Archive for April, 2009
State Tax Increases on the Rise
The headline from Stateline.org‘s top story today reads, “State budget gaps top $200 billion; fee, tax hikes in the works.” But as Chris Edwards noted back in February, these so-called “budget gaps” are mainly fiction. Put simply, previous revenue forecasts overstated the amount of money that would be coming into state coffers. Now that revenues are drying up because of the slow economy, state politicians can’t spend the amount of money they intended.
For individuals and businesses, the economic downturn and resulting financial crimp means less spending and more prudence. For politicians and those living at the expense of taxpayers, it means raising taxes to keep the spending spigots turned on. As the table below shows, total state spending has increased at an excessive pace this decade:
Too often journalists report on the present plight of pro-tax and spend policymakers without considering decisions made in the past. Readers should bear the above table in mind the next time they come across such amnesic reporting .
School Choice Movement in South Carolina
I was in South Carolina yesterday testifying before a state committee in support of a great piece of education tax credit legislation. The turnout and energy down there was impressive.
The fight for educational freedom has dragged on for years in SC, but the movement seems to have grown in strength considerably over that period. Parents are now more organized, homeschoolers and private school groups are more integrated and active, and the votes are a lot closer.
More than 200 supporters showed up to support the bill and testify, and their stories were compelling and sometimes heart-rending. Our public education system just doesn’t work for everyone.
And when I say “doesn’t work,” I mean that a child with severe learning disabilities ends up unable to function in society or a child from a troubled background ends up in jail or dead. There are schools that are serving these kids successfully, and want desperately to help more. A tax credit system would allow them to expand and diversify to help all children reach their potential.
For others, the system doesn’t work in ways less catastrophic, but it still isn’t what’s best for them. That’s why all families should be able to choose the best educational environment for their unique child. Educated children are not widgets manufactured in a factory.
The fight for school choice brings out similar issues in every state, so I’ll be blogging more on the hearing later on today…
Limiting the TSA’s Use of “Strip Search Machines”
I wrote here in February about the push and pull over “strip search machines,” also known as “whole-body imaging” and “millimeter wave scanning.”
The question is joined: How do you maintain privacy with a technology that’s fundamentally intrusive? Maybe by using it less. This week, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) introduced a bill to limit the use of whole-body imaging.
H.R. 2027, the Aircraft Passenger Whole-Body Imaging Limitations Act of 2009, would place several limits:
- Whole-body imaging could not be the sole or primary method of screening a passenger, and it could only be used as a follow-up to other methods like metal detection.
- Passengers would have the right to opt for a pat-down search instead of whole-body imaging.
- Passengers subject to whole-body imaging would have to be provided information about the technology and the images it generates, on privacy policies, and the right to have the pat-down search instead.
- Images of passengers generated by whole-body imaging technology could not be stored, transferred, shared, or copied in any form after the passenger has passed through the security system.
The Sunshine State Lives Up to Its Name
Just when I was getting so jaded by federal education politics that I could have been displayed as part of this exhibit, the Sunshine State comes along and brightens my day.
It’s not just that the Florida Assembly voted to strenghten its k-12 scholarship tax credit program yesterday, it’s that the vote was 94 to 23. In addition to almost universal Republican support, the bill garnered the votes of half the entire state Democratic caucus!
As I wrote on this blog last year, “the [school choice] times they are a changin’.”
Democrats in Washington don’t understand that yet. Perhaps they spend too much time with DC’s NEA lobbyiests. Whatever the reason, the long term health of the Democratic Party depends on its celebration of its pro-school-choice state-level leaders. If the DNC embraces those state leaders and their policies, it will grow a heart, a brain, and a spine all at once, and secure its viability for the long term.
If they don’t, the national party’s current wretched treatment of poor families and cowtowing to education establishment special interests will drag it down to an ignominy from which it will not soon recover.
And as someone who prefers a balance of power between the two major political parties to the dominance of either, I really don’t want to see the DNC ride the NEA’s bandwagon off a cliff.
Withdrawing from Afghanistan
Oh, the war in Afghanistan. The more I learn, the more I’m convinced that we need to get out.
As I described the situation to my Cato colleague Chris Preble, for lack of a better analogy, the Afghanistan–Pakistan border is like a balloon: pushing down on one side forces elements to move to another — it doesn’t eliminate the threat.
The fate of Pakistan — a nuclear-armed Muslim-majority country plagued by a powerful jihadist insurgency — will matter more to regional and global stability than economic and political developments in Afghanistan. But if our attempts to stabilize Afghanistan destabilize Pakistan, where does that leave us? Like A.I.G., is Afghanistan too big to fail? No.
President Obama earlier this month issued a wide-ranging strategic review of the war and the region, and declared “the core goal of the U.S. must be to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda and its safe havens in Pakistan, and to prevent their return to Pakistan or Afghanistan.” But al Qaeda, as we very well know, is a loosely connected and decentralized network with cells in over 60 countries. Amassing tens of thousands of U.S. and NATO troops in one country — or any country — is unnecessary.
Until Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the ISI, changes priorities, this is a stalemate and we are throwing soldiers into a conflict because policymakers fear that, if we leave, it will get worse. Sound familiar?
The only military role necessary in Afghanistan is trainers and assistance for the Afghan military, police, and special forces tasked with discrete operations against specific targets. The bulk of the combat forces can and should be withdrawn.
Obama the Planner
New Republic editor John Judis has a couple of insights about the Obama administration’s economic and social goals. He points out that, for more than a century, Progressive and free-market forces have gone through cycles of “reform and reaction.”
The Progressives — who my friend John Baden calls the “American counterrevolutionaries” — have repeatedly sought to increase the size and scope of government: railroad regulation, public land agencies, and the income tax in the 1900s; Social Security, low-interest home loans, and government ownership of power plants in the 1930s; Medicare, the war on poverty, and environmental laws in the 1960s.
In between, friends of free markets tried to roll back those reforms, but were never completely successful. Thus, each successive reform era has further increased government power and reduced free markets.
“. . . and Replace It with REAL ID”
CNN wrote an exciting headline on Wednesday: “Homeland Security Chief Seeks to Repeal Real ID Act.” What they left out was that the replacement would be . . . the REAL ID Act.
Intentionally or not, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano has created the impression that the national ID law might go away. But simply renaming the Department of Homeland Security’s national ID program is not a repeal of REAL ID.
The REAL ID revival bill that has been circulating is the same national identification and tracking system with a few of the sharpest corners taken off and the hope of federal money held out to up-to-now recalcitrant states. The REAL ID revival bill would corral every American citizen into the national ID system to try and attack illegal immigrants.
Bills to repeal REAL ID were introduced in the previous Congress, but they did not move because the Bush administration and Chertoff DHS would have eagerly demagogued the issue. Those political conditions no longer hold. And just 10 months ago, Secretary Chertoff delayed the implementation of REAL ID without bringing any political repercussions to the Bush administration whatsoever. Secretary Napolitano can do the same if Congress fails to truly repeal REAL ID, as it should.
Waste, Fraud, and Stimulus
At Capitol News Connection, brought to you each morning by your tax dollars, they reported this morning:
With more than a trillion tax dollars tied up in the Troubled Asset Relief Program and stimulus spending, Congress is trying to figure out how to account for every penny.
Uh-huh. Congress is always on top of our federal dollars.
Coincidentally, just hours after the CNC report, the Government Accountability Office released a report warning about the lack of oversight procedures in the kitchen-sink stimulus bill. And a few days earlier the inspector general for the TARP program reported that Treasury has no real details on how TARP funds are being spent. In fact, IG Neil Barofsky told Congress that there were 20 criminal investigations into possible TARP fraud already underway.
Two months ago Barofsky and the comptroller general had warned of the likelihood of waste in huge new government programs:
Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, told a House subcommittee that the government’s experiences in the reconstruction of Iraq, hurricane-relief programs and the 1990s savings-and-loan bailout suggest the rescue program could be ripe for fraud…
Gene Dodaro, acting comptroller general of the U.S., told the subcommittee that a reliance on contractors and a lack of written policies could “increase the risk of wasted government dollars without adequate oversight of contractor performance.”
Cleveland Park Embraces Free Markets
Cleveland Park, an upscale neighborhood here in the District of Columbia, might be the last place you would expect appeals to the principles of the free market. It is, after all, the home of what David Brooks once called ”Ward Three Morality,” an outlook that celebrates government control of the economy. But not always.
Recently an entrepreneur proposed opening a new wine store in Cleveland Park. He sought the support of the advisory neighborhood commission, a local government board, before making his case for a liquor license to DC’s Alcohol Beverage Control Board. The most serious opposition to the entrepreneur’s plans seems to have come from an existing wine store nearby. According to its attorney, the existing wine store was “a beloved extension of the community.” More candidly he noted the new store would offer competition to the existing business. At this point, you might think: the Cleveland Park commission blocked opening of the new business while congratulating themselves on protecting the town from a ruthless “capitalist logic.”
Well, not quite. Peter Fonseca, the lawyer for the entrepreneur, reportedly “urged the commissioners to consider free-market principles when making their decision. ‘This is America.’” And they did: “Commissioner Richard Rothblum agreed, saying commissioners should not get in the way of free enterprise. ‘I don’t think we have any place telling people what their business plan should be.’” The commission then voted 8-0 to support the entrepreneur’s effort at the Alcohol Control Board. The appeal to “free market principles” seems to have carried the day in Cleveland Park!
Perhaps this is only the beginning. If the free market is desirable for fine wines, why not the auto industry and the banks?
The Joys of Stock Ownership
I happen to own shares in Bank of America, so I’ve just received a proxy statement for the upcoming annual meeting. The Board of Directors recommends that I authorize them to vote my shares FOR an uncontested slate of candidates for the board. Usually I go along with such proxy requests.
But this time I thought: Why should these people get something like $250,000 a year to take orders from President Obama and Secretary Geithner? It’s become pretty clear that the Obama administration intends to use the bailout money to control private companies. He intends to tell companies what cars to make, how much to lend, how much to charge for credit cards, what to pay their executives, what kinds of bonuses are acceptable, and other crucial management decisions.
So I decided to write in “Barack Obama” for all 18 positions on the Board of Directors. However, neither the paper ballot nor the online ballot allowed for write-ins. I guess the official slate will win. But make no mistake. Obama’s the boss.
The Danger of Charter Schooling
It’s an interesting problem for charter-school afficianados: many want charters to have all the freedom of private schools, but go to pains to let people know that charters are public schools whenever the schools are under fire (or want money). Well I’ve just learned — perhaps before reporters have even been able to write their stories, because I haven’t yet found a news link to it — that New York’s Public Employee Relations Board will force the KIPP AMP charter school in New York City to let its teachers unionize.
This will be a tough pill for KIPP AMP to swallow, especially since an integral part of the famous KIPP model is requiring employees to be available far beyond the normal working hours of traditional public school teachers — not something the United Federation of Teachers is known for loving. But this is the chance you take when you run a charter school: No matter how much you want to act like a private school, sooner or later the public-schooling powers will remind you of what you really are.
“Soft” Interrogation Yields the Best Results
My colleague Chris Preble sketches out some of the moral pitfalls that come with authorizing torture in his post. Beyond that, history shows that utilitarian claims that torture has enhanced our safety are also mistaken.
While torture can in some instances provide valid intelligence, it can also produce false information motivated only by a desire to end suffering. Successful interrogators from World War II to the modern day have used rapport and psychology, not brutality, to get inside the heads of their enemies.
The Air Force interrogator who helped bag Abu Musab al Zarqawi, writing under the pseudonym Matthew Alexander, says that the difference between an interrogator and a used car salesman is that the interrogator has to abide by the Geneva Conventions. No torture there, and a good read to boot.
This theme is echoed in Kyndra Rotunda’s book Honor Bound:
I knew one CITF agent and one FBI agent who were Muslims, and both knew how to coax the truth from detainees’ lips. One word captures their effective, secret ingredient to successful interrogations – patience. They each spent hours visiting with the detainee, sharing tea, bringing gifts of dried fruits, and talking endlessly about family, Allah, and the Quran.
This should come as no surprise, since it is a repackaging of the techniques of World War II interrogator Hanns Scharff, “Master Interrogator of the Luftwaffe.” Scharff treated downed Allied pilots humanely, gaining their trust and sympathy while gleaning significant information about Allied air power and advance warning of the D-Day landing. The Allies wanted to prosecute him after the war for interrogating their pilots so effectively, but dropped the charges when they couldn’t substantiate him so much as raising his voice. He came to the United States after the war and did mosaic art work at Walt Disney World.
So color me unsurprised when a former FBI supervisory agent says that we gained actionable intelligence by traditional interrogation techniques, and that torture backfired on us.
The release of memoranda authorizing torture will help prevent the U.S. from ever traveling this dark path again. The U.S. has consistently taken the moral high ground in armed conflicts, contrasting our behavior with the savagery our enemies engaged in for decades. The historical record shows that mercy, not might, is the key to successful interrogation.
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