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Questions for Liberals;
6/26/08
I once was a liberal who believed that it was a reasonable
exercise of political power to force people to live the way that was in
their best interests. I believe these views primarily because of my love of
people and my desire to see them live a good life. Many years ago I began to
realize that differences in people and what they do are good. To have
differences you need less controls. Now I have two questions which I long
ago answered for myself, but which I believe each liberal should answer
honestly.
Question 1: What makes you think that a bureaucrat in
Washington who knows nothing about your personal circumstances and ability
can make better decisions about how you live your life and medical treatment
you receive? A corollary question is: If you believe that a bureaucrat
cannot reasonably make those decisions for you, why do you think he should
make them for others with whom you disagree?
Question 2: When other economies - Soviet Union and Western
Europe - have proven that greater freedom and less central control and
demands actually work better, why do you want us to embrace more social
controls and central demands that have been proven not to work?
Good Medical Plan;
5/7/08
Finally a politician has come up with a good proposal for
reforming our system for paying for medical. The politician is John McCain,
and the proposal relies upon market discipline, personal choice and less
government interference. There would be government involved only for those
who absolutely could not get insurance or otherwise pay for health care.
A plan relying more upon the patient's involvement in the
determination of health care and less government involvement is something
which I have long supported. Different
people have different needs. Different people are willing to pay directly
without insurance for different types of care and at different levels. The
same person will want different coverage at different times in his life.
Thus, having one-size-fits-all medical plans, which is what you get when the
government makes the decision, is counter productive.
McCain's proposal also provides for a tax credit so that you
can get away from your employer plan if you wish for any reason.
In short, we finally have a real proposal on the table which
will benefit all people while lowering costs and providing more choices when
appropriate.
Energy Independence; 4/30/08
Since the 1970's when the United States experienced two oil crises people
have given lip service to the concern for energy independence. Yet here we
are wasting money on foreign oil and ethanol from corn. Ethanol from corn is
proving to be more environmentally harmful than oil and uses more oil to
produce the like amount of energy than we would use if we just burned
gasoline. The price of oil is now at almost $120.00 per barrel. We have had
essentially no new nuclear plants approved in more than two decades because
of regulatory problems and environmentalists discouraging new plants, and we
refuse to make use of clean coal technology. We also do not allow drilling
for oil and natural gas in supposedly sensitive areas even though there is
no proof that doing so would be harmful. In fact, there are other countries
drilling in similar places with no substantial negative impacts. The United
States' oil and gas reserves would last for several decades.
We
can be energy independent very easily and very quickly if we would allow for
drilling in sensitive areas with reasonable protections and make use of
nuclear and clean coal technology for power plants. The cost of fuel would
be substantially reduced, and reliance upon expensive foreign oil would be
eliminated. Others do it, but we do not primarily because of unnecessary
government regulations and unnecessarily complex procedures.
Affordable Housing; 4/27/08
Local governments complain about affordable housing. It has become
fashionable to require new developments to have a certain percentage of new
housing units to be affordable. Yet the places where housing is most
affordable is where there is the least amount of government regulation.
Studies have shown that government regulation adds significantly to the cost
of housing.
Even if government requirements are effective in making some housing
affordable when initially purchased in a new development, the requirement is
self-defeating in at least two respects. First, the cost of the affordable
housing is forced onto the cost of other housing or development in the area,
thus increasing the costs of more expensive houses in a development. Second,
when the affordable houses are sold by the new purchasers, they will be the
least expensive houses in the neighborhood which will then bring a premium
over what would otherwise be expected.
If
governments are truly interested in affordable housing, they will lighten
the regulatory load and quit playing these games. |
