I have a Cato podcast on the topic today.
Also, Andrew Chamberlain and Gerald Prante explain the folly of vice taxes over at the Tax Foundation’s blog.
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I have a Cato podcast on the topic today.
Also, Andrew Chamberlain and Gerald Prante explain the folly of vice taxes over at the Tax Foundation’s blog.
Ben Roethlisberger’s unfortunate motorcycle accident this week has editorial boards and pundits calling once again for mandatory motorcycle helmet laws. The Cincinnati Post went so far as to put the word freedom in sarcasm quotes.
I’m not exactly sure how Roethlisberger’s accident demonstrates the need for such laws. Roethlisberger is more than capable of paying for his treatment, so the “cost to taxpayers” argument doesn’t fly. It may cost the Pittsburgh Steelers some money, but they could have headed off those losses by stipulating a helmet requirement in Roethlisberger’s contract (he has been outspoken about riding without a helmet). And despite being thrown from his bike and leaving an imprint in the windshield of an oncoming car in the shape of his skull—all while not wearing a helmet—Roethlisberger is expected to make a complete recovery.
That’s not to say it’s wise to ride without a helmet. But Roethlisberger is a grown-up. He knows the risks. He decided to assume them. He was seriously injured, and now he’s recovering. I wish him the best, of course. I’m just having a hard time understanding how his accident provides conclusive evidence that we need a federal helmet law, or why it merits sneering commentary about an excess of “freedom.” The answer is “yes,” you should have the freedom to make your own decisions about what risks you take. Even foolish ones. But you should also assume responsibility for those decisions, and not expect taxpayers or anyone else to bail you out when poor decisions catch up with you. Seems to me that’s exactly what’s happening here.
If we’re really concerned about the safety of motorcycle riders, we should probably just ban motorcycles altogether. USA Today, for example, notes that wearing a helmet would prevent 37 percent of motorcycle fatalities. But the paper also points out that motorcycle riders are 32 times more likely to die on the roadways than drivers or passengers in automobiles. So the paper is advocating a law preventing people from assuming the low-level risk associated with riding without a helmet versus riding with one, but still advocating allowing people to assume the exponentially higher risk of riding a motorcycle in the first place (as opposed riding in a car or truck). Just think of all the lives and health care costs we could save if we banned motorcycles!
My favorite diatribe comes from Sports Illustrated’s Peter King. It’s always fun to watch sportswriters comment on issues that spill out beyond the playing field. They seem to savor the chance to dress up as real journalists. And so they tend to come out swinging. King writes:
And while we’re at it, how dumb does Pennsylvania look for not making helmets mandatory? I heard a state legislator on the radio this morning say that this accident wouldn’t cause him to change his mind. It’s about human rights, he said. Riders should not be forced to wear a helmet.
I’ve got one for you, Mr. Politician. Let’s repeal seat-belt laws, and gun laws, and minimum drinking ages, and let’s just let America be the Wild, Wild West. Do what you want, when you want.
Actually, all of that sounds pretty good to me (in truth, the minarchist “wild, wild west” wasn’t all that wild). Here’s the punchline:
Laws are made to protect people, even when they think they don’t need protecting. Wearing a helmet while riding a motorcycle is about as basic as one can get in terms of human safety. It’s irresponsible to argue the other side.
Empahsis mine. “Irresponsible” would be one word for it.
“Principled” would be another.
House Republicans have one last chance to demonstrate that they have any remaining intelligence or principles. On June 13, the House Appropriations Committee approved a bill that would increase the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 per hour over the next three years. This bill, with the support of seven Republicans on the committee, would implement one of the highest priorities of the congressional Democratic leadership.
An increase in the minimum wage is one of the dumbest possible policies for the following reasons:
An increase in the minimum wage has long been a symbolic issue for the Democrats, however inconsistent with their other professed political values. House Republicans should challenge the Democrats on this issue, pointing out that an increase in the minimum wage would most hurt those that they claim to help. To do this, the House Republicans should split off the minimum wage provision from the appropriation bill, allow a separate floor vote on this provision, and demonstrate the absurdity of this proposal by a defeating this measure by a large margin. I’m waiting for a demonstration of good sense, in part, to determine whether there is any remaining reason to favor a Republican majority in the House.
Al Gore’s cinematic lecture contends, in part, that rising global temperatures from industrial greenhouse gas emissions are at this very moment melting the Greenland Ice Sheet, a phenomenon that will eventually inundate global coastal areas and submerge countless cities. True? Not according to a new paper that appears in the June 13 issue of Geophysical Research Letters, a prominent peer-reviewed publication of the American Geophysical Union. The authors conclude their study with the following discussion:
We have analyzed temperature time series from available Greenland locations and we have found that:
i) The years 1995 to 2005 have been characterized by generally increasing temperatures at the Greenland coastal stations. The year 2003 was extremely warm on the southeastern coast of Greenland. The average annual temperature and the average summer temperature for 2003 at Ammassalik was a record high since 1895. The years 2004 and 2005 were closer to normal being well below temperatures reached in 1930s and 1940s (Figure 2).
Although the annual average temperatures and the average summer temperatures at Godthab Nuuk, representing the southwestern coast, were also increasing during the 1995–2005 period, they stayed generally below the values typical for the 1920–1940 period.
ii) The 1955 to 2005 averages of the summer temperatures and the temperatures of the warmest month at both Godthaab Nuuk and Ammassalik are significantly lower than the corresponding averages for the previous 50 years (1905–1955). The summers at both the southwestern and the southeastern coast of Greenland were significantly colder within the 1955–2005 period compared to the 1905–1955 years.
iii) Although the last decade of 1995–2005 was relatively warm, almost all decades within 1915 to 1965 were even warmer at both the southwestern (Godthab Nuuk) and the southeastern (Ammassalik) coasts of Greenland.
iv) The Greenland warming of the 1995–2005 period is similar to the warming of 1920–1930, although the rate of temperature increase was by about 50% higher during the 1920–1930 warming period.
v) There are significant differences between the global temperature and the Greenland temperature records within the 1881–2005 period. While all the decadal averages of the post-1955 global temperature are higher (warmer climate) than the pre-1955 average, almost all post-1955 temperature averages at Greenland stations are lower (colder climate) than the pre-1955 temperature average.
An important question is to what extent can the current (1995–2005) temperature increase in Greenland coastal regions be interpreted as evidence of man-induced global warming? Although there has been a considerable temperature increase during the last decade (1995 to 2005) a similar increase and at a faster rate occurred during the early part of the 20th century (1920 to 1930) when carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases could not be a cause. The Greenland warming of 1920 to 1930 demonstrates that a high concentration of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases is not a necessary condition for period of warming to arise. The observed 1995–2005 temperature increase seems to be within a natural variability of Greenland climate. A general increase in solar activity [Scafetta and West, 2006] since 1990s can be a contributing factor as well as the sea surface temperature changes of tropical ocean [Hoerling et al., 2001].
The glacier acceleration observed during the 1996–2005 period [Rignot and Kanagaratnam, 2006] has probably occurred previously. There should have been the same or more extensive acceleration during the 1920–1930 warming as well as during the Medieval Warm period in Greenland [Dahl-Jensen et al., 1998; DeMenocal et al., 2000] when Greenland temperatures were generally higher than today. The total Greenland mass seems to be stable or slightly growing [Zwally et al., 2005].
To summarize, we find no direct evidence to support the claims that the Greenland ice sheet is melting due to increased temperature caused by increased atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide. The rate of warming from 1995 to 2005 was in fact lower than the warming that occurred from 1920 to 1930. The temperature trend during the next ten years may be a decisive factor in a possible detection of an anthropogenic part of climate signal over area of the Greenland ice sheet.
So who are you going to believe—a couple of scientists from Los Alamos and an atmospheric physicist … or a politician who is, ahem, NOT a scientist and his similarly uncredentialed Hollywood friends? The latter group may turn out to be right, of course, but if you only paid attention to what was in the New York Times, you’d think studies such as the one above are the paid figments of oil company imagination. They are not.
Becky Martin, an incumbent South Carolina state representative, won’t be returning to the legislature next session. She was defeated in yesterday’s primary race largely due to opposition from supporters of market-based education reform. Martin was one of a dozen or so Republicans who voted against an education tax credit program championed by Governor Mark Sanford.
Another Republican incumbent who voted against the school choice tax credit bill, Ken Clark, received only 34 percent of the vote. He’ll face a run-off against Kit Spires who received 44 percent.
Most interestingly, Karen Floyd, a pro-school-choice candidate for State Superintendent of Public Instruction (!!!), appears to have won an outright majority of the vote in a primary race against four other candidates. With 98.2 percent of the vote counted, she leads with 50.49 percent.
It’s too early to declare victory, but things are certainly looking up for kids in the Palmetto state.
For more SC election results, click here.
Yesterday, USA Today ran a front page article on the arrival of six-figure student debt, highlighting especially the $116,000 in debt accumulated by a Rutgers University master’s student.
Now, the article didn’t say whether the scholar in question was an in-state student or had been a Rutgers undergraduate, but if both were applicable his would be a Guinness-worthy borrowing feat, especially since the article said that Rutgers paid the young man’s tuition for his final year of grad school.
Let’s go to the numbers: In the 2005-06 academic year, the cost of tuition, fees, room and board for an in-state undergraduate at Rutgers was $17,800. If the student had paid that for four years—which he obviously didn’t since he must have graduated before 2005–06—his entire undergraduate education would only have cost $71,200. As a graduate student, if we assume he lived in university housing and had the biggest possible meal plan, he would have paid about $20,000 a year. The grand total for both his undergraduate and graduate education, then, would have come to approximately $111,200—$4,800 less than his total accumulated debt! Oh yeah, and Rutgers paid the young man’s tuition in his final year—about $10,000—so he actually owes $14,800 more than the entire cost of his education. Amazing!
Asserting that students have no option but to go into six-figure hock to attend college is, of course, ridiculous. But, predictably, that hasn’t stopped student advocates and interest groups from celebrating USA Today’s story. Indeed, Anya Kamenetz, author of Generation Debt, even dubbed the article a “tipping point” in the battle to convince America that its students are impoverished and need more taxpayer-funded student aid. Sadly, when it comes to her assessment of the article, Kamenetz might be right.
Virginia’s voters — about 1.5 percent of them, anyway — have given James Webb a narrow victory in the Democratic Senate primary, setting up a race with incumbent George Allen that promises to be among the most interesting in the country. Allen, who has mysteriously been regarded as a leading presidential candidate, will now have to spend some time at home fighting off the bestselling novelist and former Navy Secretary.
Webb is not your typical Democrat, which is why he had trouble winning the nomination over a lesser-known party activist. But he should be strong in the general election. He’s a Vietnam War hero who was appointed Navy Secretary by Ronald Reagan and was an early and vocal opponent of the war in Iraq, warning in 2002 that “there is no exit strategy.” He can appeal to both leftwing Democrats and moderates who are increasingly disillusioned with the war and the Republicans.
Polls indicate that some 15 to 20 percent of voters hold libertarian views, differing from both liberals and conservatives. Webb’s opposition to the war and his boast that he’s “pro-choice, pro-gay rights but also pro-Second Amendment” should give him strong appeal to those voters. He thinks the GOP-controlled Congress “rubber-stamps” whatever the Bush administration does, and as a result “we are on the verge of a constitutional crisis in this country … far more serious and far more widespread than anything we saw during the Watergate era.” However, the Washington Post editorialized that his “somewhat strident populism on trade policy tends toward xenophobic sloganeering and business-bashing.” He’ll have to develop a more thoughtful position on economic issues to make much headway with libertarian-leaning voters.
If he does, it will be interesting to see what libertarians make of the choice between an orthodox conservative Bush Republican and an unorthodox antiwar Democrat. As governor, George Allen scored a 40 on Cato’s Fiscal Policy Report Card on America’s Governors (his predecessor, putatively liberal Democrat Doug Wilder, scored 75), and he has no notable achievements in the Senate. He voted for the war, the Patriot Act, the Federal Marriage Amendment, the Medicare prescription drug entitlement, and the No Child Left Behind Act.
Let the battle for the libertarian center begin.