Skip to main content
Menu

Main navigation

  • About
    • Annual Reports
    • Leadership
    • Jobs
    • Student Programs
    • Media Information
    • Store
    • Contact
    LOADING...
  • Experts
    • Policy Scholars
    • Adjunct Scholars
    • Fellows
  • Events
    • Upcoming
    • Past
    • Event FAQs
    • Sphere Summit
    LOADING...
  • Publications
    • Studies
    • Commentary
    • Books
    • Reviews and Journals
    • Public Filings
    LOADING...
  • Blog
  • Donate
    • Sponsorship Benefits
    • Ways to Give
    • Planned Giving

Issues

  • Constitution and Law
    • Constitutional Law
    • Criminal Justice
    • Free Speech and Civil Liberties
  • Economics
    • Banking and Finance
    • Monetary Policy
    • Regulation
    • Tax and Budget Policy
  • Politics and Society
    • Education
    • Government and Politics
    • Health Care
    • Poverty and Social Welfare
    • Technology and Privacy
  • International
    • Defense and Foreign Policy
    • Global Freedom
    • Immigration
    • Trade Policy
Live Now

Cato at Liberty


  • Blog Home
  • RSS

Email Signup

Sign up to have blog posts delivered straight to your inbox!

Topics
  • Banking and Finance
  • Constitutional Law
  • Criminal Justice
  • Defense and Foreign Policy
  • Education
  • Free Speech and Civil Liberties
  • Global Freedom
  • Government and Politics
  • Health Care
  • Immigration
  • Monetary Policy
  • Poverty and Social Welfare
  • Regulation
  • Tax and Budget Policy
  • Technology and Privacy
  • Trade Policy
Archives
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • October 2007
  • September 2007
  • August 2007
  • July 2007
  • June 2007
  • May 2007
  • April 2007
  • March 2007
  • February 2007
  • January 2007
  • December 2006
  • November 2006
  • October 2006
  • September 2006
  • August 2006
  • July 2006
  • June 2006
  • May 2006
  • April 2006
  • Show More

August 2011


August 31, 2011 3:49PM

Obama Jobs Plan to Push More K-12 Bloat?

By Andrew J. Coulson

SHARE

In a recent interview, President Obama hints at the core of his much‐​anticipated jobs plan:

PRESIDENT OBAMA: what we do have, I think, is the capacity to do some things right now that would make a big difference …


TOM JOYNER: Like?


OBAMA: For example, putting people to work rebuilding our roads, our bridges, our schools all across America…


We’ve got the capacity right now to help local school districts make sure that they’re not laying off more teachers. We haven’t been as aggressive as we need to, both at the state and federal level.

So we haven’t been aggressive enough with our hiring at the K-12 level, hmm? Perhaps I’m an unusually timid sort, but the trend below looks pretty darn aggressive to me: k‐​12 employment has been growing 10 times faster than enrollment for forty years.

Media Name: cato-coulson-k-12-enrollment-employment-trend-2011.gif

And the $300 billion question is: what impact has doubling the workforce had on the cost and performance of America’s public schools? According to federal government data, the answer is this:

Media Name: Cato-Coulson-tot-spend-20111.gif

We’ve nearly tripled the cost of sending a child all the way through the K-12 system, while performance near the end of high school has been stagnant (reading and math) or even declining (science). Just returning to the staff‐​to‐​student ratio of 1980 would save almost $150 billion annually—and somehow students weren’t performing noticeably differently in the ‘80s than today.


And yet President Obama apparently wants more hiring and more spending. I wonder if voters will want more of President Obama if he indeed continues to flog the failed policies of the past two generations?

Related Tags
Education, Center for Educational Freedom
August 31, 2011 3:30PM

Federal Infrastructure Spending: How About This Boondoggle?

By Chris Edwards

SHARE

President Obama is planning to deliver a big speech on jobs and the economy. His wish list for Congress will likely include more government infrastructure spending. (Infrastructure spending is also on Rachel Maddow’s wish list).


So that citizens know what the president is talking about, they should review the success of the government’s past infrastructure projects. Here’s one to consider:

Media Name: YAO.jpg

It’s the Yuma Desalting Plant in Arizona, built by the federal Bureau of Reclamation at a taxpayer cost of $245 million. After completing the plant in 1993, Uncle Sam said: “Whoops, we don’t need it after all.” The plant has sat idle for almost two decades, and taxpayers are getting hit for $6 million a year to maintain it.


It gets worse. The purpose of the Yuma plant is to reverse some of the environmental damage done by government‐​subsidized irrigation farming. As irrigation waters reflow back into Western rivers, they boost saline levels and can make the water useless for downstream users. The Yuma plant was supposed to desalinate some of the irrigation flow into the Colorado River, but the government spent more money to build a separate 73‐​mile canal to drain water straight to the ocean.


I imagine that irrigation farming makes economic sense in many places. The problem is that the federal government has vastly subsidized dams and irrigation infrastructure in the West without regard to economics or sound environmental practices. Check out the costly environmental mess created by federal irrigation subsidies in the San Joaquin Valley of California. Or consider the environmental problems in the Florida Everglades caused by federal sugar subsidies and Corps of Engineers infrastructure, which, once again, taxpayers are helping to pay to clean up.


Billions of dollars of infrastructure spending by the Bureau of Reclamation has gone into white elephant projects. Imagining that more federal infrastructure will be a panacea for the economy is a liberal fairy tale, detached from the actual experience of most federal agencies over the last century.

Related Tags
Government and Politics, Tax and Budget Policy
August 31, 2011 2:54PM

Wartime Contracting Report Provides More Evidence to Exit Afghanistan

By Malou Innocent

SHARE

Over the past decade, American taxpayers have lost as much as $60 billion dollars to massive fraud and waste in the nation building campaigns of Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a report released today by the Commission on Wartime Contracting. The independent panel confirms much of what we already know about rent‐​seeking in wartime; nevertheless, the panel details specific reconstruction projects and programs that display a stunning array of mismanagement:

  • A modest $60 million agricultural development program in northern Afghanistan expanded to the south and east to the tune of $360 million. The cash‐​for‐​work program was intended to distribute vouchers for wheat‐​seed and fertilizer in drought‐​stricken areas. Today, the program spends $1 million a day. The panel reports, “The pressure to quickly spend the millions of dollars created an environment in which waste was rampant. Paying villagers for what they used to do voluntarily destroyed local initiatives and diverted project goods into Pakistan for resale.”
  • During operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, waste and fraud averaged about “$12 million every day for the past 10 years.” [Emphasis in original];
  • The Department of Defense (DoD) awarded an $82 million contract for the design and construction of an Afghan Defense University. Now, DoD officials say it will cost $40 million a year to operate—beyond the indigenous government’s ability to fund and sustain;
  • The U.S. Agency for International Development, the U.S. Government’s main distributor of development contracts, funded the Khost‐​Gardez road project. Originally valued at $86 million it has since mushroomed to $176 million;
  • The insurgents’ second‐​largest funding source is the U.S. taxpayer. Money for construction and transportation projects are diverted to the insurgency so Afghan subcontractors can pay them for protection. Of course, the insurgents use this money to buy bombs, IEDs, and other explosives to kill foreign troops and civilians.

The report goes on and on with examples that should disgust U.S. taxpayers. In addition, the report was released amid news that August 2011 was the deadliest month for U.S. service members, and 2011 shaping up to be the deadliest year for Afghan civilians. Despite the spin from warhawks, people in the region know the coalition has lost. Last year, the “Godfather of the Taliban,” Hamid Gul, the former head of Pakistan’s Inter‐​Services Intelligence agency, laid out in extensive detail why America has been defeated (for skeptics of withdrawal, it’s worth reading).


The United States has largely disrupted, dismantled, and defeated al Qaeda. America should not go beyond that objective by combating a regional insurgency or drifting into an open‐​ended occupation. We have endured enough with tens of thousands of people killed, injured, and traumatized, and billions of dollars wasted.

Related Tags
Defense and Foreign Policy
August 31, 2011 2:00PM

Mill, Constant & Macaulay 1; Lind 0

By Walter Olson

SHARE

Jason Kuznicki is generous indeed to describe Michael Lind’s latest screed against libertarians and classical liberals as merely “uninformed.” Of the many absurdities in Lind’s piece, the one that caught my eye was his description of the Nineteenth Century trio of John Stuart Mill, Benjamin Constant and Thomas Babington Macaulay as advocates of “autocracy,” the only evidence he proffers for this view being that none of the three thinkers embraced current thinking about universal suffrage. That the fight against “autocracy” might historically have been a multifaceted affair fought on many fronts besides the extension of the franchise — involving issues of civil liberty, the rule of law, freedom of conscience, separation of powers, federalism, and curbs on arbitrary governance on which these thinkers wrote works still highly relevant today — does not restrain Lind from sloughing them all into a rhetorical pit better suited to de Maistre or Schmitt. Mill and Constant never get another mention, but Lind lingers to insult Macaulay as supposedly wishing “to limit voting rights to those who drink champagne and ride in carriages.”


Readers might never guess from this that perhaps the best known episode of Macaulay’s career as an orator in the British Parliament — the one that “made his name,” per Wikipedia — came with his speeches in favor of expanding the franchise in the historic Reform Act of 1832. (Not long before, his famous maiden speech had deployed every resource of eloquence on behalf of the cause of removing the civil disabilities of the Jews.) Lind’s “champagne and carriages” slur would be less than accurate even as applied to many of the hidebound Tories of the time. But to apply it to the best‐​remembered Whig advocate of a measure extending the franchise to ten‐​pound (middle‐​class) householders is — well, “uninformed” seems a bit mild.


It would be hazardous indeed for one’s sense of history to be shaped by perusing the writings of Michael Lind.

Related Tags
General, Political Philosophy
August 31, 2011 1:56PM

Ed DeMarco: A Rare Public Servant

By Mark A. Calabria

SHARE

I spend a lot of time pointing out government gone wrong. Sadly it doesn’t take that much effort. But occasionally you come across someone actually doing their job and trying to protect the taxpayer. As illustrated in today’s Wall Street Journal, Edward DeMarco, the acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), which regulates Fannie Mae and Freddie Mae, is such a person.


Mr. DeMarco has continued to push back against repeated plans by the Obama Administration to use Fannie and Freddie as off‐​budget slush‐​funds (they seem to have forgotten such was one of the reasons we are in our current economic mess).


As I explained yesterday, by pushing back DeMarco is simply carrying out the law as it was both written and intended. It is particularly sad to see a former Obama Administration official, who now “teaches” law, complain about DeMarco missing the big picture. As if somehow the “big picture” empowers DeMarco to ignore the law. DeMarco showed his integrity by saying, ““If we’re not authorized to do it, that’s a dangerous place to be.” He’s absolutely correct. Although he should have just stopped at “not authorized to do it.” 


After the lawlessness practiced by various financial regulators in 2008, it is commendable to see a true public servant reminding us that legislative decisions are the province of legislators, not regulators. If more regulators behaved this way, we would have avoided some of the mess we are now in.

August 31, 2011 12:24PM

Removing Melson Will Not Fix the ATF

By David Rittgers

SHARE

The controversy over the ATF’s ill‐​conceived scheme to “walk” guns across the border with Mexico finally resulted in the removal of one high‐​ranking official: Acting Director Kenneth Melson. The U.S. Attorney for Minnesota, Todd Jones, will fill the position for now.


A quick review: ATF supervisors ordered agents to facilitate firearm sales to known or suspected “straw buyers” that intended to move the guns across the border and give them to drug cartels. Gun dealers in the U.S. reported the suspicious transactions to the ATF, expecting to cooperate in apprehending the gunrunners. As it turns out, the suspect buyers had disqualifying conditions that should have shown up in federally mandated instant background checks…but didn’t. The firearms trafficked across the border predictably showed up at crime scenes, including those involved with the murder of a Border Patrol agent, an ICE agent, a Mexican military helicopter shoot‐​down, and other murders on both sides of the border.


If you’re a private citizen, this sort of thing gets you 30 years in prison. If you’re a whistleblower within ATF, you get terminated. If you’re a supervisor responsible for such a scheme, you get promoted reassigned to ATF headquarters.


This ATF scheme broke numerous firearm laws, possibly the Arms Export Control Act, and facilitated multiple murders. The end result this litany of crimes and persistent ATF and DOJ stonewalling congressional investigations cannot simply be Melson’s removal and replacement with a DOJ official who may also have been complicit in the gun‐​running scheme.


Meanwhile, the multiple long‐​gun sale reporting mandate that I wrote about last year, which imposes conditions on gun dealers in border states in violation of federal law, has been implemented by the ATF. This was almost certainly one of the goals of the “gun control for the sake of Mexico” push we’ve seen for over two years, even though the numbers of private arms in cartel hands are far lower than we’ve been told, ATF efforts notwithstanding. ATF headquarters is throwing a party to celebrate the latest round of illegal action.


Melson’s departure is certainly warranted, but we’re a few indictments and many terminations short of justice, in my mind.

Related Tags
Constitutional Law, Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies
August 31, 2011 12:10PM

He’s No Libertarian

By David Boaz

SHARE

Dana Milbank of the Washington Post warns readers that “Rick Perry is no libertarian.” Good point. Now if only the Post had warned voters about Barack Obama back in 2007. And alas, Milbank could be kept busy for the next few weeks writing about presidential candidates who are “no libertarian.”

Related Tags
Government and Politics, Political Philosophy

Pagination

  • 1
  • Page 2
  • Page 3
  • Page 4
  • Page 5
  • Page 6
  • Page 7
  • Page 8
  • Page 9
  • Next page

Stay Connected to Cato

Sign up for the newsletter to receive periodic updates on Cato research, events, and publications.

View All Newsletters

1000 Massachusetts Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20001-5403
202-842-0200
Contact Us
Privacy

Footer 1

  • About
    • Annual Reports
    • Leadership
    • Jobs
    • Student Programs
    • Media Information
    • Store
    • Contact
  • Podcasts

Footer 2

  • Experts
    • Policy Scholars
    • Adjunct Scholars
    • Fellows
  • Events
    • Upcoming
    • Past
    • Event FAQs
    • Sphere Summit

Footer 3

  • Publications
    • Books
    • Cato Journal
    • Regulation
    • Cato Policy Report
    • Cato Supreme Court Review
    • Cato’s Letter
    • Human Freedom Index
    • Economic Freedom of the World
    • Cato Handbook for Policymakers

Footer 4

  • Blog
  • Donate
    • Sponsorship Benefits
    • Ways to Give
    • Planned Giving
Also from Cato Institute:
Libertarianism.org
|
Humanprogress.org
|
Downsizinggovernment.org