Archive for December, 2009
University of Denver Panel Recommends You Have a National ID
If you have a job, a panel convened by the University of Denver thinks you should have a national ID card.
DU’s “Report of the Strategic Issues Panel on Immigration” says:
The idea of a national card for identifying citizens and non-citizens has become the third rail of immigration politics. But in truth, without a means of positive identification, it makes very little difference what immigration policies are adopted because they can’t be effectively enforced. A means of positive identification is essential to prevent the employment of illegal immigrants.
Only the panel’s narrow framing leads to this conclusion.
Restrictive immigration policies may require a national ID and federal background check system because such policies are so at odds with employers’ and workers’ interests. The federal government will have to continually investigate workers and employers to maintain them.
But policies that align immigration rates with our country’s demand for new workers would foster the rule of law naturally—without a national ID, worker surveillance, and an overweening federal government.
Much hand-waving animates the report. It imagines a card system that is “extremely difficult or impossible to counterfeit.” But that’s a product of how much value your card system controls—the more value, the more effort goes into forging it—and access to employment in the U.S. is worth a lot. The report says nothing about fraud in the card issuance process.
Nor does it calculate the expense to our nation’s seven million employers—many of them small businesses, families, and individuals—for getting card readers. Their proposal to hold employers harmless is an embossed invitation to fraud on the system—unless those inexpensive card readers are also fingerprint or iris scanners. If the system is going to work, someone legally responsible has to verify that the card belongs to the person presenting it. And if you’re going to use biometric scanners, there is a lot of work yet to be done to control error rates.
Of privacy concerns, the panel says it listened to “experts and advocates on all sides.” But the advisors listed in the report do not include any privacy expert or civil liberties advocate. They do include an advocate for restrictionist immigration policies, a police chief, a former U.S. attorney, a federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement official, a Colorado state homeland security official, a federal Department of Homeland Security official, a sheriff, the Colorado Attorney General, and a CIA officer. It is unlikely that the one “immigrant rights” advocate addressed the privacy issues for U.S. citizens, much less the technical and data security problems.
It’s not new for people focusing on one issue to think that a national ID is their solution. In fact, it’s typical for people to think that sprinkling technology over economic and social problems can solve them.
10 Rules for Dealing With the Police
Our friends at Flex Your Rights have a new film that is about to be released. It’s called 10 Rules for Dealing with Police. Trailer for the film here. I have seen the entire film and it is an outstanding work–accurate and useful information, great screenplay, and great acting.
Believe it or not, the police can lie to you and can try to trick you into giving up your constitutional rights. Happens every day. In less than 45 minutes, this film teaches you what you need to know about police encounters. Every citizen should take an interest in learning about constitutional rights. And experienced lawyers will tell you that you can save thousands of bucks in legal fees by avoiding common mistakes. But you need to know the traps. If you have teenagers in the family, make them watch it. Knowledge is power. Spread the word.
Rick Santorum and Limited Government?
Scary news today from Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker: despite losing his reelection bid in 2006, former senator Rick Santorum is still thinking about running for president. He tells Parker that he represents the Ronald Reagan issue trinity: the economy, national security and social conservatism. And he’s the limited-government guy:
Both pro-life and pro-traditional family, Santorum is an irritant to many. But he insists that such labels oversimplify. Being pro-life and pro-family ultimately mean being pro-limited government.
When you have strong families and respect for life, he says, “the requirements of government are less. You can have lower taxes and limited government.”
But Santorum is no Reaganite when it comes to freedom and limited government. He told NPR in 2005:
One of the criticisms I make is to what I refer to as more of a libertarianish right. You know, the left has gone so far left and the right in some respects has gone so far right that they touch each other. They come around in the circle. This whole idea of personal autonomy, well I don’t think most conservatives hold that point of view. Some do. They have this idea that people should be left alone, be able to do whatever they want to do, government should keep our taxes down and keep our regulations low, that we shouldn’t get involved in the bedroom, we shouldn’t get involved in cultural issues. You know, people should do whatever they want. Well, that is not how traditional conservatives view the world and I think most conservatives understand that individuals can’t go it alone. That there is no such society that I am aware of, where we’ve had radical individualism and that it succeeds as a culture.
He declared himself against individualism, against libertarianism, against “this whole idea of personal autonomy, . . . this idea that people should be left alone.” Andrew Sullivan directed our attention to a television interview in which the senator from the home state of Benjamin Franklin and James Wilson denounced America’s Founding idea of “the pursuit of happiness.” If you watch the video, you can hear these classic hits: “This is the mantra of the left: I have a right to do what I want to do” and “We have a whole culture that is focused on immediate gratification and the pursuit of happiness . . . and it is harming America.”
Parker says that Santorum is “sometimes referred to as the conscience of Senate Republicans.” Really? By whom? Surely not by Reaganites, or by people who believe in limited government.
The John Yoo Theory of Gun Control
A modest proposal: Suppose that we decide to streamline our inefficient criminal justice system by treating people under suspicion of involvement with violent crime—whether or not they’ve been arrested, charged, or even informed of this suspicion—as equivalent to convicted felons. Suppose, then, that we permit them to be stripped of certain constitutionally protected rights at the discretion of the executive branch.
Outrageous? Some depraved brainchild of the Bush administration’s Office of Legal Counsel? Actually, it’s the editorial position of The New York Times:
Under federal law, people who pose a heightened risk of violence cannot buy or own firearms, including convicted felons, domestic abusers, the seriously mentally ill and several other categories. Suspected terrorist is not one them.
Individuals on the government’s terrorist watch list can be barred from boarding airplanes, but not from purchasing high-powered guns or explosives. Bipartisan legislation in both houses of Congress would end this ridiculous loophole, commonly known as the “terror gap.
The Times does note, before dismissing the fact with the wave of a hand, that “thousands” of people have been found to be on the list improperly. But let’s linger a bit longer over this. The terrorist watch list, at last count, boasted about a million entries. When you eliminate variant spellings and duplicate entries—and rest assured that this would be another enormous source of problems—there are about 400,000 unique individuals on the list, of whom some 20,000 are Americans. Thousands more are nominated for inclusion on the list each week.
Who Wants to Make Sarah Palin the Leader of the Republican Party?
Could it be the Washington Post? Bannered across the top of the Post‘s op-ed page today is a piece titled “Copenhagen’s political science,” titularly authored by Sarah Palin. I’m delighted to see the Post publishing an op-ed critical of the questionable science behind the Copenhagen conference and the demands for massive regulations to deal with “climate change.”
But Sarah Palin? Of all the experts and political leaders a great newspaper might call on for a critical look at the science behind global warming, Sarah Palin?
What’s even more interesting is that the Post also ran an op-ed by Palin in July. But during this entire year, the Post has not run any op-eds by such credible and accomplished Republicans as Gov. Mitch Daniels; former governors Mitt Romney or Gary Johnson; Sen. John Thune; or indeed former governor Mike Huckabee, who might be Palin’s chief rival for the social-conservative vote. You might almost think the Post wanted Palin to be seen as a leader of Republicans.
I should note that during the past year the Post has run one op-ed each from John McCain, Bobby Jindal, Newt Gingrich, and Tim Pawlenty. (And for people who don’t read well, I should note that when I call the people above “credible and accomplished,” that’s not an endorsement for any political office.) Still, it’s the rare political leader who gets two Post op-eds in six months, and rarer still the Post op-eds by ex-governors who can’t name a newspaper that they read.
Are You a Criminal? Maybe You Are and Don’t Know It
Yesterday, Michael Dreeben, the attorney representing the U.S. government, tried to defend the controversial “honest services” statute from a constitutional challenge in front of the Supreme Court. When Dreeben informed the Court that the feds have essentially criminalized any ethical lapse in the workplace, Justice Breyer exclaimed,
[T]here are 150 million workers in the United States. I think possibly 140 [million] of them flunk your test.
There it is. Some of us have been trying to draw more attention to the dangerous trend of overcriminalization. Judge Alex Kozinski co-authored an article in my book entitled “You’re (Probably) a Federal Criminal.” And Cato adjunct scholar, Harvey Silverglate, calls his new book, Three Felonies a Day to stress the fact that the average professional unknowingly violates the federal criminal law several times each day (at least in the opinion of federal prosecutors). Not many people want to discuss that pernicious reality. To the extent defenders of big government address the problem at all, they’ve tried to write it all off as the rhetoric of a few libertarian lawyers. Given yesterday’s back-and-forth at the High Court, it is going to be much much harder to make that sort of claim.
Journalism Will Not Just Survive, It Will Thrive
. . . says Libby Jacobson of CEI, writing in the Washington Examiner.
Spending Our Way Into More Debt
Huge deficit spending, a supposed stimulus bill, and financial bailouts by the Bush administration failed to stave off a deep recession. President Obama continued his predecessor’s policies with an even bigger stimulus, which helped push the deficit over the unimaginable trillion dollar mark. Prosperity hasn’t returned, but the president is persistent in his interventionist beliefs. In his speech yesterday, he told the country that we must “spend our way out of this recession.”
While a dedicated segment of the intelligentsia continues to believe in simplistic Kindergarten Keynesianism, average Americans are increasingly leery. Businesses and entrepreneurs are hesitant to invest and hire because of the uncertainty surrounding the President’s agenda for higher taxes, higher energy costs, health care mandates, and greater regulation. The economy will eventually recover despite the government’s intervention, but as the debt mounts, today’s profligacy will more likely do long-term damage to the nation’s prosperity.
Some leaders in Congress want a new round of stimulus spending of $150 billion or more. The following are some of the ways that money might be spent from the president’s speech:
- Extend unemployment insurance. When you subsidize something you get more it, so increasing unemployment benefits will push up the unemployment rate, as Alan Reynolds notes.”
- More infrastructure spending. This will lead to misallocation of resources since only markets can allocate resources efficiently. Governments allocate capital on the basis of politics instead of economics.
- “Cash for Caulkers.” This would be like Cash for Clunkers except people would get tax credits to make their homes more energy efficient. Any program modeled off “the dumbest government program ever” should be put back on the shelf.
- More Small Business Administration lending. A little noticed SBA program created by the stimulus bill offered banks an “unprecedented” 100 percent guarantee on loans to small businesses. The program has an anticipated default rate of 60 percent. Small businesses need lower taxes and fewer regulations, not a government program that perpetuates more moral hazard.
- More aid to state and local governments. State and local government should be using the recession to implement reforms that will prevent them from going on another unsustainable spending spree when the economy recovers. Also, we need fewer state and local government employees – not more – as they’re becoming an increasing burden on taxpayers.
The president said his administration was “forced to take those steps largely without the help of an opposition party which, unfortunately, after having presided over the decision-making that led to the crisis, decided to hand it to others to solve.” Mr. President, nobody has forced you to do anything. You’ve chosen to embrace – and expand upon – the big spending policies that were a hallmark of your predecessor’s administration.
Schools and Rotten Meat
USA Today has been running a lengthy series on the condition of food sold through federal school lunch programs, and today’s installment is particularly interesting. It turns out that fast-food chains like Jack in the Box and Burger King – predatory capitalists who want nothing more than to make filthy lucre off of unsuspecting hungry people — have much higher meat quality standards than does the selfless government sworn to protect the public.
How can that be? Oh right: As I wrote in my paper “Corruption in the Public Schools: The Market Is the Answer,” companies that have to attract and keep customers to stay in business have a huge incentive to avoid such things as, you know, sending their customers to the hospital! Not so government bureaucrats or educationists, who are getting your tax dollars no matter what.
This is a basic, basic reality that is all but totally ignored by people who insist we need government to protect us from evil corporations. And it is doubly ignored (if that’s logically possible) in education, where the assumption is that government must provide the schools if they are to be any good, and that profit-seekers are handmaids of the devil.
And so I ask (only slightly tongue-in-cheek): How many more children have to get E. coli before we allow freedom in education?
FEHBP Plan Is No ‘Moderate Compromise’
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has announced that he has reached a super secret compromise on how to deal with the so-called public option for health reform. While Reid said the agreement was too important to actually tell anyone what is in it, most of the details have been leaked to the press.
Rather than set-up a completely government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurance, Congress would establish a program similar to the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program (FEHBP), which currently covers government workers, including Members of Congress. The FEHBP offers a variety of private insurance plans under a program managed by the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM). Each year OPM uses the Federal procurement process to solicit bids from insurance companies to be one of the plans offered. Premiums can vary, but participating plans operate under stringent rules. As a model, the FEHBP is apparently acceptable to moderate Democrats because the insurance plans are private rather than government entities, while liberals like it because it is government regulated and managed.
In addition, the compromise plan would expand Medicare, allowing workers ages 55 to 65 to “buy in” to the program, and may also expand Medicaid.
A few reasons to believe this is yet another truly bad idea:
- In choosing the FEHBP for a model, Democrats have actually chosen an insurance plan whose costs are rising faster than average. FEHBP premiums are expected to rise 7.9 percent this year and 8.8 percent in 2010. By comparison, the Congressional Budget Office predicts that on average, premiums will increase by 5.5 to 6.2 percent annually over the next few years. In fact, FEHBP premiums are rising so fast that nearly 100,000 federal employees have opted out of the program.
- FEHBP members are also finding their choices cut back. Next year, 32 insurance plans will either drop out of the program or reduce their participation. Some 61,000 workers will lose their current coverage.
- But former OPM director Linda Springer doubts that the agency has the “capacity, the staff, or the mission,” to be able to manage the new program. Taking on management of the new program could overburden OPM. “Ultimate, it would break the system.”
- Medicare is currently $50-100 trillion in debt, depending on which accounting measure you use. Allowing younger workers to join the program is the equivalent of crowding a few more passengers onto the Titanic.
- At the same time, Medicare under reimburses physicians, especially in rural areas. Expanding Medicare enrollment will both threaten the continued viability of rural hospitals and other providers, and also result in increased cost-shifting, driving up premiums for private insurance.
- Medicaid is equally a budget-buster. The program now costs more than $330 billion per year, a cost that grew at a rate of roughly 10.7 percent annually. The program spends money by the bushel, yet under-reimburses providers even worse than Medicare.
- Ultimately this so-called compromise would expand government health care programs and further squeeze private insurance, resulting in increased costs and higher insurance premiums, and provide a lower-quality of care.
No wonder Senator Reid wants to keep it a secret.
NYT Room for Debate on Comcast-NBC
The Comcast-NBC deal has the traditional media world all atwitter—well, better call it aflutter. “Atwitter” is losing its old media connotations.
So the New York Times rounded up a foursome of advocates to air their views, among them Cato alum Adam Thierer and yours truly.
A Trade Proposal Unworthy of an Economist
Just when you have a pretty good sense of who is dishing protectionist nonsense and from where, along comes Robert Aliber, who — according to the byline of his commentary in yesterday’s Financial Times – is professor emeritus of international economics and finance at the University of Chicago. Et tu, Chicago?
Aliber considers the US-China trade imbalance unsustainable and, because the Chinese government continues to prevent the value of its currency from rising sufficiently, proposes that the United States impose an across-the-board duty of 10 percent on all Chinese imports, which (after 6 months) would ratchet up 1 percentage point per month every month until the Chinese trade surplus with the United States declines to $5 billion per month.
We’ve heard this tune before — but from politicians who are presumably far less adept at economics than a University of Chicago economics professor ought to be. Yet, even Chuck Schumer ultimately acknowledged the banality of his (and Lindsey Graham’s) thrice-introduced legislation to impose a 27.5 percent tariff on Chinese imports as a proxy and incentive for renminbi appreciation.
If Aliber limited his argument to the assertions that the bilateral imbalance is unsustainable and that the Chinese government should allow the value of the renminbi to be determined by supply and demand, I’d have much less to quibble with. I’d still be plenty skeptical that bilateral trade accounting tells us anything meaningful in this age of cross-border investment and transnational production and supply chains. I’d still break from the implication that balanced trade should be an objective of policy or that it is more important than economic growth. And I’d still remain unconvinced that an increase in the value of the renminbi alone would have much of an impact on bilateral trade flows. But I’d agree that a market-determined exchange rate would increase the likelihood that investment, consumption, and production decisions would better reflect underlying conditions in labor, financial, and goods markets, and in that regard would be a more useful guidepost for informed decisionmaking.
But Aliber’s proposal — and the numerous fallacies upon which it is predicated — goes well beyond that point, and appears to be the product of something like acute tunnel vision. He is so fixated on the bilateral trade account that nothing else — including the impact of his proposal on the economy broadly — commands his attention.
Aliber utters all of the classic fallacies about the insidious impact of China’s currency on U.S. manufacturing; the leverage and sway China allegedly holds over U.S. policymakers, as our banker of last resort; and, how China caused our trade deficit by purchasing U.S. securities. I disagree with all of those assertions, vehemently, and have explained why in various places, but I want to focus presently on his proposal, which is one of the worst ideas in circulation.
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