New Regulations on Abortion
July 1 marks the beginning of the "Women's Right to Know Act" in Minnesota. Under the law, before a woman obtains an abortion, the doctor or medical facility must provide her with information about the risks of both abortion and childbirth. ("Risks" apply to the woman, obviously; the risk to an unborn child from an abortion are very high; it is almost always a fatal procedure.) The law also requires medical providers to provide the patient with information about state aid available should she proceed with childbirth rather abortion.

"Opponents," says the St. Paul Pioneer-Press, "say it could drive up the cost of abortion and interferes with the doctor-patient relationship."

Breaking news flash: plenty of federal and state laws already "interfere with the doctor-patient relationship."
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Federal Law, Welfare Rights
Minnesota, one of the most highly-taxed and highest-spending states in the country, started welfare reform before the rest of the nation. Now a judge is blocking a recent set of budget cuts, citing federal law. The latest state budget included a monthly reduction of $125. "The state also wanted to consider some federal housing subsidies as income."
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Too Much Spending, Not Too Little Revenue
States have dug themselves into a budget hole with too much spending; the core of their problems is not, as they insist, too little tax revenue coming in. A number of commentators have made this claim. Today an article in USA Today weighs in as well.

In a surprising move for a generally center/left publication, the newspaper starts off with this headline: "Economy not to blame for states' budget woes." This is not merely the case of a headline writer exaggerating for effect; the very first sentence argues that the problem that many states face has "less to do with the weak national economy than with the ability of governors and legislators to manage money wisely."

The paper analyzes the fiscal performance of the 50 states, and finds that Utah, Georgia, and Delaware came out on top. The secret of their success: restraint in spending.

Restraint! Imagine that!

For FY 2002 (ending on June 30, 2003, for most states), spending went up 6.3 percent, on the tails of a 5 percent increase for the year before. Private sector employment has decreased 2.4 percent, while state government employment has increased by 1.5 percent during the last two years.

"By almost any measure," the story notes, "state governments have suffered less than businesses and taxpayers during the economic downturn."

So why don't more states manage their finances wisely? As the story says, "the benefits to residents are often invisible: service cuts that don't occur, tax increases that aren't needed and borrowing that doesn't have to be repaid by the next generation." Increasing spending now, however, wins votes, and praise for politicians.
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Another Round, in St. Paul, Minnesota
The city council of St. Paul, Minn., has voted to extend the bar closing hour from 1 a.m., to 2 a.m., as permitted by a recently enacted state law. I'm too much of an early riser to find much encouragement from this. Another 60 minutes is going to greatly improve someone's life? Liquour laws are some of the most variegated (and bizarre) laws across the states. As I understand (misunderstand?) the law in Wisconsin, for example, you can't buy a six-pack in a store after 8pm, though you can buy a six-pack on the installment plan in a bar. State law, then, suggests it's better to drink and drive than drive (and then purchase the booze) home and drink.
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Charter Schools: Multiple Chartering Authorities Helpful
Writing in the Detroit News, Chester E. Finn, Jr., comments on a recent study from his organization, the Fordham Foundation. He calls for Michigan officials to increase the cap on the number of charter schools, which, he says, have increased student achievement, especially for minorities.

Just who authorizes a charter school varies from state to state; each using a mix of the state board of education, universities, local school districts, and others. Not surprisingly, Fordham's recent study of chartering organizations finds that local schools "don't make good authorizers. They charter few schools, dedicate few resources and cling to bureaucratic compliance-oriented forms of reporting and oversight." From their point of view, the charters are competition, an unwelcome idea foisted upon them by state legislation.

Finn says that a state can have too many chartering agencies, thus diluting economies of scale. On the other hand, more than one chartering agency promotes (again) competition, which leads to innovation.
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Affirmative Action Decision on the Ballot?
Ward Connerly, who runs the American Civil Rights Institute(motto: "Race has no place in American Life or Law") may plan an initiative for Michigan's 2004 fall ballot, to outlaw affirmative action. (Remember, the Supreme Court said that universities may use race in determining admissions; it did not say that they must.). As the Detroit News article notes, Connerly succeeded in similar measures in California and Washington, two states "considered more politically liberal than Michigan."

Though the story in the News does not talk about battles in the U.S. Senate over judicial appointments, it does (indirectly) explain why they happen: "Opinion polls in Michigan, as in the rest of the nation, show that affirmative action could be doomed if voters decide the policy."

One wildcard is whether corporations will mount a vigorous defense of racial-discrimination-in-the-name-of-diversity. I suspect they will. Businesses, especially large, publicly-trade firms, want to engage in commerce. They are run by profit-maximizers, not people interested in advancing public policy goals, even those as lofty as a color-blind society. They have, in large, calculated that it's easier to get along (by giving into the demands of the "diversity lobby") than fighting. Watch for Ford Motor, GM, and other large corporations, Michigan-based and not, to cough up money to placate the professionally offended.
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Following the Courts
It's been said that the courts follow the election returns. Business, of course, follows the courts--especially when the threat of legal action looms in the distance. Perhaps illustrating the fact that the decision in Lawrence v. Texas was not just about sex, but "tolerance" of homosexuality, Wal-Mart has added a new protected group to its official policy. According to the Daily Herald of suburban Chicago,

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Wednesday broadened its anti-discrimination policy to cover gay and lesbian workers, bringing the company, both praised and pilloried for its conservative values, into line with most other big companies.

As a private company, Wal-Mart should be able to do whatever it wants, including responding to this or that pressure group.

The change came one week after the court's ruling. Coincidence? It looks like the "speech codes" of the campus is spreading to the rest of America, regardless of what people may have thought for thousands of years. Voluntary action, or legal coercion? And some say that morality can't be legislated.
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Mourning the Loss of a Policy Leader
The community of people who work to promote the ideas of small, responsible, limited government lost a friend on Monday night, when Joseph P. Overton, a leader at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, died. He was pursuing one of his passions, flying an ultralight airplane. Mackinac has a statement on Overton here.

I had the privilege of meeting Joe during a visit to the Mackinac offices last year, when he offered some praise for work I had done. Early this year, he hired me to edit an upcoming publication. We exchanged some emails and phone calls as we set up the project. A few days into the project, I had to take a leave to attend to an impending death in the family. I sent Joe an email telling him about this, and he was very supportive in reply. He said that he would offer prayers on behalf of me and my family. I got the feeling that this was not merely a perfunctory statement. After my uncle died, we "talked" some more (over email), and he told me about the time he stood by his father as he was dying of cancer. I was moved by his appreciation of the dignity and sorrow of human life, an appreciation, I suspect, that influenced his passion for policy.
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MORE Socialized Medicine
Between Medicaid, Medicare, government employees, and other public programs, we are roughly half the way there to socialized medicine. Illinois is the latest state to bring the non-poor onto the government rolls.

For KidCare, it boosts the maximum amount allowed to be earned by eligible families from 185 percent of the federal poverty level to 200 percent. That means the cut-off for a family of three, for example, has been raised from $28,236 to $30,516, Blagojevich said.

FamilyCare is a newer program created for pregnant mothers and parents of children in KidCare. Before Tuesday's bill, parents making 49 percent of the federal poverty level were eligible. The expansion raises that to 90 percent now and to 185 percent in three years, officials said.

But if other states are an example, Illinois will be raising the ceiling more. Even as the state deals with a massive budget deficit, statism marches on. And they blame decreased tax collections rather than increased spending ....

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"Ozone Action Days"= Inaction Days
Today's Detroit News has a report on "ozone action days." "If people would accept the suggested behavior, such as not using gasoline powered lawn mowers and other gas powered tools on Ozone Action Days, less pollution would be trapped in the air, making the air cleaner, health officials said."

However, there's not a lot of "action" on these days. Most people surveyed (90 percent) recognize the term, while less than half (46 percent) said they took one of the steps suggested for such days. Perhaps people would take the warnings if some terms were renamed. After all, the article repeatedly calls ozone a pollutant (hence, the call for restraint in producing emissions). But weren't we supposed to be trying to save ozone a few years ago? I suspect the confusion of terms is part of the problem.
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What is Bold Public Policy?
The other day, I came across a man who was part of a task force to address a number of concerns in health care policy, including providing insurance coverage for the uninsured, and seeing what could be done about health care inflation.

His proudest moment, I found out, was that everyone on the task force agreed to address the issues in their agenda by substantially raising cigarette taxes.

I was struck with not what a great accomplishment this was, but how timid it was. Far from being a bold measure to cut the Gordian knot-like problems of health care policy, it was tired, and predictable. Raise taxes on an unpopular group. Administer yet another government program. Ho-hum.
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President Bush, our Father Figure
Really? So says Babs Streisand.

In a news statement reprinted by James Taranto over at www.opinionjournal.com, the singer tells us that "The president is our leader, the figurehead of the country, a father figure." Head of government, maybe. (Though the Senate Majority Leader, the Speaker of the House, and most member of the Supreme Court would disagree.) Head of state, even, since we don't have a king or queen.

But "a father figure?" That's creepy. Yes, another George--Washington--has been called "the father of our country," but that was so long ago, it's more in the genetic rather than overseeing sense by now.

Still, you have to wonder if this symbol really does portray the attitude that some people have towards government, especially the federal government. I respect the office, and its current occupant. But a father figure?

Sad, what some people need to get along.
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Save Now for Medical Expenses
Writing in National Review, philosopher Michael Novak proposes a simple way of dealing with medical expenses in old age: parents should set up an account--to be untouched for 65 years--to pay for the child's medical expenses in old age.

If I have done my arithmetic correctly, $1,000 invested at birth for each newborn American child would at 7 percent annual growth amount to $128,000 at age 65. It would seem to me that at that age, that amount of money would buy a lot of catastrophic medical insurance until the end of each citizen's life (for big-ticket items), with a little left over for ordinary health-insurance co-payments.

I suppose that this may even--if we will have a government program of some sort--be implemented by the government (federal, most likely) taking that $1,000 from money taken from other taxpayers and sticking that into an account for the newborn: Pay a little now, or much later.

Ok, so it's not exactly constitutional. And if you expect a government fund to remain untapped for 65 years, you simply haven't heard P.J. O'Rourke's comments about whisky, cars, and teenaged boys.
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Medicare Reform Dead: Barnes
Fred Barnes, of the Weekly Standard, credits Sen. Ted Kennedy with being "wise" in his handling of the proposal to add prescription drugs to Medicare. By "wise," Barnes means that Kennedy "has figured out how to get what he wants. And what Kennedy wants is to kill, or at least forestall, the privatization of Medicare.

Would-be Medicare reforms once had the leverage of holding the proposal to add prescription drugs (currently not covered) hostage to a series of reforms that would promote consumer, rather than bureaucratic control and responsibility. For some reason, President Bush and others have decided to add a prescription drug benefit to the creaky Medicare system with no significant reform.

It calculates that 48 percent of Medicare recipients would jump to private insurance under the bill, which was negotiated by Chairman Charles Grassley of the Senate Finance Committee under the watchful eye of majority leader Bill Frist. After all that attrition, old-fashioned, government-run Medicare would gradually fade away. Kennedy and conservative opponents don't believe this, and neither does the Congressional Budget Office, which says no more than 12 percent would jump to private plans. The administration originally demanded a strong incentive for seniors to switch: They wouldn't get the drug benefit unless they did. But this provision has been jettisoned. Now seniors would get the benefit either way.

Kennedy would have liked to have noinvolvement of private plans, but is willing to let them in, to change things later.

So once again, the Republicans have walked away from their stated principles.
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