The View from Right Field

Right to Choose; Right to Life. Again.

The big deal in Washington on Wednesday, in addition to Covid, was the Supreme Court argument in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case involving the Mississippi law generally prohibiting abortion after fifteen weeks.  Among others things, the question in the case is whether Roe v. Wade (1973), along with Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), should be overturned.

I had several thoughts.  I’m going to just list them, maybe not in the right order, but as I think of them.

1. First, I think Roe v. Wade is a poor decision from a legal reasoning point of view. The Court created the three-trimester test out of thin air. It didn’t really justify it; it just stated it.  Without commenting on whether abortion ought to be legal, Roe v. Wade is just poorly done.

Helping the Rich, Democratic-Style

House Democrats finally passed, 220 to 213, President Biden’s $1.8 trillion¹ “Build Back Better” plan.  You have to be a political geek to know what’s in it, though it doesn’t really matter yet because the Senate hasn’t passed it.  They’re going to make changes in it, and then it will have to go back to the House for another vote.  So, trying to figure out what is in it at this point doesn’t make all that much sense.  The only things we know for sure are that (i) the price tag is totally made up, (ii) the revenue it raises is calculated on bases that won’t actually happen, and (iii) there won’t be any unexpected consequences because if you don’t know what is in the bill, you can’t know what is expected, and if you don’t know what is expected, there can’t be anything unexpected.

Still, one thing we do know about what the Democrats are doing is who is going to benefit.  And that is the upper middle class.  The Biden/Pelosi bill increases the limit on the amount of state and local taxes you can deduct from $10,000 per year to $80,000.  With a standard deduction of about $25,000, this won’t help average people – or even somewhat above average people.  It’s just a tax break for the upper middle class, especially those in states that have high local taxes (i.e., states with Democratic governors and legislatures).

Irresponsible Governance – Chicago and Washington

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how the Democrats in Congress were trying to pass a package of new social programs.  Obviously, they have been having a bit of a problem getting the bill passed.  Some Democrats only want to set up programs they can pay for.  A lot of others want to set up as many programs as possible, even if it is just for a year or two.  They are willing to spend all the money required to set up lots of new programs, even if the programs have to shut down after a couple of years because there’s no future money to continue them.  In other words, irresponsible governance.

But it’s not only Washington where you see this kind of irresponsible governance.  It’s happening in Chicago, too. For example, for a moment last week, I thought that Chicago had not only solved its huge pension liability¹ but also figured out a way to replace its hundreds of thousands of lead water pipes.² 

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. 

Government Subsidies – Programs That Never End

There is a saying that the only things certain in life are death and taxes.  And the only thing permanent is a government program.  The inability of the federal government, and state and local governments, to terminate programs that don’t work is proof of the latter.  Instead of getting rid of the old programs that don’t work, governments just set up a new program – again and again.  Which results in four or five (or more) programs all trying to solve the same problem, and none of them doing it well (if at all).

Overseas, the forever programs are often subsidies: for food, fuel, etc.  In theory, the subsidies are set up for good purposes: to help the poor.  (Of course, they are also set up to help politicians – get votes.)  The problem is that, over time, the subsidies become more and more expensive, as costs go up and prices don’t.  And corruption seeps in: subsidized fuel, for example, is sold to neighboring countries where prices are subsidized.

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.

Ending Net Neutrality Pushes Us Back to the Dark Days – of 2015

Those opposing the repeal of the “Net Neutrality” rules adopted by the FCC in 2015, which were adopted at the direction of the White House¹ (so much for the FCC being an independent agency), have warned of consequences for the Internet almost as bad as those coming from climate change.  Internet service providers will control what we are allowed to see; they’ll favor their own content over others; the Internet as we know it will end.

Except, all the FCC’s repeal of the net neutrality rules does it to put us back where we were before February 26, 2015, when the FCC adopted the rules that Barack Obama wanted.  It’s a little hard to see how going back to where we were less than three years ago is as horrible as net neutrality proponents are saying.

Paying for Harvey

Hurricane Harvey has been mind-boggling, and the costs for the people in Texas, and beyond as Harvey moves east, will be massive.  Now is probably not the best time to talk about flood insurance, but Congress’s failure to address it when there wasn’t a national emergency means we have to deal with it now.

Because private insurance companies have been unwilling to provide flood insurance, or at least have been unwilling to provide flood insurance at prices people are willing to pay and/or at prices state governments are willing to approve (in those states where the state has the right to approve insurance rates), the federal government provides flood insurance.  Unfortunately, there are two problems with the federal government’s flood insurance program.  First, it is set to expire at the end of September. 

Energy Subsidies for Those Who Don’t Need Them – Paid for By Those Who Can’t Afford Them

Green energy is all the rage.  We have to save the planet, after all, and green energy is the way to do it.  It may cost money, but it’s worth it – especially when you don’t have to pay for it yourself.

Robert Bryce wrote in The Wall Street Journal last week about his contribution to the green energy movement – and our contribution to him:

“[I]t’s only appropriate that I express appreciation for the generous subsidy you provided for the 28-panel, four-array, 8,540-watt photovoltaic system I installed on my metal roof last year.  Thanks to the investment tax credit, I slashed my 2016 federal tax bill by $7,758. …

Big Business. Big Labor. Big Government. Now, Big Regulation.

In December, The Wall Street Journal noted that the presidents of J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs have both come out against repeal of Dodd-Frank.  In 2015, Lloyd Blankenship, head of Goldman Sachs, explained that, far from being a problem for Goldman, the huge regulatory costs of Dodd-Frank were actually a plus.  Dodd-Frank set up barriers to entry, making it harder for banks that are not already huge, to compete with the likes of Goldman.   

While it may be counterintuitive, the Journal noted that the Independent Community Bankers of America, which represents small banks all over the country, has also come out against repeal of Dodd-Frank.  Though small banks complain about the burden of regulation, the Journal suggests that small banks see Dodd-Frank regulation as a weapon they can use against finance companies and tech start-ups, to keep them out of their business.