Much like the ancient Egyptians, who carved the length of the Sun God's golden arm into the Cubit Stone* and decreed that all the empire's measurements must derive from it, our career politicians measure all legislation against a rule that states that anyone already receiving a government check must continue to receive it.  Forever. This is why the government keeps reinsuring and reinsuring and paying for (and paying for again) the destroyed luxury beachfront properties built on hurricane-bait sandbars a mile offshore.  It's why when we know that subsidizing single mothers leads to horrendous social pathologies, we ignore their behavior and continue to send them checks.  Then more checks. And of course, it was exactly with this standard of guaranteed entitlements that Paul Ryan began, he said, to "repeal" Obamacare – that is, by insisting that the twenty million people having health care premiums paid by Obamacare are untouchable. ...(Read Full Post)