No drilling.
No coal.
No nukes.
No fracking.
No oil sands.
No shale oil.
No hydropower where fish swim.
No solar where turtles roam.
No wind where bats and birds fly.
No transmission lines.
And now, no biomass.
Does anybody else see a pattern here?
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Saturday, March 19, 2011
"Enemies of Progress"
What stands as the single biggest obstacle to reinventing government and fiscal sustainability in the United States? The Economist knows.
Monday, March 7, 2011
Legislative Therapy
Too many laws get approved as a form of legislative therapy -- as a way to make politicians feel needed, relevant and better about themselves. Here's one excellent example. Whether or not those new laws make much sense -- if they can be enforced -- is of secondary concern. It's all about feelings: how we feel about them and how they feel about themselves. I'm open minded on the question of whether this simply mirrors, or whether it feeds and perpetuates, our national neurosis.
How much trouble we all would be saved -- and how much madness could be avoided -- if, instead of letting them "act out" legislatively, we simply paid their psychiatry bills instead.
How much trouble we all would be saved -- and how much madness could be avoided -- if, instead of letting them "act out" legislatively, we simply paid their psychiatry bills instead.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Less is More When it Comes to Legislating
The "Paige Postulate" says that the longer a legislature meets, the worse off that state will be, fiscally, economically and by almost every freedom-oriented measure or metric. Why? Because the more unnecessary legislating there is, the bigger mess of things legislators make.
There isn't a "Freedom Index" done for states, the way some think tanks do it for countries, as far as I know, but if there were such a ranking, I'm betting that states with short, part-time legislatures would rank far better than those with longer sessions or full-time legislatures, thereby proving the "Paige Postulate" correct.
Wyoming's 2011 legislative session is already closed, amazingly. All the better for Wyoming. Such short sessions are one major reason why the cowboy state isn't the fiscal and economic basket case that so many states are.
There isn't a "Freedom Index" done for states, the way some think tanks do it for countries, as far as I know, but if there were such a ranking, I'm betting that states with short, part-time legislatures would rank far better than those with longer sessions or full-time legislatures, thereby proving the "Paige Postulate" correct.
Wyoming's 2011 legislative session is already closed, amazingly. All the better for Wyoming. Such short sessions are one major reason why the cowboy state isn't the fiscal and economic basket case that so many states are.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Revisionist History
I was working in Washington in 1995 when Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton squared off in the last great government shutdown showdown, and I recall it much differently than Gingrich does in the slick piece of revisionist history appearing in today's Washington Post. But he's running for president, I'm not. I guess he feels a need to re-write events in a way that cast him in a heroic light. But I mark that as the moment the "Republican Revolution" of 1994 died.
Newt doesn't mention the fact that Republicans were so outmaneuvered by Clinton, and so defensive about being blamed for what was called a "shutdown" but was actually just a few days of extra Christmas shopping for federal workers, that they passed a resolution or approved a statement vowing to never again engage in shutdown politics. It was a stupid thing to do -- the statement, not the shutdown -- and I keep wondering if anyone is going to go back and dust that old statement off, now that another possible showdown looms, and waive it in the faces of Republicans.
When people ask me when the Republicans started becoming so much like Democrats, when they ask me when I started drifting away from a party I had supported and carried water for, I often say the turning point came in late 1995. Newt is correct in saying that this new crew of Republican revolutionaries should stick to their guns if another shutdown comes. But it's just not true that he held the line, or won the showdown, back in 1995.
Newt doesn't mention the fact that Republicans were so outmaneuvered by Clinton, and so defensive about being blamed for what was called a "shutdown" but was actually just a few days of extra Christmas shopping for federal workers, that they passed a resolution or approved a statement vowing to never again engage in shutdown politics. It was a stupid thing to do -- the statement, not the shutdown -- and I keep wondering if anyone is going to go back and dust that old statement off, now that another possible showdown looms, and waive it in the faces of Republicans.
When people ask me when the Republicans started becoming so much like Democrats, when they ask me when I started drifting away from a party I had supported and carried water for, I often say the turning point came in late 1995. Newt is correct in saying that this new crew of Republican revolutionaries should stick to their guns if another shutdown comes. But it's just not true that he held the line, or won the showdown, back in 1995.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Making Widgets
I've long objected to the practice of calling politicians "lawmakers," because it elevates them to an august status most don't deserve. Given the way they crank-out unnecessary, superfluous and frivolous new laws, like they're foremen in a widget factory, I think we should start calling them law-manufacturers.
The linked story offers a good case in point. And he's a Republican.
The linked story offers a good case in point. And he's a Republican.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Are We There Yet?
Conservative politicos and pundits keep warning that the president wants to impose "European-style socialism" right here in the good old US of A. But he needn't bother. Signs point to the fact that it's already here.
The backlash France has seen from the entitled classes created by European-style socialism is already being witnessed here, albeit on a small scale, in the attacks by public employee unions on any politician or proposal that threatens their spot on the government gravy train. We see the entitlement mentality at work in Wisconsin. We see it at work in every other state where governors are trying to achieve fiscal sustainability by seeking concessions from unions or rolling-back collective bargaining rights. And the backlash is getting angry and ugly.
Mass demonstrations and riots of the sort we sometimes see in Europe haven't been seen in the United States, yet. But that's because printed money and massive borrowing are delaying the day of reckoning, when entitlements and unsustainable pay and pension plans actually have to be pruned back. Europe got there sooner only because it had a head start. We're catching-up fast, however -- and actually accelerating toward the inevitable train wreck under President Obama.
European-style socialism isn't something that's coming. It's something that's already here.
The backlash France has seen from the entitled classes created by European-style socialism is already being witnessed here, albeit on a small scale, in the attacks by public employee unions on any politician or proposal that threatens their spot on the government gravy train. We see the entitlement mentality at work in Wisconsin. We see it at work in every other state where governors are trying to achieve fiscal sustainability by seeking concessions from unions or rolling-back collective bargaining rights. And the backlash is getting angry and ugly.
Mass demonstrations and riots of the sort we sometimes see in Europe haven't been seen in the United States, yet. But that's because printed money and massive borrowing are delaying the day of reckoning, when entitlements and unsustainable pay and pension plans actually have to be pruned back. Europe got there sooner only because it had a head start. We're catching-up fast, however -- and actually accelerating toward the inevitable train wreck under President Obama.
European-style socialism isn't something that's coming. It's something that's already here.
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