Crisis of Abundance: Rethinking How We Pay for Health Care - Arnold Kling

P.J. O'Rourke on the Wealth of Nations - P.J. O'Rourke

Meanwhile, Dan Clifton at Americans for Tax Reform sent me the following list of congressmen who broke their pledge never to raise taxes by voting YES on the bill. Those in italics are Democrats.

You better believe that this is a sign of things to come. And the worst part is that dozens of Republicans are expected to vote with the Democrats on this. Where have all the fiscal conservatives gone?

Stay tuned for updates.

UPDATE (6:09pm): The bill just passed 264-163 to thunderous applause, with 36 Republicans joining the Democrats. I feel like we're in a New Deal Congress. It's almost surreal.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Congressman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), Chairman of the Republican Study Committee (RSC), today issued the following statement as time on the House Democrats' "100 Hours agenda" runs out:

"The Democrats' 100 hours agenda has accomplished very little for people and families across America. On the other hand, they have done a great deal to expand government dependency and control at the expense of individual empowerment, incentive, and private enterprise. And it should be noted that while it took Democrats even less than 100 hours to raise taxes, not 1 cent is going to deficit reduction.

"Thus far, Speaker Pelosi and House Democrats have attempted to: empower the federal government to set drug prices that are already being successfully negotiated in the free market...federally mandate a higher wage that will keep younger workers from job opportunities; push students into a federally run bureaucratic loan program; and federally impose billions in fees and taxes that will cost American workers jobs and cause millions of Americans to become even more dependent on foreign oil. That is a whole lot of federal."

"Though very few of these agenda items will actually become law in their current form, Speaker Pelosi and House Democrats clearly have chosen to empower the federal government over families in America."

A Vietnamese pig farmer is using a new and interesting way to boost productivity. He believes that the melodies of Beethoven, Mozart and Schubert help promote productivity while his 3000 pigs have their noses in their troughs.

"I saw that my pigs started eating more and that they were gaining weight faster than usual," said [Nguyen Chi] Cong, who adds that he blasts the tunes of the composers daily from 7:00 – 11:00 am and 14:00 – 16:00 pm.

"I think I am the first farmer in Vietnam to apply this technique."

In response, Senator Gregg issued this statement:

“Despite reaching a good-faith agreement with the Democratic leadership that my fiscally responsible amendment, A Second Look at Wasteful Spending, would be taken up at another time, I was disappointed to learn that objections from another Democratic senator effectively blocked that agreement. I fully support ethics reform – in fact, I offered my amendment to strengthen the ethics reform package – so will continue to push for a vote on this reasonable proposal to reduce wasteful federal spending. I cannot support ending debate on this bill until the Senate has had a chance to fully debate and vote on a proposal to improve the government’s stewardship of taxpayer dollars, and I look forward to working with my colleagues across the aisle to achieve that goal.”

The unidentified Democratic senator that Gregg is referring to is the King of Pork, Robert Byrd.

While there may not be a free lunch, at least there is a free version of Free to Choose.

Don't forget to tune in to the National PBS Broadcast “The Power of Choice: The Life and Ideas of Milton Friedman” on January 29. You can check local listings here (PDF).

Interestingly, the local Washington DC affiliate is broadcasting the program at 11 PM, instead of the 9 PM and 10 PM slots used nearly everywhere else.

And what does WETA have on at 9 PM? Six Wives of Henry VIII.

Shame on you, WETA-TV.

Reid has been preaching about ethics reform and his strong desire to reduce wasteful spending, but his talk is cheap. He blocked strong earmark reform last week until he was forced to retreat and now he's blocking a vote on another important measure that would help break the big-spending habits of Congress.

UPDATE (4:26pm): Dick Durbin is now speaking out against the amendment as well.

UPDATE (4:34pm): Dianne Feinstein just said that Gregg's rather simple amendment is "impossible to understand". Priceless.

UPDATE (4:37pm): Andrew Moylan at NTU has more coverage here. Here's a blog post by Mark Tapscott as well.