By Joe Boyles
Guest Columnist
Editor’s note: “Stray Vectors” is the author’s byline for random thoughts on the passing scene.
Here is the dirty little secret that Obamacare’s individual mandate rests upon. Thirty million will be added to Medicaid with the new law in 2014. Who pays for this new glut of healthcare consumers? Answer: the healthy, young people who don’t access healthcare but will be forced to buy an insurance policy under the individual mandate. Just a little political sleight of hand!
One of the things I see missing on the debate over alternate energy is concentration. Traditional forms of energy like oil, gas, and coal are very concentrated in their inherent stored energy. Nuclear fuel is extremely concentrated. But solar and wind are not. It takes a lot of space (land use) to provide solar and wind powered energy in any appreciable amount.
The president makes what seems to be a reasonable point about a “balanced approach” to deficit reduction, but there’s one thing that nags at me. All of the tax increases are upfront while the spending reductions are delayed to the out-years … so they can be undone by future congresses. I smell a rat!
It’s hard to criticize a blue-chip college athlete leaving for professional sports early. You have to weigh the injury bug. But college is pretty special too. I’ve heard more than one ex-Gator saying the greatest thrill in sports is entering the Swamp through the south tunnel.
I wonder how much money the politically elite have wasted on the subject of anti-bullying in schools? I bet that Taylor Swift’s song and video “Mean” has had a larger impact on the subject than any government effort. Never underestimate the impact of popular culture when you’re trying to reach and reason with young people.
Why are so much of the climate change/global warming data suspect? Because the “scientists” providing the analysis were on the payroll of grants and foundations to provide data that fit the narrative. If the data didn’t fit, it was either ignored or manipulated. With accounting fraud, this is known as “cooking the books.”
The modern western welfare state will collapse. It isn’t a matter of if but rather when. The state of the economy and demographics will not support a house built with flimsy cards.
It appears that the government suppressed warning and danger information to Chevy Volt owners that delayed fires may result from overheated lithium-ion batteries following a crash. Isn’t this the same government that we want to put in charge of all of our health-care decisions when Obamacare if fully implemented? Com’on people!!!!!
Businesses aren’t expanding and unemployment is stubbornly high. Want to know a way to turn this mess around? Stabilize the tax policy. Cut out this tax holiday and millionaire surcharge garbage and set tax policy for a set period, then leave it alone. Give business something they can count on.
With all the government subsidies and rebates, the Chevy Volt is costing nearly $250,000 per copy. And the sales are bolstered by government fleet buys. It’s early, but maybe we should rename the Volt to the “boondoggle.”
Media Matters, a liberal news organization, got caught with their hand in the cookie jar by directing young Girl Scouts to their website. It shouldn’t be a surprise that liberal groups have infiltrated the Girl Scouts. The pro-abortion crowd did it years ago. They will come “like a thief in the night.”
I have some advice for everyone, regardless of your political stripes. When you put your faith in politicians, you are bound to be disappointed.
Paul Krugman of the New York Times says that we don’t understand debt. I think we do. Remember the bumper sticker that read, “I owe, I owe, It’s off to work I go?” Debt is economic slavery.
More on solar — the reason why companies like First Solar are falling faster then water over the falls is that it is a bad business concept. Solar power costs 21 cents/kilowatt hour, nearly twice the national average. The greenies bemoan: we simply must make electrical power more expensive. Huh?
You might think that I’d be the first out of the box to criticize President Obama for taking an axe to the military, but I’m holding my fire to understand the strategy and resulting force structure. Stand by.
Legend has it that Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Maybe the modern metaphor is that Obama golfed while America burned.
