The View from Right Field

Writing Constitutions – And Judging Those Who Write Them

This week’s Economist has a review of Linda Colley’s new book on the history of written constitutions, The Gun, the Ship and the Pen.  The book covers the writing of constitutions from the middle of the eighteenth century to the present.  According to the review:

“Above all, Ms Colley argues, the need for innovative, written constitutionalism was driven by the evolving nature of war. … Governments’ need for ever-more manpower to fight these wars – and ever-growing tax revenues to pay for them – led to crises at home that could only be tackled by the concession of new rights and promises of wider political participation. … 

House Values in Illinois

One of the problems with living in Illinois is that house prices values aren’t going up like they are in some other parts of the country.  But then, with so many people leaving Illinois (Illinois is one of the few states losing people each year), it’s logical.¹  With fewer people in Illinois, there are fewer people looking to buy houses; i.e., demand is lower.  With demand lower and supply staying the same (the houses aren’t leaving, just the people), it’s logical that prices aren’t going up as much as places where population is growing and people want to move.

One of the reasons people are leaving Illinois (and why others aren’t coming or returning) is our lousy state government.  As I have said elsewhere, Illinois has the worst credit rating of any state and has hundreds of billions of dollars of unfunded pension liability, not to mention billions of dollars of unpaid bills.  Why wouldn’t people want to leave – or not come?  Why not get away from that debt?  Why move to that debt?

After We Pass New Gun Control Laws, We Still Need to Deal With the Problem

The call is on for new gun control legislation.  Which is fine.  But my question is simple: After we add the new controls, what do we do about all the guns that are already out there?  Because our problem is not just new guns and legal sales of guns.  It’s guns that we already have and guns that are sold illegally.  Limiting new guns and putting more limits on the legal sales of guns might help.  But really dealing with the problem requires figuring out what to do with all the guns that are already out there.  And I haven’t seen anybody really seriously address that.
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Note: I have said this before (see, for example, here and here), but I wanted to say it again – because new gun controls are only a small part of a solution.

The Return of Earmarks. Sigh.

It was sad last week to see Republicans in the House of Representatives giving up one of the real accomplishments on the last Republican House: the ban on earmarks.  In 2011, House Republicans passed a ban on earmarks, and since they wouldn’t approve earmarks, Congress couldn’t pass them and the President couldn’t sign them.  The entire Congress ultimately went along with the House Republicans, and in 2014, President Obama even said he would veto any bill containing earmarks.

The problems with earmarks were obvious.  Representatives and Senators were putting in specific appropriations for things they wanted done, not necessarily what needed to be done.  The more powerful a representative or senator was, the more money a district or state would get.  One of the most infamous earmarks was the $233 million “bridge to nowhere” in Alaska.¹

“A World of Our Own” – A Song for Lockdown

I wish I had found this 1965 song by The Seekers last year.  It would have been perfect for our stay-at-home orders.  Let’s hope we don’t need it this year.

UPDATE (3/24/21 9:20 am): To show how right this song would have been for lockdown, here are the first two verses:

Should Illinois Should Be Proud That Washington Is Following in Its Footsteps?

Being from Illinois it’s sometimes hard to proud of our government.  Illinois has the worst state credit rating in the nation and the highest unfunded pension liability, things you do not want to be number one in.

Still, Illinois may be serving as a model for the federal government.  In Thursday’s Wall Street Journal, Greg Ip asked:

“How is it possible for presidents to keep cutting most Americans’ taxes while expanding the safety net?  In great part, by borrowing.”

H.R. McMaster on Strategy Against the Soviet Union and Strategy Against China

Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster (Ret.) and Jonathan D.T. Ward wrote in Thursday’s Chicago Tribune that the United States’ strategy vis-à-vis China should include the kind of policies used by President Reagan in the Cold War against the Soviet Union.  Messrs. McMaster and Ward explain:

“Reagan’s approach – applying intensive economic and military pressure to a superpower adversary – became foundational to American strategic thinking. It hastened the end of Soviet power and promoted a peaceful conclusion to the multi-decade Cold War.”

Afghanistan: Biden May Accomplish What Trump and Obama Couldn’t

In a leaked letter,¹ Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has basically told the Afghanistan government to get with the plan, i.e., the United States’s power-sharing plan for Afghanistan, under which the elected Afghan government is to share power with the Taliban until new elections are held.²  The implication is, if they don’t, we’re gone.  Of course, under the plan, the United States would probably go anyway, so I’m not sure there’s really much of a difference between agreeing or not agreeing.  Other than the fact that agreeing, as I said above, means letting the Taliban into the government.³  

Given that the Afghan government and the Taliban haven’t gotten anywhere in their talks under the US-Taliban agreement of last year, it’s hard to see how they are going to work together in some new government.  But that’s not the concern of the Biden administration.  They just want out.  We have to get out, we are told, in order to end the longest war in American history.  I find this “longest war in American history” argument a little annoying.  What does it mean and why is it important?  The Cold War was twice as long.  The deaths in one day at Antietam were more than double the number of deaths in almost 20 years in Afghanistan.  So what is the urgency?  Other than we don’t care anymore.

A New Merle Hazard!

Well, it's not a new Merle Hazard.  It's the same old Merle Hazard.  But it is a new Merle Hazard song:

Can Washington Ignore the Coming Medicare Funding Crisis? Springfield Says Yes.

The Chicago Tribune last Friday had an Op-Ed by Robert Moffit on the coming insolvency in the Medicare trust fund.  The Congressional Budget Office has confirmed the Medicare trustees’ report that the fund, which covers hospitalization costs and related services, will run out of money in 2026.  Unlike Covid-19, this crisis has been obvious for years.  Paul Ryan was talking about it, and proposing plans to deal with it, more than a decade ago.  But Democrats ignored him and most Republicans did, too.  Especially once Donald Trump got nominated and elected.

But with date for insolvency of 2026, the headline on Mr. Moffit’s Op-Ed reads, “Washington can no longer ignore the coming Medicare crisis.”  Unfortunately, I think this underestimates our politicians in Washington.  The only choices in this situation are hard ones, and Washington has been ignoring this problem for years (as I said above), even though the solutions a decade ago would have been far easier.  I am sure the people in Washington can continue to ignore it.