Freedom Line Blog

Matthew Continetti of the Washington Free Beacon has a must-read opinion piece today explaining why President Barack Obama’s policy agenda ignores the economic and employment concerns of millions of Americans to focus on much less salient issues like gun control and amnesty.

In short, to understand Obama’s refusal to concentrate like a laser beam on improving the nation’s economic outlook, one has to remember that the President cares more about wealthy liberal pet projects from the likes of New York’s billionaire mayor Mike Bloomberg than about anyone on Main Street.

The Bloomberg style has several distinctive features. The first is a complete indifference to or dismissal of middle class concerns. In this view, it matters less that the middle class is enjoying full employment or economic independence or a modicum of social mobility or even action on issues it finds important, and more that it has access to government benefits generous enough to shut it up.

Recall that in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy Bloomberg was far more interested in seeing the Yuppie-filled New York City Marathon take place, and in linking the storm to apocalyptic climate change, than in mobilizing the combined forces of municipal and state and federal government to take care of the white working class on Staten Island and in the Rockaways. Similarly, Barack Obama has nothing new to say on the economy or deficit, but delivers speech after speech on gun regulations that would not have stopped the Sandy Hook massacre, while his allies in the Senate work to import low-wage labor on the one hand and high-end Silicon Valley labor on the other. Meanwhile, the vast majority of the nation hopes for better days.

Another hallmark of the Bloomberg style is its insufferable condescension. One need only have heard the tiniest whine of a Bloomberg speech to know what I’m talking about. The preening attitude of superiority manifests itself in a form of moral blackmail. Adversaries of the Bloomberg-Obama agenda are not simply mistaken. There is, it is implied, something wrong with them personally.

Sound familiar? You can read the entire piece here.

The New York Times is reporting that new details are emerging about the border security component of the Senate’s bipartisan, self-appointed “Gang of Eight” plan for comprehensive immigration reform.

The following is particularly interesting:

According to the draft, the legislation would provide $3 billion for the Department of Homeland Security to draw up and carry out a five-year border security plan. Officials must present the plan within six months, and no immigrants can gain any provisional legal status until the plan is in place.

The plan must include how border authorities will move quickly to spread technology across the border to ensure that agents can see along its entire length. The authorities will also have five years to reach 90 percent effectiveness in their operations, a measure based on calculations of what percentage of illegal crossers were caught or turned back without crossing.

Homeland Security officials also have six months to draw up plans to finish any border fencing they deem necessary.

The problem with this proposal is that it puts the responsibility and the discretion over how to secure the border in the hands of the very people who are committed to keeping them open.

As I wrote last week, the Department of Homeland Security is refusing to create a metric to track border security. According to White House aides, that’s because President Barack Obama doesn’t want a distracting – and damning – focus on DHS’s failure to capture more than half of illegal border crossers to derail his push for legalization and amnesty.

Simply giving DHS $3 billion to do a job it is already on record as refusing to do is nonsensical.

Now that Congress has found the one area where the Obama administration refuses to regulate, it’s time for the people’s representatives and senators to get back in the game and pass a border security program that specifies in detail what DHS’s job is, and puts in serious penalties for refusing to implement the law.

Here’s everything you need to know about the corruption of border security under Obama’s Department of Homeland Security, helpfully summarized in two stats and one quote by Byron York.

“According to internal reports, Border Patrol agents used the airborne radar to help find and detain 1,874 people in the Sonora Desert between October 1 [2012] and January 17 [2013],” reported the Los Angeles Times last week. “But the radar system spotted an additional 1,962 people in the same area who evaded arrest and disappeared into the United States.”

That means officers caught fewer than half of those who made the crossing in that part of Arizona. If those results are representative of other sectors of the border, then everything the administration has said about border security is wrong.

“These revelations are in stark contrast to the administration’s declaration that the border is more secure than ever due to greater resources having been deployed to the region, and that lower rates of apprehensions signify fewer individuals are crossing,” Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, wrote in an April 5 letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

New information is coming to light almost daily as members of Congress try to assess whether the federal agencies responsible for ensuring the integrity of America’s borders are, in fact, doing their job.

These revelations of malfeasance are compounded by the secretive deliberations of the so-called “Gang of Eight” as they haggle over an estimated 1,500 page version of comprehensive immigration reform that Democrats are trying to rush through the Senate without formal debate.

The more we learn about how badly the Department of Homeland Security is failing to police the border, the less congressional Republicans should entertain any thoughts about comprehensive immigration reform.

With opposition from Louisiana’s business and religious communities, as well as resistance from Republican state lawmakers, Governor Bobby Jindal announced he will “park” his plan to replace the state’s income tax with a higher sales tax.

The devil was in the details, says Josh Barro, a Bloomberg economics and financial writer.

The other problem was that Jindal’s method of tax-base expansion was not very sensible. An ideal sales tax should apply to all consumption exactly once, meaning it should include business-to-consumer transactions and exclude business-to-business transactions. Taxing transactions between businesses leads to “tax pyramiding”: a sale is taxed multiple times before reaching the final consumer, meaning the tax embedded in the price far exceeds the actual tax rate. This is unfair and also inefficient, because it punishes businesses that choose not to vertically integrate: If I run a restaurant, my customers pay more tax if I buy my pastries from a third-party baker than if I bake them myself. (Depending on how my state taxes pastries.)

Jindal’s administration was bragging that his plan would cause lots of tax pyramiding. An official in Jindal’s department of revenue told the Louisiana House Ways and Means Committee that 80 percent of the new sales tax on services would be borne by businesses. This announcement was meant to be an explanation of how the plan could cut taxes on individuals in all income brackets. But it caused yet two more problems. One, it led the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, normally friendly to Jindal, to come out against the plan. Two, it undermined the case for reform: Sales-tax base broadening is supposed to make the tax base more ideal, but Jindal was effectively announcing that it would not.

For conservatives, it is part of Economics 101 to remind liberals that all taxes paid by businesses get passed on to consumers.  With a statewide popularity rating now lower than President Barack Obama’s, it’s too bad the very bright Governor Jindal had to (re)learn that lesson the hard way.

States looking for flexibility under ObamaCare in how to structure and pay for expanding Medicaid can take a hike, according to an analysis by the Heritage Foundation.

States like Arkansas and Indiana have requested waivers from the health reform law’s expansion formula that creates millions of new enrollees at an eventual cost of billions of dollars to states.

The hope was to use existing state-based models like Indiana’s successful health savings account for low-income Hoosiers to increase Medicaid enrollment while retaining cost certainty for state budget writers.

But those hopes were dashed after the federal Department of Health and Human Services released a frequently asked questions (FAQ) sheet that flatly denied any request to deviate from ObamaCare’s one-size-fits-all, open-ended spending commitment for Medicaid.

With this announcement, the Obama administration has definitively articulated its idea of bipartisan reform.  Republican governors who capitulate and get in line are welcomed with open arms.  Those like Indiana’s Mike Pence can take their policy entrepreneurship somewhere else.

Question: What happens when a majority of countries at the United Nations support a treaty, but delegations representing half the world’s population do not?

Answer: An agreement that won’t be enforced fairly across the globe.

It gets worse.  The dissenting half is made up of the governments most likely to violate the treaty.

The document in question is the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), the vehicle of international gun control advocates to monitor and limit weapons transfers between countries.  But while the United States, considered the country with the best such system in place, is now a signatory, serial violators such as Syria, North Korea, and Iran, as well as major arms dealing countries such as Russia and China, are not.

So, what we have here is a treaty that will bind only the governments that already take arms transfer seriously, while having no effect on the governments most likely to violate its terms.

As an added bonus, there’s enough loose language in the treaty to leave room for an enterprising UN bureaucrat or two to create a global firearms registry applicable to every signatory, potentially putting American gun owners’ Second Amendment rights at the mercy of foreign gun control interests.

Not a banner week for the U.S. diplomatic mission to the U.N.

Fox News is reporting that the implementation of one of the two state-based, federally-regulated health insurance exchanges is being delayed for an entire year (2015 instead of 2014).

The decision applies to the exchange that will be created to let small businesses shop for affordable insurance policies, not the similar and more well-known exchange for individuals and families looking for insurance.

While it would be easy to blame poor planning and bad execution on the part of the federal government, another explanation seems just as likely.

As originally written, ObamaCare contained a so-called “public option” that would have been offered by the federal government on the exchange as competition with private alternatives.  Conservatives opposed the public option because it threatened to undercut private competitors with an artificially low price since the government, unlike a private business, doesn’t have to make a profit.

After a few years of running private businesses out of the market with artificially low prices, conservatives reasoned, the public option would become the only option as more and more consumers opted for a deal that would be too-good-to-be-true.  When that happened, government could claim the market failed, paving the way for a government-run, single-payer health system.

Of course, the public option was stripped out of the final version of ObamaCare.  But the intent to move America toward government-run health care did not.  Since there’s no requirement under the law for small businesses to provide health insurance, many may now stop bothering if the small business exchange is delayed.  That puts their employees on the individual and family exchange, which as estimates are showing, will cost people much more than originally advertised, even including the government subsidy.

With private insurance unable to deliver a product that covers the heightened floor created in ObamaCare that is also affordable for the people required to buy it thanks to the individual mandate, don’t be surprised if activists and policymakers start clamoring for government to declare a market failure and nationalize the system.

Such a scenario may sound far-fetched, but can anyone seriously say that with the Obama Administration in charge that it’s not at least possible?

If corporate welfare is subsidies paid by government to businesses, then is government welfare subsidies (voluntarily) paid by businesses to government?

According to the Washington Post, a $25,000 corporate donation from the parent company of the popular Airborne cold tablets played a big role in funding the annual Easter Egg Roll, a 135-year-old tradition the White House threatened to cancel over budget sequestration.  Other funds came from the sale of commemorative eggs sold at the event.

Maybe this could be the beginning of a trend.  With the sequester lopping off between $42 to $85 billion from the federal budget this year, perhaps it’s worth exploring which government programs could generate enough private support to ease the strain on current and future taxpayers.

Who knows; maybe we’ll get to see signs at the entrance of national parks saying, “Supported by Wal-Mart,” or “Brought to You by Whole Food Markets.”

The Indianapolis Star reports that Indiana Republican Governor Mike Pence, a possible 2016 presidential candidate, cleared an important hurdle today when the state’s House Public Health Committee approved a bill to expand Medicaid eligibility without relying on ObamaCare’s open-ended spending incentives.

Pence’s plan would increase Indiana’s Medicaid enrollment by an estimated 400,000, but within the state’s Healthy Indiana initiative begun in 2007.  As a health savings account, Healthy Indiana allots a certain amount of money to qualifying Hoosiers who then shop for doctors and treatment options within their budget.  In effect, it transfers the decision making process for health care away from government bureaucrats to private citizens.  By capping the amount, Healthy Indiana also gives state budget writers more certainty about the cost of Medicaid expansion in future years.

Contrast this with the unlimited spending commitment envisioned by the Medicaid expansion system under ObamaCare, and conservatives will see why Pence’s proposal should be watched closely.  Under ObamaCare, states would pay no cost for expanding their eligibility pool up to 138 percent of the federal poverty line.  But starting in 2017, those that expanded enrollment would pay for 10 percent of the increase.  Though seemingly a small percentage, the costs will run into the billions, with even more likely if the federal government decides to reduce its 90 percent subsidy, as President Barack Obama has already hinted at doing.

The future of health insurance reform looks like it will include some mix of government-regulated exchanges, subsidies, and cost controls.  The question dividing conservatives like Mike Pence and Paul Ryan on one hand from liberals like Obama on the other, is who gets to make the lion’s share of the decisions on how health insurance dollars are spent.  Conservatives value individual choice, while liberals favor centrally planned mandates.

Ironically, if the President wants ObamaCare to be fiscally sustainable, he’ll have to accept that the only way to do it is allowing conservatives like Pence and Ryan to inject into it as much personal freedom as possible.

With President Barack Obama’s legally required budget proposal arriving two months late (April 10 when it was due February 4), here’s a suggestion to ensure the document is something other than a White House-approved paper weight.

Because of the President’s unprecedented delay, both the Republican House and Democratic Senate have passed budgets, each with only party-line support.  Now that both sides have put their opening bids on the table, it would be wise to make the White House version a kind of third way compromise that includes some elements that both sides like.

One example would be to incorporate Paul Ryan’s idea for putting Medicare plans on a state-based, federally-regulated health insurance exchange.  Then, make the now obvious point that this plan, coupled with ObamaCare’s exchange for non-seniors indicates bipartisan agreement on a major aspect of health insurance reform.  Doing that would help change the focus of the debate on what Republican and Democrats have in common when it comes to moving forward on this issue.

A new, higher-than-originally-estimated sales tax will be needed to recoup revenue lost if Louisiana legislators adopt Governor Bobby Jindal’s proposal to swap the state’s income taxes on individuals and businesses for an expanded sales tax.

The revision, released by Jindal’s office last Thursday, raised the proposed sales tax rate from 5.88 percent to 6.25 percent, according to reporting by The Times-Picayune of New Orleans.

The timing of the announcement could hardly have been worse.  So far, no business group has mobilized in support of the proposal.  Instead, some of the state’s most influential business associations are opposing the measure because it shifts $500 million in taxable events onto business transactions that are currently exempt.

On the other side of the spectrum, a group of three hundred religious leaders signed a letter to Jindal arguing that the tax swap would amount to a tax increase on the poor.

Even fiscally conservative Republicans are wary because of the administration’s inability to peg a consistent revenue amount if the state moves from income to sales to fund the government.  That skepticism will now grow with Jindal’s higher tax rate, since it looks to some like a tacit admission that previous estimates were overly optimistic.

So far, Jindal appears to be making one of his few missteps in an otherwise very successful run as Louisiana’s governor.

Peter Ferrara, a budget expert at The Heartland Institute, a free market think tank, reminds us where many of Paul Ryan’s ideas on Medicare reform originally came from:

This Medicare reform plan was actually developed by President Clinton’s Medicare Commission, so it had bipartisan support at a time when the Democrat Party had grown ups in influential positions, rather than just adolescent, Marxist, revolutionaries posing in grown up drag.  The legislation providing for these reforms was actually introduced in the Senate by liberal Democrat Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon.  It has been endorsed by long time liberal academic Alice Rivlin, the Godmother of the CBO, serving as its first director.

Indeed, the plan was developed from an initial proposal in 1995 by two lifelong liberal scholars, Henry Aaron of the Brookings Institution, and former CBO Director Robert Reischauer.  They were the first to propose a premium support system for Medicare in a 1995 article in the journal Health Affairs.  The Reischauer/Aaron concept was later embodied in Medicare Parts C and D in the 2003 Medicare reforms, where they have already worked very effectively.

That’s right – Proposed by liberals, passed by conservatives.

With this in mind, who’s out of the mainstream now?

Two state-based think tanks, Louisiana’s Pelican Institute and Massachusetts’ Beacon Hill Institute, released a study (pdf) highlighting the likely benefits of Louisiana Republican Governor Bobby Jindal’s proposal to scrap the state’s income tax and raise its sales tax.

In a nutshell, the study estimates that Jindal’s plan would increase disposable income by $1.749 billion by 2017. That’s an extra $910 for each Louisiana family.

The question left unaddressed by the study is the one most likely to be asked by critics – What will be the impact on low income citizens whose cost of living (along with everyone else’s) will go up with a greatly expanded sales tax base?

Whereas progressive income taxes take a larger bite out of the paychecks of wealthy citizens, sales taxes take a larger bite from those of the poorer classes.

One way to avoid the charge that a sales-for-income tax swap would amount to a disproportionate tax increase on the poor is to exempt certain items like food and other necessaries from the tax. So far, Jindal’s plan does this.

That, of course, can lead to the same kind of pockmarked tax code that currently infects most states, as well as the IRS.

To my mind, it makes the most sense to argue for a flat tax on income with very few exemptions or deductions. It’s fair, easy to understand, and is the concept most resistant to special interest tampering.

Moreover, when it comes to the national debate over tax reform, it has one huge advantage over a beefed up sales tax: It can be easily replicated at the federal level.

Unless Jindal has become a fan of a national sales tax replacing the national income tax, then maybe his push to swap Louisiana’s income tax for a bigger sales tax is the clearest sign yet he’s not running for President of the United States in 2016.

H/T: The Pelican Post

From Quin’s lips to U.S. Senator Tom Coburn’s ears…

Yesterday, Quin highlighted one of the many wasteful uses of taxpayer money funded by the National Science Foundation, a federal government agency that subsidizes some pretty dubious projects. (Such as the sex lives of ducks.)

Also yesterday Coburn, a Republican from Oklahoma and a committed budget cutter, persuaded a majority of his Senate colleagues to limit NSF political science grants to only those studies that are certified as “promoting national security or the economic interests of the United States.”

Citing just one example, Coburn said that “There is no reason to spend $251,000 studying Americans’ attitudes toward the U.S. Senate when citizens can figure that out for free.”

As I understand it, Coburn’s amendment only curtails political science-related research, meaning that the project Quin cited may still be allowed going forward. Even so, it’s a hopeful sign that Coburn established a precedent for at least one part of the federal budget that aligns national spending with the (true) national interest.

It’s a busy week on Capitol Hill for votes on the federal budget. Earlier today, House Republicans passed the third iteration of Budget Chairman Paul Ryan’s Path to Prosperity plan, 221-207.

In past years, House passage of Ryan’s plan would be the first, and last, serious congressional action on the federal budget, since Senate Democrats refused to support President Barack Obama’s proposal or submit one of their own.

But not this year. Tomorrow, Senate Democrats will begin debate on their first budget outline in four years. As an added twist, the Democrats will offer amendments that resemble Ryan’s plan to see if Senate Republicans will go on the record to support it.

Voting will likely stretch into the wee hours of Saturday morning before Congress adjourns for a two week recess.

Politics aside, the Miami Herald shows just how far apart the sides are from a bipartisan resolution:

Total spending

Senate Democrats: $46.5 trillion

House Republicans: $41.7 trillion

—

Total revenue

Senate Democrats: $41.2 trillion

House Republicans: $40.2 trillion

—

10-year deficit

Senate Democrats: $5.4 trillion

House Republicans: $1.4 trillion

—

National debt at end of 2023

Senate Democrats: $24.4 trillion

House Republicans: $20.3 trillion

—

Social Security

Senate Democrats: $11.3 trillion

House Republicans: $11.3 trillion

—

Medicare

Senate Democrats: $6.8 trillion

House Republicans: $6.7 trillion

—

Health, including Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program

Senate Democrats: $6.6 trillion

House Republicans: $4.0 trillion

Check out the entire list here.

It looks like U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) isn’t the only member of the upper chamber who has serious questions about the assault weapons ban being pushed by colleague Dianne Feinstein (D-CA).

At least fifteen Senate Democrats have told Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) they won’t vote for Feinstein’s ban if it comes up for a vote, according to Reuters. With 55 members in the Democratic caucus, that means that at least 11 Republicans would have to cross party lines to pass the bill with a simple majority of 51. In other words, Di-Fi’s dream is over.

Feinstein’s defeat exposes a very real fault line among Senate Democrats. In 2014, the party must defend 20 of the 33 seats up for election, with five seats held by Democrats from pro-gun states: Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu, Arkansas’ Mark Pryor, Alaska’s Mark Begich, Montana’s Max Baucus, and South Dakota’s Tim Johnson.

And these are just the folks running for reelection this year. Using Reid’s number, there are at least ten more Senate Democrats unwilling to tie their electoral future to a gun ban that will most likely kill their political career down the road.

The ban is over (for now). Good riddance.

An editorial in the Wall Street Journal nails a specious legal argument by at least two GOP governors trying to convince their Republican legislatures to approve the ObamaCare Medicaid expansion now, with the intention of opting out when the state’s bill comes due in three years.

The argument, a product of a private law firm in Ohio, makes some nice lawyer’s points, but ultimately fails to take into account how government programs – and the politics that drive them – actually work:

But there’s no evidence in the original law or the Supreme Court opinion that states can join or leave at their own whim. The logic of Justice Roberts’s opinion  [upholding ObamaCare] suggests that once states adopt new Medicaid, the program immediately becomes the old program for the purposes of the law and then states can’t leave.

The Becker memo also cites “guidance” from the federal Health and Human Services Department that states “may decide later to drop the coverage.” But these informal documents on the HHS website lack the force of law or even of regulation; they aren’t part of the Federal Register. In any case, HHS doesn’t have such authority. Congress didn’t grant the Administration any more statutory leeway than it did the states.

We wouldn’t be surprised if HHS is promising flexibility now only to revoke it later as a deliberate bait and switch. That wouldn’t be any more deceptive than Mr. Kasich’s legal claims. Republicans tempted to sign up for ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion had better think twice because once they do, the likelihood is they’re ceding control forever.

The decision facing Republican legislatures is straightforward: Either continue with Medicaid as it is and have (some) discretion over your state budget, or accept ObamaCare’s expansion and get ready to lose control.

It’s time for the GOP flip-floppers to be honest about the implications of this decision and debate the choice, and the consequences, on the merits.

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) did the Constitution and the nation it protects a service earlier this week by asking Dianne Feinstein, California’s senior liberal Democratic senator and gun control advocate, two simple questions:

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX) The question that I would pose to the senior Senator from California is would she deem it consistent with the Bill of Rights for Congress to engage in the same endeavor that we are contemplating doing with the Second Amendment in the context of the First or Fourth Amendment, namely, would she consider it constitutional for Congress to specify that the First Amendment shall apply only to the following books and shall not apply to the books that Congress has deemed outside the protection of the Bill of Rights?

Likewise, would she think that the Fourth Amendment’s protection against searches and seizures could properly apply only to the following specified individuals and not to the individuals that Congress has deemed outside the protection of the Bill of Rights?

Feinstein’s responses were (1) “I’m not a sixth grader,” and (2) “You know, it’s fine you want to lecture me on the Constitution. I appreciate it. Just know I’ve been here for a long time. I’ve passed on a number of bills. I’ve studied the Constitution myself. I am reasonably well educated, and I thank you for your lecture.”

Note that Feinstein completely fails to articulate either a general principle of constitutional lawmaking, or a reason why regulations pertaining to the Second Amendment could be unique.

This, in a nutshell, is the core problem with modern liberalism. Although liberals pay lip service to the Constitution, they cannot defend their policy positions from the text, structure or purpose of the very document that gives them the power to govern.

A sixth grader knows that kind of logical breakdown creates a serious problem of credibility. A U.S. Senator serving for more than 20 years, not so much.

Click here for the video and transcript of the exchange.

H/T: RealClearPolitics

A few weeks ago I wrote on the income-for-sale-tax swap some conservative governors are pursuing as an alternative to Washington’s income tax rate debate.

Today, Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, a big proponent of the sales-for-income-tax swap, announced his plan in Baton Rouge.

A press release from Jindal’s office lists the estimated benefits:

The plan will ensure revenue neutrality by:

• Eliminating~$2.7 Billion in personal income tax and corporate income and franchise tax
• Eliminating over 200 exemptions, resulting in $114 Million in additional revenue
• Broadening the state sales tax base and raising the state rate to 5.88%, which will result in ~$2.1 billion in revenue
• Maintaining vital local tax offsets and business competitiveness incentives
• Implementing targeted tax offsets, including a change in the cigarette tax rate, and tightening severance tax exemptions

But there are also some possible drawbacks. As I mentioned in my column, moving to a heavier reliance on the sales tax often requires lawmakers to carve out lots of exemptions. The danger is that, over time, a sales tax code could become as special interest driven as the current income tax code with all its byzantine deductions and exemptions.

Without agreeing to the substance of this critique, Jindal’s press release gives a clue as to what might be in store if his plan passes:

To keep the sales tax rate as low as possible, the plan will expand the sales tax base to many services that are already taxed in other states in addition to eliminating over 200 current exemptions. Many of these exemptions are no longer relevant since they were related to the personal income tax and/or corporate income and franchise tax.

Reducing the number of tax exemptions has many benefits, including limiting the state sales tax rate increase required to generate sufficient revenue and greater stability in revenues. The sales tax exemptions retained under the plan will help protect low-income residents and also preserve Louisiana’s business competitiveness. These include:

• Constitutionally protected sales tax exemptions, including food for home consumption, residential utilities, prescription drugs and fuel.
• Manufacturing, machinery, and equipment (MM&E), non-residential utilities, farm and agriculture, drilling rigs, vessels greater than 50 tons, tangible personal property for lease or rental, manufacturers’ rebates and trade-in value on new vehicle purchases, and preservation/rehabilitation of historic structures.
• Exemptions for vendors compensations
• Exemptions for certain non-profit organizations (religious, military, disabled)
• Sales tax exemptions on purchases whose cost is already borne by the taxpayer: those made by federal, state and local governments.

Reasonable people can debate the merits of which kind of tax reform is best to make the code simpler and fairer. Personally, I prefer a flat tax on income with few if any exemptions because it leaves the least amount of room for special interest mischief.

That said, Jindal’s plan deserves a hearing. If it passes and works in practice, expect to see Jindal’s tax reform model – if not Jindal himself – on the 2016 presidential campaign trail.

Kudos to Sarah Kliff at Wonkblog for tracking down a draft copy of an ObamaCare application. It’s the one a person would use to get access to a state-based health insurance exchange, and the subsidies to buy coverage that go along with it.

At 21 pages and asking for lots of sensitive information, the document is likely to be much more cumbersome than most people bargained for. That’s one of the biggest hurdles facing implementation, according to Kliff:

The administration is caught in a bit of a bind here. On the one hand, Obamacare is tricky business. In order to figure out how much Americans will pay, the federal government needs to collect lots of information, everything from the size of the family to its income to whether any family members are Alaska Natives (which would make them eligible for additional services through the Indian Health Service). It’s hard to collect all that data in a way that isn’t a bit complex.

At the same time, the whole goal of the Affordable Care Act is to maximize health insurance enrollment. That puts a premium on making the applications simple and easy to use—not the kind of documents that you’d get half way through and give up on.

To find a space between the two of these, there are likely a lot of support services that will start springing up over the next few months. This could include traditional agents and brokers, whose whole line of business is understanding applications like this one.  The Affordable Care Act also envisions a group of navigators, financed by state exchanges, who will—as the name implies—help navigate the insurance system.

Meet the new middle men, the same as the old middle men.

True, cost-efficient health insurance reform would reduce reliance on “navigators” in order to eliminate the transactions costs they generate. If a product is so hard to buy that it requires help to do so, you can bet that the cost of said product will go up. And up, up, up…

The bright side? At least there will be thousands of health insurance broker jobs that the Obama Administration can claim credit for creating or saving.