Category: national politics & policies

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education and schooling folly nannyism national politics & policies too much government

D.C.’s Diaper-Dandy Regulation

Washington, D.C., daycare, day-care, licensing, regulations, bureaucracy, laws, rules, accreditation

Where is child care most expensive?

In America, it is in our shining, shimmering national swamp. Yes, in Washington, D.C., infant care averages nearly $1,900 a month, more than $22,000 a year.

So naturally, if you’re a politician, you see that as too . . . low?

It has been decreed, since last December, that workers caring for infants and toddlers must upgrade their educations to keep their licenses. The District’s brave new world-class day-care regulations, the Washington Post informs us, are designed to “put the District at the forefront of a national effort to improve the quality of care and education for the youngest learners.”

Yesterday, at Townhall.com, I provided the details on

  • which day care workers or home caregivers must acquire
  • what type of college degree in early childhood education or,
  • if currently degreed in another field, how many semester credit hours in early childhood education they must have, or
  • whether a Child Development Associate (CDA) would suffice, and
  • by what date . . .

. . . just to keep their relatively low-paying jobs.

You may be shocked, but these new regs do not apply to the politicians and bureaucrats regulating the “industry.”

The costly credentials required to provide child care will certainly raise prices that D.C. parents already can ill afford. And won’t help those newly credentialed, either: “prospects are slim,” the Post admits, “that a degree will bring a significantly higher income.”

In a perfect world, every child-care worker would wield a Ph.D. in early childhood development. Be a pediatrician. As well as a psychiatrist.

And a former Navy SEAL, to fend off terrorists.

But who can fend off this regulatory attack on common sense?

I’m Paul Jacob.

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Illustration based on photo by Carolien Dekeersmaeker on Flickr

 

Categories
ideological culture local leaders national politics & policies responsibility

From Brexit to Calexit

CalExit, Brexit, UKip, Nigel Farage, Euro, California, Arron Banks, secession

When last we touched upon the strangely over-the-top Californian reaction to the Trump presidency, the secession movement, I took the occasion to bring up the rather less radical separatists in the north. “Already 21 of the 23 northernmost counties,” I wrote, “have made declarations to form the State of Jefferson.”

But now there is a new wrinkle.

“Former UKip leader Nigel Farage and Leave backer Arron Banks recently helped raise $1 million for Calexit, which would split California into eastern and western regions,” we learn from the Daily Mail and the World Tribune. Banks, citing the high disapproval ratings Californians give their government, said that “he and Farage wanted to show people in California ‘how to light a fire and win’ the Calexit referendum.”

Their proposal is distinct from complete secession. It would amount to a California split, with the west coast (Los Angeles and north to the border) splitting off from the rest of the state. This would form an East California and a West California.

Politically, this might appease the conservatives and moderates who live in more rural east and Southern California, especially since they are coming to increasingly despise Left Coast “liberals” (read: progressives). Whom they not implausibly blame for ruining the state.

But it leaves some Jefferson secessionists stuck with those “liberals.” This, if an oversight, is a big one. Would this not doom the scheme?

While the failed initiative effort of 2014 to split the state into six separate states was far too complicated to wrap one’s head around, the new Calexit effort seems too . . . simple.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability crime and punishment free trade & free markets general freedom initiative, referendum, and recall moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies property rights

Good and Bad News

Civil Asset Forfeiture, crime, drugs, marijuana, stealing, theft, police abuse

On the issue of “civil asset forfeiture” — police seizing property from folks merely on suspicion, without a criminal conviction — there is good news.

In Idaho, House Bill 202a just passed both legislative chambers overwhelmingly. “Among other changes, HB 202a would no longer allow civil forfeiture of the vehicle of a person who merely possessed a controlled substance,” explained a Spokesman Review report, “without using the vehicle in connection with trafficking offenses or obtaining it with drug-trafficking proceeds. . . .” It also puts off the table “property that’s merely in proximity to illegal drugs” and the mere possession of cash.*

Legislation is moving forward in Arizona, too. House Bill 2477 passed to the Senate Judiciary Committee last week — which unanimously cleared it despite what the Arizona Republic called “strong opposition from . . . primarily people representing law-enforcement and prosecutors’ groups that benefit from the funds.”

The bill heightens the standard of proof required for making seizures stick from “preponderance of the evidence” to “clear and convincing evidence.” HB 2477 also increases reporting requirements, and creates a process police must follow to spend seized funds.

Unfortunately, there is also bad news.

Even with the new Idaho law and the enaction of the Arizona legislation, police in both states will continue to take people’s stuff without a criminal conviction. The level of abuse would be diminished, but not ended.

Citizens in both states can and should use the ballot initiative process to end this injustice. In total.

We must restore the bedrock principle of innocent-until-proven-guilty.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Other provisions include a court determination on “whether a property seizure is proportionate to the crime alleged,” absolving “innocent owners from having to pay the state’s costs associated with an attempted seizure,” and some required record-keeping.

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Accountability government transparency ideological culture moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies political challengers porkbarrel politics responsibility too much government

Legislating in the Real World

Steve Bannon, Trump, Freedom Caucus, big government, Ryancare, Trumpcare, Obamacare

Rolling back Big Government is not easy, especially when you are not that into it.

Robert Draper, profiling Steve Bannon in the New York Times, gives us a view into the mind of Trump’s right-hand man, who appears to think GOP insiders are obsessed with principles. “[I]t’s all this theoretical Cato Institute, Austrian economics, limited government — which just doesn’t have any depth to it. They’re not living in the real world.”

At best, this only fits the Freedom Caucus members, who killed RyanCare. But who is avoiding reality, here?

“Bannon clearly is not as familiar with the mindset of congressional Republicans as he imagines,” counters Jeff Deist, head of the “Austrian” Mises Institute. “They are primarily concerned with how the whole ‘repeal and replace’ debacle plays back home.”

Like Deist, I see the spectacular fizzle of RyanCare as evidence of the increasing irrelevance of Republican compromising. “The GOP is the party of trillion dollar military budgets,” Deist insists, noting that it “won’t even kill an openly cronyist program like the Export-Import Bank.”

If keeping Big Government secure is all Republicans can do, what use are they?

“All around us are the almost unimaginable benefits of markets, cooperation, and technology,” Deist explains, “yet somehow we’re naïve if we don’t want to funnel human activity through government cattle chutes.”

Bannon will not secure solid GOP support if he keeps pushing the usual establishment compromises while pretending they are either realistic or revolutionary. Freedom Caucus Republicans seem bent on doing something Republicans usually avoid: change “the real world” for the better by practically limiting government.

Not just in theory.

Bannon seems to have other goals.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies property rights responsibility subsidy too much government

TrumpCare Trumped

Trumpcare, Ryancare, healthcare, Obamacare, Freedom Caucus, socialism

It took awhile for the Obama Administration to accept the term “ObamaCare.” Nancy Pelosi was the initial driver of the massive scheme to permanently alter American medicine and insurance, and “PelosiCare” would have been a fit moniker for the wildly mis-named “Affordable Care Act.” But the administration put the whole of the new president’s political capital behind it, and the ACA went into law popularly known as “ObamaCare.”

The Republicans pledged to repeal it, from Day One. And repeatedly passed repeal bills, certain to be vetoed by the president named Obama. They needed a Republican in the White House.

Donald Trump ran, in part, on the promise of getting rid of ObamaCare. But upon taking the reins, two things became obvious: Republicans in Congress lacked the guts to repeal the ACA, and even lacked a coherent scheme to alter it.

The new president could hardly be expected to possess the plan they lacked, though on the campaign trail he suggested* the best approach: repeal, then open up insurance markets across state lines. The GOP Congress, on the other hand, was all promise and no clue.

So Speaker of the House Paul Ryan hastily cooked up what was to be the new TrumpCare — a ridiculous reform package with nothing much to say for it.

He failed to gain support from Democrats (of course) and Freedom Caucus representatives.

TrumpCare, trumped, became RyanCare. A failure.

The Freedom Caucus representatives? They breathe freely.

Sure, they “betrayed” the new president, “robbing” him of glory. But they also saved the country from a “reform” in many ways worse than ObamaCare.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* It’s worth keeping in mind that Trump had been for socialized medicine before running for office. This is why there was no reason to expect policy leadership on his part.

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Categories
Accountability folly ideological culture judiciary national politics & policies term limits U.S. Constitution

A Trout in the Milk

Senate Judiciary Committee , Supreme Court, hearings, term limits, Neil Gorsuch

This week, the Senate Judiciary Committee grilled Judge Neil Gorsuch, President Trump’s nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court. Talk about a silly rite. Senators repeatedly fired questions about specific legal views that no High Court nominee ever answers.

Why not? Because to answer would be to pre-judge possible future cases.

That didn’t prevent displays of faux-outrage from committee Democrats, though. “You have been very much able to avoid any specificity,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) criticized, “like no one I have ever seen before.”

In Washington, isn’t that a compliment?

Into this kabuki theater, Republicans added their own inanity. Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) inquired of Gorsuch, “What’s the largest trout you’ve ever caught?”

So that is how to determine whether to confirm someone for a lifetime position.

But even a lifetime doesn’t beat Congress. Elected every two years in the House or six years in the Senate, congresspersons often rack up longer tenure than do justices appointed for life.

The longest serving justice in our history was William O. Douglas, who spent nearly 37 years on the High Court. But if Douglas had spent that epoch in Congress, he wouldn’t place first, but 80th.

In fact, three Judiciary Committee members — Senators Patrick Leahy, Chuck Grassley and Orrin Hatch — have already served longer than any High Court justice in American history.

Interestingly, of the 20 longest serving justices, half served before 1900. Conversely, all of the 20 longest continuously serving members of Congress served after 1900.

Careerism in Congress beats lifetime tenure.

It’s time for term limits.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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