Over at Cato’s Police Misconduct web site, we have identified the worst case for June. It goes to the police department in Carrollton, Kentucky. Adam Horine was a homeless person who was arrested for some petty offense. Horine then appeared before Judge Elizabeth Chandler to determine whether he wanted to go to trial, or plead guilty to the charges. Horine said he wanted to represent himself in the case and he gave the judge some rambling answers to her questions. Horine indicated that he had problems and did not seem angry when the judge ordered that he be sent to a hospital for a mental health evaluation. This is when things took a bizarre turn. Instead of following the judge’s order, the local police chief, Michael Willhoite, had one of his deputies put Horine, against his wishes, on a 28 hour bus ride to Florida. No one accompanied Horine on the bus and no one was expected to meet him when the bus trip ended in Florida. The idea seemed to be to push their problem prisoner on someone else. (One wonders whether that was the first time that this “police technique” was used.) Adding insult to injury, the police would later charge Horine with a new crime, “escape from custody” — even though the police themselves purchased the bus ticket and placed the mentally distressed Horine on the bus.

The King v. Burwell decision last month highlighted the role of the premium tax credit (i.e. “subsidies”) in Obamacare. I have examined the structure of the subsidies quite carefully, and was shocked by their size. I’ll try to educate you about this, state-by-state. Today, I’m starting with Wisconsin, which has some of the largest giveaways on the federal exchange.

Among all individuals aged 55 to 64 in Wisconsin, approximately 70% – or 522,000 people – rely on employer coverage, where the odds are high that they’re paying something out of their own pocket for monthly premiums.

Consider either a single person earning $41,000, or a married couple earning $62,500. Each is 64-years-old, a non-smoker, and lives in Florence, Wisconsin (ZIP code 54121). The structure of Obamacare subsidies means that many individuals who are not poor can find health plans with such large subsidies that they pay absolutely nothing for premiums out of their own pocket. In this case, the married couple or single person would qualify for the Molina Marketplace Bronze Plan with zero monthly premium.

See the graphic below for a married couple:

Married Couple, Earn $62,500, Florence, WI
Pay $0 per year for premiums

Although plenty of other plans exist – with higher premiums but less cost sharing– this plan is essentially a giveaway for those who didn’t want to purchase coverage, but were mandated to do so by the government. And if a near-elderly person (in the age range of 55 to 64) happens to get sick, they could always move into a plan with generous cost sharing provisions in future years, a problem that economist Martin Feldstein calls Obamacare’s fatal flaw.

It’s hard to find anything written or spoken about Greece that doesn’t contain a great deal of hand wringing about the alleged austerity – brutal fiscal austerity – that the Greek government has been forced to endure at the hands of the so-called troika. This is Alice in Wonderland economics. It supports my 95% rule: 95% of what you read about economics and finance is either wrong or irrelevant.

The following chart contains the facts courtesy of Eurostat. Social security spending as a percentage of GDP in Greece is clearly bloated relative to the average European Union country—even more so if you only consider the 16 countries that joined the EU after the Maastricht Treaty was signed in 1992. To bring the government in Athens into line with Europe, a serious diet would be necessary – much more serious than anything prescribed by the troika.

On Monday, I highlighted the fiscal crisis in Puerto Rico. The island’s governor announced that it cannot fully pay back its $70 billion in outstanding debt. Much of the attention this week has focused on how Puerto Rico has mismanaged its finances. San Juan has delayed necessary reforms. But missing in most news articles is the role that Washington, D.C. has played in creating the mess.

Over at Fox News, I have a new piece describing how the federal government has contributed to the island’s problems.

For instance, the federal minimum wage contributes to Puerto Rico’s challenges:

The federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour applies on the island. The minimum wage’s effects are well-known, but it has disproportionate influence in Puerto Rico. The island’s median income is only 40 percent of the mainland. Twenty-eight percent of Puerto Rico residents earn $8.50 an hour or less, compared to 3 percent on the mainland. So the minimum wage has greater impact in Puerto Rico. It would be like if the mainland had a $19 an hour minimum wage. The high minimum wage raises the cost of employment and prices many employers out of the market, causing unemployment to rise and thus tax revenue to dry up. The minimum wage is a partly why the island’s unemployment rate is almost three times that of the mainland.

Similarly, the 1920 Jones Act limits Puerto Rico’s ability to import and export goods efficiently:

Islands have higher-than-normal transportation costs due to their remote locations, but a pre-New Deal era law drives up the cost even more for Puerto Rico. The Jones Act decrees that goods being shipped between U.S. ports must be on U.S. chartered ships with a U.S. crew. That means goods coming from the mainland can’t come on the most cost-competitive vessel. They must go with one of four U.S. shippers operating that route. The limited competition increases costs. Puerto Rico’s shipping costs are twice those of its island neighbors, making items more expensive to purchase on the island. It also limits Puerto Rico’s ability to export its products to the mainland.

The piece also discusses how poor tax policy and lavish entitlement benefits are contributing to the debt crisis.

Puerto Rico is suffering from decades of poor fiscal management, but it’s not the only government who contributed to the crisis. Washington has also played a staring role.

You Ought to Have a Look is a feature from the Center for the Study of Science posted by Patrick J. Michaels and Paul C. (“Chip”) Knappenberger. While this section will feature all of the areas of interest that we are emphasizing, the prominence of the climate issue is driving a tremendous amount of web traffic. Here we post a few of the best in recent days, along with our color commentary.

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This week, as our title suggests, we have a somewhat eclectic mix of articles worthy of your attention (and some that are not). Let’s get started.

In handing down its decision on Monday in Michigan v. EPA, the Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was remiss for not considering costs when deciding to (expensively) regulate mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants. This ruling was urged in Cato’s amicus brief, and hailed as a victory for “liberty and sound science.”

But the direct impact on the ruling as it pertains to mercury emissions is likely to be slight as most coal-fired power plants have already been modified (or shut down) in an effort to reduce mercury emissions under the EPA’s 2012 regulation. Rather, what is being debated in the ruling’s aftermath is what the implication may be on future EPA actions.

Some have argued the ruling in Michigan v. EPA was “pointless,” while other have argued that it “may be the beginning of the end of the Obama Administration’s climate agenda.” Perhaps the biggest thing that could result would be for the Supreme Court to re-evaluate its decision in the Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council case. This possibility was raised by Clarence Thomas in his concurring opinion on the case. The Wall Street Journal editors picked up on this in their review of the Michigan v. EPA decision and highlight its importance:

Which is why Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion deserves a larger audience. He makes a provocative case that the Court’s 1984 decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council is unconstitutional. Under what has become known as “Chevron deference,” the Court defers to executive interpretations when laws are ambiguous. Justice Thomas writes that this has become a license for the executive to usurp legislative powers that are supposed to be vested in Congress.

“Perhaps there is some unique historical justification for deferring to federal agencies, but these cases reveal how paltry an effort we have made to understand it or to confine ourselves to its boundaries,” Justice Thomas writes. “Although we hold today that EPA exceeded even the extremely permissive limits on agency power set by our precedents, we should be alarmed that it felt sufficiently emboldened by those precedents to make the bid for deference that it did here.”

That’s an especially apt point coming in a year when the Supreme Court seemed to abdicate much of its obligation to police the Constitution’s separation between the executive and legislative power. A future Court ought to revisit Chevron deference in what has become an era of presidential law-making.

Here’s hoping!

And here’s how it can happen. At Cato, your obedient servants have, through the years, purposefully compiled a massive record of public comments on global warming regulation that we have filed as official responses to requests for them in the Federal Register. These include our Addendum to the Government’s second “National Assessment” of climate change. It was designed to have a look similar to the federal document, with the cover the exact same material paragraph-by-paragraph, if possible, to make comparison as simple as possible. 

Now, suppose someone files in DC District court over the next EPA insult with regard to global warming, claiming authority because of its “endangerment finding” from carbon dioxide, which, they claim, compels them to regulate it under the Clean Air Act. Turns out that 2009 Finding is largely based upon the second Assessment.

In our fantasy world, the plaintiff enters both the Assessment and our Addendum into the record, and, our dream goes, the judge holds them side-by-side and notes the massive amount of science that is missing from the federal report. Perhaps, thanks to Clarence Thomas, he or she might think that the EPA’s purported “science” is clearly an attempt to mislead, and seeing as this is such an egregious insult, upholds the plaintiff based upon an abrogation of Chevron Deference.

Another interesting post this week came courtesy of Blair King who runs the blogsite “A Chemist in Langley.” King is an avowed lukewarmer and has interesting things to say on a variety of climate-related topics. In a recent post, he takes on the term “Business-as-Usual” which has been co-opted by the climate activists to replace “worst case.” While “worst case” sounds like something which can be dismissed as being very unlikely, “Business-as-Usual” (BAU) sounds like something that is imminent unless things change. But, what is conveniently ignored by the activists using the term is that things do change. Which means things changing is really what BAU represents. BAU is not a static technology, frozen actions case. Instead it is a highly dynamic future filled with new technologies, adaptations, etc.

King points out that BAU and the high end emissions scenarios (RCP8.5) described by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its most recent Assessment Report are not synonymous despite increasing usage as such by those pushing climate catastrophe and regulations to avert it.

There are few folks who call the activists out on this. But the numbers are increasing. Besides ourselves, several recent pieces have appeared (see here and here for example), and King’s piece another welcomed example.

King sets the stage:

As I describe in my post “Does the climate change debate need a reset? — on name calling in the climate change debate” one of the critical battles in any debate is control over the labelling of the actors. If you can apply the best possible label to yourself and the least agreeable label to your opponent you immediately gain the upper hand. In the climate change debate, the “Business as Usual” label has been used more times that I can count with activists from the folks at Skeptical Science to the Suzuki Foundation, and from the Pembina Institute to 350​.org  all finding some way to slip that phrase into their calls demanding immediate action (and of course donations to their cause). As this post will demonstrate, however, the “Business as Usual” descriptor used by the activists in the climate debate is nothing of the sort. Rather it is an artifact from earlier versions of the IPCC reports and was conspicuous by its absence in the most recent (Fifth Assessment) report.

After taking us through the list of reasons why BAU is really not BAU, King concludes:

Looking at what the activists have labelled the “Business as Usual” scenario we see a slew of assumptions that are anything but business as usual… Similarly when an activist talks about “business as usual” in their sales pitch, it is time to put your wallet back in your pocket.

You really ought to have a look at King’s entire piece.

And this week, we introduce a new concept in our You Ought to Have a Look series—Look Away, items that are most definitely not worth your time.

Two notable items fall into our Look Away category this week.

The first is a piece titled “Potent Poison Ivy” that appears on the Cli​mate​Cen​tral​.org website—a website that spends an undue amount of time spreading worries about climate change. Their poison ivy piece is a good example of this tendency (and a classic example of our Good for Bad; Bad for Good theory). Of the literally 1000s of article in the scientific literature that highlight the benefits that an atmosphere enriched with carbon dioxide has on plants, Climate Central decides to highlight the growth enhancement of poison ivy. No doubt, poison ivy does grow better, healthier, stronger, and more productive under conditions of elevated carbon dioxide, but so do virtually all plants—including food crops.

To be better and more fully informed about the impacts of elevated carbon dioxide on plant health, you should visit the wealth of data contained in the website CO2​science​.org that is run by Cato Adjunct Scholar Dr. Craig Idso. For example, in a recent paper, Craig reviewed the impact of elevated CO₂ on the world’s top 45 food crops and found that the yield enhancement to date to be about 10 to 15 percent—a sizeable and significant benefit. Craig expects the crop yield increases to continue to grow as the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration continues to increase as a result of emissions from human activity. We don’t expect finding like these to appear anytime soon at Climate Central.

Another article to look away from comes from the Nation​al​Geo​graph​ic​.org and links shark attacks to global warming. In their post “North Carolina’s ‘Perfect Storm’ for Shark Attacks” National Geographic includes this gem:

“Clearly global climate change is a reality and it has resulted in warmer temperatures in certain places at certain times,” says Burgess.

As warming is expected to increase, it will likely bring more sharks farther north and entice more people to get into the water, which will lead to more bites.

This is exactly how we scripted it many moons ago, when we wrote a tongue-in-cheek journalist’s guide to linking shark attacks to global warming. We dummied up an article that went like this:

Shark Attacks on Humans Related to Global Warming!

How best to explain the relationship? “Well, Katie [Couric], we suspect (and our preliminary research bears this out) that higher temperatures make sharks more active. We already know those same high temperatures send more people to the beach in an effort to cool off. It just stands to reason that the more people there are in the water, the more opportunities there are for shark attack. As global temperatures continue to rise due to fossil fuel emissions, so too will incidents of shark attack. In fact, that drive to the beach is contributing to the problem. People really ought to stay home.”

The similarity to the National Geographic piece is scary! But of course, we weren’t being serious. So, if you really insist on looking into global warming and shark attacks, our article will prove much more entertaining (and pertinent) than the one from National Geographic—so that’s where you really ought to have a look!

Americans are preparing for the Fourth of July holiday. I hope we take a few minutes during the long weekend to remember what the Fourth of July is: America’s Independence Day, celebrating our Declaration of Independence, in which we declared ourselves, in Lincoln’s words, “a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

The holiday weekend would start today if John Adams had his way. It was on July 2, 1776, that the Continental Congress voted to declare independence from Great Britain. On July 4 Congress approved the final text of the Declaration. As Adams predicted in a letter to his wife Abigail:

The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more.

The Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson, is the most eloquent libertarian essay in history, especially its philosophical core:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Jefferson moved smoothly from our natural rights to the right of revolution:

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

The ideas of the Declaration, given legal form in the Constitution, took the United States of America from a small frontier outpost on the edge of the developed world to the richest country in the world in scarcely a century. The country failed in many ways to live up to the vision of the Declaration, notably in the institution of chattel slavery. But over the next two centuries that vision inspired Americans to extend the promises of the Declaration — life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness — to more and more people. That process continues to the present day, as with the Supreme Court’s ruling for equal marriage freedom just last week.

At the very least this weekend, if you’ve never seen the wonderful film 1776, watch it Saturday at 3:00 p.m. on TCM.

At Reason, Scott Shackford has a valuable piece on where libertarians’ interests are likely to coincide with those of organized gay rights advocates and where they are likely to diverge, following the Supreme Court’s ruling on marriage. One flashpoint of controversy is likely to be the role of conservative religious agencies in areas of adoption that are commonly assisted with public funds (as with the adoption of older kids from foster care). 

…It is now legal all across America for gay people to adopt children, and now with same-sex marriage, they can adopt their partner’s child as well. This fight is largely over, and was actually pretty much won even before gay marriage recognition. But there is another side, and it ties back into the treatment of religious people. Some adoption agencies are tied to religious groups who do not want to serve same-sex couples or place children in same-sex homes. They are also typically recipients of state funding for placing children, and are therefore subject to state regulation. Should they be required to serve gay couples? Some states, such as Illinois, attempted to force them. As a result, Catholic Charities, which helped the state find adoptive and foster home services for four decades, stopped providing their services in 2011. At the time, a gay activist declared this a victory, saying “Finding a loving home for the thousands in the foster/​adoption system should be the priority, not trying to exclude people based on religious dogma.”…

Some libertarians I admire have taken the view that where any public dollars are involved, private social service agencies must be held to rigorous anti-discrimination standards. While I respect this view, I don’t share it. Programs that are explicitly voucherized (such as G.I. Bill college tuition benefits, which can be used for seminary study) often go to institutions that I might find discriminatory, and the same logic can apply even with some less explicitly voucherized benefits. If a state depot is dispensing gasoline to rescuers’ boats after Katrina, and Catholic Charities-operated boats spare the need for government boats to reach some rescue targets, the “subsidy” might in fact save the taxpayers money.

In Olson’s experience, the more agencies out there serving the needs of the children looking for homes, the better. … Much as with the controversies over bakers and florists, being denied service by one agency does not actually impact a gay couple’s ability to find and adopt children at all. But eliminating Catholic Charities from the pool reduces the number of people able to help place these children. It’s the children who are punished by the politicization of adoption, not Catholic Charities. This is especially important when dealing with older children or children with special medical needs. … Allowing both sides (and others as well) to play their role as they see fit benefits all children in the system. As for the concern that some adoption agencies take taxpayer money and then discriminate, Olson points out that it’s much more expensive to the taxpayers to leave children to be raised by the state, not to mention terribly cruel. “If you don’t care about the kids or the families, at least care about the taxpayers,” Olson says. But you should probably care about the kids, too.

I’ve written about the same set of issues (in the foster care context) before. The new Reason piece is here.