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Reason Alert - June 19, 2009 - Taxpayer's Guide to the Stimulus - Congress Will Just Figure Out How to Pay for $500 Billion Transportation Bill Later - Can the U.S. Copy Spain's High-Speed Rail System? - Medicare Is Not the Model for Health Care Reform - New at Reason *Taxpayer's Guide to the Stimulus*<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4782171/28259383/77691/0/> Eight states reported record unemployment numbers last month. Wasn't the stimulus supposed to create and save millions of jobs? After all, taxpayers gave $20 billion for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, $5 billion for the Weatherization Assistance Program, $5.5 billion for the Federal Buildings Fund, $2 billion for the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, $650 million for digital TV Converter coupons, $75 million for the Smithsonian and National Endowment for the Arts, $50 million for the National Cemetery Administration and hundreds of billions more. Reason Foundation's Taxpayer's Guide to the Stimulus breaks down each section of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to explain just how all that money is being spent, who is spending it, and how the whole stimulus will affect your bottom line. Reason's Anthony Randazzo finds the stimulus bill created 30 new government programs that will cost taxpayers $97 billion this year. Taxpayer's Guide to the Stimulus<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4782171/28259383/77691/0/> Stimulus Spending By the Numbers<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4782171/28259383/77692/0/> *Congress Will Just Figure Out How to Pay for $500 Billion Transportation Bill Later* <http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4782171/28259383/77693/0/> "Reps. Oberstar (D-MN) and Mica (R-FL) put forth a blueprint for a $450-500 billion transportation bill, but left out the not-so-small detail of how they plan to pay for a near doubling of transportation spending at the very same time that the Highway Trust Fund is (yet again) nearly broke and the gas tax has run out of gas. This quote from Rep. Oberstar in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune offers great insight into how the federal government has run up trillions of dollars in debt: *'What is it going to cost to deliver this? That's an issue you have to put off till the end,' Oberstar said. You can't talk investments and dollar amounts until you have something to show the public.'* Wait...put off how to pay for it until the end? Just the other day President Obama suggested that 'pay-as-you-go' should be federal law. 'Paying for what you spend is basic common sense,' Obama said. 'Perhaps that's why, here in Washington, it's been so elusive.' Setting aside all of the massive debt-financed spending since President Obama took office, let’s assume for the moment that he actually believes the country should use PAYGO going forward. Here we are a week later and Congress wants to come up with half a trillion dollars worth of transportation spending and 'put off till the end' figuring out how to pay for it. In the real world of no free lunches, benefits come at a cost. Infrastructure is expensive. As much as policymakers would like to shift the public's attention to the projects they are championing, it's naive to assume that the increasingly bailout and deficit-weary public will buy into any 'plan' offering no substance about how to pay for a $500 billion wish-list...So all we're really left with here are more questions than answers on this 'transformational' plan. What would have been truly transformational here would have been for the bill's sponsors to spend as much time thinking through the hard issues of funding as they did the politically easier issues of what their 'vision' entails. Without this due diligence, I suspect Americans will view this as yet more Congressional snake oil." - Reason Foundation's Leonard Gilroy on the bipartisan congressional transportation plan that would spend half a trillion taxpayer dollars over six years. Robert Poole: The Oberstar Transportation Bill Is Fatally Flawed<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4782171/28259383/77694/0/> *Can the U.S. Copy Spain's High-Speed Rail System?*<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4782171/28259383/77695/0/> Reason Foundation's Sam Staley says comparing Spain's high-speed rail system to the medium-speed train system being pushed by the Obama administration is like comparing apples to oranges: "...intercity train travel is barely even noticeable in the U.S. travel picture. Amtrak, while taking massive taxpayer subsidies, accounted for just 5.4 million passenger miles in 2006 (the most recent available data). Meanwhile commercial air travel tallied up 590 million passenger miles, and cars accounted for a whopping 2.7 trillion passenger miles. A comprehensive and truly European-style high-speed rail plan arguably would attract more riders than Amtrak. But even if we double intercity passenger rail patronage in year one of a new system, it would barely equal 2 percent of commercial air-traffic volume—even if all the new rail riders were former air travelers...Unfortunately, the reality of high-speed rail will fall far short of the hype. The U.S. is too large, too wealthy, and too complex to be transformed by investments in a single mode of transportation, particularly one that focuses on a very small part of the overall travel market and doesn’t fit with the country’s size or geography." Poole: High-Speed Rail Plans Should Be Called Moderate-Speed Rail<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4782171/28259383/77696/0/> The California High-Speed Rail Proposal: A Due Diligence Report<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4782171/28259383/77112/0/> *Medicare Is Not the Model for Health Care Reform*<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4782171/28259383/77697/0/> In her latest Forbes column<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4782171/28259383/77711/0/>, Reason Foundation's Shikha Dalmia says the "public option" health care plan will not be financially sustainable: "He [President Obama] is claiming that the way to slash health care costs and achieve universal coverage is by creating a Medicare-style government insurance plan that is open to everyone. In the world that Obama and other universal health care advocates inhabit, Medicare allegedly has done a far superior job than private plans of keeping a lid on rising medical costs. Forcing these plans to compete with a plan modeled after it will--in Obama's words--'keep them honest and keep prices down.' But before demanding honesty from others, Obama will have to show some himself, especially concerning the performance of Medicare. That Medicare is in serious, serious trouble no one can dispute. Its projected unfunded liabilities over 75 years, from 2007 to 2082, are about $36 trillion, according to the latest Medicare Trustees report. If current trends persist, by the end of that time Medicare will be devouring 19% of gross domestic product--or $3 trillion, an amount equal to the entire U.S. budget right now. It will take a heartburn-inducing 135% increase in payroll taxes to bring it into actuarial balance. Despite Medicare's dismal record, Obama and his comrades hold Medicare up as an example for the private sector. Why? Because between 1997 and 2006, Medicare's health spending per enrollee grew 4.6% annually while that of private plans grew 7.3%. By tapping this 2.7% difference, they argue that they can perform the triple miracle of reining in escalating health care costs, and at the same time extending health insurance to the 46 million uninsured without imposing any extra cost on the economy. But this is 21st century snake oil. Medicare hasn't controlled costs by discovering some wonder drug to deliver new efficiencies that the private sector doesn't have. In fact, the Government Accountability Office lists Medicare as a 'high-risk' program, thanks to its long-term financial problems and its vulnerability to fraud. Rather, Medicare has cut costs by deploying the economic equivalent of leech-therapy: slashing payments to providers. The only reason providers haven't been bled out of existence is because they have offset these cuts by raising prices charged to private insurance plans. In effect, then, the good performance of Medicare that Obama and Co. tout has been purchased by beggaring the private plans that they deride...In making his case for universal coverage, Obama disregards this reality and emphasizes a different cause for the rise of premiums, namely that private plans are being forced to absorb the cost of uncompensated care for the uninsured, who land in the emergency rooms because they can't get timely treatment. Cover the uninsured through universal health care, he says, and things will be dandy again. But the fact of the matter is that uncompensated care costs only $40 billion--or about 2% of the $2.26 trillion that the U.S. spends on health care. This is less than what department stores lose to shoplifting every year." Reason.tv Video: How to Fix the Health Care System<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4782171/28259383/75828/0/> *New at Reason* Join Reason for Happy Hour<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4782171/28259383/77698/0/> 6:00 pm on June 24th in Washington, DC The Paranoids Are Out to Get Me!<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4782171/28259383/77699/0/> The return of the militia scare Jesse Walker Law and Order <http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4782171/28259383/77700/0/> The Atlantic's Conor Friedersdorf interviews Reason's Radley Balko Guns in Unincorporated Territory<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4782171/28259383/77701/0/> Does a recent decision show Sonia Sotomayor hates the Second Amendment? Jacob Sullum Once We Get a Broad-based Set of New Taxes in Place, We Can Reform Health Insurance... <http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4782171/28259383/77702/0/> Your tax dollars at work generating ideas for more tax dollars Nick Gillespie Glass Houses, Left and Right<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4782171/28259383/77703/0/> The wildly overblown issue of political "hate speech" Cathy Young Paying the Pirate's Price<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4782171/28259383/77704/0/> Do the economics of piracy demand the privatization of the sea? Veronique de Rugy Airport Congestion Costs New York Billions<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4782171/28259383/77705/0/> Productivity losses to the regional economy were estimated at $21.5 billion Robert Poole Looking Into Airport Parking Privatization in Pittsburgh<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4782171/28259383/77706/0/> Aim is to raise $500 million or more Robert Poole Registered Traveler Breakthrough Would Improve Airport Security<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4782171/28259383/77707/0/> Risk-based program that enables TSA to re-focus its screening resources Robert Poole California Democrats Vote to Eliminate High School Exit Exams<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4782171/28259383/77708/0/> Programs that offer taxpayers an idea of how schools are performing should NOT be first in line Lisa Snell Consequences of Texas Toll Road Decisions<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4782171/28259383/77709/0/> Region should have taken the billions the private sector offered Leonard Gilroy The Invisible Hand of Population Control<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4782171/28259383/77710/0/> The tragedy of the commons meets economic freedom Ronald Bailey *Media Contact*: Chris Mitchell Director of Communications Reason Foundation, Reason magazine, Reason.tv (310) 367-6109 If you were forwarded this email and you would like to receive updates on the latest Reason Foundation research, commentary and events, please click here: http://www.reason.org/reasonalert.shtml<http://sol.sparklist.com/t/4782171/28259383/75032/0/> --- You are currently subscribed to reasonalert as: [email protected]. 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