RINO sighting

Charlie Bass was on NHPR this morning. He thinks global warming is a problem and something oughta be done about it. Perhaps not Cap and Tax. Maybe an "Alternate Energy" program will reduce carbon emissions.
Arghh. The election is only 4 days past and Charlie is taking his eye off the ball. The real threat to our well being is the Federal budget deficit, not global warming. "Alternate Energy" means spending money on stuff that doesn't generate real power. It's ethanol, and windmills, and solar cells, none of which will keep my electricity on thru a cold winter night.
Whereas continued Federal deficits of the Obama size will destroy the worth of the dollar in just a few years.
Let's get real here.

So what do the Republican do now? Pt 2

Jobs, Jobs, and more jobs. Step one in the more job operation is to bring some stability to government policy. The private sector of the economy is waiting for the other shoe to drop. We have to stop that. Republicans should make it perfectly plain that there will be no new taxes, no new regulations, no more bailouts. The house ought to repeal Obamacare, just to make a point.
National debt is destabilizing. The current level is unsustainable for more than a another year or two. Everyone knows that. As long as everyone, business, consumers, and investors see the US dollar driving off a cliff next year, they ain't gonna create job one, they are running for the exits. Why do you think the price of gold is soaring?
Where do we cut? Healthcare. We spend 19% of GNP on healthcare. That could be cut in half and everyone would get all the health care they need. Every other country in the world manages on 10% of GNP and so can we.

So what do the Republican do now?

I suppose number one duty is to prevent the lame duck session of Congress, that will get going shortly, from doing any more damage. Despite the election, the old Congress remains in power until next year. The democrats will surely call a lame duck session to pass as much stuff as they can before next year gets here. Cap and tax, card check, appointment of democrats to every vacancy, more Obamacare, tax hikes, and who knows what else. Hopefully the Senate Republicans will be able to stop all or most of it.
Then next year, with a solid Republican House, what should the Republicans do? The house can pass anything it likes, but the Senate Democrats will be able to stall it, and the President can veto it. The Republicans have to convince the country that they are serious about cutting spending and getting the economy moving if they want to win in 2012. If the Republicans just vote thru things in the House and have them die in the Senate, or get vetoed, the public ain't gonna like it. And they will remember in November. The public doesn't care why nothing happens, they will turn the rascals out in 2012 just for doing nothing.
So what can a Republican house do that works, given a hostile Senate and executive?
For openers, they could vote down pork. For instance, the periodic "Farm Bills" lavish our tax money on farms largely owned by corporations. There are few family farms left, and not enough family farm voters to make it worth the cost of the farm bills. Same goes for the "Highway Bills" that benefit road contractors and real estate interests, and the "Energy Bills" which subsidize the oil and gas industry.
Tighten up, or even better, kill entirely, earmarks. Congressmen love earmarks because they act as bribes or payoffs to supporters. Voters hate them because it's pure waste money. Voters are more important to re election than paid off supporters.
Refuse to pass omnibus spending bills. Each executive department (Defense, State, HHS, Energy, and so on) get one, separate, budget bill. If the bill fails to pass, that department can no longer write checks. This way the voters and the newsies have some idea of how much money gets spent on what. An omnibus spending bill for the entire federal government is so damn big that nobody can figure out how much is going where. Break it up into smaller pieces and it becomes manageable. Divide and conquer still works.
Reduce appropriations for economy killing agencies like EPA. EPA was created to clean up airborne smog. That's been accomplished, the skies over our cities are blue again. They used to be yellow. Now EPA is full of bureaucrats trying to stay employed by making red tape to hinder economic growth.
Find some utterly worthless government operation and shut it down completely, lay off all the employees, sell the office, and burn the files. That will generate a flood of favorable press, AND scare the bejesus out of the rest of the bureaucrats. A scared bureaucrat is a good thing.

Tax cuts for corporations that ship jobs overseas

Have you heard that sound bite recently? In fact it's getting to the point where the noun "corporation" is always followed by "that ship jobs overseas". A sign of corporation hatred common to the Democrats.
It's really too bad, corporations provide jobs, health insurance, and a flood of products that make life comfortable. If we in the North Country could persuade a corporation to locate a new plant up here we would be better off. Corporations are a good thing to have around, and it's counterproductive to bash them.
As far as "shipping jobs overseas" this is free market competition. When overseas factories produce goods at lower cost than domestic factories, they are going to get the orders. To create jobs here, in the US, we need to look at ways to lower the cost of doing business in the US. Taxes, red tape, jackpot justice, environmental impact statements, Obamacare, and a hostile attitude raise the cost of doing business here.

Words of the Weasel Pt 16

"Gridlock", as in "A republican win tomorrow will cause gridlock in Congress". This is always followed by a diatribe against the Republican party. The actual situation is the Democrats will no longer have the votes to pass their programs. That's democracy for you. There is no divine right of Democrats to always get their way.

Halliburton did it?

Botched the cement job on BP's blowout well in the Gulf. Long article in the Wall St Journal. But some things are unclear. The Journal speaks of Halliburton whipping up a new cement recipe for the BP well.
That's a little weird. We have had decent cement since Julius Caesar's time. The Pantheon in Rome with an enormous concrete dome, was built by an army buddy of Julius Caesar and is still in service today. The Romans built the harbor at Ostia with hydraulic cement that could harden underwater. You would think that a good cement recipe for oil well work had been developed years ago. Had I been the BP manager on that rig, I would have demanded that Halliburton use a well tested standard cement mix and not fiddle around with custom stuff.
The Journal also mentions that cementing oil wells is a tricky business with a high failure rate. Something like a quarter of cement jobs leak. This means that proper engineering practice is to test each and every cement job. This testing was omitted on orders from the BP manager on the site. So, that makes it BP's fault in my book.

Where is the money coming from?

The perennial political question once the subject drifts onto budget. US governments, local, state, and federal are in trouble. They are spending a good deal more than they take in via taxes. Voters are getting restless about government debt. The opposition to anything (there is ALWAYS opposition to anything) can say "Well that's a nice idea, but where is the money coming from?"
Hmm. Right now the US spends 19% of GNP on healthcare. All other countries in the world spend half of that, and citizen's health in the first world nations is as good, maybe a bit better than it is in the US. If the US cut its health care expenditures down to the level of the rest of the world, that would free up nearly 10% of GNP for other purposes.
10% of GNP is a whacking great sum. The entire Federal budget is only 24% of GNP. 10% of GNP would cut the federal deficit to zero and leave money left over. If the rest of the world can keep healthcare spending below 10% of GNP why can't we? If we did, it would free up rivers of cash to put to better purposes.
We even know some of the reasons US health care is so expensive. Malpractice suits, high drug prices, lack of competition in the insurance business. None of which was addressed by Obamacare. Much of which is a matter of state law. Malpractice suits go to state courts. Changes in state law could make it harder to win a malpractice suit. Drug prices could be reduced by purchasing drugs overseas or from Canada. Competition could be increased by a state law allowing health insurance companies from every state in the Union to sell policies in New Hampshire.
If we work at it, we can find the money in reduced health care spending.