Archive for category PPC
A Tale of Two Trains
Posted by Joshua Sharf in Business, Economics, PPC, Transportation on May 18th, 2011
Funny thing about trains. They work well for people over short distances when the densities are high enough, but are terrible over long, wide-open spaces. They work well for freight over long distances, but lose those efficiencies over short distances.
In the first instance, Amtrak, with record ridership, is losing more money than ever. The northeast corridor is making money, but the long-haul trains through the sparsely populated Not Northeast gives it all back, and more. Amtrak’s argument for keeping routes like the California Zephyr is that they provide a service to people who have no other means of transportation. It’s exactly the same argument that led the ICC to require the Western Pacific to keep running this line even though they were hemmorhaging money.
How many people? Well, let’s take the segment that I often use, the part between Denver and Omaha. Now, people in Lincoln can drive to the Omaha airport. If we add up all the alightings and boardings between Lincoln and Denver for 2010, not including Lincoln and Denver, we get 13,295 people. That’s 13,295 people boarding and leaving the train at those four stations, for the whole year. About 36 people a day. Part of this is the time of night, but why do you think this part of the trip is overnight?
I love taking the train rather than flying. I like that it’s overnight, that it’s less hurried, that I can get up a little early or stay up a little late and work, and that I don’t have to subject myself to a cavity exam. But let’s not pretend this is an economical way to travel out here.
Freight is another matter. Ever since the ICC went away, rail freight as a percentage of total freight has been rising. In part, that’s because the lines have been able to invest a little in their operations, rather than being told that any profit is too much and being treated like utilities. And in the last year, intermodal traffic – a combination of rail and truck – grew 9% year-over-year, even as total rail traffic increased only 0.5%.
Steven Hayward has an interesting post about rail efficiency, and the fuel efficiency of engines:
In fact, the energy intensity of locomotives has improved substantially, with BTUs per freight mile falling by 65 percent since 1960. In other words, although total freight-rail miles have tripled since 1960, total railroad fuel consumption has remained about flat. If railroad locomotives had made no efficiency improvements since 1960, we’d have needed 9.2 billion gallons of fuel in 2009 instead of the 3.1 billion gallons actually consumed.
Passenger trains may have cafe cars, but freight trains have no CAFE standards of which I am aware.
Justice Kagan, You Got Some Splainin’ To Do
Posted by Joshua Sharf in Health Care, PPC on May 18th, 2011
As we know, Elena Kagan was the Obama Administration’s Solicitor General at the time that Obamacare was being drafted, and its legal defenses were being constructed. As a result, some Republicans have called on Justice Kagan to recuse herself from cases involving Obamacare when they come before the Court.
Now this, from the Daily Caller:
Newly released documents reveal Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan was more involved with President Obama’s health-care law than she disclosed previously. The documents likely will lead to a revival of questions about whether the Kagan should recuse herself from future cases.
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In an email dated Jan. 8, 2010, then-Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal sent an email to Senior Counsel Brian Hauck and Deputy Attorney General Thomas Perrelli that indicates Kagan played a key role in coming up with a legal defense.
“Brian, Elena would definitely like OSG [Office of Solicitor General] to be involved in this set of issues … we will bring Elena as needed.”
In an email on March 21, 2010, Katyal urged Kagan to attend a health-care litigation meeting on defending the law. “I think you should go, no?” wrote Katyal. “I will, regardless, but feel like this is litigation of singular importance.”
This isn’t open-and-shut, of course. The first email says that Elena wanted OSG, not herself, to be involved. But Katyal’s response isn’t to name the deputy that Kagan wants to go in her stead, it’s to name Kagan herself.
Later, indeed 10 weeks later, Katyal is telling Kagan he thinks she should be at another meeting to craft legal strategy. There are two ways to read this. The first is that 10 weeks later, it’s not clear to Katyal that Kagan – his boss – wants nothing to do with this bill. The other is that the tenor of the email is slightly pleading, making the case for the importance of the legislation. Would Katyal need to do that if Kagan had been involved before, or perhaps the SG was busy enough that, like all subordinates, is struggling to get on his boss’s calendar.
Either way, the House Judiciary Committee should immediately subpeona any and all OSG emails concerning Obamacare, and get a court order barring the OSG or Main Justice from destroying any of them.
I’ve always personally felt that this was a matter of the appearance of impropriety as much as anything else. While I really couldn’t imagine any Solicitor General being cut out of discussions on any administration’s signature pieces of legislation, in the absence of an actual paper trail, we’d have to take Kagan’s word for it that even if her office was involved, she was kept out of the loop.
In fact, in an article I saw several months ago (I can’t find it online now, but I’m pretty sure it was the Washington Post), a major media outlet reported that careful steps were taken to keep Kagan out of the loop on Obamacare, even before she was nominated for the Court, indeed, even before she was being discussed as a nominee. This can only be because all parties concerned knew what was going to happen. And indeed, at the time, Republican senators did raise the issue:
Two challenges have been levied at the law by attorneys general in Florida and Virginia. Kagan has said she would recuse herself if she had participated in reviewing a draft of a position on the law or had participated in discussions to formulate the government’s position on the legislation.
Then there’s this exchange, from Kagan’s confirmation hearings. Most of the interrogation on the health care matter looked at Kagan’s opinions on the Commerce Clause. But right at the end, this:
COBURN: Thank you. And my — I have two final questions. One, was there at any time — and I’m not asking what you expressed or anything else — was there at any time you were asked in your present position to express an opinion on the merits of the health care bill?
KAGAN: There was not.
That contention now appears to be seriously in doubt.
The Democrats have also engaged in a strategy not so much to politicize the Court as to recognize that the Court’s legitimacy is as much political as it is legal. The left has, for some time, been launching frankly pathetic attacks on the right of Justices Thomas and Scalia to hear the Obamacare cases, mostly centered on the fact that Thomas and his wife hold opinions. But if they can muddy the waters enough, they can get one of two acceptable outcomes: either both Kagan and Thomas recuse themselves, or neither does. It’s sort of the legal version of the hockey tactic of bringing in your enforcer to start a fight with the other team’s star, in hopes that they both get thrown out. That this sort of warfare will ultimately degrade the Court is of little consequence to those on the left, seeking a pre-determined outcome.
I’d very much want to reserve judgment on Kagan herself until we see the rest of the emails, both the ones that Daily Caller has, and the ones that they should have, but don’t. At the moment, however, Kagan should, without doubt, recuse herself.
The 49th Parallel
Posted by Joshua Sharf in Education, Labor, Media Bias, PPC on May 17th, 2011
How many states can be 49th? Let us count the ways.
A few years ago, my friend Ben DeGrow noticed that whenever the subject of budget restraint touched on public education, the state teachers union would immediately make one of two claims: either the state was 49th in school spending, or would be after the change was made.
You’ll notice that I declined to name the state in question just now. That’s because this claim was being made, simultaneously, all over the country by various Education Associations. Apparently, we are all 49th now.
Nebraska, welcome to the club:
Two of the state’s largest public employee unions gave a hearty thumbs down Monday to a new proposal generated by state business groups to reform the state’s much criticized labor court, the Commission of Industrial Relations.
Officials who represent state K-12 teachers and state employees said the new plan would “eviscerate” collective bargaining and force down public employees’ wages as much as 15 percent.
Karen Kilgarin, a spokeswoman for the Nebraska State Education Association, said the plan would put Nebraska at 49th in the nation in teachers’ salaries.
First of all, there’s the obvious question of who’s 50th. I mean, if you’re the least bit skeptical about this claim, you’d think that would be the first thing you’d ask, if only so that you could have a good laugh at their expense when you were filing your story.
A Test For Governor Daniels
Posted by Joshua Sharf in PPC, President 2012 on May 13th, 2011
In a decision guaranteed to bring outraged barons all over America to the defense of their castles, the Indiana Supreme Court has ruled, in the course of one week, that 1) you don’t have the right to block a policeman from entering your home without a warrant, and 2) they don’t need to knock to serve the warrant. (Moat, Mr. President? Did someone say, “moat?”)
In a 3-2 decision, Justice Steven David writing for the court said if a police officer wants to enter a home for any reason or no reason at all, a homeowner cannot do anything to block the officer’s entry.
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This is the second major Indiana Supreme Court ruling this week involving police entry into a home.
On Tuesday, the court said police serving a warrant may enter a home without knocking if officers decide circumstances justify it. Prior to that ruling, police serving a warrant would have to obtain a judge’s permission to enter without knocking.
This is what happens when you peel legal education free from Blackstone, Maine, Marshall, and Story. I’m not even an attorney, but I’ve been to Runnymede and seen the Magna Carta monument there, and I can tell you that it’s going to take some Olympic-worthy mental gymnastics to turn overturning 800 years of English Common law precedent into solemn respect for stare decisis.
Now, we all remember when President Obama decided to use the State of the Union Address not only to berate the Supreme Court justices in attendance over the Citizens United ruling, but to encourage the Democrat members of Congress to rise in thunderous applause, surrounding those justices with their own reprimand.
This case should provide an opportunity for a prospective President Mitch Daniels to find a statesmanlike way to rectify this situation without sending out the landed gentry to hold their swords to the Indiana justices’ necks.
He does have some options.
Redistricting East
Posted by Joshua Sharf in Colorado Politics, PPC, Redistricting on May 13th, 2011
The Omaha World-Herald this morning reports on Nebraska’s redistricting debate, mostly centering around the Omaha district, the only one that could possibly elect a Democrat Congressman:
State Sen. Scott Lautenbaugh, the main architect of the GOP map, denied that politics played a role, saying he never looked at voter registration numbers. He said his main focus was on keeping the major cities of Sarpy County whole.
His map does that.
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State Sen. Heath Mello, a Democrat from South Omaha, said his map tried to maintain as much of the current district as possible. He also said he believes eastern Sarpy County — with its urban feel — has more in common with Omaha.
Mello also denied that he took voter registration numbers into consideration when he drew the map.
“My plan is trying to keep the district looking the same as it is,” Mello said.
The debate is taking place almost entirely in the context of keeping communities of interest whole and similar to the rest of the district they’ll be a part of. I can even believe that neither senator (welcome to Nebraska’s unicam, where all legislators are senators) looked at the registration numbers, but only because they didn’t have to. Any politician assigned the task would know which parts of which counties are home ground and which are hostile territory.
The debate on the Democrat side the other night took place almost entirely in terms of “competitiveness,” which as Sen. Lundberg pointed out, really does mean gerrymandering. The Republicans eventually forced the Democrats to at least acknowledge the presence of other considerations, like communities of interest (or community of interests, if you’re Sen. Carroll), but that was after the Dems had decided to commit legicide on their own bill.
Nebraska is different in that it’s more heavily tilted to one party, and the population centers are fewer in number. Nevertheless, the Dems would love to find a way to capture CD-2 if they could, and Nebraska’s electoral votes are also based on how congressional districts vote, so it’s not as though nobody cares.
Redistricting, to adapt a phrase from Milton Friedman, is everywhere, at all times, a partisan process. But there’s no reason that the parties can’t at least deal with how the districts will affect policy, rather than just elections.
The Euro-Federal Crisis
Posted by Joshua Sharf in PPC on May 12th, 2011
The European Union is going through its federal-state crisis, forced into the debate on federal vs. national power by circumstance rather than by choice, just as we were 224 years ago. There are significant differences, to be sure, and we’ll get to those. But what it happening now is a result of similar tensions to our own, and it’ll be very interesting to see how the Europeans resolve them.
Since the Greeks threatened to do to contemporary Germans what they did to WWII Italians – swallow up large swatches of resources in the order to stay pacified – the question of just how far the rest of Europe in general, and Germany in particular, would allow themselves to be dragooned into backstopping the finances of the EU’s weak sows, Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain.
Now, the Arab Spring is forcing Europe, through Denmark, to confront the issue of border control in a way that it has not in the past.
Democrats Debate for Republicans
Posted by Joshua Sharf in Colorado Politics, Denver Mayor, PPC on May 10th, 2011
This should be interesting.
Tomorrow evening, May 11, from 7:00 – 8:30, at Denver West High School, Mayoral runoff candidates Chris Romer and Michael Hancock will square off in a debate sponsored by Denver County Republicans.
Even though Republicans constitute about 1/6 of Denver’s registered voters, Democrats in the nominally non-partisan races tend to ignore them. Not this year. With such a close race, and with neither candidate having a clear, obvious appeal to Republicans, neither candidate can afford to take any votes for granted. Thus, this debate. Chuck Plunkett of the Denver Post will MC the event, and KHOW’s Caplis and Silverman will moderate. The Denver GOP has solicited questions from the public.
The major concerns will surely be about the city budget deficit, taxes, and how the city can encourage job creation and businesses to relocate to Denver. Given Hancock’s involvement in the Montbello school reforms, and Romer’s State Senate activity on the medical marijuana issue, those may also come into play.
What is particularly interesting is that these are both liberal Democrats, yet they’ll be subjected to an evening of questions from the Republican & small-l libertarian points of view. They’re likely not used to getting that on a sustained basis, and while they can’t afford to pander (especially given that plenty of non-Republicans will be watching and hearing quotes from the debate), neither can they afford to be seen blowing off a significant opposing world view.
No doubt each will start off by acknowledging their differences with the crowd, but hoping to show that he’s open-minded, willing to listen, etc. How they frame those positions, and whether or not either shows frustration with questions that routinely challenge his political philosophy will be fascinating to see.
The debate is free and open to the public, and should be very informative.
Pension Legislation in Congress
Posted by Joshua Sharf in Budget, Colorado Politics, PERA, PPC on May 9th, 2011
Kudos to State Treasurer Walker Stapleton for testifying before Congress in favor of H.R. 567, Rep. Devin Nunes‘s Public Employee Transparency Act, which would require states to use reasonable rates of return when calculating the financials for their pension plans, and would also require that they use proper discount rates based on US Treasuries, rather than their rates of return, when reporting their level of fundedness.
States would be able to continue reporting under the old standards, if they chose (and would likely continue doing so anyway), but would be required to issue a second set of numbers using proper accounting standards. States that failed to do so would no longer be able to issue tax-exempt municipal debt, forcing them to use pay higher interest rates and making borrowing more difficult. While the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Congress may yank that exemption altogether, blunting the effect of Nunes’s bill, I rather doubt that would pass the House this year.
For those interested in a fine synopsis of the state pension mess we’re in nationally, I can’t do better than to recommend Josh Barro’s piece in National Affairs, “Dodging the Pension Disaster,” which lays out the problems and potential solutions as clearly as I’ve seen anywhere:
First, pension reforms should include all benefits that will be accrued in the future, not just benefits that will be accrued by new hires. As mentioned earlier, most states are limiting their pension reforms to new employees only — which means they are likely dooming their reforms to failure….
Second, serious pension-reform plans should abandon the defined-benefit model. Three states — Michigan, Alaska, and Utah — have enacted reforms that will move many employees to defined-contribution retirement plans, or at least to sharply modified defined-benefit plans that shift most investment risk away from taxpayers. In most states, however, pension reform has been a matter of tinkering: increasing employee contributions, adjusting benefit formulas, raising retirement ages, and so on….
Third, states should consider voluntary buyouts of existing pension benefits. The two reform principles outlined above address only the costs of pension benefits going forward; they do not help resolve the very real problems associated with states’ existing pension liabilities — those that were incurred by governments as payment for labor that employees provided in the past. Here, there are no easy policy maneuvers: Short of defaulting on these debts, the only way states can eliminate unfunded pension liabilities is to fund them.
That last would be hard for Colorado to consider, as the State Constitution prohibits issuing general obligation debt, but it remains an option for other states.
We should be under no illusions that Harry Reid of Chuck Schumer would even allow Nunes’s bill to come up for a vote in the Senate. But as we know, putting these things out there in the form of legislation is critical to getting actual reform in the long run. And in this case, the long run is shorter than we think.
More AngloSpheric Election News
Posted by Joshua Sharf in PPC on May 6th, 2011
UPDATE: Apparently, I misread the results. The Conservatives now control 157 of 279 local councils, and have over twice as many locally elected councilors as Labour.
As my fellow AngloSpheric fan, an Australian friend of mine, had pointed out to me, local councils are, in the absence of anything like states, the training ground for up-and-comers. Much like the Republicans with their state legislators here, the Tories now have a far more substantial farm system than Labour.
Also, the Lib-Dems weren’t the only ones who backed AV. Perhaps surprisingly, Labour did as well. That, along with the fact that the Scottish Parliament now has an SNP majority at the expense of Labour, has got to be embarrassing.
Taking Their Victory Lap in a Clown Car
Posted by Joshua Sharf in 2012 Presidential Race, National Politics, PPC, War on Islamism on May 5th, 2011
Yes, I know, he’s right there in that photograph of the senior staff watching the bin Laden operation on the live feed. (Think about that for a moment. We’re commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. Lincoln used to spend a lot of time over at the War Department Telegraph Office waiting for scraps of war news from a couple of hundred miles away. Nowadays he could just dial up a live feed from anywhere on the planet.)
And now, two apparently inside stories indicating that the President either didn’t get around to making an actual decision, or took 16 hours to do so.
I have no idea how much to credit these stories (although it would fit in with at least one fellow’s relatively generous reading of Obama’s presidency). Politically, it is remarkable that within 72 hours of the President’s first only real accomplishment, someone inside the White House is putting about stories designed to undermine the President for that very accomplishment?
Typically, this sort of thing would take weeks to develop. The fellow in question would want to see how the polls were moving, whether or not there was traction. Right now, in the warm afterglow of the already-room-temperature remains, would be the last time you’d expect an insider to go around putting knives in the back of the Hero of Abbottabad. This should be a moment when Obama begins to turn things around, and instead, you’ve got British newspapers and American blogs making the President out to be a spectator at his own presidency.
William Daley was supposed to provide gravitas, professionalism, stability, and order to a White House Staff that was looking terribly undisciplined. Instead, while the operation itself was brilliantly done, they’ve gotten just about everything since wrong. From the changing stories, to the photographs, to the disposal of the body, to the speech itself. That along with announcing an intelligence bonanza to the world, “the world” including our enemies. No, I don’t think they’re lying about what happened; those images can move awfully fast, and it’s just normal fog-of-war stuff; but why rush out with a story you’re going to have to correct? Why dither for two days about whether or not to release the death scene photographs? In short, they’re “taking their victory lap in a clown car.”
There’s a point in a market, when it’s near it’s top, that even good news isn’t good news. Strong earnings reports, hiring reports, strong consumer confidence, all get shrugged aside because there’s a feeling that the market just has no upside to it. When you have some experience with the market, sometimes you can sniff that out, and let me tell you, it’s a great time to be in cash.
I wonder if something similar isn’t going on here with this President. They were fond of deriding their predecessors for having won the war, but not having a plan for the peace. In this case, they won the assault, but didn’t have a plan for the rest of the piece. As a result, someone inside the Administration isn’t afraid of putting knives in his boss’s back, even when you’d think it would be a good time to lay low and start spiriting out your diaries for a book deal.
For a politician, especially an executive, that’s abbottabad as it gets.
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