Archive for September, 2010
“We’re Talking Bridges…”
On Labor Day, President Obama announced his plan for an additional $50 billion in spending, mostly on transportation. An area Obama specifically mentioned was more spending for bridges, playing on the widely held perception that America’s bridging are falling apart. While clearly there are bridges that are greatly in need of repair and represent a threat to passenger safety, what has been the overall trend in bridge quality? In one word: improving.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics only about 1 in ten bridges today can be characterized as “structurally deficient”, this is, in need of serious repair. This may sound high, but it is down from 1 in four back in 1990. As one can tell from the accompanying chart, the percent of deficient bridges has been on a steady decline over the last two decades.
It is also worth noting that over 80 percent of the deficient bridges in the U.S. are in rural areas, and subject to much less passenger traffic. Many of these bridges likely see little, if any, traffic.
Perhaps more important from the perspective of “economic stimulus” is that additional bridge construction and repair would take years to have any real impact on employment. Rather than coming up with policies designed with solely political appeal in mind, the President and Congress should focus on broad policies that allow the private sector to determine what investment needs should be addressed.
One Signature Closer to a Vote on Obamacare Repeal
This morning, in a column for National Review Online, I criticized a number of Democrats and Republicans who voted against Obamacare but had not signed a discharge petition that would force a floor vote on repealing the new health care law. One of the Republicans I singled out was Rep. Castle of Delaware, who is now seeking the GOP nomination for US Senate. This afternoon, Rep. Castle’s staff informed me that he intends to sign that petition as soon as he returns to Washington after the recess. That leaves five Republicans who have not signed. For the record, they are: Mark Kirk of Illinois, Joseph Cao and Charles Boustany of Louisiana, David Reichert of Washington, and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia.
Afghanistan’s 2010 Parliamentary Elections: Bright Spot or Blood Spot?
On September 18, 2,447 candidates, including 386 women, will compete for 249 seats in Afghanistan’s Lower House of Parliament (Wolesi Jirga). Afghans courageous enough to go out and vote certainly have my respect, but for U.S. officials and policymakers, at least three delegitimizing issues should be cause for concern:
(1) the very nature of the electoral process;
(2) parliament’s governing parameters vis-à-vis the President; and
(3) the potential for widespread violence on election day.
First, the electoral process. In many ways, both domestic and international election-monitoring groups have learned valuable lessons from the fraud-tainted presidential election of last year. Simple methods to tamp down corruption include everything from sticking plastic coverings on completed results sheets at polling stations to improving oversight of the data-entry staff at the tally center in Kabul.
Still, elections won’t be perfect. Due to a flawed voter registry, an estimated 5 million of the 17 million voters are thought to be fraudulent or listed as duplicates. Poor vetting has left warlords on the ballot, which is good or bad depending on how you view the conflict. And reports of vote buying, bribery, and intimidation are rife.
In terms of electoral institutions, the new chairman of the Independent Election Commission (IEC), an Afghan body that oversees election logistics, is generally viewed as more independent than the last chairman, who was accused of being a Karzai loyalist. However, the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC), the U.N.-backed election watchdog, is disproportionately weighed in favor of Karzai.
Why Not Private Infrastructure?
That’s the question I ask today over at Downsizing Government. President Obama wants to take the country $50 billion deeper into debt in order to finance more public infrastructure projects. I argue that policymakers should instead give the private sector a chance to satisfy our transportation needs.
A Debate Between John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama
What’s especially fascinating is that JFK intuitively understood the Laffer Curve, particularly the insight that deficits usually are the result of slow growth, not the cause of slow growth.
Chávez Introduces ‘Good Life Card’, Better Known as Rationing Card in Cuba
The latest feature in Venezuela’s road to socialism was introduced yesterday by President Hugo Chávez. It’s the “Good Life Card,” an instrument that, according to the government, will make it easier to buy groceries at government-owned supermarkets.
Even though Chávez denies that the card is a way “to promote communism,” the concept of a government-sponsored card to buy food in a country suffering from acute shortages is well known. They call it a “rationing card” in Cuba.
Thoughts on Secretary Clinton’s CFR Speech
I have written often about the Obama administration’s unwillingness to confront reality when it comes to foreign relations. Every time there is a new opportunity to reorient U.S. foreign policy, I hold out some hope that the president has taken stock of our relative security, examined the potential strength of our strategic partners, and decided to discard our costly and counterproductive strategy of the past twenty years, one premised on American global primacy.
Once again the Obama administration had an opportunity to articulate a more restrained global posture, this time in a speech by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton before the Council on Foreign Relations. And once again the administration has chosen to cling to the tired old approach that holds out the United States as the “indispensable nation” and that saddles American taxpayers and American troops with nearly all of the burdens of global governance.
Secretary Clinton’s speech today reaffirms the administration’s preference for “leadership” in all areas, and a lack of interest in encouraging other countries to play a larger role. Indeed, the speech seems a step backward from a similar address last year. Whereas Clinton eighteen months ago had stressed partnering with other countries and engaging with adversaries, the tone in today’s speech, notes the Washington Post‘s Glenn Kessler, “was subtly different, focused much more on the importance of the U.S. role in managing difficult problems.”
This sort of meddling might appeal to Washington policy elites who are so confident in their ability to “manag[e] difficult affairs”, but it is unnecessary and dangerous. And much of this effort, good intentioned though it may be, is likely to fail.
Speier (D-Silicon Valley) Sows Techno-panic
“Techno-Panics” are public and political crusades against the use of new media or technologies, particularly driven by the desire to protect children. As the moniker suggests, they’re not rational. Techno-panic is about imagined or trumped-up threats, often with a tenuous, coincidental, or potential relationship to the Internet. Adam Thierer and Berin Szoka of the Progress & Freedom Foundation have written extensively about techno-panics on the TechLiberationFront blog.
Talking about techno-panic does not deny the existence of serious problems. It merely identifies when policymakers and advocates lose their sense of proportion and react in ways that fail to address the genuine issues—such as censoring a web site because it reveals the fact that some few among a community of tens of millions of people will conspire to break the law.
You’d think that a congressional representative from the heart of Silicon Valley would not sow techno-panic, but here’s Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) on the Craigslist censorship issue:
“We can’t forget the victims, we can’t rest easy. Child-sex trafficking continues, and lawmakers need to fight future machinations of Internet-driven sites that peddle children.”
Of all representatives in Congress, Speier should know that Craigslist has been making it easier for law enforcement to locate and enforce the law against any perpetrators of crimes against children. Pushing them to rogue sites does law enforcement no good. Censoring Craiglist only masks the problem, which may be in the interest of politicians, but definitely not children.
The Establishment Comes Up Short
Today Politico Arena asks:
How does the Koran burning controversy relate to the Ground Zero mosque controversy?
My response:
As with the controversy over the Ground Zero mosque, Rev. Terry Jones and his tiny band of followers have a perfect right to burn Korans, but it would be well beyond insensitive to do so. Yet where are the establishment voices drawing the parallels? Where is President Obama, leaping to his defense?
Instead, we find the likes of the editorialists at the New York Times giving moral instruction to benighted New Yorkers, two-thirds of whom oppose siting a mosque at Ground Zero even as they defend Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf’s right to build it there. Meanwhile, last evening on the PBS NewsHour, the very essence of establishment TV, the sole guest on the Koran-burning segment, George Washington University’s Marc Lynch, lamented that across the Arab media, “on the jihadist forums, the newspapers, everywhere, there is a lot of focus on the fact that America right now is in the grip of this — of this trend towards anti-Islamic rhetoric and — and actions.” The fact? What Islamophobic “grip” are Americans in? As the most recent records show, hate crimes against Jews in America are 10 times more frequent than against Muslims.
More Surprises from the Kentucky Senate Survey
You may have heard about the new survey in the Kentucky Senate race that shows Rand Paul up by 15 points. The disaggregated data from the survey are almost as surprising as the overall result.
About one-third of likely African-American and Democratic voters support Paul. He attracts solid majorities of young people, of college graduates, and of people who “almost never” attend religious services. Among the one-quarter of voters neutral toward the Tea Party movement, Paul receives 60 percent of the vote. He gets majority support from every region of the state. Paul’s support is the same from voters who make more or less than $50,000 a year. Paul’s weaknesses? People over 65 and women, both coming in around 45 percent.
Pretty amazing stuff, but there’s a caveat (there’s always a caveat).
One time in twenty, a well-done poll will return a misleading result. The 15 percent number may be wrong because of sampling error.
If not, Rand Paul might want to think about whether he really wants to keep his practice open on Mondays considering all that stuff he will be doing in DC. But maybe he’s not looking to make a career in the capital.
Postal Union Wants More
The finances of the U.S. Postal Service are deeply in the red. The agency faces a permanently reduced demand for its services and its labor accounts for almost 80 percent of its costs. Thus it is not a good time for postal employees to get an increase in wages and benefits, right?
According to one postal union, the USPS’s deteriorating condition isn’t relevant. The American Postal Workers Union, which represents more than 200,000 employees, has recently entered collective bargaining negotiations for a new contract. In an interview with Government Executive, APWU President William Burrus calls a pay increase for his members an “entitlement”:
“More — more control over activities at work, more money, better benefits — we want more,” said Burrus. “We will try to fashion our proposals to reflect the entitlement to more.”
An arbitrator will most likely determine whether APWU workers get their raises. Oddly, according to federal law an arbitrator can’t take the USPS’s financial condition into account when weighing a decision. This is like instructing the captain of a ship that’s struck an iceberg to ignore the gaping hole in the boat when deciding whether or not to abandon it.
USPS management has asked Congress to change the law, which Burrus preposterously calls “antidemocratic”:
Burrus said he resents the idea that an arbitrator should be required to take into account the Postal Service’s financial situation. He called the idea antidemocratic and said it interferes with free collective bargaining.
Having watched the unionized workforces at GM and Chrysler receive preferential treatment from the federal government, there’s little incentive for Burrus and the postal unions to not ask for more. The postal unions are likely betting that in a worst case financial scenario for the USPS, policymakers will tap taxpayers for a bailout. Unfortunately, if recent history is a guide, they’re probably correct.
Phantom Forces
Over at “The Skeptics” blog at The National Interest Online, I wrote a short piece detailing the abysmal state of the Afghan army and police — you know, the institutions that are supposed to take over responsibility for security and allow U.S. forces to being to come home?
“From illiteracy and corruption to poor vetting and low pay, the current training effort has yielded a force of compromised caliber.” What’s more: “An AP reporter on patrol with Americans at Combat Outpost Ware in the Arghandab Valley found that when the Afghans go on patrol they are treated as outsiders. “When they see us, the old men say, ‘They are the sons of the British,’ ” Lt. Haskar said, explaining that the villagers equate both the Americans and the Afghan soldiers with the British attempt to colonize Afghanistan in the 1800s.”
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