Thank You Very Little

Many people have Heath Savings Accounts or HSAs. They’re a very effective way to afford health insurance and, are a staple of small business health plans. If you’re unfamiliar with HSAs, you can see a nice summary here.

As is their wont, the Dims want to end this. Why? They want you to have health insurance only if you buy it from the government. The Wall Street Journal covers it today.

“Democrats have made affordable health care a mainstay of their election agenda, but apparently only if you’re willing to get insurance through the government. Witness their stealthy assault on Americans who prefer the private-sector option of Health Savings Accounts.

This week, the House passed legislation that included a provision to require every HSA transaction be reviewed and verified as a legitimate medical expense. Democrats say this is to ensure that consumers are using their tax-free withdrawals for a knee replacement, rather than a new iPod. In reality it adds a layer of bureaucracy that could sharply reduce the appeal and cost savings of HSAs.

A key player here is Ways and Means Health Subcommittee Chairman Pete Stark, whose main purpose in politics is to give the U.S. a government-run health-care system. He is a known opponent of HSAs – once comparing them to “weapons of mass destruction” – because they introduce more individual choice into the health-care marketplace.”[...]

Honest to God, how do people this stupid keep getting elected? What’s worse, this idiot thinks the Feds are more capable than individual consumers in finding health care that’s best for them.

The WSJ concludes its op-ed with some very good advice.

“Democrats, including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, decry the high and rising costs of health care, including insurance “overhead.” Mr. Stark and his friends want to impose the same bureaucratic overhead even on spending that consumers do with their own money. The Senate should stop this one dead in its tracks.”

I hope the Senate will stop this one, too but I’m not overly optimistic. The end of HSAs would all but end health care for small businesses. Of course, the goal of the majority party in the Senate is to wipe out all business…corporations, no matter their size, represent pure evil in the eyes of the Dims.

Meltdown!!!!

Ack…my motherboard and/or video card melted down last night. As a result, blogging will be light for awhile. Kudos to the HP service department for diagnosing the problem and setting up a service solution. Sadly, it involves shipping my workhorse laptop HP and about a 10 day wait. Naturally, the problem occurred 15 days after the warranty expired.

Another reason for light blogging is that The Big Pilot has arranged a whole bunch of charters, even at our confiscatory rates. That’s right, we’re gouging evil Corporate America so they can continue to do business. We’re going to be flying around a lot in the next few weeks. Sadly, no trip to The Masters this year.

A big thanks to American Airlines and, to a lesser extent, Midwest.

Wisconsin in the WSJ Again

Well, we made The Wall Street Journal, and again, it’s on the editorial page regarding the recent SCOW race.

As you may recall, the WSJ covered this race in an earlier editorial, blogged here.

Governor Jim Doyle called the result of Wisconsin’s state Supreme Court election “a tragedy.” It’s surprising to hear how little he thinks of his constituents, who had the sense to depose one of the court’s ultra-liberal justices and in the process helped toughen the standards for judicial accountability.

The election was a referendum on Louis Butler and the high court’s sharp political turn. Justice Butler was appointed by Governor Doyle, a Democrat, to fill a vacancy in 2004. This gave liberals a majority and Justice Butler proceeded to indulge the legal theories of the tort bar and activist left, for instance laying waste to Wisconsin’s medical malpractice laws and endorsing a “risk contribution” liability standard for lead paint that made the question of guilt or innocence irrelevant.

Note to WSJ editorial writers. We know how little he thinks of us. That’s why I call him “Pol Pot” Doyle. He’s on a mission to de-populate the state by taxing everyone into oblivion.

Anyway, it’s always nice to make the WSJ for a good reason…like the defeat of Loophole Louis Butler.

Great News

A new black gold rush is under way, this time in North Dakota. The potential payoff is huge — up to 100 billion barrels of oil. That’s twice the size of Alaska’s reserves and potentially enough to meet all U.S. oil needs for two decades.

The oil should start flowing in about five years, according to Kiplingers.

Heard this today on Rush Limbaugh.

Why Worry When You Have Taxpayers?

The takeover of Bear Stearns by JP Morgan Chase got a little sweeter for Bear Stearns shareholders when Morgan upped the price to $10/share from the first offer of $2/share. The initial bid ran into opposition from Bear Stearns (BSC) shareholders, most of whom are still losing a great deal of money. (As of one year ago, BSC Was trading at about $150 share.)

Well, so what? You say. Well, here’s the rub. The Fed (via the taxpayers of course) will still continue to guarantee the $29 billion in BSC mortgage paper. In effect the taxpayers will continue to subsidize the “stupid penalty”. The stupid penalty is a necessary component of any financial transaction. It keeps firms and individuals honest and forces lenders and investors to closely measure the risk inherent in any financial transaction.

Now as the Wall Street Journal points out in another fine editorial, Morgan has every right to increase their bid and BSC has every right to reject the initial bid and take their chances.

Last week’s Fed-led sale of Bear at least had the virtue of sending a message that bad things happen to reckless investors. Bear took a highly leveraged flyer on the mortgage securities market, ran into a liquidity crisis as its creditors lost confidence, and had to ask the Fed for help to avoid bankruptcy. The $2 sale price was a shock to Bear employees and investors. But it was also condign market punishment for bad decisions, and a bracing lesson for future investors. Meanwhile, the Fed’s more troubling agreement to guarantee Bear’s mortgage paper could at least be justified in the name of avoiding a larger financial breakdown.

This week there’s no such “systemic” excuse. The Fed has since opened its discount window to broker-dealers like Lehman and Goldman Sachs, so there’s now a fire wall around any Bear Stearns failure. The credit markets have also calmed considerably.

If Bear holders don’t like the $2 price, they have every right to oppose it while taking their chances with customers and creditors. If Mr. Dimon wants to pay more for Bear, that’s also his prerogative, but then he shouldn’t demand that the Fed continue to guarantee his paper. He’s getting Bear at such a great price that he ought to accept the mortgage-backed securities risk almost as a public service. We suspect that’s what the J.P. Morgan of the Panic of 1907 would have done.

The Fed argues that it did negotiate somewhat better terms for its guarantee. J.P. Morgan agreed to take the risk for the first $1 billion in losses on that $30 billion in mortgage paper, while the Fed will reap any upside if it improves in value. Yet taxpayers are still on the hook for $29 billion. A guts player at the Fed or Treasury would have declared that a deal is a deal, and that if the merger failed then the Fed also had prerogatives — such as declaring that the $30 billion in collateral would be forfeit.

Worse, the Fed and Treasury missed an opportunity to drop the taxpayer guarantee and explain that its actions last week were an extraordinary, one-time intervention in a crisis. By keeping itself and taxpayers on the hook, the Fed risks setting a long-term precedent that will do considerable harm even if it never loses a dime of that $30 billion. That includes harm to the Fed itself, as the institution becomes increasingly seen not as an independent central bank but as a political arm of the Treasury — and, watch out down the road, of Congress. The price of this Fed intervention may well be far more regulation of our financial markets, not to mention a reduction in Fed independence.

The immediate political message is also terribly damaging. Congress is already poised to overreact to the mortgage turmoil with a general bailout for subprime borrowers, and yesterday’s actions will only feed that beast. At least the $2 share price wasn’t a bailout for Bear shareholders; at $10 a share, that’s a harder argument to sell, especially when taxpayers are also still indemnifying those Bear-J.P. Morgan creditors. This makes us wonder if Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson isn’t already preparing to cave to Congress on the larger bailout.

As they like to say on Wall Street, the goal is to leave you with only your socks and a smile. New York Fed President Tim Geithner and Mr. Paulson were the main government decision-makers in dealing with Mr. Dimon, so we recommend they each buy raincoats. They’ll need something to wear when they and this bad deal for taxpayers get undressed a second time on Capitol Hill.

Frankly, this deal stinks for taxpayers. As much as I personally dislike government bailouts of anything, I can accept “one-off” deals in the spirit that it’s for the greater good. To shift the “stupid penalty” to taxpayers for ongoing transactions stinks. If the revamped takeover doesn’t work, it will be the taxpayers on the hook. Not JP Morgan Chase.

Live by the Car Bomb, Die by the Car Bomb

Hezbollah’s main terrorist, a certain hoople by the name of Imad Mugniyah has assumed room temperature. Funnily enough, it looks like he was killed by a car bomb.

This is the guy who was one of the TWA hijackers in addition to various kidnappings of Americans and his involvement in the Marine barracks bombing.

He won’t be missed other than by people like Code Pink, Russ Feingold and other enemies of America.

What’s This All About?

From the Associated Press

“WASHINGTON - U.S. fighter planes intercepted two Russian bombers flying unusually close to an American aircraft carrier in the western Pacific during the weekend, The Associated Press has learned.

A U.S. military official says that one Russian Tupolev 95 buzzed the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz twice, at a low altitude of about 2,000 feet, while another bomber circled about 50 nautical miles out. The official was speaking on condition of anonymity because the reports on the flights were classified as secret. [...]

Now, I really hope there’s more to this than is being reported. As a rule, NOTHING exists within a 150 mile radius of a carrier unless the carrier gives that object PERMISSION to exist. Why the F-18 pilots were not ordered to engage the Russian bombers, or at least warn them off is a complete mystery at this point.

Good for Them

A sheet metal plant in Connecticut ordered ALL of its employees to speak English on the job, due to safety concerns. Naturally, the immigrants too lazy to learn English responded in the great American tradition. They played the victim card and sued the company.

Naturally, the lawyer for the “victims” blamed the company.

The employees, who are legal immigrants, say the rule amounts to discrimination and actually makes the workplace more hazardous.

“I can think of no good reason for them to institute this policy,” said Steven Jacobs, the lawyer for the workers who are suing GC Industries in Deep River, Conn. “It’s offensive to people who speak Spanish and is potentially dangerous. It inhibits them from communicating in their native tongue in situations that could put people at risk.

Here’s an idea. If you’re going to immigrate to this country and want to work here, learn English. Very simple. I hope the court takes the same position.

Copy of Rep. Zipperer’s Newsletter

My kind of guy, he hates tax increases as much as we do.

Budget Update

Today, Governor Doyle announced that he was calling the Legislature into special session on Monday, October 15th to pass what he describes as a ‘compromise’ budget. In his statements to the Madison press, he used harsh rhetoric to attack Assembly members like me who are saying no to his tax increase proposals and are standing up for taxpayers. What his proposal means, however, is that the Governor is walking away from the bargaining table in order to travel the state and try to trick taxpayers into accepting historic tax increases.

Rather than continue his partisan attacks, the Governor should agree to help protect the already overtaxed citizens of Wisconsin and help pass a no-tax-increase budget, as we did in the Assembly. Instead, the Governor is attempting to fool Wisconsinites everywhere by offering a budget that he says cuts $300 million in new revenue. Considering his original budget included over $1.4 billion in new taxes, we can only assume that his new proposal will still have over $1.1 billion in new taxes and spending.

We have already passed a bi-partisan compromise school and local aids budget in the Assembly in an attempt to get the budget process moving. The Senate should act on that proposal, which has broad bi-partisan support, instead of wasting valuable time with this partisan posturing by the Governor.

As the process moves forward, I will continue urging members of the conference committee to agree on a budget that funds our priorities without increasing taxes. We can accomplish both…as long as the Governor and Senate agree to live within our means.

Sick Leave- $2 million and counting

Before I was sworn into office last year, I said I wouldn’t accept my sick leave benefit. What happens in Wisconsin is an elected official accumulates sick days just like every state employee, but due to the nature of the job, never has to use them. Those sick days accumulate throughout one’s career, and in retirement are converted to health insurance premiums.

In March the Assembly passed AB31 to eliminate this bizarre perk. The Senate has refused to vote on the issue. I asked the Legislative Fiscal Bureau earlier this year to determine how much the Senate’s delay on AB31 was costing taxpayers, and the number was even more astonishing than I imagined. According to the LFB, elected officials have racked up over $2 million in health care premiums since the Assembly passed AB31 in March, and the amount grows by an additional $285,600 each month. That’s on top of the already accumulated amounts of over $44 million dollars.

The Rat Race is Over….The Rats Won

From the local rag. (Any emphasis mine)

“Police urged not to check legal status
Activists want immigration standing off-limits in stops; some chiefs agree

Christine Neumann-Ortiz had heard enough stories about immigrants facing deportation after traffic stops or random encounters with police, so the immigrant rights leader went right to the source of concern.

Neumann-Ortiz is asking local police departments for new policies to prevent officers from questioning people about their immigration status during unrelated investigations.

Some departments are going along.

A policy Milwaukee police officials adopted recently prohibits officers from asking immigration questions or alerting federal authorities to suspected illegal immigrants, with some exceptions.

Neumann-Ortiz’s group, Voces de la Frontera, is asking other departments to follow suit, suggesting that enforcing federal immigration rules not only distracts police from investigating local crime but also drives a wedge between law enforcement and minorities.

“It creates kind of a poisonous culture,” she said.

Others object to her view, saying that illegal immigration is too big a problem for any law enforcement agency to abdicate its role.“[...]

How does enforcing the law detract from local crime? If they’re illegal, lock ‘em up and call INS. Now INS may not do anything, but, since the illegals are guilty of a federal crime, just transfer them to the nearest federal lockup. Probably takes less time than the procedures for arresting DUIs.

What’s amazing to me (well, upon reflection, maybe it’s not so amazing) is that Hegerty (lame-duck police chief of Murder Centralville) is going along with this crap. Dad29 has some information on the same going on in Waukesha County.

I’m curious about Anselmo Vilareal of La Casa de Esperanza and Neumann-Ortiz are worried about. If someone is legal, then it’s no problem. What’s the big deal?

BTW…Patrick over at Badger Blogger has some really good info as well on this topic.