Who is John Galt?

"seasonally adjusted unemployment"

"Real" (U6) unemployment is at a record 18%.  Today's supposedly lower figure, 16.5%, relies on a seasonal adjustment.

Accepting the "seasonal adjustment" is another way of saying record 18% unemployment is less bad than it seems because unemployment's always higher in January.

But if unemployment was always this high at this time of year, then 18% wouldn't be a record, would it?

watch the premise

Obama could have repeated it a dozen times, and I wouldn't have noticed it -- and I do pay attention to premises.  But this one was, well, such a given that we've all stopped noticing it.  Well, all of us except Rush Limbaugh, anyway:

We've gotta make sure that our party understands that, like it or not, we have to have a financial system that is healthy and functioning.
 --Barack Obama

"Like it or not."  As in: We have a leading political party -- a majority party -- that resents a healthy, functioning financial system.

And of course they have no problem with this.  Hell, look who had to notice it first on our side!

Democrats will say some pretty surprising things if you can get them to tell you what they're really thinking.

I *am* an ideologue

Addressing Congressional Republicans, Obama said that he is not an ideologue.

In politics, ideology is about advancing specific solutions.  And an ideologue is someone who's more interested in his solution than in solving the problem itself.  An ideologue likes his solution even if it makes a problem worse.  What you call a problem, to an ideologue, is just an excuse to implement his solution.  Conversely, what troubles ideologues most is good reasons not to use their solutions.

Think of healthcare.  What liberals want is universal healthcare, and their biggest selling point is 47 million uninsured people.  If they truly wanted to solve this -- if they wanted to help those 47 million -- they'd pass the policies that the most politicians could agree on.

But if the 47 million uninsured are just an excuse for passing universal healthcare, then Democrats will do something else -- two other things, actually.  First, whatever they pass must constitute or facilitate universal healthcare, whether it's "the public option," a trigger, or an individual mandate.  The individual mandate is fine if it doesn't cover all 47 million, because after all it's the mandate, and not the uninsured, which Democrats serve.

And second, whatever Democrats pass that is not universal healthcare -- whatever it is, it must not reduce the 47 million.  To universal healthcare ideologues, those 47 million are not a problem: They are leverage for their particular solution -- hostages, really.  No changes can be permitted that will lessen that number, or reduce that leverage.  Except for universal healthcare, what liberals want is more millions of uninsureds for whom they can demand universal healthcare.  Make no mistake about it: Liberals are perpetuating their healthcare "crisis."

There would be no greater wound to the universal healthcare movement than passing a bill without universal healthcare that actually put a dent in the uninsured.  No such legislation will ever receive the votes of liberals, and in recent years several such Republican ideas have been rejected by libs.  Simple solutions -- like insurance portability, so you don't have to rely on your employer for healthcare.  Or guaranteeing the sale of health insurance across state lines like other products.

I too am an ideologue.  I don't want government "solving" anything because I am beholden to a specific solution -- liberty.  Not just markets, but free markets.

But what about government, and its duty to provide solutions?  Well, constitutionally, what the government's supposed to be protecting -- from the very first sentence -- is "the Blessings of Liberty."  In capital letters.

Those Blessings of Liberty -- think of them as golden eggs.  One of them is the solution to healthcare, and the Constitution tells us to look to those golden eggs for all of our solutions.

Think of liberals -- and Barack Obama -- as ideologues with an axe in one hand, and the neck of the goose in the other.

arrogance

Interviewing with ABC News's Diane Sawyer, Barack Obama said,

I would rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president.

My first thought was to question the premise:  What's Obama trying to do that's "really good"?  Why does it sound like the better Obama does, the less likely he is to get re-elected?  Somewhere in all this is the implication that whatever Obama's trying to do, voters aren't going to like it.

I've always thought the majority of voters on both sides want the same things.  Jobs, opportunity, prosperity.  Security, justice.  To me, the difference has always come down to a disagreement over policy:  Liberals believe policies like the minimum wage reduce poverty, while conservatives believe such policies cost jobs. 

On most any matter, liberals and conservatives could argue over whether a given policy would create the proper incentives to reach a common goal.  Both sides both want prosperity and an employed, well-paid workforce, we just disagree over how to achieve them.  But it's the policy and the incentives that divide us -- not the goal.

With that in mind, Obama should be insisting that his policies will solve any number of social injustices that we all want solved, with the disagreement centered on what those policies will really accomplish.  He should be pleading with us to pass his policies, reasoning that we will like the results when we finally see them.

But what Obama's telling Sawyer is that we're not going to like the results.  We're no longer unified in a desire for prosperity and an employed, well-paid workforce -- benchmarks that would get any president re-elected.  Obama wants something else.

We no longer disagree about whether Obama's best policies will get him tossed out by a miserable electorate -- he's just implied that they will.  Obama agrees that we're not going to like the results.  Is that the kind of change you were hoping for?  Because I believe it's exactly the sort of agenda Limbaugh would like to see fail.

Last night, from the Associated Press:

In a remark underscoring the political sensitivities Democrats have about their two top issues, Rangel said, "The major things we're talking about now are, one, don't let health care even look like it's not on the front burner. And don't forget that the priority of people in their districts is jobs."

These are not Democrats' two top issues.  One is the politicians' top issue, and the other is the people's top issue.  In fact, they are conflicting priorities.  The healthcare situation is made worse by unemployment, and the Dems' idea of healthcare "reform" is a jobs killer.  As is Cap and Trade.

At this point, I'm confident the electorate understands that what the Democrats want is not what Americans want.  I just wonder if they've figured it out in time.

And I'm pretty sure of one other thing: It will be a long, long time before we see such a big Democrat majority in Congress again.

where's scott brown?

Yesterday the Senate raised the debt ceiling to $14.3 Trillion.  This was a 60-40 party line vote.  Oh, wait, the Dems only have 59 votes in the Senate now, don't they...?

the blame game

You're no doubt seeing that healthcare remains in the news.  Think the Dems are going to pass something?  I don't.  Read this.  For the most part, I see distinctly different attitudes between Senators and Representatives.

What does it mean?  Well, it means that House Democrats don't want to take the blame for not passing the Senate bill.  Instead, they want to make passage contingent upon a Senate reconciliation fix that will never happen.  So libs in the House can blame it on the Senate, while libs in the Senate will blame it on the House.

The truth is, I think such a strategy has better odds of passing the Senate than the House.  Harry Reid can lose eight or nine Dem Senators and still pass a reconciliation fix, but Nancy Pelosi still needs all 218 votes for anything she presents to her chamber.  She only had 220 the first time, and she's lost the one Republican she had, and one Dem supporter has resigned.  To get 218, she has to hold on to votes from deep within Blue Dog territory -- there aren't enough liberals to do it alone.  And she lost some of that coalition when Scott Brown was elected and Congress learned that the public is determined to vote against liberal healthcare reformers.

I could be wrong, but I really think this is all just posturing.

the sotu

Talk is talk.  And it's cheap, too.  I was actually glad at Obama's visible frustration, but it's misplaced.

Obama railed against both parties over gridlock.  I think gridlock's good, of course, but the truth is that Republicans deserve little credit for it.  Dems have had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate since Al Franken took office, and Scott Brown hasn't even been seated yet.  The only reason the Senate's not playing "Beat the Clock" to get healthcare reform through right now is because Democrats refuse to play along.  And the most destructive thing the House has passed -- Cap and Trade -- got a few Republican votes.

I don't want to sound elitist.  But taking Obama's speech seriously requires buying into the premise that government exists to solve problems.  That's not why government exists, and it's not what government does.

Ultimately, it is individuals who solve problems, usually working for their own benefit.  A doctor cures a chef's cancer in exchange for some good food.  Or perhaps he cures it in exchange for a Mercedes, and the chef prepares meals for the assembly line workers as part of a more elaborate arrangement that lands the doctor a car.

Government exists because the doctor, the chef and the assembly line workers want to protect their arrangement.  If I work hard, someone else could take the product of my labor by force, denying me whatever benefit I was seeking when I labored.  I work for carrots, and the government carries a stick to ensure that my carrots remain mine.

That stick is all government has going for it.  And that's important, because as soon as we start to think that government should "solve problems," then we are saying those problems should be solved with sticks rather than carrots.  Government goes from protecting your sovereignty over your labor to assuming sovereignty over you.

As I said, ultimately it is individuals who solve problems, working for their own benefit.  You benefit from what I do, and I do it in exchange for whatever benefit you offer me.  Putting government in charge of solving problems means that some people must work for the "benefit" of staying out of jail -- while others receive a benefit without earning it.  Government's not solving problems at all -- that's still being done by individuals -- but the benefit system is radically altered in the process.

Obama wants you to see the left and right squabbling over the fruit of your future labor.  But in reality, you benefit the most when both sides are unable to reach an agreement on seizing it from you in the first place.

And while Obama complains about partisanship, obstructionism and gridlock, to those of us who know better he might has well be up at the podium for an hour and a half chanting, "Four legs good, two legs better."

Which, in fact, is pretty much what he was doing.

matthews forgets

I forgot he was black tonight for an hour.
                           --Chris Matthews

Which begs the question: Do you notice it the rest of the time, Chris?  Is it something that's always in the corner of your mind?

I have to admit, the matter of Obama's race does come up when I try to understand the motives of a radical socialist.  But it's the socialism I see when I look at him, because it's the socialism that threatens us.

Still, it's always interesting to hear the little clues that sometimes slip out when liberals talk -- clues that tell us how they really think.  And obviously that applies to Obama as well as Matthews.

hayek vs. keynes

gridlock

How about a Gridlock Party?  A political party, but not for politicians -- for voters. 

What if there was a movement that sought to keep the government so conflicted it couldn't pass anything but the most essential bills?  After all, if you believe government should be doing only the bare minimum, then what better way to start than a government structurally incapable of doing more?

Remember, Bill Clinton's "surplus" was also Newt Gingrich's surplus.  Since all spending must originate in the House of Representatives, I'd like to see a House that's ideologically opposed to big government.  And then a Senate and/or a White House that's ideologically opposed to the House, making it damned near impossible to get anything enacted.

Of course, this is quite different from a Congress with a Republican agenda.  Yes, I'd rather have the GOP in charge than the Democrats, but what I really want is a government so filled with in-fighting that it couldn't climb out of Grover Norquist's bathtub.  I'd like a government that can't even agree on what the agenda is. 

Naturally, this would require strategically putting liberals into positions where they would whine a lot.  I'm not normally inclined to vote for Democrats, but I do think their ideas need to be voiced -- and properly ridiculed -- in the public forum.

Basically, I'd like to see the types of arguments the Republicans in the Senate raised against healthcare being used against every big government idea -- and used by a caucus with the power to reject them.  And I'd like to see it all done in government with just enough Democrats to reject big Republican government schemes as well.

When the Constitution's checks and balances don't go far enough -- or when they've been discarded -- let the voters institute some checks and balances of their own.