Cato Daily Dispatch for December 26, 2003
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White House Budget Math DisputedA Posthumous Pardon for Lenny Bruce
Immigration Reform to Get a Push?
White House Budget Math Disputed
"After three straight years of double-digit increases in federal spending, President Bush and the Republican Congress say they have the situation under control. But a number of conservatives say actual spending this year will be triple the figures cited by the White House," The Washington Post reports.
"The two camps have simply chosen different kinds of budget numbers to bolster their positions. Bush enumerates the amount of spending that Congress authorizes each year. His critics cite the actual amount the government is spending. In effect, the president and his allies are counting the money put into the spending pipeline, while the others count the amount flowing out the other side, some of which may have been slowly trickling through for years."
In "GOP Should Give Spending Cuts a Chance," Cato's Veronique de Rugy and Tad DeHaven write: "Almost 10 years after the GOP swept into Congress, it is evident that the self-proclaimed party of limited government has become the party of unlimited spending. The GOP Congress has delivered three of the top five largest spending sprees in American history -- the other two occurred during World War II."
A Posthumous Pardon for Lenny Bruce
"Four-letter words put Lenny Bruce on the wrong side of the law, and a six-letter word from New York Gov. George Pataki got him out," the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
"Nearly four decades after the ribald comic was convicted of an obscenity charge, Pataki on Tuesday granted Bruce a posthumous pardon. Pataki had been pressured recently by two Bruce biographers, Bruce's family and scores of stand-up comics and actors -- including local artists Robin Williams and the Smothers Brothers."
Cato Adjunct Scholar Robert Corn-Revere was the attorney of record on the matter, and Cato H.L. Mencken Research Fellows and magicians Penn and Teller were among entertainers who signed a letter in support of a pardon. Penn is a regular contributor to Regulation magazine and Teller writes occasionally on freedom of speech.
Corn-Revere has written extensively on free speech issues for Cato, including the studies Caught in the Seamless Web: Does the Internet's Global Reach Justify Less Freedom of Speech? and New Age Comstockery: Exon Vs The Internet.
Immigration Reform to Get a Push?
"Mexicans reacted with cautious optimism Wednesday to reports that President Bush planned to propose immigration reforms more than two years after the United States shelved the issue -- Mexico's top priority -- to focus on combating terrorism," The Washington Post reports.
"Analysts said they worried that Bush's plan, which officials said Bush would present before he traveled to Mexico in mid-January for a hemispheric summit and private talks with President Vicente Fox, could be little more than a campaign tactic in the election year."
In "Mexican Workers Come Here to Work: Let Them!" Daniel T. Griswold, associate director of Cato's Center for Trade Policy Studies, writes that "migration from Mexico is driven by a fundamental mismatch between a rising demand for low-skilled labor in the U.S. and a shrinking domestic supply of workers willing to fill those jobs. . . . Mexican migrants provide a ready source of labor to fill that gap. Yet immigration law contains virtually no legal channel through which low-skilled immigrant workers can enter the country to meet demand. The result, predictably, is illegal immigration and all the black market pathologies that come with it."
Jonathan Block, editor, jblock@cato.org