November 17, 2000

Shelton Sees Military Role Beyond "Vital National Interests"
Electoral College Faces Scrutiny
New Bullet Train Runs On Subsidies

Shelton Sees Military Role Beyond "Vital National Interests"

The top U.S. military officer said yesterday it would be naive for the next president to believe he could stop using the military for peacekeeping and other noncombat missions overseas, according to the Associated Press.

Commenting on the national security challenges likely to face the United States over the coming 10 years, Army Gen. Henry H. Shelton said the world's lone superpower must continue to prepare its military for a wide range of missions -- from training abroad and joining in peacekeeping duties to fighting major wars.

"It is naive to think that the military will become involved in only those areas that affect our vital national interests," Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a speech to a conference on U.S. priorities for a 21st Century security strategy.

The New York Times also reports that Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser to Gov. George W. Bush, said today that it might be necessary to set up international police forces to perform peacekeeping roles that are now the responsibility of soldiers.

In "The End of U.N. Peacekeeping," Senior Fellow Doug Bandow explains that U.N. interventionism "would entangle nations in potentially endless conflicts with no relevance to their security." U.N. interventionism is also the topic of the Cato book "Delusions of Grandeur: The United Nations and Global Intervention," edited by Vice President of Defense and Foreign Policy Studies Ted Galen Carpenter.

Electoral College Faces Scrutiny

The confused and protracted conclusion of the presidential election is stimulating broad debate in Congress about major reforms to the election laws, with lawmakers dusting off proposals to abolish the electoral college and producing a range of new plans to overhaul the way in which Americans vote for their president.

Virtually every major election dispute over the years has led to calls for change, but the shock effect of the recount controversy in Florida -- and the unprecedented delay in determining whether Al Gore or George W. Bush will be the next president -- is prompting more proposals than usual and a growing sense that Congress may actually do something.

"Based on what we're going through now, Congress has an absolute obligation to give a long and hard look at the whole electoral process," said Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa). "To have the world's greatest democracy facing the possibility of a legitimacy challenge as we go into the 21st century is simply bizarre."

In "In Defense of the Electoral College," director of the Center for Representative Government John Samples argues that "the Electoral College is an affirmation, rather than a betrayal, of the American republic." He points out that "a state like Montana, with 883,000 residents, gets the same number of Senators as California, with 33 million people. Consistency would require that if we abolish the Electoral College, we rid ourselves of the Senate as well. Are we ready to do that?"

In "How the Electoral College Works -- And Why It Works Well," Visiting Senior Fellow in Constitutional Studies Ronald D. Rotunda writes that "the Framers of our Constitution invented a system that would establish a democracy while protecting minority rights. They created the Electoral College to protect the residents of the smaller states, and they rejected government by simple majority because plebiscites historically have been the tool of dictatorships, not democracy."

New Bullet Train Runs On Subsidies

Amtrak officials unveiled the new 150 mph bullet train Acela yesterday in a Washington-to-Boston debut run, according to the Associated Press.

A full load of VIPs nibbled on salmon, filet mignon, prosciutto and caviar hors d'oeuvres as they made history aboard the first of 20 sleek new trains that will barrel along Amtrak's Northeast Corridor.

"Today's inaugural run symbolizes the beginning of a new era of American transportation," Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater said at a kickoff ceremony in Washington. Regular service on the train begins Dec. 11 in the Northeast. Legislation pending in Congress would subsidize Amtrak with $10 billion over 10 years to construct other high-speed corridors around the nation.

The Cato Handbook for Congress calls for the privatization of Amtrak and explains that "its services are neither essential for social equity nor a result of market failures." In "Amtrak at Twenty-Five: End of the Line for Taxpayer Subsidies," Jean Love, Wendell Cox and Stephen Moore explain that "virtually every stated justification for continued Amtrak subsidies is based on myth, not reality."

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