The View from Right Field

Merle Hazard: "Greek Debt Song"

Please see Merle Hazard's latest, recorded on location at the Parthenon (sort of):

How Can You Tell a Player Is Overpaid?

I see the Cubs are still trying to trade Ted Lilly, though nothing has been reported as final yet. In any case, here is how you know you are overpaying a player: When you are trying to trade a quality left-handed pitcher like Ted Lilly at the trading deadline to somebody who needs a pitcher like him to help them get into the post-season – and they still want you to pick up some of his salary.

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Update (7/31/10 2:05 pm): The Cubs did trade Ted Lilly, and Ryan Theriot, to the Dodgers for Blake Dewitt, a second baseman who won't be arbitration eligible until 2012, and two pitching prospects.  Per my point above, the Cubs are apparently picking up about half of Lilly's and Theriot's salaries.  One other comment, with DeWitt being a left-handed batter, I don't know how long the other half of the Cajun Connection will be around either. 

DISCLOSE Act Discloses Mostly Democrats

Sometimes when I am feeling especially naïve, I think how nice it would be if we could trust our representatives in Congress to play reasonably fair and not use the system for partisan advantage. But we can’t, of course. Here is the most recent example.

President Obama made his displeasure with the Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case clear earlier this year. The Citizens United decision invalidated a law which had prohibited corporations from making certain types of political speech in the 30 days before a primary election and in the 60 days before a general election.

Now the first thing to note here is that the word "corporation" does not just mean businesses. "Corporation" as used here refers to a form of organization. Businesses are usually corporations, but so are labor unions and public interest groups. So the Supreme Court decision did not just free up businesses, it allowed unions and public interest groups to talk, too. (President Obama didn’t mention this point when he complained about the decision in his State of the Union address.)

Along with President Obama, the Democrats in Congress did not like this decision. So they have come up with something called the DISCLOSE Act. "DISCLOSE" is short for "Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light On Spending in Elections". (Truth in labeling laws do not apply to Congress.)

Of course, the real purpose of the Disclose Act is to help Democrats in the fall elections by limiting the right of businesses and others to say what they think about various candidates. The initial bill, which was sponsored by the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (you can’t make this stuff up; nobody would believe it), didn’t apply to unions – for some unknown reason. That wasn’t going to fly in the Senate so the limits now apply to businesses and unions, except for practical reasons, the effect will be more on businesses than unions.

There is also an exception for some interest groups, though not many. The original exception was tailored to exclude just the National Rifle Association. This was done in the House because otherwise Blue Dog Democrats would have voted against the bill. (As I said, you can’t make this stuff up.) That was so outrageous that a few other interest groups are now also excluded, but not many.

The bill is scheduled for a cloture vote in the Senate this week. There haven’t been any hearings, but Senator Reid doesn’t have time for that. He has elections to win (both personal and for his party).

The pure partisanship in all of this can be seen in the number of Republicans who voted for the bill in the House (two) and the number Senator Reid is hoping to pick up in the Senate (also about two). Whatever you think of McCain-Feingold (and I didn’t like it), it was bipartisan. This thing is about as bipartisan as the annual Cubs Convention.

The First Amendment should ultimately stop this. But that won’t happen immediately, and all the Democrats care about is getting past November. They can worry about the next election later.

Of course, the Democrats in Congress have the perfect role model for what they are doing here in President Obama. When he was just another candidate for the Democratic nomination for President, he agreed that, if John McCain was the Republican nominee and Senator McCain agreed to accept public financing for the presidential election, he would, too. After then-Senator Obama won the nomination and he realized he could raise more money than Senator McCain, he backed out, claiming that what he was doing was the equivalent of public financing because the public was giving him contributions.* (One more time: You can’t make this stuff up.)

All in all, about the only thing the DISCLOSE Act discloses is how far the Democrats will go to win in November.

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Sources re DISCLOSE Act: Debra Saunders, "In Washington, ‘Disclose’ Means Stifle," June 29, 2010; Russell Berman, "House approves campaign finance measure by 219-206," The Hill, June 24, 2010; "The Schumer for Majority Leader Act," The Wall Street Journal, July 27, 2010;

* See here, here and here.

Update (7/28/10 8:45/8:55 am):  While I was writing this yesterday and before I posted it this morning, the Senate defeated Senator Reid's cloture vote 57-41.  All Senate Republicans voted no (except John Ensign who was absent).  All Democrats voted yes.  Once again:  If you can't get Olympia Snowe or Susan Collins, it says something about the bill.

School Choice: Father Knows Best – And Mother, Too

Choosing schools. Students and parents do it all the time when it comes to college. They also do it for pre-school for three- and four- and sometimes five-year olds. But for first grade through 12, there is no choice – unless you are rich. If you are rich, you get to choose, either by paying private/parochial school tuition or by buying an expensive house and paying high property taxes in places with good schools. For most people, however, there is no choice. Your kids go where they are told to go.

Because some of the schools where children are forced to go are not good, some people support vouchers or charter schools as a way to enable those children to go to better schools. The theory is that the charter schools will be better or that vouchers will enable parents to choose a better school for their children.

And there are many stories of charter school successes and of vouchers enabling children to get out of bad schools and go to better ones. The problem is that opponents of charter schools and vouchers can find stories that say charter schools aren’t any better or students with vouchers don’t do better. A recent review of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, for example, "found that pupils in the choice program generally had ‘achievement growth rates that are comparable’ to similar Milwaukee public-school students."*

The problem is, as these arguments continue, children keep going to bad schools. And these arguments will never end. People on each side of the debate will always be able to find success stories or problems to talk about. The student who does great. The charter school that fails. And when it comes to studies of how well charter schools or vouchers do, there will be arguments about whether the results are statistically significant or whether the situations are really comparable.

There is, however, one test that does prove the value of vouchers and charter schools. And that test has nothing to do with how well students do on standardized tests or any of those other numbers that people use to support their side when the numbers are with them and that they disregard when the numbers go against them. The test is simple: What do parents think of charter schools and vouchers. Look at public opinion polls. More importantly, look at the waiting lists to get into charter schools. The results are clear: Parents want a choice; they want to be able to choose where their children go to school.** And the beauty of this kind of choice is that parents who like the school their child is going to now, don’t have to change. They can keep sending them there.***

But the opponents of charters schools/vouchers argue that parents don’t really know what schools are best for their children. We need to leave these decisions to professionals, they say. We need to defer to people who have been trained to know what is best for the children. Parents don’t know enough to make these decisions.

I respectfully disagree with this argument. Teachers, principals and educators may know the most about education, and they may know the most about how to teach students in general, but when it comes to individual children and what is best for them, the children’s parents know best. The reason is simple. Parents know the most about their own children. They may not know about children as a whole, but they know more about their own children than anybody else in the world, and that knowledge is what enables them to make the best choice for their children.****

Obviously, there will be cases where parents will make the wrong choice. People aren’t perfect; they make mistakes. But on the whole, parents will make the best choices for their children because they know the most about their children.

Charter schools and vouchers let parents use the knowledge they have about their own children to pick the best schools for their children. And parents like that choice. The polls show it. The satisfaction that parents have when they get to make that choice shows it.***** These are the numbers that prove vouchers and charter schools are a good idea and are working – for children and parents.

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* While this is not the point of this post, I note that one of the secondary arguments for charter schools/vouchers is that the competition will force the public schools to do better. Therefore, the fact that charter schools are not doing better than the public schools may not mean that the charter schools are failing. It may be that they are, in effect, forcing the public schools to do a better job than they otherwise would; i.e., as charter schools raise the scores of children who go there, they are, by the competition they create, causing an increase in the scores of children in the public schools, too.

** See, for example: Bari Weiss, "Storming the School Barricades: Weekend Interview with Madeleine Sackler," The Wall Street Journal, June 5, 2010; Clarence Page, "Obama’s Private School Shopping Goes Public," November 12, 2008; "Reading Aloud," The Washington Post, June 17, 2008.

*** I am sure some people will argue that the choice to stay in the public school isn’t real if other students leave. The school won’t have enough students to survive; the good students will go, leaving just the bad/problem students. The school won’t be the same. Of course, if you look at that argument closely, what it is saying is that parent A gets to force parent B to send their kids to a particular school because that will make parent A feel better about the school – and it is too bad about what parent B wants for their children.

**** There is a hint of condescension in this argument. The argument is not made as often that parents in the rich suburbs aren’t smart enough to decide what school their children should attend. They are already deciding that question by where they live. Rather, the unspoken argument is that poor people, minority parents living in poor neighborhoods, don’t know enough or don’t care enough to pick the right schools for their children. They aren’t smart enough to decide; they need to let experts decide for them.

***** The house prices and property tax bills in places with good public schools show how important that choice is to parents who have enough money to pay for it.

Unintended Consequences of President Obama's Health Care Plan

Back in the 1960s Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote about how the welfare system was hurting family structures in Black communities. It was obviously unintentional, but it was happening.

Over the next few years we will start to see some the unintended consequences of President Obama’s health care plan. Diana Furchtgott-Roth has already identified one. But instead of summarizing Ms. Furchtgott-Roth’s article, let me quote from it (the entire article is here):

"Goodbye, marriage, one is tempted to say after studying the new health care law. Its terms, which determine federal aid with health premiums purchased through the new exchanges, will penalize married couples, even more than does the income tax now.

[U]nwed Americans may find it even more advantageous – financially, anyway – to stay single than to marry. …

With $10,830 as the poverty line for one person and an additional $3,740 for a spouse, marriage in 2014 will mean less government help with health insurance premiums. Americans will receive credits for the purchase of health insurance for incomes up to 400% of the poverty line, now $43,320 for singles and $58,280 for a couple. …

Since premiums for new health plans in the new health exchanges won't come cheap … getting government help with the premiums will be vital to low- and moderate-income families. …

Since premium credits shrink as income rises, making premiums more costly, there will exist an incentive to report less income. That would discourage marriage between two employed persons, or would encourage nonmarital cohabitation and children.

Two singles would each be able to earn $43,000 and still receive help to purchase health insurance, but if they got married and combined their earnings to $86,000, they would be far above the limit. As a married couple, the most they could earn and still get government help would be $58,000, a difference of almost $30,000, or 32%. This looks like a substantial disincentive to getting married, or to working while married.

The penalty extends also to single mothers. Say Sally is a single mother earning $43,710, putting her and her baby at 300% of the poverty line. They would be eligible for the health insurance premium assistance credit.

But what if Sally wants to marry Sam, the father of her child, who earns $43,320, and is at 400% of the federal poverty line? Their total earnings, at $87,030, would exceed the 400% poverty line for a family of three ($73,240). Married, they would no longer receive help with their health insurance premiums, despite both earning the credit when unmarried. In order to keep her government health insurance benefit, Sally could only marry someone earning less than $30,000."

So, they have made the poverty trap deeper and encouraged, yet again, people not to get married. There will be more of these unintended consequences coming. We just don’t know what they are yet.

The Ex-Cub Factor and the Baltimore Orioles

I think I know why the Baltimore Orioles have the worst record in major league baseball: Too many ex-Cubs.

They have six former Cubs on their major league roster: Will "I’m no wuss" Ohman, Jake Fox, Scott Moore, Cesar Izturis, Corey Patterson and Felix Pie. Four of these guys were originally signed by the Cubs. Corey was a first round pick.

Their 40-man roster includes another ex-Cub farm hand, Lou (a/k/a Luis) Montanez, another Cubs first round pick.

Not only that, but two of their six major league coaches, Rick Kranitz and Alan Dunn, used to coach in the Cubs' system.

And in addition to Andy MacPhail, who is their President of Baseball Operations, they have John Stockstill, former Director of Scouting for the Cubs.

Altogether too many ex-Cubs.

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Update (7/20/10 8:08 am): Corrected a typo in the last sentence.

Employers and Immigration: You Will Violate Something

Thursday’s Wall Street Journal reports on how the Obama administration is enforcing the various laws on hiring legal immigrants and not hiring illegal immigrants:

"Even as the Obama administration cracks down on companies that hire illegal immigrants, it is simultaneously going after employers that it says go too far in vetting job applicants to ensure they are entitled to work in the U.S.

The Department of Homeland Security currently is auditing employment records of many companies suspected of hiring undocumented workers. Yet in an emerging paradox for businesses, the Justice Department and other agencies have stepped up probes of employers – including restaurant groups, factories and retailers – for allegedly violating anti-discrimination laws by demanding too many identity documents from applicants who aren’t U.S. citizens. …

‘The message is: Employers beware,’ said Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration-law scholar at Cornell University. ‘You need to worry just as much about asking for too many immigration documents as you do about not asking for enough.’ …

The [Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986] prohibits employer from knowingly or intentionally hiring illegal immigrants; companies must verify a person’s work eligibility through the ‘I-9’ form process, in which new hires present identity documents and employers examine them for authenticity.

Anti-discrimination protections in the [Immigration and Nationality Act], meanwhile, guarantee ‘all individuals authorized to work in the U.S. have the right to seek employment without the added burden of special rules or document demands based on their citizenship status or national origin,’ said Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general for civil rights. He said his unit is prioritizing enforcement of the INA provisions."*

In other words, companies can violate one law, and get in trouble with one agency, by not asking for enough information, and they can violate another law, and get in trouble with another agency, by asking for too much information.

So, at the same time President Obama is telling us we need a comprehensive solution to the problem of illegal immigration and is trying to convince us that he can come up with that solution, we have his administration acting like something out of "Sixteen Tons" by Tennessee Ernie Ford: "If the right one don’t a-get you, then the left one will."

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* Miriam Jordan, "Policing Illegal Hires Puts Some Employers in a Bind," The Wall Street Journal, July 15, 2010.

"Originalism" Versus a "Living Constitution"

In late May former Supreme Court Justice David Souter gave a commencement address at Harvard in which he attacked the "originalism" theory of constitutional interpretation favored by Justices such as Antonin Scalia, among others, and by many in groups such as the Federalist Society. Former Justice Souter called this the "fair reading model."

In concluding his address Harvard, former Justice Souter summarized his argument against the fair reading model as follows:

"Judges have to choose between the good things that the Constitution approves, and when they do, they have to choose, not on the basis of measurement, but of meaning.

The fair reading model misses that, but it has even more to answer for. Remember that the tensions that are the stuff of judging in so many hard constitutional cases are, after all, the creatures of our aspirations: to value liberty, as well as order, and fairness and equality, as well as liberty. And the very opportunity for conflict between one high value and another reflects our confidence that a way may be found to resolve it when a conflict arises.…

If we cannot share every intellectual assumption that formed the minds of those who framed the charter, we can still address the constitutional uncertainties the way they must have envisioned, by relying on reason, by respecting all the words the Framers wrote, by facing facts, and by seeking to understand their meaning for living people. …

George Will, in writing a column of questions for Elena Kagan, described the position of at least some who disagree with the originalism theory as follows:

"Some persons argue that our nation has a ‘living’ Constitution; the [Supreme C]ourt has spoken of ‘the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.’"

But if the Constitution "lives," do we really need a written constitution? If the Constitution is just what nine smart judges say it is, if it is just something that nine smart men and women somehow use as a base from which to tell us what "the evolving standards of decency" are today, do the written words mean all that much? Wouldn’t it be easier, and perhaps more honest, to just let those nine really smart judges decide what the standards of decency of our maturing society are without having to find some way to tie them to words written, in some cases, over 200 years ago?

Alternatively, if we do need words, why not just use the Preamble to the Constitution:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Everything you need is there: "more perfect Union," "Justice," "domestic Tranquility," "common defense," "general Welfare," and "Blessings of Liberty." Why not just use those goals as the basis to determine what the standards of decency are (or result in) today? No longer would the Court have to do back flips and somersaults to fit today’s "evolving standards of decency" into the words of the Constitution. No longer would the Court have to worry about explaining how "Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech" allows Congress to pass laws specifically abridging free speech in political campaigns because in our "maturing society" the "evolving standards of decency" require limits on certain types of political speech.

When it comes to challenges to the constitutionality of the President’s health care plan, the Court would not have to explain how Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce allows Congress to force people to buy health insurance. Instead, they could just say that requiring people to buy health insurance "promotes the general Welfare." 

If, during a lame duck session after the November election, Congress tries to pass a retroactive increase in the estate tax going back to the first of the year (the estate tax went to zero on January 1), the court wouldn’t have to strain itself to figure out a way to allow it. "Establish[ing] Justice" requires people to pay their fair share.

And those limits on political speech during a campaign? The First Amendment would no longer be a problem. Instead, the restrictions could be justified as necessary so that elections are fair, and you need fair elections to "form a more perfect Union."

I realize such a suggestion sounds frivolous, but every once in a while, when you read about one of those "living Constitution" decisions, you wonder how much off the mark it really is.

Are Those Deficits Really George W. Bush's Fault?

As we head into the fall elections, and as Republicans complain about the deficits and the level of federal spending, many Democrats will be repeating what David Leonhardt of The New York Times said back in June (I am sorry if I seem to be picking on Mr. Leonhardt lately, but sometimes it is hard not to):

"Any new [stimulus] bill will … give Republicans another chance to blame Mr. Obama for the deficit, even though the current deficit is more of their own party’s making. …

Of course, it [i.e., any additional stimulus] would have a much smaller impact on the deficit than the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, the bipartisan Medicare prescription drug program or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan did."

This view, i.e., that the deficit is mostly President Bush’s fault, has been, and will continue to be, a standard Democratic talking point. But Mr. Leonhardt does us a favor by identifying those actions/policies of President Bush that are supposedly the cause of most of today’s deficit. Let’s look at each of these items individually.

First, as always in Democratic responses to Republican criticism of the deficit are the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts. The 2003 tax cuts may have increased past deficits, but they won’t increase future deficits because they expire at the end of 2010 – except that the Democrats want to extend the 2003 cuts for low and middle income taxpayers. Which means you can’t blame President Bush and the Republicans for the part of the deficit caused by tax cuts the Democrats want to extend.

The 2001 tax cuts won’t automatically expire, but the Democrats clearly didn’t oppose those parts of the 2001 tax cuts that helped low and middle income taxpayers. Once again, you can’t blame those on the Republicans unless the Democrats try to repeal them.

When it comes to the senior drug program (i.e., Medicare Part D), to the extent the Democrats opposed it, it was for two reasons. One, it wasn’t big enough, and two, the Democrats didn’t like the way the program involved private companies. Of course, the very involvement of private companies has meant that the program has actually cost less than what was estimated, just about the only government medical program you can say that about. And the Democrats wanted a program that provided more coverage, i.e., cost more, not one that cost less. So, when the Democrats blame today’s deficit on Medicare Part D, what they don’t mention is that they wanted a bigger, different, ultimately more expensive program.*

The war in Iraq, after it started going bad, is President Bush’s responsibility. At the beginning both parties voted for it. Maybe some Democrats didn’t really mean it when they voted yes, but a vote is a vote, so they are stuck with it for the first couple of years. Once they wanted to bug out, I suppose you can put the blame for that part of the deficit on President Bush.

And Afghanistan? That is a "war of necessity," according to President Obama, so I don’t see how that can be charged to President Bush.

In other words, out of five items Mr. Leonhardt listed, President Bush (and the Republicans) can be blamed at most for parts of three of them, and they get credit for what the fact that what they did on another item actually cost less than what the Democrats wanted to do.

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* David Wessel, "The Lessons of Medicare Part D," The Wall Street Journal, January 7, 2010; "Health Costs and History," The Wall Street Journal, October 20, 2009; Michael Barone, "Medicare Part D," November 27, 2006.

Update (7/15/10 8:30 am): Fixed a typo.

Our Long National (League) Nightmare Is Over!

Great play, Marlon.