by | ARTICLES, CONSTITUTION, EDUCATION, FREEDOM, GOVERNMENT, SCOTUS
There is nothing in our Constitution about the “separation of church and state.” This phrase is often wrongly used as shorthand for the Establishment clause found in the first amendment, which states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” What that plainly states is that the government will not prefer or establish one religion over another or restrict the practice of religion. Many people who use the phrase “separation of church and state” interpret it to mean the opposite, that the Constitution requires a separation of church and state. But that is simply untrue.
Thus, if the government gives money to a group, such as private schools, it cannot discriminate against a particular school just because it is religious. The recent SCOTUS decision in Espinoza v Montana case is a clear confirmation of that important understanding.
by | ARTICLES, ECONOMY, ELECTIONS, FED, GOVERNMENT, OBAMA, POLITICS, POTUS, SOCIAL SECURITY, TAXES, TRUMP
Are we past the tipping point for economic reform? I would argue that Obama’s budgets and spending accelerated the deficits beyond repair. Some people will go back to Reagan and say that the deficit and the debt ballooned during the Reagan Administration and they will blame it on his tax cuts. But what is actually true is that the tax cuts generated a large increase in revenue, and the only reason why he had deficits was that the Democrat-led Congress increased spending even over the increased revenue. The same thing happened with the Bush tax cuts which were very pro-growth; the revenue went up sharply, but spending went up even faster. But at this point the debt was still manageable.
Then you come to Obama. At the beginning of his administration, we had the deep recession -which arguably could have benefited by one year of stimulus. The concept of a stimulus is supposed to be a one-off event. In other words, you engage in big one-time expenditures to get the economy on track and then spending goes back to previous levels as the recovery occurs. The problem is that Obama didn’t put things in for just one year. He did long term things, like food stamps, teacher’s compensation, etc., knowing full well that once put into effect they could not easily be withdrawn. And it was pretty clearly his intent all along, for political reasons, to bake them into the budget. So now when we started to have a recovery, you had ballooning deficits — even with a growing economy. Then by the time Trump was elected, the locked-in recurring spending with its locked-in annual increases made the deficit – and the debt – almost impossible to rein in.
Now we have the pandemic and we have no place to go. There’s no surplus to go to the deficit. Millions of Americans are unexpectedly unemployed, which means they’re not paying into Social Security. At the same time, we see older workers who have lost their jobs choose to draw their benefits as soon as they become eligible. This will speed up the insolvency train. But then Trump did something that was very stupid (though his political motivation is clear). He said that entitlements are off the table. If entitlement reform is off the table at this point, we’re headed to bankruptcy.
We’ve been talking about the coming insolvency of the Social Security and Medicare programs for many, many years now and Congress has done nothing to stave off the inevitable. Couple that with Obama budgets, Trump’s lack of action, and the pandemic, and the deficits are even larger now. Anyone seriously looking at the situation knows that absent a major change to entitlements, the mandated annual increases, both because of cost of living adjustments and demographics, will bankrupt both programs in the next ten to fifteen years. It’s very safe to say that absent major entitlement reform, we’re basically past the tipping point.
by | CONSTITUTION, FREEDOM, GOVERNMENT, LAW, QUICKLY NOTED
Everyone remembers ACORN, the community organizing group that engaged in voter fraud and operational irregularities (among other things). Their shadiness was brought to light in 2009 and became the subject of multiple investigations and civil lawsuits which inevitably bankrupted the organization. This was the right thing to happen.
Civil lawsuits may very well be the key to getting the looters and rioters under control in the absence of government leadership. Don’t focus on arresting the perpetrator; if someone’s property is damaged, police cars are destroyed, businesses are vandalized, these acts should result in lawsuits against the agitators. But here’s the key: if they are working for or encouraged by an organization (such as Black Lives Matter or Antifa, for example), you sue the organization as well. Of course the organization can say that they didn’t tell the rioters to do any damage, but then you have rioters who will not be held liable for their actions and being hung out to dry by their organizations, so they’ll make a deal. That’s how you put them out of business.
The agitators should be held criminally liable, but whether they are or aren’t, they should be sued. Any lawsuits, therefore, must be civil, not criminal. Maybe you can’t prove beyond a reasonable doubt in a criminal case, but you’ll have plenty of evidence for a civil suit. Once people realize that if these do these egregious actions and will be held liable and financially responsible, maybe they’ll think twice about inflicting harm on another person or property.
by | ARTICLES, BLOG, COVID, ECONOMY, FREEDOM, GOVERNMENT, NEW YORK, POLITICS
I am a long-term supporter of the Manhattan Institute and participate in their events and webcasts regularly. Heather MacDonald, Steve Malanga, and Nicole Gelinas are three of my favorite people. But Michael Hendrix seriously dropped the ball as moderator of the discussion on “Planning for the City’s Reopening” several weeks ago. Given the current pandemic and civil unrest, exploring how business can reopen is a laudable topic; however, the actual discussion was immensely disappointing. He allowed it to simply ignore the real reasons for the problems the City now faces with regard to “reopening”.
For instance, during the question on how we were going to reopen the city, much of the conversation had to do with needing to do more with affordable housing, and needing more help from the city government. He of course knows that this has nothing to do with the “reopening”. The problem long preceded COVID, and doesn’t need the government to fix it. Government actions – zoning, land use, overburdening businesses and building regulations leading to ridiculously high costs – are the cause of lack of affordable housing, and without reversing those actual issues, there is no solution.
Additionally, the “racial crisis” was a significant topic. He ignored any response regarding whether this was true and/or meaningful since the City has been run by extraordinarily liberal, non-racist leaders for generations, including full representation of the minority community. Can racial bias then really be a thing in New York City? Also in every single major city in which there has been extensive looting and rioting, the cities have been in the hands of minorities and liberals for the past 50 years. Yet he as the moderator didn’t even allow for this perspective to come up.
Furthermore, there was absolutely no discussion about the rioters and looters destroying businesses; the conversation only focused on police brutality. Though police brutality may be a problem, is it really a factor in the reopening after COVID? For a panel exploring the city and businesses, it was egregious that he virtually ignored the very real problem: businesses that have been destroyed by looters and rioters are being ignored by law enforcement, making businesses hesitant to invest in reopening and insurers hesitant in providing insurance at affordable rates.
Another topic was education, but there was no mention about charter schools and how they fit into the equation of reopening, even though charter schools are the most successful educational endeavor in the city.
Likewise, another topic was insurance, which he allowed to proceed in a manner that just showed the economic ignorance of the panelists. Since the happening of a pandemic is not a quantifiable risk, it is not insurable. To insist that the government provide insurance, at a premium that can only be set politically, has many problems. What’s more, the ignorance of the position espoused – that the government should somehow make the insurers who did not provide or charge for such coverage pay for it anyway – should not have been allowed to go unanswered.
On a related note, there was talk about how the city may or may not be able to help because there is a budget crisis. But where was the mention that DeBlasio is the cause? There was already a budget crisis before the pandemic and the civil unrest, not because of it. And DeBlasio’s actions during the pandemic and protests will certainly inhibit the ability of the City to reopen.
Hendrix should have made sure that the discussion included the knowledge and competence that the people of the Manhattan Institute espouse. There is no question in my mind that Heather MacDonald, Steve Malanga, and Nicole Gelinas would have been very disappointed with the exchange.
by | BLOG, FREEDOM, GOVERNMENT, LAW, POLITICS
The police have a PR problem and a culture of cover up and it’s finally being talked about. On the one hand, the police have millions of contacts with the public over a given year and the vast majority of interactions are fine, even dull. But sometimes you have bad police and sometimes you have a bad interaction (including, though not limited to, a shooting). However, almost never do you see the police admit that they messed up.
George Floyd’s situation was unique in that they admitted the wrongdoing right away, though this was likely because the horrific actions were immediately all over the internet. But police have this culture of lying and doing nothing about terrible tragedies in which they do the wrong thing. For instance, the police typically want to see body cams first before the public gets a chance to so they can see what the cams show and then figure out how to spin it. The proper way to conduct an investigation would be to actually investigate first and then look at the body cams to see what they can corroborate or dispute. Maybe this attitude is symptomatic of the public service culture, because typically in the private sector you don’t have the same attitude. If, for example, a Walmart employee, through an improper action ,hurts a customer, Walmart will get rid of the employee because they don’t tolerate the abuse of a member of the public. Not necessarily so with the police, and this attitude needs reform if there is going to be meaningful change.
Police in this country need to remember that they are public servants but they are also responsible for their own behavior and police departments need to hold accountable the bad cops if they are going to maintain public trust.
by | ARTICLES, BLOG, BUSINESS, FREEDOM, GOVERNMENT, QUICKLY NOTED
One of my favorite topics is the Jones Act, a little-known maritime law that has a big impact shipping goods. I have written extensively on it before, so I was delighted to see the Competitive Enterprise Institute publish a paper on the topic since the Jones Act has been in place for 100 years now. Below is the Executive Summary, and then a link to the full paper. It is a must-read for understanding why the Jones Act needs to be abolished.
“The Jones Act requires any ship traveling between two U.S. points to be U.S.-manufactured, -owned, -flagged, and -crewed. This heavy-handed protectionist measure was enacted in 1920 with the stated purpose of ensuring a strong merchant marine to support America’s commerce and the nation’s preparedness for war and national emergency. A century later, the evidence is clear: The law has not only failed to accomplish any of those objectives, it has systematically undermined each of them.
Today the Jones Act mostly covers well over 30,000 tugs and barges plying America’s inland waterways, and its punitive restrictions mainly benefit railways and trucking companies.1 As for America’s once mighty oceangoing merchant marine, the law has protected it to death: Less than 100 oceangoing vessels remain in the Jones Act fleet. As of 2019, the few American shipyards that can build commercial oceangoing vessels are being kept afloat by defense contracts.
The law’s supporters argue that because its costs are difficult to quantify, it is not clear that it costs anything. This is highly misleading. The law is designed precisely to restrict the supply of domestic shipping so that American domestic ship operators and shipbuilders can charge more. Shipping rates on Jones Act routes are typically several times more expensive than rates in the competitive international market, especially in terms of cost per nautical mile traveled for a standard container. The Jones Act’s proponents are fervent supporters of “buy American” but the law favors imports over domestic commerce. It is protectionism for foreigners.
The law has also failed its national security mission. The military utility of the Jones Act fleet has faded faster than the Jones Act fleet’s dwindling numbers. Modern warfare requires transport ships that are fast and flexible, while the global maritime industry is heading in the other direction, with transport ships that are increasingly slower, bigger, and less maneuverable. As for national emergencies, every time one requires sealift, the Jones Act needs to be waived so victims can get the relief they need from ships that are actually available.
According to one study, the Jones Act is equivalent to a 64.6 percent tariff on domestic seaborne trade. For Alaska, Hawaii, and especially Puerto Rico, the impact is particularly onerous. The impact of the Jones Act on American energy is also notable, and difficult to justify in today’s world of globally dominant North American oil production and falling prices.
While repeal of the Jones Act would be ideal, at a minimum, significant reforms are long overdue.”
You can read the full analysis here.
by | BLOG, EDUCATION, OBAMA, POLITICS
It is clear, from any economic sense, that compensation paid in the private sector is more beneficial to society than that paid in the public sector. This is because amounts in the former is controlled by people risking their own money making sure it is maximizing output for a given input. (It also works for charities funded by people parting with their own hard earned money).
Federal state and local governments and government funded not-for-profits are less good for society, and they normally pay too much for what they receive in services. So how stupid must one be that we want to incentivize- by forgiving student loans – those who would take more from and contribute less to society??
by | BLOG, FREEDOM
Martin Luther King’s vision was of a colorblind society. Slowly but steadily, in the years since his death, we have worked to make that legacy a reality, culminating in the election of an African American as President of the United States. Yet what should have been a high point for race relations in this country was instead undermined by the very person who could have embodied MLK’s vision.
The Obama administration from top to bottom started looking for race in everything, from Dodd-Frank to college admissions to discrimination in auto loans. . He was a huge proponent of disparate impact theory. This theory states that if a group is not proportionately represented, the reason is automatically bias. This theory would hold that if white people are underrepresented in professional football, the reason is racial prejudice. No need to look at other non-bias reasons that could account for the numbers. For instance, when disparate impact theory was applied to auto loans, it created lawsuits against dealerships for discriminating against black buyers even though in reality the dealers were never given any information related to race on applications when processing loan applications. Obama ultimately had all of his policy departments, especially employment and housing, hyper-sensitive about race. In this way, it made people into victims and those accused of being discriminatory angry because they weren’t actually discriminating. As a result, this type of identity politics was incredibly destructive. In 2009, shortly after Obama took office, a New York Times/CBS News poll showed two-thirds of Americans regarded race relations as generally good. At the end of his presidency, 69% of Americans considered race relations as generally bad.
The seeds of heightened racial division that were sown with Obama continue today because of the overemphasis on race even in scenarios that have nothing to do with it. We have abandoned the vision of a colorblind society. None of this is more apparent than the recent days of violence in the wake of the George Floyd tragedy. Though this was a tragic clear case of police wrongdoing, it is not clear that there was any racial motivation; that argument is tenuous. Is the killing of a black individual by a white policeman (creating a cascade of protests costing millions of dollars) as significant or more significant than the numbers of black deaths at the hands of other black perpetrators? According to the FBI crime database for 2016, the most recent year for which statistics are available, out of 2870 murders of blacks, 2570 of them were committed by other blacks, and only 243 were committed by whites, only a small percentage of whom were police. Thus, is this one (possibly) race-related death that much more important than other black-on-black deaths that occur daily? The looters and vandals, instead of bringing attention to the issue, dishonor the legacy of MLK with their behavior. He adamantly believed that:
“riots are socially destructive and self-defeating. I’m still convinced that nonviolence is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom and justice. I feel that violence will only create more social problems than they will solve.”
Colorblindness should continue to be a goal. We need the gentle wisdom of Martin Luther King now more than ever if we wish to get past this current era of racial divide.
