Archive for December, 2010

Dan Calabrese

The case is Virginia v. Sebelius, and while this issue is sure to end up being decided by the Supreme Court, you can’t overstate the importance of the issued on which U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson, a 2002 appointee of President George W. Bush, ruled in this case.

The judge’s ruling validated the leading constitutional argument that ObamaCare opponents have been making – that Congress does not have the authority to compel citizens to purchase a product, in this case, health insurance.

Not so fast.

You may have heard Democrats who favor government-run health care use the term “everybody in, nobody out.” Here’s why they say that: In order to maintain a system in which everyone has to be covered, regardless of age, health or pre-existing conditions, you need an enormous risk pool that includes as many healthy people as you can get.

A lot of young, healthy people don’t feel that they need health insurance. They look at the cost of premiums and figure it’s a better bet to take their chances paying out of pocket for doctors’ office visits, or even for emergency room visits if necessary – and if something major like surgery comes along, they’ll figure out a way to deal with it. You can call that wise or foolish as you like, but that’s the judgment a lot of them are making.

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Jill Ciminillo

To be fair, I should start by saying that I swapped into the all-new 2010 Toyota 4Runner after being in the Mazda MX-5. But even so, this all-new large SUV seemed a bit super-sized to me.

The knobs and dials. The seats. The center stack. The center console. The door handles The step-in height. Everything was, well, a bit much.

Except the price. That was a pleasant surprise. The test vehicle was a four-wheel drive (4WD) model with a V-6 engine, and the base price rang in at $30,915. Which I thought was very reasonable considering the shear size of this gigantic SUV.

2010 Toyota 4Runner

I would, however, like to see a standard third-row seat in a vehicle of this magnitude, and my test vehicle didn’t have one. It is an option on the Limited and SR5 4WD models ($1,390), but not available on the two-wheel drive or the Trail models at all.

The 4Runner also comes as a base two-wheel drive model with a starting price of $27,500. Even better.

The test vehicle added a bevy of options that hiked the as-tested price to $36,634. And while I liked the vehicle as equipped, I could probably have done without most of the options, including the Premium Package ($2,205) and the Convenience Package ($1,050). These packages included premium features like leather seats, moonroof and power adjustable driver’s seat.

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Brett Noel

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High-resolution version for newspaper publication.

Greyscale version for newspaper publication.

Bob Maistros

You all remember the old routine:  a man skydives from an airplane.

Unfortunately, his parachute fails.

Fortunately, he has a reserve chute.

Unfortunately, his reserve chute has a hole in it.

Happy landings.

Fortunately, there’s a haystack down below.

Unfortunately, there is a pitchfork in the haystack.

Fortunately, he misses the pitchfork.

Unfortunately, he misses the haystack.

Think that’s a sorry outcome?  How about the “could-it-get-any-worse” scenario playing out in the environs the Gipper referred to as the puzzle palaces on the Potomac?

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Herman Cain

For the first time, the president listened to the majority of the people and was willing to extend the existing tax rates for everyone. Many people do not like the backdoor welfare that he attached to the so-called deal that Congress is now considering, nor did we like extending unemployment benefits for another 13 months without identifying the off-sets in spending.

You say something?

Liberals in Congress are upset that the president was willing to extend the tax rates. Conservatives are upset with the backdoor welfare programs, as well as the earmarks and pet pork projects Members are trying to attach to the “tax deal”.

According to Congress’s bipartisan Joint Committee on Taxation, the tax provisions will “cost” $801 billion, and the extended unemployment benefits will cost $57 billion. The $57 billion is a real cost because it promises to pay out money we do not have in the first place.

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If this doesn’t convince the Minnesota legislature that the Vikings need a new stadium, I cannot imagine what will.

David Karki

One of the several awful bills that can’t-be-former-Speaker-soon-enough Nancy Pelosi lame-duck-marched through the chamber in the last few days was the DREAM Act, or as it’s more colloquially known, amnesty for illegal aliens.

To be sure, the Democrats’ main interest in this is that they can rubber-stamp millions of new Democratic votes to replace all those they lost when they suffered the biggest mid-term defeat in U.S. history. The overwhelming majority of these new instant citizens would have a direct financial interest in keeping if not growing welfare state programs, not to mention be influenced by racial loyalty and groupthink in their voting patterns. As such, the Democrats can’t wait to say to all those evil tea partiers and other voters who turned against them:  “If you won’t re-elect us for life, we’ll just find someone else who will!”

Of course, the Republicans are nowhere to be found on this issue, so terrified are they of the race card being played against them, trumpeted by the Democrats’ media allies. They may pipe up from time to time, but they tread lightly and act meekly if at all.

What would immigration policy look like if I could wave a magic wand and make it reality? Read the rest of this entry »

Bob Maistros

Liberals’, and some conservatives’, dreams of the DREAM Act – which would grant citizenship to the children of illegal aliens if they have been in the country a certain amount of time and either attend college or serve in the armed forces – bring to mind the “broken windows theory of policing.

Nobody's dream.

The theory – based on the work of social scientists James Q. Wilson and George Kelling – came into vogue in the 1990s when it was put into practice by New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and his police chief, William Bratton.  It basically held that tolerating small antisocial behaviors like vandalism, litter, graffiti and assaults by squeegee men created an environment where respect for the law and social norms broke down and led to worse behaviors, including serious crime.

So what’s my point?  The DREAM Act tramples all up and down the broken windows theory with spike heels.

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Dan Calabrese

Every political movement picks up a little lint along the way, and the conservative movement has a pesky problem on the issue of immigration. It’s a strange stance for a movement that rejects big government, with all its rules, forms, procedures and restrictions.

Then again, maybe it’s just that Hispanics and Latinos are historically more likely to vote Democratic.

Welcome to America!

Whatever the reason, the right’s knee-jerk opposition to sensible immigration reform finds the troops up in arms about the Dream Act – a measure that would provide a path to citizenship for illegals who were brought here as kids by their parents.

The usual conservative objection to any path to citizenship for illegals is that it rewards lawbreaking. You can hardly apply that argument to people who came here as kids because their parents dragged them across the border.

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Bob Maistros

“Hey, little Libby.  I have some nice Christmas presents for you.  Here’s a terrific little employee payroll tax holiday that will put lots and lots of money into the pockets of your working people dolls.”

“I want a tax increase on rich people!!!”

Crybabies.

“Honey, it’s not nice to yell and stamp your foot like that.  How about an investment tax credit that could create lots and lots of jobs?”

‘I want a tax increase on rich people!!!’

“Please get up off your face and quit pounding the floor.  Look what we have here.  Another year-long  extension of unemployment insurance for all your dolls who are out of work.  They’ll really love you for that!”

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