May 2006 Archives

Researchers released a study showing that Americans are sicker than the English. There could be many reasons for this, but the study did everything they could to take into account every difference (including obesity), and yet Americans are less healthy than the English.

Why? Perhaps we lead a more stressful life, and that contributes to it. I think, though, it's because our health care system isn't as good as a single payer system like England has. We spend more than twice (per person) what the English do on health care, and we're less healthy.

Astounding as it may sound, an economist in the Bush administration said that a Gas Tax Cut Not the Answer to lower gas prices.

What? An economist in the Bush administration that doesn't think cutting taxes will improve everything from interest rates to the taste of my coffee?

He's right, of course. Cutting the gas tax would just increase demand, thus raising prices back to where they already are. It's astounding, though, that anyone in the Bush administration would admit that.

There's a little known part of Federal bill signing called signing statements. It's what the President adds to the bill when he signs it. It's not part of the law, it's often used by the President to signify his understanding of the law.

Bush has taking this to a new level, one that is questionably legal. He is using the signing statement as a legal ploy. He's using it to say which parts of the law he believes don't apply to the administration.

The Boston Globe has a list:
Examples of the president's signing statements - The Boston Globe

It's scary. He doesn't think laws that were specifically designed to apply to the administration, do, and rather than challenging them in court, the way the administration has done in the past, they just ignore them.