Cato Daily Dispatch for October 10, 2003
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In Airport Security Class, Everyone Gets an 'A'Federal Deficit Smaller than Expected
National Energy Plan Talks Short Out
In Airport Security Class, Everyone Gets an 'A'
"Government investigators said trainers hired to teach airport-security workers how to operate bomb-detection machines rehearsed many of the test questions before the final exam and that some questions were worded in ways that made the correct answers obvious, or were 'simply inane,' as one inspector put it," reports The Wall Street Journal.
"A review by the Department of Homeland Security also found that the Transportation Security Administration instituted a training regime that 'maximized the likelihood that students would pass' and increased the agency's capacity 'to push students through school' and certify them as checked-baggage screeners. Although some test questions used by the TSA addressed information 'material' to the course, the department's acting inspector general said, 'it is extremely disturbing that most of the questions were rehearsed before the final examination.'"
In "The Case Against Federalizing Airport Security," Adjunct Scholar Richard W. Rahn writes: "Clearly a more effective solution for the airport security problem would be for the federal government to set standards for airport security and monitor the airports to make sure the standards are being met. For instance, standards for private security personnel might include criminal background checks, a requirement that they must all be US citizens, have completed specified security training, plus a course on how to be pleasant and helpful to the passengers. Security operations at some airports have been lax and the employees rude because the contracting authorities have either not set or not enforced more rigorous standards. Sixteen European countries are reported to have replaced government security personnel with private security firms at airports with very good results, because the governments require high standards of performance."
Federal Deficit Smaller than Expected
"The U.S. government will run a smaller-than-expected, but still record-setting, budget deficit of $374 billion in 2003, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated on yesterday," Reuters reports.
"That would be well above the prior record of $290 billion set in 1992, but also well below previous White House forecasts that the government could see a budget shortfall of up to $455 billion in the latest fiscal year, which ended on Sept. 30."
In "Bush's Overspending Problem", Director of Fiscal Policy Studies Chris Edwards writes: "A spending freeze would eliminate the deficit. The FY2004 budget would increase discretionary outlays from $791 billion in FY2003 to $926 billion by FY2008. If, instead, discretionary outlays were frozen at the FY2003 level, the deficit would plunge to just $55 billion by FY2008. The budget could be balanced even more quickly with reforms to cut rapidly growing entitlement costs. If total outlays were frozen at the FY2003 level, the budget would essentially be balanced in just two years (by FY2005)."
National Energy Plan Talks Short Out
"With energy talks in Congress mired, Senate officials warned on Thursday that talks on a national energy plan could go into next year, even as President Bush called for an accord this year," The New York Times reports.
"A spokeswoman for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee told reporters that divisions between House and Senate Republicans over rules for the electricity industry, gasoline additives and subsidies for a gas pipeline in Alaska might not be resolved before Congress adjourned for the year."
In "The Energy Bill Follies," Peter VanDoren and Jerry Taylor, respectively, editor of Regulation magazine and director of natural resource studies, write: "The bill expands the government owned-and-operated Strategic Petroleum Reserve to 1 billion barrels even though the existence of a public inventory undermines the incentive for private inventories. Moreover, political control over inventories increases rather than decreases risk in petroleum market operations and encourages more, not less, price volatility. The GOP also saw fit to reduce the time over which electricity transmission assets are depreciated so that 'needed' transmission is built. Yet economists agree that the proper mixture of generation and transmission should be determined by market forces rather than by provisions of the tax code."
Jonathan Block, editor, jblock@cato.org
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