The View from Right Field

Can Americans Be Trusted With Campaign Finance Disclosure? – An Update After the Brett Kavanaugh Hearings

Four years ago, I wrote a post asking “Can Americans Be Trusted With Campaign Finance Disclosure?”  I noted that, while some people want to limit political spending either by limiting how much people can contribute or by limiting how much candidates can spend, the First Amendment (at least as currently interpreted by the Supreme Court) doesn’t allow either of those.  Therefore, as I said back then:

“[T]hey fall back on disclosure of contributions.  If we can’t limit spending, they say, at least we can require contributions and spending to be disclosed.  In the words of Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis (before he was on the Court), ‘[s]unlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.’”

But, I asked, as I do again in the title of this post: Can Americans be trusted with campaign finance disclosure?  This question recently returned when a federal district court judge threw out a 37-year old Federal Election Commission rule dealing the disclosures that nonprofit advocacy groups have to make with respect to the names of their donors.  Without going into the technical detail of the case,¹ the judge’s ruling increases the number of people whose names have to be disclosed, even though the people aren’t making contributions to candidates, but just to groups that are making independent political expenditures.

Brett Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court, and Roe v. Wade

With the hearings on Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court starting,¹ one of the questions will be about women’s right to choose/abortion.  Will a Justice Brett Kavanaugh vote to take away a woman’s right to choose by overturning Roe v. Wade?  While Judge Kavanaugh told Senator Susan Collins that Roe v. Wade was settled law, settled law can be overturned. 

What people are missing, however, in talking about whether the Supreme Court might overturn Roe v. Wade, is that overturning Roe v. Wade is not going to take away a woman’s right to choose.  The Equal Rights Amendment was never adopted, but over the last 30+ years all, or at least almost all, of what the Equal Rights Amendment was supposed to accomplish has happened anyway.  It has been done by laws, regulations, and the general agreement of society.  Women are heads of Fortune 500 companies.  Female soldiers are going into combat as members of our military.  Women are as equal today as they would have been if the Equal Rights Amendment had been adopted 35 years ago.

Is Judge Brett Kavanaugh Anti-EPA or Just Pro-Proper Process?

Environmentalists are worried about Judge Brett Kavanaugh, Donald Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court.  According to David Savage of the Los Angeles Times, “Environmentalists fear that if Kavanaugh joins the court, he would vote to block anti-pollution regulations for decades, long after President Trump has departed.”  Pat Gallagher, legal director for the Sierra Club, goes perhaps further:

“He would be a disaster for the environment.  He has a disdain for regulation, particularly from the EPA.  Kennedy was the swing vote in this area.  If we have to wait for Congress to act on climate change, we are doomed.”

The last sentence gives the story away.  Environmentalists haven’t been able to convince Congress to pass the legislation they think is necessary so they have been relying, during the Obama administration, on federal agencies, especially the EPA, to do what they want.  What environmentalists don’t like about Judge Kavanaugh is that he has been skeptical of federal agencies doing things that are arguably beyond what Congress has authorized them to do and that, ultimately, he is unwilling to let policy ends prevail over the means of proper process.

A Cashless Society Plus China’s Social Credit System Equals …

­In May, FT Weekend had a long article on the increase in the number of payments being made electronically and asked, “Does cash have a future?” The subheadline read: “Electronic payment is quick, convenient, germ-free and can deter crime, from tax evasion to terrorism.  So why are we so reluctant to give up on coins and notes.”¹

The pluses of cash-free transactions are many.  For businesses, more cash-free transactions mean lower costs.  There are fewer break-ins by people looking for money.  Not having to handle cash is cheaper: you don’t have to count it; and you don’t have to physically take it to the bank.

Withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord and the Iran Nuclear Deal

In an interview in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung weekly, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said:

“America is and remains the superpower, but at the moment it doesn’t recognize multilateral agreements in all areas, as shown by the decision to leave the [Paris] climate accord and now the tariffs that President Trump has levied against Europe.”

I would agree with Chancellor Merkel with respect to the tariffs that the Trump administration has levied (or is threatening to levy, I am not sure which it is) against Europe (and other places).  However, when it comes to the Paris climate accord, and similarly the Iran nuclear agreement, I think Chancellor Merkel is missing an important point regarding the American system.

Rebuilding In the Houston Flood Plain?

They are starting to rebuild in Houston after Hurricane Harvey, and there are disputes about how and where to rebuild.  Here are some excerpts from a recent Washington Post article:

“‘What are we going to do in these neighborhoods that people just don’t want to leave?’ said Stephen Costello, Houston’s chief resilience officer, whose task is to balance development and flood protection as the city recovers. …

The need to build even in flood-susceptible areas is the result of the region’s projected growth rate. …

Sex Scandals – and Bill Clinton’s Impeachment

With all of the sex scandals, and worse, appearing these days involving politicians, entertainment figures, and business leaders, I want to make one thing perfectly clear with respect to Bill Clinton, Monica Lewinsky, and President Clinton’s impeachment.

I can’t speak for anybody else, but the reason I supported President Clinton’s impeachment was not because of what he and Ms. Lewinsky did.¹  It was because President Clinton lied under oath about what he and Ms. Lewinsky did.

The Media Is “Shocked, Shocked” That Companies Are Paying Consulting Fees to Michael Cohen, Et Al.

The media are aghast at the payments companies made to Michael Cohen for consulting services with respect to the Trump administration.¹  Apparently, even Robert Mueller is investigating some of the payments.²  Which raises the question: What kind of rock have these people been living under?

Of course, companies are going to pay big bucks to people who they think they might have connections with, or insight into, the powers-that-be in Washington.³  That’s the system.  That is part of the swamp that Donald Trump said he was going to drain.  I realize President Trump is not doing all that much to drain the swamp, but given all of the other things he has said that were not entirely accurate, why would anybody have believed him on this one?

A Government Program Doesn’t Seem to Work. Does Anybody Care?

The Wall Street Journal has an editorial today about the federal Job Corps program.  A new report by the Labor Department’s Inspector General apparently raises questions about whether the Job Corps is doing any good; i.e., whether it is really accomplishing what it is supposed to do.  The Journal editorial lists some of the failings the Inspector General’s report found.  My question here, though, is not whether the editorial, or the Inspector General, is right about how well the Job Corps is doing its job.  My question is: Does anybody care?

The Job Corps apparently costs $1.7 billion a year.  (That used to sound like real money.  Now it sounds like a rounding error.)  But other than the Inspector General’s report, is anybody checking to see if the program works?  I know that it has a good intention: helping people get training and skills – and jobs.  But are we checking to see if it is actually succeeding?

Social Trust

Megan McArdle wrote about trust, and in particular social trust, in a recent article on “The left’s Denmark envy.”  The reason for the left’s “Denmark envy” is fairly obvious: generous welfare benefits, social liberalism, and high taxes.  Plus Denmark doesn’t have the things those on the right predict for a country with generous benefits and high taxes, such as high unemployment, fleeing capital, lower GDP, and benefit cheating.  Why?  According to Ms. McArdle: “Denmark and its Nordic neighbors get away with it because they have an extraordinary high level of social trust.”

Ms. McArdle explains how social trust works and why the United States has less of it:

“‘Social trust’ is, well, what it sounds like: How much do you trust your neighbors?  And in turn, how trustworthy are they?  In a low-trust place such as Greece, people don’t trust their neighbors not to cheat, which in turn makes them more likely to cheat themselves, because why should you stay honest when everyone else is getting away with something?  This affects everything: whether people pay their taxes, whether they take benefits they don’t really need, how easy it is to regulate companies.  And social trust also works as a productivity booster, because [it allows you to] do away with a lot of the cumbersome monitoring that is ubiquitous in modern societies – the supervisors who oversee low-level workers, the store clerks who keep an eye on the customers.  Every worker who is not making sure that people don’t steal or shirk can be re-employed doing something that actually increases output.