What I've been reading

• A city in California outsources all of its functions and the sky doesn't fall. 

• Anne Applebaum says Americans want the government to do everything. I also think she is on target with her comments about safety -- we've become a country of pansies. 

• David Brooks, meanwhile, wonders how Americans can profess to be so against bureaucracy and yet produce so much of it. 

• "And call them racists."

• David Kopel says that even if the health insurance mandate is a tax it's still unconstitutional, and Peter Suderman makes some observations about Medicaid. 

• According to a new Gallup poll, more Americans than ever are skeptical about Social Security's ability to pay them a benefit.