Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Wednesday, January 8, 2014
Politics and Minimum Wage
There's little debate among academic economists about the effect of minimum wages. University of California, Irvine economist David Neumark has examined more than 100 major academic studies on the minimum wage. He reports that 85 percent of the studies "find a negative employment effect on low-skilled workers." A 1976 American Economic Association survey found that 90 percent of its members agreed that increasing the minimum wage raises unemployment among young and unskilled workers. A 1990 survey reported in the American Economic Review (1992) found that 80 percent of economists agreed with the statement that increases in the minimum wage cause unemployment among the youth and low-skilled. If you're searching for a consensus in a field of study, most of the time you can examine the field's introductory and intermediate college textbooks. Economics textbooks that mention the minimum wage say that it increases unemployment for the least skilled worker. The only significant debate about the minimum wage is the magnitude of its effect. Some studies argue that a 10 percent increase in the minimum wage will cause a 1 percent increase in unemployment, whereas others predict a higher increase.
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
Obama's Attack on Workers
Obama's pivot to raising the minimum wage -- and destroying jobs for the marginalized.
Why People Believe America Is the 'Greatest Threat to Peace'
Last week the International Business Times reported: "In their annual End of Year poll, researchers for WIN and Gallup International surveyed more than 66,000 people across 65 nations and found that 24 percent of all respondents answered that the United States 'is the greatest threat to peace in the world today.' Pakistan and China fell significantly behind the United States on the poll, with 8 and 6 percent, respectively. Afghanistan, Iran, Israel and North Korea all tied for fourth place with 4 percent."
Hill Takes the Hypocritic Oath With New Health Plans
It may be a new year, but there's nothing new about the frustration over ObamaCare. For millions of Americans, the headaches they suffered when they woke up on January 1st were purely financial. Starting last Wednesday, the government officially flipped the switch on its health care exchanges, turning on the coverage for hundreds of thousands of skeptical plan holders. Monday, one of those plan holders, U.S. Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.), is so upset about his coverage that he's suing the administration responsible for changing it. Of course, going to court over his signature law is nothing new for President Obama, whose attorneys have worn out a path to judges' benches all across the country
The 'Trickle-Down' Lie
New York's new mayor, Bill de Blasio, in his inaugural speech, denounced people "on the far right" who "continue to preach the virtue of trickle-down economics." According to Mayor de Blasio, "They believe that the way to move forward is to give more to the most fortunate, and that somehow the benefits will work their way down to everyone else." If there is ever a contest for the biggest lie in politics, this one should be a top contender. While there have been all too many lies told in politics, most have some little tiny fraction of truth in them, to make them seem plausible. But the "trickle-down" lie is 100 percent lie.
Right and Left of the Hispanic Vote
It is widely accepted that Hispanics will become a larger share of the American electorate in the years to come. This is a matter of simple arithmetic. Less than one-tenth of adults counted in the 2010 Census classified themselves as "Hispanic" (a term invented by the Census Bureau for the 1970 count). But one-quarter of children were similarly classified. Many of them the offspring of illegal aliens, were born in the U.S. and thus entitled to citizenship.
Welcome to Medicaid for All
The Washington Post's Ezra Klein has found what he thinks is a bright spot amid the gloomy Obamacare news. When you hear what he's enthusiastic about, you'll perhaps understand why I wonder if there is any common ground at all between liberals and conservatives. Klein reports that Obamacare's "biggest success" is that 4 million new enrollees signed up for Medicaid as of November and the number should be even higher when December's statistics are tallied. "If the point of health care reform is covering people who need health insurance, the expansion of Medicaid should be a huge win."
The War on Poverty at 50
With the 50th anniversary of the war on poverty at hand, the New York Times undertook a guided tour of the vast and murky battlefield, offering a surprising -- for the Times -- admission. To wit, poverty isn't just about what the government does, or doesn't do, for poor people. It's about, in part, how poor people live, voluntarily or otherwise. The Times didn't make a big deal about what it called "sociological trends (that) help explain why so many children and adults remain poor, even putting the effects of the recession aside." That the story so much as acknowledged the impoverishing effects of family breakdown is the really big deal, given the broad commitment of American liberals to the notion of job-training, better education, minimum-wage hikes and so on as the keys to overthrowing "inequality."
Ideology vs. Reality
French President Francois Hollande has been confronted by the glaring light of reality -- sort of. On New Year's Day, as his massive tax increases began taking effect, Hollande, a member of the Socialist Party, admitted that taxes in France have become "too heavy, much too heavy." Indeed, as of Jan. 1, French households now must contend with a new value added tax on many goods and services and, writes International Business Times, "French companies will be required to pay 50 percent tax on all employee salaries in excess of 1 million euros. ... The effective tax rate will amount to 75 percent." Unemployment, which Hollande promised to reduce, has risen to nearly 11 percent. Some companies and wealthy people have left France in search of business-friendly environments. More will surely follow unless Hollande's rhetoric is followed by actual tax reductions.
The Left's Latest Mantra: Income Inequality
It's no mystery what the left intends to make its next life-or-death issue: income inequality. Liberals are all popping off about it. It's everywhere, from Obama's speeches to liberal think tanks to liberal reporters. It's almost as if they were conspiring to distract us from Obamacare. Nah!
Monday, January 6, 2014
Medicaid Backdoor to Government Health Care
Now we have the latest in the long and growing list of unpleasant "surprises" about the Affordable Care Act. It turns out that expansion of coverage of Medicaid for low income Americans increases rather than decreases visits to hospital emergency rooms. According to just released results of a new study, published in the journal Science, based on 10,000 low income residents in Oregon newly covered by Medicaid, their emergency room visits were 40 percent higher than those with no insurance at all.
Buffering Out the Right to Hear
Evidence that misery *doesn't* love company is common at pro-life gatherings, where women holding poignant signs -- "I Regret My Abortion" -- urge others not to make a mistake that haunts them. As the US Supreme Court prepares to hear a constitutional challenge to the Massachusetts abortion-clinic "buffer zone" law this month, the justices are being reminded that the First Amendment protects more than just a speaker's right to express ideas. It also protects a listener's freedom to hear those ideas. Stifling that freedom near abortion clinics can mean -- as 12 women argue, from personal experience, in a compelling friend-of-the-court brief prepared by Carrie Severino of the Judicial Education Project -- that individuals in a crisis pregnancy are denied essential information at the moment they may need it most.
A Lawbreaker With a Law License
For all intents and purposes, California has obliterated the distinction between legal and illegal aliens. Last Thursday, the California Supreme Court ruled that 36 year old Sergio Garcia, whose parents brought him into the country illegally -- twice -- can obtain a license to practice law. The unanimous ruling illuminates the essence of progressive thinking: since Garcia has been living in the United States for 19 years, it is unlikely that immigration officials would pursue sanctions against him. "Under these circumstances, we conclude that the fact that an undocumented immigrant's presence in this country violates federal statutes is not itself a sufficient or persuasive basis for denying undocumented immigrants, as a class, admission to the State Bar," the court said in a unanimous ruling written by Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye. In other words, continually violating the law is an insufficient reason to deny someone a license to practice it.
The Madness Never Stops
You may have heard about the German Christian family that sought refuge in America because home-schooling is outlawed in Germany. Because the public schools in Germany are probably as bad as ours, except that, along with promoting secular socialism, they somehow manage to teach the kids how to read, write and do math, the parents refused to turn their children over to the state to be indoctrinated. The Obama administration, which refuses even to enforce immigration laws when they involve young Latinos, is attempting to deport the family back to Germany, where the parents stand to lose custody of their children.
Sunday, January 5, 2014
Five Myths About Inequality
"Inequality is the defining challenge of our time," according to President Obama. It's certainly the topic of the day for Paul Krugman, Joe Stiglitz and a whole raft of liberal pundits. But have you noticed that hardly anyone else is talking about it? When is the last time you heard a shoeshine person or a taxi cab driver complain about inequality? For most people, having a lot of rich people around is good for business. But if average folks are not complaining should they be?
Politics, by the Numbers
Two years from today, Iowa -- dark, brooding, enigmatic Iowa -- will be enjoying its quadrennial moment as the epicenter of the universe. And in 10 months, voters will vent their spleens -- if they still are as splenetic as they now claim to be -- in congressional elections. Some numbers define the political landscape. In an October poll, 60 percent favored voting out of office every congressional incumbent. The poll was taken just 11 months after voters re-elected 90 percent of House and 91 percent of Senate incumbents. Democrats are more likely to lose control of the Senate than gain control of the House. Ninety-three percent of Republican House members represent districts Mitt Romney carried, 96 percent of Democratic members represent districts Barack Obama carried. Since the mid-19th-century emergence of the current two-party competition, no party holding the presidency has ever won control of the House in any midterm election.
Saturday, January 4, 2014
Enough Pot Happy Talk
There was way too much giddiness in the media about the first day of legal pot selling in Colorado. Instead of all the happy talk, I think it's time for some sober discussion and a strong dose of education about the addiction risks of smoking marijuana -- particularly among young people. It may start out as a party, but it often ends up as something much, much worse. With the grace of God, I've been clean and sober for over 18 years -- a recovery experience that still has me going to a lot of 12-step meetings. And I hear time and again from young people coming into the rooms to get sober how pot smoking led to harder drugs such as cocaine and heroin. Now, this is anecdotal, and I am not an expert. And I will say that many people can control alcohol or pot or other drugs. But I am not one of them. And I am not alone.
From The Comedy Store
The Post Office raised the price of a first-class stamp to forty-nine cents. They replaced the forty-six-cent Forever stamps. No one's surprised, because just last year President Obama said if you like your Forever stamps, you can keep your Forever stamps.
Surrounded by Knuckleheads
If I were only as oblivious to the news as so many of my fellow Americans are, I have no doubt I would sleep a lot better than I do. For instance, when I bet on Mitt Romney last year, it wasn't because I was unaware that Obama was leading in the polls, but because I couldn't accept that in spite of a gruesome economy, a foreign policy that benefitted our enemies and harmed our allies, and a socialized medicine plan that would destroy the best health care system in the world, the electorate would ignore the evidence and re-elect Obama. Proving it was no fluke, recent polls indicate that two out of three Americans think the treaty with Iran that gains us nothing, but serves to legitimatize their nuclear program and free up seven billion dollars that they can use to sponsor terrorism around the world, is reason to celebrate.
Friday, January 3, 2014
Antarctic Ice Capades
There are days in the climate debate I feel like the Will Ferrell character in the SNL Celebrity Jeopardy skit. ... But it gets nuttier. WeatherBell was asked to help the crew stranded in the Antarctic sea ice with the weather, and we did. ... But this latest episode of AGW brainwashing is simply stunning: Environmental alarmists thought they could witness the effects of global warming by taking a voyage to Antarctica.