Government Health Care Cost Rises by 50% in 1 Year

Again, government sponsored health care will cost more than thought. Well, who knew?

There hasn't been a government sponsored program ever that cost less than thought. Oh wait, the drug program under Bush has cost less than thought. It cost too much is agreed, but it came under estimates and it is effective.

But no matter what ever happens with other wasteful programs, ObamaCare is the biggest disaster ever that will destroy health care and our entire way of life for everyone, especially the poor.

Government Share of Health Care Bigger than Advertised
Source: Christopher J. Conover, "Government Share of Health Care Is Far Bigger than Advertised," The American, August 2, 2011.

That the government share of health care is rising is no news. The truth hidden from view, however, is that government's share of health spending already exceeded 50 percent in 2009, says Christopher J. Conover, a research scholar at Duke University's Center for Health Policy and Inequalities Research and an adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

Health care-related tax subsidies will this year amount to nearly $350 billion annually.
The federal share of this total, $265 billion, is more than the federal government paid for its share of Medicaid in 2009. Thus, ironically, the federal government spent more that year to subsidize private health insurance than it spent on public health insurance for those who have low incomes (although this no longer is true).

Unlike Medicare and Medicaid, such subsidies do not show up as a line item in the federal budget either as expenditures or as deductions from expected revenue. For this reason, tax expenditures are less visible to most Americans than are the direct expenditures financed by the national treasury.

Health-related tax expenditures take many forms, but more than 90 percent of costs attributable to them relate to the tax exclusion for employer-provided health benefits.

Ethanol : 19 Billion in Subsides : Big Profits for Democrats

This is something that everyone knows but refuse to do anything about. Ethanol is bad for America and her economy, and the world.

The truth about Ethanol will not stop Washington from pushing this boondoggle until the entire energy system falls on our collective heads. Then, of course, the excuse will be right from the Democrat play book, 'we felt we had to do something about the energy crisis. We feel bad that it didn't work out as we planed, and that million will freeze in the winter and roast in the summer, but with the mess that Bush left us from his failed policies over the past eight years, we had to do something'.

Now that the legislators are trying to stop the insanity of subsides for this fraud, maybe we will see some improvement in food prices and more attention to the production of gasoline.


The Truth about Ethanol
Source: David Biello, "Intoxicated on Independence: Is Domestically Produced Ethanol Worth the Cost?" Scientific American, July 28, 2011.

Congress is debating whether it's time to end subsidies for ethanol from corn. This debate comes with good reason: while using more ethanol might reduce the use of imported oil, the production of ethanol has its own costs, says Scientific American.

The various costs associated with producing ethanol are alarming. Despite the fact that in recent years the fermentation process has become more efficient in making enzymes and prices have gone down, ethanol continues to be more expensive than petroleum-derived gasoline.

Government subsidization of ethanol production has resulted in $19 billion in tax breaks between 1980 and 2000 to the ethanol-from-corn effort, according to the Government Accountability Office.

Substantial profits have resulted for a handful of large private enterprises.

There is also the production cost of building the new infrastructure for ethanol -- it is expected to take decades to build the needed additional 300-plus bio-refineries.
The push for increasing ethanol production has come despite a 1986 report that ethanol "cannot be justified on economic grounds" and "had no long-term prospect for survival without massive new government assistance."

Additionally, the purported environment benefits of using ethanol include reduced greenhouse gas emissions. This benefit, however, seems to be offset by other environmental externalities from increasing ethanol production. At least one study has found that all of the world's most significant biofuels combined do more damage overall than fossil fuels.

Finally, arguably the greatest concern over ethanol is that it is raising food prices. While the livelihoods of rural communities are enhanced through increased biofuel production, less agricultural goods are directed towards feeding livestock and filling market shelves, among other things.

Natural Gas and Coal : Energy Resources to Burn

This is a great article in that we have more natural resources for energy then we thought. Plus we have ways to extract and use them in efficient ways. But I still have this nagging question about coal.

We have estimated supplies of more than two hundred years in this country, and this estimate is just that. Some experts say there is more than this. The question is, what is so wrong with coal, even after the industry has complied with all EPA demands?

What we need is some even handed research, that once and for all, lays out what damage coal use does to the environment, if any. There is so much bad information coming from the biased media, it is very difficult to make good decisions regarding the future of coal as a major source of energy for our country.

With 45% of all our energy consumption coming from coal, and for the foreseeable future, we must have good information.

Natural Gas Flip-Flop
Source: Ronald Bailey, "Natural Gas Flip-Flop," Reason Magazine, August/September 2011.

The world's projected natural gas supplies jumped 40 percent last year. Until a decade ago, experts believed it would be technically infeasible to exploit the natural gas locked in 48 shale basins in 32 countries around the world. Then horizontal drilling, combined with hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, was introduced. The shale gas rush was on, and last year the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) dramatically raised its estimate of available natural gas, says Ronald Bailey, Reason Magazine's science correspondent.

The ability to produce clean-burning natural gas from shale could transform the global energy economy.

Right now we burn about 7 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of natural gas to generate about 24 percent of the electricity used in the United States. The United States burns a total of 23 TCF annually to heat homes and supply industrial processes as well as produce electricity.

Burning coal still produces about 45 percent of U.S. electricity.

A rough calculation suggests that 100 percent of coal-powered electricity generation could be replaced by burning an additional 14 TCF of natural gas, boosting overall consumption to 37 TCF per year.

The EIA estimates total U.S. natural gas reserves at 2,543 TCF, which suggests that the United States has enough natural gas to last about 70 years if it entirely replaced the current level of coal-powered electricity generation. Similarly, it should be possible to replace all current U.S. gasoline consumption with about 17 TCF of natural gas per year.

So replacing coal and gasoline immediately would require burning 54 TCF annually, implying a nearly 50-year supply of natural gas. And replacing dirtier coal and gasoline with natural gas would reduce overall U.S. carbon dioxide emissions by about 25 percent.

The national green lobbies initially welcomed shale gas. But there is growing concern over the fracking method used to extract the natural gas. But, says Bailey, no industrial process is completely benign, and all have environmental consequences. The relevant question is: Do the benefits outweigh the costs?

China Fossil Fuel Energy Expansion : Huge!

Eco nutjobs will be quick to say that china is moving ahead of us in "clean energy" and it's true, or kind of true. They are building a lot of wind and solar items, but they are not for themselves to use, they are exporting them to idiots over here.

The Chinese use very little clean energy as it is not a good alternative to fossil fuels, like coal and oil as this article points out. But the eco's scream we have to do more to stay in the game or the rest of the world will pass us by. Good.


China's Soaring "Clean" Energy Sector
Source: Steven F. Hayward, "Energy Fact of the Week: China's Soaring 'Clean' Energy Sector?" Enterprise Blog, July 27, 2011.

Much is being made of China's world-leading investment in "clean, green" energy, especially wind and solar power, though much of this is being done to create another export industry to the nations obsessed with climate change, says Steven Hayward, the F. K. Weyerhaeuser Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

When measured in percentage terms, China's growth in renewable energy from 2000 through 2010 certainly sounds impressive -- up 1,545 percent! But when measured in terms of absolute energy output the numbers game being played here becomes apparent.

When viewed in terms of additional total energy output by source, measured in the common unit of million tons of oil equivalent (MTOE), we see that energy from nonhydro renewable sources (mainly wind and solar) grew by only 11.4 MTOE from 2000 to 2010, while new energy supply from coal grew 976.4 MTOE.

That's 85 times as much new energy that came from coal than from nonhydro renewables.
New hydro power did much better than wind and solar power (up 112.8 MTOE), but much of that increase came from the massive Three Gorges dam that the global environmental community deplores. But in the absence of Three Gorges, China might well have built an additional 50 to 100 coal-fired plants.

What a hoot! Federal social programs are rarely evaluated to determine whether they are actually work. This does sound like standard operating procedure for the feds.

Who are these people that we send to Washingtion?


Evaluating Federal Social Programs
Source: David Muhlhausen, "Evaluating Federal Social Programs: Finding Out What Works and What Does Not," Heritage Foundation, July 18, 2011.

Federal social programs are rarely evaluated to determine whether they are actually accomplishing their intended purposes. Congress can take several steps to ensure that federal social programs are properly assessed using experimental evaluations, says David Muhlhausen, a research fellow in empirical policy analysis at the Heritage Foundation.

Step one: When authorizing a new program or reauthorizing an existing program, Congress should specifically mandate experimental evaluation of the program.

Step two: The experimental evaluations should be large-scale, multisite studies.

Step three: Congress should specify the types of outcome measures to be used to assess effectiveness.

Step four: Congress should institute procedures that encourage government agencies to carry out congressionally mandated evaluations, despite any entrenched biases against experimental evaluations.

Step five: Congress should require that congressionally mandated evaluations be submitted to the relevant congressional committees in a timely manner after completion.

With the federal debt reaching staggering heights, Congress needs to ensure that it is spending taxpayer dollars wisely. Multisite experimental evaluations are the best method for assessing the effectiveness of federal social programs. Yet to date, this method has been used on only a handful of federal social programs. Congress needs to reverse this trend, says Muhlhausen.

Obama's Seal Team 6? Really?

Just what you might expect, right? These people are serious!

OBAMA'S OWN WORDS TRAP HIM:2008: "Navy Seal Team 6 is Cheney's private assassination team." 2011: "I put together Seal Team 6 to take out Bin Laden." 2008: "Bin Laden is innocent until proven guilty, and must be captured alive and given a fair trial." 2011: "I authorized Seal Team 6 to kill Bin Laden." 2008: "Guantanamo is entirely unnecessary, and the detainees should not be interrogated." 2011: "Vital intelligence was obtained from Guantanamo detainees that led to our locating Bin Laden." I HOPE THIS GETS SENT AROUND TO PEOPLE WHO CARE ABOUT THE TROOPS.

NASA's Report Shows "Warmers" Fraud

More evidence that the "warmers" are really not about the climate, they are about getting and keeping power over others.

James M. Taylor is senior fellow for environment policy at The Heartland Institute and managing editor of Environment & Climate News.

NASA satellite data from the years 2000 through 2011 show the Earth's atmosphere is allowing far more heat to be released into space than alarmist computer models have predicted, reports a new study in the peer-reviewed science journal Remote Sensing. The study indicates far less future global warming will occur than United Nations computer models have predicted, and supports prior studies indicating increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide trap far less heat than alarmists have claimed.

Study co-author Dr. Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer flying on NASA's Aqua satellite, reports that real-world data from NASA's Terra satellite contradict multiple assumptions fed into alarmist computer models.
"The satellite observations suggest there is much more energy lost to space during and after warming than the climate models show," Spencer said in a July 26 University of Alabama press release. "There is a huge discrepancy between the data and the forecasts that is especially big over the oceans."

In addition to finding that far less heat is being trapped than alarmist computer models have predicted, the NASA satellite data show the atmosphere begins shedding heat into space long before United Nations computer models predicted.
The new findings are extremely important and should dramatically alter the global warming debate.

Scientists on all sides of the global warming debate are in general agreement about how much heat is being directly trapped by human emissions of carbon dioxide (the answer is "not much"). However, the single most important issue in the global warming debate is whether carbon dioxide emissions will indirectly trap far more heat by causing large increases in atmospheric humidity and cirrus clouds. Alarmist computer models assume human carbon dioxide emissions indirectly cause substantial increases in atmospheric humidity and cirrus clouds (each of which are very effective at trapping heat), but real-world data have long shown that carbon dioxide emissions are not causing as much atmospheric humidity and cirrus clouds as the alarmist computer models have predicted.

The new NASA Terra satellite data are consistent with long-term NOAA and NASA data indicating atmospheric humidity and cirrus clouds are not increasing in the manner predicted by alarmist computer models. The Terra satellite data also support data collected by NASA's ERBS satellite showing far more longwave radiation (and thus, heat) escaped into space between 1985 and 1999 than alarmist computer models had predicted. Together, the NASA ERBS and Terra satellite data show that for 25 years and counting, carbon dioxide emissions have directly and indirectly trapped far less heat than alarmist computer models have predicted.

In short, the central premise of alarmist global warming theory is that carbon dioxide emissions should be directly and indirectly trapping a certain amount of heat in the earth's atmosphere and preventing it from escaping into space. Real-world measurements, however, show far less heat is being trapped in the earth's atmosphere than the alarmist computer models predict, and far more heat is escaping into space than the alarmist computer models predict.

When objective NASA satellite data, reported in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, show a "huge discrepancy" between alarmist climate models and real-world facts, climate scientists, the media and our elected officials would be wise to take notice. Whether or not they do so will tell us a great deal about how honest the purveyors of global warming alarmism truly are.

Wisconsin : A Bright Light of Conservative Accomplishment

Welcome to the world of reality - a world built on sound Conservative principles that Wisconsin has shown work.

The progressive liberal left in Wisconsin and nationally, unions and Democrats, are spending huge amounts of money on the recall of 6 Republicans state senators, hoping to turn the senate in their favor, that stood strong against more spending and out of control government corruption, enduring vicious attacks, both personal and media attacks on them and their families.

The whole focus of the attacks are to stop the Conservatives from succeeding in turning the state around. A prosperous Wisconsin, under the leadership of Republicans and Conservatives, will spell disaster for progressive liberal Democrats and their union friends that drove the state into a financial nightmare.

The WISCONSIN MIRACLE at a glance!
by Vicki McKenna on Tuesday, July 26, 2011 at 9:06am

Almost every article run in the papers concerning Wisconsin's State government has "Associated Press" at the top of the column, and the stories seem to be slanted to make the Governor and the Republican majority State Legislature appear to be destroying the school system, all labor unions, the middle class, jobs, children, and old people.

The list of State Republican accomplishments is a very positive message...
We have suffered through a decade of overspending in Wisconsin, and the reality of an anti-taxpayer, anti-job, anti-business climate in this State, that raised the tax-burden for the citizens of Wisconsin to the 4th highest in the nation. The result was a multi-billion dollar hole in our state budget of over $2,000 per taxpayer.

Our new Governor, along with the Republican led Legislature, have.....

-Turned a 3.5 billion dollar budget deficit into a surplus, without raising taxes on the citizens of Wisconsin
-They have given local communities and schools the tools that they need to hold the line on expenses and prevent teacher layoffs
-They have guaranteed that property taxes will not skyrocket as has been common in the past
-They have expanded "school choice" to give parents and students more education options
-They have provided tax incentives for businesses to move to Wisconsin, and to reinvest in Wisconsin They have passed legislation to ensure the integrity of the vote, through election reforms
-They have passed "enterprise zone" legislation to help bring jobs to depressed areas of Wisconsin
-They have passed legislation requiring a super-majority for passage of any future tax increase legislation
over 40,000 jobs created since the beginning of the year, and the best june jobs numbers since 2003.
-They have paid back 234 million dollars that were taken from the segregated and privately financed "Patients Compensation Fund", that the previous administration had illegally used for general State expenses.
-They have paid back 56 million that was owed to the State of Minnesota for years, eliminating both the debt, and the interest that was compounding annually.
-They have rolled back the expensive auto insurance mandates of the last administration
-They have repealed the taxes on Health Savings Accounts, making it easier to save for future health needs
-They have opened the door to a more open government. They are building a website where every Wisconsin citizen will be able to see how the government spends your hard-earned tax dollars.
-They have turned our State, from one of the top ten "most likely to default" States in the union, into a State that pays it's bills, and operates with a budget surplus, all without further burdening the taxpayer or driving away business. rolling back the outrageous tax punishment called "combined reporting", which punished companies who had corporate headquarters in WI by taxing them twice.

Taxes at the State level increased almost 2 billion dollars (1.976 billion) during 2007-2011 under the previous administration. The new 2011-2013 budget actually lowers the Wisconsin State tax burden by 24 million dollars. This is a significant change in direction. It will help promote economic development, and induce manufactures to bring more jobs back to Wisconsin.

Wisconsin's ranking on "good places to do business" has risen 17 places nationally. The latest Department of Workforce Development release of June jobs data shows that Wisconsin had added more than 12,900 new private sector jobs. Fully 50% of the jobs added in the entire United States last month, were the result of job gains in Wisconsin.
More jobs means prosperity, and new business brings more jobs.

Our improved Wisconsin business environment is encouraging more business activity, and with it, comes the jobs that will pay the bills, both for our citizens, and for their necessary government services.

If we fail to continue this new direction of fiscal responsibility, if we return to the days of ever-more-taxation, and ever-more-spending, Wisconsin will return to the list of "States most likely to default". Wisconsin would become a State of fewer public services, with less opportunity for employment.

Our families deserve more than a return to budget deficits, and ever-higher-taxes.... our families need the healthy, vibrant, growing economy that fiscal responsibility and low taxes nurture.

States' Shale Resources Creat millions of Jobs

Of course, this all comes as a surprise, right? Drilling in our own country to supply our own needs is right out of the blue. Who knew?

Remember Hillary saying to become energy independent we must find our own sources of energy. What she had in mind, of course, was 'green energy' not 'black energy' or natural gas or nuclear. And she made that statement in New York.

It all boils down to states that have most of their land under their own control. Texas is a big one as is North Dakota. They are creating jobs and making millions in new taxes. WOW!

Now the progressives have to take a stand but will they have the spine for the nasty work of fighting the eco-fascists, progressives as well, that have driven this country into energy ruin. hmmmmm

A Tale of Two Shale States
Source: "A Tale of Two Shale States," Wall Street Journal, July 26, 2011. Timothy Considine, Robert Watson, Nicholas Considine, "The Economic Opportunities of Shale Energy Development," Manhattan Institute, June 2011.

Politicians wringing their hands over how to create more jobs might study the shale boom along the New York and Pennsylvania border. It's a case study in one state embracing economic opportunity, while the other has let environmental politics trump development, says the Wall Street Journal.

The Marcellus shale formation offers one of the biggest natural gas opportunities. Former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell recognized that potential and set up a regulatory framework to encourage and monitor natural gas drilling. More than 2,000 wells have been drilled in the Keystone State since 2008, and gas production surged to 81 billion cubic feet in 2009 from five billion in 2007.

A new Manhattan Institute report by Timothy Considine estimates that a typical Marcellus well generates some $2.8 million in direct economic benefits from natural gas company purchases; $1.2 million in indirect benefits from companies engaged along the supply chain; another $1.5 million from workers spending their wages, or landowners spending their royalty payments; plus $2 million in federal, state and local taxes.

The state Department of Labor and Industry reports that Marcellus drilling has created 72,000 jobs between the fourth quarter of 2009 and the first quarter of 2011.

Then there's New York.

The state holds as much as 20 percent of the estimated Marcellus shale reserves, but green activists have raised fears about the drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing and convinced politicians to enact what is effectively a moratorium. The Manhattan Institute study shows that a quick end to the moratorium would generate more than $11.4 billion in economic output from 2011 to 2020, 15,000 to 18,000 new jobs, and $1.4 billion in new state and local tax revenue.

Governor Andrew Cuomo has said he wants to lift New York's moratorium, and the state's recently released draft rules are a step forward. But they must still undergo legal review and a public comment period that could bar New York drilling for the rest of this year, if not longer.

Benevolent Dictator A Myth : Freedom to Choose is Not

I find it amazing that such an article would find it's way into our daily reading - but maybe not given what exists in the White House today. How can this happen in America?

The Obama presidency has changed how we all look at the office of president.

The Myth of the Benevolent Dictator
Source: Aleksandr Shkolnikov, "The Benevolent Dictator Myth: Strong Leaders versus Strong Institutions," Center for International Private Enterprise, June 15, 2011.

There is a real danger that the search for a benevolent dictator may become a development mantra in many countries. Proponents of democracy should take notice and show that democracy is the path for sustainable development, and that there are no substitutes for institutional reforms in seeking growth and development, says Aleksandr Shkolnikov, director of policy reform at the Center for International Private Enterprise.

Rapid economic growth in some authoritarian countries has led many to believe that democracy is not necessary for prosperity and economic development. Democratic governance, however, is essential for economic growth to be sustainable in the long term.

Strong democratic institutions, not strong leaders, are necessary for continued growth and investment.

The rise in interest of having a strong leader, often with unchecked power, rather than a democratic government is driven in part by the continued rapid economic growth of Asian tigers among the stagnation of economies in Western Europe and the United States. History is also playing its part.

As Ronald J. Gilson from Stanford Law School points out in his recent paper, only a relatively small number of countries have experienced successful development since World War II and among those there are many autocratic governments that have successfully transformed their economies.

The perception that democracies have experienced unstable economic performance in the past decades as compared to authoritarian regimes perpetuates the myth.

It is only a perception, because there is no concrete evidence that autocracies outperform democracies across the board -- the data is inconclusive.