Daily Read 2/1/10

A WSJ article on effects of the recession's "triple whammy" to non-profits: "Donations are down. Government funding is down. Need is up." Consider giving more to your favorite charities this year. When you give directly to a non-profit, you decide what's worthy, and charities are more accountable for wasting money than the government is. You can stop donating, you can't stop paying taxes. However, if you think the government is a good way to provide services to the needy, keep reading...

President Obama is submitting his $38 trillion budget to Congress today. The deficit will "approach a record $1.6 trillion this year," and "recede to $1.3 trillion in 2011 but remain persistently high for years to come under Obama's policies." (Washington Post, emphasis mine)

Megan McArdle of the Atlantic (here) on why Obama is having trouble with his "they broke it, I'm going to fix it" message: "what he has done, and what he wants to do."

In Obama's remarks on his budget, he says "the previous administration and previous Congresses created an expensive new drug program, passed massive tax cuts for the wealthy, and funded two wars." Obama is campaigning for additional, expensive medical programs; He is not likely to reverse the tax cuts during a recession; He was not in Congress when the Iraq war started, so has been able to get a free pass, but calls the war in Afghanistan a "necessity." So, how is the existing budget everyone else's fault? And, how are the "persistently high" future budgets everyone else's fault?

Obama says some proposed spending cuts are "more painful, because the goals of the underlying programs are worthy," and he is "willing to reduce waste in programs I care about." This is the problem when people see government as a source of benefits, and as a way to steer the economy. Everything the government does is "worthy" to someone, and the conversation becomes about small cuts in "waste" instead of whether the government should be involved at all.

This article, "The greatest risk is living swaddled in bubble wrap", from The National says that, in the UK, it seems "the principal role of government is to remove all hazards from daily existence." (h/t Overlawyered.com) If that's truly government's role, we're doomed to ever larger tax bills!

The Washington Post has an article today on how the crusade for a Consumer Financial Protection Agency lost steam, "echoing the enduring national debate over whether government intervention is more a solution or a problem." Opposition to CFPA is increasingly bipartisan.

The GOP blog has this excerpt from Obama's meeting with Republicans in Baltimore where he admits some people might not be able to keep their current insurance under health reform, then blames it on things that "got snuck in" to the bill. Again, those provisions were "worthy" to someone, or they wouldn't be there.