The Heritage Insider: Iran deal will make the world less safe, it's no longer illegal to be conservative in Wisconsin, the difference between the U.S. and Greece, and more
July 18, 2015
Latest Studies
27 new items, including a Fraser Institute report on the cost of waiting for medical treatment in Canada, and a Goldwater Institute report on how federal law forces native American children to remain in unsafe homes
Notes on the Week
Iran deal will make the world less safe, it’s no longer illegal to be conservative in Wisconsin, the difference between the U.S. and Greece, and more
To Do
Figure out what to do about cyber espionage
Latest Studies
Budget & Taxation
• Export–Import Bank: Propaganda versus the Facts – The Heritage Foundation
• Economic Incentives: County by County – John Locke Foundation
• Can a Research and Development Tax Credit Be Properly Designed for Economic Efficiency? – Mercatus Center
• State and Local Sales Tax Rates, Midyear 2015 – Tax Foundation
Economic and Political Thought
• American Contempt for Liberty – Hoover Institution
Economic Growth
• What Lower Labor Force Participation Rates Tell Us About Work Opportunities and Incentives – American Enterprise Institute
• Testimony on Lower Labor Force Participation Rates – e21 – Economic Policies for the 21st Century
• A Measured Approach to Patent Reform Legislation – The Heritage Foundation
Elections, Transparency, & Accountability
• The Dangers of Internet Voting – The Heritage Foundation
Family, Culture & Community
• Making Divorce Pay – Capital Research Center
• Death on a Reservation – Goldwater Institute
Health Care
• The Private Cost of Public Queues for Medically Necessary Care – Fraser Institute
• Lower Cost, Over the Counter Contraceptives – National Center for Policy Analysis
• Health Care Reform: Lowering Costs by Putting Patients in Charge – Washington Policy Center
International Trade/Finance
• Retail Globalization and Household Welfare: Evidence from Mexico – Cato Institute
• The Proposed Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) Mechanism: U.S. Should Oppose EU Demand to Abandon It – The Heritage Foundation
• U.S. Antidumping Law Needs a Dose of Free-Market Competition – The Heritage Foundation
Monetary Policy/Financial Regulation
• Dodd-Frank at 5: Higher Costs, Uncertain Benefits – American Action Forum
• Fed Oversight: Lack of Transparency and Accountability – American Enterprise Institute
• Will Total Loss Absorbing Capacity Regulations Fix the Global Systemically Important Banks Too-Big-to-Fail Problem? – American Enterprise Institute
• A Bird in the Hand and No Banks in the Bush – Competitive Enterprise Institute
• Trends in Federal Reserve Transparency and Accountability – Hoover Institution
National Security
• The Iran Nuclear Negotiations: U.S. Concession After U.S. Concession – The Heritage Foundation
Regulation & Deregulation
• Sweet Truth: Is There a Market Failure in Sugar? – Institute of Economic Affairs
Retirement/Social Security
• Social Security Disability Insurance: Benefit Offsets Encourage Work—But Achieve Little to No Savings – The Heritage Foundation
Transportation/Infrastructure
• New Model Would Aid Dynamic Scoring of Transportation Spending, but Changes Are Needed – The Heritage Foundation
• Political Incentives and Transportation Funding – Mercatus Center
Notes on the Week
Four reasons the Iran deal will make the world less safe: Genevieve Wood:
The Obama administration agrees: Its Iran deal could give Tehran a bigger terrorism fund. Daily Beast’s Tim Mak:
Iran has billions in assets frozen by an international sanctions regime led by the United States and other world powers. Should a nuclear agreement be reached, as is expected later this week, these assets would be eventually released to the Iranian government.
“We are of course aware and concerned that, despite the massive domestic spending needs facing Iran, some of the resulting sanctions relief could be used by Iran to fund destabilizing actions,” a State Department official told The Daily Beast.
Ahead of a widely expected deal with Iran this week, the administration is talking tough: The State Department official said that “the U.S. sees Iran clearly for what it is: the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism; a supporter of terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas; a backer of the Assad regime’s brutality in Syria; and a force for instability in Yemen.” [Daily Beast, July 8]
What does the United Nations have to do with the Iran deal? Daniel Horowitz:
Foreign Policy magazine is reporting that UN Ambassador Samantha Power plans to submit a 14-page draft resolution to the UN Security Council as early as next week for approval of the Iran deal.
You might be thinking, what happened to the 60-day period of congressional review, pursuant to the Corker Cardin bill, when Obama was to be restricted from lifting sanctions? Can’t Congress at least be afforded the 60 days to attempt to muster the 67 votes needed to disapprove of the deal?
No chance. Obama is reneging on the very essence of the agreement and the bill he signed into law in May – an agreement that to begin with, violates the Senate’s treaty powers. By taking this deal straight to the Security Council for approval, although the implementation of the deal will not take effect until later this year, Congress would be in violation of international law by rejecting this treaty – if they miraculously mustered the votes in September. [Conservative Review, July 16]
Anne Bayefsky explains further what’s going on:
First, the agreement the administration just made with Iran violates the existing Security Council resolutions. Second, the administration hopes to subordinate U.S. lawmakers to the lawmakers at the U.N.
The direct inconsistency between the agreement and the U.N. laws is clear. The sanctions resolutions say Iran must suspend “all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities…” And the agreement gives Iran a right to enrich – notwithstanding Secretary Kerry’s fake-out in November 2013 that the administration had “no right to enrich” in mind.
Hence, the agreement cannot come into effect without rescinding the current obligations imposed on Iran.
Secondly, the council resolution is to be adopted under the U.N. charter section demanding U.N. members “agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council.” If Congress balks, Obama’s threat goes, it will bring the .U.S into violation of its legal duties.
After failing to hold Iran to its legal duties by revoking them, the President will create new ones with which to blackmail the representatives of the American people. [Weekly Standard, July 16]
Do American non-profits have a place on the battlefield? Sure do. In the latest issue of Philanthropy magazine James Carafano tells the story of Jim Hake, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who founded Spirit of America to support community building efforts by the U.S. military in combat zones. The first proof his idea could work, writes Carafano, came in 2006 during the Anbar Awakening:
The local tribes were beginning to reject al-Qaeda and Mattis knew it was a moment brimming with opportunity. He had a chance to win the support of the local community, but he needed a powerful gesture to help bridge the distrust between his commanders and the Sunni chiefs. He knew that in the local culture a sword has deep symbolic meaning. When a sword is exchanged, disagreements and retribution are put aside. Accepting a sword is a signal of trust and friendship. It was exactly what he needed.
Mattis had plenty of armor, but swords were another matter. He couldn’t use taxpayer funds to buy gifts, let alone $600 Marine officer ceremonial swords. But he knew someone who could get them if asked. He contacted Hake, who raised the funds through Spirit of America to buy and deliver a dozen swords.
By working in support of American forces, Spirit of America is breaking with the idea of neutral humanitarian assistance developed by the Red Cross. That practice was intended to ensure aid was not seen as a weapon of war, a perception that would threaten humanitarian groups’ access to those needing assistance. Carafano points out, however, that neutral assistance often isn’t possible on today’s battlefields:
From ISIS to the Lord’s Resistance Army, militant groups refuse to tolerate even adamantly “impartial” humanitarian intervention.
Nadia Schadlow, who directs foreign-policy giving at the Smith Richardson Foundation (one of Spirit of America’s supporters), argues that the space for “neutral” aid is actually relatively narrow. “Once any long-term effort to alleviate suffering begins, it becomes political,” she points out, so “not taking sides” is often more a theory than a practical reality.
Carafano concludes:
With the U.S. facing the most complex and volatile security situation it has seen since the end of the Cold War, and U.S. Special Operations troops now working quietly at the village level in 81 countries (exactly the scenario Spirit of America is built to help with), this is far from an academic issue. America’s opponents understand the importance of public opinion, and groups like the Taliban, the Islamic State, and Latin drug lords use combinations of aid, propaganda, and public services to try to cement their power.
It is likely that our future security challenges will be bottom-up, community-oriented problems in tribal societies with weak governments. Local solutions instigated by small actors can be very effective in such situations. A nimble philanthropic organization like Spirit of America that operates at the “retail” level with careful attention to detail can often be more effective than a government-run entity.Meanwhile, Spirit offers everyday American donors who care about the U.S. and its place in the world a direct and immediate way to help. [Philanthropy, Summer 2015]
The difference between the United States and Greece: The United States can monetize its debt, while Greece can only default. Lucky Greeks! Defaulting, explains Peter Schiff, is the less damaging option:
The UT-Austin admissions scandal is about 10 times worse than the state-appointed watchdog has claimed. Jon Cassidy and Watchdog.org perform the real watchdog duties:
At least 764 applicants initially denied admission to the University of Texas were admitted thanks to a backdoor program for the wealthy and politically connected administered by former president Bill Powers.
More than 200 of those applicants were admitted despite having their applications cancelled by the Admissions Office.
The total is more than 10 times the 73 applicants widely reported from an investigation paid for by the university and conducted by Kroll Associates. Kroll withheld the full findings from its 107-page final report.
Watchdog.org produced the final number by reassembling a key Kroll database tracking “holds,” or applicants rejected by the admissions office but granted favored status by Powers’ office from 2009 to 2014.
Kroll arrived at its published tally by establishing an arbitrary cutoff point for grades and SAT scores that had nothing to do with finding the total number of admissions rejections Powers overrode, which was the original purpose of the investigation.
The university kept the numbers in the database secret from the public and from regents who have asked to review the Kroll investigation records. [Watchdog.org, July 14]
Why has the Transportation Security Administration taken so long to write a rule for body scanners? In the past eight years, employees of the Transportation Security Administration have used advanced imaging technology to view nearly 6 billion scans of travelers departing from an airport in the United States. Those scanners enable the screeners to see through clothes in order to detect liquids or powder. In other words, when you fly, the TSA can see you as if you were naked.
Did you know that in all that time, the agency has had no rules in place to protect traveler privacy? Did you know that the agency is at least two years overdue to comply with a court order to write such rules ? The Competitive Enterprise Institute, the National Center for Transgender Equity, and the Rutherford Institute are on the case! In order to force the agency to act, these groups this week filed a petition at the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. From the petition:
Now, four years after this Court’s July 15, 2011, mandate, and over two years since [the Transportation Security Administration] published its [Notice of Proposed Rulemaking], the agency has yet to issue a final rule, or take any other steps toward meeting the [Administrative Procedure Act’s] requirements. For over eight years, therefore, TSA has subjected passengers flying through U.S. airports to its [Advanced Imaging Technology] regime—a policy the American people have not had any say in making, even though they are “substantively affect[ed]” by it, as this Court has held. […] TSA’s chronic failure to timely comply with this Court’s mandate evinces crippling bureaucratic inefficiency, especially for an agency with over 50,000 full?time equivalent employees. [In Re Competitive Enterprise Institute, National Center for Transgender Equity, The Rutherford Institute, Lawson Bader, and Marc Scribner, Petition for a Writ of Mandamus to Enforce this Court’s Mandate, United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, July 15]
Massive government subsidies have made higher education more expensive. Matthew Ladner asks: “Do you think it might be possible that we’ve accidentally induced hyper-inflation in higher education?”
As Ladner notes, the rise in prices associated with the housing bubble that caused such trouble a few years back shows up as a mere blip compared to the run-up in higher education costs. How difficult will the coming higher education correction be? [Jay P. Greene’s Blog, July 15]
Recent research by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has found that colleges and universities use tuition increases to capture between 55 cents and 65 cents of every dollar in Pell grants or subsidized loans. [“Credit Supply and the Rise in College Tuition: Evidence from the Expansion in Federal Student Aid Programs,” by David O. Luca, Taylor Nadauld, and Karen Shen, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, July 15]
Being conservative and participating in politics is no longer illegal in Wisconsin. This week in Wisconsin, it’s a little bit safer to use your First Amendment rights to promote your policy and political goals. On Thursday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ended the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s investigation into coordination between Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign and independent conservative groups. In conducting that so-called John Doe investigation, the DA had ordered pre-dawn raids of the houses of Walker staffers and leaders of outside groups. Those raids were executed by agents with battering rams and guns. The DA also obtained gag orders against those targeted.
The Court ruled that Wisconsin’s election laws do not—because constitutionally they cannot—regulate any political speech short of expressly advocating a candidate’s election. That is true, said the court, even for speech that is coordinated. Individuals and groups, in others words, can speak out on issues during election campaigns without needing to hire campaign finance attorneys. A couple of key passages:
The special prosecutor has disregarded the vital principle that in our nation and our state political speech is a fundamental right and is afforded the highest level of protection. The special prosecutor’s theories, rather than “assur[ing] [the] unfettered interchange of ideas for the bringing about of political and social changes desired by the people,” instead would assure that such political speech will be investigated with paramilitary-style home invasions conducted in the pre-dawn hours and then prosecuted and punished. […]
[T]he special prosecutor has employed theories of law that do not exist in order to investigate citizens who were wholly innocent of any wrongdoing. In other words, the special prosecutor was the instigator of a “perfect storm” of wrongs that was visited upon the innocent Unnamed Movants and those who dared to associate with them. It is fortunate, indeed, for every other citizen of this great State who is interested in the protection of fundamental liberties that the special prosecutor chose as his targets innocent citizens who had both the will and the means to fight the unlimited resources of an unjust prosecution. Further, these brave individuals played a crucial role in presenting this court with an opportunity to re-endorse its commitment to upholding the fundamental right of each and every citizen to engage in lawful political activity and to do so free from the fear of the tyrannical retribution of arbitrary or capricious governmental prosecution. Let one point be clear: our conclusion today ends this unconstitutional John Doe investigation. [Internal citations omitted.] [Wisconsin Supreme Court, July 16]
To Do: Figure Out What to Do About Cyber Espionage
• Explore U.S. options for countering Chinese hackers. Rep. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific, and International Cybersecurity Policy, will discuss the threat of Chinese cyber espionage to both the government and private citizens. Noon to 2 p.m. on July 22 at The American Enterprise Institute.
• Learn how Medicare harms the sickest, and why Congress never fixes the problems. David Hogberg of the National Center for Public Policy Research will talk about his new book, Medicare’s Victims: How the U.S. Government’s Largest Health Care Program Harms Patients and Impairs Physicians. Noon on July 21 at The Heritage Foundation.
• Find out whence forecasts of calamity come and why they are always wrong. Reason magazine’s Ronald Bailey will talk about his new book The End of Doom: Environmental Renewal in the 21st Century. Noon on July 23 at the Cato Institute.• Discover the seven principles of sound public policy—where they’re needed most. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) will host a talk by Lawrence Reed of the Foundation for Economic Education. Noon on July 22 at the Hart Senate Office Building, Room SH-902, in Washington, D.C.
• Sort out the differences between libertarianism and conservatism. The interns of the Cato Institute and The Heritage Foundation will go head-to-head to debate the question: Is libertarianism or conservatism the superior political philosophy? 6:30 p.m. on July 23 at the Cato Institute.
• Examine the Internal Revenue Service’s rules concerning charitable giving. The Alabama Policy Institute will host a debate between Hans von Spakovsky of The Heritage Foundation and Craig Holman of Public Citizen. 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on July 21 at The Summit Club in Birmingham, Ala.
• Figure out how the United States should respond to today’s foreign policy challenges. Walter Russell Mead will have a conversation with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) 11:15 a.m. to 2:35 p.m. on July 21 at the Hudson Institute.
Looking ahead:
• The 37th Annual National Conservative Conference, July 27 to 31 in Washington, D.C.
• Milton Friedman Legacy Day, July 31, in multiple locations.
Have a tip for InsiderOnline? Send us an e-mail at insider@heritage.org with "For Insider" in the subject line.
Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/InsiderOnline.
Looking for an expert? Visit PolicyExperts.org.
The Heritage Foundation | 214 Massachusetts Ave NE, Washington, DC 20002 | 202.546.4400
You are subscribed to Heritage Foundation e-mails as johnmhames@comcast.net. If you want to change your e-mail preferences, please click here to update your subscription.
-
Comments
Post a Comment