Tag: connections
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No Public Option, No Mandate
Over at Fire Dog Lake, Jon Walker challenges those with the “we can fix it later” mentality (which may or may not include enough senators to pass this bill) to hold the individual mandate out of the bill as a hostage to ensure that Congress will have leverage to come back and replace all the…
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Questions of Legitimacy
I found Power, Authority, Legitimacy at Electric Politics to be a very interesting article. It talks about these three important elements to effectively government and how they interact with each other. The focus is on legitimacy, but George Kenney also explains how power and authority can be in place without bestowing any legitimacy. As I…
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The Health Care Issue as a Catalyst for Debate
photo credit: the queen of subtle When I saw that Jim DeMint had written an article titled Our Health Care Mess Is a Symptom of a Much Bigger Problem my interest was piqued partly because I like DeMint as a senator and partly because I had just been saying the same thing in a series…
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Medical Cultures
[quote]I have called David Goldhill’s How American Health Care Killed My Father a must-read for anyone who wants to speak up in the health care debate. The New Yorker also has a must-read article on the issue called The Cost Conundrum. In that article we are introduced to the town of McAllen, Texas where Medicare…
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Return of the Food Tax
Curtis Haring is concerned about the possibility that the state legislature will reinstate the food tax that they repealed all too recently. Considering that the state is facing a budget shortfall in the neighborhood of 3/4 of a Billion dollars, it is a very legitimate concern for Curtis and a very legitimate consideration for the…
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Phony Federalism
photo credit: estherase Gene Healy wrote about what he called Obama’s phony federalism but what he was really talking about was a relatively universal perspective on federalism: Not yet a year into his administration, Obama’s record on 10th Amendment issues is already clear: He’ll let the states have their way when their policies please blue…
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Eight Ideas for Reform
Kyle Mathews shares eight steps he believes would produce a more functional congress at the League of Ordinary Gentlemen. It is an interesting list including ideas I’ve heard before and a few new ideas. There is also some good discussion in the comments. I thought it would be worth sharing here in the order that…
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Term Limits for All
One year ago today I pointed out that the subject of term limits becomes popular after an election. Like clockwork it came up again this year. Jim DeMint jumped the gun a bit by announcing three weeks ago that he would introduce a term limit amendment. Yesterday he introduced the bill and today I read…
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Hit Them Where it Hurts
[quote]As Congress finds new and ever more inventive ways to spend money (both real money and imaginary money) more and more voters are waking up to find themselves becoming fiscal conservatives. First off, I must say that there are not nearly enough of us among the voters and secondly I feel compelled to add that…
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You Must Answer These Questions
Jim Matheson voted against the health care bills – that’s old news already. Some Democrats have, with varying degrees of seriousness, questioned whether they should run or nominate someone else for his seat – that’s not really fresh news either. The news that I am following is that along with the ruminations regarding a new…