The Proper Way to Mark May Day

Thanks to Pejman Yousefzadeh, who suggests some good ways to mark May Day.



Whenever I hear someone argue that a particular issue, like education or health care, is "too important to be left to the market", I remember Milton Friedman. Truly, these priorities are too important to be left to government. You don't have to believe that markets are perfect to support them; just that they lead to better outcomes than government intervention.

Economic Stimulus Checks are in the Mail

Can't you feel the economy revving up?

Of course, some people think there are better ways to revive the economy.

Congress has the ability to address both problems, but not by continuing its current policies. Ending our bloated farm subsidies, specifically the ethanol boondoggle, would not only reduce federal spending significantly, but it would remove the perverse incentives in our agricultural sector, which are driving up the price of bread, milk, meat and vegetables other than corn.

Congress also can help bring energy prices down by scrapping the failed policies that have helped drive them up. We should allow responsible exploration of domestic oil reserves. We should remove the regulatory roadblocks that stand in the way of new oil refineries, the bottleneck in our transportation system that makes gas prices so volatile. And we should permit the construction of new nuclear power plants, which have the potential to provide safe and clean electricity.

The greatest benefit Congress can provide is to finally control federal spending. Our mounting national debt threatens our status as the safest place to invest in the world. Congress' unwillingness to acknowledge the massive unfunded obligations of Medicare and Social Security will leave the next generation with a massive tax bill. These fiscal time bombs will not be defused with a $300 check.

Saving NH's Working Forests

Tom Thomson has an article in today's Union Leader on how to get the most out of New Hampshire's working forest:

We know the wood fiber is there. Forest landowners are unwilling to give their wood away; all we need is to have markets that pay everyone in the forest food chain their fair share, and you will see plenty of wood available.

We all have been hit hard by the energy crisis, but this crisis brings great opportunities for our state and the forest community by using low-grade forest products (our natural renewable resource) in a sustainable manner to produce a significant percentage of our energy needs here in New Hampshire, provide thousands of jobs and keep our energy dollars here at home. I call on Gov. John Lynch and all other elected or appointed state officials to become fully engaged in this important issue. We have reached a crisis in New Hampshire's working forest. We need to act now or our timber industry -- New Hampshire's oldest, largest continuous industry -- will be gone.

Markets, not subsidies and regulations, are the way to grow the economy in rural New Hampshire.

Editorial Roundup

Sure, I've often linked favorable to the Union Leader Editorial Page or Drew Cline's blog. But this weekend, I found myself nodding in agreement with many of New Hampshire's other daily newspapers:

From the Nashua Telegraph:

Democrats fall short on earmark reform
In 2007, when the Democrats were swept into majority positions in both houses of Congress, party leaders pledged to cut the number and cost of congressional earmarks in half. They failed.

Instead, these costly pet projects are being tacked onto appropriation bills at a record rate, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on Monday officially backed away from efforts to impose a one-year moratorium.

From the Keene Sentinel:

Open Government
When New Hampshire’s initial right-to-know law was signed more than four decades ago, the government’s records were paper, and most formal discussions of public policy took place in face-to-face meetings. These conditions can no longer be assumed. Many government records today are aggregations of data in computer files, and government officials occasionally discuss the public’s business remotely via e-mail or other electronic means.

From Foster's Daily Democrat:

The (un)fair tax

You don't get a reduced tax bill by opening the door to additional taxes.

Broad-based tax advocates are drooling over the thought of discouraging candidates from taking “the pledge.”

New Hampshire voters are wise to the direction such people want to take in imposing a general income or sales tax. They know it has nothing to do with relieving property tax burdens and everything to do with digging deeper into their pockets.

The tax-and-spenders are at it again — this time under the guise of reducing property tax burdens.

And from the Concord Monitor:

Foreclosure bailouts are unfair to taxpayers
Eventually, the irony of bailing out one of the biggest players in the sub-prime mortgage industry while letting homeowners sink grew too big for Congress to ignore. A flurry of bills was filed to address the housing crisis.

On Thursday, the Senate voted to kill the one measure that would have done the most help to the 2 million or more households still facing foreclosure. It would have allowed bankruptcy court judges to cut the interest rate on a mortgage and lower the principal.

New Hampshire Sens. Judd Gregg and John Sununu voted with the majority and, hard-hearted as it might seem, they were right to do so.

Winning the Battle of Ideas

Bad Idea Bailout

Hans Bader of the Competitive Enterprise Institute has a nice round up of all the ways in which the proposed mortgage bailout is a bad idea.

The bailout proposal has “two glaring problems: one moral, the other economic.” And it reserves the “privilege” of a bailout “for an estimated 1 million to 2 million homeowners who are the weakest and most careless borrowers,” while excluding responsible “people who made larger downpayments.”

The problem, not the solution

Jeffrey Sachs argues that the Fed should shoulder much of the blame for the current credit crisis.

Bosse Opposes Federal Banking Takeover

“Secretary Paulsen’s proposal to overhaul our antiquated financial bureaucracy is long overdue. But the sweeping increase in power planned for the Federal Reserve is absolutely going in the wrong direction. This 218-page proposal would hand power over our financial lives to the unelected and unaccountable. It would massively expand federal interference in the private sector, limit consumer choice, and nationalize the mortgage industry.

We need more capitalism and freer markets, not less. We need banks and businesses to face the consequences of their decisions, not be shielded from failure by politicians and bureaucrats. This proposal would stifle innovation and competition in banking, insurance, and other financial services, and threaten the financial privacy of all Americans. We don’t need socialized banking anymore than socialized medicine.”