Take It Back 7: Energy and the Environment

In my latest reading of James Carville and Paul Begala's Take It Back: Our Party, Our Country, Our Future (copyright 2006), I read the chapter on the environment, and I started the chapter on the media (i.e., how the media does not really manifest a left-wing bias).  My post today will be about the environment, whereas my post tomorrow will be about the media.

What did I like about the chapter on the environment?  A number of things.  I liked Carville and Begala's point that Democrats should concentrate on climate change rather than drilling in ANWR (which many people don't visit anyway), that they should promote good environmental stewardship as a religious value, that they should highlight how environmental damage threatens people's health, that they should seek the support of hunters and fishermen by talking about how environmental damage leads to fewer places where people can hunt and fish, and that they should discuss how higher CAFE standards could lead to the production of more fuel-efficient cars and thus more jobs.  I also appreciated that Begala and Carville mentioned people who were being part of the solution rather than part of the problem.  They refer favorably to the advancements that Texas has made in terms of alternative fuels (and I talk about Texas Governor Rick Perry's discussion of Texas' environmental and clean energy record in my post here), as well as General Electric's profits from renewable energy, "water purification and cleaner transportation" (page 182).

After talking about GE, Carville and Begala criticize how a number of Democrats approach environmental issues: "We'll admit it: There are times when Democrats can be preachy and prissy and sanctimonious and scornful when talking about energy and the environment.  We tend to sneer at people who drive SUVs and at companies that create jobs but also contribute to global warming.  Worse, some Democratic environmentalists tend to be almost self-loathing about America's energy consumption.  Instead, we should celebrate the entrepreneurial spirit of America; we should embrace the profit motive that is driving more and more corporate leaders to the Green/Green Solution."

I appreciate Carville and Begala's support for an environmentalism that is consistent with jobs, religion, and the desires of hunters and fishermen.  I remember a professor saying that, in some regions of the country, the National Rifle Association is a strong proponent of responsible environmental policies.  Why should environmentalists position themselves as extremists, when they can form alliances with a wide range of people, even conservatives?

What did I not like about the chapter on the environment?  I did not feel that Carville and Begala were sensitive to the deleterious effects that some of their proposals could have.  For example, they support cap-and-trade and the windfall profits tax.  But could not those lead to higher energy prices, as companies pass on the cost of buying carbon credits or paying the windfall profits tax to consumers?  Carville and Begala should have addressed that point.  It would be nice, though, if a windfall profits tax could work out, for I like the story about how Sarah Palin as Governor of Alaska brought in higher revenues and gave Alaskans a check through taxes on oil profits (but see here for another take on that).

Rachel Maddow on the Pay Gap; Texas Tort Reform and Health Care Costs

I have two links for today.

1.  Ben Wallace-Wells has an excellent article in The Rolling Stone about liberal MSNBC host Rachel Maddow.

My reaction to Rachel Maddow is mixed.  On the positive side, I agree with the article that Rachel Maddow offers a higher level of political discourse, in that she focuses on policy, facts, and statistics rather than immature personal attacks and sensational presentation of the news.  You'll definitely learn something substantial by watching Rachel Maddow!  On the negative side, my impression is that she has contempt towards people who disagree with her, when they may very well have a valid opinion.
The article talks about Rachel Maddow's debate with Republican Alex Castellanos on Meet the Press, and my impression of that interaction differs from how the article and Maddow perceived it.  I don't think that Castellanos was simply denying a pay gap between men and women.  Rather, he was saying that men are paid more than women because women work fewer hours (presumably due to family obligations) and in lower-paying jobs.  Castellanos also said that the pay gap between men and single women was less, and he argued that, if women made less than men, companies would hire more women to save money.  (He may mean if women made less than men due to discrimination rather than the reasons he gives for the pay disparity).

Is Castellanos right on this?  That's debated.  Conservatives tend to say "yes" and present their statistics.  But there are feminists who say "no" and present their statistics and case-studies.  You can read some of my posts during March 2012 (Women's History Month) to get more background on this debate.  See here.

My problem with Maddow in that debate is not that she disagreed with Castellanos.  It's that she didn't even think that Castellanos' view on why there are pay disparities was important or worth hearing out.  Maddow should have argued why pay disparities are due to discrimination rather than the factors that Castellanos talks about.  She could have presented statistics, for example, about how women who work the same number of hours and at the same job as men are paid less.  On her own show here, she did a little better by showing that women make less in the same jobs, but (unless I missed something) she did not discuss whether women worked fewer hours due to family responsibilities.
 
I do agree with Maddow, however, that the timetable for women to prove discrimination in the workplace should be more flexible----that they shouldn't be in a situation where they learn that there is discrimination and find that it's too late to launch a lawsuit because they were not aware of the discrimination earlier.  You can watch the links above to hear Maddow's discussion of this.

2.  Did Rick Perry's tort reform in Texas bring down health care costs?  No, answers this post, as it presents graphs and charts to support its argument. 

Rick Perry's Fed Up 7

I finished Rick Perry's Fed Up!  Our Fight to Save America from Washington.  In this post, I'll highlight my favorite passages from my latest reading, as well as provide my own comments:

1.  Page 171: "I see a nation where the people and their own doctors get to decide how to care for their families.  I see individuals who own their own health insurance policies and that those policies are not controlled by employers, can account for preexisting conditions, and have affordable prices driven down by robust competition.  I see states that have allowed for greater competition across their borders for insurance companies.  I see doctors who are not afraid to go into the health field because trial lawyers are no longer allowed to hold them hostage to runaway, abusive lawsuits...There will be a health care safety net that is not built on the promise of what government can provide for the people, but on what individuals can accomplish together over our lifetime through work, savings, charity----and by spreading risk out through insurance policies."

I especially appreciate Perry's sensitivity in this passage to the issue of preexisting conditions.  I also like his acknowledgement that having health insurance policies that are "controlled by employers" is problematic, for that sort of set-up enables employers to hold their employees hostage, plus there are sad stories out there about people who are fired for being sick, right when they need the job for its insurance coverage.

Would the policies that Perry promotes make matters better or worse, though?  I think that tort reform may increase the supply of doctors, which will help to bring down the price of health care.  I'm more skeptical about the notion that individuals owning their own health insurance policies will make things better, for it's cheaper for people to get insurance from their workplaces than as individuals.  Moreover, private insurance does not always enable "people and their own doctors [to] get to decide how to care for their families", for private insurance can be rather stingy when it comes to health care.  Regarding competition across state lines, I think it's a good idea to shatter the monopolies in states when it comes to health insurance (see my post here).  At the same time, I fear that competition across state lines can lead to a race to the bottom as insurance companies seek to keep prices low.   That, in my opinion, will not help those who have pre-existing conditions.

On the need for insurance companies to spread risk out, I question that relying on private insurance is the best way to do this.  You need a large pool of people contributing to the policy for the risk to be spread out, and that does not exist when there are a bunch of private policies out there.  A single-payer system, by contrast, has a vast number of people contributing to the same policy.

2.  Page 173: "I see an America----led by the states and the people who live there----that has clean air, clean water, ample green space, and an environment filled with abundant wildlife.  I also see an America with abundant energy, a generous mix of wind, solar, and hydro-electric power; fossil fuels; and many other resources of which we are blessed with large quantities.  There is no reason we cannot lead the world in developing clean energy while continuing to fuel our economy with the energy it needs to create wealth, jobs, and opportunity."

I appreciate Perry's view in this passage that there should be a lot of "green space" with "abundant wildlife".  I've heard conservatives mock the notion that we should be concerned about trees being cut down, development getting rid of green space, and endangered species.  "Why not put the animals in zoos?", some conservatives have asked.

Would federalism make matters better or worse, though?  I referred in an earlier post to Noam Chomsky's view that leaving more powers to the states hurts the environment, since states are more captive to big companies than the federal government is, as states want for the companies to stay and thus are more willing to give them what they want (i.e., lax environmental regulations).  (This may be a national problem now, however, since companies can leave the United States for places that have lax environmental regulations.)  At the same time, people want to have clean air and clean water, and hopefully they'd be able to make their voices heard and obeyed in Rick Perry's ideal system, were something like that to become a reality.
I agree with Perry's emphasis on clean energy.  I tend to believe, however, that the government should take some initiative in financing that.  In addition, Perry highlights the importance of fossil fuels, but my concern there is that fossil fuels are pollutants.

3.  Page 177: "When the federal government oversteps its authority, states should tell Washington that they will not be complicit in enforcing laws with which they do not agree.  Again, the best example is an issue I don't even agree with----the partial legalization of marijuana.  Californians clearly want some level of legalized marijuana, be it for medicinal use or otherwise.  The federal government is telling them they cannot.  But states are not bound to enforce federal law and the federal government cannot commandeer state resources and require them to enforce it.  So good luck to the federal government if it wants to enforce every law on its books without the help of state and local law enforcement."

States disobeying the federal government can lead to chaos, but there is a part of me that would cheer California on were it to do this!  I also appreciate Perry's acknowledgement that California has the right as a state to do something that he disagrees with----legalize marijuana.  I thought that he somewhat moved away from this approach as a candidate for President, however, not in the area of marijuana, but rather on the issue of same-sex marriage, as he supported a Federal Marriage Amendment rather than allowing states to set their own policies.

4.  Pages 190-191: "I want to single out for special recognition Chip Roy, an outstanding legal scholar who previously served as legal adviser to U.S. Senator John Cornyn in his Senate leadership office and on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and who resigned his position as Special Assistant United States Attorney to devote himself full-time to the completion of the original manuscript.  Writing a book of this nature in the midst of a campaign for reelection was a herculean task and wouldn't have been possible without Chip's dedication over the course of several months.  He brought to this effort an amazing knowledge of the U.S. Constitution and other Founding documents, and a keen ability to frame federalist arguments in striking terms that make complicated law easier for non-lawyers like me to understand and discuss.  Chip, it was a pleasure to work with you.  You have a brilliant legal mind, and after working with you on this project I will never again attempt one like this without you by my side."

Although there are things about this book that I did not like----Perry's immature attack on Al Gore, and his failure to define the arguments of the other side (whereas Rick Santorum in It Takes a Family at least attempted to do this, on occasion)----there were elements of this book that I really liked.  There are Tea-partiers who love to blab on about the Federalist Papers, but I have doubts that they even read them.  Rick Perry, however, quotes them.  Perry also makes historical arguments, and he does serious policy-analysis of such issues as Obamacare, documenting his claims with end-notes (and, while he sometimes appeals to right-wing sources in his documentation when discussing certain issues, he also cites studies and news articles).  Chip Roy may have had a lot to do with this book being as good as it is.  At the same time, when it comes to the Federalist Papers, I think that David Sessions of The Daily Beast has a point when he argues that Perry quoted them rather selectively, quoting the passages that agreed with his position while ignoring the ones that disagreed!

Rick Perry's Fed Up 6

I have two items from my latest reading of Rick Perry's Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America from Washington.

1.  Perry referred to an example in which he believed that federal intervention made matters worse, and an incident in which it had the potential to do so.  First, according to Perry, the federal government during Katrina was slow and inefficient, even as it blocked attempts by the states to redress the situation.  According to Perry, the federal government prohibited Texas from working with other states to spread the survivors out as well as blocked an airlift.

Second, Perry explains why Texas turned down money that the federal government was offering through the Department of Education's Race to the Top program.  Were Texas to receive the money, it would have to comply with Washington's standards, and it would cost Texas $3 billion to change its textbooks and material in order to do so.  Moreover, Texas was already performing well academically, and the money that it rejected amounted to only $75 per student, which was "only enough to pay for the operation of Texas public schools for about two days" (page 166).

2.  On pages 156-157, Perry defends Texas' environmental record.  He says that Texas had air and water pollution programs before the U.S. Congress passed them, that Texas "produces the most wind power and has the largest wind farm of any state in the nation", and that Texas' deregulation of electricity helped to increase the development of alternative energies.  Perry quotes an April 8, 2010 article by Tom Fowler, "Texas Still Leads U.S. in Wind Power----But There's New Competition" (at the "News Watch Energy" blog, at http://www.chron.com), which states that deregulation has led to "greener innovations that make power more efficiently" and a reduction in "waste and energy cost in Texas."

Earlier in the book, on pages 88-92, Perry says that Texas over the past decade has increased its air quality.  Texas flexibly allowed facilities to determine how they will contain emissions and meet federal standards, rather than capping emissions from "each source (like a smokestack) within the facility" (page 89).  Texas also has no "grandfathered facilities", thereby encouraging "older, dirtier facilities to clean themselves up even though they were not required to under federal law" (page 60).  Rather than hitting businesses with fines and penalties, Texas works with businesses and aims to protect the environment and to increase jobs.  As Perry notes, Texans want to live where their air and water are clean!  And Perry says that nitrogen oxide emissions have decreased, even in Houston, which has had a 20 percent increase in population.

There are at least two sides to every story, for some have argued that Perry's environmental record is not particularly good (see here----but some of these articles acknowledge that Texas is good on wind-power----and also here, which attributes Texas' increased air quality to what the federal government has done, while also noting where Texas has problems).  But I think that what I've highlighted in items 1 and 2 show Perry at his best, as he relies on argument rather than cheap-shots at Democrats (which, unfortunately, he employs elsewhere in his book).  While I am open to different ways to clean up the environment, even conservative ways, I still take issue with some of Perry's environmental positions, such as his dismissal of global warming.

Rick Perry's Fed Up 5

I'm continuing my way through Rick Perry's Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America from Washington.  In my latest reading, Perry criticizes President Barack Obama's defense and counter-intelligence policies.  I really don't know enough about President Obama's policies on this to critique what Perry is saying.  But I'll make the following points, based on my hunches:

1.  I think that a missile-defense system is a good idea, for that's a matter of protection.

2.  I'm not sure if we need a bunch of planes and nuclear weapons these days to keep the peace.  Maybe it's a good idea to prepare for the possibility of war and to have the sufficient equipment to fight if we need to.  But I doubt that we need a huge number of planes and nukes in this post-Cold War era.  I'm not sure from my reading to what extent Perry would agree with me on this, but I think that my point is relevant to a discussion of what the U.S. defense budget should be.

3.  Perry makes it look like Obama is leaving us vulnerable to attack.  But Democrats have made the same sorts of arguments about Republican administrations.  John Kerry, for example, criticized President George W. Bush's failure to do a whole lot on nuclear proliferation.

Rick Perry's Fed Up 4: Health Care

For my write-up today on Rick Perry's Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America from Washington, I'll focus on health care.

Not surprisingly, Perry criticizes Obama-care because he believes that it creates costly government bureaucracies that interfere with decisions that patients make with their doctors, sets up death-panels that ration health care in an attempt to reduce costs, imposes regulations on businesses in a time when businesses need to create jobs, and establishes a health insurance mandate that violates the U.S. Constitution.

I am familiar with certain elements of Obama-care: the requirement that everyone have health-insurance, the expansion of Medicaid, and the requirement that health insurance companies not turn away people with pre-existing conditions.  But I do not know entirely what role the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute and the Independent Payment Advisory Board----the so-called "death panels"----play in Obama-care.  From what Perry is saying, these boards concern what Medicare and Medicaid will reimburse, as Medicare and Medicaid base their reimbursements on what is considered to be cost-effective.  But can the federal government under Obama-care tell private insurance companies to follow its standards as to what is cost-effective?  I do not know.  The idea may be that encouraging Medicare and Medicaid to prefer certain medical procedures (i.e., preventative care) over others will lead the private insurance companies to do the same, since Medicare and Medicaid loom large in America's health care system.  Newt Gingrich himself says that Medicare should lead, and the private health insurance companies will follow.

Perry argues that the proposed Medicare cuts under Obama-care will lead 15 per cent of hospitals to close.  So Perry is against the federal government cutting the amount of money it spends, in this case?  How's that jive with his opposition to big government?

While Perry believes that the federal government has no constitutional authority to impose a health insurance mandate on Americans, he doesn't think that the health insurance mandate is a good idea for states, either (though he most likely thinks that the states should be allowed to have such a mandate, if they choose).  He criticizes the Massachusetts plan (Romney-care, I presume), which has a health insurance mandate and expanded the number of people on Medicaid.  The result is that "the waiting times to see a doctor in Massachusetts have nearly doubled", and a special commission recommended that state insurance conduct a cost-benefit calculation, which Perry calls rationing (page 83).

According to Perry, as Obama-care increases waiting lines (which I presume is because it drives up the demand for health care), and as government cutbacks result in fewer doctors, the result is health care becoming more expensive, especially as doctors quit due to Obama-care.  Moreover, for Perry, "the federal government spends money it doesn't have on programs that states, individuals, or private companies could likely do cheaper and better" (page 82).  Perry also does not like "the provision requiring calorie counts on all chain-restaurant menus" and "posting calorie counts on vending machines" because that will cost businesses a lot of money (page 85).

I think that Perry makes valuable points.  There are times in his book when his statements are pretty childish, but there are also times when he makes some pretty substantive policy arguments.  Here are some of my reactions:

1.  My impression is that the reason that waiting times are long in Canada (for certain procedures) and under Obama-care is that more people have access to health care, for they have the insurance that can enable them to see a doctor.  The goal should not be to tell people to get out of line (not that Perry says we should do that), but to increase the supply of health care.  There are a variety of ways to do this.  One way is not to make cutbacks that cause hospitals to close.  Another way is reasonable tort reform, since fear of being sued discourages people from entering or staying in the field of medicine.  A professor of mine suggested that medical students receive a free education.

2.  Health care costs have to be contained.  That's the purpose behind certain features of Obama-care that Perry criticizes: the insurance mandate, what Perry refers to as rationed care, and the requirement for calorie counts (since people who don't eat right cost the health care system money).  If health care costs are not contained, that will increase the cost of Medicare and Medicaid, and also the premiums that people and companies pay for private health insurance.  That in itself will put a clamp on the economy, perhaps more of a clamp than the regulations that Perry criticizes.  Perry's discussion of health care does not appear to manifest sensitivity towards this issue.  Granted, he laments that government bureaucracy is expensive, but he does not focus on ways to bring down costs.

3.  Perry criticizes government-rationed care, ignoring (at least in what I read) that private insurance companies themselves ration care, and in many cases do so for the sake of profits.  Howard Dean, a physician, pointed out one time that he as a doctor had an easier time getting things approved by Medicare than he did with private health insurance companies.  So who rations care more?  Moreover, while Perry is a critic of bureaucracy and paper-work, private health insurance companies impose a lot of that onto the system.  That's why advocates of a single-payer system argue that their system would reduce the amount of bureaucracy and paper-work that people have to deal with, since caregivers would have to interact with one payer, not multiple payers.

Rick Perry's Fed Up 3

I have two items for my write-up today on Rick Perry's Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America from Washington.

1. Rick Perry does not like for the federal government to bribe states to do its will, as when it threatens to withhold federal highway funds if the states do not pass laws making 21 the minimum drinking age.  But, as critics of Perry have noted, Texas under Governor Rick Perry still receives federal funds.  Is Rick Perry a hypocrite?  After all, Rick Perry probably could choose not to receive federal money and thereby to allow his state to be independent, but he does not always go that route.  What impressed me, however, was Perry's humble acknowledgement of this dilemma on page 54:

"Are we, as states, complicit in this?  I suppose so, in that from time to time we have valued the money more than our sovereignty.  But it is a no-win situation: ignore the tremendous transportation needs of a growing state like Texas and you get painted as an impractical ideologue; take the money and you no longer care about principle.  Politically, it is hard for state politicians to refuse such funds----particularly when it came right out of the pockets of their constituents in the first place.  You can see the box Washington puts us in.  This is something I know a little about."

I respect Perry's dilemma, but my question is this: If Perry acknowledges that Texas needs federal money, then why is he so insistent on the federal government having a very limited role while the states pick up most of the slack?  Hasn't he essentially conceded that the states are inadequate for the task?  I do not want to put words into Perry's mouth, but I think I know how he would respond: He would say that Texas is dependent on the federal government under the current system, in which the federal government takes the hard-earned tax dollars of Texans.  But suppose that the federal government got out of the way and did not tax Texans so much?  Then Texans would have the money to pay for their own highway construction, and they would not have to run to the federal government for help.  That is my hunch about how he'd respond.

The thing is, though, if the states are left with the vast bulk of the tasks that the federal government currently performs, wouldn't that require the states to raise taxes or to impose new taxes?  My impression is that Rick Perry would not care for that, for Newt Gingrich in his introduction to Perry's book argues that Texas' economy is good in part because of its low taxes.  And if there is a threat that businesses could leave a state due to higher taxes, wouldn't that discourage the state governments from raising the taxes that are so necessary for programs?  Wouldn't the result be the erosion of the social safety net, among other things?  For reasons such as these, I prefer to leave certain powers in the hands of the federal government.

On a related note, check out the Bartlet-Richie interaction on this issue.

2. A friend of mine once sought to dispel economic doom-and-gloom by pointing out that, during World War II, the national debt was a huge part of America's GDP, but that the economy of the 1950's wiped that debt out.  I think that my friend's point was that we should not be paranoid about how high our current national debt is, for the economy can get better and that would take care of the debt.

Perry essentially acknowledges this point of history on pages 57-58, only he says that during World War II "the national debt surpassed 100 percent of our economy, or GDP", and that the "strong economic growth [during the 1950's] allowed us to move beyond our debt (that is, we grew our economy faster than debt to get to a point where it was manageable)."  But Perry believes that times are different now than they were then.  In the 1950's, the welfare state was "in its infancy", whereas today the government spends a lot domestically, which results in more debt and higher taxes (which will increase in the future to keep up with entitlement spending, unless something is done).

Perry may have a point.  Borrowing a lot of money, printing a lot of money, and raising taxes for more government spending can be deleterious to the economy.  At the same time, liberals such as Michael Moore and Robert Reich appeal to the 1950's as a time when liberal policies worked----when higher tax rates on the rich, government development of highways, and strong unions coincided with higher productivity and a strong middle class, which was good for the economy.  Moreover, is there a way for the federal government to have an active role while being fiscally responsible?  I agree with Perry that earmarks are bad, for example.  And when one observes that the cost of health care is lower in Canada than it is in the United States, could that mean that there is a way to have a national health insurance program without as much of a cost?

Rick Perry's Fed Up 2

In my latest reading of Rick Perry's Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America from Washington, Perry defends states' rights against the charge that such a concept was used to uphold slavery and segregation, and he also makes other historical arguments.

Regarding slavery, Perry astutely notes that there were pro-slavery measures that assaulted states' rights, such as the Fugitive Slave Law, which required Northern states to return slaves to their Southern masters.  On segregation, Perry states on page 34 that the end of segregation resulted from the implementation of constitutional amendments to protect individual rights, but that federalism was also respected.  Perry is rather nebulous about what he means here.  Perhaps he is saying that the U.S. Constitution (specifically the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments) granted the federal government the authority to uphold the rights of African-Americans, and so its attempts to do so were not an unconstitutional federal usurpation of states' rights or jurisdiction, in contrast to many federal programs, which violate the Tenth Amendment's reservation of many powers to the states.  Perry's statement that the federal government respected federalism in its pursuit of civil rights reminded me of Dean Kotlowski's argument in Nixon's Civil Rights that President Richard Nixon often sought to work with rather than against the South in effecting desegregation (though there were also times when Nixon employed a more heavy-handed approach, as Kotlowski acknowledges).   

Whenever I discuss the ills of capitalism with libertarians, they like to point out to me that the Robber Barons were supported by government funding, and so I cannot appeal to them as an example of why laissez-faire does not work.  Perry, however, has a much more positive view on the Robber Barons than do my libertarian friends.  Perry acknowledges that the government helped the Robber Barons out a little, but he praises their productivity, their creation of jobs and infrastructure, and the massive charitable giving by Carnegie and Rockefeller (which, in today's dollars, would amount to hundreds of billions of dollars).

But what about the Robber Barons' poor treatment of their workers?  Was not the government right to impose regulations to correct that?  Perry says on page 43 that Congress did not possess the constitutional authority to "make laws regarding manufacturing, unions, or minimum wages, because those activities occurred within the boundaries of states and were not part of the interstate commerce that the Constitution authorized Congress to regulate."  At the same time, on page 45, Perry criticizes the U.S. Supreme Court for the times that it struck down state laws regarding the minimum wage and "limits on hours worked".  Perry's implication may be that the states can come up with progressive policies on their own.

I grant that there are times when federal violation of states' rights contradicts what is progressive----as when the Fugitive Slave Law told Northern states what to do, and when the Supreme Court struck down state laws that helped workers.  At the same time, I would be very reluctant to say that this means states' rights should be an absolute, for I believe that the federal government was correct to outlaw slavery and to counter segregation.  Moreover, I agree with Noam Chomsky's argument that state governments may be less likely to implement progressive policies that (say) protect the environment and workers, for these state governments want to keep businesses in their own states, and thus they'd be more likely to give big businesses what they want, even if it hurts people.  The federal government, however, does not have that problem to the same extent (though, on the other hand, businesses can leave America and go overseas).

Rick Perry's Fed Up 1

I started Rick Perry's Fed Up!  Our Fight to Save America from Washington.

Why am I reading this, when Rick Perry dropped out of the race for President a long time ago, and even repudiated elements of this book?  Even though Rick Perry is out of the race, his book is about issues that continue to be debated----issues such as the role of the federal government, the role of the states, the impact of federal policies on Americans, the place of history (i.e., slavery, the New Deal, etc.) in this debate, etc.

When I was making my transition from conservatism to whatever it is I believe now, I wondered whether it's such a bad thing for the federal government to set up programs to help people.  What would be so wrong with national health insurance, for instance?  When libertarians and conservatives proclaimed that big government erodes our freedoms, my question was, "What freedoms?"  How does the federal government spending money on (say) welfare attack freedom of speech, freedom of religion, etc.?  One concern is that federal involvement gives the federal government a lot of power, and so the federal government would then be in a position to attack freedom, were it to decide to do so (see here for my views on that).  But have there been actual threats to freedom that have resulted from greater federal involvement?  I'm reading Rick Perry's book to see his case against big government.

In my latest reading of Rick Perry's book, Newt Gingrich (who wrote the introduction) and Perry advance arguments in favor of less government and states' rights: that Texas had economic growth and surplus as a result of Perry's conservative economic policies, that states are laboratories for what works and what doesn't, that people should move to the state that fits their culture, etc.  Perry also referred to the Tenth Amendment and quoted James Madison, who in Federalist 45 said that the federal government should be primarily concerned about foreign policy, whereas the states should be responsible for their own policies and prosperity.  On a side note, Newt brought up Rick Perry's work for tort reform in Texas, which impressed me (even though I don't know much about the policy) because it's refreshing to see a Republican who actually tries to do something to reform health care.   

Whether big government or small government is better for the economy, I do not know, for people say different things.  Perry and Newt refer to statistics and examples to argue that low taxes and less (or restrained) government spending result in prosperity.  But then there are people who argue that a policy of dramatically reducing government spending (austerity) did not work when FDR tried it and is not working in Europe. 

As far as what freedoms Perry believes the federal government is attacking, Perry states on page 5:

"We are fed up with being overtaxed and overregulated.  We are tired of being told how much salt we can put on our food, what windows we can buy for our house, what kind of cars we can drive, what kinds of guns we can own, what kind of prayers we can say and where we can say them, what political speech we are allowed to use to elect candidates, what kind of energy we can use, what kind of food we can grow, what doctor we can see, and countless other restrictions on our right to live as we see fit."  On page 6, Perry says, "We are fed up with activist judges who tell us what is right and wrong and deny us the right to live as we see fit----from deciding when life begins and where the Ten Commandments can be displayed to telling people how to punish criminals."

I can't say that Perry is totally wrong in these passages, but here are three concerns that I have with what he says:

1.  Regulations, even if they go overboard, are intended to protect the health and safety of individuals and the general public.  I think that's true of some of the examples that Perry lists above (i.e., cars, guns, etc.).

2.  Some of the laws that Perry criticizes may be bad, but they're the lesser-of-two-evils (in my opinion).  Yes, campaign finance reform restricts free speech, and that is not good.  But what's the alternative?  Allowing rich special interests to practically buy politicians? 

3.  What Perry considers to be restricting freedom and enhancing the power of government could be seen by others as enhancing freedom and restricting government.  When courts prohibit prayer in public schools, they're saying that the government cannot promote a religion and pressure people to adhere to it.  When they undermine the death penalty, they restrict the government's power to take life.  Whereas Canadians tell me that they have a wide choice of doctors under their government-sponsored health insurance system, in America the private insurance companies often restrict what doctors we can see.