Archive for August, 2006
The Right That Was
Remember FreeRepublic.com? The right-wing web forum for Clinton-hatred, respectable and otherwise? I recently ran across an article, “The Secret FISA Court: Rubber Stamping Our Rights,” that somebody posted on FR back in 2000. (Hat tip: Glenn Greenwald.) The comments are precious:
This is beyond frightening. Thank you for this find.
This does not bode well for continued freedom. Franz Kafka would have judged this too wild to fictionalize. But for us – it’s real.
And my personal favorite:
Any chance of Bush rolling some of this back? It sounds amazing on its face.
Today, when NSA surveillance is in the news, as with the recent decision in ACLU v. NSA [.pdf], you’re far more likely to read this sort of thing over at FR.
Privacy is a false argument and has been for some time. Your insurance company and the credit bureaus have more on you than the feds do and you can do nothing about it. I would rather be secure knowing that the feds were looking over my shoulder and keeping me safe. I have nothing to hide, and in times of war, these steps are necessary.
There are a few exceptions per comment thread, a few throwbacks to the pre-9/11 Right who think skepticism about power is justified even when the Red Team’s in charge. But they’re a distinct minority.
Was it September 11th that “changed everything,” or Republican takeover of the executive branch? Either way, for the Right, it’s a different world indeed.
Rural Newspaper Calls for the President and the Senate to “Mind Their Business”
The Enid News and Eagle posted an opinion article last week on the new farm bill. Admittedly, it is a rural paper (based in Enid, Oklahoma) catering to a rural readership. Most of you will probably not have seen it. But I was struck by a number of passages.
Take this one, for starters:
“It seems the 2002 farm bill was one of the more popular farm bills to come out in the history of farm bills, according to Frank Lucas. The Third District representative has been traveling the state getting input from agricultural officials and farmers on what should be included in the 2007 version of the farm bill.”
Of course the 2002 Farm Bill was popular, Congressman, at least with the “agricultural officials and farmers” you are talking to. A significant backtrack from previous farm bills, payments to farmers under the 2002 Farm Bill are projected to average over US$20 billion per year from 2005 to 2007. Agriculture officials are hardly going to support huge cuts to the agriculture budget, either.
Or consider this gem:
“…the House committee knows the most about agriculture and has the most contact with the people it will affect…”
The Enid News and Eagle is suggesting that the “people it will affect” are farmers and ranchers. This is undeniably true. But this farm bill, like all the others before it, will also affect every taxpayer and consumer of food in the country, not to mention commodity producers abroad. (more here)
Filed under: General; International Economics and Development; Trade and Immigration
Paging Thomas Schelling
The NRO editorial on Iran is predictably alarmist, but there’s one line in particular that stands out:
[Iran's acquisition of a bomb] would effectively give Tehran a veto over U.S. military action in the region.
Simply put, this just isn’t true. The Soviet Union’s and China’s possession of nuclear weapons didn’t prevent the US from invading Vietnam. US possession of nuclear weapons didn’t prevent the Soviet Union from invading Afghanistan. Israeli possession of nuclear weapons hasn’t prevented a series of attacks on Israel’s peripheral interests. We could go on.
This kind of reasoning at NRO betrays how much we have forgotten about deterrence theory. Since I’m probably younger than any of NRO’s editorialists, youth is no excuse.
Iranian possession of nuclear weapons would indeed give Iran a veto over one prospective US policy: regime change in Iran. Nuclear deterrents are useful in protecting vital interests. But the notion that an Iranian nuclear weapons capability would somehow give Iran a veto over the range of available US policies in the region is silly. It would definitely make the US think twice about the implications of its policies in the region, and perhaps make America more cautious, but given recent experience, one has to wonder how bad that would be. In the end, we don’t have evidence that Iran would be any more likely to risk escalation to the nuclear level than would any other state.
This core-vs.-peripheral interests dichotomy is at the center of the literature on nuclear deterrence. If NRO wishes to cast it off in the course of advocating military action, then fine, but at least a cursory effort at dealing with the work of decades of scholarship on the topic of deterrence theory would be a welcome gesture.
Retire Hitler, Please
Secretary Rumsfeld’s nakedly political speech this week likely presaged the congressional campaigns of the coming weeks. In a sop to the denizens of the right-wing blogosphere, the formulation “Islamic fascism” is used to describe “the enemy” in the current conflict(s). This is a useful mnemonic, since it conjures the one historical analogy that Americans remember: Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Adolf Hitler in 1938 and the resulting world war.
It is also useful for supporters of a neoconservative foreign policy approach because it lumps a whole host of disparate adversaries (Sunni insurgents in Iraq; Shiite groups like Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army; Hezbollah; the Iranian theocracy; &c) into the “Islamic fascist” grouping, with the binary choices being appeasement or war. And do you, dear voter, wish to appease the fascists?
Duke poli sci professor Bruce Jentleson helpfully points out the various hawks for whom Vietnam represented another 1938, but for right-wingers, there are a whole host of Hitlers out there waiting to start another bloody world war.
Secretary Rumsfeld has previously likened Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez to Hitler, as has Pat Robertson. Rumsfeld has also likened Zarqawi, Ahmadinejad, and bin Laden to Hitler. Ted Stevens and John Warner felt comfortable likening Saddam Hussein to Hitler before the current Iraq war. Recall that for British foreign secretary Anthony Eden, it was Gamal Abdel Nasser who was the next Hitler. Right-wing pundit Frank Gaffney had Colin Powell, of all people, in the role of Neville Chamberlain. Even two-bit dictators like Slobodan Milosevic have gotten the Hitler treatment from American pundits. And Charles Krauthammer may be the reigning king of Hitler analogies, apparently having compared Deng Xiaoping, Boris Yeltsin, Kim Jong-Il, and (this one’s a softball) Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Hitler. And via my friend Spencer Ackerman, I see that Leon Wieseltier has catalogued many of the Hitlers staring down Israel in recent years.
I could go on like this for hours, but it’s not the best use of our donors’ money or my dwindling sanity. Hitler, thank God, was an aberration. The Wehrmacht Hitler commanded was eminently capable of overrunning and occupying Europe. (He thankfully also had the stupidity and hubris to decide that Stalingrad was in play.) But to elevate Hugo Chavez, or even Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Hitlerian heights is to completely miss the mark.
Why Does the WSJ Have a Preferred Monopolist?
Today’s Wall Street Journal once again defends the mayoral takeover of Los Angeles public schools. The editorial board’s argument is that we shouldn’t make “the perfect the enemy of the good.” Fine.
But the pointless is the enemy of both the good and the perfect.
What the WSJ is saying is that it is “good” to substitute one education monopolist for another. In what other field does the WSJ have a preferred monopolist? In what other field would they suggest that simply dividing authority over a monopoly between a mayor and another government agency will lead to meaningful improvement?
The only way of “fixing” monopolies is to break them up and return power to consumers by instituting a level, free, competitive playing field for producers.
C’mon, guys, Adam Smith had all this figured out in 1776 — even with specific respect to education. And the evidence proves him right.
More Welfare, More Poverty
News that the poverty rate remained at 12.6 percent last year, statistically unchanged from the year before, has set off a predictable round of calls for increased government spending on social welfare programs.
Yet, last year, the federal government spent more than $477 billion on some 50 different programs to fight poverty. That amounts to $12,892 for every poor man, woman, and child in this country. And, it does not even begin to count welfare spending by state and local governments. For all the talk about Republican budget cuts, spending on these social programs has increased an inflation-adjusted 22 percent since President Bush took office.
Despite this government largesse, 37 million Americans continue to live in poverty. In fact, despite nearly $9 trillion in total welfare spending since Lyndon Johnson declared War on Poverty in 1964, the poverty rate is perilously close to where we began more than 40 years ago.
One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. What does that say about our welfare policy?
Mass Health Plan: I Told You So
Supporters of Governor Romney’s Massachusetts health care plan scoffed when I warned that it “opens the door to widespread regulation of the health care industry and political interference in personal health care decisions. The result will be a slow but steady spiral downward toward a government-run, national health care system.” Recent events, alas, suggest that I was right.
When the plan was passed I said, “special interests representing various health care providers and disease constituencies can certainly be expected to lobby for the inclusion of additional services or coverage under any mandated benefits package.” Now it appears that my only mistake was in not realizing just how fast the special interests would move. Already the state has been forced to delay implementation of some aspects of the plan because of a bitter battle over issues such as whether dental benefits should be included in the basic plan that residents must buy.
Fortunately, however, members of the State Health Care Connector, which is designing the plans, say that the legislature didn’t really mean it when it passed a law setting the deadline. Of course, one might wonder what other aspects of the law they will feel free to ignore.
And, now the Boston Globe reports that Christian Scientists are lobbying hard to change the definition of health care under the law so as to include faith healers. Such are the perils of having the government design the products you must buy.
I also warned that as costs increased there would be increased pressure to increase subsidies or cap insurance premiums. This week, the Globe reported that State Senator Richard T. Moore, a key architect of the law, is complaining that health insurance premiums are too high. He is demanding that either premiums or subsidies be adjusted so that no one earning less than 300 percent of the poverty level ($58,000 for a family of four) will have to pay more than 5 percent of their income for insurance.
The plan is less than five months old and already the wheels are coming off. It would be sad if it had not all been so predictable.
Boudreaux’s Time Machine
Over at Cafe Hayek, George Mason economics chair and Cato adjunct scholar Don Boudreaux has come up with a wonderful thought experiment to illustrate just how absurdly inaccurate the government’s methods for calculating real wages are. Don looks at the Census Bureau report (from the depths of which the New York Times editorial page draws forth the blackest despair) and finds that real median family income has increased an unimpressive 31 percent in the 37 years from 1967 to 2004. In 1967 it was $35,379 (in 2004 dollars), and in 2004 it was $46,326.
Are we really only 31 percent–less the 1 percent a year–better off? Don’s thought experiment asks us to imagine that the incomes and years are swapped, and then see how we feel. Would you rather live in 1967 on $46,000 a year (the 2004 median), or in 2004 on $35,000 (the 1967 median).
Let’s take it up a notch. So, it’s 2004 and you make $35,000 (let’s pretend it’s individual, instead of family income). A gangly professor with crazy hair drives up in a time-traveling Delorean and offers you the 1967 equivalent of $46,000 (that’s a 31 percent raise!) if you’ll let him drop you off in 1967, where you’ll live for one year. You say, “Right on!” and take a lift to yesterday.
So now you’re in 1967 with about $8,500 in your pocket, and you’re ready to roll. Have you become wealthier?
Well, as Don notes, housing is smaller and more expensive. Central air conditioning, I should add, is a luxury. Your expensive and ridiculously large (but not the screen) TV gets three channels with fuzzy reception. No Deadwood (or the Wire, or Weeds, or Sports Center, or Project Runway, or Good Eats, etc.) for you! It’s a darn fine year for rock & roll, but you’d like to be able to listen to Dylan on your iPod (you used to download anything you wanted to listen to on demand) or in your car. Your car! It costs almost exactly the same as a 2004 car, but is less comfortable, has no auto anything, gets horrifying gas mileage, and is a death trap without a shoulder belt, airbags, or anti-lock brakes. It handles like a whale. You start to think your Jetta back in 2004 has rather more than an $11,000 edge on this bucket. That makes you a little depressed. Which is a problem, because your Prozac prescription ran out and there’s no recourse but a Freudian therapist who tells you your malaise has something to do with your mother. Trying to look on the bright side, you attempt to be grateful that you don’t need Cialis, or chemotheraphy. The food is terrible. You can’t get a cup of coffee that doesn’t taste like cardboard. The book stores seem to have nothing. A simple calculator costs about the same as your Blackberry. You lose a contact lens, and end up with Coke bottle “birth control” glasses. You want to go home.
Fear of Freedom in Health Care
From there, we part. Kling’s other solution relies on a massive increase in the amount of health costs that come out of pocket. The “very poor” would be subsidized, as would the “very sick” (neither term is defined in his book), but everyone else would be paying for their own care. This makes sense in a very specific sort of world — one in which you believe consumers have the capacity to make rational health care decisions — and to a very specific sort of person — one who believes those who make mistakes with their health care should simply pay the costs, be they financial ruin or death.
I am not that sort of person, and I am highly dubious of that world. I see no evidence for the claim that a gas station manager in Bakersfield, California, will be able to second- or third-guess his cardiologist’s recommendation of an angioplasty. Will he have the money to get a second opinion? A fourth? Or will Kling’s system convince him to foolishly underestimate his risk? Economists, after all, have shown time and again that we overestimate the pain of financial loss — that, when it comes to money, we are not nearly so rational as one might hope.
In the simulation of my proposals in the chapter on matching funding to needs, I define poor as below the poverty line and I define very sick as having annual expenses over $5000 for the non-elderly and over $20,000 for the elderly. I think that one can, and should, come up with better definitions, but the terms are not left undefined.
How should consumers make decisions about their health care? Let me define a “good” decision as one that is optimal in terms of expected benefits relative to expected costs. A different decision is a “mistake.”
I propose making more consumers more accountable for more of their own health care spending. Let me describe this as a system where consumers make their own mistakes.
What is the alternative to a system where consumers make their own mistakes? The opponents of consumer choice would have you believe that the alternative is a system where no mistakes are made, and instead we simply see good decisions. But that is not the alternative that we observe. In fact, no one would say that the medical decision-making process is mistake-free in America today.
The realistic alternative to having consumers make their own mistakes is to have mistakes made on their behalf by doctors, insurance companies, and government.
Next Up: CNN Exposes Terrorism Hype!
Jon Stewart lampoons CNN for its over-the-top “TARGET: USA” coverage.
The media has a significant role in fomenting excessive fear of terrorism and engendering disproportionate responses.
Filed under: Foreign Policy and National Security; Law and Civil Liberties; Telecom, Internet & Information Policy
Consumers for High Taxes
In a story on people without health insurance, NPR interviewed a spokesman for a “consumer advocacy group” who warned that we shouldn’t get rid of the estate tax (so we can spend more tax dollars on health care). Yeah, that’s what consumers think — except for the 68 percent of them who do want to repeal it.
Filed under: General; Health, Welfare & Entitlements; Tax and Budget Policy
When Generous People Stop Kidding Themselves
Over at Tapped, Ezra Klein is wrestling with my interpretation of the new estimates of poverty and health insurance coverage released yesterday by the Census Bureau. I observed that after the 1996 welfare reforms made federal cash assistance less “generous,” poverty went down. In contrast, federal health care spending grew ever more “generous,” and the number of uninsured went up. I humbly submitted that perhaps Congress should stop being so “generous” with health care.
Klein thinks that’s “crazy,” but he misfires on poverty rates:
- He suggests that economic growth of the late 1990s and the expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit were responsible for the post-1996 reductions in poverty. (The EITC does not directly affect the poverty rate, but it does affect the decision to earn other income that does.) Certainly each played a part. But prior economic booms did not have as dramatic an effect on the poverty rate even when the EITC was present, and scholars like June O’Neill have estimated that welfare reform had larger effects than did the economy. Moreover, although the EITC encourages some people to work more, it reduces work overall by encouraging others — those in the phase-out range — to work less. That might lift some out of poverty, but it traps them and others on the lower rungs of the economic ladder. Read the rest of this post »
Filed under: Cato Publications; General; Health, Welfare & Entitlements; Trade and Immigration
Come to Washington and Do Well
What’s the best business to be in these days? Steel? Automobiles? Maybe not any more. Maybe these days it’s software, or finance. Maybe. But judging from this lead story in this morning’s Washington Post –
The three most prosperous large counties in the United States are in the Washington suburbs, according to census figures released yesterday, which show that the region has the second-highest income and the least poverty of any major metropolitan area in the country.
Rapidly growing Loudoun County has emerged as the wealthiest jurisdiction in the nation, with its households last year having a median income of more than $98,000. It is followed by Fairfax and Howard counties, with Montgomery County not far behind.
– it would seem that government is the boom industry of the early 21st century. That’s the point Chris Edwards made in a Tax & Budget Bulletin (pdf) three months ago: that compensation of federal employees was almost twice compensation in the private sector. Then three months later, things changed, as things have a way of doing. Chris was forced to admit that the government’s latest figures showed that federal compensation was no longer almost twice private-sector compensation: it was exactly twice as much. “Average compensation for the 1.8 million federal civilian workers in 2005 was $106,579 — exactly twice the average compensation paid in the U.S. private sector: $53,289.”
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys,
Don’t let ‘em make software and sell people trucks,
Make ‘em be bureaucrats and fed’rals and such.
Filed under: General; Government and Politics; Tax and Budget Policy
Scandal in Public Broadcasting
The big scandal in public (or actually government) broadcasting is that the taxpayers are forced to pay hundreds of millions of dollars a year for the propagation of unremittingly liberal views on politics and policy. As I said in my testimony to the Senate last year, I agree with some of the liberal attitudes of NPR and PBS, but I don’t think taxpayers should be forced to subsidize my views or those of anyone else.
The second biggest scandal is that when Republicans get control of the federal government, they don’t relieve the taxpayers of that burden. Maybe it’s because they know the old advice, “Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.” Or who have their own nationwide broadcast networks. But it’s unbelievable to me that Republicans appropriate money every year for two networks that could be called ARN, the Anti-Republican Network.
The third biggest scandal is that instead of just privatizing PBS and NPR, Republicans appoint public broadcasting officials who go in like a bull in a china shop and try to force a bunch of liberal journalists to include conservative shows and perspectives. The government shouldn’t be telling journalists how and what to report. Instead, it should just free them to report as they choose, with money from investors and customers rather than taxpayers.
And I guess the fourth biggest scandal is the one making headlines today: that the chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (which oversees the federal government’s international broadcasting), who used to be chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, is alleged to have improperly used his office. In a State Department report made public by three Democratic members of Congress, Tomlinson is accused of putting a friend on the BBG payroll — something that never happens elsewhere in the federal government — and using office resources to support his personal horse-racing operation, which I suppose goes beyond the March Madness pools conducted in every federal office.
Maybe when conservatives get tired of being hit over the head by tax-funded broadcast networks, and liberals get tired of conservatives trying to meddle in the networks’ reporting, they could both agree to privatize PBS and NPR, freeing them from political intervention and freeing the taxpayers from being coerced to support what Thomas Jefferson called “the propagation of opinions which [they] disbelieve.”
Filed under: General; Government and Politics; Law and Civil Liberties
In Defense of Gridlock
Over at National Review’s blog, Ramesh Ponnuru wonders why it seems that divided government – aka, gridlock – tends to lead to slower growth in the federal budget.
I mount a defense of gridlock in my new book, Buck Wild: How Republicans Broke the Bank and Became the Party of Big Government. In chapter 8, to be precise. The numbers that Ramesh cites in his post come from a review of my book by Phil Kerpen on the NR website.
By way of jumping into the discussion Ramesh has started, let me clarify a few things first.
In my book I only analyze the real per capita growth rates of government spending in the years 1965 through 2005. I think this is a more useful timeframe for comparison than Ramesh’s seventy-six-year timeframe simply because the post-Great Society welfare state looks vastly different than what existed before. I was mainly curious to see if the correlation holds up within a timeframe that yields more consistency in terms of the entitlement programs being funded in the federal budget.
The methodology I used was modeled after that of Cato chairman William Niskanen and Cato senior fellow Peter VanDoren in the paper they presented to the Public Choice Society meeting in May of 2004. My data falls into the same realm of statistical significance, too. (Incidentally, their analysis goes back to 1949.)
Now on to the fun.
Divided government – gridlock – is the norm, not the exception, in American politics over the past 40 years. The only completely united government scenarios existed during the presidencies of Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, and George W. Bush. It is obviously true that Democratic united government is more common than Republican united government.
So why might divided government be more conducive to restrained spending? For starters, defense spending varies widely over the past 40 years, but the correlation between wars and united government is quite consistent. American participation in every war involving more than a few days of ground combat was initiated by a united government. You could argue that this is mere coincidence. Or you could argue that united government creates an environment where there is less resistance from Congress when a president wants to exercise his powers as commander-in-chief. The burden of proof is on those who suggest this is simply happenstance.
Filed under: General; Government and Politics; Tax and Budget Policy
Middle Class Squeeze?
New Census Bureau numbers released today on income, poverty and health coverage in 2005 are bound to fuel charges that the poor are getting poorer while the middle class continues to be squeezed. See what 25 years of tax cuts for the rich, globalization, and declining union membership have caused? But a look at the numbers inside the report tells a different story.
If we define the middle class as households earning between $35,000 and $75,000 a year, the middle class in America remains a huge demographic group. According to the Census report, Table A-1, the middle class made up 33.3 percent of U.S. households in 2005. That share is indeed somewhat smaller than in 1980, when 38.2 percent of households earned between $35,000 and $75,000 a year in real (inflation-adjusted) 2005 dollars.
Aha, so the middle class really is shrinking if not exactly disappearing, the alarmists might respond. But the Census numbers also show that over the past 25 years, the share of U.S. households earning less than $35,000 a year has also shrunk, from 44.5 percent in 1980 to 38.4 percent in 2005. Meanwhile, the share of households earning more than $75,000 a year has jumped from 17.4 percent to 28.3 percent.
In other words, if the middle class in America has shrunk, it is only because so many formerly middle-class households have moved to the upper-income brackets, while a significant number of households previously in the lower brackets have moved up to the middle class and beyond.
The solid economic growth of the past two decades has indeed lifted all kinds of household boats. By the most basic measure of real household income, a broad swathe of Americans are better off than they were 25 years ago—thanks to growth fueled in good measure by lower marginal tax rates, expanding trade, and a more flexible domestic economy.
Filed under: General; International Economics and Development; Trade and Immigration
PFAW: “Well, We Did Do the Nose…”
Apparently People for the American Way thinks that the “American Way” was best embodied by Salem’s witch trials.
In a bizarre ad hominem breakdown, PFAW posted a hatchet piece on Alliance for School Choice president Clint Bolick yesterday.
It isn’t a news release as such. It contains no news. It’s simply a list of Bolick’s alleged crimes against the state school monopoly. And I question the timing.
PFAW’s putative indictment seems intended to discredit Bolick in the eyes of the New Jersey media, due to a lawsuit the Alliance has filed on behalf of dissatisfied public school parents in that state. The parents are seeking choice — school vouchers to be precise — and there are few things that PFAW opposes more stridently than parental choice in education.
Fortunately for Bolick and for American children, PFAW’s attempted witch trial is less reminiscent of the real thing than of the Monty Python satire (whence comes the title of this post). Its most glaring error is to confuse the institution of government monopoly schooling with the ideals of public education.
Bolick, like most school choice advocates, is indeed critical of the bureaucratic school system that Americans inherited from the 19th century. But he is critical of it precisely because he is so committed to the ideals of public education. Our current system of schooling has failed to live up to our ideals and expectations for generations, and school choice advocates suggest introducing market forces because they will do a much better job of fulfilling those ideals and expectations.
I point all this out, moreover, as someone who does not support efforts, such as the New Jersey lawsuit in question, to encourage legislation from the bench.
New Uninsured Estimate, Same Old Story
Today, the Census Bureau reported that in 2005 the number of Americans without health insurance inched up yet again. This annual ritual, repeated every August, gets old after a while.
The Official Uninsured Estimate — now 46.6 million residents — comes from a survey that is not designed to measure insurance coverage. The Official Uninsured Estimate includes people who are covered by Medicaid, who lack coverage today but will regain it tomorrow, and who make over $50,000 per year. The Congressional Budget Office reports [.pdf] that the number of chronically uninsured (who lack coverage for a year or more) is more like 20-30 million — and still many of them are covered by Medicaid.
Part of this ritual is that Medicaid wins plaudits for “picking up the slack” when employment-based coverage falls. Yet Medicaid encourages employers not to offer coverage, encourages workers to avoid private coverage, and makes private coverage more expensive for both employers and workers. Medicaid doesn’t just catch people who fall off the economic ladder — it shakes the ladder.
Just about the only useful aspect of The Official Uninsured Estimate is the trend it displays over time. When compared to the trend in the poverty rate (also released today), a stark contrast emerges.
- Ten years ago, Congress reformed the welfare system. It stopped the practice of just throwing more money at the problem of poverty. What happened? Poverty fell and remained lower in 2005 than at any point in the 17 years leading up to welfare reform.
- But Congress kept throwing more money at health care by expanding government programs (e.g., SCHIP). The result? Unlike the poverty rate, The Official Uninsured Estimate continues its steady climb.
Maybe we should stop throwing money at the problem?
Filed under: General; Health, Welfare & Entitlements; Tax and Budget Policy; Trade and Immigration
Prepare to Be Shocked
The government’s anti-drug ad campaign has not been proven to deter children from using drugs, and lawmakers should consider reducing funding for the $1.2 billion program, congressional auditors said Friday.
The Government Accountability Office based its recommendation on its review of an independent evaluation of the media campaign by Westat Inc.
The government has spent about $1.2 billion since 1998 on scores of television, print and radio ads designed to discourage drug use among youth. The ads also describe parents as the anti-drug. President Bush requested another $120 million for next year.
Westat found the ads had no “significant favorable effects” in deterring children from trying marijuana or in getting them to stop. Rather, it found that more 12 1/2- to 13-year-olds and girls were trying the drug after seeing the ads, the GAO said.
Apparently, comparing pot-smoking cancer patients to terrorist sympathizers isn’t resonating with the public. Whoda’ thunkit’?
Full report here [.pdf].
New Botched Drug Raids in NYC
Two more botched drug raids in New York (be sure to watch the video). This is the city that is supposed to have changed its ways since the death of Alberta Spruill:
Two Bronx families said the NYPD mistakenly raided their apartments Monday morning. But the department is defending its actions.
Flexton Young said he, his wife, and their four children were asleep when police broke down the door of their apartment on the fourth floor of 974 Anderson Ave.
“They ripped through my front door, they tore off my closet door, ripped both of my kids’ rooms to pieces,” Young said. “It brought me to tears, and I just didn’t want my kids to get hurt.”
Young said police made a “big mistake” believing they’d find illegal drugs and guns in his apartment.
The raid, around six Monday morning, left the family’s apartment a shambles. Belongings were pulled off shelves and out of drawers, and tossed on the floor. Officers upended a sofa and slashed out the lining, and also dumped out box after box of dry goods in the kitchen.
Upstairs, a similar raid was made on the apartment of the Pastrana family. Police turned several rooms upside down and pepper-sprayed the family dog. Family members said one officer punched a hole in a wall, grabbed an egg beater, and started to poke around inside the wall, looking for hidden drugs and guns.
Nothing was found in the Pastrana apartment, and no one was arrested.
Downstairs, Flexton Young said police gave him a summons for marijuana possession after discovering half a joint in an ashtray.
Note the “new professionalism” on display:
“I had one officer tell me that he was sorry this happened, and everybody else just looked at me and walked away,” Young said.
A spokesman for the NYPD said police had good information they would find drugs and guns in the apartments, and the raid was justified.
If you think terrorizing two families over half a joint is an appropriate use of police tactics, then I suppose the NYPD spokesman is right.
The article ends with a sentence that’s both interesting and misleading:
According to the Civilian Complaint Review Board, more than 300 allegations of improper searches of homes and businesses have been investigated and ruled on this year. Less than five-percent of the complaints were found to be “substantiated.”
This is interesting in that it means the CCRB has confirmed 15 cases of improper drug raids in New York City alone. To my knowledge, these are the first two to have received any coverage in the media. More evidence that the raid map, alarming as it is, doesn’t even begin to tell the entire story.
But it’s likely quite a bit worse than that. As I explained in Overkill, the CCRB’s jurisdiction only extends to the actions of police officers at the scene, after they’ve served the warrant. It has no power to look into the circumstances leading up to the raid. I’ve talked to the CCRB’s spokesman several times. He has confirmed to me that this is still the case today. If a botched raid took place because of a bad tip from an informant, or because someone wrote the the wrong address on the search warrant, the CCRB is powerless to do anything about it, and won’t investigate.
Which means that the CCRB’s failure to “substantiate” claims of improper searches in those 285+ other cases in no way means that the people making the complaints were wrong, or that a “wrong door” raid didn’t take place. In fact, in most wrong door raids, the problem occurs well before the police actually force entry.
Perhaps some small percentage of those 300+ complaints are people intentionally filing a false claim of a botched search. But I have a hard time believing a large number of people would go to the trouble.
I have an op-ed pending on New York City’s use of SWAT teams, but the truth is, after promising the public after the death of Spruill that they would drastically reform the way they use SWAT teams and paramilitary police tactics, city officials have since reneged on most of those promises.
And so the mistaken raids and terrorizing of innocent people continues.
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