George Will thinks Hispanics are either illegals, dishwashers or gardeners

From Will's new column defending Arizona's draconian "demand papers from anybody who doesn't look like George Will" law:

Non-Hispanic Arizonans of all sorts live congenially with all sorts of persons of Hispanic descent. These include some whose ancestors got to Arizona before statehood -- some even before it was a territory. They were in America before most Americans' ancestors arrived. Arizonans should not be judged disdainfully and from a distance by people whose closest contacts with Hispanics are with fine men and women who trim their lawns and put plates in front of them at restaurants, not with illegal immigrants passing through their back yards at 3 a.m.

Today's random foreign blogging

Just a thought, but with Greek debt being downgraded today to "junk" status, maybe it would make sense for them to cut their military spending. Greece right now has 177,000 active duty soldiers (4.2% of its population, or more than triple the per capita numbers for the US). Greece also spends 4.3% of its GDP on its military - 25th in the world, and ahead of the US, and way higher than other European countries. Germany, Czech Republic, Belarus, Albania, Denmark, Belgium, Spain, etc. are all at around 1.5% of GDP or less.

Greece's GDP in 2009 was $356 billion, so adjusting their military spending to be more in line with similarly situated European countries would save them about $11 billion a year - something that would probably make the bond markets (and the EU) pretty happy. The communists lost and Turkey is part of NATO, so there's not really any reason to bankrupt your country with military expenditures when you can just freeride off the US like everybody else in Europe.

Does "last hired first fired" really protect teachers?

Today's Times has an article on efforts by NYC Schools Chancellor Klein's efforts to remove seniority protections for teachers, and end "last hired, first fired." I have a lot of sympathy for this effort. While there are a lot of great senior teachers (my dad for instance, who put in consistent effort over 30 years teaching elementary school), I'm not sure that seniority is a great predictor for excellence, or that it makes sense to do layoffs by seniority alone.

For example, my mother-in-law was by all accounts a phenomenal elementary school teacher, who took over a decade off in the middle of her career to raise her kids. When she came back, despite having a ton of experience (and caring more about her students than anyone I've ever met), she was perenially on the chopping block at her school because she didn't have any seniority.

During my time teaching in LA, there were some great senior teachers, and there were some who were just phoning it in to collect a paycheck. There were some amazing junior teachers, and some who were in over their heads. Again, it doesn't make sense to me that, if layoffs have to happen, the lousy senior teachers should be protected and the great junior teachers should be dumped.

In defense of seniority, the article states that:

Unions argue that administrators want to do away with seniority protections so they can get rid of older teachers, who are more expensive. They say that without seniority safeguards, principals could act on personal grudges, and that while keeping the best teachers is a laudable goal, no one has figured out an accurate way to determine who those teachers are.

This doesn't make much sense to me. Administrators want to keep good teachers, but probably also want to maximize their budgets. If senior teachers are good, I can't imagine administrators wanting to get rid of them just because they're expensive. On the other hand, if you have two equally lousy teachers - a junior teacher making $40,000 and a senior teacher making $65,000 - it seems like pretty good policy to toss the pricier bad teacher.

I also don't understand the argument that seniority safeguards are necessary to prevent principals from acting on personal grudges. This argument gets made all the time with regard to tenure, and I don't think it's any more applicable there. Most people work in jobs where there's no seniority protection or tenure. I don't have any tenure or seniority protection as a lawyer, neither do cashiers at Wal Mart, bankers at Goldman, or most other non-government employees. However, most people I know don't spend a lot of time worrying that we'll get fired because of a boss's personal grudge. Moreover, I don't understand how seniority protection protects anyone (other than senior teachers) from grudges - does that mean that it's ok to fire junior teachers over a grudge?

I have the same problem with the "we don't know how to evaluate good teachers" argument. If you walk into any job or office in this country, I can guarantee that the boss will be able to give you a general idea of who her good employees are and who the not-so-good ones are, and could tell you who the company should keep and who they should let go if there were layoffs. Heck, when I was a teacher I could have told you who the good teachers and bad teachers were at my school.

As a caveat, I'll note that the Times puts these arguments into the mouth of generic "unions," without quoting a person or even a specific union, so I'm a little skeptical. Readers who are currently teaching - do you think that these are legitimate reasons to keep seniority - or are they just more ways that the senior teachers (who run the unions) keep their jobs and perks at the expense of the new guys?

Department of terrible policy

There has to be some way for the government to not let this happen:

Mostly, though, Wall Street is making money by taking advantage of its rock-bottom cost of capital, provided courtesy of the Federal Reserve — now that the big Wall Street firms are all bank holding companies — and then turning around and lending it at much higher rates.

The easiest and most profitable risk-adjusted trade available for the banks is to borrow billions from the Fed — at a cost of around half a percentage point — and then to lend the money back to the U.S. Treasury at yields of around 3 percent, or higher, a moment later. The imbedded profit — of some 2.5 percentage points — is an outright and ongoing gift from American taxpayers to Wall Street.

Stop poxing both houses

This kind of "pox on both your houses" thing drives me nuts:

Independents and Democrats at the Cocoa Beach Pier on Wednesday were more welcoming. They said an outsider candidacy by Mr. Crist might give Floridians a way to protest partisan politics. “People are upset with the whole system, and we need more than two parties,” said David Steranko, 39, a registered independent and Internet marketer of vacation packages. “I would really like to see our government stop bickering so much and work on our problems more.”

Look, what people are arguing about within the government is how to go about solving our problems. The endless debate on healthcare reform? That was because Democrats had a proposal to solve the problem of lots of Americans being uninsured, and Republicans thought that the Democrats' plan either wouldn't solve that problem, or would make other problems, like the deficit worse, or were playing for partisan advantage. With financial reform, Democrats perceive a problem (periodic crashes of the economy brought on by Wall Street shenanigans), and are trying to correct it with a financial reform bill. Republicans are fighting the bill, because they either think that it won't solve the problem, or because they'd like to hand Dems a loss. With both of these situations, Democrats (and some Republicans) are actively trying to solve problems - but lots of Republicans are gumming up the works to score political points.

Imagine that, at Mr. Steranko's internet vacation marketing company, he saw that there was a problem (too few people buying vacations), and he had a solution to it, but somebody else at the company spent months blocking his solution because they want Steranko to fail so they could have his job. I don't think that he would say that the right thing to do would be to fire Steranko and his antagonist, and bring in somebody else, because "there was too much bickering, and a third party should just solve the problem."

Question time

Looking back over this site's traffic for the past couple months, it's pretty clear that some of the most popular posts have been where I've answered questions that readers have about complicated things happening in the political world.

A lot of what passes for news about politics really lacks any explanation of the issues - the writers are more interested in talking about the controversy than explaining what the healthcare reform law, or the financial regulation bill, would actually do.

To that end, I want to encourage you to send me questions - you can email me at cnyexpat@gmail.com, post as comments to the blog, or leave them as wall posts on the cnyexpat facebook fan page. I'll do my best to answer anything you send, or at least find a writer out there who's got a good answer. I won't promise to be non-partisan, but I will try my best to be fair and intellectually honest.

If you send in a question, I won't use your name, but I may post all or part of your question to give context to the answer. Please let me know if you'd rather I not do that.

Financial Regulation is not "an endless series of bailouts"

The GOP (primarily Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell) has been making the ridiculous argument that Chris Dodd's financial regulation bill will lead to "endless bailouts" of the banking industry. A couple things should lead you to believe that this is not the case.

1) The financial industry is fighting tooth and nail against the bill. Banks like being bailed out, and they particularly like it if there's a guarantee of bailouts, because it makes it much cheaper for them to borrow money (because if there's a federal guarantee that the banks won't go under, it makes loaning to them less risky, and thus they get a lower interest rate). Since the entire business model for banks like Goldman and Merrill Lynch is to borrow tons of money, and then invest it, lowering their borrowing cost with a bailout guarantee would be like the government subsidizing the cost of planes for an airline. Just as an airline would not fight those subsidies, banks would not fight a law that guaranteed bailouts.

2) Banks are pouring money into the coffers of Republicans who are fighting the bill. They would not do this if the bill guaranteed bailouts (see above).

3) The alleged $50 billion "bailout fund" is, under the bill, actually a liquidation fund that would be used to wind down failing banks, not bail them out. Ezra Klein explains:

Here's how the liquidation fund works: A year after the bill is signed, the secretary of the Treasury begins taxing banks based on the risk they pose to the financial system. This tax must raise $50 billion and last for at least five years but no more than 10 years. So first, that's where the fund comes from: a tax on too-big-to-fail banks, which has the added bonus of giving a slight advantage to smaller banks that won't be laboring under this tax.

When it comes to saving failing banks, $50 billion isn't a lot of money. Think of the $700 billion TARP fund. Or even look at the House bill, which has a $150 billion resolution fund. But then, the $50 billion isn't there to save banks. It's there to liquidate them.

Here's the chain of events: A bank is judged failing. The FDIC submits a plan for the bank's liquidation -- which includes firing management, wiping out shareholders, handing losses to creditors, and selling off the firm -- and gets it approved by the Treasury secretary. Then the FDIC takes over the banks. The $50 billion fund is used to keep the lights on while all this happens. It's there to prevent taxpayers from having to foot the bill for the chaos that will occur between when we recognize a bank is failing and when we shut it down.

Whatever you want to call this, it isn't a bailout. It's the death of the company. And the fund is way of forcing too-big-to-fail banks to pay for the execution.

Unfortunately, the Republican leadership in congress has been making a lot of headway confusing voters on this issue, so it looks like the Administration may cave and drop the liquidation fund. Dropping the liquidation fund (which would be raised by taxing banks) is Wall Street's preferred position, and that's what Republicans are pushing.

The myth that half of Americans don't pay any taxes

Ahh, April 15th, the best day of the year for well-off people to complain about how many taxes they pay and how nobody else is paying them. This year, the Center for Tax Policy has obliged by providing a study stating that 47% of Americans pay no income tax. That number has given rise to a great deal of indignant commentary, like this from CNN's Scott Hodge:

If "taxes are the price we pay for civilized society," to quote Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., then April 15 is the day that bill comes due for every working American. But that is no longer the case for a growing class of Americans for whom the price of civilized society has been reduced to zero because the tax code's generous credits and deductions completely erase their income tax liability. And for many of these nonpayers, civilized society actually pays them a hefty refund, which is not much different from a welfare check except that it's run through the tax code instead of through the Department of Health and Human Services.

Although the study appears on its face to be correct, the reactions to it miss a really critical point - there are lots of taxes beyond the income tax! Income tax gets the most press, because for well-off people, it's their biggest tax. However, for many lower income people (those who are singled out as free-riders because they don't pay income tax, they give a significant part of their income to the government.

As an example, using the tax calculator at http://www.payroll-taxes.com/calculators.htm, I looked at income and payroll taxes for a person making $25k a year, $50k a year and $100k (without taking into account any deductions):

• A person making $25k a year will pay about $2030 in income tax and $1950 in payroll taxes.
• A person making $50k a year will pay $6800 in income tax but only $3800 in payroll tax.
• A person making $100k a year will pay about $20,000 in income tax but only $7600 in payroll tax (27% of salary).

So payroll taxes are a much bigger deal vis a vis income tax for lower income folks - and those taxes never get refunded back.

Additionally, people with lower incomes pay a substantially higher percentage of their income in sales tax than higher income people. That's because they typically need to spend everything they make, and all that spending gets taxed. If you make enough where you're able to save a substantial portion of you're income, you're not being taxed on it.

So remember, if you hear somebody saying that half of Americans don't pay taxes, it's simply not true. Everybody pays payroll taxes, and everybody pays sales tax (and most people who own their homes pay property taxes) - and these apply regardless of income level, and are typically paid by the poor and working class as a higher percentage of their income than upper and middle income people pay.

Best example of the New York attitude about being in terrorists' cross-hairs

NY Magazine reports that New York subways were targets of a coordinated terrorist attack broken up by law enforcement:

Zazi and his two Queens friends allegedly planned to strap explosives to their bodies and split up, heading for the Grand Central and Times Square stations - the two busiest subway stations in New York City.

They would board trains on the 1, 2, 3 and 6 lines at rush hour and planned to position themselves in the middle of the packed trains to ensure the maximum carnage when they blew themselves up, sources said.

NYMag.com commenter JA2009 writes in response: Our law enforcement is getting the job done. The odds that you'll be the victim of a terrorist attack are lower than the odds that you'll die in a car accident. Don't be pussies. Besides, with our MTA how the hell can these guys plan a "coordinated" attack?

A deft combination of belief in law enforcement, derision of those afraid of terrorists, and gallows humor at the expense of non-NYPD municipal services. This attitude, which I think is pretty widespread among New Yorkers, is precisely why we would be happy to have the KSM trial here.

More on Confederate Heritage Month

The Times ran an interesting editorial today on the selective memory of neo-Confederates:

If neo-Confederates are interested in history, let’s talk history. Since Lee surrendered at Appomattox, Confederate symbols have tended to be more about white resistance to black advances than about commemoration. In the 1880s and 1890s, after fighting Reconstruction with terrorism and after the Supreme Court struck down the 1875 Civil Rights Act, states began to legalize segregation. For white supremacists, iconography of the “Lost Cause” was central to their fight; Mississippi even grafted the Confederate battle emblem onto its state flag.

But after the Supreme Court allowed segregation in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, Jim Crow was basically secure. There was less need to rally the troops, and Confederate imagery became associated with the most extreme of the extreme: the Ku Klux Klan.

In the aftermath of World War II, however, the rebel flag and other Confederate symbolism resurfaced as the civil rights movement spread. In 1948, supporters of Strom Thurmond’s pro-segregation Dixiecrat ticket waved the battle flag at campaign stops.

Then came the school-integration rulings of the 1950s. Georgia changed its flag to include the battle emblem in 1956, and South Carolina hoisted the colors over its Capitol in 1962 as part of its centennial celebrations of the war.

As the sesquicentennial of Fort Sumter approaches in 2011, the enduring problem for neo-Confederates endures: anyone who seeks an Edenic Southern past in which the war was principally about states’ rights and not slavery is searching in vain, for the Confederacy and slavery are inextricably and forever linked.

That has not, however, stopped Lost Causers who supported Mr. McDonnell’s proclamation from trying to recast the war in more respectable terms. They would like what Lincoln called our “fiery trial” to be seen in a political, not a moral, light. If the slaves are erased from the picture, then what took place between Sumter and Appomattox is not about the fate of human chattel, or a battle between good and evil. It is, instead, more of an ancestral skirmish in the Reagan revolution, a contest between big and small government.

Matt Yglesias adds:

I would note that apart from contemporary racial issues, something that links the mentality of today’s right to the mentality of the slaveowners and segregation proponents is the white southern political tradition’s very partial and selective embrace of majoritarian democracy. As long as national institutions are substantially controlled by white southerners, the white south is a hotbed of patriotism. But as soon as an non-southern political coalition manages to win an election—as we saw in 1860 and in 2008—then suddenly the symbols of national authority become symbols of tyranny and the constitution is construed as granting conservative areas all kinds of alleged abilities to opt out of national political decisions. Even if you think opposition to the Affordable Care Act has nothing whatsoever to do with race, the underlying political philosophy by which a George W Bush or James Buchanan is a national president but an Abraham Lincoln or a Barack Obama merely a sectional one remains incoherent and pernicious.

"The Dark Knight" as political allegory

As we're coming up on the summer blockbuster season (and it's a Friday afternoon), here are three differing and very interesting views of last summer's "The Dark Knight" as an allegory for the war on terror:

Ian Keegan (here) sees shades of hard-core Zarqawi's rise to power within al Qaeda in the Joker's takeover of Gotham's gangs, and notes the Joker's use of the cheap tools of asymetric warfare. He also notes that:

the real value of Dark Knight regarding the discussion of terrorism, in my opinion, is in its depiction of the effects of terror. As viewers we are placed in the shoes of a populace targeted by a successful terrorism campaign. We see innocent people being attacked and killed, while the police and the Batman are unable to make any progress towards stopping the source of the violence. And even though we are experienced movie-goers who know that in the end the forces of good will prevail, the movie is so well made that we are forced to consider the possibility that the Joker cannot be stopped. How we act, threatened by a seemingly unstoppable terrorist threat?

Spencer Ackerman (here) doesn't buy it:

This misses the point about The Dark Knight in important ways. Batman prevails. He prevails by perverting justice in a very serious way: through blanket surveillance over everyone in Gotham and, inevitably, by stopping Harvey Dent. In a caped-crusader version of Michael Walzer’s “clean hands” argument, he essentially makes a martyr of himself to Gotham by agreeing to do something he knows very well is wrong and accepts that his ultimately-Pyrrhic victory must include Gotham believing him to be the villain. Remember when Alfred says that he stopped the Burmese bandit by burning down the village? That’s how you know good won’t prevail. (And how you know it’s more Sassaman than McMaster.) The Dark Knight, for all its virtues and for all its flaws, is a movie that embraces The Dark Side, however agonized it is about that decision.

Adam Serwer (here) disagrees, and thinks that "The Dark Knight" does in fact work as a liberal critique of Bush-era war on terror tactics:

But of course the point of The Dark Knight is that people can resist such transformations, that they don't have to become monsters to survive. The Joker knows Batman isn't a monster, not really, but he tries to make him one by making him break his One Rule: Batman doesn't kill. You could argue that such things as Hong Kong scene "support" rendition, but this is a comic book movie, and heroes have to do cool things. Within the context of the Batman narrative, the only rule that matters is the One Rule. Moreover, we're given a cautionary tale in the form of Harvey Dent in what happens when government officials start to believe that rules no longer matter.

Obama: "Last I checked, Sarah Palin isn't much of an expert on Nuclear Issues."

After Obama signed the arms reduction treaty with Russia, which would reduce nuclear stockpiles in each country from around 2200 warheads to about 1500 (and also would thaw the Bush era neo-cold war with the Kremlin), Palin gave her typically nuanced take on the treaty:

You know that's kinda like getting out there on the playground, a bunch of kids ready to fight and one of the kids saying 'Go ahead, punch me in the face and I'm not going to retaliate. Go ahead and do what you want to with me.'"

In an interview with ABC, Obama zinged Palin and suggested that the country was better off with him taking advice on nuclear security from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Secretary of Defense (as opposed to the host of an Alaska-themed reality TV show)

"The nonnegligible probability of utter disaster"

Paul Krugman has an absolutely critical, must-read piece (here) on the economics of fighting global warming. It's long, but anyone who wants to have a handle on what appears to be the critical issue of our generation, should read it.

Amending Confederate History Month

After taking heat (from this blog as well as many other commentators) about his slavery-free Confederate History Month, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell apologized and amended his proclamation to include a fairer treatment of the underlying cause of secession and the Civil War.

WHEREAS, it is important for all Virginians to understand that the institution of slavery led to this war and was an evil and inhumane practice that deprived people of their God-given inalienable rights and all Virginians are thankful for its permanent eradication from our borders, and the study of this time period should reflect upon and learn from this painful part of our history.

I applaud the Governor for having the self-respect to admit and correct his error, instead of making political hay out of being criticized by the PC Left. I think it's especially important that the proclamation notes that the Civil War and slavery were a "painful part of our history." There needs to be serious, institutional pushback, against the valorization of the Confederacy. The Confederate Flag (actually the Confederate battle flag - the "stars and bars" was the national flag) was the symbol of treason, of tearing up the Constitution. It was carried by an armed rebellion that fought the US army and tore down the American flag when it captured Fort Sumter. 150 years later, we shouldn't be in a position such as that of one of my readers, who reports on Facebook that his vacation is being ruined by Confederate Flag beach towels.

Happy Confederate History Month!

Alleged moderate Virginia Republican Governor Bob McDonnell has reinstated April as "Confederate History Month" in the great Commonwealth of VA, after it had been abandoned by his two Democratic predecessors.

According to the governor's proclamation, April was chosen because it was the month that Virginia decided to abandon the United States and join the Confederate States of America. The proclamation is curiously silent about rhe reasons for VA joining the CSA, but if we look back to the first paragraph of Virginia's Ordinance of Secession, we get a pretty good idea.

The people of Virginia in their ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, adopted by them in convention on the twenty-fifth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, having declared that the powers granted under said Constitition were derived from the people of the United States and might be resumed whensoever the same should be perverted to their injury and oppression, and the Federal Government having perverted said powers not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern slave-holding States
(via Matt Yglesias)

People can (and do, at great length) argue about the relative importance of slavery over tarriffs, or industrialization, etc. as causes of secession and the Civil War, and whether we in the present can judge Southerners from 150 years ago, who were raised with completely different world views and prejudices.

However, I think that we can say, for certain, that it is utterly wrong for a state government (particularly one representing a state where 20% of the population is Black) to honor treason against the Constitution of the United States, which resulted in an armed rebellion that fired on the flag of the United States and led to the deaths of 650,000 Americans, all in the defense of the enslavement of their fellow human beings.

The iPad is not the most important thing that happened last week

Newsweek's cover story on the iPad (which pairs nicely with its back cover advertisement for the same product) declares that the iPad will "revolutionize reading, watching, computing, gaming and silicon valley." I admit that I have not yet handled the messiah-gadget (although as an inveterate gadgeteer I've read many reviews of it), but I think that, as usual for Apple products, the praise is way overblown. Let's take a look at what the iPad will allegedly revolutionize:

Reading: The Kindle (to which, full disclosure, I'm partial) has already led the way on digital distribution of books. The iPad only promises to do more of the same, but with pictures! and video clips! I think most people are using e-readers for books - I'm reading Ron Chernow's "Alexander Hamilton," on my Kindle, and have not felt a need for a video re-ceation of the Weehawken duel.

Websites, like ESPN.com, do a pretty good job of combining text, graphics and video, and these will be viewable on the iPad, as well as specially-created text/video/graphic publication that will probably be a lot like ESPN.com except not you pay for them.

I do see the iPad potentially being ground-breaking in replacing textbooks - where graphics, interactive material, etc. could be really helpful, as would the ability to highlight, cut and paste clips, etc. However, this is clearly at the moment a niche market, and not really "revolutionizing reading."

Watching: Ok, you can watch movies on it. Like you can on an iphone or a good PMP, or a laptop, except a bit larger and with a better picture. However, given that home video and TV consumption has been trending toward ever-larger HD screens, and TV-makers are investing heavily in 3D TVs, I have a hard time imagining that the average person is going to skip his 50 inch LCD with 7.1 dolby to watch a movie or the Superbowl in the iPad.

Computing: Without a keyboard, and only able to run one application at a time, I have a hard time seeing how anything you do on an iPad really even counts as computing, much less as "revolutionary computing." Computer use in the past decade has trended more and more toward users creating content - posting pics and status updates on facebook, creating, editing and posting videos on youtube, blogging, commenting on other blogs or sites. The iPad isn't really set up to do any of this. I'll bet that most people who engage with their computers or the internet and own an iPad will use it to consume media, and then go to a regular computer to create.

Gaming: So far the iPad has sold 300,000 units. Great start, definitely, but it has a long way to go before it catches up with the 140 million Playstation 2 units sold over that platform's lifespan. At the moment, the best games for the iPad look like Quake 2 era games from about 10 years ago on the PC or PS2. Nice to be able to play when you're away from your main system, but I have a hard time imagining people becoming iPad gaming loyalists.

Gaming right now is heading in two very different directions. You have gorgeously produced, immersive games like Uncharted 2, Modern Warfare, etc. that have Hollywood budgets and huge sales, and you have very cheap-to-produce, easy to play casual games like the reigning champ, Facebook's farmville, scrabble clones, desktop tower defense games, etc. As with movies, the iPad is not going to match the experience of playing a high-end game on a high-end computer or console with a big monitor or TV and serious speakers. It will probably canibalize sales from portable systems like the Nintendo DS and the PSP, and will get its share of casual game users who want to manage their digital farms while on the road, but again, hardly revolutionary.

In the end, the iPad is a great piece of industrial design, with a very slick looking operating system, that's user-friendly and appears to be pretty fun to use. It's absolutely a desirable object, even for apple-phobes like me. However, as nicely as it does what it does, none of the things it does are revolutionary - it shows movies less appealingly than a big TV, it games worse than a PS3, Wii or X-Box (or a good real computer), its battery life for reading is 10 hours instead of the Kindle's 2 weeks, etc. At the end of the day, it's just a really nicely designed gadget. No problem with that, but it doesn't merit a Newsweek cover.

Anti-immigrant healthcare policy will cost Americans money

As part of the general political climate where it's important for politicians never to be seen doing anything remotely nice to undocumented immigrants, the recent healthcare reform act excluded them entirely from its provisions. Now, I understand the argument of not wanting to extend subsidies to UIs, particularly given that many of them participate in an underground economy and don't pay taxes - the argument being that you don't want to draw people to the US just so they can tap into social services benefits, particularly if those people aren't contributing.

For the moment we'll leave aside the counter-argument that few people emigrate for that purpose, and the fact that many UIs use fake social security numbers and consequently pay into entitlement programs that (medicare and social security) to which they'll never have access. The interesting, and extremely counter-productive provision built into the new law is that undocumented immigrants are prohibited from using their own money (no government subsidies) to buy into the exchanges ( insurance markets that will bet set up on a state-by-state basis to sell insurance to people who aren't covered by their employers.) This bit of red meat for the anti-immigrant crowd is stupid, lousy policy for two main reasons:

1.) The undocumented immigrant population in the US is significantly younger, and healthier (largely by dint of age) than the US population as a whole (and than the average uninsured American). That means that the exchanges will be missing out on a batch of young, healthy customers who would subsidize the exchanges by (on average) paying more in premiums than they consume in healthcare. This would result in lower prices for everybody else buying into the exchanges, and less government spending on subsidies for people who can't afford to buy insurance on the exchanges on their own. Furthermore, the more people that buy into the exchanges, the lower the premiums will be because of competition for the pool and economies of scale. Undocumented immigrants make up about 20% of the uninsured - excluding them from the exchanges means higher prices for everyone else.

2.) As, without the exchanges, it will continue to be almost impossible (or ruinously expensive) to buy individual insurance, undocumented immigrants shut out from the exchanges will continue to be largely uninsured. However, as happens now, when uninsured people go to the hospitals, they aren't turned away- the hospital just eats the cost, and passes it along to everyone else. The reform law shuts the door on people who are interested in being responsible and insuring themselves, and forces their medical costs onto local hospitals.

This is all par for the course for American immigration policy - like the provision in medicaid that legal immigrants have to wait five years to access Medicaid (even though somebody could legally immigrate to the US, and then after working here and paying taxes for three years could become disabled but be ineligible for medical assistance). Even when pro-immigrant policy benefits everyone else (a win-win), many politicians catering to anti-immigrant voters would "get tough on illegals" than save money for their constituents.

The worst journalism on the Health Care Reform debate

(via TNR):
Investor's Business Daily's initial quote: "People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless."

Investor's Business Daily's subsequent correction:"This version corrects the original editorial which implied that physicist Stephen Hawking, a professor at the University of Cambridge, did not live in the U.K."