Texas Straight Talk
A weekly column
Competition With the Government?
Last Saturday many concerned Americans watched in horror as the House passed the healthcare reform bill. If this bill makes it through the Senate, it would massively overhaul the way healthcare is delivered in this country. Today, obviously, we don’t have a perfect system, but this legislation takes all the mistakes we are making with healthcare and makes them worse. Most of what is wrong with healthcare stems from decades of government intervention and the resulting unintended consequences. But the government’s prescription for the ills caused by intervention is always more intervention. We see this not only in healthcare [continue reading]
11-16-2009, 12:33 PM | 30 Comments
Healthcare Reform is Economic Malpractice
As Washington continues debating healthcare reform the rest of the country is primarily concerned about jobs and the economy. It is still uncertain what policies will be implemented, but I am certain about one thing: It will only further devastate our economy and our dollar. The leadership has come up with a proposal they are confident will be what they consider fiscally responsible, only to have it scored as nearly twice as expensive by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Estimates of past healthcare spending programs have been off by as much as 100 percent so there is no telling [continue reading]
11-09-2009, 11:27 AM | 50 Comments
Government Statistics and Lies
There has been a lot of talk in Washington recently about senior citizens, mostly about how various healthcare reform models would help or hurt them. But there is another critical issue that has quietly devastated seniors financially over the last few decades. It concerns how the cost of living is calculated. How does the administration justify not giving a cost of living increase to Social Security recipients this year? According to the official Consumer Price Index calculation, life has gotten cheaper for the first time in decades. If the government can show statistically that the cost of living has [continue reading]
11-02-2009, 11:55 AM | 67 Comments
Anything Less Than Full Disclosure is Unacceptable
Last week a new bill was introduced in the Senate to audit the Federal Reserve. Some backers of my bill HR1207 and the existing Senate companion bill S.604 were a little miffed at this, but depending on how you think about it, this new legislation poses no great threat to our efforts. With the economy in shambles, people are looking for answers - not just because of lost savings on Wall Street, but because of lost houses on Main Street. Because of the many problems we face, the Federal Reserve and its powers over the economy have come under [continue reading]
10-26-2009, 12:11 PM | 53 Comments
The Very Busy Politicians in Washington DC
With a faltering economy, multiple wars, and the approaching demise of the dollar’s reserve status, there are more than enough problems to keep politicians in Washington working day and night. In between handing out cash for clunkers and nationalizing healthcare, the administration is busy sending more troops overseas, escalating existing wars, and seeking out excuses to start new wars. Congress is working on “urgent” legislation to address crises like healthcare reform and climate change. The reforms are so very urgent that legislation must pass swiftly with no time to read the bills even though the new laws wouldn’t take [continue reading]
10-19-2009, 12:53 PM | 53 Comments
Recent Posts
- Competition With the Government?
- Healthcare Reform is Economic Malpractice
- Government Statistics and Lies
- Anything Less Than Full Disclosure is Unacceptable
- The Very Busy Politicians in Washington DC
- Saving Face in Afghanistan
- Bombs and Bribes
- The Real Reasons Behind Fed Secrecy
- Trade Wars and Protectionism are not Free Trade
- Healthcare Reform is More Corporate Welfare
- Government Solutions Lack Understanding
- The Fed's Interesting Week
- We Need Sunlight to Disinfect the Legislative Process!
- The Free Market as Regulator
- Cash for Clunkers
- Healthcare Plan Based on Economic Fantasy
- The Immorality of Taxpayer Funded Abortion
- Healthcare is a Good, Not a Right
- Fed Independence or Fed Secrecy?
- Celebrating the Fight for Freedom on the Fourth
- Cap and Trade Will Lead to Capital Flight
- International Bailout Brings Us Closer to Economic Collapse
- Moving Towards Tobacco Prohibition
- GM, Amtrak and an Increasingly Fascist America
- Fight Government Encroachment into Healthcare!
- Torturing the Rule of Law
- Audit the Fed, Then End It!
- On Af-Pak: Stop "Helping"
- When Government Plays Doctor
- Secession: the Ultimate States' Right
- Responses to Piracy
- Fewer Taxes for Real Economic Stimulus
- Budget Expands Government as Economy Contracts
- End the War on Drugs
- Bankruptcy is Economic Stimulus
- Earmarks Don't Add Up
- Imagine
- Is Spending the Answer?
- On Transparency of the Fed
- On Reinstating the Draft
- Freedom From Government
- Cures for Our Economic Disease
- Stimulus for Whom?
- Strengthening or Weakening the Economy?
- Stimulating Our Way to Rock Bottom
- Opportunities for Peace and Nonintervention
- Transition and Hope
- Government and Fraud
- Economic Freedom or Socialist Intervention?
- Gun Control: Protecting Terrorists and Despots
- The Neo-Alchemy of the Federal Reserve
- The Bailout Surge
- Restricting Freedoms and Choices
- Hopes for the Future
- The Moral Hazard of Regulation
- Spending the Economy into Oblivion
- Too Big to Fail?
- Capitalism Without Capital?
- The Do-Something Congress
- Lipstick on a Bailout
- Predictions vs. Reality in Iraq
- In Government We Trust? Part 3
- In Government We Trust? Part 2
- In Government We Trust? Part 1
- Freedom is Golden
- How Foreign Policy Affects Gas Prices
- What's in a Bill Name?
- Washington's Intervention Addiction
- The Dangers of Neo-Conservative Economic Policies
- Faith-Based Currency
- Getting Out of Iraq
- Real Change
- Personal Freedoms and the Internet
- A Major Victory for Texas
- Iraq or the Economy?
- Rising Energy Prices and the Falling Dollar
- Sowing More Big Government with the Farm Bill
- A Salute to Veterans
- The Economy: Another Casualty of War
- Big Government Responsible for Housing Bubble
- Big Government Responsible for High Gas Prices
- Politicizing Pain
- The Double Trouble of Taxation
- No Sunlight on the Omnibus
- Legislative Forecast for 2008
- Constitutional Responses to Terrorism
- Economic Stimulus Concerns
- Paving Paradise
- Second Amendment Battle in DC
- On Five Years in Iraq
- Making a Recession Great
- Can Foreign Aid Save Africa?
- Hope for the Economy
- Taxes or Tolls on the TTC
- If We Subsidize Them ...
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