Archive for April, 2009
“Enhanced Driver’s License” Snake Oil
Here’s Michigan state representative Paul Opsommer (R) on the Department of Homeland Security’s “Enhanced Driver’s License,” which contains a radio frequency identification chip with a long read range:
Expect the Department of Homeland Security to tell you what a great thing they are doing by allowing you the ability to buy these RFID licenses. They create the problem, provide a solution that is the cheapest for them and most risky for you, and then expect you to like it. But RFID is not mandated by Congress, and if enough states stand up for themselves the policy will be changed. Michigan needs to say no and do just that.
Cato and the Bailouts: A Correction for the NY Times ‘Economix’ Blog
At the New York Times Economix blog, economist Nancy Folbre of the University of Massachusetts writes:
The libertarian Cato Institute often emphasizes the issue of corporate welfare, but it’s remained remarkably quiet so far on the topic of bailouts.
Excuse me?
Since she linked to one of our papers on corporate welfare, we assume she’s visited our site. How, then, could she get such an impression? Cato scholars have been deploring bailouts since last September. (Actually, since the Chrysler bailout of 1979, but we’ll skip forward to the recent avalanche of Bush-Obama bailouts.) Just recently, for instance, in — ahem — the New York Times, senior fellow William Poole implored, “Stop the Bailouts.” I wonder if our commentaries started with my blog post “Bailout Nation?” last September 8? Or maybe with Thomas Humphrey and Richard Timberlake’s “The Imperial Fed,” deploring the Federal Reserve’s help for Bear Stearns, on April 14 of last year?
Cato scholars appeared on more than 90 radio and television programs to criticize the bailouts during the last quarter of 2008. Here’s a video compilation of some of those appearances.
Folbre complains that some people seem more concerned about welfare — TANF, in the latest federal acronym — than about welfare for bankers — TARP. Google says that there are 138 references to TANF over the past 13 years or so on the Cato website, and 231 references to TARP in the past few months.
Now she has a legitimate point. Welfare for the rich is at least as bad as welfare for the poor. And as much as welfare for the poor has cost taxpayers, the new welfare for banks, insurance companies, mortgage companies, and automobile industries is costing us more. Samuel Brittan of the Financial Times has written that “reassignment,” an economic policy that changes individuals’ ranking in the hierarchy of incomes, is far more offensive than a policy of redistribution, which in his idealized vision would merely raise the incomes of the poorest members of society. By that standard, taxing some businesses and individuals to subsidize the high incomes of others is certainly offensive. Of course, Brittan underemphasized the harm done by welfare to people who become trapped in dependency. But there’s good reason to oppose both TANF and TARP, and Cato scholars have done both.
Lest the good work of Cato’s New Media Manager Chris Moody go under-utilized, here’s a probably incomplete guide to Cato scholars’ comments on the bailouts of the past few months. (Note that it doesn’t include blog posts, of which there have been many.) Quiet? I don’t think so:
Yes, California, There Is an Individual Right to Keep and Bear Arms
Last June, the Supreme Court ruled in District of Columbia v. Heller that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to keep and bear arms, at least in the home for self-defense. Here’s our own Bob Levy, who masterminded the Heller litigation, talking about that decision:
While the Court’s ruling was a watershed in constitutional interpretation, it technically applied only to D.C., striking down the District’s draconian gun ban but not having a direct effect in the rest of the country.
Well, today the Ninth Circuit (the federal appellate court covering most Western states) ruled that the Second Amendment restricts the power of state and local governments to interfere with individual right to have guns for personal use. That is, the Fourteenth Amendment “incorporates” the Second Amendment against the states, as the Supreme Court has found it to do for most of the Bill of Rights. I rarely get a chance to say this, but the Ninth Circuit gets it exactly right.
Here’s the key part of Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain’s opinion:
We therefore conclude that the right to keep and bear arms is “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition.” Colonial revolutionaries, the Founders, and a host of commentators and lawmakers living during the first one hundred years of the Republic all insisted on the fundamental nature of the right. It has long been regarded as the “true palladium of liberty.” Colonists relied on it to assert and to win their independence, and the victorious Union sought to prevent a recalcitrant South from abridging it less than a century later. The crucial role this deeply rooted right has played in our birth and history compels us to recognize that it is indeed fundamental, that it is necessary to the Anglo-American conception of ordered liberty that we have inherited. We are therefore persuaded that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Second Amendment and applies it against the states and local governments.
In short, residents of Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington now join D.C. residents in having their Second Amendment rights protected. And courts covering other parts of the country — most immediately the Seventh Circuit, based in Chicago — will have their chance to make the same interpretation in due course.
Just as interesting — and potentially equally significant — is the footnote Judge O’Scannlain drops at the end of the above text in response to arguments that the right to keep and bear arms, regardless of its provenance as a fundamental natural right, is now controversial:
But we do not measure the protection the Constitution affords a right by the values of our own times. If contemporary desuetude sufficed to read rights out of the Constitution, then there would be little benefit to a written statement of them. Some may disagree with the decision of the Founders to enshrine a given right in the Constitution. If so, then the people can amend the document. But such amendments are not for the courts to ordain.
Quite right.
New at Cato
Here are a few highlights from Cato Today, a daily email from the Cato Institute. You can subscribe here.
- Scott Lincicome discusses how the Obama administration has put U.S. leadership in free trade in jeopardy.
- Ted Galen Carpenter discusses President Obama’s recent trip to Mexico to meet with President Felipe Calderon.
- Appearing on PBS, Cato Chairman Robert A. Levy debates the state of American gun laws.
- Watch Juan Carlos Hidalgo discuss Obama’s trip to Mexico on BBC World.
- In today’s Cato Daily Podcast, John Samples discusses what the “Tea Party” protests mean for the GOP.
Glenn Greenwald on Reason TV
After Salon writer Glenn Greenwald spoke at a Cato forum about his new study on Portugal’s successful drug decriminalization program, he sat down with Reason TV‘s Nick Gillespie to discuss his research.
Here’s the video:
What’s Wrong With The Title of This Event?
A May 1st Federalist Society lunch will feature William Kristol, Editor of the Weekly Standard speaking on “The Obama Administration and the War on Terror.” Hopefully, it will be a fair-minded inquiry into the utility of the “war” metaphor for combating and suppressing terrorism.
Congressman Booed at Tea Party Protest
I’ve read conflicting reports on how focused last week’s tea parties were on the anti-tax and spend message. It does appear there were confused folks who thought the protests were platforms for nationalism, war, and partisan anti-Obama rants. But I’m not buying the completely dismissive tone taken by some pundits who viewed the events as simply being pro-GOP rallies fueled by Fox News.
A boisterous crowd in Greenville, SC saw right through Republican Congressman Gresham Barrett’s transparent attempt to curry their favor heading into his 2010 campaign for governor of the Palmetto State:
Frankly, I can’t believe the guy made it through the five minute speech given the level of heckling and booing. Regardless of what one thinks of the crowd’s behavior, they deserve credit for knowing that Congressman Barrett voted for the TARP bailout and thus had no business faking solidarity with them, let alone speaking at the event.
The California Legislature Is Being Misled
The California Assembly Committee on Revenue and Taxation is holding hearings today on bill AB 279, the “Great Schools Tax Credit Act.” This bill is much like the scholarship donation tax credit program in Florida, which is a bi-partisan success that saves the state $1.49 for every $1 it reduces state revenue.
But you wouldn’t know that if you read the Committee’s remarkably flawed official Bill Analysis.
Among other things, the Bill Analysis glaringly misrepresents Adam Schaeffer’s ”Public Education Tax Credit” paper, incorrectly calls tax credited donations public funds, omits crucial findings from other states that favor credits, and engages in unsubstantiated speculation.
To address its failings, I penned the following letter which is being distributed to the committee today.
Dear California state legislators,
The official Bill Analysis of AB 279 suffers errors of fact and omission, misrepresents the findings of a paper published by my organization, and will mislead legislators unless these problems are corrected. To address these problems, I respectfully submit this letter. Read the rest of this post »
Well, At Least He Should Know What Doesn’t Work
In today’s Washington Post, Chris Cillizza predicts that Mitt Romney “will move to seize the high ground (from a policy perspective) on health care over the coming months and is likely to be Obama’s leading critic when Congress takes up the legislation in the fall.” For anyone who thinks this is good news, I refer you to my post from last week regarding the many failures of Governor Romney’s last foray into health care reform.
The President’s Make-Believe Fiscal Conservatism
At first, I thought the calendar was wrong and it must be April 1 and the White House was playing an April Fool’s joke. That seemed like the only logical explanation for a story in today’s Washington Post stating that the President wants all government departments to identify $100 million in supposed budget cuts. With 14 cabinet-level departments, that adds up to $1.4 billion of savings — and those savings almost certainly be measured against an ever-increasing budget baseline, which means that they would merely be reductions in planned increases. This is a shallow and insincere stunt to trick taxpayers. This is the same President, after all, that just squandered nearly $800 billion on a so-called stimulus bill. And this is the same President that just rammed through a $3.5 trillion budget. This chart provides a useful comparison.
For those who appreciate irony (or perhaps a late April Fool’s joke), the Washington Post story makes for interesting reading:
President Obama plans to convene his Cabinet for the first time today, where he will order members to identify a combined $100 million in budget cuts over the next 90 days, according to a senior administration official. Although the cuts would account to a minuscule portion of the federal budget, they are intended to signal the president’s determination to trim spending and reform government, the official said. …In his radio and Internet address Saturday, Obama repeated his vow for his administration to scour the federal budget “line by line” to reduce spending.
Update: Some people have written to say that Obama is asking his team to come up with a combined $100 million, not $100 million from each department. So my initial post gave him 14 times too much credit. This is almost beyond parody.
Obama’s Recycled Moderate-Speed Rail Plan
The Obama administration believes in recycling, as shown by the so-called high-speed rail plan it announced last week. Below is a map of the plan, and below that is a map of the Federal Railroad Administration’s 2005 high-speed rail plan. As you can see, the proposed routes are identical. (The grey lines on the first map represent conventional Amtrak routes.)
In English Learning Case, Families Will Lose Either Way
The Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments today in a case that will affect how and at what cost English is taught to non-native speakers in U.S. public schools. On one side are Hispanic parents from southern Arizona who sued their school district for failing to properly teach their children English, and on the other are district and state officials who want the courts to butt out and let them teach students in whatever way, and at whatever cost, they choose. I understand what these parents are going through — I grew up in an English-speaking family in the French-speaking province of Quebec — but it really doesn’t matter who “wins” this case: the families will lose either way.
Even if the parents “win,” and the Court orders their public school district to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more on English instruction, it won’t do any good. A 1985 federal court order compelled the state of Missouri to spend an additional $2 billion over 12 years to desegregate Kansas City schools and improve the achievement of African American students. Neither goal was achieved, and even the presiding judge eventually admitted his order was a failure. Extra spending and court pressure do not improve public school performance, because public schools don’t have to show improvement to get the money and because courts can’t dismiss ineffective administrators or teachers.
The real solution is to empower families to _leave_ the schools that are failing them and move their children to more effective ones. Fortunately, Arizona has an education tax credit program that makes scholarships available to defray private school tuition. Whatever the court’s verdict, these parents should be banding together to create a local scholarship fund that can accept tax-credited donations so their children can attend the private schools of their choice. They can then pick whichever schools demonstrate the most success at teaching English instead of spending their time in court.
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