Tag Archives: government

The Final Bell: Thoughts on School Day Length

Posted on by sjcammenga
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During the discussion on how to improve Detroit Schools, one man said that, although he does not necessarily like the concept of charter schools, they have some good ideas which he would like to instate. However, the policy he was referring was longer school days.           

As a future teacher myself, many of my friends have done student teaching. Though they are college kids who are accustomed to thriving on a lack of sleep, by the time they get back from school they look exhausted and still need to grade papers and prepare assignments. A seven hour day at school is really a ten hour day after commuting, grading papers and preparing lessons. Another hour of school would be another hour away from either their personal refreshment and sleep, or the amount of time they spend giving feedback while grading or preparing for the next day.

A longer day would be difficult for students as well. One teacher pointed out that her students are already more distracted after lunch, and are often not very attentive by the time the last bell rings. If they were to sit for another hour, it is questionable how much more they would retain. One study found that students were on task for about one-third of the hours spent in school. Perhaps using more of that time to provide a quality education, rather than aiming for another hour or two, would be wiser.

Longer school days come with a high cost for the government and businesses as well. Base pay for teachers would need to increase proportionately to the length of the school day. This would obviously cost the districts more, but lengthening the school day could also have a negative effect on the businesses that rely on the ordinary length of the school day or the school year to allow them to employ student workers in the afternoon or evening.

Many people, including President Obama, have called for longer school days as a component of school reform. It is an issue in contract negotiations across the country. In the end, I believe that longer school days will cost more and be harder on teachers and students. Perhaps this is one option that we could pass up.

Obamacare Continued

Posted on by sjcammenga
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The Obamacare saga continues, with The New York Times reporting that many states lack the authority to enforce key provisions of the Health Care Reform Law. Michigan is one of those states.
When it comes to enforcing the new standards the States are expected to play the primary role – if they don’t the federal government will step in. What can states do if they do not currently have the power to enforce the health care law’s provisions? They could count on the goodwill of the insurance companies, rely on “persuasion” or general laws currently in place banning unfair practices. The other option? Make some more laws! Another increase in government power – exactly what we need.

Obama in Holland MI

Posted on by sjcammenga
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Earlier this summer, Vice President Biden visited a battery plant in Midland. This week another visitor from the White House visited a battery plant in Michigan: President Obama himself.

Obama called it a rebound from desperate times. Apparently he feels pressured to demonstrate that his administration has made progress and this plant seems like a poster child for his plan. Not only should it create jobs for 300 full-time workers; it doubles as a step toward his desire for clean energy.

According to the Associated Press, though the Holland battery plant was built with $2.4 billion of stimulus money awarded by the government and is the ninth factory to be constructed with stimulus money, Obama declared that government programs were not the goal. Instead, he wants to unleash private sector growth.

I would suggest unleashing this growth with less regulations and taxes, making it easier for anyone in the private sector to obtain property and support a business. Just a thought.

Up in Smoke

Posted on by alazowski
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Michigan businesses are fighting back on the smoking ban with a lottery boycott and it’s about time. Since the ban went into effect on May 1st many businesses have lost revenue. The smoking ban has had many unintended consequences. There may be less smoking in public due to the ban, but there is also less spending in this already ailing economy because of it.

The ban was done to curb individuals’ bad decisions, but the cure may be worse than the disease.  It really isn’t the government’s job to save us from our bad decisions. If an individual chooses to make bad decisions, they have to deal with the consequences alone. When legislators make bad decisions, everybody has to deal with the consequences. 

If the Michigan legislators truly cared about protecting people from bad decisions, they would stop making laws that violate people’s rights and pocketbooks.

Biden coming to Midland

Posted on by sjcammenga
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My fellow residents of Midland Michigan can be prepared for a great celebration – one so big that Vice President Joe Biden will be coming to our very town. What is the occasion for this visit and the huge celebration? Obama and Biden have launched “Recovery Summer”- six weeks for them to highlight their stimulus jobs. Biden is coming here Monday for the groundbreaking of the new Dow Kokam advanced battery manufacturing facility, which was given a $161 million grant from the government. If you are interested in learning how well the government created jobs helped in the last depression, I highly recommend Great Myths of the Great Depression by Larry Reed, my personal favorite Mackinac Center pamphlet.

The House that Uncle Sam Built

Posted on by razma766
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Steve Horwitz and Peter Boettke have recently completed The Great Recession of 2008, a short and simple study of the most recent recession.  The following is a short analogy that appears at the beginning of the piece:

 The man who parties like there is no tomorrow puts his body through an “up” and a “down” course that looks a lot like the business cycle. At the party, the man freely imbibes. He has a great time before stumbling home at 2:00 a.m., where he crashes on the sofa.  A few hours later, he awakens in the grip of the dreaded hangover. He then has a choice to make: get a short-term lift from another drink or sober up. If he chooses the latter and endures a few hours of discomfort, he can recover. In any event, no one would say the hangover is when the harm is done; the harm was done the night before and the hangover is the evidence.

Government Forecasting

Posted on by razma766
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Here is a letter I recently sent to the Midland Daily News:

Joe Weir, in his recent letter, offers an extensive analysis of the health care bill recently passed by congress (“Understanding health care reform,” May 16).  Amongst all the cost savings and benefits, he cites the following projection: “The legislation will reduce the deficit by over $100 billion over the next ten years and by about $1 trillion over the second decade.”

The following are four examples of government’s ability to forecast government health care costs in the past:

1.       When Medicare was created in the 1960s, the long-range forecasts estimated that the program would cost about $12 billion by 1990. It ended up actually costing $110 billion that year, or nine times more than expected
 
2.       When Medicaid was created in 1965, it was supposed to be a very small program with annual expenditures of about $1 billion. It now costs federal taxpayers $280 billion per year.
 
3.       Medicaid’s disproportionate share hospital (DSH) program was created in 1987 to subsidize hospitals with large numbers of uninsured patients. The program was supposed to cost $1 billion in 1992, but actually cost $17 billion.
 
4.       The Medicare Catastrophic Coverage of 1988 was repealed after less than two years, in part because some provisions were already projected to cost six times more than originally forecast.*
 
The examples above do not prove that the $100 billion dollar deficit reduction projection is inaccurate.  They should, however, make one skeptical of government’s ability to accurately forecast the costs of the most recent health care reform.
 
Kurt Bouwhuis
 
 
* Daniel J. Mitchell, Will Federal Health Legislation Cause the Deficit to Soar? (Tax and Budget Bulletin 2009)

10 Reasons Not to Abolish Slavery

Posted on by razma766
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This outstanding article was provided by FEE.  Click here for entire article.

At one time, countless people found one or more of the following reasons adequate grounds on which  to oppose the abolition of slavery. Yet in retrospect, these reasons seem shabby—more rationalizations than reasons.

Today these reasons or very similar ones are used by opponents of a different form of abolitionism: the proposal that government as we know it—monopolistic, individually nonconsensual rule by an armed group that demands obedience and payment of taxes—be abolished. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to decide whether the following reasons are more compelling in this regard than they were in regard to the proposed abolition of slavery.

1. Slavery is natural.

2. Slavery has always existed.

3. Every society on earth has slavery.

4. The slaves are not capable of taking care of themselves.

5. Without masters, the slaves will die off.

6. Where the common people are free, they are even worse off than slaves.

7. Getting rid of slavery would occasion great bloodshed and other evils.

8. Without slavery the former slaves would run amuck, stealing, raping, killing, and generally causing mayhem.

9. Trying to get rid of slavery is foolishly utopian and impractical; only a fuzzy-headed dreamer would advance such a cockamamie proposal. Serious people cannot afford to waste their time considering such farfetched ideas.

10. Forget abolition. A far better plan is to keep the slaves sufficiently well fed, clothed, housed, and occasionally entertained and to take their minds off their exploitation by encouraging them to focus on the better life that awaits them in the hereafter. We cannot expect fairness or justice in this life, but all of us, including the slaves, can aspire to a life of ease and joy in Paradise.

Status quo thoughts on the status quo

Posted on by razma766
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Here is a letter I recently sent to the Midland Daily News:

In his recent letter, William Smith expresses his concerns with the status quo in the political process: “If the president and his party don’t help the majority of the people during his term in office, vote them out! Until then, how will we know? I am sick and tired of status quo. Can’t we just once pass some bills and see if they will help the American people? Maybe, just maybe, that in turn will help the condition of our country” (Sick of the status quo, February 15).

Although I sympathize with Williams frustrations, it is wishful thinking to expect anything other than the status quo from the American political process. Politicians, regardless of their party, face gross incentives in favor of pursuing their own reelection and virtually no incentives to improve the conditions of the public. As Don Boudreaux said in September of 2009: “No delusions should remain that the most recent presidential election has “transformed” Washington into anything grander than what it has always been: a ’spoils exchange’ where A and B shamelessly conspire to rob C and then swap the plundered proceeds with D for D’s commitment to help A and B retain their seats on this exchange.”

Kurt Bouwhuis

Birds still fly

Posted on by razma766
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Here is a letter I recently sent to the Midland Daily News:

In his recent letter, Scott Miller states, “it appears that some of our legislators are more concerned with profits for big business than the health and future welfare of their constituents.  Contact senators Stabenow and Levin and urge them to come together around a bipartisan effort to develop affordable clean energy and climate legislation…” (“Go Green,” Jan. 21).

In one breath, Scott acknowledges that politicians are concerned with pleasing special interests.  In his next breath, however, he urges his readers to contact the very class of people he decries in order to create a solution.

I’m puzzled.  Is Scott unaware that several large businesses are currently lobbying for clean energy legislation?  These large businesses will profit from new regulations that crush their smaller competitors.  Once clean energy legislation is passed into law, it would also not be surprising to find that these same large businesses are recipients of special government permits that exempt them from such regulations. 

I admire those who seek to reduce pollution.  I am saddened by those who are blind to the colossal gap between desired outcomes and the actual outcomes generated by government intervention.  Once this gap is recognized, it will become painfully obvious that desirable outcomes will not emerge from encouraging fellow citizens to jump into the slopping pit.

Kurt Bouwhuis

A Political Romance

Posted on by razma766
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Here is a letter I recently sent to the Midland Daily News:

Imagine the excitement of wealthy health industry executives as they watch the progression of the healthcare bill through the political system. These executives have been paying lobbyists large sums of money in an attempt to pass healthcare reform and it’s all about to pay off. If the bill passes, it will require every single American to have health insurance resulting in a large increase in the demand for their health services.

An even larger increase in demand will result from a lack of rationing from the consumers. Under healthcare reform, consumers will have access to as many healthcare services as they can get their hands on at no additional costs to themselves. To top it off, a credible third party with deep pockets (government) will pick up the tab for all additional expenses. In short, health reform will offer guaranteed payments and increased revenues to already wealthy individuals working within the healthcare industry.

Some may read the paragraphs above and say that I have it all wrong; healthcare is a human right and the reform is all about helping those who are not fortunate enough to provide for themselves. If this is the thought passing through your mind, you are likely an extremely kind hearted individual who is unknowingly endorsing the plans of special interests. In order to understand why this is true, it is important to be able to distinguish between the actual political process and the theatrical performances that follow.

The actual political process goes something like this – Special interests have a strong desire to extract money from the public purse. Unfortunately, extracting money from the public purse is a tricky process – No one ever approaches the government and says “I need $1 million dollars because I’m a good person and I deserve it.” Besides, special interests are much too sophisticated for such a request. Instead, they pay lobbyists and politicians (through campaign contributions) to ask for the same thing in a slightly different way. As soon as the payments have been made, the theatrical performances ensue. All of a sudden, lobbyists and politicians are saying “We need to pass bill X to protect the middle class.” What remains unmentioned is the $1 million that ends up in the pockets of special interests as a result of bill X.

The benefits of bill X are then mentioned in the media which excites regular citizens, causing a few of them to become activists. These activists are generally the kind hearted individuals mentioned earlier who unknowingly become the frontmen for special interests. The activists then go out on the streets and inform other people of the bill’s merits. Once the bill passes into law, the special interests pocket a portion of the loot for themselves and distribute the remainder to the political party and politicians who helped pass the bill. When another opportunity presents itself, a portion of the loot is spent to hire more lobbyists to begin yet another cycle.

This cycle will continue until the public at large stops romanticizing over the theatrical performances of politicians and realize what actually happens within the political system. With this knowledge, the endorsement of healthcare reform by several prominent politicians will be “no more surprising than that a hog would gorge itself when presented with a trough of food and be about as appetizing to watch.”*

Kurt Bouwhuis

*Andrew P. Morriss, Letter to the Financial Times, Oct. 14, 2008.

Politics and Theatre

Posted on by razma766
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Here is a letter I recently sent to the Midland Daily News:

John Burke writes in his recent letter that: “[U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak should] also remember that health care reform is a moral issue in itself. That thousands are dying every year because of the lack of affordable health care is also a call to provide help “to the least of these” (Matt 25:40)” (“Stupak Admired,” Nov 18).

I agree 100% that thousands of people dying every year due to lack of health care is awful.  Unfortunately, it does not logically follow that government is the most effective tool for alleviating this problem.  Even if it were possible to accurately communicate the desires of the public to congress, it is highly unlikely that congress would fulfill the desires of the public over the desires of special interest groups. 

The current health care proposals are no exception.  Although health care reform has been sold to the public as a solution to the suffering illustrated above, behind the scenes, it is nothing more than a power grab by big businesses that have effectively used special interest groups to rig government policy in their own favor at the expense of American consumers.

Kurt Bouwhuis