December 10, 1999

Bradley-McCain 2000
Digital Divide?
Fighting Words
Schools Fail the Test

Bradley-McCain 2000

It's official! John McCain and Bill Bradley will have a joint campaign appearance next Thursday in Claremont, N.H., the same place where in 1995 President Clinton and then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich shook hands and pledged to change campaign finance laws. McCain will be joining Bradley in calling for a ban on "soft money."

Current campaign finance regulations have never reduced the influence of money, have never opened up the political system, nor have they lowered the cost of campaigns, argues Bradley A. Smith in "Campaign Finance Regulation: Faulty Assumptions and Undemocratic Consequences." In July this year, Roger Pilon testified before Congress on the Constitutional issues related to campaign finance reform.

Digital Divide?

President Clinton said yesterday he would tour depressed areas left out of cyberspace, while the commerce secretary convened high-tech corporate leaders, educators and minority groups to discuss the issue. A Commerce Department study released in July showed a growing "digital divide" between the percentage of white and minorities, urban and rural dwellers and rich and poor who are connected to the Internet. Clinton signed an executive memorandum to ensure closing the divide will be a top goal of the federal government.

In "A Snapshot View of a Complex World," David Boaz writes that the Commerce Department report is misleading and wrong. More important than the bad news of a "divide" are the statistics in the report which show internet connectivity soaring. Boaz writes, "Historically, new technologies spread slowly. First, the rich get them, then the middle class and the poor -- but eventually everybody gets television, telephones and so on. Today 98% of Americans have televisions, and 94% have phones. The newer the technology, it seems, the more rapidly it spreads."

Fighting Words

In his visit to China yesterday, Boris Yeltsin lashed out at President Clinton for criticizing Russia's actions in Chechnya. "Yesterday, Clinton permitted himself to put pressure on Russia," Yeltsin said before meeting with Chinese leaders. "It seems he has for a minute, for a second, for half a minute, forgotten that Russia has a full arsenal of nuclear weapons. He has forgotten about that."

In "Expanded NATO Will Tempt the Bear," Jonathan Clarke noted that Russian Foreign Minister, and possible Yeltsin successor, Yevgeny Primakov has warned on numerous occasions that an expanded NATO would cause Russia to "reconsider its options." In "NATO Expansionism and the Danger of a Second Cold War," Stanley Kober warns that "Russian suspicions about Western intentions, play into the hands of militaristic elements that argue that Moscow must restore the Soviet empire to protect Russia's security."

Schools Fail the Test

A new report released yesterday on national education found that even though about 70 percent of high school graduates now go on to continue their education, fewer than half of students have taken the rigorous courses expected by colleges and employers. Comparing state graduation requirements with college admissions standards and placement exams, the study found a mismatch between what high school students are taught and what they are expected to know in order to perform in college and on the job. Public schools continue to fail despite increasing sums of money appropriated to education.

In the Cato Handbook for Congress section "Department of Education," (pdf) David Boaz recommends that the Department of Education be abolished, and that control of education be returned to families and localities. In "Public Schools: Make Them Private," Milton Friedman writes that schools need to be restructured by "enabling a private, for-profit industry to develop that will provide a wide variety of learning opportunities and offer effective competition to public schools."