Foundry: Dr. Seuss-quester

From Amy Payne, the Foundry:

On Pennsylvania Avenue, right near the end, there lived a President who wanted to spend.

He knew spending meant power, so hour by hour, he thought up more spends from his Washington tower.

“I’ll spend without limits; I’ll spend without blame! Raising taxes to pay—that’s the name of the game.”



Down the street, though, a House filled with thriftier folk had a budget to pass, or the country’d go broke. “We can’t spend all day; we’ve got bills to pay! Let’s keep deficits and higher taxes away.”

Read the rest and laugh (or cry).

Justice Clarence Thomas at Harvard Law School

Justice Thomas received a standing ovation from Harvard law students as he arrived for an hour-long conversation with Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow. Law professor Ann Althouse has the video of the man she found to be "warm, interesting, deep, smart" and funny:

He says Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan are delightful. When Kagan arrived, he said to her: "You know, it's going to be a joy disagreeing with you for years to come."

Higher Minimum Wage = Higher Teenage Unemployment

From Mark Perry at American Enterprise Institute:

Now that Obama’s calling for a 24% increase in the minimum wage to $9 per hour, it might be instructive to review what happened the last time the minimum wage was increased – from $5.15 per hour in 2007 to $7.25 in 2009 (in three stages, see chart). Those most affected by increases in the minimum wage are the least skilled, least experienced, and least educated workers, i.e. teenage workers.

Bottom Line: Artificially raising wages for unskilled workers reduces the demand for those workers at the same time that it increases the number of unskilled workers looking for work, which results in an excess supply of unskilled workers. Period.

Videos-Podcasts of Institute's Western Women's Summit Sessions

K.T. McFarland, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, Rep. Marsha Blackburn and AZ Gov. Jan Brewer were a few of the speakers at the Institute's 2013 Western Women's Summit in Santa Barbara CA in February. Videos are now available at the Institute's YouTube channel, and podcasts can be downloaded at Podbean, for the following sessions:

• How Secure is America in 2013? - KT McFarland, Fox News National Security Expert
• Student Activism: A Report from College Campuses - a panel discussion by students from UMD-College Park, Cornell, and Furman
• Woman of Exceptional Courage - remarks by 2013 recipient Lt Gov Rebecca Kleefisch of Wisconsin
• Policy and Practical Challenges Women Face in the Business World - a panel discussion with EEI CEO Donna Ecton, Catering by Field CEO Lisa Field, Foley & Lardner LLP law partner Cleta Mitchell
• Middle East Changes Under the Obama Presidency - Nonie Darwish, Advocate for women's rights in the Middle East
• Clare Boothe Luce: Writer, Diplomat, Leader - Michelle Easton and Ursula Meese
• America's Fiscal Crisis - Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN)
• Keynote Address - Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer

Obamacare is failing - what comes next

Now that we're learning what's in the law and how much health insurance will cost us (an estimated $20,000 in annual premiums for the  'cheapest' Obamacare plan), Obamacare is collapsing under its own weight. So what comes next?

American Enterprise Institute published a playbook for market-based health care reform recently that based on these key principles:

1) Retarget taxpayer subsidies for health care coverage: Current open-ended subsidies for private health insurance, Medicare, and Medicaid cost too much, distort health care decisions, and hide the real prices we pay, rewarding volume instead of value and quality. By converting our public financing from a "defined benefit" to a "defined contribution" model, we can control costs, trim waste, and put patients first.

2) Protect vulnerable Americans: The current health care safety net is overstretched and underfunded. We must restructure it to better protect Americans who face preexisting conditions or sudden misfortune. This change should encourage smarter health care decisions instead of subsidizing poor health habits.

3) Improve the performance of a consumer-based health system: Government officials should suggest and inform, rather than dictate, what constitutes the "best" or "better" health care. This involves opening doors to market-driven choices, not restricting access to only politically-favored types of coverage.

4) Reform Medicare and Medicaid to become more accountable, effective, and sustainable: Reforming these two dominant health coverage programs is more than just a budgetary exercise. The health of our health care system depends on ending their trillions of dollars in unfunded liabilities, qualityblind care, arbitrary price-fixing, intergenerational inequity, and broken promises.
 
5) Evolve employer-based coverage: Americans deserve an insurance market with far greater choice, competition, assurance, and mobility than the traditional employer-based model provides. The days of tax and regulatory policies that disproportionately favor traditional employer coverage are numbered. 

See AEI's full report: When Obamacare Fails: The Playbook for Market-Based Reform (PDF version available here).

Minimum Wage Laws Racist in Origin

This may surprise. Minimum wage laws came into existence in the 1930s, and "supporters in Congress at the time were explicit about using them to stop blacks from displacing whites in the labor force by working for less money," writes Jason Riley at the Wall Street Journal.

Unfortunately, supporters got their wish:

Prior to the passage of minimum-wage laws—and in an era of open and rampant racial discrimination in the U.S.—the unemployment rate for black men was much lower than it is now and similar to that of whites in the same age group.

Today, unemployment stands at 7.9% overall but is 13.8% among blacks (versus 7% among whites), 14.5% among black men (versus 7.2% among white men) and 37.8% among black teens (versus 20.8% among white teens). Yet Mr. Obama has proposed increasing the minimum wage by 24% to $9 an hour to placate his union supporters who want less competition for their members. A higher minimum wage might lift earnings for existing workers—provided they keep their jobs—but it also reduces job opportunities for millions of people out of work.

Out of political expediency, Mr. Obama is putting the interests of Big Labor ahead of the urban poor. He's hardly the first politician to do so, and the reality is that Republican and Democratic presidents alike have raised the minimum wage. It's also true that Mr. Obama is president of the entire country, not just its black inhabitants. But is it too much to ask that he not support policies, however well-intentioned by current advocates, that were anti-black in origin and have a long history of depressing black employment?

Gangster Government

"The president ... looks magnificent in the temple where laws are made," writes Michael Barone. "But he doesn't seem to consider himself bound by them." Barone recounts a few of this administration's lawless acts:

Dr Carson Speaks

In the video below, Johns Hopkins University Hospital pediatric neurosurgeon Dr. Benjamin Carson addressed many topics, from political correctness and good education to health care and fair taxation, at the National Prayer Breakfast this month. One audience member, President Obama, doesn't seem particularly comfortable with Dr. Carson's remarks.