The good people at the Stimson Center’s Budget Insight blog invited me to contribute a guest post discussing the Sustainable Defense Task Force report Debt, Deficits, & Defense: A Way Forward. Here’s an excerpt:

The most common response [to the report] has been some sympathy for our argument that military spending should be subjected to the same scrutiny that should be applied to other government spending. There are still a fair number of people, however, who share our concern about the deficit, but who counter “But I want a strong defense.”

Who doesn’t?

The task force report was written with a single consideration in mind: in what ways, and where, could we make cuts in military spending that would not undermine U.S. security?

[…]

A leading conservative in the Senate, Tom Coburn (R‑OK) wrote that the deficit reduction commission “affords us an opportunity to start some very late due diligence on national defense spending… [as well as] reduce wasteful, unnecessary, and duplicative defense spending that does nothing to make our nation safe.”

Read the rest here.

Today’s advocates of national education standards certainly learned from the standards debacle of the 1990s, in which detailed standards were widely released — and widely hated. Be upfront and vocal with the public about what you are doing, they learned, and national standards will never exist. That’s why advocates have kept their efforts awfully hush-hush — no DC unveiling of final standards; a rushed, federally-coerced time line for adoption; and almost no willingness to discuss the research on standards. It also hasn’t hurt that just bigger issues — economic stagnation, wars, oil spills — have eaten all the reporting space. Unfortunately, the result is that with “little…fanfare” (registration required) 23 states have already adopted the Common Core State Standards, and several more are expected to do so before August 2 — the day they have to adopt them to stay competitive for federal Race to the Top funds.

And the slope keeps getting more slippery. Would-be national standardizers have been even more quiet about needing national tests to make their standards useful than they’ve been about the standards themselves. But those tests — federally backed, of course — are coming. In addition, the Common Core folks started with language arts and mathematics because those subjects — as long as you don’t pinpoint much reading material — are relatively uncontroversial. But guess what? The National Research Council just released preliminary material for national science standards, an effort purposely timed to coincide with Common Core.

So national standards keep slowly constricting. But there is resistance. A new assessment of the Common Core math standards suggests that, well, the standards might not really be as good as those of leading nations. (Too bad so many states gave analysts no more than a nanosecond to assess the standards before adopting them. But, then, they were just following the the feds’ adopt-now-for-big-bucks lead.) Even more hopeful — because ultimately the problem isn’t the quality of the standards, but the ruinous centralization they will bring — is that there are many candidates running for federal office who, according to Education Week, actually acknowledge the Constitution, care about good education, and are calling for the feds to get out of the nation’s classrooms. Now, they almost certainly don’t represent a mass revolt against the U.S. Department of Education, but their presence offers at least some hope that the nation is coming to realize that as it fixated on health care, Afghanistan, and bailouts, the feds were stealthily setting the groundwork to take over their schools.

Such a realization can’t come a moment too soon.

A number of economists have been warning about the Federal Reserve’s easy-money policy, but defenders of the central bank often ask, “if there’s an easy money policy, why isn’t that showing up in the form of higher prices?” Thomas Sowell has an answer to this question, explaining that people and businesses are sitting on cash because anti-business policies have dampened economic activity.

Not only has all the runaway spending and rapid escalation of the deficit to record levels failed to make any real headway in reducing unemployment, all this money pumped into the economy has also failed to produce inflation. The latter is a good thing in itself but its implications are sobering. How can you pour trillions of dollars into the economy and not even see the price level go up significantly? Economists have long known that it is not just the amount of money, but also the speed with which it circulates, that affects the price level. Last year the Wall Street Journal reported that the velocity of circulation of money in the American economy has plummeted to its lowest level in half a century. Money that people don’t spend does not cause inflation. It also does not stimulate the economy. …Banks have cut back on lending, despite all the billions of dollars that were dumped into them in the name of “stimulus.” Consumers have also cut back on spending. For the first time, more gold is being bought as an investment to be held as a hedge against a currently non-existent inflation than is being bought by the makers of jewelry. There may not be any inflation now, but eventually that money is going to start moving, and so will the price level.

I do my best to avoid monetary policy issues and certainly am not an expert on the subject, so I asked a few people for their thoughts and was told that perhaps the strongest evidence for Sowell’s hypothesis comes from the Federal Reserve’s data on “Aggregate Reserves of Depository Institutions” — specifically the figures on excess reserves. This is the money that banks keep at the Federal Reserve voluntarily because they don’t have any better options. As you can see from the chart, excess reserves shot up during the financial crisis. But what’s important is that they did not come back down afterwards. Some people refer to this as “money on the sidelines” and Sowell clearly is worried that it will have an impact on the price level if banks start circulating it. That doesn’t sound like good news. On the other hand, it’s not exactly good news that banks are holding money at the Fed because there are not enough profitable opportunities.

What this really tells us is that the combination of easy money and big government isn’t working any better today than it did in the 1970s.

The Wall Street Journal reports:

The U.S. Department of Transportation has analyzed dozens of data recorders from Toyota Motor Corp. vehicles involved in accidents blamed on sudden acceleration and found that at the time of the crashes, throttles were wide open and the brakes were not engaged, people familiar with the findings said.

The results suggest that some drivers who said their Toyota and Lexus vehicles surged out of control were mistakenly flooring the accelerator when they intended to jam on the brakes.

Maybe it’s rude to say “I told you so,” but yes: I told you so, as did others including Ted Frank, Megan McArdle, Michael Fumento, and Ronald Bailey.

To be sure, investigators agreed that one high-profile California crash, in which a family of four was killed in a loaner Lexus, was caused by floor mat “entrapment” of the accelerator pedal, a freakishly rare (and avoidable) event. But that does little to vindicate the trial-lawyer-allied “safety advocates” we heard from this spring, many of whom consistently downplayed floor mat theories because they were useless in explaining the great majority of the cases lawyers wanted to sue over.

Can we now look forward to the stream of apologetic stories from major news organizations that bought into theories about mysterious electronic defects in the cars? Or will the media add another chapter to its long record of gullibility on these matters?

Today, we celebrate a free speech victory in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York. In the case of Fox Television v. Federal Communications Commission, the three-judge panel struck down the FCC’s indecency policy for being “unconstitutionally vague” and “creating a chilling effect that goes far beyond the fleeting expletives issue” (e.g., stray f‑bombs) that was at the heart of this case.

The case was before the Second Circuit after it was remanded by the Supreme Court last year. Cato adjunct scholar Robert Corn-Revere, acting in his capacity as partner at Davis Wright Tremaine, is lead counsel for co-petitioner CBS. Bob wrote an article for last year’s Cato Supreme Court Review in which he characterized the case as the first act of many that will in the networks’ fight for free speech. He also argued a related case before the Third Circuit in February.

It should go without saying that free speech is a bedrock principle of our nation. Unfortunately, it must indeed be said — over and over again — to the FCC and other governmental agencies who wish to quash speech for whatever purported and often arbitrary reasons. It’s absurd to think that the foundation of the republic is so fragile that the American people must be protected from the random scatological references of Nicole Richie.

Congrats to Bob and the many lawyers on the case for their hard-fought victory today, and we wish them luck in their continuing fights for freedom of speech.

You can read the Second Circuit’s decision here.

Political scientist Larry Arnhart heads this month’s Cato Unbound. He argues that libertarians need to integrate biological evolution into their thinking about human cultures and even politics.

More provocatively, he claims that the “a Darwinian science of human evolution supports classical liberalism.” This is the case, he argues, even though

market competition differ[s] radically from biological competition. Biological competition is a zero-sum game where the survival of one organism is at the expense of others competing for the same scarce resources. But market competition is a positive-sum game where all the participants can gain from voluntary exchanges with one another. In a liberal society of free markets based on voluntary exchanges, success depends on persuasion rather than coercion, because we must give to others what they want to get what we want. Smith concludes: “It is precisely in a free society that Social Darwinism does not apply.”

Our genes, however, help get us to where we are, and understanding their contribution to the formation of societies and institutions is one of the most important projects in evolutionary biology, helping to bridge the gap between the hard sciences and the social sciences.

To borrow a phrase used by Karl Popper and later by Daniel Dennett, in a free society, we may allow our ideas to die in our stead, in the course of experimenting with them, debating, and innovating within a framework of laws and rights. This ability is made possible by a set of inheritances — genetic, epigenetic, and cultural — that help make us who we are.

As usual, we have a panel of fascinating commentators lined up for the rest of the week, starting with science-blogging superhero PZ Myers, followed by eminent behavioral scientist Herbert Gintis, and rounded out by pathbreaking anthropologist Lionel Tiger. Stop by during the rest of the month for what’s sure to be a stimulating discussion.

Recent debates about Arizona’s new immigration law have taken as self-evident that immigration restrictions are good policy, with the only question being which level of government should enforce the law, and how. Yet the case for immigration restrictions is far from convincing.

Advocates of these restrictions rely on four possible arguments. First, that immigration dilutes existing languages, religions, family values, cultural norms, and so on. Second, that immigrants flock to countries with generous social welfare programs, leading to urban slums and inundated social networks. Third, that immigration can harm the sending country if the departing immigrants are high-skilled labor. Fourth, that immigration lowers the income of native, low-skill workers.

All of these arguments are wrong, overstated, or misguided. Immigration may change cultural values or norms, but nothing suggests this is a negative. Many societies flourish because they have incorporated new businesses, cultures, foods, and so on. More important, immigrants normally assimilate to the pre-existing culture provided government policy does not segregate them from the rest of society. In the past rich countries have incorporated large immigration flows with modest adjustment costs. Many of these immigrants lived in difficult conditions at first, but within a generation they achieved middle class status or better.

The possibility that immigration puts pressure on the welfare state is a reasonable concern, although existing evidence does not suggest this is a major problem. In any case, the possibility that a generous social safety net might encourage immigration is a reason to moderate this safety net, rather than a reason to restrict immigration. Indeed, expanded immigration might create pressure to keep the welfare state modest.

The risk that immigration drains high-skilled labor from poor countries is real, but this kind of immigration has positive impacts on the sending country that mitigate against any negatives. The possibility of migration to a high-wage country generates an incentive to acquire education, and only some of those educated actually leave. The threat of a brain drain nudges poor countries away from bad policies-such as excessive tax rates-that generate the brain drain in the first place. Many immigrants send remittances to friends or relatives in their country of origin. Plus, if borders were really open, many immigrants would seek education abroad but return to their home country, knowing they could leave if economic factors so dictated. Similarly, with open borders many immigrants would pursue temporary stays in higher wage countries. Temporary migration is common in many countries now, and was common in the U.S. before the tightening of immigration rules in the 1910s and 1920s. Temporary migration raises fewer of the standard concerns than permanent migration, while still helping many people in low-wage countries.

Concern for the poor, assuming this includes the poor in other countries, argues for vastly expanded immigration since many potential immigrants are much poorer than the natives whose wages they might depress. Only a bizarre view of equity favors people earning the minimum wage in rich countries over people near starvation in developing countries.

The conclusion that open borders is the best immigration policy is all the stronger because attempts to restrict immigration have their own negatives. These include the direct costs of border controls, the creation of a violent black market for immigration, and incentives for corruption. Further, immigration may have beneficial effects on productivity by fostering competition and introducing new ideas, approaches, business models, products, and so on. At the same time, many people in receiving countries enjoy the influence of new cultures. Immigrants also work at jobs for which the native supply is small.

Reasonable people can argue that immigration should increase gradually to moderate the transition costs. But any reasonable balancing implies vastly expanded immigration relative to current levels. This would improve the welfare of poor people in other countries far more than foreign aid.

C/P at psy​chol​o​gy​to​day​.com