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President Obama has had some trouble with a policy that would require employers to provide health insurance covering birth control. Some religious institutions have felt that this restricts their freedom of religion. That question could be argued both ways. Ultimately, the president settled for a “compromise” that requires employers to provide health insurance from insurance companies that will cover birth control for free.

Greg Mankiw points out what should be obvious: there is no difference between the two policies.

A. An employer is required to provide its employees health insurance that covers birth control.

B. An employer is required to provide its employees health insurance.  The health insurance company is required to cover birth control.

I can understand someone endorsing both A and B, and I can understand someone rejecting both A and B.  But I cannot understand someone rejecting A and embracing B, because they are effectively the same policy.  Ultimately, all insurance costs are passed on to the purchaser, so I cannot see how policy B is different in any way from policy A, other than using slightly different words to describe it.

I see silliness on both sides of the debate. On the one hand, it’s not exactly unthinkable to get birth control without having it on your insurance policy. In many forms, it’s not even expensive. On the other hand, you are not forced to use it just because it’s included in your policy. If your religous beliefs tells you that birth control is immoral, don’t use it!

I don’t quite see why this should be a federal issue in the first place.

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Andra intressanta bloggar om: politik, usa, obama, preventivmedel, sjukvård

Ett par lästips sent på fredagskvällen:

Mathias Sundin har en utmärkt genomgång av vad som krävs för att bli republikansk presidentkandidat. Rekommenderas varmt.

Merit Wager kontrasterar vad som krävs för att bli polis i Sverige och Finland. Det finns saker att lära av våra vänner i öst.

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Andra intressanta bloggar om: politik, usa, sverige, finland, polisen, republikanerna

There is pork, and there is rotten pork.

The Post analyzed public records on the holdings of all 535 members and compared them with earmarks members had sought for pet projects, most of them since 2008. The process uncovered appropriations for work in close proximity to commercial and residential real estate owned by the lawmakers or their family members. The review also found 16 lawmakers who sent tax dollars to companies, colleges or community programs where their spouses, children or parents work as salaried employees or serve on boards.

How about this?

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) secured a $900,000 earmark that was used to resurface about two dozen roads in Mississippi in 2010. One of those was LC Turner Circle, a quarter-mile residential loop in the small town of Bolton, where Thompson and his daughter own two homes.

Or this?

Two years later, Hastings himself sought an earmark for a project near property he was selling to his brother. In 2009, he secured $750,000 toward the planning of a new bridge that will replace an outdated railroad underpass in Pasco, Wash.

As Congress required, Hastings certified that he and his wife had “no financial interest” in the earmark. Hastings noted on his Web site that the project would “improve the safety of motorists and pedestrians, while improving freight mobility and response times for emergency services.”

He said nothing, however, about its proximity to Columbia Basin Paper & Supply, the janitorial supply company that Hastings owned and ran until he was elected. His brother now operates the company. County records show Hastings and his wife still own the land and a 7,000-square-foot building. The overpass, as planned, will start about three blocks away.

There is more at the Washington Post, who should be commended for a journalistic job well done.

You can call it corruption, stealing, or whatever you like. A thief dressed in fancy clothes is still a thief. Voters should take note, and remove these people from Washington.

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HT: Russ Roberts
Andra intressanta bloggar om: politik, usa, korruption, journalistik, politikerförakt

Whether you believe that government plays too big a role in society, or too small, we should be able to agree that it is better for taxes to be collected in a way that causes as little economic harm as possible. Many things can be said about the American tax code, but not that it is a pinnacle of efficiency.

Harvard economist, and adviser to Mitt Romney, Greg Mankiw lays out some ideas for tax reform that most people should be able to agree on. They follow four basic principles:

1. Broaden the base and lower the rates
2. Tax consumption rather than income
3. Tax bads rather than goods
4. Keep it simple, stupid

Why isn’t this done? Individually, a lot of the specific policies currently in place enjoy substantial political support, and although we would be better off with an overhaul it is too tempting for politicians to cherry pick individual deviations that could win them votes. Perhaps this problem is made bigger by the type of electoral system that the U.S. employs for Congress.

Sweden reformed its tax system in the early 90:s, largely following those principles. Of course, since then, complexity has grown again, as individual policies change the code without paying sufficient attention to their impact on taxation as a whole.

2012 is probably not the best year to attempt something like this in the U.S., but hopefully efforts can be made after the presidential election.

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Andra intressanta bloggar om: politik, ekonomi, usa, skatter

Newt Gingrich’s strong South Carolina victory provides little reason for Republicans to celebrate. To some extent because the former Speaker, would he go on to win the nomination, is nearly unelectable. His temper is not to his advantage, and he carries enough baggage to resemble a donkey, in spite of his party affiliation.

However, it remains relatively unlikely that he will end up on top. The markets give him a 29% chance, considerably up from before the South Carolina win, but still far behind Mitt Romney, who sits at 64%. What Mr Gingrich’s victory did show, is that Mr Romney is not as strong as he has appeared. His performance in the CNN debate leading up to his loss was sub-par, and the exit polls suggest that he lost a significant number of voters there. The Obama team is surely paying attention.

Mr Romney is currently behind Mr Gingrich in the Florida polls. He needs something to break the trend. Since his loss, he has dropped to having a 28% chance at the presidency, down from well above 40%.

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Andra intressanta bloggar om: politik, usa, republikanerna

Ron Paul gjorde bättre ifrån sig än väntat i New Hampshire, där han drog ihop hela 23% av rösterna. Visserligen var han 16 procentenheter efter Mitt Romney, men trots det ett väldigt starkt resultat. Ändå håller jag fast vid att Paul är chanslös. De republikanska väljarna kommer inte att utse någon som ligger så långt ifrån partiets mittpunkt till sin presidentkandidat.

Det innebär dock inte att Pauls framgångar är betydelselösa. Så länge han hänger med i racet kommer han att få ta plats i debatterna, och därigenom flytta både partiets väljare och övriga kandidater närmare sig. Det tror jag kommer att vara nyttigt.

Personligen finner jag förstås en hel del tilltalande i Paul, men jag skulle inte vilja se honom som president. Jämfört med den politik som förts under lång tid sticker han ut — förvisso i en riktning som jag ofta sympatiserar med — men för rollen som president är han alltför radikal. Dels skulle han ha svårt att hantera kongressen, men framför allt medför raska förändringar både turbulens och oförutsedda konsekvenser. Jag skulle föredra någon som både ville ha en långsammare förändringstakt, och någon som besitter ett mer empiriskt förhållningssätt till politik.

För att understryka hur ojämnt det republikanska primärvalet är, ger marknaden just nu Mitt Romney drygt 86% chans att vinna. Ron Paul ligger på knappt 4%.

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Andra intressanta bloggar om: politik, usa, republikanerna

The weekend ended with two debates in New Hampshire, among the Republican hopefuls. The election is held tomorrow, and while I did not pay full attention to the debates, I’ll share some quick thoughts.

- Front runner Mitt Romney came out more or less unharmed. While the other candidates directed more attacks at him than they have before, nothing seriously hurt him.

- Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul and Rick Perry were what they usually are. I don’t think either debate will affect their fortunes.

- Rick Santorum failed to make full use of his momentum coming out of Iowa. He got considerably more time than in the pre-Iowa debates, but weren’t able to convert it to votes. Presumably, he’ll be disappointed, although South Carolina, and perhaps Florida, will determine whether he’ll be able to remain competitive.

- Jon Huntsman went after the independent vote, with some success. He was sharper than he has been earlier. Still, it will be difficult for him to ride on what will at most be a moderate success, going forward. Personally, I find this unfortunate.

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Andra intressanta bloggar om: politik, usa, republikanerna

Whether Rick Santorum will follow in Mike Huckabee’s footsteps as a one hit Iowa wonder, or can stay in the game for the long run remains to be seen. But who is he?

David Brooks paints a relatively positive picture in the New York Times, albeit not without critizism.

Santorum is the grandson of a coal miner and the son of an Italian immigrant. For years, he represented the steel towns of western Pennsylvania. He has spent the last year scorned by the news media — working relentlessly, riding around in a pickup truck to more than 370 towns. He tells that story of hard work and elite disrespect with great fervor at his meetings.

His worldview is not individualistic. His book, “It Takes a Family,” was infused with the conservative wing of Catholic social teaching. It was a broadside against Barry Goldwater-style conservatism in favor of one that emphasized family and social solidarity. While in Congress, he was a leader in nearly every serious piece of antipoverty legislation. On the stump, he cries, “The left has a religion, too. It’s just not based on the Bible. It’s based on the religion of self.”

Peter Suderman of Reason Magazine has less good to say.

Is there any candidate in the GOP race less invested in freedom, and the idea that individuals are better equipped than government to make decisions about their lives, than Rick Santorum? He’s for freedom, except for the freedom of same-sex couples to get married. He’s for freedom, except when state governments want to enforce sweeping bans on types of private sexual activity between consenting adults. He believes that government doesn’t do things better than we do for ourselves, except for “allocating spending” through pork-barrel earmark projects, and funding religious organizations to do social work, and spending hundreds of millions of federal dollars to promote the benefits of the same state-sponsored marriage that he’s worked so hard to deny to gays. He wants to avoid government-driven, top-down policy solutions—except when he votes to pass a brand new prescription drug benefit without paying for it. He’s a freedom fighter, sure. By which I mean he seems to spend a lot of time fighting against freedom.

Personally, I find few reasons to like Mr Santorum. His views correlate strongly with those of his beloved Catholic Church, and crucially, he does not refrain from letting them infuse his views on policy in a manner that leaves freedom in the back seat. On issues like gay marriage and the privacy of the bedroom he is flat out wrong.

And his economic policies are not much better, suggesting an unhealthy mix of active government, corporate welfare and misguided nationalism. Mr Santorum brings together the two parts of the Republican party that I dislike.

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Andra intressanta bloggar om: politik, republikanerna, usa, santorum

Valet i Iowa blev jämnt, rentav jämnare än väntat. Och även om Romney är den egentliga vinnaren är nog ingen mer nöjd än Rick Santorum. Inte nog med att han kommer att lyfta genom sitt starka resultat; ex-senatorns främsta konkurrenter till rollen som främste utmanare gjorde dåligt ifrån sig, och det är rätt troligt att de nu stegvis försvinner från rampljuset.

Rick Perry drar sig tillbaka till Texas för att fundera över framtiden. Rimligen drar han sig tillbaka. Michele Bachmann är fortsatt irrelevant, och när de socialkonservativa nu har en kandidat att samlas kring försvinner den lilla chans hon hade till en comeback. Newt Gingrich verkar gnällig, och jag tror knappast att han tjänar på att den buffliga sidan kommer fram.

Ron Paul då? Hans resultat är givetvis starkt, och han kommer att fortsätta att påverka debatten, men trots allt sticker han ut för långt från den republikanska mittfåran för att han någon chans på nomineringen.

I likhet med Mattias Sundin tror jag inte heller att Santorum kan rubba Romney i förlängningen, men han har definitivt tagit sig en bra bit på vägen mot att få detta att handla om två personer. Beroende på hur debatten utvecklar sig under de närmaste månaderna tror jag fortfarande att han är fullt tänkbar som parhäst till Romney i presidentvalet.

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Andra intressanta bloggar om: politik, republikanerna, usa

Johan Ingerö har presterat en lättsam, men träffsäker, genomgång av de republikanska presidentkandidaterna. Romney beskrivs som Reinfeldt och Borg i ett, och Newt Gingrich som en amerikansk Håkan Juholt. Imorgon sätter det igång i Iowa, där den socialkonservative Rick Santorum seglat upp på sistone. Honom beskriver Ingerö så här:

1. Djupt moralkonservativ ex-senator från Pennsylvania som, av i detta sammanhang onämnbara skäl, avskyr att bli googlad.
2. Har haft tråkigt sedan 2006, då han förlorade sin senatsplats i det årets republikanska katastrofval.
3. Tattletale. Santorum ger ofta ett gnälligt intryck, inte minst när han anklagar sina konkurrenter för att inte leva upp till hans moralkonservativa ideal.
4. Tuve Skånberg, kristdemokraten som vänstern använder för att skrämma sina barn med.
5. Uppskattas av de väljare som fokuserar på under bältet-frågor. De är dock inte tillräckligt många för att vinna val. Santorum är helt enkelt för moralkonservativ.

Politiskt stämmer det bra, men i sin framtoning påminner han mer om en “born-again”-version av Mitt Romney, än en radikal pingstpastor. Visserligen tror jag att även han kommer att falla tillbaka när han hamnar mer i rampljuset, men han väcker inte samma motvilja som Gingrich, och framstår inte heller som lika oresonlig som Bachman. Givet att Romney till slut blir nominerad, är han inte otänkbar som aspirant på posten som vice-president.

I Iowa lär det fortsätta att vara ovisst in i det sista. Notera att Romney, som leder, ligger sämre till i delstaten än han gjorde 2008 (23% mot 25%). Det året hamnade han ändå tio procentenheter efter Mike Huckabee.

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Andra intressanta bloggar om: politik, usa, republikanerna