Too Much of A Good Thing

Congress has passed its expansion of the SCHIP program, which President Bush has announced he will veto. The SCHIP program provides funds to insure uninsured children. The Democrats say this program is vital to our children's health. Bush says it goes too far into socialized medicine. The problem is they're both right.

The SCHIP program is incredibly valuable, but this new version of the bill expands coverage to families making $60,000 a year. Senator Charles Schumer of New York is pressing hard for the bill, based on the fact that $60,000 for a family of four doesn't go that far in New York City. The problem is to then apply that number on a federal level, you're covering more than half of the Midwest. States like Arkansas, West Virginia, and Alabama will have most of their populations eligible for this program. That pushes it into the realm of socialized medicine.

The other problem is that Congress wants to expand coverage, but everyone who is covered under the old law is not receiving benefits. We're simply leaving them behind and moving on to other people.

While Bush is saying the cost is too high, I disagree on that count. To fix this bill, they should leave the amount of money allocated for it alone, but lower the eligibility number. If New York City can't get by on $60,000, perhaps the city should lower its taxes and stop taking so much of its residents' paychecks. After all, NYC residents pay city and state taxes as well as one of the highest sales taxes in the nation. That's a pretty high burden on people who can't make it on $60,000 a family.

Perhaps a formula based on a percentage could be created. Only the state's lowest earning 10% of the population would be covered, regardless of income. Something needs to be done to keep the program running, but expanding it that far really is socializing medicine.

Iraq Misses Benchmarks. How Did Democrats Do?

With the testimony of General Petraeus making it clear that troops are still needed in Iraq, Democrats are expected to press that the Iraqi government has not met the benchmarks that were set for it. How is that different from our government?

Iraq had benchmarks set by the U.S. government. The Democratic Congress set its own benchmarks. Iraq is a completely new government, with no member being in power prior to the U.S. military effort. Many Democratic members of Congress have been in office for years, and in some cases decades. So why does the Democrat-controlled Congress expect this new government to meet benchmarks it didn't set, when they can't meet the promises they made in their own campaigns?

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has asked for the troops to stay. Can we really be an occupying force or invaders, as some would portray us, if a democratically-elected government is asking us not to go?

It is true that we cannot keep an expanded force in Iraq forever. The strain is wearing on our armed forces. But do people really believe that Al-Queda has an unlimited number of terrorists and an unlimited budget. They will fight us where we are. If fighting in Iraq keeps them of American soil, why should be bring the troops home and fight them here?

Bush 32, Congress 18

Democrats swept into office last November stating they had a mandate for a change. They pointed to President Bush's low approval ratings and said they needed to take charge. Since they entered office Bush's approval rating is up to 32% while their own is down to 18%.

Congress promised more than they could ever have delivered and failed miserably. Now, the American people are telling them they don't have a mandate, they have the lowest approval rating in history.

And how does this bode for those presidential candidates? How can we lend any credibility to promises by Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Dodd, etc. when they have failed so miserably at the jobs they were elected to do.

Of course the Democrats point squarely to the Republicans, saying they are obstructing the Democrats. It takes two to tango. Neither side has wanted to work with the other, but it was the Democrats who stood to lose the most. Now, the Democratic leadership is figuring out how to spin what it is expected to be a positive report on Iraq into more doom and gloom.

If Congress wants its approval ratings to go up, they need to start listening to the people of America and not to the vocal minority of idiots that are holding the parties hostage.

Elected To Serve The People

Liberal activists are up in arms over the failure of the Democratic Congress to enact the changes they want. It seems that the elected officials are realizing what the activists refuse to admit. Congressmen and senators are elected to serve all of the people, not just the activists.

Democrats who were elected to Congress on anti-Iraq platforms neglected to remind these activists that Congress doesn't control the military. Activists also fail to realize that this is a country of laws and elected officials need to follow them. An excellent example of this is the impeachment laws. You can't simply impeach a president, there has to be just cause and due process. Impeachment doesn't mean you don't like the president, it means he broke the law.

Activists are great about insisting their will is followed. It's too bad more of them don't have an understanding of how things really work.

The Right To Be Naive

Everyone is familiar with the three inalienable rights of Americans: the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It seems that lately the right to be naive has been added to this list, and more people are showing their naivete, if not outright ignorance in public. The latest is Cindy Sheehan.

Cindy Sheehan became the face of the anti-war movement after publicly disgracing her son, a soldier, by disparaging everything he had done prior to his death. Now she's at it again, threatening to run against Nancy Pelosi unless she brings impeachment proceedings against President Bush. So let's count the ways in which Sheehan is showing that she doesn't have a clue how things work.

1) Despite the unpopularity of George W. Bush, he hasn't done anything impeachable, at least at the time of this writing. Even assuming he lied to the American people about the reasons for going to war, that isn't a "high crime or misdemeanor," which is the standard that impeachment has to meet. Bill Clinton wasn't impeached because he lied about Monica Lewinsky to the public. He was impeached because he lied about it under oath, which is perjury. He committed a crime, although it was a pretty stupid crime that he should have been man enough to avoid. Even if every negative thing written about President Bush is true, none of it qualifies as impeachable.

2) Sheehan thinks that Congress can just pull our troops out of Iraq. Congress doesn't have that ability, only the president does. Congress can influence the president, and they can make things difficult for him, but they can't make the decision. Pelosi has done what it is her power, to expect more is naive.

3) Sheehan thinks she could be a congresswoman. To even consider that she's qualified to run for Congress is ridiculous. You need to be more than a one trick pony to be a politician. Ask Ned Lamont, who thought he could be a Senator on just the anti-war movement. He got enough ignorant people to turn out to get him past the primary, but in a general he never stood a chance.

4) Even if she did win, she thinks she would have Pelosi's power. Winning the seat doesn't transfer the power. She would still be a freshman with everybody else in front of her. On top of that, she would be an independent with no one to caucus with, limiting her even more.

Sheehan has the right to her opinion. She has the right to speak out against the government. She also has the right to make a complete ass of herself if she wants.

Is Fair Pay Sexist?

On the face of it, that appears to be an absurd question. How can anything fair be sexist? I'm not actually referring to "fair pay" as much as two bills known as the Fair Pay Act of 2007 and Paycheck Fairness Act. With names like those, who could be against them. The problem is they start from seriously flawed assumptions.

A recent study by the Bureau of Labor Statistics stated that women make an average of 81% less than men do. The assumption the people behind the bills make is that the difference is due to sexism and something must be done about it.

Economist June O'Neill, who served as director of the Congressional Budget Office under President Clinton, wrote a paper explaining much of the difference. The statistic doesn't say that a woman makes 81% less than a man, it states that women make less than men. However, calculating this number involves calculating all women and all men. This is deceptive because, as Ms. O'Neil points out, women are much more likely over the course of their lives to cut back their hours or quit work altogether than men. So the percentage of women in the workforce is less than that of men. Women not in the workforce make no money, but they are counted in "all women" so this accounts for some (not all) of the difference in the figures. Women are also 40% more likely to work part-time than men are. This affects the difference as well.

O'Neil, as well as numerous other economists, also stipulate that women tend to take jobs that pay less. This is not to say that they are doing the same work for less money, but as Senator Tom Harkin, who authored the bill, has said social workers (mostly female) make less than probation officers (mostly male), "even though both jobs require similar levels of skill, effort and responsibility." However, that is not sexist. Sexism would be if a women decided to be a probation officer and was told she couldn't because she was a woman. Sexism is not not two different jobs make different salaries but women prefer to do the job that pays less.

The assumption at this point becomes, women don't know any better so the government must help them. That's sexist.

Let's Hear It For Congressional Hypocrisy

Congressman William Jefferson, the Democratic representative from Louisiana, was indicted Monday on federal charges of racketeering, money-laundering and soliciting more than $400,000 in bribes in a long-running investigation into business deals he tried to broker in Africa. He is the first sitting congressman to face charges under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits corporate bribery overseas. The indictment is as large as a phone book. Was this arrest the result of Congress' much vaunted stance on restoring ethics?

No.

This was the result of an 18-month FBI investigation, in which Jefferson alleged the FBI was not allowed to utilize a lawfully-obtained search warrant on his office because he is a Congressman. Several others in Congress have backed this assertion.

Their claim is that they can't be investigated because it was an unconstitutional intrusion on the lawmaking process. That's a nice way of saying, "we make the laws, we don't have to obey them."

The Week That Was: April 28 - May 4

Microsoft eyes Yahoo takeover

Microsoft announced it was in talks to buy internet giant Yahoo. Frustrated with its inability to compete with Google, Microsoft is looking for an acquisition that will keep it relevant on the internet. While the deal is an excellent one for Microsoft, it can only spell disaster for Yahoo. Microsoft's continuing stumbles outside of the operating system and its office suite will overwhelm Yahoo's properties and propel Google further. The move smells of desperation, which is never a good way to make business decisions.

Digging its own grave

News site Digg was overwhelmed by DRM opponents posting the latest discovery on how to break copy-protected HD-DVDs. Digg received a cease-and-desist order from the HD-DVD consortium, which it tried to comply with. Digg's audience overwhelmed the company's ability to remove posts until it finally gave up. The incident showcases why user-controlled news sites are unreliable. Digg users weren't interested in news, just stealing content. Newsflash: despite being repeated ad nauseum, information doesn't "want" to be free. People (and companies) who create intellectual property have the right to license just the uses they feel like licensing. Spending $20 on a movie doesn't mean you can do anything you want with it. While some of the DRM systems out there impose draconian conditions on their use, and the RIAA has apparently gone lawsuit happy, that doesn't make this right either.

Bush vetoes war funding bill

Just as he promised, President Bush vetoed the war spending bill that Democrats tied into withdrawal terms. Congress and the President will go head to head until the war is funded. However, Democrats in Congress are losing credibility by the minute as they try to micro manage the war. Speaker Nancy Pelosi blew off war briefings this week, claiming she didn't have time for them. If you're going to make decisions about the war, you need to know what's actually going on.

Imus not finished yet

Embattled radio personality Don Imus is striking back with a lawsuit against CBS. Suing for breach of contract, CBS has encouraged Imus to push the line in the past and therefore can't then fire him for doing what they expected. Past the lawsuit, Imus is expected to take the summer off and return to the airwaves, either on broadcast or satellite, before too long.

And that was the week that was.