Category: Government

Feds Spend Over $500 Million to Aid Barges Shipping Coal

(p. B1) CHARLEROI, Pa.–A few years ago, coal barges lined up 20 or 30 deep, waiting their turn for a towboat to shuttle them through the locks near this town along the Monongahela River.
These days it is the towboats that often sit idle. Cheap natural gas, stricter power-plant-emissions rules and a weak steel market have gutted coal demand, and with it traffic on the rivers that have served as the industry’s commercial arteries for over a century.
Nevertheless, river infrastructure is about to be flooded with federal cash. In December, Congress authorized $405 million to improve river locks and dams over the next fiscal year, the most since 2008.
The money follows a multimillion-dollar lobbying effort spearheaded by the Waterways Council Inc., which represents an array of companies including coal producer Murray Energy Corp., utility FirstEnergy Corp., agricultural-commodities trader Cargill Inc. and Marathon Petroleum Corp.
. . .
“It’s kind of ironic–we’re spending even more to update and modernize this system when the value and volume of the commodities is diminishing, and coal is something that we as a country are moving away from,” said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a conservative-leaning advocacy group that analyzes infrastructure spending.

For the full story, see:
ROBBIE WHELAN. “Barges Get a Boost, Even as Demand Sinks.” The Wall Street Journal (Thurs., Feb. 4, 2016): B1 & B7.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Feb. 2, 2016, and has the title “U.S. Opens Spigot for Lock-and-Dam Fixes, Even as Coal Traffic Dwindles.”)

A Rooftop Farm Is “a Foolish Endeavor” Due to High Costs and Government Regulations

(p. B1) BrightFarms Inc. last year pulled the plug on a planned greenhouse in Washington, D.C., 10 months into the process of getting permits, and earlier exited an effort to develop a rooftop farm in Brooklyn, New York. FarmedHere LLC, which operates a farm in a former box factory outside Chicago, shut down for six months last August to revamp its strategy.
Building farms on city rooftops is “a foolish endeavor” because of the higher costs and the additional time for permitting, said Paul Lightfoot, chief executive of BrightFarms.

For the full story, see:
Ruth Simon. “Farming Startups Have Tough Row to Hoe.” The Wall Street Journal (Thurs., April 14, 2016): B1 & B6.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date April 13, 2016, and has the title “Farming Gets High Tech in Bid to Offer Locally Grown Produce.”)

Contrary to Earlier White House Denials, Obama Admits to Banishing Bust of Winston Churchill

(p. A7) HANOVER, Germany — It has been, perhaps, one of the most enduring mysteries of President Obama’s tenure: What really happened to the bust of Winston Churchill that was once displayed in the Oval Office?
. . .
The conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer, the onetime Republican presidential contender Mike Huckabee and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, a current Republican presidential candidate, are among those who have chastised Mr. Obama over the years for returning the bust to the British.
. . .
Dan Pfeiffer, the president’s communications director at the time, blasted Mr. Krauthammer, calling his charge about the disappearing bust “100 percent false” and saying that “news outlets have debunked this claim time and again.”
. . .
But late last week, Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, renewed the charge, writing in a British tabloid that the Oval Office bust had been “banished” . . .
Countering such charges is typically left to a president’s aides. But asked at a news conference Friday about the mayor’s comments, Mr. Obama seemed to relish the chance to set everyone straight, once and for all, about the fate of the Churchill bust.
. . .
. . . Mr. Obama went on to explain what had happened to the bust lent by Mr. Blair, the one that critics had accused him of summarily sending back to the British. It was, Mr. Obama said, his decision to return that Churchill to his native land, because he wanted to replace it with a bust of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
. . .
That appears to contradict the longstanding denials by White House officials, including Mr. Pfeiffer, that neither Mr. Obama nor anyone else in his administration had chosen to dispatch Churchill’s likeness in favor of someone else’s. By Mr. Obama’s admission, he made the decision to replace the Churchill bust with one of Dr. King.

For the full story, see:
MICHAEL D. SHEAR. “White House Letter; No Need for Holmes; Obama Sheds Light on a Churchill Mystery.” The New York Times (Mon., April 25, 2016): A7.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date April 24, 2016, and has the title “White House Letter; No Need for Holmes; Obama Sheds Light on a Winston Churchill Mystery.”)

Feds Encourage Costly, Intrusive, Confusing Title IX Bureaucracies

(p. A1) CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — In a brightly lit classroom here at Harvard, Mia Karvonides was trying to explain to a group of bemused student leaders the difference between a romantic encounter and “unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature,” as the university’s relatively new code of sexual misconduct defines it.
She tried to leaven the legalistic atmosphere at the town-hall-style meeting with realistic-sounding examples, defying gender stereotypes. Jose and Lisa, chemistry students, are working late at night in the lab, she began, when Lisa comes up from behind and kisses Jose on the neck.
Such a surprise move, she suggested, could be the beginning of a sexual misconduct complaint.
. . .
Ms. Karvonides is Harvard’s first Title IX officer, leading a new bureaucracy that oversees how the institution responds to complaints of sexual violence under Title IX, the federal law that governs gender equity in education. She is one of a rapidly growing number of Title IX employees on campuses nationwide, as colleges spend millions to hire law-(p. A3)yers, investigators, case workers, survivor advocates, peer counselors, workshop leaders and other officials to deal with increasing numbers of these complaints.
. . .
The expansion of Title IX bureaucracies — often at great expense — is driven in part by pressure from the federal government, which recently put out a series of policy directives on sexual misconduct on campus. More than 200 colleges and universities are under federal investigation for the way they have handled complaints of sexual misconduct, up from 55 two years ago.
. . .
. . . in a report last week, a national association of professors said that the Title IX bureaucracy had started to infringe on academic freedom, by beginning investigations into faculty members’ lectures and essays.
. . .
At a minimum, federal rules require colleges to designate one Title IX coordinator, at least part time.
Many colleges have gone far beyond that, at a cost ranging from thousands to millions of dollars.
. . .
At the University of California, Berkeley, officials said, Title IX spending has risen by at least $2 million since 2013, though they declined to give the total.
“Certainly, colleges are spending more related to Title IX than ever in history, both preventatively and responsively,” Mr. Sokolow said. He estimated that dealing with an inquiry could cost “six figures,” and that responding to a lawsuit “can run into the high six or even seven figures, not counting a settlement or verdict.”
. . .
Some campuses have adopted “affirmative consent” rules, in effect a written or unwritten contract, requiring a yes before the first kiss and at every step along the way. Harvard has opted instead for what Ms. Karvonides called a more nuanced standard of “unwelcome conduct.”
This has led to criticism by some that the policy is not strong enough, and by others that it could punish behavior as mild as flirting.
“This is ubiquitously on the mind of everyone at Harvard,” said Daniel Banks, the undergraduate council vice president, who helped organize the recent town-hall-style meeting on the subject. Many students have concluded that the best solution is not so much compliance as avoidance.
“You either don’t date at all,” said Daniel Levine, another student leader, “or you’re like a married couple.”

For the full story, see:
ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS. “In Battling Sexual Misconduct, Colleges Build a Bureaucracy.” The New York Times (Weds., MARCH 30, 2016): A1 & A3.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date MARCH 29, 2016, and has the title “Colleges Spending Millions to Deal With Sexual Misconduct Complaints.”)

The AAUP report expressing concerns about how Title IX bureaucracies violate academic freedom and due process, is:
American Association of University Professors (AAUP). “The History, Uses, and Abuses of Title IX.” Draft Report, March 24, 2016.

Tesla Direct Sales Thwarted by Laws that Protect Dealers Instead of Consumers

(p. B3) Tesla Motors Inc. hopes to capture mainstream auto buyers with its Model 3, an electric car it plans to unveil this week at a price about the same as the average gasoline-powered vehicle, but it may need a federal court ruling to succeed.
The Palo Alto, Calif., auto maker’s direct-to-consumer sales are prohibited by law in six states that represent about 18% of the U.S. new-car market. Barring a change of heart by those states, Tesla is preparing to make a federal case out of the direct-sales bans.
The auto maker’s legal staff has been studying a 2013 federal appeals court ruling in New Orleans that determined St. Joseph Abbey could sell monk-made coffins to customers without having a funeral director’s license. The case emerged amid a casket shortage after Hurricane Katrina. The abbey had tried to sell coffins, only to find state laws restricted such sales to those licensed by the Louisiana Board of Funeral Directors.
For now, Tesla is banking on a combination of new legislation, pending dealer applications and other factors to open doors to selling directly in Arizona, Michigan, Texas, Connecticut, Utah and West Virginia. But the company said it is ready to argue in federal court using the coffin case if necessary.
“It is widely accepted that laws that have a protectionist motivation or effect are not proper,” Todd Maron, the auto maker’s chief counsel, said in an interview. “Tesla is committed to not being foreclosed from operating in the states it desires to operate in, and all options are on the table.”
. . .
“There is no legitimate competitive interest in having consumers purchase cars through an independent dealership,” Greg Reed, an attorney with Washington D.C.-based Institute for Justice, a libertarian-leaning law firm, said. He calls Michigan’s laws “anti-competitive protectionism.”

For the full story, see:
MIKE RAMSEY. “Tesla Weighs Legal Fight.” The Wall Street Journal (Tues., March 29, 2016): B3.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date March 28, 2016, and has the title “Tesla Weighs New Challenge to State Direct-Sales Bans.”)

Government: “One Vast Honey Pot with Thousands of Ants Lined Up Around the Rim”

(p. A21) Ms. Tolchin hit on the subject of patronage when Mr. Tolchin, then a reporter in the metropolitan news department of The New York Times, wrote a series of articles on the topic that several publishers urged him to turn into a book. Daunted, he turned to his wife for help.
“The political-science literature had an enormous hole on the subject,” she told The Washingtonian in 2011. “It’s such a critical part of the political process — it was wonderful virgin territory.”
Their combined efforts — he provided the reporting, she provided the scholarship — resulted in “To the Victor…: Political Patronage From the Clubhouse to the White House,” published in 1971.
In lively fashion, the book surveyed the history and examined the mechanisms of a system the authors described as “one of the occupational hazards of democracy.” They traced its influence, for good and ill, in city halls, statehouses, courthouses and, onward and upward, Congress and the White House.
The picture it painted was often bleak, presenting government at all levels as “one vast honey pot with thousands of ants lined up around the rim to get at the sweetener inside,” according to a review in The Times.
It was a rich subject to which the authors returned in “Pinstripe Patronage: Political Favoritism From the Clubhouse to the White House … and Beyond,” published in 2011. Patronage is “the major reason people go into politics,” Ms. Tolchin told The Washingtonian.”

For the full obituary, see:
WILLIAM GRIMES. “Susan Tolchin, Scholar and Author, Is Dead at 75.” The New York Times (Fri., May 20, 2016): A21.
(Note: ellipses in original.)
(Note: the online version of the obituary has the date May 19, 2016, and has the title “Susan Tolchin, Political Scientist Who Foresaw Voter Anger, Dies at 75.”)

The two books on government patronage that are mentioned above, are:
Tolchin, Martin, and Susan Tolchin. To the Victor: Political Patronage from the Clubhouse to the White House. New York: Random House, 1971.
Tolchin, Martin, and Susan Tolchin. Pinstripe Patronage: Political Favoritism from the Clubhouse to the White House and Beyond. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2011.

Trump Threatens Antitrust Action Against Innovative Amazon Entrepreneur Bezos

(p. A11) Donald Trump, an innovator in all things, is now in the process of changing the rules in America with his threat to bring legal action against Amazon on antitrust grounds and, if we hear him correctly, on tax grounds as well.
Mr. Trump couldn’t have been clearer about his motivation. He complained about Washington Post reporters calling up and “asking ridiculous questions,” “all false stuff,” apparently related to Mr. Trump’s tax returns, which in defiance of all tradition he has refused to release, as well as Mr. Trump’s real-estate dealings.
Mr. Trump says the Post was purchased as “a toy” by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (who bought the paper with his personal funds in 2013). Mr. Trump says the paper now is being used to attack Mr. Trump in order to protect Amazon’s alleged tax-dodging practices even though Amazon, after long resistance, has begun in recent years to collect state sales tax.
All this seems to arise because the Post, the dominant newspaper in the nation’s capital, has assigned reporters to investigate the business career of the candidate who champions his credibility to be president by referring to his business career.

For the full commentary, see:
HOLMAN W. JENKINS, JR. “BUSINESS WORLD; Donald Trump’s Amazon Adventure; Does he really want to be president–or is his attack on entrepreneur Jeff Bezos a cry for help?” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., May 14, 2016): A11.
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date May 13, 2016.)

“Liberated People Are Ingenious”

(p. C1) Nothing like the Great Enrichment of the past two centuries had ever happened before. Doublings of income–mere 100% betterments in the human condition–had happened often, during the glory of Greece and the grandeur of Rome, in Song China and Mughal India. But people soon fell back to the miserable routine of Afghanistan’s income nowadays, $3 or worse. A revolutionary betterment of 10,000%, taking into account everything from canned goods to antidepressants, was out of the question. Until it happened.
. . .
(p. C2) Why did it all start at first in Holland about 1600 and then England about 1700 and then the North American colonies and England’s impoverished neighbor, Scotland, and then Belgium and northern France and the Rhineland?
The answer, in a word, is “liberty.” Liberated people, it turns out, are ingenious. Slaves, serfs, subordinated women, people frozen in a hierarchy of lords or bureaucrats are not. By certain accidents of European politics, having nothing to do with deep European virtue, more and more Europeans were liberated. From Luther’s reformation through the Dutch revolt against Spain after 1568 and England’s turmoil in the Civil War of the 1640s, down to the American and French revolutions, Europeans came to believe that common people should be liberated to have a go. You might call it: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
To use another big concept, what came–slowly, imperfectly–was equality. It was not an equality of outcome, which might be labeled “French” in honor of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Thomas Piketty. It was, so to speak, “Scottish,” in honor of David Hume and Adam Smith: equality before the law and equality of social dignity. It made people bold to pursue betterments on their own account. It was, as Smith put it, “allowing every man to pursue his own interest his own way, upon the liberal plan of equality, liberty and justice.”

For the full commentary, see:

DEIRDRE N. MCCLOSKEY. “How the West (and the Rest) Got Rich; The Great Enrichment of the past two centuries has one primary source: the liberation of ordinary people to pursue their dreams of economic betterment.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., May 21, 2016): C1-C2.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date May 20, 2016.)

McCloskey’s commentary is based on her “bourgeois” trilogy, the final volume of which is:
McCloskey, Deirdre N. Bourgeois Equality: How Ideas, Not Capital, Transformed the World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016.

Some Entrepreneurs Support Big Government, Except When They Are the Ones Regulated

(p. A11) In October [2015], author Steven Hill will publish a book called “Raw Deal: How the ‘Uber Economy’ and Naked Capitalism Are Screwing American Workers.” At the political conventions next summer, which party’s attendees will be most likely to have read that book?
The ironies run deep. The Uber driver who ferried Jeb Bush around San Francisco said the former Florida governor was a nice chap but added that he still planned to vote for Mrs. Clinton–the candidate who regards the innovations that has led to the creation of his job as a problem that government needs to solve.
But is Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick any different? Even as he struggles with regulators taking aim at his business model, Mr. Kalanick has spoken up in favor of ObamaCare. During a visit to New York last November, he enthused that ObamaCare was “huge” for companies like his, on the grounds that the individual market has democratized benefits such as health care.
That’s true insofar as it means he doesn’t have to provide it for his drivers. But the reality is that ObamaCare is to health what taxi commissions are to transportation. And if Uber’s co-founder can’t see the difference, maybe he deserves the Bill de Blasios and Hillary Clintons coming after him.

For the full commentary, see:
WILLIAM MCGURN. “MAIN STREET; Uber Crashes the Democratic Party; The ride-share app is bringing out the inner Elizabeth Warren.” The New York Times (Tues., July 21, 2015): A11.
(Note: bracketed year added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date July 20, 2015.)

“Progressive” Eugenicists Attacked Free Enterprise

At the APEE meetings in early April, I heard a lecture by Jayme Lemke in which she praised a promising-sounding book by Thomas Leonard. I looked the book up on Amazon and found that it describes how many of the “progressives” who advocated increasing government control of the economy, were also among the advocates of the now-discredited eugenics movement.
The book is now on my “to-read” list and I will report more when it hits the top of the list (say, in about 2020 ;).

The book praised by Jayme, is:
Leonard, Thomas C. Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics, and American Economics in the Progressive Era. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016.