National Health Insurance? - Jane Galt makes a fantastic point about some of the problems with nationalized health care.

"Which brings up one of my perennial peeves about people advocating national health insurance or any other big programme: they point out all the ways in which public choice problems make the current system suck, and then proceed to outline their future plans as if those problems will somehow magically fall away in their system. Companies won't lobby. Voters won't demand that every stupid alternative procedure they can complain about be covered, much less react to the lack of a price signal by using more of everything. People employed in that sector won't band together to keep wages high and productivity as low as possible. Bureaucrats won't shift priorities to minimizing their own political risk, rather than maximizing the level of service provided to the public. Because it's not as if those things have happened with every single other government programme ever proposed, so why on earth would we suspect they might happen in this case?"

Slush Fund Spitzer - I have never disguised my disdain for Elliot Spitzer. So I can't say that I didn't grin a little over Captain Ed's article today about the "new" Governor Spitzer.

"So much for reform. Now that he has barely warmed his seat in Albany, he has shifted his game to that of old-time politician and spoils master. He wants to pass a budget of his liking, and he's going to buy as many of his party colleagues as he possibly can to ensure it. After running a campaign that pledged Spitzer to a course that would change "politics as usual", he seems to have discovered an affinity for slush funds in record time."

What About Bill? - Considering Expat Teacher's man-love for Bill Richardson, I couldn't help but link to this post today by Daniel Larison exposing some pretty tough issues that Richardson is going to have to deal with in an election.

"His record in Congress put him much farther to the left than he is today, his record at the U.N. was basically unremarkable and his time as head of DOE was a catastrophe.

All of this will come back to haunt a Richardson ticket, should he make it that far, and the DOE tenure especially will prove potentially devastating when it comes to the whole Chinese espionage bit. Richardson boosters probably will want to not mention his time at DOE if they can possibly help it. His opponents can just keep replaying that scene from the Senate oversight hearings as Robert Byrd declares Richardson’s career finished:

"You had a bright and brilliant career, but you will never again receive the support of the U.S. Senate for any office you seek. You have squandered your treasure."

The Case Against McCain - Yesterday Mike Allen wrote at The Politico about the leading candidates for '08 and their weaknesses. (You might want to check out Wonkeette's take on this.) About John McCain, Allen wrote:

"Even though McCain is staunchly anti-abortion, conservatives don't trust him because he voted against Bush's tax cuts and championed campaign finance reform, which many activists saw as a do-gooder intervention that hurt some of their pet organizations."

Mike, can't you just pretend to be objective here? The issue for conservatives about McCain-Feingold hasn't nothing to do with conservative "pet organizations". It has everything to do with restricting the freedom of speech. Why don't people get this?