Category: too much government

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education and schooling national politics & policies Popular too much government

Biden Under the Bed

Joe Biden, bed, monsters, record player, black child,

Former Vice-​President Joe Biden was put on the spot, again, about race. During last Thursday’s presidential candidates’ debate, ABC newscaster Lindsey Davis asked what responsibility Americans should “take to repair the legacy of slavery in our country?”

Triple, Biden said, “the amount of money we spend.…”

On “very poor schools, the Title I schools.”

From $15 to $45 billion a year.

Dodging the reparations question, he offered a four-​part plan for educating poor children that was very … educational. 

Biden’s second solution is “make sure that we … help the teachers deal with the problems that come from home.” 

Send in more psychologists!

Step three is to “make sure that … 3‑, 4‑, and 5‑year-​olds go to school. School. Not daycare. School.”

Sounds like forcing every parent to put their 3‑year-​old into school. Or just “poor” 3‑year-​olds? Neither sounds good.

If my elementary school math still holds, next comes policy objective No. 4. 

And it’s a doozy. 

“We bring social workers in to homes and parents to help them deal with how to raise their children,” Sleepy Joe declared. Because as he explained “they”— wealth-​challenged parents — “don’t know quite what to do.”

But Biden does. “Play the radio, make sure the television — excuse me, make sure you have the record player on at night, make sure that kids hear words.” 

The former VEEP explained that children from “a very poor background will hear four million words fewer spoken by the time they get [to school].”

Language skills matter. But do we really want the next president to station a social worker under every kid’s bed to make sure the record player isn’t skipping?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Joe Biden, bed, monsters, record player, black child,

Illustration adapted from an image by Rusty Clark

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ideological culture Popular too much government

Slaves All?

slave, ancient, Roman, Rome, chains,

A bizarre argument is gaining popularity: the United States of America not merely allowed slavery in its first hundred years, it depended upon it, grew rich by it …  and, “therefore,” not only the federal government but also its constitutional principles and even capitalism are all tainted … and … “therefore” … we must have socialism!

Why long-​dead chattel slavery requires political slavery now is hard to figure.

And no, you should not need to read George Fitzhugh’s Cannibals All! or Sociology for the South to see that socialism is slavery.*

But these days it is more common to link slavery with … freedom (this is hard even to type) in the form of free markets. 

Leftists who make this linkage are helped by some popular historians who argue that since the   antebellum South (1) grew faster, economically, than the North, (2) slavery was profitable for slaveholders, and (3) slaves became more productive in picking cotton, the “peculiar institution” was key to American success. Vincent Geloso, a visiting assistant professor of economics at Bates College, writing for the American Institute for Economic Research, ably shows that not one of these three theses hold up to scrutiny.

Most importantly, though, Geloso demonstrates that the slavery system was like all other interventionist systems, with some people (slavers) benefiting at the expense of others (slaves, of course, but also free people … through a variety of subsidies).

Geloso uses the term “deadweight loss” to make his case that slavery made America poorer.

He is certainly not wrong. But once you understand why freedom and prosperity are linked, not much economic jargon is necessary.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* This pro-​slavery southerner did argue against the very idea of liberty and free labor on the grounds that freedom is bad and socialism is good. Indeed, “Fitzhugh disliked ‘political economy’ (as economics was then called), which he saw as ‘the science of free society,’” economist Pierre Lemeiux explains, “as opposed to socialism, which is ‘the science of slavery.’” That forthright appraisal is about all that’s good in Fitzhugh.

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slave, ancient, Roman, Rome, chains,

Photo by Jun on flickr

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political challengers too much government

Recognizing a Problem

Andrew Yang, zoning, land use, visionary, presidential, election,

Democratic Presidential candidate Andrew Yang has at least one good policy preference: he opposes tough land use and zoning regimes.

And he is not alone. 

“Yang’s criticism of zoning is pretty close to what other Democratic primary candidates have said on the subject,” writes Chistian Britschgi at Reason. “Sens. Cory Booker (D – N.J.), Elizabeth Warren (D – Mass.), and Amy Klobuchar (D – Minn.), and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro have all targeted restrictive local land use regulations as a cause of high housing costs.”

Mr. Yang’s website clarifies the problem: “Those who already own homes have made it significantly harder for those who don’t to recognize that dream. Through NIMBY (not in my backyard) and zoning laws, the ability of new housing to be built in certain areas has been impeded to the point where the vast majority of Americans can’t afford to live in the largest cities.”

But while Yang recognizes that zoning is best dealt with on a local and state level, his more famous competitors offer fixes, Britschgi notes, that “require the federal government to either spend more money or attach more regulations to the money it already spends.”

Here’s the bottom line: Several Democrats competing for the highest office in the land recognize government interference as the leading cause of the housing crunch and its high prices.

Yet, instead of fighting bad policies at the state and local source, they advocate more federal spending. And they most decidedly do not apply their housing regulation realism to other problems we face.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Andrew Yang, zoning, land use, visionary, presidential, election,

Photo by Collision Conf

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national politics & policies too much government

The New New Dealer

Pete Buttigieg, president, election, labor, gig economy, candidate,

Reason magazine’s Nick Gillespie finds “a lot” to like about Pete Buttigieg. He sees a candidate “who at his best represents a new generation in American politics and a principled unwillingness to go along with the most free-​spending plans of his rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination.” 

I have so far resisted the charms of the Mayor of South Bend, Indiana.

He seems dangerous to me, in part because he cuts quite a figure while appearing so calm and reasonable.

But Mr. Gillespie is not making a case for Buttigieg. The Reason editor has noticed a growing set of downsides to the pol, writing that as Buttigieg “starts to unveil more and more plans — to pack the Supreme Court, say, and to call for national service — he becomes less appealing,” which, if anything, understates the situation.

You see, Buttigieg “wants to destroy the gig economy in order to save it.”

Gillespie provides that “takeaway” from the campaign’s proposal, “A New Rising Tide: Empowering Workers in a Changing Economy.” Gillespie explains that the plan’s “focus is to force more regulations on employers and increase unionization among workers, neither of which is likely to make it easier for the economy to grow or the workplace to ‘more easily adapt’ to the needs of suppliers, workers, or consumers.”

There is a lot about the current labor markets (at record all-​time highs, says the President) that definitely would not be helped by a plan to “organize” labor using the old idea of the strike-​threat system.

Like a lot of Buttigieg’s positions, they seem warmed-​over yesteryear progressivism.

FDR, but modernly packaged.

Making Big Government even bigger.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Pete Buttigieg, president, election, labor, gig economy, candidate,

Photo by Lorie Shaull

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national politics & policies too much government

Make Deficits Great Again?

money, case, window, floating, deficit, spending,

Is Donald Trump really “draining the swamp”? 

It’s overflowing.

Stan Collender, writing last year in Forbes, noted just what a big spender the president really is. Now, an update: fiscal year 2019 sports a deficit of $1.09 trillion, up considerably from the $897 billion projected earlier this year; the next year is expected to nudge the deficit even higher, to $1.1 trillion.

The whys aren’t a mystery: it is politically difficult to cut an expected benefit to any constituency. It looks stingy — though it is the very opposite. Spending other people’s money — including taxpayers’ — is not generosity. For a politician, it is naked self-​interest. Buying votes.

Worse than merely corrupt, it’s corrupting — since the People are increasingly tempted to look to government to supply special voting bloc advantages rather than the mutual, universal advantage of liberty and justice for all.

Collender speculated that a $2 trillion deficit is “definitely within view” because “Trump is demanding that federal spending and the government’s red ink be increased even further.”

Judd Gregg, writing yesterday for The Hill, summarizes current GOP fiscal policy as “now the most profligate and debt-​driving party in the nation’s history.” 

He’s not wrong, but I question his next line: “Fiscal restraint is no longer part of the cloth the Republican Party wears.”

Careful wording. 

Republicans sometimes talk a good game, but are known to be big spenders when not opposing a Democratic president. The Class of 94 was effective against Bill Clinton. Under unified government in the aughts, though, under George W. Bush, they went on a spree.

Maybe Republicans just need a good enemy.

Bernie Sanders for President? 

Perhaps any socialist Democrat will do.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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money, case, window, floating, deficit, spending,

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meme too much government

“I’ve Got a Plan for That.”

Elizabeth Warren, plan, central plan, nanny state, control, puppet,

“If you start from a belief that the most knowledgeable person on earth does not have even one percent of the total knowledge on earth, that shoots down social engineering, economic central planning, judicial activism, and innumerable other ambitious notions favored by the political left. ”

–Thomas Sowell