Category Archives: Cato Institute

Pryor on Government Shutdown (Part 1)(Sonny Boy Williams III, Famous Arkansan)

April 6, 2011 – 11:41 pm

Mark Pryor made some comments on April 6, 2011 on the floor of the U.S.Senate concerning the possible federal government shutdown. I will provide all of his comments in my next few posts. Here is a portion below:

Mr. President.  We find ourselves in dangerous territory while Republicans and Democrats continue to point fingers and hold fiery press conferences, a government shutdown is quickly approaching.  The blame game is like quicksand.  It has the ability to drag down not just the Senate and the House, but our entire economy and even our country.  No matter how you look at it, a shutdown would be reckless and irresponsible.

We can get this short-term budget problem resolved if all parties would turn off the rhetoric and stop the campaigning.  A few extreme partisans stand in the way of progress, blocking a good-faith effort of many others seeking common ground.  I ask them to take to heart what it says in the Book of Isaiah, “Come now, let us reason together.”  We need to overcome this budget impasse and live up to the oath we took to the people we represent.

Larger challenges await our attention.  It is not in our best interest to see a government shutdown, and I don’t think it is in the best interest of the nation to continue on this deficit spending cycle that we’ve been on.  We owe it to the American people and the world watching us to show American leadership on both our short-term and long-term fiscal challenges.

I’d like to see us turn our efforts to the blueprint provided by the debt commission. We must find ways to reduce spending, address entitlement programs, and reform the tax code.  And now with all the momentum built up over the last few months, it is the time to lead.  We must make the serious decision to get our nation out of the red so that we can be competitive for the future.  Again, I’d say let’s turn off the rhetoric and be part of the solution, not the problem.

Senator Pryor does not want us to continue this deficit spending but what does a CR do? It continues the current spending levels!!!!

Daniel Mitchell of the Cato Institute wrote a great article called, “Winning the Government-Shutdown Fight,” National Review Online, Feb 25, 2011. Let me share with you some history about the federal government shutdown in 1995. These events also lead me to disagree with Senator Pryor”s assertion that bad things will happen if the federal shutdown occurs. Good things happened last time. Here is what Mitchell wrote:

With the GOP-led House and the Democratic Senate and White House far apart on a measure to pay the federal government’s bills past March 4, Washington is rumbling toward a repeat of the 1995 government-shutdown fight (actually two shutdown fights, one in mid-November of that year and the other in mid-December).

This makes some Republicans nervous. They think Bill Clinton “won” the blame game that year, and they’re afraid they will get the short end of the stick if there is a 1995-type impasse this year.

A timid approach, though, is a recipe for failure. It means that President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid can sit on their hands, make zero concessions, and wait for the GOP to surrender any time a deadline approaches.

To put it simply, Republicans need to hold firm and fight hard.

In other words, budget hawks in the House have no choice. They have to fight.

But they can take comfort in the fact that this is not a suicide mission. The conventional wisdom about what happened in November of 1995 is very misleading.

Republicans certainly did not suffer at the polls. They lost only nine House seats, a relatively trivial number after a net gain of 54 in 1994. They actually added to their majority in the Senate, picking up two seats in the 1996 cycle.

More important, they succeeded in dramatically reducing the growth of federal spending. They did not get everything they wanted, to be sure, but government spending grew by just 2.9 percent during the first four years of GOP control, helping to turn a $164 billion deficit in 1995 into a $126 billion surplus in 1999. And they enacted a big tax cut in 1997.

If that’s what happens when Republicans are defeated, I hope the GOP loses again this year.

Dan Mitchell of Cato Institute

__________________________________

I am doing a series on famous Arkansans and today we have a special treat.

Sonny Boy Williams, III

Inducted in 2008

(1908-1965) – Born Aleck Ford in Glendora, Mississippi, Sonny Boy Williams was a masterful songwriter and performer. He was one of the most influential blues performers of his generation and, along with Robert Lockwood, was one of the first electric blues acts in the Delta. In the late 1920s he began performing at jukes and parties, traveling throughout Arkansas, Missouri, Mississippi, Louisiana and Tennessee working as a one man band with harmonicas, drums and the zoo thorn at dance halls, lumber camps, carnivals and ballparks. In the mid 1930s he was being called “Little Boy Blue” and worked at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee. In late 1941, he adopted the “Sonny Boy Williams” name and along with Robert Jr. Lockwood began performing on KFFA in Helena and the “King Biscuit Time” radio program where he performed daily until his death. Some of his songs, “Don’t Start Me Talking,” “The Key,” “Nine Below Zero,” “Help Me” and many more can be found in any serious blues harmonica player’s repertoire today.


By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Famous Arkansans | Comments (0)

Madison, WI Union Debate (part 2)

March 11, 2011 – 11:45 pm

Teachers’ unions and representatives of every liberal interest group in the country may have taken over the streets of Madison for demonstrations, marches and speeches, but inside the Wisconsin governor’s mansion its chief tenant remains calm and resolute.

Tennessee loses to Florida and Vandy beats Miss St. Kentucky slips by Ole Miss and Alabama beats Georgia. What do I care? The hogs are out already!!!

Max Brantley (Arkansas Times Blog, March 8, 2011) asserted:

Town hall meetings in Wisconsin suddenly aren’t so comfortable for Republican politicians. They’re having to explain the police state underway at the Capitol. Congressman James Sensenbrenner shut down his meeting prematurely rather than letting the people speak.

Dump him in the harbor.

_________________________________

That is strange talk coming from a liberal like Max since all the liberals were critical of Palin for all this mean spirited rhetoric.

Chris Edwards wrote an excellent article “Madison Protest: Unions are Angry– but Wisconsin Should Go Even Further,” Feb 18, 2011, Cato Institute and I will posted portions of that article the next few days.

In 2010, 36 percent of state and local workers were members of unions, which is five times the union share in the US private sector. Yet prior to the 1960s, unions represented less than 15 percent of the state and local workforce. At the time, courts generally held that public-sector workers did not have the same union privileges that private workers had under the 1935 Wagner Act, such as collective bargaining.

The rise of public-sector unions
That changed during the 1960s and 1970s, as a flood of pro-union laws in dozens of states triggered a dramatic rise in public-sector unionism. Many states passed laws that encouraged collective bargaining in the public sector, as well as laws that imposed compulsory union dues.

Today, the union shares in government workforces vary widely by state. About 26 states have collective bargaining for essentially all state and local workers. A further 12 or so states have collective bargaining for a portion of their state and local workers, and the remaining 12 states do not have public sector collective bargaining. At the same time, 22 states have “right-to-work” laws, which free workers from being forced to join a union or pay union dues.

These differences in unionization between the states affect fiscal policy. Statistical studies find that unionized public sector workers earn a wage premium of about 10 percent over non-unionized public sector workers. This is important because employee compensation represents half of all state and local government spending.

Aside from inflated wages, public sector unions have pushed for excessive pension benefit levels, which are creating a fiscal crisis for many governments. That’s another reason unions are so angry in Wisconsin: Governor Walker is demanding that state workers carry more of the burden for their health and pension plans.

By Everette Hatcher III | Comments (0)

Madison, WI Union Debate (part 1)

March 10, 2011 – 2:59 pm

The Heritage Foundation sent a team to Madison, WI, to cover the union-backed protest against Gov. Scott Walker’s budget proposal.

3,746
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Scott Walker

I want to say “Hi” to my friend Pete from Wisconsin. Since you emailed this morning, I have decided to start posting my series on Wisconsin and the Union debate. By the way, way to go Packers. I told you about the time a few years ago with former Greenbay Packer Keith Jackson brought his son to the movies and sat next to my son Wilson and I. Actually I have several friends that knew him from Parkview High School where he was a standout in both basketball and football. I also got to hear his testimony at Paul Jackson’s church. Reggie White stayed after him until he shaped up!!!

A tribute to Reggie White, a great part of Packer’s history and an even greater person.

Gene Lyons asserts in his article, “Wisconsin government: In cash we trust, but unions we bust,” (Feb 25, 2011) :

Negotiating, however, wasn’t what Gov. Walker had in mind. His goal was union-busting. Refusing to meet with union representatives, he proposed a bill basically abolishing the collective-bargaining rights of public employees first established in 1959.

He pre-emptively threatened to call out the National Guard if union members didn’t like it. There would be no compromises and no negotiation.

“He campaigned on this,” wrote Washington Post columnist George Will. His little heart going pitty-pat for this latest right-wing heartthrob, Will compared Walker to such conservative foes of organized labor as Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.

Except, no, Walker didn’t run on decertifying public employee unions during his 2010 campaign. Moreover, he’d probably never have been elected governor if he had.

A poll commissioned by the AFL-CIO found that even with partisan passions fully engaged, less than one-third of Wisconsinites favor abolishing public employees’ right to collective bargaining — particularly not, one imagines, in so peremptory and dishonest a manner.

_____________________________

My observation is that who would believe a poll by the AFL-CIO anyway?

Chris Edwards wrote an excellent article “Madison Protest: Unions are Angry– but Wisconsin Should Go Even Further,” Feb 18, 2011, Cato Institute and I will posted portions of that article the next few days.

Chaos in government. Tens of thousands of angry protesters in the streets. Schools closed. Yes, Wisconsin looks a lot like Egypt this week. But while Arabs are fighting to end extraordinary overreach by government, Wisconsin union protesters are fighting to preserve it.

At the heart of the dispute is a bold plan by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) to curtail collective bargaining by most but not all of his state’s public-sector workers, including teachers. That is a long overdue reform — but the governor’s plan doesn’t go far enough! A dozen or so states, including Virginia, where I live, do not allow collective bargaining in the public sector at all, and these states are doing just fine without it.

The government union issue is coming to the forefront because states, facing huge deficits, are desperate to reform their budgets and cut pensions. Wisconsin is just one of several states where legislatures, empowered by Republican victories last fall, are finally tackling one of the root causes: the ability of public-sector unions to squeeze taxpayers for exorbitant benefits. In states that have unionized workforces, needed reforms are facing huge and aggressive anti-reform lobbying campaigns by the unions.

I remember like yesterday the summer of 1978 when the Memphis City Police went on strike for 8 days. There was a curfew every night and basically many upstanding police acted like criminals themselves. It was a sad time. There are reasons that many public sector unions do not have the right to strike. More on that in my next post.

By Everette Hatcher III | Comments (0)

Brantley: Children hurt by budget cutters. Liberals will keep spending till the levee breaks? Part 1

February 28, 2011 – 5:04 pm

HALT:HaltingArkansasLiberalswithTruth.com

Today Max Brantley started whining about the children that will be hurt by all these impending budget cuts (Arkansas Times, Feb 28). I guess he always thinks the answer to everything is to throw more federal programs and money at it.

Have you ever heard of the great flood of 1927. My grandfather moved to Memphis in 1927 and he told me about this flood. There was a lady named Memphis Minnie and she wrote about this flood. I always heard that there was lots of great blues music that had come out of Memphis, but I always thought that was overstated and that the Blues was not a significant form of music.

However, at the same time I was listening to groups like Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones, I had no idea that many of their songs were based on old Blues songs out of Memphis.

One of my favorite Led Zeppelin songs was “When the Levee breaks.” It was based on a song by Memphis Minnie. When I think about the recent increase of federal Spending and federal Deficits under President Obama, it makes me think of this song. In 1927 the rains kept coming and coming and finally the levee broke. Now the federal spending keeps coming and the deficits continue to build up and I wonder when will our government go bankrupt?

Memphis Minnie and Joe Mccoys original.

Led Zeppelin

_________________________

President Obama admits that the Federal Government is out of money but that doesn’t stop him from still borrowing more and more to keep spending it. When will our government go bankrupt? When will the levee break?

Video : Obama “We are out of money”

May 23, 2009

Evidently Drudge Report  is running a headliner stating that Obama said “We are out of money” — There is no corresponding text to it other than this.

If you think for one second that this isn’t gonna wreck havoc on every industry including advertising then you are living in an illusionary world.

‘WE’RE OUT OF MONEY’
Sat May 23 2009 10:32:18 ET

In a sobering holiday interview with C-SPAN, President Obama boldly told Americans: “We are out of money.”

C-SPAN host Steve Scully broke from a meek Washington press corps with probing questions for the new president.

SCULLY: You know the numbers, $1.7 trillion debt, a national deficit of $11 trillion. At what point do we run out of money?

OBAMA: Well, we are out of money now. We are operating in deep deficits, not caused by any decisions we’ve made on health care so far. This is a consequence of the crisis that we’ve seen and in fact our failure to make some good decisions on health care over the last several decades.

So we’ve got a short-term problem, which is we had to spend a lot of money to salvage our financial system, we had to deal with the auto companies, a huge recession which drains tax revenue at the same time it’s putting more pressure on governments to provide unemployment insurance or make sure that food stamps are available for people who have been laid off.

So we have a short-term problem and we also have a long-term problem. The short-term problem is dwarfed by the long-term problem. And the long-term problem is Medicaid and Medicare. If we don’t reduce long-term health care inflation substantially, we can’t get control of the deficit.

So, one option is just to do nothing. We say, well, it’s too expensive for us to make some short-term investments in health care. We can’t afford it. We’ve got this big deficit. Let’s just keep the health care system that we’ve got now.

Along that trajectory, we will see health care cost as an overall share of our federal spending grow and grow and grow and grow until essentially it consumes everything…

barack-obama

Written by TheFounder · Filed Under Advertising Agency News

Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute tells how the Republicans can win the federal government shutdown fight with the Democrats. I will be posting portions his his article the next few days. Here is the first part:

With the GOP-led House and the Democratic Senate and White House far apart on a measure to pay the federal government’s bills past March 4, Washington is rumbling toward a repeat of the 1995 government-shutdown fight (actually two shutdown fights, one in mid-November of that year and the other in mid-December).

This makes some Republicans nervous. They think Bill Clinton “won” the blame game that year, and they’re afraid they will get the short end of the stick if there is a 1995-type impasse this year.

A timid approach, though, is a recipe for failure. It means that President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid can sit on their hands, make zero concessions, and wait for the GOP to surrender any time a deadline approaches.

To put it simply, Republicans need to hold firm and fight hard.

In other words, budget hawks in the House have no choice. They have to fight.

But they can take comfort in the fact that this is not a suicide mission. The conventional wisdom about what happened in November of 1995 is very misleading.

Republicans certainly did not suffer at the polls. They lost only nine House seats, a relatively trivial number after a net gain of 54 in 1994. They actually added to their majority in the Senate, picking up two seats in the 1996 cycle.

More important, they succeeded in dramatically reducing the growth of federal spending. They did not get everything they wanted, to be sure, but government spending grew by just 2.9 percent during the first four years of GOP control, helping to turn a $164 billion deficit in 1995 into a $126 billion surplus in 1999. And they enacted a big tax cut in 1997.

If that’s what happens when Republicans are defeated, I hope the GOP loses again this year.

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in President Obama, spending out of control | Comments (0)

Brantley:Bring Accountability to Charter Schools

February 16, 2011 – 8:39 am

HALT:HaltingArkansasLiberalswithTruth.com

In his blog post “Charter School Accountability in Maumelle,” (Arkansas Times Blog, Feb 15, 2011), Max Brantley asserts, “It’s taken 10 years, but the state Board of Education has finally begun bringing some degree of accountability to charter schools.”

It is my view that we should encourage Charter Schools, Private Schools (through a voucher system) and public schools and let the best schools win. Pat Lynch admitted that what we are doing now in the Little Rock School District is not working.  Take a look at the video clip below that also talks about what is going on in Florida with business tax credits.

Just next door our neighbor Oklahoma just took a big step last year. James Hall wrote this fine article “School Choice Victory in the Sooner State,” (June 11, 2010, Heritage Foundation).


School choice efforts took a substantial step forward yesterday when Oklahoma’s Democratic Governor Brad Henry signed into law the Lindsey Nicole Henry Scholarships for Students with Disabilities Act. Special needs children in the state will now be able to attend a school of their parents’ choice through the help of vouchers. This program will provide significant opportunity for an estimated 15 percent of Oklahoma children and their families.

Support for the new law came from both sides of the political spectrum. The principal authors of the bill, Sen. Sally Kern (R) and Rep. Jason Nelson (R) were joined by representatives Anastasia Pittman (D), Jabar Shumate (D) and Sen. Patrick Anderson (R), to maneuver the legislation through the state congress and senate before its signing by Governor Henry. Nelson thanked Governor Henry in The Daily Oklahoman for his support and explained that the bill will provide children with special needs “a chance at a better education and a better life.”

Betsy DeVos, chairman of The American Federation for Children, commented on the school choice victory:

We salute Governor Henry for his leadership in enacting this transformational new program, and we congratulate the bipartisan team of Oklahoma legislators who worked together and put politics aside for the sake of helping children with special needs.

Oklahoma joins a growing list of states who offer school choice for parents of special needs children, including Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Ohio, and Utah. The president and CEO of the Foundation for Educational Choice, Robert Enlow encouraged other states to take similar action:

Because of the governor’s and legislature’s courageous acts, Oklahoma’s children with special needs have been afforded a new, better chance to succeed in life. … Other states should emulate Oklahoma and its willingness to put the interests of kids and parents first.

Back in Washington, the Obama administration has been turning back the clock on school choice, working to phase out the highly successful and popular D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. But states like Oklahoma are moving forward with policies to put power in the hands of parents and opportunity in the reach of children. Many families will now have the opportunity to send their children to those schools they feel will best meet their needs. Hopefully the administration will see state choice victories as a sign that it is indeed parents – not bureaucrats or union leaders – who should have control of their children’s educational future.

James Hall is a member of the Young Leaders Program at the Heritage Foundation. For more information on interning at Heritage, please visit: http://www.heritage.org/about/departments/ylp.cfm

______________________________________

Andrew Coulson, director of the Center for Education Freedom at the Cato Institute, believes giving businesses tax credits for sending kids to private school is the most effective way to expand school choice. The regulatory and legal obstacles to charters schools and vouchers, he argues, present too many hassles to work around .

Reason.tv sat down with Coulson at the National Summit on Education Reform in Washington, D.C. to talk about the public education tax credits and more.

This interview is part of National School Choice Week, a non-partisan initiative to raise awareness of how competition and choice can transform K-12 education.

Approximately 6 minutes. Filmed by Jim Epstein and Meredith Bragg, and edited by Epstein. Interview by Nick Gillespie.

Go to http://reason.tv for downloadable versions, and subscribe to Reason.tv’s YouTube Channel to receive automatic notification when new material goes live.

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Vouchers | Comments (0)

Obama’s health care Part 5

February 15, 2011 – 6:37 am

HALT:HaltingArkansasLiberalswithTruth.com

Obama’s health care Part 5

Mississippi Center for Public Policy and The Federalist Society present: Is ObamaCare Good for Patients, Doctors, Employers, & State Budgets?

Above you will see a clip from Mississippi concerning health care. My mother’s parents lived in Mississippi and I grew up going down there to visit my cousins. They were football fans and we used to go see Ole Miss take on Miss St many times in Jackson. Emory Bellard was the coach at Miss State from 1979 to 1985. Dave Campbell wrote an excellent article remembering the life of Bellard.

Emory Bellard will be remembered as the man who created the Wishbone.

As a member of Darrell Royal’s Texas Longhorn coaching staff in 1968, Bellard developed the triple-option offense that utilized three running backs lined up in an inverted “U” formation behind the quarterback.

A year later, when Texas won the national championship on the way to 30 straight wins, Bellard’s offense changed the look of college football and brought a huge number of high school teams along for the ride…

Bellard, who was head coach at A&M from 1972-78, was honored at the Texas Sports Hall of Fame last October, where his players, assistant coaches, opposing coaches, family and friends sang his praise.

The Hall of Fame in Waco opened a permanent exhibit dedicated to Bellard, a 1995 inductee…

The 12th Man Kickoff Team later honored Bellard at its annual banquet. The former A&M coach was recognized at halftime of the Aggies’ win over Nebraska.

“As a young football coach, you couldn’t have a better mentor than Coach Bellard,” Slocum said. “He was an outstanding football coach, but more than that, he was a great human being. Being able to see how he handled people and situations was a great learning opportunity for me. He always thought and saw the best in people. He loved his players, and his players loved playing for him.”

Slocum had a chance last week to talk with Bellard.

“[Coach Bellard] told me, ‘I’ve led a great life. I got to do exactly what I wanted to do at some great institutions and with some great young men,'” Slocum said.

In seven years at A&M, Bellard went 48-27, leading the Aggies to two 10-win seasons. His Aggies went 10-2 and shared the Southwest Conference title in 1975, and Bellard earned the American Football Coaches Association award as the College Coach of the Year. In 1976, the Aggies closed the season ranked seventh nationally after beating Florida in the Sun Bowl 37-14 to finish 10-2 again…

Emory Bellard took over as head coach at Mississippi State from 1979-85. In seven seasons in Starkville, Miss., he posted a record of 37-42. Two of his teams finished in the Top 20. He coached the Bulldogs to back-to-back bowl games for the first time in school history.

His 1980 team finished 9-3 and beat top-ranked Alabama 6-3, ending Alabama’s 28-game winning streak. By the time Bellard’s teams upset the Crimson Tide, Alabama head coach Bear Bryant had long since installed the Wishbone offense for his attack.

Bellard’s Wishbone revolution became the offense of choice for 14 national championship teams.

  • Emory Bellard, who was a head coach at Texas A&M, is credited with helping create the wishbone offense while a UT assistant. / SA
    Emory Bellard, who was a head coach at Texas A&M, is credited with…
  • Emory Bellard, head coach of the Texas A&M Football team during the 1970s. EN File. / SA
    Emory Bellard, head coach of the Texas A&M Football team during the…
I just wanted to add one thing about Miss St and the cowbell. Why are the Miss St fans the only fans in the world allowed to use artificial noise makers? It bugged me back in the 1970’s and it bugs me now. I personally believe it will take them winning the SEC before enough anger is aroused by this to do something about it.

Ilya Shapiro delivered this testimony on Jan 24, 2011 to the Arkansas House of Representatives. This was later put into a paper “On the Arkansas Health Care Freedom Act and Its Relationship to Obamacare.” He stated:

The strongest legal argument — implicitly supported by the HCFA — attacks the constitutionality of the individual mandate to buy health insurance. “The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States.” Cong. Budget Office, The Budgetary Treatment of an Individual Mandate to Buy Health Insurance 1 (1994). Nor has it ever said that every man and woman can be fined for declining to participate in the marketplace. And never before have courts had to consider such a breathtaking assertion of raw power under the Commerce Clause. Even at the height of the New Deal, in the infamous case of Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 11 (1942), the federal government claimed “merely” the power to regulate what farmers grew, not to mandate that people become farmers or require people to buy farm products.

But that should not be surprising, because ours is a government of delegated and enumerated powers and the Constitution does not grant Congress the power to force private commercial transactions. Even if the Supreme Court has broadened the scope of congressional authority under the Commerce Clause — it can now reach local activities that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce — never before has it allowed people to face a civil penalty for not buying a particular product.

Stated another way, every exercise of Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce has involved some form of action or transaction engaged in by an individual or legal entity. The government’s theory — that the decision not to buy insurance is an economic one that affects interstate commerce in various ways — would, for the first time ever, permit laws commanding people to engage in economic activity.

Under such a reading, which two judges in other Obamacare cases have alas accepted, Congress would be the sole arbiter of its own powers, the only checks on which would be political. The federal government would have plenary authority to compel activities ranging from eating spinach and joining gyms (in the health care realm) to buying GM cars (as part of an auto bailout). Authority so novel and sweeping would be indistinguishable from a general “police power,” which is irreconcilable with the established principle that Congress has only limited and enumerated powers. As Judge Henry Hudson said in striking down the individual mandate in the Virginia case, “This broad definition of the economic activity subject to congressional regulation lacks logical limitation and is unsupported by Commerce Clause jurisprudence.”


By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Healthcare | Comments (0)

Obama’s health care Part 4

February 14, 2011 – 6:11 am

HALT:HaltingArkansasLiberalswithTruth.com

Obama’s health care Part 4

I am very pleased with the uprising across the country to try and stop Obamacare. Unfortunately the governor and attorney general in Arkansas are Democrats that want no part of that. The people are Arkansas in my home town of Bryant don’t see it that way though.

Ilya Shapiro, Senior Fellow in Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute, accepts the challenge to debate the constitutionality of ObamaCare.

Ilya Shapiro delivered this testimony on Jan 24, 2011 to the Arkansas House of Representatives. This was later put into a paper “On the Arkansas Health Care Freedom Act and Its Relationship to Obamacare.” He stated:

Thank you very much for the invitation to share my thoughts on Arkansas’ proposed Health Care Freedom Act (HCFA) and how it relates to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA, commonly known as “Obamacare”). In my capacity as a senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute — a nonpartisan public policy foundation dedicated to advancing the principles of individual liberty, free markets, and limited government — I have been speaking and writing about how Obamacare destroys federalism and fundamentally transforms the relationship between citizen and government. I have also been extensively involved with the lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of various parts of the law, including having filed several amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) briefs.

The HCFA seeks to protect two essential rights. First, it protects a person’s right to participate or not in any health care system and prohibits the government from imposing fines or penalties on that person’s decision. Second, it protects the right of individuals to purchase — and the right of doctors to provide — lawful medical services without government fine or penalty.

No one questions the need for serious health care reform. Regardless of how such reform is fashioned, however, either at the state or federal level, the essential rights protected by the HCFA should be preserved. Indeed, supporters of provisions like the HCFA have a variety of perspectives on the form that health care reform should take, but they agree that no matter what legislation is passed, it should not take from Americans their right to control their own medical affairs. It is that precious right which is at stake here, for in many countries where the government plays a larger role in regulating or providing health insurance — including compelling individuals to join government-approved health plans — health care is rationed and individuals are prevented or discouraged from obtaining otherwise lawful medical services.

Now, as a matter of law, it is well established that the U.S. Constitution provides a baseline for the protection of individual rights, and that states may provide additional protections — and all of them do. For instance, some states provide greater protections of freedom of speech or due process rights.

Still, there is serious tension between the HCFA and certain parts of Obamacare. The Supremacy Clause establishes the Constitution as the supreme law of the land and provides that federal law prevails over conflicting state law where Congress has the legitimate authority — from its enumerated powers — to enact the legislation and where it does not impermissibly tread upon state sovereignty. The various lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of Obamacare assert a number of claims relating to these principles. The Florida-led suit, which now boasts 26 state plaintiffs, is perhaps most famous, but the separate cases brought by Virginia and Oklahoma, respectively, are notable because they are based largely on those states’ HCFAs (the former enacted as state law, the latter as a popularly ratified state constitutional amendment).

As should by now be clear, the state lawsuits, among others, are serious challenges maintained by serious lawyers and public officials. They question an unprecedented assertion of power — literally without legal precedent both in its regulatory scope and its expansion of federal authority — that, if left unchecked, would gravely alter the relationship of the federal government to the states and to the people. Nobody would ever again be able to claim plausibly that the Constitution limits federal power.

Mississippi Center for Public Policy and The Federalist Society present: Is ObamaCare Good for Patients, Doctors, Employers, & State Budgets?

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Healthcare | Comments (0)

Dumas: Obama Health care will contain health care costs

February 10, 2011 – 8:23 am

President Obama’s Health Care Myths #2

HALT: Halting Arkansas Liberals with Truth

Mississippi Center for Public Policy and The Federalist Society present: Is ObamaCare Good for Patients, Doctors, Employers, & State Budgets? (How will it affect employers?)

The sun is coming out now and the 7 inches of snow are starting to melt. When I was coming into work at 4:30 am this morning, I thought I would avoid the traffic. I usually leave much later. I had to get up to 30 mph because I was coming up to a big hill, and a truck almost pulled out in front of me. I would have ended up in a ditch in order to avoid the truck. Thank goodness they did not pull out in front of me.

On July 8, 2010 Ernie Dumas wrote the article “Health law gains acceptance in Arkansas: There is a lot to like, including cash infusion for state” which was published by the Arkansas Times. Dumas tries to make it sound like health care costs will be contained under this new system.

Unlucky for Dumas just two months later the Associated Press reported on September 9, 2010 the verdict on the cost of the new health legislation according to a government forecast. The conclusion was that “the nation’s health care tab will go up–not down –as a result of President Barack Obama’s sweeping overhaul.” The Chicago Tribune went on to comment:

“Well, duh. You can’t expand coverage by 32 million Americans and figure that will hold costs down. The Democrats sold health care to Americans with a lot of fuzzy accounting and shaky assertions about how relatively inexpensive all this would be”( September 23, 2010).

Michael F. Cannon wrote an excellent article (“Obama’s Health Care Myths Exposed,” AOL News, March 17, 2010) exposing the myths of President Obama’s heath care reform act.  I will be sharing portions of over the next few days.

Myth: The legislation would contain health care costs.

The Obama plan would increase health care costs for the simple reason that it would put millions more patients, plus doctors and insurers, in a position where they are spending the taxpayers’ money. That never produces frugality.

Its command-and-control approaches to cost containment have failed over and over in Medicare and Medicaid because they don’t change the incentives that encourage cost growth.

The only provision that would change incentives is the president’s proposed tax on the sick and others with high-cost health plans. But he appears ready to abandon that, anyway.

Stanford health economist Alain Enthoven writes, “The American people are being deceived.” The Senate bill would “do little or nothing to curb [health care] expenditures.”

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Healthcare | Comments (0)

Obama’s health care myths Part 1

February 9, 2011 – 7:02 am

On April 30th, Cato Senior Fellow & UChicago Law grad, Ilya Shapiro, debated UChicago Law Professor, David Strauss, on the constitutionality of “Obamacare”. The event was sponsored by the University Republicans & the Federalist Society.

HALT: Halting Arkansas Liberals with Truth
On July 8, 2010 Ernie Dumas wrote the article “Health law gains acceptance in Arkansas: There is a lot to like, including cash infusion for state” which was published by the Arkansas Times. On the subject of Medicaid there is more concern though, at least from the governor. In that article Dumas attempts to get Governor Beebe to endorse his thesis but the governor is wise enough not to jump on board so fast. Dumas wrote: 

He still is concerned that a sharply expanded Medicaid program will put a significant burden on the state, even if it is eight or nine years away.

“It would be easy for me to say that it will be fine until 2017 or later since I won’t be here,” Beebe said. “I may not be here next January and for sure I won’t be here in 2017. But I have a responsibility to look at the impact things will have long after I leave.”

Ilya Shapiro delivered this testimony on Jan 24, 2011 to the Arkansas House of Representatives. This was later put into a paper “On the Arkansas Health Care Freedom Act and Its Relationship to Obamacare.” He stated:


But the individual mandate is only the highest-profile tip of an iceberg that, if not avoided, will sink our constitutional vessel. For example, going beyond the Health Care Freedom Act (HCFA) for a moment, it should concern you, as state legislators, that Obamacare impermissibly coerces states by forcing them to accept a greatly expanded and fundamentally transformed Medicaid program. States such as Arkansas face an all-or-nothing proposition that is effectively a Hobson’s Choice: either accept the new Medicaid regime and suffer devastating consequences to your already-strained budget, or forgo access to many billions of dollars annually which the federal government collects from all taxpayers and then returns only to those states that remain in Medicaid. Neither Obamacare nor any other existing federal statute provides a mechanism for states to withdraw from Medicaid, and no process exists to protect the health and welfare of the poorest residents of states that wish to transition away.

Thus, contrary to the government’s suggestion in the Florida case, opting out of Medicaid is not a viable option by which states can avoid Obamacare’s ruinous effects. Accordingly, the legislation’s impositions on states, including Arkansas, “pass the point at which, ‘pressure turns into compulsion.'” South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U.S. 203, 211 (1987) (quoting Steward Machine Co. v. Davis, 395 U.S. 548, 590 (1937)).

In short, passing the HCFA would be a step toward protecting both individual liberty and state sovereignty as defined by our Constitution. I would support such a development and also urge you to seriously consider either joining the Florida-led lawsuit or, taking the example of Virginia and Oklahoma, forging ahead on your own. Should you need more information, I have found two websites to be invaluable resources regarding all of the Obamacare lawsuits: healthcarelawsuits.org and acalitigationblog.blogspot.com. I am also happy to answer any further questions you may have and can be reached at (202) 577-1134 or ishapiro@cato.org.

Michael F. Cannon wrote an excellent article (“Obama’s Health Care Myths Exposed,” AOL News, March 17, 2010) exposing the myths of President Obama’s heath care reform act.  I will be sharing portions of over the next few days.
Myth: This legislation won’t cut Medicare. 

Reductions in Medicare outlays finance about half of the legislation’s $1 trillion in new entitlement spending. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office verifies that the legislation would reduce Medicare benefits. President Obama’s top Medicare actuary verifies that it would reduce access to care for Medicare beneficiaries.

Of course, Congress needs to restrain Medicare spending. Otherwise, income-tax rates would have to double by midcentury. But the solution is to make Medicare more efficient, not to use price controls and bureaucratic rationing.


By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Healthcare | Comments (0)

Brummett: Social Security Privatization “very ruination of this vital contract.”(Social Security Series Part 5)

January 28, 2011 – 11:51 am

HALT:HaltingArkansasLiberalswithTruth.com

George Bush discusses his plans to privatize Social Security.

Social Security Series Part 5

John Brummett in his article “Boozman: Superman or Superficial?” (Arkansas Times, Sept 30, 2010) asserted, “that to take money out of Social Security and let individuals risk blowing it with bad investments would invite the very ruination of this vital contract.”

Personal accounts are safer than the current system.

What is the solution to the Social Security problem for young people? Ron Paul addresses this in his Dec 27, 2010 radio address:

Notice that neither political party proposes letting people opt out of Social Security, which exposes the lie that your contributions are set aside and saved. After all, if your contributions are really set aside for your retirement, the money is there earning interest, right? If your money is in your account, what difference would it make if your neighbor chooses not to participate in the program?

The truth of course is that your contributions are not put aside. Social Security is a simple tax. Like all taxes, the money collected is spent immediately as general revenue to fund the federal government. But no administration will admit that Social Security is nothing more than an accounting ledger with no money. You will collect benefits only if future tax revenues remain high. The money you paid into the system is long gone.

My hope is that at least some members of the new Congress will cut through the distortions to see Social Security as it really is. The best way to fix the impending Social Security crisis is also the simplest: Allow younger individuals to opt out of the program and use their tax savings to invest privately as they see fit. This is the true private solution. Your money has never been safe in the government’s hands and it never will be.

Ron Paul has rightly noted that basically Social Security needs to be seen for what it really is. Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute has rightly noted that Social Security is a “tax and transfer entitlement scheme.”

Below are some figures from a 1995 article by William Shipman of the Cato Institute:

Monthly Benefit Comparison of Social Security and the Capital Markets by Date of Birth, Income, and Age of Retirement (1995 Dollars)

[Bar graph omitted. Tabular presentation given.]

Year of Birth:  1930

               Retirement Age 62           Normal Retirement Age
            Low Wage      High Wage        Low Wage     High Wage
___________________________________________________________________

Social
 Security     $439          $929             $551         $1,200

Bonds         $380        $1,341             $574         $2,072

Stocks        $864        $2,614           $1,301         $3,999

Year of Birth:  1950

               Retirement Age 62           Normal Retirement Age
            Low Wage      High Wage        Low Wage     High Wage
___________________________________________________________________

Social
 Security     $468        $1,144              $631        $1,562 

Bonds         $749        $3,194            $1,069        $4,585

Stocks      $1,599        $6,380            $2,490        $9,972

Year of Birth:  1970

               Retirement Age 62           Normal Retirement Age
            Low Wage      High Wage        Low Wage     High Wage
___________________________________________________________________

Social
 Security      $529       $1,315              $769        $1,908

Bonds          $676       $3,268            $1,085        $5,243

Stocks       $1,363       $6,610            $2,419       $11,729

Source: Author’s calculations based on figures in Social Security Administration, Social Security Bulletin, Annual Statistical Supplement, 1994 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1994); Stocks, Bonds, Bills and Inflation (Chicago: Ibbotson Associates, 1995); and “IFC Investible Index,” International Finance Corporation, Washington, 1995.

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Social Security, Taxes | Comments (0)