Freedom Line Blog

Though it’s undeniably true, it isn’t customary for a member of Congress on trial for ethics violations defends his actions by saying everyone else did it too.

So hats off for former House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-NY).  In authorizing his attorneys to file a 32-page rebuttal to ethics charges that names members of both parties who’ve escaped prosecution for doing similar activities, Rangel is explicitly inviting prosecutors to consider going after other members of Congress.

But before they do that, one of the members Rangel didn’t name is facing her own ethics trial.  Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) is vowing to fight charges that she improperly steered $12 million worth of financial bailout money to a bank where her husband was a board member.

Even if convicted, Waters probably won’t face a prison term like Rangel.  However, if Rangel continues to name names, he may get company in prison.  I wonder if they’ll let him name his wing after himself…

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is calling for all city, county and state employee salaries to be posted online for easy access by citizens.  Ordinarily, such a request wouldn’t merit a mention in a governor’s speech, but these aren’t ordinary times.  With California being home to 10 of the 12 highest unemployed metropolitan areas in the country, this is not the era to be paying salaries that total a million dollars in less than a decade to individual public employees.

The fallout from the City of Bell paying its top two city administrators plus the police chief a combined $1.6 million a year led to resignations from all three.  If media and prosecutorial scrutiny grows to include other municipalities, the taxpaying public will have a much better idea whom to blame for a good chunk of the state’s budget deficit: corrupt public officials and public employee unions.

Respected campaign prognosticator Charlie Cook is out this morning with an analysis of recent poll numbers that is sure to get Republican poobahs hitting their consultants’ speed dials.

For the four previous weeks, the two parties were tied at 46 percent on the generic ballot question. For the four weeks before that, Republicans averaged a 3-point lead, 48 percent to 45 percent. So, if Democrats really have turned up the heat and are running 4 or 5 points ahead among registered voters, the practical result would be about an even proposition among likely midterm voters and the national popular vote. If that were true, it would mean a very, very close contest for control of the House.

One of the obvious explanations for the “tie” in approval/disapproval for the two major parties is the public’s lack of faith in either the Democrats or Republicans to prioritize issues correctly and enact laws consistent with meeting those priorities.  Point in case is the economy.  Democrats continue to pass laws that keep the private sector on the defensive, while Republicans seem content to ride the voters’ frustration to victory.

People want an alternative to what’s going on in Washington, D.C. right now, and groups like Freedom Works are organizing massive demonstrations to make everyday Americans’ voices heard.  As CFIF Senior Fellow Troy Senik pointed out recently, if the GOP wants to break through the politics-as-usual noise it must adopt a program for governing that aligns with the country’s current mood.

There’s still time, but not much.

If you’ve got less than 9 minutes to spare for the best YouTube video you’ll see this week, check out the newest contribution at Reason.tv.  Chapman University experimental economist Bart Wilson describes in fascinating detail how the concept of “fairness” has changed over time.  Per Reason’s description:

When lawmakers obscure the definition of this word, it may result in policy that is ineffective, arbitrary, and fundamentally unfair.

National Review Online’s Andrew McCarthy pens one of the best explanations I’ve seen refuting the Obama Administration’s argument that Arizona’s SB 1070 is preempted by federal law.  A bit surprisingly, McCarthy’s column is in response to (and a bit in contention with) his colleague Heather McDonald.

McDonald wrote a column earlier today fretting about the hypothetical “preemption” consequences of an Arizona law enforcement official deciding to prosecute an illegal alien under SB 1070 after federal officials declined to prosecute under federal law.  McDonald implied such a scenario would trigger a successful preemption claim (i.e. federal law trumping state law) because the actions of the state and federal officials would be in conflict.

Though their actions may be in conflict, argues McCarthy, that doesn’t mean the laws are in conflict.  The distinction is crucial, but too often glossed over by pundits.

In a nutshell, the legislative branch makes a law and the executive branch has the discretion whether and how to enforce it.  Since police officers and prosecutors are agents of the executive branch at both the state and federal level, they have discretion whether and how much to enforce a law passed by the legislature.  (That’s why they can plea bargain cases and drop charges.)

So, if the federal layer of government decides not to enforce its law, but the state layer of government decides it will enforce its identical law, there is no legal conflict; only a different policy choice by each layer.

Thus, claiming that SB 1070 is unconstitutional because it is preempted by federal law is a non-starter since there is no legal conflict between the two.  In fact, they are identical.  Knowing the meanings behind the terms shows that the litigation surrounding SB 1070 is based on nothing more than a policy conflict between the U.S. Department of Justice and the State of Arizona over how to apply the same law.

For political observers looking for a glimpse into former e-Bay CEO and current gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman’s (R-CA) job creation plan, a 34 page glossy magazine is available for free download (pdf) or delivery.  As both a PR document and a policy manual, the plan is impressive.  After listing the parade of economic horrible facing the Golden State, Whitman moves into prescription mode promising to promote tax cuts and streamline regulations that impede business.

Implementing any of these measures would help California.  Enacting all of them might actually save the state from financial collapse.  However, there is one addition I’d like to see that’s currently missing.

Tell the voters that governments can only create one type of job directly: a government job.  Whether it is a formal state position, a job that is made necessary to comply with a regulation or one to get a government contract, all of these jobs redirect talent and resources towards expanding the tax burden by increasing government spending.

A more sustainable model is implementing the kinds of policies Whitman is pushing; policies that create a tax and regulatory environment favorable to private sector job creation.  The more private sector jobs created means more people have more money, allowing government to lower tax rates while providing the same level of services.

In reality, Whitman as governor can’t create directly a single private sector job without picking winners and losers.  Instead, the most (and the best) she can do is create the conditions for success that allow private business to flourish and add workers.  Who better to educate the public on that point than a person with top-level business executive experience?

Robert Kennedy once described himself thus: “There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask ‘Why?’  I dream of things that never were and ask ‘Why not?’”  Perhaps the strongest criticism against liberalism is the charge that too many of its prescriptions for achieving the good life begin from premises in a world that doesn’t exist.

For cold-eyed realists like playwright David Mamet, the answer to Kennedy’s second question is easy: people are tempted to pride and selfishness.  And after a lifetime spent in the intellectual employ of liberalism’s ‘why not’ ethos, Mamet rejected his former worldview in an essay for the Village Voice, and followed up his rejection of state control in favor of free markets in his new book Theatre.

A review of the book by Commentary’s Terry Teachout reveals Mamet’s stinging rejections of the liberal mindset in favor of conservative-libertarian explanations for how the world actually works.  For Mamet, his conversion is a matter of his personal philosophy catching up with his art, which is characterized by dark struggles for power in an unfair world.

But lest readers think the notion of realism is code for worst case scenario of the human condition, don’t worry.  Instead, Teachout describes Mamet’s reading of conservative luminaries like Thomas Sowell, Paul Johnson, Milton Friedman and Shelby Steele as persuading him that “a free-market understanding of the world meshes more perfectly with my experience than the idealistic vision I called liberalism.”

For the moment, Mamet stands alone as a free market supporter in the playhouses of elite theater.  Taking a cue from his characters in Glengarry Glen Ross and Speed-the-Plow, Mamet probably doesn’t care what others think.

Admittedly, there is a certain attraction to dreaming of a world that doesn’t – and probably can’t – exist.  It explains the popularity of fantasy tales for which Hollywood studios make hundreds of millions of dollars selling as a form of escape.  For artists like Mamet, though, the real world in all its imperfect complexity provides a much richer source of inspiration.

In an era where politicians are challenging playwrights for creating the most compelling drama, it’s good to know of at least one professional artist who prefers reality to fantasy.

I wonder if new British Prime Minister David Cameron offered any words of fiscal wisdom to President Barack Obama during the two leaders’ first meet-and-greet since assuming power.  If he did, Cameron should have pointed out that adopting an “austerity” budget program need not be code for lack of creativity.

Under a recently announced plan to decentralize much of the National Health Service (NHS), Cameron’s Coalition Government of Conservative and Liberal Democrats plans to “shift control of England’s $160 billion annual health care budget from a centralized bureaucracy to doctors at the local level,” reports the New York Times.  “Under the plan, $100 billion to $125 billion a year would be meted out to general practitioners, who would use the money to buy services from hospitals and other health care providers.”

Already one of the chief criticisms is that eliminating several layers of bureaucracy will cause several layers of bureaucrats to lose their jobs.

To which the Coalition responds, “And…?”   Britons realize that it’s time to make government spending fit within government budgets.  If the NHS is about health care for all – and not bureaucratic full employment – then it’s time to give patients and taxpayers the most value (and discretion) for their money.

If President Obama really wants to impose a stateside version of the NHS on Americans the least he could do is give the soon-to-be nationalized doctors the ultimate say in how they treat their patients.  Doing that would not only give doctors an incentive to stay in the profession, it would also drive up demand for entrepreneurs to fill in their business knowledge gaps with services to manage their new workload.

That sounds like a job-creating business opportunity to me; even if it is born more from government regulations rather than a purely free market need.  In the current political climate, though, it would be an improvement.

With the JournoList fiasco mercifully wheezing through its final lap, TIME contributor Joe Klein laments the death of his favorite online clubhouse.  Though Klein makes a manful effort to equate sharing emails off the record with sharing information and banter over drinks or dinner, he’s ultimately unconvincing.  The biggest difference between informal emails and informal person-to-person chats is that the former is written down, the latter is not.  A 40 year veteran of journalism like Klein ought to know that; especially when the substance of the correspondence is so nakedly partisan.

Besides, if it’s ever revealed that a group of U.S. Senators maintain a semi-secret email list for sharing off-color riffs and strategy sessions for undermining rivals, I suspect Joe Klein, author of Primary Colors, won’t hesitate to make a few bucks off being the first to break the story.

Former Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) entered the pathway of clear thinking statesmanship when he authored The Negro Family: The Case for National Action, a landmark study on the forces ripping apart the black family and with it, black society.  The study became known colloquially as The Moynihan Report, catapulting a little known LBJ aide into the serious conversations about national policy.

A similar moon shot might happen to Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) after publishing an article calling for the abolition of affirmative action programs.  Though the entire column should be read, here are words that should ring true to all Americans:

Where should we go from here? Beyond our continuing obligation to assist those African-Americans still in need, government-directed diversity programs should end.

Nondiscrimination laws should be applied equally among all citizens, including those who happen to be white. The need for inclusiveness in our society is undeniable and irreversible, both in our markets and in our communities. Our government should be in the business of enabling opportunity for all, not in picking winners. It can do so by ensuring that artificial distinctions such as race do not determine outcomes.

Memo to my fellow politicians: Drop the Procrustean policies and allow harmony to invade the public mindset. Fairness will happen, and bitterness will fade away.

Much like Moynihan’s salvo over the bow of LBJ’s ‘War on Poverty,’ Webb’s contribution to America’s race talks is unexpected.  Webb’s words also echo the color blind sentiments in Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech and Chief Justice John Roberts’ commonsense observation that “the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”
If nothing else, may Eric “(America is) a nation of cowards (on race)” Holder is congratulating Senator Webb for manning up and offering his thoughts…

In today’s Wall Street Journal constitutional law professor Randy Barnett makes an intriguing connection between the anti-government anger of millions of Americans and a currently accepted legal theory that may overturn ObamaCare’s individual mandate.

He notes that twice in the 1990s, the high court struck down federal mandates against state governments—one requiring legislatures to pass laws dealing with the transport of nuclear waste, and one mandating that police conduct background checks on gun buyers—saying they amounted to unconstitutional “commandeering” under the 10th Amendment. That amendment is usually thought of as protecting states’ rights, but note the final four words: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

“What is the individual mandate?” Mr. Barnett says. “I’ll tell you what the individual mandate, in reality, is. It is a commandeering of the people. . . . Now, is there a rule of law preventing that? No. Why isn’t there a rule of law preventing that? Because it’s never been done before. What’s bothering people about the mandate? This fact. It’s intuitive to them. People don’t even know how to explain it, but there’s something different about this, because it’s a commandeering of the people as a whole. . . . We commandeer people to serve in the military, to serve on juries, and to file a return and pay their taxes. That’s all we commandeer the people to do. This is a new kind of commandeering, and it’s offensive to a lot of people.”

Kudos to Barnett for providing a legal rationale for the frustration felt by millions of Tea Party activists.  Hopefully, swing voter Justice Anthony Kennedy is listening.

The Obama Administration’s answer is to impose a blizzard of new regulations on industries like higher education, health care and now private business that make the federal government a national repository of TMI – too much information.

With news today that the White House is “backing legislation that includes regulations requiring U.S. businesses to provide to the government data about employee pay as it relates to sex, race and national origin of employees” another Democrat strategy is becoming clear.

Goal:

• Enforce liberal social engineering through complex litigation and class action lawsuits against for-profit and non-profit institutions that fail to promote the “uniform diversity” mandated by liberal elites.

Means:

• Pass laws that require the targeted institutions to self-report every possible way they interact with favored liberal interest groups.
• Data mine those reports for evidence of unsatisfactory compliance with political correctness standards.  Then label it “discrimination”.
• Pass more laws prohibiting the newly discovered discrimination.
• Allow liberal law firms like the ACLU – or the Holder Justice Department – to sue on behalf of the groups discriminated against.

This is not a joke.  Each time the Democrats in Congress pass a new “comprehensive reform” one of the components requires detailed self-reporting.  Right now, we’re told it’s just for information purposes.  In a year or two…

Once CFIF reported on the outrageous compensation packages of top city officials in Bell, CA, the city council announced the following resignations just after midnight today: Chief Administrative Officer Robert Rizzo ($787,637 annual salary); Assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia ($376,288); and Police Chief Randy Adams ($457,000).

Although none of the three will get severance packages when they leave, all will get substantial taxpayer-funded pensions not to work.

Rizzo would be entitled to a state pension of more than $650,000 a year for life, according to calculations made by the Times. That would make Rizzo, 56, the highest-paid retiree in the state pension system.

Adams could get more than $411,000 a year.

Spaccia, 51, could be eligible for as much as $250,000 a year when she reaches 55, though the figure is less precise than for the other two officials, the Times said.

The reason these pensions are so high is simple.  In California, many state workers get pension awards based on their highest income earning year.  All the years of lower pay – decades’ worth! – are ignored.  Since the pension amount is a percentage of the worker’s best paid year, abuse is rampant.

Anyone familiar with the system knows a police officer, firefighter, state nurse or other public employee who arranges to get tons of overtime during their last 1 to 3 years of service.  Since overtime boosts a person’s highest annual income amount, it inflates the resulting pension percentage.  This allows thousands of California public employees to retire in their 50s making hundreds of thousands of dollars per year – for life – not to work.

In fact, that’s exactly the kind of retirement Bell Police Chief Randy Adams was enjoying when Bell officials approached him for the job.  Adams had retired as the police chief of Glendale, CA, and said he would only work for Bell if the city paid both his $165,000 annual salary and the amount he was making in retirement.  If we subtract $165,000 from his annual compensation of $457,000, we can see that Adams was making $262,000 a year in retirement.

This is insane.  The public employee unions who negotiate these kinds of ridiculous contracts – and the politicians who sign off on them – have corrupted both the budget process and the integrity of their offices.  A reckoning is coming at all levels of government for precisely this kind of behavior.  The “Bell Three” are just the first of many to be rung out of office.

H/T: FoxNews.com

Who else but quixotic Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) would use the following justification?

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., broke with his party to cast the sole GOP “yes” vote on President Obama’s nominee to succeed retiring Justice John Paul Stevens. The vote was 13-6.

“What’s in Elena Kagan’s heart is that of a good person who adopts a philosophy I disagree with,” Graham said. “She will serve this nation honorably, and it would not have been someone I would have chosen, but the person who did choose, President Obama, I think chose wisely.”

Is it wise to support someone you fundamentally disagree with, and who you think will misinterpret the Constitution?  Is it honorable to vote one way in committee, and then flip-flop when the vote is before the full Senate?

And make no mistake; Graham did this because he’s trying to curry favor with the Obama Administration on another deal.  Already President Barack is using the fig leaf of Graham’s lone Republican “Aye” vote to claim Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan has “bipartisan” support.

Though Graham won’t be up for reelection until 2014, Chris Cilizza is already speculating on possible primary opponents.

According to some economists, deflation is the biggest financial risk to the American economy.  In a nutshell, deflation means prices are decreasing, which is usually caused by merchants trying to stimulate declining demand by selling goods cheaper.  If the lower prices don’t sell, people get laid off, factories shut down and there is no joy in Mudville.

It turns out that many Republican Senate candidates are threatening their own version of deflation; part economic, part emotional.  Former presidential speechwriter Marc Thiessen shows that many of the favored GOP Senate challengers are, in fact, big spenders.   Mark Kirk (IL), Mike Castle (DE), Roy Blunt (MO) and John Hoeven (ND) – even one-time Tea Party darling Scott Brown (MA) – are all “vetted” politicians whose records predict senators who will be voting “Yes” when it comes to spending in the national interest.

In an election cycle where Tea Party-backed a candidate like Sharron Angle (R-NV) is being called “wacky” for daring to suggest Social Security should be privatized, it’s easy to overlook the fact that Republican control of the Senate may not have much effect on the chamber’s legislative output.

Nothing would deflate Tea Party aspirations more than a Republican Senate that could get more members to caucus with the likes of pro-stimulus, pro-financial reform Olympia Snowe (R-ME) rather than fiscal conservative stalwart Jim DeMint (R-SC).  If that happens, get ready for a third party bid that severely cripples the Republican brand.

For an easy-to-understand introduction (or refresher) on the two economic theories competing for the hearts and minds of Western government policymakers, check out the first two-thirds of this article from investment advisor Przemyslaw Radomski.

Though it might be tempting to think of Keynesians as big spending Democrats and Austrians as limited government (or none at all) Republicans, it’s better to think of Keynesians as economists who work in government and academia, while Austrians are economists who make their money betting against Keynesian policies.  After meeting several Austrian investment advisors at last week’s Freedom Fest convention, I can tell you that Austrians are making very good money in this recession.

I link, you decide.

There’s an interesting column in Foreign Policy I commend to anyone trying to make sense out of the realignment going on in the Democratic and Republican parties.  With former president George W. Bush firmly entrenched in the public’s mind as a neoconservative nation-builder, President Barack Obama did what most political opponents do – adopt the opposite strategy.

Thus, we’ve got a Commander-in-Chief who looks and sounds a lot like former president George H. W. Bush, the highest ranking member of the foreign policy “realist” school.  To my lights, foreign policy realism is shorthand for “The world is a really dangerous place run by a lot of bad people.  Since there’s nothing we can do to change it we might as well make nice with some of the friendlier dictators.”

Perhaps that notion is correct; at least in general.  Such a view of the world helps explain why President Obama can’t seem to summon his emotions when pro-democracy marchers are killed in the streets of Tehran.  Bad people do bad things, but hey; it could be worse.

But while Jacob Heilbrunn’s Foreign Policy article does a nice job of recounting the ebb and flow of Realism’s popularity with Republicans, he seems to miss a more obvious point about the kind of politician who would be attracted to the philosophy.  Consider the presidents Heilbrunn identifies as fans: Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, George H. W. Bush, and now Barack Obama.  Their commonality?  Each president is motivated by pessimism about the world around him.

Eisenhower’s most memorable speech was his farewell address warning about a military-industrial complex.  Nixon had enemies’ lists.  Bush didn’t see the value of “the vision thing” and preferred to talk shop with elites instead of connecting with everyday citizens.  And then there’s Obama.  He might be the most negatively-oriented president we’ve had since Nixon.  The reason America needs “Hope” and “Change” is because everything is currently broken.  Besides, who are Americans to lecture the world on morals when it’s so obvious to Progressive faculty members that the United States is probably at fault for their problems?

Foreign policy realism may be a necessary corrective to neoconservative empire-building, but realism’s lack of popularity doesn’t mean it is right; just that if offers an unsatisfying view of the world.

In the video below Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) is out stumping for his Roadmap for America’s Future, a comprehensive reform plan that actually focuses on reforming existing government policies and programs; not creating new ones.  Early on he addresses the observation that politicians who put out detailed plans get criticized, and sometimes lose their jobs.  Ryan would rather take the chance that commonsense people are ready to have a real discussion about getting America’s fiscal house in order.

May the 2010 midterm elections bring more people like Paul Ryan to Congress.

Seemingly, there is no end to the vitriol – subtle and otherwise – that leftist filmmakers are able to conjure up for movies about conservative political leaders.  In the latter half of his presidency George W. Bush was the depicted as a mentally unstable frat boy in the movie W and as an assassination target in Death of a President.

Now, Britain’s most consequential (and best) statesman since Winston Churchill will be portrayed as suffering from dementia while regretting her political career.  Not content to let former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s legacy be ignored by nearly all leaders in modern British politics, the people behind the film The Iron Lady are getting Meryl Streep to help create a storyline that isn’t true.  Yes, Thatcher is declining mentally, and I’m sure she regrets the fact that her party lacked the courage to maintain her defense of free markets and traditional British culture.  But that’s a far cry from regretting the very ideas that made her successful.

Is this kind of character assassination the only kind of creativity the film industry is capable of anymore when it comes to political figures?  If so, where’s the movie about an elderly version of Bill Clinton recounting all his life’s missed opportunities and wasted moments of self-indulgence?  Where is the TV mini-series about the epic match-up of egos between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama?  They could call it The Plastic Lady v. The Gen-X Candidate.  The series could explore all the psychological problems propelling the main characters to forsake healthy family relationships and a normal life for the chance to run everyone else’s.

But maybe those stories would be too boring.  After all, there’d be almost no suspense.

For now, I’ll sit back and hope that Streep’s Iron Lady is at least as insightful as Helen Mirren’s portrayal of Elizabeth II in The Queen.  As Mirren’s Academy Award for Best Actress demonstrates, even Oscar likes a performance that advances more than just a political agenda.

National Reivew’s Victor Davis Hanson joins the call to get Eric Holder out of the Attorney General’s office with a parade of horribles similar to CFIF’s position.  With all the evils confronting American law enforcement – a drug-fueled Mexican civil war, human trafficking, and terrorist threats from naturalized citizens like Faisal Shahzad – it is stunning to think that the nation’s top prosecutor can’t seem to see his job as anything other than the highest profile assignment desk of the ACLU.

Hopefully, it won’t take an avoidable tragedy to convince President Barack Obama that Holder is a national liability as long as stays at his post.