Connecting today’s news with the research and opinion you need from TPPF experts.
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Connecting today’s news with the research & opinion you need.
Refreshing Honesty
What to Know: The left has dropped all pretense; the Affordable Care Act has failed, and the new solution is full government control of health care.
“The Affordable Care Act is incremental and complicated,” Slate magazine writes. “Medicare for All is sweeping and simple. The Affordable Care Act regulated the private insurance market but didn’t end it. Medicare for All would blow it up. The Affordable Care Act was hellish to explain. (A generation of reporters has the phrase ‘three-legged stool’ burned into their brains.) Medicare for All is easy to sum up: Everyone gets the same government health plan, paid for with taxes. Done.”
The TPPF Take: It’s true that the ACA has failed, but we shouldn’t double down on what caused it to fail—government control.
“The cost of health care has risen every time government involvement increases and layers of bureaucracy are added,” says TPPF’s David Balat. “Medicare-for-All would mean much more bureaucracy, more costs, and far less care. We need fewer barriers between doctors and patients, not more. Instead of Medicare-for-All, Congress should let states take up health care reform.”
What to Know: The new catch-phrase for those who want to inject government into more and more aspects of our lives is “local democracy.” This is being played out in the debate over mandatory paid sick leave.
“It’s time for Texans of all political stripes to come together to defend local democracy from a state government captured by special interests,” an opinion piece in the Dallas Morning News contends. “Fully 87% of Texans believe that local governments are better connected to the community and should be allowed to pass policies that reflect their community’s needs and values, according to a Feb. 2019 poll by the Center for Public Policy Priorities and the Local Solutions Support Center.”
The TPPF Take: Local liberty trumps “local democracy” every time. Government exists to protect life, liberty, and property rights—not impose majoritarianism on people.
“Having been denied access to the levers of power at the federal and state levels, progressives are now trying to push their big government agendas through locally. They must not succeed,” says TPPF’s James Quintero. “Conservatives need to deploy all available checks-and-balances to prevent the California-zation of Texas. This means taking the fight to the ballot box, to the statehouse, and even to the courthouse.”
What to Know: Reviewing the new book, “How to Become a Federal Criminal: A Handbook for the Aspiring Offender” by Mike Chase, The American Conservative shows how far overcriminalization has gone.
“As Chase writes in the book, it isn’t difficult to commit a federal crime: Far from it, actually,” the magazine explains. “Congress has passed thousands of federal criminal statutes and has allowed federal agencies like the IRS and FDA to make thousands upon thousands of rules that carry criminal penalties. These criminally enforceable rules cover everything from how runny ketchup can be, to what you’re allowed to do if a bird of prey takes up residence in your house. Federal law even sets limits on just how friendly you can get with a pirate.”
The TPPF Take: We’re losing sight of a necessary part of criminality—intent.
“In the Western canon of law, it is not enough in most situations that a prohibited action (actus reus) simply occurred for someone to be guilty of wrongdoing,” explains TPPF’s Michael Haugen. “Mens rea, or a ‘guilty mind,’ must be present as well. We have too many criminal offenses without any explicit requirement that someone must have intended to commit them, which degrades the law’s moral legitimacy and ensnares people who never meant to run afoul of the law.”
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