Author: Joshua Hedlund

Homeland Security Spending Sprees

When you give governments lots of money to spend, they usually find ways to spend it. This week we learned that the Department of Homeland Security is funding “microphone-enabled surveillance systems on public buses that would give them the ability to record and store private conversations.”

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Two Steps Back For GOP Reform

It’s been a bad week for Republican reformers. First, Justin Amash and Tim Huelskamp were silently kicked out of their House committees. Second, young staffer Derek Khanna was fired (Khanna authored the brave copyright reform memo that I praised along with thousands of others before it was swiftly deleted.)

Some say the conservative committee members were booted for being too far to the right at a time when Republican leadership is trying to compromise on a budget deal. But Amash seems to think it’s because the leadership is more willing to raise taxes than cut the bloated defense budget. If Amash came too close to upsetting the special interests of defense, maybe Khanna came too close to upsetting the special interests of entertainment.

It’s nothing new to see the “party of small government” rejecting attempts by its members to actually turn it in small government directions. But if the GOP needs to become more “moderate/left” to survive, it’s especially ironic that the leadership only seems to be toying with the big-government policies to their left (ex. raising taxes) while rejecting all of the small-government opportunities (ex. cutting defense spending).

Republicans don’t have to embrace taxes and entitlements to attract more voters. Cutting the defense budget, ending the war on drugs, reforming copyright, restoring civil liberties – these are all “small-government” policies that are popular with both liberals and independents. The GOP could embrace these libertarian views and reduce their many hypocrisies while broadening their appeal without compromising their ideals; there are may libertarian-leaning conservatives trying to do just that.

But that requires the GOP to reject the special interests that foster those hypocrisies, and they still seem unwilling to do so. It’s not surprising, but I think it’s a sad and ultimately self-defeating strategy. The battle is yet young, however, and if the reformers’ goals are as self-evident as I think they are, I have hope they will eventually succeed.

Everyone’s A Rent-Seeker, Wind Edition

With all the discussion about the “fiscal cliff” and the big expiring tax cuts and all, some of the normal, smaller expiring things are getting lost in the shuffle… like, say, the $12 billion wind Production Tax Credit. Local St. Louis representative Scott Sifton explained on the radio the other day why he thinks renewing it “shouldn’t be a partisan issue.”

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Everyone’s A Rent-Seeker, Taxicab Edition

A year ago I wrote about the crazy, over-regulated New York City taxicab industry. Well, things are getting even crazier.

There’s a new rush of start-up competition, led by Uber, whose high-tech mobile app lets riders request luxury rides on demand instead of frantically trying to wave down a passing cab. It costs more than a cab, but the convenient experience seems to be immensely popular, and Uber has been slowly expanding to more and more cities.

Of course, the existing taxicab industries, already used to protective regulations in many cases, don’t like the competition, and there have been varying volleys and setbacks in recent months as established players have tried to put up, er, roadblocks to keep the new kids out.

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Reasons For Optimism 50-54

50. Over Thanksgiving I randomly caught some segments of a (CNBC?) TV program about John Deere and the combines they design and manufacture. They are constantly working on new models that harvest crops more efficiently and more cheaply and are easier to repair and a host of other endless improvements. The show felt like a brief glimpse into the millions of quiet, incremental innovations that capitalism is constantly bringing us, and perhaps part of the reason we are still able to feed an entire planet despite the doomsayers of decades ago. It’s easy to get caught up in the big and more visible bad news and forget the subtle productivity improvements that are quietly advancing in thousands of industries year after year.

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Lincoln, Corruption, and Compromise

I had the pleasure of watching the Lincoln movie over Thanksgiving weekend. The film fills almost three hours mostly with politicians talking to each other, which of course I found terribly interesting. I’m not spoiling too much to tell you that it mostly revolves around Abraham Lincoln buying votes with job offers and deceptions, all in order to pass the super-important Thirteenth Amendment to abolish slavery.

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