Prayers up for Kevin Ware - Geez, this was absolutely freakish.  Remember in the movie "Saving Private Ryan" where the medics have these ampules with morphine to quickly alleviate pain?  That was my first thought: give him the shot.  Yikes.

Happy Easter - It's a Charlton Heston weekend with "The Ten Commandments" last night and "Ben Hur" today.

The fever has broken - Over at Powerline, Steve Hayward notes a shift in tone over at the Economist because the 95% certainty of global warming...isn't.  (H/T Maggie's Farm.)

Good question - Prof. Mankiw: "What is the purpose of insurance?"

There will be no retirement

Forbes: "The greatest retirement crisis in American history."

We are on the precipice of the greatest retirement crisis in the history of the world. In the decades to come, we will witness millions of elderly Americans, the Baby Boomers and others, slipping into poverty. Too frail to work, too poor to retire will become the “new normal” for many elderly Americans.

The article cites a statistic that 75% of Americans nearing retirement have less than $30,000 in retirement accounts.  Which is just mind-blowing.  The contributor Edward Siedle predicts that because of meager savings, most Americans will have to continue working, maybe until they're forced out.  That "bag boy" at the supermarket?  Not anymore.

Given the certainty that a retirement crisis is headed toward our shores, you’d think that our elected officials would be hard at work preparing a response. Of course, that’s not happening. To the contrary, conservatives are trying to pare back so-called entitlements that will mushroom in the near future and liberals have failed to acknowledge the crisis or propose any solutions.

I take umbrage at the idea I'm trying to "pare back" entitlements.  I'd rather see the eligibility ages for Medicare and Social Security increased to 1) help their finances and 2) bring these programs back to their original intent of helping the elderly poor.  The first step towards sanity would be to acknowledge that, given demographic trends, there is no way these entitlement programs can continue without reform.  The status quo - the status quo - is that the Medicare and Social Security Trust Funds will run dry and then will only be able to pay out what they take in as revenue, which means an automatic cut of about 25%.  But if you try to pare back $4/month from Social Security checks, it's portrayed as drowning Grandma in the bathtub.

Obama's insufferable moral vanity - Barack gave another speech today and the topic was shaming Congress into passing gun control legislation.  As usual, he sets himself up as the only person who hasn't forgotten about the children, while those bastards on "the other side" are heartless thugs.

Is it any wonder that this President is constantly at odds with the Republicans in Congress?  There is no daylight, no margin for discussion with this guy between public safety and Constitutional rights.  If you opposed Obamacare, it cannot be because you have legitimate concerns about the cost of delivery of care.  Now that gay marriage is the headlines, stay tuned for the One inferring that all who oppose it are loathsome homophobes.

Extra - Commentary: "Obama's appeal to emotion versus reason."

The obligatory post on gay marriage - What Iowahawk said.  "Maybe it's time for government to get out of the whole marriage business altogether."

Extra - Hit & Run: "In practical terms, Obama’s approach meant that Edith Windsor, the woman who brought the case, had to pay nearly $400,000 in taxes after her spouse died, money she would not have had to pay absent DOMA. So while the Obama administration now agrees with Windsor that the law is unfair, that has not stopped the federal government from taking her money."

Here comes Andy!

As a huge Disney fan, who has several pictures of Toy Story characters in front of "Al's Toy Barn", I want to go back just to try this out:

Paternalism for me, but not for thee - Over at Maggie's Farm: "Three cheers for the nanny state."  Everybody's always a big fan of the coercive state as long as it's the right kind of coercion, right Mayor Bloomberg?

C'est fini - Hot Air: "France finally abandons that 75% tax on the wealthy."

Some Q&A - Wall Street Journal: "Making sense of Social Security and Medicare."

Don't be a fool, do bad in school

Powerline has a post titled "NPR goes rogue" because they ran a story on "This American Life" largely critical of the federal disability program and its perverse incentives.  I clicked through the story and just shook my head at this:

Jahleel is a kid you can imagine doing very well for himself. He is delayed. But given the right circumstances and support, it's easy to believe that over the course of his schooling Jahleel could catch up.
Let's imagine that happens. Jahleel starts doing better in school, overcomes some of his disabilities. He doesn't need the disability program anymore. That would seem to be great for everyone, except for one thing: It would threaten his family's livelihood. Jahleel's family primarily survives off the monthly $700 check they get for his disability.
Jahleel's mom wants him to do well in school. That is absolutely clear. But her livelihood depends on Jahleel struggling in school. This tension only increases as kids get older. One mother told me her teenage son wanted to work, but she didn't want him to get a job because if he did, the family would lose its disability check.

Good grief.  Also in the story: 40 years ago, most disability claims were for heart disease; now, the lion's share are hard-to-diagnose back pain and mental illness.

Fun debt graphs aren't so fun - The Grumpy Economist reviews some recent estimates from the Congressional Budget Office about spending, revenue and debt.  After years of sub-2% growth, the CBO is estimating around 4% growth which will fill the government coffers with tax revenues.

But what happens if economic growth remains low?  Oh, man, you don't want to know.  And you really don't want to know what will happen if interest rates reset to historical levels.  Oof.

In the driver's seat - In Saudi Arabia: "The woman who dared to drive."  I like the part where Manal al-Sharif was spotted and somebody yelled "Girl!"

"Back to the Future" bloopers

Hey, it's Friday

Let's go full-on Krugman

The dwarf at the NY Times has been writing the same article for four years now: forget about deficits and let federal spending fly.  Frank Fleming takes it all the way: "Why not just put the entire federal budget on credit?"

Think about it: We’re past $16 trillion in debt so far, and we’re just fine. We have a pretty good scheme going to keep up the level of government we want: We take big loans from our children and then die before paying them back. And we have no reason to stop.

No reason and no willpower, so let's go whole-hog.  Bernanke will keep pushing quantitative easing until the wheels grind to a halt and then we can invoke the Willie Sutton rule and go where the money is.

Another commission, primed for the trash heap - WashPost: "Durbin to propose Social Security commission."  Yes, I'm sure it will get token imprimatur of "doing something" before everybody ignores it.

Priorities - Jammie Wearing Fools: "No budget from Obama but he did makes his NCAA picks."  Phew, I was afraid he would leave the country, leaving us in suspense.

Psych! - There's an old cartoon I need to find: a guy with an "IRS" briefcase shows up at some guy's door and says: "Hey, we spent all your money.  Can we have some more?"  Fox News: "California businesses fuming over retroactive $120 million tax grab."

Extra - From Nice Deb.

Crowding out all those things we call "the government"

Here's George Will two months ago:

"You wonder why discretionary spending is so low? Because nondiscretionary spending on entitlements is crowding out the Marine Corps, scientific research, everything else. And this is our future. We're going to be an assisted living home with an Army. That's going to be the American government."

And here's Robert Samuelson today with "America the Retirement Home."

The budget debate’s central reality is that federal retirement programs, led by Social Security and Medicare, are crowding out most other government spending. Until we openly recognize and discuss this, it will be impossible to have a “balanced approach” — to use one of President Obama’s favorite phrases. It’s the math: In fiscal 2012, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and civil service and military retirement cost $1.7 trillion, about half the budget. If they’re off-limits, the burdens on other programs and tax increases grow ever greater.

It's probably too late to turn back from the abyss.  As I wrote many years ago, the time for reform was before the horde of Baby Boomers retired.  Now that the largest group of American voters are getting their checks, and no politician is going to risk his or her career to stand in the way.  Samuelson notes that it's up to the President to tell America that programs initiated when the light bulb was "the latest thing" need to be reformed for the 21st century:

Only the occupant of the bully pulpit can yank public opinion back to reality. This requires acknowledging that an aging America needs a new social compact: one recognizing that longer life expectancies justify gradual increases in Social Security’s and Medicare’s eligibility ages; one accepting that sizable numbers of well-off retirees can afford to pay more for their benefits or receive less; one that improves generational fairness by concentrating help for the elderly more on the needy and poor to lighten the burdens — in higher taxes and fewer public services — on workers; and one that limits health costs.

In other words, we're doomed.  Sorry kids.  Now get to work.