Category: Government

Compromise

We are a country of citizens with a range of views on how our community should guide and regulate our interactions. But we are all anchored in our commitment to our Constitution and its Bill of Rights. What is the nature of the compromises that enable us to live, work and flourish together?

Views on the proper role of government in supporting and improving our lives are dangerously widening. To simplify the discussion with stereotypes and not always appropriate labels I will characterize Republicans as more interested in individual freedom and Democrats as more interested in helping the poor. The two parties want both but there are clear differences in emphasis and approaches. “The great divide-who decides?”

Everyone wants to help families. But consider the difference in the approach of the Democrats with Bidens American Families Plan and the Republicans with Mitt Romney’s Family Security Act. Among many other benefits, Biden’s “plan will provide a government-paid family leave program for employees who need extended paid time off for family issues… will help working families by providing government-subsidized child care… [and] will provide free universal government-run preschool, which it claims will help children academically far into the future.” These would be run by the government or pursuant to detailed government regulations. “The American Families Plan will do more harm than good”

“Romney’s Family Security Act would replace the Child Tax Credit with a $3,000 yearly benefit per child — $4,200 for kids under the age of 5 — spread out in monthly installments that begin four months before a child’s due date,…” “Romney child care benefit democrats”

The overriding difference between Biden’s and Romney’s family plans is who makes the decisions about how the assistance is used. The same overriding difference can be seen in Democrat and Republican approaches to financing education. Charter schools and, even more so, tuition vouchers favored by Republicans leave the power of choice with parents rather than public school districts (government).  Democrats distrust the judgement of individual families to decide how best to use government assistance and want to impose conditions that insure (in their minds) that it is well spent.

How can these two conflicting approaches be reconciled? Each side will need to give up something to gain what is most important to them. Democrats want to help the poor. Republicans want to protect their freedom of choice. If Democrats are willing to give up their regulation and control of how their financial assistance is used (i.e., set aside their distrust of the poor’s ability to make wise decisions for themselves) and if Republicans are willing to give up their commitment to self-sufficiency that keeps the social safety net as small as possible, Democrats can gain a more generous safety net and Republicans can gain greater freedom of choice by coming together to enact a Universal Basic Income (UBI) in place of the large number of specific government controls assistance programs.  “Our social safety net”

In addition to allowing individual recipients to determine how best to use this assistance, two broad differences between a UBI and the existing approach stand out. The first is the difference in the financial incentive to work. Unemployment insurance, for example, ends when a recipient takes a job. Most welfare programs, such as food stamps, end when the recipient’s income increases beyond some minimal level. The incomes of many now helped by Covid-19 support programs will fall if and when they return to work. A UBI is paid to everyone whether they are working or not, so any extra income earned in any way adds fully to their income. There is no financial disincentive to work.

The second major difference is the lower administrative cost and greater simplicity of a UBI compared to those of the multitude of assistance programs with their qualification criteria that it would replace. Consider the administrative challenges faced when sending checks to those qualifying under the CARES Act as part of the Covid-19 assistance. Some intended recipients were missed. Some who were not meant to receive payments received them. It took time to set up the system of payments. But with UBI monthly payments are made to everyone without further question or investigation once they are enrolled in the system (most likely administered through the Social Security System).

My proposal would also replace all income taxes (personal and corporate) with a uniform consumption tax. This combination of UBI and consumption taxation would result in the financing of government that is progressive relative to income and would resolve the dilemma of how to tax companies operating globally. For more details see my earlier blog:  “Replacing Social Security with a universal basic income”

Democrats would gain more efficient and extensive help to the poor but would have to give up oversight and control over how that help is used. Republicans would increase their control over how they live, but would have to relax their insistence on self-sufficiency. This is a compromise whose time has come.

All Volunteer Military

In May 1967, The New Guard magazine published an article by Milton Friedman on “The Case for a Voluntary Army.”  It was a compelling case and was adopted when the U.S. suspended its military draft in January 1972. But was it correct? “45 years later Nixon-Gates commission”

In the 1960s, the drafting of 18 year old’s to fight in Vietnam was avoided by those able to go to college. This was rightly challenged as discriminatory against the poor and college deferments were replaced with a lottery system that started in 1970, which picked the birthdates at random that would then be first in line to be drafted each year. I was granted the last of the college deferments.  “Draft lottery (1969)”

While a student of Friedman’s at the University of Chicago from 1965-70, I joined with several other libertarian classmates to form the Council for a Volunteer Military to promote Friedman’s call for an end to the draft. The Directors of the Council were: James Powell, National Director; Henry Regnery, Treasurer; myself, Executive Secretary; Danny Boggs, national Filed Secretary; and David Levy, Publications Editor. Our sponsors were: Yale Brozen, Bruce K. Chapman, Richard C. Cornuelle, James Farmer, David Franke, Milton Friedman, Sanford Gottlieb, Eugene Groves, Karl Hess, and Norman Thomas: an impressively diverse group.

In 1969 President Richard Nixon establish the Gates Commission to advise him on established an all-volunteer military and appointed Friedman to the commission.  Based on the Commission’s recommendations, President Nixon signed a law in 1971 that ended the draft in January 1973.

A Rand Corporation report on the All-Volunteer Force (AVF) by Bernard D. Rostker stated that: “Although the country had conscripted its armed forces for only 35 of its 228 years — nearly all in the 20th century — the American people were generally willing to accept this practice when service was perceived as universal. However, in the 1960s, that acceptance began to erode. There were five major reasons:

  • Demographics. The size of the eligible population of young men reaching draft age each year was so large and the needs of the military so small in comparison that, in practice, the draft was no longer universal.
  • Cost. Obtaining enough volunteers was possible at acceptable budget levels.
  • Moral and economic rationale. Conservatives and libertarians argued that the state had no right to impose military service on young men without their consent. Liberals asserted that the draft placed unfair burdens on the underprivileged members of society, who were less likely to get deferments.
  • Opposition to the war in Vietnam. The growing unpopularity of the Vietnam war meant the country was ripe for a change to a volunteer force.
  • The U.S. Army’s desire for change. The Army had lost confidence in the draft as discipline problems among draftees mounted in Vietnam.”

At the time Crawford H. Greenewalt, another member of the Commission, wrote to Gates that “while there is a reasonable possibility that a peacetime armed force could be entirely voluntary, I am certain that an armed force involved in a major conflict could not be voluntary.”

“Rand research briefs”

The AVF matched or exceeding the high expectations for it. The professionalism of our Army improved. We fought 13 wars with our volunteer force: Lebanon (1982-4), Grenada (1983), Panama (1089-90), Gulf War (Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Israel 1990-91), Somalia (1992-5), Bosnian War (1992-95), Haiti (1994-5), Kosovo War (1998-99), Afghanistan War (2001-21), Iraq War (2003-11, 2014-2020), Somali Civil War (2007-21), Libya intervention (2011, 2015-20), and Syria (2014-present). Each was limited enough not to exhaust the supply of volunteers needed.

But a different criticism of our all-volunteer force was raised that gave me pause. Our costly and futile war in Vietnam from 1955-75 was finally ended (without admitting the defeat it surely was) in response to the growing protests in the U.S.  No such protests were raised for our imperial adventures since then. Some observers began to point their fingers at the absence of a draft and thus a military/industrial complex better sheltered from public criticism. When we campaigned for the end of the draft and an all-volunteer military, we assumed that we needed to maintain an Army for our defense. Instead, our military was deployed all over the planet (800 bases around the world) with sufficient restraint (generally) to avoid strong public push back.  “National defense”  If the average middle class family’s children were not being drafted to fight unnecessary wars in far off places, they were not as likely to complain about the billions of their taxpayer’s money being pumped into the military/industrial complex.  This was an unanticipated side effect of ending the draft that we had not anticipated.

Both former President Trump and President Biden expressed their intentions to end our forever wars and, at least in the case of Biden, to strengthen our capacity to deal with the world with diplomacy. We should wish him well. And we should urge Congress to reinstate the Weinberger Doctrine, which limited the use of U.S. forces to when vital U.S. interests were at stake, and only as a last resort. “A Biden doctrine starts to take shape”

You can read my experiences in Iraq in my book: “My travels to Baghdad” and my experiences in Afghanistan in my book: “My travels to Afghanistan”.

PS. Some how I forgot that I had written on this before with a somewhat different proposal: https://wcoats.blog/2015/01/23/the-all-volunteer-military-unintended-consequences-and-a-modest-proposal/

The Great Divide–Who Decides?

The American Constitution establishes a government of limited and enumerated powers to protect the property and safety of its sovereign citizens. There is a lot in that sentence so let me unpack it. Sovereignty in the United States resides in its individual citizens. We are responsible for our own lives and how to live them. But to ensure our ability to exercise our freedom in a broader community we gave up limited powers to our government, which are checked and balanced among the three branches of government (legislative, executive, and judicial). America has flourished under this arrangement of exceptional individual freedom.  “American Exceptionalism”

Our government is meant to provide the foundation and general rules for interacting with each other. It establishes the standard units of weights and measures, voltage, assignments of radio spectrum, rules of the road, etc. It defends us from aggression both foreign and domestic and administers the enforcement of contracts (courts). In short, it establishes the agreed framework in which we each take our own decisions about where to work, what to eat, and how to spend our free time within society. If we only surrender decisions (rules) that set and enforce the standards for our interactions with others, with minimal restrictions on our own behavior, our individual freedom will be maximized to our’s and our community’s benefit. America has flourished from our extensive individual freedom.

But where exactly is the optimal boundary between our individual and community choices? Views vary about the answer and the resulting policies between those of us who want small government and those who want somewhat larger government. What are the pros and cons of each? The answer, of course, will depend on the specific issue, but I want to review the question more generally.

The benefit of being free to take our own decisions about something is that it better reflects our knowledge of our particular situation and our own tastes. We don’t make such decisions in a void, of course. We draw on our own knowledge and values (taught by our parents, schools, clubs, churches, friends, etc.). Thus, our inherited and learned culture plays a critical role in the quality of our choices. Our government can help as well by promulgating information (the state of knowledge) and/or setting standards for communicating relevant information (e.g., product labeling standards). It can also add to our knowledge by financing basic research that private firms have little or no financial incentive to undertake (as opposed to applying the knowledge gained from such research to the development of marketable applications).

We also expect government (in addition to family and community organizations) to provide help when we are financially unable to because of sickness or unemployment (the social safety net). Because America is a rich country, we expect our social safety net to be relatively generous. Here is an area were views start to diverge. If we continue to have confidence in the ability of individuals to make sensible decisions, the government should help financially but not override the recipient’s freedom to choose how to use it. This is the philosophy of a Universal Basic Income.  “Replacing Social Security with a universal basic income”

At the other end of this spectrum are those who think that in many instances government employees can make wiser and better informed decisions for us than we can ourselves. Thus, instead of money we are given food stamps. Instead of school vouchers we are provided with take it or leave it neighborhood schools. Instead of health information on food products to help our individual choice, some food and other products are banned all together, etc.

The benefit of the government taking decisions for us is that individual officials (sometimes referred to as bureaucrats) can devote more time to investigating the costs and benefits of choices and thus potentially take and impose better decisions than we can ourselves. Though that might be true “in principle,” government officials are less likely to know our particular situation and tastes. In addition, the laws and regulations adopted in Congress and by government agencies are influenced more by the interests of the subjects of their regulations (e.g., Facebook) than of their customers (us). In other words, the discipline on the behavior of private firms from market competition is weaker or totally absent on regulators.

The case of the military/industrial complex is well known. Only the government can effectively defend us from potential foreign aggressors, so we are forced to live with the inefficiencies (corruption if you like) of the near monopoly that defense firms enjoy that ensures that the DOD keeps buying their products. The B-2 stealth bomber cost $2,100 million per plane. The scandalous F-35, the plane no one wants, cost US tax payers $115.5 million per plane. But the real cost to us of the military/industrial complex is the cost in lives, equipment, and reputation of our forever wars that ensure that BAE Systems, Bell Helicopter, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Pratt and Whitney and a few others, keep receiving billions of tax dollars every year.

Another example of government vs individual decision making is provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). We look to the CDC for the best scientific guidance on protecting ourselves from disease, such as Covid-19 and to the FDA to approve what drugs and vaccines we are allowed to have. During the past year the “scientific” information provided by the CDC was polluted by ill-informed political messages. Public confidence in government information plummeted and advice became sadly political. “Covid-19-why aren’t we prepared”

The FDA initially mangled the approval of Covid-19 test kits, delaying their availability, thus undermining the detect and trace strategy. “Covid-19-what should Uncle Sam do?”  Fortunately, it then relaxed its risk averse restrictions on drug approvals to grant emergency approval of several Covid-19 vaccines. As of May 7, 111 million American’s have been fully vaccinated with these vaccines, which have proved safe and effective. Many lives have been saved as a result.

Last month the FDA reverted to its more independent, scientific form when it temporarily suspended the use of Johnson and Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine because of very rare blood clots. On April 13, the CDC and FDA issued a joint statement reporting that “As of April 12, more than 6.8 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson (Janssen) vaccine have been administered in the U.S. CDC and FDA are reviewing data involving six reported U.S. cases of a rare and severe type of blood clot in individuals after receiving the J&J vaccine.”   “Joint CDC and FDA statement on Johnson-Johnson covid-19 vaccine”  There were more than that number of such blood clots among those who had not taken the vaccine. This measure reflects government’s usual excessive risk aversion. If they do their job right (approving drugs that are safe and effective), few people notice, but if they make a mistake (thalidomide babies), they are in big trouble. So, the incentive is to be overly cautious. During the several weeks hiatus in administering the Johnson and Johnson vaccine more people died from Covid who might have been saved if they had received the vaccination, than from the rare blood clot.  The political issue, once again, is who should decide–government officials or individuals on the basis of information provided by the government (and others). “Beating covid-19-compulsion or persuasion and guidance”

A very different example of government making decisions for us comes from our trade policy. Government imposed trade restrictions, often in the form of taxes on imports (so called tariffs), restrict our individual right to chose what we buy (or sell). While there may well be national security or other national interests that justify such interference, more often they simply reflect corruption (the financial favoring of one group or industry in exchange for votes). “Trade protection and corruption”  Former President Trump’s abuse of the national security excuse to tax Canadian steel imports provides a recent example.  “Tariff abuse”  Strangely, but no doubt for the same reasons, President Biden has not yet removed these damaging tariffs.  “Trump disastrous steel tariffs”

As a final example of our choice between government and individual decision making, consider President Biden’s American Families Plan, which provides $225 million in childcare subsidies. But rather than vouchers that can be used by families as they see fit, it finances government run childcare services. “Biden’s plan for government run childcare is exactly what most moms don’t want”  Sometimes government-run and controlled services are better than those we choose ourselves in the private sector (perhaps with government financial and/or information assistance). Not that many in my opinion. But, please let’s have a serious and informative discussion of the pros and cons of each.

Why some still believe the Big Lie

Last Monday (May 3) Trump proclaimed that the 2020 election “will be, from this day forth, known as THE BIG LIE!” In reply Congresswoman Liz Cheney tweeted: “The 2020 presidential election was not stolen. Anyone who claims it was is spreading THE BIG LIE, turning their back on the rule of law, and poisoning our democratic system. 10:27 AM · May 3, 2021·       “More on Trump acquittal”

The voter frauds loudly proclaimed by Trump spokesmen in public were generally not repeated in court where those making such claims had to speak under oath. Where specific charges of vote tampering were made against voting machine companies such as Dominion Voting Systems, the objects of such attacks were protected by libel laws, which required proof, which was totally lacking. Libel suits brought by Dominion and others led to retractions and apologies by Fox news and many others for their fabrications.

“The latest legal target to tuck its tail is the conservative cable news channel Newsmax, which released a statement Friday night apologizing to Eric Coomer, a top official at Dominion Voting Systems, who filed a suit against Newsmax in December.” “Slow painful death-trump allies voting machine conspiracy theories”

My favorite “apology” for falsely claiming voter fraud was from Sidney Powell, one of Trump’s shameless lawyers until even he had to distance himself from her.  “A key member of the legal team that sought to steal the 2020 election for Donald Trump is defending herself against a billion-dollar defamation lawsuit by arguing that “no reasonable person” could have mistaken her wild claims about election fraud last November as statements of fact.” “Sidney Powell-Trump election fraud claims”

I have struggled to understand how presumably decent people could continue to believe such obvious nonsense. The conservative Christian writer David French provides a partial explanation. “Prophecy is very important in Pentecostal Christianity…. Many millions of Americans spent the Trump era deeply loyal to Trump not because of policy arguments or political debate, but in large part because “prophets” told them he was specifically and specially anointed by God for this moment. These Americans were resistant to the election outcome because they were told—again and again—by voices they trusted that God promised Trump would win.”  “Making prophecy great again”  French is an interesting and thoughtful writer, and correctly notes that this belief is a problem for the Pentecostal church. 

But many more than these Pentecostals continue to repeat the big lie. According to Michael Gerson: “To be a loyal Republican, one must be either a sucker or a liar. And because this defining falsehood is so obviously and laughably false, we can safely assume that most Republican leaders who embrace it fall into the second category.” “Trump republicans big lie”

We have many serious policy issues to discuss. We seriously need to get beyond The Big Lie.

Vaccine Passports

Discussions of the pros and cons of mandated lock downs to stop (or slow) the spread of Covid-19 often miss the most important point. The key factor in restraining the spread of a contagious disease (beyond vaccines, basic public health measures, etc.) is the behavior of each one of us. Given our respective risk preferences the question is whether we adjust our behavior sensibly to protect ourselves and others from infection? Our behavior may be responding to government mandates to close restaurants, theaters, and factories or it may be responding to information provided by public health experts on the nature of the risks and measures to mitigate them. In the latter case our experience and that of our neighbors will depend importantly on the quality of the information provided and our trust in its efficacy. Our individual choices allow responses that are more suited to the individual situation of each actor.  “The unnecessary fight over covid-19”

In short, if governments were to say, “do whatever you want, but these are the risks as we understand them,” people would not necessarily rush to the concert hall, or baseball game, or hop on a plane. “Sports fans live attendance poll”  Offices, factories, restaurants and entertainment venues must convince their workers and customers that they have taken reasonable steps to be safe from Covid-19 (or other risks). Thus, comparing the results (infections and economic output) of lock down with no (or mild) lock down countries is not the right test.

We need to focus attention on the quality of the information being provided to the public, the public’s trust of such information, and the efficacy of the measures being taken by those offering reasons to gather in public places to enhance its safety. Those who have had Covid-19 or who have been vaccinated for it face minimum risk of catching it (again) or of spreading it and can pretty safely attend public events. Thus, a trustworthy way of establishing that fact would be very useful. I carry my vaccine certificate wherever I go but they are relatively easy to counterfeit if it became useful to do so. Thus, the reason behind the various projects to develop so called vaccine passports (better named vaccine certificates) is obvious.

The technical design, including privacy protections, raise more issues than you might at first imagine, including establishing interoperability standards and access to public records. However, the position taken by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis defies understanding by those of us who place our individual freedom in first place. He stated that: “We are not supporting doing any vaccine passports in the state of Florida…. It’s completely unacceptable for either the government or the private sector to impose upon you the requirement that you show proof of vaccine to just simply be able to participate in normal society.”  “Biden vaccine passports-DeSantis”  This is incredibly wrong. Restaurants now serving indoors already test our temperature before allowing us to enter. I visited my credit union in the IMF building in downtown Washington, DC today and they took my temperature as well. If gatherings are not convincingly safe, sensible people won’t attend. Countries requiring arriving passengers from other countries with a high incidence of Covid-19 infections to quarantine for two weeks would presumably wave that requirement for passengers with a credible vaccine certificate.

It is hard to imagine that the public accommodation clause of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 would require a restaurant to admit and serve a customer with a contagious disease. But there are privacy and other technical concerns with implementing a reliable certificate of a covid vaccine. “The next front in the pandemic culture wars vaccine passports” The benefits to the economy and our freedoms are significant enough to make the effort to overcome them.

Hate Crimes

“The shooting deaths of eight people at Asian-run spas in Georgia this week triggered a vigorous national debate Thursday over whether the mass killing amounted to a hate crime.” “Georgia hate crime law-Atlanta shooting”  These deaths (and recent attacks on Asians more generally) raise several issues that I would like to explore. 1. What is the point of hate crime laws?  The poor ladies killed in this attack could care less what motivated Robert Aaron Long, the 21 year old shooter. 2. Whose fault is it? Let’s start with the shooter (and other attackers), please. 3. What should we do about it (beyond locking the shooter, and other attackers, up)?

What is the point of hate crime laws?

“Georgia State Rep. Chuck Efstration, a Republican who helped shepherd [Georgia’s Hate Crime] bill into law, said it was intended to allow for especially stiff penalties for crimes in which “the perpetrator’s prejudices and biases are attacks not only on the victims but on all of society.  Thank goodness law enforcement will have the ability to charge this as a hate crime if the facts support that,”   [op cit]

Georgia State University law professor Jessica Gabel Cino noted that: “The majority of the victims are women, and they are Asian. Those are two protected statuses.” And what if they hadn’t been?

Traditional laws do differentiate between first, second, and third degree murders, but if you plan to and succeed in killing someone, it didn’t traditionally matter whether you loved or hated the victim. I can understand why such information might be useful in exploring approaches to mitigating the risk of such future murders, but I don’t see its relevant to the guilt and punishment of the murderer. I do not support capital punishment, but Mr. Long should surely be put away for the rest of his pathetic life whatever motivated his killing spree.

According to Mr. Long, “he was on a mission… to stem his addiction to sex. The spas were ‘a temptation for him that he wanted to eliminate.’”  “What happened-Atlanta shooting”

In determining the length of a sentence, courts do pay some attention to the motive for a crime as well as the crime itself but a special category of “hate crimes” has always seemed troubling and unnecessary to me.

Whose fault is it?

In a free society of responsible citizens, we must never forget that in the first instance the fault for a crime rests with the criminal. But it is fair to ask what motivated the criminal. While Mr. Long’s horrible crimes do not appear to be motived by the hatred of Asian’s, there has definitely been an increase in verbal and physical attacks on Asians over the past year. Much of the press has been quite eager to point to the hate filled and divisive statements against China by former President Trump. While he is certainly guilty of poisoning public discourse on China, immigration, Muslims and related topics, it is an odd place to look first.

Animosity toward Asians, and Chinese in particular, arises in the first instance from the behavior of China (shorthand for the government of China — synonymous with the Communist Party of China). In fact, unfavorable attitudes toward China have skyrocketed around the globe over the last three to four years. “For our enemies we have shotguns explaining Chinas new assertiveness” Public attitudes toward China are lower in Australia and the U.K., for example, than in the U.S. and fell sharply well before the Covid-19 pandemic.  “China global reputation coronavirus”  Attitudes toward China began to deteriorate in the face of Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea, violations of the one country, two systems agreement for Hong Kong, theft of intellectual property from the West, and treatment of the Uighurs in the Xinjiang region, to name a few. China’s suppression of information on the virus producing covid-19 pales in comparison to its bad behavior in other areas.

What should we do about it?

The world that objects to China’s behavior needs to stand together in pointing it out. Former President Trump’s stand-alone, bilateral approach was a failure. But it is very important when the U.S. and other governments criticize China to clearly differentiate the government of China from the Chinese people, whether citizens of China or the U.S. or elsewhere. It is the Chinese government–the Communist Party of China–that is misbehaving.

The distinction between a government and its people is important more generally. For example, those who criticize the misbehavior of the Israeli government toward the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, are sometimes mistakenly accused of anti-Semitism–i.e., of being against the Jewish people. It is likely that many are reluctant to criticize the Israeli government for fear of being accused of anti-Semitism. As the Biden administration joins with other countries to criticize the misbehavior of the Chinese government, it must, and it is, clearly distinguishing the Chinese government from the Chinese people. And we, each one of us, must speak out at the sight of rude or inappropriate behavior toward Asians, or anyone else. ALL LIVES MATTER.

Shifting Gears: The Way Forward

The Trump administration accomplished many good things and many bad things (especially in the trade and foreign policy areas). Trump himself belongs in jail in my opinion. Hopefully, with the new Biden administration we can turn our attention to policy issues and stop calling our policy opponents nasty names. We must state the positive case for why our policy views are more appropriate–why they are better for our country. These are the sorts of public debates that we have been missing for a while and to which we should return.

One of our most fundamental principles is America’s commitment to equal treatment under the law for everyone regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, or preferred hair style. Equal treatment is extended to everyone whether they or their ancestors came from Asia, Europe, Africa or Ireland (yes, even Ireland). We have never fully measured up to this principle, but it remains, and should remain, the objective to which we continually strive. It means that our accomplishments and “place” in society largely reflect our own talents and efforts. We are a nation of individual liberty. We are free (to a large extent) to make our own decisions. Our policy disputes often concern where to draw the line between what we decide for ourselves and what the government decides for us. My blog last week on our response to Covid-19 provides an example: https://wcoats.blog/2021/03/06/the-unnecessary-fight-over-covid-19/

Equity (equal outcomes) was the fundamental principle of the Soviet Union, though its outcomes fell far short of the principle. Between these extremes of equity (communism/socialism) and equality (equal treatment under the law) is our actual world of governments with more intrusive or less intrusive rules and dictates on our behalf, with broader or narrower social safety nets, etc.  America continues to debate where and how to set these boundary’s, but one of our great strengths, and a source of our broadly shared affluence, is undertaking the debate from the side of (and with the presumption of) self-reliance (with family and friends) and equality under the law.

The distinction between equity and equality is sharply contrasted in the following WSJ oped.

THE  WALL  STREET  JOURNAL.

Friday,  March  5,  2021.

Section A, Page 17, Column 1

‘Equity’ Is a Mandate to Discriminate

The new buzzword tries to hide the aim of throwing out the American principle of equality under the law.

By Charles Lipson


On his first day as president, Joe Biden issued an “Executive Order on Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities.” Mr. Biden’s cabinet nominees must now explain whether this commitment to “equity” means they intend to abolish “equal treatment under law.” Their answers are a confused mess.

Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton raised the question explicitly in confirmation hearings. Attorney General-designate Merrick Garland responded: “I think discrimination is morally wrong. Absolutely.” Marcia Fudge, slated to run Housing and Urban Development, gave a much different answer. “Just to be clear,” Mr. Cotton asked, “it sounds like racial equity means treating people differently based on their race. Is that correct?”

Ms. Fudge’s responded: “Not based on race, but it could be based on economics, it could be based on the history of discrimination that has existed for a long time.” Ms. Fudge’s candid response tracks that of Kamala Harris’s tweet and video, posted before the election and viewed 6.4 million times: “There’s a big difference between equality and equity.”

Ms. Harris and Ms. Fudge are right. There is a big difference. It’s the difference between equal treatment and equal outcomes. Equality means equal treatment, unbiased competition and impartially judged outcomes. Equity means equal outcomes, achieved if necessary by unequal treatment, biased competition and preferential judging.

Those who push for equity have hidden these crucial differences for a reason. They aren’t merely unpopular; they challenge America’s bedrock principle that people should be treated equally and judged as individuals, not as members of groups.

The demand for equal outcomes contradicts a millennium of Anglo-Saxon law and political evolution. It undermines the Enlightenment principle of equal treatment for individuals of different social rank and religion. America’s Founders drew on those roots when they declared independence, saying it was “self-evident” that “all men are created equal.”

That heritage, along with the lack of a hereditary aristocracy, is why claims for equal treatment are so deeply rooted in U.S. history. It is why radical claims for unequal treatment must be carefully buried in word salads praising equity and social justice.

Hidden, too, are the extensive measures that would be needed to achieve equal outcomes. Only a powerful central government could impose the intensive—and expensive—programs of social intervention, ideological re-education and economic redistribution. Only an intrusive bureaucracy could specify the rules for every business, public institution and civic organization. Those unhappy implications are why advocates of equity are so determined to hide what the term really means.

Americans have demanded that all levels of government stop giving special treatment to the rich and powerful. That is simply a demand for equality. Likewise, they recognize that equal treatment should begin early, such as with adequate funding for K-12 students.

Since the New Deal, most Americans have supported some form of social safety net for the poor and disadvantaged. But this safety net doesn’t demand that out-of-work coal miners receive the same income as those who are working. The debate has always been about how extensive the safety net should be and how long it should last for each recipient. There is broad agreement that no worker should be laid off because of his race, gender or religion. Again, that is a demand for equal treatment.

What we are seeing now is different. It is the claim that the unfair treatment of previous generations or perhaps a disadvantaged childhood entitles one to special consideration today as an adult or young adult. Most Americans, who are both generous and pragmatic, have been willing to extend some of these benefits, at the margins and for limited periods. They don’t want to turn these concessions into large, permanent entitlement programs, giving substantially different treatment to different groups, even if those groups have suffered historical wrongs.

One measure of how unpopular these unequal programs are is how often their proponents need to rename them. “Quotas” were restyled as “affirmative action.” The goal was still to give special benefits to some groups to achieve desired outcomes. Now “affirmative action” has also become toxic, rejected most recently by voters in deep-blue California. Hence, the new name, “equity.”

Instead of making their case openly and honestly, advocates of equity twist and turn to avoid revealing their radical goal of re-engineering society through coercion. If the results fall short, as they inevitably would, the remedy is obvious: more money, more rules and more indoctrination. Why not tell us who will receive these special benefits and for how long? At whose expense? Who will administer these programs? Who will judge whether the outcomes are fair enough? When will it all end?

Since the ultimate goal is achieving equal outcomes, these evasions raise the hardest question of all. Isn’t equity just a new brand name for the oldest program of achieving equal outcomes? Its name is socialism.

Mr. Lipson is a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Chicago, where he founded the Program on International Politics, Economics, and Security.

The unnecessary fight over Covid-19

We American’s expect to be able to make our own choices about what risks we are willing to take. The limits on our behavior generally concern when it threatens to harm others. When state after state issued stay at home orders and mandated the closing of many businesses (restaurants and theaters, etc.) a year ago they violated this principle. Many people rebelled at this intrusion into their prerogatives, but sadly by often making foolish decisions of their own. Of course, those who contract a contagious disease, such as Covid-19, should be legally quarantined.  Otherwise, businesses and individuals should make their own decisions about how to respond to this pandemic on the basis of the best possible information about its risks and how to mitigate them. A role in which the government failed miserably.

As with economic decisions more generally, countries that give maximum scope to individuals about what to produce and/or buy have been far more prosperous than those in which more decisions are made centrally and imposed from the top (socialism). Among other things the CARES Act suspended debt payments (and associated defaults, bankruptcies, and evictions) for understandable reasons https://wcoats.blog/2020/04/11/econ-202-cares-act-who-pays-for-it/. However, it was part and parcel of centralized mandatory decision making and inferior to individual case by case decisions by lenders and borrowers (debt restructuring) and landlords and tenants (rent forgiveness or holiday or eviction). In normal times when a debtor is unable to service its debt, for purely profit maximizing reasons lenders evaluated case by case whether to allow temporary arrears (debt restructuring) or to invoke the default provisions of the loan (bankruptcy).

Restaurants that felt they could safely open with social distancing and other safety measures that would convince their customers to return should be allowed to do so. They should be free to decide whether requiring face masks when entering and walking about the restaurant would attract more customers than not doing so. Customers who were not comfortable in a restaurant that did not take these safety measure would not patronize them. The relevant government should decide whether to require them on public transportation, etc.  If you come to my house, be sure that you are wearing one.

The culture war we now witness over face masks and other aspects of appropriate public behavior with regard to Covid-19 was so unnecessary. The American government behaved like a parent dealing with children and many Americans responded by behaving like children. They didn’t choose not to wear face masks because they were convinced by medical data that they are not effective (most data shows that they are very effective). Rather they chose not to wear them because the government told them they must. Childish indeed. Almost a year ago I wrote that the government’s most effective role was to provide the best information available (and more was coming available every week) about the nature and risks of Covid-19 and how best to avoid or mitigate those risks. If restaurants felt that they could safely remain open, they would need to convince potential customers that they had taken measures to protect them from exposure to the virus. This was not the approach taken by the government and public trust in the statements of the government in recent years has been, to say the least, low.

I expressed these views almost exactly a year ago (March 31, 2020). I repeat that blog here:

Beating covid-19: Compulsion or Persuasion and Guidance

Australia and Facebook

As reported in Bloomberg: “Australia’s parliament passed a world-first law to force digital giants such as Facebook Inc. and Google pay local publishers for news content…. The legislation was passed Thursday and will ensure “news media businesses are fairly remunerated for the content they generate,…  ‘We look forward to agreeing to new deals with publishers and enabling Australians to share news links once again,’ [Nick Clegg, Facebook’s vice president of global affairs] wrote in a blog post dated Feb. 24.”  Got that???  Does this apply to content that Facebook generates or collects and shares or does it apply to news links Australians share? Perhaps both. Actually, I think that newspapers and other news sources pay Facebook to post their links. It’s called advertising.

But what about the links I post on Facebook and Twitter to articles in the Washington Post, WSJ, and Bloomberg (all of which I subscribe to)?  Facebook is the platform on which I post them. Is Facebook being asked to pay the Post and WSJ for my posts? What I do with what I buy from these news services should be between me and these services and should have nothing to do with Facebook. Should Word Press have to pay the sources I link in my blogs? Should AOL have to pay sources I send or link in my email? OK, OK, I am an older gentlemen and got my AOL email address over thirty years ago and I don’t want to change. !!!  Should the U.S. Postal service have to peak into my regular mail and pay for any source content that I might be sending someone? This is ridiculous and it should be opposed.   

More on Trump “acquittal”

Following the Senate’s failure to convict Donald Trump of inciting the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capital as part of his “Stop the Steal” campaign to overturn Biden’s election, Senator Mitch McConnell proclaimed that “There’s no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day….” Nonetheless, he voted against conviction on the grounds that according to some legal scholars the impeachment provisions of the U.S. Constitution applied only to a President still in office.  Since Trump was no longer the President, impeachment did not apply.  However, if that were so he should have voted to convict Trump and left it to the Supreme Court to sort out this issue if Trump challenged the conviction on these constitutional grounds.

In retrospect (for those of us who were eager to get all of this behind us and move on), it would have been wiser and more convincing to the doubters to have delayed the Senate trial by several months of evidence gathering and to provide for each side to bring and cross exam witnesses. The 9/11 type commission suggested by Rep. Pelosi might correct that mistake. But as Sen. McConnell pointed out in his post Senate vote speech that Trump will now be tried, and no doubt convicted, of many crimes in the courts. I am confident that justice will ultimately prevail.

“Out of office and without the protections that the presidency afforded him, Trump is now facing multiple criminal investigations, civil state inquiries and defamation lawsuits by two women accusing him of sexual assault.”  “Trump legal problems post impeachment”   

Georgia has launched investigations into calls Trump made to election officials in an attempt to overturn that state’s election results. We all heard Trump’s threats to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger if he could not find 11,780 votes for Trump in order to flip the election outcome.  I found the call truly shocking, even from Trump.

“In New York… the Manhattan District Attorney’s office is looking into whether the Trump Organization violated state laws, such as insurance fraud, tax fraud or other schemes to defraud….  Prosecutors are awaiting a decision from the US Supreme Court on whether it will continue to delay the enforcement of a subpoena for eight years of Trump’s personal and business tax returns and related records from his accounting firm.” Op. cit.

A potentially large number of people could charge Trump with various damages in connection with the January 6 attack of the Capitol.  For example, Mississippi Democratic congressman Bennie Thompson has accused Trump and others “of conspiring to disenfranchise millions of black voters by preventing Congress from certifying election results on January 6th.  A lawsuit, brought by the NAACP on behalf of Mr. Thompson, argues that they violated the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871.” “NAACP Rep Bennie Thompson sue Trump Giuliani over capitol riot”

As more and more of his supporters encounter the fact that Trump was unable to produce any credible evidence of significant voter fraud, they will hopefully increasingly give up believing it.  The multi billion-dollar defamation suits by Smartmatic and Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News, former Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, and Sidney Powell, and others who claimed that their voting systems switched votes from Trump to Biden should also help change some minds. Most of those making such claims publicly retracted them and apologized for them “Fox Business host Lou Dobbs and Fox News hosts Maria Bartiromo and Jeanine Pirro aired [multiple segments debunking false election claims made on their shows for weeks] that Smartmatic was involved in schemes to switch votes from President Donald Trump to President-elect Joe Biden….” “Fox news suddenly worried about a defamation suit-forced to debunk its own false election claims”  and Fox News fired them. Most people who believe fake claims eventually give them up when confronted with credible counter evidence (I hope).

But what if they don’t? “Some of the senators may have little sympathy for the former president, yet made the partisan choice to appease an increasingly extremist Republican base. A recent poll conducted by the conservative American Enterprise Institute found that nearly 4 out of 10 Republicans believe that political violence is justifiable and could be necessary in a troubled domestic future. Another poll found that three-quarters of Republican voters want Trump to play a prominent role in the party’s future.”  “Trump acquittal questions multiparty system” Most of the rest, presumably, will not remain in a party that includes Trump.

Is the Republican Party thus doomed to minority status for many years to come?  My hope is that multiple court convictions of at least a few of Trump’s many (presumed) crimes will significantly shrink his support and eliminate his role in the party. His refusal to help Rep. Kevin McCarty on January 6 (much less Vice President Pence) was one of the more damning pieces of evidence of Trump’s complicity with the Capital attackers. Yet, “Wary of inflaming tensions within his own party, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) is staying silent about his frantic Jan. 6 call to then-President Trump as rioters raided the Capitol.” “Riot probe to likely focus on McCarthy-Trump call” In my opinion, Republican leadership should push Trump out of the party as quickly as possible. An internet poll on February 17 found 75% of the responding Republicans thought that Republicans who voted to convict Donald Trump should be censured. This is not promising. The country needs two strong political parties.

The Party should start by squeezing out its radical loony extremists like Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene.  https://wcoats.blog/2021/02/04/cancer-in-the-republican-party/  The reactions by Republican Party leaders in states whose Republican senators voted against Trump raise concerns that hard core Trump supporters would rather destroy the Republican Party than abandon their Stable Genius. “The Republican Representative Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) was sent a scathing letter from eleven members of his own family just two days after he called for former President Donald Trump to be removed from office.” “GOP rep Kinzinger is blasted by his own family after calling for trumps removal” The Central Committee of the North Carolina Republican Party unanimously censured Sen. Richard Burr for voting to convict Trump. They said that the party “agrees with the strong majority of Republicans in both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate that the Democrat-led attempt to impeach a former President lies outside the United States Constitution.” Maybe, maybe not, but there was a proper way to find out while still confirming Trump’s guilt.

I do not wish to see the Republican Party destroyed. In my opinion, its survival and viability will depend on how quickly Trump fades from the picture and how successfully the Party marginalizes its lunatic fringe.  Reducing gerrymandering of congressional districts on the basis of the latest ten-year census would also help reduce the election of the most radical candidate from each party in primary elections.