Bush Bites On Universal Housecare

President Bush just couldn't miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity to stand up for the free market today.

The official said Bush will direct Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Housing Secretary Alphonso Jackson to work on an initiative to help troubled mortgage holders get services and products they need to keep them from defaulting on their loans. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details of the initiatives ahead of the presidential event.

Bush also planned to:

• Urge Congress to pass Federal Housing Administration overhaul legislation that would give the FHA more flexibility in assisting mortgage holders with subprime mortgages.

• Pledge to work with Congress to reform the tax code to help troubled borrowers rework their loans.

• Call for rigorously enforcing predatory lending laws and strengthening lending practices.

Why is anyone going to bother getting and keeping anything on their own when they will surely soon see a government program to "help" them get or keep it?

The Full-Court Press For Lexington's Blue Laws

Pastor Jeff Fugate of Lexington's Clays Mill Road Baptist Church plans to go on radio and television to convince Lexingtonians not to allow full-fledged Sunday alcohol sales in their city.

The Lexington city council is expected to vote September 13 to allow anyone with a liquor license to sell alcohol on Sundays. Currently, limited alcohol sales are available on Sunday only in certain large restaurants.

Pastor Fugate is also putting together a rally against Sunday alcohol sales.

China: We're Killing Babies To Stop Climate Change

Chinese authorities claimed today they have done their part to cut back on man-made climate change by aborting 300 million babies.

No, I'm not kidding.

China, which rejects criticism that it is doing too little to confront climate change, says that its population is now 1.3 billion against 1.6 billion if it had not imposed tough birth control measures in the late 1970s.

The number of births avoided equals the entire population of the United States. Beijing says that fewer people means less demand for energy and lower emissions of heat-trapping gases from burning fossil fuels.

"This is only an illustration of the actions we have taken," said Su Wei, a senior Foreign Ministry official heading China's delegation to the 158-nation talks from Aug 27-31.

He told Reuters that Beijing was not arguing that its policy was a model for others to follow in a global drive to avert ever more chaotic weather patterns, droughts, floods, erosion and rising ocean levels.

But avoiding 300 million births "means we averted 1.3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2005" based on average world per capital emissions of 4.2 tonnes, he said.

Pro-abortion global warming zealots in this country should have to choose sides on this one.

Welfare For Politicians Is Back

Steve Beshear is showing no signs of running away from his support for taxpayer-financed gubernatorial campaigns.

Beshear Spends More Money We Don't Have

In his latest commercial, Steve Beshear promises to spend state money on health insurance for children and prescription drugs for senior citizens. He will have to get that money from the casinos he is going to get passed whether the legislature goes along or not.

The more he talks, the more Beshear cedes the high ground and proves himself to be a politician who will say anything to get elected.

Who Do You Want To Beat Hillary Clinton With?

Inconvenient Truth About Health Insurance

Media accounts of the U.S. Census Bureau's report of health insurance and poverty in America were not responsible for the wild swings in the Dow Jones Industrial Average this week, but you might be forgiven for thinking so.

The New York Times sobbed yesterday:

The bureau reported a large increase in the number of Americans who lack health insurance, data that ought to send an unmistakable message to Washington: vigorous action is needed to reverse this alarming and intractable trend.

Interestingly, the Club for Growth responded with the opposite diagnosis and prescription:

Of course, Hillary Clinton and her cronies fail to mention that of the 2.2 million people who became uninsured in 2006, 1.4 million, or 64%, had a household income of $75,000 or higher. In other words, an overwhelming majority of the newly uninsured can afford health insurance but are making the choice to forgo insurance because they believe it is not worth the expense.

“The conclusion to draw from this statistic is not socialized medicine,” said Club for Growth President Pat Toomey, “but the need to deregulate healthcare in this country and make health insurance more affordable. One of the best ways to do this is by passing Rep. John Shadegg’s Healthcare Choice Act, allowing insurance companies to comply with any one state’s regulatory regime and sell to individuals in all 50 states. Healthcare in this country is so overregulated and expensive, some states, like Washington, require health insurance companies to cover such crucial procedures as acupuncture, chiropractors, and massage therapy. It’s no wonder more Americans are choosing not to purchase state-mandated luxury health insurance policies.”

In much the same way government-control proponents argue we need to run up taxes on gasoline because it is hot outside, they want us to believe that we need to dismantle our health insurance markets and turn everyone over to the government because a growing chunk of the upper-middle class is deciding to flee the over-regulated, over-priced health insurance markets.

The facts clearly indicate the poor in America are gaining insurance coverage rapidly and the middle class would benefit from deregulation, not a government takeover.

Would You Hire This Train Wreck?

Fayette County Detention Center Director Ron Bishop is trying to weasel his way out of paying $832,000 in jury verdicts awarded against him last year for violations of Kentucky's Civil Rights Act, retaliation, and racial discrimination.

The lawsuits came as a result of some of his illegal activites in the 1990's while he was Director of the Jefferson County jail.

Meanwhile, Bishop is facing similar charges here in Lexington and is, predictably, trying to escape to another job in yet another city.

The Myth Of Skyrocketing Uninsured Rates

Much like the failed War on Poverty, which has spent $11 trillion on itself without having any impact, the War on lack of health insurance is going nowhere fast.

Time to throw more money at it, say government gurus from Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to Steve Beshear and Daniel Mongiardo.

A chart from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that since its 1997 start the Clinton SCHIP boondoggle has had no impact on the rate of uninsured in this country.

So, of course, the House of Representatives wants to throw another $50 billion in to speed things up.

And then there is this late-breaking news from the CATO Institute regarding government efficiency in SCHIP:

According to a cost estimate released by the Congressional Budget Office last Friday, the Senate-passed legislation expanding the State Children’s Health Insurance Program would enroll an additional 6.1 million children in SCHIP and Medicaid. However, 2.1 million would lose their private health insurance. So while the legislation would provide government-run health care to 6.1 million children, it would reduce the number of uninsured children by only 4 million.

That’s government efficiency for you: extending health insurance to two children for the price of three!

The Left Doesn't Want You To Understand This

Government-controlled healthcare types have been exultant since the list came out that shows the United States ranked 42nd in life expectancy.

A medical blogger points out how that has nothing to do with our healthcare system.

More importantly, though, is the statistical sleight of hand that proponents of this myth like to pull. That is, citing infant mortality numbers without proper context: in many countries (even "developed" ones), infants with severe or fatal conditions aren't even counted as live births (or are aborted when diagnosed), whereas we do everything we can to save such innocents. One may argue the efficacy of such an attitude, but we value life.
Case closed.

Another left-wing myth bites the dust.

FCDC Explosion

Major Tommy White abruptly quit his job at the Fayette County Detention Center today over the phone.

The FBI investigation into rampant corruption and abuse in the facility is ongoing.

Loving Their Kids Like Drunken Sailors

Congrats to Fayette county homeowners, who get to pay inflated prevailing wages for school construction with their new tax increase.

Of course, it's for the children.

Here's the money quote: “If you’re not for this—then you’re not for public education.”

Uninsured Rate of 14% Sounds About Right

Both gubernatorial candidates are talking about insuring more people in Kentucky by paying at least a portion of of their premium with taxpayer dollars.

The Census Bureau estimates less than 14% of Kentuckians are uninsured, which is slightly less than the national average.

If we bought coverage for another 75,000 people, we would have the highest rate of insured people in the nation.

Live Fat, Die Young, Thanks For Mississippi

Another ranking to be proud of shows Kentucky ranked #7 fattest state in the nation. Can't doubt we would be higher on this one if we weren't also #1 on the smoking chart.

All this should serve to highlight an inconsistency that shouldn't exist in America -- but does -- and will only get worse if we go to European style universal healthcare.

Americans have a great heritage of rugged individualism. It's what motivated fearless pioneers to literally walk from eastern cities to western deserts for the chance to build thriving cities in sand or on mountains.

But we are destroying that heritage. We escalate that destruction every time we put government between an individual and the consequences of his actions.

Americans like to make their own choices. When bad health choices lead inevitably to bad health these days, however, we are forging a new tradition of letting government programs intervene.

Spreading that disconnection into the middle class can only seem like a good idea to someone who is out of touch with the personal qualities that have made America great.

Alberto Gonzales Steps Down

Should President Bush just go ahead and appoint Janet Reno so Hillary Clinton won't have to?

My Babydaddy Made Me Do It

A Lexington Herald-Leader columnist claims, implausibly, that public schools are actually doing a great job if you factor in teenage pregnancies and lead paint.

Then, as if to prove the point that he had no point, the writer shifted from discussing Kentucky to providing all his data from New York.

According to Tom Layzell, the retiring president of the (Kentucky) state Council on Postsecondary education, "Too many students fail to graduate from high school, and of those who do, too many go to college unprepared. Too many college students fail to graduate in a timely manner. And too many adults lack a high school diploma."

But by whose standards or what rationale does this criticism of education emanate? While it would be nice if all children were scholars, it is truly amazing that our kids' educational progress is as high as it is.

While Layzell's brand of criticism is rampant, it does not recognize the changed society in which we live. The problem is that critics look at education today through a prism of the past, but today's society is vastly different.

...

New York City records show that although only 50 percent of children graduate from high school in four years, almost 70 percent finally graduate and another 8 percent receive General Education Development certificates.

Paul Attewell and David Lavin, professors of sociology at the City University of New York, found that more than 28 percent of bachelor's degree recipients obtain their diplomas more than six years after entering college and that 70 percent of women attending CUNY had graduated after an even longer period of time.

Excuses and spinning blame won't help us have better schools in Kentucky. The bottom line is Kentucky schools can't reasonably be expected to improve until we implement policies to better measure student achievement and better monitor resource allocation. SB 130 was a good step. Next year's HB 15 would be another.

Obamanation: Rock Star Screws Kentuckians

Barack Obama turned voters away at the door in Lexington yesterday.

He kept their money, of course. Probably a good preview of how his universal healthcare plan will work.

Movie Nazi: No Free Lunch For You!

Liberal College Professor Gets Thwacked By NY Times For Calling GOP Voters Stupid

You can read the whole thing here, but here is a good excerpt:

Westen urges Democratic candidates to go for the gut, and includes a number of speeches that he wishes Democratic candidates had given. He wishes, for example, Al Gore had hit George Bush harder for being a drunk. He wishes Gore had interrupted a presidential debate and barked at Bush, “If someone is going to restore dignity to the Oval Office, it isn’t a man who drank his way through three decades of his life and got investigated by his father’s own Securities and Exchange Commission for swindling people out of their retirement savings.”

At another point, he imagines Gore exploding: “Why don’t you tell us how many times you got behind the wheel of a car with a few drinks under your belt, endangering your neighbors’ kids? Where I come from, we call that a drunk.” If Democrats would go for people’s primitive passions in this way, Westen argues, they’d win elections.

This thesis raises some interesting questions. First, why did someone with so little faith in rational inquiry go into academia, and what does he do to those who disagree with him at Emory faculty meetings, especially recovering alcoholics?

National Porn Filter May Be Available Cheap

Australia inexplicably spent $84 million on a porn filter for its internet service. One tiny problem, though. A sixteen year old kid cracked the filter in about half an hour.

Can't help wondering if they borrowed the $84 million on twenty or thirty year bonds.