portal, but the Central Planning Board that selected inept coders—and the kinky incentives to which any federal agency in charge will subject any and all contractors under its control.

The same web developers generally do a great job on each of our personal computers; in other words, when handling private property. If they don’t …

Read the complete column. “Why Government ‘Care’ Will Never, Ever Work” is now on WND.

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UPDATE (10/24): To add to the litany in “Why Government ‘Care’ Will Never, Ever Work,” show me a company in the private sector (which is not the recipient of government handouts) that is shielded from bankruptcy. An audit would reveal that most government departments, the Obamacare bureaucracy included, are insolvent. Yet the fact that the taxpayer is forced to bankroll them indefinitely with tax dollars, immunizes these systems against all forms of accountability, fiscal and other.

You have to be a dimwit to want care from such an establishment.

The Goldberg Variation*

Conservatism, Debt, Neoconservatism, Paleoconservatism, Paleolibertarianism, Republicans

This response, written by National Review’s Jonah Goldberg, arrived in my email In-Box. This is the first time I’ve received a mass mailing from Mr. Goldberg. It would appear that Jonah Goldberg was somewhat exercised about the reactions to his expected flippancy about the tea party’s “quixotic debt-ceiling showdown.”

Although he harps on the responses aimed at him on Twitter, those are not worth a straw. Pat Buchanan’s veiled allusion to Mr. Goldberg’s ilk, on the other hand, is likely a different matter. In “The ‘We Can’t Win’ Wimps Caucus,” Pat writes the following:

“We told you you would lose!” wail the beltway bundlers of the Republican establishment.

“We told you you would lose!” moan neoconservative columnists from their privileged perches on the op-ed pages of the beltway press.

“Look at what Ted Cruz and these tea-party people did to us,” wails the GOP establishment. “Look what has happened to our brand.” And 2014 was looking wonderful.

What a basket of wimps.

My column, of course, mentions names:

Media conservatives and liberals were agreed. The Republican brand, as National Review’s Jonah Goldberg put it, had been damaged by the debt-ceiling standoff.

Chuckie Krauthammer, another phony conservative, concurred. After badmouthing tea-party Republicans for attempting to leverage a partial government shut-down and debt-ceiling deadline to dilute ObamaCare, Krauthammer scolded “the media” for its biased coverage of the quixotic showdown.

Pot. Kettle. Krauthammer

Read “What If The Media Were Moral?” on Economic Policy Journal, the preeminent libertarian website.

*****

* “The Goldberg Variations”: “‘The Goldberg Variations’ is the last of a series of [sublime] keyboard music Bach published under the title of Clavierübung …”

UPDATED: The Senate Sucks, The President Lies: Just Another Day In The USA

Democrats, Healthcare, Intelligence, Republicans, Ron Paul

He made the statement brilliantly. Nevertheless, it is a sad statement Ted Cruz made, to the effect that Congress was “a profile in courage” for attempting to carry out the will of millions of Americans, and roll back the calamitous ObamaCare.

Sen. Cruz is extremely bright, better able to distill politicking into principle than the son of Ron Paul.

WATCH:

UPDATE: Via Newsmax:

Freshman Sen. Ted Cruz, who has led the tea party wing of Republicans in Congress in their effort to defund Obamacare, is an intelligent and principled debater, says his old Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz.

Appearing Tuesday on CNN’s “Piers Morgan Live,” Dershowitz called the Texas Republican “one of the sharpest students I had, in terms of analytic skills. I’ve had 10,000 students over my 50 years at Harvard . . . He has to qualify among the brightest of the students.”

When Obeying Law Becomes a Political Bargaining Chip

Democrats, Healthcare, Law, Republicans

Nothing in the GOP budget proposal are the Democrats willing to accept, except for “one minor change sought by Republicans: setting new procedures to verify the incomes of some people receiving government subsidies for health-insurance costs.” (WSJ)

John Hayward at RedState.com puts this “concession” in context:

One of the “concessions” Democrats are supposedly offering to Republicans is a pledge to obey the parts of ObamaCare that require income verification for those who receive welfare subsidies through the tax code – a requirement they would otherwise feel free to ignore.
… it’s increasingly clear that the powerful feel no compulsion to obey the law. … We’re only talking about a shutdown because the Ruling Class freely disobeys the laws – and they are laws – requiring Congress to prepare a budget for the federal government. The President and his party are fighting to protect ObamaCare, which they never tire of reminding us is the “settled law of the land,” as if that’s supposed to quash all dissent… but they ignore portions of that law as they please. …In return, Democrats demand the repeal of sequestration, the only remaining shred of a law called the Budget Control Act of 2011.
…Many of President Obama’s Shutdown Theater antics have involved violations of the law. …But even as the aristocracy luxuriates in the highest level of power – the ability to not only pass laws, but ignore them – demands for compliance and obedience from the rest of us grow more strident. …

No doubt, the U.S. is mired in moral decay. A question for RedState.com: Where were you lot when Bush was flouting The Law?