Cato Daily Dispatch for November 14, 2005
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Alito Hesitant to Reverse Abortion RulingMedicare Drug Program: Sign Up Begins Tomorrow
World Body Wants World Wide Web
Alito Hesitant to Reverse Abortion Ruling
"Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. has signaled he would be highly reluctant to overturn long-standing precedents such as the 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion rights ruling, a move that has helped to silence some of his critics and may resolve a key problem early in the Senate confirmation process," reports the Washington Post.
In "The Key Issue for the Court Isn't Abortion," Cato's president Edward Crane writes: "For too long conservatives who understand the Enumerated Powers doctrine and the role the Constitution plays in limiting the power of government have allowed the religious right and Planned Parenthood to control the debate over the future of the judiciary in America. The litmus test for any judge must always be his or her view on Roe v. Wade, as though abortion and abortion alone should determine who sits on the federal bench.
"Now, abortion is a serious issue -- one in which I've always believed neither side gave due credit to the valid arguments of the other. But the fact that the abortion debate so controls the debate over judicial philosophy is unfortunate. There are more important issues out there, such as federalism and private property rights, the cornerstones of our liberty."
Medicare Drug Program: Sign Up Begins Tomorrow
"After all the hype and the hoopla, Tuesday's the day when Medicare recipients can finally begin picking a plan and signing up for the government's new prescription drug coverage that kicks in as soon as January," according to the Detroit Free Press. "This is the most significant addition to Medicare in 40 years. It's the first time Medicare -- whose health insurance program covers 42 million seniors and disabled people -- has offered an outpatient prescription drug benefit."
In "Eight Reasons to Delay the Imprudent Drug Program," Michael Cannon, Cato's director of health policy studies, writes: "We can't afford [the program]. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the federal government is looking at deficits in excess of $300 billion for the foreseeable future. The budget resolutions working their way through Congress would save at most $50 billion, which would not noticeably change the five-year growth in the national debt ($1.6 trillion). By contrast, delaying implementation of the full Medicare drug program would save an estimated $84 billion in two years."
Cannon also argues that the drug program is poorly targeted. "Many of the program's subsidies will go to those who are not exactly needy -- to wealthy as well as poor seniors. According to the CBO, three-fourths of senior citizens already have drug coverage. Millions of those seniors will move into the Medicare drug program, where taxpayers will pay bills that seniors and employers are already paying themselves."
World Body Wants World Wide Web
"The United States is headed for a showdown with much of the rest of the world over control of the Internet, but few expect a consensus to emerge from a U.N. summit in Tunisia this week," Reuters reports. "But the United States, which gave birth to the Internet, maintains control of the system that matches easy-to-remember domain names with numerical addresses that computers can understand. That worries countries like Brazil and Iran, which have pushed to transfer control to the United Nations or some other international body."
In "The World Wide Web (of Bureaucrats?)," Clyde Wayne Crews, a Cato adjunct scholar, and Adam Thierer, the former director of Cato's telecommunications studies, favor the non-regulatory approach to this problem. They write, "[B]ut where laissez-faire is not an option, the second-best solution is that the legal standards governing Web content should be those of the 'country of origin.' Ideally, governments should assert authority only over citizens physically within its geographic borders. This would protect sovereignty and the principle of 'consent of the governed' online. It would also give companies and consumers a 'release valve' or escape mechanism to avoid jurisdictions that stifle online commerce or expression.
"The Internet helps overcome artificial restrictions on trade and communications formerly imposed by oppressive or meddlesome governments. Allowing these governments to reassert control through a U.N. backdoor would be a disaster."
Greg Garner, editor, ggarner@cato.org