Maybe Jon Corzine needs to read the Federalist Papers

before he pulls the trigger on this. Maybe a week of camp with Arnold Kling might do the trick.

The Comeback Id

Todd Purdum on Bill Clinton:

“So much of modern culture is characterized by stories of self-indulgence and self-destruction,” Clinton writes near the end of Giving, from which he earned $6.3 million and gave away $1 million (or 16 percent) to charity. “So much of modern politics is focused not on honest differences of policy but on personal attacks. So much of modern media is dominated by people who earn fortunes by demeaning others, defining them by their worst moments, exploiting their agonies. Who’s happier? The uniters or the dividers? The builders or the breakers? The givers or the takers? I think you know the answer.”

I used to think he did, too. But substitute the words “my life” for the words “modern culture” and “modern politics” in the passage above, and you’ll have a pretty succinct summary of what Bill Clinton has, at last, become.

James Surowiecki lost without crowds?

Steven Davidoff discredits Surowieki's latest column.

But he's still more good than bad in my book.

Quotes of the day

We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.--Aesop

Laws are like sausages. It's better not to see them being made.--Otto von Bismarck

Is it just me

or is it surreal to see the Cubs and the Devil Rays atop the standings?

Fenway security working with Patriots minicamp?

Ouch (via FanHouse).

More than one visible higher tax advcoate

doesn't pay them (via Glenn Reynolds).

The ghost of Jimmy Carter

haunts us today (via Glenn Reynolds).

I sensed the same apparition back in February.

Like a man, baby

... if all these awful things were happening, and perhaps some may have been, you should have spoken up publicly like a man, or quit your cushy, high profile job. That would have taken integrity and courage but then you would have had credibility and your complaints could have been aired objectively. You’re a hot ticket now but don’t you, deep down, feel like a total ingrate?--Bob Dole, to Scott McClellan

I can't help but wonder if Dole is pulling for Hillary or Barack.

Epoch discovery of the day

If you reduce someone's tax burden, their income rises:

Incomes grew 0.2 percent, bolstered in part by the government's tax rebates.

Quote of the day

But in gearing up to elect a new president, we are left to wonder how, in spite of numerous failed policies and poor judgement, President Bush's greatest achievement was denied to him by people who ungratefully availed themselves of the protection that his administration provided.--Thane Rosenbaum

Wal-Mart reduces hunger

by reducing carbon emissions, increasing local suppliers, reducing corporate middlemen, and increasing truth-in-advertising (by reducing empty air in packages).

Why are they a target of populists and environmentalists?

(Tip to Drudge)

Can one simultaneously subscribe to Darwin and partial-birth abortion

Yes he can:

On this issue, I will not yield.

Reality of policy (vs. audacity of hope)

over at Arnold Kling's:

The plan makes Medicare and Medicaid more like vouchers, which plugs the big leak in future budgets. It includes some personal accounts for Social Security, but it also trims benefits and eventually raises the retirement age. It also includes some interesting tax reforms, including a simpler, flatter income tax, reduced taxes on capital, and replacing the corporate income tax with something called a "border-adjustable business consumption tax." I have no idea what that is.

Those of us who worry about fiscal sustainability should encourage these sorts of plans, rather than the audacity of hope being offered by the two parties' candidates for President.

One should not under-estimate the radical nature of these proposals. But if you want to take this country off the path of a fiscal train wreck, you have to propose real change.

Quotes of the day

In terms of inflation, the last 25 years since 1983 has been the most stable period in the last 200 years.--Mark Perry

After two years of work by the commission of 21 world leaders and experts, an 11- member working group, 300 academic experts, 12 workshops, 13 consultations, and a budget of $4m, the experts’ answer to the question of how to attain high growth was roughly: we do not know, but trust experts to figure it out.--Bill Easterly

If people have to choose between something that's cheap, heavily marketed, and appealing in the short term, and something that's expensive, obscure, and appealing in the long term, which do you think most will choose?--Paul Graham

Practically everyone thinks that someone who went to MIT or Harvard or Stanford must be smart. Even people who hate you for it believe it. But when you think about what it means to have gone to an elite college, how could this be true? We're talking about a decision made by admissions officers—basically, HR people—based on a cursory examination of a huge pile of depressingly similar applications submitted by seventeen year olds. And what do they have to go on? An easily gamed standardized test; a short essay telling you what the kid thinks you want to hear; an interview with a random alum; a high school record that's largely an index of obedience. Who would rely on such a test?--Paul Graham

Gasoline prices: the latest case for more limited government

[Congress] has made it impossible for U.S. producers of crude oil to tap significant domestic reserves of oil and gas, and it has foreclosed economically viable alternative sources of energy in favor of unfeasible alternatives such as wind and solar. In addition, Congress has slapped substantial taxes on gasoline. Indeed, as oil industry executives reiterated in their appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 21, 15% of the cost of gasoline at the pump goes for taxes, while only 4% represents oil company profits.

If Congress really cared about the economic well-being of American citizens, it would stop fulminating against IOCs and reverse current policies that discourage, indeed prohibit, the production of domestic oil and natural gas. Even the announcement that Congress was opening the way for domestic production would lead to downward pressure on oil prices.

There is an historical precedent for such a step: Ronald Reagan's deregulation of domestic crude oil prices at the beginning of his first term. At the time, thanks to the decision by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to curtail output, the price of oil was at a level that in real terms is only now being matched. Domestic price controls ensured that the OPEC cartel would face little or no competition in the production of oil.

Price controls were exacerbated by other wrongheaded policies stimulated by the two "energy crises" of the 1970s. One of the most egregious was the infamous "windfall profits" tax, designed to punish oil companies for alleged profiteering. But since it applied to even newly discovered oil, its main impact was to discourage the exploration and drilling that would have increased oil supplies.

Although the energy problems of the 1970s were traceable to government policies, Reagan's decision to deregulate oil prices was ridiculed by policy makers, especially those who had served in the previous administration. For instance, Frank Zarb, who had been Jimmy Carter's "energy czar," predicted that decontrolling the price of crude oil would lead to gasoline prices of $10 a gallon. Instead, the world price of oil plummeted, helping to fuel the extraordinary economic growth of the 1980s.

Reagan's deregulation of crude oil prices created incentives for domestic producers to invest in exploration and to increase production. The threat of increased output by non-OPEC producers destroyed the discipline among OPEC members necessary to restrict production to maintain high prices. Facing the likelihood that an increase in supply would lead to lower future prices, OPEC producers increased output in the hopes of maximizing profits before prices fell. The cascading effect caused oil prices to tumble.

As in the 1970s, U.S. energy policies have essentially restricted the exploitation of domestic sources of energy. Curtailed supplies have combined with rapid, world-wide energy demand to increase the price of oil and other sources of energy. This provides leverage to foreign producers and threatens U.S. energy security. Freeing up domestic energy resources will do today what President Reagan's decision to deregulate oil prices in 1981 did then: cause oil prices to fall, thereby enhancing U.S. energy security.

Don't get sick in NJ (unless Jay Webber succeeds)

The average national cost for a family health plan is $5,799, according to America's Health Insurance Plans, but in New Jersey that same plan costs $10,398 on average. The state's politicians have driven up these costs by forcing insurers to provide gold-plated coverage – even for such voluntary medical services as in vitro fertilization. New Jersey also follows New York and Massachusetts – two other high-cost states – in requiring so-called "guaranteed issue." That allows New Jersey residents to avoid buying health insurance until they get sick, which means they can avoid paying premiums until they need someone to pick up the bill.

This one-policy-fits-all system tends to cause the young and healthy to drop insurance, which only raises the cost of insurance for the sick, which in turn makes coverage unaffordable for ever more families. It's no accident that about 1.2 million people – one of every eight residents – is uninsured in the state.

Under Mr. Webber's choice proposal, New Jersey residents could buy policies chartered in more enlightened states. For example, a healthy 25-year-old male could buy a basic health plan in Kentucky that now sells for $960 a year, about one-sixth of the $5,880 it would cost him in New Jersey. Residents of Pennsylvania pay health premiums that are one-half to one-third as high as do Garden State policy-holders. A new study by the National Center for Policy Analysis estimates that the availability of lower cost plans would reduce by 25% the number of uninsured.

Opponents of interstate insurance say families would be pushed into bare-bones health plans. Not so. Families could still buy the more extensive coverage, but those with modest incomes would have options other than going uninsured. The goal of public policy shouldn't be to cover every medical procedure or doctor's visit, but to prevent families from catastrophic expenses due to a health problem that is no fault of their own.

New Jersey is turning into a microcosm of the national debate on health care. Democrats in Trenton are rallying behind a plan to require that every uninsured individual in New Jersey purchase health insurance from a new state-administered program. So a state that is already so broke that its politicians are contemplating mortgaging its highways might now add a $1.7 billion health subsidy.

The Webber proposal offers lower costs and more choices for consumers, while the Democratic plan mandates public coverage and no choice, while putting a new burden on taxpayers. This is the kind of debate the country should have this election year.

Let us eat cake

Are these the fruits of democracy:

McClellan says the book’s “larger message” is the problems with the “permanent campaign culture.” He said that’s the opposite of what he expected when he came to Washington after serving then-Gov. Bush in Texas.

“I had all this great hope that we were going to come to Washington and change it,” McClellan recalled. “He talked about being a uniter, not a divider. … And then we got to Washington and I think we got caught up in playing the Washington game the way it’s played today.”

Regardless of Bush's alleged missteps (and McClellan's apparent lack of steps before his book payday), I think that the voters are Marie Antoinette, at least a cobbled up majority of us*--we want what we want and we want it now (even though no one can deliver it to us).

*based on the discrete math of electoral college votes.

U.S. economy moves further from risk of recession in 2008

Shobhana Chandra reports:

The U.S. economy grew more than previously estimated in the first quarter as the trade deficit shrank to a five-year low.

The 0.9 percent gain in gross domestic product from January through March compares with the government's advance estimate of 0.6 percent issued in April, according to revised figures from the Commerce Department today in Washington.

I am still short these:

Absence of evidence is not evidence of Absence

A review of Antony Flew's "There Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind".