On February 19, 2010, Reason.tv’s Nick Gillespie made a special apperance via webcam on PBS’s Two-Way Street to ask the panel of experts on whether America should look to Portugal’s drug policies for its future. Approximately 1.13 minutes.
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Reason Staffers on The Tube: Nick Gillespie Talking Portugese Drug Decrim on PBS’ Two-Way Street
As soon as the Supreme Court decision came down in January ruling that the corporate spending ban violated free-speech rights, a number of leading Democrats demanded action to undo this unconscionable wrong. But as Steve Chapman explains, imposing new restrictions on speech is no way to enhance democracy.
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New at Reason: Steve Chapman on the Misguided Liberal Response to Citizens United
Nancy Pelosi is now claiming that if the vote were taken today, she’d have enough support from House Democrats to pass health reform. But according to The Daily Caller’s Jon Ward , that’s news to Rep. George Miller, a close Pelosi ally who responded “I don’t know, I don’t know” when asked to verify her statement
Over the last few weeks, the White House and its supporters have been pushing hard on the idea that health care reform really is fiscally responsible, mostly in hopes of winning over wavering moderate Democrats in the House. I think their budgeting claims are somewhat suspect, but, using an illustration about a debt-ridden, Starbucks-addicted vacationer (just read it ), Harvard econ professor Greg Mankiw makes a really good point about how even if one accepts that they’ll successfully follow through on all the cuts they propose, the bill would still make the long-term fiscal situation worse : Even if you believe that the spending cuts and tax increases in the bill make it deficit-neutral, the legislation will still make solving the problem of the fiscal imbalance harder, because it will use up some of the easier ways to close the shortfall. The remaining options will be less attractive, making the eventual fiscal adjustment more painful.
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It’s Time To Kick Our National Spending Habit (And Pick Up a New One)
In her latest Forbes column, Reason Foundation Senior Analyst Shikha Dalmia notes: “Pushing ObamaCare was an astonishing misjudgment, the domestic policy equivalent of President Bush launching a full-scale preemptive strike against Iran after embroiling the country in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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Reason Writers Around Town: Shikha Dalmia on ObamaCare as the Democrats’ Iraq
Nancy Pelosi may be convinced that we have to pass health care reform in order to find out what’s in it, but if it passes, there’s at least one provision we can already count on: an individual mandate to buy health insurance. Polling shows that this requirement is one of the bill’s least popular features, so it’s not exactly surprising to find that states are taking action to allow individuals to bypass such requirements. More than 30 states are considering such laws, and a ban on mandatory insurance has already passed in the Virginia Senate .
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Can States Say “No Thanks” to ObamaCare’s Health Insurance Mandate?
New York Democrat Eric Massa, who announced last week that he will resign from the House, claims he’s being forced out by an administration hell-bent on passing a health care bill.
Originally posted here:
In Which a Battlestar Galactica-Inspired Sexual Innuendo May or May Not Decide the Fate of Health Care Reform
Not much of anyone, it seems : As Democrats tried to rustle up support for their plan, a new Gallup Poll found that just half of the nation is confident Obama is recommending the right policies for revamping the health care system. Fewer Americans, 37%, had confidence in Democratic lawmakers, and only about a third expressed confidence in Republicans. For Republicans, this is bad news but not really unexpected; the public hasn’t trusted the GOP on health care in recent memory, and the party’s strategy was primarily to block the Democrats’ plans, not to bolster support for their own.
Continued here:
Who Americans Trust on Health Care Policy
“The American people voted to restore integrity and honesty in Washington, D.C.,” Nancy Pelosi declared upon become speaker of the House, “and the Democrats intend to lead the most honest, most open and most ethical Congress in history.” How’s that going?
Excerpt from:
Here’s Your Earmark. On a Completely Unrelated Matter…
I have previously expressed unease with strident critics of Islam like Geert Wilders, the shock-haired Dutch MP who claims that “moderate Islam does not exist” and once compared the Koran to Mein Kampf .
Here is the original:
Will the Next Dutch PM Be a “Hate Criminal”?
