Archive for February, 2011
Senate Reads and Ignores Washington’s Farewell Address
Today in the U.S. Senate, Johnny Isakson of Georgia read George Washington’s Farewell Address. Some senator has done so annually since 1896. It’s one of the crueler examples of our leaders celebrating political ideas that they ignore.
We should not adopt positions just because George Washington did. But if the Senate insists on reading a speech mostly about the evils of permanent alliances while almost universally supporting several such alliances, some senator should at least explain the irony.
We remember the address for arguing that confusing our interests with that of other nations would entangle us in foreign controversies, causing us to prepare for or fight wars remote from our interests and therefore to maintain an overgrown military establishment burdensome to economic growth and liberty at home. Almost forgotten is the speech’s furious denunciation of those “ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens” that, by confusing other Americans about the difference between their interests and that of an ally, would:
Betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country without odium, sometimes even with popularity, gilding with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.
I wonder how many of our senators realize that those are words Washington would likely have applied to them (albeit privately, as the address was given that way). This is, after all, a Senate that seems to agree with the secretary of state’s recent claim that our military alliances in Asia and Europe should be:
Embedded in the DNA of American foreign policy and not sort of beginning and ending in fits and starts. The engagement has to remain constant… We can’t allow this very big complex world that is so demanding to have the United States absent anywhere.
People are entitled to agree with that opinion, but they should do so without ritual evocation of traditional American ideas about foreign policy that it rejects.
Intervention and Its Unintended Consequences
The killing of four Americans by Somali pirates earlier this month has brought the troubled African country into the news once again. With the White House’s response to unrest in the Middle East continuing to evolve, it is instructive to note how the United States has tried and failed multiple times to bring order to Somalia. The policies Washington has pursued and the unintended consequences they have produced should serve as a valuable lesson to any intervention that might be considered in Libya or elsewhere in the region. Over at The Skeptics, I outline a number of these lessons after briefly examining the history of U.S. intervention in Somalia:
No doubt U.S. leaders had the best of intentions. But their noble attempts to rescue Somalia spawned a number of unintended consequences. Over the past two years, as many as 20 Somali-American men have disappeared from the Minneapolis area. Many fear these men were recruited to fight alongside al-Shabab, or “the youth,” the militant wing of the Islamist Somali government overthrown in 2006. In describing Shirwa Ahmed, a naturalized American of the Somali diaspora who is believed to be the first U.S. citizen to carry out a terrorist suicide bombing, FBI director Robert Mueller said, “It appears that this individual was radicalized in his hometown in Minnesota.”
…
…it is well past time for American leaders to thoroughly explore the notion that U.S. policies contribute directly to radicalization. Reigning in the West’s interventionist foreign policy will not eliminate the number of people and organizations that seek to commit terrorist attacks, but will certainly diminish it.
In this respect, terrorism can no longer be attributed to ignorance and poverty—conditions that exist in foreign conflict zones, but in and of themselves do not generate attacks against the West. Viewing poverty and underdevelopment as an underlying cause of extremism makes the mistake of stereotyping terrorists and their grievances. It also commits the error of ignoring the unintended consequences of past actions and very real dangers right within our borders.
Click here to read the full post.
Libertarianism Happens to People
You are probably familiar with the story of Brian Aitken, the responsible gun owner wrongly convicted of violating New Jersey’s draconian gun laws. Governor Chris Christie commuted Aitken’s sentence, and his appeal is still pending.
As Radley Balko often says, libertarianism happens to people. It happened to Brian Aitken:
Aitken never thought of himself as a libertarian, but two years in the clutches of the state system has changed him completely. Before the arrest, the young, apolitical entrepreneur was on his way to a successful career in digital marketing.
“I never considered myself a person who is really interested in politics,” Aitken says. “But after all this happened I am definitely a hardcore libertarian now.”
Seattle Times: Legalize Marijuana
When Proposition 19 (an initiative proposal that would have legalized marijuana) was being considered and debated last year in California, virtually every newspaper editorialized against it. Now comes the Seattle Times with a strong editorial calling for legalization in Washington state. The reader response has been very favorable. And the Drug Czar reportedly wants to meet with the editorial board–presumably to secure a retraction. That’s doubtful, but perhaps the editorial board can secure his endorsement or perhaps his resignation.
For Cato scholarship on drug policy, go here. Our latest publication is this address on how the drug war destroys black families.
Some ‘Unsung Heroes’ These Colleges Are
Heating and cooling equipment installed upside down. A ramp for the disabled too steep for wheelchairs. A leaning tower of time. A $3.4 million renovation for a theater slated for demolition. Payouts to everyone from airborne videographers to feng shui experts.
Welcome to community college!
These and a litany of other failures and abuses are chronicled in a new Los Angeles Times article on the disaster that has been the Los Angeles Community College District’s decade-long, $5.7 billion building orgy. It’s a tale made especially sickening by California college officials’ repeated wailing that state budget cuts are forcing them to dig “deep into bone.” It’s also galling in the face of Washington politicians’ continued berating of for-profit schools and blind-eye-turning toward excess throughout higher ed. And topping it all off, President Obama recently proclaimed community colleges the “unsung heroes” of American education.
They’ve certainly earned the “unsung” part.
Obama Offers States ‘Flexibility’ to Adopt Single-Payer instead of ObamaCare
The New York Times reports:
Seeking to appease disgruntled governors, President Obama plans to announce on Monday that he supports amending the 2010 health care law to allow states to opt out of its most burdensome requirements three years earlier than currently permitted.
It’s significant that the president is finally acknowledging that ObamaCare is unworkable and will impose enormous burdens on the states. Or is he?
A closer look shows that the president is not lifting the burdensome requirements ObamaCare imposes on states. All he’s doing is proposing to move up, from 2017 to 2014, the date on which states can apply for federal permission to impose a different but equivalently or more coercive plan to expand health insurance coverage. Here’s what the Times says about the legislation Obama will reportedly endorse, which was introduced by Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Scott Brown (R-MA):
The legislation would allow states to opt out earlier from various requirements if they could demonstrate that other methods would allow them to cover as many people, with insurance that is as comprehensive and affordable, as provided by the new law. The changes also must not increase the federal deficit.
If states can meet those standards, they can ask to circumvent minimum benefit levels, structural requirements for insurance exchanges and the mandates that most individuals obtain coverage and that employers provide it. Washington would then help finance a state’s individualized health care system with federal money that would otherwise be spent there on insurance subsidies and tax credits.
So states can “opt out” of ObamaCare’s individual mandate if they cover as many people, with as many benefits, and as many government subsidies, as ObamaCare would. The Times quotes “administration officials” on how states might do that:
The administration officials said the so-called state innovation waivers in the Wyden-Brown bill might allow a state to experiment with ways to entice people to obtain insurance rather than requiring them to buy policies. It also might allow interested states to establish a single-payer system in which the government is the sole insurer. Gov. Peter Shumlin, a newly elected Democrat in Vermont, is pursuing such a proposal.
No such state plan can make a dent in the federal laws that are fueling the relentless growth in the cost of health care (see Medicare, the federal tax treatment of health care, etc.). Therefore, the only way that states could cover as many people as ObamaCare does is by using ObamaCare’s tactic of forcing people to buy exorbitantly costly health insurance. And if they’re not going to use an individual mandate, the only remaining option is a single-payer health care system.
President Obama’s move is not about giving states more flexibility. It’s about moving the nation even faster toward his ideal of a Canadian- or British-style single-payer health care system.
On the Ethics of the Federal Budget
Today POLITICO Arena asks:
Addressing the National Religious Broadcasters convention, Speaker John Boehner said that “It is immoral to bind our children to as leeching and destructive a force as debt … and to rob our children’s future and make them beholden to China. No society is worthy that treats its children so shabbily.” Can the speaker make an effective case for slashing the budget through religious avenues? And is the budget and the national debt really a moral and religious issue?
My response:
Of course the budget and national debt are moral issues, and for believers whose religious views are consistent with reason-based morality, it’s a religious issue too. The federal budget concerns how “we” spend “our” money, and the debt (plus taxes) with how we acquire that money. But those issues don’t arise and play out in a moral vacuum. They do so under our Constitution — or at least they’re supposed to — and that document rests on fundamental moral principles about the rights of individuals and the powers of government.
In barest outline, the Declaration of Independence says that we have a natural (moral) right to be free, and to create government to secure that freedom. The Constitution institutionalized that vision, giving only limited powers to the federal government to secure our liberty, including a limited power to tax and borrow for that end. Thus, it authorizes only a limited, focused public sector, enabling a vast private sector of liberty. And no amendments have since changed that balance.
But with the Progressive Era, the balance began to be destroyed, deliberately – by politics, not law. Today, the federal government exercises vast powers never granted, restricting liberties never surrendered. Bad enough that in doing so it indulges the majoritarian redistributive tyranny that is modern taxation; when the limits of that course are reached, political forces impose the cost of satisfying their appetites on our children through boundless borrowing. There’s a good English word for all of that: it’s “theft” — and it’s immoral.
Cato’s First Brief in a Patent Case — On Constitutional Grounds
Recognizing an opportunity to make quick and easy money, private attorneys have been suing companies under the False Marking Statute, 35 U.S.C. § 292. This law allows any person to sue to enforce a federal criminal statute that prohibits anyone from labeling an unpatented product with a patent number or to advertise a product with a patent number that is not actually patented.
The penalty for violating this law is $500 per offense, which has been interpreted to mean each and every product falsely marked. For instance, if a business is charged with falsely marking 100,000 products, it could be liable for $50 million. Private attorneys suing under this statute seek massive amounts in damages and then try to settle with the defendant for a fraction of that cost (still a large amount of money). Companies often settle even if the case against them has little merit because they do not want to risk such a massive amount in damages.
The longtime toy manufacturer Wham-O, however, successfully defended such a lawsuit in court, provoking the plaintiffs’ lawyers to appeal to the Federal Circuit (the only appellate court below the Supreme Court that can hear patent cases). Cato, along with my colleague, Walter Olson — who has studied these patent marking cases — filed an amicus brief supporting Wham-O on constitutional grounds. We argue that the False Marking Statute fails to give the executive branch, through the attorney general, control over the enforcement actions brought at its behest. By allowing any person to sue and then receive half of the damages, the law abrogates the executive power to enforce the law and places it in the exclusive hands of the private attorney.
There is clear precedent for this argument: In the 1988 case of Morrison v. Olson, the Supreme Court upheld the independent counsel statute because it gave the attorney general “sufficient control” over the counsel’s hiring, firing, and investigative scope. Other courts have held that for a private person to prosecute what is called a “qui tam” action under the False Claims Act — essentially stepping into the shoes of the government — the government must maintain “sufficient control” over the litigation. The False Marking Statute does not provide sufficient control, or any control, and therefore violates Article II’s “Take Care Clause,” the font of the executive branch’s enforcement duties.
Ultimately, the separation of powers, the foundation for the governmental structure created by the Framers, ensures that laws are enforced by someone accountable to the people, the Executive. The False Marking Statute divests the president of this authority, so the Federal Circuit should strike it down as violating the Constitution’s separation-of-powers structure.
The Federal Circuit will hear FLFMC, LCC v. Wham-O, Inc. this spring.
The Value-Added Tax Must Be Stopped – Unless We Want America to Become Greece
Sooner or later, there will be a giant battle in Washington over the value-added tax. The people who want bigger government (and the people who are willing to surrender to big government) understand that a new source of tax revenue is needed to turn the United States into a European-style social welfare state. But that’s exactly why the VAT is a terrible idea.
I explain why in a column for Reuters. The entire thing is worth reading, but here’s an excerpt of some key points.
Many Washington insiders are claiming that America needs a value-added tax (VAT) to get rid of red ink. …And President Obama says that a VAT is “something that has worked for other countries.” Every single one of these assertions is demonstrably false. …One of the many problems with a VAT is that it is a hidden levy. …VATs are imposed at each stage of the production process and thus get embedded in the price of goods. And because the VAT is hidden from consumers, politicians find they are an easy source of new revenue – which is one reason why the average VAT rate in Europe is now more than 20 percent! …Western European nations first began imposing VATs about 40 years ago, and the result has been bigger government, permanent deficits and more debt. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, public debt is equal to 74 percent of GDP in Western Europe, compared to 64 percent of GDP in the United States (and the gap was much bigger before the Bush-Obama spending spree doubled America’s debt burden). The most important comparison is not debt, but rather the burden of government spending. …you don’t cure an alcoholic by giving him keys to a liquor store, you don’t promote fiscal responsibility by giving government a new source of revenue. …To be sure, we would have a better tax system if proponents got rid of the income tax and replaced it with a VAT. But that’s not what’s being discussed. At best, some proponents claim we could reduce other taxes in exchange for a VAT. Once again, though, the evidence from Europe shows this is a naive hope. The tax burden on personal and corporate income is much higher today than it was in the pre-VAT era. …When President Obama said the VAT is “something that has worked for other countries,” he should have specified that the tax is good for the politicians of those nations, but not for the people. The political elite got more money that they use to buy votes, and they got a new tax code, enabling them to auction off loopholes to special interest groups.
You can see some amusing — but also painfully accurate — cartoons about the VAT by clicking here, here, and here.
For further information on why the VAT is a horrible proposal, including lots of specific numbers and comparisons between the United States and Western Europe, here’s a video from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity.
Is Madison More Like Cairo or Athens?
At the Britannica Blog I declare the college town — and state capital — Madison, Wisconsin, “the Athens of the West.”
College towns used to call themselves “the Athens of the West.” In Nashville, home of my alma mater Vanderbilt University, they built a full-scale replica of the Parthenon. But these days Madison, Wisconsin, has the best claim to the title.
Lots of national media have been comparing the protests against Gov. Scott Walker in Madison to the protests that ended Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak‘s 30-year reign….
The Greek journalist Takis Michas told a Washington audience last summer that the Greek political economy
is a form of capitalism where the bureaucracy and its allies consider the state their property, and use its mechanisms for personal enrichment.
In Greece, the fundamental principle that has been dictating economic and political development since the creation of the Greek state in the 19th century is political clientelism.
This is a system in which political support is provided in exchange for benefits.
In this situation, rent-seeking — the attempt by various groups and individuals to influence the location of political benefits — becomes paramount.
That sounds a lot like the relationship between government employee unions and state governments. In Wisconsin, the state that first gave government unions the right to bargain collectively, the Greek disease has reached crisis levels. Wisconsin faces a deficit estimated at $2.2 billion or more. Wisconsin and Greece have both used accounting gimmicks and fiddled statistics to conceal the state’s real fiscal condition, though Greece’s fraud reached stratospheric levels.
The protests in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya are against tyrannical governments; the protesters seek freedom and democracy. The protests in Athens and Madison are against the long-suffering taxpayers; the protesters seek to continue a political system that allows them privileged access to the public fisc.
Eat your heart out, Nashville and Lexington and Berkeley. Madison, Wisconsin, is truly the Athens of the West.
One Step Forward, One Step Back
This weekend I opened The Washington Post to find the editors arguing that Congress should cut federal subsidies to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Institute of Peace, and the National Endowment of the Arts, and George F. Will arguing that Congress should preserve federal subsidies to Teach for America.
Weird.
This Week in Government Failure
Over at Downsizing Government, we focused on the following issues this week:
- On getting out of Afghanistan.
- $61 billion in spending cuts amounts to less than a third of what taxpayers will pay in interest on the debt alone this year.
- The political stakes in the latest debt ceiling game are high. The consequences of failing to use it as an opportunity to start reining in the federal government are even higher.
- The IRS is handing out “free” candy.
- New data from the Federal Aviation Administration shows that reported air traffic control errors have increased by 81 percent since 2007.
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