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...and the invaluable Iain Murray has a quick-hit summary and reaction.

We could have a double whammy of cap-and-trade plus the admitted disaster of EPA regulation.  So much for the argument that we need cap-and-trade to save us from the zeal of the EPA.

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As soon as I took office, I asked this Congress to send me a recovery plan by Presidents’ Day that would put people back to work and put money in their pockets. Not because I believe in bigger government – I don’t.”

However, actions speak louder than words and President Obama has been the vanguard of bigger government, making now routine incursions into virtually every level of private life from student loans to health care. The point here is simple, as the government grows, liberty declines, and inevitably the taxpayer and the rest of the economy suffer.

As Ronald Reagan once said:

No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs – once launched – never disappear, Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this Earth.”

It’s often tradecraft that gets us bollixed up...It comes down to interpreting the same data in different ways, in looking at the same information and coming up with different conclusions.

To pass laws that dictate that 70% of the carbon emissions must be reduced in 20 years is insane because nobody even knows that they can do it. None of it matters because of the Asian use of coal and because there's really no proof of global warming. So to me, it's a dilution of public attention from the one point [sic] trillion dollar deficit. Somehow they've managed to keep the public's mind off real issues.

This isn't about a genius who is being hounded for flouting society's hidebound conventions. It's about a rich and powerful man who used his fame and position to assault -- in every sense, to violate -- an innocent child.

And it's about a man who ran away rather than face the consequences of his actions. Before any sentence could be imposed, he absconded like a weasel to live a princely life in France.

Washington Post wunderkind Ezra Klein thinks that Medicare is, like, an awesome program that may be driving us bankrupt, but in the process of driving us bankrupt, will help reign in our health care costs! Come again?

Medicare is going broke. It will bankrupt us. Case closed! Except for one thing:

So will private-sector health care.

The story here is simple. You've heard it a thousand times. Health-care costs are growing more quickly than wages or GDP growth. Much more quickly, in fact. If that trend isn't arrested, there's only one outcome: Costs will overwhelm us. That's true for Medicare and true for the rest of the health-care system.

The relevant question, then, is not whether Medicare will bankrupt us, but will it do so more quickly than private health-care insurance?

...Medicare's rate of spending will bankrupt us, but more slowly than private health insurance. Which would give us more time to figure out a fix.

This is not the relevant question. As has been well-catalogued, Americans' private health care spending has risen in conjunction with the percentage of their incomes spent on other life necessities (food, housing) has been precipitously dropping. Medicare's costs have been skyrocketing and are projected to overwhelm us at the same time that most other sectors of government spending are doing the same thing.

The other relevant question that immediately pops to mind is: whose behavior is more likely to change? Politicians who have a sweet handout program to an important voting bloc that don't want to see their benefits cut? Or private persons who will sit at home and see that no, they shouldn't get an MRI when they feel like they're coming down with a case of the sniffles? (Example has been exaggerated for effect.)