Washington University Breakthrough in Corn’s Geneitc Code Demonstrates Why Salary Controls Should Be Opposed

The St. Louis Post Dispatch reports that scientists at the Washington University Genome Center have decoded the genetic structure corn.  Researchers hope that this will allow them to develop corn that is sturdier and more efficient to grow.  The Department of Agriculture and National Science Foundation provided the 29.5 million dollars for the project. 

The findings are available for any scientist to use.  Here is an example of government spending that will lead to private sector benefit.

And that’s the problem.  Over the past year many in Congress and the administration have taken a punitive stance against executives of the large federally assisted financial institutions.  They demanded  retro-actively taxing 90% of the income of executives who received bonuses, holding that those payments were accountable to the TARP funding.  

The administration has also directed a pay czar to designate limits on executive pay in these firms.   The justification is that these executives are being benefitted by government money, there the government has the right to decide how much they are paid.

Many people, including some conservatives, agree with the pay limits because they resent te ideal of CEO’s making millions of dollars when they are being supported by taxpayer money.

We absolutely agree with that premise, multi-billion dollar investment banks should not be financially rewarded for poor performance.   The TARP bailout should have never happened.

However, the Washington University discovery is also a publicly funded project that will benefit highly paid individuals.  Farmers, food companies, and 150 researchers will be conduced by the nearly $30 million of federal spending.

Should we start reducing the salaries of professors, scientists, and administrators at Washington University.  We applaud the great work of the scientists, but we also point out that our tax money went to an institution where many students disrespected Phyllis Schlaffly, a woman we greatly respect.

The point is that if you use the notion that the government has the right to cap people’s salaries because it give them money, that opens the door for them to use that to control everyone’s salary.

What about if they spend money to put extra lighting for a dangerous store front, or conduct special infrastructure repair that ads value to a particular private investment.  The government, especially this administration, can find a way to attribute almost every business gain at least partially to government spending. 

Very easy, when that government is spending  $3.5 trillion in a single year.  The limitations for executive pay is only the  beginning  for the progressive authoritarian move toward “fundamental changing this nation”.

NOT ON OUR WATCH.

Nancy Pelosi’s Statements at the Harvard JFK Policy Center Shows That They Just Don’t Get It

On Friday November 13, Nancy Pelosi spoke to Harvard Students at the JFK Policy Center about the health care reform bill that passed on November 7.   During the speech, she admits “I have been  an advocate of single payer for 30 years.”   Even though the American people rejected universal health care in 1994, and even though Obama claims that the goal isn’t to squeeze out private insurance, Pelosi proudly reveals her intent on nationalizing one of our largest industries.  

She is even promoting a bill that will result in the fining or even imprisonment of anyone who isn’t involved in the health care plan.

Obama’s defense of these draconian measures is that we will not allow people to “free ride the system”.   Because the thousands of Detroit residents looking for “Obama’s stash” were not free riding the system.

They count on us to not be able to make logical connections between the things they say at different times.  They once again, are wrong.

Nancy Pelosi declared “I come from a progression tradition, both my family and the city I represent.”  She ads “I came to Congress 22 years ago.”  Her eagerness to throw us in prison reflects a progressive authoritarian tradition more in the vein of  the East European 1930s.  I’ll pass on that.

When a law student asked her why tort reform had been blocked,  she claimed the malpractice claims only accounted for between 1 1/2 and 2 % of total health care insurance costs.  But Thomas Sewell reveals that the average cost of malpractice insurance is nearly $40,000 in West Virgina, in some places exceeding $200,000 for specialities such as obstetrics and neurosurgery.

If those people Obama says are “trying to game the system” are such a major factor in costs, wouldn’t it stand to reason that these astronomical figures would also be passed on to the patients and government?

The difference, off course, is that malpractice insurance and large court settlements benefit interests groups that they curry favor with, while imposing unjust and unreasonable penalties for non-compliance is right up their ally.  

And they wonder why we are buying any of this.

Finally, a student from Harvard Women’s Public Policy Group, rejoiced “Last Saturday night I was in my sweat pants watching Cspan”, referring to her embracing of the bill’s passing.  She continued “Do you have a special skill as a woman that you use?”.  Pelosi replied “I listen”. 

YOU LISTEN! YOU LISTEN!  Obviously you DONT LISTEN!  Three days before your little Saturday Night Live Skit you called a vote, Virginia and New Jersey told you that WE DONT WANT THIS GARBAGE!  And NY-23 your “sneak through not yet certified but let’s get him in to vote for this lousy bill” Owens beat the completely unknown independent conservative Hoffman by 4%, and may have not have even won at all.

No Nancy YOU DON’T LISTEN.  

But Sarah does.  And when she blew your camp away with her Facebook expose of your callous rationing scheme we see you made a few changes to the bill.

So I hope that you use your “special skill” in the near future.

WE SEE YOU!

A Year Later

The Greyfalcon would like congratulate Bob McDonnell, Chris Christie, and Doug Hoffman for their ground breaking performances in the November 3 elections.  Bob McDonnell won the Virginia gubernatorial race in a landside, defeating the incumbant Creigh Deeds by 20 points.   Chirs Christie triumphed in the New Jersey race, besting  govenor Jon Corzine.  And most impressively, Conservative  Party candidate Doug Hoffman forced liberal compromise Republican Dede Scozzafava out of contention, and nearly won the NY-23 election against the highly funded,  establishment backed Democrat Bill Owens.

McDonnells’ victory was the most decisive, receiving 1.1 million votes.  Last year Barrack Obama became the first Democrat to win this state since 1964.  But McDonnell’s positive, issue backed campaign overcame Deeds, the DNC, and an “always got time for a good fund-raiser” Obama.   The administration claims that this was not a reflection on his performance, and that it was not that big of a deal.  Then what was Obama doing there in the first place?

This is actually an example on the administration’s chronic unwillingness to take responsibility for anything that goes wrong.  If Deeds won, don’t you think that they would have taken credit for his success?   Of course they would.  They’re always good for that. 

Chris Christie’s race was the most colorful in terms of the actual content.  Corzine spent $30 million in one the most negative, ugly, and irreverent campaigns in recent history.  He even resorted to making references to Christie’s weight, comments which he deflected using his media savvy and great sense of humor.  Christie simply outclassed Corzine, identifying the  state’s high taxes and outrageous state expenditures as the sitting governors’ primary weaknesses.  In his acceptance speech, he summed up the Democratic governors’ derisive tactics with the phrase “Enough is Enough”.

Late in the race Obama abandoned Deeds to focus on backing Corzine, seeing that as the more winnable and consequential contest.  It didn’t work. 

Again Obama supporter’s insisted that this was no statement on his agenda.  How does Deed’s or Corzine’s agenda differ from Obama’s, and why did Obama back him?  Was he bored?  I guess he didn’t have anything better to do.

The New Jersey race also demonstrated an important contrast between our movement and theirs.  This new citizenship awaking is driven by politically engaged people who are arguing from an intellectual and historical framework.   Their campaigns are based on name calling, grandious rhetoric, and an association with a pop-culture icon president who is no longer en vogue.   Conservatives have taken the mantle of idealism away from the Left.

Finally, Doug Hoffman’s run in the infamous NY-23 battle is one for the ages.  After entering the race as a concerned citizen to oppose Owens and the GOP pick Dede Scozzafava, he became the hero of principled conservatism.  The Republican old gaurd claimed that Scozzafava had the best chance to win beat Owens, even though she was pro-choice, pro cap and tax, and pro card check.  The district conservatives rejected this notion, embracing the independent Hoffman. 

Scozzafava pulled out, but in a bad faith scorched earth move she threw her “support” to Owens, who in many polls was trailing Hoffman.   This is after the GOP gave her a million dollars.  A million dollars wasted on one of the weakest liberal republican congressional candidates of all time. 

In spite of this double-cross Hoffman persevered, receiving endorsements from Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck.  On Tuesday night he lost to Owens by  four points. 

Geraldine Ferraro and others call this a repudiation of the “far right” and claims it shows that NY-23 are moderate Republicans.   This absurd position actual shows that their movement is politically and morally bankrupt.

Hoffman, just another guy, actually ran against both parties at the same time and almost won.  They are claiming victory over someone who didn’t have any national party support and almost beat their Obama backed Democrat.  

And they needed the Republicans’s  help to beat him.  If this is their idea of victory then they are in serious trouble.