Category: National
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Anti Universal Coverage
This came along before I started reading the Cato blog regularly but I am definitely a member of The Anti-Universal Coverage Club. Health policy should focus on making health care of ever-increasing quality available to an ever-increasing number of people. “Universal coverage” could be achieved only by forcing everyone to buy health insurance or by…
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Open Congress
It becomes more and more clear each day how powerful the internet can be as a tool to improve our political process by enabling citizens to be informed. A great example of that is OpenCongress.org. The purpose of the site is to provide information on bills and members of congress. It only took me about…
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Remarkable Consensus
I was pleased to read from Phil Kerpen on Earmarks: An amendment to the budget sponsored by Sen. Jim DeMint (R., S.C.) and presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain has been collecting some unlikely cosponsors over the past couple of days, including both Democratic presidential hopefuls, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The amendment would establish…
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Important Changes
In a meeting with LaVarr Webb this morning two topics really stuck with me that seem to illustrate the most important political problems that we face as a nation. The particular issues we talked about were at the level of our state government, but both issues apply equally well to our federal government and often…
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An Average American Perspective
If you know who Lawrence Lessig is you will probably agree with me that he has proven himself to be much more intelligent than the average American citizen. If you don’t know who he is then you’ll have to take my word for it. I read an interview he did for National Review Online and…
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Connecting Clinton with Romney
I’m sure that title sounds like a kind of heresy here in Utah, but I can’t help noticing in the last week that the supporters of Hillary Clinton are sounding very much like the supporters of Mitt Romney were sounding after the Florida primary (myself included). Unless they turn out to be less mistaken about…
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Buyers of Medical Services
Reach Upward nails it again when he talks about Serving Medical Customers. One of the primary rules of economics is that suppliers do their best to supply what buyers actually demand. Who are the real buyers of medical services? Not you. Unless you pay for everything yourself or have only catastrophic insurance, you are not…
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No Good Delegate Answer for DNC
With the debate over the role of super-delegates and the delegates from Florida and Michigan in choosing their nominee, the Democratic Party finds itself in a no-win situation. Without the unpleasant idea that the super-delegates might have to publicly buck the democratic primary voters to give the nomination to Senator Clinton, we would not hear…
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Fixing America’s Woes
I’m not a huge fan of Mark Towner but he caught my attention with THE 545 PEOPLE RESPONSIBLE FOR AMERICA’S WOES. My first reaction was “you know what, he’s right.” Further reflection helped me realize that it can never be as simple as voting out those 545 people. For one thing, 75 of those people…
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Rhetoric Overshadows Facts
The well titled post, The World Is Not Going To End This Weekend, illustrates how easily an issue can be skewed simply by blurring the facts. Quoting from a post at the Politico which contains the rhetoric surrounding the debate about extending the Protect America Act Timothy Lee goes on to show the truth: .…