Costs of Obama’s Keystone Pipeline screwup are mounting
President Obama’s failure to approve the Keystone Pipeline was dumb on almost every level. It cost the country in energy security and jobs, with zero gain: the oil will be sold regardless. He managed to make everyone unhappy except hard-core environmentalists.
Now we see how the lack … Read More »
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More climate-change pratfalls
All that ice in the Himalayas that was supposed to be vanishing because of climate change? Never mind. The Guardian reports that a recent study found no such loss.
From the story: “The world’s greatest snow-capped peaks, which run in a chain from the Himalayas to Tian … Read More »
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Why not convert the Sunflower plant to gas?
The $2.8 billion Sunflower power plant proposed for Holcomb, Kan., has been held up for years by controversy. Tuesday, a federal judge in Washington ordered another delay to allow time for completion of an environmental impact statement.
Why not convert the proposed coal-fired plant to natural gas? Thanks to the … Read More »
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Tax break shows need for real Social Security reform
Good politics — what helps get you elected — is frequently bad policy. The latest example is the payroll-tax “holiday,” which will expire in about three weeks unless Congress acts.
Lawmakers shaved 2 percentage points off the payroll tax, reducing the annual tax bill of a typical worker by … Read More »
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Jobless report boosts Obama’s prospects, but economy could fade later in year
The government reported an excellent job-creation number this morning — 243,000 new jobs for January. The champaign corks were no doubt popping in the White House. I certainly liked watching the market zoom up in reaction, but it pays to remember that unemployment is a lagging indicator.
The leading indicators … Read More »
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Income inequality plummets
If you worry about income inequality (I don’t) then you could call this the upside of an economy seemingly stuck on the downside. Income inequality has plummeted, thanks to the great recession, which hammered major sources of income for the rich, namely capital-gains realizations.
Don’t think diminished inequality this will … Read More »
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An absurd charade on corporate taxes
I read President Obama’s State of the Union address last week. It started out in the usual way but on page 2 I perked up. This was right after the part where he talked about Master Lock and bringing jobs back to the United States.
He said to businessmen: … Read More »
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GDP report bodes ill for Obama re-elect
Today’s report on fourth-quarter GDP was a disappointment. The consensus estimate was for a real growth rate of 3.2 percent but the number came in at 2.8. Worse, the average for the entire year was a lackluster 1.7 percent, too sluggish to bring down the jobless rate quickly and a … Read More »
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A damning report on KC red-light cams
It’s now a lot tougher for advocates of red-light cameras to argue that they reduce crashes. A recent Kansas City police report showed the opposite: Wrecks increased at intersections with red-light cams. For the city as a whole, wrecks decreased. The only kind of crash that decreased was right-angle collisions.
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Breaking out of the ATA straitjacket
Two decades ago, a consultant said Kansas City’s local bus system was locked in a “cycle of failure,” with rising costs leading to higher fares and falling ridership, leading to another round of rising costs. The latest turn of the cycle came last week: The city of Independence fired the … Read More »
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Obama’s idiotic pipeline decision
The White House is spinning President Obama’s boneheaded Keystone XL pipeline decision not as a “no never” but a “wait for the full review.” But that won’t wash. They’ve been studying this project for what — three years? What they’ve been studying is how to avoid angering a key part … Read More »
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More on Head Start
My recent post “Head Start is a waste of money” drew a rebuttal from Daniel Serda, who objected to my characterization of the program as a waste because any benefits largely vanished by 1st grade.
Serda offered quotes from the study, but they dealt only with benefits for 3- and … Read More »
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Unmoored Republicans lose by bashing capitalism
The symbol of the Republican Party is the elephant and in popular lore, the elephant never forgets. But this year, some key GOP figures forgot things they were supposed to know.
The late 1970s and early ‘80s, when the economy was ailing with stagflation, was a time of intellectual … Read More »
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Head Start is a waste of money
The news here isn’t so much that Head Start is yet another ineffective, feel-good liberal program. For years, the rap on Head Start has been that any benefits are short-lived. The news is that liberals, in this case Joe Klein of Time, are admitting it.
Time’s Joe Klein I posted the other day about the Republican yard signs sprouting all over New Hampshire, even in Prius-filled purple neighborhoods — a bad portent for President Obama. Here’s another: 40 percent of New Hampshire voters in exit polls Tuesday said they were “angry” about Obama’s policies, with the same …
Read More »
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More worrisome portents for Obama