Showing posts with label paul ryan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label paul ryan. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 27, 2015
Paul Ryan For Speaker
Steve Parkhurst and I have written an editorial in support of Congressman Paul Ryan for Speaker of the House. Please visit Big Jolly Politics to read it.
Monday, September 17, 2012
Individualism v. Community: The false debate at the core of this election.
This column originally appeared at Big Jolly Politics:
I’ll return to my series on Texas Education soon, but I want to share some thoughts after digesting the rhetoric from both national political conventions.
My first and over-riding thought was how baffled Adam Smith and William Jennings Bryan would be if they had somehow been able to return to this world for the last two weeks and had attended these conventions. Neither would understand the split that has occurred in American politics over issues they studied and championed, and both would be shocked at how misunderstood and misapplied their ideas have become.
Smith, the Scottish professor of Moral Philosophy, built his ideas about economics and government in his Wealth of Nations on the foundation of his description of the inherent moral nature of man in The Theory of Moral Sentiments. For the last 250 years, both proponents and opponents of the system of capitalism and free markets that evolved from Smith’s writings based their viewpoints on an analysis of economic behavior that was independent of the morality so central to Smith’s theories. Smith would not have understood either Marx or Rand. To him, the individual pursuing his or her self-interest did so within a context of morality and responsibility. Smith’s total view, in turn, was consistent with the type of system that developed during the 18th and 19th Centuries in the United States—the one de Tocqueville observed and explained in his Democracy In America.
But today, we are more the children of Marx and Rand, than of Smith. So, we see the answers to our problems solely through the lens of rugged individualism, or social-justice collectivism, when both individualism and community are needed for a society of free people to thrive using capitalism and free markets. In essence, our misreading of Smith has set up a false choice between individualism and community that de Tocqueville believed we had avoided.
As a self-proclaimed answer to this false choice, William Jennings Bryan emerged as a political force of nature in the 1890s. Arguably, as one of the early proponents of a form of Progressivism, he was the most influential politician from the 1890s to the 1920s who never became President—though he tried four times. He set out to impose community on rugged individualists through his “applied Christianity,” which was derisively called “Bryanism.” Bryanism called for the federal government to become the source of social justice through interventionist and redistributionist economic policies, and by enforcing a common standard for public and private moral behavior. Between the 1930s and the 1960s, the Democratic Party abandoned the social conservatism of Bryanism, while fully embracing the economic portion of his social justice views.
Meanwhile, in the late 1970s, the social-conservative heirs to the morality of Bryanism turned to the Republican Party to promote their agenda, and they joined economic conservatives to support Ronald Reagan’s “New Republican Party” plan to re-establish a modern society upon the Smith/de Tocqueville model of society. In fact, what Reagan understood was that the real choice for sustaining and improving our free society is not between individualism and community, but between the role of individual morality and responsibility and government regulations and programs in creating and maintaining community among free people. The Smith/de Tocqueville model that Reagan tried to reinvigorate provided the right answer for that real choice.
But instead of disappearing into history, the remnants of Bryanism are alive and well. They are divided into two warring camps still trying to resolve the false choice between individualism and community with wrong or incomplete answers that depend on the exercise of federal government action, and that create strange fissures within both Progressivism and Conservatism in this country.
President Obama’s acceptance speech doubled-down on the economic social-justice model of Bryanism. He recognized that our society is built on both the freedom of the individual and the interdependence of communities, but he embraced the false choice between the two. Then, he sought to answer the false choice by providing community artificially through more government interventions, while rejecting any role for private, individual, moral character and responsibility in shaping and preserving a community. Such an approach provides a wrong answer to the false choice, which will worsen all of the social pathologies that have arisen over the last century, and further isolate neighbors as autonomous wards of one or more federal government programs.
Where are the Republicans in this debate? Unfortunately, we are still arguing between the social conservatism of Bryanism and the economic conservatism of traditional and libertarian Republicans, when Smith, de Tocqueville and Reagan would have told us the choice we are arguing about is false, too. Both are needed for our model of government to work, and we need to stop fighting among ourselves over this fundamental point.
Instead, we need to come together and seize the opportunity we’ve been given to change the debate in this election. By shaping the debate around “community” and the social-justice model, Obama has handed us a rare opportunity to break out of the old paradigms and to reveal the false choice between individualism and community that we have been given over the last century. As we reveal the false choice, we must argue for our Smith/de Tocqueville/Reagan model of a free society and government—an argument we have not made coherently for at least a generation because of our own internal arguments. We need to take the “You did build that” theme, and expand on it with our ageless ideas of creating and maintaining “community” through individual, private, and local action; by showing that the individualism of moral people creates community among neighbors, and that such communities are protected and promoted by local private and public entities, rather than by a federal bureaucracy.
All of the groups we need to persuade to vote for our ticket need to hear the falsity of the choice and answer the Democrats have long promoted, and hear the real argument for the Smith/de Tocqueville/Reagan model that made us exceptional: Latinos and other new immigrant groups who have come to this country to build a better life; African-Americans who have been abandoned to under-education, under-employment and over-incarceration; and women and young people, whose prosperity depends on the economic growth and support that strong neighborhoods provide.
Unless some whiz kid around Romney and Ryan figures out how to make this argument effectively, Obama’s argument will win by default because the false choice has become engrained in our national thinking, and the mood of the country is looking for answers. They’ll embrace even wrong answers to false choices if we don’t show them the choice is false and the answer is wrong, and what is really the right path. We won’t just win this election by doubling-down on social conservatism or rugged individualism, nor do I now think we can limp into the election just focusing on jobs, the budget and government reform. Instead, we need to show why our answers to jobs, the budget and government reform will improve the condition of this country, and to do that we need to address the interrelationship between basic morality, individualism, and strong communities for the success of our model of society and economic growth—an interrelationship that our founders, Smith and de Tocqueville understood and promoted. Then, we need to challenge our neighbors to rebuild this model of society with us.
If Romney articulates the Smith/de Tocqueville/Reagan model effectively, shows why it is relevant to the problems we face, shows how it can work, shows how it will improve lives in the 21st Century, and challenges us to embrace it, he’ll win in a landslide. If not, the public may decide to let their money ride on the wrong bet they made four years ago.
I’ll return to my series on Texas Education soon, but I want to share some thoughts after digesting the rhetoric from both national political conventions.
My first and over-riding thought was how baffled Adam Smith and William Jennings Bryan would be if they had somehow been able to return to this world for the last two weeks and had attended these conventions. Neither would understand the split that has occurred in American politics over issues they studied and championed, and both would be shocked at how misunderstood and misapplied their ideas have become.
Smith, the Scottish professor of Moral Philosophy, built his ideas about economics and government in his Wealth of Nations on the foundation of his description of the inherent moral nature of man in The Theory of Moral Sentiments. For the last 250 years, both proponents and opponents of the system of capitalism and free markets that evolved from Smith’s writings based their viewpoints on an analysis of economic behavior that was independent of the morality so central to Smith’s theories. Smith would not have understood either Marx or Rand. To him, the individual pursuing his or her self-interest did so within a context of morality and responsibility. Smith’s total view, in turn, was consistent with the type of system that developed during the 18th and 19th Centuries in the United States—the one de Tocqueville observed and explained in his Democracy In America.
But today, we are more the children of Marx and Rand, than of Smith. So, we see the answers to our problems solely through the lens of rugged individualism, or social-justice collectivism, when both individualism and community are needed for a society of free people to thrive using capitalism and free markets. In essence, our misreading of Smith has set up a false choice between individualism and community that de Tocqueville believed we had avoided.
As a self-proclaimed answer to this false choice, William Jennings Bryan emerged as a political force of nature in the 1890s. Arguably, as one of the early proponents of a form of Progressivism, he was the most influential politician from the 1890s to the 1920s who never became President—though he tried four times. He set out to impose community on rugged individualists through his “applied Christianity,” which was derisively called “Bryanism.” Bryanism called for the federal government to become the source of social justice through interventionist and redistributionist economic policies, and by enforcing a common standard for public and private moral behavior. Between the 1930s and the 1960s, the Democratic Party abandoned the social conservatism of Bryanism, while fully embracing the economic portion of his social justice views.
Meanwhile, in the late 1970s, the social-conservative heirs to the morality of Bryanism turned to the Republican Party to promote their agenda, and they joined economic conservatives to support Ronald Reagan’s “New Republican Party” plan to re-establish a modern society upon the Smith/de Tocqueville model of society. In fact, what Reagan understood was that the real choice for sustaining and improving our free society is not between individualism and community, but between the role of individual morality and responsibility and government regulations and programs in creating and maintaining community among free people. The Smith/de Tocqueville model that Reagan tried to reinvigorate provided the right answer for that real choice.
But instead of disappearing into history, the remnants of Bryanism are alive and well. They are divided into two warring camps still trying to resolve the false choice between individualism and community with wrong or incomplete answers that depend on the exercise of federal government action, and that create strange fissures within both Progressivism and Conservatism in this country.
President Obama’s acceptance speech doubled-down on the economic social-justice model of Bryanism. He recognized that our society is built on both the freedom of the individual and the interdependence of communities, but he embraced the false choice between the two. Then, he sought to answer the false choice by providing community artificially through more government interventions, while rejecting any role for private, individual, moral character and responsibility in shaping and preserving a community. Such an approach provides a wrong answer to the false choice, which will worsen all of the social pathologies that have arisen over the last century, and further isolate neighbors as autonomous wards of one or more federal government programs.
Where are the Republicans in this debate? Unfortunately, we are still arguing between the social conservatism of Bryanism and the economic conservatism of traditional and libertarian Republicans, when Smith, de Tocqueville and Reagan would have told us the choice we are arguing about is false, too. Both are needed for our model of government to work, and we need to stop fighting among ourselves over this fundamental point.
Instead, we need to come together and seize the opportunity we’ve been given to change the debate in this election. By shaping the debate around “community” and the social-justice model, Obama has handed us a rare opportunity to break out of the old paradigms and to reveal the false choice between individualism and community that we have been given over the last century. As we reveal the false choice, we must argue for our Smith/de Tocqueville/Reagan model of a free society and government—an argument we have not made coherently for at least a generation because of our own internal arguments. We need to take the “You did build that” theme, and expand on it with our ageless ideas of creating and maintaining “community” through individual, private, and local action; by showing that the individualism of moral people creates community among neighbors, and that such communities are protected and promoted by local private and public entities, rather than by a federal bureaucracy.
All of the groups we need to persuade to vote for our ticket need to hear the falsity of the choice and answer the Democrats have long promoted, and hear the real argument for the Smith/de Tocqueville/Reagan model that made us exceptional: Latinos and other new immigrant groups who have come to this country to build a better life; African-Americans who have been abandoned to under-education, under-employment and over-incarceration; and women and young people, whose prosperity depends on the economic growth and support that strong neighborhoods provide.
Unless some whiz kid around Romney and Ryan figures out how to make this argument effectively, Obama’s argument will win by default because the false choice has become engrained in our national thinking, and the mood of the country is looking for answers. They’ll embrace even wrong answers to false choices if we don’t show them the choice is false and the answer is wrong, and what is really the right path. We won’t just win this election by doubling-down on social conservatism or rugged individualism, nor do I now think we can limp into the election just focusing on jobs, the budget and government reform. Instead, we need to show why our answers to jobs, the budget and government reform will improve the condition of this country, and to do that we need to address the interrelationship between basic morality, individualism, and strong communities for the success of our model of society and economic growth—an interrelationship that our founders, Smith and de Tocqueville understood and promoted. Then, we need to challenge our neighbors to rebuild this model of society with us.
If Romney articulates the Smith/de Tocqueville/Reagan model effectively, shows why it is relevant to the problems we face, shows how it can work, shows how it will improve lives in the 21st Century, and challenges us to embrace it, he’ll win in a landslide. If not, the public may decide to let their money ride on the wrong bet they made four years ago.
Friday, September 7, 2012
The Election Choice—Can Romney make it simple? Can Romney be Romney?
This column originally appeared at Big Jolly Politics:
Watching all of the pundits say that Romney has to make himself likable is beginning to drive me crazy. Of course no one wants to embrace a dour person (though Richard Nixon was on 4 of 5 winning national tickets, just proving that there are exceptions to every rule), but Romney is not dour, and the times require a serious, steady, positive message. I am going to say something I never thought I would say a few months ago—let’s let Romney be Romney.
What would that mean? It would mean that we should allow Romney to make the case to the American people about the choices we face, and how he is the best man at this time to help us make those choices because he has lived those choices all his life.
Romney knows the correct answer to the fundamental question of this election: Who builds this economy and this country, the federal government or private businesses and the individuals they employee?
And the answer is: private business and the individuals they employ. If you don’t understand that fundamental answer, you do not deserve the public’s trust to hold an office in our government. Period.
It is private business that generates the jobs that provide for families and that build neighborhoods. We spend more time every day with our co-workers than with our families, and the positive bonds formed through this activity ripple out in every direction. Employing people affects the lives of both the employer and the employee, from which both grow. The products or services generated by a business affect customers, and spur innovation by others through competition. But, most importantly, every paycheck signed sets aside a retirement fund, pays for health care, provides for the sustenance of a family, pays for a mortgage and a college education, pays for the charity from a church or non-profit organization, and creates the tax base for the infrastructure and protection of a community.
Government is nothing more than a service that we pay for with the taxes from our paychecks and profits. It is a service through which we have chosen to hire some of our neighbors to provide education to our children, create and maintain a physical infrastructure, provide for our defense and protection our communities and nation, and preserve a safety net for those unable through no fault of their own to help themselves (or find private charitable help), while we work and build the foundation of wealth and happiness for our families, our communities, and our country. In essence, government works for us, at our direction, and to the extent we feel we need it—we do not work for government. To increase government’s role in our society beyond providing these services effectively and efficiently, is to threaten the delicate balance among free people that this system has long maintained—and that makes our experiment in self-government so unique and exceptional.
President Obama and the modern Democratic Party do not believe in this delicate balance. Instead, they want to transform it so that Government indeed becomes the source of all wealth and happiness in our society—and as they do so, they are putting our delicate balance in mortal jeopardy. The Democrats have long wanted to change the fundamental relationships in our private sector, and between the private sector and government, by inserting government more and more into the private relationships that a private-sector paycheck has always supported. This process has reached a tipping point now.
Because no one knows which way our system will tip—how much further the federal government will interfere in the private market and private relationships, and how much taxes will be seized to pay for the massive public spending and debt incurred to fund that interference—a cloud of uncertainty now hangs over our country (and, by extension, over the world economy). And that uncertainty keeps business from hiring people, and that cuts the paychecks that support families and communities. That uncertainty, if allowed to continue, will tip the balance toward a new pervasive government and the nation the Democrats have long tried to create.
We must bring an end to this transformation that disguises itself as “hope and change,” and “moving forward.” This transformation does not promise progress, but, instead, a benign peonage for future generations. Is that what prior generations fought for?
Through his work in the private sector, in his church, and through the charities he has supported, Romney understands, and indeed embodies the best of the balanced system I have just described. He understands the challenge and threat the Democrats’ vision has created for the delicate balance of our unique society. He just needs to be honest with us; and then challenge us to help him stop this transformation, to make the necessary reforms to remove the uncertainty, and to restore the historic balance between the private sector and government, so that private business will write those paychecks again.
It’s that simple. Great speeches by Ann Romney, Chris Christie, Condi Rice, Susana Martinez, and Paul Ryan have all paved the way for him. Now, let’s hope Romney will be Romney.
Watching all of the pundits say that Romney has to make himself likable is beginning to drive me crazy. Of course no one wants to embrace a dour person (though Richard Nixon was on 4 of 5 winning national tickets, just proving that there are exceptions to every rule), but Romney is not dour, and the times require a serious, steady, positive message. I am going to say something I never thought I would say a few months ago—let’s let Romney be Romney.
What would that mean? It would mean that we should allow Romney to make the case to the American people about the choices we face, and how he is the best man at this time to help us make those choices because he has lived those choices all his life.
Romney knows the correct answer to the fundamental question of this election: Who builds this economy and this country, the federal government or private businesses and the individuals they employee?
And the answer is: private business and the individuals they employ. If you don’t understand that fundamental answer, you do not deserve the public’s trust to hold an office in our government. Period.
It is private business that generates the jobs that provide for families and that build neighborhoods. We spend more time every day with our co-workers than with our families, and the positive bonds formed through this activity ripple out in every direction. Employing people affects the lives of both the employer and the employee, from which both grow. The products or services generated by a business affect customers, and spur innovation by others through competition. But, most importantly, every paycheck signed sets aside a retirement fund, pays for health care, provides for the sustenance of a family, pays for a mortgage and a college education, pays for the charity from a church or non-profit organization, and creates the tax base for the infrastructure and protection of a community.
Government is nothing more than a service that we pay for with the taxes from our paychecks and profits. It is a service through which we have chosen to hire some of our neighbors to provide education to our children, create and maintain a physical infrastructure, provide for our defense and protection our communities and nation, and preserve a safety net for those unable through no fault of their own to help themselves (or find private charitable help), while we work and build the foundation of wealth and happiness for our families, our communities, and our country. In essence, government works for us, at our direction, and to the extent we feel we need it—we do not work for government. To increase government’s role in our society beyond providing these services effectively and efficiently, is to threaten the delicate balance among free people that this system has long maintained—and that makes our experiment in self-government so unique and exceptional.
President Obama and the modern Democratic Party do not believe in this delicate balance. Instead, they want to transform it so that Government indeed becomes the source of all wealth and happiness in our society—and as they do so, they are putting our delicate balance in mortal jeopardy. The Democrats have long wanted to change the fundamental relationships in our private sector, and between the private sector and government, by inserting government more and more into the private relationships that a private-sector paycheck has always supported. This process has reached a tipping point now.
Because no one knows which way our system will tip—how much further the federal government will interfere in the private market and private relationships, and how much taxes will be seized to pay for the massive public spending and debt incurred to fund that interference—a cloud of uncertainty now hangs over our country (and, by extension, over the world economy). And that uncertainty keeps business from hiring people, and that cuts the paychecks that support families and communities. That uncertainty, if allowed to continue, will tip the balance toward a new pervasive government and the nation the Democrats have long tried to create.
We must bring an end to this transformation that disguises itself as “hope and change,” and “moving forward.” This transformation does not promise progress, but, instead, a benign peonage for future generations. Is that what prior generations fought for?
Through his work in the private sector, in his church, and through the charities he has supported, Romney understands, and indeed embodies the best of the balanced system I have just described. He understands the challenge and threat the Democrats’ vision has created for the delicate balance of our unique society. He just needs to be honest with us; and then challenge us to help him stop this transformation, to make the necessary reforms to remove the uncertainty, and to restore the historic balance between the private sector and government, so that private business will write those paychecks again.
It’s that simple. Great speeches by Ann Romney, Chris Christie, Condi Rice, Susana Martinez, and Paul Ryan have all paved the way for him. Now, let’s hope Romney will be Romney.
Monday, December 26, 2011
The Importance of the 10th Amendment
This column originally appeared at Big Jolly Politics:
This past weekend, ABC News held a debate between George Will and Paul Ryan on one side, and Barney Frank and Robert Reich on the other, during which they argued over whether our government was too large and intrusive. The focus of the discussion was on the role of the federal government in Washington. By omitting any discussion of state and local governments, they impliedly equated the role of all government with the role of the federal government. This debate, though intelligent and interesting, appeared to ignore the real debate that is raging outside of Washington over the size and role of government.
There are two major concerns that have been percolating among voters over the size and role of government, especially among those who embraced the Tea Party movement in 2009. These concerns can be distilled as follows:
For a guy like me, who studied Constitutional Law in the early 1980s, this new embrace of the 10th Amendment is remarkable. Back then, the overwhelming view of the 10th Amendment (and the 9th Amendment, too) was that it was merely “surplusage” or a “truism”, which provided no real limit to the responsibility of the post-New Deal federal government. To understand this view, let’s look at the actual language of two constitutional provisions—the 10th Amendment and the “Necessary and Proper Clause” of Article I, Section 8:
In fact, judicial interpretations actually created a perversity of the Necessary and Proper power: as Congress broadened its authority, it expanded the scope of what was necessary and proper to exercise that authority; which, in turn, broadened the federal government’s authority into new areas of responsibility and, thus, broadened the scope of what was necessary and proper to exercise such new authority. It is this continuing and expanding spiral that has led the federal government to exercise the power to do things like regulate all forms of local economic development to protect the life of a local lizard or frog, as well as to underwrite our health and retirements.
Now it is true that the power of the federal government to legislate actually is a little broader than what is just necessary and proper to implement or enforce the responsibilities listed in Article I, Section 8. The specific list of responsibilities in that section are—
Not only did this allocation of responsibility protect and preserve the rights and obligations we call “liberty,” it also made profound economic sense. The specific allocation of the listed responsibilities to the federal government controlled the transaction and administrative costs associated with the operation of government, by reserving most governmental responsibility to local and state governments that could exercise those responsibilities with less bureaucracy and cost. Those activities closest to home—like providing for schools, roads, public safety, public hospitals and clinics, and community support—would be paid for and regulated through local and state governments in coordination with private organizations in each community. One government, one agency, and one bureaucracy would be needed to address each responsibility at each level.
But in today’s world, local and state governments have lost focus and fiscal discipline as the federal government has usurped their responsibilities (and while the federal government fails to perform its proper responsibilities effectively or efficiently). We now have multiple agencies and bureaucracies at each level of government, which overlap in responsibility and power. They each absorb scarce tax dollars to provide these redundant activities; the resulting redundant policies and enforcements often conflict; and the redundant bureaucracies often end up doing nothing because the bureaucrats assume another agency is addressing the problem. Add on to these layers of inefficiency the cost and inefficiency of redundant programs within each level of government (and a trend toward increasing salaries and benefits of public employees to a level that exceeds the level of private sector benefits), and you have the seeds of our current fiscal mess at all levels of government.
Therefore, resurrecting the 10th Amendment is the natural first step to not only restoring the proper balance of power to protect our liberty, it also is the natural first step toward restoring fiscal sanity to government. But restoring this balance does not set-up the false choice that the debaters on ABC’s program seemed to be discussing—the false choice of government v. no-government. Under a proper application of the 10th Amendment there will be government, there will be schools, there will be roads, there will be public safety, there will be public hospitals and clinics, and there will be help to those in our communities who need it—but those activities will return where they belong: to responsibility of the State and local governments, and to the people to provide. This re-balanced approach to government should produce less and more cost-effective government in the long-term, but it will not eradicate government—as progressives fear and libertarians hope.
The challenge to conservatives will be to commit to engage in the new balance that will arise if we are successful in resurrecting the 10th Amendment. This new balance only will work if we individually engage and participate in the operation and oversight of our school districts, our cities, and our state to fix the fiscal messes they face, to hold our local elected officials accountable to re-focus their efforts on those responsibilities they should be exercising, to require that those functions be performed cost-effectively, and to participate in the private organizations that will be needed to help provide certain services in our communities.
If we don’t accept these responsibilities, then our demand for a return to the principles of the 10th Amendment will be empty, and the vacuum eventually will be re-filled by those who want to centralize all power, responsibility and revenue in Washington.
This past weekend, ABC News held a debate between George Will and Paul Ryan on one side, and Barney Frank and Robert Reich on the other, during which they argued over whether our government was too large and intrusive. The focus of the discussion was on the role of the federal government in Washington. By omitting any discussion of state and local governments, they impliedly equated the role of all government with the role of the federal government. This debate, though intelligent and interesting, appeared to ignore the real debate that is raging outside of Washington over the size and role of government.
There are two major concerns that have been percolating among voters over the size and role of government, especially among those who embraced the Tea Party movement in 2009. These concerns can be distilled as follows:
- Too much responsibility and power have shifted to Washington from individuals, local governments and state governments, which is contrary to the proper allocation of responsibilities under the Constitution, and which has created tremendous economic inefficiencies for, and imposed artificial costs on, society; and
- All levels of government—local, state, and national—have been operated without a proper focus on their primary responsibilities, and have been managed inefficiently and too expensively, which has caused them to incur an unsustainable debt burden to fund their operations.
- a transfer of power and revenue to the federal government with a commensurate reduction of individual liberty and wealth, and
- the creation of an unsustainable tax and debt burden for future generations.
For a guy like me, who studied Constitutional Law in the early 1980s, this new embrace of the 10th Amendment is remarkable. Back then, the overwhelming view of the 10th Amendment (and the 9th Amendment, too) was that it was merely “surplusage” or a “truism”, which provided no real limit to the responsibility of the post-New Deal federal government. To understand this view, let’s look at the actual language of two constitutional provisions—the 10th Amendment and the “Necessary and Proper Clause” of Article I, Section 8:
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.By the early 1980s, so many responsibilities and powers had been usurped by Congress, the President and the federal bureaucracy under Congress’ expanded application of the Necessary and Proper Clause (which was blessed by the Supreme Court), that the 10th Amendment was viewed as simply recognizing that whatever power Congress had chosen not to usurp remained within the responsibility of the States or the people to exercise. Such an interpretation willfully ignored the concept of Federalism underlying the Constitution, and no longer provided any limitation on the power of the federal government.
******
The Congress shall have Power … To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
In fact, judicial interpretations actually created a perversity of the Necessary and Proper power: as Congress broadened its authority, it expanded the scope of what was necessary and proper to exercise that authority; which, in turn, broadened the federal government’s authority into new areas of responsibility and, thus, broadened the scope of what was necessary and proper to exercise such new authority. It is this continuing and expanding spiral that has led the federal government to exercise the power to do things like regulate all forms of local economic development to protect the life of a local lizard or frog, as well as to underwrite our health and retirements.
Now it is true that the power of the federal government to legislate actually is a little broader than what is just necessary and proper to implement or enforce the responsibilities listed in Article I, Section 8. The specific list of responsibilities in that section are—
- to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; …
- to borrow Money on the credit of the United States;
- to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
- to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization,
- [to establish] uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;
- to coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
- to provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;
- to establish Post Offices and post Roads;
- to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
- to constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;
- to define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;
- to declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
- to raise and support Armies, …
- to provide and maintain a Navy;
- to make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
- to provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
- to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress; [and]
- to exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings.
- to establish rules for its own procedures;
- to make or alter laws regulating the election of Senators and Representatives;
- to suspend the Writ of Habeas Corpus in cases of rebellion or invasion;
- to publish a regular statement and account of receipts and expenditures of public funds;
- to approve the receipt of any award by a citizen from a foreign government;
- to allow States to impose certain taxes on the movement of goods in commerce;
- to allow for States to keep a defense establishment in a time of peace;
- to provide for the conduct of the Executive functions outlined in Article II;
- to establish the scope of jurisdiction of the federal courts beyond the enumerated issues in Article III;
- to establish the place for federal criminal trials;
- to establish the punishment for treason;
- to proscribe the manner by which States may provide full faith and credit to the laws of other States;
- to allow States to form Compacts;
- to admit new States to the Union;
- to regulate Territories and other property of the Union;
- to guarantee a Republican form of government to every State; and
- to protect the States from domestic violence or invasion.
- to prohibit slavery;
- to protect individual rights to due process and equal protection of the laws, and to the privilege and immunities of citizenship;
- to allow Confederates to have full citizenship;
- to lay income taxes;
- to provide for and protect the right to vote for former slaves, women, and 18-20 year-olds, and against poll-taxes;
- to provide for rules as to who will serve as President if no one qualifies to serve as President or Vice-President, or if those who would qualify would have died, by the time a Presidential term should start; and
- to allow for the appointment of Electors from the District of Columbia to serve in the Electoral College to elect the President and Vice-President.
Not only did this allocation of responsibility protect and preserve the rights and obligations we call “liberty,” it also made profound economic sense. The specific allocation of the listed responsibilities to the federal government controlled the transaction and administrative costs associated with the operation of government, by reserving most governmental responsibility to local and state governments that could exercise those responsibilities with less bureaucracy and cost. Those activities closest to home—like providing for schools, roads, public safety, public hospitals and clinics, and community support—would be paid for and regulated through local and state governments in coordination with private organizations in each community. One government, one agency, and one bureaucracy would be needed to address each responsibility at each level.
But in today’s world, local and state governments have lost focus and fiscal discipline as the federal government has usurped their responsibilities (and while the federal government fails to perform its proper responsibilities effectively or efficiently). We now have multiple agencies and bureaucracies at each level of government, which overlap in responsibility and power. They each absorb scarce tax dollars to provide these redundant activities; the resulting redundant policies and enforcements often conflict; and the redundant bureaucracies often end up doing nothing because the bureaucrats assume another agency is addressing the problem. Add on to these layers of inefficiency the cost and inefficiency of redundant programs within each level of government (and a trend toward increasing salaries and benefits of public employees to a level that exceeds the level of private sector benefits), and you have the seeds of our current fiscal mess at all levels of government.
Therefore, resurrecting the 10th Amendment is the natural first step to not only restoring the proper balance of power to protect our liberty, it also is the natural first step toward restoring fiscal sanity to government. But restoring this balance does not set-up the false choice that the debaters on ABC’s program seemed to be discussing—the false choice of government v. no-government. Under a proper application of the 10th Amendment there will be government, there will be schools, there will be roads, there will be public safety, there will be public hospitals and clinics, and there will be help to those in our communities who need it—but those activities will return where they belong: to responsibility of the State and local governments, and to the people to provide. This re-balanced approach to government should produce less and more cost-effective government in the long-term, but it will not eradicate government—as progressives fear and libertarians hope.
The challenge to conservatives will be to commit to engage in the new balance that will arise if we are successful in resurrecting the 10th Amendment. This new balance only will work if we individually engage and participate in the operation and oversight of our school districts, our cities, and our state to fix the fiscal messes they face, to hold our local elected officials accountable to re-focus their efforts on those responsibilities they should be exercising, to require that those functions be performed cost-effectively, and to participate in the private organizations that will be needed to help provide certain services in our communities.
If we don’t accept these responsibilities, then our demand for a return to the principles of the 10th Amendment will be empty, and the vacuum eventually will be re-filled by those who want to centralize all power, responsibility and revenue in Washington.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
What is the Fundamental Purpose of Our Public Universities?
This column originally appeared at Big Jolly Politics.
Closer to home, another debate seems to be unfolding over the role of classroom teaching within our state-supported universities in Texas. It’s that debate that I would like to discuss in this post.
I want to start with definitions of three words taken from The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (Fourth Edition):
•Education: “The knowledge or skill obtained or developed by a learning process.” (p. 569).Now, let’s also look at the original provision in the Texas Constitution that authorized the eventual creation of our state-supported university systems: “The legislature shall as soon as practicable establish, organize and provide for the maintenance, support and direction of a University of the first class…” (Art. 7, Sec. 10).
•College: “An institution of higher learning that grants the bachelor’s degree in liberal arts or science or both.” (p.362).
•University: “An institution of higher learning with teaching and research facilities constituting a graduate school and professional schools that award master’s degrees and doctorates and an undergraduate division that awards bachelor’s degrees.” (p. 1883).
When you read all of this together, it’s pretty clear that the fundamental purpose of our state-supported universities is to provide an education to students—specifically, an education that can lead to the award of an undergraduate, graduate or professional degree through a process that includes learning from both teaching and research. Reading these sources, it’s also clear that teaching and research are neither distinct purposes, in and of themselves, for the existence of a university, nor are they independent functions that are separate from the process of providing an education.
Yet, if you listen to the debate over the hiring of Rick O’Donnell by the University of Texas Board of Regents, and the promotion by Governor Perry of Jeff Sandefer’s “Seven Breakthrough Solutions” for higher education (http://texashighered.com/7-solutions) you could come to the conclusion that providing an education is no longer the central purpose of our state-supported universities. Instead, you could determine that the central purpose of our universities is now to provide a source for economic growth for the communities in which they are situated, and for the state, through attracting top researchers and grants and conducting economically-beneficial research. Consistent with this new purpose, the task of providing an education and a degree now may be merely an incidental source of income to the university rather than its core mission.
Quite frankly, I find this whole debate fails to address the real problems with our educational system. Though some correction may be needed, a wholesale change in the way we hire and retain university faculty is not needed. However, the more professors and administrators attack any change, the more they make the case for the wholesale change they don’t want. In the meantime, no one is really addressing how we improve the education of our children.
On the one hand, it is true that there is evidence showing a significant shift in emphasis on some campuses from teaching and research focused on providing an education to students, to “pure” research designed to obtain independent economic benefits for the school and the community. This shift has created an imbalance in the use of public resources (as well as private grants and donations) to create and maintain facilities and faculties for “pure” research on some campuses. Perversely, on some campuses this shift has led to documented under-utilization of existing facilities, which could be more efficiently used to provide more education-related teaching and research. Implementation of a few of the “Seven Breakthroughs” might effectively address this shift and restore the proper focus of teaching and research to education, while still allowing for the incidental, yet important, “pure” research that enriches the learning process while providing an additional source of income and economic benefit. However, a wholesale change in the way universities hire and retain faculty, and provide and account for teaching and research, is not needed to fix the imbalance on some campuses; indeed, there are a lot more fundamental problems with our educational system, starting with kindergarten, that need to be prioritized and addressed over this issue.
On the other hand, the clueless and condescending reactions from some who have attacked the ideas promoted by Governor Perry, Mr. Sandefer, and Mr. O’Donnell underscore a fundamental question that many taxpayers, parents and students now have about our entire educational system: are schools operating for the benefit of the students, or for the benefit of the teachers and administrators? I think most of us outside of the educational system had thought state-supported schools at all levels operated to benefit students. However, to read some of the op-ed pieces and interviews from current and former faculty and administrators, you would think that students are merely incidental nuisances with whom they have to interact periodically while running their facilities and conducting their research. These reactions, combined with the video of teacher union protests in Wisconsin and the sentimental news stories about teacher lay-offs across this State, give credibility to the movement supporting wholesale change in the way we hire and retain teachers, professors and administrators.
While we may not need all “Seven Breakthroughs” to re-balance the functions of our universities, teachers, professors and administrators at all state-supported schools need to remember that they only have one fundamental obligation: they work for the taxpayers and the parents of this State to provide our children, young adults and adults with an education through the processes of teaching and research—everything else, including the research they conduct as part of their job, is incidental to and dependent upon meeting this fundamental obligation. Once we all get this point straight again, re-balancing the use of public resources within our universities and school systems, as well as fixing the more pressing problems with our whole educational system, should be easier to accomplish.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
It's Only Just Begun
In case you missed the news this morning, Speaker Pelosi has issued marching orders to members of Congress leaving Washington for their two week recess. Among the many lowlights of Speaker Pelosi's directives is the following:
Obama kicked into campaign mode Thursday, saying he welcomed a fight with Republicans over healthcare. If the GOP wants to repeal the bill, it should “go for it,” the president said."
In a memo to his members, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Friday stressed that Republicans would work not only to repeal the healthcare law, but to “replace it with solutions that will protect jobs and lower Americans’ health costs.”
Boehner said his party would “repeal ObamaCare’s job-destroying tax hikes and mandates and replace them with common-sense, market-based solutions that cover Americans with existing conditions.”
Fellow Republicans, I don't need to tell you that when the one side goes on offense, the other side can only respond by going on defense. So, my advice to our side: Let's go on offense, FIRST. Whether it's in conversations with friends or family members, opportunities to speak with your local, state or congressional representatives, or online in forums or your private email blasts, go on offense, be armed with facts and truth, and be civil in your efforts to promote he conservative cause.
Minority Leader Boehner has given us some pointers and some direction. Congressman Paul Ryan provided a great number of ideas and details in a New York Times column Friday. Byron York wrote a column this week detailing the lack of support nationally for the health care bill the democrats forced through Congress last Sunday. All of this points to the obvious: The democrats are coming home to sell us on something we didn't want in the first place, they're now in the position of having to tell us after the fact that we really did want it after all.
Armed with the truth, the facts and with history; Americans across the country, let's go to work for our cause.
"With the passage of health insurance reform, this District Work Period is a critical time to go on offense.” Pelosi continued, "Convey the immediate benefits of health reform to your constituents (such as better prescription drug benefits for seniors, tax credits for small businesses and prohibiting insurance companies from canceling your policy if you get sick).”The Hill reported: "Democrats are bracing for significant losses in the House and Senate this fall, but believe they can at least mitigate expected mid-term losses by aggressively touting the healthcare bill and moving to other issues, such as financial regulatory reform, that they believe put Republicans on the defensive.
Obama kicked into campaign mode Thursday, saying he welcomed a fight with Republicans over healthcare. If the GOP wants to repeal the bill, it should “go for it,” the president said."
In a memo to his members, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Friday stressed that Republicans would work not only to repeal the healthcare law, but to “replace it with solutions that will protect jobs and lower Americans’ health costs.”
Boehner said his party would “repeal ObamaCare’s job-destroying tax hikes and mandates and replace them with common-sense, market-based solutions that cover Americans with existing conditions.”
Fellow Republicans, I don't need to tell you that when the one side goes on offense, the other side can only respond by going on defense. So, my advice to our side: Let's go on offense, FIRST. Whether it's in conversations with friends or family members, opportunities to speak with your local, state or congressional representatives, or online in forums or your private email blasts, go on offense, be armed with facts and truth, and be civil in your efforts to promote he conservative cause.
Minority Leader Boehner has given us some pointers and some direction. Congressman Paul Ryan provided a great number of ideas and details in a New York Times column Friday. Byron York wrote a column this week detailing the lack of support nationally for the health care bill the democrats forced through Congress last Sunday. All of this points to the obvious: The democrats are coming home to sell us on something we didn't want in the first place, they're now in the position of having to tell us after the fact that we really did want it after all.
Armed with the truth, the facts and with history; Americans across the country, let's go to work for our cause.
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