The Case Against Mitt Romney

Introduction

"Some battles aren't worth fighting, even if you win. Some battles are worth fighting, even if you lose."

I have kept pretty quiet in regards to each of these candidates for the Republican Nomination. As the Mississippi Primary approaches on Tuesday, I found it hard to keep quiet any more. I want to replace Barack Obama as our President as bad as anyone. However, I also believe that Republicans have been mutually responsible for the state we find ourselves in today. They strayed from conservative principles for the sake of the "team." I don't want to do that anymore. I want to make it clear in light of this post that not only will I support any Republican against Barack Obama, I will do so enthusiastically. However, I did want to make a conservative case against Mitt Romney for the sake of our nation and the party.

It seems as though it will be really tough to derail Mitt Romney. I have tried to warm up to him. I believe many people are sacrificing their conservative principles for the sake of winning. But, I cannot. I believe in free markets, constitutionally limited government, a Biblical worldview, and sound economics. Romney does not. I am not sure Romney would be worth it, even if he wins. However, I believe this battle is worth fighting even if I lose.

The line must be drawn here. This far no further.

I seek to make a careful and comprehensive case against Mitt Romney. I hope that you would consider and read it in its entirety. Hat Tip to FreedomWorks & Max Pappas for a lot of the material.

Summary

• Romney was an ardent supporter of a woman’s right to choose until 2003
• Romney distanced himself from Reagan and Reagan’s policies
• Romney didn’t like the Contract with America
• Romney led the fight for and implemented health care reform almost identical to ObamaCare
• Romney called his beta version of ObamaCare “a model for the nation”
• Romney defended the individual mandate, saying, “I like mandates. The mandates work.”
• Romney supports indexing the minimum wage to inflation
• Romney supports cap-and-trade “on a global basis”
• Romney worked to regulate “greenhouse gas emissions” in Massachusetts
• Romney got Massachusetts involved in a regional climate change pact
• Romney supports ethanol subsidies
• Romney wants to increase spending “substantially” on energy research
• Romney opposes the Flat Tax, supports keeping progressivity in the code
• Romney refused to support the 2003 Bush tax cuts
• Romney’s claim to not have raised taxes is called “mostly myth” by Cato Institute
• Romney thought Obama’s stimulus would “accelerate the timing of the start of the recovery”
• Romney stated balancing the budget too quickly would send economy into recession
• Romney supports TARP
• Romney says there’s nothing wrong with companies asking for bailouts
• Romney supports No Child Left Behind
• Romney supports reappointing Ben Bernanke to chairman of the Federal Reserve

Health Care

• In 2006, Mitt Romney imposed a health care law on Massachusetts that served as a blueprint for ObamaCare. NPR states that ObamaCare “was based, almost line for line, on the Massachusetts model.”[1]

• Obama thanked Romney for RomneyCare, saying at a Democratic National Committee fundraiser in Boston, “Yes, we passed health care with an assist from a former Massachusetts Governor… Great idea.”[2]

• RomneyCare, like ObamaCare, is based on an individual mandate, which Romney continues to defend. A presidential debate in 2008 featured the following exchange:[3]

GIBSON: But Gov. Romney's system has mandates in Massachusetts—although you backed away from mandates on a national basis.

ROMNEY: No, no, I like mandates. The mandates work.

• Romney encouraged a broader use of government forcing individuals to make government mandated purchases, saying, “Everybody in our state has to have health insurance and that’s a model which I think has some merit more generally.”[4]

• Romney’s plan, like ObamaCare, fines those who don’t purchase insurance that is officially approved and heavily regulated through an “exchange” and subsidizes with taxpayer dollars such purchases.

• Romney said of his plan, with its individual mandate, “exchange,” and heavy subsidies: “If Massachusetts succeeds in implementing it, then that will be a model for the nation.” Obama and the Democrats agreed and did so.[5]

• The far-left was so excited about RomneyCare that Sen. Ted Kennedy made a trip to be at the bill signing and was all smiles as he stood center stage.[6]

• Despite his previous suggestion that RomneyCare is a “model for the nation”, he is now trying to use the excuse that it was OK because it’s a state plan and states experiment. But it’s wrong for government at any level to violate our basic right to liberty by forcing citizens to buy a product as the individual mandate does.[7]

• RomneyCare has failed, increasing health care costs dramatically. Between 2006 and 2009, cumulative costs increased by $8,569,000,000, emergency room visits are up 7.2 percent, and premiums rose 6 percent, according to the Beacon Hill Institute.[8]

• In the wake of RomneyCare, the Wall Street Journal says Massachusetts “is now moving to impose price controls on all hospitals, doctors and other providers.”[9] We can expect that nationally, too, if ObamaCare isn’t repealed.

• The Wall Street Journal offers more on RomneyCare, which they call a “fatal flaw” for this candidate, here.

Social Issues

• Romney says he changed his mind on abortion meeting with Harvard stem cell researcher – Romney claims the doctor said scientists “kill” embryos after 14 days, but doctor later said Romney “mischaracterized my position.”

• Months after his “conversion,” Romney stated his commitment to upholding Massachusetts’ abortion laws and appointed pro-choice judge to state district court.

• In October 2005, Romney signed bill expanding family planning services, including abortion counseling and morning-after pill.

• In December 2005, Romney “abruptly ordered his administration to reverse course … and require Catholic hospitals to provide emergency contraception medication to rape victims.”

• Romney health insurance plan expanded access to abortion, required Planned Parenthood representative on state panel.

• Romney endorsed legalization of abortion pill RU-486 access during his 1994 Senate race and backed federal funding of abortion, saying

“I think it’s important that people see me not as a pro-life candidate.”

• In 1994 and 2002, Romney confirmed his support for Roe v. Wade decision and forcefully positioned himself as pro-choice in 1994 Senate race, saying “you will not see me wavering on that.”

Cap-and-Trade

• Romney supports a global cap-and-trade scheme and involved Massachusetts in a regional cap-and-trade pact. Romney was caught on video in New Hampshire in 2008 having this exchange with a potential voter:[10]

Potential Voter: Do you support cap-and-trade?

Romney: I support it on a global basis

• Romney won praise from global warming profiteer Al Gore for saying, "I think it's important for us to reduce our emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases that may well be significant contributors to the climate change and global warming that you're seeing."[11]

• In 2008, Romney told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that “there’s nothing wrong with dealing with global warming.”[12]

• In 2004, as Governor of Massachusetts, Romney introduced the Massachusetts Climate Protection Plan to reduce greenhouse gases. The Heartland Institute finds, “Though mostly voluntary, some provisions of the plan are mandatory and will impose economic hardship on Massachusetts citizens.”[13]

• Romney’s plan, much like the widely rejected Kyoto Protocol states its goals as:

SHORT-TERM: Reduce GHG emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2010.

MEDIUM-TERM: Reduce GHG emissions 10% below 1990 levels by the year 2020.

LONG-TERM: Reduce GHG emissions sufficiently to eliminate any dangerous threat to the climate; current science suggests this will require reductions as much as 75-85% below current levels.[14]

• Having pushed carbon regulations Obama could only dream of, Romney uttered this line, which sounds eerily like what Obama would say, “These carbon emission limits will provide real and immediate progress in the battle to improve our environment… They help us accomplish our environmental goals while protecting jobs and the economy.”[15]

Ethanol

• Romney makes no bones about it, he supports ethanol subsidies. “I support the subsidy of ethanol,” he told an Iowa voter. “I believe ethanol is an important part of our energy solution for this country.”[17]

• Romney goes so far as to support trade barriers on ethanol.[18]

• Romney also supports energy subsidies in general, unequivocally stating in his 2008 campaign platform a need for a “dramatic” increase in “federal spending on research, development, and demonstration projects that hold promise for diversifying our energy supply.”[19]

Taxes

• Romney refused to support the Bush tax cuts in 2003.[20]

• Romney strongly opposes the pro-growth Flat Tax.[21]. So much so that he, as a “concerned citizen” ran a newspaper ad opposing it.[22] He said, "I'm probably not going to be recommending throwing out the code and starting over” and says the flat tax is “unfair.”[23]

• In 2002, while Romney was running for governor, limited government activists in Massachusetts were supporting Ballot Question 1 to eliminate the state income tax. Forty five percent of the voters supported eliminating the tax, Romney opposed eliminating it.[24]

• When Romney ran for governor in 2002, he refused to sign a no-tax pledge. “I'm not intending to, at this stage, sign a document which would prevent me from being able to look specifically at the revenue needs of the Commonwealth."[25]

• Romney enacted $432 million in fee hikes and $300 million in higher taxes as governor of Massachusetts.[26]

• In a recent "Fiscal Policy Report Card" on governors, The Cato Institute, gave him a "C." As far as the image Romney cultivates as "a governor who stood by a no-new-taxes pledge," Cato called it "mostly a myth." As evidence, they cited the hefty fee increases and business tax hikes achieved through the closing of loopholes.

Spending

• As Governor, Romney proposed a budget in 2007 that was an outrageous 8.5 percent higher than the one he proposed the year before.[28]

• Romney, despite calls from many fiscal conservatives to keep everything on the table when looking for spending cuts, recently stated that “I’m not going to cut the defense spending.”[29]

• Romney parroted discredited Keynesian economic thinking when he wrote in No Apology, “The ‘all-Democrat’ stimulus that was passed in early 2009 will accelerate the timing of the start of the recovery.”[30]

• Romney sounds a lot like Obama when he says in an op-ed to what was surely a fawning New York Times audience:

"I believe the federal government should invest substantially more in basic research—on new energy sources, fuel-economy technology, materials science and the like—that will ultimately benefit the automotive industry, along with many others. I believe Washington should raise energy research spending to $20 billion a year, from the $4 billion that is spent today."[31]

The Wall Street Bailout

• Romney supports the Wall Street Bailout/TARP program. In his book No Apology he says: "Secretary [Hank] Paulson’s TARP prevented a systemic collapse of the national financial system.

It was intended to prevent a run on virtually every bank and financial institution in the country."

"Had we not taken action, you could have seen a real devastation."

• Romney reaffirmed this position in 2009 saying, “I believe that it was necessary to prevent a cascade of bank collapses.”[32]

More Mitt, More Problems

• Romney supports federal involvement in education, long held by constitutional conservatives as a state prerogative, offering his support for the Bush-Kennedy No Child Left Behind law. In a 2008 debate, Romney stated, “I supported No Child Left Behind, still do.”[33]

• Romney ran on raising the minimum wage and putting in place automatic increases by indexing it to inflation.[34]

• Romney thinks it’s OK for companies to ask for bailouts, stating in a New York Times op-ed about the auto bailout, “It is not wrong to ask for government help, but the automakers should come up with a win-win proposition”[36]

• In April 2009, Romney told The Hill newspaper that: “We as Republicans misspeak when we say we don’t like regulation. We like modern, up-to-date dynamic regulation that is regularly reviewed, streamlined, modernized and effective.”[37]

• On Neal Cavuto on January 28 2010, Romney supported the reappointment of Ben Bernanke to chairman of the Federal Reserve.[38]

• Romney distanced himself from Reagan. During his Senate debate with Ted Kennedy, Romney made it clear he was not a fan of Ronald Reagan. Kennedy said to Romney, “Under your economic program, under the program of Mr. Reagan…” to which Romney responded, "I was an independent during the time of Reagan-Bush. I’m not trying to return to Reagan-Bush.”[39]

• Romney didn’t like the Contract with America, saying “…it is not a good idea to go into a contract like what was organized by the Republican party in Washington laying out a whole series of things which the party said these are the things we are gonna do. I think that's a mistake.”[40]

• In 1994 Senate race, Romney backed Brady bill and assault weapons ban, saying “I don’t line up with the NRA” and “that’s not going to make me the hero of the NRA.”

Conclusion

What more can be said? Winning would not be worth it.

Evidence

[1] http://m.npr.org/news/Science/136285615

[2] http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/19/obama-thanks-romney-again-for-his-role-in-passing-health-care-reform/

[3] http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/story?id=4091645&page=1&singlePage=true

[4] http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2011-05-12-republican-romney-health-care-law-obama_n.htm

[5] Ibid.

[6] http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2010/03/massachusetts_with_health_care.html

[7] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703625304575115691871093652.html

[8] http://www.beaconhill.org/BHIStudies/HCR-2011/PR-HealthCareReform2011-0627.htm

[9] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703864204576317413439329644.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

[10] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAGpLOKtQDA

[11] http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0611/57054.html

[12] http://www.ontheissues.org/2012/Mitt_Romney_Energy_+_Oil.htm

[13]http://www.heartland.org/policybot/results/15250/Massachusetts_Gov_Romney_Unveils_Climate_Protection_Plan.html

[14] http://www.newamerica.net/files/MAClimateProtPlan0504.pdf

[15] http://myclob.pbworks.com/w/page/21956517/12-07-2005

[16]http://www.heartland.org/policybot/results/15250/Massachusetts_Gov_Romney_Unveils_Climate_Protection_Plan.html

[17] http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2011/05/27/romney-hearts-ethanol-subsidies/

[18] http://www.iptv.org/iowajournal/story.cfm/143

[19] http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/4237358

[20] http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/154741/romney-mccain-and-taxes/byron-york#

[21] http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0407/3423.html

[22] http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2007/03/mitt_romney_is.php

[23] http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0407/3423.html

[24] http://www.jeffjacoby.com/8139/making-the-case-for-question-1

[25] Ibid.

[26]http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/10/11/mitts_no_tax_mirage/

[27] http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/01/mitts_memory_lapse.html

[28] Romney’s 2006 budget http://www.mass.gov/bb/fy2006h1/06budrec/govarea/ v. Romney’s 2007 budget http://www.mass.gov/bb/fy2007h1/2007budrec/govarea/

[29] http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/161489-romney-im-not-going-to-cut-the-defense-budget

[30] http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=44570

[31] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/opinion/19romney.html

[32] http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0209/Romney_at_CPAC.html

[33] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E26ADuXXS54&feature=related at 4:29

[34] http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=3407772&page=1

[35] http://www.deseretnews.com/article/595071548/Romney-signs-a-ban-on-workplace-smoking.html

[36] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/opinion/19romney.html

[37] http://thehill.com/opinion/editorials/6536-regulatory-tide

[38] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aX6T--U8Ll8

[39] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9IJUkYUbvI

[40] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Jzno_apP1Q

Friedman Friday

Enjoy.

Blake

A Challenge to Republicans

I have found that many people are quick to throw stones at the other side, particularly those in the deep red South. If you are like me, I had just not been seriously challenged in my views or critically considered my views on policies such as the minimum wage all the way to using nuclear weapons and foreign policy. So, just wanted to throw a quick challenge to the Neo-Conservatives out there who condemn welfarism but embrace military interventionism. Well, the following excerpt is part of a letter from Don Boudreaux:

Most modern “liberals” believe that domestic economic problems are caused chiefly by unsavory characters – “business people” – who impose their destructive rule on masses of innocent workers and consumers yearning for more prosperity, and that the best solution to these problems is government force deployed using armies of regulators to subdue these bad guys and to keep close watch over them and their successors. Failure to intervene is immoral. These same “liberals,” though, believe that foreign problems are typically the result of complex forces that can be understood only poorly by American-government officials; it is naïve to suppose that even well-intentioned foreign intervention by Uncle Sam will not have regrettable unintended consequences.

Most modern conservatives believe that domestic economic problems are typically the result of complex forces that can be understood only poorly by government officials; it is naïve to suppose that even well-intentioned economic ntervention by Uncle Sam will not have regrettable unintended consequences. These same conservatives, though, believe that problems in foreign countries are caused chiefly by unsavory characters – “dictators” or “tyrants” – who impose their destructive rule on masses of innocent people yearning for more democracy, and that the best solution to these problems is government force deployed with armies of soldiers to subdue these bad guys and to keep close watch over them and their successors. Failure to intervene is immoral.

It is an interesting paradox introduced by Dr. Boudreaux that many people
tend to not think about. What both visions have in common is that there are
valid reasons to impose one's will on another. Both sides just disagree on the
reason to. Are the two intentions much different than each other? What do you
think?

Glad to return to the blog,
Blake

Beyond Intentions: Disabled and the Minimum Wage

Edition #1
I am beginning a series of posts on the blog that centers around the intentions of governmental policy vs. the actual results. We will be examining federal policy and issues that everyone knows really well and go "Beyond Intentions."

Thinking Rightly
Before I talk briefly about this subject, I want to make sure that I approach the sensitivity of the subject rightly. I know many people that have been disabled and have been blessed by their impact in my life. It always gives me comfort to know that if they believe in Christ, then the Bible teaches: the Lord Jesus Christ...will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body. (Philippians 3:20-21). What a great promise! So, in that mindset, I want to point out a part of the Federal Minimum Wage Law that I believe exposes the law for what it is: a law with good intentions but destructive consequences.

Minimum Wage and the Disabled
The minimum wage law signed by FDR in 1938 is pretty well known to most people; however, there is a particular provision of the law that provides an exemption for people with disabilities. The Columbus Dispatch brought this issue to my attention with this article. Thousands of adults with developmental disabilities such as autism work at jobs in Ohio that pay less than the minimum wage. Some work for $2.15 assembling auto parts and some sew table linens for 79 cents. A majority do not earn half of the minimum wage. This little known provision allows businesses to pay less than the minimum wage if the disability limits the worker's productivity. Comments from the article:

"It's immoral," said Curtis L. Decker, executive director of the National Disability Rights Network.

"This has been a godsend," said Ted Williams, whose autistic son earns a low wage at his job in Columbus

The debate comes down to this: Critics say low wages show that disabled workers are being exploited, but supporters say the pay rates reflect opportunities – that even the most disabled Ohioans are being given a chance to pursue work and build full lives.

The Question
What do you think? Are the disabled being exploited? Or, is the exemption giving them an opportunity that would not be there otherwise? Think about it: If an employer did have to pay a person who is disabled the minimum wage of $7.25, would they be hired? Or, would the employer opt to hire the young high school or college student who needed the money but could be more productive? As a result, are you, through the good intentions, pricing more disabled out of the market? Now, would less disabled workers be able to be work, build their lives, build their skills, and contribute greatly to society?

If you look at this situation and think that it would adversely affect the disabled, then good, we agree (ha ha). But, just as important, taking this argument to an extreme has revealed a principle. If a mandated floor prices disabled out of the market of employment, wouldn't it also price young, unskilled workers out of the market as well without disabilities. I made this point on a previous post on the blog:

The fact is that the minimum wage is hurting the very people that it was most intended to help. Instead of letting a low-skilled or uneducated person be employed at a rate to suit the employer like $5 an hour, they government has made that practice illegal and is forcing a business to employ them at $7.25 an hour, plus mandated fringes such as social security tax, health care, and unemployment insurance . The government is effectively denying low-income folks and teens an opportunity to gain experience and some cash flow that could lead to a more stable life and potential opportunities in the future.

I believe this is a classic example of good intentions having destructive consequences. The poor and young workers have borne the brunt of the good intentions. I have included an interesting article about how the minimum wage began to help break down preconceived notions you've had. This is the issue that was the first domino to fall that turned me to liberty minded economic views. Good for me. Bad for anyone that has to listen to me, I guess.

Blake

A Brief History (Written in 1998)

Sixty years ago on June 25, 1938, President Franklin Roosevelt signed into law America’s first minimum wage: 25 cents an hour, rising to 40 cents an hour over the next seven years, which is equivalent to almost $5.00 in 1998 dollars. Today, many increases later, Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts is pushing for yet another hike in the minimum wage. Now is a good time to reexamine the origins of this important law and its impact on the job market.

Once the original bill was passed, many economists and politicians predicted that more workers would be thrown out of work and that the Great Depression—already in its ninth year—would get worse. That’s exactly what happened and during the fall elections, Roosevelt lost an astonishing 80 House seats to the Republicans.

It turns out that Ted Kennedy’s Massachusetts is where the impetus for the minimum wage actually began. The working poor struggling to eke out a living were not the driving force behind the 1938 law. New England’s highly paid textile workers were.

During the 1920s and 30s, the American textile industry had begun to shift from New England to the South, where the cost of living was lower and where Southern workers produced a high quality product for lower wages. Politicians in Massachusetts, led by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. and House leader Joseph Martin, battled in Congress for a law that would force Southern textile mills to raise wages and thereby lose their competitive edge.

Governor Charles Hurley of Massachusetts bluntly demanded that Southern wages be hiked so that "Massachusetts [would] have equal competition with other sections of the country, thus affording labor and industry of Massachusetts some degree of assurance that our present industries will not move out of the state."

Southerners were well aware of what Massachusetts was attempting and they scuttled all minimum wage laws before Congress during 1937 and well into 1938. In doing so, they handed President Roosevelt his first major legislative defeat.

"Northern industries are trying to stop the progress of the South," Congressman Sam McReynolds of Tennessee observed, "and they feel if they can pass this [minimum wage] bill it will really be a tariff against Southern goods."

Southern congressmen joined those economists who argued that Congress couldn’t make a man worth a certain amount by simply making it illegal to pay him any less. They said that people whose skills and experience were worth less than whatever Congress decreed as the minimum wage would be priced out of the labor market. The Great Depression, they said, would get worse by Congress telling workers, in effect, "If you can’t find a job that pays at least the minimum, then you’re not allowed to work."

The desperate plight of unskilled workers trying to hold on to their jobs disturbed Congressman Carl Mapes of Grand Rapids, Michigan. "The enactment of this legislation," Mapes concluded, "will further increase unemployment, not reduce it. It is bound to increase unemployment unless all human experience is reversed." Mapes cited the case of a local minimum wage law passed in early 1938 in Washington, D. C. Immediately after its passage, the Washington Post lamented, scores of maids and unskilled workers were laid off by local hotels.

Roosevelt’s political muscle eventually prevailed and the national law was passed, but Mapes’s prediction has proven to be prophetic. Over the years, steady hikes in the minimum wage have priced out of the market the most vulnerable workers, including blacks, teenagers, and women with limited skills. Also vulnerable have been workers with developing skills whose labor is not yet worth what the law says they must be paid.

The bias of minimum wage laws against disadvantaged minorities has been conspicuous ever since 1956, when the minimum wage shot up from 75 cents to $1.00 an hour. During the next two years, nonwhite teenage unemployment spiralled from 14 to 24 percent. The recent 1996 hike in the minimum wage to $5.15 an hour had a similar effect: unemployment among black male teenagers jumped from 37 to 41 percent almost immediately, at a time when the economy was doing well for almost everyone else. That’s why Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize winning economist, once called the minimum wage "the most anti-black law on the books."

Data from President Clinton’s own labor department show that at least 20,000 jobs were eliminated by the 1996 hike. The Employment Policies Institute calculates that the real job loss was closer to 128,000.

Senator Kennedy would have us believe that hiking the minimum wage again would be good for Massachusetts, and that what’s good for Massachusetts is good for Michigan and the nation, too. That was wrong in 1938, and it’s still wrong sixty years later.



-Article Courtesy of Mackinac Center for Public Policy

Future of Education?

"Future of Education?"

I stumbled across this video while trying to distract my mind from working, and I was just enamored. Salman Kahn is a former analyst in hedge fund and began tutoring his cousins remotely over YouTube. It has turned into what many think to be the future of education (Bill Gates' words, not mine). More importantly, it also nestles nicely into the framework the world is beginning to make sense to me--economics, innovation, productivity, free markets, education, and the like.

Anyone interested in the educational model out there, take a look. The 20 mintues is well worth it. If not here is a brief summary. Enjoy.

Summary
At about the 8th minute, Khan describes the traditional classroom:

…homework-lecture-homework-lecture-homework-snapshot exam. And then whether you get a 70%, 80%, 90% or 95%, the class moves onto the next topic.

Even the 95% student, what’s that 5% that he missed?

That’s analogous to learning to ride a bicycle where I give you a lecture, give a bike to you for a couple weeks and then come back and evaluate you. You can’t quite stop, you can’t make left turns. You’re an 80% bicyclist. I put a “C” stamp on your
forehead and then I give you a unicycle.

You fast forward and you see smart students start to struggle because they have these Swiss cheese gaps that kept building.

This is a good point. The one-size fits all nature of the classroom lends itself to broad brushes and gaps that build and build on each other. In this world of specialization, customation, and your own pace, why still do it that way? We have coke machines that do that now. Who would of thought?

Khan continues:

Our model is learn math the way you learn anything. The way you learn to ride a bicycle. Stay on that bicycle.Fall off that bicycle. Do it as long as necessary until you have mastery.

Next, Khan articulates amazingly well a problem I have recognized with our education model, but have struggled to explain it:

The traditional model penalizes you for experimentation and failure, but does not expect mastery [e.g. time to move onto next subject even if you only
mastered 90% of the last one].

We encourage you to experiment. We encourage you to fail. But we do expect mastery.

Bingo. Communciate expectations, expect mastery, but allow flexibility.About 14 minutes in, Khan talks about the progress students make in his model vs. the traditional model.

When you go five days into it [learning a new subject], there are a group of kids who have raced ahead and a group of kids who are a little bit slower.

In the traditional model, you do the snapshot assessment. You say these
are the gifted kids and these are the slow kids. You say things like maybe
we should put them in different classes.

But, when you let every student work at their own pace, we see it over and over and over again, you see students who took a little bit extra time on one concept or the other, but once they get through that concept they just race ahead.

So the same kids you thought were slow six weeks ago, you now would think are gifted.

It makes you wonder if a lot of the labels that maybe many of us have benefited
from were really just due to a coincidence of time.

I believe these are penetrating points that cause us to turn the convential teaching model on its head. Technology and specialization have allowed for more choices. Kahn by introducing this model could spark some massive innoviation in the school systems.

The Money Ball

Most exciting to me is in the 11:30 mark as Kahn explains a teacher can walk in each day and visually observe the progress of each student. Look below:

Each row represents a student in the classroom and column the subject matter/module. As the teacher walks into the classroom for the day, he or she can see that "green" means they have mastered the topic (10 questions in a row correct), "blue" is working on it, and "red" means they are stuck. So, they teacher can best use the time and intervene on the red kids or get a green kid to be first in line to utor the red kid.

If it couldn't get any better, it does. Kahn states that he "wants to arm the educators with the most data that he possibly can just like you would in finance or any other sector." Look below:

What are they spending their time on? What questions are they missing? Where are they stopping in a session? A teacher has all the tools necessary to target problems and use technology to use her time most effectively.

Conclusion

So, I sometimes pretend to know way much more about education than I do. But, this is extremely interesting to me. Education should obey fairly the same laws of economics and response to incentives and circumstances. In Steve Moore's brilliant article in the WSJ on productivity gains and progress over the 20th century, he details the gains in productivity per worker in the private sector as nothing short of amazing over the past century. But, the output per government worker or teacher to be negative or far less. He explains:

Where are the productivity gains in government? Consider a core function of
state and local governments: schools. Over the period 1970-2005, school spending
per pupil, adjusted for inflation, doubled, while standardized achievement test
scores were flat. Over roughly that same time period, public-school employment
doubled per student, according to a study by researchers at the University of
Washington. That is what economists call negative productivity.

But education is an industry where we measure performance backwards: We gauge school performance not by outputs, but by inputs. If quality falls, we say we didn’t
pay teachers enough or we need smaller class sizes or newer schools. If
education had undergone the same productivity revolution that manufacturing has,
we would have half as many educators, smaller school budgets, and higher
graduation rates and test scores.

This is an interesting revelation. If education had followed the same path as technology grew in industry over the past century, we would have half as many educators, smaller budgets, and higher scores. Is education exempt from the regular laws the govern human progress, specialization, and economics? Many would argue so. I am not so sure. Here's to hoping that Kahn's work spreads like economic progress over the past century. Kids will be better off.

Blake

If Supermarkets Were Like Public Schools

Helpful analogy from our friends at Cafe Hayek:

Suppose that groceries were supplied in the same way as K-12 education. Residents of each county would pay taxes on their properties. Nearly half of those tax revenues would then be spent by government officials to build and operate supermarkets. Each family would be assigned to a particular supermarket according to its home address. And each family would get its weekly allotment of groceries—"for free"—from its neighborhood public supermarket.

No family would be permitted to get groceries from a public supermarket outside of its district. Fortunately, though, thanks to a Supreme Court decision, families would be free to shop at private supermarkets that charge directly for the groceries they offer. Private-supermarket families, however, would receive no reductions in their property taxes. Of course, the quality of public supermarkets would play a major role in families' choices about where to live. Real-estate agents and chambers of commerce in prosperous neighborhoods would brag about the high quality of public supermarkets to which families in their cities and towns are assigned.

Being largely protected from consumer choice, almost all public supermarkets would be worse than private ones. In poor counties the quality of public supermarkets would be downright abysmal. Poor people—entitled in principle to excellent supermarkets—would in fact suffer unusually poor supermarket quality.

How could it be otherwise? Public supermarkets would have captive customers and revenues supplied not by customers but by the government. Of course they wouldn't organize themselves efficiently to meet customers' demands. Responding to these failures, thoughtful souls would call for "supermarket choice" fueled by vouchers or tax credits. Those calls would be vigorously opposed by public-supermarket administrators and workers.

Opponents of supermarket choice would accuse its proponents of demonizing supermarket workers (who, after all, have no control over their customers' poor eating habits at home). Advocates of choice would also be accused of trying to deny ordinary families the food needed for survival. Such choice, it would be alleged, would drain precious resources from public supermarkets whose poor performance testifies to their overwhelming need for more public funds.

As for the handful of radicals who call for total separation of supermarket and state—well, they would be criticized by almost everyone as antisocial devils indifferent to the starvation that would haunt the land if the provision of groceries were governed exclusively by private market forces.

Conclusion

Of course, this analogy pushes at the margins, but it sometimes it takes pushing to an extreme to reveal the principle. If it seems ludicrous for our vital goods and services to be allocated in the way described above, is it not also ludicrous to administer education in this manner? Groceries, goods, and services are in fact supplied much more effectively by competitive markets in response to consumer need. So, it isn't that I am inherently cynical with government, but I see the free-market as far surperior. It has a much better track record.

"Underlying most arguments against the free-market is a lack of belief in freedom itself." -Milton Friedman


Blake

The Choice of Two Futures: Chart Edition

The Chairman of the House Budget Committee has been talking to anyone who will listen about the "choice of two futures" that the we have. He has been giving this presentation here. We need to begin to understand the future we have built for ourselves.

These charts will illustrate what I believe are some serious, if not daunting, problems that face our country. The argument is not merely ideological, it is actuarial. As my one and only option for President in 2012 Mitch Daniels says, "If you disagree with me about this, you can meet me in the hall and make sure you bring a third-grade math book."

Federal Spending in Outlays

Many of these graphs need no caption, but really? Does anyone think this is sustainable? For those who do not want to cut, my only question is: how was life before 1970? If all of this spending is essential, then how did Americans live before we had this many outlays. Again, not just ideological, but this problem is actuarial.

National Debt

I am sure this will end well for us.

Federal Budget Projections w/o Changes

"I do not make jokes. I just watch on the government and report the facts." - Will Rogers

Defense Spending



This chart is something of note. If we are ever going to save this republic, then everything has to be on the table. Republicans won't even mention cutting defense spending. Well, that is why I am a conservative. Does it make sense to have a higher defense budget than the other top 25 nations combined? And 24 of them being our allies? We should cut our empire building and military spending and focus on defense.

Rise of Consumer Prices

This is the subject of a whole another blog post. But, since the creation of the Federal Reserve and the move from the Gold Standard, the dollar has lost 95% of its value. The dollar that you once held in 1913 is only worth a nickle today. You can dismiss it and say..."Well we have always had inflation!" Not true. Prices stayed flat for most of our history. Inflation is primarily a product of having a central bank and the printing of money that has occurred for close to 100 years now. Not only are we spending more, accumulating more debt, but prices are skyrocketing.

Government Dependence vs. Personal Savings

Lower interest rates of allowed Americans to borrow more and save less. But given the high correlation between rising entitlement income to personal saving, one can't help but wonder if Americans feel less compelled to save money as they can depend on the government more and more. It is an unsustainable course for us and for the State.

Broken Education System

Everyone who reads this blog knows this is probably my biggest public policy passion: education. Whenever I ask people how to fix education, people always respond with "more money." But, the facts just do not support it. The system must be changed before I would commit any more money to the education system. We have tripled our support to education and scores have remained flat. Minority graduation rates in many states across the country are below 50%. Why does anyone defend the status quo? We need a model based on freedom, choice, and competition.


One of the biggest fallacies of government is to judge programs by their intention and not their results. This is one of those cases.


Losing the War on Poverty






I do not disregard the need to have a safety net for the underprivileged--I just differ on the means. We have judged welfare and the war on poverty by its intentions rather than its results.

In early 60s, the American welfare state was still relatively small, consuming only 1.2 percent of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP). The American family was also still intact, with 93 percent of children born into stable families. But then President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty happened. Forty-five years and $16 trillion later, thanks to big government, poverty is winning. Thanks to over $900 billion a year (over 5 percent of GDP) of spending on over 70 means-tested welfare programs spread over 13 government agencies, more than 40 million Americans currently receive food stamps, poverty is higher today than it was in the 1970s, and 40 percent of all children are born outside of marriage.


Out of Wedlock Births and Poverty

The breakdown of the state has coincided with the breakdown of the home. If we cannot reverse some of the dramatic trends amond the American family, we will much less happy and more broke. We need to promote marriage, take away the tax incentives that discourage marriage, and promote traditional values.

Conclusion

We have a choice between two futures. There is one that is obviously unsustainable that I have outlined here. Our founders were aware of this:

"Remember democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."
-- John Adams, letter to John Taylor, April 15, 1814

Let's reverse course before it is too late.

Blake