In Lehmann's Terms

Cart Before the Horse

I do not have the allergic reaction to campaign finance restrictions that many fellow libertarians do. I'm not convinced they have the positive effect their proponents claim, and I'm generally of the mind that attempting to take the money out of politics is like trying to take the sex out of porn. But when asked to stand up for "free speech" whenever a new restriction would make the quid pro quo of buying new laws, pork and regulation more difficult for this or that special interest.....well, all I can offer is the world's smallest violin playing for all those poor lobbyists.

But this new bill by Reps Paul W. Hodes, D-N.H., and Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., while potentially harmless, does seem to get the equation backward. Following up on the PMA scandal, Hodes and Giffords propose banning any member of Congress from taking contributions from entities for whom they have previously secured earmarks. Now, leaving aside that earmarks are but a tiny part of the budget process, and that campaign contributions for direct budget appropriations present nowhere near the problem that they do in influencing votes on legislation more broadly (meaning this bill would leave the vast majority of dirty dealings untouched)....doesn't it strike you that the mechanics are entirely backward?

An entity gives a contribution in expectation of a future favor, like an appropriations earmark. Once that earmark is granted, quid is quite fully quo. Saying you can't take any more donations in the future from that source (an easy enough rule to evade simply by routing the funds through a new PAC) means little when the damage is already done.

If we're going to get into restrictions of this sort, then make them real. I propose flipping the rule. A congressman is prohibited from securing (or even voting on legislation that includes) earmarks for any entity from whom they have received campaign funds in the past.

Brownback spreads greenbacks for his fundie friends

Buried deep in the text of H.R. 3074, the $106 billion transportation and HUD porkfest the Senate passed Wednesday by an 88-7 margin, one will find an $850,000 appropriation, originating with the office of erstwhile presidential candidate Sam Brownback, for the renovation of one Morning Star Ranch in Florence, Kan.

The camp is situated an hour northeast of Wichita on a 650-acre site that includes, according to its Web site, “facilities for 72 campers and a year-round retreat lodge for 40…a dining room that seats 120 and a meeting room that seats 110 “ as well as “a swimming pool, a basketball/tennis court, a sand volleyball area, a horseshoe pit, hiking trails, biking trails, a baseball/softball diamond, playground equipment, and a park area for games.”

Oh, and one more thing. It is owned by the Los Angeles-based World Impact Ministries, whose stated purpose is to “minister cross-culturally to people unreached by the gospel of Jesus Christ through evangelism, follow-up, discipleship and indigenous church-planting.” (Well, if nothing else, they certainly won’t lack for fertilizer.) The camp is used as the headquarters for the group’s Christian Leadership Training Program, which describes itself thusly:

This two-year program is for single, urban young men, ages 18-25, who have made a commitment to Christ and want to grow in their walk with Him. Applicants are encouraged to have a church sponsor them. 

But lest you heathens think this is just a gift from Brownback to help some fundie group back home repaint the tennis courts at their personal propaganda resort, oh no no no. While this may be a faith-based initiative, these guys are inclusive! After all:

The facilities are available to other Christian groups.

You see, they have both kinds of music…country AND western!

Barney the Dinosaur

Much ink has been spilled in the last week or two over Bruce Bartlett and Andrew Sullivan and the whole crew of born-again fiscal conservatives who've finally seen the light that George Bush ain't no flippin' fiscal conservative.

But at least one can still identify some economic conservatives, even if they are becoming increasingly marginalized and shut out of the party. What I'd much rather know is...wither social liberals? When's the last time you can recall seeing such an animal? Remember back in the old days, when liberals actually seemed to believe in things like privacy and autonomy and personal choice?

Thankfully, Barney does:

But Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Barney Frank, the top Democrat on the House committee, opposed the bill. He said Congress should not seek to control how adults spend their money just because some lawmakers oppose gambling.

"Adults are entitled to do with their money what they want to do," he said.

'Price gouging' on the rubber chicken circuit

Over at the Knowledge Problem, Michael Giberson wonders why no one in Congress is calling for an investigation of 900% mark-up rates for political fundraising dinners:

WASHINGTON -- Two Northwest senators, Republican Gordon Smith of Oregon and Democrat Maria Cantwell of Washington, have introduced legislation to prohibit gasoline price gouging during national emergencies.

Cantwell is concerned oil companies are taking advantage of Hurricane Katrina to raise prices far beyond additional costs....

Of course, last year in her role as co-chairwoman of Kerry's campaign in Washington, Cantwell had no problem charging $1000 for a meal at Seattle's Westin Hotel. (See: The Seattle Times.)  Either meals at the Westin in Seattle are very, very costly, or Cantwell was raising prices far beyond costs.

Gene Healy looks at NASA and asks...

Why?

What's up there that we need?

I hate Space.

Oh, I'm with ya, brother.  It's a long-term goal of mine (and my old TII boss David Theroux has claimed to be enthusiastic supporter of the idea) to write a lengthy tome that would hopefully serve as the definitive catalogue of everything that is repugnant about our federal space program.  Sure, there's lots of wasteful government boondoggles out there, but none -- not even the John Cougar Mellancamp-inspired wails for the U.S.D.A. to keep doling out farm subsidies like so much slop for the piggies -- inspire the kind of wide-eyed, "Awww shucks" boosterism that supporters of NASA are apt to try to pass off as serious public policy analysis.

Given libertarians' collective inclination toward sci-fi geekery, all too many of them have a soft spot for NASA. They'll point to private initiatives to head to the stars, and make the weakly supported claim that such efforts would be legion, if only the government would get out of the way. But very few are willing to entertain the possibility that space exploration, itself, might just be an enormous waste of time and resources from the get-go. Having spent two years in the employ of that grand momma of corporate welfare queens -- the Lockheed Martin Corp. -- I feel it is my duty, as well as an earnest act of contrition for my past sins, to force my fellow libertopians to face that fact.

Now, anybody know where I can score some nifty government grant money so I can quit my job and spend six months writing the darned thing? ;-)

The (Smaller Than It Ought Be) Easy

U.S. Census Bureau growth rates for select metropolitan areas, 2000-2004:

• Dallas-Ft. Worth, Texas          10.3%
• Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.      7.1%
• Houston, Texas                            9.7%
• Atlanta, Ga.                                 10.7%
• Tampa-St. Pete, Fla.                   8.0%
• Charlotte, N.C.                              9.0%
• Orlando, Fla.                                13.2%
• San Antonio, Texas                     8.3%
• Nashville, Tenn.                            6.5%
• Raleigh-Durham, N.C.               11.6%
• Austin, Texas                               13.0%
• Jacksonville, Fla.                         9.1%
• New Orleans, La.                          0.2%

If you look just at the city, rather than the Metro area, New Orleans is actually on a decades-long streak of negative population growth. All this while the South as a whole has benefitted from the most massive demographic shift in U.S. history, with millions abandoning the Snow-and-Rust Belt of the industrial Northeast and Midwest for the corporate parks and gated condominium developments of the SunBelt, which also notably includes Vegas and Arizona.

What makes this especially strange, at first blush, is that New Orleans would seem to possess many of the qualities Yankees complain about missing in the New South. It is an historic city, with interesting architecture, and a diverse, international and cosmopolitan feel. Among Southern cities, only Miami can rival New Orleans for nightlife, or for the city's concentrations of Catholics and Jews. The city is also a culinary mecca, a literary haven, and arguably the central locus for all of American music. Yes, it's crime-ridden and a murder capital, but again...so is Miami.

So what's been keeping folks away from the Big Easy? Perhaps it was a little of that corruption the place is so famous for (on full display in Katrina's aftermath), which has served to raise the cost of doing business in all sorts of completely unnecessary ways.

But is Louisiana really as corrupt as all that? Haven't things gotten any better since the days of Huey Long?

I point you to Exhibit A: If J. Robert Wooley doesn't end his current stint as the state's Insurance Commissioner by going to prison (which remains to be seen), he'll be breaking a tradition carried on by his three immediate predecessors, Sherman Bernard, Doug Green and Jim Brown.

And "Tiny Bubbles" will be the national anthem

Ole Man Frist has set the (likely to fail) cloture vote on the estate tax as the second order of business when the Senate returns from their month-long respite, spent lazily wiling the days away making nosy, officious and dangerous intrusions into the smallest corners of life back in their home districts, rather than doing the same here in the Beltway.

Wally Olson reminds us what's on tap as the first order of business.

Personally, I find myself split three ways on the issue of Hawaii'an nationhood. The idealistic AnCap in me wants to find a silver lining in the notion of multiple orders of sovereignty competing for citizens within the same geographic zone, proceeding from the principle that extending choice is likely to spur both the Hawaii'an and plain old American governments to be more responsive.

But the naive integrationist in me wishes that such a choice could be extended to all, and not just those who fit some arbitrary racial phenotype.

And the pragmatic tax dodger in me realizes this really has nothing to do with either choice or race, but is instead primarily motivated by a desire to install a new South Pacific feeding trough at the Bureau of Indian Affairs.