Devolving entitlements to the states frees federal political capital

ARTICLE: Opinion: It's time to shift spending to states - Jeffrey A. Miron - POLITICO.com (Via POLITICO.)

Great article from Politico, and very much in agreement with my view on devolving entitlement programs to the state level. The benefits from this adjustment would include exposing programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to the competition inherit in the policy market that is our system of 50 states. Again, Jefferson referred to the system as 50 laboratories for experimenting in policy. Devolving this type of function to the state level would also free up tremendous amounts of political capital at the Federal level to deal with issues that are actually intended to fall under Federal jurisdiction; namely national security, foreign affairs, immigration policy, serving as a guarantor of individual rights, and facilitating a federal coordination of these various state programs when they cross state boundaries (the proper usage of interstate commerce).

Political will aside, this development wouldn't be that difficult to implement as our federal pension and health programs are already funded by a separate revenue system (payroll taxes) which could simply be transferred to the state level for collection and expenditure without affecting the rest of federal spending.

But even at the state level, many of the current problems with these programs will be inherited as well. Not all of the answers are readily available, but the age of retirement seems and easy one. When originally introduced, the age of retirement for Social Security was 65 and the average life expectancy was 63. It's no wonder that the most often proposed solution lately is to raise the retirement age. But any adjustment is likely to be moderate and will likely only put off having yet another politically expensive battle to raise the age again in the future.

The problem is setting this value as a constant, instead of determining it by a function that is based on the dependent variable here: the average life expectancy. Peg the age of retirement at or a couple years above the average life expectancy and social security should become more sustainable.

Approaching Afghanistan

Listening to CSPAN this morning with Maj. Gen. Timothy Haake (Ret.), discussing the strategic choices and outcomes in Afghanistan. We hear a clip of President Obama saying that the only two options are to either accept the consequences of pulling out, or to accept the consequences of staying there indefinitely. Neither of these strategies in their presentation necessarily inspires confidence. Which of course brings up the question, what is the best strategy going forward?

Here follows a couple of my own thoughts on the question, in no particular order. Two major themes prevail: 1) that Afghanistan cannot be viewed as a situation by itself, and that even AfPak is not a broad enough context to be thinking in, and 2) that regional actors are going to have to be brought in as responsible stake holders (with something at stake).

First and most controversial, the US needs to make a fundamental transformation of its relationship with Iran a top priority, for all the reasons stated in an excellent article found here. The Iranians are of course interested in stability on their eastern border and, assuming this transformation took place and a strategic security relationship could be established, would likely be willing to allow access to coalition supply lines through their territory. It's no secret that the Iranians have been assisting US efforts in Afghanistan since the beginning of operations there. This would also negate any need to offer Russia the opportunity to leverage access for supply lines.

Speaking of the Russians, if the case could be made to the Kremlin that more Russian participation in Afghanistan equates to less need for American presence in Central Asia, they might just jump at the chance to send upwards to 20,000 troops. The advantage of Russian forces is that they are likely more willing to be sent into actual combat operations against the Taliban than traditional coalition partners from NATO.

While NATO still has a role to play in Eurasian security, most NATO members do not have the domestic stomach for sustained operations and troops commitments, when they come only after the greatest of struggles, typically arrived with a slew of policy strings attached. The result is that NATO forces make for useful SysAdmins, but they don't arrive in enough quantity to completely fulfill that role. So while NATO allies are useful training, logistics, security, etc, the US needs to convince other regional powers to get involved.

India and China are the countries with the real regional interest and militaries to put the necessary number of boots on the ground in Afghanistan. China's interests extend far into the Central Asian plain and the many resources that pipeline their way back into its swiftly developing economy. China, by way of its membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (along with fellow SCO-member Russia), also would like to see a diminished American presence in Central Asia. This will only happen with greater participation of these countries in Afghanistan. China also has an interest in empowering Pakistan in the region as a foil to China's perceived containment by India and other regional powers.

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EDIT: aaaaand the rest of my post was cut off by my client. That's strike 2 against BlogPress.

BP Oil Spill: Who's Your Daddy? | Gene Healy | Cato Institute: Commentary

ARTICLE: BP Oil Spill: Who's Your Daddy? by Gene Healy (Via Cato Institute.)

A bit snarky but to the point: Presidents are not omnipotent beings and we should resist those who seek to portray them as the all powerful provider father figure.

"Replace [BP] with what?" asks Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, commanding officer at the scene. As the president admitted Thursday, "The federal government does not possess superior technology to BP," which is trying to clean up its mess with backup from a team of scientists and engineers assembled by the feds.

China holds the cards in Korea

ARTICLE: North Korea Disputes Role in Sinking, Warns of War By Chris Dolmetsch May 28, 2010 (Via BusinessWeek.)

ARTICLE: China to make objective, fair judgement on S. Korean warship sinking: Wen 2010-05-28 (Via xinhuanet.)

So the South finally decides to blame the North, the US and Japan take the South's side, the North vehemently denies fault, and China's concerns are two fold: economic, and refugee flood.

What gets interesting is the US hand on a remote lever that pushes this into a direction China does not want to necessarily go yet (or at least so fast). So while the Korean situation will not resolve until China says so, the US, by pushing the situation, can encourage China to say so.

Paul Krugman is not an economist

I'm amazed time after time that even some of the brightest minds in the blogosphere subscribe to the political opinions of Paul Krugman as economic truths. He certainly seems to be the go-to economist for Recession era economic policy.

And good on him for it. Along with Tom Friedman, the Krug is perhaps one of the more interesting contributors over at the New York Times, at least in the sense of topics covered. I have a gripe with him being considered an economist though. Sure, he has several degrees in the field and has taught at Yale, MIT, UC Berkeley and Stanford, among his other accolades, but the problem with Krugman is that being an economist requires being an economist. And frankly, Krugman sounds a lot more like a political pundit with a partisan axe to grind than an economist.

Apparently I'm not alone in this observation. John Cochrane nailed it back in September with his response to Krugman's "How did economists get it so wrong?"; appropriately titled "How did Paul Krugman get it so wrong?":

The only explanation that makes sense to me is that Krugman isn’t trying to be an economist, he is trying to be a partisan, political opinion writer. This is not an insult. I read George Will, Charles Krauthnammer and Frank Rich with equal pleasure even when I disagree with them. Krugman wants to be Rush Limbaugh of the Left.

Alas, to Krugman, as to far too many ex-economists in partisan debates, economics is not a quest for understanding. It is a set of debating points to argue for policies that one has adopted for partisan political purposes. “Stimulus” is just marketing to sell Congressmen and voters on a package of government spending priorities that you want for political reasons. It’s not a proposition to be explained, understood, taken seriously to its logical limits, or reflective of market failures that should be addressed directly.

I agree, this evaluation is no insult. Krugman could easily be the O'Reilly or Limbaugh of the Left, and frankly he does a better job of serving that role for his camp than any talking head on the Right. In fact I would encourage this development, as it would not only create a banner man for the Left, it would also exert a pressure on the Right to come up with something better than its current lineup of intellectually deficient pundits. To be fair, the Left also has them, but they conveniently all work for MSNBC. I yearn for a new generation of intellectual thinkers on the pages of our op-eds and talk shows as much as I do for those same people breaking free of outdated partisan dichotomies.

The problem is not with Krugman's politics, which are at least presented in a thoughtful and civil (if occasionally cheeky) manner. The problem is with his economics, an honest intellectual capacity within which he lacks. I don't mean to speak authoritatively of a field I'm not exactly qualified in, but it seems to me that the actual economist studies the processes within economics absent a partisan lens. This is a distinction Mr. Krugman appears unwilling to make. It's sorta like an oil man working for a clean energy nonprofit, or a privacy advocate working for Facebook, or better yet, like entrusting the economy to politicians; it's an incompatible combination that will never keep you honest.

So please, my fellow bloggers, can we stop pretending that Mr Krugman is anything but yet another political opinion maker these days.

Test post

This is a test post using BlogPress on the iPad. Also a new blog layout.

Out of anti-Putin demonstrations, a different Kaliningrad?

ARTICLE: 'Day of Wrath' brings Russians on to the streets against Vladimir Putin Miriam Elder in Kaliningrad, Sunday 21 March 2010 (Via The Observer.)

Cries of "Freedom" and "Putin resign" filled the main square in Kaliningrad, where up to 5,000 people gathered in pouring rain. The Baltic territory, which is nestled between Poland and Lithuania and separated from the Russian mainland, has been the site of some of the largest protests to date.

Even if these protests fizzle out in Russia proper, it makes one wonder if they might culminate in an independence movement in a EU-leaning Kaliningrad.