Category: national politics & policies

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free trade & free markets national politics & policies too much government

America’s Dirty Nuclear Secret

Before Cherynobl, we could sort of dismiss nuclear power’s danger. Afterwards, we could still say “Well, that’s the Soviets, for you.”

Now, with the ongoing Fukushima Dai-ichi disaster, the extent of what can go wrong is becoming horrifically clear, especially now that it looks like merely gaining control of the worst-off reactor could take months, not days.

It rightly makes us worry about the whole industry.

It’s a pity, too, because nuclear power concentrates its costs (spent fuel in containers) while providing enormous marketable benefits. Burning coal, on the other hand, disperses its “costs” in the form of pollution. Nuclear power would seem to be a perfect market solution.

But a “meltdown” — or just losing control of a fission process — concentrates harms in a manner hard to ignore or justify.

We hear that new nuclear tech is in development, and might become quite safe. But the promised extra-safe variety is not yet online anywhere, yet.

Why?

Could it be because government protects the currently unsafe technology? America’s nuclear power is protected from the rigors of risk as assessed by the cold, calculating insurance industry under 1957’s Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act, which shifts risk from investors to taxpayers in case of catastrophe.

Perhaps if that were repealed, better nuclear tech would emerge faster.

As it is, our old nuclear tech awaits a rare convergence of disastrous factors, like a major earthquake plus human error, or terrorism plus x.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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national politics & policies

One Industry’s Boom Time

The current economic slump lumbers along, but one industry is booming: Health-care lobbying.

Over 180 groups have registered to help shape the new health care law, prompting CNNMoney to explain that “President Obama’s drive for health care reform has been a years-long boon for lobbyists”:

Over 2009 and 2010, $1.06 billion was spent on lobbying, with more than $500 million spent on lobbying the issue in each year. . . . In addition, lobbyists for 1,251 organizations disclosed that they worked on health care reform in 2009 and 2010. . . . The number of individual lobbyists who reported working on health related legislation last year hit 3,154. . . .

Bad or good?

Well, it’s to be expected. The more the federal government involves itself in any domain of life, the more reactions to expect from those engaged in that domain. And it’s not just big business petitioning government for favors or forbearance or simply an ongoing “in.” Unions and associations and non-profits are onboard, too. After all, a simple line or even a word in a law can make or break a concern.

Besides, if our legislators insist on regulating every aspect of life, they’ll need all the help they can get. But since that “help” inevitably emanates from ever larger legions of back-slapping lobbyists huddling with glad-handing politicians, it’d be better if Congress left well enough alone.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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folly ideological culture national politics & policies

Saving the World

Tonight, President Obama will address the nation — perchance to explain the parameters, if there be any, to our nation’s military intervention in Libya. Certainly, no one else in his administration has yet successfully done so, and not for lack of babbling on.

“The bottom line and the president’s view on this,” explained Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough on CNN, “is it’s important to bring the country along.” (Gee, thanks.) “Obviously the president, ah, is solely, ah, has this, ah, responsibility to deploy our troops overseas. . . .”

“We would welcome congressional support,” offered Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on ABC’s This Week, “but I don’t think that this kind of internationally authorized intervention . . . is the kind of unilateral action that either I or President Obama were speaking of several years ago.”

A long, long time ago, there were no “humanitarian bombing” campaigns. Had such a cause been proposed, it would have been called war. Our president would have had to not only phone a couple congressmen to chat them up, but actually secure their votes on a declaration of war.

As we wade into our third war in the Middle East, Defense Secretary Robert Gates says, “No, I don’t think it’s a vital interest for the United States.”

Whether you are a dove or a hawk, Republican or Democrat or sane, how is it working out for us that one man can so easily decide to embroil 300 million Americans in war?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment national politics & policies

The Next War to End

I don’t know if David Schubert is guilty. You don’t either. But it wouldn’t shock me if a jury convicted him, or if he pled out. You probably wouldn’t be surprised, either.

The fact that we aren’t shocked is what is shocking about the story.

You see, Schubert is the Nevada prosecutor who has handled many celebrity drug prosecutions — Paris Hilton, most famously. He has now been arrested for possession of cocaine.

Common story: The people in charge of prosecuting America’s ongoing War on Drugs are often drug users themselves. Many are “on the take” to drug gangs and warlords and kingpins. Or themselves embroiled in the drug trade.

The evidence for mass corruption, up and down the criminal justice system’s chain of command, is massive itself. It reminds me of the stories of Inquisitors themselves accused of heresy, in the Middle Ages. It’s a very old story.

And now it’s become a way of life in America. Corruption is endemic, and that says something about the drug war itself. About our drug laws.

Which could be repealed.

Did you know that Portugal has had great success decriminalizing pretty much all recreational drugs?

Last week, Rep. Ron Paul castigated House Republicans for overlooking America’s foreign wars as targets for cutting America’s overblown budget. I agree with him, but really: We should look close to home, too.

It is high time for a complete cease-fire in the costly War on Drugs.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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folly free trade & free markets national politics & policies Tenth Amendment federalism too much government

Derailing Washington’s Train Fixation

The great age of trains — the 19th century — spawned a few amazing political careers, not excluding the railway lawyer, Abraham Lincoln. Many major railroads depended on moving politicians first, earth and iron second.

More than ever, today’s passenger rail lines are creatures of the state. Amtrak loses money, and could only be successful as a private operation were politicians able to let its unprofitable lines go.

Congress insists, instead, on putting up more money-losing railways in as many places as possible. President Obama even tried to get a bullet train put through between Tampa and Orlando, despite the fact that the two Florida cities were too close to each other for a super-fast train to make any sense.

Worse for the bullet was the politics.

In 2000, Floridians had voted in high-speed monorail; in 2004, they voted in greater numbers to kill their own project. Voters realized that, with politicians in charge, railroad projects tended to go runaway.

Perhaps that helped convince Rick Scott, the new governor, to reject the federal government’s offer to pay $2.4 billion of a $2.6 billion bullet train. The billions of “free money” that the Obama Administration promised began to seem, well, costly.

So, of course, the federal government sued. In early March, a Florida court ruled that the governor did indeed have the power to tell the feds to play with trains elsewhere.

A minor victory for railway sanity. A major victory for federalism.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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national politics & policies

Spain Slows Down

Spain has reduced its speed limit, from 120 kmh to 110 (about 68 mph). So of course some are asking whether the U.S. should similarly put on the brakes.

It’s ’70s déjà vu: OPEC was throwing its cartel weight around, Nixon responded with wage and price controls, which led to long lines at gas stations. And, for the first time, the federal government cajoled states to reduce highway speed limits to 55 mph.

We still argue about the results. Freeway deaths went down, to hurrahs.

But, forced to travel 55 or thereabouts, more and more drivers opted to drive the secondary roads, roads less capable of handling increases in speed and congestion. Traffic fatalities there went up.

Most obviously, we saved gas but wasted time.

If you are narrowly focused on one thing — gasoline used, in toto — you are unlikely to care. But wasting people’s time comes with many social costs, from fewer hours spent with kids to more hours driven drowsily. So a number of deaths by speed were swapped for a number of deaths by fatigue.

Right now each of us can save gas — by driving less, or slower, or trading in the commuter car for a motorcycle. But each of these comes at a cost, with trade-offs ranging from lost productivity to what for some would be a net loss in safety.

Any attempt to force such trade-offs as policy warrants careful thought, a reasonable understanding of all the costs.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment national politics & policies U.S. Constitution

Indefinite Detention, Definitely Wrong

“No western government has ever claimed the power to do this,” said Judge Andrew Napolitano, on Fox’s The Plain Truth. “Not the King of England, not Hitler, not Stalin, not even the Russian and Chinese Communists.”

Hitler comparisons are a dime a dozen these days, but Napolitano was not referring to something minor. He was talking about the power to hold someone for the whole of his or her natural life, even after being acquitted in a U.S. court of law.

By a jury.

Yes, on March 7, 2011, Barack Obama, President of the United States, signed an executive order detailing how detainees will be held. Key word: “continued” — which is code for Indefinite.

The president’s supporters squirmed. Obama had promised to close the Guantánamo Bay facility during his campaign. On AlterNet the story was covered as a “step forward.” The Washington Post, on the other hand, quotes Republican Representative Peter T. King saying the order vindicates George W. Bush, whose administration had established the practice of indefinitely holding suspected terrorists at the site.

The order does affirm the right of habeus corpus for detainees. But its aim is to merely provide a review of cases. It doesn’t question “the executive branch’s continued, discretionary exercise of existing detention authority” — which is what rightly bothers Judge Napolitano.

The order is legalese; non-lawyers may nod off. It’s hard to see the Hitlerian element.

But that’s what the “banality of evil” is all about.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets national politics & policies too much government

Life, the Universe, and Everything

The answer is 42.

The question? Not Douglas Adams’s Ultimate Question concerning “life, the universe, and everything.” Instead, it’s the answer to the question, “How many mandates does the State of Oregon place on the medical insurance packages Oregonians are allowed to buy?”

Forty-two.

The number is far too large — and yet the number will likely increase this year, courtesy of the state legislature, despite the fact that the current mandates raise the cost of medical insurance for Oregonians.

Steve Buckstein, speaking before the state’s House Committee on Health Care, for-instanced Iowa, which sports 16 fewer mandates. The state has lower percentages of uninsured folks and lower premiums than in states with higher numbers of required services.

Buckstein, a policy analyst for Cascade Policy Institute, was arguing for HB 2977, which would allow Oregonians to purchase medical insurance from other states. This would add competition to the current highly over-regulated market.

Buckstein shouldn’t have to do this. The purpose of the federal union was to create a vast free trade zone. Misguided state mandates such as the ones he’s fighting rest upon prohibiting state citizens from buying outside the state, which runs up against the grain of the Constitution. For too long Congress has exempted the medical insurance industry from the correct application of the Commerce Clause, leading to a crippled industry and opening the way for disastrously unworkable ideas like, well, “Obamacare.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets national politics & policies too much government

Stop the Mortgage Madness

The New York Times wonders how “home buying [might] change if the federal government shuts down the housing finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.” Despite vague agreement that misguided government policy somehow encouraged short-sighted, irresponsible conduct, many want government to keep it up.

It’s supposedly “well understood” that Fanny and Freddie “misused” government’s support to back “millions of shoddy loans.” Shoddy how? Shoddy because awarded to high-risk debtors on terms impossible without the government’s easy credit, subsidies, regulations, exhortations and bailout net. Many of the loans would not have been made by creditors obliged to consider not only potential profits but also all the actual and potential costs, without government interference.

In the article’s very next paragraph, however, we learn that although the consequences of “misused” government support for untenable loans are now “well understood,” there’s a “much more divisive question” now in play: “whether the government should preserve the benefits that the companies provide to middle-class borrowers, including lower interest rates, lenient terms and the ability to get a mortgage even when banks are not making other kinds of loans.”

Huh? You mean, many politicians and beneficiaries of government largesse are “divided” over whether a policy of destructively encouraging irresponsible conduct should be clung to with only cosmetic, if any, changes — even though this policy sank the economy?

Scavengers picking carcasses may not care about the long run. But the rest of us should.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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national politics & policies too much government

Unkinder Cuts

The Republicans’ proposed cuts to the federal budget are called “deep” in Washington. So deep that Democrat Sen. John Kerry called them terrible, and Illinois Senator Dick Durbin protests that “Republicans are unfairly and unwisely placing the burden of spending cuts on domestic programs. Durbin tells Fox News Sunday he’s ‘willing to see more deficit reduction, but not out of domestic discretionary spending.’”

The Democrats have offered, instead, a shallower set of cuts, of $6.5 billion from domestic spending, hardly a tenth of what the Republicans offer.

But what the Republicans offer is only 5 percent of the budget deficit. Not the budget, mind you, just the Godzilla-sized deficit.

I’m curious where Durbin wants to cut. He’s offered no reduction in domestic “mandatory spending,” which is made up chiefly of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and interest on the debt. Barring repudiating the debt, where would he attack the budget?

That leaves one huge hunk open for paring down: war spending. But realize that shutting down our entire military, zeroing it out, wouldn’t completely close this deficit. To make substantial Defense Department cuts, we’d have to extricate ourselves from wars abroad or pull our troops out of Europe and Japan and Korea, etc. All things I think we can, should and must do.

Talk is cheap, and awfully vague. “A terrible idea”; “unfairly and unwisely” . . . as if our current budget mess wasn’t the result of a thousand terrible ideas . . . and unfair and unwise spending galore.

The Republicans’ proposed cuts are disappointing. The Democrats’ objections? Witless.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.