Stu's Views

The California Assembly this week passed by one vote a bill to allow the Toyota Prius and Honda Civic Hybrid into HOV lanes in the state. These two cars run partially on electricity and get more than 45 miles to the gallon as a result. The bill now goes to Governor Arnold for signature.

Needless to say, American car companies are up in arms. California is favoring foreign cars over our own and at the very least the California legislature should give forthcoming hybrid SUV's (reported to get 31 miles to the gallon) the same treatment as the Toyota and Honda hybrids.

Yeah, that makes sense. The point of this bill is to give consumers a greater incentive to buy cars that use less gasoline. California has profound smog problems and less pollution from cars would help all citizens of the state. The benefits go to hybrid car owners and to all those who breathe California's polluted air. Giving the benefits to SUVs that perform no better than non-hybrid cars would defeat the purpose of the bill.

The costs go to non-hybrid manufacturers, but they can do something about it by manufacturing hybrid cars. There is also of course a slight cost to those who currently drive in the HOV lane and now will have a small number of additional cars in their lane. This will be a small diffuse cost at first but could eventually grow if the bill has the intended effect of creating an incentive for additional hybrid purchases.

The bill helps the environment and is a tiny step to reducing our oil dependence. This is worth the small cost to American companies and current HOV drivers. Lets hope Arnie has the guts to say no to Detroit and yes to California.

I watched John Kerry on the Daily Show last night and was relieved to see him not strain to be funny and to play well with Jon Stewart. He has taken some hits lately however from the scurrilous attack ads from the Bush campaign/Swift Boat Veterans. It is all well and good to ask Bush to take responsibility for the ads and to actively combat the ads by refuting their facts. I'd like to see Kerry hit back however. Here is what I'd like to see him say.

More than thirty years ago, I learned an important lesson—when you’re under attack, the best thing to do is turn your boat into the attacker. (he has actually said this already). Now John Edwards and I have tried very hard to run a positive campaign. Both of us attribute our success in the Democratic primary to our ability to remain positive. However just as I learned in Vietnam some attacks must be met head on.

Using surrogates to attack me shows George Bush's lack of courage and inability to be a leader. This is not the first time he has used this technique. In 2000 his allies attacked John McCain whose heroism in Vietnam dwarves mine. Hiding behind such attacks while appearing above the fray is not good politics, it is bad leadership. If George Bush believes the ads of his allies he should say so and we will have a backward looking debate on our respective service during Vietnam. If not, he should condemn the ads forcefully and unambiguously.

George Bush has also called me a flip-flopper. This is a charge he feels comfortable making himself. And well he should because George Bush knows flip flops. In the 2000 campaign he condemned "nation building." Now we are building nations in Afghanistan and Iraq. He opposed a Department of Homeland Security. Then he supported it. He opposed campaign finance reform, then he supported it, now he condemns its results. Finally and most importantly, he opposed a commission to investigate the most significant attack on United States soil and only when the brave families of those who lost their loved ones in the attack made him look bad did he support such a commission.

George Bush's biggest flip flop is his so called "compassionate conservatism." I'm reminded of that old Saturday Night Live sketch, "George Bush is neither compassionate nor a conservative, please discuss amongst yourselves." It is not compassionate to preside an economy where 1.8 million jobs disappear and to praise outsourcing and give tax breaks to companies who shift operations overseas. It is not conservative to have record deficits and continue to insist on cutting taxes. If this is compassionate conservatism, I'd hate to see cold blooded reactionaryism.

Or something along those lines.

My vacation reading was "The American Political Tradition" (yes, I'm a geek), a 1948 classic by Richard Hofstadter. Hofstadter chronicles the political lives of ten or so crucial figures from Jefferson to FDR. While each chapter stands on its own, his central argument is that many of the key figures in American political history have had remarkably similar ideologies. Each election cycle brings not a confrontation between ideological poles but rather a pitched battle over small differences and personalities.

Hofstadter's case is convincing and was echoed in a recent New York Times Magazine article on the future of the Democratic Party. The article discussed the major fundraisers on the left (led by George Soros) who are striving to build a new structure on the left which may or may not include the Democratic Party. These forces, exemplified by the Howard Dean movement, feel that the two parties are too similar and that a new perspective is necessary. This point, also argued by Ralph Nader, leads inevitably to the conclusion that the 2004 election does not matter as much as many believe, and perhaps that a Kerry defeat would best serve the interests of the left by forcing change in the Democratic Party more rapidly.

I could not disagree more strongly. I think Hofstadter would as well. The Bush Presidency is a fundamental break with a number of the commonalities held by previous generations of Democrats and Republicans alike. Bush, more than any President since the 19th century harkens back to an era when capitalism was unfettered by government intervention. No one, not even Reagan, has approached this level of laissez faire at least since Hoover, and possibly since McKinnley and Cleveland. In foreign policy, the break with the recent past goes even further. The doctrine of preemption appears to be a Monroe Doctrine, but for the entire world.

The Kerry view seems to fit squarely in the mainstream of 20th Century thought. One of the reasons that this election is so important is that a rejection of the Bush doctrine is necessary. A victory for Bush, coupled with continued Republican control of Congress, would move us further from the 20th century consensus of capitalism constrained by government. The left hopes that eventually our economic system will become more like that of Europe. But a Bush victory could mean that the 21st century will evince a move in the opposite direction that could last a generation.

The other reason that a Bush defeat is so important is that the short term costs of a victory are too high to contemplate. Voices on the right are already contemplating the next application of the preemptive doctrine (Iran?). Four more years of deficits will make Social Security and Medicare even harder to salvage. Four more years of regulatory rollbacks will cost many workers, breathers of polluted air, and consumers of contaminated food their health.

It may be comforting to think that a Bush victory will lead the country to eventually move leftward in reaction to four more years of his policies. But that is idle speculation at best and dangerous at worst. Granted, I believe in the American system of constrained capitalism, but even if I was further left on the ideological spectrum I would not want to take the risk that a Bush victory could take the country back more than a century and embroil us in a war that has no end.

I grew up in the wilds of Manhattan in New York City. Those who know me will vouch for the fact that I have always had a distinctly urban sensibility. While I have always considered myself an environmentalist, it has always been of the "pollution is bad because it kills people" environmentalism rather than the "oh look at that nice tree" environmentalism.

We returned last week from a week and a half out west in Colorado, Utah, and Las Vegas. The first two parts of the trip were so filled with sights of incredible beauty (Las Vegas was incredible too, but for different reasons) that I find myself sympathizing more with the preservationist side of the environmental movement than I ever have before.

The first part of the trip was something of a surprise. While I figured that driving across the Rockies would be cool, I was not prepared for the breathtaking nature of the ride across I-70. The Colorado River nestled among the towering peaks was an amazing sight. The next part of our drive was equally surprising. The portion of I70 from Grand Junction to central Utah is filled with scenic pullouts that were all worth taking the time to see.

We then went to Bryce and Zion National Parks. Bryce, for those who haven't seen it is beautifully filled with red rocks and hoodoos. Zion, while not as immediately striking as Bryce, wins the prize for top sight on the trip. It combines the majesty of the Grand Canyon with the beauty of Bryce and across every turn is another memorable mixture of mountain, canyon, and river.

In my last post, I mentioned that many regulatory changes were easily reversible when the political climate changes. Destroying a natural wonder is not reversible however. The irreversibility of decisions involving such areas (like say the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) has to raise the bar on the policy decision to do so. It is hard (not impossible, just very hard) to imagine benefits high enough to justify taking away any such havens.

The Washington Post today continued its front page series on the Bush regulatory record with an examination of the Information Quality Act (IQA). This act, written by an industry lobbyist, and tacked on to an appropriations bill in 2000 has been used by the Bush Administration to roll back several environmental initiatives.

Observers of the regulatory world are well familiar with the Information Quality Act (also called the Data Quality Act). The Act, and subsequent guidelines published by OMB allow those outside government to challenge information disseminated by a government agency. If that information is used to support a regulation, then the regulation could be derailed by a successful IQA challenge.

I have thought of the IQA as the sleeping giant of the Bush regulatory effort and applaud the Post for giving it the coverage it deserves. Rolling back specific regulations or refusing to issue new regulations is what one would expect from an administration supported by industry and conservative groups. While the net social costs of these individual decisions are likely to be large, they are reversible when a new Administration comes in to power.

Changes to the regulatory process however have the potential to be much longer lasting. That said, many of the process changes put in place by the Bush Administration have been designed to give the executive more control over the regulatory process. Such changes could be used by a pro-regulation President to force agencies to regulate just as easily as they are being used to thwart regulatory efforts by Bush.

The one possible notable exception is the IQA. If petitioners can cast significant doubt on the science underlying a regulation, then they may be able to stop regulatory efforts themselves. The effectiveness of this approach hinges on a question ignored by the Post article. Are agency decisions on information quality challenges judicially reviewable?

To this date only one lower court has ruled on this question and the decision has been that they are not. If future courts (and probably eventually the Supremes) concur, then the IQA will be a nuisance but will have little long term effects. Agencies will be forced to respond to challenges but such responses can be perfunctory and if supported by a pro-regulation administration, dismissive. Furthermore, pro-regulation groups will be able to use the act to prompt a sympathetic administration to strengthen regulatory proposals.

If, on the other hand, courts can review agency responses then the IQA has the potential to have a huge impact on the regulatory process. Agencies will have to spend much more time and care responding to petitions. Anti-regulation groups will have another avenue (legal challenges to agency responses) to derail regulatory efforts. Courts, particularly those populated by anti-regulatory judges, may be prone to overturn agency dismissals of information qualtiy challenges. The regulatory agencies will find their work gringing to a halt. This could be the most important legacy in the regulatory arena of the Bush Administration.

Of my primary interests, the Yankees and Knicks seem to hit the front pages more often than the regulatory process. While I understand why that happens, it deprives the public of an understanding of the importance of regulatory politics and the effect it has on people's lives. This weekend showed a reversal of that trend with front page articles in the Washington Post and New York Times.

Both articles are written from a pro-regulatory perspective and focus on the regulatory rollback by the Bush Administration. Both quote at length the supervisor of my old office, John Graham. The Post article (which is the first of a three part series) highlights OSHA and the lack of regulatory activity at the agency. The article is correctly critical of the absence of any significant regulation by OSHA in three years. While it is easy to argue that OSHA has been known to over-regulate, it is impossible to say there is nothing left for the agency to do and defend a three year absence of new regulations. Particular actions such as the deletion of items from OSHA's overcrowded agenda and scrapping some particular regulations may be defensible, but not without an effort by the agency to say where its regulatory priorities lie and the taking of some positive regulatory steps.

The Times article looks at the bigger picture, the significant decrease in regulatory activity across the government. The article appears largely to be informed by the report by the Center for American Progress which I commented on in May. While I agree with the central point of the article (that the Bush rollback has occured in secret and most people do not understand the impact of the rollback on their lives) I think the point could have been made more effectively.

In particular, the chief graphic accompanying the article shows the decreased cost of regulations under Bush compared with his three predecessors (yes, including Reagan). This however by itself is a good thing. In order to make the point that the public is suffering from the regulatory rollback, the article needed to make the point that the benefits received by the public from regulation has decreased. Report after report has shown that the benefits of many (thought certainly not all) regulations outweigh their costs. If Bush is regulating less, he is probably hurting the welfare of the public by doing so. It is harder to make this point but in the end, much more convincing than merely saying there are fewer regulations or lower regulatory costs.

I recently finished reading Caitlin Flanagan's article from the March Atlantic (once again struggling to keep up) about the use of nanny's to provide child care. She makes some outstanding points about how upper class families have solved the dilemma of child care on the backs of the lower class and illegal immigrants. She is particularly effective in skewering those who do not pay social security for their nannies, pointing out that this is not a trivial technical offense but rather a deprivation of retirement benefits from those who need it the most.

Flanagan points out something that many of us would rather ignore or minimize. Having a child requires tremendous sacrifices and entails important and difficult choices. She focuses on the sacrifice of independence and career faced by women and the painful choices they must make. Advice givers who either minimize the sacrifice or tell women they can have it all are doing a tremendous disservice to their clientele.

There is a gaping hole in Flanagan's criticism however. Nowhere does she talk about sharing the sacrifice with the father (assuming the father is present to share the sacrifice with). We are still grappling with the feminist revolution that has unfolded (and continues to unfold) over the past 50 years. Flanagan's article shows that there is still a fair distance to travel before anything approaching equality is achieved.

Unless and until we think of the challenge of raising children as one in which both parents must make sacrifices and difficult choices, then women will be seen as the primary caregivers for children and will not see equality in the workplace or in the political sphere. The public policies that will have to reflect such a changed perspective are numerous. Paternity leave as well as maternity leave. Flexible work schedules for all parents. Reimbursement for child care for fathers as well as mothers (we don't reimburse mothers much yet, but I can dream).

These types of policies will have a cascading effect on culture and the workplace. Men will have to face the choice of going on the "daddy" track and seeing their peers move ahead of them. The demand for child care may decrease as both parents have the opportunity to be caregivers. At the same time subsidies for child care could drive the quality up making it a more acceptable alternative for parents. To get toward any of these goals however requires a change in the way we think about parenting. And that is something we as a country are not yet ready to do, in my mind unfortunately.

(off on vacation so probably no posts for two weeks).