December 16, 1999

Gore's Nanny State Vision
Bomb's Away. . .
Chavez Emboldened
Labor's power?

Gore's Nanny State Vision

Vice President Al Gore is proposing a broader federal role in education, reports today's New York Times. Included in his plan is $50 billion to make preschool available to all 3- and 4-year-olds, as well as another $65 billion for teacher incentives and bonuses, making him the first candidate to involve the federal government in teachers' salaries.

In "Universal Preschool is No Golden Ticket: Why Government Should Not Enter the Preschool Business," Darcy Olsen notes that despite the assertions of advocates that early schooling of low-income children is an investment that pays off, "there is no empirical evidence that these programs will reduce the number of children who perform poorly in school, become teenage parents, commit criminal acts, or depend on welfare." In fact, studies show that any initial gains the children make disappear entirely within a few years of exiting the programs. "Public preschool for younger children is irresponsible, given the failure of the public school system to educate the children currently enrolled," she writes.

Bomb's Away. . .

The United States and China have agreed to pay to repair damages inflicted on one another's embassies during the war in Kosovo. U.S. intelligence accidentally pinpointed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade as a target that was then bombed by NATO war planes, killing innocent Chinese diplomats. The incident caused major protests in Beijing, with protesters damaging the U.S. Embassy there in return.

In "Blunder in the Balkans: The Clinton Administration's Bungled War against Serbia," Christopher Layne analyses the ramifications of the Clinton Administration's policy in the Balkans, including the bombing of the Chinese Embassy. In "Clinton's China Blunder," Aaron Lukas examines the impact the U.S. bombing incident on the future U.S-Chinese trade relationship.

Chavez Emboldened

Voters in Venezuela, America's largest oil supplier, yesterday approved a new constitution proposed by President Hugo Chavez that gives him sweeping and near-dictatorial powers. Before his recent election, Chavez, an army colonel, had unsuccessfully tried to seize power by coup in 1992. Nearly $4 billion in capital is estimated to have left Venezuela since Chavez took office last February.

Ian Vasquez takes a look at the new constitution in "A Venezuelan Recipe for Poverty and Corruption." Deroy Murdock, who recently returned from a trip to Venezuela, also warns voters not to approve the constitution in "The Hun Also Rises: Today's Venezuelan Vote Could Create a Modern Caudillo"

Labor's power?

A front-page story in today's Wall Street Journal analyzes the power of labor unions and their strike power in the United States. Despite the ruckus unions caused at the recent WTO meeting, their membership is declining; the New Economy is making striking riskier as workers can be replaced more easily. In addition, strikes hurt workers themselves the most, as they are also shareholders in many of the companies for whom they work.

Almost half of all American households now own stock or mutual funds, a 126 percent increase over the past fifteen years, and this dramatic demographic change is causing a shift in public opinion away from government programs to investor-friendly policies, according to Richard Nadler in "The Rise of Worker Capitalism," Richard Nadler. The nation's 76 million stockholders have "internalized their new role as capitalists" and that this change has fundamentally altered the relationship between labor and capital.

In "Making America Poorer: The Cost of Labor Law," Morgan O. Reynolds examines how much labor unions cost the American economy. The book examines the legal and economic consequences of federal labor law and uncovers some shocking facts.