Archive for September, 2011
Cops on Camera in Fullerton, Calif.
In large part because of social media and consumer-level video technology, two Fullteron, Calif. police officers likely involved in the death of Kelly Thomas have now been charged with murder, manslaughter and excessive use of force. Reason.tv’s Paul Detrick has produced an excellent video detailing the events that led to the charges. Be warned: Some of the images presented here are quite disturbing.
Still many jurisdictions claim that they can arrest and charge individuals when they use video technology to document police engaged in their public duties, even when those people are documenting police abuse. Further, police agencies are often reluctant to use video documentation to show what happens in high-stakes police encounters like SWAT raids. Cato’s “Cops on Camera” video last year provides some context about how technology can be used by individuals and should be used by police to help document how police do their jobs.
This Week in Government Failure
Over at Downsizing the Federal Government, we focused on the following issues this past week:
- Interesting thoughts on reforming the U.S. Postal Service.
- If our bloated federal government is ever to be reined in, a return to fiscal federalism is a must. And if the states are to get their financial houses in order, state policymakers can’t be allowed to believe that a federal policy of “too big to fail” applies to them.
- Chris Edwards says that Warren Buffet’s tax story is bogus.
- Unless spending and deficits are cut, the United States is headed for economic ruin as growth falls and rising debt threatens further financial crises.
- There’s no point getting worked up about government waste if you’re also getting checks from the U.S. Treasury or demanding that the government solve society’s problems.
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Elizabeth Warren, Fair Play, and Soaking the Rich
Elizabeth Warren’s recent remarks on class warfare, made during a campaign stop in her quest for a Massachusetts U.S. Senate seat, provide a nice microcosm of the broader philosophical views behind much contemporary political debate.
Here’s Warren:
The relevant bit that has her supporters so fired up goes like this:
I hear all this, oh this is class warfare, no! There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there–good for you.
But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory.
Now look. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea–God Bless! Keep a Big Hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.
Fully exploring the thinking behind Warren’s remarks would demand a book at least. We might point out that most of the rich got that way by creating value for others, meaning they gave back in the process of getting rich. Or we might wonder if her thinking implies that, because the state is responsible in part for the environment in which all of us earned what we have, the state is the actual owner of what we have.
On Waste in the Justice Department
An audit released this week by the Department of Justice’s inspector general details wasteful and extravagant spending at DOJ conferences under both the Bush and Obama administrations. Stories about waste in government programs are as common as ants, but this one appears to have struck a nerve across the country—perhaps because the president is trying to convince us that Washington needs more money.
Yesterday I discussed the issue of $16 muffins at DOJ conferences on radio stations from California to New York, with points in between. The most common question I received was, “How can wasteful spending be stopped?” As I told listeners, the only way to stop it is to not give the offending agency or program any more money. Otherwise, government employees will continue wasting money for the simple reason that it isn’t their money. And because the government isn’t a business, politicians and government employees don’t have to be concerned with improving the bottom line. In short, there’s little incentive for the government not to waste money.
Politicians typically respond to stories about government waste by condemning the situation and promising to fix it. Government waste actually creates a good opportunity for politicians to feign concern for taxpayers. Reason’s Matt Welch explains:
The nation’s current and future deficit is driven overwhelmingly by health care, military and retirement spending, each of which involve ever-increasing promises that have proved politically career-threatening to scale back.
That’s why politicians prefer instead to talk about $16 muffins and $600 toilet seats—it’s the least expensive way to simulate fiscal responsibility. The boy who cries muffin while signing onto every new major entitlement and military adventure is not in any position to deliver lectures about tax-dollar stewardship. And never forget that the spending frenzy is distinctly bipartisan: Even alleged fiscal radical Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, voted for the Troubled Assets Relief Program, the Iraq War and Medicare Part D.
Sadly, a lot of Americans buy it, which is why politicians keep selling it. As I’ve previously discussed, a majority of Americans erroneously believe that the federal budget’s imbalances can be fixed by just eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse. That’s why I made it a point to remind listeners that there’s no point getting worked up about government waste if they’re also getting checks from the U.S. Treasury or demanding that the government solve society’s problems. As Welch puts it, “As long as we believe that government is good at creating jobs and stimulating the economy, we’re going to be stuffed by much more than just $16 muffins.”
How Do You Get to the Supreme Court?
So you want to know how the case of Good v. Evil ends up at the Supreme Court, providing fodder for all us legal pundits to digest and expound upon? The Institute for Justice has come out with an entertaining video going through the basics of trial and appellate procedure—essentially a “How a Bill Becomes a Law” for the legal practice set.
It’s really the best way to procrastinate on a rainy Friday afternoon:
Look for the volume of the Cato Supreme Court Review that appears briefly as the narrator describes the various materials attorneys have to read to get a good grasp on their case.
The Solyndra Story Keeps Unfolding
Is the taxpayers’ lost $535 million in the green-energy company Solyndra just an unfortunate business failure, or is there something more scandalous involved? You should read every word of this front-page New York Times article. Sure, it says that “no evidence has emerged that political favoritism played a role in what administration officials assert were merit-based decisions.” But the story is full of smoking guns.
Here’s the opening:
President Obama’s visit to the Solyndra solar panel factory in California last year was choreographed down to the last detail—the 20-by-30-foot American flags, the corporate banners hung just so, the special lighting, even coffee and doughnuts for the Secret Service detail.
“It’s here that companies like Solyndra are leading the way toward a brighter and more prosperous future,” the president declared in May 2010 to the assembled workers and executives. The start-up business had received a $535 million federal loan guarantee, offered in part to reassert American dominance in solar technology while generating thousands of jobs.
But behind the pomp and pageantry, Solyndra was rotting inside, hemorrhaging cash so quickly that within weeks of Mr. Obama’s visit, the company canceled plans to offer shares to the public. Barely a year later, Solyndra has become one of the administration’s most costly fumbles after the company declared bankruptcy, laid off 1,100 workers and was raided by F.B.I. agents seeking evidence of possible fraud.
Solyndra’s two top officers are to appear Friday before a House investigative committee where, their lawyers say, they will assert their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
Eyes Wide Shut to Trade Policies That Would Encourage Domestic Investment and Hiring
The Congressional Joint Economic Committee held a hearing this week entitled “Manufacturing in the USA: How U.S. Trade Policy Offshores Jobs.” The intended purpose of the hearing was to examine how foreign unfair trade practices encourage the offshoring of U.S. manufacturing. Thankfully, not all witnesses stayed within the contours of that presumption.
I say “thankfully” because the incessant focus of politicians on fixing the policies and practices of foreign governments, as though they were the primary impediments to U.S. business success at home and abroad, is a diversion that should no longer be tolerated. It gives the appearance that our elected officials are earnestly seeking appropriate solutions, while further obscuring the real solutions. Meanwhile, it protects incumbents from having to make substantive, consequential choices.
I’ve written lately (in this policy paper and in this op-ed) about how U.S. trade policy undermines the competitiveness of U.S. firms and chases some producers offshore. But I find some of the greatest impediments to U.S. firms’ success to be homegrown, domestic policies that place unnecessary restrictions and burdens on U.S. firms trying to compete in a global economy.
I elaborated on those points in written testimony submitted to the committee, the introduction of which follows:
Too many U.S. policymakers, from Capitol Hill to the various executive branch agencies in Washington, tend to focus on foreign policies and foreign barriers when considering how best to improve the competitive prospects for U.S. firms. The presumption is that the major impediments to the success of U.S. firms are foreign born. Closed foreign markets, complex laws and regulations, overt flaunting of the trade rules, subtle protectionism, and unfair trade are the primary culprits that subvert the success of U.S. firms, discourage investment and hiring, and encourage offshoring of production. Indeed, that is the premise of today’s hearing, as inferred from its description on the Committee’s website.
But that premise is myopic and, frankly, irresponsible. It reinforces arguments for nonsensical policies, such as preserving our own barriers to trade and investment, which are nothing more than costs to U.S. businesses and families. Policies that raise the cost of doing business in the United States—such as our tariff regime and the trade remedies duties that the U.S. government imposes on broad swaths of industrial inputs—encourage manufacturers to at least consider moving operations abroad, where those materials are available at better prices.
Governments are competing for business investment and talent, which both tend to flow to jurisdictions where the rule of law is clear and abided; where there is greater certainty to the business and political climate; where the specter of asset expropriation is negligible; where physical and administrative infrastructure is in good shape; where the local work force is productive; where there are limited physical, political, and administrative frictions. This global competition in policy is a positive development. But we are kidding ourselves if we think that the United States is somehow immune from this dynamic and does not have to compete and earn its share with good policies. The decisions made now with respect to our policies on immigration, education, energy, trade, entitlements, taxes, and the role of government in managing the economy will determine the health, competitiveness, and relative significance of the U.S. economy in the decades ahead.
Obama’s Double-Secret Violation of the Constitution
Though few people outside of the Tea Party—especially politicians—have the guts to say it, federal education control like the No Child Left Behind Act is blatantly unconstitutional. Authority over education is not among the federal government’s enumerated powers, and laws like the NCLB—which truly is a wreck driven by what self-interested politicians thought sounded good—also go far beyond the 14th Amendment’s charge to prohibit discrimination by state and local governments.
But not satisfied to just have Washington fully ensconced in classrooms, this morning the Obama administration officially went to double-secret violation of the Constitution, adding a brazen dumping of the separation of powers to federal education policy.
This second layer of Constitution-contempt comes in the form of the administration telling states that they can get waivers from the No Child Left Behind Act—which the NCLB allows—but requiring that they adopt administration-approved policies to do so. That second part the NCLB does not allow, meaning the president has decided to rewrite the law all by himself—including strong-arming states to adopt “college and career ready standards,” another step toward federal curriculum standards—even though the Constitution is crystal clear: “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States.”
In response to this, will we finally hear the Constitution loudly, constantly, and honestly invoked and defended by members of Congress, especially those in the GOP who don’t have the obstacle of having to defend “their” president? We sure as heck should, but don’t count on it: If they start really defending the Constitution now, think of all the violations they’ve happily perpetrated that someone might notice. No, better to keep up the double-secret evasion and complain on other grounds, like President Obama is being too “political.” Because no one in Congress—or anywhere else—would ever act based on political motives, such as concluding that “Constitution, shmonstitution, we can’t push to get the Feds completely out of education because people would think we are mean.”
No, political thinking like that would never happen.
Congress on Transparency: ‘Needs Improvement’
“Needs improvement” is the understated theme of a Capitol Hill briefing this morning entitled “Publication Practices for Transparent Government: Rating the Congress.” (Live-streamed starting at 9:00 am. If timely, check it out—the video will come up before too long also—and join the conversation on Twitter at the #RateCongress hashtag.)
Congress needs to improve its data publication practices if it’s going to be the transparent legislature that it should be.
How did we arrive at this conclusion? We’re doing more than stating the obvious.
A Cato Briefing Paper released today entitled “Publication Practices for Transparent Government” goes through some technically challenging but essential concepts in data publication: authoritative sourcing, availability, machine-discoverability, and machine-readability. Together, these practices will allow computers to automatically generate the myriad stories that the data Congress produces have to tell. Following these practices will allow many different users to put the data to hundreds of new uses in government oversight.
At the event, we’re releasing informal grades that rate how each of the major parts of the legislative process are published as data. To produce the grades, we constructed a “data model” of formal federal legislative processes (HTML version, Word version).
Questioning the Drone Wars
The Washington Post reported Tuesday that we are building more unmanned aerial vehicle bases around the Horn of Africa and Yemen to strike al Qaeda militants.
For a critical take on drone strikes in both places, read what I wrote here in July. I discuss the danger of conflating all jihadist militants with those bent on attacking us. Here’s the bit on Somalia.
Since our recent drone strike in Somalia on leaders of the al-Shabab insurgent group, the administration has claimed that Shabab’s leaders are plotting terrorism against American or western targets. The only evidence given for this assertion is vague claims of Shabab’s ties to Yemeni militants and its claim of responsibility for a 2010 terrorist bombing in Uganda. But that bombing came because Ugandan troops are in the African Union force fighting al-Shabab. While reprehensible, the attack does not show a desire to terrorize Americans.
At the risk of sounding quaint, Congress should make the administration substantiate its claims that Shabab is targeting Americans before we bomb them further. We have enough insurgents to fight these days outside Somalia.
I also questioned the Bush administration’s claims about the Shabaab-al Qaeda nexus here in 2008.
Prior links and several al Qaeda guys in the mix, while worrying, do not mean that organization is going to attack Americans, and is therefore one we should target.
Mixing a “war on terrorism” with the promiscuous designation of Islamic insurgent organizations as terrorists is a recipe for spending the next century tied up in other people’s civil wars. There’s a self-fulfilling aspect to this policy. Declaring war on insurgents may cause them to attack Americans or ally with those who do. There’s evidence that this dynamic is already occurring in Somalia.
Last month, I wrote a post for the National Interest about drone strikes in Pakistan, arguing that no one really knows how well they work. That uncertainty, combined with secrecy, is, I argue, good reason to oppose them. The principle applies elsewhere. Our leaders should have to work harder to make war.
Finally, globe-trotting reporter David Axe criticized U.S. policy toward Somalia in a 2009 Cato Policy Analysis, arguing for a more hands-off approach.
What Is Judicial Activism?
Nearly a year ago, I had an engaging debate at Berkeley Law School regarding “judicial activism.” Of course, as I clarified, the phrase is really just an epithet hurled by someone to describe a legal ruling with which he disagrees. The whole argument about whether a certain judge is “activist,” “restrained,” or anything else is irrelevant: fidelity to the Constitution should be the sole evaluative criterion—and point of debate—regardless of whether that means striking down a law or upholding it, deferring to the legislature or not.
As I said during this debate (which was against a young law professor named Fred Smith),
The purveyors of conventional punditry all miss the larger point. The role of the judiciary in terms of constitutional interpretation is to fully interpret and apply the Constitution, period. So, if that means upholding a law, fine. If that means striking it down, fine. Activism is doing something that is not supposed to be the judicial role or not being faithful to the Constitution, which is no small task in part because of the doctrinal mess the Supreme Court has made. Again, whether a particular statute stands or falls is of no moment. Fidelity to the founding document should be the touchstone, not a circular debate over the virtues of judicial restraint or—as John Roberts put it at his confirmation hearing—modesty: just calling balls and strikes, just being in a kind of modest judicial role. Again, where you stand on those sorts of debates depends on where you sit.
I can quote this debate because a transcript has been published in the Federalist Society’s journal, Engage. The current volume has plenty of other interesting articles, including some authored by various Cato-affiliated or -friendly folks.
Cato Conference: Ending the Global War on Drugs
On Tuesday, November 15, Cato will be hosting a day-long drug policy conference on Ending the Global War on Drugs. This issue, which has always been a crucial part of libertarian thought, has picked up wider support in recent decades. More and more people are realizing two fundamental truths about the war on drugs: 1) that the government has no place in deciding what you are or are not allowed to put in your body, and 2) that, even if it did, the costs associated with prohibition are, well, prohibitively high.
One of these costs, the effect that drug prohibition has had on South America and Mexico, will be highlighted at the November conference. Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the former President of Brazil, Luis Alberto Lacalle Pou, the Speaker of the House of Deputies in Uruguay, and Jorge Castañeda, former Minister of Foreign Affairs in Mexico, will all be on hand to discuss the effects of prohibition in their home countries.
The conference also features Glenn Greenwald, prominent Salon blogger and civil libertarian, as well as the author of one of our most-cited white papers, Drug Decriminalization in Portugal: Lessons for Creating Fair and Successful Drug Policies. It should be a fantastic event. For those who may still be on the fence about ending drug prohibition, I advise taking a look at LearnLiberty’s excellent new video featuring Dr. Stephen Davies:
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