links for 2009-02-25

CATO's Michael Tanner:

Those figures on health care bankruptcies have long since been discredited. In 2007, the last year data was available, there were just over 822,000 non-business bankruptcies nationwide. But according to a study by Dr. Ning Zhu at UC-Davis, only 5 percent of them were caused by medical bills. That’s only 41,000 medical bankruptcies, a far cry from the more than 1 million Obama implies. In fact, seniors who qualify for Medicare (universal health coverage) are 125 percent more likely to go bankrupt than people under age 65.

The political establishment is already starting to gear up for the budget-centric special election on May 19.

Here are the budget measures that will be on that ballot:

Proposition 1A: Implements a spending cap based on the rate of growth from the last 10 years. If approved, it would extend the length of the taxes approved by the Legislature.

Proposition 1B: Changes the state's education funding law — Proposition 98 — for supplemental education payments to local districts due to recent budget cuts.

Proposition 1C: Borrows from future lottery earnings.

Proposition 1D: Takes money from the First 5 Commissions — aka Proposition 10 funds — to help balance the budget.

Proposition 1E: Takes money from the Mental Health Services Act — aka Proposition 63 funds — to help balance the budget.

Proposition 1F: Prevents state-level elected officials from receiving pay raises in years when the state is running a deficit.

We have lived through an era where too often, short-term gains were prized over long-term prosperity; where we failed to look beyond the next payment, the next quarter, or the next election. A surplus became an excuse to transfer wealth to the wealthy instead of an opportunity to invest in our future. Regulations were gutted for the sake of a quick profit at the expense of a healthy market. People bought homes they knew they couldn’t afford from banks and lenders who pushed those bad loans anyway. And all the while, critical debates and difficult decisions were put off for some other time on some other day.

To date, Obama has averaged 64% approval, but, as the graph shows, there has been a slight but perceptible decline in his approval rating since he took office. This decline has largely occurred among Republicans.

The drop below 60% approval within the past week — from 63% in Feb. 18-20 polling to 59% in Feb. 21-23 polling — has mostly come among independents. Late last week, 62% of independents approved of Obama, compared with 54% in the last three days. His approval rating among Democrats has dipped slightly (but not to a statistically significant degree), while approval among Republicans has not changed.

Some folks may wonder about the wisdom of doing an interview with Esquire. On the one hand, giving access to a publication often means improved coverage, and if you won't talk to a publication, it's unconvincing to complain that they're not presenting your side of the story.

On the other hand, the editors of Esquire made their feelings about Palin pretty clear last year.

he owner of the San Francisco Chronicle will sell or close the daily newspaper if it can't dramatically lower expenses within the next few months.

The Hearst Corp., which owns northern California's largest daily newspaper, didn't specify a savings target in Tuesday's grim announcement. But the New York-based company said the cost cutting will require significant layoffs.

Barack Obama on Monday launched what he promised would be an enduring bipartisan process to bring down the fiscal deficits that have started to explode under his watch.

Mr Obama, who called 130 lawmakers and members of think-tanks to the White House for what he described as a “fiscal sustainability summit”, added that by the end of his first term, he would halve the budget deficit he inherited from George W. Bush.