Good poker players always watch their opponents for "tells," indications of what kind of hand they have.  Most players who aren't good, and some who are, will tip their hands at least some of the time, giving the good player information about whether he should raise, call, or fold.  Sunday conservative poker players had one of those moments when our opponents tipped their hand.

Throughout his campaign and Presidency, Barack Obama has steadfastly claimed that he will not raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year.  He stated more than once, "Let me be absolutely clear: If you are a family making less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes go up."   Why he wants to pick on people making $250,000 or more a year is another question, since those folks earn their money just like anyone else, but there it is.  

Unfortunately for our President, two of his senior economic advisers tipped the Obama administration's hand on Sunday political talk shows, refusing to rule out tax increases for the "middle class," however that's defined.  Speaking for the President, we can only assume, Larry Summers, head of Obama's National Economic Council, said, in response to a question on CBS's on "Face the Nation" about tax increases for the middle class, "There's a lot that can happen over time.  It's never a good idea to absolutely rule things out, no matter what."  

And in response to a similar question from George Stephanopoulos on ABC's "This Week" Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner also stated that higher taxes for the middle class could not be ruled out.  Again, we can only assume that he, as well as Summers, is speaking for the President.  Both men are key economic advisers and are apparently concerned with the looming huge deficit, which is now projected at somewhere north of $3 trillion by 2016.  The dialog between Geithner and Stephanopoulos (which can be found here: http://blogs.mcclatchydc.com/washington/2009/08/top-obama-advisers-wont-rule-out-middle-class-tax-increases.html) is interesting and particularly compelling if you believe that we should balance the budget but can't possibly cut government spending.  Of course, if you think government should balance the budget by only spending tax money to execute its constitutional duties, it's not so much compelling as it is both infuriating and terrifying.

But wait!  Maybe they weren't speaking for the administration after all.  In a statement yesterday, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs reiterated very plainly, "Let me be precise: The president's clear commitment is not to raise taxes on those making less than $250,000 a year."  So there you have it.  We have a choice between believing two senior administration officials charged with making economic policy, albeit with the President's approval, or a press secretary who is, no doubt, relaying Obama's position directly to reporters. Economists don't typically lie, although they make mistakes.  Politicians, on the other hand, have been known to fabricate stories for public consumption that they knew would improve their popularity.  But even giving Obama the benefit of a doubt or two, he's also clearly demonstrated that he's an economic illiterate.  So I'll leave it to my faithful readers to judge, but if you're a good poker player, don't bet on Obama.  His hand has been tipped for you.

Another letter to the editors that will probably see the light of day.  Of course, they'll probably get lots of responses to this letter from which to choose, because in this area, most people get this issue.

"Apparently one Jennifer Klein is shocked - shocked! - that private insurers are covering their policy holders for money.  But then, that's what companies are in business for - to make money.  Let's not forget, though, that to make money, these companies have to have satisfied customers, which will drive them to provide the best service they can without putting themselves out of business.  The same can't be said, however, for the federal government.  If the government's customers aren't satisfied, it doesn't matter, because believe me, the government isn't going out of business.

And Jennifer, you're dreaming if you think that the feds will add 47 million new, if you believe the liberals, health care subscribers who don't pay now and that this will result in people overall paying less.  To absorb that many new people, there are only three options:  more taxes, a bigger deficit, or rationed health care.  Some combination of those three options is actually most likely, but most people will pay more one way or the other.  In fact, those 47 million new subscribers, a number which includes millions of illegal aliens, are the only ones who won't pay more.

No, Jennifer, we don't trust the government, and neither did this country's founding fathers.  Then again, based on their experiences, neither group has any reason to trust it."

In my last article, I demonstrated the inevitability of either tax increases, increased deficit spending, or rationing (or, more likely, some combination of all three) if the Obama administration gets the "health care reform" that it wants.  Don't think for one moment that Barack Obama himself doesn't both know about these issues and fully approve of the means necessary to resolve them.

First, there's no doubt he intends to increase taxes on the "rich" to fund at least some of his initiatives.  By rich, he actually means high income earners making more than some arbitrary threshold such as, say $250,000 a year, although to finance what this administration wants, it will no doubt be much lower.  The truly rich - people such as John Kerry, Al Gore, Ted Kennedy, Michael Moore, and George Soros - actually pay relatively very little in taxes, since wealth is not what we tax in this country, and what they do earn in yearly income is safely sheltered.  However, since Obama won't be able to get enough from the high income segment of the population, he'll simply allow the deficit to increase.  We know for certain he has absolutely no problem running large budget deficits.

Second, the Obama plan will undoubtedly include a federal health insurance program for those who can't afford private health care, a number in the vicinity of 47 million Americans, if you believe the liberal Democrats.  When tax increases can't fund it all and the deficit gets too big even for the Democrats, the next step will be health care rationing for those unlucky enough to have to be covered by this federal insurance. Unfortunately, that will eventually be most, if not all, of us, as employers decide they don't want to bear the burden of relatively expensive private care and allow their policies to lapse.  Federal insurance will, after all, be cheaper than private care, for the simple reason that the Feds can dictate to doctors and hospitals how much (or how little) they will receive for certain procedures, just a MediCare does today.  Mr. Obama has no problem with this, either, because he's a charter member of the of the group the Holy Father quite rightly calls the "culture of death."  He's demonstrated on more than one occasion that he favors killing unborn children who have only to have their heads clear their mothers' body to qualify for the liberals' definition of a living creature.  In fact, he was a strong supporter of the Illinois abortion survivor law, which would have condemned babies surviving abortions to death by ensuring life-sustaining care was withheld from them.  At the other end of the death cult spectrum, he seems to be in favor of assisted suicide, as he sidestepped this question during the nomination debates with Hillary Clinton last year.  For a man like this, condemning senior citizens to a reduced quality of life and even earlier deaths by denying them health care deemed not "cost-effective" is a very short step indeed.

Barack Obama is an activist through and through, and no activist allows concern for the effects of their "progressive" policies on individuals.  It's all done in the name of what's good for the "state," which naturally begs the question of the purpose of that state, but don't expect the activists to address that question.  Oh, and of course, the activists, as members of the elite, won't have to suffer the ill effects of these misbegotten policies; they have, or will find, the wherewithal to receive the best medical care.  Barack Obama, in particular, will have the top doctors in whatever field he requires them for the rest of his life.  If only the rest of us could have them, too.

A couple of weeks ago, Barack Obama stated, "I will not sign on to any health plan that adds to our deficits over the next decade. And by helping improve quality and efficiency, the reforms we make will help bring our deficits under control in the long term."  Does this sound suspiciously like a magic free lunch, relying on improved "quality and efficiency" - provided by the federal bureaucracy, no less! - to improve care while managing to keep costs constant?  It does to me!

Former Senator Tom Daschle sounded much more credible when he said, "Health-care reform will not be pain free," so stated when he was Obama's nominee to head the Health and Human Services Department.  For us to believe that Obama can come up with a pain-free government-run health care program is to believe in miracles, or in free lunches, which is actually the same thing.  To obtain the same level of service while providing it to, say, 47 million additional people (if you believe the liberal Democrats) who aren't paying for it - and they aren't, which is why they don't have it now - will cost billions, some say trillions, more dollars than we currently pay.  But it's a lot more likely, given the reluctance of the American taxpayer to pony up any more largesse for the non-paying segment of our society, that there will be no budget increase to pay for this health care plan.  That means we will have to find some other way to come up with all that extra money.

[Note to readers:  Daschle did say, "Health-care reform will not be pain free."  He did not say, "Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them."  This quote, widely attributed to Daschle by a chain anti-socialized medicine e-mail, was actually written by one Betsy McCaughey, a former Lieutenant Governor of New York and current adjunct senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in an article written for the Bloomberg News Service back in February.  McCaughey based her claim on what is in my opinion an accurate reading of Daschle's book, What We Can Do About the Health Care Crisis, but it's paraphrased by her and not something Daschle actually uttered word-for-word.]

So how will this fabulous new plan be funded?  Well, if you can't pay with money, you usually pay with time or personal welfare or some other non-monetary currency.  There are a couple of ways this can happen, and if this new plan comes to pass, we'll probably see both of them.  First, health care consumers, faced with many more (47 million more if you believe the libbies) patients using a system that won't be any larger, since additional assets require additional funding, will now wait in line for popular procedures.  We've already seen this in Canada and the U.K., where common but necessary procedures such as hip replacements require waiting for two years, a procedure for which, in this country, the wait is typically three to four months.  Of course, medical care nominally costs less in those two countries, but on the other hand, the long waits for surgeries in those countries have resulted in a large increase in long-term disability claims due to bad hips, which offsets, to say the least, any resulting health care savings.

The other disturbing possibility is that, faced by long waits for common procedures, the government will simply deny health care to individuals for whom it is not deemed cost-effective.  The U.K., for example, has established "in England,10 Strategic Health Authorities (SHAs) [that] are responsible for health care in their region. This includes the development of strategies for health services in their local areas,ensuring quality and the appropriate capacity for different services."  This is a bureaucratic way of saying that if you're too old or too infirm, you're out of luck when it comes to getting medical services for which there is too much demand.

And Canadians, faced with demand for health services they can't satisfy, are quickly adopting the same strategy.  A Canadian friend of mine who now lives in the States, married to an American serviceman, provides the following story in an e-mail she sent me about her 80-year-old mother's struggle with the Canadian health care system:

"This [the health care rationing problem in Canada] is something we're aware of due to research on Mom's hip replacement in Canada.  They will wait-list the elderly to death rather than replace a joint or provide any other medical care for the elderly (on the premise they will die first and save that money) ...regardless of their good health otherwise.  Only the Doctor's fight with the system led to Mom getting her hip replacement done at about age 80.  This is not heresay...it happened to our family on this kind of health care system up in Canada.   Do whatever you can now to fight this [the Obama health care plan] getting support.  She has more than a decade (hopefully two!) of good health, other than her hip wearing out, to enjoy her grand & great grandchildren!"  Amen to that.

Although this story is just an anecdote, it reflects the trend in Canada towards rationing health care by denying services to the elderly, a trend we're sure to see in this country if the Obama plan is implemented.  So just remember, my fellow Americans, you get what you pay for, and you pay for what you get.  Right now, we've got Barack Obama.  Let's see if we can change that before he wrecks our health care system, too.

Here's another letter to the editors of the Harrisburg Patriot-News that will never see the light of day outside this blog.  When you show up one of their favorite liberal columnists, which Paul Krugman clearly is, you'll get no print.  My brilliant piece skerwering Cynthia Tucker's for her fluff piece a couple of weeks ago was round-filed, and this will be, too.

"Your regular Wednesday contributor, fauxconomist Paul Krugman, is so far left that Democrats who are only moderately liberal look like right-wing fanatics and corporate tools to him.  Blue Dog Democrats in Congress have asked legislators to look hard at the expenditures associated with the Obama administration's latest flirtation with socialized medicine to ensure that it neither breaks the bank for government or small business.

The fact is that refusing to tax the most productive segment of the population to pay the doctor bills for the least productive segment is fiscally responsible.  It prevents the government from ruining the economy by using excess taxes to rob it of capital for economic growth.  Furthermore, most small businesses are marginally profitable enterprises squeezed by their larger competitors; forcing them to buy health care insurance for their employees will be the last straw for many or even most of them, again with extremely negative consequences for the consumer.

It's not being a "corporate tool" to ensure that the most productive sectors of the economy remain strong, providing jobs for all of us and a strong tax base to support those projects that are the constitutional domain of the federal government. That is, of course, unless you're a left-wing extremist like Paul Krugman, for whom no amount of government interference with our economy is too much."

Although I'm a big sports fan, I never comment on sports issues in this blog.  Because it's a political blog, it's simply not the right place - until now.  Michael Vick's tentative return to the National Football League has necessitated the exception.

Because this is a political blog, some of you might not be familiar with Mr. Vick, so for your benefit, here's a little background.  Michael Vick was the first-string, or starting, quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons.  He was at the peak of a good career - leading a winning team to the playoffs a couple of times and selected to the Pro Bowl a couple of times - when, about two and a half years ago, he was identified as the leader and financier of a dog fighting ring operating in his home state of Virginia.  He was convicted on charges of fighting dogs, a felony, and wound up spending almost two years in prison.  This month, he was finally completed the final phase of his incarceration, house arrest, and was freed to go about his life, having paid his debt to society.

The question now is will Michael be allowed to resume his NFL career.  He's still under 30 and is reasonably healthy, especially for a veteran pro football player.  I'd like to offer a resounding "YES!" here, for a couple of reasons.  First, Michael has, as I mentioned in the previous paragraph, paid his debt to society.  Rehabilitation is the cornerstone of our penal system, and while many ex-convicts fail and return to crime, Michael seems repentant and certainly seems employable to me.

Second, though, and more important to this blog, while I think fighting dogs is a despicable crime, amounting to nothing less than torturing animals, it really isn't the worst crime in the world.  People have committed much worse crimes than this and been successfully rehabilitated.  Michael's crimes were committed against dogs, folks, not people, and animal cruelty, while detestable, doesn't even exist in the same universe as crimes against people.  In fact, since Roe v. Wade was decided 36 years ago in favor of unrestricted abortion, almost 50 million unborn babies have been killed.  Where's the outcry among "animal lovers" against this despicable act?

The fact is that there are some people who consider animals, even insects, as the equivalent of human beings.  Indeed, there are some who consider animals morally superior!  For this group, killing unborn children is nothing, but where is the moral outrage among the population of sane people, with the exception of some dedicated pro-lifers, for the murder of our most innocent citizens?  I'm sorry, but Michael Vick's crime, and it was a crime, pales in comparison to the crimes against the unborn.  It's time to let Mr. Vick return to work.

Last week in Cambridge, Mass., cops responded to Harvard Professor Henry Gates's house after neighbor Lucia Whalen reported spotting "two black males with backpacks" trying to forcibly gain entry to the home.  It turns out the Gates and his driver needed to force open the front door, which had become stuck while he was out of the country, and the commotion associated with this action is what attracted Ms. Whalen's attention.  When the responding officer, Sgt. James Crowley, asked Gates, who had gained entry to his house by the time police arrived, to provide identification to prove he was in fact the owner of the house, Gates retreated to the kitchen to retrieve it.  At this point Crowley apparently followed Gates into the house, at which time Gates began to object to police questioning.  The incident ended with Gates under arrest, shouting to a gathering crowd in the street, "This is what happens to black men in America!," an act which has resulted in a national outcry, mostly in favor of the police.

Let's think logically about this incident for a minute.  I'm not black, but if one of my neighbors had had enough on the ball to report suspicious activity at my house, and the police showed up after a time to find me in there, I'd expect to have to show them identification.  In fact, I'd probably volunteer to show ID to help expedite clearing up the situation.  Furthermore, if I had to retreat back into the house to find it, I'd expect the officers to accompany me to make sure that if I actually was a clever thief, I didn't bolt out the back door to escape apprehension.  Not only would I show them my ID, I'd thank them for taking the time to check on me and apologize that they had to use their valuable time, and police officers' time is valuable, to follow up a false lead.  This course of action seems to be the only logical one to me.

Why is it that educated men like Henry Gates can't figure this out?  I believe he's a logical man, but as an Ivy League professor, he's also likely to be extremely arrogant.  Add to the mix that he's also apparently adopted the mentality of the black victim, and the stage was set for this incident to occur, including Gates playing the "race card" by implying that he was being questioned only because he is black.  Let's be clear on this:  it's quite logical for police, having received a report of a possible break in at a house, and then finding an individual in that house matching the description provided by the witness, to ask that individual to prove he (or she) in fact belongs in that house and is not breaking in.  This perfectly reasonable assessment belies Gates' claim of "racial profiling" that he has leveled at the Cambridge Police Department.

And why is it that educated men like Barack Obama can't figure this out?  Obama, asked about the incident a couple of days ago at a press conference, admitted he had no idea of the facts of the case but nevertheless characterized the Cambridge Police response as "stupid," a characterization not apparently shared by the large majority of the American people.  Subsequently given several chances to retract this statement or even apologize for it, Obama declined, although he did qualify the statement by saying, among other things, that he could have "calibrated those words differently."  He also said by way of backtracking that he has "extraordinary respect" for the challenges law enforcement officers face every day. Then, finally, he invited Crowley and Gates to the White House for a beer to discuss their differences!  What a joke.

Obama won't retract this statement because, as a left-wing activist, he finds the police a useful tool in his battle to remake America in the socialist mode; people who feel that they're oppressed will respond more favorably to remaking the social order.  Furthermore, as an advocate of and true believer in victimhood, he can't retract it, because he really does believe that police officers, as representatives of the repressive social order in this country, have it "in" for everyone but rich white men.  And as an activist, he has become adept at implementing what his role model, noted socialist agitator Saul Alinsky, termed "making the personal political." That's why he said what he said.  It was a knee jerk reaction from a radical activist, and it is probably the best indicator we've had since he's been our President of his true mindset.

But Professor Henry Gates and President Barack Obama should keep something in mind as they use the police as a foil to advance their own political agendas.  Everyone's house has the potential for a break in - although I admit Obama winning the Presidency has made that a lot less likely for him - even those of leftist radicals.  When that happens, whether it's your house or one belonging to a friend, neighbor, or even family member, you'd like the police to respond aggressively to apprehend the offender(s).  Entering a residence under unknown circumstances is a very dangerous situation for a police officer, and if they're going to be second-guessed every time they do it, they're going to be less eager to respond aggressively to such calls.  And that wouldn't be a good thing, even for a socialist.

I've been accused on more than one occasion of being "far right" or "too far right" or similarly misconceived labels.  While my views are conservative - of course - I'm actually in the mainstream of people who understand how life really works and try to construct their views and policies logically in accordance with that understanding.  People who misconstrue our leanings are the kind of people, unfortunately in the majority in this and many other countries, who want to believe that somehow, government can work some kind of magic and produce free lunches.

Here's how life really works, folks.  Resources are finite, although, in a healthy, entrepreneurial economy, the pie does grow steadily.  The fact is, however, that, at any given moment, resources are limited, which means that when government takes money from the private sector, including private individuals, the private sector has less to spend.  One of first things one learns when studying economics is that economic systems are a series of trade offs, hence the well-known economists' saying, "There is no free lunch."

It's actually worse than that, though.  The private sector is accountable for the money it uses in its productive activities, because inefficient activities soon lose business to their competitors and go out of business.  Government has no such incentive to be efficient, and since civil servants are human beings, possessing the same faults as any other group of people, they're mostly not inclined to put much time or effort into ensuring they keep costs to a minimum and productivity to a maximum.  The net result of this is that tax dollars taken by government don't create nearly the prosperity that money invested in the private sector does.

None of this, true as it is, means that government has no role in the economy.  Clearly, public goods such as roadways need to be constructed by government activities (even though the government could do with some lessons in how to pay for them), and the constitution, proven to be the greatest governing document ever written, recognizes this.  But activities such as having one sector of the public pay for the living expenses of another group has nothing to do with public goods or the constitutional duties of the federal government.  One could even make the case that taxing one segment of the population to give money to another segment is nothing more than legalized theft.  I've also heard it called "Robin Hood economics," an apt appraisal if I've ever heard it.

But moral, economic, and constitutional considerations aside, the implications of rewarding unproductive - some would even say lazy, others would say misguided - behavior are extremely destructive for society as a whole.  When members of society who play by the rules and do well, by working hard and making good decisions, observe that other members of the same society getting by and in some cases even doing fairly well in spite of not working hard and making good decisions, it makes at least some of the productive members of society wonder if it's really worth it to put forth a maximum effort.  They probably won't quit their jobs and go on welfare, but they may decide that it's time to vote for politicians who will send some of the pork their way, and if taxes get too high at the margins, some of the higher-paid members of the workforce may decide to take long vacations at the end of the year.  Since these high-paid workers are the most critical and/or productive people we have, we're going to miss their contributions to our well-being.

I don't believe that most of the people at the lower end of the economic spectrum are there because they're lazy; I think most of them have made bad decisions - having a baby too young, marrying the wrong individual, or declining to get higher education or some other well-paying skill - that have put them at the bottom.  Now, they're suffering the consequences of those bad decisions.  We've already seen that if society decides to bail them out with tax dollars taken from society's most productive people, it may have a negative impact on the work ethic of the most productive sector.  But giving money to these folks also amounts to subsidizing bad decision-making, and any economist can tell you what happens when you subsidize something - you get more of it.  So the net effect of transferring wealth from people who earn it to people who don't has a doubly bad effect - it discourages productive people from being so productive and encourages less productive people to engage in decision making that tends to guarantee that they'll continue to be unproductive.

I believe the majority of American citizens really do understand what I've just said, but they simply don't want to consider the implications for our society if we make everyone who makes bad decisions live with the consequences of those decisions.  They'll delude themselves into thinking that these folks are just unlucky - "there but for the grace of God go I" - but the fact is that the number of truly unlucky people is fairly small, small enough that private charity can help them take care of their problems.  The biggest advantage of private charity is that its distributors can tell the difference between unlucky people and bad decision makers and help only people who really deserve it.  Government has no such discretion.  Legally, they must distribute welfare equitably, no matter what the cause of the need for it, which also attracts chiselers and cheats who take tax dollars they're not entitled to.  The best thing we can do for this relative handful of unlucky people, therefore, is recognize that sometimes, life isn't fair and  use private charity to try to get them back on their feet.

The scenario I've outlined above is a logical extension of the consequences of pursuing liberal policies of "caring" based on an understanding of human nature and how people react to situations in which they're faced with choices.  There's no doubt that if we pursue such policies, these situations will develop as I've outlined.  We already have ample evidence, for example, that when governments offer "free" medical insurance, the health care system is quickly overwhelmed, resulting in rationing, and the economy as a whole suffers.  It's therefore not a matter of being "far right" but rather simply being right, and while I understand that the majority of Americans currently don't want any part of it, we can only hope that events over the next few years remind enough of them why they finally turned their backs on liberal policies almost 30 years ago to usher in almost 28 years of prosperity.  In any case, I'll be there to remind them of what's at stake..

In assessing the potential impact of nominating Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court, we can simply consider the words of Patrick Leahy, liberal Democratic Senator from Vermont:  "One need look no further than the Lilly Ledbetter case to understand the impact the decisions of the Supreme Court have on the lives of countless Americans."  Leahy, who made this statement as part of a short speech he gave during Sotomayor's confirmation hearings last week, was referring to the case of Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., a case heard by the Supreme Court in 1998.

Lilly Ledbetter was a middle manager at the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company in its Gadsden, Alabama plant.  Following early retirement in 1998, she received an anonymous tip that her male peers in middle management at that plant had been paid more than she had, some substantially more.  Upon receiving this information, she sued Goodyear for gender discrimination, alleging that although her pay had been based on her performance evaluations, those evaluations were biased against her because she was a woman.  She won the first round in Federal District Court, but the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision in favor of Goodyear, setting the stage for the Supreme Court to hear the case.  The Supreme Court ultimately ruled the same way the Eleventh Circuit did, finding that the law allowed for damages for discrimination occurring only during the 180-day "charging period" which began 180 days prior to Ms. Ledbetter starting the EEOC process in March, 1998, because that was how Congress wrote the law.

Supreme Court dissenters, led by Justice Ginsberg, objected on the grounds that acts of discrimination are incremental, potentially occurring over a long period of time and not just confined to arbitrary periods such as 180 days.  Be that as it may, Congress wrote the law to cover 180-day periods, perhaps believing, quite logically in my opinion, that any blatant acts of discrimination would quickly become obvious to all, at which time the parties discriminated against would take steps to remedy them in court.  The 180-day statute of limitations was included for the same reason that statutes of limitation are always implemented:  to prevent aggrieved parties from bringing actions years later, possibly alleging discrimination in retaliation for actions not at all related to discriminatory activity.

The principle of equal pay for equal work is a sound one, so sound that there need be no law to enforce it.  Furthermore, there is even less need the likes of Sonia Sotomayor to legislate it from the bench.  Think about it for a minute and you'll see why.  If Ms. Ledbetter was such an outstanding Goodyear employee that they couldn't prosper without her work, they'd have made very sure she was well-paid enough that there was no chance any other company would hire her away from them and gain a competitive advantage from her efforts.  This principle is in fact generally true, as companies that want to stay in business by making a profit need good, productive employees to give them an advantage over their competitors.  Likewise, their competitors have the same strong incentive to try to hire away top employees with, among other inducements, higher pay.  It happens all the time, especially at the top levels, but it can and does happen with middle management as well.  In fact, many workers keep a current resume "on the street" in case such opportunities come along.

The fact that Lilly Ledbetter apparently had no idea that her male counterparts were better compensated than she was is therefore telling.  If Ms. Ledbetter thought she was so outstanding that she deserved more pay, why did she not seek employment elsewhere at a higher rate, or at least use the threat of that to induce Goodyear to give her better raises?  The fact is that while equal work for equal pay is a great theoretical concept, in practice, no two employees are ever the same.  In the case of women employees, they frequently choose to take maternity leave to have children.  While I think having and raising children is commendable, it's also frequently true that mothers are absent for long periods for maternity leaves, during which time they are of absolutely no value, competitively speaking, to their companies.  This puts them at a competitive disadvantage relative to their male counterparts, which can be the reason men make more than women in the same or similar positions; in short, the positions are the same, but the quality of work isn't.  This really isn't a difficult concept at all.  I'm not saying this is what happened with Lilly Ledbetter, although I did note she has two children, so it's certainly within the realm of possibility.

However, if a woman feels she's worth more and is being denied fair compensation due to gender (or some other) discrimination, she's certainly entitled in our free market economy to send out her resume in search of another.  Slavery's been illegal for over 140 years in this country, and  your employer doesn't own you or your labor, so get another job!  When Pat Leahy says this case illustrates the impact of Supreme Court decisions on the average American, he's more correct than he realizes, so let's have Sonia Sotomayor get another job, one that doesn't involve sitting on the Supreme Court!

Fauxconomist Paul Krugman is at it again, exhorting Americans to "avoid hot water" by acting on "economic and climate policies."  With regards to the economy, Krugman says we're headed for a jobless recovery - as if there could be any such thing - as the economy picks up but the unemployment rate stays high.  Anyone with an ounce of common sense will realize that this simply isn't possible, but it has become the liberals' catch-all excuse for why their economic policies always fail, starting with FDR's failed policies during the Great Depression.  However, Krugman assures us that "this isn't what the economic Cassandras are saying; it's the forecasting consensus."

The forecasting consensus?  Well, isn't that nice?  Let's remember that a year ago, the forecasting consensus was that there might be a minor recession starting in late 2008, lasting a few months.  Well, come to think of it, without massive government panic spending, the recession probably would have been minor, which the forecasters probably couldn't have known.  But that's the point, isn't it?  Forecasters are constrained by what they know about past behavior, trying to find correlations between economic variables that can indicate what consumers and investors will be doing next year, or in two years, or whatever.  But behavior frequently changes, and the variables that control behavior aren't well-understood, to put it mildly, so why should we put too much stock in forecasting vs. sound general economic principles such as balancing the federal budget?

Furthermore, as any good social scientist knows, correlation isn't the same, nor does it imply, causation.  Let me repeat this, because it's important:  correlation isn't the same, nor does it imply, causation.  Two events can be highly correlated, even marching in lockstep, without one event causing the other or vice versa.  One tongue-in-cheek example I heard recently says that as the number of pirates decreased in the 20th century, global warming increased; therefore, pirates must have been preventing global warming.  The fallacy of this statement is obvious.  Although there's a correlation - at least until recent events in the seas off the Horn of Africa - between a reduction in pirates and global warming, they clearly didn't cause the climate to be cool.

And speaking of the climate, forecasting in that discipline works the same way.  Forecasters are constrained to try and find correlations between climatological variables that might indicate what will happen tomorrow or next week, in the case of weather forecasting, or in the next few decades, in the case of climatology.  However, the fact that weather forecasters frequently can't give an accurate reading of what the weather will do tomorrow, let alone next week, tells us they don't understand what these correlations mean, nor do they even probably know what all the relevant variable affecting the climate are or how to measure them.  So why should we put much stock in what climatologists forecast for the end of the century?

To say the climate is changing is to say the sky is blue; the climate is always changing, with average temperatures either increasing or declining, and it has done so since the earth was a ball of hot mud.  Human factors have always had little or nothing to do with it, and there's no evidence that they do now, either.  The only "evidence" is the correlation-driven math models that have found a relationship between the rise in carbon dioxide levels over the last hundred years and a suspected slight rise in the earth's average temperature, but these are only two of a host of possible factors in the suspected warming trend.  The major driver in the Earth's climate is actually solar activity, which isn't well-understood at all, and it's therefore impossible to predict or factor into a climatological model.  Also remember that these same climatologists, 30 or so years ago, thought they detected a slight <em>decline</em> in the Earth's average temperature, which led them to predict "nuclear winter."

In both cases - "nuclear winter" and "global warming" - the prescription was the same:  allow government to have a veto over how the private sector produces its goods and services, a role many liberals see growing ever larger owing to the superior intellects of those "expert" planners - climatologists and economists - whose expertise will help save the average American, and ultimately the average "world" citizen, from himself.  The fact that the prescription is the same -increased government control - in both cases reveals the true agenda of the left:  implement socialism, or at least socialist-style control, over the American economy.  By halting the "excesses" of "rapacious" capitalism, the intellectual elites in government and academia will ultimately be saving the benighted average person from his own greed and self-interest, both ecologically and economically.

You have to wonder if these "elites," including, of course, our own Dr. Krugman, were paying one bit of attention to what happened in Eastern Europe and the U.S.S.R. in the post-World War II era.  Nevertheless, put Krugman solidly in the camp of the economic tweakers and planners, those academics who sincerely (apparently) believe that they can use they superior intellects to make the economy - and the climate - behave as they want.  We'll have concrete evidence as early as next year that, at least where the economy is concerned, they're wrong, and that should enable us to accomplish two things.  First, kick the fools who perpetrated this stimulus disaster out of office and replace them with common-sense fiscal conservatives, and second, stop the mad rush to hamstring the economy with laws such as the "cap-and-trade" bill while our competitors such as China and India do no such thing, thereby gaining considerable competitive advantage over us in the world marketplace.  That should finally make Krugman and his fellow left-wingers give it a rest, but I'm not holding my breath for that.

A letter to the Harrisburg Patriot-News Editor:

I was happy to see that Cynthia Tucker, noted economist, is getting right to work figuring out how to reduce the unemployment rate and "shore up jittery markets."  Cynthia's prescription?  "Obama's soothing rhetoric."  What a great plan!  With Obama reassuring them, consumers will ignore rampant inflation and belly right up to the sales counter.

I understand that part of what makes liberals what they are is that they're economic illiterates, but this is too much.  Cynthia also thinks that with "health care costs...controlled, businesses will have more to invest in research and expansion."  Well, yes they would, except the tax bill that comes with government-sponsored health care will dwarf any amount they were previously paying to provide private health insurance coverage for their employees, which will actually mean less capital for "research and expansion."  The first lesson one learns in an economics class, and the first one forgotten by liberals, is that there's no free lunch, but nice try, Cynthia.

As expensive as health insurance currently is, there are valid reasons for it, such as the defensive medicine doctors need to practice to avoid or defend malpractice lawsuits.  Costs are only as low as they are because private insurers have all the incentive in the world to control them.  When costs are too high, companies lose money and go out of business.  Put government in control of health insurance, however, and any such incentive goes away.  Government, after all, never goes out of business.  Costs are too high, you say?  Make the taxpayer pony up the difference, and there's no further problem.

The same goes for government-controlled banking and other industries.  Cynthia doesn't like it that banks who have been bailed out by the federal government have been slow to adjust mortgages, but then, why should they be in a hurry?  If the government hadn't put up the bailout money, they'd have been quick to renegotiate with borrowers to ensure they didn't default on their loans and bankrupt the banks by depriving them of their primary cash flow, but with government dollars now in their pocket, there's no rush anymore.  

I just can't wait to see what happens in Detroit now that the auto industry has been bailed out.  With bankruptcy looming and no money available to re-tool once they emerged from it, they'd have been in a big hurry to renegotiate expensive union contracts, which are the major source of their costs.  Not anymore.  Don't you love to see your tax dollars at work?

Kathleen (Kennedy) Townsend, former Lieutenant Governor of the State of Maryland and a member of the Kennedy clan, has written possibly the most outrageous article I've ever seen in her latest blog entry: http://www.newsweek.com/id/205961.

Entitled, "Why Barack Obama represents American Catholics better than the pope [sic] does," it contends that "Obama's pragmatic approach to divisive policy (his notion that we should acknowledge the good faith underlying opposing viewpoints) and his social-justice agenda reflect the views of American Catholic laity much more closely than those vocal bishops and pro-life activists."  With this statement, Ms. Townsend reveals that she is no more a Catholic than the Man in the Moon is, nor does she even understand what it means to be Catholic.

I'm not sure what "catholics" Townsend is talking about, but I believe she means those the church refers to as "lapsed," meaning they don't attend mass regularly.  Some of them come once in a while, most notably on Christmas and/or Easter, which has also earned them the sobriquet "twice-a-year Catholics."  She also probably means those that real Catholics refer to as "Cafeteria Catholics," referring to the fact that although they attend mass regularly, they choose from the church's teachings by selecting those they want to follow and ignoring those they don't.

My clue to what she means by "catholics" comes when she talks about Obama's "notion that we should acknowledge the good faith underlying opposing viewpoints," a notion that is the essence of politics, in which the art of compromise is key to success, but is anathema to a religion, which must have some kind of moral foundation to be meaningful.  And that's the rub, isn't it, not only for lapsed Catholics but for the cafeteria variety, too?  They don't want to be told to behave morally because, as Americans, they're used to doing just what they like.  Morals are relative, so if it feels good, do it.

Unfortunately, the church simply isn't in the business of compromise, nor should it be, in my opinion.  Jesus, during his brief but significant lifetime, set down principles for living, and He left no room for "respectful disagreements."  He also understood that people, being people, were sinners and would sin, and He was willing to forgive, provided the sinner repented:  In the Bible he says, "You are forgiven.  Now go and sin no more."  But repentance means trying not to willfully commit the same sin again; willful sinners are not forgiven.  And, of course, Jesus was also about love.  From Him comes the Christian maxim, "Love the sinner but hate the sin."

That's why a statement like "the Vatican shows disdain (if not disgust) toward gays" is such an outrageous lie.  The Vatican disapproves of their lifestyle; so did Jesus, who regarded the man-woman family as the building block for his religion.  No one wishes more than the Holy Father that homosexuals see the error of their ways and repent.  But if they refuse, what can the Church do?  Similarly, abortion is nothing but the murder of an unborn baby.  How can and why should the Church compromise on either of these issues?  Compromising with people who are wrong only makes one wrong as well.

Real Catholics, the ones who attend mass regularly for their spiritual well-being, who donate their time and money to help those in need, and who try to make the law of the land reflect the morals of a just society, understand these principles quite well.  Other so-called "catholics," Kathleen Townsend included, don't get it and never will.  Perhaps they should form their own religion, one like some other so-called Christian religions where any sin is O.K. and upright, moral people are looked down on as "judgmental."  Whatever they do, they should not dare to call themselves "Catholic."

As usual, true compassionate conservatism calls for being compassionate towards people who follow the rules and live upright, moral lives.  No conservative should ever waste compassion, however, on the willful and unrepentant sinner.  God will judge them, all in good time.  And that goes for you, too, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.

Well, my friend "Surrender" was back commenting on my P/N blog one more time, and I must say that, even though I got a little snippy with him yesterday, he was very nice today.

"Sorry...here is where I was getting the Obama budget. http://www.onlineforextrading.com/blog/federal-budget-broken-down/Perhaps the site has dubious information. I don't view this discourse between you and I as a contest. I view it as a chance for acquiring new ideas and modifying my beliefs. You correctly pointed out that I am not a true conservative...yes...and I am not a liberal either. Does that make me a moderate? Nope. Who cares what my label is! My goal is not to be right, but to gain better insight and let my beliefs evolve as they will.Look, you are clearly well educated in things economic and militaristic.  I am not. That is why I read your blogs.... I learn. That is the value for me. I listen to the left and the right on radio, (I have XM), Fox and CNN, I read Noam Chomsky and William Bennett. My point is I don't cut off any possible avenues to learning and understanding our world. When a topic arises I feel like I am free to form an opinion without limiting myself by internally saying, "oh, I am a conservative, so I have to take this position". It's been a good exchange and I think I have served as an adequate stimulus for you to represent your views. I hope you got as much value from that as I did from some of your information. Good day!"

So, I replied back, of course:

"O.K.  I looked at that web site, and I'm not sure where they get the $671 billion number from.  It may include Iraq/Afghanistan plus-ups, but it's hard to pin those kind of things down.  Anyone who's ever tried to analyze the federal budget, even just a portion of it, knows how difficult it can be.  In any case, their statement that the DOD budget is almost half the federal budget is clearly wrong.  

They may mean that it's almost half of discretionary federal spending, which is probably true when viewed from a certain perspective.  That perspective includes Medicare and Social Security as non-discretionary spending, but I think we could reduce those outlays if we came up with a better system.  In particular, George W. Bush proposed what I thought was a very reasonable plan in 2004 to salvage Social Security, and the Dems and their lackeys in the media immediately cried, "George Bush hates old people" or words to that effect, and G.W. just gave up rather than try to educate people as to why his plan was a good one. In a few years, though, those chickens will come home to roost, anyway.

I thank you for your comments, and I hope I'm helping you in some small way.  Reading other points of view is a good idea - I do it myself - but I'll caution you that Chomsky (since you mentioned him) is a fine linguist but has little understanding of why people actually do what they do.  He's a Utopian socialist, and those folks see the world from a viewpoint that's completely unrealistic.  They should have learned from the experience of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, but the only "lesson" they've "learned" is that the "wrong" people implemented socialism there, which is why they think it failed."

And, yes, I find these exchange useful, especially as they force me to think about how things work to defend my views.  I'll reiterate one more time that I have plenty of compassion for the people who deserve it, but I believe in tough love for everybody else.  I've had plenty of real-world experience to convince me that this is the right way to go.  Thanks again for your comments, and tell all your friends about me.  Good day to you, too."

This was a good exchange, because these are exactly the kind of people I'm trying to reach.  I hope I'll succeed eventually, but in the end, I'll have at least done my best.

Mr. "Surrender", a commenter from my Patriot News blog, has come back again for another beating.  He says:

"Well, I am not an economist, and as I've mentioned before, I don't support a single payer government health program, but if I did,  I would suggest a good place to start searching for potential reallocation optioins [sic] might be at this bullet point in Obama's budget....$671,100,000,000. I am sure you already know where I am going with this, but for other readers, this represents just under half of our entire federal budget. and it is of course the Department of Defense budget. If you want to know what brought the U.S.S.R to its demise, check out their economy and their defense budget during their last years. They couldn't afford to keep up with our spending.When you say that the current healthcare system is the best we can have, what you are really saying is...that it is the best we can afford to have at this time given our decision to allocated our tax money to other programs. So long as we choose to spend half on Defense (whether I agree or not is of no consequence), then you are correct...this is the best we can do without raising more tax money. As far as I can tell just like in my household, our country decides what is most important and spends accordingly.  We have decided defense is the number one priority. So be it, but don't tell me there aren't other options. There are, we just haven't made the choice to do it any other way."

And my reply:

Interesting that you admit you're not an economist, nor are you an expert in military affairs, though you don't admit to that.  I, on the other hand, have two particular areas of expertise:  1) economic analysis and 2) military affairs.  I'm not sure where you get your $671.1 billion number; the DOD (White House) budget website claims a $515.4 billion  budget for FY 09:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/rewrite/budget/fy2009/defense.html

I can't tell if this includes plus ups for Iraq, but I believe it does, since the standard budget was always somewhere aroung $300 billion.  The infoplease.com web site, on the other hand, claims an FY 09 DOD budget of $494.3 billion, a minor difference probably explained by rounding and cat and dog expenditures that could be accounted for different ways.  

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0873746.html

On the other hand, again according to infoplease, the federal budget totals $2,921.8 billion, so some quick arithmetic (I'm a mathematician, too, as it turns out) shows that the DOD budget therefore comes to some 17.6% of the federal budget, which is, in my humble opinion, much less than 50%.

You're right, however, in saying that the American people, in their infinite wisdom - the same infinite wisdom that caused them to elect Barack Obama President - could choose to spend less for national defense, through their selection of various government officials.  In fact, in the 1990s, they did just that, as one William Jefferson Clinton presided over an overall reduction of almost 40% in DOD spending.  This reduction in government spending, even with an increase in social programs, allowed Clinton and the Republican Congress to balance the budget, with the happy result that the economy continued its 20-year (at that time) boom.  Of course, in the new millennium, the reduction in our armed forces caused DOD to have to continually deploy the few soldiers we had left to hot spots in Iraq and Afghanistan, but you can't have everything, can you?

I already know what caused the demise of the USSR.  They couldn't afford to keep up with us, as you said, because as a socialist country, their economy lacked the productivity provided by entrepreneurship that ours, as a capitalist free market system, had and has.  That entrepreneurship is fueled by capital available from private investors, capital that exists only as long as it remains in the hands of the private sector.  Increasing taxes to fund other government initiatives causes a one-for-one reduction in investment dollars available to the private sector to spend to work its magic.  Oh, and by the way, one of the beneficiaries of our outstanding productivity is the medical sector, for which modern medicines and improved diagnostic systems are continually being developed.

Of course, reductions in spending could come from DOD, as you have said.  I read what I wrote, and I have never said or even implied otherwise.  I believe you're coming up with this because I asked you what you would do.  Now you have replied that we could reduce DOD's budget, although your numbers are wrong.  I don't agree, because the world is too dangerous a place, in my opinion, to reduce our armed forces any further than they already have been, but knock yourself out trying to sell that idea to the American people.  Maybe you can convince the majority of them.

One final thought here.  The Constitution grants very limited and narrow powers to the federal government, but one of those that is explicitly granted is national defense.  Taxing some of the population to pay the doctor bills for another segment, however, isn't mentioned, or even hinted at, anywhere.  That makes expenditures for national defense constitutional, and expenditures for "national health care" unconstitutional, in my opinion.  No true conservative would say otherwise, and that means that you, sir, are no conservative.

Well, my fan on the Harrisburg Patriot News was back with another reply, so I answered point by point this time.

First, his reply:

"Terry I didn't say anything about expecting the taxpayer to pay for my debt. You assumed I was a "libbie" responding in disagreement with you, and as a result jumped to the wrong conclusion. I was merely pointing out that in many cases...certainly not the majority...that the system is broken. I had and continue to have medical insurance through my employer, but insurance doesn't cover all situations nor is it unlimited. I am grateful for the resources I could gather to help my son. I will dutifully and graciously pay it back little by little.Your assumption that those that don't have healthcare are in that situation because of some moral ineptitude...they bought a boat or a bigger house instead of health insurance...does indicate a lack of understanding regarding the most common reasons many honest hard working middle class folks don't have insurance. I understand all the points you made in both posts. This is the situation we have...I understand that...I live with that...I am ok with it. I am not advocating a government single payer system, just pointing out that what we have could be improved. Compassion indicates a desire to have empathy with other folk's situation's and perhaps even trying to help them improve their situation. I definately get the Conservative part of your tag line, but nothing in our exchanges indicates any Compassion element to your concern. "

Then, my response:

O.K.  Responding, point by point:

"I didn't say anything about expecting the taxpayer to pay for my debt. You assumed I was a "libbie" responding in disagreement with you, and as a result jumped to the wrong conclusion."  I read what you wrote about "bandwagons" (your word) and, yes, when you say "I'll get on your bandwagon when..." I have to assume that you're talking about getting some kind of help with your debt, so I think I reached a logical conclusion.  Your initial response left me free to do so.

"I was merely pointing out that in many cases...certainly not the majority...that the system is broken."  Not <em>nearly</em> the majority.  My original column points out, I believe, why, although some claim the system is "broken", there is in fact no logical, workable fix.  It's just one of those unfortunate situation in life where we have to do what helps the most people.

"I had and continue to have medical insurance through my employer, but insurance doesn't cover all situations nor is it unlimited. I am grateful for the resources I could gather to help my son. I will dutifully and graciously pay it back little by little."  O.K., well, this is information that wasn't contained in your original post, so I wasn't aware of it.  I will say again that I'm sorry for your misfortune, and I congratulate you for you positive attitude.  I don't know why your insurance left you so much to pay, because you haven't addressed that.  I've had a couple of situations where I had major family medical emergencies, but I was fortunate that the co-pays didn't exceed a couple of thousand dollars.  I now have co-pay insurance as well, having learned my lesson in this regard.

"Your assumption that those that don't have healthcare are in that situation because of some moral ineptitude...they bought a boat or a bigger house instead of health insurance...does indicate a lack of understanding regarding the most common reasons many honest hard working middle class folks don't have insurance."  I don't believe, having been an honest hard-working middle class person myself, that I don't understand the reasons why middle class people don't have insurance.  I reported on what I've personally seen and, although I'm aware that there could certainly be other reasons that middle class people might not have health insurance, studies have shown that many potential health care consumers have in fact made the choice to forgo coverage due to the desire to spend their money elsewhere.  I don't consider this moral turpitude; the moral turpitude comes in when they expect other people to pay, and, as I stated, not all of them do expect that. For the people who are simply unlucky somehow, I'm sorry for them, but I'll reiterate that I don't believe there's a workable fix.

"I understand all the points you made in both posts. This is the situation we have...I understand that...I live with that...I am ok with it. I am not advocating a government single payer system, just pointing out that what we have could be improved. "  O.K.  Now we're getting to the constructive part.  Please tell me how you think it could be improved.

"Compassion indicates a desire to have empathy with other folk's situation's and perhaps even trying to help them improve their situation. I definately get the Conservative part of your tag line, but nothing in our exchanges indicates any Compassion element to your concern."  Yes, it does, which is why I'm writing this blog.  The problem is, it's pretty much impossible to help everyone, which means you have to pick courses of action that help as many people as possible.  As for the "compassionate" part of my conservatism, please read my bio for the explanation.  I adopted that byline because I get tired of liberals who claim conservatives have no compassion, when in fact all the liberals' compassion is reserved for people on whom it's wasted, instead of the hardworking folks who make this country great.

Please feel free to write back again.  I'm particularly interested in your plan for fixing the parts of the health care system that you say are "broken." and thanks for your interest in my blog.