Reason Magazine
Big Surprise: Industries Benefiting From Tax Breaks Want to Keep Them
Just as Big Oil would like to keep its tax
breaks, so too do the chief executives of renewable energy
companies. The
pleading press release issued by the special interests, ah,
that is, the representatives of the hydro, geothermal, and biomass
companies that generate electricity explains:
Executives from the hydropower, geothermal and biomass power industries called on congressional leaders to extend the production tax credit through 2016 for hydropower, geothermal and biomass.
The three industries operate in parts of the country not often associated with renewable energy — particularly the Southeast and Mountain West — and company and trade association leaders expressed concern for a looming crisis that has put thousands of jobs in these states at risk. The call comes as opponents of renewable energy tax policy place the future of these industries in jeopardy, according to the group.
Of course, the executives are not concerned about protecting their grubby profits; it's all about JOBS!
Go here for a superb article, The Difference Between a Tax Break and a Subsidy, by Reason contributing columnist A. Barton Hinkle in which he explains how tax credits an ideologue doesn't like are "subsidies" and ones that the same ideologue does like are mere "tax benefits." If tax credits are a subsidy to Big Oil, they are also a subsidy to Sanctified Renewables, or they are not for both.
David Harsanyi on Obama's Halftime Hypocrisy
On Super Bowl Sunday, America was treated to the
most expensive political commercial in history. In a series of
vapid non sequiturs, Clint Eastwood's gravelly voice pinned the
promise of a city to government dependency, claiming that "the
people of Detroit" lost almost everything but because "we" pulled
together and the "Motor City is fighting again," we
survived. Or, as David Harsanyi argues, after screwing
stakeholders, rewarding failed business models, and sticking
taxpayers with the unions' fat pension tab, America got a heaping
spoonful of the Obama administration's economic policy.
Dan Abrams on 'the Media's Shameful, Inexcusable Distortion' of Citizens United
In a
new Mediaite column,
ABC News legal analyst Dan Abrams—whose father, Floyd Abrams, a
legendary First Amendment champion who helped make the case against
the speech restrictions that the Supreme Court overturned two years
ago in Citizens
United v. FEC—objects to "the media's shameful,
inexcusable distortion" of that decision. Abrams highlights two
common misconceptions: 1) that Citizens
United abolished disclosure requirements, when in fact it
explicitly upheld them, and 2) that Citizens
United let rich people spend unlimited amounts of their
own money on political messages—a right they have always had, as
recognized in the 1976 decision
Buckley v. Valeo. As an example of the second
misstatement, he cites a New York Times story
that I mentioned last
month, along with similar glosses by Times columnist
Gail Collins, Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank,
and NBC analyst Michael Isikoff. Abrams, who says he thinks
Citizens United should have been decided on narrower
grounds and has argued with his father about the decision, is
nevertheless indignant about persistent journalistic
misrepresentations of what the Supreme Court said, and he
marvels at the response to his father's participation in the
case:
I have also been amazed at the vitriol directed at my civil libertarian dad from the left over his defense of a constitutional principle he firmly believes in. Defend a Nazi’s right to march? No problem. Defend the most repugnant members of our society’s right to speak? Absolutely. Defend a corporation’s right to engage in the political process? Inexcusable.
See my December 2010 Reason cover story for more on over-the-top reactions to Citizens United. Speaking of which, one of the journalists Abrams criticizes, Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne Jr. (whose "screed against free speech" Ron Bailey noted on Monday) claims Citizens United "tore down a century's worth of law aimed at reducing the amount of corruption in our electoral system." One of the statutory provisions the Court overturned, McCain-Feingold's ban on "electioneering communications," was enacted in 2002, while the other, the ban on "express advocacy" by unions and corporations, has its roots in a 1947 law—still 37 years shy of a century before Citizens United. President Obama was even further from the truth when he claimed, in the part of his 2010 State of the Union address that made Justice Samuel Alito shake his head, that the Court had "reversed a century of law," apparently referring to the Court's own precedents. In fact, the decisions that Citizens United reversed, Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce and McConnell v. FEC, date from 1990 and 2003, respectively.
Boehner Slams Obama's Birth Control Mandate, Santorum Scrambles for Dollars, UK Stands Firm on Falklands: P.M. Links
House Speaker John Boehner and
President Obama butt heads over
birth control. - Rick Santorum needs more money.
- UK refuses to relinquish the Falklands (again).
- Israel president extends olive branch to the people of Iran.
- TSA fires bigoted air marshals.
- CNN suspends bigoted Roland Martin.
- Georgia (the state) to get two new nuclear reactors.
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If You're Reading This, You're (Probably) a Terrorist
You're in the latest hot spot in the war on terror.
A new report from the UK Home Affairs Committee claims the Internet is the "main forum for radicalisation" for terrorists and right-wing extremists. Even more than prisons, universities, and places of worship, "the internet does seem to feature in most, if not all, of the routes of radicalisation." The Home Office describes how people are radicalized by this series of tubes:
The internet "plays a role in terms of sustaining and reinforcing terrorist ideological messages and enabling individuals to find and communicate with like-minded individuals and groups."
Of course, that's true with any political or religious viewpoint. Just replace the word "terrorist" with conservative/libertarian/progressive/evangelical/atheist, etc. and you've basically described the entire Internet and its appeal. Congrats.
Loz Kaye, leader of the UK Pirate Party, tweeted his disappointed with the Committee's report:
Violence is born of too little information, not too much. We need a free functioning Internet if the aim is to engage.
But the fact that the Internet facilitates freedom of expression is troublesome for statists. The Home Affairs study also reports that the Internet is "now one of the few unregulated spaces where radicalisation is able to take place." Ergo, regulation. Right on cue, Keith Vaz, the chairman of the committee (who has a long history of censorship), argues:
More resources need to be directed to these threats and to preventing radicalisation through the internet and in private spaces. These are the fertile breeding grounds for terrorism.
Because of this, the Home Affairs Committee wants Internet service providers (ISPs) to actively monitor and remove "extremist" content and websites, even without a court order. Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, argues that content take-downs would be very ineffective, and, of course, Orwellian:
Very little can be done to take down websites that are extreme: because they are rarely hosted in the UK...The alternative to takedown is censorship, which is both ineffective and hands a propaganda victory to the targets of that censorship.
Obviously, defining terrorism and extremism can tricky. One darkly comic example was when the London police labeled the Occupy movement as terrorists and extremists, on par with al-Qaeda and FARC.
But the invocation of terrorism and right-wing extremism is really just the pretense for greater control of the Internet. Indeed, that very same Home Affairs report also notes:
Most radicalisation does not take place in fora at all; it takes place in private premises.
Not to mention that its findings:
...seemed to be contradicted by more recent Home Office-commissioned research, which concluded that the internet "does not appear to play a significant role in Al Qa'ida-influenced radicalisation." Even those witnesses who attributed a significant role to the internet tended to support that report's conclusion that some element of face-to-face contact was generally essential to radicalisation taking place, including with regards to the extreme far right...
Since al-Qaeda has been rendered "operationally ineffective," new scares are needed. Hence, the renewed focus on the far right and even links to "criminal gangs."
Reason on the Internet, terrorism, and censorship. Back in December 2011, Glenn Greenwald detailed a similar attempt by the Obama administration to control the Internet to eradicate the scourge of "Twitter terrorism."
Brian Doherty on Getting the U.S. Out of Afghanistan
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta
announced last week an unexpectedly early deadline of summer
2013 for winding down the U.S. military presence in
Afghanistan.
Well, kind of, supposedly, or perhaps with the same amount of seriousness that the administration took the July 2011 drawdown deadline that never was. The same New York Times story reporting on Panetta’s announcement also notes that “Mr. Panetta said no decisions had been made about the number of American troops to be withdrawn in 2013, and he made clear that substantial fighting lies ahead.” In other words, there are plenty of American soldiers and Afghans alike who will be dying for a mistake. Senior Editor Brian Doherty argues that it's time for all U.S. forces in Afghanistan to come home.
Iranian Parliament Summons President as Economy Sputters
Iranians have been feeling the
crunch of foreign sanctions on the country's economy. Prices
for gold
and American dollars are way up.
Reuters reports food shortages and word of mouth carries
stories of the frantic stockpiling of meat, rice, and other
staples. According to
one Iranian service employee, "We know they want to pressure us
so we rise against our government, but we are not in a position to
do that." The New York Times reports:
Ordinary Iranians complain that the sanctions are hurting them, while those at the top are unscathed, or even benefit. Many wealthy Iranians made huge profits in recent weeks by buying dollars at the government rate (available to insiders) and then selling them for almost twice as many rials on the soaring black market. Some analysts and opposition political figures contend that Mr. Ahmadinejad deliberately worsened the currency crisis so that his cronies could generate profits this way.
The Iranian parliament appears to have caught wind of some of these grievances. On Tuesday the deputy speaker announced a successful vote to summon President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Al Jazeera reports that he will face "questioning over a long list of accusations including mismanagement of the nation's economy." Though Parliament has the constitutional power to call the president in for questioning, no president has been summoned since the inception of the current regime in 1979.
Meanwhile, other branches of the Iranian government have been demonstrating increasing anxiety in the run-up to the March 2 parliamentary elections. As I've previously noted, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has stepped up arbitrary arrests of journalists, activists, and foreign nationals. The judiciary has been upholding their death sentences. Khamenei has warned against protests surrounding the March elections more than once, urging voters and losing candidates not to repeat the uprisings of 2009:
The last issue relating to the elections: The authorities should not ignore the conspiracies of the enemies against the elections. Those who do not receive enough votes in the elections should also be aware and should not be fooled like those who did not get any votes in 2009. They should not be deceived... Don't blame the elections, don't help the enemy, and an atmosphere of conflict and hopelessness should not be displayed in the campaign so we can, God willing, have a good election. [Emphasis added]
It is unclear to which enemy Khamenei is referring, but given the context, it's likely he is referring to civil unrest and not his other main preocuppation, Western influence. Ahmadinejad's allies have been campaigning in the boonies to secure some kind of success for themselves in the election. This gesture of summoning Ahmadinejad for questioning may be the existing Parliament's attempt to influence the outcome of the elections.
Read more on Iranian foreign relations, inflation, and questionable election strategies.
Ron Paul's Campaign Defends Its Successes
A press release from the Ron Paul campaign on the heels of the three nonbinding votes of yesterday (in which Paul came in a strong second in Minnesota, above supposed frontrunner Romney but still far behind the mysterious rise of Rick Santorum) makes the case for a Paul campaign that has been more successful than the media or public might recognize:
[Paul's campaign manager John Tate says]:
“As people across the country view the results of yesterday’s contests, it is important to consider a few facts that have not been clearly reported. Not one single delegate was awarded yesterday, instead the caucuses in Minnesota and Colorado were the very first step in the delegate selection process. And there are still over 40 states left to go. The Ron Paul campaign plans to continue to vie for delegates nationwide....
1) The Missouri primary means nothing. It was a non-binding beauty contest, and the contest that matters in the ‘show me’ state won’t take place for another month. The Ron Paul campaign is well positioned to win delegates in Missouri’s caucus a month from now.
2) As in Iowa where not 1 of the 28 delegates has been awarded yet, in Colorado and Nevada the Paul campaign will do very well in the state delegate counts. We will have good numbers among the actual delegates awarded, far exceeding our straw poll numbers.
3) In Minnesota where we have finished a solid second, we also have a strong majority of the state convention delegates, and the process to elect delegates has also just begun, the Paul campaign is well-organized to win the bulk of delegates there.
“We are confident in gaining a much larger share of delegates than even our impressive showing yesterday indicates. As an example of our campaign’s delegate strength, take a look at what has occurred in Colorado:
In one precinct in Larimer County, the straw poll vote was 23 for Santorum, 13 for Paul, 5 for Romney, 2 for Gingrich. There were 13 delegate slots, and Ron Paul got ALL 13.
In a precinct in Delta County the vote was 22 for Santorum, 12 for Romney, 8 for Paul, 7 for Gingrich. There were 5 delegate slots, and ALL 5 went to Ron Paul.
In a Pueblo County precinct, the vote was 16 for Santorum, 11 for Romney, 3 for Gingrich and 2 for Paul. There were 2 delegate slots filled, and both were filled by Ron Paul supporters.
We are also seeing the same trends in Minnesota, Nevada, and Iowa, and in Missouri as well.
“We may well win Minnesota, and do far better in Colorado than yesterday’s polls indicate.
“In the latest national poll from Reuters/Ipsos Poll, Ron Paul places a strong second with 21 percent, gaining ground on his main competitor nationally, Mitt Romney, whose support seems to be fading at 29 percent. Congressman Paul’s support has grown by 5 percentage points nationally since January, while Romney has seen a 30 percent decline in his support since January.
“This poll follows a January 30th Gallup Poll showing Dr. Paul within the margin of error of defeating Obama. Also, a January 16th CNN/ORC Poll showed Congressman Paul and Obama in a virtual tie in a general election showdown.
Politico on Paul's Minnesota efforts that led him to second place there. My forthcoming book, Ron Paul's Revolution.
Reason Writers on TV: Peter Suderman Talks Federal Education Spending with David Asman on Power & Money
President Obama wants to spend more federal tax dollars on public education. But will more spending produce better results? On Tuesday, February 7, Reason associate editor Peter Suderman appeared on Fox Business' Power and Money argues that decades of increases in federal education spending has yet to increase overall educational attainment—and there's no reason to think that this will be any different. Approximately four minutes.
Peter Suderman on Mitt Romney, Consultant in Chief
In 2010, the GOP successfully unified around an
anti-spending message that helped it retake the House. Yet now,
writes Associate Editor Peter Suderman, as Republicans frame the
2012 elections as a referendum on the size and scope of government,
the party allegedly in favor of reducing both is on the verge of
nominating for president not a small-government firebrand or a free
market apostle but former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a
management consultant more interested in tweaking hated policies
than doing away with them.
Synfuel Company With $25 Million Green Loan Calls Emergency Conference
An East Bay synthetic petroleum
company that received $25 million from the Department of Energy’s
controversial loan-guarantee
program may be headed for trouble after calling a special
investor conference.
Emeryville, California-based Amyris Inc., which describes itself as an "integrated renewable products company...providing sustainable alternatives" using "industrial synthetic biology," has a regularly scheduled earnings conference on February 27. But the company will hold "an investor update regarding its progress and near term goals" this Friday.
It could be good news! The company's most recent report claims $31 million in product sales for the third quarter of 2011 — a 41 percent increase over the previous-year period. But Amyris, which is in the business of "commercializing" (greenspeak for "trying to sell") its No Compromise® line of synthetic petroleum products, has been clobbered in the stock market lately. Following the conference announcement, a Raymond James analyst downgraded the company.
Then again, those analysts hate America. And what bureaucrat’s imagination wouldn’t be fired by a company that converts plant sugars into hydrocarbon molecules to produce a range of renewable ingredients with potential uses in products from diesel and jet fuel to cosmetics, flavors and fragrances?
But it does raise a few questions: If Solyndra was Bush’s fault and Ener1 was China’s fault and Beacon Power was Solyndra’s fault, will Amyris be the first official victim of the Natural Gas Genocide? Also, does natural gas have an official villain yet? The Emir of Qatar, maybe? And finally: Amyris? Will the cutesy names never stop?
Enjoy [?] the soothing [?] harmonies of William Byrd’s "Though Amaryllis Dance in Green"...
Cheap Tickets to Space, Coming Soon
In
Popular Mechanics, space journo and consultant Rand
Simberg—who wrote
about the future of NASA in the era of private spaceflight in
last month's print magazine—explains some of the nifty technical
details he picked up from entrepreneur Elon Musk
about SpaceX's reusable rockets and spacecraft.
But perhaps of greater interest to the less technically inclined spaceophiles among us, Simberg wraps up the piece like this:
Last week, the company announced the successful test of its new SuperDraco rocket engines, which will power the launch–abort system for the Dragon, making it safer for human occupation, and also act as the landing engines. The idea is that Dragon will land vertically on the pad, like the Falcon rocket components, as opposed to landing in the water with parachutes.
So what does that mean for ticket prices in the future? Musk tells us that with daily flights, the cost will run about $100 per pound. For the average male, that means about 20,000 bucks. Start saving your money.
In other words, none of the many players in the private space industry have actually taken paying customers off the surface of the Earth yet, but ticket prices are already experiencing some serious downward pressure. Virgin Galactic's $200,000 price tag is already starting to sound downright extravagant in the face of Simberg's back-of-the-envelope math. And the $63 million we're playing to the Russians to ferry American astronauts back and forth to the International Space Station right now? Horrifying.
Get the scoop on the whole scene from our Very Special Space Issue. (Now available online!)
Has Obama Declared "War on Religion" by Insisting Catholic Employers Cover Abortions and Condoms?
One of the reasons I oppose
government-run health care is that it automatically politicizes
every aspect of medical treatment, lifestyle, and more. When
taxpayers are footing the bill, they rightly have an interest in
what gets funded and what doesn't. Should human-growth hormone
shots for short kids be covered? Viagra for old men? And what sort
of research should be conducted? It takes a situation that is
already full of moral an practical ambiguity (one doctor's
experimental treatment is another's quackery on a cracker) and puts
it on steroids (which I'm guessing shouldn't be covered, unless
it's for a "good" cause). God, what a tedious conversation!
Which brings us to the latest imbroglio involving President Barack Obama's health-care reform: the administration's insistence that most employers provide coverage for things that many religious organizations oppose, especially when it comes to reproduction. There seems little doubt that the law will have very few exemptions in its coverage for contraceptives and elective abortions. So while Catholic dioceses may not have to shell out for IUDs for nuns, Catholic hospitals and other closely-related outfits may well have to offer insurance plans that cover birth control and more that's against church doctrine.
Indeed, here are Democratic Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.), Barbara Boxer (Calif.), and Patty Murray (Wash.), three champions of the new law, trumpeting that
It was a historic victory for women's health when the Obama administration changed the law to require private health plans to provide preventive services including breast exams, HIV screening and contraception for free. This new policy will help millions of women get the affordable care they need.
They note "it can cost $600 a year for
prescription contraceptives. That's a lot of money for a mother
working as a medical technician in a Catholic hospital, or a
teacher in a private religious school."
It sure is a lot of money. And there's something obviously wrong with forcing an employer - say, the Catholic church - to cover contraceptive or abortion services that it patently objects to. Indeed, there's something wrong with forcing employers and employees to offer or buy coverage in the first place. We all know that it's monstrously stupid - and an artifact of idiotic wage-and-price controls enacted during World War II - that health insurance is tied to the workplace. Way back when, separating work from health coverage was supposed to be one of the goals of reform, wasn't it? For god's sake, most businessess can't make good decisions in their chosen area of competition. Why should they be picking people's insurance?
Writng in National Review, the libertarian, pro-life Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) says that Obamacare's rules are nothing less than a "war on religious freedom":
[The] Obama administration’s recent edict requiring nearly all employers — including Catholic hospitals, schools, and charities — to cover sterilizations and contraception in their employees’ health-care plans. Because “contraception” includes abortifacients, this decision — made under the powers granted to the executive branch under Obamacare — also threatens many Protestant employers.
I'm an admirer on Rand Paul, who I think is without reservation the most libertarian member of the Senate (and I don't mean that as a backhanded compliment, given the generally low level of freedom-loving in the Senate!). He's the real deal when it comes to limiting the size, scope, and power of the federal government, and I'm glad he's gonna be around for a long time.
Yet I'm not convinced that Obamacare is the equivalent of a war on religious freedom. The individual mandate is unambiguously a war on freedom, for sure: the requirement that you buy coverage as a condition of being alive is clearly that. But as long as various health-care providers pull money directly from the federal government, it seems to me that they can be required to follow certain regulations. And most hospitals, whether private or public, religious or secular, are getting chunks of money from the federal government, through Medicaid and Medicare payments at the very least.
That's a strong argument, of course, for getting
the government out of areas such as health care and education,
where a similar problem obtains: Shouldn't K-12 schools and
colleges that get government funding have to follow certain
government rules? If you want that money, say, you shouldn't be
allowed to discriminate on the basis of race or gender, right? And
if you don't want that control, then opt out of the system, as
colleges such as Hillsdale and Grove City have done by setting up
replacements for Pell Grants and federally guaranteed student
loans.
When it comes to education, though, most conservatives and libertarians challenge the idea that public money necessarily means strict government control. Indeed, the preferred argument when it comes to state-funded voucher programs is that as long as the money is being used by the individual, the state shouldn't be allowed to bully the schools that ultimately get paid into following a particular curriculum.
So I'm left wondering: If Obamacare was structured in such a way that it gave individuals vouchers to cover all or part of the cost of a health-care policy of their own choosing, would that solve this particular objection? I think such a policy would cause all sorts of problems, including a general increase in health care costs (just as easy, government-backed student loans have given rise to a "higher education bubble"). But would switching to a voucher plan for health-care obviate the issue of religious freedom? It seems to do the trick when it comes to education.
Of course, looking over what I've just written really drives home two different but related points:
First, that any health-care reform which doesn't de-link insurance from the workplace is really not serious in transforming a system that everyone seems to hate but won't fully jettison.
Second, even if Obamacare is booted by the Supreme Court later this spring or repealed upon the ascension to the White House of his royal highness Newt Gingrich, we'll still be facing a situation in which government at all levels is already spending about 50 cents out of every health-care dollar. Which means that reform will still be a top priority come 2013 whoever is actually getting sworn in.
Another Example of How New York Cops Make Their Own Law
In my
column today, I note that police in New York City are still
arresting people for "public display" of marijuana in
circumstances that Commissioner Ray Kelly says make the charge
inappropriate. Yesterday a federal judge
approved an agreement that settles a class action lawsuit by
New Yorkers who were busted on another kind of bogus charge: Long
after courts overturned anti-loitering laws on First Amendment
grounds, the NYPD continued to arrest people for loitering. The $15
million settlement could mean up to $5,000 for each person who was
the victim of an illegal arrest. The legal battles over
loitering bans in New York go back three decades:
The settlement came after a federal judge held the city in contempt in 2010 for "obstinance and uncooperativeness," as the police continued for years to make arrests under laws that had been declared unconstitutional. The laws had banned loitering to panhandle or to search for a sex partner, or while in a bus or train station.
Federal and state courts struck down those laws between 1983 and 1993 as violating First Amendment rights, but some 22,000 people were charged with the offenses from 1983 to 2012....
Some of those who were caught in the web of laws that had been declared invalid testified about the frustration of being rounded up when they had not broken the law.
One panhandler described an evening on Roosevelt Avenue in Queens during which officers recited their flawed understanding of the law: "'You can’t be begging.'"...
The lawyers who filed the suit claimed that the police hierarchy was not aggressive enough in training officers and challenging the police culture. They noted that officers often carried "cheat sheets," handed down from one generation of officers to the next, that included simple descriptions of the laws used most often by officers on a beat for summonses and arrests. The sheets, still in use, are seldom updated.
You can begin to understand how it is possible that the NYPD is still arresting people for a bit of pot in their pockets 35 years after the state legislature supposedly decriminalized marijuana possession.
New Paper Finds Stimulus Spending Funds Government Employment, But Not Private Sector Growth
It’s common enough to find
discussions of economic stimulus that revolve around the assumption
that government spending produces a positive multiplier: Spend one
dollar, boost the larger economy by two. But at the very least, the
aggregate evidence that government spending consistently produces
positive economic growth is murky. When University of California
economist Valerie Ramey reviewed
the literature on stimulus spending for the Journal of Economic
Literature last year, she found that the literature suggested
that temporary, deficit-financed government purchases result in
multipliers somewhere between 0.8 and 1.5, but that “reasonable
people can argue” that the data indicate multipliers as high as 2
but as low as 0.5.
This sort of variation doesn’t tell us whether the multiplier is positive or negative. Instead, it tells us that the evidence isn’t clear, that economists don’t agree, and that sweeping conclusions about the positive effects of stimulus spending don’t hold up.
Now Ramey has found additional evidence that the lower range is more likely to be the correct one. In a new paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research, Ramey asks two questions. First, does increased government spending result in an economic stimulus that increases private sector spending? Second, does more government spending increase employment?
Ramey, who’s been criticized in the past for her choice of samples and variables, addresses those concerns here by running the numbers using multiple statistical techniques and historical samples. But no matter how she arranges the data, she finds the same result: “An increase in government spending never leads to a significant rise in private spending. In fact, in most cases it leads to a significant fall.” The upshot? According to Ramey, the evidence suggests that the multiplier for government spending is probably below the even-money mark. It’s a bad investment.
There are some benefits, however—just not for the private sector. Ramey finds evidence that government spending can increase employment—mostly by hiring people to work for the government. “Increases in government spending raise government employment,” she writes, “but not private employment.” This is contrary to President Obama's 2009 promise that "more than 90 percent of jobs created under this recovery act will be in the private sector." Stimulus spending: Good for the government, not so great for the rest of us.
(Thanks to Cato's Tad DeHaven for the pointer.)
Slave the Whales!
Does the
13th Amendment apply to critters? Can whales be plaintiffs? People
for the Ethical Treatment of Animals thinks so, and has
filed suit in a San Diego court to emancipate killer whales
from Sea World facilities in San Diego and Orlando:
PETA argues that continuing the whales' "employment" at SeaWorld violates the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution, which prohibits slavery.
District Judge Jeffrey Miller heard arguments in the complaint Monday and reviewed the response from SeaWorld, which asked that the lawsuit be dismissed. His ruling is expected to come later.
The suit, filed in October 2011, asked that the court declare that the orcas are "held in slavery and/or involuntary servitude by defendants in violation of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution."
"It's a new frontier in civil rights," said Jeff Kerr, PETA general counsel, who described the hearing as a "historic day."
"Slavery does not depend on the species of the slave any more than it depends on race, gender or ethnicity," he argued. "Coercion, degradation and subjugation characterize slavery and these orcas have endured all three."
The complaint says the five killer whales are represented by their "friends" at PETA, which include three former killer whale trainers, a marine biologist and the founder of an organization that seeks to protect orcas.
The complaint demands that the court "appoint a legal guardian to effectuate plaintiffs' transfer from defendants' facilities to a suitable habitat in accordance with each plaintiff's individual needs and best interests."
Does Tilikum, who killed an Orlando Sea World trainer in February 2010, have the right to a trial by a jury of his peers? Can whales vote? Can they be president? Do they have the right to bear arms? Does PETA have the right to arm bears? This is so exciting!
Justice Anthony Kennedy and the Future of Gay Marriage
In his 1996 majority opinion in
the case of Romer
v. Evans, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy struck
down a Colorado constitutional amendment that had forbidden state
officials from taking any action designed to protect gays and
lesbians from discrimination. “The amendment imposes a special
disability upon those persons alone,” Kennedy wrote. “Homosexuals
are forbidden the safeguards that others enjoy or may seek without
constraint.” Several years later, in his majority opinion in
Lawrence
v. Texas (2003), Kennedy struck down that state’s ban on
sodomy for violating the liberty protected by the Due Process
Clause of the 14th Amendment. "In our tradition the State is not
omnipresent in the home," Kennedy wrote. "Liberty presumes an
autonomy of self that includes freedom of thought, belief,
expression, and certain intimate conduct."
So when 9th Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt sat down to write yesterday’s decision nullifying California’s Proposition 8, which had amended the state constitution in order to forbid gay marriage, Kennedy’s words were not far from his mind. Indeed, Reinhardt repeatedly cites Romer while making the case against Prop. 8. But Reinhardt does not make similar use of Lawrence. Why not?
As I noted yesterday, Reinhardt’s decision did not recognize a constitutional right to gay marriage, it simply holds that in this specific case California has violated the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause by allowing gay marriage and then later taking it away. Had Reinhardt wanted to the address the larger question of gay marriage’s constitutionality, he undoubtedly would have cited Kennedy’s sweepingly libertarian decision in Lawrence. That he did not do so suggests that Reinhardt does not believe that Kennedy is currently ready to vote in favor of that constitutional right. Thus the 9th Circuit offered Kennedy a narrower argument relying on the narrower precedent in Romer. Should the Supreme Court take up the Prop. 8 case on appeal, there’s no way Kennedy is going to go against his previous line of argument in Romer. It was a crafty—if transparent—move by Reinhardt. We'll see if it works.
Climate Scientists Violate Own Advice: Opine On Topics About Which They Have No Expertise
Back
on January 27, the Wall Street Journal ran an
op/ed by some distinguished researchers arguing that climate change
is no big deal. The op/ed,
No Need to Panic About Climate Change, asserted:
...the number of scientific "heretics" is growing with each passing year. The reason is a collection of stubborn scientific facts.
Perhaps the most inconvenient fact is the lack of global warming for well over 10 years now. This is known to the warming establishment, as one can see from the 2009 "Climategate" email of climate scientist Kevin Trenberth: "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't." But the warming is only missing if one believes computer models where so-called feedbacks involving water vapor and clouds greatly amplify the small effect of CO2.
The lack of warming for more than a decade—indeed, the smaller-than-predicted warming over the 22 years since the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) began issuing projections—suggests that computer models have greatly exaggerated how much warming additional CO2 can cause. Faced with this embarrassment, those promoting alarm have shifted their drumbeat from warming to weather extremes, to enable anything unusual that happens in our chaotic climate to be ascribed to CO2.
If there is not all that much warming, then why is there so much brouhaha about it? The op/ed continued:
Alarmism over climate is of great benefit to many, providing government funding for academic research and a reason for government bureaucracies to grow. Alarmism also offers an excuse for governments to raise taxes, taxpayer-funded subsidies for businesses that understand how to work the political system, and a lure for big donations to charitable foundations promising to save the planet. Lysenko and his team lived very well, and they fiercely defended their dogma and the privileges it brought them.
Speaking for many scientists and engineers who have looked carefully and independently at the science of climate, we have a message to any candidate for public office: There is no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to "decarbonize" the world's economy. Even if one accepts the inflated climate forecasts of the IPCC, aggressive greenhouse-gas control policies are not justified economically.
Not too surprisingly, those accused of being bought-and-paid for alarmists were annoyed. Earlier this week, the Journal published a response from 38 of the perturbed alarmists, Check with Climate Scientists for Views on Climate. Their letter asserted:
Do you consult your dentist about your heart condition? In science, as in any area, reputations are based on knowledge and expertise in a field and on published, peer-reviewed work. If you need surgery, you want a highly experienced expert in the field who has done a large number of the proposed operations.
You published "No Need to Panic About Global Warming" on climate change by the climate-science equivalent of dentists practicing cardiology. While accomplished in their own fields, most of these authors have no expertise in climate science. The few authors who have such expertise are known to have extreme views that are out of step with nearly every other climate expert. This happens in nearly every field of science. For example, there is a retrovirus expert who does not accept that HIV causes AIDS. And it is instructive to recall that a few scientists continued to state that smoking did not cause cancer, long after that was settled science.
So, there! And what do "real" climate scientists believe?
Climate experts know that the long-term warming trend has not abated in the past decade. In fact, it was the warmest decade on record. Observations show unequivocally that our planet is getting hotter. And computer models have recently shown that during periods when there is a smaller increase of surface temperatures, warming is occurring elsewhere in the climate system, typically in the deep ocean. Such periods are a relatively common climate phenomenon, are consistent with our physical understanding of how the climate system works, and certainly do not invalidate our understanding of human-induced warming or the models used to simulate that warming.
Thus, climate experts also know what one of us, Kevin Trenberth, actually meant by the out-of-context, misrepresented quote used in the op-ed. Mr. Trenberth was lamenting the inadequacy of observing systems to fully monitor warming trends in the deep ocean and other aspects of the short-term variations that always occur, together with the long-term human-induced warming trend.
Question: How long before the short-term variation with minimal warming [PDF] suggests that there may be something wrong with the climate computer models? Just asking.
In any case, the climate experts then go on to become the equivalent of dentists practicing cardiology:
It would be an act of recklessness for any political leader to disregard the weight of evidence and ignore the enormous risks that climate change clearly poses. In addition, there is very clear evidence that investing in the transition to a low-carbon economy will not only allow the world to avoid the worst risks of climate change, but could also drive decades of economic growth. Just what the doctor ordered.
Really? Scanning the list of signers of the letter one does not find that any seem to have any special expertise on economics and public policy. Perhaps the climate "dentists" are recommending open heart surgery to treat tooth decay. Interestingly, the op/ed to which they object does cite economic expertise in reaching its conclusions:
A recent study of a wide variety of policy options by Yale economist William Nordhaus showed that nearly the highest benefit-to-cost ratio is achieved for a policy that allows 50 more years of economic growth unimpeded by greenhouse gas controls. This would be especially beneficial to the less-developed parts of the world that would like to share some of the same advantages of material well-being, health and life expectancy that the fully developed parts of the world enjoy now. Many other policy responses would have a negative return on investment. And it is likely that more CO2 and the modest warming that may come with it will be an overall benefit to the planet.
I will also mention that the public policy side of the Reason Foundation which publishes this website released a report back in December looking at the economics of climate change that reached similar conclusions:
"Using the IPCC's own highest emission scenario, we show that by 2100 the Gross Domestic Product per capita of today's 'developing' countries will be double that of the U.S. in 2006, even taking into account any losses resulting from climate change. Thus developing countries will have significantly more resources and better technology to cope with climate change than even the U.S. does today," Goklany says. "But these advances in adaptive capacity and what they'll mean for our ability to cope with any potential warming are virtually ignored by the IPCC when it assesses the possible impact of global warming."
The study outlines three approaches to tackling climate change: cutting emissions of greenhouse gases; focused adaptation; and economic growth. "The best strategy by far to combat climate change is economic growth," says Julian Morris, the study's project director and vice president at Reason Foundation. "Economic growth is the best way to eliminate poverty; meanwhile, the resulting wealth and technological advances will enable people better to address all the problems they face, including any challenges that global warming may present."
For what it's worth, the climate experts asserting consensus about the reality of man-made global warming cannot, on the basis of their climate expertise, assert a consensus on the policies needed to address the problem.
Go here to read the Reason Foundation study on the best policies to handle future climate change.
Come See the Matt Welch/Jonah Goldberg Libertarian/Conservative Smackdown Tonight in D.C. at AEI! Or at Least Watch the Live Podcast! Also, Listen to the Pre-Interview!
As
mentioned
previously in this space, I will be debating Jonah Goldberg
tonight at the American Enterprise Institute on the question of
"Are Libertarians Part of the Conservative Movement?," for one hour
beginning at 6:30 pm sharp. I hear RSVPs are filling up, so
get on in there if you care to bolster the libertarian hissing
(or finger-wiggling!) section. It's at the AEI Conference Center,
at
1150 17th St., NW, Washington, DC 20036, two blocks from
Farragut North metro station. There will be wine & cheese
after, perhaps as an olive branch to the "cheese-eating
surrender monkeys" contingent.
For those not near the evil Beltway, there will be a live video feed at this link. From what I understand they might even be taking questions (or reading hilarious insults) from the online rabble.
Yesterday, I got the ball rolling with a lively podcast interview with the AEI folks, which you can listen to here.
Sheldon Richman on Stopping Israel from Attacking Iran
Israel’s highest officials tell American
journalists their air force may attack Iran’s nuclear facilities
this spring, although Israeli and American intelligence agencies
say the Islamic republic has no plan to build a bomb. The officials
might be bluffing, but the threats pose a problem for the Obama
administration. As Sheldon Richman explains, it would take courage
hitherto uncharacteristic of this president to withstand the
pressure to get involved and instead keep America out.
A.M. Links: Santorum Smothers the Midwest, Payroll Tax Cut Fails Again, U.S. Embassy in Iraq Faces Splenda Crisis
After big wins in Colorado, Minnesota, and
Missouri,
Santorum is on everybody's lips.- Pilots object to FAA bill's authorization of unmanned drones in U.S. skies.
- No extension for payroll tax cut (yet).
- Ben Bernanke has been vindicated, claims Bloomberg.
- The U.S. embassy in Iraq is facing a sugar/Splenda shortage. Also the salad bar sucks.
- CDC declares bread/dinner rolls gastronomic enemy number one.
Do you want hot links and other Reason goodies delivered to your inbox twice a day? Sign up here for Reason's morning and afternoon news updates.
New at Reason.tv: "Jim DeMint: Why Republicans Must Become More Libertarian"
Jacob Sullum on New York's Illegal Pot Crackdown
Thirty-five years ago, New York's
legislature decriminalized marijuana possession. Senior Editor
Jacob Sullum says numbers released last week show the New
York Police Department continues to flagrantly flout that policy,
wasting resources on a pointless, unjust, and illegal crusade
against pot smokers.
It's Santorum Time!
The come-from-behind kid, Sen. Rick Santorum, though still third or last in most national polls and severly underfinanced, wins non-binding contests in Minnesota, Colorado, and Missouri.
Minnesota's and Colorado's were nonbinding caucus straw polls; Missouri's a completely confusing and meaningless vestigial result of their state's inability to act fast (that nonetheless drew well over 200,000 voters with nothing better to do), with the state's real caucus to happen next month.
Ron Paul came in second in Minnesota, with 27 percent, as his campaign figured he would. From his speech tonight Paul seems to think that he'll end up with more delegates when the whole selection process ends. They will not be bound by the results of today's straw poll. Paul continued to do much better in percentage terms than 2008 everywhere.
Romney's appeal everywhere versus either 2008 or a month ago seems to be slipping; he won Minnesota in 2008 but was third today, and won Colorado in 2008 but was a close second to Santorum today.
It's still a race, for better or worse. If Santorum keeps doing well, certainly for worse.
Halftime in America: Remy Chrysler Ad Parody
It's halftime.
Both teams are listening to a Madonna performance that sounds eerily similar to a Lady Gaga song they'll hear 10 years from now.
It's halftime in America too.
People are out of work and they're hurting.
And they're wondering where all their money went.
Well, $12.5 billion of it went to Chrysler.
In the form of a bailout.
But it's okay, because Chrysler is all-American.
Though technically 58.5 percent of Chrysler is owned by an Italian corporation.
And Chrysler manufactures many of it's vehicles in Canada. And Mexico.
But I guess that doesn't make for a great commercial.
Unlike polar bears. Or dogs. Or that digestive yogurt.
Yeah, Americans are hurting.
And their dollars are being used to bail out the chosen ones.
Instead of themselves.
What happened to freedom?
What happened to choice?
Yeah.
We need to guard them like Ben Roethlisberger's friends guard a bathroom door.
Allegedly.
Written by Remy and produced by Meredith Bragg.
About 1.30 minutes.
"Halftime in America" is one of a series of collaborations between Remy and Reason.tv. To watch all of them, including "Grandma Got Indefinitely Detained (A Very TSA Christmas)," "The Occupy Wall Street Protest Song," "Raise the Debt Ceiling Rap," and "Why They Fought," go here now.
To watch Remy's other videos, go to youtube.com/goremy
Go to Reason.tv for downloadable versions of all
our videos and subscribe to Reason.tv's YouTube Channel
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live.Subscribe to Reason's YouTube channel to get automatic updates
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"Tim Tebow Law" Would Let Homeschooled Virginia Kids Play Public School Sports, Already Lets Columnists Complain About Too Much Choice
Sometime this
week Virginia
lawmakers are expected to vote on a law which would allow the
state's "tens of thousands of" homeschooled kids to play
sports on public school teams; in fact it would prevent public
schools from being part of any intramural-type organizations which
barred the presence of homeschoolers.
HB 947 is known to its friends as as the "Tim Tebow law" because the Denver Broncos quarterback was homeschooled in Florida, but played on his local school's football team after pushing for the bill which gave him permission to do just that. Said bill is expected to pass in in the State House, having already cleared the House Education Committee.
Fourteen states allow for homeschooled kids to play public school sports. Thirteen more allow kids to play with certain conditions attached.
So, who are the folks objecting to this bill? (You know they're out there.) Various news reports summarize objections along the lines of: hey, public school kids have to keep up certain academic standards to do extracurriculars, why do those pajama-clad-until-noon, weirdo spelling champs get out of that? The Governor of Virginia supports the bill, but the 60,000-strong Teacher's Association is not keen for reasons both tentatively practical (public schools say their belts are tight enough as it is) and school spirit-heavy (you didn't want to be a part of this whole experience, so no, you don't get to play soccer!).
Washington Post columnist John Kelly is also displeased with this legislative notion. After mentioning the problem with Teacher Mom or Dad grade-inflating so that little Josiah can be the school's starting quarterback, and comparing the bill to Kelly's old drama teacher casting students from a girl's school and a college student in high school plays, the columnist continues:
[M]y main objection is philosophical.
School does a lot of things, just one of which is educating students. School is a place children learn to get along, learn what it means to work in a group, to navigate the shoals of cliques and conflicts. It’s where you learn some of the basics of what it means to be a citizen.
We often despair about our public schools in this country, but they’ve been a common experience for millions of us. If you happen to not agree with that common experience, you might decide, as is your right, to home-school your child.
You may have all sorts of reasons. Perhaps our public schools are too secular for you. Or maybe our public schools aren’t rigorous enough for you. Maybe our public schools aren’t safe enough for you. Maybe you love your children more than the rest of us love ours and you just want them around you all the time.
Whatever the reason, you’ve made a decision. You have the courage of your convictions. Except now, supporters of this bill want to loosen their convictions a bit.
“They just want to try out,” the bill’s sponsor, Del. Robert B. Bell (R-Charlottesville), told The Washington Post’s Anita Kumar. “They just want a chance to participate with their friends, their neighbors, their community members.”
Guess what: They do have the chance. They can go to public school.
And the vital point, which everyone else who objects to the bill seems to be making in one way or another:
I’m not against home-schooling. I’m against people wanting to pick and choose the parts of a public education they agree with.
Libertarians or homeschoolers who vehemently dislike public schools are often accused of being purists, but the people making these arguments are real hard-liners.
One choice is being opened up to students here, the choice to be
homeschooleled and also to play sports with 
kids their own age. Even
without the compelling hey, my parents pay the taxes which help
this school exist argument, what's so terrible about one more
choice for kids and their families? Kelly's column is carefully in
favor of homeschooling's legality, but he really doesn't seem to
like the practice, he's more wearily resigned to it.
Bob Cook over at Forbes.com is initially less snotty about the fact of homeschooling, but this attitude of "you made your education bed, now lie in it" still lingers throughout. That gets real, as the kids say, about here:
I just find it so rich that homeschool advocates are more than happy to run down public schools and explain why they’re just not good enough for their little budding geniuses, yet they’re begging to lean on and cherry-pick the public school for things they can’t provide.
"So rich" is a pretty strong rhetorical cue. Cook thinks homeschoolers are elitist egg-heads! But he then goes on to make the point that private school families have to pay taxes but are not offered this option.
Fair point.
But why aren't they? If a private school doesn't have a football team or a soccer team, but the local school does, well, why not let kids get their chance to play? Or even let each school decide instead of mandating at the state-level, which the Tebow bill admittedly does?
Maybe that's a bad idea, but having just celebrated School Choice Week at Reason DC, I'm feeling particularly keen on choosing. The columnists and other dissenters say kids can't have an education buffet, but why can't they? Why can't they take physics at school, but read history at home, or any another variation?
I suggest that with super-optimism and a general love of freedom but also, dammit, if you want the parents' tax dollars, there should be some education options. Parents pay, so you had better let in a thousand homeschooled Christian dorks so that they too can be future football stars who provoke an ire I cannot began to understand. That's fair. And that's one small step towards real school choice.
(Still, in my day in Pennsylvania we played touch football in the park near the house where we had our homeschool group. We didn't need no dad-gummed public school for that. Sometimes we didn't even have shoes. Really, there was a memorably muddy spring day in about seventh grade where we all played shoeless.)
Reason on education and homeschooling; Veronique de Rugy on how increased school spending doesn't seem to produce smarter kids.
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