Good Night, Lou Dobbs
In his CNN swan song last night, Lou Dobbs told his loyal if shrinking audience that important national issues
are now defined in the public arena by partisanship and ideology rather than by rigorous empirical thought and forthright analysis and discussion. I will be working diligently to change that as best I can.
I would argue that his very act of resigning from his prime-time perch is probably the best contribution he’s made yet to advancing “rigorous empirical thought.”
Since he launched his program “Lou Dobbs Tonight” in 2003, the CNN anchor has been engaged in one long rant against immigration, free trade, and other populist bugaboos. His approach was anything but rigorous and empirical.
In a review of his 2004 book, Exporting America, I critiqued his flabby reasoning and questionable facts. (My new Cato book, Mad about Trade, is a painless, one-shot antidote to everything Dobbs has said about free trade, manufacturing, and the middle class.) The New York Times, “60 Minutes” and other mainstream news outlets have exposed such outrageous whoppers from Dobbs as his claim that immigrants have caused an explosion of leprosy cases and crime.
Dobbs was vague about his plans for the future last night, but there is some speculation that he will run for office, perhaps for president in 2012. I hope he does. It would be an interesting test of just how popular his sentiments really are among Main Street Americans.
Freedom for Thee, But Not for We
I expected and got some pushback about my post comparing the Berlin Wall to the wall along our southern border. Happily, it was more civil than the reactions I often get when I talk about immigration and free movement of people.
One fair comment focused on the key distinction between the Berlin Wall and our border wall: the direction the guards were facing.
From the perspective of the state, it’s easy to conceive of border guards facing “in” or “out”—and those facing in suggest much worse than those facing out. But from the perspective of the individual, what matters is whether or not the border guards are facing you. Our border wall keeps Mexicans and Central Americans from freedom and a better life precisely the way the Berlin Wall did East Germans.
Another pointed out the inconsistency between liberal immigration policies and the welfare state. But the solution is not to wall off the country; it’s to wall off the welfare state. David Friedman has pointed out that liberal immigration policies can create political incentives to hold down welfare benefits.
Twenty years ago, West Germany took into its fold an impoverished population whose capacity for self-governance had surely been eroded by years of totalitarian rule. Today, one of that population is its center-right chancellor. Liberalizing immigration would be a project far smaller for the United States, it would bring overall economic benefits, and it would help restore our country’s status as a beacon of freedom.
Those who wish to immigrate to the United States did not create the political or economic conditions in their birth countries. Yet many treat their desire for a life like ours as blameworthy. It’s incoherent for individualists to think that way about immigrants to the United States while treating the reunification of Germany as something to celebrate. Such incoherence is reflected in our ’wall’ policies, which indeed boil down to “freedom for thee (Europeans), but not for we (Americans).”
Health Care: Not Close to Over
The fat lady hasn’t even started to warm up yet.
The narrow 220-215 victory in the House on Saturday night was a step forward on the road to a government takeover of the health care system. But as close and dramatic as that vote was, that was the easy part. The Senate must still pass its version of reform—which will not be the bill that just passed the House. Nancy Pelosi was, after all, able to lose the votes of 39 moderate Democrats. Harry Reid cannot afford to lose even one. A conference committee must reconcile the two vastly different versions. And then, Pelosi must hold together her 3 vote margin of victory (if it gets that far). Yet several House Democrats who voted for the bill on Saturday said they did so only to “advance the process.” Their vote is far from guaranteed on final passage. And, House liberals are almost certain to be disappointed by the more moderate bill that may emerge from the conference.
Among the more contentious issues:
Individual Mandate: This should’ve been low-hanging fruit. Democrats agreed on a mandate early in the process. But it became increasingly plain that a mandate would hit those with insurance as well as the uninsured — forcing people who are happy with their plan to switch to a different, possibly more expensive plan. With this mandate now being seen as a middle-class tax hike, qualms have developed. The House bill contains a strict mandate, with penalties of 2.5 percent of income backed up by up to five years in jail. The Senate Finance Committee, on the other hand, watered down the mandate’s penalties and delayed the mandates implementation.
Employer Mandate: The House bill also contains an employer mandate, a requirement that all but the smallest employers provide insurance to their workers or pay a penalty tax of up to 8 percent of payroll. The Senate, looking at unemployment rates over 10 percent, seems unlikely to include an employer mandate.
The Public Option: The House included, if not a “robust” public option, at least a semi-robust one. But moderate Democrats in the Senate are clearly not on board. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) says that he will join a Republican filibuster if the public option is included. Harry Reid is trying various permutations: a trigger, an opt-in, an opt-out. But as of now there is not 60 votes for any variation.
The Sheer Cost: Fiscal hawks like Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) say they will not support a bill that adds to the deficit or spends too much. But the house bill cost a minimum of $1.2 trillion.
Taxes: The House plan to add a surtax on incomes of $500,000 or more a year has no support in the Senate. At the same time, the Senate plan to slap a 40 percent excise tax on “Cadillac” insurance plans is unacceptable to key Democratic constituencies like labor unions.
Abortion: Conservative Democrats insisted on a strict prohibition on the use of government funds for abortion. The bill could not have passed without the inclusion of that provision. House liberal swallowed hard and voted for the bill, despite what they called “a poison pill” anyway with the expectation that it will be removed later. If the final bill includes the prohibition at least a couple liberals could defect. If it doesn’t, conservative Democrats won’t be on board.
Immigration: The Senate Finance Committee included a provision barring illegal immigrants from purchasing insurance through the government-run Exchange. The House Hispanic Caucus says that if that provision is in the final bill, they will vote against it.
As if these disagreements among Democrats wasn’t bad enough, public opinion is now turning against the bill.
President Obama has called for a bill to be on his desk before Christmas—the latest in a series of deadline that are so far unmet. It is hard to see how Congress can meet this one either. The Senate has not yet received CBO scoring of its bill and is not prepared to even begin debate until next week at the earliest. That debate will last 3-4 weeks minimum, assuming there are 60 votes for cloture. That means, the bill cant’ go to conference committee until mid-December, even if everything breaks the way Harry Reid wants. Privately, Democrats are now suggesting late January, before the State of the Union address, is the best they can do.
The fat lady can go back to sleep—this isn’t over yet.
Give Us Your Tired, Your Energetic, Your Poor, Your Rich — Pretty Much Anyone Who’s Not a Criminal or Terrorist
On Wednesday I blogged about how, for the first time in many years — since the last recession — H-1B skilled worker visas remain available despite the hard cap on their number. In other words, even foreigners respond to market incentives: when there are no jobs, there are fewer immigrants.
I’ve gotten some interesting email in response to that little notice, one of which I post below, along with my paragraph-by-paragraph responses.
Just read your blog entry on the H-1b visa. The problem is that this visa has been misused by sponsoring companies, suffering from high rates of fraud. I find it strange that Cato supports (or appears to support) a labor tool that is anything but free market. The H-1b visa is more of an indentured servant visa program than anything else – where employees must be sponsored by an employer. Since employees aren’t free to find new jobs or start their own business, it results in a captive workforce who will do whatever the employee asks, even beyond reason. They won’t bargain for higher wages, quit if mistreated, join unions, or do anything that might result in their immigration status being jeopardized.
Having myself been on H-1Bs with several employers, including Cato, I agree that the program is seriously flawed, in the ways this correpondent describes and in others. Ideally, people would be able to apply for a work permit — their application gaining more “points,” say, for language, youth, skills, the needs of the economy, or whatever other criteria the political process determines are important — and then not be tied to an employer and have an opportunity to receive permanent residence and eventual naturalization if they pay their taxes, stay out of jail, etc. Or, indeed, we could admit all people who want to come here (after screening for security, criminal, and health concerns), and give them the same opportunity. But until we get to that more perfect world, I see no conflict in advocating for a repeal of the H-1B cap or pointing out how this recession shows that immigrants come for jobs, not to leech off our welfare state (if that’s the concern, then wall off the welfare state, not the country) or commit crimes.
One thing not correct in your blog is that H-1b visa holders cannot get a green-card. They can, unfortunately most of the workers are from India so it is difficult for those workers to get the green-card because of how, numerically, green-cards are issued. The H-1b visa is a “dual intent” visa meaning there is a path to permanent residence and after 6 years on the visa holders can extend 1 year until their green-card is processed. Indian workers call it the “green carrot” and relate it to the picture of where the mule driver holds a carrot on a stick in front of the mule to keep him moving. No matter how hard the mule tries, the carrot gets no closer.
The H-1B’s “dual intent” provision is categorically not a path to a green card. All it does is, as the correspondent points out, allow the worker to stay in the country during the green card application process. That process, however, and the substantive requirements for obtaining a green card, is no different for H-1B holders than it is for anyone else. Indeed, spending five or six years on an H-1B with one employer can be a detriment, inasmuch as that employer’s sponsorship application cannot take into account the skills gained during that time of employment. And yes, the nationality-based restrictions are also obnoxious.
Filed under: Government and Politics; Law and Civil Liberties; Trade and Immigration
Immigrants Respond to Economic Incentives
As I blogged here, I got my green card in April — and am now counting down the days till I can naturalize (five years from the green card, though you can apply three months before that and processing takes a year or so). Because of my various travails over the years that led to that fortunate day this spring, I’ve learned quite a bit about immigration, both as a matter of policy and as a matter of law. Indeed, both before joining Cato and ever since, it’s been an area in which I’ve been writing and speaking — and I appreciate very much the synergy this work has had with my colleagues in the trade and immigration shop.
One oped I had in National Review Online dealt with H-1Bs, the temporary visas for highly skilled workers to work in the United States. One of the problems with H-1Bs is that they provide no path to a green card (meaning permanent residence) or citizenship — so just as hard-working, tax-paying professionals gain expertise in a particular American company or industry, just as they grow roots in an American community, they have to leave. Nevertheless, there have long been more H-1B applicants than available visas. The last few years, the annual 65,000 quota has been oversubscribed on the very first day of eligibility for each fiscal year!
Well, not any more. As this recent article points out, the recession has impacted our immigration system as well: “A coveted visa program that feeds skilled workers to top-tier U.S. technology companies and universities [the H-1B program] is on track to leave thousands of spots unfilled for the first time since 2003, a sign of how the weak economy has eroded employment even among highly trained professionals.”
This is just another indication that the free movement of goods, money, and people, will regulate even such perceived social ills as “foreigners taking American jobs.” There’s simply no need for “U.S. citizen only” provisions in (so-called) stimulus bills, or (further) immigration restrictions during bad economic times.
In other words, even foreigners respond to market incentives.
For more on Cato’s work on immigration policy, go here.
Filed under: Law and Civil Liberties; Trade and Immigration
More Supreme Court Review on the Road
As an update to an earlier post about my speaking schedule this fall, here are my remaining public events through Thanksgiving. All these events, other than the one on Nov. 3, are sponsored by the Federalist Society (and in some cases co-sponsored by other organizations) and all are open to the public. As always, if you decide to attend one of the presentations after learning of it from this blog post, please feel free to drop me a line beforehand, and do introduce yourself after the event.
Event info after the jump.
This I Don’t Get
While the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency constantly raids factories and workplaces looking for peaceful and hard-working undocumented immigrants to kick out of the country, the same federal government agency brings to the U.S. dangerous Mexican drug traffickers who—while continuing their criminal activities in Mexico and the U.S.—also serve as informants to the federal authorities in their war on drugs.
Can someone explain this to me?
Filed under: Foreign Policy and National Security; Trade and Immigration
Have Mexican Dishwashers Brought California to Its Knees?
An article published this week by National Review magazine blames the many problems of California on—take a guess—high taxes, over-regulation of business, runaway state spending, an expansive welfare state? Try none of the above. The article, by Alex Alexiev of the Hudson Institute, puts the blame on the backs of low-skilled, illegal immigrants from Mexico and the federal government for not keeping them out.
Titled “Catching Up to Mexico: Illegal immigration is depleting California’s human capital and ravaging its economy,” the article endorses high-skilled immigration to the state while rejecting the influx of “the poorly educated, the unskilled, and the illiterate” immigrants that enter illegally from Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America.
Before swallowing the article’s thesis, consider two thoughts:
One, if low-skilled, illegal immigration is the single greatest cause of California’s woes, how does the author explain the relative success of Texas? As a survey in the July 11 issue of The Economist magazine explained, smaller-government Texas has avoided many of the problems of California while outperforming most of the rest of the country in job creation and economic growth. And Texas has managed to do this with an illegal immigrant population that rivals California’s as a share of its population.
Two, low-skilled immigrants actually enhance the human capital of native-born Americans by allowing us to move up the occupational ladder to jobs that are more productive and better paying. In a new study from the Cato Institute, titled “Restriction or Legalization? Measuring the Economic Benefits of Immigration Reform,” this phenomenon is called the “occupational mix effect” and it translates into tens of billions of dollars of benefits to U.S. households.
Our new study, authored by economists Peter Dixon and Maureen Rimmer, found that legalization of low-skilled immigration would boost the incomes of American households by $180 billion, while further restricting such immigration would reduce the incomes of U.S. families by $80 billion.
That is a quarter of a trillion dollar difference between following the policy advice of National Review and that of the Cato Institute. Last time I checked, that is still real money, even in Washington.
As Immigrants Move In, Americans Move Up
Critics warn that immigration reform would bring in its wake rising rates of poverty, higher government welfare expenditures, and a rise in crime.
In a new paper, Cato scholar Daniel Griswold says that Congress should not reject market-oriented immigration reform because of misguided fears about “importing poverty.”
Griswold argues that “Comprehensive immigration reform that included a robust temporary worker program would boost economic output and create new middle class job opportunities for native-born Americans.”
For more, read the whole thing.
Who’s the Isolationist?
There may be no more vicious epithet from neoconservatives these days than “isolationist.” One would think the term would mean something like xenophobic no-nothings who want to have nothing to do with the rest of the world. No trade or immigration. Little or no cultural exchange and political cooperation. Autarchy all around.
But no. ”Isolationist” apparently means something quite different. Never mind your views of the merits of international engagement. If you don’t want to kill lots of foreigners in lots of foreign wars you are automatically considered to be an isolationist.
President Bill Clinton called Republican legislators “isolationists” for not wanting to insert the U.S. military into the middle of a complex but strategically irrelevant guerrilla conflict in Kosovo. (He made the same criticism against them for not supporting even more money for foreign aid, which presumably meant the Heritage Foundation was filled with isolationists at the time).
But the definition is even broader today. It means not willing to go to war for any country that clamors for a security guarantee irrespective of its relevance to American security. At least, that appears to be the definition applied by Sally McNamara of Heritage.
On Monday in National Interest online I criticized the argument advanced by Ms. McNamara and others that alliances and military commitments automatically prevent war. More specifically, the claim is that if only the U.S. would bring the country of Georgia into NATO — or simply issue a Membership Action Plan, which neither offers a security promise nor guarantees NATO membership — Moscow would never dare take the risk of attacking Georgia.
History suggests this is a dangerous assumption. Both World Wars I and II featured alliances that were supposed to prevent conflict but which instead acted as transmission belts of war. One can argue whether or not the alliances were prudent. One cannot argue that they prevented conflict as so many people thought (and certainly hoped) they would.
Thus, alliances should be viewed as serious organizations. A promise to defend another nation should be treated as a momentous undertaking. And the public should be aware of all of the risks of policies advanced by the nation’s leaders. This should go double when a nuclear-armed power is involved and treble when the geopolitical stakes are trivial for the U.S. while significant for the opposing state.
For suggesting this Ms. McNamara argues that I am both an isolationist and a neo-isolationist. (I’m not sure of the difference between the two. Maybe the latter indicates that she realizes I believe in free trade, increased immigration, and international cooperation, which makes for a curious kind of “isolationism.” Still, advocating a reduction in military commitments and the consequent risk of war, rather than a policy of galloping about the globe tossing security guarantees hither and yon, apparently means I am at least a “neo-isolationist.”)
Even worse, I am accused of “appeasement” for suggesting that being prepared to trade Washington for Tbilisi is a bad bargain. Ah, the “A” word. To count the cost and not support every commitment, no matter how distant or irrelevant, is the same as encouraging the next Adolf Hitler.
Please.
Iraq’s Refugee Crisis
George W. Bush’s misguided attack on Iraq has had catastrophic consequences for the Iraqi people. Although the removal of Saddam Hussein was a blessing, the bloody chaos that resulted was not. Estimates of the number of dead in the ensuing strife starts at about 100,000 and rises rapidly. The number of injured is far greater.
Moreover, roughly four million people, about one-sixth of the population, have been driven from their homes. The most vulnerable tended to be Iraq’s Christian community and Iraqis who aided U.S. personnel — acting as translators, for instance. Yet the Bush administration resisted allowing any of these desperate people to come to America, since to resettle refugees would be to acknowledge that administration policy had failed to result in the promised paradise in Babylon.
This horrid neglect continues. Reports Hanna Ingber Win:
Of the millions displaced, the United States will resettle about 17,000 new Iraqis this coming fiscal year. While that is a relatively small number of arrivals compared to the number displaced, about a third of them will end up in El Cajon and Greater San Diego. More than 5,000 new Iraqis will arrive in San Diego County during the fiscal year ending September 30, 2009, according to Catholic Charities in the San Diego Diocese. Getting jobs, homes and visas to reunite the families of the new arrivals — many of whom put their lives and their families’ lives at risk by helping the U.S. military — is a monumental task.
As the Iraq War played out, the Bush administration seemed to do everything in its power to ignore the refugee crisis. Former President Bush, reluctant to admit to a failed war policy, never mentioned the plight of the refugees and for years refused to allow Iraqis fleeing the war zone to resettle in the U.S. Only after significant political pressure from members of Congress and advocacy groups did the administration’s policy begin to change, and refugees began gaining access to the United States.
As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama pledged to address the humanitarian crisis caused by the war. He vowed to increase the amount of aid given to countries like Syria and Jordan, which harbor most of the displaced people, as well as expedite the process of resettling refugees here.
“The Bush administration made every effort they could to try to minimize the issue [of Iraqi refugees] in the debate on the war,” Amelia Templeton, a refugee-policy analyst with Human Rights First, says not long after the presidential election. The Obama administration, on the other hand, she says, has made the issue an explicit policy priority. “Obama has said this is a major problem, that we are responsible for this problem and we will try to change this.”
Whether the Obama administration will live up to its rhetoric is still to be seen.
Immigration is an emotional issue at any time. But there is no excuse for not accepting more persecuted peoples who are fleeing violence sparked by U.S. military action and attacks sparked by their aid for U.S. military forces. If America refuses to act as a haven for these people, then yet another light will have gone out in what was once a shining city on a hill for the world.
Filed under: Foreign Policy and National Security; Trade and Immigration
E-Verify: The Surveillance Solution
The federal government will keep data about every person submitted to the “E-Verify” background check system for 10 years.
At least that’s my read of the slightly unclear notice describing the “United States Citizenship Immigration Services 009 Compliance Tracking and Monitoring System” in today’s Federal Register. (A second notice exempts this data from many protections of the Privacy Act.)
To make sure that people aren’t abusing E-Verify, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services Verification Division, Monitoring and Compliance Branch will watch how the system is used. It will look for misuse, such as when a single Social Security Number is submitted to the system many times, which suggests that it is being used fraudulently.
How do you look for this kind of misuse (and others, more clever)? You collect all the data that goes into the system and mine it for patterns consistent with misuse.
The notice purports to limit the range of people whose data will be held in the system, listing “Individuals who are the subject of E-Verify or SAVE verifications and whose employer is subject to compliance activities.” But if the Monitoring Compliance Branch is going to find what it’s looking for, it’s going to look at data about all individuals submitted to E-Verify. “Employer subject to compliance activities” is not a limitation because all employers will be subject to “compliance activities” simply for using the system.
In my paper on electronic employment eligibility verification systems like E-Verify, I wrote how such systems “would add to the data stores throughout the federal government that continually amass information about the lives, livelihoods, activities, and interests of everyone—especially law-abiding citizens.”
It’s in the DNA of E-Verify to facilitate surveillance of every American worker. Today’s Federal Register notice is confirmation of that.
Filed under: Cato Publications; Telecom, Internet & Information Policy; Trade and Immigration
Tom Tancredo Says: Legalize Drugs!
Former Rep. Tom Tancredo is no libertarian. After all, he made his name attacking immigration. But the former member is now speaking politically painful truths.
Yesterday he spoke to a local Republican group in Denver:
Admitting that it may be “political suicide” former Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo said its time to consider legalizing drugs.
He spoke Wednesday to the Lincoln Club of Colorado, a Republican group that’s been active in the state for 90 years. It’s the first time Tancredo has spoken on the drug issue. He ran for president in 2008 on an anti-illegal immigration platform that has brought him passionate support and criticism.
Tancredo noted that he has never used drugs, but said the war has failed.
“I am convinced that what we are doing is not working,” he said.
Tancredo told the group that the country has spent billions of dollars capturing, prosecuting and jailing drug dealers and users, but has little to show for it.
“It is now easier for a kid to get drugs at most schools in America that it is booze,” he said.
He said the violent drug battles in Mexico are moving north. A recent ABC News report profiled how easy it has become for violent drug cartels to smuggle cocaine into the United States. Drug enforcement officials told ABC that Denver is a hub city for distribution.
It’s time for politicians like Tancredo to start telling the truth while they are still in office.
Questions for Heritage: REAL ID
The Heritage Foundation’s “The Foundry” blog has a post up called “Questions for Secretary Napolitano: Real ID.”
Honest advocates on two sides of an issue can come to almost perfectly opposite views, and this provides an example, because I find the post confused, wrong, or misleading in nearly every respect.
Let’s give it a brief fisking. Below, the language from the post is in italics, and my comments are in roman text:
Filed under: Telecom, Internet & Information Policy; Trade and Immigration
New at Cato
Here are a few highlights from Cato Today, a daily email from the Cato Institute. You can subscribe, here.
- Marian Tupy discusses African aid in his new Development Policy Analysis, “The False Promise of Gleneagles: Misguided Priorities at the Heart of the New Push for African Development,” and an op-ed in the Washington Times.
- Swaminathan Aiyar argues against a global currency in The Guardian.
- Daniel J. Mitchell calls for abolishing the death tax in USA Today.
- Will Wilkinson argues for more liberal immigration policies in The Week magazine.
- In the Christian Science Monitor, Benjamin Friedman says the United States should cut military spending in half.
- In Monday’s Cato Daily Podcast, Jim Harper explains why Obama’s record on following through with his campaign promise to post bills online for five days before signing is worse than the Washington Nationals’.
Senate Negotiates REAL ID Revival Bill with Anti-Immigrant Activists
Anti-immigrant groups have done nothing but lead Republicans off the electoral cliff, but they are very aggressive and vociferous. This has evidently convinced Senate staff to negotiate with them about reviving the moribund REAL ID Act. REAL ID lobbyist Janice Kephart reports the state of play on the Center for Immigration Studies blog.
Interestingly, the National Conference of State Legislatures may join the National Governors Association in seeking to sell state authority over licensing and identification policy to the federal government, exchanging state power for the right to beg for federal funds evermore.
I wrote a little bit in a previous post about the dynamics at play when a group that supposedly represents state interests in Washington, D.C. begins to represent Washington, D.C.’s interests to states.
Filed under: Telecom, Internet & Information Policy; Trade and Immigration
The REAL ID Revival Bill Should Not Get a PASS
A draft Senate bill to revive the REAL ID Act has been leaked to to the anti-immigrant Center for Immigration Studies, and they find it wanting.
The bill is an attempt to smooth down REAL ID and make the national ID law more palatable. CIS is unhappy because they want a national ID implemented right away.
REAL ID is, of course, failing. Just ten months ago, the Bush Administration’s Secretary of Homeland Security granted waivers to every state in the country – not a single one of them was in compliance by the May, 2008 deadline, and several have statutorily barred themselves from complying.
Legislation to repeal REAL ID in both the House and Senate was introduced in the last Congress, but with an administration and Department of Homeland Security eager to demagogue the issue against a Democratic Congress, that legislation did not move. Repealing REAL ID would not have the same problem in the current Congress.
But since then, Washington’s wheels have been turning. The National Governors Association has turned into an advocate of reviving REAL ID because it hopes that federal dollars will flow behind federal mandates. They won’t, but reviving REAL ID will cement NGA’s role as a beggar for federal dollars in Washington. (Maybe other state legislator groups, as well.)
Everbody in Washington, D.C. salivates over the chance to make “deals” even if that means switching positions on issues of principle like whether the U.S. should have a national ID. We’ll be watching to see which political leaders reverse themselves and support this attempt at a national ID for their love of political dealmaking.
The working name of the REAL ID revival bill is the “PASS ID Act.” It should not be given a pass by opponents of a U.S. national ID and the REAL ID Act.
Filed under: Foreign Policy and National Security; Telecom, Internet & Information Policy; Trade and Immigration
Week in Review: Successful Voucher Programs, Immigration Debates and a New Path for Africa
Federal Study Supports School Vouchers
Last week, a U.S. Department of Education study revealed that students participating in a Washington D.C. voucher pilot program outperformed peers attending public schools.
According to The Washington Post, the study found that “students who used the vouchers received reading scores that placed them nearly four months ahead of peers who remained in public school.” In a statement, education secretary Arne Duncan said that the Obama administration “does not want to pull participating students out of the program but does not support its continuation.”
Why then did the Obama administration “let Congress slash the jugular of DC’s school voucher program despite almost certainly having an evaluation in hand showing that students in the program did better than those who tried to get vouchers and failed?”
The answer, says Cato scholar Neal McCluskey, lies in special interests and an unwillingness to embrace change after decades of maintaining the status quo:
It is not just the awesome political power of special interests, however, that keeps the monopoly in place. As Terry Moe has found, many Americans have a deep, emotional attachment to public schooling, one likely rooted in a conviction that public schooling is essential to American unity and success. It is an inaccurate conviction — public schooling is all-too-often divisive where homogeneity does not already exist, and Americans successfully educated themselves long before “public schooling” became widespread or mandatory — but the conviction nonetheless is there. Indeed, most people acknowledge that public schooling is broken, but feel they still must love it.
Susan L. Aud and Leon Michos found the program saved the city nearly $8 million in education costs in a 2006 Cato study that examined the fiscal impact of the voucher program.
To learn more about the positive effect of school choice on poor communities around the world, join the Cato Institute on April 15 to discuss James Tooley’s new book, The Beautiful Tree: A Personal Journey Into How the World’s Poorest People Are Educating Themselves.
Obama Announces New Direction on Immigration
The New York Times reports, “President Obama plans to begin addressing the country’s immigration system this year, including looking for a path for illegal immigrants to become legal, a senior administration official said on Wednesday.”
In the immigration chapter of the Cato Handbook for Policymakers, Cato trade analyst Daniel T. Griswold offered suggestions on immigration policy, which include:
- Expanding current legal immigration quotas, especially for employment-based visas.
- Creating a temporary worker program for lower-skilled workers to meet long-term labor demand and reduce incentives for illegal immigration.
- Refocusing border-control resources to keep criminals and terrorists out of the country.
In a 2002 Cato Policy Analysis, Griswold made the case for allowing Mexican laborers into the United States to work.
For more on the argument for open borders, watch Jason L. Riley of The Wall Street Journal editorial board speak about his book, Let Them In: The Case for Open Borders.
In Case You Couldn’t Join Us
Cato hosted a number of fascinating guests recently to speak about new books, reports and projects.
- Salon writer Glenn Greenwald discussed a new Cato study that exa
mines the successful drug decriminalization program in Portugal.
- Patri Friedman of the Seasteading Institute explained his project to build self-sufficient deep-sea platforms that would empower individuals to break free of national governments and start their own societies on the ocean.
- Dambisa Moyo, author of the book Dead Aid, spoke about her research that shows how government-to-government aid fails. She proposed an “aid-free solution” to development, based on the experience of successful African countries.
Find full-length videos to all Cato events on Cato’s events archive page.
Also, don’t miss Friday’s Cato Daily Podcast with legal policy analyst David Rittgers on Obama’s surge strategy in Afghanistan.
Filed under: Education and Child Policy; Foreign Policy and National Security; General; Government and Politics
Week in Review: ‘Saving’ the World, Government Control and Drug Decriminalization
G-20 Summit Agrees to International Spending Plan
The Washington Post reports, “Leaders from more than 20 major nations including the United States decided Thursday to make available an additional $1 trillion for the world economy through the International Monetary Fund and other institutions as part of a broad package of measures to overcome the global financial crisis.”
Cato scholars Richard W. Rahn, Daniel J. Ikenson and Ian Vásquez commented on the London-based meeting:
Rahn: “President Obama of the U.S. and Prime Minister Brown of the U.K. will be pressing for more so-called stimulus spending by other nations, despite the fact that the historical evidence shows that big increases in government spending are more likely to be damaging and slow down recovery than they are to promote vigorous economic expansion and job creation.”
Vásquez: “The push by some countries for massive increases in spending to address the global financial crisis smacks of political and bureaucratic opportunism. A prime example is Washington’s call to substantially increase the resources of the International Financial Institutions… There is no reason to think that massive increases of the IFIs’ funds will not worsen, rather than improve, their record or the accountability of the aid agencies and borrower governments.”
Ikenson: “Certainly it is crucial to avoid protectionist policies that clog the arteries of economic recovery and help nobody but politicians. But it is also important to keep things in perspective: the world is not on the brink of a global trade war, as some have suggested.”
Ikenson appeared on CNBC this week to push for a reduction of trade barriers in international markets.
With fears mounting over a global shift toward protectionism, Cato senior fellow Tom Palmer and the Atlas Economic Research Foundation are circulating a petition against restrictive trade measures.
Obama Administration Forces Out GM CEO
President Obama took an unprecedented step toward greater control of a private corporation after forcing General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner to leave the company. The New York Post reports “the administration threatened to withhold bailout money from the company if he didn’t.”
Writing for the Washington Post, trade analyst Dan Ikenson explained why the government is responsible for any GM failure from now on:
President Obama’s newly discovered prudence with taxpayer money and his tough-love approach to GM and Chrysler would both have more credibility if he hadn’t demanded Rick Wagoner’s resignation, as well. By imposing operational conditions normally reserved for boards of directors, the administration is now bound to the infamous “Pottery Barn” rule: you break it, you buy it. If things go further south, the government is now complicit.
Wagoner’s replacement, Fritz Henderson, said Tuesday that after receiving billions of taxpayer dollars, the company is considering bankruptcy as an option. Cato scholars recommended bankruptcy months ago:
Dan Ikenson, November 21, 2008: “Bailing out Detroit is unnecessary. After all, this is why we have the bankruptcy process. If companies in Chapter 11 can be salvaged, a bankruptcy judge will help them find the way. In the case of the Big Three, a bankruptcy process would almost certainly require them to dissolve their current union contracts. Revamping their labor structures is the single most important change that GM, Ford, and Chrysler could make — and yet it is the one change that many pro-bailout Democrats wish to ignore.”
Daniel J. Mitchell, November 13, 2008: ”Advocates oftentimes admit that bailouts are not good policy, but they invariably argue that short-term considerations should trump long-term sensible policy. Their biggest assertion is that a bailout is necessary to prevent bankruptcy, and that avoiding this result is critical to prevent catastrophe. But Chapter 11 protection may be precisely what is needed to put American auto companies back on the path to profitability. Bankruptcy laws specifically are designed to give companies an opportunity — under court supervision — to reduce costs and streamline operations.”
Dan Ikenson, December 5, 2008: “The best solution is to allow the bankruptcy process to work. It will be needed. There are going to be jobs lost, but there is really nothing policymakers can do about that without exacerbating problems elsewhere. The numbers won’t be as dire as the Big Three have been projecting.”
Cato Links
- Is Portugal an example for the future of drug policy? Cato released a new case study this week by Salon writer Glenn Greenwald entitled, “Drug Decriminalization in Portugal: Lessons for Creating Fair and Successful Drug Policies.”
- As the North Atlantic Treaty Organization celebrates its 60th birthday, there are signs of mounting trouble within the alliance and increasing reasons to doubt the organization’s relevance regarding the foreign policy challenges of the 21st century. In a new study, Cato scholar Ted Galen Carpenter argues that NATO’s time is up.
- Should immigration agents target businesses knowingly hiring illegal immigrants? Cato scholar Jim Harper weighs in on a Fox News debate.
- Cato scholar Gene Healy warns, “Beware of the Cult of Obama,” in this week’s Washington Examiner column.
- Sign up today for Cato University 2009: Economic Crisis, War, and the Rise of the State.
I Love You Too, America
People who don’t know me well don’t realize I’m not American. I have no accent, am among the most patriotic people you could meet, went to college and law school here, interned for a senator, clerked for a federal judge, worked on a presidential campaign, spent time in Iraq, and speak and write about the U.S. Constitution for a living. I was born in Russia, however, and immigrated to Canada with my parents when I was little. “We took a wrong turn at the St. Lawrence Seaway,” I like to joke.
The upshot is that, much as I’ve wanted to be American since about age eight — when I discovered that the U.S. governing ethos was “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” while Canada’s is “peace, order, and good government” — I am a Canadian citizen. And, because of this country’s perverted immigration system, none of the time I’ve spent in the United States (my entire adult life save a 10-month masters program in London) got me any closer to the unrestricted right to live and work here (a “green card”).
Don’t worry, I’ve always been legal, through a combination of student, training, and professional visas, but those were always tied to the school or employer, hindering the types of professional activities I could engage in hanging a sword of Damocles over my life. If I lost my job — as so many lawyers have, for example, in this economy — I would have to leave the country where about 95% of my personal and professional network is located.
When I came to Cato, the opportunity presented itself to finally be able to petition for a green card. (I’ll spare you the overly technical and exceedingly frustrating details.) Along the way, I even got a certificate saying that the U.S. government — or at least the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (what used to be the I.N.S.) — considered me an “alien of exceptional ability.” I didn’t let this go to my head; when lawyers and bureaucrats come up with a term of art, it means less in real life than, say, one of you readers emailing me that you liked something I blogged here.
Anyhow, not expecting any action on my green card petition for at least another year (based on the processing times posted at the USCIS website), last night I came home to an unmarked envelope in my mailbox. It was my green card! — complete with a little pamphlet welcoming me to America.
This is quite literally the key to the rest of my life in this wonderful country. Those who know me well know how huge a deal this is for me personally, how long it has taken, and how many arbitrary and capricious obstacles our immigration non-policy places in the way of “skilled workers.” (Three years ago I attracted media attention during the Senate immigration debate with the soundbite, “if this reform goes through, I’m giving up law and taking up gardening.”)
I’ve been very fortunate in the opportunities I’ve had and the people I’ve met — including, in significant part, through the big-tent movement for liberty — and I am eternally grateful that this day has finally arrived. Believe me that I will never take for granted the great privilege that is permanent residence in the United States. My sincere hope is that America remains a beacon of liberty and that shining city on a hill.
I may well blog or write more about this in the future, but for more on my personal story, see, e.g., here, here, and here. More importantly, check out Cato’s excellent immigration work here.
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