Archive for October, 2008
Obama on Education
Today on NRO you can find my nutshell assessment of Barack Obama’s education platform. In a second installment to be released on Monday, I tackle the broader implications of Obama’s time as chairman of the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.
Brecht on Bloomberg
The New York City Council has gone along with Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s urgent and high-pressured request that it overrule two votes of the people and allow him to serve another term. The council’s joint project with the mayor to ignore the will of the people puts me in mind of Bertolt Brecht’s famous poem on the East German government, The Solution:
After the uprising of the 17th June
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?
Damned With Faint Praise
Well, not faint exactly. Indeed, it is pretty hearty. But considering the source, I’m not sure it is an asset.
In an article in today’s Congress Daily, key sugar lobby groups praised Senator Obama’s newfound enthusiasm for the U.S. sugar program. As a senator from the candy-making state of Illinois, he was none too fond of the price supports and import restrictions that raised input prices for factories in his state.
Not anymore. In a letter to sugar groups, Senator Obama gave assurances that while he “has concerns” with the program, he would listen to and work with them to “reward [their] hard work with policies that will keep [their] industry and your communities strong”. Oh dear.
One former lobbyist pointed out that “…the candidate now “represents a broader range of interest” than when he was a state legislator…[and] added that Obama has never voted against the sugar program and supported the 2008 Farm Bill.” McCain, on the other hand, would likely have lost the support of formerly Republican-leaning farmers because “…[he] has consistently opposed the program and agreed with President Bush’s decision to veto the Farm Bill.” Another lobbyist said that “Sen. McCain seems to want to radically alter [the farm safety net].”
Considering the woeful sugar policies of the United States, an honorable person should be ashamed to receive Big Sugar’s support.
Fears of Nuclear Terrorism
Nightmare scenarios of terrorists gaining possession of nuclear weapons might make for good movie plots, but Americans grossly exaggerate the likelihood that an act of nuclear terrorism will occur within the next five or ten years. So says the RAND Corporation’s Brian Michael Jenkins in a new book, Will Terrorists Go Nuclear? (See also some of John Mueller’s writings on this subject here and here.)
James Kitfield’s interview with Jenkins, posted at The National Journal, is an interesting read. Jenkins focuses on the fear factor surrounding nuclear terrorism, fears that terrorists are happy to exploit, even as their capacity for using such weapons is very, very small. I particularly appreciated Jenkins’ ideas about breaking the “chain reaction of fear” and his advice to American political leaders is worth repeating verbatim:
Rather than telling Americans constantly to be very afraid, we should stress that even an event of nuclear terrorism will not bring this Republic to its knees. Some will argue that fear is useful in galvanizing people and concentrating their minds on this threat, but fear is not free. It creates its own orthodoxy and demands obedience to it. A frightened population is intolerant. It trumpets a kind of “lapel pin” patriotism rather than the real thing. A frightened population is also prone both to paralysis — we’re doomed! — and to dangerous overreaction.
I believe that fear gets in the way of addressing the issue of nuclear terrorism in a sustained and sensible way. Instead of spreading fear, our leaders should speak to the American traditions of courage, self-reliance, and resiliency. Heaven forbid that an act of nuclear terrorism ever actually occurs, but if it does, we’ll get through it.
It is understandable why politicians are reluctant to embrace such recommendations. On the other hand, if they understood that terrorists seek to engender panic, public officials would pay as much or more attention to calming the public’s fears as they do to stoking them.
Today at Cato
Article: “Don’t Expand NATO,” by Benjamin H. Friedman and Justin Logan in World Politics Review
Article: “Nuclear Energy: Risky Business,” by Jerry Taylor in Reason Magazine
Podcast: “Jacob Zuma and the Future of South Africa,” featuring Tony Leon
Op-Ed: “Questions and Answers About Obama’s Health Plan,” by Michael D. Tanner in the McClatchy News Service
Why Do We Spend So Little on Politics?
Citizens for Responsible Politics are wringing their hands over the fact that Americans may spend $5.3 billion on political campaigns this year. (And it’s not all the Obama campaign!) $5.3 billion.
So let’s see . . . the federal government just spent $700 billion on a bailout of Wall Street. Or maybe it’s $2.25 trillion, or $3 trillion, in the eventual total cost of the financial bailouts. And we’ve spent $600 billion–or maybe a trillion, or maybe $4 trillion–on the Iraq war. And so little things like a $25 billion bailout for the automobile industry become accounting errors. Meanwhile, under President Bush annual federal spending has soared past $2 trillion and past $3 trillion.
And with all this money available in Washington, people have only spent $5.3 billion this year to get a piece of it? What’s wrong with them? Political scientists from Gordon Tullock to Stephen Ansolabehere have pondered this question. Tim Harford says it’s not easy to get politicians to do what you want even when you spend money on them, and that’s why people spend so little.
But $5.3 billion to elect a president and 468 members of Congress? That’s less than we’ll spend on potato chips this year.
Fighting for Tax Havens on French TV
Former Senator Phil Gramm used to joke that trying to restrain government in Washington was like “doing the Lord’s work in the Devil’s city.” After my recent appearance on French TV to debate tax havens, I have a better sense of how he felt.
I was the lone pro-market spokesman, matched up against three statists, to discuss the topic: “Should tax havens be banned.” Needless to say, the program was not exactly designed to promote a libertarian viewpoint.
For those interested in this issue, you can watch Part I and Part II. Feel free to send me feedback.
On Dropouts, Listen to Obama’s Favorite Economist
Libby Quaid of the AP reports today on a new Education Trust study of American high school dropout rates. According to that report, today’s kids complete high school at a lower rate than did their parents, NCLB hasn’t helped, and the solution is more federal money and sage oversight. Both the study and the AP story would have benefitted from a look at the work of two University of Chicago economists: James Heckman and Derek Neal.
Heckman, often cited as one of the biggest influences on Barack Obama’s education policy platform, co-authored in 2007 what is still the definitive study of U.S. graduation rates. He found that the graduation rate peaked around 80 percent in the late 1960s and has drifted down by four or five points since then. He also found a sudden up-tick immediately after the passage of NCLB. So did NCLB really help American kids? Not so fast. Heckman writes:
NCLB gives schools strong incentives to raise graduation rates by any means possible. When monitoring was implemented in 2002, minority [student] retention [i.e., flunking] dropped sharply and graduation rates turned upward, especially for minority groups (Figure VI and VII)…. Whether these represent real gains or are an indication of schools cheating the system in the face of political pressure remains an open question for future research, although the timing suggests strategic behavior [i.e., cheating].
The tons of money and federal oversight added by NCLB appear to be sweeping public schooling’s failures under the rug, not fixing them. The recommendation of the new Education Trust study, that even more money and better federal intervention will do the trick, does not inspire confidence. Unless one believes that a prospective Obama presidency will usher in a gilded age of wise bureaucrats and politicians immune to self-interest, there is no reason to expect that more of the same “solutions” will produce anything other than more of the same results.
If any politicians and voters in this country actually care about raising the graduation rate in a meaningful way, they might want to have a look at the work of Heckman’s colleague Derek Neal, and the subsequent work of Greene (2004) and Warren (2008) — all of whom find that private schools significantly increase the graduation rates of urban (especially minority) children over the rates of similar students attending public schools. And they do this, of course, for about two-thirds of the cost.
Alas, don’t expect Obama to listen to Neal, Greene, or Warren on this evidence any time soon, as Obama has publicly expressed his opposition to parental choice programs that include private schools.
False Choices
NPR reports this morning that the FBI is trying to find out whether the cause of the financial crisis was “simply greed, or whether laws were broken.”
Perhaps both institutions are just not attuned to the problem of misguided laws and bad institutions.
New York Times: Less Difference between Candidates on Foreign Policy than Meets the Eye
Today’s Times features an article by David Sanger discussing the two campaigns’ claim that the candidates have “sharply different views about the proper use of American power.” Sanger tallies the ledger and finds “contradictions that do not fit the neat hawk-and-dove images promoted by each campaign.”
Much of what Sanger covers, and his general conclusion, appeared in my Policy Analysis published earlier this month, “Two Kinds of Change: Comparing the Candidates on Foreign Policy.” But Sanger points to an interesting contradiction within the McCain camp on Iran. Sanger writes:
Questions to both campaigns in the past few weeks have yielded another example of role reversal. While Mr. McCain seems willing to consider that Iran might someday be trusted to produce its own nuclear fuel, Mr. Obama does not. The director of foreign policy for the McCain campaign, Randy Scheunemann, said that if Iran was in compliance with United Nations resolutions, “it would be appropriate to consider” letting it produce uranium under inspection, which Iran has said is its right.
This is interesting. As I wrote in my paper,
In response to a two-question questionnaire sent to the candidates by the Institute for Science and International Security, McCain indicated that “there can be no such thing as an adequately controlled nuclear fuel cycle in Iran.”He went on to propose that Iran rely on foreign sources of fuel, and claimed that “There is no circumstance under which the international community could be confident that uranium enrichment or plutonium production activities undertaken by the current government of Iran are purely for peaceful purposes.”
Here (.pdf) is the ISIS report in question. I’m not fond of the “flip flop” gotcha game, but this appears to be an interesting shift on the part of the McCain camp. Something an enterprising journalist might want to follow up on.
Top U.S. School Districts Mediocre on World Stage
A new study by the American Institutes for research compares the performance of 11 large U.S. districts to that of countries participating in the international mathematics test known as ”TIMSS 2003.” As with earlier international comparisons, American kids do better the less time they have spent in school.
At the 4th grade, the earliest one tested, three of the 11 U.S. districts (Charlotte, Austin, and San Diego) score above the average of OECD countries participating in the test. (The OECD is a group of 30 or so nations, most of which are wealthy and industrialized, but a few of which are less wealthy transitional economies). By the 8th grade, the top two large U.S. districts (Charlotte and Austin) included in the report scored at the overall average of the participating OECD countries.
But the above results overstate the U.S. districts’ achievement. That’s because many industrialized countries that typically outscore us (France, Germany, Canada, Ireland, Finland, Switzerland, Iceland and Poland) did not participate in the TIMSS 2003 test. When the U.S. is compared specifically to other wealthy nations, it peforms worse than the AIR report will lead readers to believe. Finally, U.S. performance continues to deteriorate as students progress through high school, and so the absence of high-school test results also gives an inflated impression of relative U.S. performance.
In a nutshell, even two of the top large school districts in America can barely tread water internationally, when compared to students in other industrialized nations.
Alan Reynolds’ Critique of Obama and McCain Tax Plans
Peter Ferrara writes that, “Obama’s tax increases will not produce nearly enough revenue to finance all his lavish spending proposals, as shown by a brilliant new paper from Alan Reynolds of the Cato Institute.” Brilliant or not, it’s serious paper I prepared for a Hillsdale College conference, which is now online (at the link to my name).
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