11 November 2009
Today’s Tabbloid
PERSONAL NEWS FOR lgn@limitedgovernmentnetwork.com
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Outline of House GOP
Alternative To Pelosi-Rangel-
Obama Health Bill [Americans
for Tax Reform]
NOV 10, 2009 05:01P.M.
Last week, ATR endorsed the House GOP alternative to H.R. 3926, the
Pelosi healthcare bill. Below are the major provisions of this alternative:
219 pages (compared to 1990 pages for House ...
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Imports Wrongly Blamed for
Unemployment [Cato at
Liberty]
NOV 10, 2009 03:35P.M.
Import competition can throw Americans out of work. Even advocates of
free trade like me will readily acknowledge that fact. And nobody needs
to remind the people of Hickory, North Carolina.
On the front page of the Washington Post this morning, under the
headline, “In N.C., damage not easily mended: Globalization drives
unemployment to 15% in one corner of state,” the paper reports in detail
how the people of that community are struggling to adjust to a more
open U.S. economy:
The region has lost more of its jobs to international
competition than just about anywhere else in the nation,
according to federal trade-assistance statistics, as textile mills
have closed, furniture factories have dwindled and even the
fiber-optic plants have undergone mass layoffs. The
unemployment rate is one of the highest in the nation–about
15 percent.
Nobody wants to lose their job involuntarily, but a story like this needs to
be read in perspective. As I document in my new Cato book Mad about
Trade, the large majority of Americans who lose their jobs each year are
not displaced by trade. Technology is the great job disruptor, but
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Americans also lose their jobs because of domestic competition,
changing consumer tastes, and recessions.
For every person who loses their job because of globalization, I estimate
there are 30 who have lost their jobs for other reasons. I’m waiting for a
front-page story on all the newspaper workers who have lost their jobs
because of the Internet, or the 30,000 workers laid off by Kodak in the
past 5 years because of the spread of digital cameras and plunging film
sales, or the book stores and record stores that have shut down and laid
off workers because of Amazon.com and iTunes.
Trade is not a cause of higher unemployment nationwide, either, as the
Post story seems to imply. Imports have fallen sharply during the latest
recession along with the trade deficit. In contrast, imports were rising at
double-digit rates when the unemployment rate was below 5 percent.
Like technology, trade can put people out of work, but it also creates new
and generally better paying opportunities for employment, while raising
our overall standard of living.
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Our ‘Reassured’ Allies [Cato at
Liberty‘Reassured’ Allies]
NOV 10, 2009 03:32P.M.
Justin Logan beat me to the punch, but Robert Kagan and Dan
Blumenthal’s op-ed in the Washington Post warrants more than just one
comment. Kagan and Blumenthal fret that the Obama administration’s
policy of “strategic reassurance” is sure to fail. Aimed at encouraging
Russia and China, especially, to cooperate with the United States in
dealing with a number of common threats, the two predict that the policy
will succeed only in making “American allies nervous.”
Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Not that we should go around
making our allies nervous just for the heck of it, but I worry that our
allies have grown, well, too comfortable with the current state of affairs
in which American taxpayers and American troops bear a
disproportionate share of the costs of securing global peace and
prosperity.
And who can blame them? From the perspective of our allies in East Asia
(chiefly the Japanese and the South Koreans), and for the Europeans
tucked safely within NATO, getting the Americans to pay the costs, and
assume the risks, associated with policing the world is a pretty good gig.
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR lgn@limitedgovernmentnetwork.com
The same Robert Kagan made this point explicitly, if somewhat crudely,
in his book Of Paradise and Power, when he cast the United States in
the heroic role as sheriff, while our wealthy allies were portrayed as
cowardly, sniveling townspeople, or, worse, saloon keepers who
benefited from the protection of the Americans while selling booze to the
bad guys.
For at least two decades, we have adopted a strategy designed to comfort
our allies. Our goal has been to discourage them from taking prudent
steps to defend themselves. Many Americans are beginning to appreciate
just how short-sighted this policy was, and is. Such military capabilities
might have proved useful in Afghanistan, for example, and they might
ultimately serve a purpose in checking Russian and Chinese ambitions,
which would be particularly important if these two countries prove as
aggressive as Kagan and Blumenthal claim.
Instead, we have a group of militarily weak and comfortable allies who
spend a fraction of what Americans spend on defense, and who can
muster political will with respect to foreign policy only when it entails
criticizing the United States for not doing enough. In other words, we are
reaping what we sowed.
But don’t take my word for it. Vassilis Kaskarelis, the Greek ambassador
to the United States, bluntly explained the disconnect between what we
want our allies to do, and what they are willing to do. As reported by the
Washington Times:
NATO members’ reluctance to assume a larger role in
Afghanistan is partly the legacy of U.S. military protection,
which allowed Europeans to stress social programs over
defense for decades, the Greek ambassador to the United
States said.
“For 40 years, you have a system [of] not bothering about
military, security and stability expenses,” [Mr.] Kaskarelis
told editors and reporters of The Washington Times.
“Because these issues were handled by the United States after
World War II … everybody was happy.”
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11 November 2009
[…]
Mr. Kaskarelis said…that most European governments
support the war in Afghanistan but lack the military
infrastructure to contribute as equal partners.
“They don’t have the capabilities, because in the last 50 years,
the U.S. offered an umbrella in terms of military, security and
stability,” he said. “You had the phenomenon [in which] most
of the successful European economies — countries like
France, Germany, the Scandinavians — channeled all the
funds they had on social issues, health care, pensions, you
name it.”
Mr. Kaskarelis noted that this system grew out of the
wreckage of World War II and that without U.S. aid, his own
country “wouldn’t exist today” as an independent, democratic
state. But to readjust is difficult, he said.
“Can you imagine how a government can sell such … an idea
to its general public without having a revolution? They cover
the expense of the hospital, but to say, ‘We won’t cover 100
percent of your medical expenses, we will start covering 80
percent, because the other 20 percent [will be used] to
upgrade our military capabilities to be used in NATO and
Afghanistan. Can you imagine this?”
(H/T Charles Zakaib)
Actually, I can ”imagine” a time when other countries are responsible for
their own defense. Indeed, I wrote a book on the subject. Maybe I’ll send
Amb. Kaskarelis a copy? And while I’m at it, perhaps Messrs. Kagan and
Blumenthal should get one too?
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Should We Simultaneously
Make China More Powerful and
Try to Contain It? [Cato at
Liberty]
NOV 10, 2009 01:15P.M.
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR lgn@limitedgovernmentnetwork.com 11 November 2009

Instead of facing up to the contradiction, Washington has opted for cute

argumentation, conceptualizing its China policy as “congagement,” that
is, part containment and part engagement. This strategy involves making
China richer and militarily more powerful, while hoping that the
Seymour Martin Lipset story about economic growth facilitating the
development of democracy comes true in China, and then the democratic
peace is supposed to kick in, ensuring that we won’t go to war with
China. To my mind, this is a very tenuous set of arguments: ultimately, I
don’t think there’s much evidence we’re willing to grant China something
like its own version of the Monroe Doctrine in East Asia, but at the same
time we’re helping it get to a point where it’s more likely–and more
capable–of pursuing this kind of influence.

I criticized this argument back in 2006 [.pdf] in The American

Robert Kagan and AEI’s Daniel Blumenthal have an op-ed in today’s
Post criticizing President Obama’s policy on China. It contains the odd
dualism in neoconservatism whereby neocons endorse contradictory
assumptions about international politics, putting a logical inconsistency
at the center of their argument.
First, Kagan and Blumenthal write that “China is behaving exactly as one
would expect a great power to behave. As it has grown richer, China has
used its wealth to build a stronger and more capable military. As its
military power has grown, so have its ambitions.”
Then, however, Kagan and Blumenthal seem to endorse U.S. China
policy over the past 30 years:
For decades, U.S. strategy toward China has had two
complementary elements. The first was to bring China into
the “family of nations” through engagement. The second was
to make sure China did not become too dominant, through
balancing…The strategy has been to give China a greater
stake in peace, while maintaining a balance of power in the
region favorable to democratic allies and American interests.
Conservative, if anyone has interest. It would be good to hear more
China hawks spell out their logic on this stuff, because the longer it goes
unscrutinized, the more worrisome the implications of flouting the
contradiction become.
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Prosecutorial Immunity [Cato at
Liberty]
NOV 10, 2009 01:02P.M.
Last week the Supreme Court heard the case of Pottawattamie v.
McGhee. The gist is whether prosecutors who fabricate evidence against
persons accused of crime can be sued and held liable for money
damages, or whether they are immune from suit. The Crime &
Federalism blog reports on the back-and-forth at oral argument in a post
entitled “Prosecutors should feel the chill.”
Cato filed an amicus brief in the case. A ruling is expected by the
Supreme Court by June.

Except these two elements aren’t complementary at all. If the authors

think that a wealthier China is naturally going to get more ambitious and
more capable, and that these developments are contrary to U.S.
interests, why would the authors endorse engagement, which has helped
make China more wealthy? (Their language is imprecise, so it’s possible
they do not.)

John Mearsheimer recognized this logical implication, and therefore in

drawing up his theory of offensive realism wrote that “the United States
has a profound interest in seeing Chinese economic growth slow
considerably in the years ahead.” (This constitutes an example why
Mearsheimer refers to the “tragedy of great power politics.”) There are
not a lot of people making this argument openly, and there are a lot of
people who’ve offered criticisms of it, but if you want to contain China,
you really have to make it unless you resort to some very cute
argumentation.

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Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR lgn@limitedgovernmentnetwork.com
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
The Search for Answers in Fort
Hood [Cato at Liberty]
NOV 10, 2009 11:51A.M.
The country is unpacking the recent shooting at Fort Hood and analyzing
the perpetrator intensely. Along with natural shock and curiosity, a
principle reason for doing so is to discover what can prevent incidents
like this in the future.
When faced with any risk, including rampaging gunmen, there are four
options:
• Prevention—the alteration of the target or its circumstances to
diminish the risk of the bad thing happening.
• Interdiction—any confrontation with, or influence exerted on, an
attacker to eliminate or limit its movement toward causing harm.
• Mitigation—preparation so that, in the event of the bad thing
happening, its consequences are reduced.
• Acceptance—a rational alternative often chosen when the threat
has low probability, low consequence, or both.
(There is much more to risk management, of course. This handy
simplification is taken from the DHS Privacy Committee’s “framework”
document.)
Taking the facts as they appear now, what lessons can we take from Fort
Hood that will help protect military forces and facilities, and the country
in general? Let’s go through some of them option-by-option:
Prevention: What circumstances at Fort Hood and elsewhere could be
altered to prevent this ever happening again? An obvious one is gun
control—if there were no guns, there could be no shooting. But this
prescription is complicated by the intrusions on individual rights
required to implement it. Depriving citizens of arms directly violates the
Second Amendment, and effectively enforcing a gun control regime
would almost certainly violate the Fourth.
Removing guns from specific locations might be more palatable and
achievable, but gun rampages do not restrict themselves to restricted
areas, and widespread possession of guns by law-abiding citizens is an
important form of interdiction. Indeed, appropriate gun violence was the
interdiction that ultimately stopped further bloodshed.
Interdiction: What steps can be taken against attackers to limit their
progress toward causing harm? This is a confounding option because
learning what this attack looked like as an embryo won’t tell us what the
next one will look like.
Thousands of people are like Nidal Hasan in one respect or another, but
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11 November 2009
they will never commit any attack. There are thousands of people with
turmoil or mental illness similar to his, for example. There are
thousands of military servicemembers with doubts about U.S.
policies. There are thousands of Muslims in the military (whose
contributions are highly valuable). There are thousands of people who
have investigated or sought contact with Al Qaeda.
If the conclusion from Fort Hood were that all people who share certain
traits should be investigated/interdicted, this would violate fundamental
rights and values while it wasted investigators’ time: Who is troubled
enough in their minds, doubtful enough of U.S. foreign policy, etc.
Whose contacts with Al Qaeda or jihadi Web sites indicate a desire to
perpetrate bad acts and not curiosity or enmity?
Sending investigators into this quagmire would only work as a salve
until some future rampage arose from another unique set of
circumstances. We would be no safer for having investigated all
who were “like” Nidal Hasan in the ways we decide are material.
Mitigation: I have seen no indication that the facilities and staff of Fort
Hood were ill-equipped to deal with the results of this violence. There
may be marginal ways they could improve—there always are—but
medical services can’t be available everywhere always. There is little
prescription for change here.
Acceptance: With the confounding difficulty of prevention and
interdiction before us, this option rises a little bit in currency. Television
news and commentary may make it feel differently to many people, but
there is a very low probability of shootings like this happening. The costs
of preventing and interdicting such violence is very high. This is a
candidate for “acceptance.”
Acceptance is the least “acceptable” option, of course. Nobody thinks it is
‘ok’ for this kind of thing to happen. But like so many tragedies—indeed,
part and parcel of tragedy—it is the loss of innocent life for no good
reason.
Fort Hood presents the country with a choice: Invest extraordinary
efforts in measures that cost a great deal, that invade prized rights, and
that don’t work? Or show our sorrow to the families and community of
Fort Hood and make peace with the grief and tragedy of this incident.
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR lgn@limitedgovernmentnetwork.com 11 November 2009

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS CIOFFI & TANNIN: NOT GUILTY!

Obamacare Will Be a Budget The aforementioned panel will debate.

Buster [Cato at Liberty] WALL ST. PERVERSION?

NOV 10, 2009 11:46A.M. Do markets like the 10-percent-plus unemployment?
Are markets all about easy-money?
Does anyone think that a huge new entitlement program will lead to
lower budget deficits? Sounds implausible, yet proponents of Panel:
government-run healthcare claim this is the case according to the official
estimates from the Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on *Steve Liesman, CNBC senior economics reporter
Taxation. *Michael Pento, Delta Global Advisors, Inc. Senior Market Strategist
*Rich Karlgaard, Forbes Publisher
To use a technical phrase, this is hogwash. This new 6-1/2 minute video,
narrated by yours truly, gives 12 reasons why Obamacare will lead to IS A 2ND WAVE OF FORECLOSURES COMING?
higher deficits – including real-world evidence showing how Medicare CNBC’s Diana Olick reports.
and Medicaid are much more costly than originally projected.
GOOGLE VS. MURDOCH
By the way, this video doesn’t even touch on the mandate issue, which CNBC’s Julia Boorstin reports.
Michael Cannon explains is not being counted in order to make the cost
of government-run healthcare less shocking. Plus Forbes’ Rich Karlgaard will offer his perspective.

Please join us. The Kudlow Report. 7pm ET. CNBC.

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

On CNBC’s Kudlow Report FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

[Larry Kudlow’s Money Tuesday’s Daily News [The Club

Politic$] for Growth]
NOV 10, 2009 11:34A.M. NOV 10, 2009 11:03A.M.

Last minute supporters of the House health care bill are bragging about
the pork they received.

WSJ Editorial: “Confessions of an ObamaCare Backer”

Senator Tom Coburn being Tom Coburn: “The country would be much
better off if they kept us at home and not let us vote on anything.”

Economists Brian Wesbury and Robert Stein examines the way the
This evening at 7pm ET:
unemployment rate is calculated.

DODD’S PLAN
Economist Keith Hennessey provides an in-depth look at how the health
CNBC chief Washington correspondent John Harwood reports from
care debate will move through Congress.
Washington.

IBD Editorial: “the votes of two members in particular show why

DOES TOO BIG TO FAIL MEAN TOO BIG?
politicians these days warrant little trust.”

*Charlie Gasparino, CNBC on-air editor; “The Sellout” author

What if the government created a “public option” for cable?
*Rob Nichols, president of the Financial Services Forum
*Cam Fine President & CEO Independent Community Bankers of
Amity Shlaes thinks the next few years belong to Hayek. I like that.
America

Here’s a collection of “Sowellisms” by...Tom Sowell.

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Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR lgn@limitedgovernmentnetwork.com
VIDEO: Czech Republic president Vaclav Klaus discusses the events of
1989, the year the Berlin Wall came down.
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Obama’s (In)Decision on
Afghanistan [Cato at Liberty]
NOV 10, 2009 10:57A.M.
According to CBS News, President Barack Obama will send most, if not
all, of the 40,000 additional troops that General Stanley McChrystal
requested and reportedly plans to keep those troops in Afghanistan for
the long-term.
Watch CBS News Videos Online
If the CBS report turns out to be true—the White House has backed
away, and other news outlets are leaving the story alone for the
moment—the president’s decision is disappointing, but expected. Last
month, the administration ruled out the notion of a near-term U.S. exit
from Afghanistan, arguing that the Taliban and al Qaeda would perceive
an early pullout as a victory over the United States. But if avoiding a
perception of weakness is the rationale that the administration is
operating under then we have already lost by allowing our enemies to
dictate the terms of the war.
Gen. McChrystal’s ambitious strategy hopes to integrate U.S. troops into
the Afghan population. These additional troops might reduce violence in
the short- to medium-term. But this strategy rests on the presumption
that Afghans in heavily contested areas want the protection of foreign
troops. The reality might be very different; western forces might instead
be perceived as a magnet for violence.
McChrystal’s strategy also presumes that an additional 40,000 troops
will be enough. But proponents of an ambitious counterinsurgency
strategy need to come clean on the total bill that would be required. For a
country the size of Afghanistan, with roughly 31 million people, the Army
and Marine Corps counterinsurgency doctrine advises between 620,000
to 775,000 counterinsurgents—whether native or foreign. Furthermore,
typical counterinsurgency missions require such concentrations of forces
for a decade or more. Given these realities, we could soon hear cries of
“surge,” “if only,” and “not enough.”
Even if the United States and its allies committed themselves to decades
of armed nation building, success against al Qaeda would hardly be
guaranteed. After all, in the unlikely event that we forged a stable
Afghanistan, al Qaeda would simply reposition its presence into other
regions of the world.
It is well past time for the United States to adapt means to ends. The
choice for President Obama is not between counterterrorism or
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11 November 2009
counterinsurgency; but between counterterrorism and counterterrorism
combined with counterinsurgency. Protecting the United States from
terrorism does not require U.S. troops to police Afghan villages. Where
terrorists do appear, we hardly need to tinker with their communal
identities. We can target our enemies with allies on the ground or, if that
fails, by relying on timely intelligence for use in targeted airstrikes or
small-unit raids.
President Obama’s decision on Afghanistan could define his presidency.
If an escalating military strategy leads only to thousands of more deaths,
and at a cost of tens or hundreds of billions of dollars, then that is a
bitter legacy indeed.
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Odds of Government-Run
Health Care? [The Club for
Growth]
NOV 10, 2009 10:56A.M.
Intrade is reporting only a 5.9% chance of a public option passing
Congress this year. That should make fiscal conservatives feel good. But
the odds dramatically increase once you spill the debate into next year.
The odds of a public option passing by March 2010 is 28.9%. By June
2010, it’s 35%.
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Tuesday Links [Cato at Liberty]
NOV 10, 2009 10:56A.M.
• In the Obama era, the “slippery slope” has gone vertical: “Instead
of ‘eventually,’ the feared extensions of government power come
immediately.”
• The House health care bill: “One of the most expensive pieces of
legislation in history.”
• How quickly we forget: “In spite of its monumental failure to bring
social peace and material abundance, socialism is enjoying
something of a renaissance.“
• Good question: Why would Congress compel young adults to buy
health insurance they don’t need?
• Podcast: The Cost of the Health Care Bill
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR lgn@limitedgovernmentnetwork.com
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
A Plug for Financial Fiasco
[Cato at Liberty]
NOV 10, 2009 10:03A.M.
The distinguished Harvard economist Richard N. Cooper, former
president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, praises Johan
Norberg’s Financial Fiasco: How America’s Infatuation With
Homeownership and Easy Money Created the Economic Crisis in
Foreign Affairs:
The economic crisis of 2008-9 will no doubt spawn dozens of
books. Here are two good early ones….
Norberg, a knowledgeable Swede, provides a much more
detailed account of the broader events of 2007-9, from the
useful perspective of a non-American. He finds plenty of
blame with all the major players in the U.S. financial system:
politicians, who thoughtlessly pushed homeownership on
thousands who could not afford it; mortgage loan originators,
who relaxed credit standards; securitizers, who packaged
poor-quality mortgage loans as though these were
conventional loans; the Securities and Exchange
Commission, which endowed the leading rating agencies with
oligopoly powers; the rating agencies, which knowingly
overrated securitized mortgages and their derivatives; and
investors, who let the ratings substitute for due diligence.
Senior management in large parts of the financial community
lacked an attribute essential to any well-functioning financial
market: integrity. But solutions, Norberg warns, do not lie in
greater regulation or public ownership. Politicians and
bureaucrats are not immune from the “short-termism” that
plagues private firms.
The other book he praises, by the way, is Paul Krugman’s The Return of
Depression Economics. And oddly, his list of Norberg’s villains doesn’t
include one implied in the title: the Federal Reserve Bank, which issued
the “easy money” that allowed the boom to happen. Purchase Financial
Fiasco here or on Kindle.
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11 November 2009
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Abortion Funding and Health
Care [Cato at Liberty]
NOV 10, 2009 09:42A.M.
President Obama’s approach to health care reform — forcing taxpayers
to subsidize health insurance for tens of millions of Americans — cannot
not change the status quo on abortion.
Either those taxpayer dollars will fund abortions, or the restrictions
necessary to prevent taxpayer funding will curtail access to private
abortion coverage. There is no middle ground.
Thus both sides’ fears are justified. Both sides of the abortion debate are
learning why government should not subsidize health care. Tip of the hat
to President Obama for creating this teachable moment.
Meanwhile, Catholics should be outraged at the United States
Conference of Catholic Bishops (to which my grandfather served as
counsel). Yes, the USCCB helped prevent taxpayer funding of abortions
in the House bill. But at the same time, those naughty bishops have
abandoned the Church’s doctrine of subsidiarity by endorsing the rest of
the Democrats’ plan to centralize power in Washington.
As it happens, Caesar is the main source of funding for Catholic
hospitals. That may explain why the bishops are so eager to render unto,
ahem, Him.
Cross-posted at Politico’s Health Care Arena.
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Bloggingheads on Afghanistan
[Cato at Liberty]
NOV 10, 2009 08:47A.M.
Last night, CBS reported that President Obama has decided to send “four
combat brigades plus thousands more support troops” giving Gen.
Stanley McChystal “most, if not all, the additional troops he is asking
for.”
If the story is accurate (and the White House, via National Security
Advisor James Jones, says it is not), the bloggingheads diavlog that I
recorded with Peter Beinart late Friday, and that went live yesterday
afternoon, could be safely filed under “Day Late, Dollar Short.”
But I hope that is not the case for two reasons. First, I continue to hold
out hope that President Obama will choose instead to focus our
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR lgn@limitedgovernmentnetwork.com 11 November 2009

counterterrorism efforts in other ways, and in other places, instead of

deepening our involvement in what is already the longest war in our
history. And if he hasn’t made up his mind, perhaps my arguments
(which build on those of my colleagues Malou Innocent and Ted Galen
Carpenter, and many others) might still have an impact.

Second, if the president has decided to follow the advice of those who
called for more troops (most of whom — it is worth noting — were also
leading advocates for the disastrous Iraq war), it is important for those of
us who harbored doubts to have publicly registered our concerns.

A similar willingness to speak out on the part of some Iraq war skeptics
within the foreign policy community was sorely lacking in 2002 and
2003. Perhaps that unhappy experience has reminded people that the
time for raising concerns is before, not after, a decision is made to
escalate a war.