New Names for National Health Care

People are clamoring for health care reform. Max Baucus, D-Montana, wrote in the Wall Street Journal, We Cannot Delay Health-Care Reform. Here are some alternative names for what liberals call universal access. Stand-in-Line Health-Care Freeloader Health-Care Rationed Health-Care Because some people are “un-insured” and they are “free-riders” shifting their costs onto insured people, liberals call [...]

Taxes or Donations

Our nephew’s high school track team sent out a fund raising request. He lives in a Minnesota town. We live in Montana. He’s a good kid and we believe in supporting youth development programs. There could be more private funding. I sent the following letter accompanying the donation. Dear Alex: We’re glad you are involved [...]

Schools Have ADHD

Schools cannot sit still in their chairs. They lose their focus. They are easily distracted. They are hyper and suffer from ADD and ADHD. Today’s Wall Street Journal has a book review of the book Rapt by Winifred Gallagher. It begins: “With so many things now demanding our attention- emails, Web sites, Blackberry alerts, incoming [...]

Tax Evidence from New York

Do high taxes discourage work and investment? New York has high taxes and they are getting higher. Over the past decade “1.97 million people have left the state for greener pastures,” and since last August, New York City has lost more than 75,000 jobs. People will leave. People do leave. They will escape high taxes. [...]

Communalists: Tax Rates Do Not Affect Behavior

My friend approves high income taxes. The other day he flatly asserted that the 91% tax rate on high income-earners during the period 1951-1963 did not retard economic growth. He says we need 91% again. He says a top marginal tax rate of 91% would not discourage earning or investment. My jaw dropped. I cried [...]

The Government is Hiring

Where the jobs are. Jobless rate hits 8.5% 5.1 million jobs lost this recession. 663,000 jobs lost in March. 97,000 jobs added in government since February 2008.

“Obama’s Domestic Agenda Gains Clarity”

That is the headline of a Peggy Noonan article in the WSJ, April 4-5, 2009 Here are two quotes from it. From Bloomberg News this week: “The U.S. government and the Federal Reserve have spent or lent or committed $12.8 trillion” in new pledges. This, they note, is almost the value of everything the United [...]

License to Kill

Headline: Bozeman Daily Chronicle Ap 4, 2009 “Doctors reluctant to assist in patient deaths” The text read: “While a district court judge has ruled it is a right protected in the state constitution, life-ending treatment has proved elusive for many patients in Montana, advocacy groups said on Friday.” Janet Murdoch of Missoula said, “I feel [...]

Obama’s Part-time Job

Barack Obama writes home………………. Dear Mother, How are you? I am fine. I hope our little puppy is happy. The reason I haven’t written is because of my new job. You might have heard that I have been elected President of the United States of America. It’s a big job. I command the army that [...]