In today's Washington Post, there's a page one report on values-driven health care, a term for health services that apply ethical standards to health care. The practice offers benefits to both doctors and patients. Doctors do not have to compromise their values by, say, performing abortions. Nor do patients have to compromise their beliefs by patronizing doctors who practice procedures that some patients find immoral. As the Post reports,

Proponents say the practices allow doctors to avoid conflicts with patients who want services the practitioners find objectionable, as well as to provide care that conforms with many patients' own values. The approach, they say, provides an alternative to mainstream medicine's reliance on drugs and devices that, they argue, carry side effects and negatively affect couples' relationships.

"I want to practice my faith," said John T. Bruchalski, the obstetrician-gynecologist who started Tepeyac. "I'm not interested in pushing it on other people. But this allows me to practice medicine without having to do something that I wouldn't see as positive or healthy."

Values-driven health care does have its critics, who believe that "the practices are segregating medicine along religious lines." The suggestion seems to be that medicine must remain values-neutral. But, as Bob Moffit, Jennifer Marshall, and Grace Smith wrote not long ago, "Ethical and moral issues are inseparable from health care."

While the Post focused on individual values-driven practices, Moffit, Marshall and Smith look to values driven-health care plans. As they explain, health insurance plans often include ethically controversial procedures, yet, due to the structure of the health insurance system, most Americans don't control what their premium dollars subsidize. As Moffit, Marshall, and Smith explain, "Freedom of conscience—for both provider and patient— should be the rule in health care, one of the most sensitive areas of human life." Values-driven practices and values-driven health plans create a means to exercise freedom of conscience.

Posted by J. Lawrence Scholer at 10:23 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The controversy over the secret hold on S. 2590, Senator Tom Coburn’s bill creating a federal spending database on the Internet, continues to grow – as does the scrutiny of this secret practice of the upper chamber. The Sacramento Bee castigates the anonymous senator for his/her anonymous action in spiking the legislation, and the Senate as a whole for allowing it to happen:

Who would block legislation promoting more openness in government, especially when it has strong bipartisan support? At the moment it's an unnamed U.S. senator who, some watchdog groups believe, has a hidden agenda. Whatever that agenda may be, the tactic tarnishes the integrity of an institution that needs to update itself.

The senatorial hold is an arcane custom so secret it's not even part of the Senate rules. It allows any senator to delay legislation, or a presidential appointment, indefinitely. And it can be done secretly, although often the perpetrator's identity is known. If holds have sometimes stopped something bad from happening, more often they serve a single lawmaker's agenda while obstructing the public's business.

A bill sponsored by Republican Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Democrat Barack Obama of Illinois would create a database that anyone could tap into to find out who wins government contracts, grants and loans for how much and on what terms. That process last year consumed $2.5 trillion of taxpayer funds. The bill sailed through the Senate Homeland Security Committee by voice vote and seemed headed for passage. But then came the hold, whose motive remains unclear.

The motivation seems pretty clear: someone feels threatened by the public accountability S. 2590 will bring to the appropriations process. This action holds out the possibility that opponents of open government can run out the clock on S. 2590, forcing Senators Coburn and Barack Obama to re-introduce it next year, forcing reformers back to the starting gate. It’s an attempt to tire out the proponents of clean government and budgetary discipline and to protect the powerful political tool of government appropriations.

Secret holds are an affront to open government, and perhaps they should be the next target of reformers. Some senators have attempted to defend the practice by relating anecdotes about midnight lawmaking and the ability of the hold to delay votes until proper oversight can be exercised on the process. However, that argument fails on the commonsense question: why must the hold be secret? If holds preserve due process and open government, then one would think that a senator would not feel the need to hide his or her identity. In fact, the secret hold only perpetuates the appearance – and most likely the reality – of closed-room deal-making and star-chamber legislation.

Posted by Ed Morrissey at 01:59 PM in Captain Ed , Federal Spending | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

In response to an article the other day by the Washington Post's Jonathan Weisman on the Senate immigration bill, Heritage's Jim Weidman sent the paper this friendly letter making a fairly major correction:

Jonathan Weisman’s otherwise fine article (“Cost of Senate Immigration Bill Put at $126 Billion,” Aug. 22) presents a confusing comparison of analyses of S.2611, the Senate immigration bill. He notes that a new Congressional Budget Office study estimates the bill would generate 24.4 million legal immigrants over the next 20 years and contrasts that with a Heritage estimate of 103 million.

This comparison overlooks two key facts. First, our 100-million-immigrant estimate reflected the original version of S.2611--not the final, significantly amended version of the bill analyzed by the CBO. Weeks ago, Heritage published its analysis of the final bill, estimating that it would open the door to “only” 61 million legal immigrants.

Second, the Heritage figure explicitly includes 20 million new immigrants who will enter the U.S. under current law, no matter what the fate of S.2611. The CBO figure excludes these individuals. Including them would raise the CBO estimate to 44 million new immigrants over 20 years—a figure far closer to Heritage’s 61 million estimate.

So the Post's citation of our research was off by about 60 million (40 from using the wrong estimate plus 20 for ignoring current immigration)--that's a bit of a difference.

Posted by Andrew Grossman at 09:00 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

While transportation systems for humans still require plenty of improvements, Congress will now consider a bill that allocates millions of dollars for the prevention of transporting horses for human consumption. H.R. 503 will amend the Horse Protection Act to enact federal bans on sales, donations, transport, and possession of horses for slaughter. That may be bad enough for fans of federalism, who will rightly wonder about the constitutional basis for federal protection of horses. However, the text at the end of the bill should get some attention:

Section 12 of the Horse Protection Act (15 U.S.C. 1831) is amended by striking “$500,000” and inserting “$5,000,000”.

In a month when we have seen at least one, and now possibly two, terrorist plots against American airlines, Congress seems more interested in the safety of horses. Not only does Congress have some priority and jurisdiction issues, the financial impact seems highly strange. Did the dangers of human consumption of horses suddenly expand tenfold?

But it won’t just end with the $5 million this bill demands. The Congressional Budget Office notes that this level of funding will prove woefully inadequate:

The bill would authorize the appropriation of up to $5 million per year to implement its provisions, but CBO estimates that those amounts would be insufficient to cover costs incurred by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Assuming appropriation of the necessary amounts, CBO estimates that implementing H.R. 503 would cost USDA $21 million in 2007 and $233 million over the 2007-2011 period.

Once again, Congress has produced a program while ignoring the costs it creates. The 203 cosponsors of this bill will push through a program with wholly inadequate funding. H.R .503 may start at a relatively minor $5 million, but it will surely grow into yet another expensive bureaucracy managing a task that doesn’t belong to the federal government at all.

This demonstrates the inevitability of budget problems on Capitol Hill. Congress at some point arrogated to itself a task for which it has no real jurisdiction, and now it has decided to expand this nonexistent mandate and, not coincidentally, expand its powers along with its reach into our pocketbook.

Posted by Ed Morrissey at 03:14 PM in Captain Ed , Federal Spending | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The Christian Science Monitor reports on the phenomenon of earmark opposition, centering on the joint effort behind the Sunlight Foundation’s Exposing Earmarks website. Despite the normal August doldrums in the nation’s capital, the growing chorus of voices demanding reform in the appropriations process has gained the attention of lawmakers:

House Republican leaders promise that even if lobby reform stalls - as it has - they will do something to rein in earmarks when they return to Capitol Hill next month.

The reason: There's too much flak over lawmakers who are cashing in on earmarks - legally, as campaign contributions; illegally, as bribes. Even good projects look bad when they're muscled into spending bills late in the process, anonymously, and with no competition, debate, or chance to delete them. …

Last week, the Sunlight Foundation, a coalition of interest groups opposed to earmarks, released a spreadsheet of 1,811 earmarks pending in the fiscal year 2007 Labor, Health and Human Services Appropriations bill. If you knew where to look, you could find a list of earmarks on a government website. But it leaves out what reformers say is the key fact about any earmark: who sponsored it.

"Once you know who the member is, you can start asking questions such as: Is there a direct financial connection with a member of the board of directors who is a [campaign] donor? How was this hospital or training program chosen over another? Sometimes it's because it's the best program; sometimes it's because there's a lobbyist who is paid," says Zephyr Teachout, national director of the Sunlight Foundation. "We hope to turn K Street upside down."

Activists run across the political spectrum, including Ms. Teachout, who directed Howard Dean's online campaign, and conservative-leaning organizations, such as the Club for Growth, Human Events Online, the National Taxpayers Union, and the Heritage Foundation. Other participants include the Washington Examiner, the blog Porkbusters.org, and Citizens Against Government Waste, a public-interest group.

The response to this effort has been very encouraging. A number of lawmakers have taken appropriations reform seriously, including Senators Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Barack Obama (D-IL). While DC veterans at first dismissed the activists as gadflies to be ignored, within a few months of the first organized efforts to demand reform, lawmakers have been forced to respond. In fact, it has unnerved politicians to the extent that an anonymous senator has placed a hold on Senator Coburn’s bill to put the entire federal budget into a searchable database, where constituents can finally see all of the activities that Congress funds.

What makes this attention so remarkable is that this is usually the time of year when the press casts its gaze towards home districts and, in an even-numbered year, to the upcoming elections. Budgets get shunted to the shadows during August as lawmakers stream homeward for fundraising and politicking among their constituents. Even the president usually leaves town for a good part of the month, and political writers focus their gaze on broader themes.

But this citizen’s revolt has caught their attention. Those who wish to keep the momentum going should are talking to their representatives this month, before they return for the upcoming budget negotiations. Constituents are letting their representatives know that not only do they reject the addition of any more earmarks to spending bills, they want to see the 1,811 in the Labor, Health, and Human Services bill currently under consideration eliminated. Making earmarks a liability instead of an asset on the campaign trail could be what wins some fiscal responsibility from Congress.

Posted by Ed Morrissey at 09:30 AM in Captain Ed , Federal Spending | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Government spending has become something like a fungus – it grows in the dark, and most people fail to notice it until it really starts to reek. Thanks to an ever-increasing federal budget and the esoteric methods used to create and maintain it, the average taxpayer has little chance of gaining any insight into how our government spends our money. Even the people tasked with making the decisions about federal spending seem to have little understanding of both the process and results.

In practice, the federal budget has become the biggest national secret. No one fully comprehends it, and attempting to learn all of its manifestations would take years of research. By that time, of course, it would have grown larger and even more incomprehensible.

What America needs is a viral network of analysts, interacting and competing with each other to shed light on federal spending. Such a network could find expertise in all of the darkest areas of the budget, allowing taxpayers to get better comprehension of all the ways our tax dollars disappear. Even better, these analysts could help us connect the dots between the power brokers, the people who support them, and the connections of federal dollars that bind them together.

The viral network has arrived. The Sunlight Foundation, Heritage Foundation, Club For Growth, and bloggers from across the political spectrum have banded together to start attacking pork-barrel spending and waste in the federal budget. The initial efforts can be found at Sunlight and The Truth Laid Bear for the Exposing Earmarks Project.

The group has begun the project by reviewing earmarks in the Labor-Health and Human Services appropriations bill, finding all sorts of information about where your tax dollars go. For instance, did you know there is an earmark of a million dollars on the University of Virginia Center for Politics for the Youth Leadership Initiative? Or that three million will go to City College of New York, for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service? Almost a million dollars is proposed for the Massie Heritage Center in Savannah for exhibit restorations and equipment upgrades.

Does the federal government need to spend money on such pursuits? Some may say yes, while others would disagree. Now, however, at least you can know that the spending exists, and that is a necessary first step to slow the growth of earmarks and pork-barrel politics.

Posted by Ed Morrissey at 08:18 AM in Captain Ed , Federal Spending | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

With Congress on holiday and the President out of town, one usually hears little about policy efforts during the August doldrums. When a midterm election is approaching, politicians don’t like to rock the boat by discussing potentially divisive issues. However, the Washington Post reports that the Bush administration has begun to approach Members of Congress about forming a new bipartisan effort to tackle entitlement spending:

The Bush administration has begun sounding out lawmakers and other key figures about mounting a new bipartisan effort to rein in the costs of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security after the midterm elections, according to officials in the administration and on Capitol Hill.

No specific plan has been advanced, and administration officials are proceeding gingerly given the political debacle that beset the White House last year when President Bush promoted a plan to create private accounts in the Social Security program. But they have been sending strong signals in recent weeks that they want to try something again after the elections in November.

When Bush nominated Henry Paulson to run the Department of the Treasury, it was difficult to tell whether he meant to make a real effort at reducing the runaway spending projected for entitlements. Paulson made his preferences known from the start, and in his maiden speech pointedly noted his motivation in accepting the position sprang from the opportunity to make a difference in this area.

Will the effort produce any results? It’s hard to know, and we can be absolutely sure we will hear little about it until after November. The White House lost big on its effort to reform Social Security last year, and it will not risk another effort just before an election. It looks more like preparation for 2007, when the political world will be between elections and Bush will have his last chance for bipartisanship on anything. Few subjects are more worthy of what political capital the President can muster.

Posted by Ed Morrissey at 02:14 PM in Captain Ed , Federal Spending | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Heritage's James Carafano explains what can be learned from the thwarted terrorists attacks:

What are the lessons to be learned from today’s foiled terror plot?

• Yes, there still is a transnational war against terrorism going on. This will continue to be a long war requiring vigilance.

• This is an example of why we need tools like the Patriot Act. Although this was a very advanced plot, U.S. law enforcement agencies have broken up at least 15 conspiracies since 9/11, all of them in their early stages. That is what we want to do, and that is why we need tools like the Patriot Act.

• It seems this plot and the ones in Canada and Miami were thwarted without violating anybody’s civil rights…proof you can fight terrorists and respect the rule of law.

• This plot appears to have been very serious, in contrast with media hyperventilation over Dubai Ports World or the eight Miami students who plotted to attack the Sears Tower. The media usually fixate on conjuring scary headlines rather than focusing on real problems and issues and not taking time to contrast between the two.

  We should tip our hats to the law enforcement and intelligence officials who foiled this plot and let it serve as a reminder that we still need to be ready for the threat of terrorism.

For more, read Carafano's WebMemo on the matter.

Posted by J. Lawrence Scholer at 11:58 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The American Enterprise Institute’s Roger Bate writes in the Washington Post’s “Think Tank Town” online feature about the need for the federal spending database proposed by Senators Tom Coburn and Barack Obama, as opposed to the watered-down version offered by Rep. Tom Davis in the House. He should understand the stakes involved. Bate worked on the USAID project to fight malaria in Africa, an effort for which Congress had provided a large amount of funding. Over 90 percent of that money disappeared into bureaucratic snarls and non-impact consultations until the program had to defend its spending publicly:

The idea of a transparency website -- replete with search engines that include subcontractors -- was born in May 2005 at a hearing on U.S. efforts to combat malaria. Officials from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) squirmed as Coburn revealed that 93% of the agency's 2004 funding to eradicate malaria had been spent on administrative and advice-giving services. In addition, not enough of these funds were spent overseas; too much was absorbed by high-paid U.S. consultants. …

In the case of USAID's efforts to fight malaria in Africa, the oversight returned quick results: "Once the agency figured out how they actually spent money, they couldn't justify the status quo and we saw dramatic reform," according to Coburn. "Now, lives are being saved in Africa because of USAID's malaria program. The hearing was a case study in how forcing transparency in government really can work miracles and save lives."

The experience showed Bate the critical importance of public oversight for both grantees and contractors, especially on aid programs. These programs come into being to address critical needs at home and especially abroad, and the temptation to throw large amounts of money at these acute problems can be irresistible. The federal response to hurricanes Katrina and Rita proved this, especially given the controversy over the immediate aid response from FEMA. This impulse, however, creates situations in which oversight suffers and much of the money gets wasted, or worse. The government recently estimated that over a billion dollars of Katrina aid went into the pockets of fraudsters or were lost in incompetence.

Not all of that got lost through grants. Much of it dissipated through poorly-managed federal contracts. Yet the Davis bill exempts contractors from public disclosure. Perhaps Davis’ Virginia district might explain his reluctance to expose the processes of federal contractors, as a number of such companies do business there. Davis wants people to believe that the federal contracting process is so competitive and open that disclosure isn’t necessary, which flies in the face of experiences such as that of the recent Katrina programs.

Bate explains well why the sunshine of disclosure should illuminate all federal spending. Practically speaking, we cannot get the full picture of expenditures if we cloak a significant part of them in darkness, and this only encourages politicians to exploit the situation for their benefactors. Politically, the effort to exempt big corporations from the same public disclosure required of grantees will cause the broad spectrum of support for the spending database to collapse. Davis, however, has recently indicated he might work to amend his proposal to bring it in agreement with Coburn-Obama.

Posted by Ed Morrissey at 12:59 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

In today's ledger, college pork, "heritage" projects, and more support for a federal funding database...

In the Washington Post’s online feature Think Tank Town, the American Enterprise Institute’s Roger Bate praises Sen. Tom Coburn’s proposal to add transparency to all federal spending. Bate quotes Coburn: “[S]unshine’s the best thing we’ve got to control waste, fraud and abuse… It’s also the best thing we’ve got to control stupidity. It’ll be a force for the government we need.” Bate continues:

Congress’s effort to break the bureaucratic triple threat – too little competition, too little transparency, too few metrics to measure performance – is long overdue. A recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on Hurricane Katrina spending showed between $600 million and $1.4 billion in improper and potentially fraudulent individual assistance payments. And that is just in our own country.

An interview at Renew America yesterday with Coburn drives home these same points. When asked if a movement to end wasteful spending will have consequence, Coburn said:

Look, the typical Washington member of Congress – their number one goal is to stay here – so they've got their ear to the ground. If they see everything moving against them on a certain issue – especially on spending habits – they'll change. If they don't see a trend, if they don't see a push, they won't change. If that push really does develop, though, then they will throw him out. So, yeah, it really does make a difference.

Sen. Coburn is also looking into more than 100 colleges and universities that receive federal earmarks. As Inside Higher Ed reports:

John Hart, a Coburn spokesman, said Monday that the senator is particularly interested in finding out how lobbyists that colleges hire work, and whether there’s a “pay to play” system that forces colleges to waste money by “spending extravagantly” on lobbyists.

The letter asks the selected colleges – which Hart said were chosen because they receive large numbers and dollar amounts of earmarked research and other funds – to provide information about all federal money they have been appropriated since 2000, what it has been used for, and whether the institution has “considered hiring a lobbyist.”

Americans for Prosperity wrote about Coburn's campaign:

Ah, college. That invigorating laboratory of open-minded discussion, dogged pursuit of The Truth, and the freedom to ask any question of anyone. Except, that is, if the question directed to university brass is, "How are you spending the earmarked taxpayer dollars you've received from your buddies in Congress?" Then suddenly the self-righteous guardians of The Truth become worried about "providing someone with bullets to shoot you."

Things started heating up on campus recently when U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma sent letters to more than 100 universities, asking them to provide information about all appropriations, including pork-barrel earmarks, that they've received since 2000.

NRO also picked up a Chronicle of Higher Education story on university earmarks.

The Christian Science Monitor today looks into pork for “heritage projects,” such as galleries, zoos, and halls of fame. The article explains:

Earmarks dedicate funds for pet projects that lawmakers add to spending bills. The heritage variety is "becoming bigger and bigger as museums and tourism attractions look for alternative ways of being funded," says Ron Utt, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington. "They can present themselves as 'this is really education spending,' 'this is cultural spending,' 'this is spending on our heritage.' So the federal government becomes a substitute for [entry fees] or better publicity."

The Christian Science Monitor has another story on earmarks today:

In the past seven years, the number of groups that hired lobbyists to gain access to the federal budget and appropriations process has more than doubled from almost 1,500 to nearly 4,000. That’s made winning congressional earmarks one of the fastest growing specialties on Washington’s K Street lobby corridor.

Moreover, earmarks are taking up a huge chunk of members' time. "The task of selecting a share of the 15,000 annual pork projects has become an all-consuming endeavor for most congressional offices," said Sen. Tom Coburn (R) of Oklahoma, as he opened a hearing on earmark reform March 16. Earmarks are now the "trading currency" of the Congress, he says.

Such a boom in business may cause problems for lobbyists. As the San Luis Obispo Tribune reports, “Some congressional leaders, however, have grown so close to well-connected lobbyists and have been so aggressive in channeling tax dollars to favored interests that their activities have sparked bipartisan calls for reform and intense scrutiny.” It continues:

According to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., an advocate of reform, the use of earmarks has gone up 300 percent in the decade since Republicans took control of Congress.

"In dollars, the cost borne by taxpayers for earmarks has nearly doubled," McCain said recently. "That’s not a record Ronald Reagan would have been proud of."

Posted by J. Lawrence Scholer at 03:20 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

USA Today revisits a budget reporting anomaly that has traditionally received far too little attention through several administrations and both Democratic and Republican control of Congress. The budget deficit numbers used by both Congress and the White House seriously mislead Americans because they do not include deficits from entitlement programs. The true numbers paint a much bleaker picture than we have heard for at least a generation:

The audited financial statement — prepared by the Treasury Department — reveals a federal government in far worse financial shape than official budget reports indicate, a USA TODAY analysis found. The government has run a deficit of $2.9 trillion since 1997, according to the audited number. The official deficit since then is just $729 billion. The difference is equal to an entire year's worth of federal spending.

Congress and the president are able to report a lower deficit mostly because they don't count the growing burden of future pensions and medical care for federal retirees and military personnel. These obligations are so large and are growing so fast that budget surpluses of the late 1990s actually were deficits when the costs are included.
The Clinton administration reported a surplus of $559 billion in its final four budget years. The audited numbers showed a deficit of $484 billion.

In addition, neither of these figures counts the financial deterioration in Social Security or Medicare. Including these retirement programs in the bottom line, as proposed by a board that oversees accounting methods used by the federal government, would show the government running annual deficits of trillions of dollars.

The Bush administration opposes including Social Security and Medicare in the audited deficit. Its reason: Congress can cancel or cut the retirement programs at any time, so they should not be considered a government liability for accounting purposes.

Why does the government keep two sets of books? The Bush administration, following the lead of other presidents and Congresses, claims that the liabilities from entitlement programs should not count until the benefits get paid, even though they have been guaranteed in the current budget year. This allows the federal government to publish numbers that increasingly have no bearing on reality. Despite all of the fanfare in the 1990s, we never had a balanced budget in the past generation.

Congress, however, only allows the government to play by these rules. Securities regulations force private enterprise to report “entitlements” as soon as businesses make the commitment to provide them. In fact, as USA Today points out, this regulation forced many publicly-held corporations to cut back on retirement and pension participation, as the costs could not be deferred until payment – for good reasons.

That’s not the only hypocritical part of the budget fudge, either. Even the audited numbers are incomplete. Why? Because several agencies do not produce numbers that auditors will certify, including the Department of Defense. This, mind you, is the same federal government that forces publicly-held corporations to waste countless man-hours and billions of dollars complying with Sarbanes-Oxley regulations in order to provide audited reports on every aspect of their businesses. Why should Congress allow 25 percent of federal agencies to escape business practices they force on private enterprise?

We need to insist that the government start painting a realistic picture of our financial condition, using the same business practices they force the rest of us to use, and quit hiding behind a false image of financial stability. Until that happens, we will never acquire the political will to tackle the underlying roots of runaway budget deficits that may hide now but will become crushingly apparent all too soon.

Posted by Ed Morrissey at 10:58 AM in Captain Ed , Federal Spending | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Earlier this year, Americans gasped as they witnessed beloved racehorse Barbaro pull up lame in the Preakness. His leg injuries were, and remain, life threatening. The question not on everyone’s mind: Would Barbaro suffer the same fate of 1986 Kentucky Derby winner Ferdinand, who is widely believed to have been slaughtered in Japan for consumption?

The question is on the minds of Members of Congress, who may soon have the opportunity to vote on H.R. 503. The legislation would “prohibit the shipping, transporting, moving, delivering, receiving, possessing, purchasing, selling, or donation of horses and other equines to be slaughtered for human consumption.” The House recently held hearings on the matter, and the legislation has amassed an impressive 203 cosponsors.

While no one likes to think that Mr. Ed or Smarty Jones could end up on someone’s dinner plate, it shouldn’t be a congressional priority to criminalize horsemeat. In 2004—yes, this issue has been around for quite a while—Paul Rosenzweig and Trent England explained why it would be unwise to adopt this prohibition. For one, we don’t need another federal crime on the books. They write,

Whether you view horses as just really fast cows or as some kind of majestic land dolphin, a new federal crime is the last thing we need.

The FBI should stay far away from pets--or, in some cases, entrees. As Rosenzweig and England write, we don’t need Congress to “start down the road of food criminalization.”

Posted by J. Lawrence Scholer at 11:00 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The last five-and-a-half years have proven frustrating for those who hoped for budgetary discipline from Republicans in Congress and the White House. Having achieved political control through arguments against federal spending and the expansion of Washington’s power, the GOP increased both once in full control. As Brian Riedl noted here at Heritage in February of this year, both discretionary spending and entitlements have increased over the last fifteen years, and that growth has not slowed in the last five.

Since 1990, discretionary spending has increased 93 percent. Entitlements have risen 137 percent in the same period. The news did not get better under all-Republican rule. In fact, the federal budget has grown across the board since 2001, outstripping inflation (12 percent, overall) in several categories, such as education (137 percent), community and regional development (342 percent), Medicare (58 percent), housing and commerce (58 percent), Medicaid (49 percent), and water transportation (46 percent). The federal budget for health research and regulation has grown by 78 percent since 2001 and now consumes $76B of the overall budget.

Some budget hawks blame the Bush tax cuts for the deficit, but the taxes have stoked the economy and bolstered federal revenues. The deficit has returned to its historical level of about 2.3 percent of GDP, but that will not continue for long as the budget continues to swell uncontrollably. In a Tuesday speech to Columbia University, new Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson diagnosed the long-term risk we face regarding the budget:

The biggest economic issue facing our country is the growth in spending on the major entitlement programs: Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. The cost to the federal government of these three programs, without fundamental reform, is projected to more than double, from the current level, 8 percent of GDP, to nearly 17 percent by 2060. If left unchecked these programs would significantly impair our economic flexibility and erode our competitiveness.

Demographics don't lie and demographics aren't partisan. Social Security was created in 1935. Today, people are living longer than they did in 1935, yet Social Security's basic structure has barely changed. Just 3.3 workers are paying into the system to support each beneficiary, while 16 workers did so in 1950. The President put forward a plan last year to strengthen and modernize Social Security. The longer we wait to fix this problem the more limited will be the options available to us, the greater the cost and the more severe the economic impact on our nation. …
We've made progress, but the deficit is still too large. I wish it were less and I am working with my colleague and friend Rob Portman, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, to restrain federal spending. But let's be honest with each other. The big budget issue is the longer-term structural entitlements challenge staring us in the face.

Paulson’s first public speech since his confirmation gives some hope that the Administration may finally get serious about spending in general and revitalize its efforts to reform entitlement programs. The White House did try to push on Social Security last year, hoping to get a solution passed outside of an election year. The reform effort stalled amid partisan bickering in Congress, but perhaps Paulson’s speech indicates that the effort will be renewed after the mid-terms.

For that to happen, it will take extraordinary cooperation between Congress and the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives, and Democrats and Republicans. We have seen little of that spirit for quite some time, but at least Paulson recognizes the extent of the problem. That’s a necessary first step.

Posted by Ed Morrissey at 03:20 PM in Captain Ed , Federal Spending | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

This week the Senate debates the Defense Appropriations bill, and as can be expected, the upper chamber has seen fit to lard the bill with amendments that have little to do with securing our nation but everything to do with bringing home the bacon. While Americans follow the debate, they should be aware of the programs that will get attached to our national security funding. For instance:

• Senator Daniel Inouye wants to spend $5 million for the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission (S.4752);
• Inouye also wants $500,000 for a traveling exhibit on the military experience of World War II (S.4766); and
• Senator John Warner requests $7.5 million for the Joint Advertising, Market Research, and Studies program (S.4779).

Can anyone explain how these programs, totaling $13 million, assist in defending the nation? And bear in mind that this is just the beginning; expect more of these amendments and earmarks within defense funding, as the annual appropriations bill has little risk of veto under all but the most extreme circumstances at any time, let alone during a war.

Posted by Ed Morrissey at 03:01 PM in Captain Ed , Federal Spending | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

In today's ledger, the Treasury Secretary discusses spending, running out of time for major budget reform, and Mainers for TABOR...

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson made entitlement reform a major priority in his speech at Columbia University yesterday. According to Reuters:

The biggest economic issue facing our country is the growth in spending on the major entitlement programs: Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security," Paulson said, referring to government programs that help ailing and elderly Americans with medical and living costs.

According to BNA, Paulson said reforms must be pushed through, even with a strong economy:

While the U.S. economy is "on a more solid footing and stronger than most would have predicted" considering the challenges of the last five years--including the spate of corporate scandals--Paulson said that "the economy had been growing at a rate that was simply not sustainable over the long run."

Consequently, the secretary said it is best not to place too much emphasis on the 2.5 percent gross domestic product advance growth estimate for the second quarter that was issued the week of July 24 by the Commerce Department.

"The longer we wait to fix [Social Security] the more limited will be the options available to us, the greater the cost and the more severe the economic impact on our nation," the secretary said. The financial burdens associated with Medicare and Medicaid are still larger and even more complex than Social Security, he said.

The Monterey Herald reports that Paulson was optimistic about change:

"The entitlement challenge is difficult, but it is fixable," Paulson said. "And given our expanding economy we can approach the issue from a position of strength."

Until recently, Paulson was the powerful chief executive officer of Wall Street behemoth Goldman Sachs & Co. Many colleagues wondered why he'd take a job in Washington for a lame-duck president facing a Congress with no stomach for overhauling Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid.

Paulson alluded to that Tuesday, saying he abides by a philosophy that "when a problem needs fixing you should run toward it, not away from it. That's one of the reasons I came to Washington."

Government Computer News reports on the Coburn-Obama federal fundung database legislation:

Few technical experts doubt the feasibility of establishing a central, searchable database that can track all types of federal spending. If large banks can monitor individual credit card transactions, certainly the Office of Management and Budget can set up a Web site for federal expenditures, said Alan Webber, senior analyst at Forrester Research Inc. of Cambridge, Mass. “It would be a huge undertaking, but it would be feasible,” Webber said. “This is easy,” when compared to monitoring personal banking records.

The bill does face political obstacles:

Politically...the bill could run into problems. Forrester’s Webber said that for commercial and competitive reasons, vendors may not want to disclose every bit of information to the public. The bill also could be a casualty of timing, as the legislative calendar is getting short and lawmakers are anxious to get home to their districts. With this being an election year, the chances of Congress working past early October are slim, congressional observers said. But with House majority whip Blunt and Government Reform Committee chair- man Davis throwing their collective muscle behind the grants database, legislation to bolster spending transparency is gaining momentum.

Mark Tapscott reports that Tom Davis told the Examiner he's willing to ask the House to add contracts to the spending database, a move that would affect some of the shadier appropriations:

Proponents of the Coburn-Obama bill have feared House insistence on not including federal contracts in the proposed database would kill the legislation that appears headed for easy passage by the Senate.

Asked by The Examiner if he would support inclusion of contracts in the database in the conference committee, Davis said "if the Senate has it, I would yield to it." Asked if he would encourage House colleagues to approve a conference report that includes contracts, Davis said "I don't have a problem going back to the House for it."

Davis did leave himself an out, saying he would have "to look at it, see how they do it" of the Senate bill but the Virginia congressman insisted that he favors transparency and competition in federal contracting. "The more competition you have, the better," Davis said.

The Senate may not have time for broad budget reform. According to BNA:

Prospects for a wide-ranging budget process overhaul dimmed significantly Aug. 1 after Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) said he instead favored possibly taking to the floor more narrowly focused legislation to give the president greater power to challenge specific spending provisions via line-item rescission power. Speaking to reporters, Frist praised Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, for drafting a bill (S. 3521) aimed at making broad changes in the budget process, including rising entitlement spending.

"I do not think--given the limited amount of time--we'll be able to take that to the floor," Frist said. "One item in there is line-item veto, an issue that I introduced already on the floor of the Senate. I personally would very much like to take that to the floor. Whether or not we can do that in September, I don't know yet," he said.

At the state level, Mainers support a Taxpayers' Bill of Rights, Americans for Prosperity reports:

Just over 3 months before election day, a poll released today by Strategic Marketing Services indicates that the majority of Mainers support a Taxpayer's Bill of Rights Amendment...

The poll also showed that 54 percent of respondents would vote for or are leaning toward voting for a referendum seeking to establish a Taxpayer Bill of Rights. The so-called TABOR proposal would limit government spending to the rate of inflation plus population growth. Twenty-five percent opposed the question and 21 percent were undecided.

Posted by J. Lawrence Scholer at 02:06 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

In today's ledger, academic pork, Rep. Flake looks to close lobby loophole, federal watermelon research, and more...

The Club for Growth notes that the estate tax cut/minimum wage increase bill include s"another new entitlement":

The Estate Tax Cut/Minimum Wage Increase bill is an unusual case of legislative sausage making, with pieces that give policy gas to just about everyone. It's also unusual in that it's getting a lot of attention.

One of the lesser known pieces is a new entitlement program, which Sen. Judd Gregg criticized when it looked like it might be added to the pension bill.

Sen. Gregg notes that the measure would change the Abandoned Mine Land program "funding from discretionary to mandatory spending" and "increases direct spending by $4.9 billion over 10 years."

Meanwhile, colleges are learning to play the earmark game. The Christian Science Monitor reports in its "Inside the Pork Barrel" series:

Like most public universities, Mississippi State wants to help improve the state economy - the nation's poorest.

But unlike most schools, MSU is getting $37.2 million this year in special help from Congress to get the job done.

It's a magnet for money - call it pulled "pork" - that few schools can rival. By comparison, North Carolina State University, which serves a population four times larger, got $500,000 this year.

The $37.2 million speaks to the school's efforts in research and development and in industrial outreach. But it also signals MSU's political connections in obtaining federal earmarks - money for pet projects that lawmakers add anonymously to spending bills. It's a trend that's growing prodigiously in academia.

The university is unapologetic about its source of funding:

"Ten years ago, earmarks in academia were viewed as dirty pool, but now it's just a different approach to the federal government fostering academic research," says MSU's Marty Wiseman, director of the John C. Stennis Institute of Government.

Who's responsible for these earmarks?

It's a delivery made possible in part by the patronage of Sen. Thad Cochran (R) of Mississippi. Funding for MSU got a boost when Senator Cochran got promoted. In fiscal year 2005, when Sen. Ted Stevens (R) of Alaska was chairman of the committee, MSU received $19.8 million in congressional earmarks. In fiscal year 2006, when Cochran became appropriations chair, it received $37.2 million in earmarks.

Advocates of the process believe it allows smaller universities to get at least some of the money needed to compete with elite universities like Harvard and Stanford, but critics say it's much more pernicious:

The political path to research dollars distorts federal priorities and corrupts a keystone of academic life: merit and peer review, critics say.

"Federal research agencies were created to address certain national needs: curing diseases, national defense, space exploration. Earmarking undermines their ability to set priorities, create coherent programs, and spend their money optimally," says James Savage, a political scientist at the University of Virginia. "Earmarks are all about political power. It has nothing to do with scientific merit."

The Family Research Council uncovered another federally funded program of dubious scientific merit: research on watermelon nutrition.

That ice-cold watermelon may be refreshing, but it can be less nutritious than watermelon served at room temperature, U.S. Department of Agriculture scientists reported on Wednesday.

Watermelons stored at room temperature deliver more nutrients than refrigerated or freshly picked melons, they reported in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

The government will give the Agricultural Research Service $1.2 billion this year.

The Washington Post yesterday wrote on the progress of Sen. Tom Coburn’s federal spending database, legislation approved Thursday by the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee. The Post reports:

Coburn said the procurement database and the Federal Assistance Awards Data System, which provides quarterly data on grants and awards, do not provide enough details.

“The bottom line is that there is no single source of information explaining where federal money is spent, and there should be,” Coburn said. The public should be able to search the database easily, he said.

The article also quotes one “financial analyst who thinks creation of the proposed Coburn-Obama database is quite feasible but could generate opposition among federal contractors":

Politically, though, the bill could run into problems, as many large companies with federal contracts might not want certain information made easily accessible.

“Vendors don’t want their competitors to know what they're doing and what they're winning,” Webber said.

Captain’s Quarters also comments.

Jeff Flake wants to close a major lobbying loophole. As Americans for Prosperity report:

The free-market grassroots group Americans for Prosperity today applauded the introduction of bipartisan legislation crafted by U.S. Representative Jeff Flake (6th Dist. – Ariz.) that would close a loophole in House Rules that currently exempts lobbyists for state and local governments (including public universities) from a $50 gift limit that almost all private-sector and not-for-profit lobbyists must obey.

Americans for Prosperity also notes that “these loopholes are directly connected to the growing problem of federal earmarks, since they allow lobbyists for public universities and city governments to ignore the typical gift limit and shower elected officials and their staffs” with expensive gifts.

Posted by J. Lawrence Scholer at 01:52 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Congress has fitfully made progress on pension reform, even considering the blowup between House and Senate Republicans over extending business tax exemptions last week. However, it looks like the promising reform measure may contain exemptions so large that one could fly a 787 Dreamliner through them – quite literally. Heritage’s David John recommends a veto on HR 2830, sending a message to Congress regarding their coddling of an industry with a long history of pension underfunding:

Some policies are so bad that they overshadow the good features of legislation. If Congress insists on including special treatment for airlines and potentially other industries in the conference report to the Pension Security and Transparency Act (H.R. 2830), then President George W. Bush should veto it. Various reports suggest that Delta and Northwest could receive up to 20 years to repay the under funding of their pension plans, while American and similar airlines could receive less than that, but still more than the seven years other sponsors of defined benefit pension plans would have to eliminate their under funding. Even more alarming are reports that defense contractors want an extra three years before the new pension funding requirements apply to them. If these reports are accurate, and this special treatment is included in the conference report, President Bush will have more than adequate justification for a veto.

Even though other parts of H.R. 2830 would strengthen pension funding and reduce the probability of a massive taxpayer bailout of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, the airline provision would open a huge loophole that politically connected industries could use to under fund their pensions. Why should auto parts companies and even auto manufacturers themselves spend billions of dollars better funding their pensions if airlines don’t have to do so? Given a precedent, they will lobby congress for similar relief using the same arguments of their industry’s importance to the national economy and the potential losses their retirees will face. Once congress has fallen for that argument once, it is extremely unlikely to be able to resist future requests for “parity”. Rather than signing such flawed legislation into law, congress should be given the opportunity to re-pass it without the offending provisions.

Airlines employ hundreds of thousands of Americans and the risk to those pensions will require immediate action. This free pass allows the industry to continue its under-the-radar flight on pensions, which hides the instability of the industry’s economic position. Postponing action does not mean that the PBGC would not have to bail out these pension funds; if history is any judge, exemptions and postponements result in less compliance, not more.

Not only does the bill contain these exemptions, putting the retirement of many Americans at risk, the Senate has played their usual pork-barrel games in putting together this legislation. What do scenic prairie roads and the cleanup of abandoned mines have to do with pension reform? To the untrained eye, nothing at all – and yet two Senators have earmarked $50 million and $5 billion for these tasks in HR 2830, respectively.

Rep. Mike Pence has voiced serious reservations about the Abandoned Mine Land Fund under any circumstances. Since 1977, AML has existed on fees charged for coal production, and these fees will expire in 2007. The fees go to cleanup of old mining sites, and also to supplement health-care premiums of miners whose companies have left the industry or gone under altogether. The new proposal starts lowering fees on coal production, increases payments to states and retirees, and forces the federal government to replace the funds – and changes AML from discretionary to mandatory spending. This adds the $5 billion to an already-bloated set of entitlement spending by the federal government, making it ever more difficult to reduce the federal budget.

If George Bush wants to send a message to Congress on earmarks, lobbyists, and entitlements, HR 2830 gives him that opportunity.

Posted by Ed Morrissey at 10:47 AM in Captain Ed , Federal Spending | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Ohio's Buckeye Institute has done a public service by creating a web page listing research on the minimum wage.

It's an impressive resource--one that provides a comprehensive view of the work on minimum wage that has been done over the years.

Posted by J. Lawrence Scholer at 08:54 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)