Category: moral hazard

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Accountability crime and punishment government transparency insider corruption local leaders moral hazard porkbarrel politics term limits

Another Political Crook

Arkansas, Jon Woods, corruption, crime, Micah Neal, term limits

Last week, the other shoe dropped.

When last we touched upon Arkansas state legislator Micah Neal, he had pled guilty to steering hundreds of thousands of state tax dollars to a small private college in exchange for big, fat bribes.

He also implicated the state’s No. 1 term limits opponent, former State Senator Jon Woods, as chief hoodlum in the criminal scheme. Woods is best known for his dishonestly worded 2014 amendment responsible for hoodwinking voters into weakening term limits.*

And it is upon Woods that the shoe fell.

The fingered wheeling-​and-​dealing Woods, pursued by both the FBI and an angry electorate, chose not to run for re-​election in 2016. Now he’s finally been indicted on 13 felony counts of fraud and bribery. Woods helped secure $600,000 in state funds to Ecclesia College, allegedly for tens of thousands in kickbacks.

“I do know this confirms what I’ve always suspected about Jon Woods,” wrote Max Brantley in the Arkansas Times. “He never had a job. He bragged about the good life he lived off state pay, per diem, travel and the hog slopping legislators enjoy. I should mention, too, that he was the architect of the so-​called ethics amendment that provided a path to 1) longer terms in office; 2) higher pay; 3) an end-​around an end to wining and dining restrictions despite the appearance that’s what voters had done.”

Former Sen. Woods does deserve a longer term … in jail.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* State term limits activists are currently gathering the more than 100,000 signatures they need on petitions to place their original, stricter term limits on the 2018 ballot and allow Arkansans an honest vote.

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crime and punishment First Amendment rights folly ideological culture moral hazard national politics & policies responsibility

Campus Freedom in Peril

Charles Murray, protest, violence, free speech, Bell Curve, students, intimidation
  1. What is the percentage of tenured faculty on American campuses who are still unambiguously on the side of free intellectual exchange?
  2. What is the percentage of them who are willing to express that position openly?

Sociologist Charles Murray asked those questions near the end of his reflections on Thursday’s Middlebury College event, in which his speaking engagement was interrupted by shouting mobs and he and his colleagues were physically attacked*.

Murray thinks the answer to the first question is “more than 50 percent.” He doubts that is the answer to the second.

He is pessimistic about free inquiry on campus.

And has reason to be.

College faculty members are closing ranks, as many at Middlebury did, calling Murray — famous for books such as Losing Ground and The Bell Curve — “a discredited ideologue paid by the American Enterprise Institute to promote public policies targeting people of color, women and the poor”** and “not an academic nor a ‘critically acclaimed’ public scholar, but a well-​funded phony.”

Mark J. Perry has listed many more complaints, all offered as reasons not to listen or debate with the famous intellectual.

That was last Thursday. On Saturday, a pro-​Trump, “Proud Boys” march in Berkeley culminated not only in violence, bloodied faces, destroyed property, but also in the burning of a purloined “Free Speech” placard.

The University of California at Berkeley seems uninterested in controlling the mobs. Berkeley City Police have poorly defended non-​leftist protestors. It’s open season on freedom of speech and the right to peaceably assemble.

Unless something is done, officially, mobbing will be the new normal. And our basic rights? A memory.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* His colleague Professor Allison Stanger was seriously injured in the riotous shoving and grabbing. Murray tweeted yesterday, “Everybody in the mob could be criminally prosecuted, but those who injured Prof. Stranger must be.”

** It is worth noting that his recent Coming Apart was entirely devoted to the economic performance and culture of white Americans.

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Accountability initiative, referendum, and recall moral hazard nannyism responsibility

Whose Constitution Is It, Anyway?

Colorado, initiative, 71, Amendment 71, democracy, voting,

Last November’s biggest mistake? Colorado voters passing Amendment 71. It makes the Rocky Mountain State’s constitution exceedingly more difficult for voters to amend through the initiative petition process.

And more like it may be in the offing. Legislation is moving in Florida to require a 66.7 percent vote to amend the state constitution. Already, a 60 percent vote is required, but legislators remain fearful voters can muster that.

The Ohio Modernization Commission, a legislatively created mix of legislators and insiders, is recommending a new constitutional amendment to — you guessed it — make it tougher for voters to pass amendments. Future voter-​initiated amendments must pass twice, by a 55 percent supermajority.

There are also efforts to weaken citizen initiatives in Arizona and Maine.*

The big money behind Colorado’s Amendment 71 told whopper after whopper to win. They pretended to love and revere the constitution. Finally, they put former Denver Broncos Super Bowl champion quarterback John Elway on television — spot after spot — telling voters the amendment “protects our constitution.”

But … from whom?

You see, politicians and special interests don’t have to amend the state constitution to spend money on themselves or their cronies. From their perch in the state capitol, they can do that with a simple statute.

But you and I need the ability to pass constitutional amendments. Why? Only through the constitution can we limit the power of those same politicians — the power of government. Legislators can overrule a mere statutory ballot initiative (and often do).

That’s what this battle is all about. Politicians mean to limit our power to limit theirs.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Thankfully, South Dakota legislators defeated several bills aimed at making it tougher to place initiatives on the ballot.

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Accountability folly free trade & free markets local leaders moral hazard nannyism porkbarrel politics responsibility too much government

Small Target, Big Subsidy

Denver, incentive, California, development, rent, graft, corruption

Something has gone wrong when, to get a tenant to move into an empty space in your prime-​location building, you need a $4 million subsidy.

And when I say “prime location,” I’m not engaging in Trumpian over-​statement. The downtown Denver, Colorado, property location sees over 35,000 pedestrians per day … and that’s with the primo slot empty.

But to get that slot filled, the owners have negotiated with the city government to nab a $2 million “incentive” to fix the place up for Target, which is thinking of leasing the location to put up a smaller-​than-​usual “flexible-​format” store. Oh, and another $2 million for “operational” costs, which seems to be some kind of a loan to be paid back from taxes to be collected — and shared by the city for 20 years with the owners.

In other words, it’s the darnedest business deal you’ll ever see (and never get): up-​front money not from a bank or investors, but from Denver’s city government “BIF” — Business Investment Fund — which is obviously part of a convoluted scheme fed by taxes and devised by … people I wouldn’t trust with my money.

Structuring deals like this is how modern cronies — er, cities — operate, I know. Am I alone in judging it corrupt on the surface and corrupting in the details?

If prime commercial property has gone unused for about a decade — as this three-​storied mall space has — I’d think that maybe the owners have set the rents too high or the city has been a bit too greedy with taxes.

Or both.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment First Amendment rights ideological culture moral hazard national politics & policies responsibility

Wolves Crying Wolf

By any means necessary, BAMN, protest, free speech, fascist, first amendment, censorship, violence

People have a right to defend themselves. Right? Especially against rape and murder.

“This is not about free speech,” Yvette Felarca yelled to the crowd at the University of California-​Berkeley, gathered weeks ago to “shut down” a scheduled speech by Milo Yiannopoulos, the controversial Breitbart editor.

Felarca, a national organizer for By Any Means Necessary (BAMN)*, the militant group with the incendiary name, argued that Milo wasn’t “interested in any genuine debate.”

She continued, “But what they’re really trying to do is they’re trying to assert their power, threaten us, intimidate us, rape us, kill us! This is real. This is life and death.”

Given such sentiments, it is hardly surprising that the protest turned violent — leaving people beaten, bloody on the pavement, and racking up $100,000 in property damage.

Not to mention causing the cancellation of the talk sponsored by the Berkeley College Republicans. Felarca called this a smashing success. Asked by reporters how she could justify violence to squelch speech, Felarca simply dubbed Milo “a fascist.”

Yesterday, in my Townhall column, “Hate Is Our Business,” I addressed the Southern Poverty Law Center’s just-​released report, “The Year in Hate and Extremism.” The report continued the SPLC’s habit of calling entirely peaceful conservative and religious organizations “hate groups.”

The man who shot a security guard at the Family Research Council in 2012, but was thankfully blocked from further mayhem, used the SPLC’s “Hate Map” to target their office.

In its reports, the “progressive” SPLC completely ignores BAMN and violent left-​wing groups. And by crying wolf in mislabeling non-​violent organizations as “hate groups,” it provides the unhinged — BAMN, Antifa, and lone-​wolf lunatics — very dangerous ammunition.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Ms. Felarca also has a day job, as a public school teacher at Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School in the Berkeley Unified School District. That has generated some controversy.

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Accountability folly ideological culture moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies responsibility too much government U.S. Constitution

Tough Luck, Chumps

Obamacare, Affordable Care Act, Obama, Trump, Sanders, debate, CNN

Advertised as a big deal ahead of time, the debate didn’t get much play afterwards.

Especially from the Left blogosphere.

Why?

Billed as about the “future of ObamaCare,” it was really about what should replace ObamaCare.

The CNN debate pitted Sen. Ted Cruz, well-​known Republican opponent of the Affordable Care Act*, against Sen. Bernie Sanders, well-​known “independent” proponent of what he likes to call the “Medicare for All single-​payer program.”

Upshot? While either Bernie or Ted may possibly be construed to have won, there was indeed one certain loser, ObamaCare itself.

Sen. Sanders conceded nearly every charge Sen. Cruz lobbed at the program. He merely countered with his support for treating health care “as a right, not a privilege” (a leftist farrago from days of yore) and moving on to single-​payer medicine.

That’s how bad ObamaCare really is. Its chosen champion refused to champion it.

The basic tension was best summed up between “town hall” questioners Carol, suffering from multiple sclerosis, who asked Cruz to promise continued coverage for cases like hers, and LaRonda, a woman with a chain of hair care shops who cannot afford insurance for herself or her employees and also cannot expand her company because at 50 employees the ACA would force her to provide insurance.

Cruz expressed his sympathy for Carol, but seemed to meander around her request for a guarantee. He also evaded** a straightforward answer re: “healthcare as a right.”

Sanders was a tad more honest, in effect giving the “tough luck” answer that the entrepreneur just “should” pay*** for her employees’ medical insurance.

Well, we sure are all “paying” for ObamaCare, one way or another.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Which is the same thing as ObamaCare. Some folks purportedly hate ObamaCare but love the ACA. No reader of Common Sense, of course.

** Cruz concluded the debate better, alluding to an old SNL skit about a recording session wherein the cowbell ringer always wanted “more cowbell” in every take. “It was government control that messed this all up. And Bernie and the Democrats’ solution is more cow bell, more cow bell.”

*** “[I]f you have more than 50 people, you know what, I think — I’m afraid to tell you — I think you will have to provide health insurance.”

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