Category Archives: regulation

Freedom, Competition, and Education

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It seems that Georgia wants to improve its educational system, but those wedded to the status quo like the way things are and are trying to block the improvement.

Under current law, local school boards have veto authority over whether charter schools could be licensed in their districts.  That’s like letting existing neighborhood grocery stores decide whether or not a new grocer could set up business in their neighborhood.  Predictably, the school boards routinely rejected charter school applications.  In response, the state created the Georgia Charter Schools Commission, and that body began approving charter schools over the local boards’ objections.  The state’s Supreme Court ruled that illegal, and in turn, the state legislature now is debating an amendment to the state’s Constitution that would allow the state to create its own K-12 system, parallel to the local systems, and using the same pool of Georgia taxpayer funds that the public school systems use.  This will be, essentially, the GCSC process written into the state’s constitution, if the amendment gets through the legislature and onto the November ballot, and then is voted up by the Georgia voters.

The Professional Association of Georgia Educators objects to this.  Tim Callahan, PAGE’s Director of PR, Membership & Publications, had this to say:

The Georgia Constitution says local boards control where local dollars go, so if a charter school only gets state approval and not local approval, no way can they receive local funds.  They can only receive state funds.  The people who are putting this constitutional amendment on the ballot are trying to do that in our Senate right now—are really trying to do a run-around the Supreme Court ruling.

Let me see if I understand this argument: a constitutional amendment, which by its nature addresses the state Supreme Court’s concerns, is a run-around of the State Supreme Court.  Have I about got his argument surrounded?  How, exactly, does this represent a run-around?

State Congressman Ed Lindsey (R, ATL) offers this response:

Charter schools are part of an overall tool in the tool box for education reform.  It, along with the myriad of other programs, is extremely important in terms of giving parents and students a greater choice in what is the best education for a particular child, and it encourages education achievement and success along the way.  It creates innovation.

It’s come down to this, as Lindsey also points out:

In the education reform battle, often times things boil down to a turf battle, and that’s what we have here.  We have some local school systems that are worried that by virtue of having state charter schools that some of their turf is getting interfered.  But it’s about the children and the choice.  It’s a control issue, and it always has been.

Competition is an excellent means of improving the quality of the children’s education.  One effect of competition is a more efficient allocation of taxpayer money, because if schools aren’t producing quality students, they don’t need to continue collecting that money.  Certainly, it’s in our interest nationally, and in Georgia’s interest and in the interest of the local communities, to have an education system that produces well-educated students capable of critical reasoning, but that interest mandates no particular structure to the system.  Competition will spur the necessary improvements—with a beneficial side effect of that improved funds allocation.  What is there to fear?

A Ruling on the 2nd Amendment

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US District Judge Benson Everett Legg (Maryland District), in a Monday ruling has said that Maryland residents are not required, as a Marayland had had it, to convince authorities that they have a “good and substantial reason” to own a handgun.

Judge Legg wrote, among other things,

…the Court finds that the right to bear arms is not limited to the home. The signposts left by recent Supreme Court and Fourth Circuit case law all point to the conclusion that Woollard‘s ―claim to self-defense—asserted by him as a law-abiding citizen…—does implicate the Second Amendment, albeit subject to lawful limitations.

He went on [emphasis mine]:

A law that burdens the exercise of an enumerated constitutional right by simply making that right more difficult to exercise cannot be considered “reasonably adapted” to a government interest, no matter how substantial that interest may be.  Maryland‘s goal of “minimizing the proliferation of handguns among those who do not have a demonstrated need for them,”…is not a permissible method of preventing crime or ensuring public safety; it burdens the right too broadly.  Those who drafted and ratified the Second Amendment surely knew that the right they were enshrining carried a risk of misuse, and states have considerable latitude to channel the exercise of the right in ways that will minimize that risk.  States may not, however, seek to reduce the danger by means of widespread curtailment of the right itself.  “[E]ven the most legitimate goal may not be advanced in a constitutionally impermissible manner.”

At bottom, this case rests on a simple proposition: If the Government wishes to burden a right guaranteed by the Constitution, it may do so provided that it can show a satisfactory justification and a sufficiently adapted method.  The showing, however, is always the Government‘s to make.  A citizen may not be required to offer a “good and substantial reason” why he should be permitted to exercise his rights.  The right‘s existence is all the reason he needs.

Maryland’s Assistant Attorney General, Matthew Fader, says he’ll appeal, saying “we” disagree, and taking note of the “very important implications of the ruling for public safety.”  He’s wrong, though, on two counts: in the first place, the public safety is maximized by hewing to the Constitution, not by deviating from it.  In the second place, he apparently wasn’t paying attention to the Legg’s ruling:

States may not, however, seek to reduce the danger [of misuse] by means of widespread curtailment of the right itself.

Judge Legg has the right of it.

Qualified Opinions

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Do we allow those around here?  Even Massachusetts may be coming around.  Governor Duvall Patrick (D, MA) is looking at his state’s business regulations with a view to reducing their footprint on…business.  The Wall Street Journal is reporting that, among other things, he’s going to insist on what amounts to a business impact statement before a new regulation can go into effect.  The regulator proposing a new rule would be required to answer such questions as

Is this likely to encourage or deter the formation of business?

which is standard pap, but then Duvall cuts to the chase with a follow-up:

Who did you consult from the small business community to come to this conclusion?

Hmm….

The governor’s look includes rescission/tweaking of such regulations as a requirement that a hair salon owner selling her shop to an employee must first close down while the state processes associated paperwork, and a requirement that funeral directors must hire full-time apprentices only; part-timers are barred.  He’s also looking at an additional roughly 800 regulations across 60 state agencies.

Time will tell whether this is a serious look, or primarily politically useful tweaks, but it’s a promising start.

There is reason for skepticism.  Last year, President Obama made a big deal about the regulatory review process he was initiating.  That, though, has turned out to be a sham, consisting of minor changes to minor regulations without addressing his overall regulatory environment, which has been entirely anti-business.

This Is What A Progressive Government Stands For

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Our illustrious Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner had this to say in a recent The Wall Street Journal op-ed about the role of government in private decision making.  In setting up his meme, he described Bear Stearns’ risky investments and our own risky mortgage borrowing behavior.

Neither the Fed, nor any other federal agency, had the necessary comprehensive authority over investment firms…or the government-sponsored mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Regulators did not have the authority they needed to oversee and impose prudent limits…. And they had no authority to put these firms, or bank holding companies, through a managed bankruptcy.…

Household debt rose to an alarming 130% of income, with a huge portion of those loans originated with little to no supervision and poor consumer protections.

Hmm….  He decries the lack of government control over our businesses and our personal borrowing.  He decries government’s inability to bypass the bankruptcy court system (except for two dinosaur car companies, whose government regulation he doesn’t mention).

He insists that  Government knows better the risks, government knows better the decisions that ought to be made.  His solution, thus, is increased intrusive government management of our decisions and our businesses.  As to the costs of this, he dismisses them:

Are the costs of reform too high? Certainly not relative to the costs of another financial crisis. Credit is relatively inexpensive….

He omits to add that cheap credit is due entirely to artificially suppressed Federal Reserve Bank rates—through which the Federal government is imposing an extreme inflationary risk on our economy.  He omits to acknowledge that the financial institutions are under resumed government pressure to quit sitting on cash and to lend—by lowering credit standards again—another government-imposed risk to our economy.

Are these reforms complex? No more complex than the problems they are designed to solve.  And, it should be noted, most of the length and complexity in the rules is the result of the care required to target safeguards where they are needed, not where they would have a damaging effect.

He chooses complexify a fundamentally simple problem: let the experts in business and business risk—businessmen themselves, exercise their own judgment, and suffer the consequences of bankruptcy if their judgment is faulty—or if they have bad luck.  He doesn’t mention the fact that the same government that wants to insert its own lending judgment in the place of our own and our business enterprises is the same government that is still owed tens of billions of dollars by those two American car companies that can never be paid back—and that one of those dinosaurs isn’t even American anymore; it’s Italian.  He also complexifies what is truly straightforward: get government out of the way, streamline regulations, and keep only those that are useful, with no overlap or conflicts.  He also demonstrates a lack of understanding of the problem: if the targets of the safeguards need “length and complexity” to address, it’s because the regulators don’t understand the targets well enough to articulate them simply and clearly, so that, if actually needed, they can be “targeted.”  The very complexity is another government-created risk.

Is there some risk that these reforms will go too far with unintended consequences? That depends on the quality of judgment of regulators in the coming months as they flesh out the remaining reforms.

Indeed.  That’s another enormous risk imposed by a Know Better government.  Look for instance, at the performance of the NLRB and the EPA, two example regulatory agencies devoid of objective judgment.  These are Progressive regulators, but there’s no reason to believe that “conservative” regulators wouldn’t wind up just as abusive, just as lacking in judgment, albeit in another direction.  The problem here is the existence of the regulators, not their political agendas.  Today’s problem, though, is compounded by so many of the regulators being subject to no oversight.

And then there’s our health.  Over in the legislative branch, Nancy Pelosi called the just-defeated Blunt Amendment a

“devastating legislation” and “the latest ploy in the Republican agenda of disrespecting the health of American women.” Planned Parenthood claimed the “dangerous proposal” would have allowed “your boss”—yes, yours—to decide “which prescriptions you can get filled and which medical procedures you can have,” including cancer screening, maternity care and AIDS medications.

Of course, it was nothing of the sort.  It was simply an effort to restore choice to women’s (and men’s) health decisions.  Yet, as the WSJ points out,

The fact that Democrats don’t dare to accurately describe their own positions, or the regulations that they want to foist on everyone else, shows how extreme those positions and regulations really are.

 

This is, then, what the Progressive government stands for.  A big, intrusive Federal government making business decisions for Americans and our businesses and deciding our health issues for us.  All, of course, with the best of intentions: to protect us from ourselves, and to protect us from our foolish decisions and their outcomes.  But at what cost?

At the cost of our freedom to make stupid decisions, our freedom to make decisions with which our governmental Betters might disagree, and our freedom to profit from risky decisions, or safe ones, of our choosing and not of our Betters’.  At the cost of our freedom to decide for ourselves what our health care might—or might not—entail..

At the cost of our ability to make any of our own choices.  At the cost of honoring our responsibilities ourselves, rather than having them surrendered to government to handle for us.

Regulations Impacting Free Speech

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Now we see this from the New Jersey Law Journal [emphasis added]:

As corporate money continues its steady flow through the post-Citizens United world of U.S. elections, general counsel may soon have a new disclosure item to worry about. Last Friday, commissioner Luis Aguilar of the Securities and Exchange Commission called for the agency to consider a new rule requiring public companies to disclose all political spending. Shareholder proxy proposals seeking disclosure of corporate political donations are at a new high this year, according to the National Association of Corporate Directors. Aguilar says shareholder pressure is working, because nearly 60 percent of the S&P 100 companies had political disclosure policies in place as of December 31, compared with only a handful seven years earlier.

Never mind that, if shareholder pressure is working, a Government rule controlling free speech in this arena is plainly unwarranted.  This is just another cynical Progressive administration attempt to regulate free speech.