Category Archives: political economy

This

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…about sums it up.  In a Wall Street Journal op-ed about FBI Director James Comey’s missteps, US Attorney General and Federal judge Michael Mukasey had this bit that summarizes Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s criminal behavior while Secretary of State and since:

…Mrs Clinton had classified information on a private nonsecure server—at least a misdemeanor under one statute; and although she was “extremely careless” in her handling of classified information such that it was exposed to hacking by hostile foreign nations—a felony under another statute; and apparently had caused the destruction of emails—a felony under two other statutes.

And regarding one likely outcome of this reopening of the FBI’s investigation into Clinton’s crimes, Muckasey had this:

Mr Comey reportedly wrote his letter to Congress over the objection of the attorney general and her deputy. Thus, regardless of what is in the newly discovered emails, the current Justice Department will not permit a grand jury to hear evidence in this case. And because only a grand jury can constitutionally bring charges, that means no charges will be brought.

Keep it in mind as you vote next week.

Obamacare’s Cost Increases

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As even President Barack Obama (D) has finally confessed, Obamacare plan premiums and deductibles are skyrocketing.  But the Democrats and their Progressive fellows are cynically obfuscating the matter.  Here’s a typical remark, by HHS’ Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Kevin Griffis:

Headline rates are generally rising faster than in previous years…headline rates are not what they [recipients of Obamacare subsidies] pay.

Indeed not.  Those rates are what you and I and our fellow taxpayers who don’t get subsidies pay, and they’re rates for which we pay a second time in the form of the subsidies Obamacare passes on to potsful of Obamacare plan purchasers.  We pay for those subsidies with our tax payments.

This is carefully elided by those pushers of Obamacare.

Be Quiet

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Your Betters are working.

Elon Musk, who as CEO of Tesla Motors, which is building self-driving cars, has a personal, vested interest in the matter, says we must stop criticizing self-driving cars—they’re going to save lives.  One day.

In the meantime, we’re to keep our critiques—which would actually make the cars better, safer, and more consumer friendly—to ourselves.  He knows what he’s talking about; we don’t.  And we’ll kill people if we don’t shut up with our comments.

If, in writing some article that’s negative, you effectively dissuade people from using autonomous vehicles, you’re killing people[.]

Just be quiet.  Trust me.

A Teachers Union Disingenuosity

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This example is provided by the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties; they’re holding the education of 100,000 state college/university students hostage against satisfaction of the union’s demands.

APSCUF President Kenneth Mash:

We are headed to the picket lines, but even on the picket lines, our phones will be on, should the State System decide it doesn’t want to abandon its students[.]

And

The union said late Tuesday night that the state had handed it its last, best offer and was done negotiating.

Who’s abandoning the students?  It isn’t the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, which runs the State’s college/university system that’s cut off negotiations.  It isn’t the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education that’s decided to walk out, strike, and refuse to teach the system’s tuition-paying students.

The sticking points?  The union says the offered pay raise isn’t big enough to suit them.  The union objects to paying a share of their health coverage costs.  The system already had acceded to another union objection [emphasis added].

[T]he state said it withdrew several proposals including one that would have required full-time temporary faculty to teach an additional class each semester.

A whole additional class.  So students could get an improved college education.

The union’s teachers and coaches (nominally teachers themselves) just want free stuff of their own.

In Just One Year

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It is, though, something that’s been well-known for several years; it’s been baked into our economy by the prior spending and taxing paradigms of this administration from its passage of Obamacare forward.

A slowdown in the growth of federal revenues, as well as rising government spending, pushed the US deficit up in the 2016 fiscal year for the first time since 2011, reversing the trend of falling deficits as the economy recovered in recent years.

The budget shortfall widened to $587 billion in the fiscal year that ended Sept 30, the Treasury Department said Friday, up 34% from the previous fiscal year.

And the deficit is going to continue to rise in the coming years unless government spending is sharply curtailed.  The sequester has been good for generating those smaller deficits, but it’s badly damaged our national defense capability—which was the point of the extortion President Barack Obama (D) attempted when he offered the sequester in conjunction with his fellow Democrats’ refusal to agree to a responsible budget.

[A] growing number of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security recipients, as well as slightly higher interest rates on publicly held debt, helped drive up total spending by 5% in 2016, while total revenues grew by just 1%.

This puts a premium on reforming Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and on getting our debt under control.  Which demands getting rid of our deficits, not growing them.  Which demands reducing government spending, not growing it.

But that’s going to take a change in administrations and the preservation of the Senate and the House.