Tag Archives: politics

Progressive-Democrat Hysteria

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Now illustrated by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, CA).

She says that Attorney General William Barr lied to the Senate in Wednesday’s Senate hearing because he refused to say what Progressive-Democrats want him to say.  This was emphasized by Senator Mazie Hirono (D, HI), who spent nearly all of her question-time in that hearing smearing Barr (with charges of lying) instead of asking him questions.

Pelosi also gleefully has called Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, KY) the grim reaper (following McConnell’s statement that he’d have to be the Grim Reaper if the Pelosi persisted in sending up her bad and partisan Progressive legislation).

Because not saying what Progressive-Democrats demand be said, not doing what Progressive-Democrats demand be done, is somehow dishonest.

The Progressive-Democrats’ FUD-raising behavior would be risible and worth ignoring, were it not for how dangerous Party is with its control of the House.

Drug Pricing

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Amazingly, there’s an actual debate going on over whether consumers should be allowed to see drug prices in drug advertising.

Stacie Dusetzina, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine’s Associate Professor of Health Policy and the Ingram Associate Professor of Cancer Research, argued—in all seriousness—in a recent Wall Street Journal example of the debate (see the link) in favor of the following points:

  • disclosure of list prices may deter some people from seeking treatment
  • disclosing prices could backfire by creating an artificial sense of “value” due to a high price tag
  • the idea behind the proposal is to shame manufacturers into lowering list prices or limiting price increases by requiring them to disclose just how high their prices are

Wow.  In reverse order….

No, the idea behind the proposal is not to shame or to limit price increases by requiring manufacturers to disclose just how high their prices are. The idea is competition.  The idea is to limit price increases or to lower prices by forcing manufacturers to compete in an open, free market environment.  This, just incidentally, also will force intermediaries and pharmacies as end-sellers to compete on pricing in a similarly open, free market environment.

No, disclosing prices won’t create an artificial sense of “value” from a high price.  Dusetzina must really think Americans are stupid to pay artificially inflated prices simply because the prices are high.  That may be the case for luxury cars or fancy purses or other objects of ego-driven conspicuous consumption, but it’s most assuredly not the case for the working man or woman—which is to say the vast majority of us—buying necessities or even the merely nice-to-haves.  If we were stupid enough to buy the higher priced good or service just because it was more expensive, grocery store prices would be much higher than they are now.

No, disclosure of list prices won’t deter many of us from seeking treatment at all.  What it will do is let us see the lowering prices make getting treatment more affordable.  Besides, even for those few of us who do defer or avoid treatment because of those prices; that’s our choice, not Government’s to make for us, not even indirectly by manipulating our accesses.

Price information—especially price information available before any decision to buy or not to buy—is critical to competition.  And it’s that competition that will drive drug prices to their natural levels—the cost of producing and marketing them—and not a penny more.  Even the profit margin that competitive companies legitimately can collect will be eaten into by that competition.  Look at those grocery stores, again.

Hiding price information is absolutely antithetical to free markets and low prices.

An All Too Common View

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In a Wall Street Journal article reporting on President Donald Trump, some of his family members, and his businesses suing a couple of banks to block Congressional subpoenas for 10 years worth of business records, a commenter in the comment thread had this to say:

The lawsuits by POTUS, et al., are an admission of domestic tax and business fraud.

This is a broadly held view by folks on the Left.  Objections of innocence are admissions of guilt.  Attempts to protect proprietary materials from prying eyes are admissions of guilt.  Attempts to protect privacy are admissions of guilt.

After all, goes their…logic…if someone hasn’t done anything wrong, if there’s nothing to hide, that person shouldn’t object to Government rummaging through his stuff.  Privacy, proprietary-ness—these aren’t things to be kept private or proprietary.  Let Government have a peek.

More dangerous than that severe danger, because it’s both more insidious and has broad-ranging implications, is the concept that if a Government issues a subpoena, it must be obeyed forthwith; it’s wrong to challenge it.  If that becomes the case, though, then the subpoena process will be reduced to a formality: everything in a man’s, or a business’, life will become free for the formal demanding by an unchallengeable Government.

That failure easily extends to the 4th Amendment: warrants will issue as easily as ever, but they cannot be challenged, either, even after the fact.  To do so would be another admission of guilt; after all, if the person or business has nothing to hide, then Government should be allowed to rifle through persons, houses, papers, and effects, only satisfying the formality of a claim of probable cause—which claim also must be beyond question.

Fueling the Housing “Crisis”

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California’s Progressive-Democrats are at it again; although, this time they’re not active only in California.  Now they’re looking to

expand subsidies to middle-class families—some with six-figure incomes

under the pretense of “helping” folks afford housing in this manufactured crisis of housing.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has proposed funding housing for families whose income normally wouldn’t qualify them for assistance programs. Last month, his administration set aside $200 million for middle-class families in a $750 million package meant to combat the state’s housing crisis.
DC Mayor Muriel E Bowser has proposed a $20 million workforce fund to help families earning up to $141,000.

Boston and Philadelphia city governments are pushing the same sort of nonsense for the same sort of reason.

Aside from money spent on this pandering is money not spent on serious problems, these moves will only make the problem worse. The moves only increase demand for a not very flexible or easily expanded supply—and so supports, and increases, price, and so exacerbating the problem.

The way to address housing costs for the residents of a city—and the citizens of States like California—is to get the governments out of the way.  That means reduce duplicative regulations associated with housing and housing construction and eliminating regulations that exist solely for the benefit of unions and other special interests.  It means reducing zoning limits that drive up the cost of building and of living in a neighborhood.

Banning Workers’ Freedom

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That’s what two Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidates want to do.  Here’s Kamala Harris, who’s doubling as a California Senator:

The barriers to organized labor being able to organize and strike are something that have grown over a period of time[.] … It has to be about, for example, banning right-to-work laws[.]

Here’s Social Democrat Bernie Sanders, doubling as an Independent Senator from Vermont while, once again, masquerading himself as a Progressive-Democratic Party member for this campaign, calling for:

a federal ban on so-called right-to-work laws in a Monday [1 Apr] speech.
Speaking to the International Association of Machinists at the union’s conference in Las Vegas, Sanders said as president he would push legislation in Congress to prohibit the laws.

And

…the trade union movement must be in the middle of all of those discussions.

Aside from blatant attacks on all workers’ 1st Amendment right of freedom of assembly, these are obvious and petty attempts at pandering for the votes of blue collar workers.

The attempts also are dishonest in their cynically deliberate distortions of the situation.  Right to work laws guarantee workers’ right to work without paying dues to unions to which they do not belong and their right to work without being forced against their will to join unions.

Those right-to-work laws do not bar workers from joining unions; on the contrary, they explicitly allow them to—that 1st Amendment bit, again.  Instead, the laws simply enable workers to support their families without having to join a union as a precondition for doing so.

Oh, and it’s all about the Benjamins, too.  Unions fund the political campaigns—and other expenses—of Progressive-Democratic Party politicians.  Those forced dues that freed workers no longer have to pay were a significant fraction of the funds used to pay those politicians; and those politicians are desperate to recover the money.