EXCERPT FROM THIS ARTICLE: Someone might mention this to North Carolina Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan, who is knocking State House Speaker Thom Tillis for cutting $500 million from schools. Per-pupil K-12 spending has increased every year since Mr. Tillis became speaker in 2011, and most of what Ms. Hagan is selling as “cuts” came from community colleges and universities, not the local middle school. Mr. Coulson’s Cato study notes that North Carolina has about doubled per-pupil education spending since 1972, which has done precisely nothing for the state’s adjusted SAT scores.
hallmark of progressive politics is the ability to hold fervent beliefs, in defiance of evidence, that explain how the world works—and why liberal solutions must be adopted. Such political superstitions take on a new prominence during campaign seasons as Democratic candidates trot out applause lines to rally their progressive base and as the electorate considers their voting records. Here’s a Top 10 list of liberal superstitions on prominent display during the midterm election campaign:
1. Spending more money improves education.The U.S. spent $12,608 per student in 2010—more than double the figure, in inflation-adjusted dollars, spent in 1970—and spending on public elementary and secondary schools has surpassed $600 billion. How’s that working out? Adjusted state SAT scores have declined on average 3% since the 1970s, as the Cato Institute’s Andrew Coulson found in a March report.
No better news in the international rankings: The Program for International Student Assessment reports that in 2012 American 15-year-olds placed in the middle of the pack, alongside peers from Slovakia—which shells out half as much money as the U.S. per student.
Someone might mention this to North Carolina Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan, who is knocking State House Speaker Thom Tillis for cutting $500 million from schools. Per-pupil K-12 spending has increased every year since Mr. Tillis became speaker in 2011, and most of what Ms. Hagan is selling as “cuts” came from community colleges and universities, not the local middle school. Mr. Coulson’s Cato study notes that North Carolina has about doubled per-pupil education spending since 1972, which has done precisely nothing for the state’s adjusted SAT scores.
2. Government spending stimulates the economy.Case in point is the $830 billion 2009 stimulus bill, touted by the Obama administration as necessary for keeping unemployment below 8%. Result: four years of average unemployment above 8%. Federal outlays soared in 2009 to $3.5 trillion—a big enough bump to do the Keynesian trick of boosting aggregate demand—but all we got was this lousy 2% growth and a new costume for Army Corps of Engineers mascot Bobber the Water Safety Dog. Every Senate Democrat voted for the blowout, including the 11 now up for re-election who were in Congress when it passed.
3. Republican candidates always have a big spending advantage over Democrats.Majority Leader Harry Reid took to the Senate floor recently to deride the Koch brothers as “radical billionaires” who are “attempting to buy our democracy.” Yet the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has raked in $127 million this cycle, about $30 million more than the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and Democrats have aired more TV ads than Republicans in several battleground states, according to analysis by the Center for Public Integrity. Meanwhile, Mr. Reid’s Senate Majority PAC has raised more than $50 million. As this newspaper has reported, between 2005 and 2011, labor unions—linchpins of the Democratic Party—spent $4.4 billion on politics, far outstripping any conservative rival. (more…)
Friday is the second anniversary of ObamaCare. It is past time to abolish the program, root and branch. The Supreme Court will soon have a crack at this; arguments about the program’s constitutionality open before it next week. But whatever the justices decide in what is certain to be a landmark decision, the case against ObamaCare extends far beyond questions about its constitutionality. President Obama‘s program is an unfolding disaster for the American economy, a budget-busting entitlement, and a dramatic new federal intrusion into our lives.
It is precisely for those reasons that I’ve opposed a one-size-fits-all health care plan for the entire nation. What we need is a free market, federalist approach to making quality, affordable health insurance available to every American. Each state should be allowed to pursue its own solution in this regard, instead of being dictated to by Washington.
But abolishing ObamaCare will only be half the battle. Just as important is the question of what to put in its place. Instead of the massive new taxes, trillions of dollars in new spending, and top-down bureaucratic decrees of ObamaCare, we need to limit Washington’s control by spurring competition, creating maximum flexibility and enhancing consumer choice.
I would begin by changing the tax code, which currently offers a subsidy for employers who purchase health insurance for their employees. This discriminates against individuals who want to buy insurance on their own. We should let individuals continue with the current arrangement if it suits their needs. But I would also offer a tax benefit for those who wish to purchase insurance outside their workplace. (more…)
New Texas law expected to reduce unjustified lawsuits
By Patrick Gleason and Jason Russell-
The Washington Times
Thursday, September 1, 2011
There isn’t much policywise coming out of Europe these days that one would expect a conservative like Texas Gov. Rick Perry to emulate because the Continent typically is the domain of the left. However, Mr. Perry recently imported a reform from across the pond that is sure to make the Lone Star State, already the economic envy of the nation, even more of a job-creating juggernaut.
Under the current American legal system, each side in litigation typically retains financial responsibility for its own legal fees absent a prearranged agreement stating otherwise. Yet under the English rule, adopted by virtually every other legal system in the West, the responsibility for attorneys’ fees can be summed up in two words: Loser pays. When two sides enter into litigation, the losing side must pay the winning side any damages awarded, as well as compensation for legal fees incurred by the victor.
Mr. Perry made passage of a modified version of the English loser-pays rule a top priority during this year’s biennial session of the Texas Legislature. After emphasizing the need for such tort reform during his State of the State address in February, Mr. Perry made loser pays the law of the land in Texas by signing H.B. 274 in May.
As Mr. Perry remarked in his signing statement, loser pays “provides defendants and judges with a variety of tools that will cut down on frivolous and costly claims in Texas.” (more…)
The Texas model added 37% of all net U.S. jobs since the recovery began.
Richard Fisher, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, dropped by our offices this week and relayed a remarkable fact: Some 37% of all net new American jobs since the recovery began were created in Texas. Mr. Fisher’s study is a lesson in what works in economic policy—and it is worth pondering in the current 1.8% growth moment.
Using Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data, Dallas Fed economists looked at state-by-state employment changes since June 2009, when the recession ended. Texas added 265,300 net jobs, out of the 722,200 nationwide, and by far outpaced every other state. New York was second with 98,200, Pennsylvania added 93,000, and it falls off from there. Nine states created fewer than 10,000 jobs, while Maine, Hawaii, Delaware and Wyoming created fewer than 1,000. Eighteen states have lost jobs since the recovery began. (more…)
The trouble with lawyers begins in the law schools.
George Leef
March 28, 2011, Vol. 16, No. 27
Schools for Misrule Legal Academia and an Overlawyered America by Walter Olson
Encounter, 296 pp., $25.95
Following Judge Roger Vinson’s decision that Obamacare exceeded the powers granted to Congress and was therefore void, the White House released a statement denouncing the ruling as “odd and unconventional.” But why should it be considered odd and unconventional for a federal judge to read the language of the Constitution, consider its history, and then rule that a law cannot be enforced because Congress had no authority to enact it? Isn’t that standard procedure?
After reading Schools for Misrule you will understand perfectly. At most law schools—and emphatically at elite ones such as Obama’s Harvard—students are immersed in a bath of statist theories that rationalize ever-expanding government control over nearly every aspect of life. They hear that social progress depends on politicians and judges dictating what people must do (such as purchasing federally approved health insurance) and must not do (such as using incandescent light bulbs). They learn that the concepts of limited government and federalism are outmoded antiques that merely defend unjust privilege. So to many law school graduates, Judge Vinson’s opinion is odd and unconventional: It runs contrary to everything they were taught about the Constitution and how judges should interpret it.
Walter Olson’s previous books show the malign effects of the legal profession on everyday Americans. Schools for Misrule explains how most of the damaging ideas that lawyers, politicians, and judges are eager to fasten upon society originate in our law schools. Decades ago, lawyers who went to law school (and many did not—more on that later) received a no-nonsense education in the bedrock knowledge for their careers: courses in property, contracts, torts, and civil procedure along with practice in legal research and writing. Now, the legal curriculum relegates some of that bedrock to optional status—Olson notes, for example, that Yale has proudly brushed property into the elective pile—and is loaded with ideologically slanted courses such as Climate Change Justice, Social Disparities in Health, and Social Justice Lawyering. (more…)