Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas to all readers. New additions to the PolicyGuy blog will probably not return until Monday, December 29.
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Will Online Transactions Lead to Workforce Reductions at the DMV?
The Detroit Free Press has an almost entirely upbeat profile of Michigan's Secretary of State, Terri Lynn Land.

Land, in her first term, would like to modernize the department, which has 173 branch offices across the state. Plans include evening hours and taking credit cards for payment. An effort to modernize the workforce--by instituting flex time--has floundered in the wake of the budget crunch and employee concessions.

Online transactions are up 17 percent already. But a spokesman says to workers, don't worry about your jobs. "Our workload isn't decreasing. We need all the people that we've got."

Oh? Perhaps that is true now. Should it advance far enough, automation may render some employees, in the English phrase, redundant. Land probably can't say that just yet, for political reasons.

She has also saved the state $2 million by proposing the cancellation of the Republican Party. Sure, that helps the top of her ticket (Land is a Republican). But it also brings up the question: shouldn't the costs of the primaries be covered by the parties anyway? Unlike the general election, primary elections do not actually select which candidate will be in office.
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HHS on Drug Reimportation Plan: No Way
HHS has told Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich that his plan to encourage the importation of drugs from Canada is going nowhere. Chip Taylor has the details from the New York Times.

The Chicago Sun-Times features some choice words from an FDA spokesman:

"Just because some elected officials says that language exists does not make that true, just as having elected officials saying certain kinds of drugs are safe does not make that true."

"Importation is a gimmick and it is not a solution to a difficult problem."
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The Party of incumbents
Writing for the Wall Street Journal, John Fund asks "Will conservatives benefit from safe Republican control?"

The answer: no.

Gerrymandering-politicians have so many tools at their disposal that less than 10 percent of next year's Congressional races -- 38 out of 435 -- will be "remotely up for grabs."

The result: the Republican party will control the U.S. House for the rest of the decade. (There could, of course, be a reverse image of the 1994 elections, which swept Republicans into power, should there be some major Republican gaffe.) Will this make any difference in policy? Probably not, if the first three years of the G.W. Bush presidency is any guide: domestic spending increasing at a faster rate than during the Clinton years, the largest single expansion of entitlements ever, with the new Medicare prescription drug bill, and a president who hasn't found his veto pen.

All this leads Journal reader Keith Terranova to ask a powerful question: "The record of the Republican Congress, to which Mr. Fund referred, led me to think why liberal Democrats became the party of big government. Was it philosophy only, or did their hold of majority status lead them that way."

The possible implications are many, ranging from term limits to supermajority votes to simply waiting for a fiscal meltdown (see: California.)

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Illinois Says: Give Us Cheap Drugs
Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) will ask the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for permission to import drugs from Canada. According to the New York Times, "While government officials elsewhere, including in New Hampshire, have announced that they will simply forge ahead and assist people in buying drugs from Canada, Mr. Blagojevich says he will not break the law." A spokesman for Blagojevich says that the recent Medicare bill gives HHS Secretary Thompson authority to grant the request.

The Times says that Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-Minn.) is working with Blagojevich to plan a workshop on the issue during the already-scheduled National Governors Association meeting on F ebruary 24.

Last week, the Wall Street Journal warns that such programs "could open up the states and municipalities to private legal action, particularly if any patients involved claim they were harmed by the Canadian imports."

Showing the political values of the "let's import price-controlled drugs" issue, the governor of New Hampshire is planning a link on his web page that will take visitors to a new state program to promote imports from Canada. Minnesota has sent inspectors to visit Canadian pharmacies. The Journal reports that director of that state's department of human services as saying that he "planned to move ahead with the Web site even without federal permission."

(Hmm. Who would have thought? Illinois will be the state of clean government, while Minnesota, with the reverse image, will be the one to break federal law.)

Officials in New Hampshire and Boston are going to join the gang of scofflaws, reports the Chicago Sun-Times.

West Virginia hopes that its local pharmacies will engage Canadian pharmacies; Vermont may have its employees sign up with a pharmacy benefits manager in Canada.

In a wonderful turn of irony (on several levels), some pharmacies in Canada fret that they may run out of prescription drugs.

UPDATE: Chip Taylor points out that exporting to the U.S. has been a controversy in Manitoba, Canada. One concern: a shortage of pharmacists.
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