The IRS yesterday released some new statistics on individual income and taxes for the year 2007. I got an email from the IRS about it, but didn't blog on it, figuring that I'd handle it by reacting to the inevitable New York Times or Wall Street Journal article spinning the news as "Rich Get Richer," and pointing out that the stats also show that those in the upper income percentiles are paying an increased share of taxes. Well, Greg Mankiw beat me to it, citing the Tax Foundation.

It's not only banks and automakers benefiting from federal largesse. The House of Representatives today voted to approve a Defense appropriations bill that included $2.7 billion in earmarked no-bid contracts to private companies. Rep. Jeff Flake, a Republican congressman from Arizona, offered a series of unsuccessful amendments aimed at stripping out the spending. A press release from him said, "Members of Congress should not have the ability to award no-bid contracts to their campaign contributors." The votes on the amendments are here, here, here, here, and here. Defense spending is important, of course, and there may be some members of Congress who play constructive roles in bringing innovative businesses in their districts to the attention of the Pentagon. Under the Constitution Congress has the power to appropriate funds. But as a practical matter, the government would probably be better off buying weapons from the cheapest and best market competitor, not the businessman who is coziest with the local congressman or who has a lobbyist who is.

When Clifford Asness called advocates of President Obama's health-care overhaul "mendacious socialists who know that they will not achieve their massive imposition of state control on all aspects of life if they are honest about it," I thought it might have been a bit, as I put it at the time, "over-the-top." Now Josh Gerstein, a colleague of mine at The New York Sun and The Harvard Crimson and a straight-shooting, down-the-middle, non-ideological reporter if there ever was one, has caught Mr. Obama out in two misstatements of fact. The first is Mr. Obama's claim "I haven't signed a bill that's raised taxes yet." In fact, Mr. Gerstein points out, on February 4 Mr. Obama signed a law expanding children's health insurance funded largely by a $71 billion increase in the tobacco tax over 10 years. The second is Mr. Obama's claim that taxpayers are going to be "repaid every dime they put on the line" in the auto industry bailout. In fact, Mr. Gerstein points out, $7 billion in Chrysler loans have already been written off, and it's highly unlikely that taxpayers will recover all of the $65 billion put into GM.

From a Wall Street Journal editorial this morning on health care: "At the very least, liberals will demand to load up co-ops with the minimum-coverage mandates they've already included in the House and rival Senate legislation—from maternity care to government-funded abortion." One can understand why conservatives may be uncomfortable with requiring government-funded abortion, or, for that matter, with requiring insurance plans to cover Viagra or chiropracty, but the fight for the idea that health insurance should not cover maternity care seems like a political loser. Not to mention that it somewhat contradicts the pro-family view implied by the opposition to government-funded abortion.

in today's Wall Street Journal, here: "I don't think the White House or the Democratic leadership understands the level of despondency in the country now among people who add new wealth—business owners, entrepreneurs or those who invest in new ideas that don't depend wholly on subsidized choices made by the public sector. This is all many people in the most dynamic corners of the private sector talk about now. Their beef is not with recession but the feeling that this presidency and Congress have no interest in them."

Just two days after arguing that whether to close dealerships and which ones are decisions that "must be the province of private enterprise, not intrusive lawmakers," the editorialists at the New York Times now says that it is the job of "public policy" to "steer the choices of industry, and consumers, away from the preference for size and power" when it comes to automobiles. The paper says that "now is the time to do it" because "G.M. is majority-owned by the government."

The retailer Target is offering physical exams that children need for summer camp for $29 apiece, Mark Perry reports. Professor Perry, who teaches economics, writes, "while President Obama and politicians in Washington dream up the latest grandiose government health care reform to address rising healthcare costs, the most effective, affordable, and convenient solutions might be right around the corner at your local Target store."

Here is Ben Stein, writing in the July-August issue of the American Spectator, on "what we learned from The Great Recession":

we learned the limits of selfishness. Laissez-faire is great. Individual initiative and ambition are great. But there has to be some force controlling them and countervailing them. We have cut back so much on regulation and on private securities law enforcement that the financiers basically were on the playground without supervision—with nuclear weapons. Not good.

In a July 23 post on "The Ford Misconception," FutureOfCapitalism.com noted that press coverage of Ford speaks of the company's refusing federal aid but usually neglects to mention the company's $5.9 billion federal loan. Six days later, in today's Wall Street Journal, a column by Holman Jenkins makes the same point: "Ford's press coverage lately portrays Ford as almost a character from an Ayn Rand novel—bravely, disdainfully waving away government money. This is, ahem, an exaggeration. Ford just received $6 billion in Energy Department loans."

The investor Wilbur Ross, whose buyout firm was part of a group that bought one failed bank, says that if the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation adopts its proposed rules on bank takeovers, "I assure you that my firm will never again bid." The Bloomberg wire reports that "Terms proposed by the FDIC include requiring banks bought by private-equity firms to maintain a Tier 1 capital ratio of 15 percent, almost twice the level usually required for a startup bank. ... The agency would also require the firms to hold onto their investments for at least three years." Credit Mr. Ross for being willing to push back publicly against the regulators. Those regulators, to be fair, have an interest in making sure that the banks whose deposits they insure do not fail. But so do the bank's owners, who have an interest in protecting the value of their investment.

One of the things that can make increased government involvement in the economy difficult to curb is that it is not just Democratic politicians who promote it. So, for example, it was President Bush and his treasury secretary, Henry Paulson, Republicans, who seized Fannie Mae and AIG and proposed the TARP and began the bailout of the automakers. The latest example of Republican interference in free markets is a letter from the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, Charles Grassley, to Secretary of State Clinton and to the U.S. trade representative. Mr. Grassley's letter indicates he wants to hold up the nomination of the American ambassador to Brazil until the Obama administration promises to support the existing tariff on imported ethanol. That tariff is a) a tax and b) a protectionist interference with free trade and c) also, but less pertinent to the matter of government involvement in the economy, for those who are concerned about such things, a barrier to reducing American dependence on foreign oil with its climate-change effects. Sometimes it seems like free markets aren't a Republican-versus-Democrat issue but a politicians-versus-the-rest-of-us issue.

There's an assumption underlying much of the health care debate that non-profit organizations are better-managed or more efficient or honest than for-profit organizations. President Obama speaks of a public option to "help keep the insurance companies honest," and a bipartisan group of Senate negotiators propose a "network of private, nonprofit cooperatives" to "compete with private insurers."

At his June 24 White House town hall meeting on health care, President Obama addressed the CEO of Aetna, Ronald Williams, and, before a national ABC News television audience, said, "Aetna is a well-managed company and I am confident that your shareholders are going to do well."

Yesterday, the Aetna CEO, Mr. Williams, "cut its full-year earnings forecast for the second time in two months," the Bloomberg wire reports, adding that the CEO called the company's quarterly results "disappointing across many dimensions" and that the CEO said the company had "not adapted quickly enough to a changing environment."

Remember those new fuel economy standards announced back in May by the Obama administration? It turns out there is an exception for BMW and Mercedes, the Wall Street Journal reports this morning.

Sometimes you can learn more about national political economy by reading the Vineyard Gazette, the paper published twice a week in the summer on Martha's Vineyard and once a week on the off-season, than by reading the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. The latest examples:

President Obama will reportedly vacation on a 28.5 acre estate with a swimming pool, an apple orchard, a golf practice tee, and a "small basketball court." The property last changed hands in 2005 for $20.35 million. Good to see Mr. Obama isn't letting the recession interfere with his and his family's desire to vacation in style.

The Steamship Authority ferry is finding that "buy American" provisions in the federal "stimulus" package could add as much as $400,000 to the cost of a project involving rubber fenders for its boats to bump into. The provision may also delay the project until next year.