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In the NY Times, Ross Douthat discusses abortion.
…In every era, there’s been a tragic contrast between the burden of unwanted pregnancies and the burden of infertility. But this gap used to be bridged by adoption far more frequently than it is today. Prior to 1973, 20 percent of births to white, unmarried women (and 9 percent of unwed births over all) led to an adoption. Today, just 1 percent of babies born to unwed mothers are adopted, and would-be adoptive parents face a waiting list that has lengthened beyond reason.
Some of this shift reflects the growing acceptance of single parenting. But some of it reflects the impact of Roe v. Wade. Since 1973, countless lives that might have been welcomed into families like Thernstrom’s — which looked into adoption, and gave it up as hopeless — have been cut short in utero instead.
And lives are what they are. On the MTV special, the people around Durham swaddle abortion in euphemism. The being inside her is just “pregnancy tissue.” After the abortion, she recalls being warned not to humanize it: “If you think of it like [a person], you’re going to make yourself depressed.” Instead, “think of it as what it is: nothing but a little ball of cells.”
It’s left to Durham herself to cut through the evasion. Sitting with her boyfriend afterward, she begins to cry when he calls the embryo a “thing.” Gesturing to their infant daughter, she says, “A ‘thing’ can turn out like that. That’s what I remember … ‘Nothing but a bunch of cells’ can be her.” …
…This is the paradox of America’s unborn. No life is so desperately sought after, so hungrily desired, so carefully nurtured. And yet no life is so legally unprotected, and so frequently destroyed.
In the NY Post, Rich Lowry comments on cutting government back.
President Obama’s first two years in office were for the ages: Rarely has so much been spent so wantonly with so little discernible public benefit.
Nondefense discretionary spending accounted for $434 billion of the federal budget in 2008…
In 2010, such spending was $537 billion of the budget, a 24 percent increase. Throw in the stimulus and its $259 billion of discretionary spending — a category that excludes entitlements — and the run-up is much higher. Most departments saw double-digit increases, and some saw triple-digit increases. For the federal government, 2008-2010 were the fat years.
…This isn’t Tom DeLay’s GOP Congress, fat and happy in Washington. It’s fired with an ardor to deliver on its promise to limit government. Nearly 90 GOP caucus members are freshmen, shaped in the crucible of the Tea Party. In this context, Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan — who has a far-reaching plan to reform taxes and entitlements — is practically the establishment.
The first order of business is to take nondefense discretionary spending back to 2008 levels. A two-year rollback doesn’t sound overly ambitious, even though it would represent more than a 20 percent cut in spending. This would be a spectacular feat, less like turning an ocean liner around than throwing it in reverse and backing it up. Every inertial force in Washington will resist this change. …
No reason for Pelosi to come to her senses now. Professor Bainbridge comments.
Outgoing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (let’s just pause to savor that “outgoing” qualifier) exits with an immense lie:
At her final press conference as House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said, “Deficit reduction has been a high priority for us. It is our mantra, pay-as-you-go.”
The numbers tell a different story.
When the Pelosi Democrats took control of Congress on January 4, 2007, the national debt stood at $8,670,596,242,973.04. The last day of the 111th Congress and Pelosi’s Speakership on December 22, 2010 the national debt was $13,858,529,371,601.09 – a roughly $5.2 trillion increase in just four years. Furthermore, the year over year federal deficit has roughly quadrupled during Pelosi’s four years as speaker, from $342 billion in fiscal year 2007 to an estimated $1.6 trillion at the end of fiscal year 2010.
“Yesterday, during a speech, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said the CIA misleads us all the time…You know, unlike Congress.” –Jay Leno
Contrast Pelosi’s prevarication with John Boehner’s speech. Peter Wehner has a short post.
In his first speech as Speaker of the House, John Boehner struck just the right tone, I thought. Though hardly a spellbinding orator, Boehner’s remarks were short and gracious, modest and at times elegant. He spoke about the power of ideas and the importance of fairness to the minority party. He also placed the job of the House within the framework of self-government, saying
“The American people have humbled us. They have refreshed our memories as to just how temporary the privilege to serve is. They have reminded us that everything here is on loan from them. That includes this gavel, which I accept cheerfully and gratefully, knowing I am but its caretaker. After all, this is the people’s House. This is their Congress. It’s about them, not us. What they want is a government that is honest, accountable and responsive to their needs. A government that respects individual liberty, honors our heritage, and bows before the public it serves.”
…By the end of his tenure, what Boehner said today will be long forgotten. He will be judged on his record and that of the 112th Congress, as he should. But at the outset of this journey, Mr. Boehner struck the right notes in the right way. …
Jennifer Rubin highlights some inspiring words in Speaker Boehner’s speech.
John Boehner has benefited from low expectations. Liberals scoffed at the idea that he would be an adequate rival to the president. Republicans had their own doubts. But in his maiden speech, he did about as well as a pol can in delivering a core message: We are humble. We heard the voters. We’re here to end the spend-a-thon. In his words:
“We gather here today at a time of great challenges. Nearly one in ten of our neighbors are looking for work. Health-care costs are still rising for families and small businesses. Our spending has caught up with us, and our debt will soon eclipse the size of our entire economy. Hard work and tough decisions will be required of the 112th Congress. No longer can we fall short. No longer can we kick the can down the road. The people voted to end business as usual, and today we begin carrying out their instructions.”
…But when it came to the country, he was surprisingly eloquent. “More than a country, America is an idea, and it is our job to pass on to our posterity the blessings bestowed to us.” One of the 2012 presidential contenders should steal that. …
Roger Simon liked the speech too.
… His opening ad-lib quieting thunderous applause – “It’s still just me” – should be an instructional moment in public behavior in our celebrity culture. Can you imagine Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, Barack Obama or even, alas, Sarah Palin saying such a thing with the authenticity Boehner clearly had at such a moment?
He spoke graciously for a brief twelve minutes — as compared with his predecessor Pelosi, who spoke for thirteen before passing him the gavel. And unlike Pelosi, he spoke about us, the people, and very little about himself. (She spent the better part of the thirteen minutes listing her own accomplishments. But enough about Pelosi — let’s hope for a long time.) Boehner emphasized comity and civility, virtues the almost feel extinct in our society.
Was all this humility a pose or was it real? Of course, I don’t know. But I suspect it was a mix, as many things are. Still, I would like to think that Boehner is a genuinely humble man because he is a assuming the role of speaker at what is arguably the most critical moment of our history since WWII …
Thomas Sowell treads some controversial ground in discussing the government propping up home prices. The salient point is that government interfered in the housing market to “help” some Americans buy homes. Government interference created distorted economic incentives. People made economic decisions based on these government created distortions. And so, the Robin Hoodlums have helped create economic misery for millions more people than they ever helped.
…Why are politicians so focused on one set of people, at the expense of other people? Because “saving” one set of people increases the chances of getting those people’s votes. Letting supply and demand determine what happens in the housing market gets nobody’s votes.
If current occupants are put out of their homes and the prices come down to a level where others can afford to buy those homes, nobody will give politicians credit– or, more to the point, their votes. Nor should they.
Rescuing particular people at the expense of other people– whether the others are taxpayers, savers or prospective home buyers– produces votes. It also produces dependency on government, which is good for politicians, but bad for society. …
In the WSJ, Todd Zywicki looks at more financial consequences from government laws.
The least surprising event of 2010 was that, in the wake of new federal limits on how credit-card issuers can price risk and adjust interest rates, more Americans had to go to payday lenders, pawn shops and local loan sharks in order to get credit. It’s simply the latest installment in the old story of regulators thinking they can wish away the unintended consequences of consumer credit regulation.
Proponents of the 2009 Credit CARD (Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure) Act argued that it would protect Americans from exploitative credit-card companies by limiting penalty fees and interest-rate adjustments. For many Americans, though, the law meant higher interest rates, an increase in other fees, and reduced credit limits.
…Regulators cannot wish away the need of low-income consumers for credit: If your car’s transmission blows, you need $2,000 for repairs to get to work, whether or not you have it saved in the bank (and most low-income Americans don’t). If you can’t get a credit card, you’re going to have to get that money from a payday lender, pawn shop or loan shark. …
In the Financial Times, Javier Blass reports on an increase in global food prices. Let’s have some more ethanol mandates!
Food prices hit a record high last month, surpassing the levels seen during the 2007-08 crisis, the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation said on Wednesday.
…The increase in food costs will also hit developed economies, with companies from McDonald’s to Kraft raising retail prices.
Higher food prices are also boosting overall inflation, which is above the preferred targets of central banks in Europe.
…The increasing costs of sugar, whose price recently hit a 30-year high, oilseeds and meat are the main reason behind the rise in the FAO food index.
…Agricultural commodities prices have surged following a series of crop failures caused by bad weather. The situation was aggravated when top producers such as Russia and Ukraine imposed export restrictions, prompting importers in the Middle East and North Africa to hoard supplies.
The weakness of the US dollar, in which most food commodities are denominated, has also contributed to higher prices. …
The nanny state turns us into liars. Story from Mother Nature Network about a German businessman who has rebranded incandescent light bulbs as ”heat balls” to evade EU regulations.
You gotta hand it to German businessman Siegfried Rotthaeuser, who came up with a brilliant run around the European Union ban on conventional incandescent light bulbs — he rebranded them as “Heat Balls” and is importing them for sale as a “small heating device.”
Rotthaeuser’s website is in German, but Google does a passable job of translation. First, he’s clear that the Heat Ball isn’t for lighting, stating (in German, the following is translated) “A HEAT BALL ® is not a lamp, but it fits in the same version!” …
For another little lie, Volokh Conspiracy tells us about changes to Huckleberry Finn.
… Twain scholar Alan Gribben and NewSouth Books plan to release a version of Huckleberry Finn, in a single volume with The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, that does away with the “n” word (as well as the “in” word, “Injun”) by replacing it with the word “slave.”
Abe Greenwald has some thoughts on the controversy.
… Here’s the joke: These protectors of fragile sensibilities think “slave” is safe from the larger PC police force. I’m in a slightly unique position to know otherwise. In another lifetime, I worked in educational publishing. Political correctness does not inform that industry; it defines it. The purpose of children’s textbooks is to orient kids to a PC worldview.
One time, I worked on a third-grade social-studies textbook for a Southern school district. A few weeks after completing the project — which covered regional history from before Columbus’s arrival to the present day — a directive came from on high: the chapters on slavery, the Civil War, and the Reconstruction had to be reworked. There was, we were told, excessive use of a forbidden word. Dare to guess? Slave. The term, you see, was dehumanizing and had to be replaced with “enslaved person.” …