Obamacare: Puncturing Liberals' Self-Delusion Bubble

Liberals got a shocking dose of reality at the Supreme Court this week, to the delight of Constitution-loving Americans. Here are a few must-read articles:

Constitutional Contempt: Why the Obama Legal Team Struggled at the Supreme Court

After three days of arguments before the Supreme Court, the Obama administration and its supporters have been found in contempt. Not of the court, but of the Constitution. ... The sophistries on which the Obamaphiles relied to defend their health care power grab were perhaps best summarized by Slate legal columnist Dahlia Lithwick: "That the law is constitutional is best illustrated by the fact that -- until recently -- the Obama administration expended almost no energy defending it."

That lack of energy came back to haunt them Tuesday when Solicitor General Donald Verrilli turned in a stammering, barely coherent performance worthy of the public defender in My Cousin Vinny as he struggled to articulate a constitutional defense of Obamacare. The arguments went only slight better for Verrilli yesterday. The administration seemed ill prepared to answer even basic, predictable questions about the law's constitutional basis. ...

A Supreme Shock for 'La-La' Libs

The panicked reception in the mainstream media of the three-day Supreme Court health-care marathon is a delightful reminder of the nearly impenetrable parochialism of American liberals.

They’re so convinced of their own correctness — and so determined to believe conservatives are either a) corrupt, b) stupid or c) deluded — that they find themselves repeatedly astonished to discover conservatives are in fact capable of a) advancing and defending their own powerful arguments, b) effectively countering weak liberal arguments and c) exposing the soft underbelly of liberal self-satisfaction as they do so. That’s what happened this week. ...

Did Bloggers Kill the Health Care Mandate?

A handful of right-wing legal experts have changed the way Americans view the Affordable Care Act. But why did they wage this battle in the media instead of in the courtroom?

Blogs—particularly a blog of big legal ideas called Volokh Conspiracy—have been central to shifting the conversation about the mandate challenges. At Volokh, Barnett and other libertarian academics have been debating and refining their arguments against the mandate since before the ACA was signed. ...

Whatever the merits of those claims, it started a national, popular conversation about the Constitution. ... The way conservatives have framed this issue also makes the public feel more confident about discussing it in a substantive way. ... Americans today are especially excited by reasoning that makes the Constitution feel more accessible. ...

Meanwhile, Obamacare's implementation marches on in the bowels of the Executive Branch, and it promises an invasion of personal privacy that would make a proctologist wince.

IRS Gearing Up for Health-Care Crackdown

The rest of the country may be waiting for the U.S. Supreme Court to decide the fate of President Barack Obama's health-care law, but the Internal Revenue Service is wasting no time. It wants to add new agents to hunt down tax cheats and still plans to spend $303.5 million building a system to oversee the effects of the health law even though its future is unclear.

As for the new IRS workers, the Government Accountability Office said the total will be about 4,500, with nearly 4,000 (3,997) slated for enforcement...

Although no one can predict the High Court's final decision(s), constitution-loving Americans everywhere can be at least a bit hopeful that liberals' bubble of self-delusion will be thoroughly punctured in June.

UPDATE: Add this article to the mix.

How Obamacare Derailed the Economic Recovery

Here we go again. All eyes are on the Supreme Court as it wrestles with whether or not President Obama’s healthcare bill is constitutional. The country is divided on the merits of the law, but this we can say with certainty: Obamacare profoundly gummed up our recovery from the financial crisis.

Assuming that the $800 billion Recovery and Reinvestment Act, aka the stimulus, would work the magic promised by his economics team, Mr. Obama set off on his quest to guarantee healthcare for every American. The resulting food fight over the legislation – the ugly parceling out of favors in return for votes and lies told to justify passage -- permanently damaged President Obama’s reputation, divided a country desperate to heal, and distracted the White House from further efforts to build employment. It was a terrible decision, and the country continues to pay for it.

Whether or not the Supreme Court upholds the government’s mandate that every American must purchase healthcare insurance, Obamacare is a failure. ... The reality is that numerous projects and programs might have passed a less fractious Congress and been supported by a less divided country. Though rising deficits ultimately would have alarmed taxpayers, more growth would have tempered both budget and enthusiasm gaps. Instead, we have suffered the worst of all worlds – a government hobbled by political and economic constraints and a people pessimistic about the future. This is the legacy of Obamacare.

Obamacare Goes to Court

A Georgetown constitutional law professor explains the "unprecedented combination of economic, political and legal stakes" of the 6 hours of oral arguments before the Supreme Court that begin today:

• Economic: 18% of the U.S. economy hangs in the balance;
• Political: Obamacare has become a proxy for the nation's deep philosophical divide between conservatives' individual liberty form of governance and liberal/progressives' collectivist form of governance; and
• Legal: the "biggest test of the president and Congress' power since the New Deal."

Each day will focus on different questions before the Court:

• Day 1: Can judges rule on the individual health insurance mandate before it goes into effect in 2015?
• Day 2: Is the individual mandate constitutional?
• Day 3: What happens to the rest of the law if the individual mandate is found unconstitutional.

Constitutional issues relative to the individual mandate will turn on the federal reach and power permitted by:

• the commerce clause
• the tax collection clause
• the spending clause (in the case of Medicaid funding to states)

Audio of these arguments will be made available at the U.S. Supreme Court's website. A ruling is expected by the end of June.

More:
Newsmax: Obamacare 'Biggest Test' of Presidential, Congressional Power Since New Deal
Heritage Foundation: Attention, Obamacare Court Watchers: Synchronize Watches... Now!
Manhattan Institute: Why Obamacare Will End Health Insurance as We Know It

Obamacare: Treating People Like Dogs

A practicing surgeon for 30 years is witnessing a transformation in health care that abandons the "Hippocratic Ethic," which serves patients, and adopts a "veterinary ethic," which serves government bill payers with 3 pet-like options: cure, palliation or euthanasia. Dr. Jeffrey Singer explains:

For centuries, my predecessors and I have been inculcated with what has come to be called the “Hippocratic Ethic.” This tradition holds that I am ethically required to use the best of my knowledge to recommend to my patient what I consider to be in my patient’s best interests—without regard to the interests of the third-party payer, or the government, or anyone else.

But gradually the medical profession has been forced to give up this approach for what I like to call a “veterinary ethic,” one that places the interests of the payer (or owner) ahead of the patient. For example, when a pet owner is told by a veterinarian that the pet has a very serious medical condition requiring extremely costly surgery or other therapy, the veterinarian presents the pet’s owner with one or more options—from attempt at cure, to palliation, to euthanasia—with the associated costs, and then follows the wishes of the owner.

Dr. Singer highlights several changes by which "government is putting the medical profession—and your health—at risk," not to mention your privacy.

• Government adopted price controls for Medicare in the 1980s, and Medicare is Obamacare's test model.
• Government required all health care providers to adopt electronic health records, with "the ultimate goal that every health care provider, including pharmacies, will have electronic databases ... accessible to the U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services (HHS).
• Obama's 2009 'Stimulus Bill' created a new government agency to collect "data culled from all electronic health records" and determine the "most cost-effective way" of allocating health care resources for 310 million people—a clear turn to health care rationing. This new process produced its first determination in 2009: no mammogram screenings for women under age 50.
• In 2014, Obamacare's Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) of 15 presidential appointees "will determine what therapies, procedures, tests and medications will be covered" for Medicare and government-run health care exchanges.

In his full article, The Coming Medical Ethics Crisis, Dr. Singer goes on to explain how medical students "are now being trained to follow federally-driven protocols and guidelines," and how current physicians and hospitals are being methodically reshaped to government's will.

It is a chilling look at the future of a U.S. health care system that, if left intact by the U.S. Supreme Court and Congress, will treat people like dogs.

The Ryan Budget Plan

House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan's federal budget is a "plan to slash trillion dollar deficits and revive reforms to the Medicare program," with options floated last year by Democrats, reports Newsmax. "The raw material is there," concludes Michael Barone, "for bipartisan majorities for reform—if the president goes along." Just how far apart are the Ryan and Obama budget plans? Not even in the same universe, according to Don Surber's chart:

This chart from James Pethokoukis

Conservative Women - The Third Sex

"Slutgate has revived the theme of conservative women as a third sex," writes Kay Hymowitz, author of Manning Up.

Just last week, "progressive talk show personality"' Randi Rhodes launched into a tirade on the subject that made Bill Maher look like Pee-wee Herman. "You know, these women, somebody really needs to go repossess their ovaries," she said of conservative women. "Really, truly, they have no right to them. ... Just cut 'em off, let 'em go through the hot flashes, let 'em just sit there and complain about hormone therapy, okay?"

Stop and wonder for a moment at Rhodes’ lunatic hatred, but let’s not ignore the deeper point here. Second- and third-wave feminists have insisted that they speak for women. They know what constitutes “women’s issues.” They define how to achieve women’s progress — more government services, regulations, and laws, legalized abortion, not just equality but parity. The issue here is not whether you think these policies are good or bad; I might agree with some of them myself. It’s why liberal feminists have convinced the media and themselves that they are the ones who know and speak for women. What do we then make of creatures with ovaries who don’t agree with them? Ed Schultz and Bill Maher: take it away.

Slutgate raises a lot of other serious questions about the nature of our political discourse, especially in relation to women. Women’s presence in the political sphere is growing at the same time that the Internet is ridding the public conversation of many of the familiar formal and informal censors. Surely men don’t need to pull their punches when disagreeing with a woman, but are any words taboo? When are comments about physical appearance, of men or women, okay? What is hate speech, anyway? Does calling a woman a slut mean that you hate women? Then is calling George Bush a “prick” evidence that you hate men? Where is the line between entertainer and talk show pundit?

My guess is that even conservative women will have some opinions about these questions — assuming they can stand the blowback from Bill Maher.

The 2% Oil Dishonesty

Hotair.com exposes the fallacious claim that the U.S. consumes 20% of the world's oil, but has "only 2%" of the world's oil reserves. According to the U.S. Dept of Energy, the 2% figure is "proved oil reserves" only, and "proved oil reserves" are a tiny fraction of the U.S.'s total domestic oil supply. In fact, the U.S. is oil rich.

Proved reserves is a valuable number to keep track of, no doubt. It gives you a good snapshot of the amount of oil you’re currently tapping into, and that allows you to develop solid estimates of what’s going to be entering the pipeline each season.

But by the same token, it’s not any sort of reflection of what your total assets are. That’s like saying that Bill Gates only has $20K of liquid cash in his primary checking account this month so he must be close to filing for bankruptcy. Here’s a more complete picture for you:

• At least 86 billion barrels of oil in the Outer Continental Shelf yet to be discovered
• About 24 billion barrels in shale deposits in the lower 48 states, according to EIA.
• Up to 2 billion barrels of oil in shale deposits in Alaska’s North Slope
• Up to 12 billion barrels in ANWR, according to the USGS.
• As much as 19 billion barrels in the Utah tar sands
• A stunning 1.4 trillion barrels of oil shale the massive Green River Formation in Wyoming

The main problem is that most of these resources are roped off. Just knowing the oil is there comes as little comfort if there are never going to be any leases issued by the government for energy companies to explore. And our ability to access the shale oil – while technically well within our capability today – will be significantly hamstrung as long as activists continue to fight fracking and horizontal drilling.

HE: Top 10 Obama Energy Blunders

From the Keystone Kerfuffle to the Volt Vanity, Human Events puts together great talking points — for busy conservatives — on this Administration's biggest energy policy blunders.

Feminism's New Low

"Sandra Fluke has shown us the new lows to which the women's rights movement has fallen," writes Fay Voshell, a self-described traditional feminist who sees the need for a women's rights movement throughout the world.

Time was when real feminists fought for the right of little girls to be educated as well as little boys. Time was when they fought protracted and heartbreaking battles for women's right to vote. Time was when they fought for the right to own their own property, to be in charge of their own monies, to be equals before the law.

Time was there were heroines such as Abigail Adams, Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Whatever their personal vagaries, oddities, and conflicts may have been, they all fought for core values, values which included women having equal rights in education, in politics, in their homes, and before the law. They fought and they suffered on behalf of future generations of women, and the victories they did achieve were made possible by changing laws and/or amending the Constitution -- amendments which gave the vote to blacks and women.

[snip]

Once upon a time, even for secular feminists, the ideal was equality of men and women before the law — equality of opportunity to pursue careers of one's choosing. Once upon a time, feminists resented the reduction of women to the status of mere chattel or sex objects.

But now we are seeing secular feminism come full circle. Now the new radical feminist is glorying in being a mere sex object, and she boldly presents herself as such. Fluke, the latest representative of the new feminism, wants to boldly crusade for the "right" of women to be mere sex objects. Further, women are to be subsidized for maintenance of their reduced and tiny identity by being given free birth control.

Voshell suggests how Abigail Adams and other early feminists might respond to modern feminists:

My dears, there are far more heroic victories to be won than seeing your pet peeve "rectified" by HHS mandate. There are more serious battles to be joined in the struggle for female emancipation than making sure insurance companies allied with religious institutions provide you with the means to have safe sex, no matter what the cost to religious liberties. There are injustices and atrocities toward women which take precedent over your free birth control agenda, an agenda you wish to impose on all, regardless of their constitutional right to refuse coercion against conscience.

All over the world, women and children are being trafficked for sex; women and girls are being subjected to genital mutilation; unborn girls are the victims of sex-selective abortions and female infanticide; and women are subjected to the horrifying strictures and consequences of sharia law. This is to say nothing of the women who are enslaved by the demeaning and destructive practice of polygamy or the women of the world who are without clean water and food for themselves and their children.

Time was, apparently, when some of the issues listed above were important to you, Ms. Fluke.

Winning Minds to Conservatism

Paul Rahe at ricochet.com says Barack Obama has given conservatives "a perfect recipe for a conservative resurgence." Pivoting off a reader's dispirited comment, Rahe argues Obama is forcing Americans to rethink their relationship with their government:

Consider what Barack Obama has done. He has unmasked the tyrannical potential of the administrative entitlements state, and he has once again demonstrated the defects inherent in Keynesian economics. He promised us that the stimulus would bring unemployment down dramatically. He acknowledged that if it did not do so he would be unelectable. He attacked religious liberty, attempting through a court case to interfere with a Lutheran church's ability to choose its own religious teachers as it saw fit, and threatening to make Roman Catholics, the Roman Catholic Church, and Christians and Jews who regard abortion as murder complicit with that act by forcing them to pay for abortifacients. He jammed through Congress a bill designed to undermine the health insurance industry and to institute healthcare rationing. He brought our government to the edge of fiscal insolvency. At a time of rising energy costs, he blocked the building of a pipeline that would bring petroleum from our northern neighbor and friend Canada to the United States and reduce our dependence on the Middle East.

In short, Barack Obama is forcing the American people to rethink the relationship that connects them with their government. Where many of them once saw a helping hand, they now see a threat to their livelihood, their personal and religious liberty, and their well-being more generally. 

Moreover, it is "demonstrably false," Rahe asserts, to argue (as Reader does) that the country is less conservative than it was in 1980 when Reagan won a landslide. Massive conservative national and state wins in the 2010 midterm elections dispel this argument.

...you underestimate our compatriots. They know that our culture is in severe decline, that the family is disintegrating, that our schools indoctrinate our children with secular theology -- and they know whom to blame. All that it would take to turn the present discontents into a realignment would be for a forthright woman or man able to point out the connection linking cultural decline, family disintegration, and political correctness in the schools -- not to mention massive unemployment and fiscal insolvency -- with the administrative entitlements state and the doctrine that it is the responsibility of the government and not the individual citizen to make provision for his well-being. People rally to strength and confidence, not to weakness and timidity. 

Rahe challenges Reader (and conservatives generally) not to "go wobbly" but to "take the bull by the horns:"

One must indict those intent on creating “a new despotism” in which “a small group" is concentrating "into their own hands an almost complete control over other people’s property, other people’s money, other people’s labor – other people’s lives.”

A good little spine-stiffening read.

Myth of "Increasing" Economic Inequality

"The growth in [economic] inequality in America is illusory, a mirage," writes Diana Furchtgott-Roth, a Manhattan Senior Fellow and former chief economist for the U.S. Dept of Labor. "[B]y some measures economic inequality is no greater now than it was in the 1980s."

Studies that do find income inequality often rely on "pretax income" only, while ignoring government program payments, food stamps, rent supplements, Medicaid funded health care, subsidized school lunches, and other social programs.

Furchtgott-Roth evaluates spending instead. Why?

Spending is vital because it is the principal determinant of standard of living.

So what does the analysis of spending reveal?

• Government data on individual spending patterns show that the ratio of spending between the top and bottom 20 percent of the income distribution, measured on a per person basis, was essentially unchanged between 1985 and 2010. In 1985 people in the top quintile had spending that was 2.5 times that of people in the bottom quintile. By 2010, this ratio was 2.4.
• Spending per person by income quintile shows how individuals are doing over time both in absolute terms and relative to those in other income groups. These data can be calculated from the government's Consumer Expenditure Survey. An examination of these data from 1985 through 2010 shows that inequality has declined rather than increased.
• The average annual spending for a household in the lowest quintile in 2010 was $12,325 per person. In contrast, the average spending for a household in the top quintile was $29,022 per person.
• On a per-person basis, Labor Department data show that in 2010, households in the top fifth of the income distribution spent 2.4 times the amount spent by the bottom quintile. That was about the same as 25 years ago. There is no increase in inequality. In addition, the overall level of inequality is remarkably small. A person moving from the bottom quintile to the top quintile can expect to increase spending by only 140 percent.
• But compared with 1985, the big winners are the lowest-income group, whose expenditures per capital increased by 6.5 percent in constant dollars. In contrast, spending per person in the top income quintile increased by 1.5 percent. This shows that even though the income spread from top to bottom might be larger, those at the bottom are doing better than they did 25 years ago because they have greater spending power, after adjusting for inflation. This is important for the bottom quintile—economically, socially, psychologically.

"Much 'inequality' in the United States is a problem in search of reality," concludes the author, "caused by writers who know a certain storyline will sell to an audience anxiously looking for additional reasons to have the government inject itself even more into the lives of ordinary Americans."

Hats Off to Kirsten Powers!

"The truth hurts," writes liberal Kirsten Powers in her second article condemning the professional left for its selective—she calls it 'fake'—war against media misogyny following the Sandra Fluke-Rush Limbaugh kerfuffle.

Members of the professional left reacted with outrage to my column this week calling them out for their fake war against media misogyny. Instead of addressing the encyclopedia of left-wing misogyny I raised, many liberals chose instead to start a ferocious battle with all manner of straw men.

In her articles, Powers names liberal names—Bill Maher, Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Matt Taibbi, Ed Schultz—and documents specific incidents, asking,

...if Limbaugh's actions demand a boycott—and they do—then what about the army of swine on the left?

Powers has no patience with fellow liberals who operate by such a blatant double-standard.

If the left reacted with the same furor to liberal misogyny as they have reacted to Limbaugh, misogynist cracks would go the way of racist and anti-gay “jokes.” Let’s just call a spade a spade: the uproar over Limbaugh is only because it fits into the Democratic narrative that the GOP is “anti-woman.” It’s Democratic Party activism dressed up as feminism.

In an painful-to-watch video posted to YouTube today, Democratic congresswomen Sheila Jackson Lee and Jan Schakowsky—who both blasted Limbaugh for his behavior—repeatedly refuse to condemn Bill Maher calling Gov. Sara Palin a "c--t" and a "dumb twat." Why is this so difficult?

She doesn't let President Obama off the hook either.

President Obama has seen fit to wade into the Limbaugh kerfuffle, even telling reporters Tuesday that Limbaugh’s behavior was an attack on everyone’s daughter and “I do not want them attacked or called horrible names.” Speaking of daughters, do you remember when Bill Maher said that the real name of then-20-year-old Bristol Palin’s book should be “Whoops, There’s a Dick in Me?”

Liberals have demanded that GOP leaders denounce Limbaugh, but President Obama, who has opined repeatedly on the Limbaugh controversy, refuses to denounce Maher. This despite the fact that Maher has made a high-profile $1 million donation to Obama's super PAC, which is run by longtime Obama aide Bill Burton.

Hats off to Powers for her honesty and fortitude!

Real Unemployment Rate "Sure Isn't 8.3%"

"The true measure of U.S. unemployment is much, much worse" than 8.3%, writes James Pethokoukis at the American Enterprise Institute, who concludes the U.S. labor market "is a long way from being healthy." He explains:

1. If the size of the U.S. labor force as a share of the total population was the same as it was when Barack Obama took office—65.7% then vs. 63.9% today—the U-3 unemployment rate would be 10.8%.
2. But what if you take into the account the aging of the Baby Boomers, which means the labor force participation (LFP) rate should be trending lower. Indeed, it has been doing just that since 2000. Before the Great Recession, the Congressional Budget Office predicted what the LFP would be in 2012, assuming such demographic changes. Using that number, the real unemployment rate would be 10.4%.
3. Of course, the LFP rate usually falls during recessions. Yet even if you discount for that and the aging issue, the real unemployment rate would be 9.5%.
4. Then there’s the broader, U-6 measure of unemployment which includes the discouraged plus part-timers who wish they had full time work. That unemployment rate, perhaps the truest measure of the labor market’s health, is still a sky-high 14.9%.
5. Recall that back in 2009, White House economists Jared Bernstein and Christina Romer used their old-fashioned Keynesian model to predict how the $800 billion stimulus would affect employment. According to their model—as displayed in the above chart, updated—unemployment should be around 6% today.
6. As Ed Carson of Investor’s Business Daily points out, it’s been a whopping 49 months since the U.S. hit peak employment in January 2008. The average job recovery time since 1980 is 29 months, not including the current slump.
7. And how long might it take to get back to the 4.4% unemployment rate that existed under President George. W. Bush? Well, let’s say the goal was to get back to that rate in 5 years. And let’s assume the LFP rate returns to the CBO trend. According to a jobs calculator created by the Atlanta Fed, the U.S. economy would have to generate about 225,000 jobs a month, every month, for the next 60 months to hit that target. But few economist think we’ll see sustained job growth like that ...

Voigeli: The Case for Anti-Tax Absolutism

In "Not a Penny More," William Voigeli makes the case for why "anti-tax absolutism" is smart public policy. Anti-taxers, he asserts, are simply "confronting a governing failure—an abiding lack of candor about what our welfare state costs." Moreover, "by restricting the fiscal oxygen supply that sustains a fundamentally flawed system," anti-taxers are forcing welfare state proponents to face reality.

Federal spending occurs in three broad categories:

1. National defense;
2. Welfare state — Social Security, income support programs (disability, unemployment), health care (Medicare, Medicaid, Children's Health Insurance Programs), education, job training, and social services; and
3. "Housekeeping" — law enforcement (federal courts, prisons, prosecutors, FBI), Amtrak and air traffic control; national parks and EPA; embassies, veterans programs, NASA and so on.

How have each grown over the last few decades? From 1965 to 2008,

• National defense grew 42%
• Welfare state grew 583%
• "Housekeeping" grew 76%

By 2008, the welfare state consumed 61% of all federal government spending.

Welfare state expansion over the decades has been built on deception and dishonesty. Two examples:

• In 1965, proponents predicted the Medicare hospital insurance part would cost taxpayers $9 billion by 1990. Actual cost: $67 billion. 
• In 1987, proponents predicted Medicaid expansion would cost $1 billion by 1992. Actual cost: $17 billion.

Faced with unsustainable deficits and debt today along with Americans' strong desire to rein in government spending, liberals are now misleading Americans on the scope and scale of the tax increases necessary to sustain the current welfare state. They have vowed not to raise taxes on any individual earning under $200,000 or families earning under $250,000.

Do these vows hold water? A 2010 study by the Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, found that reducing federal deficits by the second half of this decade to a reasonable 2 percent of GDP, while keeping Obama’s promise, would require increasing the rate in the second-highest federal income-tax bracket from 33 percent to 85.7 percent, the rate in the highest bracket from 35 percent to 90.9 percent, and the capital-gains tax rate from 15 percent to 39 percent.

The study, Desperately Seeking Revenue, pointed out that such tax rates would give the prosperous a strong incentive to defer income, shift it to nontaxable forms, or spend it on deductible items, like charitable contributions. The resulting revenue shortfall would necessitate even higher tax rates or might simply make reducing deficits to 2 percent of GDP impossible.

Even Jonathan Chait, who has devoted hundreds of New Republic blog posts over the years to advocating higher taxes on the rich, conceded after the August 2011 debt-ceiling agreement, “It has become clear that Obama’s pledge not to raise taxes at all on anybody earning less than $250,000 a year is no longer compatible with even the minimal demands of government over the next decade.” [emphasis added]

Liberals argue that anti-tax absolutists are fanatics who want to rip "the social safety net to shreds."

To see why that argument is wrong, think all the way back to 1995, when America had social insurance for the elderly, health care and welfare for the poor, and various other appurtenances of a welfare state, to say nothing of public schools and colleges, mass transit, public parks, and lots more. Since then, the federal government’s total revenues, adjusted for changes in population and inflation, have grown, despite the recession. In other words, to duplicate now the revenue stream that paid for the 1995 menu of government services would mean cutting taxes, not increasing them.

Voigeli argues that "by restricting the fiscal oxygen supply that sustains a fundamentally flawed system," anti-tax absolutists are forcing welfare state liberals to come to grips with reality and to finally be truthful with the American people as to what sustaining the ever-expanding welfare state will truly cost all of them.

Read the whole article.

The Political Class - Middle Class Disconnect

Drawing on recent national polling data, pollster Scott Rasmussen finds that "when a politician talks of helping the middle class with a new government program, it just doesn't ring true" with middle America.

What is especially interesting about the data is the income demographic. Upper-income Americans are evenly divided as to whether government management of the economy helps or hurts. Middle-income Americans, on the other hand, overwhelmingly view government management of the economy as hurtful.

"The affluent, perhaps because they can easily gain access to the policymakers, are OK with government management of the economy," writes Rasmussen, while "[t]he middle class, without friends in Congress or on Wall Street, has an entirely different view."

• a plurality of Americans now believe the United States has a system of crony capitalism rather than free-market competition
• only 27% of voters believe government management of the economy actually helps the economy
• 50% think government economic activitism does more harm than good
• 77% of voters think the government could help the economy by reducing the government deficit
• 71% think it would help to reduce government spending
• 59% think tax cuts would help
• 6 out of 10 voters agree with President Reagan's conclusion in 1980s that "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem."

Read Rasmussen's full article here.

Real Reason Libs Tax Wealthy

Why do so "many young liberal bloggers cheer on proposals to raise tax rates on high earners," wonders Michael Barone in an op-ed today. It isn't to increase government revenue, because it generally results in less revenue. And it isn't to ensure they pay 'their fair share', since as it is "the American tax system, including the payroll tax and state and local taxes, is more progressive — in the sense of extracting disproportionate shares of revenue from high earners — than most European tax regimes..."

I think the answer to the puzzle can be found in a remark Barack Obama made during the 2008 fall campaign — a remark that seemed to go mostly unnoticed.

ABC's Charlie Gibson asked candidate Obama if he would raise capital gains taxes even if, as in the past, that brought in less revenue to the federal government.

Yes, said Obama. "I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness."

Ponder that answer for a moment. A candidate for president — president now — said he wants to take more money from people who earned it even though doing so would produce less money for the government.

The philosophy that has to be behind that answer is also behind the Obama administration budgets that have proposed capping the charitable deduction for high earners. The clearly intended result would be a massive transfer of money from the voluntary sector of society into government.

Alexis de Tocqueville in the 1830s identified the voluntary sector as a unique feature of American democracy,one that gave it strength and character. He compared it positively with his own France, where centralized government stifled initiative and innovation.

[snip]

Higher tax rates on high earners, even if they produce less revenue, are an attempt to centralize power in government and to limit the autonomy and countervailing power of individuals in the voluntary sector.

Which is why the liberal bloggers cheer them on. And why they eagerly join the Obama White House in demonizing the Koch brothers, who donate large sums to conservative causes. (Disclosure: I have spoken at two Koch conferences and was reimbursed for travel expenses.)

The Obama Democrats don't want their funders like George Soros getting competition from the likes of Charles and David Koch.

In a contest "to make this country more like Toqueville's France" or "to keep it more like Toqueville's America," concludes Barone, "the liberal bloggers are rooting for France."