Democrats want the federal budget to be about $3,730,000,000,000. Republicans want it to be about $3,630,000,000,000. As with many other issues, the difference between the two parties is less than three percent. Even so, it nearly led to a federal government shutdown.
The deal that the two parties recently struck to avoid a government shutdown meets somewhere in the between. It is advertised as cutting $38.5 billion of spending. But on closer inspection, it would actually cut $14.7 billion. That would cut total federal spending by 0.39 percent.
I have a hunch that even those small cuts may not actually happen. This blog post I wrote in 2005 explains why.
The rules of the game in Washington are severely stacked in favor of spending increases. Presidents Bush and Obama grew the federal government by about 100 percent in only a decade with little political pain. And it apparently takes the specter of a government shutdown to reduce spending by 0.39 percent.
If anyone is looking for a reason for fundamental institutional reform, that would be a big one.
Sometimes the green part of green regulations isn’t the environment. It’s money.
Economics says that people act according to their incentives. Public choice theorists say that politicians and regulators also act according to their incentives — just like the rest of us. Those incentives include maximizing agency budgets and winning elections.
This short video from Reason.tv shows public choice theory in action:
Helicopter parents — constantly hovering over their children — have their heart in the right place. But that style of parenting has always struck me as… unnecessary.
My former professor Bryan Caplan agrees. He has a new book out that’s based on his research on identical twins. As it turns out, a lot of how kids will turn out as adults is based on nature, not nurture. The implication: parents can ease up on the high-maintenance parenting style that is so fashionable today.
In The Wall Street Journal, Caplan writes, “With a few exceptions, the effect of parenting on adult outcomes ranges from small to zero.”
He continues:
Once I became a dad, I noticed that parents around me had a different take on the power of nurture. I saw them turning parenthood into a chore—shuttling their kids to activities even the kids didn’t enjoy, forbidding television, desperately trying to make their babies eat another spoonful of vegetables. Parents’ main rationale is that their effort is an investment in their children’s future; they’re sacrificing now to turn their kids into healthy, smart, successful, well-adjusted adults. But according to decades of twin research, their rationale is just, well, wrong.
A public elementary school in Chicago has banned brown bag lunches. Little Village Academy Principal Elsa Carmona says the purpose of the ban is to ensure that students are eating nutritious cafeteria lunches instead of outside junk food.
Of course, the students at Little Village Academy are less than thrilled. The Chicago Tribunereports:
Fernando Dominguez cut the figure of a young revolutionary leader during a recent lunch period at his elementary school.
“Who thinks the lunch is not good enough?” the seventh-grader shouted to his lunch mates in Spanish and English.
Dozens of hands flew in the air and fellow students shouted along: “We should bring our own lunch! We should bring our own lunch! We should bring our own lunch!”
Here’s a bit of news that didn’t get too much attention – China had a first quarter 2011 trade deficit. It’s the country’s first quarterly deficit in 7 years. China’s deficit of $1.02 billion is partly attributed to rising demand for goods and services in the country and higher global commodity prices.
In relation to the U.S. trade deficit, here’s what economist Don Boudreaux had to say — that one should not unduly fear trade deficits because they indicate substantial investment in a country, which leads to job creation.
The Education Department is trying to change the burden of proof that many colleges and universities use in disciplinary proceedings over sexual harassment, despite court rulings undermining its position. Effectively, it is legislating through administrative fiat, in a way that is arbitrary and capricious.
Many school disciplinary systems give accused people a firm presumption of innocence, requiring clear-and-convincing evidence of guilt for formal discipline. There is generally no exception for people accused of sexual harassment, who are thus entitled to the same due-process protections as everyone else.
In an April 4 “Dear Colleague” letter reminding schools that sexual violence can constitute sexual harassment in violation of federal law, the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) called this well-established presumption of innocence into question. It claimed that schools cannot use a clear-and-convincing standard of proof typical in school disciplinary procedures for sexual harassment cases: “A school’s grievance procedures must use the preponderance of the evidence standard to resolve complaints of sex discrimination.” See Dear Colleague Letter: Sexual Violence Background, Summary and Fast Facts. “Preponderance of the evidence” means that if a school thinks there is as little as a 51 per chance that the accused is guilty, the accused must still be disciplined.
The Education Department’s position is based on a misunderstanding of who is subject to Title IX, the federal law banning schools from committing sex discrimination. Title IX’s requirements apply to schools, not individual students.
“Farm Subsidies: Sacred Cows No More” is the headline of the WSJ April 9 article. Agricultural subsidies, in a period where budget cuts are de rigeur, may no longer be sacrosanct, noted the article. With farmers making record profits, yet still getting heavily subsidized, some policy makers are setting their sights on direct payments to farmers of about $5 billion per year. Last year total farm subsidies were about $15 billion.
Corn farmers are the ones who benefit most, with about $2.1 billion of those direct payments going to them.
Even some industry organizations see the need for some cuts in agricultural support:
Roger Johnson, president of the National Farmers Union, said the direct subsidies have become indefensible because they don’t go to farmers who need them to survive tough times.
Most of the payments go to the largest farmers in the U.S., given the amount of land they own. From 2002, when the program was expanded, through 2010, the top 10% of recipients received 67% of the funds, according to David DeGennaro, an Environmental Working Group legislative analyst.
What’s encouraging about the changing mood toward farm subsidies is that some influential policymakers are on board and are looking at agricultural support for some needed cuts.
Mr. Lucas of Oklahoma, the Republican chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, said in an interview that direct payments were fair game for lawmakers looking to cut spending next year. He still wants to resist some cuts, a point of view he outlined in a March 15 letter to the House Budget Committee written with Rep. Collin Peterson (D., Minn.). He didn’t specify what might be protected.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.), however, suggested earlier this month that farm subsidies were a likely budget-cutting target. He didn’t specify which programs, but said, “Commodity price for farms, farm products have never been—never been higher than they are today. There’s money there.”
AEI’s Claude Barfield posted an insightful comment on the new labor requirements the U.S. foisted on Colombia in connection with the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement. Barfield rightly pointed out the U.S. is taking a swipe at the sovereignty of another nation and is interfering in its domestic labor market. As he notes:
Among the more egregious demands, Colombia has acquiesced to “criminalize” (with prison terms of up to five years) any acts that “undermine the right to organize and bargain collectively.” It must also pass a law dictating prison terms for anyone who “offers a collective pact to non-union workers that is superior to terms for union workers.” No definition of “undermine” or “superior terms,” of course, is set forth. Such vague mandates are an invitation to harassment and extortion. Further, Colombia must assume heavy administrative and enforcement obligations that will stretch resources and constrict the government’s flexibility to adjust as labor (or other) conditions change in the future—including mandates on the number of inspectors, prosecutors, and police labor investigators, a plethora of new legislative actions, programs, analyses, directives, and consultations/meetings in the labor relations area. Some of these ideas have worth, but the attempted straitjacket of mandated priorities will breed endless disputes down the road.
The new agreement to be added to the trade agreement is called “Action Plan Related to Labor Rights.” The country agrees to draft and submit changes to its Criminal Code to penalize employers for actions that “undermine the right to organize and bargain collectively.” It will also be a crime, subject to imprisonment, to use collective pacts to undermine the right to organize and employers won’t be able to use those pacts to give non-union workers better benefits.
The plan also will force Colombia to set up a Labor Ministry, hire and fund 480 new “labor inspectors” under the civil service, and set up a hot-line and a web-based system to handle labor complaints. But that’s not all Colombia is agreeing to. One hundred of those labor inspectors will focus on specific industry sectors: palm oil, sugar, mines, ports, and flowers and conduct “preventive inspections.” There will also be a new outreach plan so that workers will know their rights.
There’s lots more, including drafting numerous new regulations to address the issue of worker cooperatives, and, of course, the U.S. will review those as well. Timetables for all of these requirements are listed.
Copyright term extension will be voted this week: “Monday or Tuesday this upcoming week there will be another round in the fight against prolonging the copyright protection term for recorded music in the EU. Now is an opportunity to contact MEPs, Members of the European Parliament, and persuade them to vote against the term extension.”
Global Warming / Environment / Energy:
Drivers Start to Cut Back on Gas as Prices Rise: “With the price of gas above $3.50 a gallon in all but one state, there are signs that Americans are cutting back on driving, reversing a steady increase in demand for fuel as the economy improves.”
New 7.1 quake hits Japan as evacuation zone widens: “Japan on Monday widened the evacuation zone around a stricken nuclear plant exactly a month on from a huge natural disaster as another 7.1 magnitude quake and tsunami alert strained nerves anew.”
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