Wire Report

Justin Logan -Associate Director of Foreign Policy Studies, The CATO Institute

Justin Logan is associate director of foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute. He is an expert on U.S. grand strategy, international relations theory, and American foreign policy. His current research focuses on the formation of U.S. grand strategy under unipolarity; the growing role of counterinsurgency (COIN) and nation building in U.S. foreign policy; and the intellectual lineage of COIN. He has authored numerous policy studies and articles on topics including international relations theory, U.S. China policy, U.S. Russia policy, stabilization and reconstruction operations, and the policy approaches to a nuclear Iran. His articles have appeared in the Harvard International Review, The National Interest, Orbis, the Foreign Service Journal, The American Conservative, Reason, The American Prospect, National Review Online, the Chicago Sun-Times and other publications. He has made regular appearances on a variety of broadcast media including the BBC, MSNBC, Fox News, Voice of America, and others. Logan holds a master’s degree in international relations from the University of Chicago and a bachelor’s degree in international relations from American University. He lives in Washington, DC.

(WIRE/CATO) – Recent war games and public statements from U.S. military commanders are reinforcing what should have been clear some time ago: A U.S. or Israeli attack against Iran would have significant but unpredictable consequences.

American and Israeli intelligence on the Iranian nuclear program is of uneven quality, but excellent, near-perfect intelligence would be required to make any strike successful. There is the real possibility that an attack would set back Iran’s progress by only a few years, while rallying Iranian citizens around the regime they seem to be increasingly challenging at present. The Iranians have a host of asymmetric capabilities, some of which they would likely use to respond to a foreign attack. This could complicate the American withdrawal from Iraq and ongoing operations in Afghanistan, and potentially cost American and Israeli (to say nothing of Iranian) lives. Most importantly, there is the prospect of an escalation spiral that could lead to a full-blown war and possibly regime change in Iran followed by chaos, potentially across the region.

Beyond immediate policy questions, though, there are general lessons for U.S. foreign policy: Military violence is a tool of limited utility. American threats can frighten weaker countries, encouraging them to seek nuclear deterrents. Willful diplomatic isolation is counterproductive. Finally, inserting ourselves as the balancer-of-first-resort in every region of the world is a costly and unnecessary strategy that discards America’s natural strategic advantages and plays to our weaknesses. The sooner these lessons are digested by the U.S. foreign policy elite, the better.

Wire Report

Sheldon Richman, Editor “The Freeman”

Sheldon Richman is editor of The Freeman, published by The Foundation for Economic Education in Irvington, New York, and serves as senior fellow at The Future of Freedom Foundation. He is the author of FFF’s award-winning book Separating School & State: How to Liberate America’s Families; Your Money or Your Life: Why We Must Abolish the Income Tax; and FFF’s newest book Tethered Citizens: Time to Repeal the Welfare State. Calling for the abolition, not the reform, of public schooling. Separating School & State has become a landmark book in both libertarian and educational circles. In his column in the Financial Times, Michael Prowse wrote: “I recommend a subversive tract, Separating School & State by Sheldon Richman of the Cato Institute, a Washington think tank… . I also think that Mr. Richman is right to fear that state education undermines personal responsibility…” Mr. Richman’s articles on population, federal disaster assistance, international trade, education, the environment, American history, foreign policy, privacy, computers, and the Middle East have appeared in the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, American Scholar, Chicago Tribune, USA Today, Washington Times, Insight, Cato Policy Report, Journal of Economic Development, The Freeman, The World & I, Reason, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Middle East Policy, Liberty magazine, and other publications. He is a contributor to the Fortune Encyclopedia of Economics. A former newspaper reporter and former senior editor at the Cato Institute, Mr. Richman is a graduate of Temple University in Philadelphia.

WIRE (FFF) – Last week’s Supreme Court ruling striking down the ban on corporate and union spending at election time is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, removing a legal barrier to free speech is always a good thing in itself. Government shouldn’t dictate who can speak or from where people may get their information. This is more than a matter of abstract freedom; it’s also a practical matter. More contentiousness in politics is better than less. Free-wheeling debate is more likely to produce good outcomes than a controlled flow of information.

But there is a downside to the ruling that we should freely acknowledge. If history and recent times are any indication, big corporations and unions will use their new freedom of political speech to promote bad ideas. By “bad ideas” I mean proposals for more government interference with our lives and liberty. (Not that the spending ban kept them from doing that in other ways.)

It’s a great myth that businesses, especially big prominent corporations, want less government intervention in the economy. On the contrary, they love government power because it provides things they can’t achieve in a freely competitive marketplace where force and fraud are barred. Corporations support and lobby for interventions that benefit themselves by hampering their competitors, both foreign and domestic. You often find companies asking for tariffs and other restrictions on imports that compete too effectively with their products. Agribusinesses welcome government (taxpayer) help in selling their products abroad; they also love subsidies, price supports, and acreage allotments.

Businesses, despite public impression, routinely support regulations imposing product standards and other requirements. Why? Burdens from government rules don’t fall uniformly on all firms. Major corporations with big legal and accounting departments can handle regulations far more easily than small firms can — or one that is still only a gleam in the eye of an aspiring entrepreneur. Moreover, when government dictates product standards, say in the name of safety, it removes that factor from the competitive arena, giving companies less incentive to outdo their competitors along that dimension. This means fewer threats to the market share of incumbent firms and less chance for new challengers to make headway. It also means inferior and more expensive goods for consumers.

CITIZENS UNITED v. FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION 01/21/2010 Slip Ruling PDF 2.56Mb

In American history big companies were behind virtually ever advancement of the regulatory state. Things are no different today — even under Barack Obama. It’s easy to be fooled by appearances. Banks may balk at a new regulation, but only because they prefer their government privileges with as few restrictions as possible. Major corporations lobby for new controls on and subsidies to energy production not out of concern for the environment, but because they stand to gain profits. The government is literally seen as a tool for enhancing their investments. Instead of decisions being made by entrepreneurs trying to anticipate what consumers will want, they are made on the basis of cronyism and other political considerations.

Often big companies and unions are on the same side of regulatory issues, as when the heads of Walmart and the Service Employees International Union stood shoulder to shoulder to support Obamacare. But even when they disagree, it is usually over how government should manipulate the economic system. The debate is never between regulation and hands-off.

Admittedly this is not the way the story is usually told. Business is thought to favor deregulation, while progressive forces favor enlightened government guidance. But in fact, big business (and a lot of small business too) would panic at the thought of thorough laissez faire — the end to all guarantees. The books of conservative writer Timothy Carney fully document this. Others have an interest in portraying business as pro–free markets because without the charade the public might catch on to the scam.

So here’s the dilemma: limits on free political speech for corporations and unions offend our sense of justice, but they will use free speech to pursue unjust ends. What shall we do?

There is only one answer. We must strip government of the power to dispense privileges to anyone. If we can pull that off, the problem of money in politics will evaporate.

© 2001-2009 The Future of Freedom Foundation. All rights reserved.

Wire Report

Jim Harper, Director of Information Policy Studies

As director of information policy studies, Jim Harper focuses on the difficult problems of adapting law and policy to the unique problems of the information age. Harper is a member of the Department of Homeland Security’s Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee. His work has been cited by USA Today, the Associated Press, and Reuters. He has appeared on Fox News Channel, CBS, and MSNBC, and other media. His scholarly articles have appeared in the Administrative Law Review, the Minnesota Law Review, and the Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly. Recently, Harper wrote the book Identity Crisis: How Identification Is Overused and Misunderstood. Harper is the editor of Privacilla.org, a Web-based think tank devoted exclusively to privacy, and he maintains online federal spending resource WashingtonWatch.com. He holds a J.D. from UC Hastings College of Law.

CATO- Thanks to the push for a more transparent Congress, we’re getting a better look at what new health care regulations might shape up to be. Alas, not a very good look: with weak justifications, the Senate Finance Committee is working on a strange “plain language” description of the bill, and apparently not planning to read or release the final language¹.

I’ve found something worth noting, though, in each of the bill versions I’ve seen. The Senate Finance Committee’s Rube Goldberg plan for health care in America has a provision establishing paragraph talking about “Eligibility Verification.”

If you want to access the “state exchanges” or collect the federal tax credits created by the bill, your eligibility will have to be verified. Here’s what it says:

Eligibility Verification. In order to prevent illegal immigrants from accessing the state exchanges or obtaining federal health care tax credits, the Chairman‘s Mark requires verification of the following personal data. Name, social security number, and date of birth will be verified with Social Security Administration (SSA) data. For individuals claiming to be U.S. citizens, if the claim of citizenship is consistent with SSA data then the claim will be considered substantiated. For individuals who do not claim to be U.S. citizens but claim to be lawfully present in the United States, if the claim of lawful presence is consistent with Department of Homeland Security (DHS) data then the claim will be considered substantiated. Individuals whose status is expected to expire in less than a year are not allowed to obtain the tax credit. Individuals whose claims of citizenship or lawful status cannot be verified with federal data must be allowed substantial opportunity to provide documentation or correct federal data related to their case that supports their contention.

CHAIRMAN’S MARK
AMERICA’S HEALTHY FUTURE ACT of 2009
Page 27

Translation: Every American who wants to access a “state exchange” or get the tax credits in the bill would have to submit data about themselves to the Social Security Administration or Department of Homeland Security for verification. If you don’t do it, no exchanges or tax credits. If your data doesn’t match, no exchanges or tax credits, unless you can convince SSA or DHS bureaucrats that you are who you say you are.

If you’re one of the millions of people about whom the Social Security Administration has bad data, plan to spend long hours waiting in line to plead with indifferent federal bureaucrats for health care access. When attacks and complications on the verification system break down, they’ll move to “strengthen” the system. Get ready to dig up your birth certificate—they’ll want to scan it into their computers—plan to be photographed and fingerprinted, and get ready to stand in line for your national ID card.

Related Materials
	Chairman’s Mark – America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009 (PDF 1.53 Mb)

Source(s): ¹Washington Examiner “Congressional leaders fight against posting bills online” by: Susan Ferrechio, Published Oct. 6, 2009

Wire Report

Michael D. Tanner, Senior Fellow

Michael Tanner heads research into a variety of domestic policies with a particular emphasis on health care reform, social welfare policy, and Social Security. His most recent book, Leviathan on the Right: How Big-Government Conservatism Brought Down the Republican Revolution (2007), chronicles the demise of the Republican party as it has shifted away from its limited government roots and warns that reform is necessary to avoid electoral defeat in 2008. Under Tanner’s direction, Cato launched the Project on Social Security Choice, which is widely considered the leading impetus for transforming the soon-to-be-bankrupt system into a private savings program. Time Magazine calls Tanner, “one of the architects of the private accounts movement,” and Congressional Quarterly named him one of the nation’s five most influential experts on Social Security.

Sen. Baucus (D-MT) and his fellow “Gang of Six” negotiators have labored mightily and brought forth a mouse—a steroid-enhanced, misshapen mouse, but a mouse nonetheless. In fact, despite months of work, Sen. Baucus has not actually produced a bill, but a 223-page summary of what he hopes a bill will contain. Unfortunately, without seeing actual legislative language, many questions still remain.

Here is some of what we know and don’t know:

The Good:

• The plan drops the idea of a government-run “public option” in favor of co-ops. Government involvement with these co-ops would essentially be limited to providing start-up grants. The co-ops are unlikely to have much, if any, impact on the cost or availability of health insurance, but are far preferable to a government run plan.

• The plan takes the first tentative steps toward allowing people to purchase health insurance across state lines. It would allow states to establish interstate compacts for insurance purchasing beginning in 2015. It would also allow insurers to develop national products that could be sold in any state. National plans would be exempt from state mandated benefits. This doesn’t go far enough, and risks simply transferring regulation and mandates from the state to the regional or national level, but a first read suggests it is a step in the right direction.

The Bad:

• The plan would force states to increase Medicaid eligibility to individuals at 133 percent of the poverty level, and to enroll single, childless adults. The federal government would pick up some of the increased cost; states would be responsible for at least some of the increase, a provision that will undoubtedly strain already tight state budgets.

• While the employer mandate is much watered-down, it is still there. The Baucus plan has no specific requirement for employers to provide insurance. But any employer who fails to do so would have to pay the cost of all subsidies that the government provides his or her workers to help them pay for insurance on their own, up to $400 per worker. Since it will ultimately be the worker who pays the mandate’s cost, through reduced compensation or reduced employment, the government will be giving the worker a subsidy with one hand, and taking it back with the other.

• The bill would cut payments to the Medicare Advantage program. In response, many insurers may stop participating in the program, while others could increase the premiums they charge seniors. Millions of seniors will likely be forced off their current plan and back into traditional Medicare.

The Ugly

• The Baucus plan contains a heavily punitive individual mandate, a requirement that every American purchase a government-designed minimum insurance package. Failure to comply would result in a fine that could run as high as $3,800 for a family of four. Moreover, the mandate may not apply just to those without insurance today. While the summary says that those with “grandfathered” plans would not have to change their current plan to satisfy the mandate, it is vague about what qualifies as “grandfathered.” The summary also says that employer-provided plans would have to be changed within five years to comply with new insurance regulations, and that “grandfathered” plans would not be eligible for any subsidies. It is unclear, therefore, whether people will be able to keep their current plans.

• The Baucus plan imposes a 35 percent excise tax on health insurance plans that offer benefits in excess of $8,000. Insurers would almost certainly pass this tax on to consumers in the form of higher premiums. Roughly half of Americans, mostly middle-class, would be impacted. There are also “fees” on prescription drug companies, medical device manufacturers, and clinical laboratories. This is simply a way of hiding taxes, and will result in higher health care costs that will be passed on to consumers.

Related Material(s)
	Chairman’s Mark – “America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009″ a.k.a “Baucus Bill” (PDF 1.2 Mb)
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	Michael D. Tanner discusses health care reform on WBT’s “The Tara Servatius Show” (Charlotte, NC)

Wire Report

Neal McCluskey

Neal McCluskey is the associate director of Cato’s Center for Educational Freedom. Prior to arriving at Cato, McCluskey served in the U.S. Army, taught high school English, and was a freelance reporter covering municipal government and education in suburban New Jersey. More recently, he was a policy analyst at the Center for Education Reform. McCluskey is the author of the book Feds in the Classroom: How Big Government Corrupts, Cripples, and Compromises American Education, and his writings have appeared in such publications as the Wall Street Journal, Baltimore Sun, and Forbes. In addition to his written work, McCluskey has appeared on C-SPAN, CNN, the Fox News Channel, and numerous radio programs. McCluskey holds a master’s degree in political science from Rutgers University.

Hey Obama, Leave Those Kids Alone

(CATO, Neal McCluskey) -  It’s one thing for a president to encourage all kids to work hard and stay in school – that’s a reasonable use of the bully pulpit. It’s another thing entirely, however, to have the U.S. Department of Education send detailed instructions to public schools nationwide on how to glorify the president and the presidency, and push them to drive social change. Frighteningly, this is what President Obama has done.

In anticipation of the president’s planned September 8 address to students nationwide, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan sent a letter and detailed “classroom activities” to schools with all sorts of troubling buzzwords and guidance. In his letter, Duncan asserts that the work of educators is “critical to…our social progress.” It’s a statement that strongly suggests – as many educators have held and continue to hold – that it is the job of public schools to impose values, often collectivist, on students.

The fear that this might be the case is reinforced by classroom activities for pre-K-6 students that encourages children to make posters setting out “community and country” goals. Perhaps even more frightening is the lesson schools are pushed to teach that it is important to listen to “the President and other elected officials.” Possibly most distressing of all, though, is guidance that appears explicitly designed to glorify both the presidency and President Obama himself, encouraging schools to prepare for the speech “by reading books about presidents and Barack Obama.” And schools are told to ask students how president Obama will “inspire” them in his speech before he gives it, and how they were inspired after Obama has spoken.

This is very disturbing, making crystal clear the huge dangers of government controlling education. Ultimately, politicians will use power over education to indoctrinate children, something completely antithetical to a free society. And this is just the starkest manifestation of the inherent problem with government control of education. Every day free people are pitted against one another in defense of their freedom and basic values because they all have to support a single system of government schools. Evolution vs. creationism. Prayer in school. Books with offensive material in schools libraries. Decisions over whose history will be taught, and whose won’t.

The curtailment of freedom goes on and on when government takes everyone’s money and provides schools with it. Which is why the only system of learning compatible with a truly free society is a system of school choice – public education, not schooling – in which the public assures that all people can access education, but parents are free to choose their children’s schools, and educators are free to educate how they wish.

The Smoking Argus

CATO OFFICIAL STATEMENT – Republican U.S. Representative Ron Paul wants to audit the Federal Reserve. At the Cato Institute June 24, 2009, Congressman Paul made his case on behalf of greater transparency in how the Fed makes its decisions. Ron Paul represents the 14th Congressional District in Texas.

—End Official Statement—

Source(s): The CATO Institute Official YouTube Channel