Category: Accountability

Opaque Pension System

government, pension, transparency, Nevada, illustration

Requiring government transparency is as necessary in those areas where governments can grant special favors as in those where governments can inflict direct harm.

That is, it’s as important regarding government worker pensions as it is of the abuse of police power.

In Nevada, the legal requirement for the state’s Public Employee Retirement System (PERS), to disclose who gets what in pension payments was recently thwarted by PERS itself.

“By replacing names with ‘non-disclosable’ social security numbers in its actuarial record-keeping documents, PERS has attempted to circumvent the 2013 ruling of the Nevada Supreme Court requiring disclosure,” explained Joseph Becker of the Nevada Policy Research Institute.

I’m quoting from NPRI’s July 6 press release. Most such publicity isn’t all that interesting, but this one catching government agencies deliberately working against their duties sparks a certain … interest. Wouldn’t you say?

Simply by altering how it keeps records, PERS officials hoped to stifle public … “spying.” It’s reasonable to prevent government from giving out public servants’ Social Security numbers, so PERS switched to listing information under those numbers, in so doing “violating both the letter and spirit of the Nevada Public Records Act,” explains Becker.

And thus undermining democracy — republican governance — itself.

This public disclosure wouldn’t be an issue if the pension system were run privately, based on defined contribution funding. But that’s not how governments do things.

We must hold government’s proverbial feet to the fire — of public information — to make sure government employees and taxpayers are both treated fairly.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags government pensions, Nevada, PERS, public employee pensions

Accountability crime and punishment general freedom moral hazard national politics & policies Regulating Protest responsibility too much government

Too Much – Part 2

crime, police, Police Chief David BrownX poverty, President Barack Obama

Yesterday, we discovered that modern America asks police to do “too much.” Which prompts the next question: What should police stop doing?

Here are two immediate reforms where police can do less, while protecting the public more:

(1) End the War on Drugs. Preventing violence and fraud is the rightful role of police. Not preventing people from engaging in activities that are peaceful, however misguided or self-harming. The criminalization of marijuana means more than 150 million Americans are criminals, warranting police involvement.

Now, Mr. Obama has released some convicts serving long drug-related sentences, but we need a president who will go much farther in changing law enforcement priorities.

(2) Stop Using Civil Asset Forfeiture, whereby police steal people’s stuff without charging and convicting those people of any crime. Not only do federal agencies from Justice to the IRS take our property in violation of our rights, but the Feds encourage state and local police to join them in this bad behavior through their “equitable sharing” program.

While Obama has spoken against seizing assets without a criminal conviction, he hasn’t stopped it. And he could at the federal level, with a stroke of his pen — as I have advocated at Townhall. Ending civil asset forfeiture is an executive order actually within his constitutional power.

Would these two steps end all racism or violence or crime? No, no, no.

They would be, however, two steps forward toward a more principled, lawful and respectful style of policing that would better serve to unite rather than divide citizens and police.

It’s a different two-step than reformers have been witnessing.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Photo Credit: Tomasz Iwaniec

Tags police, Police Chief, Police Chief David Brown, poverty, President Barack Obamacrime

Accountability crime and punishment moral hazard national politics & policies responsibility too much government

Too Much

Post author By CS Admin
Post date July 14, 2016
3 Comments on Too Much

Obama, Police Chief David Brown , police, abuse, poverty,

When President Obama said, “[W]e ask the police to do too much,” at the memorial service for the five slain Dallas policemen, he was echoing an idea previously expressed.

“We’re asking cops to do too much in this country,” Dallas Police Chief David Brown told reporters a day earlier. “Every societal failure, we put it off on the cops to solve,” he added, noting such problems as a lack of mental healthcare, rampant drug abuse, substandard schools and even roaming dogs.

So, what should police stop doing?

Plenty. But I’ll save that answer for tomorrow. Today, let’s pose another: Why so much crime, poverty, and violence in these communities?

Mr. Obama fingered not taxing-and-spending enough on benefits for the poor, including for “decent schools,” “gainful employment,” and “mental health programs.” Yet, after decades of expensive wars on poverty, illiteracy, drug abuse, etc., things have only gotten worse.

“We flood communities with so many guns,” the president intoned, “that it is easier for a teenager to buy a Glock, than get his hands on a computer or even a book.”

He’s playing fast and furious with the truth. Books are free at the library. Glocks cost money.

And who is this “we” he keeps bringing up?

Chief Brown mentioned a critical problem Obama did not: “Seventy percent of the African American community is being raised by single women.”

Police cannot solve all our problems, sure, but they especially cannot fix problems exacerbated by the welfare state and the educational system. Big government is no substitute for Mom and Dad.

Even freedom merely offers the opportunity to fix our own problems.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags crime, police, Police Chief David Brown, poverty, President Barack Obama

Accountability responsibility

Algal Mess

Florida, Algae, pollution, responsibility

Florida’s inland waters are clogging up with algae. You can now see the “algae bloom” from space.

What’s the big deal? Well, it stinks. “The blue-green algae, also known as cyanobacteria, contain toxins that are highly dangerous to humans,” explains Harry Sayer at the Orlando Weekly. “Ingestion may cause nausea, vomiting, and liver failure.” No wonder, then, that the State of Florida is in alarm mode, preparing to spend millions of dollars to fight it.

The problem is: fighting water plants is not easy.

Easy or no, it’s a crisis. Animals are “in distress, some are dying,” says a resident of a beach town to which the algal mess has spread. Tourism? Gone. Who wants to smell that mass of green gunk? Gov. Rick Scott has declared a state of emergency. Understandable.

Over at ClimateProgress, Samantha Page has found something else to attack: “Climate Denier Marco Rubio Tries To Tackle Toxic Florida Algae, Is Baffled By Cause.” Now, Florida Senator Marco Rubio ® is not a “climate denier” — a term of art that should make everyone, including environmentalists, cringe. He doesn’t deny the existence of climates. Or climate change. Page quotes him as being skeptical of the effectiveness of proposals to turn the direction of climate change around, back to its previous conditions, to which we have comfortably adapted.

Well, that’s his job.

Still, it is almost certain that increased CO2 in the atmosphere has aided algae growth here and elsewhere. It’s nature’s response. Algae converts the gas to biomass and oxygen.

But Page is also right: the state should look into industrial and agribiz pollution, too, as causes. That is, after all, a basic function of law and government.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags climate, climate change, climate politics, denier, Florida, pollution

Accountability folly moral hazard national politics & policies

The Longest War

Afghanistan, Obama, war, quagmire, illustration, photo

Is there a light at the end of the proverbial tunnel?

President Obama announced, Wednesday, that he would leave more troops in Afghanistan when he exits office than previously planned. Instead of cutting the current troop deployment of 10,000 down to 5,500 soldiers, Obama will now keep 8,400 “in country,” continuing our longest war.

Entering the 15th year of armed conflict and military occupation, thousands of lives lost along with hundreds of billions in treasure spent to equip and train Afghan forces and build infrastructure — and buy off warlords — recent U.N. estimates find the tyrannical Taliban controlling more actual territory in Afghanistan today than before the 2001 U.S. invasion.

Don’t blame the military. Our all-volunteer army is the greatest fighting force on the planet. But militaries break things; building new institutions and especially new modes of thinking among a foreign population is more difficult.

No political magic exists capable of turning Afghanistan into Arizona. Not this year, not the next, a decade from now, or two decades … not even a century down the road.

We must never forget that “war is the continuation of politics by other means.”

And the politics don’t add up. There’s no credible plan to “win” in Afghanistan. All our leaders can muster is the witless maintenance of a deadly charade: nation-building a nation that balks at being built, hoping the roof falls in on someone else later … in the other party.

Sometimes courage means recognizing reality.

Our men and women in uniform have better things to do than fight and die for decades in a no-win war.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Photo credit: Joseph Swafford on Flickr, courtesty of DVIDSHUB

Tags Afghanistan, Nation building, quagmire, soldier, Taliban, terrorism, war, war on terror

Accountability crime and punishment general freedom national politics & policies political challengers responsibility

Delegates Imprisoned

Republican, convention, delegates, unbound,

Can you go to jail for voting for the wrong person?

We may find out today, in a federal court in Richmond, Virginia. Judge Robert Payne will hear motions in the case of Correll v. Herring. Attorney General Mark Herring is being sued in his official capacity by Beau Correll, a Republican delegate who refuses to vote for Donald Trump.

Correll is the named plaintiff in this class action challenge to a Virginia statute that binds delegates attending presidential nominating conventions to vote for the plurality winner of their state party primary, which was Mr. Trump.

The penalty for not tallying for Trump? As much as a year behind bars. And a fine.

Correll’s attorney, David Rivkin with Baker & Hostetler, has asked the judge to issue an injunction blocking enforcement of the statute against Correll and all other Virginia delegates. The ruling wouldn’t affect delegates beyond Virginia, yet the implication would be obvious: state laws binding party delegates to vote according to the primary results are unconstitutional.

Trump supporters aren’t taking this lawsuit lightly; several have moved to intervene — on the side of the AG. They’re right to be concerned: a delegate revolt to dump Trump has been brewing for weeks. And the legal precedents are all on the side of political parties controlling their own nominating process, leaving state governments no legitimate role.

It’s long past time to break the crony connections between government and the two major political parties.

Let’s stop all taxpayer subsidies for party primaries and conventions. But let’s also recognize that the delegates meeting in convention should be free to do … well, whatever they choose. After all, it’s their party.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

BIG PICTURE: Why the case really matters!

With the results of Correll vs. Herring, we may also find out if the Republican and Democratic (and Libertarian and Green) Parties are private organizations, with First Amendment protection for their freedom to associate without government interference. Nothing could be more heavy-handed than threatening delegates with incarceration if they vote their conscience — or even follow the state party’s rules, which call for delegates to be awarded proportionately rather than winner-take-all as Virginia’s statute requires.

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