Author: Redactor

Categories
ballot access

The Competition in Chicago

When politicians begin messing with ballot access and signature requirements, watch out. Usually, they’re up to no good. (Always.)

Illinois State Representative Joseph Lyons would likely disagree. He’s sponsoring a bill to equalize the number of signatures required to get on the ballot for a Chicago alderman position. Currently, many wards require just a few hundred signatures. Lyons wants to up that to 500 per ward. Every ward should be equal, dontcha know.

Besides, he says, “To get 500 signatures should not be a burden.” Then comes his kicker. “The more friends you’ve got, the easier it should be. And if you don’t have any friends, you shouldn’t be running for alderman.”

And there’s the rub. Just who are his friends that would benefit?

Could they be his current Democratic buddies who already serve as aldermen, and don’t want the competition?

Cindi Canary, director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, is certainly skeptical about this reform. Quoted in an excellent Chicago Tribune article, she insists that the bill would have “a big effect in low voter-​turnout wards.” But then, as she admits, she’s interested in getting more people to run for office, not making it harder to do so. 

We know where Lyons stands on this. He’s like most politicians. Once he and his buddies get in, they want to keep the competition out.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Accountability free trade & free markets too much government

Krugman’s Crazy Crotchets

Paul Krugman is getting sillier and sillier these days. He’s supposed to be an economist, and not long ago some people in Sweden gave him an award for his economic work. So why would he suggest that economic incentives just don’t matter?

The New York Times columnist bashed Republican Senator Jon Kyl for stating that generous unemployment benefits can reduce the incentive to look for new work. Krugman says that this isn’t the textbook view of things shared by himself and the Democrats. “What Democrats believe,” Krugman says, “is what textbook economics says.”

Gee. So what does textbook economics say? 

James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal actually checked a textbook in economics. According to this textbook, “Public policy designed to help workers who lose their jobs can lead to structural unemployment as an unintended side effect.… In other countries, particularly in Europe, benefits are more generous and last longer. The drawback to this generosity is that it reduces a worker’s incentive to quickly find a new job.”

Interesting. So who wrote this textbook? Yes, that’s right: Paul Krugman.

This partisan fellow, Krugman, often seems to go out of his way to be contradictory as possible. Does he believe his own babbling? Or is he just trying to get a rise out of us?

Or is it to please his editors over at the Times?

Call it an economic incentive.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall

Government Dominated by Citizens?

An article in Miller-​McCune entitled “Ballot Initiatives: Making the Grade” reports on Citizens in Charge Foundation’s 2010 Report Card on Statewide Voter Initiative Rights.

Miller-​McCune fellow Erik Hayden noticed that our report focused on the “accessibility each state provides for citizen-​led ballot initiatives and referendums” and that most states received failing grades.

Hayden also compared this 50-​state “nonpartisan” report card with the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center’s “progressive” 24-​state report. BISC’s report “was designed to expose states that are rife with the potential for ballot-​measure fraud.”

But Hayden did not ask what “the potential for ballot-​measure fraud” really means. Had he done so, he would have discovered that there hasn’t been real, actual fraud BISC can point to.

BISC helps progressives launch initiatives. But the group doesn’t defend the existence (or support the spread) of initiative and referendum rights throughout the U.S.

Hayden concluded that “low grades on the report cards … illustrate the potential and the pitfalls of an electoral system dominated solely by citizens.”

Hmmm. So often we hear about government dominated by big money, overwhelmed by special interests, the tool of one political machine or another. When have we ever heard of government “dominated solely by citizens”?

Wait a second — isn’t that how the government is supposed to be, “We the People” and all? A government dominated by citizens would be … well, less dominating.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
government transparency national politics & policies too much government

How to Find Out What’s In the Health Care Bill

When I heard what Nancy Pelosi said about the health care bill the other day, I did a double-​take. And had to double-​check the press release issued by Pelosi’s own office.

Yikes! She really said it! Then published it on her website to the accompaniment of bugles and trumpets! 

Okay, maybe I invented the bugles and trumpets. But not the words:

“Prevention, prevention, prevention — it’s about diet, not diabetes. It’s going to be very, very exciting. But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.”

Ah yes, the “fog of the controversy”! The way critics of this 2000-​page legislation have exposed the regimentation, price controls, new taxes, and choked-​off choices we’ll all suffer if the bill passes. How dare we!

Terrible that there’s actually debate about whether we should permanently lose more of our freedoms. Can’t we all agree to be trampled and then find out what it all means? After it’s too late to stop it?

No. Let’s dispel the fog right now. Let the government mail a copy of the bill to every voter. 

And let Congress agree that every voter must pass a 500-​question multiple choice quiz on its contents before Congress moves forward. 

Let’s dispel the fog before we’re saddled with this thing.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets too much government

The Color of Boom and Bust

You’ve heard of “green collar jobs.” But what about “glass collar jobs”?

The Heartland Institute just put out a handy little pamphlet called The Cap and Trade Handbook, by James M. Taylor. It debunks various aspects of today’s obsession with fixing the global climate by laying on new restrictions, regulations and taxes. On page 5, Taylor addresses, colorfully, the “green jobs” issue.

Would cap-​and-​trade create new jobs? The handbook says, “sure, forcing people to buy expensive alternative energy means some new jobs would be created in the wind and solar industry. But even more jobs would be destroyed in the more efficient conventional energy sectors.…”

True — new jobs would come at a cost. The pamphlet then considers what would happen if the government hired thugs to break our windows. Sure, “such a program would create a lot of new ‘glass collar’ jobs in the window repair industry.” But employment would not increase on net, and we’d obviously be worse off, not better.

Unfortunately, the big headline on the page insists that “There will be no employment boom in the ‘green collar’ jobs sector.” Not true, as explained. 

Just as subsidizing mortgages led to a housing boom this past decade, cap-​and-​trade policy would likely create a new boom industry that also would not sustain itself. And then explode. Spectacularly. Disastrously.

Financial bubbles break. That’s bad, no matter what color.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
too much government

It’s the Spending

When running for governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell said, “The worst thing you can do during a recession is try to tax yourself to prosperity,” and that Virginia has “a spending problem more than we have a taxation problem.” To this I would add only that it would be best if government were fiscally disciplined in both good times and bad.

Virginia’s state government is facing a shortfall of $4 billion over the next two years. A few weeks after reaching the governor’s mansion, McDonnell submitted a list of budget proposals to the legislature. These include mandatory furloughs, staff reductions, financial aid cuts, park closings, and hundreds of millions in cuts to spending on health and human services and K‑12 education.

Like Chris Christie in New Jersey, Virginia’s new governor is facing fervent opposition to any spending cuts. Unlike Christie, Governor McDonnell is less able or perhaps just less willing to act on his own to make any spending cuts, saying he is eager to collaborate with lawmakers.

Virginians must express their support for fiscal common sense and hope for the best. They could do a lot more if the state had a statewide initiative and referendum process; then they themselves could pass restraints on taxes and spending, at the ballot box. Unfortunately, when it comes to citizen initiative rights, Virginia gets an F.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.