The View from Right Field

Little Sisters of the Poor and Free Birth Control

There was considerable outcry earlier this week when the Supreme Court upheld Trump administration regulations under Obamacare that provided the Little Sisters of the Poor, and other religious groups, did not have to provide free contraceptive services under their health plan.  Well, actually, it was more complicated than that.  The Obama administration had not required the Little Sisters to provide free contraceptive services; it required the Little Sisters’ health plan to provide free contraceptive services, without charging the Little Sisters for the services.¹  The problem for the Little Sisters was, as I understand it, that they did not feel comfortable with what they had to do in order to opt-out of providing free birth control.² 

Apparently, 70,000 or more women could be left without free birth control under the Trump administration regulation, which bothers (outrages) a lot of people.  But the point is, which a lot of people seem to miss, is there is a simple way to make sure free contraceptive services are provided to all women without forcing groups like the Little Sisters to violate their religious principles: Have the federal government pay for it.  If free birth control is that important, just pass a law and provide for it.  Nobody’s religious principles are violated,³ and women get free birth control. 

What's Better? Something or Nothing? Police Reform In an Age of Polarization.

I’ve been writing a lot about baseball lately, mostly because baseball, even with people like Rob Manfred and Tony Clark unable to negotiate anything, is better than politics today, which says something.  But it’s back to the real world.

A big issue in Washington is police reform.  Your first thought about Washington and police reform might be like mine: Huh?  Police, like schools, seems like the epitome of a state and local issue.   We need police reforms (for one of my ideas, see here), but what’s the federal government got to do with it?  State governments, local governments.  Police reform is their issue.  Congress can’t pass laws telling state and local governments how to run their police forces.  About all the federal government can do (with one exception I will get to below) is cut back on the money it gives to state and local police departments if they do things the federal government doesn’t like.  It’s not much, but it’s something.  So the people in Washington are talking about a police reform bill which would increase or decrease the amount of money Washington gives to state and local police departments.

Two Bad Supreme Court Decisions – From a Process Point of View

It’s been a bad week for people who see the job of the Supreme Court as applying the law, as opposed to coming up with ways to do what Congress should do but hasn’t.

First, it was the LGBT workers decision on Monday in Bostock v. Clayton County.  I think that people shouldn’t be fired from jobs for being gay, lesbian, etc.¹  And I think Congress should pass a law to that effect (as should states).  But Congress hasn’t.  I do not believe that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, when it prohibits discrimination in employment because of an individual’s sex, covers discrimination because of sexual preference, gender identity, etc.  “Sex” did not include those things in 1964, and it shouldn’t be interpreted as including them today.  There is a proper way to do it: Pass a law.

Here’s an Idea: Let’s Get Rid of Police Unions

This is an idea I’ve had for a long time, one that popped up again with the killing of George Floyd in Minnesota.  Other people have written about this in more detail recently (among others, see here), but it’s not just those who could be written off as anti-union right wingers anymore.  The Financial Times had a front-page story on the problem of police unions yesterday.¹

Among the purposes of unions are to protect the jobs of their members and to get them as much money as possible.  Part of the former is to make it hard to fire union members.  Which in the case of police unions means making it hard to fire police officers.  I’m all for police officers not being fired unfairly, but the way it seems to be working in too many cases these days, is that it is just too hard to fire police officers at all.  There are police officers that need to be fired, and police unions are making it too hard to do so. 

Figure Out How We Will Vote in November – Now!

How are we going to vote in November?  No, not who are we going to vote for.  Rather, what is the actual process of voting going to be?  Wisconsin had a disaster of an election in April.  The Democratic governor said he didn’t have authority to change the election date, but he waited until the week before the election to call the Republican-led legislature into special session – twice.   But the legislature and governor couldn’t agree on anything, and the legislature adjourned.  At that point, on the day before the election, the governor tried to delay in-person voting until June.  Republicans appealed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which said the governor didn’t have the power to delay the election,¹ so voting went ahead on Tuesday.  At that point, things were so messed up there were only five polling places in the entire city of Milwaukee.  Stupid, just stupid.  (See here and here.)

While we can’t know for sure, there is a fair chance that in-person voting could be a problem for at least a significant portion of the population in November.  But even if it turns out that it isn’t, we need plan ahead.  Something we haven’t been doing, so far.

Feeling Sorry for Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn – Or Not

You have to feel a little sorry for Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn – or maybe not.  Lt. Gen. Flynn was Donald Trump’s first National Security Adviser.  In 2017, he was charged by Special Counsel Robert Mueller with lying to the FBI, and he pled guilty.  Some say he pled guilty so the government would not go after his son in a matter involving the consulting firm Lt. Gen. Flynn owned. 

A couple of weeks ago, documents came out that made it look, to some people, like the FBI was trying to set Lt. Gen. Flynn up for a perjury charge.   As those documents were coming out, Donald Trump tweeted about it, of course.  Once President Trump spoke, i.e., tweeted, the story became all about him, which is what happens any time President Trump gets involved in anything.  Which meant the story was no longer about whether Lt. Gen. Flynn was ill-treated or set-up by the FBI, but about President Trump.  If you like President Trump, you were on Lt. Gen. Flynn’s side.  If you don’t, then you thought Lt. Gen. Flynn was guilty.  Regardless of the actual facts of the story, in either case.

Disappearance of Physical Cash Is Great – Or Is It?

In an opinion piece in yesterday’s Financial Times,¹ Gary Cohn, a former director of the National Economic Council under President Trump, said that, with coins and bills being potential carriers of Covid-19, he has stopped using cash, and he supports the idea of the US Federal Reserve creating “digital dollar accounts and wallets for all citizens.”

Mr. Cohn sees all kinds of advantages to such digital wallets, in addition to those that are Covid-19-related.  Tax-avoiding black-market sales of cannabis could be effectively stopped.  Digital wallets would have made it easier for the government to send stimulus payments directly to individuals.  While Mr. Cohn admits there are privacy implications to the government having access to peoples’ digital wallets, he likes “how much quicker and efficient the tax process could be.”

Preparing for the “Next” #Coronavirus – Whatever It Is. But Will We?

I was originally going to post about a book that Andrew Krepinevich wrote in 2009: 7 Deadly Scenarios: A Military Futurist Explores War in the 21st Century.  Chapter 3 of the book was entitled “Pandemic.”  While the cause of the pandemic in Mr. Krepinevich’s book was a variation on influenza, instead of a coronavirus, many of the effects were eerily the same:

“The summer movie season has been washed away by the government’s ban on public gatherings.  Meanwhile, baseball … is experiencing a ‘silent season.’  Major league baseball tried for a few days to play televised games in empty stadiums, then cancelled its schedule when several players came down with pandemic influenza ….”¹

“In many parts of the country hospitals are collapsing under the strain, as ever greater numbers of Americans succumb to the virus.”²

“[D]eveloping a vaccine to deal with a novel strain of influenza can take nearly a year.”³

Among the Reasons You Can’t Trust China's Reports on Coronavirus

While on our trip to Egypt, I saw an article in The Egyptian Gazette last Thursday on the coronavirus efforts in Wuhan, China.  The article reported that inspectors were going door-to-door in Wuhan, trying to identify every infected person.  Wang Zhonglin, the new Communist Party secretary in Wuhan, was quoted as saying, “If a single new case [of coronavirus] is found (after Wednesday), the district leaders will be held responsible.”  Which means, of course, that no new cases will be reported because the district leaders know what will happen to them if one is.

It reminds me of this story:

Uncertainty: The Reason the Economy Isn’t As Good As It Could Be

Donald Trump, like the real estate developer and TV host he was, calls everything the best and the greatest – and other adjectives I can’t come up with right now.  He says this about the economy.  The problem is that it isn’t true, but it could have been.  The 2017 tax reform act was a boost to the economy,¹ as were the cutbacks in regulation by the Trump administration and the end of the constant uncertainty as to what new regulation or interpretation or guidance the Obama administration might come up with next.  Because of these actions by people in the Trump administration, the economy started growing faster than under the Obama administration.

But, in spite of President Trump’s boasts and tweets, the economy hasn’t grown as much as it could have – because President Trump brought in his own brand of uncertainty.  In 2018, President Trump tweeted that “trade wars are good, and easy to win.”  The American economy doesn’t agree.  While we needed to do something about China’s unfair trade practices, President Trump’s approach of unilateral tariffs, plus China’s retaliation, resulted in higher costs and more uncertainty.  While China might have been hurt, we have been hurt, too.  Uncertainty is a drag on an economy, no matter what else you do.