Category: Government

Giving $10,000 to Each Adult American Would Cost 13% of GDP

(p. A2) Imagine you’re president and Congress gives you a huge chunk of money to spend as you wish. Instead of cutting taxes or splashing out more on health care, infrastructure and defense, why not send a check to every adult?
That’s the essence of universal basic income, a centuries-old idea now enjoying a revival across the political spectrum.
. . .
To send every American adult $10,000 a year would cost $2.4 trillion, or 13% of gross domestic product. Junking the current safety net wouldn’t come close to paying for this: Scrapping income support for the poor, disabled and unemployed would save just $500 billion. Get rid of health care for the poor (mostly Medicaid), and the savings rise to only $900 billion. Getting rid of Medicare and Social Security would balance the costs, but that would leave the average retiree considerably worse off–politically (and ethically) a nonstarter.

For the full commentary, see:
Ip, Greg. “CAPITAL ACCOUNT; Payout Proposal Ignores Labor Needs.” The Wall Street Journal (Thurs., July 14, 2016): A2.
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date July 13, 2016, and has the title “CAPITAL ACCOUNT; Revival of Universal Basic Income Proposal Ignores Needs of Labor Force.”)

Cuban Entrepreneurs Lost Faith in Fidel’s Revolution

(p. 22) Ihosvany Oscar Artiles Ferrer, 44, a veterinarian who worked in Camagüey but recently moved to Queens, said the lack of wholesalers to buy supplies from made it difficult to eke out a profit.
“The private business is like a handkerchief the government puts over everything to be able to say to the United Nations that in Cuba people own small businesses,” Mr. Artiles said.
“In the beginning, almost all of us were revolutionaries,” he added. “But now, we quit all that because we don’t believe in Fidel, in the revolution, in socialism or anything.”

For the full story, see:
FRANCES ROBLES. “Stay or Go? Cuban Entrepreneurs Are Divided on Where to Stake Futures.” The New York Times (Tues., MARCH 22, 2016): 22.
(Note: the online version of the story has the date MARCH 21, 2016, and has the title “Stay or Go? Cuban Entrepreneurs Divided on Where to Stake Futures.”)

NASA Funding Depends on “Pure Pork-Barrel Politics”

(p. A15) “Beyond Earth” is delightfully different from any other book I’ve ever read by human-spaceflight cheerleaders. The authors have put their thinking caps on and broken out of the usual orthodoxy by presenting cogent ideas on why humans should go into space, including their lovely idea of going to and living on obscure (to most folks) Titan. We go, they say, because we need to go, not just to explore and study but to find another place to live and, if we want to, screw it up just as much as we have screwed up Earth, because that’s what we do, that’s what makes us human. We may make mistakes but, by God, we also produce great civilizations and art and, yes, science in the process. We’ve done Earth, so let’s now go wherever our abilities take us and physics allow.
. . .
The one great truth I always tell people wanting to understand the American space program is this: The federal government doesn’t give a flip about human spaceflight. That’s why Apollo was canceled just as it hit its stride, why the shuttle program was underfunded from its inception, and why, after the shuttle was retired, NASA had nothing to replace it with. No one who holds the purse strings for NASA really cares whether American astronauts ever go anywhere. It’s just not that important to a country beset with a vast array of pressing problems.
What keeps the current space program going at all is pure pork-barrel politics. That’s why President Obama didn’t blink an eye when he signed NASA budgets that provided funds to build a giant rocket called the Space Launch System, which has no well-defined purpose, as well as a crewed capsule called Orion, which has no specifically assigned places to go. As proof that spending money isn’t evidence of support, there wasn’t one dime in those budgets to procure and deliver the accouterments needed for true human space endeavors–no space suits, no planetary landers, no rovers, no habitats, nothing but the bottom and top of a big, expensive rocket that will require a vast marching army to operate for no apparent reason.

For the full review, see:
HOMER HICKAM. “BOOKSHELF; Forget Mars, Aim for Titan.” The Wall Street Journal (Fri., December 16, 2016): A15.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date Dec. 15, 2016,)

The book under review, is:
Wohlforth, Charles, and Hendrix. Amanda R. Beyond Earth: Our Path to a New Home in the Planets. New York: Pantheon, 2016.

Government Wastes Millions on Corrupt Nanotech Boondoggle

(p. A19) In Utica, a former industrial hub in upstate New York where the near collapse of manufacturing has made for a scarcity of jobs and a rarity of good news, the announcement in August 2015 that an Austrian chip maker had decided to put down roots in a fabrication plant built by the state was cause for jubilation.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo celebrated with an appearance in Utica, promising $585 million in state funds to cement the public-private partnership, which was to create 1,000 jobs. Some in the crowd wept with emotion.
But last week, after months of delays and mismanagement that culminated in September with federal prosecutors revealing a far-reaching bribery and bid-rigging scheme, state and local officials said that the Austrian chip maker, AMS, had abandoned the project.
The Utica project was merely one chunk of the multibillion-dollar investment with which the Cuomo administration has pledged to seed nanotechnology and high-tech industries in upstate cities starved for economic growth.
. . .
For the state, it seems, the strategy developed by Mr. Kaloyeros and trumpeted by Mr. Cuomo — to lavish hundreds of millions of dollars in state subsidies on corporate partners to create high-tech jobs — is unblemished. Yet the model has come in for repeated criticism from government watchdogs, who say an economic policy that tries to create risky new industries virtually from scratch, and that spends millions in taxpayer dollars to create every new job, is folly.
“We’re incredibly skeptical of the economic logic behind these projects because they’re too expensive,” said John Kaehny, the executive director of Reinvent Albany, a good-government group. “There is no economic logic to (p. A21) this, really. But there’s a huge political logic to it. The governor desperately needs for this to be a success for his political legacy in New York.”

For the full story, see:
VIVIAN YEE. “How Missteps Doomed Plan for Growth, Foiling Cuomo.” The New York Times (Weds., DEC. 28, 2016): A19.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date DEC. 27, 2016, and has the title “How Cuomo’s Signature Economic Growth Project Fell Apart in Utica.”)

Government Sugar Protectionism Kills More Jobs than It Saves

(p. A13) As if domestic price-fixing by the government–here, driving prices up by setting production limits–weren’t enough, the feds then set a limit on sugar imports, and punish any imports above that limit with heavy tariffs.
The result? Countries such as Canada openly advertise to U.S. companies that use sugar–for instance, in the food industry–that they will enjoy lower business costs if they move. And when companies leave, like some candy makers that have moved production overseas, they take their jobs with them. Even the Commerce Department admits that for every job that the sugar program “protects,” it kills three others.
Reforming this policy sounds like a no-brainer, but the small number of beneficiaries use their benefits to influence–by lobbying, for instance, or with campaign contributions–politicians who block any reforms. No wonder sugar was the only commodity program not to be reformed by having its subsidies reduced in the most-recent farm bill, in 2013.

For the full commentary, see:
JOE PITTS and DAVID MCINTOSH. “Your Funny Valentine Candy Pricing; Making a box of chocolates more expensive is one of many ways federal sugar policy hurts U.S. taxpayers.” The Wall Street Journal (Fri., Feb. 12, 2016): A13.
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date Feb. 11, 2016.)

One Way to Defend Free Trade (in Honor of Reagan’s Birthday)

(p. A9) Baldrige also knew how to use humor to deflate tense moments, as when the U.S. toy balloon industry petitioned for protection against cheap Mexican imports. Baldrige was opposed, but after debate the entire cabinet favored sanctions. Sensing this was not where the president wanted to go, Baldrige pulled from his pocket a dozen toy balloons and tossed them on the cabinet table. As the room filled with laughter, he said, “This is what we are talking about.” Reagan denied the sanctions.

For the full review, see:
CLARK S. JUDGE. “BOOKSHELF; The Cowboy At Commerce; During tense talks over steel imports, Baldrige insisted the tired Europeans work through lunch. He’d hidden snacks for his team nearby.” The Wall Street Journal (Tues., Jan. 5, 2016): A9.
(Note: the online version of the review has the date Jan. 4, 2016, and has the title “BOOKSHELF; The Cowboy At Commerce; During tense talks over steel imports, Baldrige insisted the tired Europeans work through lunch. He’d hidden snacks for his team nearby.”)

The book under review, is:
Black, Chris, and B. Jay Cooper. Mac Baldrige: The Cowboy in Ronald Reagan’s Cabinet. Lanham, MD: Lyons Press, 2015.

British Government Ignored Scurvy Cure

(p. C14) Scurvy, we know today, has a single and simple cause: lack of vitamin C. But between the years 1500 and 1800, when an estimated two million sailors died from the disease, it seemed to defy all logic.
. . .
The conventional medical narrative holds that the mystery was solved by James Lind’s announcement, in his “Treatise of the Scurvy” (1753), that it could be cured by drinking lemon juice. But in “Scurvy: The Disease of Discovery,” Jonathan Lamb, a professor at Vanderbilt University, shows that the story is nowhere near so simple and that scurvy was a much stranger condition than we imagine, with effects on the mind that neuroscience is only now beginning to elucidate. The result is a book that renders a familiar subject as exotic and uncanny as the tropical shores that confronted sailors in the grip of scurvy’s delirium.
James Lind was not the first person to recommend the lemon-juice cure. Contemporaries of Francis Drake had discovered it 150 years before, but the secret was lost and found again many times over the centuries. Some citrus juices were much more effective than others, and their efficacy was reduced considerably when they were preserved by boiling. The British admiralty ignored Lind’s researches, . . .

For the full review, see:
MIKE JAY. “The Disease of the Enlightenment.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., December 10, 2016): C14.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date Dec. 9, 2016, and has the title “Scurvy: The Disease of the Enlightenment.”)

The book under review, is:
Lamb, Jonathan. Scurvy: The Disease of Discovery. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2017.

Governments Encourage Drink that Consumers Are Rejecting

(p. A9) From coast to coast, urban planners are increasingly looking to craft breweries as the magic elixir to renew struggling urban cores.
Two years ago, Richmond, Va., put up $33 million in public money and incentives to entice Stone Brewing to build a retail store, tasting room and East Coast distribution center. Shortly thereafter the state of Virginia extended $1 million in grants and $1 million in matching tax credits to help Hardywood Park Craft Brewery expand into an office park in Goochland County. The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported at the time that Virginia had specifically “targeted craft beverages as part of the state’s economic development strategy.”
. . .
Small towns are getting in on the action, too. At a meeting in November, the city council of Florence, S.C., population 38,000, approved an incentive package totaling $180,000 to encourage a craft brewery to set up shop beside town hall. The month before that, the city council of Reidsville, N.C., population 14,000, voted to sell a city-owned building for $1 to a startup brewing co-op. In tiny Perry, N.Y., population 4,000, a public development corporation matched bank financing this year to help a microbrewery build in its downtown.
. . .
But here’s the rub: Demand for beer overall has been sliding in the U.S. for years. Twenty years ago, nearly three-quarters of young people said it was their favorite alcoholic drink, according to surveys by Gallup and Goldman Sachs Investor Research. Less than half feel that way now. The market is shrinking, and craft beer has grown at the expense of national brands like Budweiser, Miller and Coors.

For the full commentary, see:
JEREMY BAGOTT. “What Craft Brewers Want to Tap Next: the Taxpayer; Trendy suds are seen as a way to save city centers, never mind that beer sales have been sliding for years.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., Dec. 31, 2016): A9.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date Dec. 30, 2016.)

When Winston Churchill Met Mark Twain

(p. C13) . . . [a] pleasant immersion in America’s political history is Mark Zwonitzer’s “The Statesman and the Storyteller: John Hay, Mark Twain, and the Rise of American Imperialism.” It is a story of a friendship that flourished in spite of differences about momentous issues of war, peace and national identity. All of Mr. Zwonitzer’s pages are informative and entertaining, but none are more so than those recounting the meeting between the 65-year-old Twain and a 26-year-old British parliamentarian at the Waldorf-Astoria in Manhattan in 1900. Suffice it to say that Twain and Winston Churchill differed vigorously about the Boer War.

For Will’s full book recommendations, see:
George F. Will. “12 Months of Reading.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., December 10, 2016): C13.
(Note: ellipsis, and bracketed word, added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date Dec. 7, 2016, and has the title “George F. Will on Stalin’s last spy.”)

The book recommended, is:
Tombs, Robert. The English and Their History. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014.

Deer Dies from Stress Caused by Bickering Governments

(p. A1) A white-tailed deer that went from being a minor celebrity in Harlem to a cause célèbre after its capture, died in captivity on Friday [December 16, 2016], moments before it was to be driven upstate and released.
The preliminary causes of death, according to a New York City parks spokesman, were stress and the day and a half that the deer spent at a city animal shelter in East Harlem. But that did not begin to tell the absurd tale of how the buck, known as J.R., for Jackie Robinson, and Lefty, because of his crumpled left antler, came to die.
The deer had become the latest and most unlikely casualty of the feud between Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, an animosity that has manifested itself mostly on big issues like education, safety at homeless shelters and funding mass transit.
But the tussle over the deer was extraordinary even by the standards set by Mr. Cuomo and Mr. de Blasio. All day Thursday and into Friday, the city and state issued competing and sometimes self-contradicting updates on the deer and what should be done with him.
The buck had spent two weeks attracting adoring, snack-proffering crowds at Jackie Robinson Park, where he often was seen near a chain-link fence across the street from a bodega. How he traveled to a park in the middle of a crowded Manhattan neighborhood remains unclear.
. . .
After it looked like the deer might live, allies of the mayor and governor took the opportunity to throw a few jabs.
“Bureaucracy lost,” Richard Azzopardi, a spokesman for the governor, wrote on Twitter.
“Andrew Cuomo is an idiot,” posted Bill Hyers, who managed Mr. de Blasio’s 2013 mayoral campaign.
. . .
. . . the Harlem deer was no ordinary deer. He was beloved, a holiday-season gift to a beleaguered city, a surrogate reindeer camped out just a block from St. Nicholas Avenue.
. . .
The deer was condemned to die, then he was not, then he was, then he was not.
For a few surreal minutes Thursday night, the deer, like Schrödinger’s cat, was both alive and dead, with a city official insisting he had already been euthanized and the state insisting he had not.
Then, just before 2 p.m. with workers from the state Department of Environmental Conservation and the federal Department of Agriculture gathering at the Animal Care Centers of NYC shelter on East 110th Street, a city parks spokesman announced that the deer had died.
The spokesman, Sam Biederman, blamed the state.
“Unfortunately because of the time we had to wait for D.E.C. to come and transport the deer, the deer has perished,” he told reporters, adding that the city had wanted to euthanize the deer all along. “This was an animal that was under a great deal of stress for the past 24 hours and had been tranquilized for much of that time.”
The state, naturally, blamed the delay on the city.

For the full story, see:
ANDY NEWMAN. “Condemned, Reprieved, Then a Sudden Ending.” The New York Times (Sat., DEC. 17, 2016): A1 & A18.
(Note: ellipses, and bracketed date, added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date DEC. 16, 2016, and has the title “Harlem Deer Caught in City-State Tussle Has Died.”)

Government Permission to Build Takes Longer than It Takes to Build

(p. A21) America used to be the envy of the world in building great projects responsibly, efficiently and on time. The Pentagon was built in 16 months. The 1,500-mile Alaska-Canadian Highway, which passes through some of the world’s most rugged terrain, took about eight months. Today, infrastructure projects across America often require several years simply to get through the federal government’s pre-build permitting process. Consider a few examples.
New U.S. highway construction projects usually take between nine and 19 years from initial planning and permitting to completion of construction, according to a 2002 Government Accountability Office study. It will have taken 14 years to permit an expansion of Gross Reservoir in Colorado, and it took almost 20 years to permit the Kensington gold mine in Alaska.
It took four years to construct a new runway at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, but it took 15 years to get the permits. Todd Hauptli of the American Association of Airport Executives bitterly joked to the Senate Commerce Committee last year, “It took longer to build that runway than the Great Pyramids of Egypt.”
These problems have been building for decades as the U.S. regulatory state has grown.

For the full commentary, see:
DAN SULLIVAN. “How to Put Building Permits on a Fast Track; It can take 15 years to win approval for a new airport runway. No wonder U.S. infrastructure needs a lift.” The Wall Street Journal (Mon., Dec. 5, 2016): A21.
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date Dec. 4, 2016.)