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Cato Daily Dispatch for November 11, 2002

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GOP Gains Boost Outlook for School Vouchers
Lott Favors Making Tax Cuts Permanent
States Take on Global Warming

GOP Gains Boost Outlook for School Vouchers

Republican gains in last week's elections have boosted the outlook for school vouchers, one of the most controversial ideas on the conservative agenda for education overhaul, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The GOP's advances in state legislatures in several major voucher battlegrounds promise to both spur on efforts to expand voucher programs and to hamper moves to curb those already in place, say both advocates and opponents of the idea.

Vouchers permit parents to use public money to pay private-school tuition. The election represents the second major gain for the concept this year, following a landmark Supreme Court decision in June that cleared vouchers for use in religious schools.

Education Policy Analyst Casey Lartigue had the following comments: "With more school choice supporters apparently in positions of power in state legislatures, Congress, and the White House, we may finally get an answer to two questions: 1) What happens when taxpayer money for education is given to parents rather than schools? 2) Is the mission of education about maintaining an institution (the public school system) or purpose (helping people acquire, at a minimum, basic literacy skills)? By strapping money to the backs of kids and letting them attend schools of their choice, education institutions will be focused on their main mission of making sure kids acquire the skills they need."

Lott Favors Making Tax Cuts Permanent

Likely incoming Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi, riding high after Republicans gained a Senate majority in Tuesday's midterm election, said yesterday that he favors making President Bush's tax cuts permanent and enacting a Republican version of a prescription drug plan for the elderly, reports The Washington Times.

Democrats have said the tax cuts should be allowed to expire because they are too costly, have benefited the rich, and will deepen the federal budget deficit if made permanent.

Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," Lott also said that when the Senate convenes for a post-election lame-duck session this week, he will have enough votes to pass a bill creating the Cabinet-level Homeland Security Department sought by Bush, a measure passed by the House.

Republicans were able to use their accusations of Democratic "obstructionism" on homeland security, tax cuts, and presidential authority to make war on Iraq to help score what turned out to be historic gains in both houses of Congress for the president's party in midterm elections.

Chris Edwards, director of fiscal policy, made the following comments in September, when Bush defended the cuts: "The 10-year, $1.35 trillion tax cut should be made permanent immediately, and all future cuts phased in to 2003, to boost business confidence. All the ideas for cutting capital income taxes that are being floated are good ideas. These should all be thought of as fixing long-term problems with the tax code. The emphasis should be on giving the U.S. a competitive tax code for long-term economic growth. High U.S. taxation of capital income (dividends, capital gains, business profits) is far too high compared to our major trading partners."

In "Cut Tax Rates, Cut Government Waste," Edwards writes, "Harvard's Martin Feldstein found that the president's proposal would create economic gains of about 38 percent of the value of the tax cut itself. That means that families and businesses would be $500 billion better off from the tax cut, in addition to enjoying the $1.35 trillion more of their earnings they got to keep."

States Take on Global Warming

With the Bush administration and Congress deadlocked over how best to combat the mounting threat of global warming, state officials across the country are taking matters into their own hands, The Washington Post reports.

California Gov. Gray Davis (D) has signed landmark legislation aimed at sharply reducing automobile and truck emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that many scientists say are the chief culprit in the earth's rising temperature. New Hampshire has enacted regulations of its own to combat rising temperatures in a bid to protect its colorful maple forests and lucrative syrup industry.

In New Jersey, state officials are emphasizing incentives and covenants to encourage utilities, manufacturers, colleges and even churches to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. The collective impact of these state efforts is relatively minor compared with the worldwide dimensions of the problem. Yet state officials and environmentalists say they highlight a failure in Washington to address global warming.

Patrick Michaels, senior fellow in environmental studies and author of The Satanic Gases, writes in "Drought-Inspired Climate Panic" that statistics show that the Earth is becoming neither hotter nor drier. "U.S. surface temperatures have risen a mere 0.4ºC in the last 100 years. Are we getting drier? The answer is no. U.S. precipitation has increased about 10 percent over the 20th century, an increase of around 3 inches in the last 100 years."

Jonathan Block, editor, jblock@cato.org