Author: Redactor

Categories
ideological culture initiative, referendum, and recall

The Public Square

Californians’ initiative, referendum and recall process is as hot a topic for debate as ever. That’s apt, for this year marks the process’s 100th anniversary.

On October 10, 1911, Californians went to the polls to enact these democratic checks on government after Governor Hiram Johnson persuaded legislators to put them on the ballot. On October 10, 2011, I’ll be in Sacramento at an event sponsored by Citizens in Charge Foundation to celebrate the centennial.

And a few days ago, I served on a panel of interesting people in front of a great audience of Californians at a Zócalo Public Square event in San Francisco, entitled, “How Do We Put the People Back in the Initiative Process?”

My answer: Make it easier, instead of harder, to put issues on the ballot. Presently, California requires 800,000 voters to sign petitions to put an amendment on the ballot and 400,000 voters for a statutory measure; sponsors have only five months to get all those signatures.

Why not give citizens a year to collect signatures? Why not lower the requirement?

Unless “reform” of the initiative is really code for not putting the people back in the process, of course. Some folks don’t think voters are up to the task of democratic decision-​making — at least, whenever voters don’t decide their way.

Let’s agree that the people aren’t perfect. I still prefer citizen control over government to the alternative of rule by politicians and self-​appointed elites. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall political challengers

Buccaneer Blitz

No one expected much of the “Pirate Party” in the recent Berlin election. It’s an upstart, and the program of the young men leading the renegade political group — which focuses on “Internet freedom” as well as (alas) “free public transit” — might not seem to be ideally suited for widespread advance in the target environment, electoral politics. The party only offered up 15 representatives for Sunday’s vote.

But it won every seat it attempted, gaining 8.9 percent of the vote.

Meanwhile, the Free Democrats went down to ignominious defeat, garnering less than 2 percent. The establishment must be shuddering. If an allegedly pro-​business party like the Free Dems get booted out of office by young men wearing Captain America t‑shirts, and if the Green Party now becomes the dominate coalition party in the nation’s capital, what then?

Well, the Pirate Party does not appear to be a joke. The candidates are serious, even if they aren’t wearing the traditional suit-​and-​tie uniforms. They parlayed popular Internet activism into votes, and what they do might make a difference.

So, what are they up to?

They seek to defend Internet privacy of individuals while enforcing complete transparency in government. Proposing an online participatory system they call “liquid democracy,” they balk at the status quo in legislative method. There are alternatives, as one spokesman explained: “You can stand up, stand tall and write the laws yourself.”

If this be piracy, make the most of it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
property rights

Apologies to Ms. Kelo

The sad story of Kelo v. The City of New London keeps dragging on, adding coda to epilogue, epilogue to coda.

Recently, Jeff Benedict, the author of Little Pink House, gave a talk attended by both Connecticut Supreme Court Justice Richard N. Palmer and Suzette Kelo. Afterwards, chatting with Ms. Kelo, Benedict was approached by Justice Palmer, who shocked the journalist with an admission: “Had I known all of what you just told us, I would have voted differently.”

The judge then turned to Ms. Kelo to say how sorry he was.

The judge, who had voted in the majority against the New London homeowner, was not recanting the decision, as such, but instead merely admitting that the facts as they developed in the case put the New London redevelopment project in a different light. And his apology? Not for the decision, but simply for Ms. Kelo’s suffering.

It’s something.

The real something in the case is what happened to New London’s Fort Trumbull site after Pfizer pulled out of the development. Most recently it has been turned into a dumping ground for branches, hedge clippings, broken limbs from storms, and the like. As one property rights watchdog put it:

Connecticut taxpayers have thus been soaked tens of millions of dollars, not just for nothing, but for making things worse.…

Much worse. Property rights were undermined. Judges felt compelled by practice and precedent to defend whimsical, frivolous takings powers against the just property rights of citizens.

We’re all sorry, now. But protecting property rights against abuse by government would mean never having to say we’re sorry, later.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
tax policy too much government

Excise Excitement Exorcizes E‑Biz

Retail sales taxation became vogue among the states of the union during the Great Depression. When other revenue sources dried up, many states decided to nab potential taxpayers at each transaction.

We’re in a depression again, and numerous legislatures are looking to expand their retail sales tax base by targeting out-​of-​state Internet purchases.

California has made the biggest stink about this, and its fight with Amazon​.com has been in the headlines for some time. Though the issue has been put “on hold” for a year, the Assembly’s rapacity has produced at least one effect. It has driven many online businesses out of the state, and severely curtailed the online sales of many California brick-​and-​mortar concerns.

Take Shopobot, a new online business. One of this San Francisco company’s biggest revenue streams was Amazon. And Amazon dropped it like a hot rock.

So what did Shopobot do? It fled California for the cooler Seattle, Washington.

Why skip Oregon — which lacks a retail sales tax? My guess is that Oregon’s political environment struck the Shopobot folks as nearly as crazy as California’s, so heading further north made more sense, to sit beside Amazon itself, and across Lake Union from Adobe’s compound, er, “campus.”

The online sales tax question is widely perceived as a problem. The only solution, I guess, is to let Congress do its constitutional duty and “regulate interstate commerce.”

Amazon sure wants that.

But why am I not optimistic about a good solution?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets national politics & policies Tenth Amendment federalism too much government

A Compact Solution

“We shouldn’t have to leave our country to have a reasonable health care system,” says Eric O’Keefe, chair of the Health Care Compact Alliance.

I agree, but what to do with Obamacare, at present secure from repeal?

O’Keefe points out that Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution permits states to enter into compacts with one another provided they get congressional approval. States have done so since colonial times; there are currently 200 state compacts in force dealing with issues from driver’s licensing to wildlife.

The Health Care Compact would allow states to “get rid of all of Obamacare,” and to tell the federal government, as O’Keefe puts it, “You keep your regulations; send us back our money.”

“It’s not just a way to block Obamacare,” O’Keefe explains. “It includes Medicare and Medicaid, creates a block grant of all the money and it goes into the compacting states for them to manage as they see fit. So the citizens and the legislature will work it out in their state.”

States that join the compact could set up their own health care system with the money they currently receive from the federal government, sans regulations and mandates. While some states might experiment with single-​payer systems, others could expand medical savings accounts and other market-​oriented reforms.

Georgia, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas have already passed the Health Care Compact, and will likely apply for congressional approval once a dozen or more states join.

Who’s next?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
general freedom national politics & policies too much government

Decline and Fall?

Widespread unemployment, fear, and consternation: Why now?

Three answers:

  1. Imperial over-​reach. No nation can police the world forever. Empires once existed for loot. But on net the U.S. doesn’t take wealth from others. Instead, we spend our own wealth “protecting” others, often confusing our “national interest” for the interests of well-​connected businesses. Hardly sustainable. Flag-​waving about how good the U.S. is won’t stop the decline.
  2. Churning. We pretend to live in a “welfare state,” but wealth does not consistently go from rich to poor, to compensate for disadvantages. Wealth churns from one group to another, with each power shift. Trying to live at the expense of everyone else is not just a game for the poor. Government, without constitutional limits, inevitably shifts wealth haphazardly from the politically powerless (the least organized) to the politically powerful (the best organized) — with always a cut for the bureaucracy and political insiders. Of course such a system must decline, at some point.
  3. Sub-​standard standards. In too many domains of life, we’ve almost given up. Certainly folks in high places act quite low. And the people who control our money, for example, don’t even pretend to keep a stable supply, a “standard”; instead, they pride themselves on “keeping bubbles going” … making unsustainability our standard policy.

But Americans do have an advantage over our Old World friends and foes. We have a history of dedication to better principles. Our best bet for recovery? Return to them.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.