Evidence that newspaper bailout is next

Lexington Herald Leader columnist Tom Eblen makes the case for bailouts by hitting all the favorite talking points:

"How did we get into this mess? Corporate greed and incompetence, for sure, as well as some irresponsible consumers."

Huh?

Wait, it gets better:

"The Wall Street meltdown can be traced to greed and abuse made possible by deregulation and lack of government oversight. And if government had pushed harder for tough fuel economy standards — or helped fund innovation the way Japan has done with its automakers — the Big Three and the rest of us would be in a lot better shape now."

What, not even one mention of Barney Frank and the unions?

Instead, let's change gears to socialized medicine:

"Why should businesses bear that burden? If government took more responsibility for managing health care with private providers, many people think both quality and coverage could be improved. Freed from those benefits burdens, companies could be more competitive globally. Plus, think of the entrepreneurial potential that could be unleashed if so many workers weren't tied to jobs they hate by fear of losing health care benefits."

After all this, I wasn't convinced that something is driving the Herald Leader to distraction until I read the big finish. I read it ten times and still couldn't pull anything particularly coherent -- or maybe just useful -- out of it. Any help?

"Like many Americans, I'm uncomfortable with government trying to manage big business. But if government would use this opportunity to learn how to do a better job of governing, we might be spared more corporate bailouts in the future."

Daschle: "trust me" on socialized medicine

Incoming Health and Human Services Cabinet Secretary Tom Daschle wants to rush in government-run healthcare without bothering to discuss details with the people who will pay the bills.

Who has this guy been talking to, Henry Paulson?

Defending Paul Krugman; and debunking him

The ever more erratic and undependable Associated Press caught up with Nobel laureate in Stockholm, Sweden and totally screwed up his interview before blasting it all over the world.

"STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) -- Nobel economics prize winner Paul Krugman said Sunday that the beleaguered U.S. auto industry will likely disappear.
""It will do so because of the geographical forces that me and my colleagues have discussed," the Princeton University professor and New York Times columnist told reporters in Stockholm. "It is no longer sustained by the current economy.""

Krugman denies that he said the entire industry "will likely disappear" and I believe him.

From his blog:

"I gather that there’s a report on the wires quoting me as saying that the US auto industry would disappear. What I actually said was that the concentration of the industry around Detroit would disappear."

"And did I really say “me and my colleagues”? I guess it’s possible — but that doesn’t sound like I speaking."

I've seen Dr. Krugman speak at length about the car bailout and I've never heard him say anything like that the U.S. auto industry would disappear.

But saying that the industry is no longer "sustained by the current economy?" That's our Krugman.

And that's ridiculous. What is not sustained by the current economy -- or any economy at any time -- is the mess that the United Auto Workers has created in conjunction with management of the Big Three. Our economy needs lots of well-made cars. But the fact even when they do sell it is usually at a loss is hardly the economy's fault. In fact, the economy is doing exactly what it is supposed to do, which is grind to a halt until prices come down to meet the new equilibrium price.

A bankrupt Big Three can get there. A bailed out Big Three delays the inevitable. Why would a sane people take the more painful option?

"I'm from the government...to sell you a used car"

Does anyone really, honestly believe that putting the government in charge of the auto industry is going to make everything work out better?

The Detroit Free Press reports:

"Congressional officials say the lawyer who oversaw the 9/11 victims’ compensation fund has emerged as a candidate to be the “car czar” in charge of a federal loan package for the Detroit Three automakers."

Yeah, I expect this to work out well...

Herald Leader suffers from R.I.D.S.

Revenue Increase Derangement Syndrome is bad stuff. And the Lexington Herald Leader has a bad case.

Evidence of the malady piled up this weekend with a wild claim that low taxes cause crime and reached Intervention Time with a Larry Dale Keeling column advocating higher taxes and casinos that glosses over two very important points.

First, there's this:

"Over the course of a full year, a 70-cent increase per pack would produce about a third of the revenue needed to offset the current $456.1 million shortfall."

This questionable assertion ignores the loss of economic activity from out-of-state consumers no longer crossing into Kentucky to buy cigarettes. Leap-frogging Tennessee, Indiana, West Virginia, Virginia, and Illinois in the cigarette tax increase race will have an impact we can hardly ignore and spend at the same time.

And then, an old favorite:

"... the two compelling arguments for legalizing casino gambling: to capture for our own treasury the hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue Kentuckians are contributing to bordering states by gambling at their casinos and racinos, and to keep Kentucky's signature racing industry competitive with its counterparts in states where purses and breeders' incentives are supplemented with the profits from expanded gambling."

Here they are ignoring the simple fact that casino revenue will be very hard-pressed to fund state spending and save the horse industry while also covering the increased costs associated with casinos leading to more impoverished families.

Big government has run its course in Kentucky and has failed. The tax increase nattering and revenue increase derangement syndrome will get much louder before it goes away.

Stay tuned...

Are some anti-tax allies going squishy?

The Kentucky Farm Bureau isn't as opposed to cigarette tax increases as they used to be. The rest of us are going to have to work that much harder to make the case for not bailing Frankfort out from the consequences of their overspending.

Mitch McConnell needs help "deciding"

Sen. Mitch McConnell told the Louisville Courier Journal he is "undecided" about the auto bailout.

Please call him at (202) 224-2541 and help him decide how much of your money to burn.

State says don't kill your kids

From the Department of Institutional Non-essentialness in the Health and Family Services Cabinet, we get the following holiday advice:

Don't let your child choke or suffocate on gift-wrapping materials.

Your child may choke on a golf ball or ping pong ball. Be careful.

String may strangle your baby.

Some people trip over toys.

Wheeled toys can kill you.

Don't trim your tree with items your children may mistake for food.

Don't inhale artificial snow.

Wonder how much it cost us for that great advice. I wish I were kidding about this.

We should really be able to laugh at this

I wonder how many American women who support putting the government even more in charge of healthcare would change their minds after reading this:

"A Swedish woman injured in a car accident has had her disability benefits withdrawn after the country’s social insurance agency determined her large bust was to blame for the pain."

"The agency’s decision comes following an assessment from a doctor suggesting that Andersson could return to work if she had breast reduction surgery."

""I had understood authorities to be impartial, but I don’t feel that way any longer. I see this as more of a political judgment than a medical one," she said."

We really need to be rolling back government involvement in healthcare before our own bureaucrats grab the power to make more decisions like this. Thanks to InsureBlog for the heads up.

They won -- and they're still working

Blocking Team Obama isn't going to be easy:

People who are against tax increases and bailouts and abusive unions are going to have to start working together despite differences on other issues. And that means the GOP has some work to do reaching out to Ron Paul supporters and others who don't ordinarily fit into "the club."

Magic tax increase proposed

Rep. David Watkins has pre-filed the seventy cent cigarette tax increase that is going to save us all by cutting smoking rates, raising revenue, funding our woefully underfunded public employee benefits plans, put more money in our schools, buy health insurance for all our children, pay off our debt, fill in for current overspending, and make the blue skies bluer.

Why we still miss mark on college affordability

A striking paragraph in the Lexington Herald Leader's college affordability story today deserves clarification:

"The 40 percent of Kentucky families who earn the least must use 39 percent of their income to attend a 4-year college, up from 33 percent in 2004, the report found. And that's after accounting for financial aid, which is increasingly being used to lure high-achieving students who boost a school's reputation, but who don't need help to go to college."

The 39% figure is highly misleading. It includes food and lodging expenses. Those would have to be incurred whether the student chooses to live on campus and overpay for necessities or not. The fact that poor families are choosing to pay luxury prices for necessary services is more indicative of the fact that federally-insured student loans are readily available than the inaccurate picture that poor families face living on 61% of their income in order to send a child to college.

Solutions are readily available. We already incentivize students to attend community colleges by allowing them to continue paying the lower tuition rates at universities when they transfer after earning a two-year degree. This is not well-publicized. It should be.

If more students stayed at home with their parents and took courses online through KYVC.org, they would save substantially as well.

The article's criticism that too much financial aid is being awarded to students "who don't need help to go to college" is off-base also. Raising academic standards in our public colleges is the only way to approach long-term success. Doling out too much financial aid strictly on the basis of financial need and then encouraging overspending for services is at the heart of this problem. Attempting to address college affordability without naming the actual culprits will continue to frustrate our efforts to improve the situation.

Obama pulls his first Beshear

In Georgia.

Checked your gun rights, lately?

Noticed that since the election, former Rep. Kathy Stein's wacky anti-gun bill from the 2008 session is the most-read bill on KentuckyVotes.org.

There are still some major technical problems with KentuckyVotes, but most of the site is functioning normally. Bill searches and voting records, for example, are fine.

That's our Skippy!

Gov. Steve Beshear's endless trail of blue ribbon work groups continues Tuesday with a swipe at college education affordability.

Here's the great part: the meeting features Finance and Administration Cabinet Secretary Jonathan "Skippy" Miller giving introductory remarks, offering a discussion of priorities for a January meeting, and addressing meeting topics and issues for further meeting till next September.

I'm not expecting much more than a rehash of KAPT from Miller, are you?

Recession official; official response horrible

The National Bureau of Economic Research now says the nation has been in a recession since December 2007.

Recorded history is full of business cycles going up and coming down. The lesson too many are missing is that there is nothing any politician is going to do to stop that. In fact, many of them seem determined to make it worse.

From White House spokesman Tony Fratto:

"What's important is what is being done about it," Fratto said. "The most important things we can do for the economy right now are to return the financial and credit markets to normal, and to continue to make progress in housing, and that's where we'll continue to focus."

Yeah, right. Just get the heck out of the way.

Bipartisan attack on government transparency

Please support two Louisville men, Steve Magruder and Brian Tucker, in their efforts to force Mayor Jerry Abramson to show taxpayers how their money is being spent.

Go here and here. And please use the comments section on this site to publicize any other similar efforts in Louisville or elsewhere.

Bailout spin to begin, again

The Big Three automakers are going back to Capitol Hill this week to beg for a bailout.

There is nothing they can say that will justify throwing taxpayer money at them. Even if the government could "turn a profit" on the deal by taking an equity stake in one or more of them, there is no way we should allow the government to buy up more companies in the name of stability. Just like when Joseph in the Old Testament taxed the Egyptians twenty percent of their grain and sold it back to them in return for their freedom, we will all be slaves when the government figures it can buy up businesses.

Some of the resources tied up in the car companies are misplaced. Delaying the realization of that fact costs us all money. And it might wind up costing us more than that.

Tell Beshear to drop tax increase plan

Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI) has a history lesson both President-elect Barack Obama and Gov. Steve Beshear would do very well to pay attention to:

"Important lessons on our current crisis can be drawn from Japan’s “lost decade” in the 1990s, where deeply flawed policy responses lead to a protracted period of stagnation. In the early 1990s, Japan experienced a sharp economic slowdown resulting from the bursting of a real estate and stock market bubble. Sound familiar? In response, Japan’s policy makers pursued an aggressive agenda of fiscal stimulus packages after 1993. Japan’s preference for public spending at the expense of private investment led to record deficits, increasing government debt to 130% of GDP. Following the array of new spending projects, Japan made the critical mistake of raising its consumption tax rate in 1997, proving fatal for Japan’s already stagnant economy. Rather than addressing the significant structural problems in Japan’s financial sector or reducing taxes to spur sustained economic growth, Japan followed a path of increased spending followed by increased taxes. Such a path proved disastrous for Japan, and – should Obama and the Congressional Majority follow a similar path as they’ve promised – it will prove disastrous for America."

Team Obama seems to have gotten the message that tax increases won't do any good for the economy. Maybe they should talk to Gov. Beshear.

While you were hyperventilating...

With all the current problems in Kentucky government to be concerned about, The Lexington Herald Leader is upset about this:


God help us. Oh, sorry guys!

Instead of getting stuck on this stuff, would it be too much to ask the Herald Leader to look into out-of-control public employee compensation, unaccountable school systems, or lying executives?