The last post got me on a Friedman kick.

Whats the monetary value of a human life?

To fixt the economcy for us.

In speaking of Obama’s inaugural address, Yuval Levn makes an excellent point:

The most problematic parts of the speech, for me, had to do with the theme that always bothers me at such occasions: the dismissal of political differences as insignificant and petty products of irresponsibility, rather than of serious and meaningful disagreements about how our country should govern itself. What possible sense could be made of this passage in the speech?

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics. We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things.

Is everything that preceded the coming of Obama in our politics childish and petty? Every president calls for replacing partisanship with responsibility–Obama’s call on this front can be found almost verbatim in Bush’s 2000 campaign speeches. But maybe the reason it never works is that partisanship very often is responsible, and our disagreements are not childish things but serious substantive debates about important subjects, given form by some profound differences in worldview.

I think many on the left voted for Obama with the notion that the problem with the state is that their is to much disagreement. They believe that more cooperation between parties will bring results. I think this is a naive view that tends to underplay the genuine differences people may have about how government should work. Speaking generally, the more conflict their is in politics, the less action and the less action the better off the citizenry.

The recent spat of democratic candidates that have failed to pay taxes has got me thinking about media coverage and hypocrisy. If you associate yourself with the party that argues that taxation can be used to do public good, then you should eagerly pay your taxes. You should want to find ways to pay your taxes because you would view such payments as an opportunity to do public good. It’s hypocritical to support a party that supports taxation and then to fail to pay your taxes.

This is akin to associating yourself with the Republican Party and then fooling around with someone other than your wife. This party emphasizes the importance of family values in having a positive impact on society and therefore you should be eager to demonstrate this by remaining faithful. It’s hypocritical to sleep around and to associate with a party that emphasizes family values.

However, media coverage does not cover these two moral infractions equivalently. Republican sex scandal gets way more attention then does Democratic tax scandal. In fact we don’t even think of politicians not paying taxes as scandalous. Of course many are going to argue that sex scandals in general get more press than tax scandals, and I think to certain extent that’s right. And on some level, I would argue that is the problem: sex scandals incur more moral opprobrium than tax scandals. And yet when it comes to politicians, supporting an ever increasing tax burden on the citizenry while you evade your own state financial obligation is clearly much more problematic then cheating on your significant other.

In contrast to Steve, I want the bill to pass. But not necessarily because I think it will work. I really don’t know if it will work, but it’s an empirical question with an answer. 

You see, the problem with economic theories is that you can’t ever do controlled experiments to confirm them. The stimulus bill would be the closest thing to an economic experiment that we have ever seen, and it would directly test the theory of John Maynard Keynes. He theorizes that a recession can be overcome by massive government spending and tax cuts, and that this will jumpstart demand and thus the economy.

You might be thinking this has already been done and was called the New Deal. But you’d be wrong. While Roosevelt went on a massive spending binge during the Great Depression, he mostly canceled out any benefit by raising taxes.

Spending on this magnitude is precisely what Keynes predicted would right a flagging economy, and if he’s right, then we’ll all be singing his praises a year from now. But if he’s wrong, well, then at least we can finally put his theory to rest and demand some fiscal responsibility in Washington.

I know this editorial is a week or so old, but I think it does a really fine job of detailing how much disregard the stimulus bill has towards stimulating the economy.

“Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things you couldn’t do before.”

So said White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel in November, and Democrats in Congress are certainly taking his advice to heart. The 647-page, $825 billion House legislation is being sold as an economic “stimulus,” but now that Democrats have finally released the details we understand Rahm’s point much better. This is a political wonder that manages to spend money on just about every pent-up Democratic proposal of the last 40 years.

We’ve looked it over, and even we can’t quite believe it. There’s $1 billion for Amtrak, the federal railroad that hasn’t turned a profit in 40 years; $2 billion for child-care subsidies; $50 million for that great engine of job creation, the National Endowment for the Arts; $400 million for global-warming research and another $2.4 billion for carbon-capture demonstration projects. There’s even $650 million on top of the billions already doled out to pay for digital TV conversion coupons.

Alarmingly:

In selling the plan, President Obama has said this bill will make “dramatic investments to revive our flagging economy.” Well, you be the judge. Some $30 billion, or less than 5% of the spending in the bill, is for fixing bridges or other highway projects. There’s another $40 billion for broadband and electric grid development, airports and clean water projects that are arguably worthwhile priorities.

Good Point:

Another “stimulus” secret is that some $252 billion is for income-transfer payments — that is, not investments that arguably help everyone, but cash or benefits to individuals for doing nothing at all. There’s $81 billion for Medicaid, $36 billion for expanded unemployment benefits, $20 billion for food stamps, and $83 billion for the earned income credit for people who don’t pay income tax. While some of that may be justified to help poorer Americans ride out the recession, they aren’t job creators.

Read the whole thing. This stimulus may go down in history as the crappiest bill ever passed by congress.

This is what happens when you don’t have a health care market. 

After getting struck by a motorcycle, an elderly Japanese man with head injuries waited in an ambulance as paramedics phoned 14 hospitals, each refusing to treat him.

He died 90 minutes later at the facility that finally relented - one of thousands of victims repeatedly turned away in recent years by understaffed and overcrowded hospitals in Japan.

Paramedics reached the accident scene within minutes after the man on a bicycle collided with a motorcycle in the western city of Itami. But 14 hospitals refused to admit the 69-year-old citing a lack of specialists, equipment and staff, according to Mitsuhisa Ikemoto, a fire department official. 

Similar problems have occurred frequently in recent years. More than 14,000 emergency patients were rejected at least three times by Japanese hospitals before getting treatment in 2007, the latest government survey showed.   

But do not fear, as the government is fixing the situation.

Masuzoe urged the development of a community-wide support system to ease the burden on hospitals. The government also announced plans to increase the number of doctors and improve coordination among ambulances, emergency call centers and hospitals.  

Obama taking responsibility for the Daschle debacle. That’s something I can respect. Thats what a president is supposed to do.

Full story here:

Barack Obama on Tuesday abruptly abandoned his nomination fight for Tom Daschle and a second major appointee who failed to pay all their taxes, fearing a lingering ethics dispute would undercut his claims to moral high ground and cripple his presidency in just its second week. “I screwed up,” Obama declared.

“It’s important for this administration to send a message that there aren’t two sets of rules — you know, one for prominent people and one for ordinary folks who have to pay their taxes,” Obama said near the end of a day of jarring developments, little more than 24 hours after he had said he was “absolutely” committed to Daschle’s confirmation.

“I’m frustrated with myself, with our team. … I’m here on television saying I screwed up,” Obama said on NBC’s “Nightly News with Brian Williams.” He repeated virtually the same words in interviews with other TV anchors.

Several weeks ago Michael posted about Obama’s efforts to scrutinize his nominations. Consider this:

Tom Daschle - once considered assured of breezing through his confirmation as U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services - soon will face tough questioning on Capitol Hill about underpaying his income taxes and his extensive work for clients in the health care industry, Republican aides said Saturday.

GOP lawmakers on the Senate Finance Committee are preparing to grill the former majority leader about his failure to pay more than $128,000 in taxes for 2005 to 2007.

And Republicans are interested in hundreds of thousands of dollars that Daschle earned for consulting and speaking to health care companies and groups in the years following his 2005 departure from the Senate.

Although not a registered lobbyist, the South Dakota Democrat over the last two years earned more than $2.1 million as a “special policy adviser” at Alston & Bird, a law firm with more than 50 lobbying clients in the health care industry.

That’s some scrutiny! Take a gander at this one:

Apparently it is fine not to pay one’s taxes. That seems to be the message from the Obama administration.

First it was disclosed that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner failed to pay more than $34,000 in self-employment taxes. That held up his nomination for the post briefly, but did not derail it; he was confirmed by a vote of 60-34.

In Micheal’s words, that’s about how much Hope and Change I expected in an Obama, and really for that matter, any presidential administration.

UPDATE:

Ran Across this article. It seemed relevant to this post.

It is easy to project yourself as a clean politician after making your debut in South Side Chicago with buddies like Rahm Emanuel. US president Obama has appointed more than 17 lobbyists after talking big on anti-lobbyist Governance and rooting corruption out of the American Government.

Now that strikes me as more of the same.

Michael asked what would Reagen do? According to this Wall Street Journal editorial he would cut taxes.

Congress and the Obama administration seem near to deciding the details of an economic stimulus package. Unlike the efforts of President Ronald Reagan and President George W. Bush, who also inherited declining stock markets and shrinking economies, this package is heavily weighted toward direct government spending, transfers to state and local governments, and tax changes that have virtually no effect on marginal tax rates.

Today the Reagan tax cuts are widely viewed as successful. Opinions on the longer-term effects of the Bush tax cuts are more diverse, but the short-term effects of the 2001 and 2003 cuts are generally credited as having been well-timed.