Archive for January, 2009
The Measure of Our Own Liberties
As you may have heard, the Supreme Court recently granted certiorari to Ali Saleh Mohamed Kahlah al-Marri. The unclassified version of the evidence against him is available in the Rapp Declaration. It reads like a movie plot; I recommend it to you.
Background
After the 9/11 attacks, the FBI arrested al-Marri, an exchange student at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois. The government indicted him for using false identification, bank fraud, giving false statements to the FBI, and possession of counterfeit credit card numbers. The government alleges that al-Marri met with Osama Bin Laden, was working with senior Al Qaeda organizers, has a more-than-casual interest in poisons, and was told by his handlers to be in America before September 11th or to forget about executing his mission here.
Before al-Marri began trial, the government removed him to military custody and asked that the charges against him be dismissed with prejudice (meaning that they cannot be re-filed upon his release). He has since remained in a naval brig in South Carolina. He holds the distinction of being the only domestically detained enemy combatant in U.S. custody.
The Fourth Circuit heard his habeas claim, releasing a fractured opinion. The panel found, 5-4 on each issue, that (1) the government can detain al-Marri as an enemy combatant; and that (2) al-Marri is owed more process to contest his status as an enemy combatant.
Meet the New Boss…
Speaking at George Mason University (oh, the irony) today, President-elect Barack Obama urged “Congress to act without delay” to pass his still-undisclosed economic stimulus package, with a pricetag that’s drifting toward $800 billion.
“We should have an open and honest discussion about this recovery plan,” Obama allowed, but America faces a grim future “if we don’t take dramatic action as soon as possible. … It is time to set a new course for this economy, and that change must begin now.”
Where have I heard this “We must act now!” refrain before? Perhaps when the USA Patriot Act was on the floor? Or legislation authorizing the president to invade Iraq? Or congressional deliberation of the FISA amendments and their wiretaps? Or last year’s economic stimulus bill? Or the $700 billion TARP legislation?
The president-elect is about to submit legislation to pile nearly $1 trillion (if we’re lucky — who thinks the final cost will be that low?) in new liabilities on future generations in order to fund an economic strategy that has a poor track record. This is exactly the time for a careful, clear public discussion of the Obama proposal, so Americans will understand what we’re signing on to, its cost, and its uncertain prospects. The last thing we need is to continue the “Don’t just stand there — spend something” philosophy of the last eight years.
I Hope for Change.
You Say McCaskill, I Say McCaskill
A headline from yesterday’s online version of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
McCaskill joins McCain in anti-earmark effort, announces local grants
Ugh. One of my chief policy pet peeves is the idea that congressfolk earmarking money to special interests is bad, but having bureaucrats dole out the same sort of cheese through grants and loans is A-OK.
Says Sen. McCaskill (D-MO):
We are looking at deficits in the trillions, and I think Americans are fed up with the way Washington has been spending their money…. Changing the earmark culture is not the whole solution to bringing fiscal responsibility back, but it’s a start.
So far so good, but then:
Also Wednesday, McCaskill announced two grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA):
- A total of $752,560 to the city of Silex in Lincoln County. “The money is being provided through the United State’s Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development funding initiative, which works to improve the economy and quality of life in rural communities by supporting and providing government loans and grants…. According to the USDA, the city will receive a grant of $387,560 and a low-interest government loan of $365,000. The funds will be used to upgrade the centralized sewer system, providing improved water treatment facilities and adding thousands of feet in main line.”
- $50,000 to the city of Berger in Franklin County. The money comes from the same USDA program targeting rural communities. “According to the USDA, the funding will be used to provide a centralized sewer system that will improve the health and sanitary conditions of the area by providing water to residents who currently rely on failing septic tanks,” the senator’s office said.”
So, if another member of the Missouri congressional delegation had instead instructed the USDA to redistribute taxpayer money to these two Missouri communities via language in a piece of legislation it would have been bad? According to Sen. McCaskill, the answer is apparently “yes.”
Look, I’m happy Sen. McCaskill is on board the anti-earmark train. Kudos to her. But whichever means Congress chooses, the end is the same: taxpayers on the hook for special interest spending.
Obama’s Big Bet
A headline on WashingtonPost.com:
Obama Bets Big on Big Government
The trouble is, he’s betting our money.
Cass Sunstein and the Cato Institute
The Washington Post is reporting that Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein will be named director of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, the White House’s regulatory review office. The appointment is baffling, not because the Obama administration has chosen Sunstein (he is a first-rate thinker), but because Sunstein has (apparently) accepted it. OIRA chief is one of the most thankless jobs in Washington, and the office has historically shown itself to be a victim of the political winds no matter how sharp-minded and sincere the chief is.
Sunstein would not fit the label “libertarian,” but he is, in his own way, a supporter of liberty. And he has been a good friend to the Cato Institute, speaking here and writing for Regulation (1, 2).
I wish Cass well in this difficult new job.
Does Congress Deserve a Pay Hike?
Richard Rahn suggests they do not:
Most of us would like to be in the position of voting for our own pay raises from an employer who has almost unlimited access to money . . . . Given that members of Congress were in a large part responsible for the current economic mess, it is hard to see how they can justify a raise . . . .
Well, at least three bills in the new 111th Congress would deny members a pay increase in fiscal 2010.
One of them should be attached to any big “stimulus” spending bill. But I imagine Congress is less interested in shows of rectitude from its own membership than from the business leaders it has bailed out.
Your Taxes at Work in the Public School System
Just another day in the woefully under-funded and top-notch U.S. public school system . . . the headline and subtitle are all you need:
Chicago Public Schools’ cappuccino bill: $67,000
‘A WASTE OF MONEY’ | Report says staffers skirted rules to buy 30 coffeemakers, changed athletes’ grades, falsified addresses
The Mixed Up Minds of Education Neocons
Today is the seventh birthday of the No Child Left Behind Act and I’d planned to celebrate it with a review of all that ails the decrepit law. In a stroke of luck, however, an op-ed appeared this morning that lets me address the most important political force behind NCLB — and its impotence — without having to go over all the law’s flaws for about the billionth time. (If you want the gory details, though, feel free to go here, here, here, here, here, here, here…)
NCLB is basically a neoconservative creation, a mangy mutt that tries to cram together both a supposed neocon distrust of government and a burning desire to use Washington to attack things neocons don’t like. So NCLB demands standards, tests and full “proficiency” by 2014 — an attempted assault on ”progressive” or just uncaring state and local education systems – while leaving states to write the standards and tests and define proficiency for themselves. The result is the exact opposite of what neocons say they want: Instead of “tight” accountability and “loose” bureaucratic directives, federal bureaucrats get a lot more power while state officials set “proficiency” levels at hovercraft elevations.
In light of NCLB’s failure – and decades of public-schooling stagnation – you’d think neocons would finally learn that no level of government is going to give them tough standards and accountability. The people employed by government simply have far too much sway over it, playing tireless politics to keep their power and kill accountability. Yet somehow even after they appear to have finally mastered this lesson, neocons turn right around and prove they’ve learned nothing at all.
On NRO today, leading neocon education analysts Chester Finn and Michael Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, and Frederick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute, put their contradictory thinking out for all to see. Almost immediately after decrying proposals to spend tens-of-billions on public schooling as part of a federal economic stimulus package — “taxpayers have spent decades funding an enormous, inefficient jobs program,” they write of public schooling — the neocon troika commences to list a bunch of federal undertakings they think would be just grand:
- “Make the summers of 2009 and 2010 into ‘Summer of Learning.’ Invest billions to keep schools open from June to August across the land. Offer remedial classes, enrichment programs, sports camps, the works.”
- “Create a service-learning program whereby teenagers can travel to national parks and landmarks, do valuable public works there, and get paid a little.”
- Build “education data systems”
And, of course, there’s the obligatory call for national standards:
- “Uncle Sam could also invest in creation of world-class national standards, tests, and even curricular materials”
Neocons, one can’t help but conclude, must be politically and logically bipolar, able to swing from “no more government” to “hell yes, more government!” in a single op-ed. At the very least, they evince little understanding of why government works or fails, or what it can and cannot do. They appear simply to call on government to get the things they want and decry its dangers to fight things they don’t. But that’s no way to make policy. I mean, it gave us No Child Left Behind, for crying out loud!
BART Shooting
There was a police shooting on New Year’s Day by a transit officer. The shooting, which seems totally unjustified, was filmed by several people with cell phones and the video is now prompting angry protests in Oakland. The officer worked for the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system. He resigned Wednesday.
In the past, the police usually received the benefit of the doubt in cases of conflicting testimony. Now that cell phone cameras are common and rolling, more people are going to be skeptical of police accounts and reach their own conclusions. There is also going to be more accountability when police commit crimes or enagage in other misconduct — and that is a very good thing.
Related Cato work here.
Enjoy the Bowls–You’re Paying for Them
In the Wall Street Journal, Mark Yost explores the taxpayer subsidies to major college football bowl games:
while everyone’s fretting over the bailout package for the auto industry, most taxpayers would be shocked to learn that they’re also footing the bill for some of these highly profitable bowl games. From 2001 to 2005, seven tax-exempt bowls received $21.6 million in government aid.
During that time, 38 percent of the Brut Sun Bowl’s revenue came from a Texas rental-car tax. Now that’s Brutish.
And what do the bowls do with those taxpayer dollars? Well, they put on a football extravaganza, of course. But also:
To ensure the bowl games maintain their tax-exempt status, the committees hire state and federal lobbyists. Watts Partners, the Washington, D.C., lobbying firm run by former University of Oklahoma quarterback and Rep. J.C. Watts, has been paid more than $500,000 in consulting fees by the BCS.
So, as happens with many other government-funded enterprises, taxpayers’ money is spent on lobbyists to keep the taxpayers’ money flowing. Some of the money also goes to pay bowl executives upwards of $400,000. Leaving aside the issue of why tax-funded entities should pay their executives more than the president of the United States, I’m not surprised that bowl committees pay a CEO a handsome salary to make everything work perfectly. But I wonder: We hear a lot of complaints about the high pay of corporate CEOs. If the executive director of a $30 million bowl game is paid $400,000, how much should the CEO of a $30 billion company get?
More on taxpayer subsidies for sports business here and here. A lengthy bibliography here (pdf).
Liberty Tavern? Not So Much
When it opened in 2007, the Liberty Tavern became an instant hit among libertarians in the Clarendon neighborhood of Arlington, Virginia, of which there are quite a few, given the proximity of the Institute for Humane Studies, Mercatus Center, Institute for Justice, and Atlas Foundation. Now, however, the Liberty Tavern has sadly failed its inspiring name. Barista/bartender/blogger and former Cato colleague Jacob Grier explains:
Virginia Governor Tim Kaine is predictably pushing once again for a comprehensive statewide smoking ban. Not so predictably, he’s teamed up with the owners of Clarendon’s Liberty Tavern to launch his campaign:
This year, he believes momentum is on his side. At a news conference Tuesday at a Clarendon tavern, Kaine said the public is increasingly supportive of such bans…
Stephen Fedorchak, owner of The Liberty Tavern, the restaurant where Kaine held his news conference, said he has been in the business long enough to know smoking was once entrenched in bars and restaurants. But those days have passed, he said.
He said he does not regret the decision to ban smoking in his restaurant and said these days “smokers are somewhat used to going out in a … fresh-air environment” and no longer assume they will be allowed to light up.
Fedorchak is happy to be running a smoke-free restaurant. So why does he want the state to force all the bars and restaurants in Virginia to follow the same policy? Why not allow owners and customers a choice? Maybe some people like to smoke at a bar or a restaurant. I don’t, and I prefer to patronize smoke-free establishments. But I don’t feel the need to force my preferences on everyone else by law.
Let’s hope The Liberty Tavern will renounce its support for nanny-state authoritarianism and once again be worthy of its Revolutionary name.
$1.2 Trillion Deficit
Before 1987, Americans only needed to understand the word “billion” to get a handle on federal budget numbers. Today, the word “trillion” is the needed metric in budget discussions.
The Congressional Budget Office released an update to its budget projections today, and the figures show that the federal deficit for fiscal 2009 will be $1.2 trillion. That deficit represents 8.3 percent of GDP, the highest share of the economy since World War II. Thus, a burden the size of 8 percent of all income earned in the United States this year is being thrust onto tomorrow’s taxpayers.
Here are some other observations on the data:
- If Congress passes a so-called stimulus package in coming weeks of say $800 billion, the 2009 deficit will top $2 trillion. Even the biggest critics of Washington’s spendthrift ways never thought they would see a number like that.
- The CBO shows federal spending in 2009 will be about $3.54 trillion. This number includes the spending effect of TARP and the federal takeover of Fannie and Freddie. But let’s consider those to be extraordinary items and take them out for a minute. And let’s add in $24 billion more for Iraq this year, as CBO indicates. The result is that — even aside the financial bailouts — federal spending would be about $3.165 trillion this year. That figure is up 6.3 percent over 2008, and up 70 percent over 2001, Bush’s first year in office.
- The CBO puts the deficit in fiscal 2010 at $703 billion. But that low-balls Iraq costs again, and doesn’t include extension of the AMT and other minor expiring tax provisions. Add those in, and the deficit in 2010 will be at least $829 billion.
Keynesian economists believe that government budget deficits “stimulate” the economy during a recession. But we’ve got $1.2 trillion this year and $800 billion next year of deficit “stimulus” without any special “stimulus” package.
Isn’t that enough? If I get up in the morning and drink five cups of coffee and that doesn’t stimulate me, I don’t go and drink another five. I’d recognize my addiction problem and start reforming my bad habits. Federal policymakers should do the same.
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