Cato Daily Dispatch for December 5, 2005
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Government Not Prepared for Another 9/11High Court to Rule on Military Recruiters
Automakers Ask Capitol Hill for Bailouts
Government Not Prepared for Another 9/11
"The former Sept. 11 commission is giving Congress and the White House poor marks on protecting the U.S. against an inevitable terror attack because of their failure to enact several strong security measures," reports the Associated Press.
"The 10-member panel, equally divided between Republicans and Democrats, prepared to release a report Monday assessing how well their recommendations have been followed. They say the government deserves 'more F's than A's' in responding to their 41 suggested changes. Since the commission's final report in July 2004, the government has enacted the centerpiece proposal to create a national intelligence director. But it has stalled on other ideas, including improving communication among emergency responders and shifting federal terrorism-fighting money so it goes to states based on risk level."
Chapter 50 of Cato's Handbook on Policy outlines what steps the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) should take to protect American citizens. According to the Handbook, policymakers should "make better screening of visitors at points of entry to the United States the top priority for the DHS and ensure that such screening is tied to terrorist databases; focus the DHS's efforts on a few areas that will make a significant difference in preventing future terrorist attacks, rather than trying to do everything, and eliminate efforts that are only effective at the margins; and make it clearer to the public that homeland security efforts cannot make the country absolutely safe against possible terrorist attacks.
High Court to Rule on Military Recruiters
"The Supreme Court on Tuesday will consider whether the U.S. government may withhold funds from colleges that limit military recruiters' access to campus to protest the Pentagon's policy of barring openly gay people from serving in the armed forces," USA Today reports. "The dispute between the Defense Department and a group representing about 30 law schools tests whether a law known as the Solomon Amendment -- which could allow government to withhold billions of dollars from colleges that inhibit military recruiting on campus -- violates the schools' First Amendment speech rights."
Cato filed a friend-of-the-Court brief in the case of Rumsfield v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights, arguing that the Solomon Amendment is unconstitutional as applied against those private law schools that brought the suit against the Department of Defense.
Roger Pilon, Cato's vice president for legal affairs, says, "Relying on earlier Court cases upholding the right of private parade organizers to exclude homosexual marchers from their St. Patrick's Day parade and the right of the Boy Scouts to exclude homosexual Scout leaders, the Cato brief argues that the right of 'expressive association,' guaranteed by the First Amendment, permits the law schools not only to advocate their cause but to select the best means for doing so. Here, the law schools are fighting discrimination with discrimination, barring military recruiters from using school property 'to solicit students in a discriminatory fashion. Like the Scouts, the law schools' educational strategy teaches by example.'"
Automakers Ask Capitol Hill for Bailouts
"Troubled U.S. automakers and their allies on Capitol Hill are seeking billions of dollars in aid from the federal government ranging from health coverage for their workers to extra tax write-offs for themselves," according to the Washington Post. "They're also asking for one rhetorical favor: Please don't call the requests a bailout."
In "GM's Woes Are Homemade, Not Imported," Daniel Griswold, director of Cato's Center for Trade Policy Studies, writes about General Motor's financial problems: "There are plenty of reasons behind the troubles at GM, but 'unfair' competition from Japanese automakers is not among them. Japanese brands have certainly been gaining market share in the United States, but that has arguably more to do with the more appealing design, price, and quality of the cars than exchange rates. In fact, two-thirds of the Japanese cars Americans buy are not imported but are in fact made right here in the United States, according to the Japanese Automobile Manufacturers Association, and would not be affected much by the exchange rate anyway.
"Trade barriers and harangues about exchange rates won't save GM from itself and its unions. In an internationally competitive domestic market, GM will need to earn back its market share the old fashioned way: by controlling its costs and by producing cool cars at a price that more Americans are willing to pay."
Greg Garner, editor, ggarner@cato.org