May 2012

Government social workers have an incentive to overreact to erroneous allegations of child abuse, and take children away from loving parents, because they reasonably fear that they will be fired if a child on their caseload dies, even if the death was unforeseeable. (The problem is even worse in England, fueled by adoption bonuses). Children seized and placed into foster care often experience devastating psychological harm.

Washington, D.C.’s Child and Family Services agency (where 6 case workers were recently fired after a child died) seized the twin baby daughters of Greg and Juliana Caplan after one was taken to the hospital for bleeding behind the eye. According to the Examiner, “doctors said the bleeding was not caused by shaking” or other abuse, but the Caplans still had to go to court and wait two weeks to get their daughters back. Their reputations are tainted by their being listed on the city’s child protection register, even though a judge ruled there were no “reasonable grounds” to believe that their daughter was abused.

Even if social workers snatch a child in violation of the Constitution, the child is placed in foster care, and the child is then psychologically destroyed by abuse during foster care, the social workers are typically qualified immunity. A classic example of that is Doe v. Lebbos, 348 F.3d 820 (9th Cir. 2003), a case where a little girl was seized from a loving father and left so traumatized by her time in foster care that she developed severe behavioral disorders. The social workers got no penalty at all. In dissent, Judge Andrew Kleinfeld described the tragedy that befell the child:

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I find it ironic for Virginia State Delegate Dave Albo to decry businesses being “scammed,” when he has built a reputation for  pushing grossly punitive aggressive driving and DUI laws at the same time that his law firm specializes in, among other things, defending DUI cases.

The Virginia General Assembly last year voted to let counties increase their commercial property tax in order to pay for new transportation projects. The counties promised they would spend it on new projects. Business groups didn’t fight the tax increase because they were desperate to see transportation improvements that would enable customers to shop and go to work without being stuck in gridlock.

But soon after the tax increase was enacted, Fairfax County decided to instead divert the money from new transportation projects to pre-existing expenses, like inflated employee salaries and existing bus routes. As always, public employee salaries take priority over investing in the future — and the promises made by politicians. As Dave Albo (R-Springfield) notes, businesses are being scammed.

Meanwhile, wealthy Arlington County, which has been on a “decade-long spending spree,” is raising property taxes to fund the unusually generous pensions and health benefits of county employees, who are already paid better than private sector employees. (Private sector employees in the County typically have no employer-financed pension at all.) The county claims to be tightening its belt, but county general fund spending is going up by 5 percent. The average American’s salary didn’t increase by that much over the past year.

The Supreme Court decided two discrimination cases this week that confirm that the Supreme Court is not “pro-business “in discrimination cases, as liberal journalists claim. I discuss them at PointofLaw. Examples include one ruling (Federal Express v. Holowecki) that’s anti-business, and another ruling that’s neutral towards business.

Today, I also discussed how courts can be downright hostile to employers in sexual harassment cases, engaging in a game of bait-and-switch to first hold them liable and then maximize the damages that plaintiffs can collect. Earlier, I discussed judicial double standards in harassment cases and judges’ indulgence towards trial lawyers who seek to inflame juries with prejudicial appeals.

The Supreme Court has generally been less sympathetic to employers than the average federal appeals court. Business groups should think twice before seeking Supreme Court review of decisions that trouble them — they might get an even worse opinion from the Supreme Court than they got from the lower court, as happened in Burlington Northern v. White (2006), a case I described here (which defined prohibited “retaliation” so broadly as to raise possible First Amendment issues for employers).

With talk of recession, inflation, and stagnation dominating financial news, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, in his written testimony to the House Financial Services Committee, today gave a sobering but yet not overly pessimistic view of the U.S. economy, which was followed closely by investors.

Bernanke noted the widespread effects of the subprime mortgage crisis in the housing and credit markets. The growth in job creation has slowed, and unemployment has inched up. But he said that there were some encouraging signs in the nonfinancial markets:

In the consumer sector, he noted that consumer spending has slowed somewhat as the fall in housing prices has affected their net worth, and consumers are facing higher costs for energy and food.

But he said that there were some encouraging signs in the nonfinancial markets:

On a more encouraging note, we see few signs of any serious imbalances in business inventories aside from the overhang of unsold homes. And, as a whole, the nonfinancial business sector remains in good financial condition, with strong profits, liquid balance sheets, and corporate leverage near historical lows.

Bernanke also pointed to the continued strength of the U.S. export market. He said that real exports “increased at an annual rate of about 11 percent in the second half of last year, boosted by continuing economic growth abroad and the lower foreign exchange value of the dollar.”

In terms of the Fed’s response to credit tightening in interbank lending, Bernanke noted that the Fed has set up a term auction facility, “through which prespecified amounts of discount window credit are auctioned to eligible borrowers.” He also said that the Fed would monitor the monetary situation closely and was prepared to take timely steps if warranted.

That statement was interpreted by investors as indicating the Fed might lower interest rates in the future to stimulate the economy, if needed.

Biofuels have recently come under attack from their erstwhile supporters in the liberal environmentalist movement for increasing greenhouse gas emissions. Now it’s the turn of the plug-in hybrid. So much for the “Who killed the electric car?” line of argument.

The fact is that environmentalists won’t be satisfied until personal automobility is crippled and we are all living within walking distance of “sustainable” work. For those who want to “save the planet,” however, there will be exemptions.

William F. Buckley, Jr. passed away today. How very sad. For some libertarians, it all started with Rand. For me, it started with Buckley.

WFB was my guiding light through those formative years in the 1960s when the “anti-war” (pro-Hanoi) movement, the New Left, and the counter-culture were in full cry.

Though vastly outnumbered in high school by peers and teachers mouthing cliches of socialism, appeasement, and moral relativism, I confidently debated any and all comers, armed with facts and arguments from National Review, Firing Line, and a slew of books by WFB and other NR columnists, and emboldened by his courage, brilliance, and wit.

Very likely I would not have read Mises and Hayek in my teens, attended Claremont McKenna College (a school hospitable to conservative students and faculty), studied there with Harry Jaffa (the great Lincoln and Aristotle scholar whom Buckley esteemed), or pursued graduate studies in political philosophy had WFB not opened my young eyes to the perils of statism and the excitement of the war of ideas.

WFB’s contribution to American politics and civilization should not be underestimated. Would the Reagan Presidency–critical to the demise of Soviet communism–have even been possible without the conservative movement WFB did so much to found and nurture? I doubt it.

Although never personally associated with WFB, I always felt a personal fondness for him that went beyond admiration for his talents and contributions. I’m sure many others share this feeling. He will be missed.

GAO FINDS FEDERAL DATA PROTECTION LAGGING
“The GAO says that despite a steady stream of embarrassing computer security breaches, many major U.S. federal agencies still are doing too little to safeguard the sensitive personal information in their possession. Only two of 24 agencies studied by the GAO in a report released last week had implemented all five security measures recommended by the Office of Management and Budget to protect personal information.”

A new CEI paper by one of our fellows–okay, me–outlines the five dumbest product bans we could find in the United States. My personal (least) favorite is a Louisiana law that threatens children with $250 fines if they sell wildflower bouquets without having passed a florist’s exam. Admittedly, writing the paper was sort of like shooting fish in a barrel: the bans we picked are so clearly absurd that I simply can’t figure out how legislators have managed to pass them without snickering. (Although one, a ban on a medical device to assist with CPR, stems from regulation rather than statute.) In addition to the wildflower and CPR device bans, we also picked bans on playing online poker against friends, marketing sex toys–which, under the law could include a simple feather in sufficiently sexualized packaging–and drinking Sangria. To celebrate the bans, we’re planning a Sangria party co-sponsored with our friends at the America’s Future Foundation. Come on, it’ll be fun!