Animal Rights and Candy?

Here's a news story from CNN about animal rights people getting their proverbial panties in a bunch over a new roadkill candy.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/02/25/roadkill.candy.ap/index.html

I can see why the animal rights people would get upset. They're always trying to indoctrinate little children over animal "rights" and having kids eat this kind of candy would probably set back their cause. The problem is that the kids that would be attracted to this kind of candy, and there would be kids that would think this candy is cool, are probably the least likely to think that roadkill should be protected as having rights.

The candy doesn't really send a message to kids, as the NJSPCA spokesman believes. What I'd like to know is how many people get into accidents in trying to avoid animals in the road. What about that?

In the end, Kraft will probably pull the candy as the special interest group will probably be effective enough to stop the distribution of the candy. Of course, this won't have any tangible effects on cruelty to animals or roadkill at all. But the SPCA will still consider this a victory.

State of the Union - Part 3

Here are the links for Part 1 and Part 2. You can also follow the transcript on cnn.com.

It looks like President Bush is going to put a large chunk of his political capital in attempting to touch the third rail of American politics. And the problem is that I really don't see how his plan could work right now.

The first thing he starts off with is a reassurance to all 55 and over Americans that he isn't going to touch their benefits. Of course, the problem is that he then goes on to say that indexing benefit increases from wages to prices could be a possible fix. Of course, one of these things is going to have to give. Either current retirees are going to have their benefit increases change or there's not going to be a change. And since older Americans vote in droves, I have a feeling that the AARP will fight any changes in the formula tooth and nail.

President Bush also goes through a laundry list reforms that other people have proposed. Notice that all of them are former politicians. Well, Clinton was term-limited out but we know how much mileage he got out of raising the retirement age. So in the end it'll take a real political gamble to get any of these proposed reforms out of the gate. Of course, Pres. Bush didn't mention raising the payroll tax as a possible reform, but I can definitely see Democrats insisting on increasing revenues as a trade off for other reforms. He did say that he didn't want to jeopardize economic growth by increasing the payroll tax, but I honestly don't see him getting what he wants without it.

That said, President Bush has his own plan for reforming Social Security... replacing it with personal accounts. Here is where I'm skeptical of the President's plan: He first says that "your account will provide money for retirement over and above the check you will receive from Social Security." So it's not really replacing Social Security, it's creating another government mandated program to go on top of Social Security. Of course, if forced savings (which is what his plan is) goes through, then it shouldn't matter if Social Security goes into the toilet because personal savings accounts will make up the difference.

The second problem I have with the proposal as far as I can tell from the President's speech is here:

And best of all, the money in the account is yours, and the government can never take it away.

So the President believes that the government wouldn't have any say in how the money is invested. But in the next paragraph, he goes through an entire laundry list of restricitions on "your" money. And don't think for a second to think that "your" money won't count as an asset in things like bankrupcy, divorce proceedings, and other ways that money can be taken away. Speaking of bankrupcy, I've seen this criticism of the plan elsewhere on the net, so I can't take total credit for this, but if the money is mine, then why wouldn't I be able to take a loan out for the personal account. It is my money after all. But then that wouldn't have the desired effect that politicians like President Bush want.

He does mention that Federal employees already have something like this in place. But I'd like to see a study of what kinds of effects the Thrift Savings Plan would have on current consumption and future income. That would be a good test case for whether the President's plan could work or not.

Ideally, I would have to say that I would much rather means test Social Security now... which should have some considerable savings. But the AARP and liberals don't want that to happen because then Social Security would be exposed as the welfare program for old people that it is. And nothing tests as poorly in the United States as welfare.

The final part of this section of speech has to deal with social issues. Not much to do with Social Security, but blame CNN for that, not me.

First thing he talks about, and not for too long, is the amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman. Amending the constitution is a second-best solution to the problem. That is if you think of it being a problem. Dan would disagree with me, but I would say that there is a social benefit to having marriage as being between a man and a woman. But of course, the solution is what the President alluded to, that is we need to get rid of activist judges on the bench. That's also something that he mentions at the end of this section. And this gives gives the President a political winner. There is evidence that people are sick of the Democrats holding up political nominations until it suits them. But unfortunately, it may be a long time until it suits them just for the reason that they're holding up nominations in the first place.

The final topic that the President touches on in this part of the speech is medical ethical research issues. I agree with most of what the President says. But the economist in me says that we should be able to sell our body parts if we want to. But then again, human life is something that should be just above the allocation of scarce resources. Economically, human life should be more important than cost. But then that would mean that health care is something that should be provided for all, regardless of cost. And that's something that I don't see right now. So that's a dichotomy that I have to think through.

Amtrak

http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/02/21/amtrak/index.html

It's nice to see that the Bush administration is finally weaning the passenger rail industry off the government money that it has grown accustomed to. The politicization of passenger rail has been known for a long time, with Amtrak running inefficient routes just so that a certain state or community can say that they have train service. Meanwhile, these routes are run without a concern for actually making money or performing efficient service. The only sector of the rail service that is actually efficient is the Northeast Corridor service.

Bankrupcy wouldn't be the end of rail service in the United States. It would just be the end of inefficient rail. Now, I have no problems with travelling by rail, in fact, when compared to other wastes of government money, it's actually money better spent than some of the waste that's in the American national budget. But luckily, the proposed budget cuts has finally gotten the attention of the Amtrak board.

Unfortunately, rather than face facts and attempt to reform internally, they are trying to put political pressure on Bush to restore the cut funding and allow the Corporation to run as it always has. The sad part is that some Republicans are being suckered into enabling Amtrak to continue operating as it always has, which is really a shame. Then again, as the past few budgets have shown, the fiscally conservative wing of the Republican party has died now that they have been in control of Congress for a while now.

Kyoto

Today the Kyoto Protocols went into effect, with the US not being on board at all. This is an obvious defeat for internationalists and environmentalists alike. Internationalists because the US soundly rejected an internationally backed plan, and environmentalists for the obvious reasons.

Simply put, this was a nice piece of triangulation by the Clinton administration that had a snowball's chance in hell of being passed. And that's why the Constitution works. The President can negotiate whatever crazy treaties he wants, but still needs the Senate to approve them before they can take effect. While some people, mostly Democrats, see the failure of the US in approving the Kyoto Treaty as a sign of Bush's unilateralism in foreign policy, most people just glance over or just plain forget that it was Clinton who chose not to submit the treaty to the Senate in the first place. The fact of the matter is that Clinton, Bush or the Senate were not about to commit political suicide because of the economic and social costs of implementing the treaty.

This of course doesn't mean that the environmental lobby is licked just yet. They'll probably just try to get the United States to jump onboard with the provisions of the Kyoto Treaty by the way that they usually do... through the bureaucracy.

Here's an article by Irwin Stelzer in the Weekly Standard that does a pretty good job of summing up the issues on both sides of the Atlantic:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Check.asp?idArticle=5263&r=swwai

Jesse Jackson At It Again

I was flipping through the channels and found this on the local (Greenville, SC) Fox station.

http://www.fox21.com/Global/story.asp?S=2975583

The piece de resistance is this quote by Jackson:

The killing is a hate crime and that is illegal and unacceptable

First of all, we don't know what the situation is that the police officers faced. That's why there is an investigation ongoing.

But the "Reverend" coming into the situation is never good. Throwing around terms like "hate crime" isn't going to make the situation any better. It sure as heck not going to bring the young man back, for that matter. But Jesse's MO has always been to use these kinds of situations to his political advantage.

Right now, the situation isn't even in the major news website for the Greenville area (http://greenvilleonline.com). So I'm not sure if Jesse's next attempt to sow the seeds of discord here in South Carolina will reach the national media or not. Then again, he may just become a parody of himself by saying these inciteful comments.

This brings up the question of whether "hate crime" legislation is a good thing or not. What the Jesse Jackson comment shows is that the original intent of the legislation is already becoming lost to the new meaning of the phrase. Originally, the hate crimes legislation was meant to punish people further who used race as the main reason for committing the crime. Now, thanks to people like Jesse Jackson, it's now being used to mean any crime where the race of one person is different from the race of another. And more specifically, the race of the victim is a minority.

I've never been in favor of hate crimes legislation. I would much rather see all crimes punished equally. But that's the road that hate crimes legislation has travelled down. People aren't psychic, so only in limited situations will we actually know the intent of the criminal. And that means that ideally, hate crimes legislation can only be used in limited situations. Unfortunately, that's not what the lawmakers intended, so it's only a matter of time when judges and juries start to infer that race was a factor just based on a difference of races between the criminal and the victim. Or based on a difference of sexual orientation... or whatever difference you want to imagine. That means that every crime could be a hate crime, but then that would take away from the real intent of the "hate crime"'s creators. Much like affirmative action, "hate crime" legislation was just an attempt to create a leg up for minorities. Or whatever "disadvantaged" group you can think of.

That's a problem that the country has... we have institutions that say that all people are created equal, but at the same time, we have laws that say just the opposite. And until this cultural schitzophrenia is cured, the U.S. is going to have the potential for some problems.

State of Union - Part 2

It's been a week so now it's time for the second installment of the series on the State of the Union address. You can see the first part here. And you can see the transcript on cnn.com

First point is the budget. Pres. Bush writes that he welcomes the bipartisan enthusiasm for spending restraint. He then goes on to say that he's going to hold discretionary spending below inflation. Finally he says that he's going to eliminate or reduce 150 government programs.

Call me skeptical, but I don't see that going though the budgetary process. Congressmen are going to keep their pet projects. One program that has been particuarly targeted is the agricultural subsidies. Like any good economist, I would much rather see the subsidies elminiated. However, the realist in me sees that midwestern congressmen, or from any part of the country for that matter, don't want to return home to their state empty-handed. So I really doubt that President Bush is going to get all of his programs cut.

What's beside the point is that most of the budgetary growth comes not from discretionary spending, but from entitlements like Social Security. We'll tackle Soc. Security in the next section, but programs like that and Medicaid are responsible for alot of the growth in the deficit.

The next topic that he talks about is education. He makes hay out of the No Child Left Behind Act, but other than that, he just talks about more spending for Pell Grants and more training for adults. But other than that, I don't think we'll be remembering President Bush as the education president.

The next topic was about ending junk lawsuits. This is probably one of the more pressing issues that faces the legal system. The problem is that the trial lawyer industry will fight any restrictions on the asbestos racket or class action civil suits to the nail. It would be one of the major victories for the administration to actually have tort reform for the legal system. Again, I don't know if the President will actually use up his politicial capital in creating tort reform.

Next he talks about his plans for health-care. There's some good and some bad in this section. He talks about medical liability reform. That's always good, since the threat of medical malpractice suits drive up the cost of health care and prescription drugs. There is a better equilibrium point rather than the system that is in place now. The bad is his idea to put a community health care center in every poor county and tax credits for low-income people when they buy health insurance. The community health care centers is just another step toward complete-government provided health care, and we all know how bad government provided health care is. Just ask the Canadians waiting in line for their surgeries. Tax credits is just another targeted welfare program for the poor.

President Bush is not going to be confused as an environmental president. So when the President starts referring to Ethanol as renewable energy, you know he's not exactly on top of the issue. It would be nice for America to be less dependant on foreign sources of energy, but that's not going to happen anytime soon. Of course, as soon as we stop getting Middle East oil, the sooner that we can stop caring about what happens in that region. But President Bush isn't about to say that. There are plenty of despots out there in Africa that we don't care about, but because they don't provide us with oil, we're not about to invade their country. Then again, they're not invading their neighbors, who also have oil, and trying to develop nuclear weapons either. So in short, it would be nice if we could just come up with our own energy sources, but that will only come when the price of oil becomes too expensive and other avenues become more economically viable.

The President mentions reforming the tax code. As I've mentioned before, I would much rather see a consumption tax in place. But even that would probably be subject to special-interest loopholes. So I have little faith that the bipartisan group working on the income tax will come up with anything viable that will make the tax code, simpler and easier to file.

Finally, the President mentions immigration reform. One comment that really interested me is "It is time for an immigration policy that permits temporary guest workers to fill jobs Americans will not take, [and] that rejects amnesty." You know what, why are there jobs that Americans will not take? Maybe it's because there is an overly generous welfare system that creates an alternative to working. Maybe we should change that before we start opening the doors to immigration. Then as for rejecting amnesty, I find this really funny since it was the President himself that suggested amnesty in the first place. Amazing what an election will do. Pre-election, he proposes amnesty to gain pro-immigrant votes, but then repudiates this to gain support of conservatives. I'm not sure if this has riled up his opponents, but I figure it would.

In any case, this was a "safe" economic program. Nothing to earth-shattering, nothing that will inflame one side of the aisle or the other.

State of the Union - Part 1

Over the past couple of days, I had been putting up my responses to the President's State of the Union address. Or at least I thought it was his address from this year. Instead, it was the speech from 2003. So if you've been following along, I apologize. Instead I'll be starting tonight with the 2005 speech. And this time I'm sure that it's the 2005 speech.

Ok, on to the introduction, that you can read along here on cnn.com. I'll be following their format for the speech, so the next post will be on the economy, etc. Like before, I'll just be commenting on policy, not speaking style or anything that you can't get from reading the transcript.

Basically, this section has to deal with setting the tone for the rest of the speech. And it looks like there are going to be two themes, one focusing on the role of the United States and the rest of the world, as evidenced by the comments on Afghanistan, Ukraine and Iraq. The other theme for the President's speech is on the future of the nation. Nothing too flashy about either of these topics so we'll just have to see how that turns out.

An Open Letter

Dear Peter Beinart, et al.,

In response to your letter posted in the Weekly Standard on Jan. 28, 2005, I would like to publicly disagree with your proposal to increase the size of the Army and Marines over the next couple of years.

First of all, and most importantly is the question of where the military will get these new recruits. While the Army has not met a problem with recruiting since 9/11, the fact that army reserves are now not reaching their recruitment goals suggests that the pool of candidates for the Army is now growing thinner. It is hard to believe that the Army will be able to magically recruit 25,000 more soldiers over the next few years without needing to resort to either a draft or even more costly recruiting bonuses and entitlements.

Your letter also glibly suggests that the size of the current armed forces is too small to meet current obligations gives no creedence to the fact that the Armed Services might be used in an inefficient manner. Do we really need troops stationed in Europe now that the Cold War is over? Or in South Korea? Or in a democratic Iraq? The fact that you ignore the fact that future obligations could change and require troop deployments in different areas of the globe shows that you have not considered all possiblities and then decided that increasing troop strength is the best solution.

Another possible solution to keeping global peace would be to include other countries in these missions. Rather than keeping the burden entirely on the United States for a global threat, the United States would be served to have other nations of the world assist us in these missions. That is if the threats are truely global. If they are not truely global, would a better use of our time, money and resources be to instead focus on increasing security within the United States? This can be done by giving more resources to the Coast Guard, Border Patrol and the National Guard. However, these underfunded departments of the goverment do not receive the same treatment that is given to the armed services. Perhaps that would be a more effective way of keeping the nation safe.

In all, perhaps an examination as a whole of what the United States' current foreign policy should be is in order before we make a committment of 100,000 soldiers to the defense of the United States. Are the use of soldiers in humanitarian/peacekeeping roles really the best use of our troops? Can we try and create allies that also have the same interests in keeping the world safe and free and are willing to commit troops to that end? These are questions that go unexamined in your letter and should be resolved before we put any more American soldiers at risk.

Respectfully yours,
Michael Hansen
U.S. Citizen