A 50 year plan: Eminent domain/property rights

I actually wasn’t going to do this particular subject yet, but I received an e-mail at work yesterday that bothered me and I wanted to share my reaction. In turn, since I’d planned on doing a “50 year plan” post on the issue anyway, this was as good of time as any to do so.

Recently, partially at the behest of my company but moreso to keep my continuing education requirements straight (and maintain my architectural license) I rejoined the American Institute of Architects after a hiatus of about 5 years or so. So now I’m a member of AIA Chesapeake Bay instead of AIA Toledo, but the national song seemingly remains the same.

I figured out that my membership had gone through when I started receiving AIA e-mails at work, which I have zero problem with. But yesterday’s e-mail was a newsletter called The Angle, which documents their political lobbying efforts and other related items the AIA pursues. Part of this newsletter was soliciting input for an AIA position statement, as follows:

Proposed Position Statement 46 – Eminent Domain

The American Institute of Architects believes that eminent domain is a critical tool for revitalizing our cities and improving the quality of life in urban and suburban neighborhoods. State and local governments must ensure that eminent domain laws do not curtail smart growth efforts, brownfield cleanup, or otherwise limit new development and improvements to existing development.

Well, since they asked for my input, they got it…

I would feel much better about this if the statement read as follows:

“The American Institute of Architects believes that eminent domain is a critical tool for revitalizing our cities and improving the quality of life in urban and suburban neighborhoods. While the AIA acknowledges and agrees that private property rights are paramount in our free society, we also feel that state and local governments can and should balance the rights of existing property holders with eminent domain laws that do not curtail smart growth efforts, brownfield cleanup, or otherwise limit new development and improvements to existing development.”

As I read it, the AIA is taking a position of property holders be damned, we just want to develop sites regardless of who’s hurt in the process and all these damn libertarians who insist on actually following the “takings clause” in the Fifth Amendment are just meddling with our profession.

Many eminent domain proceedings in the last decade have stretched the term “public use” way beyond its intent. Personally, I do not believe in government using its power and taking one’s private property to benefit another person simply for additional tax revenue.

And so begins this portion of what I’ve come to call my “50 year plan.” It’s pretty simple, really. The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution reads, in part, as follows:

(N)or (shall a person) be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. (Emphasis mine.)

In 2005, the United States Supreme Court handed down what’s popularly known as the Kelo decision. In a 5-4 decision (Stevens, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer the majority; O’Connor, Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas found for Suzette Kelo) the Court held that, despite the fact that “the city is not planning to open the condemned land – at least not in its entirety – to use by the general public.” They noted, “this…Court long ago rejected any literal requirement that condemned property be put into use for the…public.

You know, sometimes the Supreme Court gets it wrong. The idea behind eminent domain was to allow the taking of private property for a public use, such as a highway, airport, or a building that would be owned by the taxpayers rather than a private entity. But in the case of Suzette Kelo, her property would be used by a private developer – a developer who was planning on developing the land to boost the city’s tax base.

In the time since, many states have enacted laws to prohibit this practice. According to the Castle Coalition, 34 states either have a prohibition on this practice or strengthened its position on the law in 2006. Maryland is not one of them.

There is a fairly weak reform bill in the hopper in the Maryland Senate this session, SB3. A similar bill last session, also SB3 (along with HB1137), was referred back to committee once it was amended to change from a legislative matter to a Constitutional amendment by an amendment from Senator Allan Kittleman. (The House bill did not make it out of committee at all.)

Interestingly enough, the eminent domain power in Maryland has not been used much recently for “traditional” items such as highways, airports, government buildings, etc. The heaviest user of eminent domain in recent years has been the Maryland Stadium Authority, as they cleared out blocks of homes and businesses to build, among others, M&T Bank Stadium and Oriole Park at Camden Yards.

I like the idea of a Constitutional amendment at the state level, as long as the amendment clearly states that the power of eminent domain is to be used only for the public good and not to enrich one powerful private entity at the expense of a class of lesser entities as happened in New London, Connecticut. Theoretically, the federal level is already taken care of in the Fifth Amendment; all that needs is a Supreme Court which remembers that our laws are based solely on what the Founders wrote, not what they feel is in our best interest at the time or on incorrect precedents.

Because this eminent domain issue has a fairly simple solution and can be settled rather quickly, it’s one of the easiest planks to rectify in my 50 year plan. So I’m going to expand on the subject a little by talking about private property rights and other property issues.

Obviously in our nation one has some restrictions on property rights, which are mostly common-sense sorts of things. For example, it would not be a good idea if I built a rifle range in the midst of a residential area. If I had complete property rights theoretically I could do this, but most areas have some sort of zoning to prevent such incompatible uses from occurring on adjacent plots. Generally things like usage, setbacks, building area as a percentage of a lot, and building height are covered. These can also be waived if the property owner presents a compelling reason to do so in front of an elected or appointed local body.

However, I see a trend where government is restricting land usage by regulation. A recent example was embodied by the number of National Monuments established by President Clinton by his interpretation of the Antiquities Act of 1906. Whereas national parks need Congressional approval, in many cases national monuments do not. Clinton established a total of 19 national monuments, mostly in the final year or so of his term. While much of the land was already federally owned, this action also further restricted its usage. With the strokes of his pen Clinton placed over 5 million acres of land out of reach to mining and development. (That’s about 2/3 of the size of Maryland.) By comparison, President Bush has enacted just one land-based national monument of about 1/3 acre in New York City. A summary of concerns can also be found here.

While local zoning codes are generally fair, the scale of regulation of private property by the federal government is much less so – and much harder to combat. Another area of regulation that concerns me is hypersensitivity by people concerned with environmental issues such as endangered species. A number of projects have been thwarted nationwide because some so-called endangered species MIGHT have a nesting ground or habitat there. While there’s a case for preserving habitat, the balance is currently way too far in favor of militant environmentalism at the expense of economy.

Now I’ll shift my focus to a more local level.

In last year’s state election, Maryland voters unwisely placed the General Assembly in charge of the disposition of state land rather than retaining it under executive authority. This ballot issue arose from the proposed sale of state land in St. Mary’s County to a developer – something I personally had no problem with. Just like the argument in the Kelo case about the economic benefit to the city of New London, the land in question could have possibly benefitted the coffers and overall economy of St. Mary’s County. But in this case government took the opposite side.

Ideally to me governmental entities will own the least amount of land necessary to function. Further, land that is owned by the government should be as free of restrictions to private use as possible. While development would have limits, something where the public good outweighs the risks (such as drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) can be done if managed properly and carefully.

This portion of the 50 year plan will take much longer to implement than the eminent domain issue will because again it’s going to take a sea change in attitude by the powers that be. The more land they have, the more power. It’s going to take a forceful voice from the people to make government give back to the private sector what is rightfully theirs.

A 50 year plan: Role of government

The other night I read the State of the Union speech. Since I was out enjoying life (it was bowling night) I didn’t actually watch the speech but reading it took about 5 minutes, thus saving me about an hour of my life. These are just a few of many Bush Administration initiatives in the speech that I’ll use for illustration:

  • Setting a mandatory fuels standard to require 35 billion gallons of renewable and alternative fuels by 2017.
  • Dictating new fuel mileage standards for autos and light trucks. (I’ll bet Rep. Gilchrest is all over this.)
  • Changing tax laws regarding employer-paid health insurance and direct Federal funding to assist states that provide help for poor or hard-to-insure residents with health insurance.
  • Reauthorizing the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).

For years Presidents of both parties have used the SOTU speech as a showcase for whatever programs they wanted to push. Invariably, these were billed as panaceas for problems that faced our nation, and always it was a Federal solution that would cure the ailment. To use Bush’s speech as an example, these new programs either create or extend Federal mandates on what states or private enterprise may do.

Unfortunately, these energy-related items may all have unintended consequences.

The most likely way that our country would meet the 2017 alternative fuel mandate is by the additional use of ethanol. While ethanol is more environmentally-friendly and comes from a renewable resource, it actually takes MORE energy to create a gallon of ethanol than a gallon of gasoline, and ethanol costs more to boot. It also drives up the price of corn, which is a food staple, so grocery prices would increase from the twin factors of higher prices for the raw food material and transporting the finished product. That’s going to be most apparent in prices for produce, which is almost always shipped long distances.

A similar conundrum exists with the government mandating additional CAFE standards. In recent years, the market has favored large SUVs which come in below average on the fuel efficiency chart. These also provide the largest profits for the Big Three automakers, and with less profit coming in because they can’t sell so many of the profitable SUVs the automakers are cutting costs the one way they can – laying off workers. The Michigan economy is already hurting as the Big Three buys out as many employees as they can, and raising the CAFE standard bar would be another blow to their efforts at recovery.

In regard to the other two SOTU items, these fall into a category that has bothered me for as long as I’ve been a student of politics. It’s the basis of this essay on the role of government.

I keep a small booklet-sized copy of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution on my desk. The Tenth Amendment reads:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The first and foremost objection I have to the current method of government (practiced by both parties; neither is blameless in this) is when Congress puts together a bill that holds either the carrot of giving additional Federal funds or the stick of a Federal money cutoff to a particular state based on their action or inaction on a particular measure. One example I see as I drive into Maryland is the sign stating that .08 BAL is the law in Maryland. Apparently Maryland was one of the last states to lower the BAL but got with the program once their highway funding started to (or was scheduled to start to) suffer.

One Senator was responsible for this, Ohio’s now-former Senator Mike DeWine. Tragically, he lost one of his daughters to a car accident involving a drunk driver. But if he had been a proper government servant he would have lobbied the state of Ohio to lower its BAL limit as a statewide effort to promote highway safety. Instead, after trying for a few years to get this adopted, he managed to place this stick in some Congressional legislation and thereafter states had the gun of losing part of their federal highway funding put to their head if they didn’t follow the .08 BAL standard.

A couple days ago I heard a radio news item talking about Delaware not having a compliant open container law, thus it loses a small percentage of its federal highway funding (the figure I saw was 3% based on a 2001 article.) Yet again, it’s an example of the stick being applied to a state government to bend over to the wishes of the federal government, which is once again overreaching its Tenth Amendment rights.

With the latter two SOTU examples listed above, state and local governments will be placed at the beck and call of what some bureaucrats and do-gooders in Congress want them to do. If you give health insurance to your heretofore uninsured residents, we’ll give you more money. If you don’t enact the federal NCLB regulations, we’ll take away your federal education funding. (The same principle applies to taxation for individuals as certain actions are either encouraged or discouraged, but that’s a topic for another day.)

There are three principles I’d like to see the next generation embrace when they get to the positions of power. First and foremost is an end to these government mandates. Let the states be individual laboratories of government as the Founders intended. It’s a shame that all the faceless bureaucrats who get to push paper and make sure that the lower reaches of government do exactly as they have dictated to them would lose their jobs, but perhaps their talents can be used effectively in some other task. Lord knows eliminating red tape would open up a lot of jobs in the private sector!

The second principle is not something that the Founders intended, but I’ve come to believe in the last few years they’ve become necessary. Additionally, the Constitution now has a precedent for it in the 22nd Amendment.

I think there needs to be term limits for Congress. Where I live now, this district has had the same Congressman since 1991. Maryland has one Senator who has held her seat since 1987, with the other just beginning his Senate career after two decades in the House of Representatives. He takes over for a Senator who served 30 years.

The Founders intended a legislature composed of public-minded citizens who would serve a short time in Congress then return home to their communities. President George Washington embodied this principle by refusing to serve a third term, despite the fact he would’ve almost certainly won in a landslide. It’s been suggested that a person be limited to three terms in the House of Representatives and two terms in the Senate, and that seems like a fair number. Ohio has term limits for its state officeholders of eight years. Of course, what’s happened in a few cases is that legislators who run through their four (two-year) terms in the Ohio House run for the Ohio Senate to take advantage of its eight-year limit (two four-year terms) and vice versa. Since the Ohio law was enacted in 1994, I haven’t noticed yet if the switchers will try to return to their original legislative body for another eight years. To combat that tendency, I’d also like added to the law a lifetime limit of 18 years in Congress (three terms in the House plus two terms as Senator.)

The third principle I’d like to see adopted is the automatic sunsetting of government rules and regulations after a point in time, say, ten years. Just as many government programs need to be reauthorized from time to time (like NCLB) encoded laws themselves need to be revisited occasionally.

After the 9/11 attacks, Congress enacted the PATRIOT Act, which curbed some of the civil liberties that libertarians in particular hold dear. If I recall correctly, the original authorization was for three years so it had to be reauthorized in 2005 – meanwhile, some of the supporters called for the provisions to become permanent.

I understand how curbs on certain rights are required during a time of war. During the Civil War, President Lincoln suspended the right of habeas corpus for a time as part of prosecuting the war. President Franklin Roosevelt interred thousands of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

But to me these provisions need not become permanent, as at some point in our future the War on Terror will be won. (If it’s not, then the diminished rights we enjoy now would become meaningless. I don’t think there’s a right of habeas corpus in Sharia law.) Occasionally someone will write a newspaper column or a website post about some archaic law that has long since outlived its usefulness but still languishes on the books. (A Maryland example is the concept of ground rent.)

The other factors in this are sort of sneaky. If a Congress is debating the merits of existing laws that have come to the end of their sunsetting period, they have less time to dream up new restrictions! Also, because of the term limit principles I’ve touched on earlier, it would be an almost entirely new Congress that debates the issue, and they wouldn’t have the ownership aspect to color their view. To use one example, would John McCain (a Senator since 1987) or Russ Feingold (occupying his Senate seat since 1993) be in favor of repealing their campaign finance law? It’s doubtful, but if it came up for renewal in ten years their successors may feel differently.

In my thinking about government, I think I have envisioned something a little closer to what the Founders intended. As it stands right now, the governmental pyramids are inverted – power is concentrated at the top, but that’s where the fewest people wield it. I believe government was intended to have the maximum power placed at the bottom of the pyramid with the people, then the “several States”, with the federal government at the peak of the pyramid – only intended to do things that have a national interest like coining money and defending our nation. The Constitution addressed the failings of the original Articles of Confederation and defined the roles of government more clearly.

As I stated when I began this occasional series, this change is not one that’s going to happen overnight – it’s going to take decades and the generation of my stepdaughter and whatever children she’s blessed with to accomplish these goals. But I believe it’s possible and it just may refresh the tree of liberty without shedding any blood of patriots, tyrants, or bystanders.

01.20.07

I’m sure you see the little black oval stickers on the back of some Volvo or Subaru that simply say “01.20.09” on them. Normally they’re on the other side of the bumper as the “You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war” bumper sticker (the quote is attributed to Albert Einstein.)

Imagine what they would feel if they woke up that day to hear a somber newsbabe:

Today at noon President-elect Newt Gingrich and Vice-President-elect Tom Tancredo take the oath of office – this despite Senate Minority Leader Hillary Rodham Clinton’s continuing assertions of disenfranchisement of Hispanic voters who gained amnesty 2 years ago and other fraudulent voting. (What the infobabe didn’t say was that she lost by ten points.)

Meanwhile, both newly-minted House Speaker Mike Pence of Indiana and Senate Majority Leader Tom Coburn of Oklahoma vowed to complete the dismantling of our government featured in the “Second Contract With America.”

(Pence soundbite: “We now have a historic opportunity to work with the originator of the first ‘Contract With America’ to roll back and cut out the excesses of government while preserving its essential functions.” For the 2010 elections, the unions would use the same quote but have it say “We now have a historic opportunity to…cut out the…government.”)

Also, Hillary Clinton is denying internet reports that as she vowed to work with the new administration, a blogger from the widely-read ‘Maryland Bloggers Alliance’ posted a video of Hillary from behind showing her fingers crossed behind her back.

It seems to me that (and maybe my memory’s a bit hazy, after all it’s been 8 years) that there was nowhere near this much speculation and buzz on who was going to be President at this time in 1999. Then again, we did have a heir apparent in media darling Al Gore, so nobody in the mainstream media cared too much about who the Republican sacrificial lamb would be.

But I couldn’t let this occasion of the midway point of George W. Bush’s final term go by without commenting. Of course, if the above happened the owners of these Volvos and Subarus would simply slap on “01.20.13” stickers, wouldn’t they? Some people just can’t be happy.

I suppose if I were into that sort of symbolism, one one side of my bumper I’d put my “Don’t Blame Me – I Voted For Ehrlich” sticker and the other side would have a sticker with a Maryland flag on it that read “01.19.11”. But I’m not into symbolism, I’m into solutions. Maybe it’s because I have a blog that suggests solutions rather than simply whines about what was.

Links and new members

A couple things as we go into our second-to-last NFL weekend. After Sunday, I’ll have to do stuff like reading and cleaning my house all weekend. I hate that 2 1/2 months between the end of football season (save for the Super Bowl 2 weeks hence) and the beginning of baseball season. Nonetheless…

Today as I promised a couple weeks back I’ve posted the campaign websites of hopefuls for President – not just Republicans and Democrats, but also from those minor parties on the Maryland ballot. I was informed via the Maryland Green Party website and the Libertarian list-serv that both of those parties turned in what they deemed as a sufficient number of signatures by the end of 2006 to maintain their status for the 2007-2010 election cycle in Maryland. So I have their potential candidates linked online as well.

For this effort, I give a large hat-tip to Ron Gunzberger’s Politics1 website as well as fellow MBA member David Wissing (The Hedgehog Report). It was through both websites that I found the appropriate links.

And speaking of the MBA, in the last couple weeks we’ve expanded in both number and subject content. 

In the last couple weeks we’ve added The Pubcrawler from Gaithersburg, who does mostly political commentary with a libertarian tone, plus we’ve added Charles Dowd (C. Dowd’s Blog), an illustrator and Web designer from Lansdowne who writes on a variety of topics. And with a website after my own heart (despite his allegiance to an inferior ballteam), the “Maryland Orioles Fan” brings Orioles Post to the MBA. As a long-suffering Detroit Tigers fan (until 2006) and a follower of the Oriole-affiliated Shorebirds, I feel his pain. He writes out of Silver Spring.

You know, it would be intriguing to know just how many people read one or more MBA-affiliated sites on a daily basis. I’m sure we reach thousands of Marylanders…even if I’m an “average” website with a couple hundred daily readers, that puts us respectably into four figures. Of course, I live in the area of Maryland outside the main population base so my numbers are likely on the low side. I’d bet we get at least 10,000 readers a day between all of us. Perhaps we need to start charging to advertise with these numbers.

I’ll likely add to my “50 year plan” this weekend (I know, where have you heard that before?) so check back. Meanwhile, check out the Presidential contender websites and my cohorts of the MBA, new and old.

Oh, by the way…the Presidential links have been set to appear in random order, not in order of my preference. So being at the top of my list doesn’t construe my endorsement.

Death or Glory? How about “victory”?

I’ve heard the name before and it’s obvious he reads monoblogue, but Isaac Smith of The Old Line took offense to my criticism of newly-minted Senator Cardin the other day.

In particular, he sniffed:

Our Army and Marine Corps is on the point of breaking just in Iraq and Afghanistan. How the hell does Swartz think they can up and depose the Iranian regime, the Syrian regime, the Lebanese regime, etc. without drafting every able-bodied male, including me and him, into a war that would last decades? Swartz may be willing to gamble with other people’s lives, but I am not, and neither is the majority of Americans. Oh, and the troops Swartz claims understand the danger of his “Long War”? They’re against the war too.

So I read the short articles he cited in this passage. One thing that stood out among the two polls he cited was this passage from the AP poll:

Just 35 percent think it was right for the United States to go to war, a new low in AP polling and a reversal from two years ago, when two-thirds of Americans thought it was the correct move.

All this tells me is that the constant beatdown by the partisan media has borne fruit and turned Americans against the War on Terror. As I noted before, back on September 12, 2001 we couldn’t wait to turn our guns on whoever knocked over the Twin Towers. But Americans now seem to be cursed with a short attention span and the enemy is smart enough to see how the steady drumbeat of criticism is yielding results much as the antiwar slant in the media eventually doomed South Viet Nam to a Communist takeover.

The other poll Isaac Smith cites is a Military Times mail poll that states 35% of military members approve of the way President Bush is handing the war while 42% disapprove. Also it claims that “in this year’s poll only 41 percent of the military said the U.S. should have gone to war in Iraq in the first place.

But then we have this disclaimer:

The results should not be read as representative of the military as a whole; the survey’s respondents are on average older, more experienced, more likely to be officers and more career-oriented than the overall military population.

And I liked this passage:

But (those surveyed) are convinced the media hate them — only 39 percent of military respondents said they think the media have a favorable view of the troops.

That’s interesting since it’s “the media” that did this poll: the Military Times is a subsidiary of Gannett, Inc. (the folks who publish everything from USA Today to our local Daily Times.)

And there’s another item I’d like to address before I finish this tonight.

If I had my preference, we wouldn’t have to see young men and women die in some foreign land. Unfortunately, I don’t think we had much of a choice given the series of attacks that have occurred to America and its interests for nearly 30 years in the Middle East and elsewhere which can be traced to radical Islam. (There. Is that a better description than Islamofascist?)

Honestly, Isaac, do you think that if America had done nothing in response to 9/11, that we wouldn’t have had another similar attack?

I have a philosophy that government should be proactive rather than reactive when used in its proper context. Because of that, I see the logic of the methods (if not necessarily the means) by which we are fighting this war. We are using people who have volunteered to fight the war knowing full well what they are signing up for and taking the battle to the original instigators on what is essentially their turf.

I’ll close with some of what President Bush said on September 20, 2001. It sounds like Isaac and his cohorts on the left may need a refresher course.

Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen.  It may include dramatic strikes, visible on TV, and covert operations, secret even in success.  We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest.  And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism.  Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.  From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime…the only way to defeat terrorism as a threat to our way of life is to stop it, eliminate it, and destroy it where it grows.

(…)

The civilized world is rallying to America’s side.  They understand that if this terror goes unpunished, their own cities, their own citizens may be next.  Terror, unanswered, can not only bring down buildings, it can threaten the stability of legitimate governments.  And you know what — we’re not going to allow it.

(…)

Great harm has been done to us.  We have suffered great loss.  And in our grief and anger we have found our mission and our moment.  Freedom and fear are at war.  The advance of human freedom — the great achievement of our time, and the great hope of every time — now depends on us.  Our nation — this generation — will lift a dark threat of violence from our people and our future.  We will rally the world to this cause by our efforts, by our courage.  We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail.

It is my hope that in the months and years ahead, life will return almost to normal.  We’ll go back to our lives and routines, and that is good.  Even grief recedes with time and grace.  But our resolve must not pass…I will not forget this wound to our country or those who inflicted it.  I will not yield; I will not rest; I will not relent in waging this struggle for freedom and security for the American people.

Nor will I.

Moving backwards in the Senate

Today I went to my political mailbox and found a note from my “friend” Senator Cardin called “Moving Backwards in Iraq.”

Dear Friend,

Last night, President Bush presented the American people with his plan for the future of Iraq.  Unfortunately, his plan is not the change of course we so desperately need.  It will only put more American troops in harm’s way and will not bring us any closer to achieving success in Iraq.

Later this morning, I am scheduled to deliver my first speech on the Floor of the U.S. Senate. I will use this opportunity to voice my strong opposition to the President’s plan to escalate troop levels.  I’ll offer my own vision for moving forward in Iraq, which acknowledges that the country is in the midst of a worsening civil war.

The President’s plan to send thousands of additional troops to Iraq is not a change in strategy; it’s an escalated version of the same ‘stay the course’ policy that has not worked.  The circumstances on the ground in Iraq are worsening.  More American troops are dying each week and there’s no end in sight. A new policy in Iraq is long overdue.

By choosing an escalation in troop levels rather than a drawdown, President Bush is ignoring the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group and the advice of many military experts, including several of his own generals.  He is also ignoring the wishes of the American people, who last November spoke with a unified voice against the current policy in Iraq. 

Like the majority of Americans, I believe we need to bring our troops home, not send more troops to war.  Iraq is in the midst of a civil war and victory will not be achieved by flexing our military might. 

Success can come only through aiding the Iraqis in establishing a government that protects the rights and enjoys the confidence of all its people. It must be a government that respects both human rights and democratic principles. The efforts of U.S. soldiers, no matter how heroic, cannot accomplish these objectives for the Iraqis.

Our objective must be to escalate our political and diplomatic efforts, not our troop levels.

I sincerely hope the President reconsiders his plan and works with Congress to bring about a real change in policy that allows our troops to start coming home.

Thank you for your continued support.

Sincerely,

Ben Cardin

Ben Cardin was born in 1943, so that makes him 63 years old. Unless he lives to his father’s age, he may not be around for the conclusion of this Long War against Islamofascism.

The reason Iraq is in the middle of what he terms a “civil war” is that we have taken the fight to the Islamic extremists on their turf. And much like Viet Nam, the enemy’s not fighting on a strictly military basis. They seem to have studied our Viet Nam experience and are using much the same strategy as the Viet Cong did. On a strictly military basis, the enemy has much less firepower than we do but they use the guerrilla tactics perfected in the jungles of Southeast Asia very well.

Even more so, our Islamofascist enemy is taking advantage of the same propaganda style that turned the country against the war in Viet Nam. I’m old enough to remember Walter Cronkite leading off the nightly news with the day’s body count from over there and then the second or third feature being an antiwar protest someplace. While the term may or may not be attributable to Vladimir Lenin, “useful idiot” does capture the flavor of the 1960’s mainstream media and their reporting on military events.

But I digress. Getting back to the Cardin letter:

I guess the very first objection I have is that American troops understand when they sign on the dotted line that they will be in harm’s way. To place a local slant on this, I’m sure Eric Caldwell knew that he may lose his life defending our country since he signed up for the military in 2003 and the Army in 2005, well after we began operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Unfortunately for him and his family, that’s the very thing that happened.

And I have to disagree that sending more troops to Iraq is automatically a mistake. It seems to me that many on the Democrat side were pleading for more troops to be sent over there not all that long ago. Well, now they get their wish and they bitch about it. And frankly, I’m sick of their whining and pouting about how badly the war is going. Much of this may have been avoided if the last two Democrat presidents had grown a pair and aggressively gone after those who attacked us and our interests abroad.

Next, I don’t believe that the American people “spoke with a unified voice against the current policy in Iraq” in November. Yes, they elected a Democrat majority. But how many of them actually ran against the war? They ran against the “culture of corruption” and against President Bush in general. Many made themselves out as just as conservative as their GOP opponents.

And even if Americans did speak with an antiwar tone in their vote, it still doesn’t mean they’re right. If they were truly antiwar, they would’ve had the attitude they have now on September 12, 2001. But I seem to recall back then most Americans were girded for battle with whoever did this to us at the World Trade Center and Pentagon. By golly, that’s what we’re doing now – how soon they forget!

So this is a message from me to both of my Senators, Senator Cardin and Senator Mikulski (who also had remarks about the troop buildup.) It will be time for the troops to come home when we have achieved victory in the Long War. That will be the point when the threat from Islamofascists and their allies has subsided to an internally manageable level because of the use of our force to a point where free and elected governments thrive – not just in Iraq, but Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and any other country that yearns for freedom in the Middle East.

The only front we can lose this war on would be the home front. I brought up the term “useful idiots” earlier. With their remarks today, the Democrats have firmly shown themselves to be perfect examples of this, and I’m betting there’s smiles all around wherever the Islamofascists are holed up for tonight.

 

Day one in Congress

There were a number of bills I’m going to have to keep track of that I found interesting for various reasons.

First off, our own Wayne Gilchrest introduced one of the first bills on the House docket. H.R. 16 would “amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to improve and reauthorize the Chesapeake Bay program.” It was actually the sixth bill introduced since Nancy Pelosi reserved numbers 1-10 for her own pet items. There’s 18 co-sponsors with this, all with districts surrounding Chesapeake Bay.

Here’s one I really like. Maryland’s Roscoe Bartlett introduced H.R. 77, which would “amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to change the deadline for income tax returns for calendar year taxpayers from the 15th of April to the first Monday in November.” That would be cool if passed. Obviously the intent is to have the tax bill fresh on the minds of voters.

H.R. 121 could impact me as the push for “green” buildings continues. Rep. Michael Doyle of Pennsylvania is the sponsor of this measure “to improve efficiency in the Federal Government through the use of high-performance green buildings, and for other purposes.” It’s those “other purposes” that always scare me. This bill has 1 co-sponsor.

Ending the “automatic” citizenship of babies born in the U.S. is the aim of H.R. 133, introduced by California Rep. Elton Gallegly. This would “amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to deny citizenship at birth to children born in the United States of parents who are not citizens or permanent resident aliens.” He also brought out H.R. 138, which is an act “to require an employer to take action after receiving official notice that an individual’s Social Security account number does not match the individual’s name, and for other purposes.”

On the other end of the political spectrum, fellow Californian Rep. Zoe Lofgren submitted H.R. 182, which would “amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to impose an excise tax on automobiles sold in the United States that are not alternative fueled automobiles, and for other purposes.”

Texas Rep. Ron Paul wants to get rid of the Clinton Social Security tax increase with H.R. 192, a bill that would “amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to repeal the 1993 increase in taxes on Social Security benefits.” This actually has 5 co-sponsors.

Congress has jurisdiction over the courts. It’s my assumption that Rep. Michael Simpson of Idaho wants his state out of what’s affectionately known as the “Ninth Circus” Court. H.R. 221 has as its purpose “to amend title 28, United States Code, to provide for the appointment of additional Federal circuit judges, to divide the Ninth Judicial Circuit of the United States into two circuits, and for other purposes.”

Turning to the Senate, I found some of their bills interesting too.

S.48 was introduced by Nevada Sen. John Ensign. He and his two co-sponsors want “a bill to return meaning to the Fifth Amendment by limiting the power of eminent domain.”

S.55 would “amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to repeal the individual alternative minimum tax.” Sen. Max Baucus of Montana is the lead sponsor, with 4 co-sponsors.

S.102 also would “amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to extend and expand relief from the alternative minimum tax” but in return it also would “repeal the extension of the lower rates for capital gains and dividends for 2009 and 2010.” Not surprisingly, Sen. John F. Kerry is your sponsor for this “soak the rich” (meaning anyone who happens to sell stock for a gain like I have) bill.

Far-left readers of monoblogue already practically worship this Senator, but Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin is the sponsor of S.121, “A bill to provide for the redeployment of United States forces from Iraq.” (i.e. cut and run.) He has one co-sponsor, Sen. Barbara Boxer of California. Boxer is also the sponsor of S.151, which seeks a law “to permanently prohibit oil and gas leasing off the coast of the State of California, and for other purposes.” That bill, in turn, has one co-sponsor – the other California Senator, Dianne Feinstein.

Barbara’s quite the busy lady. She also introduced S.152, which would “amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 to establish a program to help States expand the educational system to include at least 1 year of early education preceding the year a child enters kindergarten.” So the government schools would have control of your kids basically from the age of 3 onward.

Our Rep. Gilchrest has a friend in the Senate. Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska placed S.183 into the hopper, a bill to “require the establishment of a corporate average fuel economy standard for passenger automobiles of 40 miles per gallon (by) 2017, and for other purposes.”

In total, there were 230 bills introduced in the House and 173 in the Senate. These are just a few that caught my eye. The Thomas service is a nice way to find these bills and their status.

A question of sovereignty

The local blogger D.D. Crabb of Crabbin’ has spent quite a bit of time and posting on the efforts to create a North American Union of sorts, based on the European Union and certainly a threat to our constitutional government. Today he posts regarding an interview done by American University professor Robert Pastor, a leader of the “North American Community” crowd. Here’s the money quote:

“Our founding fathers created a system of governance that was not designed to be efficient but was designed to protect freedom. Therefore, you created checks and balances that did protect freedom but also made it difficult to move forward on important issues.”

The way Pastor states his belief is troubling. In other words, American freedom and sovereignty is less important than efficiency. Unfortunately, I can’t see Canada and Mexico as paragons of efficiency.

In Canada, we have an industrialized nation much like the U.S. and one with plentiful natural resources (particularly oil), but with them comes the baggage of their socialized health care system and their pacifism in international affairs. Mexico is also rich in oil but their crude is controlled by a state-run entity and those oil riches do not circulate down to the population at large. This is why a huge number of Mexicans live and work abroad in the United States. The Mexican government can charitably be termed as awash in corruption as opposed to described as just plain criminal. In recent elections, the leftist candidate lost by a small margin and (of course) cried fraud so Mexico is a divided country as well.

With efficient organizations, a merger tends to accentuate the efficiency – so usually this holds true with free-market conditions. Additionally, the element of competition is helpful with creating better outcomes. However, government and bureaucracy is the antithesis of efficiency. It’s my fear that a merger of this sort between the three governments would bring out the worst in each. The Canadian health care system would certainly survive and corruption endemic in Mexico would likely take root in the U.S. As opposed to being a leader in protecting freedom, this union would be neutered in that respect.

The best way to move forward on important issues is to allow the most freedom to be innovative. Looking at the European example, a North American Union (with common currency, multi-national legislature, etc.) does not appear to be a course we want to follow.

Open letter to Senator-elect Cardin

As I stated yesterday in my last post, I got an e-mail late Wednesday night from Ben Cardin with its subject being his reaction to the Iraq Study Group report. Here’s what he wrote:

Dear Friend,

Today, the Iraq Study Group presented its recommendations to the Bush administration and the American people. I hope President Bush and his top advisers will read them very closely.

After conducting the most in-depth study on the Bush administration’s management of the war in Iraq to date, the bi-partisan commission reached the same basic conclusion that most Americans have already reached for themselves: we need a change of course in Iraq and we need it now.

As the commission notes, the situation in Iraq is in fact “grave and deteriorating.” The Iraqi government needs to take more responsibility, the Bush administration must reach out to the international community, including some of Iraq’s neighbors, and our troops need to start coming home soon.

I believe the decisions we make in the coming weeks and months about our future involvement in Iraq will be among the most important foreign policy decisions of our times. Our approach in Iraq will not only impact the future of that nation, but also the stability of the entire region and America’s standing in the in the world. With so much is at stake, I am honored that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has nominated me to serve on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where I will work with my colleagues to develop a new policy in Iraq when the new Congress convenes.

The Bush administration’s policies in Iraq simply are not working – and everyone seems to recognize that but President Bush himself.

The American people know the status quo isn’t working and they voiced their opposition at the polls last month. Most members of Congress, on both sides of the aisle, know it’s not working. Numerous former generals and military experts have spoken out against it too. We now know that even Donald Rumsfeld, just two days before resigning, conceded to the President that the current course in Iraq wasn’t working. Yet, to this day, the President insists on continuing with the same failed policies.

Hopefully now, with the commission’s recommendations in hand, the Bush administration will hear the concerns of the American people and chart a new course. It’s time to finally put forward a strategy to start bringing home our troops safely and honorably.

I believe the Bush administration should implement the commission’s recommendation to start significantly drawing down our troops – particularly the non-combat personnel. As the commission noted, beginning the process of bringing American troops home will send a strong signal to the Iraqi government that they need to stand up and assume responsibility for their own security.

I voted against the going to war in Iraq four years ago and have remained an outspoken critic of the President’s management of it. Last June, I outlined my own plan for moving forward in Iraq, which like the Iraq Study Group report, included gradually drawing down American troops and aggressively engaging the international community in the rebuilding of Iraq.

The Iraq Study Group’s report has provided the Bush administration with many thoughtful recommendations on how to chart a new course in Iraq. Now it’s time for the Administration to take action – change is long overdue.

Sincerely,

Ben Cardin

After receiving this e-mail I thought this would be a great chance to post about my feelings on the ISG and the Long War in general.

Dear Senator-elect Cardin:

As one of many on your e-mail list because of my interest in political affairs, I am in receipt of your e-mail note of Wednesday, December 6th. To me, it’s quite ironic that the report came out when it did, as the next day we commemorated the 65th anniversary of the previous (to 9/11/01) surprise attack on American soil, Pearl Harbor.

I find it enlightening that you support having a study group to tell us how to conduct warfare. Back in 1941, the only group that mattered was America as a whole, and as a nation we rolled up our sleeves and got to work defending ourselves regardless of cost in material and lives.

But I thought a good, simple to understand analogy would be to compare our war efforts in Iraq to the current success enjoyed by the Baltimore Ravens. In actuality, the scenario I describe becomes quite possible as the remainder of the football season plays out.

Having defeated an opponent in their first round playoff game, the Ravens would find themselves having to make the long trip to San Diego for the next round of the playoffs. During the prior week, the Ravens study film of previous Charger games to determine what tendencies San Diego has and how best to combat them. And once the game starts, they use their strength and power on both offense and defense to jump off to a quick 14-0 lead.

But as any good team would over the course of the game, the Chargers adjust and start to find some of the weaknesses in the Ravens’ attack. Plus, having the advantages of home field and a week off to prepare, San Diego tosses out a few wrinkles that the Ravens weren’t expecting coming in. The combination of these factors knocks the Ravens back on their heels – Baltimore becomes inept at even the simplest tasks of blocking and holding on to the football. Penalties, turnovers, and mistakes compound and by halftime the momentum has shifted and the Chargers have come back to take a 17-14 lead. And the contingent of Ravens fans who were loudly and boisterously cheering on the purple and black early on becomes openly derisive of their chances in the second half while the ever-skeptical “experts” sneer that “we told you that the Ravens weren’t good enough to win.”

Hopefully it was quite easy to determine which parties in the Long War were analogous to the ones in my semi-mythical playoff game. Our country took the fight to the Islamofascist forces much as the Ravens would have to take their playoff fight to San Diego in order to advance.

So halftime has arrived. It seems to me that the course that you seem to advocate (and have all through the campaign) would be for the Ravens to play their second-stringers during the second half and walk off the field after the third quarter. But true Ravens fans would expect their team to make whatever adjustments were necessary and shift tactics back to other areas they were strongest at to come back for the win. To that end, I find it interesting that nowhere in the main body of the ISG report is the word “victory” mentioned aside from the citation that pulling out would hand the terrorist forces a victory.

As I see it, there’s only one good outcome in the Long War. We win. America cannot win this by retreating nor can diplomacy save the day. Five Presidents (since Jimmy Carter in 1979) have had to deal with these terrorists to one degree or another, with the first of many incidents involving Islamic terrorists being the kidnapping of 52 hostages at the American Embassy in Teheran. One of the hostage-takers is a man who the ISG advocates negotiating with!

President Bush said early on that this fight would not be easy nor would it be short. I read a news article the other day that noted we’ve now fought the battles in Iraq on the ground for a longer period than our involvement in World War 2. As the media almost gleefully reports a daily body count and works to move the nation into an anti-war frenzy as occurred with Viet Nam, it makes me wonder if the length of this fight has as much to do with the lack of support from people like you, Senator-elect Cardin, as it does the anti-Semitic, religiously extreme resolve that drives our enemies on the battlefield. We learned today that this resolve may have led a young man to sacrifice himself and kill hundreds of others in an Illinois mall during the holidays if not for good work by FBI agents.

The other good work has been done by many thousands of young men and women who do support our country and what it stands for. Some of them have made the ultimate sacrifice as Derrick Shareef may have planned to as part of jihad. But with any outcome other than our eventual victory, those fine Americans (and other coalition forces) who’ve died in Iraq and Afghanistan die in vain.

Sincerely,

Michael Swartz
www.monoblogue.us

Shifting the blame around

The other night I was reading the blog done by the Republican Study Committee, which is on the site of Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana. On this I came across a press release from the rival Republican Main Street Partnership, claiming the far right as “soley (sic) responsible for Democratic gains” because they “push(ed) a legislative agenda cow-towing to the far right in our party”; in particular blocking measures to raise the minimum wage, expand embryonic stem-cell research, and “real” ethics and lobbying reform.

For those of you who don’t know and haven’t figured it out, the RSC represents the conservative wing of the House Republicans, while the Main Street Partnership caters to the more moderate in the party. While the RMSP members are mostly in the House, a smattering of Senators and state governors also claim membership, including luminaries such as Sen. John McCain and California’s Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Also included among RMSP politicians are local House members Wayne Gilchrest and Mike Castle, along with outgoing Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich. Representing the Republican Study Committee in Maryland is Sixth House District Congressman Roscoe Bartlett.

So I looked at this short press release, misspelling and all, of this group which lays claim to the legacy of Ronald Reagan despite talking about “ignor(ing) centrist concerns (and pursuing the) far right’s legislative agenda.” Then I decided to look at who REALLY lost the House.

Of the two competing groups, the RSC is by far the larger, with 102 House members on their roster. Of these 102 members, 90 will continue on to the next Congress. Using the American Conservative Union ratings that are done annually as a guide, I found that all but one of these 102 members had a rating of 80% or better, and the odd member had a 92% rating in 2005 (to bolster his overall 64% rating.) In fact, all but nine of these Congressman have maintained a 90% or better ACU life rating since they began their service.

Further, when you look at the election results, 54 of these 90 winning Congressmen won their seats with over 60% of the vote and 9 of those had better than 70% – obviously most of these members were reelected by a clear mandate. Of the 12 who are leaving Congress, three vacated their seats to run for other posts, and 9 were defeated for reelection. The other 3 seats split 2-1 Democrat.

The Main Street Partnership as a group has a much worse ACU rating, with only 16 of the 48 members achieving an 80% rating. Just five reach the 90% mark lifetime, and none exceed 92%. (Our Congressmen, Gilchrest and Castle, rank at 62% and 57% respectively. Across the Virginia line, Congresswoman Thelma Drake, a member of the competing RSC, has a solid 92% rating.)

Now, here’s the results for the MSP membership. Coming into the election, they had 48 House members in their group. They lost 11 members of their 48, with seven of those losers coming out of northeastern states and three from the midwest. Only 14 of the 37 survivors won with 60% or more of the vote, topping the list was Wayne Gilchrest with 69%. The RSC lost the other GOP seat vacated by Rep. Jim Kolbe of Arizona, that seat flipped to the Democrats.

But as a whole, almost all of the seats that switched from Republican to Democrat control came from the northeast and midwest; mostly RMSP members in the more liberal northeast and disenchantment with a Congress deemed not conservative enough in the midwest, particularly in Indiana. Also, three seats were lost to Democrat and media-stoked scandals in Ohio, Texas, and Florida (Ney, DeLay, and Foley respectively.)

If anything, I think the RMSP needs to look in the mirror if they want to find someone to blame. Many items on the Bush agenda have been held up or watered down by Main Street members, particularly the eight in the Senate. Democrats took advantage of the infighting and managed to find more “conservative” candidates because what’s considered the “center” in this country has taken a rightward turn in the quarter century since Ronald Reagan took office. However, I doubt any of these new Democrats will be Reagan Democrats, I’m certain they’ll be pretty much following the marching orders given to them by Pelosi and company.

The election results have spoken. Almost 1/4 of the members of the Republican Main Street Partnership were ousted from Congress, while barely 10% of the Republican Study Committee group was. Something tells me the mandate from the people is for a conservative opposition to thwart and temper the extreme liberalism sure to be attempted by the Democrats in the 110th Congress while working to regain a majority in 2008 and elect a more conservative President.

Afterword: I was thinking about the 69% of the vote Gilchrest received. Imagine if the Democrats had recruited a candidate not as far left as Dr. Jim Corwin was and placed some dollars behind his campaign. (Someone like our County Executive candidate Tom Taylor comes to mind, pretty much a Reagan Democrat.) Honestly, I think Gilchrest would have lost that election.

In many instances where the Democrats picked up seats, they got candidates that were at least perceived to be as conservative as the GOP incumbents they replaced, but weren’t tarred with the “culture of corruption” brush or tied to President Bush (read: the War on Terror) – ideas hammered into the average voter on a daily basis by the partisan, “drive-by” media.

And many conservatives deserve a good share of blame about being tied to the Abramoff scandal because it showed clearly how they had strayed from the ideals of the “Contract With America” that got them elected. After all, if government is truly smaller, lobbyists will follow the money someplace else. We never did follow through on ridding ourselves of the Department of Education or the frivilous spending. Instead of rebelling against the system, these Congressmen embraced it, and it cost them.

Sage commentary

Tell me if this isn’t pretty close to the truth. I wrote this back in May to comment on a post by the Detroit area bloggers Conservababes: Right From New Fallujah.

If you ask me (well, since I’m adding the comment I guess I wasn’t asked – but anyhow):

In 1994, the Republicans won back control of the House by having principles.

In 2006, the Republicans risk losing control of the House because someplace along the line they lost their principles.

And they reason why they may lose the House is that those voters who have principles and elected the GOP no longer have the faith in them to justify their vote. In my home state of Maryland, we could have the perfect storm:

Conservatives stay home because they’re disillusioned with the political process.

Democrats, who’ve already attempted to game the system with some poorly written early voting laws and other election reform, “turn out” in great numbers. Probably those numbers will be inflated by provisional ballots, but nonetheless are counted.

What happens then is that the GOP governor is defeated for re-election and the black GOP Senate candidate loses his bid, keeping the seat in Democrat hands.

On November 8, the Washington Post crows about these Maryland losses in a state the national GOP thought might be in play and plants the seed (spread throughout the MSM) for a Democrat rout in 2008.

Then the remaining Republicans, seeing what they assume is a public backlash against their policies, become even more moderate, thus disappointing their conservative base farther.

And the vicious cycle begins…because an uninformed electorate believes what they see on TV and dutifully reflects it on Election Day.

The immigration fight could be the last hurrah for the Reagan conservative movement if it’s not won.

Aside from the part about early voting (I’ll grant the results were relatively legit in Maryland) I think I hit the nail pretty much on the head.

If you’re interested in some of my other comments on other posts, I maintain and occasionally update a section called “My feedback” which is linked on the left column of monoblogue. I was reading it today as I added a comment I made on another local blog.

Maryland issues to embrace

Back in October I attended a forum here at Salisbury University sponsored by a group called PACE which featured three speakers from a think tank known as the Maryland Public Policy Institute. Sad to say, these three speakers were 1/3 of the people in the room, a fourth being the wife of one presenter, a fifth being the woman who runs PACE, and this blogger was a sixth. Yes, there were just six people sitting in a large room listening to these three, which is really too bad and shows a deplorable apathy in the Salisbury area.

I’d actually thought about doing this commentary about 3 weeks ago right after the event occurred but I decided to hold off until the election was decided, since it seemed more relevant as a look forward to the 2007 session of the General Assembly than as a pitch for any particular candidate or party. But the MPPI would probably be placed in the conservative side of the governmental argument, standing as they do for “free markets, limited government, and a civil society.”

As a “gift” for attending, I received the MPPI’s latest tome, called simply enough, “Maryland: A Guide to the Issues.” The 2006 edition is the second edition, and is probably a bit more suited for policy wonks than the public at large for the most part. But some of the issues covered in this volume are health care, public schooling and school choice, state budgetary demands, transportation needs for the DC/Baltimore metroplex, and public safety. The PACE/MPPI gathering looked mostly at the health care aspect but also touched on budgetary concerns. They also looked at a practice common in Maryland called “rent seeking” and gave examples I’ll explain at the end. (This is also covered briefly in the MPPI book.)

According to Marc Kilmer of MPPI, health care in the form of Medicaid takes up 27% of the state budget. This 27% accrues to the benefit of just 14% of Maryland residents. Kilmer argued that the state has “no incentive to cut Medicaid” since the federal government pays half the freight, thus help on this issue is needed concurrently from the federal level. (It’s probably not coming anytime soon with a Democrat-controlled Congress.)

Kilmer pointed out examples of successful Medicare reforms in other states that may be worth a look. In Florida, there’s a managed care model that provides a choice of health plans; meanwhile residents of South Carolina enjoy expanded health savings accounts and vouchers to help defray their medical expenses. While Marc cautioned that “structural reform (of Medicaid) is needed now” in Maryland, it appears that the first order of business in our state will be to pursue a Massachusetts-style health insurance mandate paid for by employers and portable between jobs within the state.

MPPI’s Tom Firey continued with this health care theme as he looked at the aspect of health insurance. He noted that this “impending health care crisis” had been the topic of no less than 400 bills introduced in the General Assembly between 2005 and 2006, most famously the “Wal-Mart” bill.

Tom spoke more about a measure adopted in a special session in late 2004 regarding medical malpractice insurance. The result of this special session was an HMO tax that would pay for a reinsurance fund that is to sunset in 2010 after payouts totaling about $120 million. The cause of this special session was two consecutive large premium increases from Maryland’s largest malpractice insurer. With doctors unable to change their payouts from the various health insurance providers to the degree necessary to absorb this increase, they had little choice but to drop out of various specialties, in particular obstetrics.

Unfortunately, Firey contended that this fund was little more than a way to hide the problem and punt it down the road. What Tom looked at most in his presentation was the conjunction of two items: the amount of court cases brought about by plaintiffs seeking relief for real or imagined problems, and the sheer number of medical errors that occur in this country on an annual basis.

He found that of all medical errors, which sport a rate that is “remarkably high” in the United States (the 8th largest killer as a matter of fact), only 1 of 7 ever reach the point where a lawsuit is attempted. Obviously there’s much less harm in accidentally giving a patient double the dose of Tylenol required on a single basis than there is in amputating the “good” leg and leaving the diseased one.

On the other side, cases that are brought to trial for real or perceived errors are found to have “no merit” 2/3 of the time. Firey compared this phenomenon to a two-chamber balloon – by squeezing the side of medical errors to encourage bad doctors to get out of the profession, you bog down the court system…but the flip side of tort reform may protect those poorly-performing doctors by discouraging lawsuits and allow their negligence to go unpunished.

What Tom suggested was an approach that encouraged competition on both sides once the reinsurance fund was terminated. By expanding competition within the plaintiff bar, that allows those who are victims of medical malpractice to see more of their settlements, instead of the bulk being swallowed up by attorney’s fees. With additional competition among insurers, good doctors who aren’t the target of frequent lawsuits could see their premiums decrease, while less skilled doctors would be able to pursue insurance but at higher cost, which is incentive to shape up or ship out of the medical profession. Another possibility that’s already in place in some states is what’s called a “bad baby” fund, where the state subsidizes parents who have the misfortune of having a child that’s a victim of malpractice. In return the parents stay out of the court system. While Tom has some misgivings about that use of government, he saw this fund as an idea worth consideration.

Firey also had some comments on the Massachusetts-style insurance bill that now seems destined for a date with our General Assembly come January 2007. He noted that of the 788,000 or so uninsured Marylanders, a bill like Fair Share (a.k.a. the Wal-Mart bill) would’ve only subtracted about 1,000 or so from that roll. To him, a Massachusetts plan mandating health insurance would be “awkward.”

As an example, take a healthy 25-year old. A person buys any insurance policy because they see it as a fair tradeoff – the expenditure of a sum of money on a regular basis in exchange for the safety net of a payout should that unlikely loss occur. In this healthy young person’s eyes, health insurance may seem unnecessary and they may want to spend their money on other items or save it for other long-term goals. Meanwhile, this healthy person may also be in his first job right out of college, and many’s the case where the choice is between, say, making a health insurance premium payment or a car payment. When a car is required to access gainful employment, it makes the choice simpler.

What Tom saw as better solutions can be boiled down into three bullet points:

Appreciate preferences. There’s just some folks who do not feel the need for carrying health insurance as they feel that the risk of a major medical calamity occurring to them is quite low, or at least low enough that they choose not to pay the premiums to obtain health insurance. As it turns out, many of the uninsured make several times the poverty level and may desire to pay cash for their occasional health care needs.

As a corollary to this, Allow lines of insurance tailored to the needs of uninsured. Maybe one who doesn’t carry any health insurance because all of the plans are “Cadillac” plans would be willing to buy a “Chevrolet” plan that essentially only covers catastrophic occurrences.

Thirdly, Use subsidies instead of mandates. The Massachusetts mandate “hides” the problem because it does little to encourage competition among insurers. Those chosen by the state have a captive audience, but if the insurance were subsidized that makes insurance companies try harder to gain customers and also opens up the possibility of outside insurers.

Regardless, the health care issue will be one that remains on the front burner for decades as Boomers age. One example of this was, where Medicaid in its infancy (1966) was a $1 billion item, by 2014 it will be a $635 billion item. Obviously that’s a lot of money changing hands and innovative ideas need to be implemented to help the cost of health care not blow governmental budgets and not be an anchor holding down the economy.

With regard to our upcoming state budgets, the third speaker, Christopher Summers, noted that Maryland faced a “serious fiscal crisis on Medicaid in 3-5 years.” This in addition to a possible $20 billion in unfunded pension liability that the state would face, not to mention the additional $1.3 billion mandated by the Thornton bill passed earlier this decade to fund Maryland schools. Summers told us that, while state revenues were expected to increase 25% by 2011, spending would zoom up 41% and 10% of that 25% increase in revenue would go to service debt. According to Christopher, in order for the state to deal with its structural deficit, personal income growth would need to double.

Summers blamed two simple factors for this onrushing freight train of financial doom – unchecked spending by the state government, and what he called a “leadership deficit.” Neither political party boasted a governor who was willing to make tough choices to address the long-term impact of excessive spending, instead using the increased revenues from a net inflow of jobs to continue a spending spree unabated for decades. Maryland has some of the most generous benefits around, and it’s becoming our own “third rail” of state politics.

While the bulk of the program dealt with the pocketbook issues of health care and budgetary concerns, Firey began the evening by speaking about something he calls “rent seeking.” Most readers of monoblogue would call it more simply, “corporate welfare.” In Fiery’s words, Maryland is the “worst state” in the country for this practice. After speaking of his dashed hopes about the recent movie “The Aviator” bringing more attention to this issue (in the movie’s TWA vs. Pan Am battle, which was based on actual events), he gave us a few examples of this political patronage.

Back around 2001, there was a concern from many gasoline dealers about incoming competition from stations like Sheetz and Wawa, who tended to sell gasoline at lower prices than these dealers could. So the establishment gas stations managed to get a bill passed mandating a minimum price for gasoline based on the local wholesale prices. This spelled the end of any meaningful gas wars, and are yet another factor in keeping prices artificially high. Three bills to end this practice were introduced in this year’s General Assembly session, none made it out of committee.

Another example that I posted about back in May is Maryland’s funeral home industry. Firey also noted the Institute for Justice’s involvement in attempting to overturn these laws in court (as I sat there nodding because I knew all about that), but I found out that the pretrial hearings had started that very week (which was late last month.) So hopefully the next issue of Liberty & Law will have more on this.

And then you have the “certificate of need” scam. Some of the broadest laws in the country regarding this are found in Maryland. These also stifle competition within the health care industry and contribute in part to the higher prices.

Finally, it was the Maryland liquor stores lining up to keep a chain called “Total Beverage” out of the state. Instead of doing this at the state level, though, they’ve managed to convince several of our counties that out-of-state companies would run them out of business. While none of the counties on the Eastern Shore are affected, it’s likely to be something seen in the near future.

It was a shame that many more people didn’t take advantage of this forum to learn about and get an idea of the impact that these issues are going to have in our state, particularly with the recent elections bringing in a governor who’s not going to be shy about spending taxpayer money, and lots of it. I know I’m not looking forward to “the Mick” reaching deeper into my back pocket.

But they still can get the same book I did, although it’ll cost them a few dollars to do so. While they didn’t spend a lot of time talking about this at the town hall meeting, a pet issue of the MPPI is school choice. If for nothing else than trying to create opportunities for Maryland parents to get their children out of the at best underperforming and at worst indoctrinating public schools, the MPPI deserves our commendation and support.

Certainly they deserve more attention than having just a handful of people who attended the forum.