The Wall Street Journal reports [$]:

President Barack Obama’s health-care plan is in jeopardy because of serious concerns that costs will spin out of control. As much as anyone, it’s White House budget director Peter Orszag’s job to save it…

After his TV appearances, he went straight to the Senate Finance Committee, where he spent three hours with committee aides brainstorming about how to pay for the trillion-dollar legislation. At one point, they flipped through the tax code, looking for ideas.

Note, of course, that finding new sources of tax revenue doesn’t do anything about cost concerns. But for those “fiscal conservatives” who worry more about the deficit than about the government ending up with all our money, new revenue to match new spending may alleviate their concerns. (By the way, this WSJ article also has interesting vignettes about Orszag’s encounters with libertarian writer Virginia Postrel and my former colleague Andrew Biggs.)

For a review of some of the ideas Orszag and his friends have found as they flipped through the tax code — such a charming metaphor for the reality of the ruling class looking for opportunities to extract more of the money we earn — click here.

With the federal takeover of health care stalled, President Obama was able to enjoy a little feeling of success today at an event celebrating the “Race to the Top Fund,” a $4.35 billion kitty of education money created under the economic “stimulus” law. Not much actually happened today — the draft state application for fund dollars was released — but that was enough to produce a full-on, Department of Education dog-and-pony show topped off with a speech by the president. The administration even had a bit of a media blitz leading up to the show, with numerous articles appearing in major papers, a Washington Post op-ed by Secretary Duncan, and the president participating in a lengthy Post interview.

Unfortunately, there’s nothing about the Race to the Top Fund actually worth celebrating. Despite rhetoric by the president about “evidence-based policymaking” and promises that “politics won’t come into play” with fund money, this is just another escalation of politicized, destructive, federal education interference. It pours more taxpayer ducats into the edu-abyss, and with new data-collection requirements and money for national (read: federal) standards and tests, further tightens Washington’s grip on our schools. And don’t expect any of this to translate into better outcomes: The people employed by government schools, who have the greatest incentive and ability to control education policy, will still be calling the shots in a soon-to-be even tighter monopoly. Heck, just ask American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten and National Education Association president Dennis Van Roekel. Both were in attendance at today’s big event, and both were singled out for praise by Secretary Duncan and President Obama.

The race to the federal takeover just keeps getting faster.

Last month, I posted about the upcoming decision confronting President Obama on the question of whether or not he should impose trade restrictions (55% duties) on passenger tires from China, as recommended by the U.S. International Trade Commission.

I am in the process of finishing a short paper on the issue, explaining why doing so would be disastrous for the economy and foreign relations, but am taking a break to share this brilliant op-ed that appeared in today’s Detroit News. Ross Kogel, Jr., president of Tire Wholesalers, really hits the nail on the head, articulately and succinctly, explaining that there is no upside, only misery, in the proposed tariffs.

Michigan could sure use several more Ross Kogel and far fewer of the business-as-usual pols and union leaders who have run the state into the abyss.

Since at least February, President Obama and other elders of the Church of Universal Coverage have labored to create the impression that universal coverage is inevitable, because a sense of inevitability reduces its cost. If interest groups think this train is leaving the station, they are less likely to stand in its way. Lobbyists are more likely to cut whatever deal they can if their clients believe, “It could have been much worse.” That’s why Obama has demanded haste: the longer the process, the harder it is to maintain a sense of inevitability.

Here’s a sampling of today’s health care headlines from the non-partisan Bulletin News, which summarizes news media coverage:

• Senate, Obama Back Off Healthcare Reform August Deadline.
• Obama Rakes In Cash For DNC, Criticizes Media Coverage Of Healthcare Debate.
• Obama’s Performance At Wednesday’s Press Conference Comes Under Fire.
• President’s Media Strategy Raises Eyebrows.
• House Democrats Consider Sidestepping Committee.
• Democratic Caucus Holds “Contentious” Meeting.
• Black Caucus Blasts Blue Dogs; AARP, Unions Also Criticize Group.
• Freshmen Senators Ask Baucus To Hold Costs Down, Praise His Efforts.
• More Criticism Of Obama.

Now that reform seems less inevitable, interest groups will be less likely to settle for a bad deal. Instead, they will be more likely to demand higher payoffs than before, because their clients believe the expected cost of alienating Church elders has moved away from “getting punished” and toward “the status quo ante.”

So, good luck paying for this thing.

Mark Pauly is usually an ally of those who support free-market health care reform. But, occassionally, he strays off the reservation. Recently, he and I debated the merits of an individual mandate for health insurance on public​square​.net. Click here to listen.

In relation to the story that prompted my moaning and wailing about abuse of PowerPoint, “Starbuck” at the Small Wars Journal has posted a follow on. In it, s/​he passes along the following story:

In January 2009, a military-oriented site, “Company Command”, asked current Army commanders and platoon leaders in Iraq what they spent most of their time doing. One officer, Lt. Sam Nuxoll, answered flat-out: “Making PowerPoint slides”.

When pressed, the lieutenant continued:

“I’m dead serious, guys. The one thing I spend more time on than anything else here in combat is making PowerPoint slides. I have to make a storyboard [a PowerPoint slide] complete with digital pictures, diagrams and text summaries on just about anything that happens. Recon a water pump? Make a storyboard. Conduct a key leader engagement? Make a storyboard. Award a microgrant? Make a storyboard.”

In addition, the PowerPoint slide that was to have conveyed the “Phase IV” (reconstruction and stabilization) plan in Iraq has been the topic of much discussion, but Starbuck actually posts the final slide:

With this much detail, how could we have gone wrong?

In fairness, before PowerPoint we had “flow charts,” the logic of which was best summed up here. (There is a much better version with some blue language, but this is a family blog.)

In today’s Washington Post, education secretary Arne Duncan describes the administration’s $4.5 billion “Race to the Top” fund as “education reform’s moon shot” — a watershed undertaking that will transform the way children learn and dramatically improve outcomes. No doubt he believes that. But since he also seems to believe that he brought about dramatic academic gains in Chicago — something that I and others have shown is not the case — the secretary’s beliefs should be taken with a grain of salt.

“Race to the Top” funds will be used to reward states that pursue education policies favored by Duncan and President Obama, and, by extension, to punish states that don’t. It is obedience training writ large. States that Duncan felt were going in the wrong direction in recent weeks, like Rhode Island, were rapped on the nose: keep it up, and we’ll withhold millions in education funding kibbles, they were told. States like Colorado have already been brought to heel. “We all know Colorado needs this money,” Lt. Gov. Barbara O’Brien told the Washington Post, and she and other state officials have poured over Duncan’s every word to ensure that they follow his commands to the letter.

And what commands Duncan and Obama are giving! High on their agenda is bringing the nation’s schools into lock step when it comes to standards and testing. They promise, with little evidence, that this will drive educational excellence. Meanwhile, just this month, British schools secretary Ed Balls terminated that nation’s decade-long national math and reading strategies, saying that: “I think the right thing for us to do now is to move away from what has historically been a rather central view of school improvement through national strategies.” If central planning were a panacea for education, why are the Brits — who have years of experience with it — turning away from it?

And if the president and his education secretary really cared about evidence-driven education reform, they would not have decided to kill the D.C. opportunity scholarships program that gives low income families in the nation’s capital access to private schools. Children in that program for three years read two grade levels ahead of their peers who remained in public schools. And that’s according to Duncan’s own Department of Education.

Obama and Duncan may well train state education leaders to follow their commands, but there’s no reason to believe those commands will improve American schools.