Like my colleague Michael, I found “Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall” the best moment in President Obama’s address. It was unifying: by going far enough back in time, it summoned up (as a recitation of current controversies would not) a sense that in historical perspective, nearly all present-day Americans have come to agree on crucial fundamentals about not using the law to mistreat each other. I especially liked the touch of geographical obscurity. It makes me imagine a million explanatory conversations going on this week from Kalamazoo to Karachi: “Okay, so *that’s* why Americans still talk about Selma and Stonewall. Now what was Seneca Falls about?” That could be time well spent.

My opinion piece defending the filibuster appeared today in the Philadelphia Inquirer just as Senate leaders were reaching a deal that largely preserves the rule.

I would like to explicate this sentence in the op-ed:

In a polarized time, the filibuster tends to make Senate actions more representative of the nation as a whole.

Here’s the reasoning behind that conclusion. Assume the electorate forms a normal distribution with regard to policy preferences. Normally both parties would compete to attract the vote of the median voter thereby winning an election. In a polarized time for whatever reason, both parties might have programs some distance from the median voter. If a governing party acted on such non-median preferences, the resulting law would ignore the wishes of a substantial number of voters in the middle or “thick” part of the distribution. A filibuster would either 1) prevent a law from passing or 2) force a majority to accommodate the views of the most right- or left- leaning legislators in the minority party. The views of the legislators required by the filibuster would presumably reflect the views of many voters in the thick part of the distribution. In this way, the filibuster would require laws to become closer to what a majority wanted than the laws that a filibuster-free majority would have passed.

Of course, with regard to the theory, it makes no sense that polarization would exist to begin with: if either party varied from the wishes of the median voter, the other would swoop in and pick up those votes. However, polarization exists so I assume both parties govern somewhat off the median.

An effort is underway at the Department of Agriculture to reform the federal government’s mandatory country-of-origin labeling rules for beef. The current scheme was successfully challenged by Canada and Mexico as a violation of WTO obligations prohibiting protectionist regulatory discrimination. If the United States does not bring its law into compliance, Mexico and Canada will have the option of raising tariffs on U.S. goods in retaliation.

The supposed purpose of mandatory origin labels is to improve food safety by providing consumers with information. How does the country of origin of the cattle impact food safety? I surely do not know. If consumers want this information, why is a law needed to compel businesses to provide it? I don’t know that either.

The actual purpose of the law is to prevent Canadian cattle raisers from competing with American cattle raisers. The labeling scheme accomplishes this not by informing consumers that their beef is made from cattle that ate grass north of the 49th parallel, but by imposing on downstream processors the expense of keeping track of the cattle’s historical whereabouts. The meat packers can avoid this expense by purchasing only purely U.S. origin cattle. The price of American cattle goes up accordingly.

The extent of any reforms made this year will tell us how much the WTO ruling affected the balance of political power within the cow-to-hamburger value chain. The law’s existence is evidence that cattle raisers currently have more influence in Washington than meat packers, but the WTO ruling has already made a difference simply by prompting the initiation of a reform effort. The possibility of retaliation by Canada and Mexico spreads the negative consequences of the law to other politically relevant U.S. industries with a stake in North American trade. These industries will not sit idly by while their own businesses suffer in the name of expensive beef. 

Let the lobbying begin!

I recently blogged that for me, the one (and perhaps only) bright spot of President Obama’s second inaugural address was this gem:

We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths – that all of us are created equal – is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth.

A reader responds:

Just a little feedback for your post below. I think you are being a bit too “highbrow” by not explaining what the three place names signify. I had to look up two of them to realize what they signified. They may all be top-of-mind to Obama Democrats, but this long-time libertarian (30+ years) and previous to that conservative republican really knew not of the references. With Wikipedia & Google search, it does not take much to look them up, but still.…

I think a lot about why more women and minorities don’t show an interest in libertarianism, especially when libertarian ideas should be particularly appealing to groups that have suffered at the hands of the state. I think my correspondent exhibits one reason. Seneca Falls, Selma, and Stonewall represent seminal moments in the movements to liberate three groups who had suffered (and at least one of which is still suffering) state-sponsored repression right here in the United States. Yet this 30-year libertarian had to look up two of those references. I had to look up one. We didn’t know all three because libertarians do not routinely talk about these incredibly important moments and movements in the history of American freedom. Sure, we are glad they happened (and are ongoing). But we don’t celebrate them. Which we should. Barack Obama is ahead of us on this one.

Suppose you or a close family member had been in Selma. If you met a libertarian, and mentioned Selma, and he drew a blank — what would you think?

On Tuesday, I testified before the Florida Senate’s Select Committee on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Also testifying was economist Jonathan Gruber. Gruber is an architect of RomneyCare, and one of ObamaCare’s leading proponents. So it was significant when Gruber agreed that there is no reason for states to establish Exchanges this year:

Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute, and Jonathan Gruber, an economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, agreed on little about the federal health law, [yet] one bit of common ground emerged: Florida should go slow in its approach to a health-insurance exchange.

Gruber thinks that for 2014, states would be better off opting for a type of federal Exchange called a type of “partnership” Exchange, and then maybe running the Exchange themselves after that. I argue there is no reason for states to lift a finger to implement this law, now or ever, and that states would benefit from refusing both to establish an Exchange and to expand their Medicaid programs.

But now that ObamaCare’s leading proponent has acknowledged there is no reason for states to establish Exchanges this year, it will be easier for states who are still wrestling with that question (e.g., Idaho, Utah, North Carolina, Kentucky, Mississippi) to make up their minds.

File this under “where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

While it seems hard to believe (as attested to by the growing budget for National Science Foundation) federal and state budget decisions are apparently putting the squeeze on some forms of government-funded science, and so some scientists are seeking alternative ways of raising funds for their projects of interest. One such “novel” method is a direct appeal to the masses for support.

Witness this announcement from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS):

Crowdfunding Science: Appealing to the online community for research money

Event Date: January 29, 2013 12 p.m. Eastern, 9 a.m. Pacific, 5 p.m. GMT, 6 p.m. CEST

With federal and state funding for science on the downward trend, many young scientists are bypassing the grant writing process and appealing directly to the public via the Internet for money to support their research. Crowdfunding, as it is known, holds huge potential for scientists who can effectively capture the imagination of the public and get them to open their wallets in support of science.

In AAAS MemberCentral’s webinar “Appealing to the online community for research money”, we’ll look at #SciFund Challange, a website that helps researchers get their projects funded by the public, and we’ll also hear from two scientists who successfully funded their projects via the crowd. We’ll find out what they learned along the way, share tips on how to reach your funding goal and give you an opportunity to ask the panelists questions.

This seems a step in the right direction towards producing better-justified science projects that will be done for a lot less money with a lot more transparency.

How this fits in to a University setting should be interesting. Almost certainly it will bring the often exorbitant overhead rates for science funding into focus. Most schools tack on an additional 50% or so which goes from the producer departments (science and engineering) to those that can’t carry their own weight. Will the “crowd” accept being dunned for work they don’t support? If this caught on, maybe our schools would better serve the market rather than centrally planning their own.

It’ll be interesting to see how this method of fundraising develops, but from the surface, it seems a positive development.

A Monday New York Times story (“Backed by State Money, Georgia Scholarships Go to Schools Barring Gays”) repeatedly claims that the scholarship funds used in Georgia’s education tax credit program are “tax money,” “state money,” and “public money.” The entire article depends on this characterization—a characterization that is demonstrably false. Here’s why:

In its 2011 ACSTO v. Winn decision, the United States Supreme Court flatly rejected the claim that donations under a similar Arizona tax credit program were public funds, stating that:

In [the respondents’] view the tax credit is… best understood as a governmental expenditure. That is incorrect.

The Court elaborates on the next page:

When Arizona taxpayers choose to contribute to [Scholarship Tuition Organizations],they spend their own money, not money the State has collected from respondents or from other taxpayers. Arizona’s [tax credit program] does not “extrac[t] and spen[d]” a conscientious dissenter’s funds in service of an establishment [of religion],… or “‘force a citizen to contribute three pence only of his property’” to a sectarian organization…. On the contrary, respondents and other Arizona taxpayers remain free to pay their own tax bills, without contributing to an STO. — emphasis added

Because these scholarship donations are private and voluntary, the central point of the New York Times story is false. Under an education donation tax credit program, no one is forced to support schools whose teachings violate their convictions. Note that the same cannot be said of public schools, which all taxpayers must support regardless of their beliefs. For those of us who truly value freedom of conscience and individual liberty, education tax credits are a superior means of funding education to the status quo system. For over a decade, I have advocated education tax credit programs precisely because they do not do what the Times story wrongly claimed.

Two years ago, I shared the ACSTO v. Winn ruling with the standards editor of the Associated Press, who ultimately agreed that it was a misrepresentation for journalists to call these private donations “public money.” I sincerely hope that the New York Times will rise to the same journalistic standard as the AP, publish a correction to its story, and take steps to prevent future occurrences of this error.