All Things in Moderation

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The Post runs a “5-myths” feature in the Sunday Opinion section. I was excited to see this one on healthy eating, as it an issue that cross-sects health care policy and the dreaded nanny state stuff that gets people excited. I also wanted to link to a non-Reason source for a change. But then I noticed the writer works for Reason. Crap.

Seems like all the rage in the anti-obesity efforts are “food deserts” and encouraging exercise. For example, the First Lady’s “Let’s Move” campaign addresses both of those topics.

I think the impact of “food deserts” are overstated. And I think we won’t make any progress in having a more fit society until we deal with what is driving it: federal agriculture policy, subsidies and price supports.

We can spent loads of time, effort and resources in encouraging and promoting healthy food and exercise habits. When those efforts fail, and they will, we can take a different approach and start banning and taxing unhealthy foods, a tactic that tramples all over personal and parental responsibility and is more about about raising revenue than discouraging consumption. Because, as the man says:

So taxpayers are funding cheap food, which gets us fat, so we in turn get lectured to about better choices and exercise. And when that fails they ban the stuff or tax us more.

Based on some basic research and a few documentaries, it seems that back in the 1970s agriculture policy shifted to put an emphasis on cheap food, and more specifically, cheap calories. Obviously there are a lot of factors at play here, but I’d encourage you to take a look at this Health Affairs commentary from last year: Agricultural Policy And Childhood Obesity: A Food Systems And Public Health Commentary Elsewhere, the author was quoted as saying: “What we’ve done is create a generation of kids who are both overweight and undernourished because the calories they’re getting are not good ones.” Heckuva job, brownies*.

My knee-jerk reaction is to end the subsidies, but the author here offers a more balanced approach. That’s my answer for everything anyway, but I’m certain we aren’t entitled to artificially cheap beef and soda.

After all, it’s all things in moderation.

*If someone asks if there are nuts in the brownies, you can say no. There is price supported sugar or artificially cheap high fructose corn syrup.

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I thought I’d share a post by Randy Barnett at Volokh, from which the title of this post derives its name, FINOs (federalists in name only). Senate Republicans have apparently attached S.197 to their jobs bill. The justification for S.197 includes this little nugget:

“EFFECT ON INTERSTATE COMMERCE- Congress finds that the health care and insurance industries are industries affecting interstate commerce and the health care liability litigation systems existing throughout the United States are activities that affect interstate commerce by contributing to the high costs of health care and premiums for health care liability insurance purchased by health care system providers.”

S.197

That health care and insurance affect interstate commerce, so that Congress can regulate them under the Commerce Clause, is one of the major pillars of the DoJ’s defense of PPACA. Not only that, but the Senate Rs are also saying that state courts where health care liability is litigated also affect interstate commerce and can be regulated by Congress under the Commerce Clause.

Here’s Prof. Barnett’s post
FINO Republicans

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As a registered Republican who voted for George W. Bush in 2000 (to no effect since I had long moved from Florida to Maryland so at least I don’t have that debacle on my conscious) and lost faith in the concept of compassionate conservatism, I am a Republican in name only (RINO) in search of a new home. While I have come to empathize with many progressive causes (having a spouse who is a public school teacher will do that for you), I still feel a duty to steer my erstwhile party towards policies which will aid and grow our country. Over the next few posts of mine, I am going to go down the list of candidates and note how I feel about them.

Which brings us to Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee. Make no mistake about it, he will get the nomination. And while at this time four years ago Hillary Clinton was considered a lock on the Democratic nomination and Mitt’s hold seems a little more tenuous, but he will prevail in the end. Why? Because he is who the money men want. There are only two ‘Establishment’ candidates in the field and Jon Huntsman continues to get no traction whatsoever.

What is astoundingly odd is how tepid his support his. There even seems to a rather stealth Anybody But Romney movement working the fringes. I can only second guess what the motivation is but I suspect it is fear that Romney is a closet moderate. Heck, he was the governor of Massachusetts for christsakes. That alone makes him unacceptable to a broad swath of the Republican base who have been taught to despise anything on sight from the People’s Republic of Taxachusetts.

The biggest monkey on his back is ObamaRomneyCare. It is testament to the ability of the right wing flackmedia to shift the Overton Window that the goalposts have moved so far. Individual mandates were once the Republican straw alternative to universal coverage and single-payer. That individual mandates flew in Massachusetts scared someone somewhere. What should be his signature achievement, because it has been co-opted by moderate Democrats, has become his albatross.

His other claim to fame, his private sector career as a vulture capitalist, is also a rather double-edged sword. While making millions of money in finance is about as gold-star a credential as needed for the players who pull the strings, it’s not going to play well with populists either in general or within the tea party portion of the GOP. He keeps trying to make sympathetic gestures towards the lower middle class but they always come off as awkward and patronizing. Come to think of it ‘awkward and patronizing’ covers much of his campaign style. He is as close to Al Gore stiff as you will ever find in a Republican. Folksy, he ain’t.

He is really too slick for his own good and his waffling and back-pedaling is a tag that is going to dog him. Ultra-right wingers don’t trust him and probably for good reason. While he tries to parrot the current talking points, they just don’t feel right coming out of his mouth. He is insincere and smarmy and it’s clear where his loyalties lie.

The real drama for the next four months (and the campaign should be over by mid-March) is like watching a Columbo movie. You know who the candidate is, the suspense is in figuring out how he gets there.

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