Common Sense with Paul Jacob

Should Senator Bob Graham go into dairy farming? He’s good at milking things.

A recent story about what Bob Graham is going to do now is udderly revealing. He’s dropping out of the race for president. But will he drop out of the Senate too? Unthinkable, say some. Including long-time supporter Steve Uhlfelder, a Tallahassee lawyer. “What’s he going to do, become a dairy farmer?” asked Uhlfelder “I can’t imagine the man walking away from public life in his mid 60s.” Such cynicism is lamentable. But par for the course in today’s political environment.

Meanwhile, potential candidates for Graham’s seat are waiting in the wings in a “holding pattern,” as one report puts it awaiting Graham’s next move. None of them are sitting senatorial incumbents with all the advantages of incumbency to draw upon. Graham laments those advantages furiously. He once said, “It offends me when taxpayer money is spent on things that are designed to re-elect politicians rather than a serious need of the country.”

Yet he doesn’t mind pork when it’s for Florida. And his anti-pork stand certainly didn’t stop him from proposing a lot more porcine spending and taxing as he ran for president. Including billions to fund technology and broadband research as if private industry has no interest in funding these on its own. He also pushed a 40 percent tax bracket for the most productive Americans. (You know. The ones who fund broadband development.) Senator Graham, please choose cows to milk for a living. Fast. While we still have some money left in our wallets.

This is Common Sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.

One of my listeners wrote back to say, Hey, enough with the stuff about California! Get back to the national scene! I can understand that. After all, if you’re in Michigan or Ohio, why would you want to hear about California all the time? I do try to vary the subject matter. But the recall is an emergency form of term limits. What happened in California is so dramatic that it can only embolden champions of citizen control of government elsewhere. In other words, this is a national event. It’s not like dropping a pebble in the middle of the pond. It’s dropping a boulder.

Then a reader of my Townhall column, which appears on Sunday at Townhall.com, wrote in to say that I was right on in my defense of the California recall. Did I mention that column was at Townhall.com? Yeah, Townhall.com. This reader wanted to know, “Hasn’t anyone ever heard of ‘the consent of the governed’?” She went on to opine that “Not since the days of mad King George has there been such imperialistic nonsense. Even Chris Matthews, hardly a member of the ‘vast right-wing conspiracy’ . . . pointed out that the recall is an escape clause. And as for those who argue that Arnold can’t be a good governor because he’s Only An Actor . . . just look at the utterly rotten job Gray Davis, the pro, did.

A cat couldn’t do a worse job. Because at least a cat wouldn’t raise taxes.” Close quote like a bear trap snapping shut! Gosh, that’s a bit tough on Davis. But you know, I hate to argue with any of my readers.

This is Common Sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.

The audience for this show is wise and good. In a recent episode I noted that a new federal law mandated that teachers now must have a separate college degree for each subject they teach. An absurd requirement that if consistently followed would cause lots of problems around the country. Especially in rural areas.

I said that we don’t need the feds to tell us how to teach our kids. A listener who calls himself Nerdifool, but is neither nerdy nor a fool, wrote to echo my sentiments. Mr. Nerdifool reports that under the new law his wife, a retired grade school teacher, would “have to have a degree in English, Spanish, Math, Physical Education, and History, plus her Bachelors in Education . . .” about 26 years of book larnin’ before she could return to the classroom. Nerdifool says, “What we really need is to require all Congress Men and government bureaucrats to have a Bachelors Degree in Paper Pushing, a Masters Degree in Bullpucky, and a PHD in Bureaucratic Nonsense, plus a Certificate in Red Tape in addition to a Law degree, Masters in Law and a JD. That might slow the tide of crap coming out of Washington. . . .” Not a bad suggestion.

Then there was the listener who wrote in to advise me that there is no such thing as a degree in term limits. See, I had claimed to be pretty much an expert in term limits and political shenanigans even though I possess no advanced degrees in these subjects. Oh . . . I stand corrected.

This is Common Sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.

Every once in a while I come across a report that reminds me, for all the gripes I sometimes have about life in the U.S., how good we’ve always had it here.

This particular story is positive, but it still makes me shake my head. It’s about the elimination of an old law in China requiring a couple to get permission from their employers before they can marry. According to the Associated Press, as soon as the law was dropped, “thousands of couples . . . wed in what, for some, was also a celebration of the retreat of outside interference in their private lives.” Hooray for that. Obviously, under the old way, it was easy for the commie boss to make trouble for young Chinese couples. And also easy for him to make extra cash off of them, in exchange for his stamp of approval.

One new groom says, “We’re really glad that this rule was canceled because it was a real hassle. It makes getting married feel even better.” I don’t doubt it. What could be the justification for such an absurd rule? From the American perspective, none whatever. But the communist government in China has a history of acting as if everything everybody does is their business.

It used to be that all Chinese worked for the government, and the marriage law was a holdover from that time. Things are getting better. The Chinese can now also apply for passports without the permission of employers. In bits and pieces, the Chinese people are slowly gaining more freedom. Let’s hope they get to go all the way.

This is Common Sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.

In recent years Congress has done all sorts of things against the tobacco industry. And yet they’re also subsidizing the tobacco industry. I am sure that many of the same congressmen who vote to clobber tobacco also vote to give tobacco a handout. That’s the way the tangled web works in Washington. It’s deals and special interests and more deals and more special interests. It’s not the congressman’s money, after all. Just yours and mine. And we’ve got money to burn, apparently.

A few years ago there were droughts in one state and floods in another that spoiled the tobacco crop. This was bad news for the tobacco farmers of those states. So the government bailed them out by buying up the useless tobacco crop. Well, that’s one way to solve your financial problems, I guess. Just get the government to send you a check.

Honey, can you get the government on the phone? That particular bailout cost the government $661 million. It was illegal for the government to even try to find domestic buyers for the useless crop, and it couldn’t find foreign buyers either. So the tobacco has just been moldering in warehouses for four years. And now the bureaucrats have finally decided to burn it all.

The moral of the story is, government, get out of the tobacco-industry harassment business, and get out of the tobacco-industry subsidy business. And get out of the very expensive business of chronically catering to special interests at the expense of the common good. I guess that’s three morals.

This is Common Sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.

Thursday, October 16, 2003

What worries me is that if you did it, government might have to shut down. Okay, so maybe that doesn’t worry me so much.

Here’s the deal. After some high-profile firms were found cooking the books Enron, Worldcom Congress cracked down. Fraud, they said, could not be tolerated. The CEOs of companies would now have to sign off on the accuracy of all the accounting in their firm, under penalty of fine or jail if the accounting turned out to be misleading.

There are a couple problems with the new law. One has to do with treating CEOs as proven fraud artists when the case against them isn’t really proven. If a CEO signs off on accounting that does turn out to include fraud, does that mean the CEO knew about the fraud at the time? Not at all. If the CEO were the accountant, he would be the accountant, not the CEO. He hires other people precisely so other people can handle details he cannot handle.

Anyway, Richard Rahn, an adjunct scholar of the Cato Institute, suggests that what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. The requirement of attesting to the “accuracy of the financial statements under penalty of fine or jail” should, he says, be “extended to government officials.” And Congress should freeze the budgets of agencies that fail to satisfy proper audits.

Given all the sloppy accounting we always hear about, from HUD to the Pentagon, if this advice is followed the government would soon have to shut down. Well . . . okay.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Wednesday, October 15, 2003

Parents must be constantly hounded by the government or else their kids won’t be safe. At least, that’s the theory. As a parent I’ve always wanted my kids to remain alive. And my wife and I have always done our best to keep them alive. So far so good, knock on wood.  This is, in fact, a very widespread approach to parenting, I believe. Yet I’m always reading stuff about how what worked just fine yesterday could kill your baby today.

In a recent column, Vin Suprynowicz of the Las Vegas Review-Journal points out that “do-gooders now busy themselves passing laws under which parents can be jailed for using their own best judgment,” like letting their kids ride in the front seat with them. The newsletter Accident Reconstruction argues that always stashing children in the back seat is a “simplistic band-aide solution fraught with danger.” One problem is that infants in the back seat can distract other drivers and cause accidents that way. Vin also notes the increasing danger of “forgotten-baby syndrome,” in which infants are accidentally left in the car by parents who would never have forgotten the child had it not been banned from riding up front. Babies have died from suffocation that way.

The greatest danger here is the notion that government regulators are better at parenting from a distance than the parents are themselves, right up close. Yet it’s Mom and Dad who must live with the consequences. Reminds me of the time a public official claimed to care as much for a couple’s children as they did, but had nothing to say when the father asked, “Then what are their names?

This is Common Sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.

Former Congressman Tom Coburn has a new book out all about business as usual in our nation’s Congress. You can read excerpts from the memoir, called Breach of Trust , at the web site limitedgov.org.

In a land of career politicians, Dr. Coburn was a citizen legislator. He pledged to serve only three terms in the Congress; and he never wavered from that commitment, stepping down in 2000 just as promised. The memoir is fascinating. One episode that leaps from the page relates his attempt to get his fellow congressmen to abide by spending caps passed as part of the 1997 Balanced Budget Agreement.

In 1999 Coburn met with House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Majority Leader Senator Trent Lott, urging them to step up to the plate and lead. Coburn recalls that while Dennis Hastert at least listened to him on the issue more than he had come to expect from recently-ousted Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Lott was a lot less interested. “Lott looked at me, rested his chin on his hand, and said in his Mississippi baritone drawl, ‘Well, I’ve got an election coming up in 2000. After that we can have good government.’ “It made me sick,” says Coburn. “Here was one of the most powerful men in the country brazenly admitting, in effect, ‘Yes, the government we have now is not good, but I don’t really care as long as I keep getting elected.'” Coburn’s story tells us a lot, if we’re willing to listen. Sadly, though, nothing we didn’t already know.

This is Common Sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.

They’re pros. They’re experts, They’re real experienced. Of course, they can’t get the job done. But other than that, they sure do know what they’re doing. It’s the job of passing a federal budget. Not that I’m a huge fan of the budget as such. I disagree with about 94 percent of the federal spending. You’d think I’d like budget delays, but I don’t. Because in the crazy world of Washington, delays in the budget like everything else in the end cost us more money.

The budget deadline for the 2004 fiscal year has now passed. So Congress is once again freezing operations at the previous year’s fiscal levels until it figures out spending for the next fiscal year. Congress has passed continuing budget resolutions to keep the spending going. The danger is that the new appropriations will be passed with an omnibus resolution that sandwiches all the spending into one big fat bill. That you’d need a crane to deliver to the White House.

Pete Sepp of the National Taxpayers Union points out that “Once you get into omnibus territory, it’s usually as urgent and rushed as the final two minutes of a football game.” So lawmakers will “approve anyone’s pet project just to get the bill to the president’s desk, and that can be very fiscally dangerous.” What this means, of course, is that there is actually an incentive for the career politician not to get things done so that he can later slip in all kinds of salty pork-barrel spending under the political radar screen. There oughta be a law.

This is Common Sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.