Category Archives: Public Policy and Governance

“Individual” Achievement

Today’s New York Times had a story about a Long Island teenager named Samantha who made a scientific breakthrough important enough to land her on the list of semi-finalists of the Intel Science Talent Search. The young woman is impressive–very bright, very hard-working, exactly the sort of youngster most parents want to produce. It is likely that she will grow up to contribute significantly to the store of public knowledge on which civilizations build and advance.

But that wasn’t why the Times ran the article.

What made this one young woman’s achievement so noteworthy was the fact that she and her family had been hit hard during the recession. Her parents had also been badly injured in an automobile accident, and the family even experienced a period of homelessness. Until then, hers had been a pretty typical middle-class family, and what happened to them, unfortunately, could (and did) happen to other hard-working, self-sufficient families. Their story, and their daughter’s, is thus a cautionary tale on a number of levels.

America is a land that lauds individual achievement. And so we should–we all benefit from their contributions. But it is also important to recognize that no individual achieves in the absence of at least minimal social support. As the saying goes, we all stand on the shoulders of others. Usually, that bromide is taken to mean that each breakthrough in human understanding builds on discoveries that have come before–that science builds on previous scientific knowledge, for example. But it also expresses a deeper truth.

Congressman Steven Isaacs, who represents Long Island, took his high-achieving constituent to the State of the Union; according to the Times,  he wanted his Republican colleagues to pay attention, “since they are so determined to starve government programs, weaken the safety net and shun public investment in education and science, all while slashing rich people’s taxes. ‘How does a middle-class family with a daughter who’s a genius find themselves in a homeless shelter through no fault of their own?’ Mr. Israel said. ‘This isn’t just about a celebration of her tenacity.’”

One of the most damaging consequences of the rhetoric of the Right flows from the dogmatic insistence that achievement is a solitary activity, and that the social safety net is a “giveaway” to “them”–“them” being the assorted slackers eager to live off the largesse of “us” hardworking, productive folks. Conservative pundits constantly lecture that “they” need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, seemingly oblivious to the social supports, privileges and plain good luck that have enabled their own comfortable lives.

Here’s the deal: Without government support — public schools, state research institutions and the county shelter that kept her family safe — there is no way that Samantha, brilliant as she is, could have accomplished what she did. Her scientific discoveries will eventually benefit all of us. Those benefits are a return on our investment of tax dollars.

When America is no longer willing to invest in the infrastructure that makes achievement possible, Americans will no longer achieve.

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Our Despicable State Legislature

What can anyone say about Indiana’s legislature that adequately captures the perversity, the stupidity and the venality of the place?

It is hard to believe the sheer amount of embarrassing antics they have managed to cram into a short session. From the patently unconstitutional (teaching creationism, really? Every court that has ever considered the matter has said the same thing–you can’t teach religion in public school science class) to the teaching of cursive (breaking news: you weren’t elected to the school board, and by the way, what happened to your pious devotion to local control?) to Right to Work (go ahead and spend zillions of dollars on slick ads promising jobs, but everyone knows this is all about hardball politics and Republicans weakening the unions because they have the votes), our elected Representatives have spent the session giving the middle finger to the citizens of Indiana.

As if they hadn’t done enough harm, they have now killed the bill that would have allowed Indianapolis to hold a referendum on whether to tax ourselves to support adequate public transportation.

Think about this. These are the lawmakers who’ve been pontificating about the importance of job creation–that’s how they’ve justified Right to Work, which–according to unbiased research–has absolutely no effect on job creation. Good public transportation, on the other hand, is a proven job creator and economic development generator.

So why the hypocrisy? Why deny the citizens of Indianapolis the right to decide for ourselves whether we are willing to pay a few extra bucks on our tax bill for decent transportation?

It is galling enough that we have to go hat in hand to the State for permission to conduct our own business. It is absolutely infuriating that the legislators whose rural districts survive by virtue of taxes generated in central Indiana–the state sales and income taxes that come primarily from the urban areas they routinely piss on–are the ones willing to kill the goose that lays their golden eggs. Our transportation bill was killed by the very people who would share the benefits without contributing to the costs.

I wish I thought we would throw these bums out in November, but Indiana political history suggests that we will go like sheep to the polls, and vote for the same old same old–after all, these are the candidates who promise to arrest immigrants, keep the “wrong” people from voting, and push gays back into the closet where they belong.

Harrison Ullmann was right: Indiana has The World’s Worst Legislature. But we elected them.

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What He Said

A relatively simple statement from the President’s State of the Union speech last night deserves emphasis. After reminding Americans of the economic situation when he assumed office, when the country was bleeding jobs and reeling from the collapse of the housing bubble, Obama reported

“In the last 22 months, businesses have created more than three million jobs.  Last year, they created the most jobs since 2005.  American manufacturers are hiring again, creating jobs for the first time since the late 1990s.  Together, we’ve agreed to cut the deficit by more than $2 trillion.  And we’ve put in place new rules to hold Wall Street accountable, so a crisis like that never happens again.

The state of our Union is getting stronger.  And we’ve come too far to turn back now.  As long as I’m President, I will work with anyone in this chamber to build on this momentum.  But I intend to fight obstruction with action, and I will oppose any effort to return to the very same policies that brought on this economic crisis in the first place.”

Americans have a notoriously short attention span, and a wildly inflated conception of Presidential power. Republican prospects depend upon those characteristics. If the GOP is to recapture the Presidency, Americans must forget how we got into this mess, and how long it took for George W. Bush to dig the hole we find ourselves in. We also have to forget how he did it–what those “policies that brought on the economic crisis” were.

There may have been some unrecognized underlying weaknesses, but economists of all political persuasions agree that Bush inherited a healthy economy, and a shrinking national debt. It took him eight years, but Bush destabilized and weakened that economy, and dramatically increased the debt.

Let’s just look at the three most damaging policies Bush pursued. First, he refused to pay for the wars he so recklessly waged  (wars that cost several times the estimates given by then-budget director Mitch Daniels). Second, he actually reduced taxes on the wealthy–thus exacerbating the widest income gap between rich and poor since the gilded age. (Those tax breaks were justified as “job creation” measures, despite the fact that such cuts have historically failed to create jobs.) And third, he eviscerated government regulation, allowing banks and other big businesses to operate with lawless impunity in the serene belief that the market would provide all necessary discipline.

There were plenty of other policies the Bush Administration pursued that were wrong-headed and harmful– failure to address environmental issues,  cowboy unilateralism in foreign policy, an assault on civil liberties–but the “big three” did the most widespread damage and make it more difficult to address the others.

A lot of Americans who acknowledge all of this nevertheless believe that it should all be turned around by now. Why, Obama has had three years! These are the folks who must think we elect a king, rather than a President. In the real world, however, Presidential power is more constrained. The President can only do so much–and when those who control Congress refuse to cooperate, refuse even to negotiate, refuse to put the interests of the nation above the interests of their contributors, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that improvement has come slowly.

What’s surprising is that we’ve had improvement at all.

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You’ll Never Get Your Hair Cut in this Town Again

Recently, a colleague of mine was asked to research the impact of professional licensing laws and to report her findings to a legislative study committee. Licensing laws have steadily proliferated—in1970, about 10% of the American workforce required a license of some sort in order to earn a living; by 2000, that percentage had doubled to 20%. It is now estimated to be around 29%.

Lest we think of these requirements as evidence of “big brother” or the much-deplored (and largely fanciful) triumph of an insatiable governmental regulatory fervor, most of these rules are the result of lobbying efforts by the occupational groups being regulated. The result is that Indiana—like many states—requires that workers be licensed before they can shampoo or braid your hair, hypnotize you, or decorate your family room.

Licensing laws are justified by concerns for public safety. We license doctors because most patients lack the knowledge to spot charlatans, and the consequences of what academics call “information asymmetry” can be fatal. We license architects and engineers because building collapses are similarly consequential. This justification seems weaker when we get to shampoo girls and interior decorators.

There is statistical evidence that licensing acts as a barrier to entry into a profession, and also as a barrier to labor mobility (since states have different requirements, licenses are considerably less portable than one might imagine). There is also clear evidence that licensing raises consumer prices—depending upon the profession, those increases range from 4-35%.

The study committee was weighing these benefits and burdens, and considering whether other means of protecting consumers in lower-risk situations might be more cost-effective. Certification, for example, might offer a middle ground. Physicians with specialties use this approach—they have numerous board certifications that are administered by professional organizations. Government isn’t involved, and taxpayers don’t pay the administrative costs, but consumers have the benefit of information about that particular doctor’s training and expertise.

Enter political reality.

Facebook postings warned of disease spread by unclean cosmetic instruments. Tweets went out to rally those in the affected occupations. On the day of the hearing, swarms of scissors-wielding hairdressers (and for all I know, livid interior designers and angry hypnotists) descended on the Indiana Statehouse. My colleague, somewhat shell-shocked, reported that those whose scissors were confiscated by security were furious—evidently it hadn’t occurred to them that weapons couldn’t be taken into the Statehouse. She may have to leave town to get her hair cut after this, and she wasn’t even there to advocate de-regulation; she was just reporting what the relevant research showed.

I am not a betting woman, but I’d give odds against any change in the status quo. As any political scientist can confirm, it is easier to stop change than to effect it.

There are a couple of lessons here, for those interested in reality, rather than the ideologies of Right or Left.

The Right needs to admit that government regulations are just as likely to be a product of the economic self-interest of the regulated industry as the expression of authoritarian impulses. At the state level, much of the drumbeat for licensure reflects the (understandable) belief that one’s occupation should be elevated to the status of a profession; much more comes from a less noble desire to restrict entry and increase profits.

The lesson for the Left is that regulations do, in fact, increase costs, and that they are not always the best way to achieve public goods. The perceived benefits in public safety must be weighed against those costs.

The lesson for my colleague is to avoid angry hairdressers brandishing scissors.

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Crushing Their Dreams

In last night’s GOP debate in South Carolina, Mitt Romney once again promised that, as President, he would veto the Dream Act. 

I’ll admit that I find opposition to the Dream Act incomprehensible. I was really disappointed when Dick Lugar responded to the rightwing challenge from Richard Mourdock by withdrawing his long-time sponsorship of that measure. And I am constantly surprised and disheartened by those who are so rabidly anti-illegal-immigration that they see nothing wrong with punishing children for the acts of their parents.

The Dream Act would provide (conditional) permanent residency to undocumented residents of “good moral character” who graduate from US high schools, arrived in the US as minors, and lived in the country continuously for at least five years prior to the bill’s enactment. If they complete two years in the military, or two years at a four-year institution of higher learning, they can obtain temporary residency for a six year period. Within that six year period, they may qualify for permanent residency if they have “acquired a degree from an institution of higher education in the United States or has completed at least 2 years, in good standing, in a program for a bachelor’s degree or higher degree in the United States” or have “served in the armed services for at least 2 years and, if discharged, received an honorable discharge.”

People for whom illegal immigration is a high-priority issue almost always defend that position by insisting that it isn’t the race or ethnicity of the people involved–that it is a question of rewarding law-breaking. Okay, I get that. But if the point is to punish those who break the law, why punish children who made no such decision, who had no choice in the matter? Most of these children know no other home but America, speak no language but English, and want nothing more than to be contributing citizens. It is heartless to insist that they must be deported to countries with which they are totally unfamiliar.

Not to get all biblical about it, but why visit the sins of the fathers on the children?

Why crush their dreams?

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