Cato Daily Dispatch for November 30, 2001
Social Security Panel Studies OptionsDNC Denied Soft Money Exemption
Congress Ready To Cut Bush Drug War Program
Social Security Panel Studies Options
A White House commission is preparing to propose changes to the nation's retirement system that will go significantly further in transforming Social Security than President Bush's campaign plan to allow workers to invest some of their payroll taxes in the stock market, according to The Washington Post.
After a half-year of work, the commission yesterday agreed on broad contours of three plans to redesign Social Security, relying on private retirement accounts and an array of other strategies to keep the country's largest entitlement program from running out of money.
Michael Tanner, director of the Cato Institute's Project on Social Security Privatization, was at the commission meeting yesterday and had the following comments:
"The commission's examples clearly show that individual accounts would lead to higher retirement benefits than can be sustained under the current system. This is extremely good news to today's workers, especially low income and minority workers.
"The commission has now produced three viable options for reform. It is time for critics of individual accounts to tell us their alternatives."
DNC Denied Soft Money Exemption
The Democratic National Committee yesterday failed to win a "soft money" spending rule waiver that it had sought to compensate for its cancellation of fundraisers after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to The Washington Post.
The DNC wanted the Federal Election Commission to give it more time to cover operating expenses such as rent using soft-money campaign contributions.
The commission rejected the request in a 3 to 3 vote. The three Democratic commissioners voted to approve it; the three Republicans voted no.
Soft money can be donated in unlimited amounts, but there are limits on how party committees such as the DNC may spend it.
In "Soft Money Should Remain Free of Government Regulations," Director of the Center for Representative Government John Samples argues that soft money helps American democracy.
A special Web site dedicated to analysis of the role money plays in politics and the constitutional issues involved in campaign finance is available at www.cato.org/campaignfinance. It provides links to studies, testimony and op-eds by Cato scholars, and transcripts from Cato forums that tackle issues ranging from corruption to soft money.
Congress Ready To Cut Bush Drug War Program
Congress is ready to cut more than $100 million from the Bush administration's request for counter-narcotics programs in the Andes, according to the Associated Press.
Opponents of President Bush's $731-million request cited problems with the programs including human rights abuses by soldiers, fear of deepening U.S. involvement in South American jungles and skepticism over the programs' effectiveness.
In "Declaring an Armistice in the International Drug War," Vice President for Defense and Foreign Policy Studies Ted Galen Carpenter demanded an armistice to the failed international drug war that has hurt all sides of the conflict. In "Time to End the Drug War," Financial Services Analyst Jacobo Rodriguez explains that "efforts to eradicate crops and interdiction of traffic -- that is, efforts to reduce the supply of drugs -- put only a small dent in the profit margins of traffickers."
Earlier this year, the Cato Institute hosted "Plan Colombia: Should We Escalate the War on Drugs?" featuring Prof. Russell Crandall of Davidson College and Amb. James F. Mack of the State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics & Law Enforcement Affairs. The forum can be viewed online.