Author Archive
Threats to a Free Society, Small and Large
Limited government and individual liberty are under such a sustained attack today that it’s easy to miss some of the small but truly nefarious assaults on the most basic freedom to be left alone. After all, when the federal government seems determined to socialize much of the economy and control the rest of it, who cares about some local nanny-state restrictions?
Yet the willingness to override individual liberty in seemingly “small” matters reflects the same statist philosophy behind large assaults on the free society. It’s important to fight the battles, both small and large.
One of the latest political fads is setting public dress standards. Writes Greg Beato for Reason online:
What else is the law but a metaphorical belt designed to uphold proprietary and keep us from exposing our inherent baseness to each other? This, at least, is what an epidemic of legislative tailors seem to believe: Each month brings news of the latest effort to crack down on saggy pants. In December, the Jasper County Council in South Carolina passed an ordinance making it illegal to wear your britches three inches below your hips and expose your underwear—or worse—to innocent bystanders. In January, South Carolina State Senator Robert Ford introduced a bill that would make saggy pants a crime throughout the entire state. Earlier this month, Joe Towns, Jr., a state representative from Tennessee, took up the call against the surprisingly long-lived fashion crime, which started in the early 1990s and continues to be popular despite—or perhaps because of—repeated efforts to criminalize it over the years.
Sag-bashers object to the style on more than just aesthetic grounds. A hallmark of hip-hop culture, saggy pants are considered an homage to prison garb, where belts aren’t allowed because of their potential utility as noose or weapon. To wear saggy pants, critics maintain, is to reject authority, embrace criminality, and visually assault the world with the garish plaids and bold patterns of fashion boxers. Also, critics assert, saggy pants make it easy to conceal knives and guns within their droopy, voluminous folds.
The ascension of President Obama may be one reason for the surge of anti-sagging evangelism in recent months. “You know, some people might not want to see your underwear—I’m one of them,” he exclaimed during a November 2008 interview with MTV. But while Obama made it clear he wasn’t interested in trying to criminalize the style, calling laws against pants-sagging as “a waste of time,” politicians like Robert Ford and Joe Towns, Jr., apparently don’t watch much MTV; the former even presented his anti-sagging legislation as a kind of tribute to the new president. “You’ve got an African-American president,” he told the Associated Press. “You don’t have to emulate prisoners no more. You can emulate somebody like Barack Obama.”
According to the Associated Press, Ford doesn’t believe his bill will pass—apparently he “just wants a spirited discussion” on the taxpayer’s dime. And even in cases where such political theater blossoms into genuine law, it often remains, well, political theater. In Delcambre, Louisiana, for example, saggy pants have been punishable by a fine of up to $500 and six months in jail since June 2007. When I called Delcambre’s mayor, Carol Broussard, to ask him how many people the town has cited for that offense since the ordinance went into effect, he said he didn’t believe any had. “There have been some warnings, though,” he offered.
Even if enforcement is rare, however, the number of places in America where, say, Britney Spears and Paris Hilton might end up with lifetime sentences just for walking down the street is somewhat alarming. Along with Jasper County and Delcambre, Lynnwood, Illinois, Mansfield, Lousiana, and who knows how many other municipalities now have specific ordinances that make it illegal to expose anything more than a three-inch swath of underwear. In addition, as Radley Balko has documented at Reason, zero-tolerance vigilantes like Flint, Michigan police chief David Dicks and Jackson, Mississippi mayor Frank Melton seem more inclined to follow the strong arm tactics of the Queer Eye for the Straight Guy-style bullies than our Founding Fathers when it comes to making over their fellow citizens. “I certainly respect the Constitution, but we have some issues that are much bigger than the Constitution,” the mayor declared, as he announced his intention to issue an executive order against saggy pants even after the Jackson city council voted against such a measure on the grounds that it was unconstitutional.
Yes, some things “are much bigger than the Constitution.” That’s certainly the conventional wisdom in Washington, D.C.!
I’ll admit that I just don’t understand the style of wearing one’s pants nearly down to one’s thighs, and I’d prefer not to see some young person’s underwear. It’s an obvious issue for parental dictates as well as social pressure. But should the government be prepared to prosecute — after all, that’s what the law is all about — people with low-riding pants? The fact that these measures are considered seriously demonstrates how far we have fallen away from the ideal of a limited government committed to protecting individual liberty.
Our Problem on the Ground in Afghanistan
Virtually no one believes that things are going well on the ground in Afghanistan. The reasons are many. Some of the practical frustrations are captured by my friend Joshua Foust, who is working with the military on attempting to better understand Afghan society. He writes:
Over scalding cups of tea in mid-February, an elder in Nijrab, Afghanistan said to me, “For two years you have come here and asked me the same questions. I like you, I like the French, but you people never learn.”
He was referring to the generic questions Westerners ask Afghans: What is your life like? Where is the Taliban? What are your village’s needs? This particular elder has regular contact with American troops, and likes Americans enough to have tea with us. Nevertheless, he was deeply frustrated by the way, for all our questions, we never seem to learn from our experiences.
Very few people in Kapisa province assume that coalition forces are there to do them harm. They acknowledge that ISAF behaves fundamentally differently than the Soviets did. Yet as the seventh year of the war begins, there is enormous frustration with the coalition for not learning from its mistakes, and also with the Afghan government for being unresponsive.
One elder from northern Tagab said, “We can sit down and have tea with you, but we can’t with our own government.” He said he wished the coalition would focus more on the people and less on the government. “Governments come and go,” he said, “but the people will always be here.”
Indeed, countless interviews indicate that people in Afghanistan have very little confidence in their local government or the police, instead trusting their shuras (community and district councils) and the Army to represent their interests.
His reports on his blog also are well worth reading. Josh is a skeptic of preventive wars and nation-building, but his posts are more reportorial, giving us ivory tower sorts a better sense of the reality that America’s military and civilian personnel must confront every day in Afghanistan.
Are You Good for it, Ask the Chinese?
You might have trouble telling which country is the world’s superpower with the world’s largest economy, and which is the still relatively poor nation attempting to push its way onto the international stage.
Reports the New York Times:
The Chinese premier Wen Jiabao expressed concern on Friday about the safety of China’s $1 trillion investment in American government debt, the world’s largest such holding, and urged the Obama administration to provide assurances that its investment would keep its value in the face of a global financial crisis.
Speaking at a news conference at the end of the Chinese parliament’s annual session, Mr. Wen said he was “worried” about China’s holdings of Treasury bonds and other debt, and that China was watching United States economic developments closely.
“President Obama and his new government have adopted a series of measures to deal with the financial crisis. We have expectations as to the effects of these measures,” Mr. Wen said. “We have lent a huge amount of money to the U.S. Of course we are concerned about the safety of our assets. To be honest, I am definitely a little worried.”
He called on the United States to “maintain its good credit, to honor its promises and to guarantee the safety of China’s assets.”
Mr. Wen raised the concerns at a session in which he touted China’s comparatively healthy economy and said that his government would take whatever steps were needed to end the country’s economic slump. He also predicted that the world economy would improve in 2010.
The confident performance underscored the growing financial and geopolitical importance of China, one of the few countries to retain massive spending power despite slowing growth.
China has the world’s largest reserves of foreign exchange, estimated at $2 trillion, the product of years of double-digit growth.
Prime Minister Wen’s comments were conveniently timed, following a well-publicized naval game of chicken between a U.S. vessel and several Chinese boats in the South China Sea. But the Chinese premier still has a point. With the U.S. government stuck with unfunded liabilities in excess of $100 trillion even before it devoted trillions of dollars more to bail out just about anyone associated with the auto, housing, and financial industries, just how is Washington going to manage the new debt tsunami unleashed by the economic crunch? Americans desperately want to know the answer to that question.
And, embarrassingly, so too do the Chinese.
Now He Tells Us!
President Barack Obama now says the economy isn’t as bad as we thought. Reports the New York Daily News:
President Obama said Thursday the nation’s economic woes are not as dire as they seem and said his economic policies will get the country back on track.
“I don’t think things are ever as good as they say, or ever as bad as they say,” Obama told CEOs at a meeting of the Business Roundtable in Washington.
“Things two years ago were not as good as we thought because there were a lot of underlying weaknesses in the economy,” he said. “They’re not as bad as we think they are now.”
Does this mean we can cancel the “stimulus” bill and reverse all those bail-outs that were promoted as necessary to save us from disaster?
No Wonder the GOP Has No Credibility on Spending
You would think Barack Obama’s tsunami of federal spending would provide an easy target for Republicans. But they apparently haven’t learned the right lessons after two successive electoral debacles.
Earmarks don’t account for a lot of money in Washington terms. You know, just a few billion dollars out of trillions or quadrillions or whatever we are now up to — it’s so easy to lose track!
Nevertheless, earmarks are a powerful symbol. So trust the “stupid party” to muff its chance. Reports Politico:
Bashing Democrats on the day President Obama signed the $410 billion omnibus spending bill was the easy part for Republican leaders Wednesday.
But getting Rep. John Boehner and Sen. Mitch McConnell on the same page on earmarks will be a lot tougher.
At a joint press conference designed to present a united Republican front against Democratic spending habits, McConnell (R-Ky.) and Boehner (R-Ohio) appeared to diverge on earmark reform.
“I think the president missed a golden opportunity to really fulfill his campaign commitment to not sign bills that have a lot of wasteful spending and are overburdened with earmarks,” Boehner said. “If you look at the earmark reforms that he proposed, the question I have is, ‘Where’s the beef?”
McConnell declined to answer the question about earmarks, and instead criticized the president’s contention that the omnibus bill was simply last year’s unfinished business.
“Let me tell what was not last year’s business was plussing the bill up 8 percent, which is twice the rate of inflation,” McConnell said. “This bill is not last year’s business. … It further illustrates my point that when you add up the stimulus and the omnibus, the spending in the first 50 days of the administration [comes] at a rate of $1 billion an hour.”
Republicans have tried to come up with a unified earmark reform plan, but have struggled as GOP appropriators are reluctant to sign on. McConnell is on the Senate Appropriations Committee and has called for earmark reforms, but he and many lawmakers defend Congress’ constitutional right to direct spending.
In the omnibus bill, McConnell secured some $75 million worth of earmarks, while Boehner, a long-time critic of earmarks, did not. Boehner says Congress should freeze earmarks for the rest of the year, saying it leads to wasteful and potentially corrupting Washington spending.
Of course, Democrats have taken not. In signing the latest spending bill President Barack Obama landed a nice blow against GOP hypocrisy:
And I also find it ironic that some of those who rail most loudly against this bill because of earmarks actually inserted earmarks of their own and will tout them in their own states and their own districts.
If Congress can’t take a vow of poverty on distributing pork when the nation faces a $1.3 trillion budget deficit and trillions more in deficits over the coming years, then it isn’t likely ever to be more responsible with the public’s money.
A ‘Stimulus’ Bill that Makes Us Worse Off
Even after being in Washington for nearly three decades, I still occasionally marvel at the stupidity and foolishness of the denizens of Capitol Hill. Like the recent “stimulus” bill. There’s no doubt that it is waste and abuse personified, much of it derived from the standard big-spending liberal wish list. But we were told that wouldn’t matter, since spending, any spending, is what was necessary to get the economy moving.
But it turns out that even the Congressional Budget Office–the legislative branch’s own analytical agency–figures the legislation will make us worse in the long-term. On Monday CBO reaffirmed its earlier conclusion:
In contrast to its positive near-term macroeconomic effects, the legislation will reduce output slightly in the long run, CBO estimates. The principal channel for that effect, which would also arise from other proposals to provide short-term economic stimulus by increasing government spending or reducing revenues, is that the law will result in an increase in government debt. To the extent that people hold their wealth as government bonds rather than in a form that can be used to finance private investment, the increased debt will tend to reduce the stock of productive private capital. In economic parlance, the debt will “crowd out” private investment. (Crowding out is unlikely to occur in the short run under current conditions, because most firms are lowering investment in response to reduced demand, which stimulus can offset in part.) CBO’s basic assumption is that, in the long run, each dollar of additional debt crowds out about a third of a dollar’s worth of private domestic capital (with the remainder of the rise in debt offset by increases in private saving and inflows of foreign capital). Because of uncertainty about the degree of crowding out, however, CBO has incorporated both more and less crowding out into its range of estimates of the long-run effects of the stimulus legislation.
Since CBO expects the U.S. to return to full employment, the impact of the lower GDP will be lower wages:
The reduction in GDP is therefore estimated to be reflected in lower wages rather than lower employment, as workers will be slightly less productive because the capital stock is slightly smaller.
So, we are going massively into debt and mortgaging the future of the young for the purpose of … shrinking the economy! Workers will find themselves paying higher taxes to fund wasteful spending while … earning less! No wonder Washington is such an alien place to most Americans. Even after spending most of my adult life here, I still don’t get it.
Your Government at Work
In case you are the careless sort who doesn’t ask who is funding all of those wonderful government projects around you, the Obama administration intends to create a special stimulus brand. Really.
President Obama announced today that his administration will begin stamping an emblem on projects funded by the economic stimulus package so that people can easily recognize the effects of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
All projects will be stamped with the ARRA logo (short for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) and lists the recovery.gov website on the emblem.
In remarks at the Department of Transportation this morning, Mr. Obama referenced the new emblems.
“We’re also making it easier for Americans to see what projects are being funded with their money as part of our recovery. So in the weeks to come, the signs denoting these projects are going to bear the new emblem of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act,” Obama said. “These emblems are symbols of our commitment to you, the American people — a commitment to investing your tax dollars wisely, to put Americans to work doing the work that needs to be done. So when you see them on projects that your tax dollars made possible, let it be a reminder that our government — your government — is doing its part to put the economy back on the road of recovery.”
Of course, I’m sure the program has nothing to do with the desire to win political points for bringing goodies to the voters. No one in Washington thinks like that. On the other hand, when the inevitable abuse and waste emerges, the administration might begin tearing off its brand as quickly as it once put it on.
Disincentives to Work — Remember Those?
The president wants to increase taxes only on those earning above $250,000. Since most of us aren’t there — I keep waiting, but for some reason no one yet has offered me what I think I’m worth to express my opinions on current policy and events — who cares, right?
Well, it turns out that raising taxes reduces the incentive to work. Which hits the rest of us too. Reports ABC News:
A 63-year-old attorney based in Lafayette, La., who asked not to be named, told ABCNews.com that she plans to cut back on her business to get her annual income under the quarter million mark.
…
“We have to find a way out where we can make just what we need to be just under the line so we can benefit from Obama’s tax plan,” she added. “Why kill yourself working if you’re going to give it all away to people who aren’t working as hard?”
…
Dr. Sharon Poczatek, who runs her own dental practice in Boulder, Colo., said that she too is trying to figure out ways to get out of paying the taxes proposed in Obama’s plan.
“I’ve put thought into how to get under $250,000,” said Poczatek. “It would mean working fewer days which means having fewer employees, seeing fewer patients and taking time off.”
…
“The motivation for a lot of people like me — dentists, entrepreneurs, lawyers – is that the more you work the more money you make,” said Poczatek. “But if I’m going to be working just to give it back to the government — it’s de-motivating and demoralizing.”
Now that’s going to help us get out of the recession! Punish hard-working professionals and convince them to cut back services for the rest of us. Great thinking Mr. President.
Or, to paraphrase George W. Bush: Heck of a job, Barack!
When Is an Iraq Withdrawal not a Withdrawal?
When it means leaving 50,000 troops in Iraq to train and fight.
President Obama has invited members of Congress to the White House for a meeting later this afternoon to discuss his plans for drawing down troops in Iraq — a plan that has already drawn stiff criticism from his Democratic allies.
After Speaker Nancy Pelosi complained that the level of troops — 50,000 — who would remain in Iraq is too high, other senior Democrats voiced similar concerns on Thursday. Among Democratic leaders, only Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois is defending the new Obama plan, which will take three months longer than he promised and still leave a significant force structure on the ground.
“I’m happy to listen to the secretary of defense and the president, but when they talk about 50,000, that’s a little higher number than I had anticipated,” Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said.
“It has to be done responsibly, we all agree, but 50,000 is more than I would have thought, and we await the justification,” said Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.).
“I do think we have to look carefully at the numbers that are there and do it as quickly as we can,” said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.).
Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) issued a statement saying he was “concerned” about the level of troops that would remain in Iraq.
It’s not just a “little higher number” than most Americans want. It is a lot higher. President Barack Obama should bring home all of America’s troops from Iraq. If he doesn’t, Democratic officials and peace activists need to make their views known to him just as vigorously as they did to President George W. Bush when he was launching and escalating the war. Congressional Democrats certainly shouldn’t be bought off by a little sweet talk in the Oval Office.
Time to Drop America’s Military Welfare Dependents
Matthew Yglesias takes me to task for sniping at poor little Iceland, which is thinking about closing its Defense Agency. And I will grant that they are nice people who have just gone through an economic crisis worse than our own. Still, there is something very tiresome about other countries being perfectly content to rely on the U.S. to pick up their defense tab.
The real problem comes with the big European states, which also rely on Washington, as well as all of the new additions to NATO, which are essentially military black holes, creating far greater obligations than assets for America. Prospective new members, such as Georgia and Ukraine, would be even worse, bringing potential conflicts into the alliance. Yglesias argues that “overall European defense spending is quite robust,” but that ignores output: during Washington’s bizarre war against Serbia even the Europeans admitted that they had just 10-15 percent of America’s effective combat capability. Few European states are capable of fielding significant units of combat personnel. The largest states also are derelict. German papers report that German soldiers in Afghanistan–stationed in the north, so they don’t actually have to fight–have been busy eating sausages and drinking beer, and aren’t particularly fit for combat service.
None of that would matter if the U.S. wasn’t part of a trans-Atlantic alliance in which Americans are expected to do all of the heavy lifting if anything bad happens. If war erupted with Russia over, say, Estonia or Poland, who do we think would send the bulk of the air wings and combat ships? Who would be calling up battle-tested Army and Marine Corps units? And who would be highlighting their strategic nuclear forces to deter any Russian resort to nuclear weapons. Hint: it isn’t likely to be the Germans or Italians. And probably not even the British and French. And certainly not the Icelanders.
“Multilateral defense relationships” can be useful, but permanent security guarantees to populous and prosperous friends are not. Especially when the U.S. is very busy elsewhere around the world, unlike the friends, who are far more interested in sustaining their domestic welfare states.
At a time of economic crisis, it would make sense for the U.S. to tell its rich international welfare dependents–Europe, South Korea, and Japan–that their defense will be their business. The U.S. should retain a robust military, and be capable of cooperating with allied states if a hostile hegemonic power arose that actually threatened America, instead of a small client state half a world away. But our “multilateral defense relationships” should become ones of genuine cooperation regarding shared interests, not ones of helpless dependency in which Washington guarantees the interests of others. Which is what NATO has become.
It will be less painful if the U.S. voluntarily returns to a more normal role in the world. America will long be influential, but the time is coming when it will be merely first among equals. The American people will be far better off if Washington stops wasting their money and lives attempting to micro-manage global affairs.
You Just Gotta’ Love those Trial Attorneys
Lives likely would be saved if hotels stocked defibrillators. Having even one might make a critical difference for a patient having a heart attack. But hotels hesitate stocking the devices, which, while not cheap, are well within reach for most hotels.
However, reports the Wall Street Journal:
Hotels worry that if they have the devices, which cost about $1,200 to $2,000 each, they could be sued for failing to have enough units, failing to put them in the right places, or failing to replace batteries or maintain them properly.
Great. The American legal system is telling hoteliers that you’re probably safe if you don’t have any life-saving equipment on the premises. (Though one can imagine a negligence suit eventually contending that you should have had defibrillators–and perhaps an entire operating room, too!) But if you buy one and don’t adequately train your personnel, or let the batteries die down, or have it on the “wrong” floor, you could be sued. This truly is legal insanity.
Don’t get me wrong. I like lawyers. After all, I picked up a J.D. many years ago, even if Cato rescued me so I don’t have to actually use those skills. But surely it is ridiculous to have a legal system which actually discourages companies from buying equipment which could save lives.
Our new president, a Harvard Law School graduate, might want to add legal reform to his lengthy list of desired transformations of America.
Should America Defend Europe if it Won’t Defend Itself?
Iceland, in the midst of economic crisis, is considering closing its defense agency. Reports the Iceland Review:
Former Minister of Justice Björn Bjarnason described the Iceland Defense Agency as “remnants of times past” and said it might even complicate defense relationships with other nations. The Coast Guard should be focused on instead.
It may well be true that Iceland doesn’t have many enemies. But if the Europeans don’t believe they need defending, then isn’t this another good reason to bring home America’s troops? Certainly there’s no reason for the U.S. to defend countries which don’t bother to field militaries themselves!
Cato on Facebook
Cato on Twitter
Cato on Google+
Cato on YouTube
