foreign policy

William Lind’s Absurd “Conservative Case” for More Transit [Waste]

by Marc Scribner on October 25, 2010

in Mobility

Over at enviro-blog Grist, conservative William Lind is interviewed on the subject of transit. Lind is an anomaly of sorts in the center-right transportation camp in that he backs many of the transit programs championed by leftists. Of course, just like the lefty backers, he gets virtually everything wrong in his diagnosis of what ails the American transportation system.

Lind, who wrote a recent book on the subject with the late Paul Weyrich (both of whom previously authored another error-laden book on the “conservative” case for transit), is a social conservative and has allowed his time spent working on defense issues to color his views about nearly everything. In particular, he regurgitates the myth that petroleum imports pose a serious national security threat:

The fundamental reason conservatives should support public transportation is because traditionally we’ve been strong on national security. The country’s single greatest national security vulnerability is our dependence on imported oil. For at least half of the American population, that dependence is complete; that is to say only half of the population has any public transit available at all. The first conservative virtue, as Russell Kirk argued, is prudence. It strikes us as wildly imprudent to make our mobility hostage to events in unstable parts of the world.

Of course, Lind fails to mention that the Department of Defense is the largest American consumer of fossil fuels. If you take as given his faulty assumption that oil imports fuel violent, anti-American extremists abroad, he should stick to criticizing America’s current interventionist foreign policy.

Next, he throws out some misleading statistics on government revenue and funding of different modes of transportation:

The latest Federal Highway Administration statistics show that user fees, including the gas tax, only cover 58 percent of the direct costs of highways. That’s not even looking at the vast indirect costs. And many rail — not bus, but rail — public transit systems are able to cover 50 percent and more of their expenses out of the fare box. Of course they’re all built with government money, mostly federal, more federal in the highways than transit. Highways get 80 percent federal; normally transit only gets 50 percent.

This is an argument based upon a lie by omission. What Lind fails to mention is that only 80 percent of “highway user fees” go back to actually benefiting those who pay the fees — drivers. The vast majority of the remaining revenue is siphoned off and allocated to wasteful transit systems. Another Lind omission is that the vast majority of Americans place a premium on driving, meaning that there are significant benefits (in terms of more satisfied preferences) from driving that cannot be captured by a simple fiscal accounting analysis. He does, however, identify a problem: too much federal control over America’s highway system. But his cure of more transit is far worse than the disease, and does not propose transferring federal control to the states.

And to get his somewhat rosy-looking transit figures, he lumps in rail and bus transit. Lind vastly prefers rail transit, but the difference between these modes is like night and day. Bus rapid transit (BRT), if properly designed, actually makes sense. But rail transit, outside of a few dense cities, virtually never makes sense. This is due to the facts that BRT is far cheaper and better addresses road congestion — by far the most serious transportation problem in America — while rail transit is more expensive and does not address congestion in any meaningful way. Lind’s main argument against more BRT — and I am not making this up — is that “[t]he population on board will be largely minority; conservatives usually are white or Asian. They’re not going to be comfortable surrounded by blacks and Hispanics.” (Emphasis added.) Seriously? This is the “conservative case” for more wasteful rail transit: too many non-whites ride buses?

He then goes on to repeat the bogus claim that rail transit tends to boost the value of abutting or nearby private property (again, this is the exception, not the rule). But for Lind, the efficiency of the transportation system is secondary. Socially engineering society to fit his unhinged, narrow world view comes first.

Political Pessimism, Human Optimism

by Ryan Young on August 19, 2010

in Economy, International, Personal Liberty, Zeitgeist

Despite my pessimism (realism?) about politics, ever since reading Julian Simon, I have been an optimist when it comes to progress and the human condition. Since the industrial revolution, each generation has lived longer and better than the last. By that measure, the last decade was the best in human history.

This despite the last decade being an unmitigated political disaster, at least in America. President Bush grew government faster than any president since Lyndon Johnson. Between new health care entitlements, massive energy and farm bills, two wars, and more than 30,000 new regulations, the Bush administration was no friend of limited government.

President Obama has so far been no better. If anything, his policies are George W. Bush’s on steroids.

Fortunately, the institutional foundations of the market economy are stronger than any bumbling politician. Wherever there is peace, stability, tolerably low corruption, and secure property rights, people will make their lives better over time, despite meddlesome regulators getting in the way. The pattern is global.

Via Ronald Bailey, a brilliant article in Foreign Policy reinforces that point. Things really are getting better. The last decade was the best in human history. Read the whole thing. If you’re despairing over the state of the world, the data are a wonderful cure for pessimism. Here’s a taste:

Consider that in 1990, roughly half the global population lived on less than $1 a day; by 2007, the proportion had shrunk to 28 percent — and it will be lower still by the close of 2010. That’s because, though the financial crisis briefly stalled progress on income growth, it was just a hiccup in the decade’s relentless GDP climb.

A Skeptic’s Desultory Philippic (or how I was not Al Gore’d into submission – with apologies to Paul Simon)

by Marlo Lewis on January 19, 2010

in Global Warming

A pithy column in Foreign Policy by the Breakthrough Institute’s Ted Nordhaus and Michael Schellenberger says that ”twice-fooled” Democrats, who have been “BTUed” by two Democratic administrations, “are unlikely to sign up for more of the same in the next Congress” (cap-and-trade being the regulatory form of a BTU tax on carbon-based energy).  

The phrase “BTUed” calls to mind Paul Simon’s great ’60s cut-the-hype, get-out-of-my-face folk anthem, A Simple Desultory Philippic (Or How I was Robert McNamara’d Into Submission), and inspired me to attempt a bit of musical parody. Here it is, with apologies to Rhymin’ Simon:

I been Al Gore’d and Yvo de Boer’d.
I been Rajendra Pauchauri’d and regulatory’d.
I been UN’d and CRU’d till I’m blind.
I been Climategated and often hated
Called a skeptic ‘cause I follow the data
That’s what real science is about, well, never mind!
I been BTU’d and cap-and-traded.
I been Hockey Sticked, Hide-the-Decline-Tricked.
Well, I paid all the taxes I want to pay.
And I learned to doubt by debating these louts,
And offsets don’t mean no regrets,
So I blog about Gorethodoxy each day.

FT says “nay” to Hillary choice for State

by Fran Smith on November 24, 2008 · 1 comment

in International, Politics as Usual, Trade

As pundits bet that Sen. Hillary Clinton is a done deal for Secretary of State, today’s editorial in the Financial Times calls it a poor choice for a variety of reasons. In the piece extolling President-ele

ct Barack Obama’s picks for his economic team, the FT says that’s not the case for Hillary and hits her lack of experience, her ambitions, and her personality.

Economics aside, the biggest surprise among Mr Obama’s rumoured appointments is Hillary Clinton, whose selection as secretary of state is said to be “on track”. This is a far more questionable choice, since Mrs Clinton is so lacking in foreign policy experience. The appointment gives rise to unhelpful speculation about the new president’s motives. Is he attempting to bind his party’s wounds? His victory already did that, and governing well would assure a full recovery. Is he attempting to neutralise her as a rival for the presidency in 2012? If things go badly for him, it will take more than this to quell another Clinton bid.

Could Mrs Clinton subordinate herself to Mr Obama, and devote herself to making his presidency a success? That is doubtful and, with many far better qualified candidates available, is a risk there is no need to take.

CEI has criticized that choice for different reasons — Sen. Clinton, who has strong anti-trade, anti-globalization positions, would not temper the in-coming president’s lack of support for trade, which could cause not only more economic problems for the U.S. and the developing world but also geopolitical ones.