THE WINGNUT EXPLAINS

"Our undercover conservative answers a tough question: If socialized medicine is so awful, how come no country that's adopted nationalized healthcare has ever gotten rid of it?"

"It's a bit perverse," the American think tank director added, "but if the system treated everyone worse but didn't kill anyone, there would be a lot more pressure from voters seeking reform."

"The fact is that the system [nationalized healthcare] kills quite a lot of people -- but that's still only a tiny percentage of the overall population -- so it reduces the pool of people who are dissatisfied," she said.

Right. Dead people can’t vote no.

DOESN’T CONGRESS HAVE SOMETHING BETTER TO DO?

Good news! Responsible credit card users to subsidize deadbeats.

"Congress is moving to limit the penalties on riskier borrowers, who have become a prime source of billions of dollars in fee revenue for the industry. And to make up for lost income, the card companies are going after those people with sterling credit."

"Banks are expected to look at reviving annual fees, curtailing cash-back and other rewards programs and charging interest immediately on a purchase instead of allowing a grace period of weeks."

So now I’m going to get to pay the deadbeats’ credit card bills ....

For God’s sake, Congress, please stop helping. Take a vacation. Go on a junket. Watch Oprah. Just don’t vote.

OVERTAXED AND UNDERWORKED

The average state government worker makes $50,350. The average private sector worker makes $43,889.

And we wonder why taxes are too high?

ELECTION RECOMMENDATIONS

Found on Michelle Malkin’s comments page ...

Hangfire: “I think all of the U.S. House and Senate should wear NASCAR-type uniforms, with stickers and patches showing who their ‘sponsors’ are.”

b-cat: “That’s brilliant! Then we can reelect them based on brand loyalty, which is more to recommend them than we have now.”

Truesoldier: “I dont think there would be enough room.”

walterc: “But there’s all that room on the limos and airplanes for stickers also.”

The only thing I would add would be to insist that the stickers/patches have the contribution amounts prominently displayed.

MIND-NUMBINGLY STUPID

”With two of Detroit's Big Three automakers no longer able to resist, the Obama White House will announce sped-up fuel economy standards that will require all auto-makers, including Detroit's foreign competitors, to increase fleet fuel efficiency by 5 percent per year starting in 2012. The new rules will require a fleet fuel efficiency standard of 35.5 miles per gallon by model year 2016, a big jump from the 2009 model year requirement of 25 mpg.”

I simply don’t get it. The U.S. is in a recession, two of the three U.S. automakers are in bankruptcy, new car dealerships are being closed right and left; and the solution is to force production of cars that people don’t seem to want (at least judging from the number of vans and SUVs on the road)?

Over at Don Surber’s place, commenter alanstorm nailed my reaction:

Carol Browner was on TV early this morning, claiming that this would force automakers to “produce the cars Americans want”. My jaw ’bout hit the floor. Can she really be so mind-numbingly stupid? (I find myself thinking that a lot these days)

My DOGS are smarter than that - and they’re not that swift.

If I was trying to destroy the U.S. economy, this is exactly how I would go about it.

WHERE’S MY VIOLIN?

My personal credit crisis. While I appreciate his candor, my sympathy meter hovers at zero.

Via Megan McArdle, who writes:

[For writers] this is what David Brooks calls "status-income disequilibrium" .... Everyone you write about makes more than you. Most of the people you know make more than you. And you come to feel that shopping at the farmer's market, travelling to Europe, drinking good coffee, are minimum necessities. Your house is small, your furniture is shabby, and you can't even really afford to shop at Whole Foods. Yet you're at the top of your field, working for one of the world's top media outlets. This can't be so.

And so the debts creep up, one happy hour or Colorado backpacking adventure at a time.

Now I like Megan McArdle. She’s intelligent, and an excellent writer.

But. What she writes about was called “keeping up with the Joneses” in my time. I did my time living paycheck-to-paycheck, squirreling away enough money away to (hopefully) retire reasonably comfortably instead of “keeping up”, and I don’t like being taxed to death to pay for those who weren’t willing to live within their means.

The sympathy meter is still hovering around zero.

GOING GOLISANO

Billionaire B. Thomas Golisano decides to save nearly $14,000 a day in state income taxes by moving from Rochester, N.Y., to Naples, Fla.

Blue states are chasing folks out according to the Wall Street Journal.

Capital and people are mobile. Abuse them and they will move - to Texas, Florida, and other states without income taxes.

GUN CONTROL?

The Washington Post editorializes on gun laws.

IN THE PAST few months, some 50 people have been slaughtered in the United States in mass attacks involving firearms. Police officers in Oakland, Calif., and Pittsburgh were mowed down by gunmen using assault weapons.

Asked at that news conference whether he planned to keep his campaign promise to reinstate a U.S. ban on assault weapons, Mr. Obama said he still supports the measure. He then proceeded to ease away from the promise by arguing that enacting such a ban would not be easy ....

Clayton Cramer, a Second Amendment historian, responds that it isn’t a Second Amendment issue.

Mentally ill homeless people wander big city streets, unless they freeze to death, or die of tuberculosis, or of violent crime. A small fraction of them become headlines when they go on a rampage, as happened in Binghamton, N.Y., in Colorado Springs, in an Amish school last year, and dozens of other tragedies the last few years.

We can make all of America like a mental hospital, where we don't trust anyone with anything dangerous. Or we can hospitalize those who are severely mentally ill--before they become a headline.

For Cramer’s personal story, go here.

PENTAGON BIBLE USE

Pentagon briefings no longer quote the Bible. "The Pentagon said Monday it no longer includes a Bible quote on the cover page of daily intelligence briefings it sends to the White House as was practice during the Bush administration".

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said he did not know how long the Worldwide Intelligence Update cover sheets quoted from the Bible .... For a period in 2003, at least, the daily reports prepared for President George W. Bush carried quotes from the books of Psalms and Ephesians and the epistles of Peter .... The Bible quotes apparently aimed to support Bush at a time when soldiers' deaths in Iraq were on the rise ....

Let’s see. Um, 2003 was 6 years ago. Why is this news in May of 2009?

THE GOVERNMENT FULL EMPLOYMENT ACT

Keeping our air clean is obviously a Herculean task.

“After all, if it was easy, why would we employ thousands of scientists and bureaucrats to feverishly toil away, examine every particle of air, determine if there’s any harmful pollutants, and — if any are found — put controls on the source?”

“And it’s a growth industry at a time of financial stress. Just remember that when your government asks for more tax money.”