Political Culture, Employee Flexibility, and Health Care

There's a good read in Slate about how a country's health care system tends to reflect that country's values:

Health care systems are not just policy choices but expressions of national character and values. ...

All advanced, wealthy countries have structures that are more egalitarian and cost-effective than ours. Each also has its quirks, which tend to reinforce familiar stereotypes. Britain, land of the stiff upper lip, rations care explicitly, providing what to us would seem shockingly minimalist treatment. It doesn't cover many procedures we regard as standard, such as PSA tests for men in their 50s or even regular physical exams for adults. That's what you get when you spend 8 percent of your GDP on health care (versus our 16 percent). The Japanese, on the other hand, venerate doctors and visit them 14.5 times per year on average, three times the U.S. rate. They do this in an orderly, ritualized way, usually bringing a bottle of sake or cash in an envelope as a gratuity.

America's evolved, undesigned system is also an expression of our culture at its best and it worst. Health care in the United States is innovative, entrepreneurial, expensive, litigious, and wasteful. It is decentralized, driven by self-interest, excellent at the high end, and increasingly unequal. It resists acknowledging trade-offs or limits and is characterized by shocking gaps in basic care. As we plunge into a long-overdue comprehensive overhaul, it's useful to think not just about how we can build on what works in this hodgepodge but about how we can bring health care into better alignment with our own national identity. In reforming our system, we need to create something that is "more like us," in the phrase of the journalist James Fallows—not more like what the French, Finns, or Swiss have, as appealing as that might sound.

The author plugs a health care proposal by Ron Wyden which acknowledges and compensates for a significant change in the workplace:

It is on the sociological level, though, that we're missing the boat most completely by sticking doggedly with a workplace-based system that no longer makes sense. America has always been a mobile society with a labor market that grows more fluid over time. Once, the norm was to work for a single employer for one's entire career. Today, people change jobs an average of 11 times before they reach 40. Fear of losing health coverage keeps people in jobs they would otherwise leave, creating a drag on economic efficiency. As the Senate's smartest health care wonk, Ron Wyden of Oregon, says: "A big part of the reform challenge is to look at how the culture of the American workforce has changed since the basic structure of American health care was put in place. Today's culture is all about flexibility."

The premise of Wyden's bipartisan bill is that we should move away from job-based insurance. It would do this by converting the tax deduction for employer-provided health insurance into a tax credit and requiring that individuals use it to buy insurance. Wyden's bill would achieve universal coverage, apply meaningful cost controls, and, according to the Congressional Budget Office, pay for itself within a few years. It's going nowhere.

The White House v. The State Department

A recent speech by Hillary Clinton may have been an attempt to stay relevant.

Diplomatic responsibilities are split between various players in the executive branch, with the obvious consequence.

A Few Thoughts on Economic Inequality

From the Cato Institute.

No Comprehensive Reforms

Michael Lind thinks Congress should not enact comprehensive reforms of anything, including health care. The piecemeal approach works better.

His main points:
1 - Comprehensive reform tries to address too many problems at the same time, instead of addressing particular problems by particular pieces of legislation.
2 - Comprehensive reform tries to assemble a single majority for a multipurpose bill, instead of assembling different majorities for different bills.
3 - Comprehensive reform by its very nature shuts out the public.
4 - Comprehensive reform kills the appetite for subsequent reform.

Comments:
- Patrick Appel wants to keep it simple.
- Publius is worried about agency capture.

Warnings About Health Plan

From the Washington Post:

Instead of saving the federal government from fiscal catastrophe, the health reform measures being drafted by congressional Democrats would increase rather than reduce public spending on health care, potentially worsening an already bleak budget outlook, the director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said this morning.

Under questioning by members of the Senate Budget Committee, CBO director Douglas Elmendorf said bills crafted by House leaders and the Senate health committee do not propose "the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount."

- Washington Post: CBO Chief: Health Reform Measures Would Weaken Economy
- CQ: CBO Chief: Health Bills To Increase Federal Costs

Bill White and the Energy Sector

Fundraising disclosures for the Texas Senate race show that Bill White is a top recipient from the Oil and Gas sector.

From the Dallas Morning News:

This morning's Politico carries a special section on climate change legislation that mentions the top beneficiaries of the energy industry's 2008 campaign cycle donations. The oil and gas sector -- with perhaps the most to lose from the legislation -- gave the most. Top beneficiary: Senator John Cornyn, with $667,600.

It's no surprise that Cornyn cleaned up with donations from oil and gas interests. Texas is the leading producer of both commodities among U.S. states, and the industry is famously loyal to the GOP (and vice versa). Cornyn was up for reelection last year, and was a member of the Senate GOP leadership, which fought legislation that would have pinched the industry's profits.

Cornyn could be even more important to the industry in 2010, if the controversial climate change bill finds a seam to advance through the Senate. He is chairman of the NRSC, which would pillory any climate bill as an "energy tax." He's also inclined to fight on behalf of oil and gas employers throughout Texas, most of which would oppose the bill.

Yet it's Houston Mayor Bill White, who is running for Senate to replace Kay Bailey Hutchison, who is the top recipient of oil and gas money in the current election cycle. White is a former deputy secretary of energy in the Clinton administration who is well liked by Houston's business community (a group dominated by energy interests). So where does White stand on the climate bill that passed the House in May? His Web site's Issues section doesn't mention it.

Health Care Reform Passes Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee

on a party line vote.

Click here for an overview of the subject.

The Sotomayor Hearings

Live from the Senate Judiciary Committee.

- Coverage from the NYT.

A Few Words on the Debt

There are increased concerns that, despite the need for spending to help get the economy out of the recession, little attention is being paid to addressing the ballooning debt once this is (hopefully) accomplished:

- Clive Crook: Looking into the Fiscal Abyss.
- Brookings Institution: Here Comes the Next Fiscal Crisis
- Brookings Institution: An Update on the Economic and Fiscal Crises.

The same point can be made about the current level of debt, and out ability to address the potential increases in the debt, made below about California. It's a product of the democratic system. We get into debt because we spend too much and tax too little, both are easy to do. The hard part is cutting the spending and raising the taxes that allow for debt to be driven down. If an elected leader would go out on a limb and propose either or both as a solution to the current fiscal crisis, would he or she be re-elected? If not, whose to blame? Is debt an excess of democracy?

Direct Democracy and the California Budget Crisis

As my 2301's begin to discuss elections, we will ponder the pros and cons of direct v. indirect democracy. We covered this already when we discussed Federalist #10 and Madison's preference for a republic over a pure democracy. A major theme this week will be the tighter connection between the population and the government forged over the last two centuries.

One of the key driving forces behind this process was the progressive movement and their support of initiatives, referenda, and recall elections. Though Texas did not adopt these elections statewide (they are used in local elections) many states did, California most notably. As it stands, much of California's tax policy and governmental programs were established not by legislators in a deliberative body, but by the mass public through ballot initiatives as informed by campaign advertisement. Critics argue that California's current budget shortfall (over $20 billion) can be blamed on the impact of these direct elections.

The electorate rallies behind a new proposed program, but also behind efforts to not only cut taxes, but make increasing the taxes necessary to pay for these programs difficult if not impossible.

This leads to an uncomfortable -- and probably elitist -- point. Was Madison (and the bulk of the rest of the founders) right to be worried about the "excesses of democracy"? It makes complete short sighted sense for people to want to increase spending programs (meaning education, health, etc...) and also to decrease taxes in order to carry around more pocket money. We all want something for nothing. But this creates problems down the road.

So was Madison right to be skeptical of direct (pure) democracy? Does the fiscal health of a country depend on limiting the ability of the general population to have an immediate impact on public policy? Or are we the people capable of making sound, fiscally prudent decisions?

Additional readings:

- The Claremont Institute - Direct Democracy in California
- California Direct Democracy
- State of Paralysis.
- FT.com Willem Buiter's Maverecon From direct democracy to ...

What Drives Economic Behavior? Animal Spirits or Rational Actors

The former apparently. More and more behavioral economists seem to believe that our monetary decisions are driven by illusion, not rational calculations. This overturns decades of economic theory.

Another casualty of the recession.

It was going to happen sooner or later ...

Foreign Policy predicts the death of macho:

The great shift of power from males to females is likely to be dramatically accelerated by the economic crisis, as more people realize that the aggressive, risk-seeking behavior that has enabled men to entrench their power—the cult of macho—has now proven destructive and unsustainable in a globalized world.

Indeed, it’s now fair to say that the most enduring legacy of the Great Recession will not be the death of Wall Street. It will not be the death of finance. And it will not be the death of capitalism. These ideas and institutions will live on. What will not survive is macho. And the choice men will have to make, whether to accept or fight this new fact of history, will have seismic effects for all of humanity—women as well as men.

The Least Free Places on Earth

From Foreign Policy.

When is a Recovery Not Really a Recovery?

From the Economist: How to think about a jobless recovery

Does this Put a Twist on the Ricci Decision?

From the chron: 2 female firefighters worried for safety

Is there a reason for minority and women firefighters to be worried about discrimination?

Does Retraining Work?

maybe not ...

Obama on Civil Liberties

not so good apparently.

The State of the Economy

Its worse than anticipated, which had led some to call for a second stimulus.

- From the CBO: The State of the Economy
- Bruce Bartlett says no, give it more time.
- From Fox: States Using Stimulus Money for Short-Term Needs, Audit Shows
- WaPo: Power of Stimulus Slow to Take Hold
- WaPo: Obama not talking about second stimulus: official

"presidential post-acquittal detention power"

Glenn Grenwald, and a host of other civil libertarians are upset with Obama's maintenance of Bush's detainee policies. Obama even seems ready to expand them, arguing that president's have the power to detain people even after they have been acquitted:

Spencer Ackerman yesterday attended a Senate hearing at which the DOD's General Counsel, Jeh Johnson, testified. As Ackerman highlighted, Johnson actually said that even for those detainees to whom the Obama administration deigns to give a real trial in a real court, the President has the power to continue to imprison them indefinitely even if they are acquitted at their trial. About this assertion of "presidential post-acquittal detention power" -- an Orwellian term (and a Kafka-esque concept) that should send shivers down the spine of anyone who cares at all about the most basic liberties -- Ackerman wrote, with some understatement, that it "moved the Obama administration into new territory from a civil liberties perspective." Law professor Jonathan Turley was more blunt: "The Obama Administration continues its retention and expansion of abusive Bush policies — now clearly Obama policies on indefinite detention."

He goes on to accuse Obama of orchestrating show trials in order to pre-determine convictions of those he wants convicted. In the process he is violating centuries of established rules of due process:

Show trials are exactly what the Obama administration is planning. In its own twisted way, the Bush approach was actually more honest and transparent: they made no secret of their belief that the President could imprison anyone he wanted without any process at all. That's clearly the Obama view as well, but he's creating an elaborate, multi-layered, and purely discretionary "justice system" that accomplishes exactly the same thing while creating the false appearance that there is due process being accorded. And for those who -- to justify what Obama is doing -- make the not unreasonable point that Bush left Obama with a difficult quandary at Guantanamo, how will that excuse apply when these new detention powers are applied not only to existing Guantanamo detainees but to future (i.e., not-yet-abducted) detainees as well?

On a related note: we haven't heard much from Dick Cheney recently. Perhaps he thinks he made his point.

Cornyn Booed at Tea Parties

The story comes from the Chron.

National Identity and Redistribution

From The Monkey Cage comes an analysis of a newly published political science article arguing that high levels of national identity correlate with low levels of support for redistributive policies. This cuts against previous theories suggesting that the two reinforce each other. The more I identify with others, the more willing I am to support them with redistributive policies (welfare basically). The research suggests that this is not really supported by evidence:

Most people tend to assume that strong national identity and strong preferences for redistribution go hand-in-hand - the plausible intuition here is that we are more likely to give to our fellow citizens if we identify strongly with them. This intuition (I’ll get back to this in a little bit) underlies a significant chunk of political theory argument about the relationship between the nation-state and redistributive obligations. Shayo’s argument points in a very different direction - he argues that strong national identity goes together with high income inequality and low desire (among working class voters) for redistribution.

Why? The more similar someone is to other members of a group, the more likely she is to identify with the group, and the higher status the group is, the more likely an individual is to identify with it. This suggests that working class voters are less likely to identify with their class in situations of high inequality (being working class is less high status), and this has consequences for voting behaviour. When working class voters identify more strongly with their class, they are likely to push for redistribution (which will favor their class interests). When working class voters identify less with their class (perhaps because that class is ethnically heterogenous), and more with their nation, they are less likely to want redistribution. . . .

Cities and Civilization

I'm ripping the post below off from Andrew Sullivan's website. My 11 week 2301 class will begin discussing federalism, which includes an analysis of the role cities play in the federal mix. In a practical, though not legal sense, cities are the oldest governmental entity in the country. Beyond that:

A new paper in Science argues that density made civilization possible. Jonah Lehrer comments:

For the first time, humans lived in dense clusters, and occasionally interacted with other clusters, which allowed their fragile innovations to persist and propagate. The end result was a positive feedback loop of new ideas. While it's very nice to have some statistical evidence for this idea...it's worth pointing out that the density explanation isn't particularly new. In The Economy of Cities, Jane Jacobs forcefully argued against the "dogma of agricultural primacy," which assumed that farmers and agricultural innovations made civilization possible. Jacobs argued that the dogma was exactly backwards, and that it was the density of urbanesque clusters which generated the innovations that made farming possible. As Jacobs writes: "It was not agriculture then, for all its importance, that was the salient invention...Rather it was the fact of sustained, interdependent, creative city economies that made possible many new kinds of work." After all, you can't learn how to grow food until you've got a system for transmitting knowledge, which is why population density is so essential.

Robert McNamara Dies

The NYT story here.

The Health Insurance Lobby Gears Up

From the WaPo:

The nation's largest insurers, hospitals and medical groups have hired more than 350 former government staff members and retired members of Congress in hopes of influencing their old bosses and colleagues, according to an analysis of lobbying disclosures and other records.

The tactic is so widespread that three of every four major health-care firms have at least one former insider on their lobbying payrolls, according to The Washington Post's analysis.

Nearly half of the insiders previously worked for the key committees and lawmakers, including Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), debating whether to adopt a public insurance option opposed by major industry groups. At least 10 others have been members of Congress, such as former House majority leaders Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.) and Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.), both of whom represent a New Jersey pharmaceutical firm.

The hirings are part of a record-breaking influence campaign by the health-care industry, which is spending more than $1.4 million a day on lobbying in the current fight, according to disclosure records. And even in a city where lobbying is a part of life, the scale of the effort has drawn attention. For example, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) doubled its spending to nearly $7 million in the first quarter of 2009, followed by Pfizer, with more than $6 million.

It's bipartisan!

Storm Chasers

The LAT reports on efforts to regulate:

... the world of "storm chasers," traveling contractors and insurance adjusters who descend on natural catastrophes, offering to help victims maximize their claims and rebuild. Regulators, fraud investigators and victims' advocates allege that many inflate damage estimates, do unnecessary repair work and take exorbitant cuts from insurance settlements -- or skip town with all of the money.

"Every disaster has them," said Dave Stuart, president of a nonprofit that helps wildfire victims. "They're literally like vultures circling."

The Supreme Court Decides a Case. So What?

The Ricci case is unlikely to have an impact on Houston's Fire Department:

As with many U.S. Supreme Court rulings, the one issued last week in a reverse discrimination case brought by a group of Connecticut firefighters produced a slew of headlines but little clarity.

At first it seemed that a major victory had been achieved by the white employees of the New Haven Fire Department. The high court said it was wrong for their performances on a promotion test to be tossed out by city officials who were concerned that the test wasn’t fair, because none of their African-American firefighters were eligible for promotions after taking it.

Conservatives embraced the ruling. Liberals decried it. But lawyers who specialize in employment law are far from convinced there will be major impact anywhere. That includes the city of Houston, which is being sued by a handful of black firefighters who are complaining about the same sort of test.

“What the court did not like was that the city had set the rules and then, in the court’s view, changed them willy-nilly,” said longtime Houston employment attorney Joe Ahmad. “We don’t know what it really means.

No clarity, no impact. The Supreme Court makes a decision, but allows ways around it. Without separate powers of enforcement, the court's rulings have no impact other than perhaps a symbolic one. There was a similar story after Brown v. Board.

More Tea Parties

The second round of Tea Parties were held around the country on July 4. The Christian Science Monitor has a concise overview of the movement as it stands at the moment. The debate is now focused on how many parties were held and how many showed up. Not surprisingly, supporters claim large numbers while opponents argue the movement is running out of steam.

Movements are indeed difficult to sustain, but opposition to taxes and government in general have led to mass movements before, so we'll see how this progresses. The movement still needs some cohesive center, in my opinion, if it is going to survive. Perhaps a spokesperson. Sarah Palin is available.

And Franken Makes 60

From the NYT, some observations about the consequences of Dems having 60 senators:

With 60 votes (including those of two independents) now most likely aligned with the Democrats, the party could avoid filibusters.

But Mr. Franken swiftly made it clear that he did not view himself as the Democrats’ No. 60. “That’s not how I see it,” he said, adding that he was “going to be the second senator from the state of Minnesota, and that’s how I’m going to do this job.”

Though Republicans expressed disappointment at the outcome, they had in recent weeks become increasingly resigned to Mr. Franken joining the Senate.

On Tuesday, they joined Mr. Coleman in acknowledging defeat and immediately sought to raise expectations for Democrats.

“With their supermajority, the era of excuses and finger-pointing is now over,” said Senator John Cornyn of Texas, who heads the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Mr. Cornyn said it was “troubling to think about what they might now accomplish with 60 votes.”

But whether Democrats can consistently rely on 60 senators being present is in question. Two veteran Democrats, Senators Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia and Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, are ailing and have regularly been absent from the Senate. In addition, a handful of moderate to conservative Democrats have shown a willingness to break from the party, and even liberals will do so on some issues.

Democrats are known for being difficult to organize in some coherent manner, especially in the Senate. Conversely, as Republicans decrease in size, they become more cohesive and more disruptive. It will interesting to follow the dynamic between the respective parties.

The Supreme Court and Civil Rights

Here's more commentary on recent shifts in the Supreme Court and what impact it might have on civil rights policy:

There's a striking progression in the attacks on civil rights. In the early 1970s, affirmative action was widely considered to be a logical extension of civil rights principles: Even President Nixon—a man not known for his enlightened racial attitudes—supported it. But by the end of the decade, affirmative action was under attack as reverse discrimination. And now we see the next step in the march against civil rights with the part of federal civil rights law—Title VII—called "disparate impact" that prohibits employers from using promotional or hiring procedures that screen out minorities unless they can prove that the procedure is closely job-related.

Until this Monday, lawyers and judges thought of disparate impact law as a logical extension of the law against intentional discrimination: The premise of the discriminatory impact prohibition is that an employment practice that unnecessarily screens underrepresented groups from the work force is, in effect, just as discriminatory as a "whites only" sign.

read on...

Property Tax Revenues Decease

As housing prices decrease, tax assessments decrease as well. More property owners are challenging their tax assessments and succeeding given the declining economy. But this raises questions about the ability of local governments to collect the revenue necessary to provide essential services like police and fire protection, road and sewer maintenance, trash collection and the other housekeeping activities local governments perform.

The tax appeals and reassessments present a new budget nightmare for governments. In a survey conducted by the National Association of Counties, 76 percent of large counties said that falling property tax revenue was significantly affecting their budgets, said Jacqueline Byers, the association’s research director.

Officials in some states say their property tax revenue is falling for the first time since World War II.

The recession has already taken a significant toll on states’ budgets, as rising joblessness, a weak business climate and a drop in consumer demand have cut sharply into receipts from taxes on sales, personal income and business earnings.

The pain at the state level is trickling down to county and local governments. To compensate, about 10 percent of large counties are raising the tax rates associated with home values to minimize the revenue loss, the county association said.

Two consequences seem to follow from this, neither good for the still declining economy. As cities cut costs they will cut workers -- or the hours they work, which contributes to the worsening unemployment rate and the accompanying drain on services that comes with it. And as tax rates increase, money that could circulate in the local economy will instead go to local government.

But the dilemma is that if services are cut, the infrastructure that allows the local economy to function efficiently will crumble, which also contributes to an increasingly declining economy. Recessions are not fun.

For informational purposes, this paragraph does a great job of outlining one of the difficulties the American federal system has in establishing a coordinated strategy for dealing with the problem. It is not a coordinated system to begin with:

Property taxes are meted out by a disparate patchwork of cities, towns, counties, and school and fire districts, all with their own rules. Because tax formulas vary widely county to county, not every decrease in assessed values automatically lowers a household’s property taxes.

Environmental Policy and the Supreme Court

Something for my 2302 5-week students to think about as we focus on public policy this coming week. The NYT reports on the consequences of Supreme Court decisions on environmental policy. This provides context for the overview of the direction of Supreme Court decisions covered previsously:

The Supreme Court heard five environmental law cases in the term that ended Monday, and environmental groups lost every time. It was, said Richard J. Lazarus, a director of the Supreme Court Institute at Georgetown University Law Center, “the worst term ever” for environmental interests.

The court allowed Navy exercises using sonar that threatened whales off California. It limited the liability of companies partly responsible for toxic spills. It made it harder to challenge Forest Service regulations and easier to dump mining waste into an Alaskan lake. And it allowed the Environmental Protection Agency to use cost-benefit analysis to decide how much marine life may be killed by cooling structures at power plants.

Business groups expressed measured satisfaction with the decisions.

“The court does seem to be bringing more common sense back to environmental law,” Robin S. Conrad, a lawyer with the United States Chamber of Commerce, said at a recent news briefing.
In the past 40 years or so, ever since environmental law emerged as a separate field based on major statutes enacted in the 1970s, the Supreme Court has been reasonably receptive to cases brought by environmental groups.

That seems to have changed under the court of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

The Honduran Coup

Al Giodarno explains what coups do. They remove what he calls the five basic liberties:

1. The right to protest.
2. Freedom in one's home from unwarranted search, seizure and arrest.
3. Freedom of association.
4. Guarantees of rights of due process while under arrest.
5. Freedom of transit in the country.

Get In, Get Out, Leave Town.

Here's some background on the special session underway now in Austin.

Here's more:

- Toll-road bill faces tough fight in Legislature's special session
- Special Session Hope to Keep State Agencies Operating
- Special session stumbles out of the gate

More on the Direction of the Supreme Court

The NYT provides essentially the same analysis of the Supreme Court that the WaPo did below. The provide statistics (which they credit to ScotusBlog. ScotusBlog also weighs in on this trend as well as what they anticipate will come of the Sotomayor nomination. A non-event they are calling it.).

They highlight the tactical nature of John Roberts who they argue has positioned the court where they are now poised to make substantive changes to a variety of previous constitutional holdings.

By the way, the increasingly accepted term for this type of behavior is "minimialism."

I anticipate spending the bulk of Monday discussing these specific findings in my Monday 2302, and Tuesday 2301.

While the Elected Branches Move Left, the Appointed Branch Moves Right

A consequence of constitutional design. From WaPo:

For the Supreme Court, it was the year of living on the verge. On the verge of declaring the key provision of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional, but then stepping back. Looking hard at whether some protections of minorities amount to violations of the Constitution, then leaving the topic for another day. Appearing sympathetic to school officials for their decision to strip-search a 13-year-old student, but shielding them only from any liability for their actions.

The court's term avoided the blockbuster decisions that at one point seemed inevitable. But its path was clear: a patient and steady move to the right led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., one that is likely to continue even if President Obama is successful in adding Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the high court -- and perhaps two others like her.

Both my 2301 and 2302 students should read this, and we will discuss this in my lecture class. It not only touches on the constitutionally established interplay between the branches, but the style of the Chief Justice, and the likely future of the court.

Reverse Discrimination Ruling

From the NYT:

The Supreme Court ruled on Monday, in a case with enormous implications for workplaces across the country, that white firefighters in New Haven suffered unfair discrimination because of their race when the city scrapped the results of a promotional exam.

“The city’s action in discarding the tests violated Title VII,” the court held in a 5-to-4 decision, referring to a section of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The majority said the city’s fundamental arguments were “blatantly contradicted by the record.”

Monday’s decision in Ricci v. DeStefano, No. 07-1428, came on the last day of the court’s term and was one of the most closely watched discrimination cases in years. The ruling is sure to be closely studied by personnel departments and their lawyers for indications of how far employers can go, and under what circumstances, in considering race in decisions on hiring and promotion.

Expanding the 6th Amendment's Confrontation Clause

Another Supreme Court decision. From the NYT:

Crime laboratory reports may not be used against criminal defendants at trial unless the analysts responsible for creating them give testimony and subject themselves to cross-examination, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday in a 5-to-4 decision.

The ruling was an extension of a 2004 decision that breathed new life into the Sixth Amendment’s confrontation clause, which gives a criminal defendant the right “to be confronted with the witnesses against him.”

Four dissenting justices said that scientific evidence should be treated differently than, say, statements from witnesses to a crime. They warned that the decision would subject the nation’s criminal justice system to “a crushing burden” and that it means “guilty defendants will go free, on the most technical grounds.”

- Read the decision here.
- Background from Scotuswiki.

C Street

An interesting story from the Wapo on a unique residence for a handful of members of Congress.

Extra Credit Opportunity: Ning

I set up a Ning account a few months back, but gave it up because I though I was stretching the limits of what I should offer web-wise. Some lecture students have been wondering abut extra credit so I think I'll give it another shot.

Just so you know, Ning is a social network site, much like Facebook, but it allows for a network to be formed for a more limited groups of people--like students in my government classes. I've wanted to see if this would provide a convenient forum for back and forth exchanges, and I think it can, but it requires a lot of tlc.

If you'd like to give it a shot, click on the link on the right hand column and weigh in on an issue I post. Feel free to give me advice about what types of issues I should ask questions about. It's pretty user friendly so you should be able to figure it out.

Student Strip Search Unconstitutional

By an 8-1 vote. I'm surprised.

The decision.

Age Discrimination Upheld

The Supreme Court has, by a 5-4 vote, made it more dificult to prove age discrimination. The case is Gross v. FBL Financial Services, Inc (Scotuswiki, docket).

From civil rights.org:

The lawsuit was brought by Jack Gross, a longtime employee of FBL Financial Services, Inc., who was demoted at the age of 54 through what the employer called a restructuring. Gross argued his demotion was the result of his age and filed suit under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) of 1967, which prohibits employment discrimination against workers over the age of 40.

In a broad decision, the Court reversed a longstanding rule used by many federal appellate courts that provided for a two-step process in some age discrimination cases under the ADEA. Previously, the employee had to demonstrate that age was a motivating factor in the employer's decision, which then shifted the burden to the employer to prove that the action was based on grounds other than age. Now, the employee carries the full burden of showing that age was the determining factor in a demotion or layoff by an employer.

The Denver Post editorializes against the decisison and argues that the Age Discrimination in Employment Act needs to be strengthened:

As the workforce gets older, times get tougher and workers need to stay on the job longer to make ends meet, anti-bias protections are increasingly important.

Congress ought to revise federal employment law to ensure older workers have adequate avenues of redress when they are wrongly terminated.

The case also illustrates a point we make in 2301 when we discuss discrimination and the various levels of scrutiny applied to different types of discrimination. Again, from the Post:

The practical impact of the decision will be to create an unfair distinction between age discrimination cases and other types of discrimination cases based on gender, race and ethnicity.

"It reinforces the notion that age discrimination is somehow different and not as bad as other types of discrimination," Thomas Osborne, lawyer for the AARP Foundation, was quoted as saying in The National Law Journal.

The remedy for this situation is for Congress to amend the Age Discrimination in Employment Act so the burden of proof mirrors that in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, under which other discrimination cases are brought.

The Post's comment concludes by reminding us that the public policy process within the system of separated powers, is never ending. The decision, since it is based on the court's interpretation of statutory language, can be negated by clarifying that statutory language. This means revising the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967:

Support for such a revision is brewing, and we're glad to see that. Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., expressed dismay over the decision. He and others in Congress ought to muster support for an ADEA revision and pass it.

Lengthening lifespans and delayed retirement dates make it clear that our society will be facing new issues involving workers staying on the job longer.

It is patently unfair that older workers should have to shoulder a heavier burden than others in proving workplace discrimination.

The Presidency and The 24 Hour News Cycle

Given the attention given the office, presidents dominate the news cycle whether they want to or not. John Dickerson comments on how Obama handles this task:

At one point in the back-and-forth with reporters over Iran, the president said, "I know everybody here is on a 24-hour news cycle. I'm not. OK?" It was a good line. He has used a version of it in a previous press conference. But while the president doesn't like the demands of the news cycle, he knows just how to feed it. When outrage over AIG bonuses gripped the news cycle, he appeared before cameras to channel it. When Sonia Sotomayor's remarks about being a "wise Latina" caused controversy, Obama and his team knew it was better to say she misspoke than to keep arguing that she'd been taken out of context. During his campaign, Obama scrapped his opposition to wearing a flag pin for the same reasons. By modifying his position or habits a little, Obama feeds the news beast and the overheated controversy goes away.

In some ways the president is the 24-hour news cycle. He's everywhere—cable, sports channels, and late-night talk shows. He'll be on ABC tomorrow talking about health care. At the press conference he showed just how attuned he is to the rapacious news environment. He called on the Huffington Post's Nico Pitney, who has been following the Iran story closely, and asked him to relay one of the questions he'd gotten from one of the Iranian protesters.* The White House had called Pitney that morning to invite him over to ask the question, an act of stagecraft for which the previous president would have been excoriated by his critics.

....

For better or worse, this ability to adapt tends to determine the success or failure of presidencies. But while it allows presidents to adjust to the shifting political environment, it can raise questions regardign how firmly a president stands on certain issues. Are there areas where he will not budge. We'll see whether Obama falls into this trap.

Is Tobacco Advertisement Protected Speech

The NYT reports that the ACLU, among other groups, plans to challenge the recently passed restrictions on tobacco advertisement on First Amendment grounds (as Ron Paul suggested below):

The law’s ban on outdoor advertising within 1,000 feet of schools and playgrounds would effectively outlaw legal advertising in many cities, critics of the prohibition said. And restricting stores and many forms of print advertising to black-and-white text, as the law specifies, would interfere with legitimate communication to adults, tobacco companies and advertising groups said in letters to Congress and interviews over the last week.

The controversy, legal experts say, involves tension between the right of tobacco companies to communicate with adult smokers and the public interest in preventing young people from smoking.

Opponents of the new strictures, including the Association of National Advertisers and the American Civil Liberties Union, predict that federal courts will throw out the new marketing restrictions. They say, for example, a 2001 Supreme Court decision struck down a

Massachusetts rule that had imposed a similar ban on advertising within 1,000 feet of schools.
“Anybody looking at this in a fair way would say the effort here is not just to protect kids, which is a substantial interest of the country, but to make it virtually impossible to communicate with anybody,” Daniel L. Jaffe, executive vice president of the Association of National Advertisers, said in an interview Monday. “We think this creates very serious problems for the First Amendment.”

His group represents 340 companies spending more than $100 billion a year on marketing and ads.

Some take issue with the ACLU's taking part in this effort and have evidence that tobacco companies have become a leading contributor of the organization.

- Secret Documents Reveal A.C.L.U. Tobacco Industry Ties
- The ACLU's Tobacco Addiction - American Civil Liberties Union ...
- American Civil Liberties Union - SourceWatch

The Limits of Free Speech: Threating Federal Judges

Surprisingly enough, it is not protected speech.

Padilla v. Yoo: Made in America

Accused dirty bomber Jose Padilla's lawsuit against former Bush Administration official John Yoo can go forward, so says Bush appointee Judge Jeffery White. This creates the following scenario of checks and balances:

a conservative judge putting pressure on the Democrats in Washington to create some system of accountability for the Bush administration.

The judge has argued that private citizens do have the right to sue federal officials for abusive treatment, in this case torture.


Read on ...

Twitter Effect Oversold?

George Friedman is not jumping on the Twitter bandwagon. He argues that the revolution in Iraq appears to have stalled partly due to its support not branching out beyond the "twittering classes." Western commentators may have misread the level of support that existed on the ground because the only voices they were hearing were those who used the technology:

The global media, obsessively focused on the initial demonstrators — who were supporters of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s opponents — failed to notice that while large, the demonstrations primarily consisted of the same type of people demonstrating. Amid the breathless reporting on the demonstrations, reporters failed to notice that the uprising was not spreading to other classes and to other areas. In constantly interviewing English-speaking demonstrators, they failed to note just how many of the demonstrators spoke English and had smartphones. The media thus did not recognize these as the signs of a failing revolution.

Judicial Vacancies in Texas

Charles Kuffner updates us on a conflict between the Obama White House and our Texas Senators regarding two federal judicial vacancies in the state:

As we know, there are vacancies in the US Attorney's offices in the Southern and Western district offices in Texas, which will be filled by Presidential appointment. Normally, when the President is of one party and both of a given state's Senators are of the other party, "the primary role in recommending candidates for district court judgeships is assumed by officials in the state who are of the President's party." That's from a report last year by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service. Except that as Steve Benen noted, Texas' Republican Senators have refused to honor this practice, and instead have insisted on sending to Obama candidates who have been screened by the committee he and Hutchison have always used for making nominations -- a committee he admits is "heavily stacked with Republican lawyers." Because, you know, it's different when Democrats are in charge.

Read on ....

Voting Rights Act Not Overturned

From the NYT:

The Supreme Court on Monday left intact one of the signature legacies of the civil rights movement, the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The court, in an 8-to-1 decision, ducked the central question in a case that was the most closely watched of the term. Most election law specialists had expected the court to rule on whether a core provision of the law was constitutional, and many were betting the answer would be no.

The court instead ruled on a narrow statutory ground, saying the utility district in Austin, Tex., that had challenged the constitutionality of the law — along with other government entities around the nation — might be eligible to “bail out” from being covered by it. The district, which manages water and other utilities and has an elected board, had pressed the bailout argument along with its constitutional challenge, and its lawyer said at the argument in the case that it would be satisfied with a ruling in its favor on the narrower ground.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for the majority, acknowledged that the court’s approach stretched the statutory text, but he said the court should avoid deciding hard constitutional questions when it could.

“We are now a very different nation” than the one that first passed the Voting Rights Act, the chief justice said. “Whether conditions continue to justify such legislation is a difficult constitutional question we do not answer today.”

It is not unusual for the court to defer or avoid constitutional questions in cases that can be decided on narrower grounds. But almost all of the signs in this case, including Chief Justice Roberts’s own skeptical questioning at the argument, suggested that the court was steeling itself to make a major pronouncement about the role of race in American democracy. In opting to put off such a ruling, the justices nonetheless made a powerful statement. They took a hard look at the current historical moment and decided that it has not yet come fully into focus.

Scotusblog thinks the language of the decision suggests that it may yet overturn it at some point in the future.

- Wikipedia: Voting Rights Act.

Early List of Vetoed Legislation

Copied from Quorum Report:

Gov. Rick Perry vetoed 35 bills and resolutions, catering to his conservative wing with his veto of HB 130, the pre-K bill. He also tagged Rep. Todd Smith’s (R-Euless) bill that would have given a judge the discretion of not forcing someone to register as a sex offender if the only sin was underage consensual sex.

Also of note was Perry allowing HB 770 to become law without signature. The bill had become controversial after Rep. Wayne Christian (R-Center) attached language allowing he and 200 neighbors on the Bolivar Peninsula to rebuild their property following Hurricane Ike. Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson had argued that because of the erosion following Ike, rebuilding those properties would violate the Texas Open Beaches law. He had been urging Perry to veto HB 770.

Of the thirty-five vetoes, only seven were bills authored by Republicans.

To look at the Governor’s veto statements, click here.

The list of bills filed without signature and bills vetoed can be found here.

Kent Impeached

Checks and Balances in action.

Trial to follow in the Senate.

No Right to DNA Evidence

The Supreme Court ruled by a 5-4 margin that the due process clause cannot be interpreted to include DNA tests. In other words, a state does not deny the 14th Amendment's guarantee of the due process of the law if it does not allow an individual convicted of a crime to pay for his own DNA test to prove his innocence.

The case is District Attorney’s Office v. Osborne.

From Scotusblog:

Splitting 5-4, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that an individual whose criminal conviction has become final does not have a constitutional right to gain access to evidence so that it can be subjected to DNA testing to try to prove innocence. ....

Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., writing for the majority in District Attorney’s Office v. Osborne (08-6), noted that DNA testing provides “an unparalleled ability” to prove innocence or guilt, but its availability “cannot mean that every criminal conviction, or even every criminal conviction involving biological evidence, is suddenly in doubt.” The opinion is available here.

The task of writing rules to control access to DNA evidence “belongs primarily” to the legislature, the Chief Justice wrote. Pursuing a “freestanding and far-reaching constitutional right of access” to DNA evidence through a civil rights lawsuit, Roberts wrote, would “short-circuit” efforts now being made by the federal government and many states to develop tools on access to such evidence. “There is no reason to constitutionalize” access through the courts when elected officials are making “a prompt and considered” response to the DNA phenomenon, the opinion concluded.

I highlighted what I think is the most important part of the decision. The majority wants the judiciary to defer to the legislature in this matter and to also limit the range of cases that can argued on civil rights grounds. Most commentary focuses on the ideological division in the decision reflecting the continued division between liberals and conservatives on the role of the court, the rights of criminal defendants (or convicts in this case), and civil rights. Since the court's have limited their ability to compel the states to abide by an expansive definition of constitutional language, this would probably also qualify as a an example of judicial restraint.

Commentary:
- Analysis: Handing off the DNA issue
- Justices Reject Inmate Right to DNA Tests

Senator Cornyn and the RSCC

Our Senator John Cornyn has the task of coordinating, to the degree that is possible, Republican Senate elections in 2010. The Washington Times thinks he might have a tough time.

Obama Proposes New Financial Regulations ...

... along with a new agency to boot.

- From Bloomberg.
- From USA Today.

He claims that this is the most comprehensive redesign of financial rules since the New Deal, but here's an argument that his proposals are insufficient, and fall short of what FDR accomplished:

... in terms of the scope and breadth of the Obama plan — and more important, in terms of its overall effect on Wall Street’s modus operandi — it’s not even close to what Roosevelt accomplished during the Great Depression.

Rather, the Obama plan is little more than an attempt to stick some new regulatory fingers into a very leaky financial dam rather than rebuild the dam itself. Without question, the latter would be more difficult, more contentious and probably more expensive. But it would also have more lasting value.

Others will argue that this is further unwarranted federal intervention in the economy.

I want my students to note the number of interest groups mentioned in the each story.

Numbers Stations

creepy....

Dr. Paul on the Tobacco Bill

Our very own Ron Paul argues that the recently passed Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act violates the Constitution:

The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act will give sweeping new powers over tobacco to the FDA. It will require everyone engaged in manufacturing, preparing, compounding, or processing tobacco to register with the FDA and be subjected to FDA inspections, which is yet another violation of the Fourth Amendment. It violates the First Amendment by allowing the FDA to restrict tobacco advertising in multiple ways, as well as an outright ban on advertising any cigarettes as light, mild or low-tar. The FDA will have the power of pre-market reviews of all new tobacco products, and will impose new user fees, meaning taxes, on manufacturers and importers of tobacco products. It will even regulate the amount of nicotine in cigarettes.

We have a right to make bad decisions:

My objections to the bill are not an endorsement of tobacco. As a physician I understand the adverse health effects of this bad habit. And that is exactly how smoking should be treated – as a bad habit and a personal choice. The way to combat poor choices is through education and information. Other than ensuring that tobacco companies do not engage in force or fraud to market their products, the federal government needs to stay out of the health habits of free people. Regulations for children should be at the state level. Unfortunately, government is using its already overly intrusive financial and regulatory roles in healthcare to establish a justifiable interest in intervening in your personal lifestyle choices as well. We all need to anticipate the level of health freedom that will remain once government manages all health care in this country.

Regarding the first point, I'm reasonably sure that advocates would argue that the bill falls under the Commerce Clause, so he may not be convincing in his argument. I'm unfamiliar with the argument that an inspection is a search and seizure, but I'll do some homework on it. Tobacco advertisement has also been restricted for years so I'm also unsure about the strength of the First Amendment argument.

He raises an important point in the later paragraph about the role that government should play regarding lifestyle choices. One might argue however that certain lifestyle choices place costs on others and then become subject to governmental intervention. I also think that proponents of the law would question whether smoking is really a choice in the conventional sense. It's an addictive product, so by definition it is not a choice once one become addicted--but then again one could say that we can make a choice to become addicted (I'm wincing while I write that though). The law's backers might say that this is not about individuals and their choices, but firms and their efforts to promote the use of an addictive substances.

Does that make the law reasonable?

The Guardian Council

The oligarchs who control Iran.

A Christian Nation?

An ex-student sent me the following YouTube of Obama's recent speech in Cairo where he states (roughly) that we are no longer "just" a Christian nation, but are also a Jewish nation and a Muslim nation and a Buddhist nation and a nation of non-believers.

He wondered if this was blasphemous and whether it might weaken the country.

What would you tell him?

And what about this segment from the Treaty of Tripoli (1796):

Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

I'm confused.

Twitter Comes of Age?

Andrew Sullivan has several posts (here, here, here, and here, for a few) lauding the role twitter has played in not only providing information about the post-election violence in Iran but organizing protests.

Every new technology needs its opportunity to demonstrate its relevance. This seems to be twitter's moment.

Not An Election

Christopher Hitchens argues that Iran is a totalitarian state.

Elections and Legitimacy

Elections, as we argue in 2301, are devices which among other things connect the general population with the law, thereby lending it legitimacy. But if an election seems to have been fraudulent, the opposite can occur. This is especially true if the fraud seems obvious, and a large percentage of the population agrees. The governing system then loses legitimacy, society crumbles and either government does something to reestablish legitimacy or removes the pretense and just clamps down on the population.

This may help explain the results of the recent election in Iran. Its president was reelected by a comfortable margin, a result which seems improbable based on popular opinion. Fraud is widely suspected. Protests have erupted, and some suspect a coup is in the works.

Andrew Sullivan claims that this story is only breaking because the blogosphere is pushing it, not the mainstream media. Even Twitter helped.

Randy Weber Discusses the 81st Session.

From the Alvin Sun Advertiser.

Kent Impeachment Recommended

From the CQ:

A special House Judiciary panel Tuesday voted 10-0 to recommend impeachment of a Texas federal judge convicted of obstruction of justice earlier this year for lying about unwanted sexual contact with two of his female employees.

U.S. District Judge Samuel B. Kent, who has served in the Southern District of Texas since 1990, pleaded guilty in February to one count of obstruction of justice after admitting that he gave false testimony to federal investigators looking into the sexual misconduct complaints. He was sentenced to 33 months in prison in May and is set to begin his sentence on June 15.

He would join a very small list of judges.

The Ivy Court

Some things change, some things don't:

President Obama may have broken with history by nominating a Latina to the Supreme Court, but in another respect he followed the path of almost every president in modern times who has successfully placed a justice: he chose a nominee groomed in an Ivy League university.

...

In the history of the court, half of the 110 justices were undergraduates, graduate students or law students in the Ivy League; since 1950, the percentage is 70. From the beginning of the 20th century, every president who has seated a justice has picked at least one Ivy graduate. Four of the six justices on President Obama’s short list studied at Ivy League institutions, either as undergraduates or law students.

On Elected Judges

From the NYT:

In a closely watched case involving the confluence of justice, politics and money, the Supreme Court ruled for the first time that the Constitution can require an elected judge to step aside in a particular case based on campaign spending in state judicial races.

Read Capperton v. Massey.

What Expansions and Recessions Look Like

The Geography of Jobs.

Texas Monthly: Best and Worst Legislators

The full story from Texas Monthly.

Best: Sen. John Carona (R-Dallas), Sen. Robert Duncan (R-Lubbock), Craig Eiland (D-Galveston), Rob Eissler (R-The Woodlands), Brian McCall (R-Plano), John Otto (R-Dayton), Jim Pitts (R-Waxahachie), Senfronia Thompson (D-Houston), Sen. Kirk Watson (D-Austin), John Zerwas (R-Richmond)

Worst: Wayne Christian (R-Center), Yvonne Davis (D-Dallas), Jim Dunnam (D-Waco), Allen Fletcher (R-Tomball), Kino Flores (D-Palmview), Sen. Troy Fraser (R-Horseshoe Bay), Sen. Mario Gallegos Jr. (D-Houston), Richard Peña Raymond (D-Laredo), Debbie Riddle (R-Tomball), Sen. Tommy Williams (R-The Woodlands)

Honorable mention: Sen. Kip Averitt (R-Waco), Dan Branch (R-Dallas), Sen. Robert Deuell (R-Greenville), Ruth Jones McClendon (D-San Antonio), Mark Strama (D-Austin), Mike Villarreal (D-San Antonio)

Dishonorable mention: Betty Brown (R-Terrell), Norma Chávez (D-El Paso), Carl Isett (R-Lubbock), David Leibowitz (D-San Antonio), Tommy Merritt (R-Longview)

Furniture: Charles “Doc” Anderson (R-Waco), Fred Brown (R-College Station), Al Edwards (D-Houston), Joe Farias (D-San Antonio), Sen. Chris Harris (R-Arlington), Tim Kleinschmidt (R-Lexington), Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. (D-Brownsville), Solomon Ortiz Jr. (D-Corpus Christi), Inocente “Chente” Quintanilla (D-El Paso), Ralph Sheffield (R-Temple)

Rookie of the Year: Sen. Wendy Davis (D-Fort Worth)

The $1 Trillion 2009 Debt

A blast from the past (1999).

Here's a sentence we aren't likely to see written in a very long time:

. . . Democrats and Republicans squabble over what to do with the growing US budget surplus.

Projections aren't worth much are they?

Obama's Cairo Speech

Here's a transcript.

Health Care and the Blue Dog Coalition

One of the factors which makes the Democratic Party in Congress less cohesive than the Republican Party is a strong division between the liberal wing and the Blue Dog Coalition.

According to this CQ story, the Blue Dogs seems to be in a position to determine the direction that any health plan will go. They lie somewhere between the liberal Democrats who prefer a "public plan" and conservative Republicans who do not.

Democratic Party leaders must make the Blue Dogs happy if they are to pass anything:

It is not clear whether Republicans would support a public plan even with a host of restrictions — or if liberals would support a bill with the kind of restrictions demanded by the Blue Dogs.

Among their requirements: The public plan must negotiate payment rates with providers; participation in the plan must be voluntary for both providers and patients; premiums and copayments under the plan must pay for its operations; and the plan must follow the same actuarial standards and regulations required of private insurers.

The Blue Dogs claim to have 51 members, as opposed to 78 liberals.

- The official web site of the Blue Dog Coalition.
- Wikipedia: Blue Dog Coalition.
- Bluedogdems.com.

Public Opinion on Abortion

I posted previously on changing attitudes on abortion. Here's feedback on the possible impact of the recent killing of George Tiller on attitudes. The conclusion: not much.

Judges and Diversity

Jeffrey Toobin reminds us that diversity has always played a role in deciding who to appoint to the Supreme Court. At one point, it was regional diversity, now its gender and race. That's the only thing that's changed.

Did He or Didn't He?

Paul Krugman traces blame for the current economic crisis back to Ronald Reagan:

“This bill is the most important legislation for financial institutions in the last 50 years. It provides a long-term solution for troubled thrift institutions. ... All in all, I think we hit the jackpot.” So declared Ronald Reagan in 1982, as he signed the Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act.

He was, as it happened, wrong about solving the problems of the thrifts. On the contrary, the bill turned the modest-sized troubles of savings-and-loan institutions into an utter catastrophe. But he was right about the legislation’s significance. And as for that jackpot — well, it finally came more than 25 years later, in the form of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

Robert Sheer disagrees:

Ronald Reagan's signing off on legislation easing mortgage requirements back in 1982 pales in comparison to the damage wrought 15 years later by a cabal of powerful Democrats and Republicans who enabled the wave of newfangled financial gimmicks that resulted in the economic collapse.

Reagan didn't do it, but Clinton-era Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers, now a top economic adviser in the Obama White House, did. They, along with then-Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan and Republican congressional leaders James Leach and Phil Gramm, blocked any effective regulation of the over-the-counter derivatives that turned into the toxic assets now being paid for with tax dollars.

I don't know enough to weigh in on the merits of this issue, but I wonder whether Krugman's comments indicate a change in how Reagan's legacy is treated. So far there does not seem to be much of an effort to pin the policies he pushed -- loose credit, lower taxes, fewer regulations -- to have marked the turning point leading to the sizable debt levels, both public and private, that we have now. Perhaps liberals will start that offensive now, in much the same way that conservatives attempted to reshape how FDR and the New Deal were viewed.

Texas Legislature Wrap Ups

Here are a few links summarizing the 81st Leg's regular session:

- The Waco Tribune bemoans lost opportunities: Editorial: Legislature's sorry conclusion; or is it over?

- The Dallas Morning News reports that key departments will stay open despite the fact that sunset legislation was not passed: GOP leaders vow to keep key agencies open

- The Chronicle tells us that Governor Perry considers the session a success: Perry declares session victory

- The Austin American Statesman reports that Perry is not anxious to call a special session to deal with unfinished business: Perry not calling an immediate special session, if any, but the Forth Worth Star Telegram tells u she might have to: Perry blasts senators who let bill die, says a special session may ...

- Burnt Orange Report Lists what it considers hits and misses: A Session of Missed Opportunities

- The Tribune blames failures to act on Voter ID: Voter ID a Long, Slow Burn for Legislature

- The Dallas Morning News speculates that Kay Bailey Hutchison may be '09 session's big winner

Mini Three Week Study Guide Questions

Mini Three students go here for the study guide questions for the final exam. Look on the bottom.

I'll give you the specifics tomorrow.