BadgerPundit

The Where's The Beef People

Winn-Dixie joins Bruno's, A&P, and host of other formerly great retailing names in Federal Bankruptcy court.  Sometimes progress looks ugly indeed.

Barney Frank, American Hero?

BadgerPundit never expected to call Massachusetts representative Barney Frank an American hero, but in the case of l'affaire Eason Jordan, there is no other way to put it.  Like most Americans, I have long since stopped watching CNN due to the network's leftward tilting coverage, preachy liberalism, and dishonest attacks on the Bush administration.  So Eason Jordan's paranoid beliefs are news to me...they are also properly news to all Americans who continue to believe that CNN (under Jordan at least) is both an honest and trustworthy source for television news.

For those who have been living under a rock, Eason Jordan was until last week the editorial head of CNN's news division.  Appearing about two weeks ago on a panel in Davos, Switzerland, Mr. Jordan accused American soldiers in Iraq of deliberately targeting and killing journalists in Iraq.  Of course, Jordan had absolutely no evidence, other than the conspiratorial rantings of unidentified acquaintances on the radical left, to substantiate this outrageous slander against the honor of American soldiers.  Jordan would never have had the guts to level these inflammatory and unsubstantiated charges overtly on CNN; the heat from the viewer revolt would have been far too intense.

So instead, Eason Jordan thought he would take his paranoid distrust of the American military, and his obvious opposition to both the Iraq war and the Bush Administration, before a friendly crowd of anti-American opinion leaders in Europe.  Far off the camera, Mr. Jordan was free to undermine American political objectives by catering to European prejudices and tossing off casual damaging slanders without any pretext of proof.

Fortunately for America, and the honor of our fighting forces, Eason Jordan sat on the same panel with Rep. Barney Frank.  Jordan might have expected a friendly audience for his lies from Frank, since Frank is one of the most reliably liberal members of the U.S. Congress.  To his everlasting credit, however, Frank sprang immediately at Eason's comments, challenging their implications and demanding that Jordan document specific incidents to back up his claims.  Since Jordan had not one scintilla of actual evidence, Frank's challenge forced him to back off his comments almost immediately.

Frank's evident outrage at Jordan's calumny of U.S. troops played a major role in generating the subsequent interest in the controversy, first in the blogsphere, and then in the conventional press.  And now, Frank's timely challenge has forced CNN to fire Eason.  Barney Frank's demand for proof limited the damage from Jordan's initial remarks, and led to Jordan's final comeuppance. 

Frank's example shows that genuine patriotism belongs to neither left nor right;  although Frank himself opposed the Iraq war, he refused to countenance unsupported attacks on the honor of American soldiers, who serve in Iraq because of duty, not their individual political beliefs.  In America, vigorous opposition to political leaders is a precious, vital, and time-honored right; scurrilous attacks on brave men and and women doing their duty are not.  Frank, unlike Eason Jordan, clearly understands the difference, and deserves the thanks of all Americans.

So now, Eason Jordan is gone at CNN.  But remember, all of Eason Jordan's friends and political allies still work there.  Therefore, watch CNN at your own risk.  As a whole, the network continues to be dominated at the top by 1960s retreads haunted by the ghosts of Vietnam, who see My Lai in every military action and reflexively regard all American soldiers as baby killers, war criminals, psychopaths, and barbarians.  No wonder this group of Mao-worshiping journalists and SDS washouts found John Kerry as their natural champion in the last election.  And no wonder they are beneath our contempt.  Send a message in the most effective manner you can, by never tuning your TV to CNN.

A Conservative Being Born

On rare occasions, it is possible to witness exact moment of a political epiphany- a shining instant when the scales drop from the eyes of the formerly bamboozled, and a man begins to see the world for the first time as it is.  We are indebted to "Professor" Ward Churchill, American Indian activist of highly dubious provenance and veracity, for inducing such a moment of political chrysalis in his University of Colorado colleague Paul Campos.  Writes Campos:

Academics claim to despise censorship, but the truth is we do a remarkably good job of censoring ourselves. This is especially true in regard to affirmative action. Who among us can claim to have spoken up every time a job candidate almost as preposterous as [Ward] Churchill was submitted for our consideration? Things like the Churchill fiasco are made possible by a web of lies kept intact by a conspiracy of silence.

Churchill thus represents the reductio ad absurdum of the contemporary university's willingness to subordinate all other values to affirmative action. When such a grotesque fraud - a white man pretending to be an Indian, an intellectual charlatan spewing polemical garbage festooned with phony footnotes, a shameless demagogue fabricating imaginary historical incidents to justify his pathological hatreds, an apparent plagiarist who steals and distorts the work of real scholars - manages to scam his way into a full professorship at what is still a serious research university, we know the practice of affirmative action has hit rock bottom. Or at least we can hope so.

Ward Churchill's career provides a lurid illustration of what can happen - indeed, of what we know will happen - when academic standards are prostituted in the name of increasing diversity. Tenure and academic freedom are hard to defend if they don't provide us who benefit from them with the minimal degree of courage necessary to say, when confronted by someone like Churchill, enough is enough.

Hallelujah! He once was lost, but now he sees.

Right Wing in the East Side

Speaking of real estate, BadgerPundit is pleased to report success in our recent house hunting mission in Milwaukee.  My wife and I have agreed to purchase a lovely old home in the heart of Milwaukee's East Side.  My future neighbors (many of whom have apparently forgotten to discard their now ridiculous looking Kerry Edwards signs) don't know what they're in for.  The East Side is clearly Blue State territory, with presidential election contributions running in favor of John Kerry by $89,000 to $56,000.  I'm sure the vote share in zip code 53211 ran even more heavily in favor of the wind-surfing, globe-trotting, fortune-hunting, heiress marrying, multi-millionaire art collector from Massachussetts.  Needless to say, BadgerPundit plans to work tirelessly to help correct this imbalance.

Wanted: Investment Advice for Sy Hersh

In an excellent article in the Boston Globe (of all places), Ross Terrell takes the lunatic left to task for giving up on democracy, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Iran, in Venezuela, and everywhere else in the world where men and women yearn to breathe free.  He also notes the contempt of the left towards attitudes of the common man, as well as the inability of radical leftists to accept the contrary verdicts of democratic elections.  Witness the unintentional self-parody in Senator Edward Kennedy's (D- Rehab) remarks about the recent U.S. election.  Notes Terrell:

"The Democrats are the minority party in Congress, " said Senator Edward Kennedy, "but we speak for a majority of the American people." Don't the winners of an election have a better -- if imperfect -- right to speak for a majority of the American people than the losers? Not so to a left whose eyes bulge with self-entitlement and whose pale hand is estranged from physical labor.

Self-righteousness and an irrational antipathy towards George W. Bush have reduced Democrats and many leftist fellow travellers to overt enemies of freedom, who secretly hope for economic catastrophe at home, and the death of brave American service personnel abroad.  They hate America, plain and simple.  If they can't win, they'd like the rest of us to simply go to hell.  X-Files viewer, comedian, and "journalist" Seymour Hersh gives the game away in a recent radio interview, where he positively salivates at the prospect of American decline:

Seymour Hersh recently told "Democracy Now!" radio that America was in a bad way because "eight or nine neoconservatives" have "grabbed the government." Not mentioning that Bush was elected by 51 percent of the voters, Hersh did detect a ray of hope. One "salvation may be the economy," Hersh said regrettably, "It's going to go very bad, folks. You know, if you have not sold your stocks and bought property in Italy, you better do it quick."

Fortunately, the punchline to this bad joke is on Hersh himself.  One can only hope Sy will surrender to his delusions and transfer his savings to Italy.  Consulting my latest issue of The Economist magazine, I observe that unemployment in Italy stands at 8%, remarkably high given the low labor force participation rate of 49%.  In the U.S., by contrast, unemployment is 5% on a 65% labor force participation rate.  If as many people in Italy wanted to work as do in the United States, the Italian unemployment rate would be nearly 31%, or approximately 6 times the U.S. level.  In 2004 and 2005, GDP growth in the U.S. is expected to be 4.3% and 3.5% respectively, versus only 1.3% and 1.4% for Italy.  As it has for most of the past decade, the U.S. economy is growing 2 to 3 times faster than than the Italian economy.  Italy's national debt is over 100% of GDP, versus only around 45% for the United States.  Italy's population is aging rapidly, with birth rates well below replacement level.  Given Italy's far more extravagant welfare state, this demographic time bomb will cause Italy's continuing budget deficit (currently 3% of GDP) to blow up much faster than in the U.S.

Sunning themselves in a pleasant Tuscan villa, Sy Hersh and his America-hating friends may believe Italy (or anywhere else in the Eurozone) is the future.  Economic facts, however, suggest his long term bet on Italian real-estate will prove to be a sucker's bet.  So sell your stocks, Sy, and hop on that boat.  When the Italian crash comes, it couldn't happen to a nicer person.

Regularly Scheduled Programming Will Return

BadgerPundit apologizes for the limited blogging so far this month.  Here at BP Central, we have been very busy with midterms and house hunting.  Should any BadgerPundit reader have a house for sale on Milwaukee's East Side, please email and maybe we can work something out.  Regular blogging activity should resume by Friday.

Vintage Reagan

I've been reading through some of Ronald Reagan's old speeches recently.  Now that he's gone, it's easy to forget what a great man he truly was.  It is also easy to lose sight of the clarity and depth of his political philosophy, which drew upon the purest springs of the Western liberal tradition, from Locke, Smith, and Mill to Hayek and von Mises.  I was particularly struck by these excerpts from one of Reagan's earliest public speeches in 1964:

You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man's age-old dream -- the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order -- or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, "The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits."

Are you willing to spend time studying the issues, making yourself aware, and then conveying that information to family and friends? Will you resist the temptation to get a government handout for your community? Realize that the doctor's fight against socialized medicine is your fight. We can't socialize the doctors without socializing the patients. Recognize that government invasion of public power is eventually an assault upon your own business. If some among you fear taking a stand because you are afraid of reprisals from customers, clients, or even government, recognize that you are just feeding the crocodile hoping he'll eat you last.

It's time we asked ourselves if we still know the freedoms intended for us by the Founding Fathers. James Madison said, "We base all our experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government." This idea that government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power, is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.

Reading these words, I recognize how fortunate America was to have found its voice in Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.  He was the right man for a historic moment, and the right man to remind us all of what America means.  May he rest in peace...at BadgerPundit, he will not soon be forgotten.

With Republicans Like These, Who Needs Communists?

Wednesday, the Journal Sentinel reported the efforts of one Rob Kreibich (surprisingly identitifed as a Republican representative from Eau Claire) to introduce caps on the growth of tuition at the University of Wisconsin system.  Kreibich wants to be a hero with the college crowd by capping tuition and fees increases at 3% for this year and next.  BadgerPundit is always disappointed to meet a Republican who believes that by favoring one constituency, the state can magically avoid robbing another.  If one caps fees at the UW system, the burden will inevitably shift to the income and property taxpayers of Wisconsin.  Kreibich may be spoiling the kids with his proposal, but he's socking it to the taxpayers.

Others have noted the fact that UW tuition is currently well below the Big Ten average.  The Journal Sentinel article also appropriately notes that the median family income for entering freshmen at UW-Madison is a healthy $71,000 a year. (Remember that median per capita income in Wisconsin is just north of $28,000 per year).  Many students in the UW system are comfortably middle class; John Kerry, looking down from the lofty perch of his wife's G5 The Flying Squirrel, might even venture to call them rich.

What interest does the state have in subsidizing the education of these people?  Reams of economic research (by Nobel Prize winner Gary Becker, among others) have demonstrated that the present value of lifetime earnings for college graduates is vastly higher than for high school graduates.  The individual economic returns to graduate education (e.g. pursuing a Ph.d, medical, or law degree) are higher still.  The crucial point is that young students have a powerful financial incentive to pursue higher education.  An early investment in one's human capital yields lifetime financial dividends (quite apart from intangible benefits which are hard to value) which in most cases dwarfs the initial financial outlay, even at the most expensive private schools.

Students (especially students from well-off households) do not require state incentives to pursue higher education.  They know such education will benefit them substantially, whether it is subsidized or not.  In many respects, education beyond the K-12 level is not a public good.  Higher education is a valuable private good which belongs to the student.  Students reap most of the benefits from their education; it is also portable, and can be easily removed from Wisconsin.  The argument for subsidizing public higher education is that it creates positive externalities- having an educated population leads to higher incomes (and thus tax revenue), enhances economic development, and spurs entrepreneurship.  These are indeed desirable public policy objectives.  However, as Adam Smith famously noted, such beneficial side effects will follow naturally from private citizens pursuing their own self interest. 

It is also important to observe that Wisconsin's scheme of funding higher education is inefficient in subsidizing these public policy objectives (assuming such government intervention is necessary).  Wisconsin may be a net exporter of knowledge workers.  Although the state heavily subsidizes the production of college educated residents, many of these in-state students graduate, pack their bags, and move off to another state which offers better job opportunities.  As such, Wisconsin taxpayers are actually subsidizing investment in human capital in other states.  This education export is due to perverse incentives, as excessively cheap education encourages residents to stay for their student years, while high income and property taxes encourage them to move once they begin earning income (thereby defeating the public policy rationale for subsidized higher education).

Like most states, Wisconsin charges out-of-state students significantly higher tuition to attend the state's public universities.  But who is more deserving of a subsidy- the in-state teenager who leaves the state for good after 4 riotous years in Madison, or the California teenager (who pays full tuition) who decides to stay in Wisconsin after college and contributes tax revenues for the next 30 years?  If Wisconsin's higher education subsidies were rational, they would both encourage and reward UW system students who choose to stay in Wisconsin.  Subsidizing those who leave is pure waste.

How might the subsidy situation be improved?  For starters, charge all UW students a market rate by tripling the current tuition and fees at UW, and dramatically scaling back taxpayer funded transfers from the state treasury to the university system.  Let the students who will benefit fund more of their education.  Because accessibility and fairness are valid concerns, offer all students a state backed loan program to fill the gap between the new higher tuition and the old subsidized levels.  For students who avail themselves of this state loan pool, offer the following deal. The state of Wisconsin will offer a $0.75 credit against the outstanding loan balance for every $1.00 in Wisconsin state income tax paid by the student in the 10 years following graduation.  Thus, if a graduating student stays in Wisconsin after graduation and contributes $16,000 in state taxes to the state treasury over the next decade, he will receive $12,000 in loan forgiveness against his student debt.  If the student instead skips town with his diploma and Bucky Badger T-shirt to hang out in California, he receives no loan forgiveness and must repay the full amount.  This is fair, because the student has contributed nothing to Wisconsin's economy and public finances during his productive phase; therefore, he is not entitled to a state subsidy during his educational phase.

Adjust the plan however you wish.  The important principle is that only UW graduates who remain in Wisconsin should receive a state subsidy.  All other students should be expected to pay full freight.

There are other economic arguments as to why UW fees ought to be much higher than they currently are.  Anytime state subsidies hold the price of a good below its true price, consumers will demand more of that good than they would in a natural market-determined equillibrium.  Because of state subsidies, it is probable that students in Wisconsin and elsewhere consume too much of certain types of higher education.  An artificially low price encourages students to make educational choices without  carefully considering the productive possibilities of their human capital investments.  When tuition is high, and significant debt is incurred, students are forced to confront what they hope to gain from their education, and how that education will help them achieve those goals.  BadgerPundit has attended two of the most expensive private universities in the United States- the horrendously high cost does provide a powerful reality check.

High tuition will also have a beneficial effect on governance of the university system.  The more students are forced to pay, the more they will monitor and challenge the administrative bloat, irresponsible union contracts, and wasteful spending which currently drive up costs at all universities, but particularly public ones.  Students have no reason to care about wasteful institutional spending as long as Wisconsin's taxpayers are picking up the tab.

The University of Wisconsin system, and particularly UW Madison, are real and important assets to the state.  They provide world class research facilities, and spawn the growth industries of tomorrow.  I strongly endorse continued investment in attracting the top faculty and students to the system, as well as investment in infrastructure and industry partnerships.  Economic sense dictates, however, that more of this investment be shouldered by the private individuals who benefit most from the system - namely its students and graduates.  The success of America's many great private universities provide overwhelming proof that educational excellence is possible without public funds.

The current system provides inefficient subsidies and is also a regressive tax- in many cases forcing the poorest and least educated in the state to subsidize the education of ambitious world-beaters from River Hills, who might then leave the state to go work on Wall Street.  BadgerPundit readers should know that I am a committed anti-tax warrior; nevertheless, pointless regressive taxes such as the low UW fees are bad public policy.

So, Representative Kreibich, if you really support the Republican beliefs in free markets, lower taxes, and accountability in public institutions, the problem is that UW fees are much too low, not that they are too high.  It is time to raise them, substantially.