You Are Now Entering Enchantment

… Gateway to Disenchantment [Disenchantment!]

  • John McWhorter offers a powerful argument for ending drug prohibition:

    It tears poor black communities to pieces. Not only by flooding them with police--but by encouraging bright young black people to work the black market and lending it an air of heroism.

    That's just one reason. In addition, it would save Your Federal Government a huge pile of money.

  • Should we expect the new Congress to cut spending? Find out the shocking answer in reason.tv's "Countdown to Disappointment: Don't expect the new Congress to cut spending"

    Back [in 1994] the GOP revolutionaries targeted more than 200 programs for complete and utter elimination. They scored some minor victories (adios helium fund!), but a decade into their "revolution" (and after they gained a Republican president) inflation-adjusted spending on the combined budgets of the 101 largest programs slated for elimination actually increased by 27 percent.  And since then total federal spending has continued to soar, so why should we take Republicans seriously this time?

    I'm not betting the farm on fiscal sanity. Or wouldn't, if I had a farm.

  • In additional depressing news, Katrina Trinko finds that four possible GOP presidential candidates (Thune, Pawlenty, Daniels, and Pence) have unclean hands when it comes to ethanol policy. And she reminds us just how the Feds are shovelling funds to this particular favored group:

    Currently, imported ethanol is slapped with a 54-cent-per-gallon tariff, while oil companies receive a 45-cent tax credit per gallon of ethanol blended into their gasoline. Both the tariff and the tax credit have just been extended for another year, thanks to a bipartisan push from Cornbelt politicians. In case these provisions aren't enough to help the industry hobble its way to satisfying profits, lawmakers also decided to mandate that U.S. consumption of renewable fuels (which will certainly be almost entirely corn-based and cellulosic ethanol) reach 36 billion gallons by 2022.

    I'm sad about Daniels' record (because I was so enraptured by his reading choices revealed last summer) although I suppose I shouldn't have been expecting otherwise. He (now) at least sounds somewhat repentant.


Last Modified 2022-10-05 5:13 AM EDT