May 31, 1999
Higher speed limits have not caused increased traffic deaths
Repealed federal speed limit has made the roads safer, study finds
"Higher speed limits have led, not to a surge in deaths, but to the best highway safety record in history," according to a Policy Analysis released today by the Cato Institute. The Clinton Transportation Department, Ralph Nader, and the automobile insurance industry, among others, were "all wrong" in 1995 when they made "apocalyptic predictions" about the repeal of the 55-mile-per-hour speed limit, according to director of fiscal policy studies Stephen Moore in "Speed Doesn't Kill: The Repeal of the 55-MPH Speed Limit."
The study found that the 33 states that raised their speed limits in 1995 or 1996 did not have a large increase in fatalities compared with the states that did not raise their speed limits. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also reported last October that "the traffic death rate dropped to a record low level in 1997." Moreover, the average fatality rate fell in states that raised their speed limits.
"So far, the evidence suggests that Americans have not responded to higher speed limits by converting the highways into stretches of the Indianapolis 500," writes Moore. In fact, in 1997 there were 66,000 fewer road injuries than in 1995-the year before Congress allowed the states to set their own speed limits.
The study controlled for safety features (such as air bags, increased use of seat belts, better roads and overall safer cars) by examining the number of car crashes, which did rise by 65,000 between 1995 and 1997; however, as a percentage of miles traveled, the number of crashes fell slightly. The injury rate per 100 million vehicle miles traveled fell to its lowest level ever recorded in 1997, according to Moore. If the injury rate on the roads had been as high in 1997 as it was in 1995, approximately 17,000 more Americans would have been injured on the roads, he writes.
In addition, auto insurance claims and premiums have dramatically declined over the last two years, reversing a decade of higher costs. And fewer pedestrians were killed in 1997 than in 1995. These two factors suggest that "drivers are not more prone to drive dangerously than they were before the speed limit was raised."
"Every dire prediction made three years ago by the opponents of higher speed limits has been discredited. Meanwhile, Americans have saved billions of hours previously spent on the road. In addition, Americans are saving an estimated net $2 billion to $3 billion a year because of higher speed limits," Moore concludes.
Policy Analysis no. 346
The Cato Institute published today the first issue of Regulation magazine
under the aegis of a new editor, managing editor and editorial board. It
offers not only an updated design but also a renewed focus on the
implications of the role of government in a market economy. Regulation is
a
quarterly review of regulatory policy.
First published in 1977, Regulation assesses the effects of government
regulation on individuals and businesses, and analyzes alternative ways of
dealing with the problems that regulation is intended to address. Peter
VanDoren, the magazine's new editor, is a political economist who taught at
Princeton, Yale and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill before
joining the Cato Institute. The new managing editor is Thomas E. Anger,
who
brings to Regulation extensive experience in business as well as
publishing.
"Regulation will continue to be written for a wide audience, including
policymakers and analysts in and outside Washington, as well as
entrepreneurs and executives in the private sector," according to William
A.
Niskanen, Cato's chairman and head of Regulation's new editorial board.
"The
new look signals the changes in both management and focus."
A number of distinguished scholars have joined Regulation's editorial
board,
including David Bradford, professor of economics and public affairs at
Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School; William A. Fischel, professor of
economics at Dartmouth College; James J. Heckman, professor of economics at
the University of Chicago; George L. Priest, professor of law and economics
at Yale Law School; V. Kerry Smith, arts and sciences professor of
environmental economics at Duke University; Pablo T. Spiller, professor of
international business at the University of California; and Richard Wilson,
physics professor at Harvard University.
Among the featured articles in the new issue is "Runs on Banks and the
Lessons of the Great Depression" by Professor Charles Calomiris of Columbia
Business School. He argues that "the standard interpretation of banking
collapse and government intervention during the Depression needs
fundamental
revision," and that there is a "need to re-evaluate views of the inherent
instability of banking systems and the value of deposit insurance." In
"Putting the 'Law' Back into Environment Law," Professor David Schoenbrod
of
New York Law School suggests "a realistic way to control modern pollution
according to the spirit…of the common law" that is less costly and less
intrusive than directives imposed from Washington.
Regulation, Vol. 22, No. 1
"The performance and measurement yardsticks presented by the administration
for its global climate change programs are so dubious and disconnected from
reality that they discredit the programs themselves," Cato Institute's
director of natural resource studies Jerry Taylor told a joint House-Senate
panel today. "It's terribly ironic that President Clinton is failing to
abide by the standards he once so strongly advocated."
The goal of the performance measures in the Government Performance and
Results Act of 1993 is to "systematically hold federal agencies accountable
for achieving program results." It requires that federal agencies offer
"objective, quantifiable, and measurable goals for each of their
appropriation accounts during the budget process."
"The GPRA also demands that performance measures be directly connected when
possible to the well being of the American people," Taylor explained.
President Clinton emphasized this point when signing the act into law.
"Does
it work? Is it changing people's lives for the better? Can we say after
we
take money and put it into a certain endeavor that it was worth actually
[taking] away from the taxpayers [and putting] into this endeavor and
[that]
their lives are better?"
"It's time Clinton asked these questions of his own initiatives," according
to Taylor. He outlined three specific areas where he believes the
administration is not in compliance with the stipulations of the Act.
The Clinton administration "has made one miscalculation after another" in
dealing with the Kosovo crisis, according to a new study released today by
the Cato Institute. It is time to review Washington's strategy to date
because current failures "bear crucially on whether the United States
should
escalate its military commitments and its war aims in this conflict."
In the Cato Policy Analysis "Blunder in the Balkans: The Clinton
Administration's Bungled War against Serbia," Christopher Layne, visiting
scholar at the Center for International Studies at the University of
Southern California, argues that the administration's policy has been "a
fiasco" and has "failed miserably."
Layne details the various failures that have led to the status of the war
effort today. The Clinton foreign policy team has demonstrated "an
appalling ignorance" of Serbia's history, nationalism and resolve; at
Rambouillet they mistakenly believed they could force the Serbs to sign a
peace agreement under threat of air strikes ("a textbook example of how not
to practice diplomacy"); they triggered, rather than prevented, ethnic
cleansing (they were "explicitly warned" that Belgrade would respond to air
strikes by expelling Kosovo's ethnic Albanians, according to Layne); they
have caused relations with Russia to be worse than at any point during the
Cold War; the bombing of the Chinese embassy has caused a "serious rift" in
relations with China; and, finally, the refugee flows and economic
dislocations that their policies have caused dangerous stresses in the
entire Balkan region.
Kosovo is "eerily reminiscent" of the Vietnam War, according to Layne. The
same mistakes are being made: overestimation of the effectiveness of air
power alone; underestimation of the willingness of the Yugoslav government
and the Serbs to fight for their homeland; and demonization of the opposing
political leader, which makes a diplomatically negotiated settlement
difficult.
"Good intentions alone cannot excuse the negative consequences of U.S.
Kosovo policy," Layne writes. With no backup plan should the air strikes
fail, "the Clinton administration was unready to deal with the very
consequences it now claims to have foreseen."
"Policies must be judged by their consequences, not by the intentions that
underlie them. Measured by that standard, the Clinton administration has
failed miserably," he concludes.
Policy Analysis no. 345
"The end of the Cold War has eliminated any justification for a dominant
U.S. military role in East Asia," and thus Washington should phase out its
military presence there, according to a new study from the Cato Institute.
The policy analysis presents a critical review of the recently issued
Pentagon report United States Security Strategy for the East Asia-Pacific
Region, published in late 1998.
In "Old Wine in New Bottles: The Pentagon's East Asia Security Strategy
Report," Cato senior fellow Doug Bandow notes that "despite the dramatic
diminution in security threats and the equally dramatic growth in allied
capabilities, U.S. policy looks very much like it did during the Cold War.
Washington's motto seems to be, 'What has ever been, must ever be.'"
In a careful nation-by-nation review of the region, Bandow concludes that
"Only North Korea constitutes a current East Asian security threat, but
that
totalitarian state, though odious, is no replacement for the threat once
posed by the Soviet Union. Pyongyang is bankrupt and starving." Despite
this, Bandow notes that the Pentagon is so tied to a permanent U.S.
military
presence in Korea that it envisions keeping American troops "even after
reunification of the Korean peninsula."
Bandow says the Pentagon not only resists reducing military commitments, it
actually argues for expanding them. "Mongolia has never before figured in
U.S. defense strategy," he observes, but DOD proposes establishing one.
Excuses for involvement are often nonmilitary. "The administration
explicitly terms drug trafficking, terrorism, and environmental degradation
'security interests,'" and even includes humanitarian operations as a
reason
for expanded military relations, since they "may likewise serve important
security interests and values." That, says Bandow, "is a breathtakingly
broad agenda for a report supposedly devoted to security."
"The weakness of the administration's case is evident from its reliance on
bottom-scraping, kitchen-sink arguments that can best be characterized as
silly," Bandow argues. "The world remains a dangerous place, advocates of
a
perpetual Pax Americana ritualistically intone, and so it is. But it is
not
inherently dangerous to the United States." American policy, he concludes,
should be "dictated by America's interests, rather than those of the
populous and prosperous security dependents that Washington has accumulated
throughout the region."
Policy Analysis no. 344
"Today, almost without exception, state governments are awash in tax
revenues," a new report from the Cato Institute declares. "Between 1992
and
1998 state revenues grew by almost twice the rate of inflation plus
population growth." That money has not been given back to taxpayers;
instead, "over the past four years, two of every three dollars of the
unexpected revenue surpluses has been spent on new and expanded government
programs," setting up the risk that the states "may be faced with the same
massive deficits at the end of this expansion that created tidal waves of
red ink when the 1980s boom ended."
In "The State Spending Spree of the 1990s," authors Deal Stansel and
Stephen
Moore note that "if states had restricted increases in spending and tax
collections to the rate of inflation and population growth over the period
1992-98, the state tax burden would be $75.2 billion lower today, or $278
less per person." In many states, the additional burden is much higher:
$787 per person in Michigan; $661 in New Mexico; $573 in Minnesota; $535 in
Connecticut; and $520 in Wisconsin. "By virtually every measure, state
budgets have expanded faster in the 1990s than they did in the fiscally
reckless 1980s. Moreover, since 1994, state budgets have grown 50 percent
faster than even the federal budget."
In fact, "state governments consume a larger share of GDP today than ever
before in history." Since 1980 state highway spending has risen faster
than
population and inflation, and state health and welfare spending has risen
three times faster. "Surplus or not, there's no case for expanding state
government still further," the authors state.
Stansel and Moore say that "there are a series of factors that have
generated substantial budgetary savings for states in the 1990s and should
be contributing to shrinking state budgets." They include declining
interest rates, the impact of a strong economy and welfare reform on
welfare
caseloads, a slowdown in health care cost increases and a steady decline in
unemployment.
The study finds that the states increasing spending the most during this
decade were Oregon, Texas and Mississippi, all of which raised real
spending
by more than 50 percent from 1990 to 1997. On the other hand, real
spending
declined in Alaska, and grew by less than 10 percent in Wyoming and Rhode
Island.
Policy Analysis no. 343
The bipartisan legislation introduced today by Congressmen Jim Kolbe (R-AZ)
and Charlie Stenholm (D-TX) "tills the soil for future reform" by
introducing personal retirement accounts funded with current payroll taxes,
said Darcy Olsen, entitlements policy analyst at the Cato Institute. "The
Kolbe-Stenholm plan's real individual retirement accounts provide strong
roots for future Social Security reform."
Unlike the Archer-Shaw plan, which attempts to shore-up Social Security with
a vast tax increase, or President Clinton's plan, which attempts to save
Social Security by placing the debt burden on future generations, the
Kolbe-Stenholm legislation "is an honest attempt to head-off Social
Security's impending financial crisis through structural reform," according
to Olsen. "This legislation is definitely a step in the right direction."
Importantly, the plan would let workers put a portion of their current
payroll taxes into individually owned retirement accounts, giving workers a
better return on their tax dollars. "The question, then, almost asks itself:
if a partially funded system is good, wouldn't a fully funded system be
better?" she added.
"Kolbe-Stenholm has cleared a path for real reform, but some weeds still
remain. First, the accounts are too small: workers should be allowed to get
a better return on all their payroll tax dollars, not just 2 percentage
points. Second, the choice of investments is limited-workers should be able
to choose from a broad range of investments and management companies, just
as millions of workers do with IRAs and 401(k) plans."
The Cato Project on Social Security Privatization
"Despite a string of Supreme Court cases, now spanning more than two
decades, many in Congress persist in believing that they have the power to
restrict what the First Amendment plainly protects," Cato scholar Roger
Pilon told the Constitution Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee
today. The House panel was examining the First Amendment and restrictions on
political speech.
Pilon, director of the Cato Institute's Center for Constitutional Studies,
reminded members that the Court "has said repeatedly that, under the First
Amendment, campaign contributions are protected speech, and any regulation
of political contributions or expenditures will be upheld only if they
achieve a compelling governmental interest by the least restrictive
means-the highest possible constitutional hurdle."
The Supreme Court's landmark 1976 decision in Buckley v. Valeo struck down
many of the provisions Congress had attached to the Federal Election
Campaign Act on the ground that they were impermissible under the First
Amendment. "Since then," Pilon told the subcommittee, "the Federal Election
Commission has fought to close the perceived 'loopholes' created by Buckley.
In response, the Court has repeatedly held that the First Amendment is not a
loophole."
Among the measures now being urged in Congress are provisions that would
regulate "soft money" - money contributed to political parties for other
than candidate-oriented advertising. Because such contributions are
presently unregulated, the fear is that they invite wholesale evasion of
contribution limits now in place. "They do," Pilon testified. "Indeed,
such evasion is exactly what one would expect to find when people are
prohibited from contributing in more direct ways to candidates of their
choice. The solution to the problem of evasion, however, is not to ban or
limit soft money-which would be patently unconstitutional-but to eliminate
or at least raise the limits on direct contributions."
Pilon called for opening up the process through "the aptly-named 'Doolittle
bill,'" sponsored in the 105th Congress by Rep. John Doolittle (R-Calif.)
and 70 other sponsors. "In essence," Pilon said, "that bill would remove
the campaign contribution limits now in place and require instead that
candidates and parties promptly report their financial transactions to the
Federal Election Commission for disclosure to the public. The bill would,
in short, deregulate the process and open it up to the public. Its
simplicity is its virtue."
Full text of Roger Pilon's testimony
May 24, 1999
Regulation magazine sports new editorial lineup, new look and new focus
Editor VanDoren, managing editor Anger joined by distinguished editorial board
May 20, 1999
Administration not willing to measure effectiveness of global climate change efforts
Compliance with statutory requirements doubtful
Full text of Jerry Taylor's testimony
May 20, 1999
Blunder in the Balkans: the administration's miscalculations
New study finds Kosovo campaign thoroughly counterproductive and reminiscent of Vietnam
May 18, 1999
The time for dominant U.S. military role in Asia has passed, study finds
Most recent Pentagon strategy report ignores changed threat environment
May 13, 1999
States spending two-thirds of revenue windfall on new and expanded programs
Expenditures up 56 percent since 1990, far outpacing inflation and population growth
May 6, 1999
New Social Security plan tills the soil for future reform
Kolbe-Stenholm legislation prepares ground; care needed for more meaningful changes
May 5, 1999
Cato legal scholar: campaign finance proposals unconstitutional
The First Amendment is not a "loophole," Pilon tells House subcommittee
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