Author Archive
George W. Bush: The Washington Times as the Onion
Yesterday I thought I was reading the Onion. The Washington Times headlined its article “Bush Warns of Dangers of too Much Government”:
Former President George W. Bush said Thursday that America must resist the “temptation” to allow the government to take over the private sector, taking a subtle shot at his Democratic successor by warning that too much state intervention and protectionism will squelch the economic recovery.
As the Obama administration has made far-reaching moves into the auto, real estate, health care and financial sectors to fight the economic recession, Mr. Bush, without mentioning the president by name, said, “The role of government is not to create wealth but to create the conditions that allow entrepreneurs and innovators to thrive.
“As the world recovers, we will face a temptation to replace the risk-and-reward model of the private sector with the blunt instruments of government spending and control. History shows that the greater threat to prosperity is not too little government involvement, but too much,” said Mr. Bush, who has remained out of the limelight since leaving office and rarely criticizes his successor.
Mr. Bush has addressed private groups since leaving the White House in January, but Thursday’s speech, delivered at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, was his first major public policy address since leaving office
Mr. Big Spender, aka George “ break the budget, expand Medicare, centralize control of education in Washington, bail out anyone and everyone, violate civil liberties, treat the president as an elective dictator, and initiate a needless war” Bush, is worried about government doing too much.
I can’t take it any more. I’ve been working in Washington too long.
Filed under: Government and Politics; Political Philosophy
Iraq: Making Few Friends and Less Profits
When the Bush administration started its misguided adventure in Iraq, the president and his Neocon chorus presumed that the U.S. would be acquiring a loyal, even obseqious ally. With the American-subsidized bank embezzler Ahmed Chalabi in charge, Baghdad would create a Western-style democracy, enshrine women’s rights, recognize Israel, provide the U.S. with permanent military bases, and offer a new market for American businesses.
Alas, we’ve struck out: zero for five. Although America’s uber-hawks bridled at reference to our “occupation” of Iraq, Iraqis had no hesitation in using the word and surprised the Bushies by demanding a deadline for the withdrawal of American forces. And Iraqi opposition to the U.S. occupation has affected their attitude toward Americans in other areas.
Although none of this is, or at least should be, surprising, the lack of success by private U.S. companies should provide a particularly powerful lesson of the perils of intervention. Reports the New York Times:
Iraq’s Baghdad Trade Fair ended Tuesday, six years and a trillion dollars after the American invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, and one country was conspicuously absent.That would be the country that spent a trillion dollars — on the invasion and occupation, but also on training and equipping Iraqi security forces, and on ambitious reconstruction projects in every province aimed at rebuilding the country and restarting the economy.
Yet when the post-Saddam Iraqi government swept out its old commercial fairgrounds and invited companies from around the world, the United States was not much in evidence among the 32 nations represented. Of the 396 companies that exhibited their wares, “there are two or three American participants, but I can’t remember their names,” said Hashem Mohammed Haten, director general of Iraq’s state fair company. A pair of missiles atop a ceremonial gateway to the fairgrounds recalled an era when Saddam Hussein had pretensions, if not weapons, of mass destruction.
The trade fair is a telling indication of an uncomfortable truth: America’s war in Iraq has been good for business in Iraq — but not necessarily for American business.
American companies are not seeing much lasting benefit from their country’s investment in Iraq. Some American businesses have calculated that the high security costs and fear of violence make Iraq a business no-go area. Even those who are interested and want to come are hampered by American companies’ reputation here for overcharging and shoddy workmanship, an outgrowth of the first years of the occupation, and a lasting and widespread anti-Americanism.
While Iraq’s imports nearly doubled in 2008, to $43.5 billion from $25.67 billion in 2007, imports from American companies stayed flat at $2 billion over that period. Among investors, the United Arab Emirates leads the field, with $31 billion invested in Iraq, most of that in 2008, compared to only about $400 million from American companies when United States government reconstruction spending is excluded, according to Dunia Frontier Consultants, an emerging-market analyst. “Following this initial U.S.-dominated reconstruction phase, U.S. private investors have become negligible players in Iraq,” Dunia said in a report.
So much for the old theory of mercantilism.
Think about it. The U.S. overthrows the dictator, pours in billions of dollars for reconstruction projects, and promotes democratic elections — and instead of applauding America and filling the land with statues to George W. Bush, the locals prefer to buy goods from other people. Maybe invading and bombing other countries, disrupting and wrecking other societies, and killing and injuring other people isn’t the best way to promote good relations with the rest of the world.
Afghanistan: A Run-Off with One Candidate?
It appears that opposition candidate Abdullah Abdullah won’t contest the run-off which the U.S. forced on President Hamid Karzai after the latter’s supporters stole votes with great fanfare in the initial poll. But Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says don’t worry, be happy. Reports Reuters:
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Saturday that a decision by Abdullah Abdullah not to contest a second round of the Afghan presidential election would not affect the vote’s legitimacy. Asked at a news conference in Jerusalem about reports that aides to the first-round runner-up said he would not run, Clinton did not make clear whether she was confirming that Abdullah would not run but she said: “I think that it is his decision to make.” She continued: “I do not think it affects the legitimacy. There have been other situations in our own country as well as around the world where in a run-off election one of the parties decides for whatever reason that they are not going to go on.”
If Secretary Clinton believes this, she is not only smoking but inhaling. The U.S.-supported president in a nominal democracy at the center of a concerted nation-building campaign committed massive electoral fraud. Only under extreme pressure did he agree to a run-off (when is the last time a candidate’s agreement was required to hold a run-off set by law in the U.S.?). Now the leading opposition candidate has given up the contest, doubting its feasibility and fairness.
This doesn’t affect President Karzai’s (fast dwindling) credibility?
The Obama administration needs to narrow U.S. objectives, focus on counter-terrorism rather than counter-insurgency, and begin withdrawing American combat forces. I make these arguments in a new article on the Huffington Post.
The Rising Cost of War in Afghanistan
As Iraq collapsed into sectarian fratricide, the primary victims were Iraqis. As combat rises in Afghanistan, Americans and other allied personnel are the primary targets. And the casualty toll is rising.
More than 1,000 American troops have been wounded in battle over the past three months in Afghanistan, accounting for one-fourth of those injured in combat since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.
The dramatic increase in amputees and other seriously injured service members comes as October marks the deadliest month for U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
Expanded military operations, a near-doubling of the number of troops since the beginning of the year and a Taliban offensive that has included a proliferation of roadside bombings have led to the great increase in casualties. U.S. troops in Afghanistan are suffering wounds at a higher rate than those who were serving in Iraq when violence spiraled during the military “surge” two years ago. In mid-2007, 600 U.S. troops were wounded in Iraq each month out of about 150,000 troops deployed there. In Afghanistan, about 68,000 troops are currently installed, with about 350 wounded each month recently.
Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell acknowledged that the casualties in Afghanistan have surpassed Iraq surge proportions and noted that the violence in Afghanistan is directed more against U.S. and other coalition forces, whereas it was heavily sectarian in Iraq. “It shows you how we are the targets and how effectively they are targeting us,” Morrell said.
President Obama should ponder well the rising costs as he considers U.S. strategy in Afghanistan. First, what is Washington hoping to achieve, and are the benefits worth ever more American deaths and injuries? Second, whatever he thinks is the best strategy, are the American people likely to support it over the long term? There would be nothing more foolish than to escalate and plan for years of war only to be forced into a speedy and unplanned withdrawal as the public demanded an end to what it saw as a useless conflict.
Defending America should be the administration’s top priority. That means a strategy of counter-terrorism rather than counter-insurgency. However much we might want to transform Afghan society and government, we are not likely to be able to do so at reasonable cost in reasonable time. We should step back from the brink rather than take the plunge into the potentially bottomless Afghan abyss.
New Poll Shows Support for Lifting Travel Ban to Cuba
Even Cuban-Americans appear to have turned against U.S. policy. Reports the Miami Herald:
A new poll of Cuban Americans shows a strong majority favor allowing all Americans to travel to the island, a major shift from a 2002 survey that showed only a minority supporting the change, the Bendixen & Associates polling firm reported Tuesday.
Executive Vice President Fernand Amandi said he was surprised by the magnitude of the swing in just seven years — from 46 percent in favor in 2002 to 59 percent in the Sept. 24-26 survey. Only 29 percent were opposed in the new survey, compared to 47 percent in 2002.
…A campaign to allow all Americans to travel to Cuba has become a key Washington battleground this year for those who favor and oppose easing U.S. sanctions on the island. Permitting such travel would allow U.S. tourists to visit Cuba. Only Cuban Americans are now allowed virtually unrestricted travel to the island.
At least three bills lifting all restrictions on travel are now before Congress — two in the House and one in the Senate. While most analysts believe the House may well approve some version of the measure, they say it will have little chance of gaining Senate approval because of opposition from Sen. Bob Menendez, a powerful Democrat.
One would think that even the most rabid hawk could agree that a policy which has failed for 50 years has … failed. There’s no guarantee that ending economic sanctions would spur political liberalization in Cuba. But after a half century of failure, it makes sense to try something else.
I’m From the Government, and I’m Here to Give You a Golf Cart
How would we be managing if Congress hadn’t voted to subsidize virtually everyone everywhere in the name of stimulating the economy? Well, taxpayers wouldn’t be buying people golf carts. It turns out that golf carts meet the federal criteria for high-mileage cars in the stimulus legislation.
Editorializes the Wall Street Journal:
We thought cash for clunkers was the ultimate waste of taxpayer money, but as usual we were too optimistic. Thanks to the federal tax credit to buy high-mileage cars that was part of President Obama’s stimulus plan, Uncle Sam is now paying Americans to buy that great necessity of modern life, the golf cart.
The federal credit provides from $4,200 to $5,500 for the purchase of an electric vehicle, and when it is combined with similar incentive plans in many states the tax credits can pay for nearly the entire cost of a golf cart. Even in states that don’t have their own tax rebate plans, the federal credit is generous enough to pay for half or even two-thirds of the average sticker price of a cart, which is typically in the range of $8,000 to $10,000. “The purchase of some models could be absolutely free,” Roger Gaddis of Ada Electric Cars in Oklahoma said earlier this year. “Is that about the coolest thing you’ve ever heard?”
The golf-cart boom has followed an IRS ruling that golf carts qualify for the electric-car credit as long as they are also road worthy. These qualifying golf carts are essentially the same as normal golf carts save for adding some safety features, such as side and rearview mirrors and three-point seat belts. They typically can go 15 to 25 miles per hour.
In South Carolina, sales of these carts have been soaring as dealerships alert customers to Uncle Sam’s giveaway. “The Golf Cart Man” in the Villages of Lady Lake, Florida is running a banner online ad that declares: “GET A FREE GOLF CART. Or make $2,000 doing absolutely nothing!”
In a normal world this would be shocking, even scandalous news. Taxpayer money wasted buying carts for golfers. Uncle Sam as reverse Robin Hood, stealing from the needy to enrich well-heeled golfers. Legislators would be scrambling to change the law.
But the issue has earned barely a peep in Washington. No surprise, those benefiting from Washington’s largesse aren’t complaining. After all, they consider it to be just about “the coolest thing” around.
And with legislators now used to wasting not just billions but trillions of dollars, what are a few thousand wasted dollars on a golf cart or two? This nonsensical tax write-off is barely a rounding error in the federal budget today. The 2009 deficit was $1.4 trillion. The federal government is likely to run up another $10 trillion in red ink over the next decade — assuming away a deluge of new bail-outs of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Federal Housing Administration, and the host of other money-losing federal subsidy operations. What of golf cart subsidies? Not worth a second look.
The golf cart subsidy gives new meaning to the old line: I’m from the government, and I’m here to help you. The only people not on Uncle Sam’s “to help” list are taxpayers.
Filed under: Government and Politics; Political Philosophy; Tax and Budget Policy
Totalitarian Leftovers in Eastern Europe
The Berlin Wall fell 20 years ago. A hideous symbol of the suppression of liberty, it should remind us of the ever-present threat to our freedoms. Even two decades later the legacy of repression continues to afflict many people in Eastern Europe. For instance, those in countries formerly behind the Iron Curtain still struggle with the knowledge that their friends and neighbors routinely spied on them.
Stelian Tanase found out when he asked to see the thick file that Romania’s communist-era secret police had kept on him. The revelation nearly knocked the wind out of him: His closest pal was an informer who regularly told agents what Tanase was up to.
“In a way, I haven’t even recovered today,” said Tanase, a novelist who was placed under surveillance and had his home bugged during the late dictator Nicolae Ceausescu’s regime.
“He was the one person on Earth I had the most faith in,” he said. “And I never, ever suspected him.”
Twenty years ago this autumn, communism collapsed across Eastern Europe. But its dark legacy endures in the unanswered question of the files — whether letting the victims read them cleanses old wounds or rips open new ones.
Things have never been so bad here, obviously, but that gives us even more reason to jealously guard our liberties. Defend America we must, but we must never forget that it is a republic which we are defending.
Filed under: Foreign Policy and National Security; Law and Civil Liberties; Political Philosophy
In Canada You Need Wait-List Insurance!
Governments love to promise benefits. But politicians prefer not to have to raise the funds necessary to provide the promised services. The result for nationalized medical systems is political rationing … and long waiting lists. The Mackinac Institute, located in Michigan, has produced a series of videos on Canadians speaking about how their system works. The British Columbia Automobile Association even developed medical access, or wait list, insurance, before abandoning the program under pressure.
Filed under: Government and Politics; Health, Welfare & Entitlements
A Bankrupt FHA: It’s Only Money, Part XXVI
Think the bailouts are over? Think again! The Federal Housing Administration could become the next Fannie Mae.
Problems at the Federal Housing Administration, which guarantees mortgages with low down payments, are becoming so acute that some experts warn the agency might need a federal bailout.
Running questions about the F.H.A.’s future — underscored by interviews with policy makers, analysts and home buyers — came to the fore on Thursday on Capitol Hill. In testimony before a House subcommittee, the F.H.A. commissioner, David H. Stevens, assured lawmakers that his agency would not need a bailout and that it was managing its risks.
But he acknowledged that some 20 percent of F.H.A. loans insured last year — and as many as 24 percent of those from 2007 — faced serious problems including foreclosure, offering a preview of a forthcoming audit of the agency’s finances.
We’ve already spent about $13 trillion bailing out banks, financial institutions, automakers, insurance companies, and most everyone else. So what’s another few billion dollars among friends? As they say, it’s only money!
What to Do When Your Ally Is the Aggressor?
That’s what Washington should ask itself after the new European Union report on the Russo-Georgian war last year. The EU has affirmed what long seemed apparent to independent observers: America’s ally, the government of President Mikheil Saakashvili, started the conflict. Which means in supporting Saakashvili the Bush administration backed the aggressor.
Russia comes in for abundant criticism — after all, it took advantage of Saakashvili’s irresponsible aggressiveness to retaliate destructively. But on the essential point the EU blamed Tbilisi. Reports the Wall Street Journal:
In a statement, Ms. Tagliavini was blunt. “In the Mission’s view, it was Georgia which triggered off the war when it attacked Tskhinvali with heavy artillery on the night of 7 to 8 August 2008. …In particular, there was no massive Russian military invasion under way,” she said.
Washington’s support for the Georgian government probably encouraged Saakashvili to attempt the military conquest of South Ossetia, which had seceded with Russia’s assistance. After all, you are likely to take far greater risks if you believe the U.S. has your back. And if he was willing to start a war in expectation of U.S. military support against Moscow outside of NATO, imagine what he would do with his nation as a member of NATO.
Many Americans apparently believe that Russia is a paper tiger and would never challenge a U.S. security guarantee. But both World Wars I and II began in spite of alliance commitments. Deterrence failed. And it likely would have failed in the Caucasus even if Tbilisi had belonged to NATO. Russia’s border security is a vital interest to Moscow but largely irrelevant to America. Thus, Russia still would have had strong cause to act, while it still would have been in Washington’s interest to do nothing. The result likely would have been the same: a Georgian defeat, magnified by even greater humiliation of America and Europe, forced to stand by as their official ally was crushed.
The only worse result would have been the U.S. and “Old Europe” putting force behind their NATO commitment. We survived the Cold War without conflict between the major nuclear-armed powers. To risk a nuclear confrontation over a war started by an authoritarian nationalist contrary to American interests would be foolhardy beyond belief.
Georgia illustrates how carelessly collecting allies and passing out security guarantees is a prescription for insecurity and potential disaster. Americans should sympathize with the Georgian people, who have been ill-served by their own government as well as mistreated by the Russian government. But that’s no reason to risk war on Tbilisi’s behalf. Instead of continuing to expand NATO, Washington should begin the process of turning Europe’s security over to Europe.
Pakistan: More Aid, More Waste, More Fraud?
Pakistan long has tottered on the edge of being a failed state: created amidst a bloody partition from India, suffered under ineffective democratic rule and disastrous military rule, destabilized through military suppression of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) by dominant West Pakistan, dismembered in a losing war with India, misgoverned by a corrupt and wastrel government, linked to the most extremist Afghan factions during the Soviet occupation, allied with the later Taliban regime, and now destabilized by the war in Afghanistan. Along the way the regime built nuclear weapons, turned a blind eye to A.Q. Khan’s proliferation market, suppressed democracy, tolerated religious persecution, elected Asif Ali “Mr. Ten Percent” Zardari as president, and wasted billions of dollars in foreign (and especially American) aid.
Still the aid continues to flow. But even the Obama administration has some concerns about ensuring that history does not repeat itself. Reports the New York Times:
As the United States prepares to triple its aid package to Pakistan — to a proposed $1.5 billion over the next year — Obama administration officials are debating how much of the assistance should go directly to a government that has been widely accused of corruption, American and Pakistani officials say. A procession of Obama administration economic experts have visited Islamabad, the capital, in recent weeks to try to ensure both that the money will not be wasted by the government and that it will be more effective in winning the good will of a public increasingly hostile to the United States, according to officials involved with the project.
…The overhaul of American assistance, led by the State Department, comes amid increased urgency about an economic crisis that is intensifying social unrest in Pakistan, and about the willingness of the government there to sustain its fight against a raging insurgency in the northwest. It follows an assessment within the Obama administration that the amount of nonmilitary aid to the country in the past few years was inadequate and favored American contractors rather than Pakistani recipients, according to several of the American officials involved.
Rather than pouring more good money after bad, the U.S. should lift tariff barriers on Pakistani goods. What the Pakistani people need is not more misnamed “foreign aid” funneled through corrupt and inefficient bureaucracies, but jobs. Trade, not aid, will help create real, productive work, rather than political patronage positions.
Pat Tillman Saw the Iraq War as Folly
Pat Tillman, who gave up a lucrative NFL career to join the Army after 9/11, was a true patriot: he wanted to defend America, not conduct social engineering overseas. That led him to oppose the Iraq war.
According to a new book, Tillman, who was killed by friendly fire in 2004 and hailed as an all-American hero by the former president, was disillusioned by Mr Bush and his administration’s “illegal and unjust” drive to war.
In Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman, by Jon Krakauer, the author relates the strong views of Tillman – who gave up his NFL football career to serve his country – and his brother Kevin, who joined the same Rangers unit.
The war “struck them as an imperial folly that was doing long-term damage to US interests,” Krakauer claims.
“The brothers lamented how easy it had been for Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld to bully secretary of state Colin Powell, both the houses of Congress, and the majority of the American people into endorsing the invasion of Iraq.”
Tillman was a true citizen soldier. Not only did he leave private life to serve in the military after his nation was attacked, but he believed it was his responsibility to look beyond the self-serving rhetoric of politicians to judge the wisdom of the wars which they initiated. The rest of us should remember his skepticism when confronted with the willingness of politicians of both parties to continue sacrificing American lives in conflicts with little or no relevance to American security.
When Stimulus Is No Stimulus
The Obama administration has been touting its wasteful “stimulus” package as the answer to the recession. Now that Uncle Sam has started his spending binge, John Cogan, John Taylor, and Volker Wieland assess the result. Their conclusion: for all of the money spent, the effort wasn’t much of a stimulus.
They write in the Wall Street Journal:
Direct evidence of an impact by government spending can be found in 1.8 of the 5.4 percentage-point improvement from the first to second quarter of this year. However, more than half of this contribution was due to defense spending that was not part of the stimulus package. Of the entire $787 billion stimulus package, only $4.5 billion went to federal purchases and $17.7 billion to state and local purchases in the second quarter. The growth improvement in the second quarter must have been largely due to factors other than the stimulus package.
Incoming data will reveal more in coming months, but the data available so far tell us that the government transfers and rebates have not stimulated consumption at all, and that the resilience of the private sector following the fall 2008 panic not the fiscal stimulus program deserves the lion’s share of the credit for the impressive growth improvement from the first to the second quarter. As the economic recovery takes hold, it is important to continue assessing the role played by the stimulus package and other factors. These assessments can be a valuable guide to future policy makers in designing effective policy responses to economic downturns.
If policymakers really want to stimulate the economy, they will stop prodigiously wasting money, unfairly redistributing people’s earnings, making the tax system ever more complex, and imposing job-killing regulations. In other words, politicians will stop being politicians.
Filed under: Government and Politics; Tax and Budget Policy
So Much for Making Money on the Bailout
The federal government is unlikely to recoup all of the billions of dollars that it has invested in General Motors and Chrysler, according to a new congressional oversight report assessing the automakers’ rescue.
The report said that a $5.4 billion portion of the $10.5 billion owed by Chrysler is “highly unlikely” to be repaid, while full recovery of the $50 billion sunk into GM would require the company’s stock to reach unprecedented heights.
“Although taxpayers may recover some portion of their investment in Chrysler and GM, it is unlikely they will recover the entire amount,” according to the report, which is scheduled to be released Wednesday.
Well, it’s only money. And with the taxpayers facing more than $100 trillion worth of unfunded liabilities, what’s a few more wasted dollars?!
Filed under: Finance, Banking & Monetary Policy; Tax and Budget Policy
Sticking Around Afghanistan Forever?
I’ll confess one of the arguments that I’ve never understood is the claim that the U.S. “abandoned” Afghanistan after aiding the Mujahadeen in the latter’s battle against the Soviet Union. Yet Secretary of Defense Robert Gates apparently is the latest proponent of this view.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said in an interview broadcast this week that the United States would not repeat the mistake of abandoning Afghanistan, vowing that “both Afghanistan and Pakistan can count on us for the long term.”
Just what does he believe we should have done? Obviously, the Afghans didn’t want us to try to govern them. Any attempt to impose a regime on them through Kabul would have met the same resistance that defeated the Soviets. Backing a favored warlord or two would have just involved America in the ensuing conflict.
Nor would carpet-bombing Afghanistan with dollar bills starting in 1989 after the Soviets withdrew have led to enlightened, liberal Western governance and social transformation. Humanitarian aid sounds good, but as we’ve (re)discovered recently, building schools doesn’t get you far if there’s little or no security and kids are afraid to attend. And a half century of foreign experience has demonstrated that recipients almost always take the money and do what they want — principally maintaining power by rewarding friends and punishing enemies. The likelihood of the U.S doing any better in tribal Afghanistan as its varied peoples shifted from resisting outsiders to fighting each other is a fantasy.
The best thing the U.S. government could do for the long-term is get out of the way. Washington has eliminated al-Qaeda as an effective transnational terrorist force. The U.S. should leave nation-building to others, namely the Afghans and Pakistanis. Only Afghanistan and Pakistan can confront the overwhelming challenges facing both nations.
Reviving the First Amendment
The U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments this week in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. The case features the Federal Election Commission ruling that for the group Citizens United to run its documentary on Hillary Clinton would violate McCain-Feingold. The decision was a constitutional travesty, since this is precisely the sort of political speech that constitutes the core of the First Amendment.
Theodore B. Olson has given us a taste in the Wall Street Journal of the argument that he will be making before the Court tomorrow:
The idea that corporate and union speech is somehow inherently corrupting is nonsense. Most corporations are small businesses, and they have every right to speak out when a candidate threatens the welfare of their employees or shareholders.
Time after time the Supreme Court has recognized that corporations enjoy full First Amendment protections. One of the most revered First Amendment precedents is New York Times v. Sullivan (1964), which afforded publishers important constitutional safeguards in libel cases. Any decision that determines that corporations have less protection than individuals under the First Amendment would threaten the very institutions we depend upon to keep us informed. This may be why Citizens United is supported by such diverse allies as the ACLU, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO, the National Rifle Association and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
Persons of modest means often band together to speak through ideological corporations. That speech may not be silenced because of speculation that a few large entities might speak too loudly, or because some corporations may earn large profits. The First Amendment does not permit the government to handicap speakers based on their wealth, or ration speech in order somehow to equalize participation in public debate.
Tomorrow’s case is not about Citizens United. It is about the rights of all persons—individuals, associations, corporations and unions—to speak freely. And it is about our right to hear those voices and to judge for ourselves who has the soundest message.
Filed under: Government and Politics; Law and Civil Liberties; Political Philosophy
China Moving Wrong Way on Internet Freedom
While the growth of the market in China has helped open up personal space and limit control of individual lives, the Beijing authorities still attempt to limit freedom of expression. The Internet continues to be a prime target.
News Web sites in China, complying with secret government orders, are requiring that new users log on under their true identities to post comments, a shift in policy that the country’s Internet users and media have fiercely opposed in the past.Until recently, users could weigh in on news items on many of the affected sites more anonymously, often without registering at all, though the sites were obligated to screen all posts, and the posts could still be traced via Internet protocol addresses.
But in early August, without notification of a change, news portals like Sina, Netease, Sohu and scores of other sites began asking unregistered users to sign in under their real names and identification numbers, said top editors at two of the major portals affected. A Sina staff member also confirmed the change.
The editors said the sites were putting into effect a confidential directive issued in late July by the State Council Information Office, one of the main government bodies responsible for supervising the Internet in China.
If the government of the People’s Republic of China hopes to become an increasingly important international power, it should begin trusting its people to take on greater responsibility in deciding their own affairs. The justifications offered for the Communist Party’s monopoly of power are only going to grow more threadbare and unsustainable over time.
Filed under: Foreign Policy and National Security; Telecom, Internet & Information Policy
The Coming FHA Bail-Out
The taxpayers continue to get hit for Uncle Sam’s profligate ways in guaranteeing and insuring loans to virtually anyone and everyone who wanted to buy a house. The financial fall-out continues, and this time it isn’t Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It is the Federal Housing Administration.
Reports the Wall Street Journal:
The Federal Housing Administration, hit by increasing mortgage-related losses, is in danger of seeing its reserves fall below the level demanded by Congress, according to government officials, in a development that could raise concerns about whether the agency needs a taxpayer bailout.
The rising losses at the FHA, part of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, come as the agency has rapidly increased its role in guaranteeing loans in an attempt to stabilize the housing market.
It isn’t clear how the rising losses may affect home buyers. Options for the agency could include politically unpalatable choices, such as asking for taxpayer funds to boost reserves or increasing the premiums borrowers pay for the insurance offered by the agency. Agency officials say if there is a shortfall, they don’t have to do anything except report it to lawmakers. But some mortgage and housing analysts see trouble ahead. “They’re probably going to need a bailout at some point because they’re making loans in a riskier environment,” says Edward Pinto, a mortgage-industry consultant and former chief credit officer at Fannie Mae. “…I’ve never seen an entity successfully outrun a situation like this.”
Oh well, it’s only money. When you have a national debt of nearly $12 trillion, face another $10 trillion in red ink over the next decade, and have accumulated $107 trillion in unfunded liabilities for Medicare and Social Security alone, what’s a few billion dollars more?
Filed under: Finance, Banking & Monetary Policy; Government and Politics
Iran’s Stalinist Show Trials — With a Blogger’s Touch
Joseph Stalin’s show trials were notorious for the fantastic confessions. It seems just about every one of the original Bolshevik revolutionaries had been suborned by the foreign capitalists into conspiring to destroy the workers’ paradise. But these wonderfully choreographed charades look rather dated today, missing today’s innovations, like blogging.
Iran’s government may represent Medieval theology, but it has grasped modern technology. Tehran has decided to provide its own version of fantastic coerced confessions via blog!
The headline on the last blog item that former Iranian vice president Mohammad Ali Abtahi published before his June 15 arrest — “It was a huge swindling” — left no doubt that he believed that his country’s presidential election had been stolen.His more recent entries, from prison, have taken a different view.
“The majority of detainees know there was no real cheating,” the onetime opposition leader wrote in a recent posting.
“Whoever understands present-day Iran realizes that the street riots are against Iran’s glory, history and people,” he wrote in another.
Abtahi has been allowed to continue blogging from his prison cell by his “good friend the interrogator,” he writes, and he wants the Iranian people to know that he did not come under any pressure to change his mind about what he once decried as massive rigging by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s supporters to keep the hard-liner in office.
But Abtahi’s family and friends say they don’t buy it. The blog, they say, is just one more example of a pervasive campaign by the government to purge the opposition through show trials and forced confessions after protests over the outcome of the June 12 election shook the foundations of the Islamic republic. The official results showed that Ahmadinejad won in a landslide, but the opposition believes that the tally was fraudulent and has said the election should be annulled.
Who would have thought that someone could one-up Joseph Stalin when it came to the finer techniques of brutal repression?
Contra the President, Americans Don’t Want Big Government
Although candidate Barack Obama presented a moderate face, as president he has pushed a program for expanding government control at most every turn. And that agenda appears to be causing the rush of independents away from the Democrats.
According to political analyst Charlie Cook:
What’s going on? While political analysts were fixated on last fall’s campaign and on Obama’s victory, inauguration, and first 100 days in office, two other dynamics were developing. First, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression scared many voters, making them worry about their future and that of their children and grandchildren. And the federal government’s failure to prevent that calamity fundamentally undermined the public’s already low confidence in government’s ability to solve problems. Washington’s unprecedented levels of intervention — at the end of Bush’s presidency and the start of Obama’s — into the private sector further unnerved the skittish public. People didn’t mind that the head of General Motors got fired. What frightened folks was that it was the federal government doing the firing.
Many conservatives predictably fear — and some downright oppose — any expansion of government. But late last year many moderates and independents who were already frightened about the economy began to fret that Washington was taking irreversible actions that would drive mountainous deficits higher. They worried that government was taking on far more than it could competently handle and far more than the country could afford. Against this backdrop, Obama’s agenda fanned fears that government was expanding too far, too fast. Before long, his strategy of letting Congress take the lead in formulating legislative proposals and thus prodding lawmakers to take ownership in their outcome caused his poll numbers on “strength” and “leadership” to plummet.
The Democrats still have plenty of time to revive their fortunes … by dropping plans to make an already huge government ever bigger.
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