Archive for June, 2009
Federal Workers Not Underpaid
The head of the Office of Personnel Management claims that federal workers are underpaid compared to private sector workers by 20 percent, on average. Federal unions and other cheerleaders for the bureaucracy have been making similar claims for years.
I’ve pointed out the dramatic acceleration of federal compensation over the last decade and the excessive generosity of federal worker benefits.
Federal workers are not underpaid.
Now a Human Resources expert writing in The Washington Post backs up my claims. Lily Garcia writes:
The primary advantages of working for the federal government are generous benefits, solid pay, and relative job security, a combination that is challenging to find in the private sector, even in the best of times . . . In addition to these benefits, federal employees, contrary to popular belief, are paid relatively well.
One policy implication is that federal worker compensation would be a good place to look for budget savings to reduce the federal deficit. We could start with a two-year freeze on federal salaries to save about $20 billion. During a recession, private wages are not increasing, so why should federal wages?
Fusion Centers
Most people don’t care about government surveillance — just so long as they are not affected by it. We want the police to be on lookout for trouble — so some surveillance is necessary for the work they do. But how much?
After 9/11, state officials said they had difficulty “connecting all the dots.” Fusion centers are supposed to remedy that problem. Police departments around the country are creating databases (“fusion centers”) and the objective is to link them together so that the police can spot patterns of behavior so that crimes or terrorist attacks can be thwarted.
The goal seems sensible and worthwhile but as the details emerge on how fusion centers operate, the concept gets controversial fast. Who will be monitored? What kind of information will be collected? And who decides when pieces of information should be discarded or entered into a massive database? If false information about, say, YOU, goes into the database, will you ever learn about it? Have an opportunity to erase it or correct it?
Fusion centers are springing up all over the country and they are coordinating the efforts of some 800,000 American law enforcement officers to collect information about anyone deemed suspicious. One problem is that terrorists are not of a monolithic character. Terrorists can be extremely religious or secular; they may be Arab, white, black or any other race; terrorists come from both rich and poor backgrounds; they come from the far right, the far left — and some are simply against society generally. And when criminals are added to the mix, the potential dragnet for this casual government surveillance potentially covers scores of people.
Behaviors that make someone eligible for government monitoring are quite broad. As noted by Bruce Fein in his testimony before Congress in April, citing a July 2008 ACLU report on fusion centers, such suspicious behaviors in one LAPD directive include “using binoculars,” “taking pictures or video footage “with no apparent aesthetic value,” “drawing diagrams,” and “taking notes,” among others.
Former vice-president Cheney might argue that the monitoring is not extensive enough. He recently said (pdf): “When just a single clue goes unlearned … can bring on a catastrophe — it’s no time for splitting differences. There is never a good time to compromise when the lives and safety of the American people are in the balance.” National security, it seems, requires that we get everyone into the central database for scrutiny. We can’t afford any ”gaps” in the surveillance matrix.
I will be moderating a Cato event about fusion centers on Thursday, June 11, at noon. The panel will include attorney Bruce Fein, the ACLU’s Mike German (who co-authored the report linked above), and Harvey Eisenberg, Chief of the National Security Section in the Maryland Division of the U.S. Attorney’s office.
America’s Power Problem
Numerous polls show that Americans want to reduce our military presence abroad, allowing our allies and other nations to assume greater responsibility both for their own defense and for enforcing security in their respective regions.
But why haven’t we done so?
In his new book, The Power Problem, Christopher A. Preble contends that the vast military strength of the United States has induced policymakers in Washington to broaden the perception of the “national interest,” and ultimately to commit ourselves to the impossible task of maintaining global order.
Preble holds that the core national interest — preserving American security — is easily defined and largely immutable. In his view, military power is purely instrumental: if it advances U.S. security, then it is fulfilling its essential role.
Preble spoke at Cato about what we views as the proper role of the United States in the world.
The GOP Is Not Serious about Cutting Down Spending
A month ago, President Obama issued a list of proposed spending cuts that I dismissed as “unserious” due to the fact that they were trivial when compared to his proposed spending and debt increases. Today, the House Republican leadership released a list of proposed spending cuts.
I’d love to say I’m impressed, but I can’t.
Both proposals indicate that neither side of the aisle grasps the severity of the country’s ugly fiscal situation, or at least has the guts to do anything concrete about it.
The GOP proposal claims savings of more than $375 billion over five years, the bulk of which ($317 billion) would come from holding non-defense discretionary spending increases to no more than inflation over the next five years.
First, it should be cut — period. Second, non-defense discretionary spending only amounts to about 17% of all the money the federal government spends in a year, so singling out this pot of money misses the bigger picture. At least, defense spending, which is almost entirely discretionary, should be included in any cap. But it has become an article of faith in the Republican Party that reining in defense spending is tantamount to putting a white flag in the Statue of Liberty’s hand.
The second biggest chunk of savings would come from directing $45 billion in repaid TARP funds to deficit reduction instead of allowing the money to be used for further bailing out. That’s a sound idea as far it goes, but I can’t help but point out that the signatories to the document, House Republican Leader John Boehner and Minority Whip Eric Cantor, voted for the original $700 billion TARP bailout. Proposing to rescind the Treasury’s power to release the remaining funds, about $300 billion I believe, should have been included.
According to the proposal, the rest of the cuts and savings comes out to around $25 billion over five years. Like the specific cuts in the president’s proposal, they’re all good cuts. But the president detailed $17 billion in cuts for one year and I generously called it “measly.” What am I to call the House Republican leadership specifying $5 billion a year in cuts?
New Media, New Repression: China Blocks Social Networking Sites
Today marks the 20th anniversary of the massacre of students and other anti-authoritarian protests in Tiananmen square.
If you want background info, including causes and the wider political context, check Wikipedia.
You can also see stirring videos on Youtube.
There are incredible photos on Flickr.
And of course Twitter has a wealth of real-time information and thinking about the anniversary. Just search using the hash tag #Tiananmen.
But for those 1.5 billion people trapped behind the Great Firewall of China, absolutely none of those links are accessible. To mark the event that the government assures never happened, the Chinese government has blocked most social networking sites.
In 1989, when a nascent pro-democracy movement wanted to communicate its vitality and prepare to take on the state, meeting en masse was vital. But that made it fairly easy for the CCP to roll in and crush the dream of democracy.
Twenty years later, the Internet is the place where mass movements for liberty can take root. While the CCP is attempting to use the electronic equivalent of an armored division to prevent change, reform today is a question of when, not if. Shutting down open dialogue will only slow the democratic transition to freedom, which the Chinese government cannot ultimately prevent.
The leadership of today’s Chinese government should allow that country’s citizens and journalists to communicate openly. The alternative is to suffer eternal loss of face as history records them occupying its wrong side.
Americans Want Global Warming Action Now
Dana Milbank has the evidence:
For the past few years, liberal activists have gathered in Washington each spring for the Take Back America conference….
But now that Obama has actually taken back America, the activists at this year’s gathering feel a bit like the dog that finally caught up with the car. Organizers changed the name from Take Back America to America’s Future Now, but that didn’t prevent a sharp decline in participation. …
Hickey estimates attendance dropped from 2,500 last year to 1,500 this year, and even that may overstate things. At yesterday morning’s four concurrent “issue briefings,” 585 chairs were set out. Only 213 of them were occupied, including just 15 for the session on global warming.
Tiananmen Square: 20 Years Later
After 20 years China has made substantial economic progress, but the ghosts of Tiananmen are restless and will continue to be so until the Goddess of Liberty is restored.
The Chinese Communist Party’s “Human Rights Action Plan” (2009–10) addresses several human rights abuses, but it fails to establish a well-defined boundary between the individual and the state that protects rights to life, liberty, and property.
Until China limits the power of the CCP and allows people to exercise their natural rights, there will be corruption, and the goal of “social harmony” will be elusive. The lesson of Tiananmen is that the principle of nonintervention (wu wei) is superior to the heavy hand of the state as a way to bring about true harmony.
More on the Tiananmen Square massacre below.
The Quiet War against School Choice
First, the Democrats in Washington for all intents and purposes killed the District of Columbia’s proven voucher program, but did it with Ninja-like stealth. The weapons: Nearly impossible reauthorization requirements, late Friday announcements, and politically expedient promises to keep kids currently attending good schools from being very publicly booted.
Now it’s Milwaukee’s turn. The new Democratic majority in Madison is on its way to cutting the value of individual vouchers while raising public school per-pupil expenditures, and even worse, is larding new regulations on private schools participating in the choice program. Perhaps the most ridiculous proposed reg: Requiring all participating private schools with student bodies that are more than 10 percent limited English proficient to provide a “bilingual-bicultural education program.” As if one of the major benefits of choice isn’t that parents can choose such programs if they think they are best for their kids, and can select something else if they don’t! But, of course, political decisions aren’t primarily about what parents want and kids need.
Thankfully, there is a resistance forming to the assault in Milwaukee, with choice advocates now refusing to remain quiet after naively doing so when they were told that fighting back would only make things worse. The choice-supporting national media is also speaking up. But one can’t help but fear that it may be too little, too late.
Some Early Thoughts on Obama’s Speech
I listened live to the president’s Cairo speech this morning on my ride into work. I know that it will be parsed and dissected. Passages will be taken out of context, and sentences twisted beyond recognition. At times, it sounded like a state of the union address, with a litany of promises intended to appeal to particular interest groups.
That said, I thought the president hit the essential points without overpromising. He did not ignore that which divides the United States from the world at large, and many Muslims in particular, nor was he afraid to address squarely the lies and distortions — including the implication that 9/11 never happened, or was not the product of al Qaeda — that have made the situation worse than it should be. He stressed the common interests that should draw people to support U.S. policies rather than oppose them: these include our opposition to the use of violence against innocents; our support for democracy and self-government; and our hostility toward racial, ethnic or religious intolerance. All good.
Two particular comments jumped out at me (the speech text can be found here):
1. The president clearly stated his goals for the U.S. military presence in Iraq. He pledged to “honor our agreement with Iraq’s democratically-elected government to remove combat troops from Iraqi cities by July,” “the removal of our combat brigades by next August,” and “to remove all our troops from Iraq by 2012.”
This might not seem like much. As noted, it is the established policy of the U.S. government and the Iraqi government under the status of forces agreement. Some recent comments by Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey, however, implied that U.S. troops might remain in Iraq for a decade. I’m glad that the president cleared up the confusion.
2. President Obama wisely connected U.S. policy in the 21st century to its founding principles from the earliest days to remind his audience — or perhaps to teach them for the very first time — that the United States was not now, nor ever has been, at war with Islam, or with any other religion. George Washington affirmed the importance of religious equality in his letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island. President Obama quoted John Adams, who saw no reason why the United States could not enjoy good relations with Morocco, the first country to recognize the United States. When signing the Treaty of Tripoli, Adams wrote, “The United States has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims.”
But the president also drew on the Founders to convey a broader message. They believed that the new nation should advance human rights and the cause of liberty by its example, not by military force. Some of our recent leaders seem to have forgotten that, and a few pundits have actually scorned the suggestion. The president wisely cast his lot with the earlier generation, quoting Thomas Jefferson who said “I hope that our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us that the less we use our power the greater it will be.”
It is a good quote. I use it in my book, too.
Injustice of Federal Subsidies
Ohio lawmakers are hot under the collar about federal stimulus dollars possibly helping Georgia bid away one of its big employers. Here’s the Dayton Daily News:
NCR’s news release touting its decision to move jobs from Dayton to the Atlanta, Ga. suburbs includes one factoid that has Ohio lawmakers in a fury: The City of Columbus, Ga. plans to use federal stimulus dollars to buy a building and construct another to accommodate the 870 manufacturing jobs expected to come to the that Atlanta suburb. ‘The fact that economic stimulus dollars were used to move an Ohio company to Georgia at taxpayer expense is an outrage,’ said state Sen. Jon Husted.
Added U.S. Rep. Pat Tiberi, R-Columbus: “Federal stimulus money is being used to create winners and losers among workers in different states and that’s just not right; it’s dirty.”
All I can say to both parties is that’s what you get for building an imperial city on the Potomac and spending the last few decades destroying the constitutional principle of federalism. As I’ve described in this study, regional warfare over federal subsidies has escalated in recent years. It’s horribly wasteful, and it’s getting worse.
Prosperity in Washington
The current Attorney General, Eric Holder, left DC’s Covington and Burling to return to the Justice Department, where he held a senior post during the Clinton years. Holder’s mission is to supposedly ”rein in the free market excesses of the last eight years.” Bush’s people are done with their own crackdown and are now returning to DC’s big law firms to warn their client business firms about the coming crackdown by Holder’s prosecutors. This is sorta like the GOP legislators who are now trying to lodge complaints about Obama’s spending. Despite the rhetoric, both sides aggrandize federal power and then enrich themselves (pdf) while advising businesspeople on how to comply with myriad regulations from the alphabet agencies.
New at Cato
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- James A. Dorn discusses “Socialism- U.S. Style” in the South China Morning Post.
- In The Washington Examiner, Gene Healy explains why voters are the true cause of America’s fiscal mess.
- In The American Spectator, Doug Bandow discusses why the outcome of India’s recent election is good news for religious minorities.
- On CNBC, Dan Mitchell discusses America’s debt problem, and how we can get out of it.
- In Wednesday’s Cato Daily Podcast, Daniel J. Ikenson asks, “What about Ford, Toyota, Honda, Nissan, BMW, Volkswagen and Kia?”
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