Category Archives: regulation

Bureaucratic Misbehavior

Posted on by
Reply

Bipartisan legislation…would prevent federal employees from receiving bonuses if they have been disciplined for tax and conduct issues.

Senators Kelly Ayotte (R, NH) and Claire McCaskill (D, MO) are sponsoring the bill inspired by a recent government report describing how the Internal Revenue Service paid more than $2.8 million in bonuses to employees with disciplinary problems.

“Federal employees who have disciplinary problems or who haven’t paid their taxes shouldn’t be getting bonuses,” Ayotte said in a statement. “Taxpayers in New Hampshire and across the nation were alarmed by recent reports of IRS employees being awarded bonuses that they shouldn’t have received.”

McCaskill added

The notion that taxpayer dollars would be used to pay cash bonuses to employees who’ve engaged in conduct that could get them fired or sent to jail is outrageous—and our bill would put an end to it.

What’s even more outrageous, though, is that “employees who’ve engaged in conduct that could get them fired or sent to jail” weren’t fired or prosecuted. As dismaying as that is outrageous is that McCaskill doesn’t even see that: she’s happy to have them on the payroll and unprosecuted, just denied bonuses.

To all of which I say, why not make the relevant bosses hold their people accountable themselves—because that’s the right thing to do? If those “supervisors” can’t or won’t perform, fire them and get supervisors who will.

Moreover, the tax scofflaws should be fired for cause. Why aren’t they? Oh, wait—public service unions. Those with a history of disciplinary problems (as opposed to one or two incidents) should be fired for cause. Why aren’t they? Oh, wait—public service unions. Their discipline problems should be listed as an, if not the, explicit reason for their getting no bonus for the period. Why aren’t they? Oh, wait—public service unions.

Plainly, we need to deal with the public service unions, too.

It shouldn’t have to come to this. The bureaucrats, including the appointed officials at the top, should have more moral backbone than this, even if it means crossing the unions. It’s crap like this, though, that contributes excuses for government to grow.

The whole viper’s nest needs to be cleaned out, a 100% turn-over, from the top down.

Yet Another Thought on Social Security

Posted on by
Reply

James Pethokoukis, writing for AEIdeas, had one, and I have some thoughts on his thought.

Pethokoukis first:

To counter the anti-growth impact [of Americans’ of increasing lifespan and falling birthrates] you would need (a) greater labor-force participation, (b) higher birthrates, (c) greater innovation so each worker is more productive.

To which I add, (d) higher immigration rates with better assimilation into American society. We need more folks, with their fresh ideas, their initiative, their drive, their (conservative) family values and sense of responsibility, all of which are amply demonstrated by the lengths to which they go to get here.

Second [citing colleague Andrew G Biggs, who was writing in National Affairs], “Social Security’s government-provided benefits would be transformed into a flat universal benefit mean to improve social-insurance protections for low-income Americans.”

The short question is how to handle the erosive effects of inflation. That’s only partially, and hopefully, addressed by Biggs’ view that this would grow over time with wages. But there’s a larger problem, it’s in Biggs’ article, and it’s one that Pethokoukis missed.

The two parts of Biggs’ solution are these. First, enroll all workers in an employer-sponsored 401(k)/403(b) type device, with the employees required to contribute, say 1.5% of their pay and employers required to match that dollar for dollar. Second,

Social Security’s government-provided benefits would be transformed into a flat universal benefit to improve social-insurance protections for low-income Americans. … Each American reaching the normal retirement age would receive a benefit set at the poverty threshold for individuals over age 65….

The larger problem involves both of these, and both are solved by privatizing Social Security and making each person’s payments go into a retirement account for the payer’s future retirement rather than for strangers’ current retirement (they’re not even specifically for the payer’s parents’ current retirement).

We’re used to paying 6.2% of our payroll tax into social security. Pay those 6.2% instead into a retirement plan (401(k)/403(b), Traditional or Roth IRA, etc) whose proceeds are for the sole benefit of the payer, and which accounts are under the sole control of the payer, for his own future retirement. Also, remove the income and contribution caps. So what if the better off can pay in more in than can the less well off? Those larger payments in no way hurt the less well off, and the increased consumption available to those better off is good for the economy—and everyone else. Next, free the employer from the matching payroll tax altogether. The employer will benefit from that reduction in labor cost and can use the money to make the business more competitive—including matching employee retirement contributions as a competitive device—which will be good for hiring.

This makes each worker responsible for his future welfare, and he’ll do a better job of taking care of that than the government can, as demonstrated by Social Security’s current fiscal straits. It also eliminates the need for Biggs’ flat benefit for the less well off. Their own retirement accounts, allowed to accrue for their future benefit instead of being paid out immediately as Social Security does now, and at a faster rate than Biggs’ alternative, does the deed.

A New McCarthy Era

Posted on by
Reply

[Gina “Joe”] McCarthy told an audience at the National Academy of Sciences on Monday morning the agency will go after a “small but vocal group of critics” who are arguing the EPA is using “secret science” to push costly clean air regulations.

Because we can’t have all this dissent. It gets in the way of our Agenda. It’s unseemly. McCarthy claimed,

Those critics conjure up claims of EPA secret science—but it’s not really about EPA science or secrets. It’s about challenging the credibility of world renowned scientists and institutions like Harvard University and the American Cancer Society.

No, Madam, it’s about challenging their conclusions and methodology—which is what science, real science, honest science, does.

And

It’s about claiming that research is secret if researchers protect confidential personal health data from those who are not qualified to analyze it—and won’t agree to protect it. If EPA is being accused of secret science because we rely on real scientists to conduct research, and independent scientists to peer review it, and scientists who’ve spent a lifetime studying the science to reproduce it—then so be it.

This is patently false—no one has asked for the confidential personal data, which are metadata, anyway, and not the raw data. No, Madam, only those raw data, data the scientists used to reach their conclusion are being sought.

And that peer review bit? On what basis do you ignore the peer reviews that dispute the conclusions of your chosen scientists? On what basis do you ignore the efforts of these…scientists…to suppress dissenting papers?

Relatedly, even, arguendo, were confidential personal data called for, the Federal government has procedures in place for safeguarding them, even while briefing members of Congress in detail about them. The security agencies, the NSA, CIA, etc are well experienced, with sound procedures in place, in doing this. McCarthy knows this; her demurral here is just another cynical red herring.

And there’s this:

McCarthy promised she would make such data publicly available during her confirmation process last year. Now her refusal to cough up the data has angered Republicans.

This is another McCarthy era tactic—just make stuff up, then refuse to follow through when it becomes inconvenient to do so.

Finally,

“Those critics are playing a dangerous game by discrediting the sound science our families and our businesses depend on every day,” McCarthy said. “You can’t just claim the science isn’t real when it doesn’t align well with your political or financial interests.”

Nor can you claim it is real just because it aligns well with your political or financial interests, Madam.

“Not Private, Not Protected”

Posted on by
Reply

A brief comment, just for clarification; although the point being clarified isn’t trivial.

Colorado has a bill wending its way through the state legislature that would tighten restrictions on government access to an individual’s private information. The bill would refer

a question to voters in November asking whether law enforcement should get warrants to search electronic data, such as phone and email records, or personal data stored in a cloud. If approved by lawmakers and voters, the requirement would be added to the state constitution.

Senate President Morgan Carroll (D), who supports the bill/amendment had this to say about the matter:

I think a lot of people weren’t necessarily aware of how much their information may actually be not private, not protected.

No. Carroll’s heart is in the right place, but he misunderstands the crucial thing. Private and protected are not the same thing. It’s often (usually) necessary to protect private things, like our electronic data, but a lack of protection in no way eliminates the essential privacy of the thing. To give up privacy, a separate act is necessary: the thing must explicitly and affirmatively be placed into a public venue.

Even the act of explicitly and affirmatively placing the thing into the hands of a third party does not cancel the essential privacy of the thing: we expect that third party to take sufficient measures to protect, not just the thing itself, but its privacy also.

Bigotry in the Supreme Court

Posted on by
Reply

…not of the Supreme Court. I writing now about the Court’s ruling in the Michigan affirmative action case (Schuette v BAMN) concerning the state’s “decision to end affirmative action at its public universities.”

The Court ruled 6-2 to uphold Michigan’s decision, holding essentially, that such a choice should be left to the States’ citizenry and not determined by the court system.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the Court (mostly—there were a number of separate concurring opinions), expanded on that:

The electorate’s instruction to governmental entities not to embark upon the course of race-defined and race-based preferences was adopted, we must assume, because the voters deemed a preference system to be unwise on account of what voters may deem its latent potential to become itself a source of the very resentments and hostilities based on race that this nation seeks to put behind it.

Justice Elena Kagan recused, Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg joined the dissent.

Sadly, Sotomayor’s dissent was fundamentally racist.[1] She insisted that “race matters.” And

The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to speak openly and candidly on the subject of race, and to apply the Constitution with eyes open to the unfortunate effects of centuries of racial discrimination.

Indeed. But the Constitution, which must be applied “with eyes open to the unfortunate effects of centuries of racial discrimination,” must be applied as it is written—especially because, in the present context, the Constitution is color—and gender, come to that—blind, and explicitly so under the 14th Amendment. That means that there cannot be anything other than equal treatment under law; in particular, there cannot be special treatment for some groups, and there cannot be special treatment for some groups at the expense of other groups.

Applying special treatment, as Sotomayor demands because of those centuries of racial discrimination, is only to maintain that racial discrimination for centuries more.

She attempted to offer alternatives to citizens speaking their voice:

In the wake of Grutter, some voters in Michigan set out to eliminate the use of race-sensitive admissions policies. Those voters were of course free to pursue this end in any number of ways. For example, they could have persuaded existing board members to change their minds through individual or grassroots lobbying efforts, or through gen­eral public awareness campaigns. Or they could have mobilized efforts to vote uncooperative board members out of office, replacing them with members who would share their desire to abolish race-sensitive admissions policies.

This, of course, is just what the voters of Michigan did—only they did it state-wide, rather than piecemeal. There is no difference between the two, except in the mind of Sotomayor.

She buried this in a footnote:

Although the term “affirmative action” is commonly used to describe colleges’ and universities’ use of race in crafting admissions policies, I instead use the term “race-sensitive admissions policies.”

Which is nothing but the racism of preferential treatment based on race. Made blatant by her preferred term of reference.

Sotomayor concluded her dissent with this:

For members of historically marginalized groups, which rely on the federal courts to protect their constitutional rights, the decision can hardly bolster hope for a vision of democracy that preserves for all the right to participate meaningfully and equally in self-government.

Because, of course, we cannot demarginalize those groups by treating them like adults and equals, we can only demarginalize them by perpetuating their status as…dependents…through continuing to single them out for special treatment.

I respectfully dissent from Sotomayor’s dissent.

 

[1] I of course do not mean to suggest that Justice Sotomayor wrote with anything like invidious intent. But the dissent at issue in this case seeks to change the rules of the political process and of the 14th Amendment to the disadvantage of members of our society disfavored by government.

Update: Added Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s first name to the first time she’s mentioned in the post.  It’s my usual habit; I missed it this time.