In his SOTU address, President Obama remarked that he needs to better explain healthcare reform to the American people. In the video above, that comment is contrasted with Donnie Stevens comments at Ed Martin's mid-January townhall.

Patrick Tuohey at the Missouri Record has some compelling thoughts on ethics reform:

A better solution would involve a complete deregulation of campaign finance coupled with much stricter reporting requirements. If Jim Nutter or Rex Sinquefield want to write fat checks, that is their right. And partisans, bloggers and special interests should be able to know of it immediately and act accordingly. This better fits the political skepticism that has characterized the American citizen since before we were a country.

Any other approach is reactive, makes compliance an expensive insiders' game and lacks credibility because it tells voters that the legislature can act ethically even if individual legislators cannot.

As for those legislators with a "personal value system," they should step forward and tell us who among them are the bad guys. Anything less makes them complicit in unethical behavior, and proves that this drive toward more and more ethics regulation is political theatre.

State Senator Gary Nodler (R-MO) has prefiled SB587, a Senate Bill that creates a Tenth Amendment commission:

Upon approval of the voters at the August 2010 election, this act creates the "Tenth Amendment Commission." This commission will refer cases to the Attorney General when the federal government takes steps that require the state or a state officer to enact or enforce a provision of federal law that lies outside Congress's power and intrudes on the powers reserved to the states by the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The attorney general is authorized to seek appropriate relief to preserve the state's sovereignty.

The Governor, President pro tempore of the Senate, and Speaker of the House of Representatives appoint two members of the commission, and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court appoints one member of the commission. The seven members of the commission will each serve two year terms. The commission shall meet annually to elect a chairperson and vice-chairperson.

No word on whether or not anyone in the state house will introduce my term limit idea. The first step of that idea is to forbid Missouri's congressional delegation from serving consecutive terms. Surely someone in Jeff City will realize that by term limiting the people sent to DC, they are creating job opportunities for themselves. Heck, I'll even propose some text for the bill:

No one serving in the United States Congress may stand for election.

Russ Roberts of Cafe Hayek has some observations on the challenges of financial reform:

Over the last 15 months, average Americans have sent hundreds of billions of dollars to some of the richest people in human history. The better the citizenry understands this reality, the better chance the political incentives will change. If people don’t understand it, the political incentives are going to stay in place. Economists play an important role in how people perceive what has happened. We should stop being the enablers of such obscene transfers of wealth.

Jeffrey S. Flier in the WSJ Health 'Reform' Gets a Failing Grade:

Instead of forthrightly dealing with the fundamental problems, discussion is dominated by rival factions struggling to enact or defeat President Barack Obama's agenda. The rhetoric on both sides is exaggerated and often deceptive. Those of us for whom the central issue is health—not politics—have been left in the lurch. And as controversy heads toward a conclusion in Washington, it appears that the people who favor the legislation are engaged in collective denial.

Read the whole thing.