Op-Eds and Blogs

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s “PolitiFact” operation claimed the other day that I made misleading statements about fraud in government benefits programs, spending 1,200 words parsing an off-the-cuff remark I made at Pints and Politics, a casual Friday evening get-together of conservatives in Waukesha. They called my remark “ridiculous.” I won’t comment on the paper’s news judgment. When someone asked me about how the IRS would enforce the penalties in the Orwellian-named Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, I pointed out the deficiencies in how the IRS enforces existing tax law: “Do you realize the average rate of fraud, whether it's in the Earned Income Tax Credit or Medicare or Medicaid, across the board, food stamps -- the average rate of fraud in those programs is 20 to 25 percent?”

College enrollment is down, report Richard Vedder and Christopher Denhart in the Wall Street Journal, and it shouldn’t be a surprise. The pay premium that bachelor’s degree holders earn over those without a four-year college degree is shrinking, too, while the price of college is going up and up. They write: “This phenomenon leads to underemployment. A study I conducted with my colleague Jonathan Robe, the 2013 Center for College Affordability and Productivity report, found explosive growth in the number of college graduates taking relatively unskilled jobs. We now have more college graduates working in retail than soldiers in the U.S. Army, and more janitors with bachelor's degrees than chemists. In 1970, less than 1% of taxi drivers had college degrees. Four decades later, more than 15% do. “This is only partly the result of the Great Recession and botched public policies that have failed to produce employment growth. It's also the result of an academic arms race in which universities have spent exorbitant sums on luxury dormitories, climbing walls, athletic subsidies and bureaucratic bloat. More significantly, it's the result of sending more high-school graduates to college than professional fields can accommodate.”

Innovation is now the norm in industries, writes Gordon Crovitz in the Wall Street Journal – innovation so fast that it disrupts industries. He mentions how the free maps app on his phone has made the GPS device he bought superfluous. A new book, “Big Bang Disruption,” by Larry Downes and Paul Nunes, points out this happens a lot. As Crovitz writes: “Powerful new technologies like cloud computing and big data allow entrepreneurs to develop products and services that are ‘simultaneously better, cheaper, and more customized,’ Messrs. Downes and Nunes write. ‘This isn't disruptive innovation. It's devastating innovation.’ “Who would have thought that a mobile phone would challenge industries as varied as home phones, video cameras and flashlights? Digital alternatives undermined the business models for travel agents, restaurant guides and newspapers. Even disrupters rapidly get disrupted: Digital videogames decimated the pinball industry, but the market value of Zynga collapsed after consumers abandoned Farmville for the next new game.”

On Monday, Jan. 6, I am filing suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin to make Congress live by the letter of the health-care law it imposed on the rest of America. By arranging for me and other members of Congress and their staffs to receive benefits intentionally ruled out by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the administration has exceeded its legal authority. The president and his congressional supporters have also broken their promise to the American people that ObamaCare was going to be so good that they would participate in it just like everyone else. In truth, many members of Congress feel entitled to an exemption from the harsh realities of the law they helped jam down Americans' throats in 2010. Unlike millions of their countrymen who have lost coverage and must now purchase insurance through an exchange, members and their staffs will receive an employer contribution to help pay for their new plans.