I’ll have more to say later on Mitt Romney’s speech on federal spending, but his banal call for making government more “efficient” gave me an opportunity to share some good commentary on the subject. In a recent piece criticizing Indiana’s Republican-led state government for not doing “anything substantive to improve Indiana’s budgetary, fiscal or economic position,” Craig Ladwig, editor of the Indiana Policy Review, nails it:

Most troubling of all is that few in the leadership of either party share our belief that government must be kept small for smallness’ sake. The goal is not to run it “like a business” or make it more efficient (consolidate), but to ensure that government is simple enough that average citizens can understand and monitor its workings. The constitutional ability to do that and a passion for self-government (governing one’s self), thereby reaping the rewards and accepting the consequences, are what is meant by American exceptionalism.

Nor does the current leadership appreciate that government cannot by nature be proactively involved in prosperity, that it cannot create wealth but only refrain from taking it away or destroying it. Even Republicans busy themselves in such neo-mercantile schemes as tax rebates for politically favored companies and industries, or training programs to win more contracts from the federal government. At the same time, they slap a tax on entrepreneurial activity as soon as it finds success, most recently in Internet commerce.

Look, Democrats already work tirelessly to extract from us the revenue to support a bloated, systemically flawed and misguided state government. Do they need Republican help?

Milton Friedman famously described those trying to reform government without changing its makeup as being engaged in an attempt to transform a cat into a dog. This General Assembly may learn to bark, but it will still be a cat.

The “government efficiency” snake-oil salesmanship from politicians has become tiresome, especially when it comes from high-profile Republicans like Mitch Daniels and Mitt Romney. Unfortunately, I don’t see too many people “on the right” taking these people to task for it. So kudos to Craig.

Over at Downsizing the Federal Government, we focused on the following issues this past week:

• Dan Mitchell says that sequestration would be a small step in the right direction.
• The Senate vote on rural development subsidies symbolizes just how unserious most policymakers are when it comes to making specific spending cuts.
• Republican hypocrisy on energy subsidies.
• Government cost overruns: One reason to shift infrastructure financing to the private sector is that governments and their contractors often give taxpayers the shaft.
• The Military-Industrial Complex yells “jobs!” in a crowded federal budget.

Follow Downsizing the Federal Government on Twitter (@DownsizeTheFeds) and connect with us on Facebook.

Politicians in Europe have spent decades creating a fiscal crisis by violating Mitchell’s Golden Rule and letting government grow faster than the private sector.

As a result, government is far too big today, and nations such as Greece are in the process of fiscal collapse.

But that’s the good news — at least relatively speaking. Over the next few decades, the problems will get much worse because of demographic change and unsustainable promises to spend other people’s money.

(By the way, America will suffer the same fate in the absence of reforms.)

Here’s one stark indicator of why Greece is in the toilet.

Look at the skyrocketing number of people riding in the wagon of government dependency (and look at these cartoons to understand why this is so debilitating).

By the way, Greece’s population only increased by a bit more than 16 percent during this period. Yet the number of bureaucrats jumped by far more than 100 percent.

And don’t forget that this chart just looks at the number of bureaucrats, not their excessive pay and bloated pensions.

With this in mind, do you agree with President Obama and want to squander American tax dollars on a bailout for Greece?

Yesterday, the Michigan Senate passed anti-bullying legislation that has anti-bullying legislators, activists, and sympathizers outraged. Why? Because at the insistence of some in the legislature, it includes a provision protecting religious speech.

A video of State Senator Gretchen Whitmer (D‑East Lansing) has already gone viral, with the senator railing that “as passed today, bullying kids is okay if a student, parent, teacher or school employee can come up with a moral or religious reason for doing it.” Similarly, Time columnist Amy Sullivan asks “why does Michigan’s anti-bullying bill protect religious tormentors?”

I’ll tell you why: because as odious as one might find the religious beliefs of many people, they are entitled to freedom of speech the same as anyone else. That is a basic American right, and all the desire in the world to protect kids from hearing things that might make them feel badly must not change that. Abridge that right, and any speech becomes imperiled if a majority simply deems it unacceptable. And the legislation in question does not protect bullying—if that is defined as physical assaults or threats of such assaults—for religious reasons. It only states that the legislation “does not prohibit a statement of a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction of a school employee, school volunteer, pupil, or a pupil’s parent or guardian.”

Of course, being on the receiving end of constant pronouncements that you are doomed to Hell or something similarly hideous would almost certainly become difficult, if not impossible, to bear. It shouldn’t be something that any child is subjected to in school. But how do you balance protecting children against people’s fundamental right to speak?

The answer is that despite all the lofty talk of “democracy” and other empty rhetoric behind public schooling, you cannot protect everyone equally in a government school. No matter what policy a public school or district adopts, government will pick winners and losers. That’s why the only solution to a quandary such as this is educational freedom: Give control of education funding to parents, let them choose among independent schools run by free educators, and enable people to choose schools that share their values. Then all people can select educations for their children that comport with their values and needs, and without government deciding who is more, or less, equal than whom.

In honor of the release today of A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas, I revisit my thoughts from 2008 on the film series’ view of freedom in America:

The movie Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle was celebrated mostly as a “stoner” movie: smart young Asian guys smoke pot and get the munchies. When I finally got around to watching it, it was funnier than I expected. And very near the end of the movie, after an all-night road trip in which they encountered more obstacles than Odysseus, when Harold finally gives up and says he can’t make the last leg of the epic journey to White Castle, came this wonderful speech from Kumar:

So, you think this is just about the burgers, huh? Let me tell you, it’s about far more than that. Our parents came to this country, escaping persecution, poverty and hunger. Hunger, Harold. They were very, very hungry. They wanted to live in a land that treated them as equals, a land filled with hamburger stands. And not just one type of hamburger, okay? Hundreds of types with different sizes, toppings, and condiments. That land was America! America, Harold! America! Now this is about achieving what our parents set out for. This is about the pursuit of happiness. This night … is about the American Dream! Dude, we can stay here, get arrested, and end our hopes of ever going to White Castle. Or, we can take that hang glider and make our leap towards freedom. I leave the decision up to you.

Escaping persecution, poverty, and hunger … to find ample food and unlimited choices … the pursuit of happiness … the American Dream. Yes, I think writers Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg were on to something.

And then in the sequel, Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, after another improbable road trip, the fugitive youths literally dropped in on George W. Bush’s Texas ranch. In the increasingly fantastic plot, the president invited them to join him in hiding from the scary Cheney, shared his pot with them, and then promised to clear up the unfortunate misunderstanding that landed them in Guantanamo Bay. An uninhibited but still skeptical Kumar said, “I’m not sure I trust our government any more, sir.” And President Bush delivered this ringing libertarian declaration:

Hey, I’m in the government, and I don’t even trust it. You don’t have to trust your government to be a patriot. You just have to trust your country.

Harold & Kumar: more wisdom than a month of right-wing talk radio. Hurwitz and Schlossberg get what America is about.

It looks as if Ohio will not be following Wisconsin’s lead in attempting serious public-sector labor reform. Polls indicate Buckeye State voters next Tuesday will reject a comprehensive package of labor reforms, known as Senate Bill 5, that the Ohio legislature passed this year with support from Gov. John Kasich (R). Although voters do approve many of the individual elements of the package, including merit pay for teachers and a hike in employee pension and health contributions, opponents have successfully portrayed the whole as an overstuffed “Republican wish list” mixing short-term fiscal savings with longer-term measures aimed at weakening unions’ political strength over the longer term.

Last Tuesday I spoke at Capital University Law School in Columbus as part of a two-on-two debate moderated by Dean Rich Simpson on Issue 2, the measure that would repeal S.B. 5. The speakers defending the union position spent relatively little time defending the particulars of current union benefit packages (which include $3 million pensions for some Columbus police commanders, as the Buckeye Institute has noted, though overall Ohio seems to generate fewer compensation horror stories than do the Northeastern states, Illinois or California). Instead, they concentrated on defending the favorable state laws that put the unions in such a strong bargaining position in the first place. Prominent among these: 1) provisions in current law obligating Ohio counties and towns to bargain with unions over staffing and a wide range of other workplace policies unrelated to wages, health or compensation; and 2) provisions in current law providing that, on the event of a bargaining impasse, the issue will be handed over to an outside labor arbitrator whose say-so will bind the parties.

It happened that these were also the elements of S.B. 5 I thought most important, because over the long term keeping public unions from acquiring a stranglehold on local governance is indeed more important than saving a buck or even a lot of bucks in next year’s budget. Mandatory bargaining on topics of workplace organization (which makes it actively unlawful for the employer to take a principled stand refusing concessions on a given issue) and imposition of contract clauses by un-consented-to outside arbitrators are serious infringements of liberty as applied to private employers. As applied to public-sector employers, these rules have the distinctive vice of preventing voters and taxpayers from deciding how public programs will be run. In floundering public school systems, it is often union work rules as opposed to teacher compensation that foils every reform impulse. Police unions have been known to demand changes in arrest policies and weapons issuance, though it is vital that decisions affecting the citizenry and its everyday liberties be reserved for representatives answerable to the voters and courts.

In 1937 Franklin Delano Roosevelt famously warned against government unionism, much as Dwight Eisenhower was later to warn against the military-industrial complex. In the decades since then, public unionism has been on an extraordinary roll: states have steadily enacted laws more favorable to the unions, to the point where they have come to see such legal boons as a permanent entitlement (“how dare they take away our rights!”). But voters and taxpayers have their rights too—and among them is to back away from an ill-chosen path.

Incidentally, before the debate, the law school audience was asked to register its opinion of S.B. 5, and opposed the reforms by a margin of 27–76 with 27 undecided. Afterward, the vote was 34–82 with 10 still undecided.

I’m accustomed to a standard response when I propose removing government from some part of education: it’s not gonna happen, so forget about it. Often, a popular counter-proposal is then offered: Have government require “transparency” from schools, either of the k‑12 or higher variety. Transparency, apprently, is something we can get.

Except, it seems, we almost never do.

A couple of weeks ago I provided numbers exposing the likely failure of transparency in elementary and secondary education. Today, in a surprising twist, someone else reveals transparency futility in higher ed: Education Sector’s Kevin Carey, in a joint report with AEI’s Andrew Kelly. It’s surprising because Carey is one of the people who has dismissed my arguments for removing government as unrealisitc, and instead championed transparency as an achievable solution. In light of this, all credit to him for publishing his study.

The paper, The Truth Behind Higher Education Disclosure Laws, is awfully clear: Transparency requirements in the 2008 Higher Education Opportunity Act have led to either rampant evasion or deception in reporting everything from Pell-recipient graduation rates to employment placement info. Indeed, the report says that “by creating an illusion of transparency and disclosure” the requirements are worse than having no reporting at all.

Sound familiar?

Based on what we know about transparency mandates in education, it seems at least as quixotic to expect regulations to work as to expect that we can begin to remove govenment funding. The reality is that regulations are often far too convoluted and endless for the regulated to comply with even a small fraction of them; they often stymie enforcement for the same reasons; and they are regularly ignored because those who would be regulated have a lot more political sway on their issues than the public.

Unfortunately, repeated failure doesn’t seem to deter those with an abiding faith in regulation, including Carey and Kelly, whose report largely recommends tougher rule enforcement. But go from regular push ups to those hand-clapping ones and you still won’t budge the Earth.

Or maybe I’m wrong (it’s theoretically possible). Maybe government actually can make colleges change for the better. Maybe it’s just that transparency isn’t the answer. Indeed, whether government can move colleges for the better will the subject of a terrific, full-day conference Cato will be hosting on November 18th with the Center for College Affordability and Productivity. Speakers will include CCAP founder and economist Richard Vedder; George Washington University President Emertius Stephen Joel Trachtenberg; Emory University English professor Mark Bauerlein; and many more powerful analysts of the ivory tower. And the discussion, I assure you, won’t just be more regulation versus less taxpayer aid. There will be a wide variety of perspectives offered, and no doubt many surprising debates. I hope you’ll join us, and you can register here!