Tag Archives: political economy

Over-Regulation

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…Texas style. An eight-year-old girl and her seven-year-old sister were selling lemonade and kettle corn at their homemade stand in front of their house in Overton, TX. You recognize the deal: kids selling cool drinks (with a snack added this time) on a hot summer day to give passersby some relief and to pick up some spending money.

However.

A police officer on Monday approached the stand, which offered lemonade for 50 cents and “kettle korn” for $1.

In patrol-car video, the officer can be heard asking the girls’ mother…for a permit. She says she wasn’t aware they needed one.

The stand was shut down for that lack of permit. When a family friend went to the town’s government to get the needed permit, the town offered to waive the $150 fee. $150 to be allowed to set up a lemonade stand that might make ten bucks over the three or four days it’s likely to be open.

In the end, it remained too hard for the little girls to do: the town said that health department officials needed to inspect the stand, too. Because of all the food poisoning that occurs at lemonade stands around the country. You remember the epidemics caused by the lemonade stands dotting the neighborhoods when we were growing up, don’t you?

Understand: my beef isn’t with the town or the cop—waiving $150 is no small thing for a metropolis with a population of 2,500, and the cop is doing his job (cops aren’t allowed discretion in these days of politically correct zero tolerance). My beef is with the regulations and with the foolishness of one-size-fits-all rules. Where’s the common sense? Why can’t little boys and girls set up a stand to earn some spending money sometimes without official interference?

In the event, the little girls have decided to stay open, more or less. They’ll give away their lemonade and kettle corn, accepting only donations. If you’re in Overton the next few days, or even if you’re only nearby, head on over to the stand and make a generous donation. And enjoy some cool lemonade and a snack on a hot Texas day.

Health Care Subsidies

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President Barack Obama sent his HHS Secretary, Sylvia Mathews Burwell, to Congress to testify before the House Ways and Means Committee about, among other things, his plans should the Supreme Court rule against Federal subsidies for those who bought health plans through ObamaMart and not through state exchanges as Obama’s ACA requires. He said, through her,

If the court says that we do not have the authority to give subsidies, the critical decisions will sit with the Congress and states and governors to determine if those subsidies are available[.]

This is openly cynical. “If the court says…” the subsidies are not available, they’re not available. Full stop.

The Governors and states made their own critical decisions clear five years ago when, in full view of the ACA’s statement that Federal subsidies are available only through state exchanges, they carefully and with forethought declined to create state exchanges.

The Congress made its own critical decision all those years ago when it wrote the law that said Federal subsidies would not be available except through state exchanges.

Of course the better policy wonk than his policy wonks knows this, and he knew it when he sent Burwell up there to spout that nonsense. The only way the Court can upend those critical decisions will be through a twisted interpretation of the text of the law that leads them to uphold the Federal subsidies.

Hmm….

Another Reason

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…for Greece to leave the European Union. This time it’s the arrogance of the eurozone honchos.

Greece offered a proposal intended to break the current impasse over its debts and the payments due this month. Whether it was a good proposal or a bad one is beside the point as far as those eurozone honchoes are concerned. Greece’s proposal has these alleged problems:

Greece’s proposal includes targets for its primary surplus—the excess of revenues over expenditures before interest payments are made—that are lower than the targets presented to Greece in a deal struck between the commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund, the three institutions representing Greece’s creditors [the so-called troika].

Here’s a carefully anonymous EU “official” on the situation:

That’s non-negotiable. The institutions have reached an agreement on fiscal targets.
What’s been submitted is not a basis for further political discussion[.]

We’ve decided the matter internally. You, Greece, have nothing to say on it.

Since Greece is to be treated as an unwanted stepchild whose own views are beneath notice, Greece should accept the unwanted part and depart from the EU and from the eurozone.

Ex-Im Banking

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Boeing Co said it may temporarily provide financing for some aircraft purchases by airlines caught up in the uncertain future of the Export-Import Bank of the US if Congress fails to extend the bank’s mandate before it expires at the end of June.

Hmm….

Looks to me like yet another reason to let the Ex-Im Bank die its death. It’s not needed, as Boeing is demonstrating. Sure, they’re saying “temporary,” but without the bank—that is to say, without American taxpayers—guaranteeing Boeing’s sales income, Boeing will find a way, in the private economy that all of us citizens are in, to make its sales and collect its revenue from the buyer. Private Enterprise always finds a way, when government isn’t in the way.

Regulation

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The Environmental Protection Agency will soon announce it plans to regulate airline emissions, asserting they contribute to global warming and endanger public health, according to industry and environmental groups.

But here’s the truth of it, accidentally revealed by National Association of Clean Air Agencies Executive Director S William Becker:

…he [President Barack Obama] can’t ignore imposing additional greenhouse gas reductions on this uncontrolled industry.

The Left has to regulate everything. Because ordinary Americans are just too stupid to manage our own affairs.