Paul Mero

Another interesting article about poverty from American Enterprise Institute scholar Arthur Brooks falls on the heels of Utah Congressman Jason Chaffetz lecturing the poor about making choices between cell phones and health insurance. You might recall that Chaffetz said during a CNN interview, “rather than ‘getting that new iPhone that they just love,’ low-income Americans should take the money they would have spent on it and ‘invest it in their own health care.’”

While our worse selves understand what Chaffetz was saying – in that ignorant, discriminatory kind of way – it’s hard to pass on the lack of logic involved. There is no way in hell that an iPhone costs as much as health insurance, especially for low-income, high-risk families. But, more so, it’s his attitude about the poor I find appalling. Acting personally, I only can assume he would be generous with his neighbors. Acting as a politician, all he did was reinforce the idea that he and his affluent neighbors are uncaring and unintelligent. But some of us are neither. read more

In 1975, then-amateur boxer Michael Dokes told Sports Illustrated that his hand speed was so fast that you couldn’t catch them on camera. And then the 17 year old proffered this warning to boxing legend Muhammad Ali, “I’m going to get you old man, so you better get out while you can.” Two years later, now pro-boxer Michael Dokes faced off against the aging Champ (Ali was then 35 years old, overweight and on the down side of his career). It was a three-round exhibition fight.

Ali was up to his old tricks – taunting, teasing and cajoling the young opponent – and then, at the moment the Champ could tell how frustrated Dokes became, Ali leaned back on the corner ropes, dropped his hands, planted his feet and dared the challenger to hit him. Dokes threw 21 punches in 10 seconds – and never touched the Champ. You have to see to believe it. read more

Utah is a liquor control state. In other words, the state heavily regulates the sale and consumption of liquor. Some states have more stringent regulations in place, including complete prohibitions in some counties within those states, but Utah remains a state that will tell residents and visitors when and where and how they can drink liquor.

Every legislative session there seems to be talk of new bills designed to either loosen these regulations or tighten them. Several years ago, the Legislature created what is now called the Zion Curtain requiring restaurants to separate where drinks are made from where they are served – the central idea being restaurants are not bars and a culture of alcohol should be contained to bar settings only. read more

A very smart article was posted on the website, The Imaginative Conservative, defending opponents of Muslim immigration. The article was prompted by Donald Trump’s executive order requiring a higher-than-usual standard for vetting immigrants from Middle Eastern countries, presumably to ward off the hoards of refugees fleeing that region – hoards that might include terrorists.

As you have heard, Trump issued an executive order on January 27 titled “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States.” The order includes numerous paragraphs of procedures for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to implement to ostensibly keep us safe from the “bad guys.” Invoking the horrific memory of 9/11, the order states, read more

As I listened to Donald Trump’s inaugural address my mind’s eye drifted back to the presidential campaigns of Pat Buchanan in 1992 and 1996. Full of spit and vinegar at the time, I was a big supporter of Buchanan. He was the Donald Trump of the 1990’s except that he had manners, he was gracious, he was intelligent and a real conservative.

Pat Buchanan was a newspaperman turned political operative who went from writing editorials for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat to writing speeches for Richard Nixon and then on to the Reagan White House. He was a conservative’s conservative – a no-nonsense voice in a sea of Establishment nonsense. He was not afraid to recall the conservatism of the past and condemn the neo-conservatism that began to assume power under the presidency of George H.W. Bush. read more

Should we raise taxes to provide more money for our public school system? Utah has one of the lowest per pupil spending rates in the nation, if not the lowest at times, and yet we seem to do pretty well with what we have. In fact, we seem to do rather exceptionally with what resources we invest. Our per-pupil spending might be low but the overall investment in education is the largest part of our state budget, by far.

But would more money make a difference? The backers of the new funding initiative, Our Schools Now, say more money would make a huge difference and have proposed an increase to the state income tax – in Utah, all income tax goes to education. The Our Schools Now plan “calls for a 7/8 of 1 percent (.008) increase to the personal income tax, which [they predict] would total $750 million; [it would] provide each Utah school with roughly $1000 [more] per enrolled student; and, [it would] require all funding to be spent in ways that increase student learning.” read more

Just over 30 years ago, 36 insurance companies stopped writing policies in Washington, D.C. The issue was AIDS and the D.C. City Council voted to prohibit HIV testing of insurance applicants. At the time, insurance companies testing for the AIDS virus were deemed discriminatory to homosexuals. The three-dozen insurance companies argued that to not screen for the disease was not only bad business practice but defeated the whole idea of the insurance market.

Insurance is all about managing risk. Actuaries are paid a lot of money to determine risk and decide whether or not an applicant should be covered. The insured pay premiums to the insurance company based on their health status. For every negative health factor premiums are increased. If you smoke, you’ll pay higher insurance premiums than a non-smoker. This is why those insurance companies quit writing policies in Washington, D.C. 30 years ago when they were prohibited from testing for HIV. When an insurance company cannot manage its risk, it quits being an insurance company. read more

What represents American culture today is dramatically different than the American culture of my childhood. Of course things change over time. Styles, music, art, technologies are all subject to change at any given moment. But I’m speaking of fundamental changes to American culture – the kind of changes that alter our future.

One fundamental change to American culture began in 1967 when no-fault divorce was first enacted. About that same time, the War on Poverty fundamentally affected family formation in many poor communities. Contraception and abortion decisions by the United State Supreme Court fundamentally changed most ideas about human dignity and sexuality. And the recent redefinition of marriage already has changed the worldview of many younger Americans. read more