Getting Out of Afghanistan
Today's Washington Post features an op-ed by Reps. James McGovern (D-MA) and Walter Jones (R-NC) on the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. This particular bipartisan pairing isn't particularly noteworthy; the two men have collaborated before. But the arguments presented in the piece — one set designed to appeal to conservatives, the other aimed at liberals — have the potential to join together a much broader left-right coalition in opposition to an open-ended mission that, according to McGovern and Jones, has already cost U.S. taxpayers $450 billion dollars, and whose costs are accumulating at a rate of nearly $10 billion every month.
My colleagues and I have argued on numerous occasions for why the Obama administration should refine our objectives in Afghanistan. The issue isn't about getting out of the country, per se, but rather about what we are asking our brave troops to do there. We owe it to them to give them a mission that is achievable within a reasonable time frame. Policy makers in Washington must be reasonably certain that the mission advances U.S. security, and that alternative strategies that have a higher likelihood of success and/or less cost have been thoroughly considered.
I don't believe that they have been. There is ample evidence to suggest that our attempt to build a functioning nation-state in the Hindu Kush is likely to fail. Most nation-building missions do fail, and the conditions for success — especially a functioning economy and a capable, representative government that enjoys br0ad-based support — simply do not exist in Afghanistan, and won't for a very long time.
Above all else, the McGovern-Jones op-ed is an appeal to the American people and to their representatives in Congress to pay attention to what is happening in Afghanistan, and to think deeply about the mission. For a window into what that mission actually looks like, check out the HBO special "The Battle for Marjah." The similarities between what the brave troops of Bravo company dealt with in the spring and summer of 2010, and what other units were doing in 2009, as documented in this Frontline program, are striking. I don't know how anyone can watch either of these programs and be confident that we are making progress. And I especially don't know how you can watch these and not share the frustrations of our troops.
And if those video snippets aren't sufficient to convince you to rethink what we're doing in Afghanistan, and to question whether we really are making progress, the numbers tracking the last two years there are only worse.
Showdown in Madison
Today POLITICO Arena asks:
Should Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker be commended or criticized for his proposal to change certain collective bargaining agreements for public sector employees, adding that Republicans won’t be “bullied” by protesters?
In November the government-union cabal that has driven Wisconsin, like other states, to the brink of bankruptcy was thrown out of office in a landslide election. So what are the union thugs now occupying the capitol and the state's Democratic senators who've fled the state complaining about? The lack of democracy. That so many are "teachers," waving signs likening Gov. Walker to Hitler and Stalin, gives rise only to sympathy for the children of Wisconsin.
In fact, if ever there were an argument for separating school and state, it's unfolding today in Madison. Private schools in the state are functioning quite normally through this Athens-like spectacle, because they operate under normal market conditions, where parents, administrators, and teachers decide personnel matters through voluntary agreements. By contrast, as the Cato Institute's Chris Edwards has shown through numerous studies, because public-sector unions occupy, effectively, both sides of the bargaining table, their pay and benefits over the years have far outstripped those of private-sector workers who pay those benefits.
Well the taxpayers spoke in November. The unions' beef is with them. Deal with it.
Alaska’s Parnell Becomes 2nd Gov. to Refuse to Implement ObamaCare
The Associated Press reports that Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell (R) told the Juneau Chamber of Commerce that he will not be implementing ObamaCare:
"The state of Alaska will not pursue unlawful activity to implement a federal health care regime that has been declared unconstitutional by a federal court," Parnell told the Juneau Chamber of Commerce, to applause, Thursday.
The AP included a couple of interesting comments from ObamaCare supporters Timothy Jost, a law professor at Washington & Lee University, and Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA.
Jost described Judge Roger Vinson (to whom Parnell referred) as "one renegade judge," when in fact two federal judges have struck down ObamaCare's individual mandate as unconstitutional. (Since only two federal judges have upheld ObamaCare, who's to say which pair are the renegades?)
Jost also called Alaska an "outlier" among states, while the AP reported, "Neither [Pollock] nor Jost knew of any other state taking action similar to Parnell." Jost and Pollack should know that Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) had already refused to implement ObamaCare. (Here he is telling an approving audience of Cato supporters.) Ironically, the AP story overlooking Scott's leadership appeared on the Miami Herald web site, which had previously reported that Scott even returned to the federal government the ObamaCare money that his predecessor Charlie Crist accepted but hadn't spent. Scott may not be enough company to keep Parnell from being an outlier. But Jost should also know that dozens of governors who are implementing ObamaCare are also hoping the Supreme Court will strike it down as unconstitutional. Parnell and Scott are outliers for their courage, not because they oppose ObamaCare.
The news about Parnell came as the U.S. Department of Justice filed a motion asking Judge Vinson to clarify that his declaratory judgment "does not relieve the parties of their rights and obligations under [ObamaCare] while the declaratory judgment is the subject of appellate review." Ilya Shapiro and I clarified that issue in our oped, "President Should Heed Court and Stop Implementing ObamaCare."
A Reply to Andy McCarthy on Patriot and Roving Wiretaps
National Review's Andrew McCarthy thinks proponents of Partiot Act reform, yours truly included, are too concerned with hypothetical problems:
Concerns about “John Doe” warrants — i.e., roving wiretap authorizations that do not name a specific person or place to be surveilled — have been discussed since 2001. Two things stand out. First, although we’ve now had this provision for close to a decade, civil liberties advocates like Mr. Friedersdorf and Cato’s Julian Sanchez still have to couch their objections in the subjunctive mood: the warrants “raise the possibility” of overbreadth abuses “disturbingly similar to the ‘general warrants’” prohibited by the Fourth Amendment. That is, although the Patriot Act has been examined, debated, and reauthorized a number of times since its initial passage shortly after 9/11, critics still have no concrete record that roving taps have been systematically abused, so they have to raise potential abuses that never seem to materialize.
A few points. The concerns about overbreadth—which at the collection stage are at least as likely to result from error as deliberate abuse—are about as "subjunctive" as the benefits of roving taps, given the paucity of public information about their use, which is precisely why caution is in order. (So useful are they, on McCarthy's telling, that you'd have to be "downright dumb" not to get a roving tap whenever you do FISA surveillance. I'm not sure what he means to imply about our intelligence agents, given that 99 percent of FISA wiretaps are non-roving.) We've had extensive Inspector General audits of both Section 215 business record authority and expanded National Security Letter powers—audits which have assuaged some worries in the former case and confirmed them in the latter one. We've had nothing comparable for roving wiretaps. It seems a little cute to use the very absence of transparency that characterizes surveillance in the criminal context as some kind of cudgel. And it seems downright absurd when you consider some of the practical realities of intelligence surveillance.
Just in fiscal 2008, the FBI alone collected 878,383 hours (or just over 100 years) of audio, much of it in foreign languages; 1,610,091 pages of text; and 28,795,212 electronic files. A recent review of FBI backlogs by the Office of the Inspector General found that fully a quarter of the audio collected between 2003 and 2008 remained unreviewed (including 6 percent of counterterror acquisitions and 31 percent of counterintelligence acquisitions, the two categories covered by FISA wiretaps). Let that sink in for a second: They have literally years worth of audio material alone that the Bureau itself can't be sure of the contents of, never mind any kind of independent oversight body.
Time to Get Rid of the Corporate Income Tax?
Here's a video arguing for the abolition of the corporate income tax. The visuals are good and it touches on key issues such as competitiveness.
I do have one complaint about the video, though it is merely a sin of omission. There is not enough attention paid to the issue of double taxation. Yes, America's corporate tax rate is very high, but that is just one of the layers of taxation imposed by the internal revenue code. Both the capital gains tax and the tax on dividends result in corporate income being taxed at least two times.
These are points I made in my very first video, which is a good companion to the other video.
There is a good argument, by the way, for keeping the corporate tax and instead getting rid of the extra layers of tax on dividends and capital gains. Either approach would get rid of double taxation, so the economic benefits would be identical. But the compliance costs of taxing income at the corporate level (requiring a relatively small number of tax returns) are much lower than the compliance costs of taxing income at the individual level (requiring the IRS to track down tens of millions of shareholders).
Indeed, this desire for administrative simplicity is why the flat tax adopts the latter approach (this choice does not exist with a national sales tax since the government collects money when income is spent rather than when it is earned).
But that's a secondary issue. If there's a chance to get rid of the corporate income tax, lawmakers should jump at the opportunity.
No Mr. Secretary, It Is Not in America’s “Interest” to Stay in Iraq
In testimony yesterday before the House Armed Service Committee, Defense Secretary Robert Gates stated that the United States has an “interest” in keeping troops in Iraq past the agreed date of withdrawal, December 31, 2011. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) pressed Gates by asking:
How can we maintain all of these gains that we've made through so much effort if we only have 150 people there and we don't have any military there whatsoever," Hunter asked. "We'd have more military in Western European countries at that point than we'd have in Iraq, one of the most central states, as everybody knows, in the Middle East?
The logic of Rep. Duncan’s question provides some interesting context. His logic implies that the thousands of U.S. troops stationed in wealthy, developed, Western Europe is both necessary and beneficial to our current interests. But this is not a very good argument as European countries continue to cut their defense budgets in large part because they are sheltered under the American security umbrella. It is in fact highly questionable why Americans should be willing to accept massive deficits as far as the eye can see and spend still more on our military, so that our allies can continue to shirk their fundamental obligations to their own people. There is no reason why we should want to adopt the same model for Iraq.
And yet, Rep. Duncan assumes that U.S. troop deployments in Europe are the model for providing political and economic stability everywhere in the world. If U.S. troops withdraw, all of our “gains” in Iraq would be lost.
This assumes that, first, U.S. troops can provide this stability, and second that our strategic interests in Iraq are on par with those in other parts of the world. But leaving U.S. troops in Iraq for another two, five, or seven years will not advance American security. It is not now, and should never have been, the responsibility of U.S. troops to create a functioning state in Iraq. That is the responsibility of the Iraqi people and their government. Likewise, our troops should not serve as Iraq's police force.
There is no doubt that there are political and security challenges in Iraq, but these concerns should not delay the withdrawal. There will always be excuses, especially from those who favored the war at the outset, for a continued presence. And these risks will persist no matter how long U.S. troops stay. The future of Iraq lies with the people of Iraq, and it is well past the time when they must take the reins.
A handover of security responsibilities to the Iraqi people is in America's strategic interest. As we are currently seeing with European defense budgets, the United States has been in the business of doing for other governments what they should be doing for themselves. Now would be a good time to start to change this pattern.
How Many 215 Orders?
There was an interesting exchange during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing yesterday concerning the use of the Patriot Act's §215 orders for business records and other tangible things. FBI Director Robert Mueller hinted that the orders may have been used to track purchases of hydrogen peroxide purchases in the investigation of aspiring bomber Najibullah Zazi, while Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oreg.) asserted that there is "a huge gap today between how you all are interpreting the PATRIOT Act and what the American people think the PATRIOT Act is all about and it’s going to need to be resolved."
Let's leave our curiosity about that by the wayside for the moment, though. I'm curious about one simple empirical claim Mueller made in his testimony: That the provision has been used over 380 times since 2001. I assume he'd know, but that seems inconsistent with what's been publicly reported to date. It's worth noting that there are actually minor discrepancies between the numbers provided in Congressional Research Service reports, audits from the Office of the Inspector General, and the Justice Department's annual reports to Congress. But there are plenty of legitimate reasons these numbers might vary depending on how you count, and the total variance is a difference of about 17 orders total over the years.
We know from those Inspector General reports that the majority of those 215 orders issued were "combination" orders issued in tandem with another type of surveillance order called a "pen register" so that investigators could get subscriber information about the people whose communications patterns they were tracking. When Congress amended the Patriot Act in 2006, it built that authority right into the pen register statute, making it unnecessary to seek those "combination" orders. Prior to the amendment, the government got 173 of those "combination" orders. "Pure" 215 orders, which are now the only type needed, have been used much more sparingly. None were issued at all until 2004, and from 2004 through 2009 (depending on whose tally you want to use) there were between 75 and 92 orders issued (for an average of 12–15 annually since 2004). Throw in the combination orders and the upper-bound number through the end of 2009 is 265 orders.
Gambling Raid in Baltimore
The Baltimore police must have solved the city’s violent crime problem. They’ve shifted resources to illegal gambling:
Baltimore County police arrested five men after an undercover detective infiltrated an illegal high-stakes poker game in Edgemere, records show.
Police say "Texas Hold 'Em" games were held regularly at the Lynch Point Social Club in the 3100 block of Roger Road, where organizers were making as much as $1,500 in profit a night, according to charging documents.
After receiving a tip, officers conducted surveillance at the club and later sent an undercover detective inside, who participated in a game with a $65 buy-in. The detective played for hours — leaving after he lost all his chips, records show.
A tactical unit conducted a raid on the club Feb. 11, seizing poker chips, electronic gambling machines and a surveillance system, among other items. Forty-one people were inside at the time of the raid.
Posted at the Raidmap, where you can find similar “isolated incidents.” A December gambling raid in South Carolina turned into a gun fight when poker players mistook a SWAT team for armed robbers. The family of Sal Culosi, the Virginia optometrist killed in a 2006 gambling raid, just settled its lawsuit against Fairfax County for $2 million. Radley Balko has more on that tragedy here.
Thoughts on the F-35′s Extra Engine
I'm a bit late to the party in commenting on the passage of the Rooney Amendment, a successful effort on the part of 2nd-term Republican Tom Rooney (R-Fla.) to strip funding for the F-136, an engine that the Pentagon doesn't want for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
A few additional thoughts: unlike nearly all other amendments to the CR, Rooney's passed, and fairly easily. Part of the reason is strong administration support for the effort, key especially to securing votes from Democrats -- those who don't have F-136 plants in their districts, that is. But Gates had signaled his displeasure many times previously, so that alone doesn't explain this rare victory for budget hawks.
I would guess that an additional factor is the slew of new Republicans elected on a platform of fiscal prudence. Having Rooney as a champion for the cause certainly helped, with 110 Republicans voting for the amendment (vote tally here). A majority within the GOP still treat weapons contractors with kid gloves, but claiming that every single weapon system is essential to the nation's survival can get pretty laughable, especially when the Secretary of Defense and all the relevant uniformed officers disagree.
(Speaking of laughable, wouldn't it be absurd for the Obama administration to threaten to veto the CR because it now has too little money for the Pentagon? Wait. That happened.)
Much as I would like to dwell on the defeat of the F-136 in the House, however, I am sobered by the reality of budgeting for the military. This is hardly the final blow in this battle. Opponents and supporters of the extra engine in the Senate have already lined up their forces. The engine might yet re-emerge. And we must not lose sight of the fact that the total amount saved -- $450 million -- is tiny relative to the Pentagon's budget of around $540 billion in this fiscal year. Perhaps rather than debating the need for a second engine, we should be debating the need for a plane that is grossly over budget, badly behind schedule, and riddled with performance problems?
So kudos to Congressman Rooney for leading this fight, but there is still much, much more to do to bring military spending down to reasonable levels. (For example, removing U.S. troops from Europe, a policy that already enjoys considerable support.)
Measuring Progress on Violence against Union Members in Colombia
During a recent Congressional hearing on President Obama’s trade agenda, Rep. Sander Levin (D-Mich.) stated his continued objections to the FTA with Colombia:
“Union worker violence in Colombia remains unacceptably high - if not the highest in the world. Limited progress is being made in the investigation and prosecution of those responsible. Additionally, reports indicate that threats against union workers and others have increased, and there has been little concrete action today to pursue these cases.” [Emphasis added].
Levin warned that, despite signs of a more constructive approach to this issue from Colombia's new president Juan Manuel Santos, “The only adequate measuring stick is progress on the ground.”
Rep. Levin should take a look at the Free Trade Bulletin that my colleague Dan Griswold and I published this week: "Trade Agreement Would Promote U.S. Exports and Colombian Civil Society." When it comes to progress on the ground regarding violence against union members, Colombia already has a remarkable record. The number of assassinations of trade unionists has dropped 77% since its peak in 2001, compared to the total number of homicides in the country, which declined by 44% in the same period.
Sources: National Union School (ENS) and Ministry of Social Protection (MPS).
If we look at the homicide rate as defined by the number of murders per 100,000 inhabitants, the rate for union killings was 5.3 per 100,000 unionists in 2010, six times lower than the homicide rate for the overall population (33.9 per 100,000 inhabitants).
In our paper, we present evidence that shows that union members enjoy greater security than other vulnerable groups of Colombian civil society, such as teachers, councilmen and journalists. Also, we highlight research conducted by economists Daniel Mejía and María José Uribe of the Universidad de los Andes in Colombia, which found no statistical evidence supporting the claim that trade unionists are targeted for their activities. Instead, their results show that “the violence against union members can be explained by the general level of violence and by low levels of economic development.”
As for Rep. Levin’s claim that there has been “little concrete action” to pursue crimes against trade unionists, once again the evidence says otherwise. In 2010 there were over 1,400 trade unionists under a government protection program—more than any other vulnerable group of Colombia’s civil society. In 2007, a special department was created in the Office of the Prosecutor General dedicated exclusively to solving crimes against union members and bringing the perpetrators to justice. Close to 85 percent of the sentences issued since 2000 for assassinations of trade unionists were issued after the creation of this department.
If Rep. Levin’s “adequate measuring stick is progress on the ground,” then he should recognize the tremendous achievements made by Colombia so far in reducing violence against trade unionists, and solving the crimes committed against them.
You can read the full paper here.
I’ll Take “Whatever Evidence I Like” for Hundreds of Billions, Alex
Right before the President's 2012 budget proposal was released, I wrote a bit about what I was hearing the administration would call for with Pell Grants. Notably, ending year-round Pell on the grounds that the cost was too high and "there was little evidence that students earn their degrees any faster." I found this argument a bit odd because eligibility to get more than one Pell award annually started in just the 2009-2010 academic year -- way too recently to have any conclusive evidence on its effect one way or the other. I was also surprised because, well, evidence of success has never been important in decisions to keep or kill programs.
Take the embattled -- and near dead -- Washington, DC voucher program. There is currently a concerted effort to revive the program, but the Obama administration and most congressional Democrats evinced no qualms about killing it despite its well-documented success with graduation rates and parental satisfaction. Documented, in fact, using "gold-standard," longitudinal, random-assignment research methods. That documentation is why Cato Center for Educational Freedom director Andrew Coulson last week testified to the House education committee that "there is one federal education program that has been proven to both improve educational outcomes and dramatically lower costs. That is the Washington, DC Opportunity Scholarships Program."
Sadly, the administration -- and, to be honest, pols of all stripes -- are as happy to ignore the evidence of success in programs they dislike as the very common evidence of failure in programs they support.
Take the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program, which funds after-school activities intended to keep kids off the streets and provide them with social and educational enrichment. A series of studies -- the last published in 2005 -- found that not only didn't the program appear to provide many positive results, it might have had overall negative effects:
Conclusions: This study finds that elementary students who were randomly assigned to attend the 21st Century Community Learning Centers after-school program were more likely to feel safe after school, no more likely to have higher academic achievement, no less likely to be in self-care, more likely to engage in some negative behaviors, and experience mixed effects on developmental outcomes relative to students who were not randomly assigned to attend the centers.
In light of its (at-best) impotence, did the program go away? Of course not! In FY 2010 it was appropriated $1.17 billion, and the Obama administration has asked for $1.27 billion for FY 2012. And this despite not just poor performance, but a pesky $14 trillion national debt.
This is small potatoes, though, compared to some other programs. Take Head Start: Run by the Department of Health and Human Services, Head Start is supposed to give poor kids an early boost in life. In reality, however, it has proven itself to be largely worthless, with benefits disappearing after just a few years. It's a finding that was repeated in a federal evaluation released in 2010, which reported that "the advantages children gained during their Head Start and age 4 years yielded only a few statistically significant differences in outcomes at the end of 1st grade for the sample as a whole."
Despite this fecklessness, the administration wants to increase funding for Head Start from $7.23 billion in FY 2010 to $8.10 billion in FY 2012.
Clearly, "evidence" doesn't drive budgeting decisions -- it's just a term that's invoked when it's politically expedient to do so. But maybe one more bit of evidence is in order to illustrate this. Compare increases in overall federal spending on K-12 education to the academic performance of 17-year-olds, our schools' "final products":
In light of this, if federal policymakers really cared about evidence, would they still be spending money on education at all? The evidence on that, unfortunately, is almost indisputable.
Schools for Misrule Spring Speaking Tour
The first copies of my new book Schools for Misrule: Legal Academia and an Overlawyered America are here from the printer, and I'll be touring the country to promote it in coming weeks. Some highlights:
- February 21. Bloomington, Ind. Indiana University Law School, sponsored by Federalist Society chapter.
- February 22. Urbana-Champaign, Ill. University of Illinois School of Law, sponsored by Federalist Society chapter. Commenting will be Prof. Larry Ribstein.
- March 3. Washington, D.C. Cato Institute Policy Forum. Commenting on the book will be the Hon. Douglas Ginsburg, U.S. Court of Appeals, and moderating will be Cato legal director Roger Pilon.
- March 10. University of Minnesota, sponsored by Federalist Society chapter. Commenting will be Profs. Brad Clary and Oren Gross, and moderating will be Prof. Dale Carpenter.
- March 16. New York, N.Y. Manhattan Institute luncheon (invitation). Commenting will be James Copland, Manhattan Institute.
- March 22. Washington, D.C. Heritage Foundation forum. Commenting/moderating: Todd Gaziano, Heritage Foundation.
- March 28. Boulder, Colo. University of Colorado School of Law, sponsored by Federalist Society chapter.
- March 29. Laramie, Wyo. University of Wyoming School of Law, sponsored by Federalist Society chapter.
- March 30. Sacramento, Calif. McGeorge School of Law, sponsored by Federalist Society chapter.
- April 6. New York, N.Y. Manhattan Institute Young Leaders evening event (private).
- April 7. Washington, D.C. American University Law School, sponsored by Federalist Society chapter.
- April 13. Washington, D.C. Book club appearance (private).
- April 27-29. Dallas, Tex. Heritage Foundation Resource Bank meeting (private).
Always check in advance with the hosting group for venues and exact times; some events open to the public require advance registration. The book's official publication date is March 1, and copies should be arriving in the bookstores soon.
Great Moments in Human Rights: Creating an Entitlement for Free Soccer Broadcasts in Europe
Forget the Magna Carta and the Constitution. Don't pay attention to the end of slavery. Ignore the defeat of the Nazis or the collapse of the Soviet Empire.
If you want a real victory for humanity, European courts have ruled that people have the right to free soccer games on TV. Apparently, people are now "entitled" to anything that is "of major importance" to society.
Isn't that just peachy? Europe is slowly collapsing under the weight of the welfare state. Nations such as Greece and Portugal already have reached the point of fiscal collapse. But rather than address these problems, the political elites at the European institutions have decided on a modern-day version of bread and circuses for the masses.
Here's a blurb from the Financial Times.
European countries are entitled to ban the exclusive airing of World Cup and European football championship games on pay-TV in order to allow wider public viewing on free channels, one of Europe’s top courts has ruled. The ruling is a blow for Fifa, which organises the World Cup finals, and Uefa, which handles the European Football Championship finals. Both organisations depend heavily on the sale of broadcasting rights for much of their income and had challenged the extent to which games had to be shown more widely. But on Thursday the General Court in Luxembourg slapped down their arguments and ruled in favour of Belgium and the UK, which had included games organised by Fifa or Uefa on their lists of events they considered to be “of major importance” to society and so entitled to wider audiences.
President (and Governors) Should Heed Court and Stop Implementing ObamaCare
In yesterday's Providence Journal, my colleague Ilya Shapiro and I argue that, since a federal court has voided ObamaCare as unconstitutional, the Obama administration should immediately cease all efforts to implement ObamaCare:
Federal courts do not issue advisory opinions. The parties to any lawsuit are bound by any resulting judgment.
At minimum, then, the government lacks authority to implement ObamaCare where the case was decided, in the Northern District of Florida, and the 26 state plaintiffs need take no action to do so. Likewise, members of the National Federation of Independent Business, another plaintiff in the case, may now be entitled to the same protection from Obamacare’s requirements.
Moreover, it is not unreasonable to argue that Vinson’s ruling applies to the nation as a whole. After all, this lawsuit facially attacked the law rather than just challenging its application to particular parties....
In so uncertain a legal context, it is simply reckless for financially strapped federal and state governments to pour resources into changing our health care system when those changes may not ultimately pass constitutional muster.
Governors should follow the example of Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R), who recently told a Cato audience in Naples that Florida will not implement any aspect of ObamaCare. Listen to excerpts from Scott's remarks here. Read the full Cannon-Shapiro oped here.
The State of State Subsidies
Chris Edwards recently penned a piece that makes the case for cutting federal subsidies to state and local governments. In a related budget bulletin, he shows that there are now over 1,100 federal aid programs for state and local governments.
I’ve produced two charts that illustrate the extraordinary growth in federal subsidies to state and local government using the latest figures in the president’s 2012 budget proposal.
The first chart shows the inflation-adjusted increase in federal subsidies to states and local governments since 1941, separated into “health” and “non-health” categories:
The second chart shows the inflation-adjusted increase in total federal subsidies to state and local governments since 2000:
Like countless other individuals and interest groups, state and local government officials have become addicted to federal taxpayer money. This addiction has encouraged irresponsibility and profligacy at all levels of government. It has also prevented citizens from appreciating the true cost of the services they demand from state and local governments.
In the next couple of months, state and local officials will wail and gnash their teeth over proposals from Washington to cut back on the federal feeding tube. Journalists who are tempted to be overly-sympathetic to state and local officials should look at these charts and ask themselves why these folks never seem to be able to get their fiscal houses in order despite all the “free” money they’re getting from federal taxpayers.
See this Cato essay on the need to revive fiscal federalism.
Homeownership Before the New Deal
The latest canard offered for keeping taxpayers on the hook for mortgage risk is that, without such, homeownership would limited to the wealthy. Sarah Rosen Wartell of the Center for American Progress stated before the House Subcommittee on Capital Markets, "The high cost, limited availability, and high volatility of pre-New Deal mortgage finance meant that homeownership was effectively limited to the wealthy." Congressman Al Green repeated the point. As I've generally found Sarah to be one of the more reasonable CAP employees, and that this is fundamentally an empirical question, I would have expected her to offer some evidence to support such a claim. Alas, she did not. So I will.
According to the US Census Bureau, at the turn of the century in 1900, the US homeownership rate was 46.5%. I'm pretty sure that even Sarah wouldn't claim that close to half of US households in 1900 were "wealthy." Interestingly enough, homeownership after the first 10 years of the New Deal was lower than before the New Deal.
While 46.5% is about 20 percentage points below the current rate, the population in 1900 was considerably younger, and one thing we do know is that homeownership is positively correlated with age. In 1900, 54% of the US population was under the age of 25, a reasonable cut-off for homeownership. Today, that number is 35%. I don't think it would be a stretch to say the greatest driver behind the homeownership rate over the last 100 years has been the aging of the US population, probably followed by the increase in household incomes (homeownership and income are also closely correlated).
Hopefully this will put to rest the myth that FDR and the New Deal gave homeownership to the masses. The fact is that homeownership was fairly widespread long before the New Deal. I await the next myth from the Fannie Mae apologists. If they are wise, they will try one that isn't so easily falsified.
Why the Senate’s Vote on the Patriot Act Is Actually Pretty Good News
Last night, By an overwhelming 86-to-12 margin, the Senate approved a temporary 90-day extension of three controversial provisions of the Patriot Act scheduled to sunset at the end of the month. The House just voted to move forward on a parallel extension bill, which will presumably pass easily. Because I'm seeing some civil libertarian folks online reacting with dismay to this development, I think it's worth clarifying that this is relatively good news when you reflect on the outlook from just a couple of weeks ago.
The House has already approved a one-year extension that would plant the next reauthorization vote on the right eve of primary season in a Presidential election cycle, all but guaranteeing a round of empty demagoguery followed by another punt. As of last week, everyone expected the Senate to bring Sen. Dianne Feinstein's three year reauthorization—which also extends the odious FISA Amendments Act of 2008—to the floor. The discussion on the Senate floor last night makes it clear that this didn't happen because of pushback from legislators who were sick of kicking the can and wanted time to hold hearings on substantive reforms.
This is actually a better outcome than simply letting the three sunsetting powers lapse—which, realistically, was not going to happen anyway. First, because at least one of the expiring authorities, roving wiretaps, is a legitimate tool that ought to be available to intelligence investigators if it's amended to eliminate the so-called "John Doe" loophole. Second, because while all three of these provisions have serious defects that raise legitimate concerns about the potential for abuse, they are collectively small beer compared with National Security Letters, which have already given rise to serious, widespread, and well documented abuses. One of the three sunsetting powers has never been used, and the other two are invoked a couple dozen times per year. All three involve court supervision. The FBI issues tens of thousands of National Security Letter requests each year, the majority targeting American citizens and legal residents, without any advance court approval. The vast majority of the thousands of Americans whose financial and telecommunications records are seized each year are almost certainly innocent of any wrongdoing, but their information is nevertheless retained indefinitely in government databases. With very few exceptions, these people will never learn that the government has been monitoring their financial transactions or communication patterns. Forcing a debate now on the expiring provisions opens a window for consideration of proposals to rein in NSLs—including a new sunset that would create pressure for continued scrutiny.
A new Pew poll released this week reports that Americans remain fairly evenly split on the question of whether the Patriot Act is "a necessary tool that helps the government find terrorists" or "goes too far and poses a threat to civil liberties." (Perhaps unsurprisingly, with the change of administration, Democrats have become more supportive and Republicans somewhat more skeptical.) But this is actually a signally unhelpful way to frame debate about legislation encompassing hundreds of reforms to the byzantine statutory framework governing American intelligence investigations—more a toolbox than a "tool." The question shouldn't be whether you're "for" or "against" it, but whether there are ways to narrow and focus particular authorities so that legitimate investigations can proceed without sweeping in so much information about innocent people. A three-month extension signals that Congress is finally, belatedly, ready to start having that conversation.
Stimulus Spending Testimony
I testified today to a a subcommittee of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee looking at the effects of the 2009 stimulus bill (the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act").
Some of the discussion regarded the continuing claims by stimulus supporters that the $800 billion bill created millions of jobs. To most people, such a claim now seems laughable--unemployment is still very high two years later and the recovery from the recession is very sluggish compared to prior recessions.
Also testifying was Stanford economist John Taylor, who offered a view on why economists using Keynesian models are still claiming success for the ARRA bill:
"Why do some argue that ARRA has been more effective than the facts presented here indicate? Many evaluations of the impact of ARRA use economic models in which the answers are built-in, and were built-in before the stimulus package was enacted. The same economic models that said, two years ago, that the impact would be large now show that the impact is in fact large."
Taylor's testimony looks at the actual effects of the stimulus in the national income accounts data, rather using an assumption-filled model. Taylor concludes:
"In sum, the data presented here indicate that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was not effective in stimulating the economy ... Currently, the increased debt caused by ARRA—both directly through its deficit financing and indirectly through its de-emphasis on controlling spending—is likely a drag on economic growth."
Thanks to Tyler Grimm and the committee team for organizing the hearing. It's important to explore the costly failures of such big spending programs as ARRA because the next time the economy goes into a downcycle the Keynesians, sadly, will be back to Capitol Hill pushing their expensive solutions and further bankrupting the nation.
Looking for a Free Ride
The Harris Poll finds that most Americans favor cuts in foreign economic aid, foreign military aid, spending by the regulatory agencies generally, space programs, subsidies to business, and federal welfare spending. All good stuff.
On the other hand, a significant plurality opposes cuts in defense spending. Fewer than one in four favor cuts in federal education spending or health care. 11 percent favor cutting Social Security payments. Over one-third favor spending more on education, health care, and Social Security.
How seriously should we take these results?
Simple observation of Congress suggests that most Americans are not willing to pay more taxes. The Obama administration found that in focus groups Democrats were not willing to raise taxes on anyone except individuals making more the $200,000 annually or families above $250,000 each year (now you know why the Obamacare taxes are the way they are). Taxpayers evidently are not willing to pay for current spending since the annual public deficit runs into the trillions.
I conclude that survey respondents want to sustain or increase public spending at a cost to someone else, perhaps "the rich" or future citizens who will repay public debt. These survey respondents, in other words, want a free ride. A more charitable interpretation would be that respondents have not thought much about the cause and effect relationship between spending and taxes, at least with regard to the abstractions posed in a survey. Neither interpretation flatters the respondents.
I recall James Madison's remark in Federalist no. 10 that majorities tend toward policies antagonistic to "the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community." Policymakers have little reason to take seriously these fantasies. Whether they will have the courage to ignore them is another question.
The Drug War and Black America
Here is a new publication from Cato, "How the War on Drugs Is Destroying Black America," (pdf) by John McWhorter, who is a lecturer in linguistics and American Studies at Columbia University and a contributing editor to the Manhattan Institute's City Journal and The New Republic. Here is his conclusion:
If we truly want to get past race in this country, we must be aware that it will never happen until the futile War on Drugs so familiar to us now is a memory. ... The time to end the War on Drugs, therefore, is yesterday.
Read the whole thing. You can also listen to McWhorter's speech by clicking here.
For additional Cato work related to drug policy, go here.
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