Saturday, July 27, 2002
THE LAWSUIT CULTURE
Well, it had to happen sooner or later:
Obese man sues fast food chains
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KRUGMAN AND SOCIAL SECURITY
The Mike Tyson of the Blogosphere is at it again, this time on privatizing Social Security. For a small Paul Krugman takedown go to Juan Gato; for an extended one go to Hoystory. (Thanks to Croooow Blog for the links.)
Reading through Krugman’s column, I noticed this passage:
Ask yourself: Who would benefit directly from the creation of "personal accounts" under Social Security?
Those personal accounts won't be like personal stock portfolios. The Social Security Administration can't and won't become a stockbroker for 130 million clients, most of them with quite small accounts. Instead it's likely that a privatization scheme would require individuals to invest with one of a handful of designated private investment funds.
That would mean enormous commissions for the managers of those funds.
That is highly suspect, if not flat out wrong. First, most people would likely invest their Social Security accounts in Index funds, which don’t have managers. No managers, no commissions.
Furthermore, most fund manager make their commissions by charging "loads," a fee charged to the investor. However, page 46 of the final report by the President’s Commission to Strengthen Social Security proscribes loads:
Funding of both Tiers [of private accounts] cannot charge sales "loads" or other marketing fees on entry or exit. Instead, all fees must be included in one annual charge and clearly stated as a percentage of assets.
Krugman has consistently criticized the Commission’s math. Before he does so again, perhaps he should first read its report.
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AND SOME GOOD NEWS
The House of Reps yesterday passed Trade Promotion Authority after some furious lobbying by the White House. This doesn’t undue all the damage Bush has done with lumber and steel tariffs, but it’s a big step in the right direction.
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WHY CONSERVATIVES AND LIBERALS VIEW EACH OTHER AS THEY DO
If you haven’t checked out Charles Krauthammer’s recent column in the Washington Post, do so. It is an absolute gem.
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NAACP OFFICIAL SOUNDS LIKE STREET THUGS
Thanks to Croooow Blog for pointing this out, via Hannity and Colmes. Go read this statement by an NAACP official from Oklahoma. It’s a real piece of work.
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GOOD ONES AT THE DAILY STANDARD
This one by Stephen Hayes examines the troubles that PBS affiliates seem to have with Bill Moyers.
This one by Matt Labash details the pending divorce of Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thorton. The humor is a bit morbid, but it is still very funny.
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Friday, July 26, 2002
SORRY
Sorry, my friends, but the server went down at work today, and stayed down. Thus, no Daily Diatribe. I'll blog a bit over the weekend, and hopefully things will be back to normal on Monday.
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LIBERAL BIAS AT THE REGISTER
This story in the Des Moines Register looks at the negative ads from both the Vilsack campaign and the Gross campaign. The tone of the story is a pox on both their houses:
The ads began well before the June primary and haven't let up, an unusually early start, television executives agree. But it's their tone - slow-motion black-and-white images and foreboding narration usually reserved for horror movies - that has voters and political observers calling the campaigns shrill.
Then the Register interviews a Republican from West Des Moines, David Creighton Sr, who dislikes the ads from both sides in general, but one Gross ad in particular:
It begins as a parody of an ad attacking Gross. A narrator says, "Doug Gross: He's really from Mars."
In the ad, Gross says, "Wow. I wonder what Tom Vilsack is going to make up about me next." He accuses Vilsack of turning a $1 billion surplus into a $1 billion deficit, a charge members of both parties and independent analysts have called a stretch.
The strategy only annoys Creighton.
The West Des Moines broker is a registered Republican and regular caucusgoer who says Gross' "Mars" ad and Vilsack's attacks fail to portray a sense of leadership in either candidate.
"These ads reflect small thinking and nitpicking," Creighton said. "I'm a reasonably informed intelligent person, and they weigh on my intelligence."
Excuse me, but where is the committed Democrats who is upset with the Vilsack ads attacking Gross for his work in his law firm? He (or she) is not to be found. Apparently only Republicans who are critical of their own party’s nominee are worthwhile interviewing.
Finally—and this is perhaps small potatoes—there is no one in the story who notes that Vilsack’s negative ads are the ones slinging the mud, while Gross’s negative ads are focusing on the issues, namely Iowa’s budget problems. I wonder how the article would read if the situation were reversed. Oh well, minor point.
Anyway, the author of the article is Thomas Beaumont, and his email address is beaumontt@news.dmreg.com. You might drop him a note asking him where is the Democrat who is critical of Vilsack’s ads?
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WHY WON’T ANYONE TAKE MY BETS?
The Des Moines Register editorial page continues its Medicare complaining. It ends today’s editorial with this line:
Tomorrow: It must be fixed, and Congress is the only hope.
Earlier in the week I asked "Wanna bet that the Register calls for more government actions to fix the problem?" Isn’t there a gambler among my readers?
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Thursday, July 25, 2002
ERIC OLSEN—TANNED AND RESTED
Some interesting stuff over at Tres Producers. Eric Olsen also links to Indepundit’s tribute to Traficant. He then adds:
Traficant may have been amusing from a distance, but as a resident of Northeast Ohio, he is an embarrassment and the worst kind of throwback to an era of graft-with-impunity, above-the-law office-holders and disingenuous populism. Good riddance now shut the hell up.
Eric probably won’t have the last word on Traficant, but he should.
Eric also worries that the hits on his website are down due to the summer season:
Man o man, you can't tell me blog traffic isn't way down due to summer and/or the hiatus of various prominent bloggers. My Steve Earle stuff is No. 17 on Blogdex. Think about this: in the past 24 hours, I have been linked by (in no particular order) InstaPundit, Daily Pundit, Matt Welch, Ken Layne, Damian Penny, Dawn Olsen, Dr. Frank, Porphyrogenitus, Dawson, Andrea Harris, Sulizano, the Sarge, The Fat Guy, Balloon Juice, A. Beam (he's back!!), James Russell, Alex Whitlock, and I'm sure others I have left out (I apologize, let me know who you are) on this story. Based upon past experience, this kind of link bonanza would have generated 2,500+ hits in May or June, maybe more.
Yesterday's unique visitors count? 600. Unbelievable. Yes, we were gone for two weeks and my traffic went way down, but I have been back for over a week. I am very curious to hear reports of your traffic either confirming or denying my theory. What has your traffic been like compared to May and June? Any traffic theories?
Part of me wants to say WAAAHHHH!!! I haven’t had an Instalance since about the third week I started my blog. And if you look at TP’s site stats, and then look at mine, you can see that I’d be entirely justified in having severe case of site stat envy.
But then, two things occur to me. First, I’m very sympathetic. Hits are a major ego boost for many bloggers. It’s a big boost to think that people are reading stuff on our sites. The more hits, the bigger the boost. So it can be dispiriting when the hits decline.
Second, I have to be a big boy about it. Ed Boyd warned me at the beginning that a site that focuses heavily on the politics of one state—and a rather small, heavily rural state at that—is going to experience limited hits. If wasn’t for the wonderful compliments of people like Eric, Ed, Henry Hanks, Jason Steffans and others, it would be a lot less fun than it is. And for those nice folks who visit often, boy do I appreciate it. Thanks so much. I don’t say that enough.
As for theories, here's mine: I noticed my hits were increasing in late May to early June. Then they dropped a bit the week before I went on vacation, and they’ve never quite recovered. I suspect this is the big vacation time of year, and folks have better things to do then spend a lot of time in front of the computer. I also suspect that hits will return to normal levels, perhaps even increase, come late August. (Hmm…that last line seems like it came out of the mouth of a stock analyst.) Anyway, two reasons for said prediction. First, it will be about two weeks before the one-year anniversary of 9/11. Second, it will be the beginning of the fall campaign season. Both of those should return site traffic to big levels.
Finally, Eric has a post about the Dark Side of Blogging, but that will require a good deal of thought before I can blog about it. Maybe tomorrow.
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GOODBYE EXPOS
For some reason reading this article by John Donovan in CNNSI nearly brought me to tears. I suppose that’s why I’m a male of the species.
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SOME GOOD COLUMNS
Walter Williams has this one from yesterday that explores the sham that is the opposition to school vouchers.
Thomas Sowell has two recent columns that are intriguing. There is this moving tribute to his former teacher, Milton Friedman. There is also this one that argues that much of what the government did during the New Deal actually prolonged the Great Depression. The stock market crash of 1929 had little, if anything, to do with it. Sure wish I’d read it before writing today’s Daily Diatribe. Which reminds me: Attention Bob Kuttner, this is another chance to expand your reading list.
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TAKING THE FIGHT TO VILSACK
It looks like the Republicans in the State Legislature are helping out Gross. According to this story in the Cedar Rapids Gazette:
House Majority Leader Christopher Rants, R-Sioux City, is asking where Vilsack will find money for his proposal.
"Where will the money come from?" Rants is asking. The $270 million is more than the amount lawmakers had to cut from the current budget to make ends meet, he said.
Vilsack has suggested tapping funds from the tobacco settlement, but "those are pretty well spoken for," Rants said.
"Which health care program is he planning on eliminating? Which project at our state universities is he going to kill off? These are the types of projects the tobacco money takes care of," Rants said.
"He also wants to tap into the UndergroundStorage Tank Fund. Which polluted site is going to have to stay that way? Which vacant property is going to have to remain empty? That's bad for the environment and the economy."
Go get ‘em boys.
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A REAL GOOD USE OF FEDERAL MONEY
This story in the Ames Tribune reports that Iowa State University has just received a $6 million dollar grant from the federal government to establish a "new Center for Research on Dietary Botanical Supplements." This center will study "what's helpful or harmful about herbal supplements, starting with St. John's wort and echinacea."
Isn’t the federal government running a deficit? Oh that’s right, we should fix the deficit by rescinding most of the Bush tax cut.
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IOWA RANKS NUMBER 4!
According to this story in the Cedar Rapids Gazette, Iowa ranks fourth nationwide in sunburns. Hey, don’t knock it! At least we’re near the top in something.
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INDEPUNDIT WILL MISS TRAFICANT
Indepundit has this tribute to the now expelled member of Congress, James Traficant. Looks like Inepundit will miss the ravings of Traficant. So will I, although not his more recent ones about how a government conspiracy is out to get him.
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DAILY DIATRIBE: BOB KUTTNER TO THE RESCUE!
There are few things that true, unreformed liberals like more than a big drop in the stock market. It evokes images of the 1929 market crash, which led to the Great Depression, which led to that nirvana called the New Deal. To see the inebriating effect that this can have on the liberal mind, take a look at Bob Kuttner’s new piece in The American Prospect, titled “Can Liberals Save Capitalism (Again)?” It begins:
In a few short weeks, America's political economy has been stunningly transformed.
Really, Bob? How?
The Bush administration, the Republican Party and three decades of conservative ideology are facing a potential rout. Yesterday's conservative clichés are today's political embarrassments. Americans are getting a vivid if painful education about the limits of the marketplace and the salutary role of government. It will be a very long time before anyone can say with a straight face that markets always work better than governments. But market fundamentalism has been so ascendant for so long -- politically, culturally, financially -- that this is only the very beginning of an ideological sea change. It remains to be seen whether liberals will manage to save capitalism from itself, for the second time in the past 70 years.
You can no longer seriously say that “markets always work better than governments”? Actually, I think only the most extreme libertarians say that. I think the rest of us on the right generally believe that markets usually work better than government. But that aside, if you think that the conservative faith in the market is facing a rout, Bob, you need to expand your reading list. Try the folks at National Review Online, or Tech Central Station. Heck, even try the much less conservative folk over at the Washington Post.
Before you give your examples of how the faith in the market is misplaced, Bob, you must, of course, get in a dig against President Bush:
Bush irrevocably symbolizes the tawdriness of crony capitalism, right down to his insider self-enrichment based on the sale of fraudulently inflated Harken Energy stock.
Like I suggested, Bob: Expand the reading list. Try Byron York.
Now for your examples of how the market is no longer working:
We don't know yet whether the stock market has reached the kind of tipping point where downward spiral just feeds on itself and savages the real economy, 1929 fashion. At best, the market is likely to be severely depressed for a long time.
After yesterday’s rally I bet you feel a tad foolish for writing that, huh Bob?
Even after a nearly 40 percent drop in the broad stock market, price-earnings ratios are still high by historic standards. Moreover, every time another corporation restates its earnings, the real ratio of its stock price to its true earnings goes higher and the stock sinks lower. Accounting standards have been retroactively toughened, in a fashion that perversely deepens the stock market's woes. As corporations get new auditors, the new accounting firms are determined to show that they are tougher than their disgraced predecessors.
Neither is it clear whether even the toughest of remedies can repair the real economic damage that has already occurred. With investors gulled by stock touts and phony corporate reports -- themselves the fruit of the antiregulatory mania -- trillions of dollars of investment capital went to uses that will never recoup earnings. So the stock market plunge is more than a crisis of confidence. It's a belated appreciation of economic reality.
Hmm, lessee here. Stock prices falling due to phony earnings reports and wasted investment capital. Companies responding by toughening up accounting standards. Wouldn’t those be example of market self-correction? And isn’t that what all those “market fundamentalists” argue is supposed to happen?
You probably didn’t spend much time thinking about your examples, Bob, because you were too busy dreaming about the coming liberal era:
If this sounds familiar, it should. Much the same thing happened in the 1920s, and of course it was the liberals who then dragged a primitive, corrupted and vulnerable capitalist system, kicking and screaming, into the modern mixed economy. It's astonishing that we now have to do it again.
Republicans can't do the necessary job, but will Democrats seize the moment?
Carpe diem Bob! If you think the Democrats can seize the day by proposing another New Deal, go right ahead and encourage them. But don’t expect them to get all that excited about it. Even the Democrats are smart enough to realize that they’d get pasted at the polls. And that’s because the majority of Americans are smart enough to know that lots of government spending and regulation aren’t that good for the economy.
I also found some of your ravings in the third to last paragraph to be of interest:
Why, for example, don't Americans have decent health care? Because the health-care industry wants it that way, and because the ascendant ideology says that markets can do the job better than government-sponsored insurance. Ordinary experience and scholarly evidence both demonstrate that market provision of health care is a disaster. But the ideological conventions of the era blind politicians to what their own constituents know and desire.
Truth be told, Bob, there is no shortage of ordinary experience and scholarly evidence that show government provided health-care is a disaster. Go take a look at the mess than Canada's and Great Britain’s health system are in. Furthermore, if the American people really wanted government-provided health care, they’d make it known during elections, regardless of what “ideological conventions of the era blind politicians.” In fact, the Democrats tried to provide such health care back in early 1994. The election that followed wasn’t too good for them, if you’ll recall.
By the same token, the problem with retirement security isn't just that some 401(k) plans are inadequately regulated and at risk of being looted. Half of America's workers have no pensions at all save Social Security, and they will only get pensions when government policy demands it. The free market is supposed to solve this problem, but it doesn't.
Actually, more and more folks have a 401(k) all the time. The free market has been solving the problem, albeit gradually. No one said it was going to happen over night. By the same token, all working folk could have a private investment account if we’d privatize part of Social Security. But pundits like you pull their hair out whenever it is proposed.
The voucher craze, lately supported even by some Democrats, is another money-making scheme relying on the spurious claim that markets are superior to public investments.
In case you haven’t noticed Bob, some of those public investments, especially those in the form of inner-city schools, have been swirling the bowl for some time. Furthermore, there is increasing evidence that the market approach to schools is succeeding. You can employ deceptive rhetoric like referring to market reforms as “money-making schemes” and ineffective government programs as “public investments,” but some of us aren’t so easily fooled, Bob.
Well, it’s a pretty lengthy article, Bob, and I don’t have the expertise to tackle some of the finance matters you talk about, not to mention your history of the Great Depression and the New Deal. I’ll leave that to other bloggers, perhaps someone like Jane Galt, just to name one. Rather, I’ll repeat that you’ve let the recent stock market troubles make you giddy. You’ve indulged that mental state so typical of many on the left, the salvation complex. The market troubles have led you to conclude that our society is going to hell in hand basket, and it is time for the liberals like you to rush in with all sorts of new government programs to save us. Thanks for the thought, Bob, but we’ll be better off without your help.
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CROOOOW, COULTER, AND CLINTON
How’s that for alliteration? Although I’ll bet Henry won’t be thrilled to see his name in the same line with the Big Me. Sorry Henry. I have weak spot for alliteration.
Anyway, Croooow Blog has two excellent posts. One is an update on all the lefty bloggers taking aim at Ann Coulter. The other reports on Clinton claiming credit for attempts at reforming business; attempts that were blocked by—who else?—those eeeevil Republicans. It has a lot of good links in it. Go visit it.
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THE REGISTER AND MEDICARE
Well, the Des Moines Register continues its complaint against the Medicare reimbursement formula. In tracing the history of the problem, the Register somewhat inadvertently reveals that the problem was created by government actions. Wanna bet that the Register calls for more government actions to fix the problem?
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Wednesday, July 24, 2002
AM I THE MAN BEHIND MEDIA MINDED?
That’s what I was asking myself after I read this blog. I too was once a lefty, I too voted for Clinton in 1992, I too was a conservative by 1996, I too once started an embarrassing novel about a commie uprising—well, everything is true except that last part. So I guess I’m not the guy behind Media Minded. Which is a relief because it would mean I’d have an alter-ego that I was unaware of, which would mean I’d need a one way ticket to the funny farm.
Anyway, if you haven’t checked out Media Minded you should do so. It’s a very good blog.
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IS THE RALLY TEMPORARY?
Jane Galt thinks today’s stock market rally is temporary; stocks still have a lot of value left to lose.
She’s one of the best bloggers out there when it comes to finance matters, so if she says something like that, it is well worth considering.
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CORPORATE MALFEASANCE NOT WIDESPREAD
How serious is corporate corruption? This editorial in the Omaha World-Herald gives a sense of proportion.
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ANOTHER VERY BAD COMPARISON!
Is this “Compare Terrorists to CEOs Day” in Iowa? I found this one in the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier. It is by Scott Cawelti, an English Professor, which, at least in part, explains some of these stupid remarks:
Last week President George W. Bush unveiled a new plan, calling it the next stage in the war on terrorism.
Unfortunately, his plan still assumes that America's worst enemies are outside our borders planning nuclear, chemical, and biological attacks, not to mention computer hacking by villainous foreign geeks.
Yet most Americans have been far more terrorized in the past few weeks by a few American CEOs, who will stop at nothing to line their own pockets at the expense of their employees, their stockholders, and the American public.
Trust in the stock market has been replaced by cynicism at best, despair at worst.
If I were Bush, I'd announce a plan to put the Securities and Exchange Commission under Homeland Security and treat crooked CEOs as traitors to America, liable to prosecution for treason.
Of course, Bush might have to grant himself and Cheney amnesty, but that shouldn't stop him.
By the way, Professor Calweti does have an email. It’s cawelti@forbin.net.
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IN DEFENSE OF THE HIV MUPPET
Sigh. The Iowa State Daily has this example of the silly idealism so prevalent in college newspapers.
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A VERY BAD COMPARISON
George Vest in the Iowa Falls Times-Citizen is just the latest in a long line of commentators to use metaphors involving Osama bin Laden inappropriately:
The economic damage in dollars that Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaida mobsters have done to the United States, is a pittance compared to the theft that has taken place in many of America's Fortune 500 board rooms. Some corporations shouldn't be allowed to fly the American flag.
Uh, Mr. Vest, the primary beef against Osama is not the financial damage he caused, but the human damage. No CEO has killed 3,000 fellow Americans in one fell swoop. Your comparison here is way, way, way, way off base.
I can’t find an email address for Mr. Vest, but you can leave an opinion about his column by clicking on the link at the bottom the page. I would encourage you to do so.
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THEY HATE CAPITALISM—IN THEORY
Thanks to Croooow Blog for pointing this one out at Little Green Footballs. It seems that a certain Anti-American professor at MIT actually lives quite well in America. One of the comments notes that so does a certain lefty-American-critic filmmaker.
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THE LIBERAL ANSWER
Thanks to Daily Pundit for pointing out the liberal eight ball. Just ask a question, click on it, and you get the liberal answer.
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REGISTER WANTS MORE FEDERAL MONEY FOR IOWA, SURPRISE, SURPRISE
Early this morning, the Des Moines Register had not updated its op-ed page. I was hoping it wouldn’t; I could use a respite from the idiocy.
No such luck. There is this editorial that bemoans the rising costs to Medicare, then proposes nothing in the way of trying to reduce those costs. (How about proposing Medical Savings Accounts? I know, I’m dreaming.) Rather, it uses rising costs as the jumping off point to complain that Iowa does not get its fair share of Medicare money. The only way to deal with rising medical costs is to make the individual pay for those costs. Pumping in more government money will only keep increasing such costs.
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DAILY DIATRIBE: WERE THE ATHLETES OF YESTERDAY PSYCHOLOGICALLY TOUGHER?
Seeing the recent troubles of basketball players Allen Iverson and Glenn Robinson has made me reflect on a number of athletes who let personal problems get in the way of possibly brilliant careers: Dwight Gooden, Lawrence Phillips, John Daly, Darryl Strawberry—the list could probably get longer if I thought about it long enough.
Inevitably, I wonder why superstars of yesterday seldom let their troubles get in the way of their careers. One explanation often put forward is that the media was far more deferential back then, while today’s tabloid style goes out of its way to highlight athletes personal problems. This increases the pressure on athletes, perhaps exacerbating their personal problems.
But there are always many causes of a social phenomenon like this. While a changing media might be one, I think another is that the path to the pros is considerably easier today, especially in a psychological sense. Ruminating on this subject sent me back to re-read parts of David Halberstam’s book October 1964. I focused on the route to the majors of two players, Cardinals Curt Flood and Yankee Mickey Mantle. Both men were very good players (in Mantle’s case, a great one), both men had drinking problems, but neither let it interfere with his baseball career.
Curt Flood came up through the Carolina League in the 1950s. The Carolina League consisted of small teams in small Southern towns. Any black player sent there was certain to draw the raging ire of the local rednecks. The passages in October 1964 about Flood’s stint in the minor leagues are not as detailed as I’d thought. I must have been thinking about Flood’s autobiography that I read one day after growing bored doing research in a university library. (There were a lot of those days in graduate school.) Anyway, as I recall Flood often cried himself to sleep the first few weeks he was in the Carolina League due to the racism he encountered. His teammates were not sympathetic. But as the season wore on, Flood realized that every day he lasted in the Carolina League was another day he was getting mentally stronger. He gained more and more confidence, which aided him greatly in his baseball career. He was a very good hitter with the Cardinals and won seven golden gloves for his defense in centerfield. He even had the strength of character to sacrifice his baseball career to make a court challenge to baseball’s reserve clause.
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting that we return to a baseball system plagued by racism. Given a choice between the Carolina League of the 1950s and what we have today, I’ll take today’s system any day of the week and three times on Sunday. The example of the Carolina League is just one way in which it the path to the pros was psychologically tougher. Perhaps my point will become clearer after reading this passage from October 1964 about Mickey Mantle:
[The Yankees] sent [Mantle] to Kansas City, which was still their Triple A farm club, and, at first, still feeling the pressure there, he did badly—one hit in twenty-one at bats for the Blues. He called his father in tears, and Mutt Mantle drove up to see him. Mickey, desperate now, told his father everything was going wrong, but Mutt Mantle had little sympathy. Mutt Mantle started throwing his son¹s belongings into a suitcase. "What are you doing?" the boy asked. "I'm taking you home," Mutt Mantle said. "I thought I raised a man, but you're nothing but a coward." So Mickey stopped feeling sorry for himself, got his eye back, and hit .361 for Kansas City before being recalled to New York in August.
It seems that the path to the pros back then was much tougher. No coddling from the major league teams. Parents more inclined to give a kick in the pants than a therapy session. Such a path weeded out the men who could not keep their personal problems from interfering with their athletic careers. In short, it weeded out the psychological weaklings. Can you imagine the likes of Darryl Strawberry ever getting past the Carolina League of the 1950s? It would have brought out his psychological problems so fast that he never would have been able to perform well enough to make the pros.
It seems that at least psychologically it was much tougher to make it to the pro level a few decades ago. I suspect this was true not just in baseball, but probably also in basketball, football, and other sports. The reason we didn't see many Allen Iversons, Darryl Strawberrys, and Lawrence Phillips back then is that they would have never made it to the pros in the first place.
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ARE THEY SERIOUS?
The New York Times urges Governor Pataki to follow the lead of California Governor Gray-out Davis and adopt statewide emission standards for SUVs. Does the Times really think that any governor anywhere should follow any example set by Gray Davis? If I didn't know any better I’d swear the Times doesn’t want Pataki to win reelection.
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IS GROSS ON A ROLL?
Another dustup between Gross and Vilsack, as reported by the Quad City Times. Gross hits Vilsack pretty hard on property taxes, and Vilsack’s spokesman, Joe Householder, couldn’t change the subject to Gross’s financial dealings. Householder lamely tries to put the blame at the feet of the Republican Legislature. I think Gross got the better of this one. Read the article and see if you agree.
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HOW TO CUT GOVERNMENT SPENDING 101
The Iowa City Press-Citizen has this editorial criticizing the State Legislature for appointing a "Program Elimination Commission" to propose cuts in next years state budget. The Press-Citizen wonders:
Granted, the commission will only make recommendations to the Legislature, so the final say will be up to elected officials, but then what's the point of having the commission?
….is this commission an attempt to have someone else to blame for what promises to be another round of painful state budget cuts come the next election cycle?
Well, yes.
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RESEARCH VS. TEACHING
A good piece in the Daily Iowan on the decline in the amount of time professors at the University of Iowa spend in the classroom. It misses one key ingredient: the connection between the emphasis on research in academia and the neglect of teaching.
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BARNES ON TAXES
Fred Barnes has this piece in the Daily Standard on liberals and the Bush tax cut. He is right. He is so right.
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Tuesday, July 23, 2002
CARUSO ON KRUGMAN
Haven’t we been here before? Yes, many times. And we’ll keep going back as long as Jay Caruso keeps up his fine job of taking down the Mike Tyson of the Blogosphere. So, here is Caruso’s latest on Paul Krugman’s latest.
By the way, did anyone notice this piece by Ramesh Ponnuru over at Tech Central Station the other day? It takes apart a study on privatizing Social Security that Krugman had earlier cited to bolster his argument against private accounts. Which would mean that Krugman’s argument was less than sound. Which would surprise no one.
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GLOVER ON THE GOVERNOR'S RACE
I wanted to blog on a very good column by Mike Glover yesterday, but I saw it late in the Dubuque Telegraph-Herald which only leaves their stuff up on the website for one day. Now it's in the Fort Madison Daily Democrat, so here it is.
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BANNING BOOKS IN DYERSVILLE
The Daily Nonpareil has this editorial panning the decision by the library board in Dyersville, Iowa (famous for that Costner movie) for banning a book “Sari Says: The Real Dirt on Everything from Sex to School.” My inclination is that the Nonpareil is right; if the description of the book is accurate, it seems like pretty tame stuff. But I haven’t read it, so I certainly could be very wrong.
Another way to look at it might be that Dyersville is trying to be a counterbalance to the American Library Association.
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‘ARIZONA WORKS’?
Wildcat Blogger (boy, I hope he’s not a major Sun Devil fan) Ed Boyd has this link to a plan by Arizona Democratic nominee for Governor Janet Napolitano. It seems she wants the state government to get its tentacles into local development. It may not be as bad as "Iowa Works," but it’s still not too good.
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MORE HARKIN LOVES HOLLYWOOD
The folks at the Media Research Center have this bit on the Des Moines Register article that talked about all the campaign contribution Senator Harkin is getting from Hollywood. But they're a little late to the party. (Thanks much to Croooow Blog for the heads up.)
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GROSS COMES OUT SWINGING
Well, Governor Vilsack and his opponent Doug Gross are in another dustup, and this time, I think, Gross gets the better of it. In this article in the Quad City Times, Gross blasted Vilsack for balancing the budget with “stealth tax increases.” Not a bad line.
Vilsack tried to return fire by, as usual, focusing attention away from the budget mess and onto Gross’s business dealings:
For his part, Vilsack called on Gross to explain his wife's holdings in a Dubuque corporation. Eileen Gross holds 2 percent ownership of Platinum Holdings, a limited liability company that is building a $25 million resort and water project in Dubuque. That's part of a larger riverfront development project being funded partially by the state’s Vision Iowa program.
“What other investments do you or your family have that could lead to a conflict of interest if elected?” Vilsack’s campaign asked.
“It's a completely private company,” Gross said. “I'm proud of the fact that my wife is interested in investing in Iowa.”
This falls flat for two reasons. First, Gross is right, it is a private company and his wife only owns 2%. Not exactly overwhelming stuff. Second, is Vilsack really serious about trying to link it to “Vision Iowa”? Gross could always point out that Vision Iowa has been one of Vilsack’s pet projects.
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GAZETTE GIVES LEACH FOES GOOD ADVERTISING
Generally I like the political coverage in the Cedar Rapids Gazette, but this article reads more like a press release from the Democratic National Committee. It begins:
Peanut-butter sandwiches and Kool-Aid will be served outside Rep. Jim Leach's Iowa City office when Vice President Dick Cheney comes to town for a high-priced fund-raiser next week.
Folks dining with Cheney at the July 29 fund-raiser for his longtime friend, Leach, R-Iowa City, are likely to eat better.
Leach and Cheney will be dining in a hangar at The Eastern Iowa Airport at what a Leach staff member called a "relatively low-dollar event." Admission is $100 per person for the invitation-only barbecue.
The economic alternative to this -- what Iowa Federation of Labor President Mark Smith calls the "high-rollers' meal" -- will be served outside of Leach's local office to draw attention to the policies of the Bush-Cheney administration.
Whatever the cost, Cheney's visit will give labor a chance to draw attention to some of the issues it is concerned about, Smith said Monday.
The article gives favorable coverage to Leach’s challenger, Julie Thomas. Then there is this rather unnerving passage:
Members of the Service Employees International Union and American Federation of State, Local and Municipal Employees also plan to ask Leach to sign the AFL-CIO's pledge to protect Social Security and Medicare, Smith said. Signers declare support for strengthening and protecting the two programs as well as opposition to attempts to privatize Social Security.
Thomas has signed the pledge, but Leach has not. Staff members earlier said he was unaware that he had been asked to sign it, but indicated he would have no "qualms" with the pledge.
"I hope he signs it," Smith said. "I didn't think it would be partisan in Iowa, but the Democratic candidates signed it and the Republicans didn't."
First, if the reporter, James Lynch, took Smith’s claims that opposing Social Security privatization is not “partisan,” then he needs to get himself a healthy does of skepticism. Second, if Jim Leach actually signs that pledge, he is selling out the President and his party on the issue of Social Security.
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DAILY DIATRIBE: DES MOINES REGISTER = INTELLECTUALLY LAZY
As noted yesterday, the Blogosphere has been leveling an lot of criticism at the New York Times for bias, shoddy arguments on its op-ed page, and so forth. Here in Iowa, it is fair to say that the biggest daily paper, the Des Moines Register, also has a big problem, namely its editorial page. It seems that those who run the editorial page have become intellectually lazy. In particular, they can’t keep their arguments consistent, and they don’t check their facts.
On the charge on inconsistency, let’s begin with this editorial on Saturday that criticized President Bush for bringing back the federal budget deficit. This is the key section:
This year, the American people can look forward to a budget deficit of about $165 billion. Though everyone knew this was coming, the surprise is the size of the shortfall. It surpassed the previous, optimistic prediction of $106 billion by 50 percent.
So the blame game begins. The Bush administration says the deficit is a result of everything from a weak economy inherited from the Clinton administration to the war on terrorism. White House Budget Director Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. said, "We are trying very hard to get back to balance. Every dollar counts."
That's for sure.
Every one of the $1.35 trillion lost in the 10-year tax cut counts….
It's time for the White House to own up to the fact that huge tax cuts have contributed to the budget problems and because these cuts will continue phasing in for several more years, the worst could be yet to come.
So the Register blames the budget deficit on the tax cut, and passes over explanations like the sluggish economy. But then look at this editorial the very next day defending Governor Tom Vilsack against charges of budget mismanagement:
Vilsack's leadership has been disappointing, but not necessarily for the reasons cited in his opponent's ads. Gross accuses Vilsack of mismanaging the state budget and creating a $1 billion deficit. That charge is a stretch.
Vilsack is not responsible for the downturn in the national economy that plunged nearly every state into fiscal crisis.
Let’s review. In Saturday’s editorial, the Register editorial page puts the blame for the federal deficit on the shoulders of President Bush. In Sunday’s editorial, it absolves Governor Vilsack for Iowa’s budget problems. On Saturday, the Register editorial page blames the federal deficit on the Bush tax cut, at least in part, while breezily passing over the sluggish economy. On Sunday, it lays the blame for Iowa’s budget problems on the economy, while completely ignoring Vilsack’s spending binge.
Did it occur to anyone on the Register editorial page that they should keep their arguments consistent at least over a weekend? And do you suppose that the difference might be due to the fact that Bush is a Republican and Vilsack is a Democrat? That last question is rhetorical.
This is not the first time the Register editorial page has displayed such inconsistency over a short period of time. Back in May it endorsed a number of candidates in the Iowa GOP primaries, justifying the endorsements on the basis of “experience.” Yet, for GOP nominee for governor, the editorial page endorsed Doug Gross over Steve Sukup. As I noted at the time Gross had had his experience in government as Branstad’s chief of staff over 15 years ago. Sukup had been in the state legislature the last eight years, during Iowa’s recent budget crisis. It would seem that Sukup’s experience would have been more prevalent than Gross’s. But the Register endorsed Gross, probably because they viewed Sukup as too conservative.
On the matter of fact checking, let’s go back to the editorial on Bush. If the Register editorial page wanted to blame this year’s deficit on tax cuts, shouldn’t they have at least searched for how much the tax cut is reducing revenue this year? This estimate from the Joint Committee on Taxation shows that the tax cut will reduce federal revenue by about $49 billion. If the deficit is projected to be $165 billion, wouldn’t that mean that about $116 billion of the deficit is caused by either slower revenues due to the sluggish economy, or over-spending, or both? Talking about some actual numbers related to the tax cut might give the Register a better argument. But I guess it was too hard to actually dig for anything more than the wire story about the new deficit projections.
Perhaps the worst example of fact checking occurred in the recent editorial on Doug Gross’s proposal to reform the Department of Human Services. In that piece, the Register stated that “the reality is that DHS has suffered deep budget cuts.” But by going to this page at the Legislative Fiscal Bureau’s site and doing a little work, you can learn that DHS finances for 2002 actually reveal a budget increase when both state and federal sources were factored into the DHS budget. Would it have been that difficult for those who work at the Register editorial page to have checked their facts at the Iowa State Government Website? After all, I did it with just some help from a colleague. The Register editorial page has a staff of probably five or six, more than enough to do a little searching on the internet. But then that would have undermined their argument about budget cuts. Better to not let little things like “facts” get in the way.
The Register editorial page has other problems, notably an increasing penchant of hysteria. This opinion piece from a month ago that decried religion in public schools stated that “If you’re sensitive too it, Christianity starts to feel insidious.” Recently, the Register screeched that national standards for driver’s licenses were the “stuff of totalitarian societies, not democracies.” Both are examples of substituting hyperbole for argument.
So, why does the Register editorial page print such shoddy work? I suspect it is suffering from arrogance, an arrogance born from a lack of scrutiny. After all, there is no other Iowa newspaper that subjects Register editorials to criticism. Nor does any newspaper call them on it when they get their facts wrong. If other Iowa newspapers did these things, then perhaps the Register editorial writers would be more circumspect as they put pen to paper.
Someone has to turn up the heat on the Register. I’ve been considering listing the Register’s email addresses when I blog about something I find to be particularly stupid or just plain incorrect on the editorial page. I don’t know if I yet have enough readers for that to be effective. But you’ve got to start somewhere.
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COULD YOU PROVIDE SOME EVIDENCE FOR THAT?
In its editorial today on a prescription drug benefit, the New York Times pronounces that “There seems little doubt that, if forced to choose, the public would prefer generous drug coverage rather than the tax cuts.” Uh, excuse me? Could you please show me the opinion polls that reveal such a finding?
That sentiment also seems to defy common sense. The tax cut benefits all taxpayers. A prescription drug program benefits only those citizens over 65. Would the majority of taxpayers really want to give up a reduction in their taxes to pay for other folks’ prescription drugs? Makes you wonder what, if any, type of thinking goes on down at the Gray Lady.
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GETTING ON THE ‘DUMP HARVEY PITT’ BANDWAGON
The Daily Iowan joins the chorus calling for the head of Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Harvey Pitt. Not because of anything that Pitt has done wrong mind you. No, just because of "what he represents: illicit corporate manipulation that must be purged from Wall Street."
You know, I wish the Daily Iowan had a better search function so I could find all those past editorials calling on Clinton Administration officials to resign because of image problems.
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THE REPUBLICANS MADE ME DO IT!
Here’s what happens when liberal Democrats run your government during tough budget times: raise taxes. As reported by this story in the Daily Iowan the supervisors of Johnson County—or, as we Iowa conservatives affectionately call it, "The People’s Republic of Johnson County"—have decided not to make spending cuts. Rather, they have increased property taxes:
Taxpayers will absorb this year's 10 percent -- $316,000 -- cut in state funds for homeowners' tax credits, meaning an additional $16 property tax for a $100,000 residential home in Iowa City.
What is most revealing is who the supervisors blame for the property tax increase:
Supervisors, feeling troubled by the state's recent moves, defended the action. Supervisor Sally Stutsman said she wasn't willing to bail out the state government by making the county deal with all state budget problems.
"That's not my job," she said.
Supervisor Terrence Neuzil said the supervisors' situation was the result of a Republican Legislature that refused to work with Gov. Tom Vilsack and passed the problems down to the county. Anticipating backlash from affected taxpayers, Neuzil suggested that people confront state lawmakers.
Don’t blame us for raising your taxes. Blame the state government and, more specifically, the Republicans in the State Legislature.
I don’t have any numbers on how much the Johnson County Supervisors increased county spending during the good years, but I’ll bet it was a bunch. Instead of making spending cuts, they dump the mess on the taxpayers. And then they tell the taxpayers to blame state Republicans. Have the supervisors ever heard the phrase "taking responsibility for your own actions"?
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THOSE DARN AMERICANS!
The Des Moines Register editorial page is really upset at the American people. You see, Americans just don’t think what the Register thinks they should. The subject matter is this New York Times/CBS news poll. The Register was certainly hopeful at first:
The latest New York Times/ CBS News Poll randomly asked 1,000 Americans if they thought President Bush was more interested in protecting the interests of ordinary Americans or large corporations. The people were split, 42 percent to 42 percent. They trusted the president's administration less, with only 27 percent saying his crew is working for the interests of the average American.
A distrust of the president's intentions to reform corporations was also evident, with 50 percent believing Bush would protect business in reforming accounting practices. When asked whether Bush was being honest about his dealings at Harken Energy, where he was a director and consultant from 1986 to 1993, 48 percent of respondents said they thought he was hiding something. An additional 9 percent believed he was outright lying.
But it quickly turns to disappointment:
But, hey, apparently Americans like Bush. The majority said he cares about their problems. The poll reflected a general approval of his handling of the presidency.
Aw shucks!
Then it devolves into outright exasperation:
So what does all this mean?
Americans like the president but don't trust him? They think he's OK "in general," but the country isn't? People think Bush "cares about the needs and problems" of regular folk, but he creates policies that favor big business?
That sounds about right.
They think he's OK "in general," but the country isn't?
I don’t know about you, but to me it seems a bit unprofessional for a major newspaper editorial writer to think out loud on the page.
Anyway, the problem for the Register stems in part from not reading the CBS article too closely. The CBS article reveals that only 6% think the corporate scandals are the most important problem for the government to address. Furthermore, the article also reports that "61% trust him to do the right thing when it comes to regulating business to prevent corporate abuses in general." If so few Americans rate the corporate scandals as a major problem, and 6 in 10 trust Bush to do the right thing about them, then it is no mystery why Bush’s approval ratings are little affected by them.
If the Register editorial writers had seen that, would they have been a little less upset? Probably not. They would have just gotten frustrated that the American people aren’t focusing on the "right" issues.
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Monday, July 22, 2002
A STUDENT IS GORED
Students who protest at Bush’s university speeches are removed. Those who take pictures at Gore’s (well, Tipper, anyway) are arrested and disciplined. (Thanks to Croooow Blog.)
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DEMOCRATS FLUBBING THE CORPORATE SCANDAL ISSUE?
This blog by Josh Green, appearing in Josh Marshall’s Talking Point Memo, suggests that Senate’s recent grilling of Thomas White is indicative of the Democrat’s inability to get much traction on the issue of corporate corruption.
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MISSOURI SENATE RACE
An interesting article in the Washington Post about the Senate race in that state that sits on Iowa’s south border.
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DAILY DIATRIBE: GOVERNOR VILSACK, CHASING WINDMILLS
It seems appropriate that part of Governor Vilsack’s proposed economic development plan, dubbed "Iowa Works," is devoted to spending money on windmills. This evokes images of Don Quixote, the romantic knight plagued with love for the past who could not adapt to a changing world. Vilsack’s economic development plan suggests that he has not caught up with the times in that he would rather rely on the government, and not the free market, to grow the Iowa economy. Indeed, Iowa Works is little more than a rehash of government programs that have long been shown to be ineffective in promoting economic growth.
This is a list of the Vilsack’s Iowa Works program, via David Yepsen’s recent column in the Des Moines Register:
* Break up the state's economic-development programs and reorganize them at the local level around regions similar to community-college districts. Each district would have an economic-development board because local folks know more about what they need than someone in Des Moines. Each board would have to develop a strategic plan for their region. Most of the economic-development grants and loan programs offered by the state would be collapsed into block grants for each region to distribute to implement their plans.
* Dip into the $438 million of the state's tobacco-settlement money to fund several new development programs. (No road-fund money is involved in this.) He wants to invest $50 million "to create a brand-new industry for Iowa and for the nation," and figures it will be in something called "protein extraction" because "we want this to do for Iowa in the 21st century what hybrid corn did in the 20th."
* Use $30 million for grants or loans to existing businesses. Too often, development programs have overlooked existing businesses, he said, and this program would help Iowa firms buy the latest equipment or technology.
* Use $20 million for grants to Internet providers to supply high-speed Internet access to areas of the state that don't have it.
* Provide $50 million more for grants to increase energy conservation and develop alternative-energy production - 1,000 megawatts worth, about the amount generated by a decent-sized power plant. "We want to make Iowa a net energy exporter someday," Vilsack said.
* Pump $99 million of underground storage-tank funds into $1 million matching grants for each county to use for a growth-related project. Vilsack also supports a second round of funding for the existing Vision Iowa program.
* Raise the minimum wage $1, to $6.15 over two years.
The first problem is that it spends money on alternative energy in an attempt to make Iowa a net energy exporter. Yet alternative energy is a notoriously ineffective way to generate energy. An article by William Tucker in the May 21, 2001 issue of the Weekly Standard points out that no state in the nation has pursued alternative energy more than California. California gets 3% of its power from windmill facilities, and a total of 12% from “renewable” sources. Yet, it has to import 20% of its electricity from other states. Furthermore, California is now producing more traditional power plants due to its major electricity crisis last year. The point here is that if Vilsack wants to make Iowa an energy exporter, alternative sources is exactly the wrong way to go. Alternative energy will make Iowa more dependent on importing energy.
Second, the program proposes raise the minimum wage in Iowa over two years, from $5.25 to $6.15 per hour. Many studies show that raising the minimum wage slows the rate of job growth. As this analysis from the Cato Institute puts it:
Simply stated, if the government coercively raises the price of some good (such as labor) above its market value, the demand for that good will fall, and some of the supply will become "disemployed." Unfortunately, in the case of minimum wages, the disemployed goods are human beings.
In short, if the goal of Iowa Works is to create jobs, then the minimum wage proposal is at odds with that goal.
Third, it creates a new layer of bureaucracy. Specifically, it creates 15 new "regional councils" that would create economic development plans that would then be approved by the state. Upon state approval, the regional councils would receive grants from the states, and the councils would then decide how best to spend the money. More bureaucracy is not likely to make Iowa more economically competitive.
However, the plan suffers from a much larger problem than just the policy specifics. Namely, economic development plans do not work. In theory, economic development programs do not create any new wealth in society. The funds for such programs come from tax revenue, which means that the government is merely transferring money from one group to another. There is no guarantee that the groups that the government gives the funds to will be productive. Indeed, as this short report from the Cascade Policy Institute shows, politicians and bureaucrats are not very good at making investment decisions. People in the private sector are usually better because they have more experience at investing, and they are not subject to the same political pressures the politicians and bureaucrats are.
The evidence backs up the theory. In 1998, the Commonwealth Foundation of Pennsylvania conducted a study entitled Growing Pennsylvania’s Economy: Tax Cuts vs. Economic Development Programs. In this study they compared the ten states with the highest economic development expenditures per capita with the ten states with the lowest, from 1996-1997. If economic development programs really boost the economy, then the states with the highest expenditures on them should outperform those with the lowest. But the exact opposite turned out to be true. The rate of job growth for the ten states spending the least on economic development was more than 30% higher than the ten states spending the highest. The states spending the lowest also saw per capita income rise 10.5% faster than those with states with the highest.
Vilsack’s Iowa Works Plan is doomed to fail because it relies on the discredited belief that the government can grow the economy better than the private sector. This is perhaps nowhere better demonstrated in Vilsack’s stated goal of raising Iowa’s per capita income by $1,250. Apparently, government can makes a few adjustments to the economy, and within a short period of time incomes will grow by an exactly specified amount.
Indeed, Vilsack’s Iowa Works Plan has little to do with actually developing Iowa’s economy. Rather, it is an election year ploy to win votes. The alternative energy portion will no doubt make environmentalists happy, possibly shifting some of their support away from Green Candidate Jay Robinson. (He was polling 4% in the latest Des Moines Register poll. Not a lot, but right now VIlsack needs every vote he can get.) Since it raises the minimum wage, and since many of the funds in Iowa Works will go to construction projects, it will please the unions. And since the funds will go to many local governments, it will win the support of many local officials.
Iowa Works is a great way for Governor Vilsack to buy votes. But it won’t do a thing for Iowa's economy.
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NY TIMES GETS A THRASHING
You know, I’m glad I focus on the liberal idiocy of the Des Moines Register, and not that of the New York Times. There is too much competition. We’ve recently gotten some from Andrew Sullivan, Mickey Kaus, John Ellis, and Jay Caruso.
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A GLIMMER OF HOPE
This editorial in the Des Moines Register urges Congress to drop its prescription drug proposals and pick them up again next year. It included this line that just about made me fall out of my chair:
The Senate Democrats' proposal gives better coverage, but it will break the bank, costing upward of $800 billion over 10 years.
Holy cow! The Register saying that a government program is going to cost too much! But just when I get excited, they come back with words like these:
Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley recently introduced a bill that makes some compromises, but it still leaves a gap in coverage and relies on private companies. Grassley's aides say allowing insurance companies to control the plans is the best idea, but if the government ran the program it could use its collective buying power to leverage cheaper drug prices.
You might think that the mess the government has already made of the Meidcare program would give the Register some pause before advocating that the government should run any part of a prescription drug program. But then, you would be wrong.
And there is also this disappointing passage:
How will this be paid for? The country is running a deficit. Will more money come from general revenue to fund it? Will there be an increase in the Medicare payroll tax? The bucks have to come from somewhere.
I’ll give the Register some points for actually worrying about how to pay for the program. And then I’ll take them away for suggesting an increase in payroll taxes. How about cutting spending somewhere else in the federal budget? Well, at least the Register is concerned about the cost of a government program. One step at a time, I guess.
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GOP HOG ROAST, PART V
At the Hog Roast, I managed to ask some Doug Gross some questions. Specifically, I asked him about his agenda. His answers made me think that I may have to eat some crow. Can I have some Bar-b-que sauce with that?
Anyway, he stressed restructuring of state government, including a salary freeze for state government employees and reforming the Medicaid budget. He also emphasized accountability in education. And, yes, he talked about taxes. He said that Iowa’s personal income tax rates and commercial property tax rates were too high. He stated that we would have to look at reducing them over time.
When I asked him why he wasn’t talking about his agenda on the campaign trail, he said that he was, but that he was having trouble getting the media to pay attention to it. Certainly, that is a possibility. Most of the articles I could find that dealt with gubernatorial race dealt with Vilsack’s criticism of Gross’s law firm or, more recently, Vilsack’s "Iowa Works" plan. (For more on that boondoggle, see the Daily Diatribe later today.)
While media may be part of the problem, I suspect another part might be that Gross is not emphasizing his agenda enough. Consider the speech he gave at the Hog Roast. Gross did a superb job of highlighting Vilsack’s mismanagement of the budget. He spent the bulk of his speech on that subject. Then he mentioned his agenda of restructuring government, imposing accountability on education, and reducing taxes. And that was it. All he did was mention it. He spent no time giving some policy specifics, talking about how he planned to achieve his agenda.
Thus, Gross needs to spend more time explaining his agenda. The more time he spends on it, the more likely the media will give it some coverage, and the more his message will reach the voters. Now that Vilsack has made his economic policy proposal, Gross should give a speech that outlines his own. So, now that Gross has an agenda, I’ll have to spend more time saying that he needs to emphasize it more. Besides, I need something new to complain about.
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