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.
April 19, 2013
Latest Studies: 51 new items, including a National Taxpayers Union report on tax complexity, and a Buckeye Institute report on Medicaid expansion in Ohio
Notes on the Week: Chechnya’s terrorist problem, government’s tax bite, ObamaCare’s moving parts are still moving, and more
To Do: Meet your allies at Resource Bank
Budget & Taxation
• A ‘Genius’ Way to Avoid Taxes – American Enterprise Institute
• Facing Reality 2013: Ideas to Reset Oregon’s Budget and Recharge Its Economy – Cascade Policy Institute
• No More Rainy Days: How to Make State Revenue Estimates More Accurate – Goldwater Institute
• Budget for Growth: JLF Plan Redirects Funds, Cuts Taxes to Create Jobs – John Locke Foundation
• COPs Evade Voter Scrutiny: Taxpayers on the Hook for Special Indebtedness – John Locke Foundation
• Revisiting the High Tax Rates of the 1950s – Manhattan Institute
• A Taxing Trend: The Rise in Complexity, Forms, and Paperwork Burdens – National Taxpayers Union
• Down the Drain – Reason Foundation
• The ACA Medical Device Tax: Bad Policy in Need of Repeal – Tax Foundation
Crime, Justice & the Law
• Strengthening Alabama’s Gambling Laws – Alabama Policy Institute
• A Commission to Review All Criminal Laws Outside the Penal Code-Bill Analysis: House Bill 2804 – Texas Public Policy Foundation
• Getting Past the Past: Bill Analysis: House Bill 1344 – Texas Public Policy Foundation
• Learning from Juvenile Mistakes: Bill Analysis: Senate Bill 915 – Texas Public Policy Foundation
Economic and Political Thought
• Reality and Public Policy – National Affairs
Economic Growth
• Building Business in Alabama: How Business-Friendly Are Alabama’s 50 Largest Cities? – Alabama Policy Institute
• Confusing Cause and Effect in the Fiscal Policy Debate – American Enterprise Institute
• The Foundation for Entitlement Reform: Get America Booming Again – Heartland Institute
• Promoting Economic Freedom: Key to Realizing the World Bank’s Mission – The Heritage Foundation
Education
• Addressing the Declining Productivity of Higher Education Using Cost-Effectiveness Analysis – American Enterprise Institute
• Creating Capital Citizens: Cesar Chavez Public Charter Schools for Public Policy and Civic Education – American Enterprise Institute
• Initiatives for Containing the Cost of Higher Education – American Enterprise Institute
• Public Policies, Prices, and Productivity in American Higher Education – American Enterprise Institute
• 35 Questions About Common Core: Answers for North Carolinians – John Locke Foundation
• The Unacknowledged Value of For-Profit Education – Manhattan Institute
Elections, Transparency, & Accountability
• How Easy Is It to Find Tax Information on State Websites? – Tax Foundation
Foreign Policy/International Affairs
• Congress Should Challenge the Administration’s UNESCO and U.N. Peacekeeping Budget Request – The Heritage Foundation
• U.S. Food Aid Should Focus on Combating Hunger and Malnutrition in Poor Nations – The Heritage Foundation
• Venezuela: U.S. Should Push President Maduro Toward Economic Freedom – The Heritage Foundation
• U.S. Must Demand Transparency and Accountability in Appointment of Top-Level U.N. Officials – The Heritage Foundation
• Venezuela After Chávez – Hoover Institution
Health Care
• Medicaid Expansion: Myth Versus Reality – Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions
Information Technology
• 2013 Supplement To The 2011 Environmental Almanac – Pacific Research Institute
• Spectrum Policy: Just Do It! – Reason Foundation
• Reducing Discriminatory or Excessive Taxes and Fees on High-Tech Services – Texas Public Policy Foundation
International Trade/Finance
• Advancing Trade Freedom: Key Objective of Trade Promotion Authority Renewal – The Heritage Foundation
Labor
• Down With Paid Sick Leave – Hoover Institution
• The High Costs of Proposed New Labor-Law Regulations – Manhattan Institute
Monetary Policy/Financial Regulation
• Regulating Risk – American Enterprise Institute
National Security
• The Immediate Aftermath of Boston: No Time to Stand Still – The Heritage Foundation
• Counterterrorism: Heritage Foundation Recommendations – The Heritage Foundation
• Homeland Security: Developing a Strategic Road Map for the Future – The Heritage Foundation
• House Cybersecurity Legislation: A Small Step, but Flaws Need Correction – The Heritage Foundation
• Impact of Obama’s Budget Proposal on Defense – The Heritage Foundation
• Law and Ethics for Autonomous Weapon Systems: Why a Ban Won’t Work and How the Laws of War Can – Hoover Institution
Natural Resources, Energy, Environment, & Science
• Boxer–Sanders Carbon Tax Would Empower EPA to Crush Booming Energy Economy – The Heritage Foundation
• The Cap-and-Trade Bust – Hoover Institution
Regulation & Deregulation
• The Sinking Ship of Cabotage: How the Jones Act Lets Unions and a Few Companies Hold the Economy Hostage – Capital Research Center
• How to Fix Our Broken Proxy Advisory System – Mercatus Center
The Constitution/Civil Liberties
• The Buyback Provision HB 20 & SB 180 – Texas Public Policy Foundation
Transportation/Infrastructure
• California High-Speed Rail: An Updated Due Diligence Report – Reason Foundation
Chechnya’s terrorist problem: Two men originally from Chechnya who lived in the Boston area for a number of years are the alleged perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombings. Here’s some background on Chechnya, from a March 2012 Heritage Foundation report by Ariel Cohen:
One ominous development has been that al-Qaeda and other foreign extremist organizations in the Middle East and Central Asia have increased their financial and moral support of the radical Islamist movement in the Caucasus. The most important connections to the global terrorist movement have been through Yusuf Muhammad al’Emirati (“Moganned”), a Saudi-born al-Qaeda member who arrived in Chechnya in 1999, and Abdulla Kurd, al-Qaeda’s international coordinator of terrorist cells. Moganned was a leader of Arab and foreign fighters in the Caucasus and one of the leaders of the Chechen insurgency. Both Moganned and Kurd were killed by Russian special forces in April 2011.
The Caucasus has been on al-Qaeda’s radar screen for a decade and a half. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the current leader of al-Qaeda, visited the region in the mid-1990s and was even temporarily in Russian custody. Al-Zawahiri has referred to the Caucasus as one of three primary fronts in the war against the West.
Recently, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the most active and dangerous al-Qaeda affiliate, has been expanding its global reach. For example, AQAP translated al-Qaeda’s online journal Inspire into Russian to attract extremists in the North Caucasus and other Muslim areas in Russia. In addition, evidence indicates that terrorists who were trained in the North Caucasus have joined al-Qaeda and other operations in Waziristan in Pakistan.
Furthermore, Doku Umarov made clear that the Caucasus is an integral part of the global jihad: “after expelling the kuffar we must reconquer all historical lands of Muslims, and these borders are beyond the boundaries of Caucasus,” and “Everyone who attacked Muslims wherever they are are our enemies, common enemies.” Umarov recently reaffirmed his commitment to jihad, stating that although “many of the emirs and leaders” have been killed, “Jihad did not stop, but vice versa, it expanded and strengthened” and that “the death of the leaders of the jihad cannot stop the process of the revival of Islam.” [Internal citations omitted.] [“A Threat to the West: The Rise of Islamist Insurgency in the Northern Caucasus and Russia’s Inadequate Response,” by Ariel Cohen, The Heritage Foundation, March 26, 2012]
Preparedness matters. “[I]t now appears that every one of the wounded alive when rescuers reached them will survive,” writes Atul Gawande about Boston’s reaction to the marathon bombings. Part of the reason for that outcome, he says, is that Boston’s first responders have learned some lessons from the past decade:
We have, as one colleague put it to me, replaced our pre-9/11 naïveté with post-9/11 sobriety. Where before we’d have been struck dumb with shock about such events, now we are almost calculating about them. When ball bearings and nails were found in the wounds of the victims, everyone understood the bombs had been packed with them as projectiles. At every hospital, clinicians considered the possibility of chemical or radiation contamination, a second wave of attacks, or a direct attack on a hospital. Even nonmedical friends e-mailed and texted me to warn people about secondary and tertiary explosive devices aimed at responders. Everyone’s imaginations have come to encompass these once unimaginable events. […]
What prepared us? Ten years of war have brought details of attacks like these to our towns through news, images, and the soldiers who saw and encountered them. Almost every hospital has a surgeon or nurse or medic with battlefield experience, sometimes several. Many also had trauma personnel who deployed to Haiti after the earthquake, Banda Aceh after the tsunami, and elsewhere. Disaster response has become an area of wide interest and study. Cities and towns have conducted disaster drills, including one in Boston I was involved in that played out the scenario of a dirty-bomb explosion at Logan Airport on an airliner from France. The Massachusetts General Hospital brought in Israeli physicians to help revamp their disaster-response planning. Richard Wolfe at the Beth Israel Deaconess recalled an emergency physician’s presentation of the medical response required after the Aurora, Colorado, movie-theatre shooting of seventy people last summer. From 9/11 to Newtown, we’ve all watched with not only horror but also grave attention the myriad ways in which the sociopathy of killers has combined with the technology of inflicting mass casualty. [New Yorker, April 17]
The “Gang of Eight” immigration bill is an amnesty bill. And that makes it a bad idea, explains Sen. Jim DeMint, president of The Heritage Foundation:
Giving legal residency to the 11 million people who came here illegally has one definition: amnesty. Amnesty rewards unlawful behavior and diminishes opportunity and prosperity for lawful immigrants and all Americans.
The Senate bill imposes significant costs on taxpayers. At a time of trillion-dollar deficits and $17 trillion in debt, the cost of implementing amnesty and the strain it will add to already fragile entitlement and welfare programs should be of serious concern for everyone.
After decades of empty promises on immigration enforcement, Congress simply lacks credibility to keep its promises. A comprehensive amnesty bill was tried before and it failed. In 1986 we had about 3 million unlawful immigrants. Congress granted them legal status with a promise to control our borders and fix our legal immigration system.
Lawmakers who supported the 1986 bill promised in grand speeches that amnesty would never happen again. Now there are 11 million unlawful immigrants in America because amnesty was immediate but the border wasn’t secured, workplace laws were not enforced, and our legal immigration system was not fixed. The result of amnesty is clear — it encourages more unlawful immigration in hopes of future amnesties.
This new bill is much the same as the last: immediate amnesty in the form of provisional status within months and lofty promises of “strategies” and “plans” for enforcement years later.
Rather than rewarding the 11 million who broke our laws, Congress should first consider how to make the immigration system work for the more than 4 million people waiting patiently outside our borders to come to our country legally. A rational system would make it easier to follow the law than to break it. [The Foundry, April 18]
Government’s big bite: Tax Freedom Day fell on April 18, five days later this year than last year. That means it takes the average American 108 days to earn enough money to pay his total tax bill for the year. The Tax Foundation, which calculates Tax Freedom Day every year, explains why the tax burden has increased this year
Tax Freedom Day is five days later than last year, due mainly to the fiscal cliff deal that raised federal taxes on individual income and payroll. Additionally, the Affordable Care Act’s investment tax and excise tax went into effect. Finally, despite these tax increases, the economy is expected to continue its slow recovery, boosting profits, incomes, and tax revenues.
The latest ever Tax Freedom Day was May 1 in the year 2000. Of course, the federal government run a surplus that year amounting to 2.4 percent of gross domestic product; this year, the federal government is expected to run a deficit of about 6 percent of GDP. If the federal government financed its spending entirely with taxes instead of borrowing, then this year’s Tax Freedom Day would fall on May 21. The long-term trend:
Nailing the rich for 100 years … plus a lot of other people now, too:
And now a few words about taxes:
The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has.
—Will Rogers, “Helping the Girls with Their Income Taxes,” Illiterate Digest (1924)
Indoors or out, no one relaxes
In March, that month of wind and taxes,
The wind will presently disappear,
The taxes last us all the year
—Ogden Nash, “Thar She Blows” Versus (1949)
The hardest thing in the world to understand is income taxes.
—Albert Einstein, as reported by Leo Mattersdorf, Einstein’s tax consultant, in a 1963 letter to Time magazine
Not fully mission capable: Because of the sequester, the United States military is in danger of being unprepared for foreseeable contingencies—such as fighting North Korea—reports Thomas Donnelly:
After several minutes of badgering from Sen. John McCain at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on April 9, Admiral Samuel Locklear admitted that the combination of regularly scheduled defense budget cuts and the “sequestration” provision of the current budget law meant that “in the near term … we’re not going to be able to provide the force levels” needed in the Pacific, where Locklear is the top U.S. commander. “The answer to your question,” he admitted to McCain, “is that I can’t do it.”
This is not just a question of ships. The Air Force has announced that it soon will begin grounding about a third of its combat aircraft. “We must implement a tiered readiness concept where only the units preparing to deploy in support of major combat operations like Afghanistan are fully mission capable,” explained Gen. Mike Hostage, head of Air Combat Command. Hostage is only telling a part of the story: The number of planes allocated to Afghanistan is a tiny portion of the fleet. In sum, a third of his planes will be parked (and, no doubt, stripped of parts to keep other aircraft flying), only a handful ready to fight, and the bulk of the fleet—thousands of aircraft—in various stages of disrepair.
The damage to the Army and Marine Corps is also mostly out of sight. Both services will meet their most critical needs, like sustaining operations in Afghanistan, by shortchanging units and equipment left behind. Again, that’s the bulk of their forces. And because personnel budgets are not included in the sequester, the result will be a lot of soldiers and Marines painting rocks or trying to stay fit instead of actually training for their missions. [The Weekly Standard, April 22]
This week in left-wing honesty: Saying what they really think:
We preferred our agenda to the truth. “For what it’s worth, I do think that those of us on the Left have made a decision not to cover [the Kermit Gosnell] trial because we worry that it’ll compromise abortion rights. […] I do think there’s a direct connection between the media’s failure to cover this and our own political commitments on the Left.” —Marc Lamont Hill [comments on HuffPost Live, as reported by Washington Times, April 17]
Fine. We’ll cover the news. “Online Furor Draws Press to Abortion Doctor’s Trial” —article headline [New York Times, April 16]
The traditional marriage refrain is tired, but I’m here to confirm it’s true. “Recently, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council reintroduced a tired refrain: Legalized gay marriage could lead to other legal forms of marriage disaster, such as polygamy. Rick Santorum, Bill O’Reilly, and other social conservatives have made similar claims. It’s hardly a new prediction—we’ve been hearing it for years. Gay marriage is a slippery slope! A gateway drug! If we legalize it, then what’s next? Legalized polygamy?
“We can only hope.
“Yes, really. While the Supreme Court and the rest of us are all focused on the human right of marriage equality, let’s not forget that the fight doesn’t end with same-sex marriage. We need to legalize polygamy, too.” —Jillian Keenan [Slate, April 15]
I should have installed a brake on this thing. “Small businesses have no idea what to do—what to expect. They don’t know what [the] affordability rules are. They don’t know what penalties may apply. They just don’t know. […] People are going to be really confused. […] I understand you’ve hired a contractor. I’m worried that’s going to be money down the drain. […] I tell you, I see a huge train wreck. You and I have discussed this many times, and I don’t see any results yet. I just see a huge train wreck.” —Senator Max Baucus (D-Mont.), discussing ObamaCare implementation with Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius at a hearing of the Senate Finance Committee [C-Span, April 17]
ObamaCare’s many moving parts are still moving. The budget released by the White House last week contains a tacit acknowledgement that ObamaCare isn’t going to deliver the coverage it promised. The White House proposed shelving cuts in the subsidies that hospitals receive for serving the uninsured—known as Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) payments. Those cuts were put in place by the original ObamaCare legislation. Michael Cannon explains why dropping them is a big deal:
[Supporters] argued that [ObamaCare’s] Medicaid expansion and health-insurance “exchanges” would extend coverage to some 30 million previously uninsured people, thereby eliminating that hidden tax and enabling Congress to reduce DSH payments.
The president’s budget shows that not even he buys that argument now. It states: “To better align DSH payments with expected levels of uncompensated care, the Budget proposes to begin the reductions in 2015, instead of 2014.” That is, the president expects that the Medicaid and exchange subsidies won’t eliminate that $360 million of uncompensated care next year. And it’s not because some states are choosing not to expand Medicaid—he proposes to rescind the cuts even in states that are expanding it. [National Review, April 17]
As Nina Owcharenko notes, “the continued DSH payments will make it marginally easier for states to reject the Medicaid expansion for now, because they will continue to receive federal payments that help compensate for having a large uninsured population.” [National Review, April 15] The move also provides one more example, says Cannon, of how ObamaCare’s financing is an illusion:
Congress has postponed planned cuts in Medicare physician payments every year for the past decade. This year, Obama rescinded cuts the [ObamaCare] would make to private Medicare plans, and both parties are lining up to repeal the law’s medical-device tax and the board it would create to reduce Medicare spending.
The president’s latest DSH proposal is a classic “dessert now, spinach later” ruse. To “pay for” this $360 million increase, he proposed cutting DSH payments by that exact amount in 2015 and 2016. He even proposed an additional $3.6 billion cut—in 2023. [National Review, April 17]
• Connect with hundreds of smart people from across the country who are doing the same work you’re doing: promoting liberty. The Heritage Foundation’s Resource Bank 2013 will be held April 24 – 26 in Orlando, Florida. Will Weatherford, Florida Speaker of the House, will make remarks, and Michelle Malkin will the keynote address at the Thursday dinner. Heritage and the Franklin Center will recognize outstanding individuals in new media with the Breitbart Awards. In addition to the usual policy-focused panels, there will be a strategy session on resisting Common Core, a First Principles Leadership Seminar, media training sessions, and a special session on free-market ideas on conservation. There is still time to register!
• Be an informed consumer of education. The Education Consumers Foundation publishes reports on how well schools are performing. They’re like a Consumer Reports for education. Check out their work.
• Nominate a think tank for a Templeton Award. The Templeton Awards, now running for ten years, are changing a little bit. Starting this year, there will only be one winning per year, and that winner will receive a whopping $100,000 prize. So if you know a think tank that has done outstanding work promoting liberty, send its name in. The deadline for nominations is June 1. The winner will be announced at the Atlas Foundation’s Freedom Dinner on November 14.
• This time, find out what’s in the bill before they pass it. Read the “Gang of Eight” immigration bill, which The Heritage Foundation has posted online.
• Brush up on your history of the nuclear age. (Is there a better time than now?) The Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia will host a talk by Francis Gavin, author of the new book Nuclear Statecraft. His talk will begin at 4:30 p.m. on April 25.
• Save the date for these important conservative/libertarian events coming up: The Institute for Policy Innovation’s 25th Anniversary Celebration with special guest Ted Cruz, May 2 in Dallas; the Manhattan Institute’s Alexander Hamilton Award Dinner honoring Invemed President Kenneth G. Langone and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, May 6 in New York; the American Enterprise Institute’s Annual Dinner featuring Rep. Paul Ryan, May 8 in Washington, D.C.; the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs’ 2013 Citizenship Award Dinner featuring Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint and Heritage Foundation Founder Ed Feulner, May 9 in Oklahoma City; the Oslo Freedom Forum, May 13-15 in Oslo; the Becket Fund’s Canterbury Medal Dinner honoring Elder Dallin H. Oaks, May 16 in New York; and the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Annual Dinner, June 20 in Washington, D.C.
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