December 9, 1999

Here They Go Again
Jailhouse Blues
Yugoslavs Act Up Armed
Trial Lawyer Frenzy

Here They Go Again

House Republican leaders this week pledged to rescind some of the spending appropriated this fall, if necessary, to avoid dipping into the Social Security surplus. Republican Conference Chairman J.C. Watts (R-Okla.) said in a memorandum to Members that the leadership would bring a rescission package to the floor in June: "If, and I stress the word if, sometime towards the summer the numbers indicate that we are likely to touch Social Security."

In "Pointless Debate Over Social Security Trust Fund," Michael Tanner writes that "in financing terms, the Social Security trust fund is an irrelevancy." The inevitable Social Security deficit that will hit in 2014 will mean that the Trust Fund will have to be used. Because there is no real money in the fund, income taxes will have to be raised. Check out the Cato Institute Social Security website at www.socialsecurity.org for more information as to why the system should be privatized.

Jailhouse Blues

The U.S. prison population will top 2 million soon, costing taxpayers about $40 billion a year, according to a nonprofit research group advocating alternatives to incarceration. The group name here found that more people have been put behind bars during the 1990s than in any other decade in history.

In testimony before Congress this year, David Boaz explained that total drug arrests are now more than 1.5 million a year. There are about 400,000 drug offenders in jails and prison now, and over 80 percent of the increase in the federal prison population from 1985 to 1995 was due to drug convictions. Drug offenders constitute 59.6 percent of all federal prisoners, according to the latest statistics. (Those in federal prison for violent offenses fell from 18 percent to 12.4 percent of the total, while property offenders fell from 14 percent to 8.4 percent.) Boaz proposes lifting drug prohibition as a solution to many problems including the overcrowding of jails with non-violent offenders.

Yugoslavs Act Up Armed

Yugoslav troops seized control of the main airport in Montenegro yesterday, raising tensions between federal authorities loyal to President Slobodan Milosevic and the independence-minded Montenegrans. The move took place one day before Montenegro planned to take full control of the strategic facility, which serves as both their main commercial airport as well as an air force base.

In "NATO's Balkan Disaster: A Year Later," Doug Bandow comments that despite the bombardment, hundreds of thousands of refugees still populate camps in Albania and Macedonia, and European and Russian peacekeeping forces have been unable or unwilling to suppress continuing attacks across the Albanian border by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). "Montenegro is being squeezed between the Serb-dominated Yugoslav government and KLA guerrillas, operating with the aid of ethnic Albanian refugees still in Montenegro," he writes. Ted Galen Carpenter has also edited a book on the Clinton Kosovo policy entitled "NATO's Empty Victory," which will be released by Cato next month.

Trial Lawyer Frenzy

Florida lawyers on Wednesday filed the latest in a series of class-action lawsuits against Microsoft, alleging the software company overcharged for its Windows 95 operating system after the updated Windows 98 version was released. The suit, filed in a Miami court, accuses Microsoft of one count of violating the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act as well as federal antitrust laws. It seeks to collect damages that have yet to be specified.

In "Cause for Trial Bar Celebration," Stephen Moore writes, "In the wake of the Microsoft antitrust lawsuit decision it seems the only clearcut winner is the trial bar. The trial lawyers now are falling over each other to launch class action lawsuits on behalf of millions of aggrieved purchasers of Windows. Funny, but I know a whole lot of Windows users, but not one who feels that they were victimized by Microsoft. But the lawyers will rush to our rescue nonetheless."