Archive for March, 2011
What on Earth Is Ezra Klein Talking about?
The Washington Post‘s Ezra Klein writes:
It’s put-up-or-shut-up time for Republicans. They managed to make it through the health-care debate without offering serious solutions of their own, and – perhaps more impressive – through the election by promising to tell us their solutions after they’d won. But the jig is up. They need a health-care plan – and quickly.
The GOP knew this day would come.
Say what? Exactly what political factors are forcing the GOP to put up or shut up? Their base is happy; it wants an all-out assault on ObamaCare, and congressional Republicans are giving it to them. Republicans are even winning the ObamaCare debate among the broader public:
So why should Republicans all of a sudden stop attacking ObamaCare and start talking about their own refor–ohhhh…I see. Klein is trying to talk the dog off the meat wagon. Good luck with that.
Congressional Salary Windfalls: You Read It Here First
The Wall Street Journal reports Monday:
Departing members of the House of Representatives awarded millions of dollars in extra pay to aides as they closed down their offices, according to lawmakers’ spending records.
The 96 lawmakers paid their employees $6.7 million, or 31%, more in the fourth quarter of 2010 than they did, on average, in the first three quarters of the year….
Because most of the departing members were Democrats, fourth-quarter salary increases in 2010 for Democratic staffers were the largest in the decade LegiStorm has been gathering such data.
Republican staffers enjoyed a similar boost when many of their employers left office at the end of 2006.
And that last point sounded especially familiar. In 2007, I wrote in The Hill:
The year-end spending spree is a hallowed Washington tradition. Bureaucrats fear nothing more than the budget cuts that result if they don’t spend all the funds they’ve been allocated. And Congress frequently asks the Government Accountability Office to investigate the extent of late-breaking spending requests. But it turns out that legislators engage in their own spending binges, especially when control of Congress is shifting to the other party.
At the end of 2006, after the Democrats had won control of Congress but before they had taken office, the outgoing Republican majority voted its committee staffers unusually generous raises — with some staffers receiving significant double-digit bonuses.
After going through some specific examples from 2006 similar to those the Wall Street Journal found for 2010, I concluded:
Members of Congress are free to pay their staffers whatever they choose, up to an annual ceiling, so there’s nothing illegal about year-end bonuses, even year-end, post-election, before-the-other-party-gets-in bonuses.
But this pattern illustrates a big difference between the private and public sectors. In the private sector, if your customers become dissatisfied with your product, you tend to make less money. In the public sector, you get a couple of months to double-dip before you lose control of the money. For participating in a Congress that voters booted out of office, these bonuses are a handsome parting gift.
More Sensible Voices on Libya
My Cato colleagues have written on the current goings on in Libya (especially here and here), and I concur with their recommendations that the U.S. government should avoid intervening militarily in the conflict. For my part, I have hesitated to weigh in, convinced that I couldn’t offer much to the discussion.
But just when I thought I had seen enough regarding what the United States should do in Libya, I stumbled upon two posts over at the National Interest blog that deserve a closer look. Paul Pillar on Friday pointed out that the same people who were such strong proponents of war with Iraq — Charles Krauthammer, in this case — are back in the game, apparently unfazed by their disastrous predictions of the past. Pillar is particularly devastating in his critique of Krauthammer’s claim that if Egypt were as politically developed a year from now as Iraq is today, “we would think it a great success.” Pillar notes, correctly, that such a claim “speaks to how drastically standards of success were lowered as the United States sank into the Iraqi quagmire.”
Jacob Heilbrunn picks up on Paul’s point today and runs with it. I dispute the title, which suggests that everyone in the GOP agrees with the neocons about war, but the bottom line is sound. Challenging the Wall Street Journal‘s contention that President Obama’s supposed passivity is synonymous with George H.W. Bush’s refusal to intervene on the side of the Iraqi Shiites in 1991, Heilbrunn notes:
there is a distinction. The Obama administration did not encourage Libyans to overthrow the loathsome Gadhafi. Instead, Libyans are doing it themselves. Which is why Obama is right to be wary about inserting himself into a Libyan civil war that Gadhafi is likely to lose, whether or not American forces assists the rebel forces.
I commend both Pillar and Heilbrunn for their wisdom, and add them to the long list of sensible voices opposing U.S. intervention in Libya. The neocons can count Ahmed Chalabi in their corner.
Arrested for Pamphlets
The feds are seeking to jail 78-year old Julian Heicklen for distributing pamphlets. Heicklen knows that jurors are supposed to be able to vote their conscience in criminal cases — so he distributes pamphlets on that subject near the federal courthouse. The feds are evidently worried about the contents of those pamphlets and assert that Heicklen’s conduct amounts to “jury tampering.” But if Heicklen just gave the pamphlets to anyone and everyone, as he claims, without attempting to sway the outcome of any particular case, his conduct is free speech, plain and simple. Heicklen should get a jury trial to fight the free speech violation — since our Constitution says, “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury,” but prosecutors are going to invoke wrongheaded precedents that say this case can be tried before a judge, not a jury. Oh, and the police arrested another guy for simply videotaping Heicklen’s arrest. No pamphlets, no photography, no jury trial.
Cato co-published a book in defense of jury nullification in 1998. More here and here. (I am betting that books, blog posts, and law review articles are still legal should this post reach readers in New York City, but we’ll see about that.)
America’s ‘Aimless Absurdity’ In Afghanistan
Rasmussen reports that 52% of Americans want U.S. troops home from Afghanistan within a year, up from 43% last fall. Of course, polls are ephemeral snapshots of public opinion that can fluctuate with the prevailing political winds; nonetheless, it does appear that more Americans are slowly coming to realize the “aimless absurdity” of our nation-building project in Central Asia.
Earlier today (HT: HuffPo’s Amanda Terkel), former Republican senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”: “I don’t think we can afford Afghanistan much longer.” He continued: “The simple fact is that it’s costing us. Good people are losing their lives there, and we’re losing huge amount of resources there … So I think we should have a timeframe for getting out of Afghanistan, and it should be shorter rather than longer.”
Gregg is absolutely right. It is well past time to bring this long war to a swift end. Yet Gregg’s comments also reflect a growing bipartisan realization that prolonging our land war in Asia is weakening our country militarily and economically.
To politicians of any stripe, the costs on paper of staying in Afghanistan are jarring. Pentagon officials told the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee that it costs an average of $400 per gallon of fuel for the aircraft and combat vehicles operating in land-locked Afghanistan. The U.S. Agency for International Development has spent more than $7.8 billion on Afghanistan reconstruction since 2001, including building and refurbishing 680 schools and training thousands of civil servants. Walter Pincus, of The Washington Post, reported that the Army Corp of Engineers spent $4 billion last year on 720 miles of roads to transport troops in and around the war-ravaged country. It will spend another $4 to $6 billion this year, for 250 more miles.
War should no longer be a left-right issue. It’s a question of scarce resources and limiting the power of government. Opposition to the war in Afghanistan can no longer be swept under the carpet or dismissed as an issue owned by peaceniks and pacifists, especially when our men and women in uniform are being deployed to prop up a regime Washington doesn’t trust, for goals our president can’t define.
This Month at Cato Unbound: Neoconservatism Unmasked
This month, Cato Unbound examines neoconservatism — perhaps the most puzzling of current ideologies. The lead essay is from Professor C. Bradley Thompson, author of Neoconservatism: An Obituary for an Idea.
So what is it? Some say there’s no there there — neoconservatism is a disposition or a mood, no more and no less, and it’s got little or no enduring philosophical content. Thompson, however, argues that neoconservatism is a coherent political philosophy, one blending Machiavellian pragmatism with Platonic idealism. Philosophers may apprehend eternal truths, but these truths aren’t fit for ordinary folk, and still less are they a good basis for politics. In these realms, we need national unity, national greatness, national strength — in a word, nationalism.
Is this an accurate portrayal? Some will certainly disagree, and we’ve invited three distinguished panelists to engage Thompson’s thesis — Patrick J. Deneen of Georgetown University, Damon Linker of The New Republic, and Douglas B. Rasmussen of St. John’s University. Be sure to come back throughout the month, or subscribe to our RSS feed to see the conversation as it develops.
Should We Spend More on Failed Programs?
Last month, I testified before the House Education & the Workforce Committee. The most startling part of that experience was the response to my testimony offered by ranking Democrat George Miller (who had chaired the committee in the previous Congress.) The archived web-cast is now available, and Rep. Miller’s response begins at 42:29.
To set things up: I reported that the federal government has spent $2 trillion dollars on k-12 schooling over the past two generations, and failed to achieve either of its avowed goals (raising overall achievement, and narrowing the gaps by family income and minority status). To this, Rep. Miller replied:
I think when you look at student performance and you look at money and you want to say that somehow there should be some correlation there I think that’s wrong-headed.
Really? I know that Democrats support higher government spending than libertarians and conservatives, but it’s always been my understanding that they do this because they imagine the extra spending will actually accomplish something. I have never before heard anyone suggest that we should spend more taxpayer money without any expectation that spending is correlated with outcomes. I can’t believe that Rep. Miller’s view is widely shared by American voters—even by those who voted for him.
The congressman also made what I took to be an effort to undermine the test data I had presented, saying that “After No Child Left Behind, millions of people were added to the test pool that were left out before.”
With respect to the National Assessment of Educational Progress test score trends I presented during my testimony, this statement is incorrect. The NAEP Long Term Trends results have always been based on nationally representative samples of students and to my knowledge NCLB did not affect those sampling procedures in any way. I can only guess that Rep. Miller was referring to the NCLB’S effect on student participation in state tests, but if so his comment is not germane.
Congress really has spent 2 trillion taxpayer dollars and achieved neither of its avowed k-12 goals. Cutting these ineffective programs would save scores of billions annually.
A Most Frustrating Press Release
My colleagues and I see many questionable quotes and policy pronouncements from members of Congress, but one crossed my desk recently that really pushes the envelope.
Senator Jeff Sessions (R -AL) – he who caused some important trade policies to expire in December — is attempting to “right” that wrong by introducing new legislation (S. 433) to reinstate the policies. Essentially, he is trying to succeed where others (thankfully) failed, i.e., to carve-out legislatively certain products (sleeping bags) made in his state. In so doing, however, he filled his March 2 press release with a retinue of half-truths, disingenuous mis-interpretations and damaging dog-whistles. Let’s examine them one at a time, shall we? (All emphases are mine.)
Some Perspective on $61 Billion in Spending Cuts
Tad recently put $61 billion in spending cuts in perspective. I’ve added a few bells and whistles to his data. Enjoy.
Hey, National Curriculum Standardizers: Stop Lying to Us!
Today, a group of seventy-five national-standards crusaders released a manifesto calling for “shared curriculum guidelines” to accompany the Common Core State Standards. But don’t worry, the petitioners assure us, “use of the kinds of curriculum guidelines that we advocate in the core academic subjects would be purely voluntary.”
Oh please, please – stop lying to us!
Here’s the only absolutely clear thing that we’ve learned so far from the national standards push: Leading national standardizers do not want adoption of their plans to be truly voluntary.
Sure, they talk about creating mere “guidelines,” and states being free to choose what they’ll use, but they know reality full well: Whatever Washington connects to federal money becomes de facto mandatory, and they most certainly want their guidelines riveted to federal bucks.
Don’t believe me? Look no further than the federal Race to the Top program, which required that states adopt what for much of the time were unpublished national standards in order to meaningfully compete for part of $4.35 billion in federal dough.
“But wait”, standards mavens assert. “We didn’t ask for that and we really regret that the administration federalized our warm-and-fuzzy voluntary effort.”
Sorry, no dice. Many of these same people had been calling for federal funds to push national standards before there ever was a Race to the Top, or even an official Obama administration. In December 2008, national standards advocates put out Benchmarking for Success: Ensuring Students Receive a World-class Education, which among other things called for Washington to “offer a range of tiered incentives to make the next stage of the journey [toward national standards] easier.”
In this latest assault on honesty, the national standards crowd has done it again. You have to read their entire statement, but at the bottom you’ll find words that make it clear that “the undersigned” have no intention of having adoption of their guidelines be truly voluntary. They want Washington forcing states to eat the new curricula if states want back some of the money that came involuntarily from their citizens. The last of their ”recommendations” calls for:
7. Increasing federal investments in implementation support, in comparative international studies related to curriculum and instruction, and in evaluations aimed at finding the most effective curriculum sequences, curriculum materials, curricular designs, and instructional strategies.
You want this to be truly voluntary? Then you’d better keep federal money, especially for such things as “implementation support,” out of it. But by all indications national standardizers don’t want this to be truly voluntary. They just want us thinking they do.
New Polls Show Support for Civil Liberties
At the Britannica Blog I write:
Many commentators have seen a shift to the right in American politics over the past two years — the reaction to spending, bailouts, and Obamacare; the rise in conservative self-identification in polls; the 2010 elections. But there’s another trend going on as well. I described it in 2009 as a “civil liberties surge.” And this week there’s new evidence.
A new study from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press finds long-term growth in support for legal abortion, gun rights, marijuana legalization, and gay marriage.
The graphs on all these topics from Pew are pretty impressive, as is another one from the General Social Survey included in the Britannica post. I go on to note:
These new poll results should be no surprise. Part of the American project for more than 200 years has been extending the promises of the Declaration of Independence — life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness — to more and more people. America is a country fundamentally shaped by libertarian values and attitudes. In their book It Didn’t Happen Here: Why Socialism Failed in the United States, Seymour Martin Lipset and Gary Marx write, “The American ideology, stemming from the [American] Revolution, can be subsumed in five words: antistatism, laissez-faire, individualism, populism, and egalitarianism.” If Herbert McClosky and John Zaller are right that “[t]he principle here is that every person is free to act as he pleases, so long as his exercise of freedom does not violate the equal rights of others,” then marriage equality and marijuana freedom are only a matter of time.
And none of these socially liberal results challenge the general perception of a conservative trend, as long as that trend is understood as a reaction to bailouts, takeovers, and other elements of “big government.” Americans continue to tell pollsters they prefer “smaller government with fewer services” to “larger government with more services.”
So This Is Freedom? They Must Be Joking.
That’s the title of my latest Kaiser Health News column, which addresses President Obama’s offer to accelerate the waiver process that would allow states to replace many of ObamaCare‘s most offensive provisions:
If you think that means the president was himself exhibiting flexibility, you would be wrong. Despite the rhetoric about compromise, what the president actually did was offer states the option of replacing his law with a single-payer health care system three years earlier than his law allows…
HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has written that ObamaCare gives states “incredible freedom” to implement the law. We now know what she meant: states are free to coerce their residents even more than ObamaCare requires. What’s incredible is that she calls that freedom.
Apologies to to the Housemartins.
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