Archive for September, 2008
Gerson to McCain: Move Left Fast
Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson, one of the big-government-conservative columnists who are all the rage with the Establishment Media, denounces Barack Obama for having “the ideology of Walter Mondale” and then calls on John McCain to adopt the ideology of Walter Mondale. Here’s his prescription for a winning acceptance speech:
McCain needs to announce new and unexpected reform proposals. Perhaps he should courageously follow the logic of his health plan and promise health coverage as a universal right guaranteed by subsidies for the purchase of private health insurance. Perhaps he should embrace the goal of getting all American electricity from renewable and non-carbon sources by some ambitious but realistic date. Perhaps he should offer guaranteed funding of higher education in exchange for national service.
With Republicans like that, who would need Democrats? If you want the big government of Walter Mondale, you might as well elect Walter Mondale, or his contemporary successor.
And of course it’s not at all clear that such a program would distinguish McCain from the Bush-Hastert-Frist Republicans who have become so unpopular. Ever since Gerson wrote for Bush the words “There is another destructive mindset: the idea that if government would only get out of the way, all our problems would be solved. An approach with no higher goal, no nobler purpose than ‘Leave us alone,’” the Republican party has been eagerly embracing openhanded government. Taxpayer funding for prescription drugs. Subsidies for every form of energy. Huge increases in federal education funding. How would Gerson’s proposed agenda for McCain be “the right address for a rebel?” It would in fact confirm the Bush-McCain alliance to destroy the remnants of Goldwater-Reagan conservatism.
Education Tax Credits: Most Popular Choice Policy
The Friedman Foundation has just published the latest state poll – Maryland – in their very helpful education survey series.
There are a lot of interesting things here, but I’ll highlight just a couple:
Maryland spends more than $12,000 per student. Only eight percent of Maryland residents guessed that spending was more than $10,000. Taxpayers have absolutely no concept of how badly they are getting fleeced by the teachers unions.
Education tax credits once again outperform vouchers in popularity. Credits pull in 52 percent support, with 48 percent opposed. Vouchers get just 42 percent support, with 58 percent opposed.
Following the recent EdNext and a mountain of other evidence, it’s clear that education tax credits are the best bet for school choice supporters.
Florida High Court Defeats Threat to its Sovereignty
With barely a moment’s reflection, the Florida Supreme Court has stricken two amendment questions from the state’s November ballot. The first would have allowed religious institutions to participate in state programs, subject to the limits imposed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The second would have overturned a 2006 Florida Supreme Court decision that essentially forbids the legislature from creating any alternative education programs alongside the required public school system.
The written decision has yet to be published, but whatever it says, it will be hard not to see this ruling as the latest turf battle between the Court and the voters — with the Court coming out on top yet again. This is bad news for Florida families, whose elected representatives will continue to have their hands tied on education policy.
When it comes to education in Florida, the state’s high court has asserted its sovereignty, and seems earnestly dedicated to preserving it. First it shackled the people of Florida to their troubled public school system, and now it has taped their mouths shut so that they cannot overturn its decision.
McCain-Palin vs. Obama-Biden on Earmarks
Robert Bluey of the Heritage Foundation beat me to the punch by detailing the differences between McCain-Palin and Obama-Biden on earmarks.
Bluey makes an important point: even unquestioned reformers like Jim DeMint (R-SC) only recently found earmark religion. Better late than never. Especially in a state like Alaska, which is basically a welfare state where corruption is the status quo, Sarah Palin has built an impressive record of reform. Important questions remain to be answered about her stances on tax and budget policy, but compared to Obama and Biden, there’s no question the appropriations cardinals would be sweating bullets under a McCain-Palin administration.
Speedy Trial?
Joseph Shepard sat in local jails for almost two years on drug related charges. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, he’s a man the system forgot–ignored by prosecutors, judges, and his own attorney. (Via How Appealing).
In North Carolina, the Courts have ruled that the busier the state gets, the more we need to forget about the constitutional rule requiring speedy trials. And the drug war makes the courthouse a very busy place indeed.
Palin on Health Care, Limited but Encouraging
As with most other issues, Sarah Palin’s record on health care reform is, well, thin. But what we do know suggests that she leans in the right direction. She has said that the key to health care reform is to “allow free-market competition and reduce onerous government regulation.” As governor, she called for abolishing Alaska’s anti-competition certificate-of-need (CON) requirement. (CON requires that health care providers seek state approval before building or expanding hospitals, purchasing capital equipment, or offering new or expanded services). She also established a state office to provide health care consumers with information about price and quality. While this should more properly be handled by the private sector, it shows she understands the importance of making the health care system more transparent and putting consumers at the center of any health care reform. Given the dismal record of most politicians from both parties on this issue, Palin’s record should be considered limited but encouraging.
Expressing a Preference for Docile State-Run Outlets, European Bureaucrats Complain about Private and Religious Media in Ireland
The bureaucrats at the European Commission are still upset that Irish voters had the gall to reject the statist EU Constitution (even though it was repackaged as the Lisbon Treaty in an attempt to deceive voters). A private European Commission memo circulating in Brussels was obtained by the Irish Times, which notes that the bureaucrats are particularly upset with private media outlets, which refused to act as lapdogs for the Commission’s propoganda campaign:
In a private briefing document circulated by the [European] commission in Brussels, it warned that Ireland’s “changing media landscape” between 2002 and 2008 has implications for public opinion about the European Union. …”There is a shift away from the State news radio and TV stations. This means that the quality of debate has suffered. Commercial radio and local radio are increasingly important to reach – and their style is different from the old State broadcasters,” it said. …The development of a conservative religious press since the second Nice Treaty is particularly noted by the commission… Though the circulation of ALIVE!, which targets conservative, older readers, is unknown, the paper claims that 365,000 copies a month are handed out, the commission briefing went on.
Militarized Policing
Glenn Greenwald has a good roundup of militarized police actions in St Paul.
Radley Balko looks at police actions in Denver.
For related Cato work on this disturbing trend, go here and here. We’ll be hosting a forum on no-knock police raids here at Cato next week.
Obama vs. Palin on Experience
Is there a libertarian position on what sort of experience a vice president needs? Libertarians have offered mixed reactions to the Sarah Palin pick. David Boaz would have preferred South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford.
Compared to Sen. Joe Biden, a 36-veteran of the Senate, Palin is a breath of fresh Alaskan air. But conservatives and libertarians should remember the lesson of George W. Bush and never relent in their pressure to make sure a potential McCain-Palin administration does more than talk about cleaning up Washington and reducing the size of government.
The Obama campaign likely will turn to surrogates to make the inexperience argument against Palin because any direct shot from Obama is likely to backfire. Obama’s national experience amounts to four years in the U.S. Senate, most of which he spent not legislating but running for president.
Palin’s tenure as Alaska governor equals, if not exceeds, Obama in experience. Palin, 44, has spent 12 years in elected office: 10 years as a city councilor and mayor and nearly two as governor. Obama, 47, has also spent 12 years in office: eight years as a state senator and close to four as a U.S. senator.
“Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency,” an Obama spokesman sniffed. They soon backpedaled on that line of attack, perhaps realizing Obama might alienate small-town voters who realize their mayors are often tested with tough decisions and budgets, rather than up-or-down votes.
Comparing her experience to Biden borders on ridiculous. Since when do libertarians find encouragement in government, much less someone who has spent 36 years in Washington funding programs like Amtrak and prosecuting the drug war?
On foreign policy, it’s not trivial to note that Obama seeks the presidency while Palin seeks the number two slot. Even if McCain died in office, Palin would retain McCain’s foreign policy team and have at least some experience as vice president.
As McCain’s operatives are sure to stress in the coming weeks, it’s pretty ironic for Obama to bash Palin on foreign policy experience when, in July, he visited Iraq for the first time since announcing his presidential bid — after repeated criticism from McCain — and has not held a single hearing on Afghanistan in his Senate subcommittee (again, letting Biden carry his foreign policy water). He also visited Afghanistan for the first time in July. Palin has visited Kuwait once in her role as commander of the Alaska National Guard.
Libertarians still have grave concerns about McCain’s foreign policy, but I think the Iraq war has lost salience as an issue, especially since the U.S. and Iraqi governments have basically agreed to withdraw troops by 2011, and most voters are focusing on the economy.
Finally, some have suggested that Palin was tapped simply because she was a woman. No doubt that played a role in her selection, but what matters is Palin’s reform record and standing as the antithesis of a Beltway insider. I predict attacks that Palin was only selected because of her gender will be as successful as complaints that Obama won because of his race.
Gov. Sarah Palin’s Record on Taxes and Spending
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has a mixed record on taxes and spending. She’s clearly erred on a few fiscal decisions during her tenure as mayor of Wasilla and as governor. Palin seems to operate from a small government mindset, which makes her few heresies on economic issues puzzling.
Palin has come under fire for supporting the “Bridge to Nowhere” in Ketchikan before she was against it. Aides said the cost of the bridge soared from $223 million to almost $400 million, prompting her to consider alternatives.
“She made the final decision to kill a very bad project, so she deserves credit for that. But she didn’t do it as an ideological opponent of earmarks. She did it as someone who had to balance the books,” Keith Ashdown, an investigator with Taxpayers for Common Sense told The Washington Post.
At best, Palin has been a convert on earmarks (and perhaps not a full convert). As governor of Alaska, she has requested 31 earmarks worth $197.8 million for next year, according to indicted Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens’ website, the Los Angeles Times reported. As mayor of Wasilla, Palin regularly traveled to Washington to request earmarks. The city obtained funding for several projects, including a bus depot ($600,000) and a water and sewer project ($1.5 million), according to Taxpayers for Common Sense.
As Wasilla mayor, Palin has a decidedly mixed record on taxes and spending. She slashed her salary and cut property taxes by 40 percent because of booming sales tax revenue from new stores.
But Palin also increased the budget by spending on roads and sewers, left the town nearly $20 million in debt and raised the city sales tax by half a percent (she said the money was needed to support construction of an indoor ice rink and sports complex and a police dispatch center).
As governor, Palin slashed more than 10 percent of the state’s budget in 2007 (Question: Besides his checkbook, has Barack Obama ever balanced — much less cut — a budget?). She vetoed $268 million in state projects and imposed objective criteria on the projects.
One of her signature accomplishments as governor was a $1.5 billion tax increase on oil production, infuriating oil companies, according to The New York Times. She accused oil companies of bribing legislators to keep taxes low and, soon after, passed a $1,200 “energy rebate” to each Alaskan from the state’s budget surplus.
As Chris Edwards noted, Palin has a spotty record on tax issues, mentioning the windfall profits tax on oil companies and noting she’s offered only minor tax breaks.
Libertarians should be cautiously optimistic about Palin. She has shown a dogged willingness to go to war with the worst elements of the Republican Party, but her missteps on some tax and spending issues means that libertarians should aggressively pressure a McCain-Palin administration to toe the small government line.
Palin vs. Obama on Reform and Ethics
Sen. John McCain shocked the chattering class by picking Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to share the GOP ticket. Commentators on the left and right offered predictable talking points about the selection, depending on their ideology.
But the libertarian reaction has been mixed, for good reason. Palin has an encouraging record on reform, but she must own up to a few notable blemishes on spending and tax issues. On balance, though, libertarians have much to admire about Palin’s tendency toward small government, especially compared to Sens. Barack Obama and Joe Biden, who rarely encountered a government program or tax hike they didn’t like.
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