The WSJ Editorial Page Embarrasses Itself Again

It amazes me that newspapers like the Wall Street Journal remain wedded to the Peter Principle, insisting upon promoting the weakest of thinkers to manage their editorial pages. It's not that the board is full of complete idiots -- they're smart enough to recognize that when you write an editorial this stupid you publish it as an unsigned editorial so your name is only indirectly associated with your assertions. But still, they wrote it and they published it.

Readers may recall the original Buffett Rule that President Obama offered as part of his re-election campaign that essentially posited a minimum tax rate for the rich of about 30%. Mr. Buffett heartily endorsed the idea and Mr. Obama hauled out St. Warren as a soak-the-rich cudgel to beat up Mitt Romney in countless speeches.

So it was fascinating to hear Mr. Buffett explain that his real tax rule is to pay as little as possible, both personally and at the corporate level. "I will not pay a dime more of individual taxes than I owe, and I won't pay a dime more of corporate taxes than we owe.

If it needs to be explained, there is nothing wrong and nothing hypocritical about following current tax law, even as you advocate changes that would increase your tax burden. This type of silly accusation is made with some regularity, and in a variety of contexts, but never by a strong thinker.

Illogical Attacks on Teacher Compensation

I recognize that criticizing a Wall Street Journal editorial content constitutes going after some of the lowest of the low-hanging fruit, but this one exemplifies the point I attempted to make the other day about school quality:

Invest in education? Federal per-pupil spending rose by an inflation-adjusted 375% between 1970 and 2010, yet test scores in math, science and reading remained essentially flat over the same period. Moreover, much of that money has been directed at increasing the size of the education workforce. Over the past 40 years, public school employment has grown 11 times faster than student enrollment, according to federal data compiled by Andrew Coulson of the Cato Institute.

Which is a long way of saying, "the cost of public education has risen over time," and not much else. It certainly tells you nothing either about how many students are in a typical classroom or about how teacher pay compares to that of similarly educated professionals. The assumption appears to be that if the cost of education rises, student performance should also rise, but no support is provided for why there should be any such correlation.

For example, since the 1970's special education has become a huge budget item, and the accommodation of students with other special needs has become a requirement. My mother entered a classroom of developmentally disabled students in the 1970's, and found one student who had a normal intellect. He was blind, and the school district had no other program for him. Today that would be unthinkable - and that's a good thing. Another big cost increase is technology - schools in 1970 did not have computers or Internet. Another, the cost of employee health insurance. It's easy to find huge increases in the cost of education that no one would reasonable expect to increase overall student performance. The emphasis on completing high school results in students with lower test performance remaining in school for additional years - increasing cost while decreasing overall scores as compared to an era when the same student would have dropped out. We also need to consider whether teachers were substantially underpaid in 1970.

But the problem with the argument goes beyond the declaration, "I have two variables, and no evidence that they're related - why can't I see a correlation?" The poor reasoning is layered.

If you believe that we need better teachers, you also understand that we have to attract better candidates into the teaching profession, or at a bare minimum provide better training and support to the teachers who are in the profession. If you believe that taking away teachers' autonomy, job protections and benefits will result in a better pool of teachers, you're a fool - you're driving the people who have options away from the profession. Yet you're no less foolish if you believe that we can reinvent teacher education, attract better candidates to the profession, and retain the best teachers without spending more money. Seriously - it's either invest more in research, training, salaries and support or wave a magic wand, and our nation seems to be fresh out of magic wands.

Is the WSJ Trying to Make Walter Williams Look Bad?

I recognize that the 'weekend interview' of Walter Williams is intended to be hagiographic, but instead of presenting a credible portrait of Williams the author reduces him to a caricature, spewing platitudinous statements, preaching to the choir, and pointing to their applause as proof of his authority.

Let me start by stating that there are plenty of good reasons to criticize the modern welfare state. You cannot look at the consequences of well-meaning welfare policies implemented in the early 20th century, and their explosion as part of President Johnson's "War on Poverty", without recognizing that those policies have contributed to a "culture of poverty" in parts of the country. But it should also be remembered that other conservative bugbears, such as "the explosion of divorces" and "the sexual revolution," have been held out by others on the political right as the root cause of the problems of the inner cities. The "war on drugs" has long been argued to be a root cause by the political left, although that argument is increasingly bipartisan. My point being, it is simplistic to point to one factor and say, "Because this correlates with another problem I have identified, that's the cause". Even if you can only identify one cause, correlation does not automatically translate into causation. When multiple, significant factors are at play, it's quite possible that your "leading factor" identified solely by correlation is, even if not a non-factor, a lot less important than you believe.

It's also important to recall that, while good intentions do not justify bad results, each of the changes in society that can be argued to contribute to a culture of poverty have both good and bad elements. You can cry, "It's horrible that welfare creates a culture of dependency," but most welfare recipients are in it for the short-term. They're dealing with a crisis, such as a divorce, and their benefits help them get through that rough patch. Before you cry that the bathwater is so bad that we must throw out the baby, you need to acknowledge the presence of the baby and, if your argument is based upon economics, demonstrate how it would be economically better to let families in crisis flounder as opposed to providing the short-term assistance that appears very helpful in getting them back on their feet.

And then, when you turn to the inner cities, you have to examine the costs and benefits of your action. If you're for cutting off all welfare, or setting a firm caps on public assistance - a limit on benefits, whether in terms of dollar value or how long you qualify to receive benefits - you need to consider whether you're going to make the problem better or worse. Will we end up with our inner cities turning into libertarian paradises, or will we see roaming gangs of street kids robbing tourists, women with babies pandhandling, increased rates of theft and robbery - the type of thing we associate with dysfunctional cities in the developing world? (Let's also remember, the libertarian paradise is a purely utopian construct. None has ever existed, and there's no reason to believe that one will ever exist.)

If you're arguing from an economic standpoint, you must decide if you're going to argue in the short-term or the long-term. In the short-term will the costs resulting from cutting off public assistance in the inner cities increase or decrease cost to society? Even if you're content to have regions with concentrated poverty (and they're not just inner cities) become the equivalent of the Bangalore slums, or believe it's better to have kids spend their days roaming landfills and picking through the garbage for anything of value, you will have expenses associated with law enforcement, prisons, disease, and the fact that you're writing off additional generations of children to abject poverty.

If you take a long-term view you need to propose a solution that will address the long-term: It's no longer a matter of simply cutting off public assistance, but fashioning a program that will help transition those in the cycle of poverty into a population of working Americans. So are you going to create programs to break the cycle of poverty, and in comparative terms what will those programs cost? Because as much as people like Williams like to sneer, "Liberal programs caused all of this," when it comes to implementing a meaningful reform that will cost money, his side of the aisle that is consistently obstructionist. There's also going to be an element of experimentation and wishful thinking in whatever you propose as a solution - there's little that can't be improved with the benefit of 20:20 hindsight.

On the most recent Real Time, Rachel Maddow and Steve Moore had an exchange in which Rachel Maddow (with some support from David Stockman, Director of the OMB from 1981-1985 under Ronald Reagan) was arguing in favor of replacing various subsidies for the poor, many of which favor various lobbies, with straight cash aid. Moore blurted out that, instead of cash aid, we should "give them jobs". It seems from his politics that Moore would oppose a stimulus program for the inner cities, and would oppose any form of "make work" program, and he did not propose any job skills programs or other initiatives that might prepare a population of barely employable people for a modern workplace. If his retort was not intended as a disingenuous platitude - an effort to shut down the debate as opposed to providing an alternative approach - surely he has some ideas as to where those jobs will come from. Given the state of the economy he has the nation's ear - it's difficult to imagine that any politically conservative idea for job creation would not be welcomed. So, why are we waiting?

It would be interesting to hear the response of Walter Williams to such a simple reform as replacing all present public assistance with cash aid. The aid could still be delivered via the equivalent of a debit card, recipients could be given online management tools (and, to the extent necessary, access to public terminals and technical assistance for the use of those tools) to budget, directly pay rent, create a reserve for emergencies, and otherwise manage their finances. It actually sounds like a great exercise in personal responsibility and accountability. I expect Williams would state that such an experiment would only work if there were consequences - blow the rent money on a big screen TV, clothes, drugs, or anything else and, if you can't work something out with your landlord or find a non-governmental source for a bail-out, you get evicted. It seems like a pretty simple way to diminish the overhead in managing numerous welfare programs while creating immediate and obvious lessons for the community as to what happens if you don't learn how to manage your money.

And now, let's turn to the WSJ column on Williams. I searched for reaction to the article and, although I found countless examples of bloggers uncritically applauding its wisdom, the phenomenon appeared to be almost exclusively one of white right-wingers making statements to the effect of, "This guy just affirmed all of my prejudices - he's brilliant!". (Scroll down that page for Obama in "Joker" facepaint, labeled "socialist", or for commentary with a level of insight comparable to that photograph.) This seems to be alright with Williams, who is quoted,

"When I fill in for Rush [Limbaugh], I get emails from blacks who say they agree with what I'm saying. And there are a lot of white people questioning ideas on race, too. There's less white guilt out there. It's progress."

How, from a logical standpoint, is it significant that black members his audience agree with what he says? When you preach to the chorus, you should expect that they'll sing your praises. As for his implication that any white person who disagrees with him is motivated by guilt, there's not even a whit of logic involved. If you interpret it as a dog whistle it makes sense - and that interpretation would be consistent with how the aforementioned right-wing bloggers seem to be reacting to the 'interview'.

It's worth also taking a look at Williams' claims in terms of his own background. From looking at a review of his biography, his parents were divorced, he pretty much ran wild until he was drafted into the military, and more or less personified the culture he claims did not exist during his childhood but emerged in later years:

During Reconstruction and up until the 1940s, 75% to 85% of black children lived in two-parent families. Today, more than 70% of black children are born to single women. "The welfare state has done to black Americans what slavery couldn't do, what Jim Crow couldn't do, what the harshest racism couldn't do," Mr. Williams says. "And that is to destroy the black family."

Given the realities of Williams' own childhood family, how is that even possible? Or could it be that some of the factors that contributed to the breakdown of families, and irresponsible, criminal behavior by a subset of inner city youth, were already in place before the start of the War on Poverty? If we are to acknowledge the reality that divorce, single parenthood, youth crime, youthful disinterest in school, and the like already existed, it seems more appropriate to argue that policies implemented in the War on Poverty contributed to or accelerated the problems previously exemplified by Williams' own family, but it can't be said to have created them.

Williams also glosses right over something no libertarian should be able to miss, the rise of the black middle class and the availability of housing options outside of the inner cities. I'm reminded of arguments I've heard from others that, back in the "good old days", celebrities and professionals lived shoulder-to-shoulder with the inner city poor. Would Williams argue that the provisions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that eliminated housing discrimination were an unjust infringement on the rights of landlords and sellers, and thus helped contribute to the decline of the inner cities? Or would he argue that restrictive covenants and discrimination by landlords were infringements on the liberties of African Americans and were properly struck down to advance equality in the marketplace? The former argument is consistent with his broader idea that evil liberals ruined the inner city - but why do I doubt that Williams' own home is in an inner city neighborhood?

On the other hand, if he accepts the end of housing discrimination as a "good thing", he needs to consider how the emigration of successful people and working families from the inner city created the present culture. When he points to the inner cities, is he seeing how those families were destroyed or is he seeing how, when those families move out, a disproportionate number of families like his own were left behind. (Not his current family unit, of course, but the broken home of his childhood.)

You have to love statements like this:

But Walter Williams was a libertarian before it was cool.

Sorry, but being a libertarian still isn't "cool". Or this:

"I think it's important for people to understand the ideas of scarcity and decision-making in everyday life so that they won't be ripped off by politicians," he says. "Politicians exploit economic illiteracy."

That statement presupposes that politicians are economically literate. Starting with the last guy the Republicans ran for President, where can I find evidence of that? Heck, looking at the position most economists took going into (and in no small part coming out of) the housing bubble, a strong case can be made that most economists don't understand economics.

The economic argument presented in the 'interview' as how Williams would balance the budget doesn't exactly distinguish Williams from his lesser-known peers:

"We need a constitutional amendment that limits the amount of money the government can spend," he says. "Let's say 18% of GDP to start. The benefit of a spending limitation amendment is that you're going to force Congress to trade off against the various spending constituencies. Somebody says, 'I want you to spend $10 billion on this,' and the congressman can respond, 'My hands are tied, so you have to show me where I can cut $10 billion first.'"

First, why should we "say 18% of GDP"? Why not 12%, 20%, 50%? Is there more to the foundation of William's economic proposal than "pick a card, any card?" And if the number is to be selected more scientifically than Williams' statement suggests, what method does he propose for its selection? What economic model is he asserting?

Second, doesn't this model make the mistake of confusing a nation's debt with household debt? Doesn't it ignore the economic consensus that deficit spending can be good during periods of recession? How about borrowing to invest in infrastructure development - never appropriate? And truly, what about a major recession like the one we just experienced. What is the mechanism by which we would slash government budgets, departments and jobs so as to stay within a fixed 18%? And wouldn't that cure be worse than the disease? Wouldn't we end up deepening the recession and perhaps creating a downward spiral?

Third, if we're not going to apply a firm 18% in the event of an economic crisis or other emergency, what measure do we employ to ensure that we're not always claimed by Congress to be in the midst of an economic crisis or national emergency. "I was going to stay within 18% this year but, darn it, I thought that there were Cuban soldiers in Grenada so I had to invade" - national emergency? "We're in a Global War on Terror, with no end in sight" - war without end? How long and cumbersome will Williams' "18% solution" Amendment be, such that it neither forces economic crisis after economic crisis nor allows for the easy circumvention of the cap it imposes?

Fourth, even if we have a working "cap", how do we avoid other circumventions. This Congress cannot borrow the $100 billion it wants to spend on something, so it budgets $20 billion per year over the next five years. In subsequent years, Congress must either reduce the budget to accommodate the spending decisions of a prior Congress, default, or spend beyond the cap. Or, rather than giving direct subsidies, Congress offers loan guarantees or loans to be forgiven in the future, not only effectively subsidizing the loan cost and interest rate but creating a risk of default to be absorbed by the taxpayer, or an obligation upon which future Congresses must again either pay or default.

Fifth, when there have been other "cap" proposals the concern has been raised, with some validity, that the "cap" will become a "minimum". An example that comes to mind is the idea of limiting CEO salary - every CEO's salary would be raised, opponents argued, to the level of the cap. In hindsight you could point out that in the absence of a cap those salaries have skyrocketed well past the proposed limits, but I do suspect that the critics would have been proved correct. And also that companies would find other ways to compensate CEO's beyond their capped incomes, just as many CEO's presently enjoy incredible perquisites that aren't technically part of their compensation packages.

Williams is an economist - he has to be able to conceive of dozens, if not hundreds, of ways Congress could circumvent his cap. The original Constitution is about 4400 words. By way of comparison, to be effective, Williams' Amendment would likely make the Internal Revenue Code and Regulations seem concise.

Let's remember, the column at issue was not written by Williams. It was written by WSJ editor Jason L. Riley. I don't dismiss the possibility that there is a lot of thought and nuance in Williams' ideas that was lost in Riley's translation. But it amazes me how little thought the author of the 'interview' and his audience at large seems to give to the various claims, assertions and platitudes served up in the column.

Why Don't Kids Walk to School

An editorial in the Washington Post moans that children don't walk or ride their bikes to school any more. True enough, but contrary to the author's thesis (and hyperbole) it's not an issue of hovering parents. I've discussed this phenomenon before:

When I was a kid... we were still able to go to the park alone or with friends, walk to and from school, and engage in a lot of unsupervised activities even as young children. A big part of that was that our friends were doing the same thing - there were kids everywhere. Some of those kids had parents, older siblings or babysitters around, so there were older, more responsible eyes watching the activity. As we've moved our activities indoors, and have restricted kids from unsupervised activities, the odds have again changed. It's not unusual to drive by parks in my town and not see a single person there, or to see one or two families present. If a child goes there alone, the odds are that the child will spend some time with no other adult or child present. That significantly changes the risk to a child.

There's also the fact that as communities have become more dependent upon busing and cars for transportation to school, the "neighborhood school" may be quite far removed from the neighborhood. I'll grant, when I was a kid I rode my bicycle to school across a relatively busy, divided roadway - but that road has nothing on the type of traffic my daughter would face if she rode her bicycle to school. (She's still too young to do that even by historic measure.) The lack of sidewalks along the way would also make it very difficult for her to walk, even if she were old enough to cross that road unsupervised - or even if she were accompanied by a parent. And it's almost three miles away, about an hour to walk.

And that's with her going to a school comparatively close to home. Her "neighborhood" school isn't close to the neighborhood. Yes, there are schools that are closer than the default (including the one she attends), but you can't look at the @4.5 mile, @90 minute walk to school and tell me that the school board was concerned about walkable distances. My childhood school was not my neighborhood school - it was about a third of the distance from my home as my child's "neighborhood" school; triple that distance and I would have been taking the bus (public transportation, not a school bus) as I had to do during the winter. (My neighborhood school was less than half a mile away, an easy walk or bike ride down quiet, residential streets.)

So let's not pretend this is about individual choices, helicopter parents, smothering, etc. - and let's recognize that if we want to shift back to a culture in which kids play outside with minimal supervision, walk to school, etc., we're going to have to make a serious investment in recreating actual neighborhood schools and in providing a safe level of supervision while the numbers of children increase. Let's not blame individuals for societal changes that are well outside of individual control.

Now Why Would Civil Rights Groups Have Reservations About Charter Schools....

If you read the Wall Street Journal's editorial page, you will read that the only possible explanation for civil rights groups' reservations in relation to charter schools is that they're in bed with the teacher's unions.

By casting their lot firmly with teachers unions, the leadership of the NAACP and the Urban League hope to preserve their power and safeguard their traditional sources of financial support.

That's presented by the authors of the editorial, Paul E. Peterson and Martin R. West, both of Harvard, as a conclusory statement. A non sequitur. As if the only possible reason in the world why civil rights groups might express

"reservations" about the Obama administration's "extensive reliance on charter schools." They specifically voiced concern about "the overrepresentation of charter schools in low-income and predominantly minority communities."

Is that taking a different position might alienate teacher's unions.

The editorial also presents an argument that's all-too-typical, these days - that public policy should follow opinion polls:

Someone should remind these leaders who they represent. The truth is that support for charters among ordinary African-Americans and Hispanics is strong and has only increased dramatically in the past two years. Opposition along the lines expressed by the NAACP and the Urban League is articulated by a small minority.

* * *

Support for charters among African Americans rose to 49% in 2009, up from 42% in 2008. This year it leapt upward to no less than 64%. Among Hispanics support jumped to 47% in 2010, from 37% in 2008.

So by the authors' logic, whatever the facts and whatever their concerns, civil rights groups should have adamantly opposed charter schools a mere three years ago but now, with shifts in the result of opinion polls, they are obligated to support them. For that matter, what if next year's survey shows a significant drop in popular support for charter schools?

Even if you accept that public policy should follow the polls, and further assuming that the author's methodology was sound, the authors' logic falls flat:

Each year we provided respondents the same, neutral description of charter schools, followed by the question: "Do you support or oppose the formation of charter schools?" Those interviewed were also given the choice of saying they "neither support or oppose" charters.

That survey result is not, on its face, inconsistent with the position of civil rights groups. Quite obviously it is possible to favor the formation of charter schools while simultaneously having reservations about those schools, both generally and as a solution to the problems of inner city schools. To see an example of why, the authors could have turned to the news section of the very paper in which they're published.

The Equity Project Charter School garnered headlines and accolades when it opened last September with an unusual plan: recruit top teachers and pay them $125,000—substantially more than the average teacher salary anywhere in the country.

Its test scores did not match the hoopla: Only 37.4% of the students were proficient in math and 24% were proficient in English. On average, the other public schools in Equity Project's Washington Heights district performed better, the test scores released last week showed.

"It's not unexpected" for a first-year school, said Zeke Vanderhoek, founder and principal of the middle school. "I'm very confident in the vision of the school and the teachers we have, but we're not there yet."

Further,

Two weeks ago, the New York State Department of Education renewed the charter of Opportunity Charter School, the city and state's worst-performing charter school. Eight percent of the students were proficient in English and 7% were proficient in math. In the district in which Opportunity competes, proficiency scores in both subjects were above 50%.

I do expect the performance of the Equality Project to improve, and there are charters that are achieving results on par with, and sometimes better than, their public school counterparts. But the questionable performance of some schools based upon assumptions of what will improve school performance, and the terrible performance of other schools based upon what very well could be opportunism and profiteering by the private interests behind those operations, should inspire political, civil rights and opinion leaders to exercise caution.

Further, when the lessons of the charter school movement seem to boil down to "student performance improves with a longer school day", the question is raised: why is it necessary to have charter schools to lengthen the school day? For that matter, it may be that the same results can be achieved with the same length and number of school days, but with a shorter summer vacation.

The results of four-year pilot study, obtained by The Globe and Mail, show that children who have only a one-month summer break do better in math, retain more of their lessons and need less time for review.

This study rides on the tail of a 20-year investigation in the U.S. by researchers at Johns Hopkins University that found children from low-income families fell nearly three grade levels behind their higher-income peers.

The culprit? Summer vacation. The learning advantages families can offer their children during non-school months – like lessons, camp and parents who can afford to stay home with their children – are often only available to an elite few from high-income homes.

I think that last sentence incorporates a great deal of assumption and overgeneralization, but the results of the studies are not surprising.

Beyond the question of quality and opportunism, and the question of what they actually bring to the table, there are additional reasons why civil rights leaders may be skeptical of charter schools. First, charter schools tend to be segregated. Second, they tend to adopt policies toward children and classroom instruction that would not be acceptable in middle or upper class public schools. Third, the major "franchise" charter schools, such as KIPP schools, are not on the whole self-sustaining, but instead rely upon outside grants to balance their books, raising questions both of their long-tern sustainability and of whether that money might be better directed at public schools. Fourth, when you put education in the hands of a private organization, even if it's a well-meaning nonprofit, you diminish the oversight of state and local government. It's a fair retort that a lot of inner city governments and school boards have failed to do their job, or became hopelessly corrupt, but abandoning reform in favor of charter schools leaves a lot of children behind. Fifth, charter schools often rely upon the public schools for a significant amount of educational support, as their facilities often lack the amenities of public schools - sports facilities, cafeterias, libraries, art rooms, etc.

So there are many valid reasons why a civil rights leader might have reservations about an emphasis on charter schools. But wait, there's more. Let's hear what some unabashed racists have to say about the editorial and charter schools:

Even though the teachers unions oppose “charter schools”, I wonder if a lot of black teachers secret love them so that they can teach the few students who have more than a room temperature IQ. While many may be scams, I personally don’t have a problem with smarter than average blacks being separated from the dim bulbs when it comes to school. Since black teachers can no longer keep baseball bats on their desks, this is the next best option.

A nice display of loving concern, right? So how about vouchers instead of charter schools?

The main reason Whites send their children to private or Catholic schools is so their children don’t get beat up, terrorized by Black students in the public schools. Give these same Black students “Vouchers” to go to White private schools and the same process happens there.

Nope, nothing that might concern a civil rights leader there....

Newt Gingrich's "Health Idea" Deceptions

Although they say "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity", Newt Gingrich is not a stupid man. So there's no reason to cut him, or his writing partner Jon C. Goodman, any slack over their Wall Street Journal piece on "GOP Health Ideas". The first distortion comes right in the headline - despite his past role, Gingrich is not a spokesperson for the Republican Party. Instead he profits by advocating on behalf of the health industry. John Goodman likes to brag that he helped take down healthcare reform under the Clinton Administration, and if his mini-bios are indicative prefers to be called libertarian as opposed to "Republican". In other words, these aren't GOP ideas - they're the private ideas of the authors.

It isn't difficult to find the actual GOP ideas on healthcare reform. All you have to do is go to GOP.com and click, er, look under, er... search... Hm. Not so much a GOP priority? Well then, let's try GOP.gov... and whoah - they summarize their plan as reflecting four ideas:

Number one: let families and businesses buy health insurance across state lines.

Number two: allow individuals, small businesses, and trade associations to pool together and acquire health insurance at lower prices, the same way large corporations and labor unions do.

Number three: give states the tools to create their own innovative reforms that lower health care costs.

Number four: end junk lawsuits that contribute to higher health care costs by increasing the number of tests and procedures that physicians sometimes order not because they think it's good medicine, but because they are afraid of being sued.

And four ideas that neither offer any meaningful reform beyond weakening state protections to health insurance consumers and victims of malpractice - while simultaneously giving lip service to federalism. The CBO's scoring of the last "serious" GOP proposal boiled down to "It's just short of a joke". The proposal provided about 40% of the cost savings projected from the Democratic bill, while insuring 33 million fewer people (3 million more people insured by 2019, as opposed to 36 million under the Democratic bill).

Now I don't want to read too much into a CBO rating, as their methodology is not always great - and neither is their track record. Being nonpartisan does not, of itself, make your economic projections more accurate. But as CBO ratings are often held up as a gold standard by both major parties, it seems reasonable to compare actual GOP proposals to the Democratic bill on that basis.

No wonder Gingrich and Goodman prefer to embellish. Follow the links for more information on each idea:

1. Make insurance affordable


2. Make health insurance portable


3. Meet the needs of the chronically ill


4. Allow doctors and patients to control costs


5. Don't cut Medicare


6. Protect early retirees


7. Inform consumers


8. Eliminate junk lawsuits


9. Stop health-care fraud


10. Make medical breakthroughs accessible to patients

Healthcare Reform is Unfair to Free Riders?

I while back I made a sarcastic proposal of how a health insurance company could serve free riders:

Here's the business model: I charge a premium in the lowest permissible amount (the least expensive plan you can buy to avoid any penalty from the mandate), use that to obtain reinsurance for losses above, say, $50,000, and offer essentially no other coverage. Participants can fund HSA's, if they wish. If a participant gets through a year without making a claim, I refund... let's say 50% of their premiums. The rest goes to the cost of administering reinsurance, administering claims (something I would outsource), and profit. Coverage for pre-existing conditions? Not a problem. Unhealthy people will stay away in droves.

I've also commented on how angry it can make people when they're instructed to buy insurance in which they see no value, or inadequate value. Today, the Wall Street Journal published a letter manifesting that anger, by somebody whose insurance is inadequate under Massachusetts law - due, no doubt, to the free rider problem:

My husband retired from IBM about a decade ago, and as we aren't old enough for Medicare we still buy our health insurance through the company. But IBM, with its typical courtesy, informed us recently that we will be fined by the state.

Why? Because Massachusetts requires every resident to have health insurance, and this year, without informing us directly, the state had changed the rules in a way that made our bare-bones policy no longer acceptable.

Insurance that is adequate is available from IBM at a significant increase in cost. It's also available through state plans at a much lower cost, but of course the complaint is that any increase in cost is too much.

A song dedication for the WSJ: Free Ride.

Update: The other side of the coin:

Industry representatives put Congress and the Obama administration on notice that if health-reform legislation doesn’t send even more new customers the industry’s way or if a windfall profits tax is included, the industry would hit businesses, individuals and the government with higher premiums, effectively defeating one of the initiative’s top goals, reining in ever-rising costs.

* * *

The industry wants more of the estimated 25 million still uninsured – especially healthy, young people – to be compelled to buy policies, too. Without more healthy customers added to the mix, the industry says it will have no choice but to raise rates.

Of course, we probably won't see the WSJ complaining of the insurance industry distorting the debate, impeding any real competition, forcing costly insurance on people who are the least likely to need it, then demanding record profits as the price of their "cooperation".

Lies, Lies and More Lies from Palin

It's a wonder she was supposedly worried about ethics investigations, given that she apparently has none. At least judging from this WSJ stenography of her lame excuses and fabrications for quitting:

"Attacks inside Alaska and largely invisible to the national media had paralyzed her administration," someone close to the governor told me.

Well, the Wall Street Journal qualifies as "national media" and John Fund, the author of this puff piece, was giving Palin's anonymous drones his undivided attention, so how about a "for instance"? I didn't think so....

This situation developed because Alaska's transparency laws allow anyone to file Freedom of Information Act requests. While normally useful, in the hands of political opponents FOIA requests can become a means to bog down a target in a bureaucratic quagmire, thanks to the need to comb through records and respond by a strict timetable. Similarly, ethics investigations are easily triggered and can drag on for months even if the initial complaint is flimsy. Since Ms. Palin returned to Alaska after the 2008 campaign, some 150 FOIA requests have been filed and her office has been targeted for investigation by everyone from the FBI to the Alaska legislature.

The author is conflating two entirely separate issues - FOIA and ethics investigations. Given Palin's run for Vice President, it's no small wonder that there were FOIA requests, and frankly 150 seems like a low number. Further, there would be no need for Palin to personally involve herself in any of those requests. But I guess there is a tie-in to Palin's ethics (or lack thereof) - she (or someone on her behalf) did involve herself in FOIA request in order to obstruct the release of information.

For ethics investigations, Palin should make a video of herself like GW's search of the oval office for WMD's. "Ethics? Not in the closet... not under the desk... nope, no ethics here." But there's another conflation going on. The FBI doesn't investigate "ethics violations", and doesn't initiate investigations based upon Alaska's "easily triggered" laws. It investigates federal crimes. Also, let's not forget that Palin herself built her career on challenging the corruption in Alaska's politics. What's sauce for the gander....

Oh, and let's not forget that Palin filed an ethics complaint against herself over Troopergate that cost the state $187,797 to investigate. That is well over half of the $296,000 the state has spent on all ethics investigations of her.

In the process, though, she accumulated $500,000 in legal fees in just the last nine months, and knew the bill would grow ever larger in the future.

How much of that has come out of her pocket? Any? I thought her legal defense fund was pulling in huge numbers.

Family considerations also played a role. Ms. Palin gave birth to a baby with Down's Syndrome in 2008, and also has a six-year old. Everyone in the family was weary of endless personal attacks, including mean-spirited suggestions on liberal blogs that all of her children should have been aborted and that she would run on a presidential platform promoting retardation.

Bad stenographer, bad editor. It's Down Syndrome.

It's not credible that Palin is withdrawing from politics due to the sudden realization that she has children. She had children when she entered politics. She had children when she ran for VP. Trig was born in April, 2008. She decided to run for VP in August, 2008. It's July, 2009. Give me a break.

As for the personal attacks, last time I saw Palin speaking out about them she was reveling in them, inflating them, claiming a (bad) joke about her adult daughter was about her young teen - a choice that inappropriately put her 14-year-old at the center of things - and all but accusing David Letterman of being a pedophile. Her supporters were rallying to her, declaring what meanies her critics are. So that doesn't ring true, either.

As for "mean-spirited suggestions on liberal blogs", the easiest thing to do if you find a blog where people say things you don't want to read is... not to read them. But that's giving the allegation more credibility than it deserves. A simple question: Which blogs? How about a "for instance"? I didn't think so....

Karl Rove acknowledges the unusual battering Ms. Palin has endured in recent months, but told Fox News that GOP leaders are still puzzled by her decision. "If she wanted to escape the ethics investigations and save the taxpayers money, she's now done that," he said. Unfortunately, he added, her decision "sent a signal that if you do this kind of thing to a sitting governor like her, you can drive her out of office."

Unusual how? Unusual in the sense that it wasn't orchestrated by Rove? If I were to compare the treatment of Palin to the treatment of the Clintons, or the treatment of her children to the treatment of Chelsea Clinton, it actually seems like Palin got off easy. If I compare her to the guy Rove allegedly accused of pedophilia, or the smear campaign Rove allegedly ran against McCain in 2004, again....

But Palin friends say such commentary misses the real point.... The real issue that should be asked is why a mean-spirited system has to treat people who run like that, instead of why someone may choose not to go through it."

The author of this piece had Karl Rove on the phone, and didn't ask that question? Go figure. He could also have asked Palin, herself.

In law, there's a practice disdained by experienced lawyers, that particularly on appeal can undermine you with a judge. The "kitchen sink" / "throw spaghetti at the wall" approach. When you're trying to make a compelling case, it's usually counter-productive to throw everything at the judge to see if something sticks. The strong arguments get lost among the weak.

But sometimes you only have weak arguments. Assuming you made the mistake of accepting a weak case and don't want to cut your losses, you then must try to pick the strongest of the weak bunch, make a desperate "spaghetti throw", or recognize that your case may be better made in the future when more facts or evidence are available. If this truly is the best Palin's camp can come up with, she should resist the temptation to have WSJ stenographers prattle about how unfair the world is. She should decide for herself why she quit, make that her story, and stick with it. I'm not expecting the truth, but any plausible reason would be better than a spaghetti throw.

Now That's Desperation....

You're not terrified that McCain won't win the election? Then perhaps you would like a nice tall glass of Kool-Aid. I'm sure you've already encountered the breathless accusation that Obama is a socialist, backed up by mendacious distortions of a comment he made to "Joe the Plumber" and tendentious interpretations of a segment from a seven-year-old radio call-in show.

What? You're not shivering in your boots? Well, then, Pat Buchanan is racing to the rescue with an effort so frantic, it makes Chicken Little look like a Zen Master. Border security? None of that - the border with Mexico will be wide open, and all illegal immigrants will be given amnesty. Taxes will be raised on the wealthiest 5% of Americans, in order to "redistribute" it to the bottom 40%. He'll somehow magically rewrite the Constitution, such that homosexuals have equal rights in all areas of life (the horror), affirmative action can be instituted based on quotas, and we'll have something just shy of forced abortions in every state ("America will become the most pro-abortion nation on earth"). Oh yes - and outrageous deficit spending that didn't get in the way of Buchanan's endorsement of G.W. back in 2004? It's once again a valid issue.

I hope you've drained your Kool-aid glass and are ready for your next helping, courtesy of Steven Calabresi in the Wall Street Journal. You may be thinking, "Republicans have appointed federal judges for twenty of the past twenty-eight years, and have pretty solid majorities throughout the federal judicial system, including the Supreme Court." But no - Obama will be able to appoint two - count them, two - judges to "the most important lower federal court in the country: the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit," G.W. having personally named a "only four". This will apparently cause the world to end. Presenting one of the most bizarre extrapolations I've heard to date of the Obama radio interview, Calabresi writes,

[Obama] he noted that the U.S. Constitution as written is only a guarantee of negative liberties from government -- and not an entitlement to a right to welfare or economic justice.

This raises the question of whether Mr. Obama can in good faith take the presidential oath to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution" as he must do if he is to take office.

It does? How?

Does Mr. Obama support the Constitution as it is written, or does he support amendments to guarantee welfare?

Well, there's no evidence that he has proposed or endorsed any such amendments, and even somebody whose knowledge of the Constitution barely meets the level of a high school civics class knows that the President cannot unilaterally amend the Constitution. (And anybody with a whit of sense knows that a "right to welfare" amendment would have a zero percent chance of passing.) But as you know, when you're trying to create hysteria you need not let facts or common sense get in the way.

Is his provision of a "tax cut" to millions of Americans who currently pay no taxes merely a foreshadowing of constitutional rights to welfare, health care, Social Security, vacation time and the redistribution of wealth?

That's right, Steve... Keep pouring the Kool-Aid....

If Mr. Obama wins we could possibly see any or all of the following: a federal constitutional right to welfare; a federal constitutional mandate of affirmative action wherever there are racial disparities, without regard to proof of discriminatory intent; a right for government-financed abortions through the third trimester of pregnancy; the abolition of capital punishment and the mass freeing of criminal defendants; ruinous shareholder suits against corporate officers and directors; and approval of huge punitive damage awards, like those imposed against tobacco companies, against many legitimate businesses such as those selling fattening food.

Ooh - let's not forget open borders and amnesty for all illegal aliens! And everybody will be forced to learn a second language!

But what about the war on terror? Buchanan doesn't mention Iraq, perhaps because he doesn't want to remind people that he's an isolotionist who opposes the entire Iraq venture. (Like deficits, the Iraq war also didn't stop Buchanan from endorsing Bush over Kerry.) And apparently (surprisingly?) Calabresi doesn't anticipate a Constitutional amendment that will make it illegal for us to fight wars against our enemies.

But don't worry - the WSJ is still serving up the Kool-Aid. Here's Pete Du Pont: It seems certain that "The U.S. military will withdraw from Iraq quickly and substantially, regardless of conditions on the ground or the obvious consequence of emboldening terrorists there and around the globe." You know, because Obama has made clear that he will consider conditions on the ground and is committed to focusing on the real threats to our nation's security around the world. When you write for the WSJ, it seems, every day is "opposites day".

It also "seems clear" that we'll become economic isolationists (is he trying to calm Pat Buchanan down), labor unions will be stronger, there will be more federal regulation (probably foisted on us by radical left-wingers like Alan Greenspan), we'll be "Europeanized" (perhaps there will even be a law that makes us give our kids Europeanized names like "Pierre") with "nationalized health care, Kyoto-like global-warming policies, and increased education regulation and spending" (something no conservative President would ever do, right?), and:

Free speech will be curtailed through the reimposition of the Fairness Doctrine to limit the conservative talk radio that so irritates the liberal establishment.

With the evidence in support of that being... er, being... No, stop thinking and start fearing. (And they say that the WSJ editorial page is full of drek - well, they've showed you now, haven't they.)

So much to be afraid of... I can barely stop shaking in my boots. It makes me long for the good old days, when I was "only" supposed to be terrified of Obama because he's secretly Muslim and is "palling around with terrorists".

"Some Media Reports", Indeed....

Sometimes media contortions to avoid contradicting political prevarications are unintentionally comical.