A history of spending

The primacy of free enterprise

Lovely email at the Dish today:

Where does Rick Hertzberg think society's ability to give people "enough to eat and a roof over their heads" comes from, if not from those economic liberties and rights he holds as secondary? It's all from the surplus created by the division of labor and comparative advantage. The overflowing abundance that marks modern society - where people like Hertzberg can make a comfortable living writing for The New Yorker without ever cultivating his own food, weaving his own clothes, building his own home, and so on - would not exist if not for the continued protection of free enterprise and private property. (And he dares to quote Adam Smith in his follow-up post!?)

Free enterprise comes before voting.

If I can steal generously from Hayek for a second, society didn't develop the complexity that it has today because everyone in a small village in 2,500 B.C., or 100 A.D., or 1640s New England got together and voted to divide their time and effort in order to provide goods and services for exchange; this happens organically. This happens because it has proven, over thousands of years, to be the most efficient and mutually-beneficial means of getting past subsistence and reaching a better life. Without this, there is no possibility for organized self-government and modern civil rights.

In what possible viable world view could the "right to vote" be valued more favorably than property rights and the freedom of enterprise? Let's leave the philosophical for a second and look at this empirically: What impact does my right to vote have on the world? Very little. I live in a gerrymandered Democratic district, as a classically liberal Republican. My school board has had the same self-interested bozos in office for twenty years. Forget about the U.S. Senate; the only numbers that matter in the Senate are the size of the caucuses, and not the relative impact of my vote in Pennsylvania. My various executives - county, state, federal - merely preside over a rapidly-growing administrative state that is increasingly autonomous, practically speaking, and far too complicated for any particular chief executive to influence at more than a 10,000-foot broad policy level.

Honestly, the only two reasons I even make the effort to vote are 1) that I want to enter politics and thus need to cover my tracks, lest I be criticized someday, and 2) if I vote in 50 straight elections in Pennsylvania, I'll get a certificate when I'm 68 years old. It's nothing more than a frivolous little game and good cocktail party fodder.

Let's be clear: of course, the right to vote and popular sovereignty are vital, and in a healthy republic, inviolable. But without free enterprise and private property, they are practically meaningless.

A-fucking-men, as Sullivan adds.  I also want to associate myself with this post by Radley Balko.

Meanwhile on the road to serfdom

NRO:

It's Cost of Government Day! This year, Americans needed to work fully 231 days to pay for the total cost of government — from January 1st to today. You've been working for the government all year.

Quote of the day

"[Conservatives like] Charles Krauthammer are just as willing to take over people's lives and rule it for them regarding their use of drugs as the likes of Keynesian economist Paul Krugman do when it comes to people's economic activities. Which confirms just how widespread the impulse is to rule other people, both from the Right and the Left. Neither shows much confidence in human beings – what is odd is that they do show confidence in the most dangerous human beings, governments, who hold guns in their hands." —Tibor Machan

Because it's easy to paint drug addicts and corporations as more dangerous.

Individualism and Collectivism

So I started this thread over at Library Grape that's running at 60+ comments, half of which are my own replies. Bon appetit!

Are libertarians anti-government?

Cato has a good answer.

Notes from a high school civics class

My teachers were never this awesome.

NASA Space Flight Awareness

Always glad to see our tax dollars put to fabulous use ...

Enjoy the orange/blue contrast

(via reddit)

Yale law student wants government to have everybody's DNA

Slashdot:

Michael Seringhaus, a Yale Law School student, writes in the NY Times: 'To Stop Crime, Share Your Genes.' In order to prevent discrimination when it comes to collecting DNA samples from criminals (and even people who are simply arrested), he proposes that the government collect a DNA profile from everybody, perhaps at birth (yes, you heard that right).

Regarding the obvious issue of genetic privacy, Seringhaus makes this argument: "Your sensitive genetic information would be safe. A DNA profile distills a person’s complex genomic information down to a set of 26 numerical values, each characterizing the length of a certain repeated sequence of 'junk' DNA that differs from person to person. Although these genetic differences are biologically meaningless — they don’t correlate with any observable characteristics — tabulating the number of repeats creates a unique identifier, a DNA 'fingerprint.' The genetic privacy risk from such profiling is virtually nil, because these records include none of the health and biological data present in one’s genome as a whole."

The sound you just heard was a massive Overton window shift towards statism.

A quote from the op-ed:

As a practical matter, universal DNA collection is fairly easy: it could be done alongside blood tests on newborns, or through painless cheek swabs as a prerequisite to obtaining a driver's license or Social Security card. Once a biological sample was obtained, its use must be limited to generating a DNA profile only, and afterward the sample would be destroyed. Access to the DNA database would remain limited to law enforcement officers investigating serious crimes.

Since every American would have a stake in keeping the data private and ensuring that only the limited content vital to law enforcement was recorded, there would be far less likelihood of government misuse than in the case of a more selective database.

A /.er responds:

This guy reminds me of a cute little 5 year old. His heart is in the right place and he just wants everything fair and nice. However, those are some BIG ASSUMPTIONS he is making:

1) A sample will be destroyed after it is used to create a DNA profile.
2) Only law enforcement will have access
3) Since more Americans are in the database there is a less likelihood of government misuse.

Actually, I am not sure we can call those assumptions. More like hypothetical requirements for an argument, like, the Sun will be Purple tomorrow.

All 3 of those assumptions have been proven to be false, time and time and time and time again. Wasn't it just recently that we found out Texas A&M was participating in collecting blood and tissue samples from newborns without the parents knowledge and consent? Were they not also used for purposes the parents were unaware of and could object to?

Are we really to believe that only law enforcement would have access when any PI with a few bucks can currently gain access to supposedly proteced information that only law enforcement officials should be accessing?

Has not the goverment been caught time and time and time again abusing databases by using them for purposes well outside of the justifications and reasons for their initial creation? Doesn't the goverment quite frequently change their minds about what they will do with resources after the fact?

Sure, if all of those assumptions are held to be true, I would agree with him about making a DNA database. However, it is not my cynicism and disillusionment in goverment that causes me to be skeptical of those assumptions. It's COLD HARD REALITY, FACTS, AND PRECENDENTS. If you want to ignore that, and let them move on with a clean slate, that's your choice. I choose to remember how often the government lies to me and abuses me.

Jeremy Clarkson makes a lot of sense

In UK's Times. A quote:

I have a solution to the problem, a way that normal human behaviour can be preserved. It’s simple. We must start to accept that 5% of the population at any given time is bonkers. There are no steps to be taken to stamp this out and no lessons to be learnt when a man with a beard boards a plane with an exploding dog.

Why do the British still have royalty?

Best answer:

Because it works. The last thing Britain wants is some douchebag politician as head of state.

After 9/11 Bush's approval rating went up because the country rallied around the head of state. In the UK, the Queen fills that role and rallying around her is mostly harmless. The Prime Minister whose intelligence lapses caused such an event would not have such an easy ride.

It's separation of patriotism and politics and I cannot commend it to you enough.

Five reasons why libertarians shouldn't hate government

Reason takes a look.

Sentences to ponder

The Hill:

The College Football Playoff Act of 2009 would ban promoting, marketing or advertising a "national championship game" unless the game is part of a single-elimination playoff tournament like the National Football League playoffs. The bill threatens to hold college football's governing body in violation of Federal Trade Commission truth-in-advertising provisions.

The Gatekeeper

Peter Suderman profiles the CBO:

Created as an afterthought and initially intended as a low-profile congressional calculation service, the CBO has quietly risen to a place of unique prominence and power in Washington policy debates. Widely cited and almost universally respected, it is treated as judge and referee, resolving disputes about what policies will cost and how they will work.

But the agency’s authority is belied by the highly speculative nature of its work, which requires an endless succession of unverifiable assumptions. These assumptions are frequently treated as definitive, as if on faith. In practice, this means the CBO is not merely an impartial legislative scorekeeper but a keeper of the nation’s budgetary myths, a clan of spreadsheet-wielding priests whose declarations become Washington’s holy writ.
(cont.)

The era of big government will be over

 Some progressives are admitting it.

Three cheers for limited government

It's sure taken the public long enough to arrive at this (correct) conclusion.

Alas, I'm pretty sure we have the Glenn Beck effect to thank for the shift, rather than a principled opposition to state-guaranteed positive rights.

Gallup's interpretation:

The wording of the healthcare bill the House passed last Saturday explicitly states that one of the bill's purposes is to provide "affordable, quality healthcare for all Americans."

The current poll results indicate that, with the renewed healthcare debate since Obama took office, Americans have become less convinced that it is an appropriate goal for the federal government to take on the responsibility of ensuring that all Americans have healthcare coverage. It is possible that the current debate has increased the average American's awareness as to the nuances of the various roles the government could play in the healthcare system, helping make the generic "make sure all Americans have healthcare coverage" sound less appealing. Plus, the current debate may have produced more skepticism among Americans that the government's role in healthcare could or should be this broad.

Comparing Western Europe

Over at the League, Koz commented:

Liberalism should be seen as an unmitigated failure by anyone under 30.

To the extent that it isn’t, part of the reason is that American prosperity seems to them as a fact of nature. For anybody with any historical consciousness of the modern industrial state for the last thirty years or so, the rules are pretty simple: low taxes/free markets = prosperity, bloated welfare state = corrupt dependence on the state.

That's some pretty run-of-the-mill conservative boilerplate, which I think misses half the story. Hopefully my response is more interesting...

Koz, I deplore welfare and love myself some low tax rates and free markets as much as the next libertarian--but you should note that Western Europe's welfare states are doing quite well, in no small part because their governments (parliamentary: executive makes policy, legislature approves) and tax systems (consumption tax: VAT) are more efficient than the American model.

You ought to check out Bruce Bartlett's The New American Economy; he offers some good clear-headed explanations of the economic side of things.

My own thesis, in a nutshell, is that the better governance and taxation in Europe is what makes their welfare states politically palatable and attractive to their peoples. Whereas America's bad governance and absurd tax system are what make higher rates and more welfare politically unpalatable and unattractive to Americans.

I believe that if America kept its relatively-low welfare and tax rates but improved its governance and tax system, it would be better off.

And I believe that if Europe kept its good governance and tax system but reduced its welfare state and taxation rates, it would be better off.

Alas, the politics don't seem conducive to either outcome, because good governance/taxation seems to make people tolerant of the welfare state, whereas maintaining enough popular outrage against state expansion seems to depend on having inefficient governance/taxation like America's.

USPS, Inc.

Yglesias explains why we should privatize the postal service. Hear, hear.

Bankruptcy courts: ignore Chrysler bailout

Via NM:

[The NHL lawyer] barely got the word “Chrysler” out of his mouth before Judge Baum interrupted: “Let me say something about these two cases [the Chrysler and General Motors bankruptcies],” Judge Baum said during the Sept. 10 hearing, according to a transcript. “You know, those two cases were so unusual that I’m not sure how helpful the precedent of those two cases is to this court or any court. When the United States government comes in and says, ‘I’m going to buy’ what at one time was the biggest company in America… I mean, I had to get a little smirk when I thought of that poor pension manager from Indiana who was trying to fight that. It was kind of like the gentlemen in Tiananmen Square when the tank came rolling.”

Medicare prescription drug benefit: most underrated program ever?

Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution:

Megan and Andrew Sullivan are having a squabble about how much it cost (and here).  I would remind everyone of this recent research result:

In spite of its relatively low benefit levels, the Medicare Part D benefit generate $3.5 billion of annual static deadweight loss reduction, and at least $2.8 billion of annual value from extra innovation.  These two components alone cover 87% of the social cost of publicly financing the benefit. 

And here's another research result:

Overall, a $1 increase in prescription drug spending is associated with a $2.06 reduction in Medicare spending.

Both papers are from very reputable sources.  Left-wingers focus on the "giveaways" in this plan and conservatives focus on the cost or maybe they don't walk to talk about it at all.  It's a little late to go through all the usual pro and con arguments on the policy as a whole.  I'd just like to note that -- relative to its reputation -- the Medicare prescription drug benefit is one of the most underrated government programs of our time.  If the goal is to cut or check Medicare spending, and I think it should be, we should do it elsewhere in the program.

This set ringing some enormous bells of cognitive dissonance in my mind.

Many are the times I've railed about the prescription drug benefit (including at LG) as the bastard spawn of an unholy alliance between stalwart tax and spenders like Ted Kennedy, and the deficit-happy Rovian cynicism of Bush neocons who wished to secure the senior vote in Florida.

In this opposition I've had much company from the left, gleefully at the opportunity to scornfully chastize the Bush administration's fiscal profligacy—and from the right, who insist that Bush betrayed them with a massive expansion of the entitlement state they abhor. A lot of ink has been spilt, most recently by Andrew and Megan in the posts linked above.

Can we all have been so wrong?