When Jerry Brown touts his record on education on his campaign website, he starts by citing the two charter schools he founded, calling them “among the top-performing schools in Oakland.” They aren’t — not when measured by academic achievement, at any rate.

The chart below shows the percentage of students in Brown’s two charter schools who score at or above the “proficient” level on the California Standards Tests (averaged across all available grades and subjects). The results are broken out a few different ways to show that they are not particularly sensitive to demographics.

Far from being “among the top,” Jerry Brown’s schools are marginally lower-scoring than the abysmal Oakland Public Schools, and fantastically far below the city’s real top performers: the American Indian Public Charter Schools network (3 schools) and the Oakland Charter Academies (2 schools).

Another of Mr. Brown’s campaign website claims is more credible: “I have gained first-hand experience in how difficult it is to enable all students to be ready for college and careers.” Perhaps if Mr. Brown had taken the time to learn from and emulate the two charter school networks that are already achieving that goal in his own backyard, Californians would have greater confidence in his education policy acumen.

Liberal posturing on Social Security reform continues unabated – betraying nervousness that Obama’s Deficit Reduction Commission will recommend Social Security benefit cuts. 

Left-wing voices also continue to repeat the mantra that introducing private Social Security accounts would be a bad idea. Ronald Brownstein’s recent recent column in the National Journal is a case in point. However, Brownstein’s readers may come away thinking that he believes breaking promises is a good idea.

Brownstein concedes that “Social Security indeed faces a long-term imbalance between expected revenue and promised benefits.” I consider this to be progress — at least relative to the erstwhile “there’s nothing wrong and nothing to fix” mantra adopted by liberal adherents of the status quo on Social Security.

Notice Brownstein’s use of the term “promised benefits.” A promise implies a commitment and obligation to make good on future benefit payments. But the solution that Mr. Brownstein points to is as follows:

Instead [of private accounts], Obama argued, the two parties could emulate the Reagan model and arrive at a sensible solution… [T]he program’s long-term shortfall could be eliminated just by trimming benefits for the top half of earners [JG note: breaking the Social Security benefit promise here], linking the retirement age to lengthening life spans [JG note: breaking the promise here too], and imposing a partial payroll tax on earnings above $250,000 [JG note: that is, promise more benefits by expanding the definition of covered earnings and increasing payroll taxes on high earners].”

But all that the last element may achieve is to stave of the program’s insolvency for a few more years. 

My comment: Please don’t drag Reagan into this “solution.” The 1983 reforms were implemented under the gun, at a time when there was no way out of Social Security’s imminent revenue shortfall. If President Reagan had enjoyed the luxury of a couple more years to plan changes to Social Security, he would have adopted a different approach, and be much better off today. According to broad market indexes such as the S&P 500, total returns averaged well above 10 percent per year during the 1980s and 90s – so, well above inflation. (The first decade of the 2000s yielded a negative 1 percent return.)

Finally, Brownstein writes:

[T]he gap between the system’s revenues and obligations, relatively speaking, isn’t that daunting–less than 1 percent of the economy’s expected output over the next 75 years. 

Does Mr. Brownstein really appreciate how large that is? In present value terms, the Social Security actuaries report that the present value of Social Security’s shortfall over the next 75-years equals $5.4 trillion. That’s one-third of current annual GDP. In other words we have to devote that sum to earning interest each year for 75 years to cover Social Security’s financial gap.

Alternatively, since payrolls equal only one-half of national output, it means that payroll taxes would have to increase by an average of about 2.0 percent per year if they are levied over all wage earners. However, the tax increase is to be levied only on those earning $250,000 or more. There are about 3 million U.S. taxpayers with incomes above $250,000, with average income of about $500,000. (I’m rounding up based on information for 2006 available here.) That makes a tax base of $1.5 trillion. (Actually, this is likely to be too large because I’m counting total income, not taxable income, which would be much smaller.) Raising the equivalent amount of revenues from these high earners (who face the highest marginal income tax rates already and are likely to alter their work effort in response to still higher taxes) would imply increasing their average tax rates by almost 11 percentage points. Of course, because some of the adjustment will be through benefit cuts and indexing the retirement age to increasing longevity, the tax increases that must be levied on high earners would be smaller. 

But are those benefit cuts politically realistic? Americans already face a normal retirement age of 66, and it is scheduled to increase to 67 in little more than a decade. Extrapolating from the French response to increasing their pensionable age from just 60 to 62, Americans’ would probably end up opening a third war front to resist further increases in Social Security’s retirement ages — a “generational war” here at home.

So where do we go from here? One answer may be to first introduce “add-on” personal accounts using the 2.0 percentage points of payrolls – the amount required to plug Social Security’s current shortfall. This would not be a “tax” as the funds would be invested in personal accounts – and it would enable low earners an opportunity to partake in the long-term wealth creation mechanism that they have heretofore been unable to exploit. As I have argued here, if this amount is effectively saved and invested – by insuring that the government does not borrow and spend those savings — it would create space for a “carve-out” addition to the “add on” personal accounts, increasing retirement wealth even more. Finally, with the stock markets relatively stable and current P/E ratios of broad market indexes close to historical averages, now would be the right time to begin such a reform program for Social Security. 

Would liberal policymakers and analysts take on this approach? No prizes for guessing the answer.

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

• When given the choice, people overwhelmingly entrust their donations to private charities, not the government.
• The federal government is still facilitating zero-downpayment mortgages.
• Federal Reserve employee pay soars.
• Office of Personnel Management director John Berry doesn’t appreciate the fact that regular Americans aren’t enthusiastic about funding generous pay and benefits for federal workers.
• Congresswoman Corrine Brown takes the parochial mindset to a new level by using her power to enrich her own family at taxpayer expense.

In his Washington Post op-ed this morning, “Obama Underappreciation Syndrome,” Charles Krauthammer mocks President Obama’s latest explanation for his, and his party’s, low popularity. “[W]e’re hard-wired not to always think clearly when we’re scared. And the country is scared,” explains the president.

This is rich loam for derision. “Opening a whole new branch of cognitive science — liberal psychology — Obama has discovered a new principle: The fearful brain is hard-wired to act befuddled, i.e., vote Republican.”

Krauthammer rightly takes the campaigning president to task. But he scopes his critique a bit broadly. It’s pretty close to uncontroversial that the logic centers of the brain shut down when certain stimuli produce a fright response. That’s good. Leaping at the sight of a snake was an important part of surviving in the thousands of years before ambulances and anti-venom.

But not all stresses produce this response, and President Obama is misapplying the fright response to the current climate of unemployment, expanded government control of society, and galloping spending and debt. The fear response doesn’t explain Democrats’ unpopularity.

But it does explain other parts of our policy discourse. There is at least a good argument—one we featured in our book Terrorizing Ourselves—that fear preempts careful, rational cogitation about some risks. The existence of another human animated to kill you in ways you can’t predict can interfere with the mental responses we need to secure both ourselves and the blessings of liberty. There may be chronic fear-based habits; the brain grows to meet the demands of its host.

But none of this relates to the economic and political stresses of today or the related woes of the Democratic Party. Rather, it is economic and political conditions that voters are responding to, in a manner that is by no means illogical or pathological.

The New York Times devotes major space today to a story disclosing campaign spending by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. They have uncovered some pretty shocking stuff. Apparently the Chamber of Commerce is raising money from businesses to fund campaign ads. The Times has the goods:

[A] review of the nearly 70 chamber-produced ads found that 93 percent of those that have run nationwide that focus on the midterm elections either support Republican candidates or criticize their opponents.

What is the world coming to? An organization can raise money and use it to support or criticize candidates for office? It’s almost like we have freedom of political speech in the United States. Shocking stuff.

The New York Times may not like freedom of speech much for those who disagree with its editorial line, but I am happy we have freedom of the press as well as of speech. The freedom of the press means I can get additional information about the funding of the current election.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), a leading union of government employees, has raised and will spend the most money on the mid-term election. More shocking stuff!

AFSCME is spending money to support Democrats who in turn will be expected to tax and spend to add or to save … jobs for public employees! I thought businesses were the only organizations that engaged in self-interested politics. Apparently not.

But AFSCME has the right to raise and spend the $90 million, and so did George Soros, and so does every misguided and hapless person and organization that for some reason disagrees with me about everything. Freedom of speech does not mean the “freedom” to agree with me or the New York Times.

In sum, the silly season is upon us as election day looms. Be prepared for more “news reporting” about the demons that are “undermining our democracy.” And give thanks that we don’t have to depend on just one source of news or speech in coming to judgment on those who hold political power.

Florida Times-Union reporter Matt Dixon deserves kudos for his detailed exposé of Congresswoman Corrine Brown’s (D‑FL) corruption-tainted earmarking. Since 2008, Brown has sought millions for a non-profit in Jacksonville that employs a lobbying outfit that just happens to have Brown’s daughter Shantrel on its staff.

Brown and her daughter have tried to secure $1.1 million for “streetscape improvements and renovations” at a plaza leased by the non-profit. Rep. Brown is currently requesting a direct appropriation of $1 million for it, but interestingly says on her website that “I certify that neither I nor my spouse has any financial interest in this project.” Okay, but what about her daughter?

As the article explains, this isn’t the first time the Browns have collaborated at taxpayer expense:

The Community Rehabilitation Center is not the only client of her daughter’s that Brown has helped.

In 2006, she traveled to the Republic of Georgia shortly before natural gas importer Itera had stopped supplying portions of the country with gas due to $6 million in non-payments. Over an eight-month period that year, Itera paid Shantrel Brown and one other Alcalde and Fay lobbyist more than $80,000 to work on “international debt issues,” lobbying reports indicate.

The Russian company, which has its U.S. headquarters in Jacksonville, has filed 31 separate federal lobbying reports since 2005. It used Shantrel Brown only during the eight months in 2006.

In a separate 1999 incident involving her daughter, Brown was investigated by an ethics subcommittee after a $50,000 Lexus purchased by African banker Karim Pouye wound up registered in Shantrel’s name. Corrine Brown had lobbied to keep Pouye’s boss, West African millionaire Foutanga Dit Babani Sissoko, out of federal prison after he was accused of stealing $240 million from a bank in the United Arab Emirates. The money wound up in Miami bank accounts controlled by Sissoko. The subcommittee took no action, but in its written report was critical of the Lexus.

According to the article, the non-profit had $4.6 million in total revenue in 2009. Of that amount, $2.1 million came from Medicaid and another $1.6 million came from “government contributions.” Where the money is going should raise eyebrows:

In [2008 and 2009], employee salaries made up nearly 40 percent of the center’s overall expenses. In 2008, $1.6 million of the center’s $4.5 million in total expenses was tied to salaries. The following year, the salary number jumped to $1.8 million of the center’s total $4.5 million in expenses. It is unclear how many employees the Community Rehabilitation Center employed during those years.

As a Cato essay on special-interest spending explains, earmark apologists are wrong when they argue that earmarks aren’t a big deal since they constitute a tiny portion of overall federal spending:

The problem is that earmarking has contributed to a general erosion of fiscal responsibility in Washington. Earmarks have exacerbated the parochial mindset of most members of Congress, who spend their time appeasing state and local interest groups rather than tackling issues of broad national concern. Many politicians complain about the soaring federal deficit, yet their own staff members spend most of their time trying to secure earmarks in spending bills.

Corrine Brown takes this parochial mindset to a new level by using her power to enrich her own family at taxpayer expense.

The Federal Communications Commission has established a new advisory group called the “Technological Advisory Council.” Among other things, it will advise the agency on “how broadband communications can be part of the solution for the delivery and cost containment of health care, for energy and environmental conservation, for education innovation and in the creation of jobs.”

This is an agency that is radically overspilling its bounds. It has established goals that it has no proper role in fulfilling and that it has no idea how to fulfill. As we look for cost-cutting measures at the federal level, we could end the pretense that the communications industry should be regulated as a public utility. Shuttering the FCC would free up funds for better purposes such as lowering the national debt or reducing taxes.