So, SCOTUS ruled that Obamacare is constitutional. At first I was quite pissed about this. Obamacare is, and remains, a horrible piece of legislation that is unconstitutional. However, upon reading exerts from Chief Justice Roberts opinion, I have to admit there may be a silver lining to this cloud. Now it could be that Roberts totally abandoned conservatives and changed his views, or it could be a shrewd political move meant to out-flank Obama and his socialist cadres. Or maybe I am just grasping at straws...
Anyway, here is how I see it...
The Court ruled, 5-4, to uphold Obamacare in its enitrety, including the individual mandate. CJ Roberts wrote the opinion for the Court. In summary he noted that there two ways to interpret the law. One way is where the mandate is just that, a decree that all Americans purchase the level of healthcare that the government feels you should have or face a monetary penalty. The other is the one argued by Obama's attorneys before the court when defending the constitutionality of the law: that the mandate is merely a tax on behavior, a practice the government already uses in other areas of everyday life. And in the case where a law has two interpretations, one constitutional and one not, there is a precident in the Court to favor the interpretation that favors the constitution. So, the court ruled Obamacare constitutional based on the government's argument that is a tax, not a mandate forcing citizens to purchase something they do not want.
Now, let us be honest with ourselves. While the ideal situation would have been that the entire law be struck down, that scenario was never likely. The next best scenario was that the individual mandate would be struck down but the rest of the law would stand. But what would happen in that scenario? If the mandate were taken out, but the rest of the law upheld, it would loose its teeth as for individual citizens, but this is not the only issue here. With the bulk of the law intact, its interpretation against religious liberty, namely forcing religious institutions to abandon tenets of their faith, still stands. The provision forcing every employer that provides healthcare to give a mandatory level of care will stand, forcing employers to stop offering healthcare to keep costs down and making them reluctant to hire. In short, only a portion of the what is wrong would be fixed, still leaving a juggernaut that will wreck the economy anyway.
So, CJ Roberts chose option number three. He assented to the constitutionality of Obamacare. Here is the crux of my argument. I believe he did so for a specific reason: if Roberts assents he thereby gets to write the opinion and limit the laws impact, scope and meaning. And this what he did.
In defining the mandate as a tax Roberts throws the entire "Commerce Claus" justification out of the window, ruling that the federal government has no right or authority to compel citizens to engage in commerce for any reason. This is important as it was the key issue: can the federal government force people to buy a product they do not want. Roberts decided definitely no! He simply redefines it as a power Congress already exercises, rightly or wrongly is not the point here. The point is that he makes sure not to the federal government any new regulatory powers.
The bad news is that the law stands...for now. A law can still be repealed. Worse is that it is upheld on grounds almost as shaky as the "Commerce Clause" justification. To justify this under Congress's taxing power is in itself an assault on the constitution. In defining Congress's ENUMERATED powers, Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution states that "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States."
To tax one group of people and not another based solely on behavior that is not illegal, but merely unliked by the government, is hardly uniform. It is the same reason why the current income tax is unconstitutional. It is not applied uniformly over the population.
So, now here is the good news. First, no matter if the law in constitutional or not, it remains grossly unpopular and gets more so everyday as more businesses are forced not to hire or drop health coverage to keep costs down. With the Court's decision, Obama cannot distance himself from an unpopular law in an election year. Now that it's constitutionality intact, Obamacare is now settled sqarely around Obama's neck.
Next, Obama cannot use the Court as a scapegoat anymore. Campaigning against a mean, conservative Court out to get poor little Obama doesn't work when the Court does what you want.
Third, to make a case for its constitutionality before the Court, Obama's lawyers were forced to acknowledge, indeed, forcefully assert that the "mandate" was in fact a tax. So, in an election year, Obama's administration is now on record fighting for higher taxes on ALL Americans. And this after he swore up and down in 2009 that Obamacare would never raise taxes on the middle and lower class.
Lastly, in the fight to repeal Obamacare, this is now a huge weapon. Americans hate taxes of any stripe. So, with this defined as a tax, it will be easier to pitch to people to get rid of it. "You want lower taxes, get rid of Obamacare."
So, as I said, I may be reaching here...but, while not ideal, there is a silver lining to this horrible cloud.
Showing posts with label de-regulation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label de-regulation. Show all posts
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
The Free Market works!! Just ask the Aero-space industry
What we are seeing lately in this country is a war. A war of ideology. The Liberal Left has backed the failed policies of Socialism and Marxism in direct opposition to the Conservative Right and its support of the tried and true ideals of Small Government and Free Markets. In other words Capitalism.
There many ways that one can compare and contrast each of these drastically different world views. But the most glaring difference, especially lately with all the rhetoric against corporations, Wall Street, and the "1%," is the economy.
Socialism proposes a top-down approach where the large central government keeps the Market in the iron grip of a mountain of regulation and red tape. The Left believes that they can dictate fairness and appropriate behavior and order people to conform to their subjective definitions. This never leads to prosperity because as soon as an individual or entity wants to something that is against the small ruling elite, they bring the force of government to bare and make that person or company do what they don't wnat to do, consequences be damned. If government will still is not obeyed, they heap even more regulation on the pile until you submit.
Captilism, on the other hand, demands that a small de-centralized government enact as little regulation as possible and get out of the way of the Market. A Free Market works with human nature, competition and self interest, to good of all involved. This leads to the betterment of all because the Market can not force anyone to buy a product or service. It has to convince the consumer through better quality, cheaper prices, better service, etc. Also, as an added bonus of having multiple companies compete for your business, a Free Market produces diversity in product.
This contrast can be seen all through the long history of not just Aero-space but of manned flight itself...
In 1898 the War Department of the US government gave a federal grant to Samuel P. Langley to develop heavier-than-air flight. After 5 years, $70,000, and his only successes being an unmanned flight of a model aircraft, Langley gave up in 1903. The publicgrant was given to Langley regardless of results so he had no incentive for innovation or experimentation especially because it was not his money financing the project.
It was the Wright Brothers who would go down in the history books as the pioneers in aviation. Two independent businessmen free from government regulation who saw a profit in developing this field and so were willing to invest their own capital (money). Because it was their personal wealth and reputation on the line they had an incentive to make the best product they could for the lowest cost possible and to do it as quickly as possible to get a return on their investment. And in just 4 years, 1899-1903, a year shorter than Langley, the Wright Brothers made three successful full-size glider models and culminated in the world's first manned, powered, heavier-than-air craft, the Wright Flyer I, in 1903. In just two more years they improved their design through two more models, Flyer II and III, and went from a flight time and distance of 12 sec/120 ft. to 38 min 3 sec/24.5 miles with the Flyer III
So, as we can see, because of Free Market principals of investment of private capital, no regulation, and individual innovation two bicycle mechanics were able to, in a shorter time frame, far outshine a government-backed physicist.
In 1915, ten years after the Wright Brothers flew the Flyer III, the US government formed the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics. True, this was a government agency and subject to government regulation. However, there was minimal regulation and NACA encouraged the participation of commercial and private clients in both research and facility usage. They even encouraged governemnt employees to explore "bootleg" projects of their own on the side. As a result, from 1915-1958 NACA took manned flight from the basic fliers of the Wright Brothers to the X-1 supersonic flights (the NACA XS-1) in 1946.
In 1958 Congress signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, creating NASA. In the beginning, NASA carried on the tradition of private sector participation in the research and development of its missions and technology. They even enlisted the help of American universities. This resulted in the first Apollo moon landing just 11 years later in July of 1969.
However, as the government beauracracy increased within the ageny the private sector participation has been de-emphasized. Over the next 40 years, as the central federal government edged out independent free market interests, far from exceeding that pinnacle accomplishment, NASA has not even come close, settling for regular orbital missions.
Fast forward to the present. Government beauracracy is more than ten times what it was in the 60's and NASA is no different. The shuttle age is over and there no realistic plans to go back into space. After $10 billion the Shuttle Replacement Program has been scrapped with nothing to show for it except one unmanned orbital test and a capsule with no delivery system. In fact, the only space commitment we have is to the International Space Station and we can't even get our own astronauts there. They have to beg rides from the Russians.
In recent years, to help spread out the costs, NASA has, actually, started to again involve the private sector, contracting out to companies like Boeing and Lockheed/Martin. The problem here is that government does not know how to participate in the Market. NASA operates on a "cost-plus" system. This means they simply re-imburse the contractors for whatever costs in time, labor and materials they incur and add a fixed profit. Just like what happened with Langley at the turn of the century, there is no incentive to produce a viable product on time and every advantage to dragging your feet to run up the cost.
Enter the Free Market.
Just because a government agency, NASA, is grounded from a government inability to be fiscally responsible doesn't mean that America is. Yet again, private capital, talent and innovation have come together where there is a profit to be made. Right now, and for several years now, the beginnings of a Free Market, private sector Aero-space industry have been taking shape. Since 2004, a handful of independent aero-space firms and companies have taken the initiative not to wait for the federal government to get its house in order.
John Carmack, programmer of Doom and Quake, has taken his fortune to form Armadillo Aero-space. Bigelow Aero-space was started by hotelier Robert Bigelow. Other firms include Mastin Space Systems, Excor Aero-space, Scaled Composites, and Spacex. All of these companies are working independently to explore and develop Outer Space. And, because of the Free Market, keeping an eye on cost, quality and service, and because of the competition of Capitalism, they can all do it for a fraction of the cost. Sure, NASA is still involved, it would be foolish to ignore 60 years of research and development. But now instead of a "cost-plus" contract, they have a "fixed-price" contract which gives a desire to complete a project on time and under budget.
The result? For $300 billion of NASA funds, 1/30th of the cost of a typical "cost-plus" contract, Spacex produced, from scratch, two separate and functional launch vehicles, a new generation of engines and a 7-passenger, pressurized capsule that had a flawless maiden flight, though unmanned.
From just this handful of private companies have already come two different designs for a vertical take off and landing systems, one of which can even shut down mid-flight, restart and immediately return to stability, a developing orbital hotel, and the latest generation of rocket engines that are safer and more efficient than anything NASA has. In addition, Scaled Composites performed the first commercial manned space flight and did it, not in a shuttle strapped to a giant rocket, but in an innovative one-man pod.
So, to sum up, the Free Market championed by Capitalism has done in 8 years what it took the governments of the US, China, Russia, and the EU more than 60 years to accomplish. And they are not stopping there. They are going further.
Right now you can by tickets on Scaled Composites orbital shuttle, Spacex is in the midst of planning the first manned flight of their dragon rocket and capsule, with a few more years development of the vertical take off engines space flight will never again be dependent on a three-stage delivery system, and right now these companies are preparing for the first commercial landing on the moon.
Command, Socialist governments can't even come close to this.
There many ways that one can compare and contrast each of these drastically different world views. But the most glaring difference, especially lately with all the rhetoric against corporations, Wall Street, and the "1%," is the economy.
Socialism proposes a top-down approach where the large central government keeps the Market in the iron grip of a mountain of regulation and red tape. The Left believes that they can dictate fairness and appropriate behavior and order people to conform to their subjective definitions. This never leads to prosperity because as soon as an individual or entity wants to something that is against the small ruling elite, they bring the force of government to bare and make that person or company do what they don't wnat to do, consequences be damned. If government will still is not obeyed, they heap even more regulation on the pile until you submit.
Captilism, on the other hand, demands that a small de-centralized government enact as little regulation as possible and get out of the way of the Market. A Free Market works with human nature, competition and self interest, to good of all involved. This leads to the betterment of all because the Market can not force anyone to buy a product or service. It has to convince the consumer through better quality, cheaper prices, better service, etc. Also, as an added bonus of having multiple companies compete for your business, a Free Market produces diversity in product.
This contrast can be seen all through the long history of not just Aero-space but of manned flight itself...
In 1898 the War Department of the US government gave a federal grant to Samuel P. Langley to develop heavier-than-air flight. After 5 years, $70,000, and his only successes being an unmanned flight of a model aircraft, Langley gave up in 1903. The publicgrant was given to Langley regardless of results so he had no incentive for innovation or experimentation especially because it was not his money financing the project.
It was the Wright Brothers who would go down in the history books as the pioneers in aviation. Two independent businessmen free from government regulation who saw a profit in developing this field and so were willing to invest their own capital (money). Because it was their personal wealth and reputation on the line they had an incentive to make the best product they could for the lowest cost possible and to do it as quickly as possible to get a return on their investment. And in just 4 years, 1899-1903, a year shorter than Langley, the Wright Brothers made three successful full-size glider models and culminated in the world's first manned, powered, heavier-than-air craft, the Wright Flyer I, in 1903. In just two more years they improved their design through two more models, Flyer II and III, and went from a flight time and distance of 12 sec/120 ft. to 38 min 3 sec/24.5 miles with the Flyer III
So, as we can see, because of Free Market principals of investment of private capital, no regulation, and individual innovation two bicycle mechanics were able to, in a shorter time frame, far outshine a government-backed physicist.
In 1915, ten years after the Wright Brothers flew the Flyer III, the US government formed the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics. True, this was a government agency and subject to government regulation. However, there was minimal regulation and NACA encouraged the participation of commercial and private clients in both research and facility usage. They even encouraged governemnt employees to explore "bootleg" projects of their own on the side. As a result, from 1915-1958 NACA took manned flight from the basic fliers of the Wright Brothers to the X-1 supersonic flights (the NACA XS-1) in 1946.
In 1958 Congress signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, creating NASA. In the beginning, NASA carried on the tradition of private sector participation in the research and development of its missions and technology. They even enlisted the help of American universities. This resulted in the first Apollo moon landing just 11 years later in July of 1969.
However, as the government beauracracy increased within the ageny the private sector participation has been de-emphasized. Over the next 40 years, as the central federal government edged out independent free market interests, far from exceeding that pinnacle accomplishment, NASA has not even come close, settling for regular orbital missions.
Fast forward to the present. Government beauracracy is more than ten times what it was in the 60's and NASA is no different. The shuttle age is over and there no realistic plans to go back into space. After $10 billion the Shuttle Replacement Program has been scrapped with nothing to show for it except one unmanned orbital test and a capsule with no delivery system. In fact, the only space commitment we have is to the International Space Station and we can't even get our own astronauts there. They have to beg rides from the Russians.
In recent years, to help spread out the costs, NASA has, actually, started to again involve the private sector, contracting out to companies like Boeing and Lockheed/Martin. The problem here is that government does not know how to participate in the Market. NASA operates on a "cost-plus" system. This means they simply re-imburse the contractors for whatever costs in time, labor and materials they incur and add a fixed profit. Just like what happened with Langley at the turn of the century, there is no incentive to produce a viable product on time and every advantage to dragging your feet to run up the cost.
Enter the Free Market.
Just because a government agency, NASA, is grounded from a government inability to be fiscally responsible doesn't mean that America is. Yet again, private capital, talent and innovation have come together where there is a profit to be made. Right now, and for several years now, the beginnings of a Free Market, private sector Aero-space industry have been taking shape. Since 2004, a handful of independent aero-space firms and companies have taken the initiative not to wait for the federal government to get its house in order.
John Carmack, programmer of Doom and Quake, has taken his fortune to form Armadillo Aero-space. Bigelow Aero-space was started by hotelier Robert Bigelow. Other firms include Mastin Space Systems, Excor Aero-space, Scaled Composites, and Spacex. All of these companies are working independently to explore and develop Outer Space. And, because of the Free Market, keeping an eye on cost, quality and service, and because of the competition of Capitalism, they can all do it for a fraction of the cost. Sure, NASA is still involved, it would be foolish to ignore 60 years of research and development. But now instead of a "cost-plus" contract, they have a "fixed-price" contract which gives a desire to complete a project on time and under budget.
The result? For $300 billion of NASA funds, 1/30th of the cost of a typical "cost-plus" contract, Spacex produced, from scratch, two separate and functional launch vehicles, a new generation of engines and a 7-passenger, pressurized capsule that had a flawless maiden flight, though unmanned.
From just this handful of private companies have already come two different designs for a vertical take off and landing systems, one of which can even shut down mid-flight, restart and immediately return to stability, a developing orbital hotel, and the latest generation of rocket engines that are safer and more efficient than anything NASA has. In addition, Scaled Composites performed the first commercial manned space flight and did it, not in a shuttle strapped to a giant rocket, but in an innovative one-man pod.
So, to sum up, the Free Market championed by Capitalism has done in 8 years what it took the governments of the US, China, Russia, and the EU more than 60 years to accomplish. And they are not stopping there. They are going further.
Right now you can by tickets on Scaled Composites orbital shuttle, Spacex is in the midst of planning the first manned flight of their dragon rocket and capsule, with a few more years development of the vertical take off engines space flight will never again be dependent on a three-stage delivery system, and right now these companies are preparing for the first commercial landing on the moon.
Command, Socialist governments can't even come close to this.
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