February 23, 2020

If You Can't Articulate A Limiting Principle On Government Expansion, You Get Bernie Sanders

February 23, 2020/ Francis Menton

Bernie Sanders has now scored a decisive victory in the Nevada caucuses, and is leading in the RealClearPolitics average of polls in almost every upcoming state. The RCP betting odds section gives Sanders a 55.6% chance of winning the nomination. It’s looking increasingly like the nomination is his to lose.
Well, if you’re the party of free stuff, why shouldn’t the guy who offers the most free stuff win? Bernie is clearly willing to outbid all of his rivals in the free stuff auction. What makes you think anybody can beat him by just bidding less?
At some point, if another candidate is going to prevail with a lesser bid, that candidate needs to articulate a limiting principle in some shape or form.
By a limiting principle, I mean a reasoned argument that provides some sort of rationale as to why government programs and expenditures to solve all human wants and needs can’t just be infinite; and that provides some basis for drawing a line beyond which government growth should not occur. . . .

February 21, 2020

Information On The True Cost Of Electricity From Wind And Solar Is Just Not Getting Out There

February 21, 2020/ Francis Menton

Over the period from November 2018 to March 2019, I wrote a series of posts on the subject of the true costs of trying to get electricity from intermittent wind and solar sources.
The gist of all this was that you can’t realistically evaluate the cost of getting electricity using the intermittent renewable sources just by looking at the cost of making a kilowatt-hour of electricity when the source happens to be working at its best.
Sure, a solar panel may generate some very cheap kilowatt-hours around noon on a sunny June 21. But now that you’ve invested a few billion in solar panels, what is the plan to provide the electricity people need on an overcast December 21, when the panels may work at only 3% of capacity during the day and nothing at night?
If your plan is a backup system of fossil fuel facilities, now you are paying for both the solar panels and the fossil fuel plants, so you’ve close-to-doubled the cost of electricity no matter how cheap the power from the solar panels may be on the June day; plus your fossil fuel plants will still be running most of the time, and your emissions reductions will be minimal.
If you want serious emissions reductions, you will need to push past 50% and on to 100% of your power from renewables, so you will need to phase out the fossil fuel plants. And replace them with — what?? And at what cost?

February 18, 2020

February 18, 2020/ Francis Menton

Last week, the Justice Department overruled the line prosecutors on the Roger Stone case, and withdrew an extraordinary sentence recommendation of 7 to 9 years; and President Trump issued several tweets supporting that action and criticizing the prosecutors. Immediately, the reaction from the left moved into high hyperbole.
It’s some combination of total lack of self-awareness and complete confidence that the progressive media will never call out how ridiculous this is. Even if you are twirling along with the media spin, it’s impossible not to notice the difference in treatment between say, Andrew McCabe on the one hand (investigation dropped), and George Papadopoulos and Michael Flynn on the other (coerced guilty pleas for far less serious conduct).
But these are just the most recent and most high-profile cases. It’s easy to forget the large number of politicized prosecutions from just the last several years brought by Democrat prosecutors and targeting Republicans. . . .

February 15, 2020

February 15, 2020/ Francis Menton

You’ve got to hand it to President Trump for his talent to capitalize on issues that force the political left to show its worst totalitarian tendencies and contempt for ordinary people. For a recent Exhibit A, see the State of the Union address.
We now have an excellent Exhibit B, a draft Executive Order on the subject of the architectural style of federal buildings. The document is titled “Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again.” Let’s call it the MFBBA.
The draft MFBBA was first reported by Architectural Digest on February 4, and comes with a legend declaring it to be “DELIBERATIVE/PRE-DECISIONAL/PRIVILEGED.” As far as I can determine, it has not been issued in final form, and it may never be; or it might be changed substantially before final issuance.
But in its current form it is certainly not designed to avoid controversy. It begins with a brief history of federal architecture:

February 12, 2020

February 12, 2020/ Francis Menton

At his various speeches and rallies, President Trump likes to tout a particular list of recent indicators of a strong U.S. economy — relatively robust growth, very low unemployment (including for women, African Americans, and other minorities), and a booming stock market.
Meanwhile, the recurring theme of his Democratic rivals is that the economy is somehow not “working” for average Americans. All the Democratic candidates propose massive increases in government spending and programs supposedly as the way to make the economy “work” better for the average family.
Without minimizing any of the statistics cited by the President, there is an even more revealing place to look to get a true idea of the overall success of the American economy, including success for those toward the lower end of the income distribution. That place is the statistics for per capita GDP and income. . . .

February 08, 2020

February 08, 2020/ Francis Menton

Part of my service to readers is the ongoing evaluation of the various candidates for the Democratic nomination for President, with emphasis on those candidates who seem to have some reasonable chance of rising into the top ranks and maybe even getting the nomination.
Previous posts have focused mostly on Joe Biden (nine posts) and Elizabeth Warren (four posts). Both of those two now seem to be fading in the polls and in early results. (Can I claim some of the credit?)
Mike Bloomberg could be the guy who is now going to step in to fill the breach. Certainly, he has enough personal cash to far exceed the spending of the very best-funded candidate who relies on money raised from third parties. He is spending big in the Super Tuesday states, and focusing on behemoth California. So don’t count him out.
As things have heated up, Mayor Mike has started to go toe to toe with his rivals by putting out various plans and proposals to define his candidacy. . . .