A Stitch in Haste

To review (and, with the California gay marriage decision, to preview): The Internal Review Code requires all tax-exempt institutions to abstain from endorsing candidates for office as a condition of their preferential status. The restriction does not apply only to churches and does not apply to issue advocacy generally. Only endorsing particular candidates for particular offices is proscribed.

So how is this anything other than a disingenuous stunt aimed at the misinformed?

The Alliance Defense Fund announced a new initiative Friday that will challenge the tactics of groups that use the Internal Revenue Service to intimidate churches and pastors into silence on important issues of the day.

"Pastors have a right to speak about biblical values from the pulpit without fear of punishment. No one should be able to use the government to intimidate pastors into giving up their constitutional rights," said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Erik Stanley. "The government can't demand that a church give up its right to tax-exempt status simply because the pastor exercises his First Amendment rights in the pulpit. Groups like Americans United intentionally trigger IRS investigations that will silence churches through fear, intimidation, and disinformation."

The new initiative will equip, protect, and defend pastors who wish to exercise their First Amendment right to openly discuss the positions of political candidates and other moral and social issues from the pulpit. Participating pastors across the country will deliver a sermon along these lines in their own churches Sept. 28.

Read that again: "The government can't demand that a church give up its right to tax-exempt status simply because the pastor exercises his First Amendment rights in the pulpit."

To use the theocrats' favorite jurisprudential stunt: Where in the Constitution does it say anything about a "right to tax-exempt status"?

"The First Amendment" is not an answer. The tax-exemption in no way unfavorably* singles out churches relative to other civic institutions. Any assertion to the contrary is an un-Christian lie. Nor does it force any such institution, religious or otherwise, to do anything or refrain from anything. Any assertion to the contrary is an un-Christian lie. Any church or cleric is free, at any time, to say anything they want about any candidate they want. All they have to do is give up their tax-exempt status (which, recall, Congress could simply abolish any time it wished). Any assertion to the contrary is an un-Christian lie.

The theocrats (whose Bibles seem to have been miraculously redacted of that pesky "render unto Caesar" passage) appear perfectly willing to completely misrepresent the First Amendment, the Internal Revenue Code, the case law**, and the nature of their record of flagrantly illegal (and un-Christian) abuse of the tax-exempt status that allows them to suck so shamelessly at the taxpayer teat.

Some have suggested that the true purpose of this stunt is to generate a test case in the courts. Yeah right, good luck with that. There is simply nothing to test — because, again, there is absolutely no theory of constitutional interpretation, by anyone of any political orientation, that would dare suggest that there is a First Amendment "right to a tax break." It is beyond absurd.

More thoughts at Americans United, Religion Clause, Wall of Separation.

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*Indeed, some elements of the tax code actually treat churches more favorably than other civic institutions:

Although most organizations seeking tax-exempt status are required to apply to the Internal Revenue Service ("IRS" or "Service") for an advance determination that they meet the requirements of section 501(c)(3), a church may simply hold itself out as tax exempt and receive the benefits of that status without applying for advance recognition from the IRS.
...
The unique treatment churches receive in the Internal Revenue Code is further reflected in special restrictions on the IRS's ability to investigate the tax status of a church. The Church Audit Procedures Act ("CAPA") sets out the circumstances under which the IRS may initiate an investigation of a church and the procedures it is required to follow in such an investigation.
--Branch Ministries v. Rosotti, 40 F. Supp. 2d 15 (D.D.C. 1999)

**Especially Regan v. Taxation With Representation, 461 U.S. 540 (1983):

Congress has not infringed any First Amendment rights or regulated any First Amendment activity. Congress has simply chosen not to pay for ... lobbying. We again reject the notion that First Amendment rights are somehow not fully realized unless they are subsidized by the State.

(I sincerely hope this does not become a regular feature here.)

One of the first industries the looters went after in Atlas Shrugged was, of course, oil.

And who is better at looting than politicians?

U.S. Rep. Paul Kanjorski said it's time for America to stand up to the big oil companies and shout out, "We've had enough."

Kanjorski, D-Nanticoke, was in town Monday to announce his introduction of House Resolution 5800, the Consumer Reasonable Energy Price Protection Act of 2008. The bill, introduced on the House floor April 15, would allow the federal government to tax windfall oil and gas profits resulting from historically high oil and gas prices that average Americans struggle to afford, he said.

Kanjorski said industries yield windfall profits when earnings exceed what a Reasonable Profits Board determines is rational, as laid out in the legislation.

Rational profits? As determined by a Reasonable Profits Board? Would Hugo Chavez or Robert Mugabe be eligible to serve on it? (If not, then perhaps Ms. Maureen Felix of West Orange, New Jersey, is available.)

The futility of pointing out, "reasonable to whom, by what standard" is not lost on me. The impermeability of the blood-brain barrier between politicians and reasonableness is common knowledge.

Also not lost on me is the futility of pointing out, yet again, that "big" oil companies actually consist of numerous small shareholders, either directly as individuals and households (such as those that the "reasonable" Representative Kanjorski putatively serves), or indirectly — as employees (whose pension funds own oil company stock), small business owners (who retirement accounts include index funds that include such stock), students (whose college endowment funds own such stock) or anyone else who indirectly benefits from "obscene" oil company profits.

Equally futile would, I suppose, be asking where one goes to apply for a seat on the Reasonable Taxation Board:


(Click to enlarge.)

Via Tax Policy Blog.

(For the uninitiated, Directive 10-289 here.)

Obsidian Wings, critiquing John McCain's health care not-quite-reform not-quite-proposal, relays an anecdote:

Shirley Giarde of Walla Walla, Wash., was not prepared when her husband, Raymond, suddenly developed congestive heart failure last year and needed a pacemaker and defibrillator. Because his job did not provide health benefits, she has covered them both through a policy for the self-employed, which she obtained as the proprietor of a bridal and formal-wear store, the Purple Parasol.

But when Raymond had his medical problems, Ms. Giarde discovered that her insurance would cover only $22,000, leaving them with about $100,000 in unpaid hospital bills.

Even though the hospital agreed to reduce that debt to about $50,000, Ms. Giarde is still struggling to pay it — in part because the poor economy has meant slumping sales at the Purple Parasol. Her husband, now disabled and unable to work, will not qualify for Medicare for another year, and she cannot afford the $758 a month it would cost to enroll him in a state-run insurance plan for individuals who cannot find private insurance.

To which I relayed a comment:

Perhaps the problem isn't so much with health insurance as with Ms. Giarde's "Purple Parasol" business model. If her business can't produce enough income for her to pay her bills, then she's in the wrong business.

Debate a "right to health care" all you like, but don't claim that there is a right to run an unprofitable, sub-mediocre business and then get taxpayer-extracted health insurance on top of that.

P.S. What exactly was the back story of Mr. Giarde taking a job with no health benefits in the first place? Because I have no doubt that there was in fact a back story.

It's bad enough seeing starving (i.e., crappy) artists demand — and receive — forced taxpayer purchase of their "art" through public funding. Are we now to see the equivalent of forced consumption of bridal gowns (among countless other services) from inadequately profitable (i.e., badly run) bridal shops (among countless other services), through the money laundering socialist concept known as "universal health insurance"?

And who, you might be wondering, is Ms. Maureen Felix of West Orange, New Jersey?

She holds the prestigious position of "random interviewee on the street" — and now seeks the higher office of your mommy:

The thought of taxing a Big Mac or a Wendy's burger came up at a New Jersey Hospital Association meeting where Gov. Jon S. Corzine was asked if it could be an option to help fund struggling hospitals. At the meeting, he reportedly called it a "constructive suggestion."

A spokesperson for the governor, however, told CBS 2 on Wednesday: "The governor is open to reasonable solutions to help solve our financing problems, but there are no plans for any fast food tax."
...
"I think this country has gone too much in the direction of fast and unhealthy food, and if people are taxed they may terminate that and turn toward more healthy foods," said West Orange resident Maureen Felix.

Of course, why anyone should give any kind of a damn what Ms. Maureen Felix of West Orange, New Jersey, thinks about whether fast food (defined how? by whom?) should be taxed (to what extent? with revenues deployed how?) — or about anything else, for that matter — remains unanswered. As does the precedent question of what basis a free society has in the first place for using taxation to control behavior rather than solely to raise revenue to fund legitimate public goods.

Because to nanny-staters, no such reason is required. Ms. Maureen Felix of West Orange, New Jersey, has an opinion, damn it. The fact that her opinion is baseless, uncorroborated, un-American, anti-freedom — not to mention mind-bogglingly stupid — in no way changes the fact that Ms. Maureen Felix of West Orange, New Jersey, has an opinion, damn it. What right do you have to mock it? And, more importantly, what right does a politician have to ignore it?

She is, after all, Ms. Maureen Felix of West Orange, New Jersey!

Kip's Law: Every advocate of central planning always — always — envisions himself as the central planner.

Via Fark. More thoughts at QandO.

A self-contained comment left elsewhere:

While I certainly embrace cynicism toward the politicians, I don't entirely embrace cynicism toward the gas tax itself.

The gas tax is either a legitimate Pigou tax or it isn't. Reasonable people can disagree on that.

But what reasonable people cannot disagree on is the absurdity of suggesting that the gas tax can somehow be a legitimate Pigou tax on Thanksgiving Day but not on Independence Day.

So in that sense, "advantage Obama." (The fact that he may have flip-flopped on the issue [since his state legislator days] simply returns them to "Deuce.")

One should also note the Econ 101 truth that abolishing a per-unit tax on a good will not lower the equilibrium price of the good by the full amount of the tax, but only by a fraction of the tax — the size of the fraction determined by the price elasticity of demand for that good. Gasoline and diesel demand may be very price inelastic, but not perfectly so.

(Inspired by posts at QandO, Reason, Greg Mankiw, DealBreaker.)

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Via Obsidian Wings:

Dean Baker: "Actually, almost all economists would agree that the tax cut proposed by Senators Clinton and McCain would save consumers nothing."

I sincerely hope that none of those "almost all economists" are teaching Econ. 101, because they are dead wrong.

Tax incidence is determined by BOTH price elasticity of supply AND by price elasticity of DEMAND.

Even if supply were highly inelastic (a questionable premise except in the very very short run), the low elasticity of demand (NOT a questionable premise under any circumstances) would far outweigh the supply effects and the bulk of the rebate would therefore be passed on to consumers.

(This is not to say I advocate any candidate's specific policy position.)

More on this from Econbrowser, which estimates that the benefit of a tax holiday would be shared roughly 50-50 by buyers and sellers.

Finally, let's also recall that:

--The federal gas tax is a puny 18.4 cents per gallon.

--There is a difference between an oil producer and an oil refiner.

--Record profits mean record taxes on those profits.

--There is more to "oil" than "gasoline." The markets for diesel and jet fuel also factor into the economics of "the price at the pump."

The Urban Institute recently published a report called "Poverty Facts, 2004."

In 2004, 36.6 million people — or 12.6 percent of the U.S. population — were poor. The "poverty gap" — the amount of additional income required to remove all Americans from poverty — was $105.6 billion. Poverty rates were highest for African Americans, Hispanics, women, and persons under 25. Without government benefits, 61 million people would be poor. Social Security and other social insurance programs remove 21 million people from poverty. Means tested programs remove 3 million people from poverty. If food and housing assistance were counted as income for poverty purposes, an additional 7.6 million people would be counted as not poor.

The report packages government data on American poverty in a variety of ways, all pegged to the official federal poverty level thresholds and most of which are unbiased and informative. But I do have some hasty stitches:

--I found it annoying at best, and evasive at worst, that nowhere in the 15-page report could they be bothered to disclose what the federal poverty level actually is; the best they do is bury a hyperlink to the Census Bureau in a footnote near the end of the report.

In fact, the federal poverty level in 2004 (the year studied) was $9,827 for a single adult under 65, $12,334 for a childless non-elderly couple and $19,307 for a family of four.

Now is also as good a time as any to note that the "poverty level" is an essentially arbitrary number

originally derived in 1963-1964, using U.S. Department of Agriculture food budgets designed for families under economic stress [and] data about what portion of their income families spent on food[.]

The poverty level is also not adjusted for geography (so, for instance, heating costs in the North and air conditioning costs in the Southwest are not factored in). Also ignored are housing cost differentials between urban, suburban and rural settings. It's strictly a food-oriented construct — and therefore of very limited usefulness.

--In any case, as low as $9,827 undeniably is, it is still orders of magnitude better than "$1 to $2 dollars a day." As unfortunate — or even tragic — as poverty is, one simply cannot escape the truth that "American poverty" is — thanks to capitalism — very, very, very different from "global poverty."

--The report breaks down poverty in several ways, one of which is by age: 12.9 million people under 18 were in households beneath their federal poverty threshold — 17.5% of the under-18 population. While fully acknowledging the almost instinctive revulsion that all civilized people, especially libertarians, feel toward anything that could possibly be corrupted into "eugenics," one cannot help but wonder whether the focus of anti-poverty efforts should shift toward the simple notion of persuading poor people not to have poor babies.

--One way the report does not at all break down the numbers is by immigration status (i.e., citizens versus legal immigrants versus illegal aliens). Does the Urban Institute think such a partition is irrelevant? I don't.

--The report commits one egregious sin: misstating the anti-poverty impact of Social Security —

Social insurance, including Social Security and other programs available to persons regardless of income remove 21 million people from poverty.

The term "social insurance" is meaningless gobbledygook. An entitlement is either welfare ("anti-poverty") or it isn't. Social Security isn't. It is an intergenerational transfer from the young to the old, pure and simple.

Moreover, the "21 million" figure is overstated for the pesky reason that Social Security itself contributes to poverty. By seizing one-eighth of the working poor's paychecks — week-in, week-out — over their entire working careers in exchange for low (or zero or even negative) rate of return income streams, Social Security is an anchor around the neck, making it difficult for the working poor to tread water, let alone swim away from the undertow of poverty.

Data on American poverty are always useful — including for those who would use the poor as pawns to further their own agendas. Keeping the data objective and well-presented therefore becomes all the more important.

An astonishingly arrogant, and economically oblivious, op-ed in today's Washington Post by the mayors of Cincinnati, Rochester and Stamford:

Although the House and Senate have both defeated a moratorium on earmarks, the debate about direct congressional grants rages on. And generally absent is any mention of the pressing needs that these grants have helped so many of our nation's communities meet.

Are programs to reduce gang violence a good use of taxpayer funds? How about keeping sewage out of local streams? Or fixing unsafe roads and bridges before another tragedy?

By any reasonable standard, nearly all congressionally directed grants would be considered a good use of taxpayer funds.

Putting aside the Bridge to Nowhere, let's dissect (actually, "psychoanalyze" might be a better word) this bizarre reasoning:

1. It completely ignores opportunity cost, a/k/a the Broken Window Fallacy. The question, properly framed, is not whether "programs to reduce gang violence are a good use of taxpayer funds." The question, properly framed, is whether such programs are a better use of funds than the next best alternatives: Is "reducing gang violence" more important than whatever it was that we didn't get instead?

(And yes, that "whatever it was that we didn't get instead" can be lower taxes or budget deficits and not just some other expenditure. There are "public benefits" to low taxes and fiscal restraint and not just to unbridled majoritarian spending.)

From the op-ed:

Contrary to conventional wisdom, such congressional grants do not increase federal spending but only help to guide how this funding is directed. For fiscal 2008, Congress held to the total discretionary spending caps that President Bush demanded. So congressional grants did not add one dollar to federal spending or to the deficit.

You read that right: When we spend taxpayer money we're not really spending taxpayer money. There really is such a thing as a free lunch. Somehow.

2. It completely ignores fiscal federalism. Reducing gang violence in Cincinnati may be a "good use of taxpayer funds" when it's Cincinnati taxpayers who do the funding. But why should I pay taxes to reduce gang violence in Cincinnati? Why should taxpayers in Cincinnati pay to give me a Second Avenue subway? ("Because we took a vote" is of course not a valid answer.)

There is a moral justification (except perhaps to the anarcho-capitalists) to requiring people to pay taxes to fund legitimate public goods that they cannot help but benefit from. But that requires strict fiscal federalism: Federal taxes should only be extracted to fund federal public goods, state taxes should only be extracted to fund state public goods, and local taxes should only be extracted to fund local public goods. Any breach of those barriers is pure looting by the majoritarian mob.

3. It completely ignores progressive income taxation. There are defenders of earmarks (and their cousins, block grants) who are less unapologetic than these three mayors and who will, when called out on the fiscal federalism question, default down to the argument that, when all the taxes and expenditures are netted out, it reduces to a case of, "Everybody pays for everything, and what's so bad about that?"

Well, what's "so bad about that" is that it conveniently omits the fact that not everybody is paying for everything. It omits the fact that the bottom 40% of households, reflecting almost 50% of the population, pays no federal income tax. So, when the three mayors assert ...

In addition to local taxes, Americans send more than $1 trillion in federal taxes each year to Washington to fund projects that localities cannot undertake alone: building highways, providing for defense and so on.

... they really mean a subset of Americans — the small subset that pays the overwhelming majority of federal income taxes. So earmarks and block grants are not merely a case of "New Yorkers funding Cincinnati programs," (bad enough) but actually a case of "New York taxpayers funding Cincinnati non-taxpayers" (much worse). How is that not naked, brazen looting?

4. It completely betrays "the democratic process." It would still be illegitimate even if it didn't — "two wolves and a sheep," etc. But to suggest that it is somehow "the democratic process" to simply give legislators taxpayer money to dole out as they see fit, with no debate, no individual votes and no independent oversight (beyond the legislators patting each other on the back for their "civic-mindedness") is about as far from "the democratic process" as a non-dictatorship can get.

(Incidentally, does it really need repeating that the Senate — where North Dakota has the same representation as California — is hardly a "democratic" institution? See also, "farm subsidies.")

5. It completely ignores the fact that all politicians are, by definition, moral defectives. The three mayors:

For fiscal 2007, Congress placed a moratorium on grants ... and spending decisions were left solely to the Bush administration. What happened? The administration picked a select group of winners that got all the money — and hundreds of smaller and less well-connected communities were left out in the cold.

So the Bush administration succumbs to rent-seeking, but members of Congress do not? That lunacy does not require a detailed response any more than would a belief that the Sun-God revolves around the Flat Earth.

One last point, from the original excerpt:

By any reasonable standard, nearly all congressionally directed grants would be considered a good use of taxpayer funds.

When the ad hominem card is the only card you have, you play it. Anyone who disagrees is simply not "reasonable." Q.E.D.

Could you imagine someone saying, "Chocolate is better than vanilla, because it is unreasonable to suggest that vanilla is better than chocolate..."? It makes no sense in ice cream, and it makes no sense in economics or politics.

Indeed, the very fact that earmarks and pork are so controversial would, if anything, suggest that the "reasonable" conclusion is to scrap them. But when you're the local hack politician who is doing the actual sucking at the teat of an anonymous taxpayer halfway across the country, "reasonable" seems to take on a whole new meaning.

More thoughts from Cato@Liberty.

Kip's Law: Every advocate of central planning always — always — envisions himself as the central planner.

"It is admitted that an enrolled act, thus authenticated, is sufficient evidence of itself -- nothing to the contrary appearing upon its face -- that it passed congress. But the contention is that it cannot be regarded as a law of the United States if the journal of either house fails to show that it passed in the precise form in which it was signed by the presiding officers of the two houses, and approved by the president. It is said that, under any other view, it becomes possible for the speaker of the house of representatives and the president of the senate to impose upon the people as a law a bill that was never passed by congress. But this possibility is too remote to be seriously considered in the present inquiry. It suggests a deliberate conspiracy to which the presiding officers, the committees on enrolled bills, and the clerks of the two houses must necessarily be parties, all acting with a common purpose to defeat an expression of the popular will in the mode prescribed by the constitution."
--Field v. Clark, 143 U.S. 649 (1892)

"Too remote" indeed:

In what may become the first formal request from Congress for a criminal inquiry into one of its own special projects, top Senate Democrats and Republicans have endorsed taking action in connection with the earmark that Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), former chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, inserted into the legislation.

"It's very possible people ought to go to jail," said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, which oversees highway funding.

Young's staff acknowledged yesterday that aides "corrected" the earmark just before it went to the White House for President Bush's signature, specifying that the money would go to a proposed highway interchange project on Interstate 75 near Naples, Fla.

So much for the Presentment Clause, the Enrolled Bill Doctrine, Field v. Clark -- and Schoolhouse Rock.

Then again, who are we to care one way or the other about what Don "Bridge to Nowhere" Young does with earmarks? After all, have you forgotten that it's "his money, his money"?

One more thing, in the spirit of my post yesterday on rent-seeking: Why would Young, of Alaska, be coordinating earmarks -- unconstitutionally altered or otherwise -- in Florida?

Young's critics suggest that the motive for the I-75 provision was campaign contributions from real estate developers who own 4,000 acres of land near the proposed interchange. ... Local planning officials, who never requested money for the interchange, were outraged to learn after the highway bill became law that they were required to spend $10 million on a project they did not want. The Lee County Metropolitan Planning Organization, the recipient of the money, has rejected it three times in the past year.

All politicians are, by definition, moral defectives. Young just turns it into an art form.

(Via Balkinization.)

As with any tax return, the interesting details aren't necessarily on the main form...

The Internal Revenue Service expects to lose more than $37 million by using private debt collectors to pursue tax scofflaws through a program that has outraged consumers and led to charges on Capitol Hill that the agency is wasting money for work that IRS agents could do more effectively.

...but more often on the attachments buried underneath:

Three firms were awarded contracts: Pioneer Credit Recovery, based in the western New York district represented by Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds (R), who supported the program and recently announced his retirement; the CBE Group of Waterloo, Iowa, the home state of Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R), who helped create the program; and Linebarger Goggan Blair and Sampson, a law firm based in Texas, home to President Bush.

Pioneer Credit employees have given congressional candidates and political action committees $117,450 since 1995, including $16,250 to Reynolds. CBE Group employees have given $9,372 during that period, including $2,500 to Grassley. Linebarger Goggan, one of the nation's largest collection agencies, has extensive government ties. The firm, its employees and their spouses have given PACs and federal candidates in both parties $423,260 since 1995.

The notion of the government retaining private debt collectors is not by itself an abomination, any more than is hiring private vendors to run cafeterias in government office buildings or army bases. The abomination does not even necessarily derive from the net losses — which could, hypothetically, be attributed to start-up costs and the like.

The unarguable scandal here is instead the fact that these three collection agencies (sorry, two collection agencies and one "law firm" — with emphasis on the air quotes) simply bought a federal contract from two powerful members of Congress (powerful at the time, that is). Apparently no competitive bidding, no minimum performance requirements, no real-time oversight. Just grease some politicians' palms and enjoy the feast. At least until the next election.

And still liberals think we should turn over the entire health care sector to political people and political processes like this (or this). Because, of course, only Republican politicians sell their votes and power, right?

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P.S. Did someone say "Grassley"?

Nowadays, it's cutting the gasoline tax:

Senator John McCain ... called on Congress to suspend the 18.4 cent a gallon federal gas tax from Memorial Day until Labor Day. Mr. McCain said that doing so would provide "an immediate economic stimulus," but some environmentalists said that the change might encourage more people to use their cars, while Mr. McCain has made combating global warming central to his campaign.

We must fight global warming -- unless it gets too expensive for the soccer moms and NASCAR dads. Real "maverick" thinking, eh?

The gasoline tax is either meant to be an enlightened Pigou tax or a backdoor revenue raiser. If the former, then high prices be damned -- collect it and deploy it to correct whatever "externality" you have convinced yourself needs correcting (global warming, falling bridges, whatever rationalization you care to concoct). If the latter, then scrap it permanently and apologize for having imposed such an abomination in the first place.

So too with the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (which McCain wants to freeze). If it is, um, "strategic," then treat it as such. If it is instead a tool to manipulate oil markets and propagandize, then admit as much. You can't have your oil and eat it too.

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Meanwhile:

"People like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet don't need their prescriptions underwritten by taxpayers," he said. "Those who can afford to buy their own prescription drugs should be expected to do so. This reform alone will save billions of dollars that could be returned to taxpayers or put to better use."

(The definition of "Bill Gates," incidentally, is "single people earning more than $82,000 a year and married couples earning more than $164,000." Who knew becoming a billionaire was so inexpensive?)

Of course, the 800-pound contradiction in the room is that it is precisely the rich who have already paid for their Medicare benefits through their taxes. The idea that the rich elderly, who paid a lifetime of uncapped Medicare taxes, are somehow now "mooching" off younger taxpayers is an insolent fraud.

But then again, so is McCain.

(I might make this an intermittent feature.)

Today's comment left elsewhere:

So solar is not now "cost-competitive with other forms of electricity"? We're going to spend money to waste money?

How utterly Bloomberg.

Incidentally, the money referenced is federal taxpayer money -- cf., this old post.

"I am committed to building a strong and modern military. Thousands of young men and women from North Carolina have been called into harm's way. With all of our state's major military installations that include representatives of all the military services, our National Guard Brigade, and our Reserves fighting the Global War on Terror, North Carolina has taken a preeminent role in defending this great nation."
--Senator Elizabeth Dole (R-NC), 25 May 2004

An unhealthy obsession with things that are long, round and stiff?

[T]oday's Navy includes 280 vessels, down from President Reagan's Navy of 568 ships. Additionally, we are building only one Virginia-class attack submarine per year, compared to China's annual production of four to five advanced subs.

"Only" one nuclear submarine per year? That works out to a fleet of 30 or so subs in constant service (more if you assume, not unreasonably, that modern subs can serve longer than the 30-year lifespan of older vessels).

Osama bin Laden is not an oceangoing pirate, al Qaeda did not sail battleships into the World Trade Center and the Navy has little, essentially no, role in either Iraq of Afghanistan. Drug interdiction is a function for the Coast Guard, not the Navy — and certainly not for nuclear submarines.

(Oh, and I thought Communist China was not only a "vital trading partner" but also a "trusted ally in the War on Terror." So why do we care how many underwater death traps they build?)

In any case, here is the answer to my headline question: Newport News, Virginia — where these subs are built — is only 30 miles away from the North Carolina border. In her speech at the keel-laying of one of the new subs — the U.S.S. North Carolina (ahem) — Dole noted that almost 1,000 North Carolina residents work for Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding. And she wants more subs to be built there. Coincidence?

If one nuclear sub per year is good for the North Carolina economy (at the expense of taxpayers everywhere else), then two per year (Dole's proposal) would surely be better. Mystery solved.

The military is a legitimate public good only to the extent that it is rationally designed and deployed — and its appropriations are kept geographically impartial. Maybe we need 30 new nuclear subs, maybe 50, maybe 10. That is a question best left to the Pentagon and to civilian defense experts. It is not a legitimate function of the military to fund make-work jobs.

The "we" in "we need more nuclear subs" should be the United States as a whole, not a thousand shipbuilders in North Carolina.

(Via Danger Room.)