Archive for May, 2009
Economist, Mark Your Words
The current (May 7th) edition of The Economist observes that Arne Duncan’s results as secretary of education will determine “whether it is worth continuing with moderate education reforms — for if these reforms cannot succeed with $100 billion and a golden boy at the helm, they never will.”
It would be nice if they remember those words four or eight years from now. It would be even nicer if they realized that it is unnecessary to reserve judgment for that long. In Cato’s 2009 Handbook on Policy, I point out that the federal government has spent $1.85 trillion on education since the mid 1960s, with precious little to show for it. Duncan’s $100 billion is pocket change by comparison.
The Economist is also mistaken, as I was in March, in thinking that Duncan or Obama might save the D.C. voucher program. They have done no such thing. They merely seek to kill it by attrition rather than abolishing it outright. The program’s best bet now is for the District of Columbia to take it over.
Civil Liberties Surge
There’s encouraging news in recent polls about two civil liberties issues — marriage equality and marijuana legalization — and it’s got some observers talking about “tipping points” and “a bandwagon effect.”
Take marijuana: A poll released yesterday by Zogby and the O’Leary Report found that 52 percent of respondents would favor legalizing marijuana, with 37 percent opposed. That’s the first poll I’ve seen that found a majority in favor. (The poll was released in a full-page ad in The Hill newspaper on May 6 and does not appear to be online. It had a sample of 3,937 voters from the 2008 election, weighted to reflect the election outcome. Presumably it was an online poll, but if it had any bias it appears to be in a conservative direction: other results included 57 percent support for the “tea parties,” 71 percent opposition to new gun control laws, 57 percent opposition to cap-and-trade, and 53 percent opposition to legislation that would pressure radio stations to provide “diversity.” Of course, it’s kind of scary that only 53 percent of respondents opposed ideological censorship of radio.)
Whatever you think of that poll, it’s not the only one. In February, Nate Silver posted a chart of polls on legalization, showing a slow but steady rise, up to about 40 percent. A Field poll in April showed that 56 percent of Californians support legalizing and taxing marijuana, the first time Field had ever found a majority in favor. The poll was largely on budget issues, and voters may have been desperately searching for new revenue sources other than general tax hikes. Also in April an ABC News/Washington Post poll found 46 percent of respondents in favor of legalizing the use of small amounts of marijuana, an all-time high in that poll.
The New York Times points to other signs of change on the marijuana front: Pot has become essentially legal for anyone in California who can tell a medical marijuana clinic that it would make him feel better. Attorney General Eric Holder has said that the federal government would back off its attempt to enforce the federal laws against medical marijuana in the 13 states that have legalized medical use. The threats to prosecute Michael Phelps for a bong hit were widely ridiculed. These developments have led Andrew Sullivan and CBS News to speculate about a “tipping point” for change — at last — in marijuana prohibition. Just this week, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said there should be a major study of the possibility of legalization.
Meanwhile, TPM and AOL’s PoliticsDaily also see a tipping point for marriage equality. A majority of New Yorkers now join Gov. David Paterson in supporting same-sex marriage. That same ABC News/Washington Post poll finds that “in 2004, just 32 percent of Americans favored gay marriage, with 62 percent opposed. Now 49 percent support it versus 46 percent opposed — the first time in ABC/Post polls that supporters have outnumbered opponents.”
Supreme Speculation
With no hard news to report and the Supreme Court not in session — they’ll release opinions in the remaining cases on successive Mondays (plus the Tuesday after Memorial Day) beginning May 18 — Washington is abuzz with speculation over potential high court nominees. While Senator Orrin Hatch earlier this week said he expected an announcement this week, the White House is far more likely to take its time vetting candidates, with no real pressure to announce a pick until the Court recesses at the end of June.
Nobody other than the president himself really knows who’s favored, but ABC News’s Jan Crawford Greenburg — who will be contributing to this year’s Cato Supreme Court Review and speaking at our Constitution Day conference September 17 — has some fascinating scuttlebutt:
No clear favorite has emerged, but the pick has prompted an internal struggle between legal and political officials within the administration, sources say.
Political officials like Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel are favoring Sotomayor, who would be an historic pick as the Court’s first Hispanic justice.
Obama, the thinking goes, could score huge points with Hispanics, an important and increasingly powerful constituency, by nominating Sotomayor or another Latino. Sotomayor has a compelling life story, moving from the projects to the nation’s most elite educational institutions and then onto the federal bench.
But Sotomayor has not dazzled or distinguished herself on the appeals court as a forceful theoretician or writer — something Obama, the former constitutional law scholar who will drive this decision, is likely to want in his Supreme Court nominee, sources close to the process said. Moreover, she’s also been criticized for abrasiveness — which could be problematic on the high court.
Shifting Trade Winds
In 2008, major public opinion surveys revealed record-high levels of skepticism about trade and record-low support for trade agreements among Americans. In 2009, results of those same surveys from Gallup, the Pew Research Center, CNN/Opinion Research, and CBS News/New York Times all suggest that American attitudes toward trade have lightened up considerably and are more in line with public opinion in years past. What explains this turnaround?
In a new Cato analysis, Scott Lincicome and I argue that America’s growing skepticism toward trade in recent years derives mostly from the perpetuation and persistence of three myths:
- U.S. manufacturing is in decline.
- The U.S. trade deficit means that America is losing at trade.
- Past administrations have been unwilling to enforce trade agreements.
Popularization of these myths by campaigning politicians has been abetted by mainstream media that have become fixated on selling information in dramatic, provocative, scary, and too-often misleading sound bites. When one considers the facts about the impact of trade on our lives, the degree of skepticism is inexplicable unless the impact of “bad press” is considered.
Too many Americans benefit from trade on a daily basis and too few have been adversely affected by trade for the survey results to reflect personal experiences or legitimate worries. After all, the Council of Economic Advisers reports that less than 3 percent of U.S. job loss is attributable to import competition or outsourcing, which means that most Americans don’t even know anyone who can attribute his woes to increased trade.
Photos From D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Rally
On Wednesday, more than 1,000 parents and students gathered in Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C. to voice their opposition to President Obama’s decision to end the D.C. Opportunity scholarship, which gives poor children the chance to attend private schools in the area. Watch the parents in the video below and browse the pictures — these are the people that congressional Democrats and President Obama think are worth less than the financial and political support of teacher union leaders.
The top photo is from Dan Lipps from the Heritage Foundation. The bottom two are from
About the President’s Proposed Budget Cuts …
That didn’t take long. Tad DeHaven yesterday took a look at the president’s truly pitiful half percent cut (I hesitate to even use the word) from $3.4 trillion in planned spending. But the administration isn’t likely to get even that. Alas, no one seems to have talked to congressional Democrats first.
President Obama’s modest proposal to slice $17 billion from 121 government programs quickly ran into a buzz saw of opposition on Capitol Hill yesterday, as an array of Democratic lawmakers vowed to fight White House efforts to deprive their favorite initiatives of federal funds.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said she is “committed” to keeping a $400 million program that reimburses states for jailing illegal immigrants, a task she called “a total federal responsibility.”
Rep. Mike Ross (D-Ark.) said he would oppose “any cuts” in agriculture subsidies because “farmers and farm families depend on this federal assistance.”
And Rep. Maurice D. Hinchey (D-N.Y.) vowed to force the White House to accept delivery of a new presidential helicopter Obama says he doesn’t need and doesn’t want. The helicopter program, which cost $835 million this year, supports 800 jobs in Hinchey’s district. “I do think there’s a good chance we can save it,” he said.
The news releases began flying as Obama unveiled the long-awaited details of his $3.4 trillion spending plan, including a list of programs he wants to trim or eliminate. Though the proposed reductions represent just one-half of 1 percent of next year’s budget, the swift protest was a precursor of the battle Obama will face within his own party to control spending and rein in a budget deficit projected to exceed $1.2 trillion next year.
Oh well. Billions, trillions, quadrillions. As a buddy of mine says: “It’s only money!”
D.C. Should Create its Own Voucher Program
Under President Obama’s recent proposal, the federal D.C. voucher program will die of attrition after the last of its current participants graduates from high school. That’s unacceptable. Kids who entered this program when it began in 2004 are now two school-years ahead of their public school peers in reading. That kind of educational lifeline must be saved.
And it can be: the District of Columbia should create its own voucher program.
D.C. spends four times more per pupil on education today ($26,555) than the voucher-accepting schools charge in tuition ($6,620). So far from costing the District money, a voucher program would actually save millions.
And though Democrats in Congress are almost unanimously opposed to giving poor parents an easy choice between public and private schools, the same is not true of Democrats in DC — several of whom attended the rally to save the federal voucher program.
D.C. can bring the benefits of this program to every child in the city. And to do right by them, it must.
Obama Tries Flinging More Nonsense at the D.C. Voucher Issue
This week’s rally in support of the D.C. voucher program garnered a good bit of attention and perhaps even helped push President Obama into tepid support for keeping current students funded, killing the program slowly and quietly over a longer period.
Of course, as I and others have noted, that’s not the point. Here’s a roundup of what is at issue:
At the Economist’s blog yesterday, they get it spot on:
Actually, that’s not much of a compromise. That’s more of a cover-up. Let’s remember that Mr Obama, who sends his own children to private school, made the following promise during his inaugural address [to support what works] . . . Here’s a programme that every indication shows is working. So why aren’t we moving forward? ”It’s a cop-out,” says Joseph Robert, a supporter of the progamme. Quite right.
And Mike Petrilli notes how meaningless Obama’s nominal and seriously compromised support really is:
While it’s welcome news that President Obama will request funding to keep the D.C. voucher program’s scholarship recipients in private schools through high-school graduation, it will amount to nothing more than a cheap p.r. stunt unless he also promises to veto any appropriations bill that kills the program outright. Congress is unlikely to follow his wishes unless the president makes it clear that this is a priority for him. But really, what are the chances of that?
9/11 Memorial? Good. Eminent Domain Abuse? Bad.
The power of eminent domain, embodied in the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment, is so great that it nearly invites abuse, even when the government uses its power for constitutional, and even honorable, reasons.
Case in point: The U.S. Park Service has designed a memorial for Flight 93, the one that crashed in rural Pennsylvania on 9/11. The plans have been in the works for some time, with the government and representatives of Flight 93’s victims working with the property owners—even explicitly assuring them in 2002 that eminent domain would not be used.
As time passed, however, and the self-imposed deadline to have a memorial in place for the 10-year anniversary of the tragedy grows nearer, the government has become impatient and now plans to condemn the land of the seven owners (representing about 500 of the planned 2,200 acre memorial and national park) who have not yet worked out a deal with the Park Service.
While there are two sides to every story, it seems that the property owners have been flexible and open to negotiation—a far cry from the extorting hold-outs against whom eminent domain is supposed to be invoked:
“It’s absolutely a surprise. I’m shocked by it. I’m disappointed by it,” said Tim Lambert, who owns nearly 164 acres that his grandfather bought in the 1930s. The park service plans to condemn two parcels totaling about five acres — land, he said, he had always intended to donate for the memorial.
“To the best of my knowledge and my lawyer, absolutely no negotiations have taken place with the park service where we’ve sat down and discussed this,” Lambert said.
Lambert said he had mainly dealt with the Families of Flight 93 and said he’s provided the group all the information it’s asked for, including an appraisal.
Even if some takings of property are warranted—a 9/11 memorial certainly fits the “public use” requirement—look at the abuse of power we have here. Setting aside the question of why Lambert’s five acres are so crucial to a 2,200-acre project (and whether the memorial needs to be that large in the first place), why the strong-arm tactics?
Instead of letting an otherwise legitimate contract negotiation—the very foundation of our private property system—run its course, the government is resorting to robbing people because they had the misfortune to own the land near the place a historic tragedy occurred. This type of abuse is why eminent domain must be used sparingly, and why courts must be vigilant in enforcing the Fifth Amendment’s protection of property rights.
H/T: Nicki Kurokawa.
A Whale of a Disgraceful ED Budget
Tad DeHaven does a fine job of exposing the mere window dressing that are the cuts in President Obama’s FY 2010 budget proposal. I’ll not add much to that other than to say that while Tad gives Obama’s predecessor a deserved hard time for his own paltry efforts to rein in spending, President Bush’s Education Department budgets looked downright Draconian compared to what the Obama team just produced.
Bush’s FY 2009 ED budget proposal included nearly $3.3 billion in cuts, generated by eliminating 47 programs. Given the dismal performance of all federal education efforts, this was obviously far too little, but compare it to Obama: His proposed budget would cut just twelve measly programs from ED’s budget, for a puny savings of about $551 million. And if that doesn’t give you a powerful feel for just how unserious this administration seems to be about saving taxpayers even a thin dime or two, look what program is not among those proposed to be cut:
EDUCATIONAL, CULTURAL, APPRENTICESHIP, AND EXCHANGE PROGRAMS FOR ALASKA NATIVES, NATIVE HAWAIIANS, AND THEIR HISTORICAL WHALING AND TRADING PARTNERS IN MASSACHUSETTS
The purpose of this program is to develop culturally based educational activities, internships, apprentice programs, and exchanges to assist Alaska Natives, native Hawaiians, and children and families living in Massachusetts linked by history and tradition to Alaska and Hawaii, and members of any federally recognized Indian tribe in Mississippi.
For this whale of a waste – and so many others in the ED budget – to have survived portends nothing but ill for the nation. Nothing but ill.
New at Cato
Here are a few highlights from Cato Today, a daily email from the Cato Institute. You can subscribe, here.
- Don’t want to buy GM, Chrysler or AIG stock? Too bad, says Richard Rahn.
- Jim Powell spells out Obama’s tax assault on U.S. businesses in National Review.
- In Forbes magazine, Dan Mitchell reiterates his defense of tax havens.
- Will Wilkinson explains what happens when you start playing politics with private enterprise in Marketplace.
- In Thursday’s Cato Daily Podcast, ElCato.org editor Gabriela Calderon discusses elections in Ecuador.
The Jurisprudence of Detention: Definitions and Cases
Almost a year has passed since the Supreme Court’s decision to extend habeas rights to Guantanamo in Boumediene. Detention policy is currently under review by interagency task forces; it is worth looking at what the developing body of detention rulings say about the future of detention.
Taking prisoners is an unavoidable part of military action. Telling our troops that they can engage identified enemies with lethal force but cannot detain them puts them in an impossible position.
But who can we hold? The Taliban foot soldier is an easy case, but as we move away from the battlefield things get a little fuzzy. A chronological review of the decisions regarding detainee status gives some insight.
Cato on Facebook
Cato on Twitter
Cato on Google+
Cato on YouTube
