Cato Daily Dispatch for October 30, 2003
Subscribe to the Daily Dispatch via email
Subscribe to the Daily Dispatch via PDA (AvantGo)
(Links to outside sources were active as of the date of this dispatch; however, not all news sources maintain links to current stories indefinitely. Some links also may require registration.)
Suddenly, the Senate's Smokin'More Money for Head Start?
Cato Expert Testifies at Spam Hearings
Suddenly, the Senate's Smokin'
"Responding to California's devastating wildfires, the Senate on Wednesday moved toward approving a version of President Bush's plan for limiting environmental and judicial reviews of forest-thinning projects he says are designed to reduce fire risk. The measure, which has languished in the Senate for months, is expected to pass as early as today," the Los Angeles Times reports.
"The bill, based on Bush's 'healthy forests' initiative, is designed to speed the thinning of up to 20 million acres of federal forest land--much of it in California."
In "Bush's Fire Plan Won't Work," Cato Adjunct Scholar Randal O'Toole writes: "The president's plan to thin 25 million acres in the next 10 years will cost $4 billion yet leave nearly 90 percent of these acres untreated. Unfortunately, that will leave forest homes and communities as defenseless as they are today. ... To defend homes and communities, we should treat those acres and fireproof the homes. This could be done in just one or two years at a tiny fraction of the cost of treating federal lands."
More Money for Head Start?
"Democratic senators yesterday joined their Republican colleagues in voting to increase the funds for Head Start, the preschool program for poor children dating back to President Lyndon B. Johnson's 'Great Society' that has been the focus of intense ideological debate over the past few months," The Washington Post reports.
In "Head Start Should Take a Lesson from Welfare Reform," Cato's Director of Health and Welfare Studies Michael Tanner and researcher Jenifer Zeigler ask, "[W]hy is the $7,000 per-student we are paying for the 900,000 children in Head Start not enough to provide 'level' educational opportunities?"
"The problem is not the amount of funding," they continue. "The problem is that a federal agency is trying to run a local preschool program, which results in an inefficient allocation of funds. ... It is time for Congress to allow states to experiment with pilot programs, better serving children through local control."
In a 1992 Cato Policy Analysis, "Caveat Emptor: The Head Start Scam," John Hood of the John Locke Foundation examines Head Start's problems during its first three decades.
Cato Expert Testifies at Spam Hearings
On Capitol Hill this morning, Clyde Wayne Crews Jr., Cato's director of technology studies, appeared before the House Small Business Committee's Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform and Oversight regarding unwanted commercial email, or spam. The Senate last week approved federal anti-spam legislation that allows for a national do-not-spam list similar to the do-not-call registry approved by the president last month.
In his testimony, Crews asserted the the private sector beat the federal government to the punch by implementing spam controls. In any event, government restrictions would do nothing to prevent spam from pouring in from overseas.
In "Stop This Today!" Crews writes: "Proposed legislative penalties can easily be onerous or expansive enough to keep many businesses out of Internet marketing altogether, out of fear of a misstep. Is that really our goal? Regulating the ability to communicate freely isn't something to be done lightly."
Wyatt Dubois, editor, wdubois@cato.org
/div>