65 Million Dollar Hole Appears in New Hampshire’s DHHS Budget – Unexpetedly

Medicaid expansion is a trapThe New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services is reporting a $65 million dollar hole in its budget. The only people who didn’t see this coming were lawmakers who supported and expanded Medicaid and DHHS. Everyone else, you, me, us, knew that this expansion would create costs that would threaten the New Hampshire advantage of no sales or income tax.

Welcome to the real world.

Most of the overspending comes in three key areas. The state spent $24 million more than budgeted because of unanticipated increases in the rates paid to the companies that manage the state’s traditional Medicaid program for more than 100,000 qualified lowincome households.

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Economic Moron: Philly Mayor Jim Kenney

Bloomberg soda ban blocked
“I have to go back for the Burrito”

When you lay down policies that would have adverse results on a given business, Democrat politicians get upset when it’s shown that these same Democrats:

  • Keep failing the Law of Unintended Consequences
  • Can’t do math
  • Don’t understand that almost all businesses are going to act in their own self-interest.

So, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney was all aflitter about “saving his city’s citizens” from the most WORST plague imaginable:

Soda

Pop, Fizzies.  Or, as they used to say when I was growing up – tonic. Yep, after solving all of his city’s problems of great import, he decided that he had to save them all from themselves. Regardless of whether they thought that they “needed” to be saved.  Once again, the Progressive “tell” of “You don’t need that.” From Reason the sad tale of “I will social engineer you to make you better”:

Philly Mayor Blames ‘Price Gouging’ for Outrage Generated by City’s New Soda Tax
Businesses are passing along the cost of the tax to consumers, because that’s how taxes work. Someone get Jim Kenney an economics textbook.

After driving up the cost of soda and other sugary drinks with a new tax, the mayor of Philadelphia is now trying to blame businesses for charging higher prices (and for the outrage those prices have generated).

Funny, I thought he was elected to run the city – not their lives.  But that’s what Progressivism is.

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“Money for nothing and your chicks for fee”

MoneyTreeWhat I don’t get about Socialists / Progressives is that they hold two beliefs at the same time:

  1. We can give anything we want to everyone.  Because we have the ability
  2. Economics is a zero sum game and there’s not enough for everyone.

Must be hard going though life stupid.  And then vicious when they want to fulfill #1 and run into #2.  Dan Mitchell, an economics guy that I have quoted from time to time (note: must do more often) has this to say that they are going to get worse: The Left’s Siren Song of Coerced Equality (reformatted, emphasis mine):

Traditionally, folks on the left favored a conventional welfare state, which revolved around two components.

  1. Means-tested programs for the ostensible purpose of alleviating poverty (e.g.., Medicaid, food stamps, welfare, etc).
  2. Social-insurance programs for the ostensible purpose of alleviating sickness, unemployment, and aging (e.g., Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, etc).

This agenda was always a bad idea for both macro and micro reasons, and has become a very bad idea because of demographic changes [i.e., fewer workers to support those not working -Skip]But now the left has expanded its goals to policies that are far more radical. Instead of a well-meaning (albeit misguided) desire to protect people from risk, they now want coerced equality. And this agenda also has two components:

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Trump Thrives off Media Hostility

It’s going to be a fun few years.

Trump thrives off of media hostility, and the more hostile — and the less defensible — the better. It allows him to portray himself as the victim of a stilted establishment. It fires up his supporters. It keeps the debate on terrain that is familiar and favorable to him — whether or not he is being treated “fairly” — and allows him to adopt his ­preferred posture as a “counterpuncher.”

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Great Ideas to FIX Washington DC

youhavetofixitA commenter over at The Deplorable Climate Science Blog offered a well thought out list of changes for Federal agencies after January 20th. This suggested shakeup would re-focus the responsibilities of many agencies move others under different departments, and eliminate others. It’s so brilliant I’m sharing the entire comment with you.

GeologyJim
January 11, 2017 at 5:26 am

A couple of thoughts about the coming Trump administration –

Sec. Commerce candidate Wilbur Ross should announce on Day One that NOAA has nothing to do with the mission of Commerce (economic development) and will be abolished. Data collection activities shall be transferred to Dept Interior.

Ross should further announce that the Coast Guard has nothing to do with the mission of Commerce and that activities related to coastal security (only) shall be transferred to Dept of Defense – the rest of activities to be abolished.

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The Definition of Insanity – New Hampshire Style

Deep in the bowels of the New Hampshire State Constitution is a word, one single word, that the activist NH State Supreme Court used to try and impose a broad-based tax on its citizens – because the NH Legislature will not do it. God Bless our citizen legislature.

Behold the word “cherish.”

Cherish is the word the NH Supra used back in the early 90’s as an excuse to change education funding from a local obligation to a state-controlled spending machine. Many other states were in the process of pulling off this same scheme at the time. Apparently, our State Supreme Court, you know the one tangled in impeachment hearings for inside dealing a few years later, could not pass up the opportunity to follow what liberal, activist state courts were doing elsewhere.

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When They Came for Fox, Where Was CNN?

Neil Cavuto calls out CNN in a righteous throw down. And he is totally right. Where was CNN when Fox was getting hammered for the last 8 years by the delusional, self-absorbed, petulant, petty pansy who polluted the Oval Office? Nowhere. The prigs were mocking and joining in. Now it’s different, isn’t it? And I’m … Read more

FBI: Fake Backstabbing Investigations

The current national narrative, usually as fake as any national news lead, is that we have problems with the FBI. Imagine discovering that the FBI was involved in politics, not doing its job of investigating crime and violations of the specific laws under its purview. But wait! I am old enough to remember Watergate. And … Read more

Here is the EPITOME of Democrat view of small business. Progressive empathy and “listening” on full parade

As I’ve said before, TMEW and I owned a small business – one that was HIGHLY regulated: a daycare center.  We KNOW regulations, good, meh, and “are you freaking serious?” And we were beseeched on all sides by all kinds of “regulators” that absolutely were convinced that they knew what was best for our business – but it didn’t matter how much money, time, or aggrevation it would have cost as they never had to bear the consequences of their actions on us.

For me, Bernie Sanders epitomizes how the Left views small businesses.  How is their attention span or internal worldview of them any different than the feudal aristocracy’s of the emerging merchant class back in the Middle Ages?

“The cultural chasm between the left and middle America extends beyond that to the left and their total lack of understanding of what it means to run a business — particularly a small business — in this country. The video exchange below between Bernie Sanders and a small business owner is eye opening. It’s only about 2-1/2 minutes long so watch it all.

The man begins by saying he’s a small business owner and says Obama’s regulations and taxes are like “getting kicked in the teeth.” He asks why Obama is so against the business owner.”

This is exactly why

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In 9 days, the Obama gaslighting will stop

I am SO sick of this guy constantly being the Antagonizer-in-Chief.  At almost each and every turn, in almost every speech and interview, he just seems to delight in putting the shiv in and twisting it just that much more.  Thankfully, the straw(man) season is just about over and we won’t have to listen to this stuff again (at least as President):

But we’re not where we need to be. All of us have more work to do. After all, if every economic issue is framed as a struggle between a hardworking white middle class and undeserving minorities, then workers of all shades will be left fighting for scraps while the wealthy withdraw further into their private enclaves.

Either:

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Yeah, a lot of us on the Right are with this lady

Last Movie

If the Hollywood set wants to churn out movies that make sport of my interests (“Miss Sloane”), campaign for someone (Hillary) that stands for NOTHING that I believe in, and then decides to browbeat me simply because my political outlook does not match mine, that their “patting ourselves on the back” celebrations become Leftist political rallies, I can only have one reaction.

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A definition of Trumpism?

Prof. Victor Davis Hanson, one of my favorite authors to read, has a piece over at The Corner where he tries to get a handle on what Trumpism, the political philosophy, might be.  I think that a lot on the Right, even as we might wish a more rigorous system, can agree on it without saying “am I being a sellout to orthodox Conservativism”?  Read the whole thing but here a few of the paragraphs / pull quotes that caught my eye (reformatted, emphasis mine):

What Exactly Is Trumpism?

…The Republican Washington–to–New York establishment is alienated by Trump. It finds his behavior reckless and his ideology unpredictable…That he has now brought them more opportunity for conservative political change than any Republican candidate in a century only adds insult to their sense of injury.…there are no Trump political philosophers

Nonetheless, from the 2016 campaign and from President-elect Trump’s slated appointments, past interviews, and tweets, we can see a coherent worldview emerging, something different from both orthodox conservativism and liberalism, though certainly Trumpism is far closer to the former than to the latter…

Tradition

Trumpism promotes traditionalism. Trump showcases “Merry Christmas!” because his parents did. He believes in dressing formally and being addressed as Mr. Trump. And he insists that his children be well-behaved and polite.

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“Standing” Room Only – Abortion Buffer Zone Appeal Denied

bufferzone
You don’t see these in NH because so far our buffer zone law has gone unenforced

An appeals court has upheld a state law from 2014 that creates a 25-foot buffer zone around New Hampshire Abortion clinics, but only because it has never been applied or enforced. Interesting.

Democrats write and pass a law nearly identical to one in Massachusetts thrown out by the US Supreme Court for violating the first amendment. A judge immediately prohibits enforcement of the New Hampshire law pending the outcome of a legal challenge.

But if no one has been “harmed” or has standing the court won’t rule on the constitutionality so a law we’ve never used can’t be overturned.

Have I got that right, so far?

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Morale: just believe that government workers think lying is good?

“The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small,but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified.”  – President Obama, Inauguration (2009)

And as government gets bigger and tries to do more and more, it works less well at all of it.  You can thank Progressives for that.  This, however, just beggers the imagination – seriously, govt workers have to be taught that lying is bad???? Emphasis mine:

Orange County: government workers were not on clear notice not to lie in court, falsify evidence

“Using taxpayer funds, government officials in Orange County have spent the last 16 years arguing the most absurd legal proposition in the entire nation: How could social workers have known it was wrong to lie, falsify records and hide exculpatory evidence in 2000 so that a judge would forcibly take two young daughters from their mother for six-and-a-half years?

Lying is wrong.  Period.  Full stop.  Bad, bad, bad.  But seriously, after hearing for years that govt workers are smarter, more sophisticated, and just plain better than most of us in the private sector.  While one anecdote can prove little, this is telling me that government workers ARE better at something – being immoral.  Think about it – when is lying moral (especially in a courtroom)?

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Sen. Hassan Cites Fake News Story in Confirmation Hearing

Making her Senatorial debut in the DHS confirmation hearing, Senator Hassan cited her deep concern about the Russians hacking the Vermont power grid as the Washington Post reported a few weeks back.  She evidently didn’t get the update that the story was totally debunked and eventually retracted (fake news strikes again!).  Fortunately for Maggs, General … Read more

On the Left No Point Of Reference But Prejudice – Revisited

Back on Nov. 15th, 2013 I responded to a racist screed by Richard Cohen. By that, I mean, he was accusing people who don’t think like him of being racist, even though he probably doesn’t know anyone who doesn’t think like him and therefore has no context. On the Left No Point Of Reference But … Read more

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