Friday, August 15, 2003
OR NOT CONSERVATIVE?
Howard Owens responds. Go read now.
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AH-NOLD AND WAH-EN!
Don Luskin doesn’t think much of Arnold’s economic team.
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Thursday, August 14, 2003
INSTAPUNDIT IS CORRECT—THE RECALL IS CONSERVATIVE
Yes, I think Glenn Reynolds is correct (and hence George Will and Howard Owens are not) that the recall is conservative. Although, I probably think it is conservative for reasons other than ones Reynolds does.
Let me begin by saying that I’m not sold on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s candidacy, not by a long shot. His sound-bite populism—“I’ll clean house”—and insubstantial answers to such questions as what to do about Paid Family Leave—which is undoubtedly one reason why the state is hemorrhaging jobs—leave me unimpressed. If I lived in California, I’d very likely cast my vote for Tom McClintock.
But, I’d also vote for recalling Gray Davis.
I was in California at a conference when it was confirmed that the recall effort had reached its signature threshold. I was inadvertently interviewed (don’t ask) for a radio program in New Hampshire and the topic came up. I said I was torn: I felt Davis was responsible for a big part of California’s mess, but that the recall could set an undesirable precedent in that every California governor would hereafter face a recall. I’ve tossed the question around in my fertile mind ever since, and I’m now squarely in favor of the recall. The reason is that its effects are consistent with conservatism.
Now don’t go jamming up my comments section about conservatives being opposed to change, and the recall being radical change, blah, blah, blah. As a philosophical note, conservatism meant being opposed to spur-of-the-moment change, not all change. Further, the traditional definitions of conservatism and liberalism aren’t very useful for understanding those phenomenons in the present day.
Anyway, I think the recall will have effects that most conservatives would agree are good outcomes:
1. Upsetting the Political Class. By political class, I mean the politicians—both Democrats and Republicans—who are all too happy to raise government spending to suit the interest groups who support them. California is plagued by that class right now, and their King is, obviously, Gray Davis. However, the rot spreads from the top down. Recall that a few weeks ago Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg, unaware that a microphone was open, blurted out “if the budget crisis were extended, it could improve chances for a ballot initiative that would make it easier for the Democrats to raise taxes.” If the voters are willing to take their frustrations out on the head guy, maybe the remainder will get the message that unless they have an attitude adjustment, they might be next.
Will the recall fix California’s budget and economic problems? Not by itself; you’ll need other remedies, like reinstituting the Gann Amendment which put limits on spending. But the recall will send a strong message to the Sacramento politicos that if they don’t start doing things a bit differently, their jobs could be at risk too.
2. Stops Judicial Activism and Higher Taxes. The Republicans in the California Legislature were able to block tax increases to shore up the budget because California requires a supermajority of 2/3’s to raise taxes. But as Michael New noted in NRO yesterday:
the actions of the Nevada supreme court in late July showed that California's supermajority was providing Golden State taxpayers with a false sense of security. In response to a lawsuit filed by Nevada Governor Kenny Guinn, the Nevada Supreme Court effectively nullified Nevada's two-thirds supermajority requirement for tax increases.
This was ominous for two reasons. First, shortly after the ruling, a spokesperson for Gov. Davis refused to rule out a similar lawsuit, saying that it was "something that we could possibly look at in the future." Secondly, California courts have frequently issued rulings hostile to the local government limitations included in Proposition 13. Considering the magnitude of California's current fiscal shortfall, it seemed unlikely that state courts would support the supermajority.
However, in the end it was the recall effort that saved California taxpayers. With Davis's popularity hovering at Nixonian levels, Davis and assembly Democrats realized that any substantial tax increase would damage his chances of surviving the recall. Consequently, Davis and the Democrats were more willing to agree to a budgetary compromise that did not involve a substantial tax hike.
Now, all of you conservatives out there who want an activist court to make it easier for a legislature to raise taxes, raise your hand. Everyone have two broken arms? I’ll also add that it will probably prevent the seven not-so-wise men and women from doing so in future, as California justices can be recalled too.
Of course, just because a process yields some outcomes that we conservatives like, doesn’t mean that we think the process is sound practice. For example, if the Supreme Court were to declare that Congress could never raise taxes, we might feel giddy about the tax stuff, but we’d have to decry it as a bad process. The reason is that it would set a precedent of judicial activism that could down the road yield all sorts of nasty problems. Obviously this example is only partially hypothetical: since the Warren Court opened the activist floodgates, we’ve had all manner of headaches.
Thus, I can’t easily dismiss some of the concerns that Owens and Will have about the recall process. (Although, I think their concern that “By encouraging facile comparisons with Reagan, Schwarzenegger's candidacy will seem to validate the dismissive assessments of Reagan as an empty suit whose smile was his political philosophy” is overstated. Hell, the mass media has been doing that for over two decades. That’s why Grover Norquist has his Reagan Legacy project. At worst Arnold might add a little scratch to a legacy that already has a lot of big dents in it.) Anyway, Owens nicely encapsulates a legitimate worry about where this might lead:
So far, I've seen nothing in this recall effort that can be good for the state. The whole mess had demonstrated the incredibly low-bar that must be passed to recall a sitting constitutional officer. All you need is a millionaire willing to finance the effort, an officer who received less than 50 percent of the vote last time around and some sense of crisis. That isn't a common mix, but it isn't improbable, either.
I’ll up the ante and say that it might lead to recalls even when Owen’s conditions aren’t present. Apparently Mayor Willie Brown—himself a denizen of the political class—is threatening to start another recall if Arnold wins.
The problem with such scenarios is they don’t give the voters enough credit. The average voter may not be as smart as the average blogger, but they aren’t as dense as lead either. If Willie Brown starts his recall against Arnold, I suspect most voters are going to say, “we just went through one of these; why another? Arnold’s just got in. Give him a chance.” I suspect that will be the general attitude toward all newly elected governors.
Okay, what if Arnold wins, and then is reelected in 2006? Will the voters be geared for a recall then (and will it happen to future governors who win reelection)? Again, I think the voters will want to know “Why recall?” Voters won’t vote to recall on a whim. I don’t agree with Owens that all you need is “some sense of crisis.” I think you need an actual crisis, like a state losing jobs and population at a fast clip and a $38 billion deficit. Unless things in California are still that bad by 2007, Arnold stays.
Finally, what if things are going well, but a millionaire sponsoring some signature-gathering outfit does manage to get a recall on the ballot? I think that’s a possibility, but not one that will happen more than once. If the state is doing well and the Governor is reasonably popular, such a recall would fail by a landslide. After that, the enthusiasm for recall at whim will fade.
Fears about the recall setting a bad precedent are overblown. Thus far the effects that the recall has had are consistent with conservative principles. Let the experiment go forward.
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Wednesday, August 13, 2003
HOWARD DEAN IS NOT A LIBERAL. REALLY.
My new column at you-know-where.
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HAPPY BLOG-O-VERSARY!
Eric Olsen’s Blogcritics is celebrating its one-year anniversary. Drop on over and read some stuff at the site.
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MORE KRUGMAN TAKEDOWNS
See Luskin, Musil, and Carter.
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Tuesday, August 12, 2003
WHY BUSH SHOULD BE GRATEFUL TO ARNOLD
Glenn Reynolds has a great post on how Arnold’s candidacy will help the Bush Administration. Money quote:
Arnold is bridging the too-early-for-clear-progress-but-not-too-early-for-concentrated-media-bitching period. By the time the dust has settled from that, Bush should be in a better position to engage the issue, as he'll have to be by January anyway.
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BUSH IS KILLING OUR TROOPS!
That might as well be the headline of Paul Krugman’s current column. He blames Bush’s penny-pinching and the privatization of certain military functions. This is the key line, in the form of a suggestive question:
An American soldier died of heat stroke on Saturday; are poor supply and living conditions one reason why U.S. troops in Iraq are suffering such a high rate of noncombat deaths?
First of all, let’s look at the numbers. There have been 256 military deaths in Iraq. Excluding helicopter crashes, which I consider to be death in action, there have been 67 noncombat deaths so far. That’s about 26% of the total deaths. I have no clue if that is high relative to other wars. I’ll bet Krugman has no clue either.
Of those 67, more than half—36—were vehicle related accidents. At the website I visited, not all of the other 31 deaths had a specific explanation of the cause of death. Of the ones that did, 7 died from an accidental discharge of a weapon, 4 died from accidental explosions, 4 drowned, 1 fell off of a roof, and 1 was killed by bulled fired by someone involved in a local Iraqi celebration.
My guess is that those deaths have nothing to do with poor supply and living conditions. Rather, they are likely the typical, yet tragic, types of accidental deaths that occur in a war zone.
I know that Krugman seldom does any careful research to back up his ludicrous claims. But a claim about our boys dying in Iraq—that takes Krugman to a new low.
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LEARN SOME ECONOMICS YOU MORONS!
The Des Moines Register editorial page has a nice little fiction going. You see, they think that what drives up health-care costs in the private sector is administrative costs. Government — supposedly — doesn’t have as high administrative costs. Thus, the Register can complain about high health-care costs and at the same time make statements like:
Gephardt's plan includes some good ideas. Expanding Medicare eligibility to include those 55 and older is a step in the right direction.
The problem isn’t administrative costs. It’s that the health-care system in the U.S. provides no incentive for consumers to economize. With the “third-party payer” system, consumers perceive that they are paying nothing for health-care. When people perceive they are getting something for nothing, they demand more of it. Up goes the demand, up goes the cost.
A system of government-run health care could get administrative costs as close to zero as possible, and overall costs would still go up. If anything it would make things even worse, because in such a system everyone would be covered, and no one would have any incentive to hold down costs. That’s what happens in nations with single-payer systems like Canada and Great Britain, where costs have become so large that the government must ration care.
Of course, the folks at the Register, whose understanding of economics doesn’t extend beyond profit = evil, don’t have a clue about that.
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DO YOU DOUBLE DARE ME?
I received the following email from one Sam Windell regarding my piece on Bush last Friday:
You quote: "solid evidence is being produced," on “Hussein's weapons program." Whew, what a relief! The Prez somehow forgot to warn me (a citizen) that Saddam had a weapons "program"; he just kept talking about some kind of "stockpiles" of "weapons." Now I realize how bad the threat really was. Say, though…if we need proof of a program, why not just ask Donald Rumsfield for the receipts?
I dare you to print this reply. And I'm a Republican. In 2004, I'm writing in Barry Goldwater for president; I don't care if he is dead. So is honesty in our party.
Sincerely,
Not from the left
Now that I took the dare, do I get to have your Snicker’s bar?
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MEDIA PET PEEVES
John Hawkins has a great list of things about the media that are annoying. Go now.
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Monday, August 11, 2003
IT’S OKAY TO BE ANTI-AMERICAN AGAIN, PART 2
Last Friday I noted that Jonathan Wilson’s recent piece in the Des Moines Register signaled that it’s chic to be Anti-American again. Like so many of his ilk, Wilson tries to get at the “root causes” or what causes terrorism by assuming that it must be something that the U.S. is doing.
And here is the root cause:
The United States has a small fraction of the world's population and a lion's share of the world's wealth.
How did I know that standard socialist claptrap would be the “root cause”? Lucky guess, I suppose. Of course there is something sinister behind the U.S. having so much wealth:
It's not happened by accident and, for my money, has not been thanks to a discriminatory, benevolent God.
That’s correct, it’s not by accident. It’s due to the fact that we have economic freedom. You see, as a general rule, nations that have more economic freedom also have more wealth. The reason isn’t that hard to figure out. Give people freedom to benefit from their own efforts, and wealth creation is the result. Of course, for the likes of Wilson, it’s because we’ve set up an exploitative “system”:
Economic disparities are so stark, and the world has shrunk so small, that the U.S.-backed economic order of things is seen by increasing numbers as an instrument of oppression.
I wonder how Wilson knows what “increasing numbers” think? Did he take a poll? As for economic disparities being “so stark”, I guess Mr. Wilson is unaware that worldwide, total poverty has shrunk in the last two decades. As one Cato examination of World Bank data shows, many measures of human well-being have improved considerably during the 1990s. The “economic oppression” argument also doesn’t provide a very good explanation for the leaders of some terrorist movements like Osama bin-Laden, who came from a very wealthy family.
Even if that is how the much of the world perceives us, who says that perception is accurate? Yes, Americans consume a lot of the world’s resources. But we use those resources to produce an awful lot of stuff that makes the world a better place. How much have things like the computers, cars, and medicines that America makes done to improve the lot of the rest of the world? If a price tag could be put on that, it would be worth a lot more in value than all the resources we “consume”.
Finally, why does Wilson assume that there is a good reason for unprovoked violence against the U.S.? I seriously doubt that Wilson spends a lot of time looking for the “root causes” of the violence that the Ku Klux Klan perpetrated against African Americans or Neo-Nazis perpetrated against the Jews. So why in this case? Probably Wilson has a good deal of animosity toward the United States. America is a capitalist country, something that is antithetical to Wilson’s politics.
In short, Wilson ends up blaming the victim for the violence perpetrated by terrorists. What’s more anti-American than that?
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AND JUST WHEN IT COULDN’T GET WORSE
At least Jonathan Wilson has the semblance of a coherent argument. Mark Morford on the other hand, well, it really defies description.
Dawn Olsen has some comments on it, and Moxie is having a contest.
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Sunday, August 10, 2003
HYSTERIA ON GLOBAL WARMING
On Friday Paul Krugman upped the ante on his continuing “Bush is delivering us to Hell in a handbasket” theme. Previously he’s warned that we are on the path to a Banana Republic. But now it may be the end of civilization as we know it:
So here's the question: will we avoid the fate of past civilizations that destroyed their environments, and hence themselves? And the answer is: not if Mr. Bush can help it.
The cause of this coming catastrophe? Bush’s dithering on global warming, of course.
According to Krugman, on global warming “America’s ruling party is pursuing a strategy of denial and deception.” He claims that the evidence on global warming is undeniable, and that the Administration is trying avoid doing anything about it by hyping scientific uncertainty. But Krugman claims “this appearance of uncertainty is ‘manufactured.’ Very few independent experts now dispute that manmade global warming is happening, and represents a serious threat.”
Yet the uncertainty is not quite as manufactured as Krugman thinks. The report “Climate Change 2001: Synthesis Report, Summary for Policymakers,” by the International Panel on Climate Change, lists “Key Uncertainties” beginning on page 31. Among the key uncertainties next to “Climate Change and Attribution” includes:
*Magnitude and character of natural climate variability.
* Climate forcings due to natural factors and anthropogenic [man made] aerosols (particularly indirect effects).
*Relating regional trends to anthropogenic climate change.
While the report suggest that climate experts agree the earth is warming and some of it is due to humans, the above “key uncertainties” suggest that “how much” is still very much in doubt.
Also, someone like Krugman who works in the ivory tower is probably seldom casts a skeptical eye toward the “experts.” He probably swoons over phrases like “Climate experts agree...” or “Clearly, one of society’s biggest problems will be how to survive...” However, those quotes do not come from a debate on global warming. As I wrote three years ago:
one would reasonably assume that the above two quotes are taken from a recent article on global warming. Actually, they come from a more than twenty-year old episode of the TV program “In Search Of” hosted by Leonard Nimoy. The topic of that show? The coming “ice age.”
If experts were so certain about a coming ice age just over two decades ago, prudence should dictate that we be a bit skeptical about present-day claims of warming.
Even if we take global warming as seriously as Krugman would like, it is highly likely that humans will adapt. If temperatures have been rising in the last half of the 20th century as the IPCC claims, then we should see a greater number of heat related deaths. But in the U.S. in the last 40 years we have seen a decline in heat related deaths. Again, from something I wrote about three years ago:
Recent scientific data shows that heat-related deaths have been declining in the last four decades. For example, in the 1960s, in major U.S. cities the number of heat-related deaths increased precipitously whenever the temperature rose above 30 degrees C (86 degrees F). By the 1990s, a similar rise in temperature resulted in almost no increase in heat-related deaths. The reason? Improvements in medicine and weather forecasting, and greater access to air conditioning. Humans are able to adapt to climate quite well, and future improvements in technology will enable us to further adapt, regardless of what global warming may bring.
So, as usual, Krugman’s dire prediction are likely to be nothing more than hysteria driven by unbridled “Bush hatred.”
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