Cato Daily Dispatch for December 11, 2001
New Leader Warns U.S. Not to Abandon AfghanistanSocial Security Commission Makes Final Report Today
House Majority Leader Dick Armey May Retire
New Leader Warns U.S. Not to Abandon Afghanistan
Afghanistan's interim leader Hamid Karzai, set to assume power on Dec. 22, warned the United States to never again "walk away from Afghanistan" and pledged his country will be a trusted ally and friend, The Washington Post reported today.
Saying the international community recognizes Afghanistan needs to be rebuilt, Karzai told the newspaper the United States must not repeat the mistake it made 12 years ago when it abandoned Afghanistan after helping rid the country of Soviet occupation.
"Things went wrong in Afghanistan because the United States walked away," Karzai said. "So don't walk away again."
In "The Folly of Nation-Building in Afghanistan," Foreign Policy Analyst Gary Dempsey warns that postwar Afghanistan will look nothing like postwar Germany or postwar Japan ready for a Marshall Plan.
"Indeed, since World War II the United States alone has provided $1 trillion in foreign aid to countries around the world," he writes. "The result? According to the United Nations, 70 of the countries that received aid are poorer today than they were in 1980, and an incredible 43 are worse off than in 1970. Good intentions must be matched by an effective, non-corrupt administration on the receiving end."
Social Security Commission Makes Final Report Today
A White House commission on Social Security reform at its final meeting today will propose three options for reform and urge lawmakers to debate the issues for at least another year before taking action, according to Reuters.
A draft report released ahead of the meeting says that all three reform models involve voluntary investment accounts and ensure that future retirees can expect to receive benefits that are at least as high as those received by current retirees, adjusted for inflation.
The commission was asked by President Bush earlier this year to recommend ways to set up personal accounts so workers could invest some Social Security taxes in stocks and bonds. The commission will discuss the draft report at the meeting and may make changes before sending it to Bush.
In "The Little Commission That Could," Michael Tanner, director of Cato's Project on Social Security Privatization writes, "The President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security has produced three illustrative plans that give workers control over a part of their Social Security taxes. There are no cuts in benefits for current retirees or anyone close to retiring under any of these proposals. Perhaps even more impressive, under every one of the plans, younger workers who choose to invest privately, would receive higher total benefits than today's system promises. That's right -- not benefit cuts, benefit increases. And, two of the plans go even farther and make additional benefit increases for low-wage workers."
House Majority Leader Dick Armey May Retire
House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R - Tex.), the second-ranking Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives, is considering retiring after his current term, The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday on its Web site.
Citing sources close to Armey, the newspaper said the Texas Republican had informed House Speaker Dennis Hastert and other colleagues he was contemplating retirement and could decide as early as this week whether he will seek re-election in 2002.
"He thinks now is a good time. He can leave on his own terms," one source was quoted as saying. "The leadership is working, the House majority seems safe and George Bush is in the White House."
Rep. Armey has often spoken at the Cato Institute. Earlier this year he addressed the conference, "Making a Federal Case out of Health Care: Five Years of HIPAA" and in 1999 spoke at the policy forum "Compare and Contrast: Four Private-Sector Ideas for Health Care Tax Credits." He also wrote about immigration in Cato's Policy Report.