Obama Doubles Down on Health Care
It turns out that Scott Brown’s election has not killed Obama’s plans for health care reform. Instead, despite flagging personal and health care poll numbers, Obama plans to use the “reconciliation” process to push his plan through the Senate with only 51 votes.
Unfortunately, there is nothing new or improved about Obama’s plan. As John Goodman points out, Obama has not jettisoned any of the most egregious aspects of the Senate’s plan, but instead has added some additional bad ideas to the mix. These include:
* The White House plans to impose the Medicare payroll tax (2.9%) on capital income! (Interest, dividends, annuities, royalties, and rent which is not otherwise “passive.”)
* The White House wants a national health insurance price-fixing body to approve rate hikes! (Despite evidence that state price-fixing leads to more uninsured, not less.)
As Americans for Tax Reform points out, Obama’s plan represents a $629 billion tax hike. Obama claims that his “new” plan has added Republican ideas to the mix (if that is the case, I haven’t seen them or any hints of free market reforms), but I certainly don’t see any free market ideas in the latest iteration of ObamaCare.
Charter Bank Victim of Corporate Socialism
A few weeks ago in the Albuquerque Journal’s business section, Winthrop Quigley discussed the sad case of Charter Bank’s seizure by the Office of Thrift Supervision — the federal bank regulator. While Quigley’s article was by and large on target and generated a tremendous response, I felt that it was important to clarify that what happened to Charter was not a result of “free markets.” I elaborated on this issue in a letter to the Business Journal that was published today.
The full letter can be found below:
It is no surprise that Winthrop Quigley received such a strong reaction from readers to his coverage of the closing of Charter Bank. After all, people have an intuitive revulsion to unfair policies. Few policies are more transparently unfair than those foisted on the banking industry by the federal government which have bailed out some “too big to fail” banks with billions of our taxpayer dollars, resulted in massive bonuses for corporate fat cats, and yet have driven smaller community banks like Charter out of business for relatively minor transgressions.
The fact is that while not always as obvious as the case of Charter, this is par for the course for the federal government. If you have the money to buy high-powered lobbyists, the government will come to your rescue. If you don’t, you are out of luck.
What average citizens need to understand is this: The current situation is corporate socialism, not capitalism! Banks were among the most tightly regulated industries even before this economic crisis. Factor in federal manipulation of the money supply, the creation and financing of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and dozens of other interventions in the financial sector, and any semblance of capitalism are lost.
Charter may have made mistakes — humans are not perfect — but in the end the bank is a victim of unfair federal intervention and the nation’s rapid shift toward corporate socialism.
RailRunner Costs Are Eating New Mexico Alive
Jim Scarantino and Steve McAllister review the RailRunner’s red ink and its consequences for our state. Read the latest report at New Mexico Watchdog here.
Public Gain, Private Pain
During the 2010 legislative session, New Mexico’s public employees succeeded in preserving their big numbers, high salaries, and fat pensions. Unfortunately, the problem is not limited to New Mexico. As the USA Today recently pointed out “Federal workers are enjoying an extraordinary boom time — in pay and hiring — during a recession that has cost 7.3 million jobs in the private sector.”
This is because government employees are very organized and politically-powerful. Hopefully average Americans will wake up and realize that their interests are not in line with those of most government workers. Until that fact becomes widely acknowledged, government will continue to grow at the expense of the private sector.
Why NOT Deregulate Qwest?
A little-publicized bill discussed during the recently-completed legislative session involved the deregulation of Qwest’s basic retail services. Senate Bill 37 was introduced by Sen. Cisneros and would have eliminated Public Regulatory Commission jurisdiction over the regulated telecommunications provider’s rates and terms for basic land-line services if it found “effective competition” in more than 50 percent of the provider’s market area, or if it has lost more than 33 percent of its land lines since 2001.
Sounds reasonable enough, right? After all, people — even living in rural areas — have many different phone services to choose from. Cell phones and cable providers are just two options, but when it comes right down to it, why should the PRC tell Qwest how much they can charge their customers? People who choose to live in far-flung, difficult to server rural areas should bear the extra costs associated with serving them, right?
Unfortunately, Sen. Lovejoy, PRC Commissioner Jason Marks, and apparently, several unregulated telecommunications providers, opposed the effort and the bill died. Sen. Cisneros has threatened to, rather than deregulating Qwest, attempt to bring these other telecommunications providers under regulatory control of the PRC. Hopefully, this is just a threat meant to neutralize the misguided opposition lobbying of these providers. New Mexico policymakers, wherever the market makes it possible, should be attempting to strip the PRC of its regulatory powers. This is because markets are far more efficient in terms of setting prices and “regulating” the marketplace than any politically-controlled regulatory agency.
Don’t give up Sen. Cisneros!
Can we get a Tax Lightning Fix in the Special Session?
The 2010 legislative session ended yesterday with the House having completely avoided the Tax Lightning issue. According to Dan Boyd of the Albuquerque Journal, The Senate passed four separate bills to address “tax lightning,” including reasonable efforts by Sen. Neville and Sen. Eichenberg. Text of Eichenberg’s bill which would extend the 3% cap to all properties can be found here. Neville’s bill can be found here.
Unfortunately, as I’ve noted before, the New Mexico House seems to be inherently unwilling to make the tough decisions necessary to solve the problems facing New Mexicans. Notably, the entire House is up for election this November.
Hopefully Governor Richardson will put “tax lightning” on call for the special session. Tell him what you think.
In: Uncategorized
Some Good News from Santa Fe
While many are disappointed with the lack of a budget agreement during the 30-day legislative session — and I’m disappointed that both Houses and Richardson seem all too willing to raise taxes — the good news is that open government saw a few big successes this session. Of note is that the House of Representatives is now putting votes up on its website.
Bigger still in terms of empowering citizens and concerned taxpayers is the passage in both houses of SB 95 which would create a “Sunshine Portal” for more open government. Pending the Governor’s signature (you can influence that by contacting him), a “Sunshine Portal” will be created. This will include the names of all exempt employees, their title, and salary on a public, easily viewed on-line website.
SB 195, the Sunshine Portal Transparency Act was sponsored by Senator Sander Rue.
Positions and salaries of all other state employees, but not their names, would be released if SB 195 becomes law.
Other items included on the site are:
• state cash balances by account or fund;
• monthly summaries of the state’s investment accounts under the control of the State Investment Council;
• annual operating budgets for each state agency with monthly expenditures by category;
• state agency contracts with a total value of more than $20,000, naming both the recipients and purposes of the contracts;
This website will give average citizens additional tools to see that their money is being spent as efficiently as possible.
In: Uncategorized
Free Market Capitalism Will Achieve Liberal Goals
Pick up a copy of The Alibi this week (it is free after all). I have the cover story in the paper and I use the platform to reach out to liberals and those on the left in general, many of whom I believe to be good-hearted, well-intentioned people who would be much more effective in using free markets and individual liberty to achieve their goals. This would be so much more effective than the coercive power of government.
If you don’t live in The Alibi’s distribution area or simply want to read the article online, the link can be found here.
80% of Americans Don’t Understand Constitution…Is it any surprise we are where we are?
Yahoo often has interesting stories on its front page. Today, an article appeared noting that 80% of Americans oppose the recent Supreme Court decision that opens the door for foreign and domestic corporations, labor unions, and other organizations to spend money directly from their general funds to influence campaigns. I know, it sounds pretty shady…allowing anyone to “buy” elections, right? Pretty dangerous stuff.
But was the Supreme Court correct? Simply put, the first amendment to the Constitution states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
“Congress shall make no law…” I kind of wish they’d just stopped there. Anyway, this is meant to be an expansive protection. There are no exceptions, so corporations, unions and the like are all protected. Simple stuff really, but of course our friends in the media will see their power diminished somewhat and are not explaining the issue.
While I disagree with him, at least lame duck Sen. Chris Dodd has embarked upon the one justifiable way to reverse this ruling, with a constitutional amendment of his own.
In: Uncategorized
Creating Opportunities for New Mexicans
A new pro-business organization has entered the playing field with an op-ed in today’s Albuquerque Journal urging policymakers to focus on private-sector job creation for New Mexicans. While somewhat short on specifics and filled with happy talk such as the supposed fact that we need “strong and efficient public and private sectors.” No, we don’t need a “strong” public sector and yes, the public sector (ie. government) is in direct competition with the private sector for resources and talent.
Nonetheless, it is great to see an organization here in New Mexico that is focused on private sector job growth, the only way to solve some of our most pressing budget issues. Of course, I hope that the organization will focus on sustainable jobs created by entrepreneurs via a fair and low tax structure and equitable and reasonable regulations, not lavish subsidies focused on narrow industries. Hopefully this group, Creating Opportunities for New Mexicans becomes a powerful, pro-private-sector voice in New Mexico. We need it.
