Bob Barr, Libertarian?

There's a lot of talk now about Bob Barr as the presidential candidate for the libertarian party. Many articles in Google News indicate speculation that former Paulites will flock to Bob Barr as the "next Ron Paul." Being unfamiliar with Bob Barr I did a quick Wikipedia search and found the following tidbits:

• Strong supporter of the War on Drugs stating there is a "constitutional right and responsibility of Congress to pass laws protecting citizens from dangerous and addictive narcotic"
• Against gay marriage and author of the Defense of Marriage Act preventing the federal government from recognizing gay marriages
  
• Supported the Patriot Act because of its sunset causes, but now regrets that decision

Doesn't sound like a Libertarian to me. It will be interesting to hear more about his foreign policy ideas, ideas about the economy and size of federal government, and how he reconciles his past with any current changes in policy positions that would make him more likely to garner a Libertarian vote.

Farm Bill Vetoed

Good news: Bush vetoed the "irresponsible" farm bill. $300 billion not wasted so far, but I imagine with some tweaks they'll still end up signing something fairly hefty. To roundup nationally and locally:

• Obama supports
• Clinton supports
• McCain opposes

• Udall supports
• Pearce supports
• Wilson opposes

Why might you want to oppose? Some obvservations here or you can enjoy selected earmarks from Swine Line:

-$500 million for the Qualified Forestry Bonds Program. This program was added to the Farm Bill to benefit one company, the Plum Creek Timber Company.

-$170 million for distressed salmon fishermen in California, Oregon and Washington. Maybe they just need a good therapist.

-The Equine Equity Act. According to Sen. McConnell (R-Ky.), “My legislation will remove the unfair tax burden on horses that discourage investment in the horse industry.”

Fun stuff! Of course I'm not interested in subsidies that affect the market and in the end hurt everybody involved but the minority that are making money from the rest of our hard work. Even in cases where one might be absolutely needed, $750,000 is a bit much for us to consider needing a lot of help through subsidies. It also doesn't help when senators don't understand basic terms and cite those reasons for their vote.

Please Stop Name Dropping

There's two names I wish I could never hear again this election cycle: Bush and Reagan. Usage of either is a cop-out to avoid talking about real issues or specifics and an appeal to emotion that only distracts from the reality of a candidate.

Let's face it, if you're at a point where you adore Bush now, no appeal to how terrible he is will change your mind or change your vote. Unlike the previous election, Bush is not on the ticket. Despite what Sen. Obama would like you to think, Sen. McCain is not Bush. That doesn't mean he is a good candidate or a bad candidate, it just means more time should be spent talking about Obama and McCain. For all the calls of non-partisan politics, I hear Obama use Bush's name as much as any nebulous warm-fuzzy phrase.

All it does is appeal to the crowd that loathes Bush. While it probably gets them all excited to feel good about hating Bush, it doesn't gain Obama any votes and if this country really is going to move on, it needs to start focusing on these two candidates and not the past. Apparently "hope" spends a considerable amount of time dwelling on the past.

Reagan. You can't accuse me of not being an fan of him: of the two books by former elected officials I have sitting at my desk right now, one of them is Reagan's. He did a lot, both good and bad, for this country. None of that matters in this election. Just like Obama wants to appeal to my hatred for Bush falls flat, McCain's (and earlier all the republican candidates) appeal to my love of Reagan will fall flat. It wont get you any votes from Democrats, it wont convince Republicans that you're "conservative enough." It isn't 1980 and the issues we face are very different. Saying "I'm a Reagan Conservative" means nothing unless you qualify that with exactly how and wasting the breath on a sentence about Reagan doesn't help.

Senators, stop name dropping appeals to emotion and just get to the issues.

44.8 Million Uninsured

I checked census.gov about this number and came to the following conclusions about the number of individuals without insurance:

• 8.7 million - make more than $75,000
• 8.3 million - make between $50-75,000
• 9.3 million - not US citizens
• 8.5 million - between 18 & 24
• 10-14 million - eligible for Medicaid but do not apply

You'll notice there's some overlap there because the total is 48.8 million. Some of these large groups of people don't really deserve my pity when it comes to them choosing not to have insurance. There is on disturbing number: 8.3 million are under 18 years old and do not have insurance. That's one thing that my love for freedom, choice, and limited government begins to take issue with. Of course, the question is who is going to pay for these children to receive health care and how many of these children belong to parents in the above groups that are choosing not to have insurance. Of those 8.3 million children, another source puts 6 million eligible but not receiving government provided care making that number a bit lower.

Gas Price "Fixes"

I could go off a little bit more about it, but I think it's pretty clear to most people that gas tax holiday is a bad idea and wont fix anything. The media is hammering Sens. Clinton and McCain pretty well and I think most people can come to that conclusion after thinking on the matter a little bit or crunching some numbers for themselves.

I think most people can do the same when it comes to Sens. Obama and Clinton's windfall profit tax, though the media isn't spending as much time with that one. While it's popular to want to stick it to the corporation, I think some reason can figure out exactly what might happen if you try to do it too much to a corporation. I also challenge the spin with raw numbers - and not profit margins - that the oil companies are making so much money. Here's the real scoop:

On average, the profit margin of the oil industry is 8.3%. As a former retail employee in what feels like a past life, I can tell you that a profit margin that low is very atypical. Retailers such as Best Buy or Wal-Mart have massive profit margins on the goods they sell. For example, when working at Best Buy, I found that the cost of a simple printer cable was $1.21. We sold that same cable for $32 to the public, a 2,644% profit margin! Granted in dollars we are talking about profiting only $30 and some change off the cable. But, let’s put it into the proper perspective. With a barrel of oil teetering just over $100, and an average profit margin of 8.3%, the oil companies are making a whopping $8.30 off the barrel of oil! Hardly a wild profit to accuse an entire industry of price gouging over.

Oh, and about that price gouging...some info from FactCheck.org:But what Obama doesn't mention is that the FTC has conducted price-gouging investigations before, most notably in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The FTC found "no instances of illegal market manipulation" and concluded that the price increases "were approximately what would be predicted by the standard supply-and-demand model of a market performing competitively."

That's not to say that market manipulation (or price-gouging) is impossible. And the FTC, as well as state attorneys general, may well be conducting further probes even as we write this (they're generally supposed to be confidential until they're completed). But most economists say that gasoline prices have more to do with market forces than with oil company shenanigans.

But, let's get past that. Let's try and punish these oil companies because profit is evil and people are suffering. How do we stop their suffering? A windfall profit tax. We've done that before... how did it work that time?

Normally, when you tax something, you get less of it, but Mr. Obama seems to think he can repeal the laws of economics. We tried this windfall profits scheme in 1980. It backfired. The Congressional Research Service found in a 1990 analysis that the tax reduced domestic oil production by 3% to 6% and increased oil imports from OPEC by 8% to 16%. Mr. Obama nonetheless pledges to lessen our dependence on foreign oil, which he says "costs America $800 million a day." Someone should tell him that oil imports would soar if his tax plan becomes law. The biggest beneficiaries would be OPEC oil ministers.

Of course, just like the capital gains tax, Sen. Obama is okay with hurting people in the terms of the fairness of hurting the oil companies.

None of these plans actually solve what they say they'll and cause lower gas prices. All are pandering to a group of Americans who want the government to do something. I'm guessing that the government can't do anything to help these prices in the short run. There's drilling and all sorts of other ideas that I might agree to for reasons that have nothing to do with lowering gas prices in the short run and in a separate argument than this one. In an election year a cry for government to do something about something it can't really (and shouldn't really) affect in the short term ends up with government doing something terrible.

Edit: Justin Wolfers at the Freakonomics blog chimes in. Thanks to Brad for the link.

Food Aid: 770 million worth

Bush calls for approval of $770 million in food aid

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush urged Congress Thursday to approve $770 million to help alleviate dramatically escalating food prices that threaten widespread hunger and increasing social unrest around the world.

In a surprise midafternoon appearance at the White House, Bush announced he is asking lawmakers to approve the additional funds for global food aid and development programs. The money — to be directed primarily at needy African nations — is being included in a broader $70 billion Iraq war funding measure for 2009 that the White House sent to Capitol Hill on Thursday.

Yes, this is exactly what I want to be spending my tax dollars on right now. Don't get me wrong, I'm not pro-poverty, I'm not saying individuals shouldn't donate to charities to achieve this goal. I just think it's ridiculous that our federal government is in that business. Anybody disagree?