Updated daily, InsiderOnline (insideronline.org) is a compilation of publication abstracts, how-to essays, events, news, and analysis from around the conservative movement. The current edition of The INSIDER quarterly magazine is also on the site.
December 20, 2012
Latest Studies: 39 new items, including a Pioneer Institute report on how consumer-directed health care plans are reducing health care spending, and a Pacific Research Institute study showing that there’s revenue to made in cutting corporate taxes
Notes on the Week: Robert Bork was a great man, guns are not the problem, and more
To Do: Recognize our social entrepreneurs
Budget & Taxation
• Trillion-Dollar Deficits Are Sustainable for Now, Unfortunately – American Enterprise Institute
• A Winning Plan for Entitlement Reform – Heartland Institute
• The Economic and Fiscal Effects of the Obama Tax Plan – The Heritage Foundation
• The Coming Fiscal Tsunami – Hoover Institution
• Could Tax Reform Defund the “Blue State Model”? – Manhattan Institute
• The Fiscal Cliff and the Next Recession – National Center for Policy Analysis
• The Payroll Tax Holiday – National Center for Policy Analysis
• Corporate Income Tax Elasticity: How Republicans Can Have Lower Tax Rates and Democrats Can Collect More Tax Revenue! – Pacific Research Institute
Crime, Justice & the Law
• Pedophiles and the Regulation of Hugging – Cato Institute
Economic and Political Thought
• From Administrative State to Constitutional Government – The Heritage Foundation
• William F. Buckley Jr.: Conservative Icon – The Heritage Foundation
Economic Growth
• Freedom and Prosperity in Tennessee – Beacon Center of Tennessee
• Patent Reform in the United States: Lessons Learned – Cato Institute
• It’s the Culture, Stupid – Hoover Institution
• A Brief History of American Prosperity – Manhattan Institute
Education
• “And You Shall Teach Them Diligently”: The History and Status of Jewish Day Schools in Massachusetts – Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research
• Toward Strengthening Texas Public Higher Education: 10 Areas of Suggested Reform – Texas Public Policy Foundation
Foreign Policy/International Affairs
• The U.S. Must Rethink its Approach to the Democratic Republic of the Congo – The Heritage Foundation
Government Reform
• Do Political Protests Matter? Evidence from the Tea Party Movement – American Enterprise Institute
Health Care
• Saving Medicare: A Market Cure for an Ailing Program – American Enterprise Institute
• How the Supreme Court Doomed the ACA to Failure – Cato Institute
• Health Care vs. Health Insurance – Hoover Institution
• Obamacare’s Negative Impact on Business Case Study 3 – Maine Heritage Policy Center
• Medicaid Reforms and Emergency Room Visits: Evidence from West Virginia’s Medicaid Redesign – Mercatus Center
• Exchanging Medicaid for Private Insurance – National Center for Policy Analysis
• Consumer Driven Health Care: A New Agenda for Cost Control in Massachusetts – Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research
• Assuring a Future for Long-Term Care Services and Supports in Texas – Texas Public Policy Foundation
Labor
• Protecting the Right to Remain Silent in the Workplace – Cato Institute
National Security
• Screening Tests for Terrorism – Cato Institute
• National Security and Defense: Comparing Congress and The Heritage Foundation's Policy Positions – The Heritage Foundation
• Brave New War – Hoover Institution
• The New Japanese Nationalism – Hoover Institution
Natural Resources, Energy, Environment, & Science
• The Economic Impact of Pennsylvania’s Alternative Energy Portfolio Standard – Beacon Hill Institute
• Humanity Unbound: How Fossil Fuels Saved Humanity from Nature and Nature from Humanity – Cato Institute
• Environmental Protection Agency: $353 billion Annually to Comply with Regulations; Most of Any Agency – Competitive Enterprise Institute
• Cap-and-Trade for Cars Means Higher Prices and Less Choice for Car Buyers – The Heritage Foundation
Regulation & Deregulation
• Cemeteries and Mortuaries—Better Together or Apart? – Cato Institute
• Regulatory Benefits: Examining Agency Justification for New Regulations – Mercatus Center
Retirement/Social Security
• Financing Entitlements and Promoting Work: Does Policy Encourage Early Retirement? – American Enterprise Institute
The problem isn’t the gun. A lot of opinions about guns and gun control are flying about in response to the mass shooting in Newtown, Conn., last Friday. David Kopel of the Independence Institute serves up some facts:
The 1980s were much worse than today in terms of overall violent crime, including gun homicide, but they were much better than today in terms of mass random shootings. The difference wasn’t that the 1980s had tougher controls on so-called “assault weapons.” No assault weapons law existed in the U.S. until California passed a ban in 1989.
Connecticut followed in 1993. None of the guns that the Newtown murderer used was an assault weapon under Connecticut law. This illustrates the uselessness of bans on so-called assault weapons, since those bans concentrate on guns’ cosmetics, such as whether the gun has a bayonet lug, rather than their function.
What some people call “assault weapons” function like every other normal firearm—they fire only one bullet each time the trigger is pressed. […]
[M]any of these attacks today unfortunately take place in pretend “gun-free zones,” such as schools, movie theaters and shopping malls. According to Ron Borsch’s study for the Force Science Research Center at Minnesota State University-Mankato, active shooters are different from the gangsters and other street toughs whom a police officer might engage in a gunfight. They are predominantly weaklings and cowards who crumble easily as soon as an armed person shows up.
The problem is that by the time the police arrive, lots of people are already dead. So when armed citizens are on the scene, many lives are saved. The media rarely mention the mass murders that were thwarted by armed citizens at the Shoney’s Restaurant in Anniston, Ala. (1991), the high school in Pearl, Miss. (1997), the middle-school dance in Edinboro, Penn. (1998), and the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colo. (2007), among others.
If we want explanations, Kopel suggests we stop obsessing about guns and examine the role of the media in turning mass shooters into celebrities and the deinstitutionalization of the violently mentally ill. [Wall Street Journal, December 17]
Words of which we are reminded this week, unfortunately: “Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.” —William F. Buckley Jr.
Robert Bork, R.I.P.: Robert Bork, who died Wednesday at the age of 85, was a leading intellectual figure in both the law-and-economics movement and the originalist school of constitutional interpretation. His scholarship showed how antitrust enforcement actually stifled competition to the detriment of consumers. Here are some comments from those who knew him:
Robert Alt, president of the Buckeye Institute, and a former intern under Robert Bork:
His work in antitrust law was so influential—it reshaped the way that the entire legal profession thought about the discipline, and his book The Antitrust Paradox was listed as one of the most significant books of the last century—that this accomplishment alone would have merited his inclusion in the list of modern legal luminaries.
Yet Judge Bork’s influence is far deeper and grander than a list of impressive titles. Not only was [he] a transformative figure in antitrust law, he was keeper of the flame of Originalist jurisprudence and a true defender of our Republic.
He defended this nation’s founding principles at a time when these principles came under such sustained assault that many a weaker man would have been tempted to disengage from the good fight. That he never did is a testament to his willpower, love of country, and understanding that it is only by clearly articulating our principles that we can hope to defend them. [Buckeye Institute, December 19]
Eugene Meyer, president of the Federalist Society:
The conservative movement has over the last quarter of a century changed the discourse in the country and countered the arid ideologies of the collectivists and Communists and other leftists. Judge Bork has played that role in our legal system. He was a legal giant; a man of unsurpassed integrity, intellect, courage, and wit. His efforts are far from having all borne fruit yet, but for years he was practically intellectually alone in upholding our constitutional principles. Consider his scholarship and his contribution to the debate and discussion throughout his years as a Yale law professor and well beyond; his service as solicitor general of the U.S.; his service as a U.S. Court of Appeals judge; his powerful works including The Tempting of America and Slouching Towards Gomorrah and The Antitrust Paradox; and his role as a mentor inspiring the best of the next generation in all of these positions. Taken together, these accomplishments show that no one has had more influence in supporting and sustaining the constitutional principles on which one can build a shining city on a hill. [National Review, December 19]
He also had a sense of humor. As Michael Greve remembers, Bork liked his martinis without olives. “If I want a salad, I’ll order one,” he once explained to a waitress. [Liberty Law Blog, December 19]
The President’s tax plan would not be good for the economy. William Beach, John Ligon, and Guinevere Nell report the results of The Heritage Foundation’s macroeconomic simulations:
Relative to the economy’s performance under the current policy, we find that total output and income would decline by approximately $105 billion in 2012 and by an average of $196 billion per year over 2013–2022. The decline in economic output is consistent with prevalent recessionary concerns. The slowdown in real output occurs because:
• Higher tax rates on investment raise the cost of capital investment, and higher tax rates on labor income reduce the incentive to work and supply labor in the U.S. economy. Over the long run, the decline in private-sector investment would reduce the capital stock, leading to slower output and labor supply in the U.S. economy.
• Gross private-sector investment would decline by an average of $126 billion (4.1 percent) per year, reducing real capital stock in the U.S. economy by an average of $229 billion (1.2 percent) per year. The reduction in private-sector investment and capital services over the long run would reduce the labor supply at different economic margins: Private-sector employment in the U.S. economy would fall by an average 1.1 million jobs (1 percent) per year, and Americans would work 2 billion fewer hours relative to baseline levels.
• The President believes his tax proposal will increase federal revenue by an average of $160 billion per year. The results of the dynamic simulation indicate that the President’s proposal would achieve only about $68 billion per year—less than one-half of the President’s projection. The dynamic result is due to a smaller tax base commensurate with the smaller economy. For example, fewer hours worked and lower real wages result in less federal income and payroll tax receipts. [The Heritage Foundation, December 14]
Regulation makes it expensive to employ people:
The total federal regulatory burden is at least $1.8 trillion per year and growing. More than 3,500 new rules have come into effect each year of both George W. Bush’s and Barack Obama’s presidencies. The Code of Federal Regulations, where all these rules are stored, is more than 169,000 pages long. Small businesses spend more than $10,000 per employee per year to comply with federal rules.
As Ryan Young and Wayne Crews observe, trimming the regulatory state with a commission modeled on the Base Closure and Realignment Commission would be one way of helping the economy. [Washington Times, December 18]
We’ll know the score of the Red State-Blue State battle after all. The Internal Revenue Service has reversed its decision to discontinue compiling data on taxpayer migration between the states. Last week we noted the initial news of the IRS decision, observing: “It’s hard not to suspect that this kind of information is just too embarrassing to the high-tax, union-run blue states that keep losing people to the low-tax, right-to-work red states.”
But as the Tax Foundation noted on Tuesday, the IRS has now said it will continue tabulating the migration information after all. So, carry on.
As he leaves the Senate, Jim DeMint is focused on ideas. Sen. DeMint, who will become President of The Heritage Foundation in April, gave his farewell speech to the Senate on Thursday, saying:
I’m not leaving here to be an advocate for the Republican Party. I hope that we can create more common ground between the political parties by showing everyone that ideas that work for their constituents, and for our constituents, are right in front of our faces. [from video posted at Washington Examiner, December 20]
A victory against the HHS mandate: On Tuesday, a federal appeals court overturned the dismissal of Wheaton College and Belmont Abbey’s lawsuits against the Department of Health and Human Services over the HHS contraception mandate. The Becket Fund, representing the schools, describes the result this way:
Last summer, two lower courts had dismissed the Colleges’ cases as premature. Today, the appellate court reinstated those cases, and ordered the Obama Administration to report back every 60 days—starting in mid-February—until the Administration makes good on its promise to issue a new rule that protects the Colleges’ religious freedom. The new rule must be issued by March 31, 2013. […]
The court based its decision on two concessions that government lawyers made in open court. First, the government promised “it would never enforce [the mandate] in its current form” against Wheaton, Belmont Abbey or other similarly situated religious groups. Second, the government promised it would publish a proposed new rule “in the first quarter of 2013” and would finalize it by next August. The administration made both concessions under intense questioning by the appellate judges. The court deemed the concessions a “binding commitment” and has retained jurisdiction over the case to ensure the government follows through. [The Becket Fund, December 18]
For updates on all 42 cases (including those of plaintiffs not represented by the Becket Fund) check out Becket’s HHS Mandate Central page.
Israel’s gun culture provides lessons for the United States: Israel has plenty of guns circulating and fairly porous gun controls, but has never experienced school shootings like the United States has, observes Liel Leibovitz:
[E]ven though there have been no Newtown-style mass shootings in Israel, the Israeli government has tightened the reins over the past decade, passing a series of additional restrictions and placing further emphasis on enforcement. The result was clear: In 2000, there were approximately 400,000 legally owned firearms in Israel, the majority of them handguns, and the number of illegal weapons stood at about 150,000. Ten years later, thanks largely to the new strictures, the ratio was reversed: 180,000 firearms were legally licensed, and more than 400,000 were illegally obtained, most of them assault rifles like the M-16 and the Galil, stolen from the Israel Defense Forces. Naturally, this led to an increase in the number of casualties, as it placed far mightier tools in the hands of criminals who were previously content to handle their affairs using the perfectly legal and readily available guns at their disposal. […]
How, then, to explain Israel’s relatively low rate of gun-related deaths? For Lior Nedivi, an independent firearms examiner in Jerusalem and the co-author of a comprehensive report comparing Israel’s gun laws and culture to that of the United States, the answer lies far from the law books. “An armed society,” Nedivi wrote, quoting the science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein, “is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.” It may be a bit odd to think of Israeli society as polite, but when it comes to guns it is, and for just the reason articulated by Heinlein: When everyone has a gun, guns are no longer seen as talismans by weak, frightened, and unstable men seeking a sense of self-validation, but as killing machines that are to be handled with the utmost caution and care. [Tablet, December 17]
There are good reasons that some civilians want to own a gun. Guns in the hands of civilians save many lives every year, though it’s hard to say exactly how many. In their recent report on defensive gun use for the Cato Institute, Clayton Cramer and David Burnett identify a range of estimates of how often civilians use a gun in self-defense. It appears to happen at least 100,000 times per year. That’s the low-end estimate, based on the reports of defensive gun uses by victims of crime. But how many defensive uses never get reported? Some studies put the real number of defensive uses per year in the millions. In any case, in the overwhelming majority of these cases, the civilians who use guns in self defense do so successfully.
Cramer and Burnett identified nearly 5,000 news stories about defensive uses of guns over an eight-year period, and in only 36 of those stories did a defender get killed by a criminal. In another 210 of those stories, a defender was shot but not killed. [“Tough Targets: When Criminals Face Armed Resistance from Citizens,” Cato Institute, February 2012.]
To Do: Recognize Our Social Entrepreneurs
• Nominate someone for a social entrepreneurship award. The Manhattan Institute is accepting nominations for both its William E. Simon Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Social Entrepreneurship, and its Richard C. Cornuelle Award for Innovation in Social Entrepreneurship. Nominations will be accepted through March 1, 2013.
• If you can fit any television watching into your schedule this holiday season, you might make time for the PBS series “First Freedom: The Fight for Religious Liberty,” which tells story of how the nation’s founders gave us the freedom of choice in religious matters.
• Still looking for just the right Christmas gift? For some ideas, check out Reason magazine’s review of the year in books. Yep, books still exist!
• Have a merry Christmas and a happy New Year! Also, please accept our thanks for reading our newsletter! We’ll see you again at the beginning of the year.
Have a tip for InsiderOnline? Send us an e-mail at insider@heritage.org with "For Insider" in the subject line.
Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/InsiderOnline.
Looking for an expert? Visit PolicyExperts.org.
The Heritage Foundation
214 Massachusetts Avenue, NE
Washington, DC 20002-4999
phone 202.546.4400 | fax 202.546.8328
No comments:
Post a Comment