Bruce Bartlett explains why Bush is a big government conservative. The Bush administration is not one that “believes in the historical conservative philosophy of small government, federalism, free trade and the Constitution as originally understood by the Founding Fathers.” Bartlett provides lots of examples.
For more check out this interview with the Wall Street Journal’s Paul Gigot.

While he calls them “conservatives,” I think George Will actually means classical liberals. That’s okay. Most people don’t know what a classical liberal is these days. Will hits the nail on the head when he says they understand the law of unintended consequences.

The unintended consequences of bold government undertakings are apt to be larger than, and contrary to, the intended ones.
Conservatives’ pessimism is conducive to their happiness in three ways. First, they are rarely surprised — they are right more often than not about the course of events. Second, when they are wrong, they are happy to be so. Third, because pessimistic conservatives put not their faith in princes — government — they accept that happiness is a function of fending for oneself. They believe that happiness is an activity — it is inseparable from the pursuit of happiness.

Good article — suggest you read the whole thing.

The National Taxpayers Union has just released its ratings. Each “rating, based on hundreds of roll call votes, is considered the most comprehensive scorecard available on federal tax, spending, and regulatory issues.” Here they are for New Mexico:
Steve Pearce 55% (C+)
Heather Wilson 46% (C-)
Tom Udall 12% (F)
Jeff Bingaman 17% (F)
Pete Domenici 66% (B)

No matter where you are in the political spectrum you should defend our precious liberty to speak our mind. Kerri Houston has formed a new coalition called “Lobbysense” to do just that. Here is their statement of principles:

From the birth of the American experience, citizen expression has been the heart of political discourse.
The First Amendment to the Constitution protects the rights of free speech and the right to “petition the government.” Armed with ingenuity, passion and recognition of the power inherent in a collective voice, the American public developed a wide range of grassroots and public policy organizations, large and small, structured and ad hoc, that provide them with an outlet to communicate a cohesive message to their elected officials.
With the national spotlight focused on illegal and abhorrent behavior demonstrated in the Abramoff lobbying “scandal,” our national conscience is ignited, in turn providing an opportunity to target systemic problems that allowed abuse of the system by a few offenders.
Conversely, Congress could overreach politically, and unnecessarily diminish the rights of the many for misguided public image purposes.
As Congress moves under public pressure to swiftly enact “lobby” reform, we believe that catastrophic overreach is taking form in S. 2128/H.R. 4575, The Lobbying Transparency and Accountability Act of 2005, sponsored by Senator John McCain (R-AZ) and Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT).
Section 105 of this legislation would censure the citizen voice and significantly reduce the ability of grassroots organizations to continue to express and promote the peoples’ will.
The current lobbying scandal was not caused by grassroots nor public policy organizations either liberal, moderate or conservative, yet the harshest restrictions in this bill’s “lobby” reform target issue advocates and public policy educators.
Existing law was broken and then enforced; already those complicit in the lawbreaking face jail time and significant fines, and in time, more lawbreakers may be subject to the rule of law. As congressional staffers and corporate lobbyists are at the heart of the current scandal, it is incomprehensible that non-profit organizations, their supporters and members who carry concern for the nation into action, would be targeted for punishment for a scheme for which they had no complicity.
The overly broad provisions of The Lobbying Transparency and Accountability Act of 2005 will impose millions of dollars of regulatory costs, and adversely harm individuals and groups in their efforts to influence and affect public decisions.
The legislation defines grassroots lobbying as any attempt to influence the public, or to engage in lobbying contacts in support of a view or position. Under the terms of both bills grassroots lobbying would even include companies and organizations working in support of grassroots lobbying, such as researchers and consulting services involved in preparing information on issues and views.
Legions of citizen organizations, small businesses, and even individuals would become subject to onerous registration and reporting requirements, simply because they were trying to motivate the public to support a position or point of view.
The conscience of the American will, grassroots lobbying has been used by concerned U.S. citizens through the course of our history to assist in shaping public policy. Rev. Martin Luther King’s efforts to stimulate a grassroots movement in the early and mid-1960’s were instrumental in securing passage of legislation to secure the protections of all U.S. citizens regardless of race. Under the terms of s. 2128, and H.R. 4575, Rev. King would have been greatly hampered in his efforts to effectuate social change.
More recently, grassroots efforts have been heavily employed in efforts by organizations to express their views both in favor of and against then Supreme Court nominees John Roberts and Samuel Alito. Grassroots on both sides of issues such as abortion, tax reform and the environment have stimulated public policy to advocate, educate and inform.
America’s “grassroots” are not inert plant life; they are people, citizens, voters. Grassroots activity is an integral part of the American fabric of freedom.
Although first proposing S. 2128, Senator McCain has reconsidered his position of grassroots restrictions in this bill. However, many Senators on the Government Reform Committee which has jurisdiction over this legislation such as Senators Lott (R-MO), Collins (R-ME), Lieberman (D-CT) and Feingold (D-WI) still believe that citizen restraints are a necessary part of lobby reform.
We hope that Members of Congress intent on a grassroots component will review their copy of the Constitution, meet with their constituents and then target reforms that bring transparency to lobbying money sent to Congress, embrace efforts to restrain the spending that lays at the heart of corruption, and enforce and strengthen penalties for those actually breaking ethics and lobbying laws.

Thanks, Kerri.

Global warmer Nicholas Stern’s lecture is summarized by Riley Still:

Paraphrasing the lecture’s meaning as best I can: We’ve got a colossal, very complex problem, that fortunately the scientific community of computer modelers has discovered for us, that involves everybody and everything, and we’ve got to study every economic, scientific, and political alternative, using our collective brilliance and political strength to collaborate internationally, involving developed countries, developing countries, and other countries to find and implement every solution that game theorists, economists, scientists, and politicians everywhere can devise to be instituted to adapt to and to mitigate effects of this coming global catastrophe.

Thank goodness the Internet has already been invented! Brilliant minds can now focus on the forthcoming catastrophe.
I hate to mention one small problem: computer modelers have been unable to predict the past. But that is just a small problem since they obviously know exactly what to crank into their forward looking models. And because of their brilliance we know they won’t make any errors in coordinating everything that needs to be coordinated.
Thanks to Fred Singer for the link.

Patsy Madrid advocates big government “solutions” to every problem imaginable as she runs for congress, hoping to represent Albuquerque and environs. Yet her campaign organization could not even arrange to have her national radio broadcast heard in Albuquerque:

…no one with Madrid’s campaign, nor the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, confirmed that KKOB would actually broadcast the speech. The radio station aired a program about computers in the Saturday morning slot.
In fact, KKOB does not broadcast the weekly Democratic National Radio Address— nor the President of the United States’ Weekly Radio Address, station officials said.

Not to worry, though, this is just one little error. When it comes to big government making our decisions for us, errors will not be made. Right? Yeah, right.
BTW: in case you were wondering there is no way I can defend Heather Wilson’s support of the Bush Administrations new prescription drug entitlement program under Medicare. But you should be suspicious of Madrid’s supposed “simplification” involving even more government mandates over markets.

The New Mexico state legislature wisely rejected the proposed increase in the statewide minimum wage. As a result, Santa Fe–with its own substantial increase–will stick out like a sore thumb.
Any business that wants to locate in New Mexico will surely avoid Santa Fe. Even those that need to be located right in Santa Fe will tend to avoid the city’s high wages. It’s said that 19 restaurants have already closed.
It’s said that a higher minimum wage will have no effect on firms that don’t hire low wage workers, but this is untrue. A $10 minimum will probably be felt in the form of wage increases higher up in the pay scale. Otherwise why were union lobbyists so thick around the capital during the minimum wage debate?

Unfortunately Bush has fallen for the Ethanol scam. While you have to give credit to those who lobby for corporate welfare, those of us who lobby for liberty are at a severe disadvantage. It’s a fact of life that costs among the citizen-taxpayers are widely dispersed. So even though the the costs greatly exceed the benefits for the corporate welfare lobbyists, the lobbyists win because of the well-defined, concentrated benefits they receive. Thanks to Knowledge Problem for the link to Hassett commentary.
Coming soon: another (and potentially much more costly) scam:

Senators Domenici (R-NM) and Bingaman (D-NM) plan on legislation to mandate restrictions on CO2 emissions … – as a way to impose Kyoto on the US.
http://energy.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?

I can only hope that more of you will soon be standing with me for liberty, opportunity, prosperity.

At last some good news from the session:

NEW MEXICO MOVES ON MEDICAID. The sense of the Senate “memorial” in
New Mexico which we highlighted in “LTC Bullet: State Moves Toward Private
LTC Financing Alternatives,” Tuesday, February 7, 2006 passed on a vote of
42 to nothing. The memorial urges consideration of LTC insurance and home
equity conversion to relieve Medicaid’s fiscal woes and proposes a study
and conference toward that end.

HT: Center for Long-Term Care Reform, Inc.

Maybe it’s just me, but while Iran is trying to get its hand on a nuke; while armed and uniformed Mexicans are shooting at U.S. law enforcement personnel along our borders; while congress is spending us into oblivion — I somehow find it hard to get worked up over how we learned that Dick Cheney bagged an attorney.

– Talk show host Neal Boortz
HT: Chuck Muth

Read Russ Roberts’s comments on the trade deficit nonsense here. Also, he provides a link to Don Boudreaux’s clear thinking about it.

So far a Google search produces no Dick-Cheney / Aaron Burr comparisons. Give it time.

As Ken points out below, Albuquerque suddenly has a desire named streetcar: another example of the perverse incentives in government.

Albuquerque Mayor Chavez wants to install streetcars between Old Town and Knob Hill. I don’t know why. Here are a few reasons why not:
1. Construction costs would be high and streets would be torn up for months. Whatever the estimated cost, the actual cost would be far higher.
2. Low benefit-cost ratio. Dozens of cities (including Albuquerque) have abandoned their streetcar systems for one reason or another.
3. Unlike other forms of mass transit, streetcars actually add to congestion, as their tracks use one or more lanes of the street.
4. Streetcars endanger riders who have to get from the sidewalk to the streetcar, dodging auto traffic.
5. Eventually the system will prove to be a lemon, and taxpayers will have to foot the bill for tearing up the tracks and paving over the ruts.
Does anyone disagree?

It is strange that national boundaries also become barriers to clear thinking. The so-called “trade deficit” may even surpass “oil dependence” in the confusion it plants among us. Find out why you should not worry about the “trade deficit” here. Indeed you should be happy about it.

The Governor is pushing a massive subsidy to establlish a spaceport in New Mexico. Like the train to nowhere, it is a venture with little likelihood of success and a certainty of draining the state’s taxpayers for its entire life.
Do we really believe that there is a huge demand for suborbital flights that cost $200,000 per? One crash and the market, whatever it turns out to be, will dry up permanently.

By now it has become obvious that the planned “communter” train between Belen and Bernalillo makes no economic sense. Yet the legislature continues to debate this monstrocity. Can’t anyone step up and introduce a bill to put the train out of its misery?
It’s bad in so many ways:
–The cost will greatly exceed revenues.
–Ridership will be so small that no appreciable reduction in congestion will occur.
–The purchase of BNSF land and track holds many pitfalls, such as liability for damage claims and the loss of tax revenues on the land.
–What benefits there are (and these will be slim) will acrue to a very limited number of people, while taxpayers statewide pick up the tab. Better to use the money statewide for needed road improvements.
Now proponents of the rail line are asserting that even though the train will lose money, in twenty years it will begin to make sense. What a weak argument, unsupported by any evidence!
It’s time to pull the emergency cord and stop this monumental waste.

This is my first blog posting as the new CEO of the Rio Grande Foundation. I really look forward to getting out to Albuquerque — I am finishing up my last few weeks with National Taxpayers Union here in the DC area — and putting my full-time effort into getting the messages of free markets and individual freedom out in a state that badly needs them. On Thursday, February 2nd, I had the opportunity to testify before the Senate Banking Committee on a boondoggle of a federal program, the National Flood I*nsurance Program.
The flood i*nsurance program has been around since 1968 and has been subsidized by taxpayers ever since. Now, in the wake of the hurricanes of recent years, taxpayers are on the hook for $24 billion. This program should never have been created and I argued for repeal in my testimony, but repeal is unlikely given Congress’s lack of willpower. Spurred by bad publicity and massive losses, however, Congress may finally pass some needed reforms to the program. We’ll see.

In response to President Bush’s assertion that “America is addicted to oil,” Harry linked to this article in the Wall Street Journal. The author catalogues 35 years of failed energy initiatives designed to free us from dependence on foreign oil.
Time and time again politicians have been taken in by the fallacy of composition. Their logic seems to be something like this: Individual independence is good. Individuals are part of the nation. Therefore, national independence from foreign oil is good for individuals. It is not.
Any time politicians try to flex national power in order to make the country independent from a foreign supplier, they rob individuals of their own independent right to buy from whomever they wish. Thus in matters of trade, national independence can only come at the price of sacrificing individual liberty.
Americans buy a lot of oil from abroad. They do so because oil happens to be abundant abroad. There is some indication that domestic sources of oil are relatively underutilized due to environmental restrictions and the “not in my backyard” approach to building (or not) refineries. But even without these restrictions on American supply, Americans would probably still want to buy some oil from foreigners. It is a simple matter of fact that the world’s largest oil deposits are not located in North America.
It seems to me that allowing Americans to buy from abroad is both morally and economically correct. If a farmer named Chuck in Sterling, Ill. wants to buy cheap gas from Amir in Egypt, and Amir wants to trade his oil for Chuck’s cash, then who are we to stop these two from a mutually beneficial exchange? I suppose that nationalists and unionists like Pat Buchanan or Charles Schumer would respond by saying that Chuck should buy from a Texan named Billy Bob and not from a foreigner like Amir.
There are only three ways to make Chuck buy from Billy Bob rather than from Amir: The government can outright forbid Chuck from trading with Amir, it can highly tax his trade with Amir, or it can tax Chuck and all other Americans and use the revenue to subsidize Billy’s production and lower his price relative to Amir’s. All three of these options redistribute wealth from Chuck to Billy. There being little reason to suspect that oil men are any closer to starvation than farmers, I don’t see much of a case for this redistribution. Apparently folks like Buchanan and Schumer do. Furthermore, all three of these options involve redistribution from Amir to Billy. There being even less reason to believe that First-World Americans are worse-off than Third-World Egyptians I again don’t see the moral argument.
What of the economics? Some may claim that we will make America and therefore all Americans—even Chuck—better off by encouraging domestic producers. This was Alexander Hamilton’s point in his 1791 Report on Domestic Manufacturers. This point was no more correct when Hamilton made it than when today’s politicians make it. For one thing, a simple model of supply and demand will demonstrate that consumers lose more than producers gain when government plays favorites. For another, we all may lose from barriers to trade if other nations retaliate (just ask the Great Depression generation how they felt about the Smoot-Hawley Tariff). In the long run, in fact, we are probably doing Billy Bob and his fellow oil-men a disservice by protecting them from competition. As the economist Gordon Tullock pointed out in 1975, industries which enjoy government’s protection do not, in the long, earn higher profits than non-protected industries. Instead, there are only short-term or transitional gains to be had from redistribution. This is because as soon as government gives an industry an unfair advantage such as a subsidy or a targeted tax break, others enter the industry, increasing supply, driving down price and eliminating whatever above-normal profits the government hand-out precipitated. As David Friedman has said, “the government can’t even give anything away.” We can’t remain walled off forever. Eventually, we will have to trade. And when we do poor Billy will find that he and his fellow oil men are not nearly as productive compared to Amir and his fellows. By that time, how many young workers will we have tempted into an unproductive oil patch and how old will they be when they start looking for new jobs?
Adam Smith long ago demonstrated that the wealth of nations is made in trade and specialization. I am extremely thankful that I depend on others to make my clothes, husband my food and construct my shelter. It would take years to master any one of those trades. Luckily, I only have to learn how to teach economics and can trade with others for these staples. I am grateful that I depend on others. I am even more so when the government permits me the independence to make my own choices.

There you go again.
Update: moreon MEOW here.

Maybe a song would help save its soul. While we’re busy “working on the railroad” here in New Mexico it’s difficult to drum up a song about unseen prosperity.

Recall John Dendahl’s words in the Albuquerque Journal last Friday:

Sadly, most of New Mexico’s children will continue to be among those who either drop out of school or arrive at high school graduation inadequately prepared. …
How many chapters of “reform” must we endure before we adopt the one reform with real promise to restore educational opportunity for our kids? Why isn’t there a Gov. Bill Richardson’s School Choice Agenda?
There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Richardson doesn’t know he could pitch a perfect game with choice. But teachers’ union bosses are among his owners, and they say “no” to competition. Monopolies never serve their markets well, but government schools must remain a virtual monopoly anyway

.
Now from our friends at NCPA comes a reminder of this by Andrew Coulson:

For many years, school choice programs have been at the center of the
education reform debate and many Americans are now convinced that the
education of disadvantaged children would suffer if the government did
not run schools and if poor parents were allowed to make choices, says
Andrew Coulson of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
However, according to studies of impoverished villages and urban
slums in India, Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya, school choice programs are
actually beneficial, says Coulson.
o On average, 75 percent of the students in these areas
attend tuition-charging private schools.
o More than one out of every six private school students pay
less than full tuition and one in 14 attends private
school for free.
o These private schools spend far less per pupil (their
teachers’ salaries are roughly one-third of those in the
public sector), but the schools usually enjoy lower
rates of teacher absenteeism and comparable facilities and
teacher satisfaction.
o Most importantly, the private schools significantly
outperform their government-school counterparts
academically — even after controlling for differences in
student characteristics between the two sectors.
These results are consistent with U.S. education research that
finds that inexpensive private schools serving the poor in the United
States produce achievement and graduation rates that at least equal,
and usually surpass, those of the highest-spending neighborhood public
schools, says Coulson.
Moreover, all those concerned with improving the state of American
education should feel compelled to expand access to independent schools
by the most effective means possible, including the use of education
tax credits; if we do so, we will begin to catch up with the generosity
already on display in the Third World, says Coulson.

Source: Andrew J. Coulson, “‘http://www.mackinac.org/article.aspx?ID=7369 Poor Choices’ Yield Better Education,”
Viewpoint on Public Policy, no. 2005-29, October 3, 2005.

Thanks to Dick Rowland’s staff at the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, here is a nice behavioral analogy apropos to NM (perhaps you have seen it before):
The difference between a bureaucrat and a public servant is the degree to which an individual is empowered to take action for positive change in a system and the extent to which they exercise that power to benefit the common good.
Essentially, bureaucrats can be the source of the problem or victims of the system based on their actions or inactions. I think it is safe to say that bureaucrats ARE a large part of the problem in government. Most of you know that I like to tell a good story to illustrate my point….
Start with a cage containing five apes. In the cage, hang a banana on a string and put stairs under it. Before long, an ape goes to the stairs towards the banana, but as soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the apes with cold water.
After a while, another ape makes an attempt with the same result – all the apes are sprayed with cold water. Turn off the cold water. If, later, another ape tries to climb the stairs, the other apes will try to prevent it even though no water sprays them.
Now, remove one ape from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new ape sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his horror, all of the other apes attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.
Next, remove another of the original five apes and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm.
Again, replace a third original ape with a new one. The new one makes it to the stairs and is attacked as well. Two of the four apes that beat him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs, or why they are participating in the beating of the newest ape.
After replacing the fourth and fifth original apes, all of the apes, which have been sprayed with cold water, have been replaced. Nevertheless, no ape ever again approaches the stairs.
Why not?
“Because that’s the way it’s always been around here.”
Sound familiar?
We should immediately ban the use of the phrase “We’ve always done it like that” by any public employee. They should be allowed and even encouraged to apply common sense in the workplace. We should pay people who work for government based on the service they provide versus the amount of paper they push. Maybe then we will create true public servants in government rather than bureaucrats.

Does this sound familiar?

o The unionization rate has dropped to single digits in
Connecticut’s private sector, but the portion of public
employees covered by collective-bargaining agreements is
over 80 percent.
o In most job categories, public sector employees earn more
than private sector workers — sometime as much as 95
percent more — and health care benefits in the public
sector are substantially better, including the portion
of insurance plan cost that is covered by employers and
the quality and variety of coverage offered.
o Paid leave is also substantially more generous in the public
sector.
o While defined-benefit pension plans are shrinking and job
growth may be stagnant in the private sector, they
continue to remain common in government employment.
o But strong anecdotal evidence suggests that misbehavior,
cronyism, nepotism and even criminal activity may be
far more common in the public sector.

Read “The Two Connecticuts”
Yankee Institute, January 10, 2006 by D. Dowd Muska and Philip Gressel
HT: NCPA