Category: too much government

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Accountability government transparency incumbents initiative, referendum, and recall local leaders nannyism political challengers Regulating Protest term limits too much government

Strange It Is

Arlington, Texas, term limits, democracy, initiative,City Council,

Strange for the Arlington, Texas, City Council to hold a meeting on a Sunday evening, much less one to “consider suspending the city charter.”

That is how the Fort Worth Star-​Telegram reported “the latest twist in the term limit controversy that has engulfed the city with a lawsuit and competing ballot proposals.”

Led by Zack Maxwell, citizens in this Fort Worth adjacent community of 400,000 gathered 11,000 voter signatures to place a term limits charter amendment on the November ballot. It would limit councilmembers to three two-​year terms. It also figures in past service, so five of the eight current councilmembers would be blocked from seeking re-​election in the coming two years.

With swift legislative prowess, the council responded, passing its own competing “term limits” measure, which incidentally allows them to stay 50 percent longer in office.

But there’s one problem: the council did not follow the law, which requires multiple readings, with one at a regular meeting. 

Actually, there’s a second problem: Mr. Maxwell challenged the council’s unlawful action in court. 

The court blocked the council’s measure. 

That left the council holding an unusual weekend meeting to suspend the rules and re-​pass their fumbled alternative to the term limits voters really want. But news travels fast and city hall was “packed.” 

“You’re suspending the rules because your jobs are in jeopardy,” charged one man.

A woman told the council, “You guys should be absolutely embarrassed about this.”

“After hearing from dozens of angry residents,” the paper explained, “[t]he council voted unanimously to not suspend the rules, finally killing its own term limit proposal.”

Politicians doing the right thing … having exhausted every other possibility.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

 

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Photo from the Fort Worth Star-​Telegram

 

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Common Sense free trade & free markets government transparency insider corruption local leaders media and media people national politics & policies too much government

Never Trust a Politician

salt, lies, politicians, politics, Donald Trump, truth, economy, trade

One of my more persistent critics on this site asked, last week, why I might believe anything the current president says — considering all the lies.

For reasons of decorum I won’t repeat his exact wording.

The odd thing about the comment was not the vulgarity, though (unfortunately). It was the idea that I was relying upon belief in Donald Trump’s veracity. The whole point of my commentary regarding Trump’s handling of trade and foreign policy was to read between some lines.

I try never to believe anything … er, everything … any politician says.

In Donald Trump’s case, though, there are lies and there are fictions and there are exaggerations. And corkers … and “negotiating gambits.” Separating the wheat from the chaff from the grindstone is not always easy.

Based not only on some of what he says, but also on results-​thus-​far from the EU negotiations, Trump’s idea of “fair trade” appears to be multilateral free trade. But he has chosen a bizarre method to get there: the threat of high-​tariff protectionism — which in the past has led to multilateral protectionism, not free trade.

Trump sees everything as a contest. Trade isn’t a contest as such. It’s win-​win. But trade negotiations are contests. And Trump’s game of chicken is dangerous.

Regarding foreign policy generally, though, he seems to be playing a more familiar game: we can outspend everybody. The recent increase in Pentagon spending is bigger than Russia’s annual military budget!

So, who pays? Americans in

  1. higher taxes and 
  2. the consequences of massive debt, as well as in
  3. the higher prices from his tariffs.

That’s awfully daring of him. For us.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Photo from Max Pixel

 

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education and schooling ideological culture moral hazard responsibility too much government

An Expert Explains Failure

ladder, education, success, poverty, racism, schools, charter

The failures of the public high schools in the District of Columbia go on an on. It is quite a scandal, as I explained this weekend at Townhall.

And yet some “charter schools that serve large populations of children from low-​income families,” notes the Washington Post, after providing much detail about the massive failures, “recorded big increases in scores.”

What hint about improving education does that fact give?

Well, Kevin Welner, a professor who heads the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado, has an interesting thought: “People want to read into these test scores lessons about what the schools are doing. But these scores, even the growth scores, depend a great deal on students’ opportunities to learn outside of school. If we address the poverty and racism, then we will see these test scores increase.”

Hmmm. Let’s review: (a) the problem is at home and (b) it cannot be overcome by the schools. Moreover, the esteemed professor perceives the cause of these detrimental home environments to be “racism and poverty.” 

Once upon a time, public education was proclaimed to be the great equalizer, allowing the disadvantaged to climb the economic ladder, and, if not wipe out poverty completely, to certainly dramatically reduce it. 

Now, we discover from a certified education expert that we had it backwards.

So maybe it is time to chuck the whole experiment and just try to educate kids.

Not “save” them, or society.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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folly ideological culture too much government

Not So Great … Again

pie in the sky, America, great, Cuomo, Trump, government, fantasy, utopia

“We’re not going to make America great again,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo proclaimed at a bill-​signing ceremony this week. And then, further poking the president, the governor added, to gasps from the audience: “It was never that great.”

America — for all its faults, failings, and wrongdoings — has been a tremendous force for good, for freedom. At the same time, talking about how great we are really seems … what’s the word? Boastful.

“We have not reached greatness,” Cuomo went on to clarify. “We will reach greatness when every American is fully engaged. We will reach greatness when discrimination and stereotyping against women, 51 percent of our population, is gone and every woman’s full potential is realized and unleashed and every woman is making her full contribution.”

This is pie-​in-​the-​sky stuff. Utopianism. The state government of New York is not going to succeed — or even actually try — to “engage” every citizen “fully.” Neither will the Empire State help “every” female New Yorker to self-​actualize … while magically wiping out “stereotyping.”

When very real governments fixate on fantasy, they can only fail. Achievable responsibilities — like fixing roads, improving schools, enforcing laws — fall by the wayside. 

Both President Trump and Governor Cuomo would do well to concern themselves with running the government. Leave the greatness to the rest of us.

Oh, and the rest of the story? 

“I’m Andrew Cuomo, and I work for you,” the governor said in a 2010 video announcing his entry into the gubernatorial race. 

“Together,” he went on to declare, “we can make New York great again.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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national politics & policies responsibility too much government

The Problem with Public Accounts

Social Security, savings, socialism, public accounts, Chili

President Trump’s promise not to cut one dime from Social Security and Medicare doesn’t square with the fiscal cliff these programs are headed for. To save the system, benefits must be cut, taxes must be raised, or both.

Or else replace the system.

No wonder, then, that John Stossel insists we “Fix Social Security Before It Goes Broke,” and rescues a decades-​old proposal: “private accounts,” which he says “would certainly pay retirees more than Social Security will ever pay.”

In Chile, where they have tried this, private accounts have worked out pretty well, contributing to the once-​impoverished country’s rise to “the richest country in Latin America.” 

Had the United States adopted such a system, at Social Security’s inception, the amount of capital flowing into projects big and small would have not merely prevented the stagflation of the Seventies and brought us almost unimaginable wealth, it might have turned political eyes towards accountability, prudence and stability.

But, because Social Security was set up as a Pay As We Go system, we paid … and the money went.

It got so messed up that by the 1980s Ronald Reagan charged Alan Greenspan with “fixing” it. That “fix” mainly meant increasing taxation. The decades of revenue surge over outflow was spent by Congress for war and handouts. And now we’re reaching a repeat of the late 1970s’ Social Security insolvency.

Meanwhile, Chilean leftists “hold street protests against private accounts,” Stosssel reminds us. “They’re angry because capitalists get a slice of the pie.”

Back in the USA, Democrats demand that more benefits be wrung from Social Security. Are they dead set on proving why socialism doesn’t work?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Categories
free trade & free markets government transparency media and media people national politics & policies too much government

Most Outrageous Negotiation Strategy Yet

Trump cards, Donald Trump, The Madman Theory, strategy, negotiation, deal, trade, tariffs, trade war

The best defense of Donald Trump’s presidency, so far? He is smarter than the rest of us, and knows how to negotiate with bad guys and insider players. We have to discount what he is saying, the theory goes, because he is not telling truths … obviously. 

He is negotiating.

Take nothing at face value, including Trump’s professed beliefs.

Protectionism, for example. Trump has long been against NAFTA and the modern version of “free trade.”* But, as I noted in late July, Trump does not seem to be demanding managed trade, or high tariffs as a means to protect American producers, or even tariffs as a means to increase government revenue. He appears — at least some of the time — to be using tariffs as a way to bargain other countries to reduce their tariffs.

This method has not worked in the past.

But is Trump different enough a politician to pull off a “madman” strategy to get leaders in other countries to do the right thing and reduce their tariff and regulatory burdens on their own countries?

A long shot — and several sectors of American business are being hurt right now in this “negotiating” (threat) phase of Trump’s outrageous gambit.

Another area where one might express such hope for a master-​negotiator president is in reining back the Pentagon. In the run-​up to November 2016, Trump sure seemed defiant of the neo-conservative/neo-“liberal”/center-left establishment on foreign policy.

But now he just signed a huge increase in the Pentagon budget: an $82 billion increase.

Is Trump’s plan to bring big-​spending military-​industrial complex lobbyists to heal by first giving them what they want?

That. Won’t. Work. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Post-​WWII trade policy has consistently defended treaty-​based global trade, but with heavy elements of protective tariffs, regulations and subsidies, making the whole thing look less like Free Trade and more like Mis-​Managed Trade.

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