And you are here why?

The Obamacare hearings have begun , (cue wingnuts yelling Benghaziii!!! Obamacare !), and they are pretty much exactly as idiotic as you would expect them to be. The looniness took full hold when Joe Barton (R - Clueless) pointed at the code (pdf) below, and tried to get a contractor to admit that it violated HIPAA Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.) grilled CGI’s Campbell on a warning on the Web site that information visitors entered into the system would be subject to greater disclosure than the medical forms Americans typically fill out. That information is protected under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), a privacy law.  “Are you aware this was in the source code? Do you think that’s HIPAA compliant?” Barton asked. “Admit it! You're under oath.” In case you don't feel like zooming, the code that the Honorable Rep. is so incensed about is this <!--<p>To continue you must accept the terms and conditions...    <li> You have ...

via greginak in the comments “If you think the difference between freedom and tyranny is free countries provide health insurance or direct health care for children of poor families, disabled people, politically powerful groups with cancer, Vets, and those over 65 and tyrannies extend those basic overages to everybody then you have lost all perspective.”   I can't imagine this being said better, thought this does get close “If you believe the difference between God-given freedom and evil, despotic tyranny lies somewhere between a 35% and a 37% marginal tax rate, you’ve lost all perspective.”

So yeah, there was a tornado outside Oklahoma City , and yeah, there was damage , and yeah, there were deaths .  But god forbid we do anything preventative against the next tornado. This from the Star Tribune  [There is] a general resistance to government mandates in politically conservative states such as Oklahoma, where tornadoes are most prevalent. Even the director of an association of storm shelter manufacturers, based in Texas, is opposed to a storm shelter mandate for new homes. "Any time a governmental entity says `thou shalt' and tries to take an individual decision into the public domain, it's going to get pushback, and you're also going to raise the cost of things," said Ernst Kiesling, executive director of the National Storm Shelter Association and a retired civil engineering professor Texas Tech University. And this from Steve Eddy - the City Manager of Moore (ground zero for the tornado damage) via NPR We're a pretty independent lot ...

Yup. That pretty much sums up our approach towards NASA. Actually, pretty much anything related to the gummint, come to think of it... (via Jon @ Scenes from a Multiverse )

via David & Christina Romer, we have this Region:   You recently wrote a very intriguing paper about the interplay between tax changes and government spending. Would you give us a brief description? David Romer:   [...] In the context of the starve-the-beast theory, my favorite example of the issue of correlation versus causation is the fiscal history of the Korean War. The North invaded the South at the end of June 1950. A month later Truman took a few minutes out from planning the military response and wrote to Congress to say that we needed a massive tax increase because we were going to have to ramp up military spending. A big tax increase was passed and put into effect three months after the invasion. [...] So if you look just at the data, you see that taxes went up and spending went up afterwards. If you look at correlation, it looks like a great example of tax changes causing spending to change in the same direction. But if you listen to the history I just de...

Asawin Suebsaeng and Dave Gilson have put together the definitive collection of Obama-related conspiracy theories .  The venn-diagram below encapsulates is a handy-dandy reference, but I'd encourage you to go to the source to get the details behind each one.  Remember kids, if its on the internet, it must be true! THE CONSPIRACY THEORIES Disclaimer: It should go without saying that none of these are true. Follow links at your own risk. Obama is a secret Muslim:   This one began right after he took the stage at the 2004 Democratic convention, with chain emails   alleging   his "true" religious affiliation. The rumor soon found its way onto the popular conservative online forum Free Republic, and took on a whole new life in the years to come. Related: Obama secretly   speaks Arabic ,   attended a madrassa   as a kid in Indonesia, referred to   "my Muslim faith"   in an interview, and was sworn in   on a Koran . ...

I spent an hour or so this morning with an acquaintance of mine (who is of the Fox/Glenn Beck/Rush Limbaugh persuasion) discussing l'affaire Petraeus , and I have to admit the conspiracy theory he spun, while absolutely banoodles, was seriously fascinating. I can't recall most of it, but as far as I can recall, it went something like this Obama, being Muslim, is intent on arming the various splinter factions in the Middle-East Ambassador Stevens was sent to Libya to set up a gun-running operation, funneling arms to Libyan rebels Once Stevens had set up the arms pipeline ( somehow involving Russia. I didn't quite get this part ), he wanted to come back to the U.S. Obama, however, wanted him to go to Syria to arm Assad ( I couldn't figure this part out - I thought Obama was helping the Muslim rebels or some such ). Stevens refused on principle, because "Assad is a fascist dictator and is oppressing the people".  At this point, Stevens became expendab...

Seriously. Not Social Security. Not Defense. Not the DMV. Not the EPA. Not whatever other thing your average Wingnut On the Street is busy raving about. Health care and only health care. How do I know this? Well, the CBO has a new white-paper out called Options for Deficit Reduction , and it has a bunch of cool stuff in it.  But, by far the coolest part is on page 23, on an extremely non-imaginatively titled chart called (I kid you not) " Components of Non-Interest Spending Under the Extended Alternative Fiscal Scenario ". I know, I know, gorgeous bureaucratise,  right? I'll let Ezra Klein translate it for you These graphs are built atop what’s called “the current policy” baseline. The current policy baseline assumes nothing changes. We don’t pass any new laws. We don’t follow through on the hard parts — like the cost controls in the Affordable Care Act — of any of the laws we’ve already passed. We don’t raise taxes. And the result?  The charts below ...

Yeah, its true. The number of gummint employees has actually gone down under Obama.  The chart above, based on the Federal Reserve of St. Louis , shows the number of (federal) public sector employees added since Obama's inauguration. Helpfully, it also shows the same under Bush ( hat-tip Krugman ). The Bottom line is that we currently have almost 700K less Gummint employees than when Obama started!!! And the spike? That big honking spike that proves that Obama is an evil baddie dude? Those are the census workers - the temporary (!!!) census workers - that are ( Temporarily!!! ) hired once every 10 years.  So no, can't use that against him. So, seriously, based on the chart above,   Which of these is the "Big Gummint" President?    Which of these is the "Shrinks Gummint" President? Mind you, this is no real surprise - after all, data is data... As I've said earlier So yeah, the bottom line (to the bottom line) is that if you care...

Remember this post showing how Government spending goes up more under Republican Presidents as compared to Democrats ?  To refresh your memory, heres the key slide The chart shows, in a nutshell, that Clinton & Obama are - by a pretty huge margin - the presidents that have presided over the slowest growth in Gummint, with it actually shrinking under Obama . (I'll wait while you stop frothing and gibbering.  Then again, you've probably never looked at this anyhow, so lets just continue)  As it turns out, theres more! @TBPInvictus breaks the above out into three of the four major Gummint spending categories (Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Not defense, because, who wants to cut defense in this country?), and the results, as expected, match the above chart.  The bottom lines are Regan was by pretty much all standards the worst offender of the lot Bush 1 keeps Regan from batting a 1000 by taking the Medicaid crown Obama is - almost everywhere ...

@TBPInvictus pulls up a gorgeous comparison of the recent President's performance when it comes to Government Investment & Expenditure, indexed to 100 at inaugaration. Huh? Ok, in simple-ese, the size of the Gummint through the President's term, starting at 100 on day 0. Ah! So we all know exactly what to expect right? Under the Republicans (Reagan, Bush I, Bush II), Gummint size goes down, and under Clinton and that Evil Evil Obama, it goes up, right? Here you go. Oh wait, that can't be right, can it? Turns it it is - Clinton & Obama are, by a pretty huge margin, the presidents that have presided over the slowest growth in Gummint, with it actually shrinking under Obama . I think Invictus puts it best when he says So, it’s clear to see   what spendthrifts the Democrats have been and how fiscally responsible the Republicans are   what a canard it is to claim that Obama has been spending like a drunken sailor. In fact, Clinton and Obama have bee...

The above chart answers the question.  It is a nice chart, right? "So, what the heck is it?  And how do I read it?  And why do I care?" Ah, I'm glad you asked - let me explain. It is a chart representing the Awesomess that is the United States of America, and it basically shows how liberal vs conservative co-relates with who gives and who gets (to the Federal Gummint, that is).  For the purposes of this chart, Aaron Carroll chose the top 10 conservative and liberal states ( the chart of the states is available here ) The Green circle in the middle  is the Average across the entire country, i.e., revenue neutrality The further to the right of the green circle you get, the more conservative the states get - defined as an increasing ratio of conservative to liberal voters. Basically think, Red States . Conversely, going to the left means the states are more liberal, i.e., Blue States The further above the green circle you get, the more you are o...

At some point in the past, you might have said to yourself - " What is this pesky Free Market thing that everybody keeps talking about? " If you are too lazy to actually spend the time and use the Inter-tubes, and books are way too verbose for you to bother with, you will do what pretty much everybody else does in these situations, which is a) ask someone, or b) go get a drink and forget the question. Odds are that you'll do (b), but on the off-chance that you actually do ask someone, and that someone is a wee bit smarter than your average turnip, you'll find out that  Free Markets just don't work in isolation. Huh? Whut? Look at it this way - if Bob offers to mow your lawn for $20, and John offers to do it for $200, and promises to not break your legs , you pretty much know who gets to mow the lawn. The whole point of government, law enforcement, regualation, etc. is to ensure that the Johns of the world don't get a chance to exercise their Leg-Br...