Utah State Republican Convention

I've got a few pictures to add later, but I have to say that this year's convention was a much bigger production than two years ago. You had the Huntsman/Herbert tent, then you had the Leavitt/Shurtleff suite and the Cannon suite. Cannon's was the best overall, with a Wii, the best spread of the morning, and a Pepsi machine. Nothing beats an open soda bar! At any rate, my wife and I arrived at the convention expecting a good matchup between Cannon and Leavitt in a nice and interesting primary. If anybody could have knocked Cannon out in a primary, it would be Leavitt - he's got the money and he's got the name. At any rate, we got there and were immediately given more trinkets than you'd get at CES. We had water, donuts, bagels, pens, fans, candy, and more. It was great. One thing I didn't see a lot of was the candidates. We swung past all of their booths and looked before parking ourselves in some prime real estate, the balcony of the Cannon suite. There was the typical Mike Ridgeway challenge this and annoy that going on, but let's move beyond the usual and get the the real meat of the situation, the 3rd District vote.Of the legitimate candidates (sorry Stone and Joe, you weren't among them), David Leavitt went first. Right up until the end I was going back and forth between Leavitt and Chris Cannon. I still consider them both top flight candidates, and I would absolutely have voted for him if the circumstances were a bit different. Unfortunately, his presentation left me a bit cold. The video was the best, but I don't think he had enough substance for the angry rabble. They were looking for someone who would take Chris Cannon by the neck and rip his jugular out with his bare teeth. That someone was Jason Chaffetz. He got up there and gave everyone in the crowd the best string of one liners that I've ever seen. "Leavitt spent 6 times more than me!" "I like Jon Huntsman, but global warming is a farce! [note: I (Sorro, not Chaffetz, although who knows if he does as well or not) think that global warming is happening, I just don't think that it's the fault of humans so much as Mother Nature]" "We don't need another attorney in Congress!" Beyond that, he managed to sneak in a nice little last second attack on Leavitt with his despicable spying/taking out of context of a quote from one of Leavitt's Pizza and Politics meetings. That's always a sign of someone who's running a nice, clean campaign - dirty tricks, rabble-rousing, and generalized douchebaggery. At any rate, after he gave the same speech, ending with the same idiotic, cynical, and focus-grouped to death "God bless you and God bless the United States of America," Cannon came out. He actually did a pretty good job. I really like Chris. He's a fantastic individual and at the end of the day, the candidate I supported. At any rate, he's not the most articulate of the candidates, which is one reason why it's surprising he's lasted this long as our Congressman. He's had serious challenges every single term and for him to continue to represent us despite some of those challengers having a very gilded tongue means that he must be doing something right.
After Cannon's speech, we voted. After the results came back, everybody in the room was a bit stunned. Chaffetz was first with around 40% of the vote, Cannon was second with a 30% or so, and Leavitt was last with 20%. That was a shocker. Even though Leavitt's last speech wasn't great or anything, I still thought he was the best challenger. My wife couldn't stop saying how bad she felt for Leavitt - she had seen him sweating it out before the results were announced. It was clear to everybody that it was over for Leavitt except for the formality of a second vote. I was saying to my wife that if I was Leavitt I would have immediately started swinging the vote to Cannon. A few minutes later, that was exactly what I heard was happening. We had our second vote and Chaffetz jumped over 50%, getting most of the votes from the two fringe candidates in the process. Leavitt was officially eliminated, and I said if I was Leavitt, I would have all of my Orange Shirts grab Cannon signs and show all of my supporters that I was swinging to Cannon. Then lo and behold, I saw something that made me cheer with delight. Leavitt's people did precisely what I said - they came into the hall all carrying Cannon signs. After a fair amount of booing from the Chaffetz people, they left when the party leadership booted them for campaigning on the Convention floor. Then Leavitt and Cannon strode out, shoulder to shoulder, and walked around, meeting people. Of course, there was more booing, as apparently 2 people can't walk around together anymore (yes, I realize it was an endorsement, but nevertheless, there wasn't anything wrong with it). We cast our third ballots and waited. While we were waiting, my wife and I talked with Leavitt about how much we appreciated the way he ran his campaign with integrity. He knew who I was - not as a delegate, but he knew this blog and that I ran it. Not that it's very difficult to figure out if you try, but I didn't expect that from him. At any rate, we went back up to the Cannon suite and waited it out, hashing over different scenarios and whinging about how awful things would be if Chaffetz was our Congressman - you know, all of that end of the world stuff that my crazy aunt mentioned and whatnot. I seriously would write in someone else if he somehow makes it out of the primary. Anyway, after waiting around for a while, we discovered the tally - Chaffetz missed a 60% majority by 6 votes. 6 votes. That is amazing. I can't imagine anything closer than that, and I can't be happier because it means that Cannon will be back. Chaffetz can't compete against him for name recognition, and his austere campaign can't pat itself on the back if they suddenly start spending money to get him elected - after all, it's not fiscally responsible to spend money on a campaign. It's better to not win and be proud that you were so much better than everyone else because you were cheap.

EDIT: Links to other reports from the floor:
Basically Speaking
Oblogatory Anectodes
Phil Windley
Leadership that Delivers (official GOP liveblog)
Sausage Grinder

Utah GOP Convention in a Few Pictures

I went to the Utah Republican Party Convention on Saturday to help out a few candidates with their campaigns, but I made sure to get some photos while I was there.  All were taken with an Nikon D700 at 3200 ISO.

Ben Franklin - inventor of the cell phone*

Orrin Hatch vs Dan Liljenquist - the primary battle begins!

I guess Sandstrom thought if it works for Salisbury Homes and Little Caesar's Pizza, it must work for him too!

The image is a bit blurry, but his mom told him to smile for the photo after this.  He clearly wasn't the happiest camper in the world!

*Note: I know Ben Franklin didn't invent the cell phone.

Utah Republican Party Convention by Beau Sorensen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at sorroforro.blogspot.com.

Obamacare for the Supremes

While I didn't get the opportunity to actually participate and be in the gallery when the Supreme Court heard the challenge to the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare), I was busy going back and forth across Capitol Hill all day and as a result, I was able to see one of the great debates of my generation on both sides.  The first time I went from the Senate side to the House side, I was concerned about the general state of the protests.  I'm not a fan of the act, but it seemed like everybody who was up there was organized to support it - generally a bad thing if you're on the other side.  They had an incredibly catchy chant, and the opposition was few and far between.  I saw the same scene when I went back from the House side to the Senate for my next appointment.

The third time was different.  I crossed back from the House side to the Senate after lunch and they must have done shifts because now the folks who opposed ObamaCare were in front of the court.  They didn't have a chant, but there were a lot of them there.

It seemed like the longer the day wore on, the more heated people got.  You can see one of the folks down below - he got in a heated argument about how you can't support Israel and support President Obama.  Meanwhile, someone else was arguing about illegal immigration with a Native American - the one person in the world who has the most legitimate claim on our lands out of anybody.  

I was really happy to be there to see one of the defining court cases of my time and get some documentation of it.  Take a look:

Playing Chicken with the Debt Ceiling

Right now there's a big debate in Washington about whether we should increase the debt ceiling or not.  To hear each side of the argument, I believe the world will end if they don't get their way.  What actually would happen if August 2 rolls around and there isn't a deal in place to push the debt ceiling up?  Right now the government will only be able to afford 44% of its obligations in August if a deal is not reached.  Here's my projection about what would happen.  There's a lot out there, and some people like to say it's the Mainstream Media scaremongering us into acquiescence, but the fact is that there are very serious repercussions of hitting our limit and running out of money, so to speak.  Our choices would be as follows: pay the social obligations (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security).  Pay interest on the debt, some government, and the troops.  Pay some of each.  Here's what would be most likely, just based on common sense.  Of course, common sense says to stop the showdown and make a deal, so here we are.

Scenario 1
August 2: All non-essential government personnel are furloughed.  The Departments of Education, Energy, Interior, Transportation, Health and Human Services, and Agriculture are shuttered because there is no need for them to stay open as they will not be processing any outgoing funds.  National Parks are closed.  Airlines and airports are forced to pick up the tab for TSA or else cancel flights.  They do in hopes that things will resolve soon.  Interest rates on US debt (and thus on credit cards, mortgages, car loans, and any other loans originating in the US) begin their long climb higher.  The US loses it's AAA credit rating.

August 3: Social Security checks are withheld.  This is the only possible option.  To do anything else would be even more catastrophic.  This means that millions of seniors who are living hand-to-mouth run out of money.  15% of seniors depend wholly on their Social Security to survive.  They would be forced to food kitchens or other options out of necessity.  Additionally, to make things worse for them, the government stops Medicare checks to providers.  This includes hospitals, nursing homes, hospice, home health care, and every other segment of our health system.  Because these companies cannot shoulder the burden for long, every senior getting health care is on borrowed time.  By the end of the month, thousands of health care workers are let go and millions of seniors no longer get health care.

August 15: Interest rates on the 10 year T-Bill (currently at 3.125%) are at 15%.  With no end in sight, the Treasury department tries to roll over $500 billion in maturing debt.  Existing bondholders, concerned that they will take on too much risk by participating are lured in by higher interest rates.  A spike in rates to 20% costs the government trillions and leads to a massive selloff in stocks.  The Dow drops from 9,000 to 7,500 in just a few minutes, wiping trillions of dollars of value out of the market.  The dollar drops to an all time low against the Euro, hitting $1.75/euro.  It likewise falls against every major currency in the world.  Meanwhile, the housing, auto, and lending markets lock up as consumers are unwilling to pay the interest rates.  This causes a massive selloff in financial stocks, leading to the collapse of Bank of America.  Because the government is unable to use any funds to pay FDIC insurance or drive BofA into another bank's arms, millions had their life savings wiped out in the blink of an eye.  The US credit rating descends to Junk status, below that of Greece, Portugal, and Ireland.

August 20: Hundreds of thousands of protesters gather in Washington DC demanding an increase in the debt ceiling.  These protests start out peacefully, though anything could turn it into a powder keg.  The state of Texas announces its plan to float its own currency.  It is in negotiations with several other states on how to bond together to protect their citizens

August 25: The Dow is at 6,000.  Major corporations announce their withdrawal from the US market.  Due to unrest and uncertainty, over 1 million illegal immigrants have left the country.  This leads to a lack of labor for the upcoming harvest.  By the end of fall, millions of pounds of food will have rotted in fields.  The dollar went below $2.00/euro.  Gold is over $2500/oz and silver has skyrocketed to $60/oz.  Oil prices have skyrocketed due to the currency fluctuations and currently stand north of $200/barrel.  This has led to gasoline prices over $7.00/gallon in some places.  People have abandoned their cars in many places because they can't afford to fill their gas tanks. The combination of people out of work and no credit has impacted every aspect of American life.  American Airlines went out of business.  The combination of record high oil prices and having to pay for airport security was too much for the venerable company.  Delta, United, Southwest, and US Airways have drastically cut schedules as they cannot afford to fly and neither can the public.  What started as a peaceful protest in Washington has descended into something more akin to anarchy.  On the third day some protesters got violent with Capitol Police.  The police struck back in self defense, but that incident led to the National Guard being called into service.  Because of the situation in the country, they were only able to get half as many troops called up as they anticipated.  President Obama will address the nation tonight from an undisclosed location and declare Martial Law will be in effect, along with suspension of habeas corpus until things have calmed down.  Congress is said to be within hours of finally brokering a compromise package that has become dramatically bigger than was previously necessary due to interest rates compounding the debt crisis.  This package includes drastic cuts in government spending and large tax increases on the wealthy.  It is estimated to save $4 trillion over 10 years.  Meanwhile, the budget deficit is projected to increase from $14 trillion to $28 trillion due to increased borrowing costs during that time.

August 31 - President Obama signs into law a debt ceiling increase of $4 trillion dollars.  The markets have stabilized on the news with the Dow at 5000, the S&P at 500, and the dollar bottoming out at $2.10.  Meanwhile, yields on T bills are slowly dropping back to earth.  They will slowly drop from their peak at 35% and end up at around 15% over the mid term due to the increased instability that our new credit rating implies.  We have our agreement, and it only took erasing $10 trillion in assets to do it.

Scenario 2

August 2 - President Obama, invoking the 14th Amendment, declares the US debt limit has been raised to $18 trillion.  Congress immediately sues.  As the case winds through the courts, credit markets are soothed.  The case makes its way to the Supreme Court, where President Obama declares that he will follow FDR's path - if the Supreme Court doesn't see things his way, he will immediately appoint 6 new justices to the court.  Chief Justice Roberts sides with President Obama's interpretation.  His leadership will get him reelected in 2012 by a landslide.  Meanwhile, Congress passes back into Democrat hands as the tea party members of the Republican party are defeated in an historic fashion.

Scenario 3

July 22 - With hours to spare, the two sides make a deal that involves spending cuts and some tax reform.  The economy is spared and life goes on as normal.

I know that some of this may seem outlandish, but something to remember is that when Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, we plunged into the Great Recession.  That was an investment bank.  This is the largest economy on Earth.  It's a matter of scale, and this is not at all out of the question.  It may be a more worse case scenario, but it's definitely not out of the realm of possibility.  Unless the two sides realize that they need to broker something so both sides can win, one way or another, everybody loses.

Why I Can't (At Present) Support Jason Chaffetz

Rep. Chaffetz/Sen. Hatch.  from Fox News

A lot of the hullabaloo in Utah right now is about Jason Chaffetz running against Orrin Hatch for his Senate seat in 2012.  I hope he either chooses not to run or is defeated.  This doesn't come down to policy reasons, but to a couple of practicalities:

1. Rep. Chaffetz' staff in Washington are not helpful.  I go to Washington every year to lobby for my industry and company.  I have been greeted and treated warmly by the staff and offices of the following individuals: Rep. Cannon, Rep. Matheson, Rep. Bishop, Sen. Hatch, Sen. Bennett, and Sen. Lee.  Some have been okay, some have been good, and some have been great.  Sen. Hatch's staff fall in the latter category.  I would put Sen. Lee's staff above them, in large part to his amazing Chief of Staff, Spencer Stokes.  They really were incredible for us this past year.  You'll notice that I didn't put Rep. Chaffetz' staff in this list.  The reason for that is because, while they have been kind enough to meet with us, the niceties ended there.  We were herded in like cattle, asked what the bill number was that we wanted him to support, told he doesn't sign letters, and then, when we asked his office to make a call to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on our behalf to stop a rule that was almost universally called ridiculous, told that they were too busy for such trivialities.  I know that calling hearings about the latest TSA insanity or talking about how illegals are ruining the country are great kabuki, but when it actually gets down to what he should be doing - representing his constituents and their concerns, he's fallen short.
One thing I would like to make clear is that this is not a blanket condemnation of everybody who's worked with him.  I know great people who have been a part of his campaign and/or regional offices, but where it really matters, in representing my concerns on my behalf to the Federal Government, he's so far behind Senator Hatch that I could never make the switch without a complete 180 on their behalf.

2. Seniority. Senator Hatch beats this drum, and it's a legitimate claim.  Assuming the Republicans gain control of the Senate (a very real possibility) he'd be chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, while Senator Chaffetz would be a junior Senator and member of some randomly picked committee.  You know who would be chair of the Senate Finance Committee if he was defeated?  Olympia Snowe.  You may feel that Sen. Hatch is too liberal, but you don't know the meaning of the word if you think he'd be worse there than Sen. Snowe.  Not that she's a bad person, just that if you care about the makeup of the people who hold the pursestrings to the nation, you may want to reconsider who you're supporting.

The Utah State Republican Convention

I was going to do something using Cover It Live for the convention, but because the iPad doesn't do multitasking like computers do, I decided against it. I'll do this instead, updating as I go.

9:45 am. The convention is about to convene and if I were a betting man, I'd say Bob Bennett is a dead man walking. I like him a lot and think he's a good man, but he's fighting against a lot today.

10:15 am. We had the prayer and pledge, and I love how interesting it is to hear prayers from other religions.

10:20 am. I'll post a picture later, but the Cherilyn Eager shirt is the nail in the coffin for me. The tag says "made in the USA because it matters." Ugh.

10:25 am. And here comes the annual delegate challenge from people who don't like what we do and how we do it. When will they stop? Fact is the party is fine with it and so are the delegates.

10:27 am. Chairman Dave Hansen just shut down the annual debater on automatic delegates in a way that was just stupendous. Thanks so much for doing it how you did. I've never seen it handled so well.

10:35 am. I have to say that I am again impressed by Chairman Hansen. He has done the best job of running a convention of anybody I've ever seen. He just diffused the usual acrimony and booing that would happen after the mudslinging fiesta we've had in this Senate race.

10:45 am. I don't think that Bridgewater's speech is doing him any favors. He's got some clap lines, but nothing that makes me think "this guy has to be my Senator."

10:47 am. You can always count on some big applause when you rail on the UN.

10:50 am. Wow, Bennett just pulled Mitt Romney out of his pocket. I think that has to help him. I think that right now he's got higher poll numbers here than most deities.

10:54 am. I still don't see any way that Bennett will make it out of the convention. He's got too many people who are done with him here. Also, AT&T has terrible service here at the Salt Palace. I've got full bars but no connection.

11:00 am. Jeremy Friedbaum seems like a nice guy, but he's got too many religious references. It has made things a bit uncomfortable.

11:05 am. Friedbaum wants a Congressional power grab from the Supreme Court. Whether his ideas are good or not, that's a bad idea. The last thing we need is more Congressional power.

11:15 am. Perennial candidate Merrill Cook is speaking and he's got to be the Don Quixote of Utah because he's going to go out on the first ballot. Nothing new here, move along. Although the interesting thing is he had somebody introduce him that nobody knew. Why was that guy up there?

11:20 am. David Chiu just compared Sarah Palin to Abraham. That is a huge dis on Abraham.

11:25 am. Mike Lee has the most interesting speaking cadence. He sounds like a storyteller a la Ken Burns, not a politician.

11:27 am. Based only on applause, I think that Mike Lee is going to win this thing in a walk. We will see what ballot it will be on. I don't think he's my first ballot candidate, but I think he is it for a majority of the people here.

11:32 am. Cherilyn Eager just told an amazingly pointless story about some kid with an unnatural desire to hold a globe.

11:33 am. And there's Eager's isolationist streak again. If it were up to here we would be back in the 30s with high tariffs and a useless League of Nations.

11:34 am. I might have misinterpreted this, but it seems like Eager just blamed Mexico for terrorism in the US. Near as I can tell there hasn't been a single terrorist attack perpetrated on our nation that has come from Mexico. She just sounds shrill to me.

12:09 pm. In other convention news, Bennett is beating Lee in the "best spread for the delegates." Lee was ahead this morning thanks to donuts and muffins, but the cookies, chips, and soda of Bennett's are putting him in the lead. He could win something today, even if it is something as ridiculous as the spread Sorro likes the most.

12:21 pm. Richard Martin is speaking and bringing up some good points, but nobody's really listening. I do feel bad for him in this regard. Being the first after balloting is a bad position to be in. I hear his criticisms, but he doesn't have any plan to fix it.

12:23 pm. "I've written 33 books" is not a good reason for me to vote for you for Governor.

12:24 pm. Neither is "Thomas Jefferson is my grandfather" or "my father was in World War II."

12:25 pm. Super Dell Schanze is up...this should be good

12:26 pm. Some other guy is speaking for him. I am seriously disappointed.

12:31 pm. Oh yeah, I remember this guy now. He's just repeated his promise from 2 years ago and said that Super Dell will also help us "4x" to "100x" our income.

12:33 pm. Back to serious candidates now. We've got Dan Oaks up.

12:37 pm. Oaks thinks that Utah being the best managed state in the US is not a good reason to keep Herbert in. I think that he knows he's in trouble.

12:40 pm. Governor Herbert is up and it's pretty much a foregone conclusion that he will win. The only way he won't is if he gets up and proceeds to go on a killing spree in front of the delegates.

12:54 pm. Rob Bishop is speaking and his speech is just rambling enough that you know he knows he's safe.

12:56 pm. Mike Ridgeway is up. As he is a perennial thorn in everyone's side, I'm curious to see what he says. For those who don't know, he is the kingpin behind the anti-automatic delegate movement.

12:59 pm. Ridgeway's original beef is with Rob Bishop. It seems like he has pulled that out to the entire party, saying that the corruption from the time when Bishop was chair is still here today and that we are under the thumb of a tyrannical group. Whether Bishop was a problem or not, I don't know. Nevertheless, it's interesting to hear his history.

1:15 pm. Nothing much to report from the second district candidates. Nevertheless, I just saw one of the most amazing beards I've ever seen.

1:29 pm. I know that Jason Chaffetz is the golden boy of the Utah Republican Party, but I'm still not a big fan.

1:34 pm. Chaffetz' standard sendoff just seems so trite and focus grouped.

1:35 pm. Mike Lee 28%. Bridgewater 26%. Bennett 25%. Eager 15%. Now we are going to see Eager's people switch to probably Bridgewater with maybe some Lee. I think that Bennett is done, but you never know.

1:53 pm. I think Mike Lee just committed political seppuku with his speech. He spent his time complaining about how he's been beat up, and he has. Unfortunately for him, he came off looking like a spoiled child. Bennett's been beat up the most and you haven't heard boo from him.

2:04 pm. Just hit 50% on my iPad battery. That's 5 hours of total bad connections and updates. Not bad Steve Jobs.

3:20 pm. Now I'm just waiting for results. Let's get this thing done so we don't run into the Jazz.

3:30 pm. Bridgewater 37%, Lee 36%, and Bennett with 26%. It is pandemonium here. I've never seen such a cheer rise up from the delegates. This is one discontented group!

Taxing the Little Man

Some Democrats have proposed taxing stock trading in order to help pay for all of the ridiculous spending plans that they have (health care, the original stimulus, another stimulus) and say that somehow individuals won't notice it because "...it’s very small, likely 0.25 percent of each trade." That warms the cockles of my heart...it's small, so I won't notice it!" While on my individual trades I may not notice, I will start seeing it when it hits the mutual funds in my 401(k) and when it hits the broader market and all my stocks go down as a result. Why is it a good idea for the government to get a piece of every transaction whether it's a gain or a loss on top of the extra 15% they take for every gain you have?

Another Reason Keith Olbermann Should Have Stuck with ESPN

If there is another person out there who drives the discussion into the gutter more than Olbermann, I'd like to know who they are. Any time that you label someone who makes a comparison that may be slightly out of bounds (at least in your opinion) as "one of the worst people in the world" perhaps you should toss yourself up there on the screen as well. On top of that, it takes a certain amount of hubris to lecture a former Supreme Court candidate on law when you yourself are a former sportscaster and current full-time blowhard. How could this have been different if, instead of doing a drive by defaming, Olbermann actually asked Elder Oaks for an interview where he could have had a civil conversation? Oh, that's right. Oaks would have been seen as the rational one, which would have completely ruined Olbermann's point. Take a look at Elder Oaks' clarifying comments below the MSNBC video:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Bailout for Construction

If the interpretation that Adam over at Time To Keep Score has of the cap and trade bill is accurate (and to be honest, I can totally see that happening), the market for secondary homes could well dry up.  In order to sell a home, especially older homes, you might have to get it up to a certain level or pay huge fines for being such an eco-unfriendly consumer.  Imagine what a boon this is to the HVAC industry as they would suddenly have a whole host of people trying to trade out their heating and air conditioning for models that are officially "good for the environment."  Add the additional taxes (either via an outright tax or through increased costs of goods to cover companies' costs) we'd certainly have to pay in order to cover the bill that the government would send out for this, and we can expect to have less money a year from this bill's passage than we do now. 
While I think about that, why do we have to buy these credits from the government?  Since when did they take over ownership of our lungs, or the air over the US, or whatever this is supposed to protect?

Medicall

I propose that new proposed universal health care that the US is going to try to adopt should be called Medicall because we'll all be getting it.  Besides that random point though is that Medicall doesn't make a whole lot of sense.  "By spending this money, we're going to be saving money!"  I suppose that if you buy a couple of candy bars now, you won't have to buy a cheeseburger in an hour, but that doesn't mean you'll be saving it.  With the unfunded Medicare benefit currently projecting at around $50 trillion, adding a lot of people to the rolls seems like the opposite of what we should be doing.  Dan Henninger had a great article about it in today's WSJ:

Whatever Medicaid's merits, this federal health-care program more than any other factor has put California and New York on the brink of fiscal catastrophe. I'd even call it scary.
Spending on health and welfare, largely under Medicaid, makes up one-third of California's budget of some $100 billion. In New York Gov. David Paterson's budget message, he notes that "New York spends more per capital ($2,283) on Medicaid than any other state in the country."
After 45 years, the health-care reform called Medicaid has crushed state budgets. A study by the National Governors Association said a decade ago that because of "new requirements" imposed by federal law -- meaning Congress -- "Medicaid has evolved into a program whose size, cost and significance are far beyond the original vision of its creators."

That being said, it does look like we're stepping back from it a little bit, but let's face it: this is no solution.  Until we get people to be more responsible for their own health, either through moving everybody's insurance to Geico (i.e. auto-insurance style where you pay higher and do it individually) or through a complete revamp of the whole third-party payer system, we're never going to start saving money on medical expenses.

Gird Your Loins

"Mark my words.  It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy."
-Joe Biden, October 19

"I would tell members of my family - and I have - I wouldn't go anywhere in confined places now. It's not going to Mexico, it's you're in a confined aircraft when one person sneezes it goes all the way through the aircraft. That's me. I would not be, at this point, if they had another way of transportation, suggesting they ride the subway. So from my perspective, what it relates to is mitigation.  If you're out in the middle of a field and someone sneezes, that's one thing. If you're in a closed aircraft or a closed container, a closed car, a closed classroom, it's a different thing."

-Joe Biden, April 30

Is Joe Biden himself the crisis he warned of?  If you can think of a better way of hurting the economy more, I'd like to see it.  People have been scared to death about the deadly swine flu, and now Vice President Biden tells everyone that they should freak out even more, despite President Obama saying the opposite the previous day.  He reminds me of some of the actors in World War I.  Despite all the leaders, on the whole, being decent human beings, a couple of stupid things said here and there led to an escalation of the conflict that directly killed 9 million people and indirectly killed countless others.

Slip of the tongue

I was talking with one of my political friends today and she was talking about the latest economic proposals and she said "with the latest proposals from Obamanous..." which got me wondering why that hadn't caught on yet.
It's a nice play on words, even though I really hope that he can turn it around. His current poliies don't give me a lot of hope, but it would be good for everyone if be succeeded.

Presidential Fluffery

I still think that we should give President Obama the benefit of the doubt in general, but he is making it hard.  From his relatively inept (shall we say Bushian) handling of the stimulus bill and bailout to his righteous furor over what Wall Street is doing and kowtowing to labor unions, he's not looking like an FDR or Reagan at this point in time.  That could change of course, but who knows what the next several years will bring. 
One thing I do know is that the President isn't too busy to sit down with ESPN and dissect his bracket.  By all means, be angry about what AIG is giving its employees with some of the bailout money you provided, but if you are going to employ your bully pulpet in that manner, you might want to pull the beam from your eye first.  Mr. Obama's supposed to be making sure that the taxpayer doesn't get shafted from the trillions in bailout money flowing through the system, so it seems like a better use of that interview with ESPN might have been to get on the horn with James Dimon or somebody from Treasury and figure out what's going on today. 
I agree completely that he should be able to relax and enjoy himself, but he's doing precisely what AIG is doing - being an idiot about the use of his time.  He opens himself up to a whole host of attacks because in this time of want and woe, the last thing the American people want to see is a Commander in Chief who is rolling up his sleeves...to fill out his NCAA bracket.  By all means, fill it out, have fun, enjoy yourself - but don't do it in public while unemployment is worse than it's been in over a decade. 

Illegals Must Be On The Rise

...or maybe Nancy Pelosi is counting everybody in North America, because otherwise this number doesn't make any sense at all. Of course, 200 million illegals would mean that for every 3 US citizens we have 2 illegals, but I'm trying to get the math here. That aside, isn't it just blatant fear-mongering to assume that if we don't pass the stimulus, every man, woman, and child in the country will be out of a job? I know that things aren't great, but they're not that bad.

The Stupidity of Compensation Caps

The Wall Street Journal has done a great job covering the ongoing evolution of TARP, from its genesis at the collapse of Lehman Brothers up to and including today.  What I find amazing is how the government decided that it is now in their best interest and within their power to put in place whatever caps they deem fit for companies.  There is the much publicized $500,000 salary cap for executive pay for companies who take any additional TARP funds, but there are also revelations like the Treasury doing everything they could to force Bank of America to take on Merrill Lynch, regardless of Merrill's financial health. 
Then there's also the hand wringing about Citigroup's jet, BofA's fleet, Citi Field, apartments, junkets for high performers, and so on.  While I agree that some of these things are superfluous, some are necessary for their business.  Take AIG, the (now) government owned insurance and lending giant.  We hear about junket this and business trip that, and how can they afford to do that, they've lost billions.  Yes, they have lost a lot.  At the same time, the units that had these lavish parties - American General insurance, ILFC (a major aircraft lessor) - are units that are very profitable.  If that's the case, is the cost of these junkets really that big of a deal?  If the executives of these units feel that there is a good return on investment as a result of this (and knowing a thing or two about ILFC's chief Steven Udvar-Hazy, there is), shouldn't the government do what any good shareholder would do - shut up and let the managers manage? 
Ultimately, the way these bailout stakes are structured is as investments - ownership of large blocks of stock.  The #1 rule of stock ownership is to not write a letter to the CEO of the company you own every time something happens.  If you don't like the job that the CEO is doing, you get enough votes together to have enough board sway to replace the CEO.  That won't happen under the current structure in part because from the sound of things, nobody wants to have the government up in their business.  These leaders would be happier without the TARP money and are trying to get it paid back as soon as possible so they can take off the handcuffs and get back to doing business the way it should be done, rather than as a bloated, incompetent bureaucracy says it should.
Let's put this another way: who should we trust, people who year after year are trained to maximize profits and thus shareholder return in order to increase their company's share price, market cap, and market share...or people who continue to put money into a half a million dollar outhouse in Pennsylvania or the $650 toilet seat?

Stay Classy, Washington DC!

I didn't get an opportunity to see the inauguration of President Barack Obama, but I did hear of the proceedings.  What an amazing crowd - it's like nothing I've ever seen.  To have that many people come out for the swearing in of a new president is truly remarkable and a great thing for democracy.
That being said, I was disgusted by what I heard from The Hill:

The crowd packed on the west side of the Capitol grounds serenaded President Bush in mocking fashion when he took to the inaugural stage alongside Vice President Dick Cheney.
"Nah nah nah nah, hey hey, good-bye," a section of the crowd chanted.
The crowd packed immediately below the podium received Bush in stony silence when he took his seat on the stage surrounding the podium where Barack Obama was scheduled to take the oath office to become the 44th president of the United States.

I can see and am on board with the stony silence part.  I know that the vast majority of Americans have been unhappy with the Bush presidency, and I respect that.  At the same time, can you please keep your mocking glee to yourself?  I have been subjected to classless act after classless act from the winners of the last election for over two months now, from resident MSNBC liberal harpy Rachel Maddow's "Lame Duck Watch" to crowds that can't wait to humiliate George W. Bush wherever he goes.  He's as fortunate that he's leaving as the rest of the country is.  I appreciate his service, even though I don't agree with everything that he's done during his presidency.  The bottom line is that we deserve who we elect, we elected him, and we are as much a problem as he has been.  I really hope that we will treat President Obama differently.  Let's not leave his presidency with the US looking like the proverbial National Mall after his inauguration celebration yesterday.

In Honor of the Inauguration

Barack is very disappointed with me!


I only scored 20 on the Obama Test

I'm already on the bad side of the President.  That may not be so good, with him just getting inagurated.

The Fightin' Third

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Better Know a District - Utah's 3rd - Jason Chaffetz

Colbert at Christmas
Colbert Christmas DVD

Green Screen
Bill O'Reilly Interview

Who's The Hater?

It seems like the Prop 8 fallout is just beginning to be felt, not just by the LDS church, but by the entire state of Utah. The Deseret News had an article yesterday that is a bit alarming. I can certainly see targeting the LDS Church with protests and civil dialogue, but instead they're the very haters that they proclaim the church to be. They're taking action against Utah because of our 60%+ Mormon population, against LDS publications because they have LDS news and information, and possibly at the very least a hoax set up to look like anthrax against LDS sites.
I respect their right to protest, their right to not patronize Utah (although that's misguided - the Commonwealth of Park City is hardly Mormon), and their right to free speech. Where it crosses the line is in attacks like defacing websites and mailings designed to at least threaten, if not harm, people. What are you doing, protesters? You're hardening opposition to your position. By attacking the LDS Church and its members (and not, say the Catholic Church - they were pro Prop 8 as well), you're feeding something that has always been a part of Mormon culture - the us vs. them mentality. We have been, for better or worse, one of the most virulently opposed religions in US history. Our ancestors were run from New York to Ohio to Missouri to Illinois to Utah by angry mobs that took everything from those early Mormons, up to and including their lives. (That's not to say that atrocities didn't happen on both sides, but by and large they were committed against Mormons, not by them.) They caused some of their problems, but again that level of intolerance with a specific targeted group fueled the culture you see today. While things have been improving for quite some time, this Prop 8 battle threatens to blow it back up again. You may feel victimized by Mormons, and that's a fair feeling. I don't fault you for it at all. What I would recommend doing though is taking your grievances through a civil political process as Dale Carpenter says over at Volokh. That will change the dialogue and show you to be bigger than you're being right now. What happened to acting in a civilized, adult manner?

Something to Chew On

From today's WSJ:

The treatment President Bush has received from this country is nothing less than a disgrace. The attacks launched against him have been cruel and slanderous, proving to the world what little character and resolve we have. The president is not to blame for all these problems. He never lost faith in America or her people, and has tried his hardest to continue leading our nation during a very difficult time.

Our failure to stand by the one person who continued to stand by us has not gone unnoticed by our enemies. It has shown to the world how disloyal we can be when our president needed loyalty -- a shameful display of arrogance and weakness that will haunt this nation long after Mr. Bush has left the White House.

I couldn't agree more. To conservatives out there, I urge you to avoid bushing President Obama. To liberals, I ask that you avoid the urge to gloat. Celebrate, certainly. But let's get down to the business of making this nation a better place.