Archive for September, 2010
‘Democrats Guess Wrong on Health Care’
That’s the headline of an article posted this week in Politico:
Rarely have so many political strategists been so wrong about something so big.
But when it comes to the health care bill, everyone from former President Bill Clinton on down whiffed on some of the more significant predictions.
Democrats would run aggressively on the legislation? Nope. Voters would forget about the sausage-making aspects of the legislative process? Doesn’t seem that way, as the process contributed to the sense that the bill was deeply flawed.
And Clinton’s own promise to jittery Democrats that their poll numbers would skyrocket after the bill finally passed also didn’t pan out, as the party is fighting for its life in the midterms.
What can explain the miscalculation? Maybe religious fervor?
Why Public School Merit Pay Doesn’t Work
A sophisticated study released this week finds that merit pay for public school teachers doesn’t seem to improve student achievement. Why not?
Ask almost anyone—even Fidel Castro—and they’ll acknowledge that the free enterprise system results in higher quality and greater efficiency than government monopolies. As a result, it has long been argued that we should introduce this or that aspect of free markets into the public school system. And that’s the problem. The free enterprise system is a system. It is not a smorgasbord from which we can pick an isolated incentive here and a particular freedom there, and expect to get the same results we’ve come to expect from full-fledged markets.
Offering merit pay to teachers does nothing to liberate principals from the shackles of union contracts and state licensing requirements that determine whom they can hire and fire. Neither does it give principals the incentives enjoyed by private sector managers to hire and retain the most effective employees they can find. Nor does it break the government funding monopoly of public schooling, which pressures parents to stick with public schools even when there are better and more efficient private alternatives. It also fails to provide the freedoms and incentives to would-be education entrepreneurs that are responsible for the scale-up of top providers and effective new innovations in every other field.
In the end, public school merit pay lashes a few feathers to a brick. Why be surprised when it doesn’t fly?
Create a truly free education marketplace in which all families are active consumers and all schools have to compete to serve them, in which public schools no longer enjoy a monopoly on $600 billion in annual k-12 spending, and we will get the results we all seek. Short of that, expect continued stagnation or decline in quality coupled with rising spending.
The Funny Side of Protectionism
The Swiss finance minister Hans-Rudolf Merz lost his composure in the Swiss parliament earlier today and broke out in uncontrollable laughter. Merz was reading out a memorandum concerning foreign cured meat imports to Switzerland that was prepared for him by the Swiss customs office. The text, redolent with legalese, Merz acknowledged at the end of his speech, was incomprehensible. Unfortunately, there is no indication that the Swiss agricultural protectionism will be reformed as a result of this episode.
Venezuelans Vote on Sunday to Defend Their Moribund Democracy
Venezuelans go to the polls on Sunday for a legislative election that will test the extent to which democracy still exists in their country. It’ll be the 13th election since Hugo Chávez became president in 1998 (these include constitutional referenda, gubernatorial, legislative and presidential elections, as well as a recall vote).
Some would say that all these elections prove that Venezuela is a true democracy. I would argue that democracy means more than simply voting. It involves separation of powers, constitutional checks and balances, and freedom of the press. None of these exists in Venezuela anymore.
Even the electoral process is deeply flawed. Just as in previous elections, nobody expects the vote on Sunday to be fair: Independent international observers have again been barred from entering Venezuela. Most of the media are owned by the government, and the remaining private outlets must submit to the constant cadenas (presidential addresses) that the government requires private TV and radio stations to air. From 1998 to September 19th, broadcasters aired 2,072 cadenas for a total of 1,430 hours of transmission (almost two months of 24-hour broadcast).
Moreover, prominent opposition figures have been disqualified from running due to technicalities and dirty tricks. Others have been imprisoned or have fled the country. The electoral body is controlled by the Executive and the voters’ registry has not been independently audited in the recent past. It contains such anomalies as 32,000 people older than 100 years, persons registered multiple times, and 2,000 voters that share the same address.
Despite this daunting scenario, the opposition stands a good chance of making significant gains in the National Assembly. However, it remains to be seen if Chávez will allow even a modest voice of dissent in a country where he has long exerted total control over all government institutions. There will be a three-month period between the legislative election and the installment of the new National Assembly. It wouldn’t be a surprise if, after Sunday’s vote, Chávez moves to curtail the powers of Congress, just as he did with the powers of governors and the mayor of Caracas after the gubernatorial elections of 2008.
New Campaign Finance Horrors
In the Kentucky Senate race between Republican Rand Paul and Democrat Jack Conway, new revelations have appeared about the financing of the campaigns. Apparently something called “outside groups” — it’s not clear whether they are from outside Kentucky or outside the parties — have been spending money.
Listen to what one group is doing: “Groups that want lower taxes and less federal regulation are helping Paul … [and] pushing a message that federal spending and the size of government must be reined in.”
Shocking no? You have not heard the worst.
In Kentucky, “The health care law has been a key difference in the Senate race, with Conway supporting it and Paul, a Bowling Green eye doctor, strongly opposing it. Supporters say the law will bring insurance coverage for millions more Americans, but opponents have argued, among other things, that it will add costs to businesses.” And both supporters and opponents have the gaul to spend lots of money pushing their point of view!
For Paul, new troubles have appeared. A shadowy corporation has funded attack ads directed at the Republican, see here, here, and here. The corporation in question has not disclosed the source of its funding for the ads to the Federal Election Commission. It is possible that the money for the ads came from commercial transactions and thus has no relationship to the relative strength of public opinion in Kentucky. Prior to Citizens United such spending by corporations was illegal, right? It will be a great day for democracy when shadowy corporations like this one can no longer fund attack ads directed at American voters.
Except…
ObamaCare Leads Minnesota Insurers to Suspend Sales
From the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:
Two of Minnesota’s biggest health plans said Thursday they have temporarily suspended sales of individual health insurance policies because of uncertainty related to the new federal health reform law.
The moves by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota and HealthPartners came on the same day some of the federal government’s most-heralded consumer protections came into effect…
The insurers that have suspended individual sales say they are awaiting guidance on new rules, including those around coverage of kids with pre-existing conditions…
Pam Lux, a spokeswoman for Eagan-based Blue Cross, said she expects the suspension of individual sales to be brief but could not say if it would be days or weeks.
What Constitution? What Monopoly? What Failure?
Yesterday, Chester Finn and Michael Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute offered some less-than-sage education advice to majority-hungry congressional Republicans. They implored them not to ”reflexively revert to weary old themes that emphasize states’ rights, local control, and parental choice—and tell Uncle Sam to basically butt out.” In other words, they strongly advise ignoring (1) the Constitution, (2) decades of failed federal education efforts, and (3) the inherent hopelessness of government monopolies.
Just in case some in the GOP are inclined to take these very ill-considered suggestions, perhaps a few reminders are in order.
First, the Constitution gives the federal government no authority to interfere in education other than to prohibit discriminatory state or district provision of schooling. I direct both the GOP and Messrs. Finn and Petrilli to Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution so that they can see firsthand that among the federal government’s specific, enumerated powers there is nothing about education. That means that the feds must ”butt out.” And please, don’t cry “general welfare clause” – it just explains why the specific powers are given and confers no power itself.
Next, remember that the federal government has been heavily involved in elementary and secondary education since 1965. And what have we gotten for it? This:
Many Supporters Not Willing to Trumpet ObamaCare’s Achievements
An interesting update on the politics of ObamaCare appears in CongressDailyPM (subscription required):
The marking of six months since the signing of the healthcare law should be a moment of celebration by Democrats, especially as several popular provisions go into effect today. But the political realities of the midterm elections have made trumpeting the law, which remains unpopular with large swaths of the electorate, a delicate balancing act for Democrats…
House leaders tell their members to address the healthcare law in a way that best suits their districts…
some Democratic members in the House and Senate instruct staff not to write talking points on the law’s six-month provisions…
a former administration official questions if Democrats’ efforts to sell the bill are making any significant headway…
It’s little wonder, really.
But still. Wow.
Filed under: Cato Publications; General; Government and Politics; Health Care
A Novel Way of Keeping Fiscal Deficits Under Control?
Having inherited an 8 percent budget deficit from the previous socialist government, the new conservative-liberal government of Slovakia has come up with a novel way of keeping budget deficits under control in the future. Starting in 2011, salaries of government ministers will rise and fall depending on the evolution of the fiscus. Thus, a budget deficit of 5 percent will translate to a 10 percent decrease in salaries, while an (unlikely) budget surplus of 5 percent will translate into a 10 percent rise in salaries, etc. It will be interesting to see if this new measure will truly result in a more responsible fiscal policy in the years to come.
Incidentally, had the United States adopted a similar measure, President Obama’s reported salary of $400,000 in 2009 would have fallen to $320,000 in 2010.
Prosecutorial Misconduct
A federal prosecutor’s misconduct tilted the scales of justice against Antonio Lyons, an Orlando businessman. Lyons served three years in prison before his attorney discovered statements from a witness that differed from the testimony given at trial. That was just the tip of the iceberg.
For more than a week in 2001, the jurors listened to one witness after another, almost all of them prison inmates, describe how Lyons had sold them packages of cocaine. One said that Lyons, who ran clothing shops and nightclubs around Orlando, tried to hire him to kill two drug dealers.
But the federal prosecutors handling the case did not let the jury hear all the facts.
Instead, the prosecutors covered up evidence that could have discredited many of Lyons’ accusers. They never disclosed that a convict who claimed to have purchased hundreds of pounds of cocaine from Lyons struggled to identify his photograph. And they hid the fact that prosecutors had promised to let others out of prison early in exchange for their cooperation.
An investigative project by USA Today documented 201 cases from across the nation in which federal judges found that prosecutors broke the rules. It includes a database and interactive map chronicling prosecutorial misconduct. Read the whole thing.
Check out Tim Lynch’s In the Name of Justice: Leading Experts Reexamine the Classic Article “The Aims of the Criminal Law” and Harvey Silverglate’s Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent for more on the criminal justice system.
Pro-War, Anti-Immigration Folks Are Confused
USA Today runs an interesting article about the DREAM Act, which Senate Republicans torpedoed this week, and which would have paved the way for many illegal immigrants to become legal.
As journalist Alan Gomez notes, the “less publicized part of the [DREAM Act] is that the Pentagon is pushing for it as a means to staff the armed forces.”
When the Department of Defense published its three-year strategic plan, it listed the DREAM Act as a way it could replenish its ranks.
“If we needed to expand the pool of eligible youth, the (DREAM) initiative would be one of several ways to do it,” spokeswoman Eileen Lainez said in an e-mail.
Retired Army lieutenant colonel Margaret Stock says a “crisis in military manpower” is looming as the population ages and the economy improves. She says the military struggled to recruit enough people when the economy was booming just a few years ago because people had more employment options.
“DREAM would give us the ability to tap into a huge number of people who grew up in the United States, were educated here, they talk like Americans, they look like Americans and their loyalty lies with America,” says Stock, a former West Point professor who teaches political science at the University of Alaska-Anchorage.
[...]
The military part of the act worries Jorge Mariscal, director of Latino studies at the University of California-San Diego.
He says many illegal immigrant families are too poor to pay for college.
“Our concern is that people are just going to get trapped for economic reasons into the military,” says Mariscal, who otherwise supports the DREAM Act.
A few thoughts on this: First, we might be experiencing a “crisis in military manpower” because we’re fighting too many wars and trying to do too much abroad, rather than as a necessary consequence of our aging population.
Woodward, Resilience, and Virtues of Partisan Foreign Policy
On the National Interest‘s Skeptics blog, I have a new post about my lack of outrage over the revelations in Bob Woodward’s new book about Obama and Afghanistan.
Unlike John Bolton and Heritage, I don’t think that the President’s comment that we can withstand another terrorist attack like 9-11 is offensive. After all, we can, and saying so doesn’t mean you want to try it.
As I put it there:
What’s truly outrageous is the notion that the only valid response to terrorism is cowering fear at home and endless warfare abroad. Somehow, for much the right, crediting our enemies with the ability to wreck our society is required, and it is verboten to say that we are something other than a pathetic, brittle nation that cannot manage adversity.
I also fail to get upset about the President’s worry that expanding the war in Afghanistan would alienate his base. Politics not only doesn’t stop at the water’s edge; it shouldn’t. I’m not sure exactly when popular checks on the war-making power went out of style, but I think we could use more of that in Afghanistan, not less. If pandering to the base can get us out of there one of these years, pander away.
The solution to bad policies is better politics, not no politics, to paraphase.
*I also recommend Paul Pillar’s post on the same subject. He says that the real news here is the Pentagon’s refusal to offer the President a policy alternative between population centric counter-insurgency and exit.
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