Since President Obama plucked at least three advisers and cabinet members from elected positions, and some of those positions were then filled by other elected officials, we have a spate of special elections to watch as these empty posts are filled. Of particular note is the 20th House district in New York that was vacated when Kirsten Gillibrand was appointed to replace Hillary Clinton as senator. The district had traditionally trended Republican before Gillibrand’s win in 2006,
A Cool Reaction to Warming Trend
Americans For Prosperity, a conservative group, has found a unique way to attack Democrats for the recently passed American Recovery and Reinvestment Act: global warming alarmism.
The group notes that the stimulus package calls for “spending billions of dollars” for “green energy.” That much is certainly true. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the bill did include $16.8 billion for energy efficiency and renewable energy, and as we’ve previously discussed there was an additional $11 billion for a so-called smart grid.
Stimulus Bill
Q: What will the stimulus bill cost per family?
A: The added federal debt comes to about $10,000 per family. A Republican senator who used a figure 10 times higher than that is wrong.
Who is Linda Panetta?
Q: Is Leon Panetta’s daughter a "radical anti-American" who posed with Venezuela’s Chavez?
A: Actually, President Obama’s nominee to head the CIA doesn’t even have a daughter. The woman pictured in a false viral e-mail message is a Philadelphia-based photographer who says she’s never met Leon Panetta.
Stimulus Bill Bravado
In recent weeks, in his pitches to Congress and the public on the need to pass the economic stimulus bill, Obama has made several claims about what it would do. (Republicans, too, have made stimulus boasts of their own.) But these pronouncements are not a sure thing. Obama repeatedly said …
Freedom of Choice Act
Q:What are the facts on the Freedom of Choice Act?
A:Some claims about this proposal’s impact are unfounded; others contain some truth. But the bill’s vague wording makes it hard to pin down what it actually would or wouldn’t do.
On Logical Fallacies
We’re always pleased when our readers write to us with questions or comments that really make us think. Here, for example, is reader K.S., who writes:
Perhaps it was intended facetiously, if so I apologize for this “correction.” However, in your piece on ACORN you concluded with the following statement, “We’re accustomed to seeing logical fallacies in political arguments. But working two of them into a single argument is unusually bad logic.”
All fallacies are errors in logic,
When Economists Disagree, Part II
In a post last week, we explained some of the difficulties involved in trying to determine whether or not the stimulus package will work. As we said at the time:
Well, for one thing, economists have very little data with which to work. There are plenty of theoretical models out there, but those models are largely untested. … [O]ur long period of relative prosperity means that economists haven’t been able to plug a lot of real-world situations into their models to see how well those models hold up.
AIG Bailout
Q: Did Congress bail out AIG because it insures members’ pensions?
A: This widely e-mailed claim is a hoax. It actually was the Federal Reserve that bailed out AIG, not Congress. And federal pensions aren’t insured by AIG or any other company.
The Stimulus Bill and ACORN
Q: Does the stimulus bill include a $5.2 billion payoff for ACORN?
A: The bill does include funds for which ACORN would be eligible to compete – against hundreds of other groups. But most is for a housing rehabilitation program ACORN says it never applied for in the past and won’t in the future.