Subsidies to corn are supply-side: they go to farmers, who then increase the supply of corn on the market.  Supply cure shifts down/to the right (since supply curves are upward sloping): lower price/higher quantity.

Subsidies to (higher!) education are demand-side: they go to students, who then spend the money on tuition.  Demand curve shifts up/to the right (since demand curves are downward sloping): higher price/higher quantity.

The real problem, of course, is that we get more corn and more higher education than is socially optimal.

Edit: Of course, I should also point out that, after deducting subsidies (including student loans), the price of higher education is actually declining.

Here's a question for this teacher: she says she can't tell whether her students are learning anything without the participation requirement.  What?  Are tests something we just don't do below college level anymore?  Or is it just easier for her to count up the number of times a student answers a question (or her impression of that number) than it is to grade good essay questions?

One correction: confederate soldiers were not US citizens; they were CSA citizens.

Fair enough.  The only problem I have with it is that discretionary spending isn't what's breaking the budget, whether security spending or domestic spending.  So concentrating the sequester on that half (half!) of the budget is just a way to allow people to continue ignoring the fact that it's Social Security and --- especially --- Medicare that need to be dealt with.

But hey, at least those discretionary domestic programs do enough harm that it's worth cutting them for that reason, if not for budgetary reasons.

What you're missing is the people injured by licensed dentists who are still incompetent, which doesn't get reported by the liberal media (for some odd reason).

Second what Xennady said.  What you describe is exactly what happened during the two campaigns: ruthless attack-dog Romney during the primary, polite gentleman Romney during the general.  If Republicans would only reverse that pattern --- and more generally, treat those more conservative than themselves as friends they happen to agree with about some things and those more liberal as enemies to be destroyed, the way Democrats do --- we'd never lose another general.

We don't have to become ruthless liars; we just need to be much less ruthful truth-tellers.

No, I don't agree with that.  We do this sort of thing all the time --- it's called bankruptcy.  You don't actually pay debts you genuinely cannot pay, whether public sector or private sector.

Schizophrenics --- people completely out of touch with reality --- don't really qualify as independent adult citizens, in much the same way as children don't.  Obviously it's wrong to mistreat them --- it's morally wrong to mistreat even animals, for crying out loud.  But treating them as autonomous citizens with the full slate of rights and independence sane people have is ridiculous.

Who's on the offensive on social issues again?  Isn't it your side?  We social conservatives cannot call a 'truce' on social issues --- only the aggressor can do that.  We can only surrender.  If we must lose either way, better to lose fighting.

Well, what you lose in "strategy" by eliminating the double substitution and the sacrifice bunt you gain in "strategy" in the pitcher's pitch selection.  From what I can tell, a "good" NL pitching is basically "throw the ball really fast and wait for the lousy batters to come up and strike themselves out", whereas pitching in the AL is much more subtle, and much more interesting.

Nope.  Production falls with increasing tax rates at every level.  You get a Laffer curve because at some point that effect overwhelms the rise in tax rates, and revenue falls.  But the output-maximizing level of taxation (ignoring the need to fund government somehow) is always 0%.

What?!  There's nothing that can't kill you if you do too much of it.

Marijuana legalization would make more sense if people could defend it without making patently ridiculous claims.

Nobody complains about that.  We complain when Wiccan/Satanist/Muslim/FBI plant religious symbols are added to Christmas displays on public property.

You're dodging the moral agency issue.  Israel is not morally responsible for the deaths of civilians when those deaths are deliberately caused by Hamas --- not even a little bit.  Israel has no general obligation to minimize the number of innocent civilians who die --- not that such a thing is even possible --- it has an obligation to minimize the number of innocent civilians whose deaths it is morally responsible for.  It's not possible for Israel to incur moral guilt because Hamas kills a civilian.

Yeah!  Let's make it illegal for illegal immigrants to come here and go on welfare!

Wait, you said "have a job"?!  What, exactly, is the argument against letting people come here if they're going to work and contribute to our economy?