We have been reminded of yet another ridiculous use of taxpayers' hard earned money by government. The Westsylvania Heritage Corporation has decided to discontinue its magazine because the taxpayer dollars that have been subsidizing it have, for the time being, dried up.

Now, I'm pretty happy about this turn of events, but why were the readers and producers of this magazine deserving of a subsidy in the first place? As reported on its website (westsylvania.org), Westsylvania was a creation of a number people in nine counties in southwestern Pennsylvania in the 1980s. Trouble was, to achieve their objectives such as publishing a magazine, they needed money. One solution was to use their own money and another was to ask for contributions. Yet another was to produce goods and services that would generate revenues that covered their costs. But why bother asking people when, with the right person's help, you can just take what you want? And who was that person with the power of reaching into taxpayers' pockets? None other than Super Thief himself, John Murtha, Prince of Pork and poster boy for government corruption. From Westsylvania's website: "Public Law 100-698 made it possible for millions of federal dollars to flow into southwestern Pennsylvania, providing opportunities for communities to discover and tell their stories in a way that had not existed before."

I'm sure people in northern and eastern Pennsylvania and the other 49 states recognized that story-telling by people in nine counties in southwestern Pennsylvania was a priority item for America. I remember thinking myself back in 1988, when I was making a major and costly transition in my life, that maybe there were stories somewhere waiting to be told and I sure hoped somebody would use the government to force me to pay to have those stories made known. Thank heaven for Westsylvania and John Murtha, who so nobly saved the Republic by keeping me from spending my money on such trifling expenses as rent, transportation, education, and the upkeep of a family. Surely we can all agree that spending the money I earned as I saw fit was a clear threat to the common good!

Now, it turns out that Westsylvania's magazine cannot raise enough revenues to justify its existence through subscriptions, advertisement sales, and donations. Think of that. There is so little demand for this magazine that it can't raise sufficient funding from the three basic revenue generators available for any publisher. You might think that given this proof of its lack of consequence that the right thing would have been to never have published at all. But you see, the people at Westsylvania and their friends in government consider you and me to be stupid to think like that. The lack of demand for this product is not respected as free people making free decisions; but rather, our choices are disdained by these people reaching into our pockets. They know best, in their minds, how our money should be spent and shame on us if we raise a peep.

The public funding of Westsylvania aptly illustrates McGinnis's Axiom One of Public Policy: Government, at all levels, is too big. (I stole this from Thomas Jefferson who is reputed to have said, "The government that governs least, governs best.") Government does too much and it spends too much and every dollar it spends is one less for you and me to spend. What else can you conclude when you see an ongoing subsidy for the readers and publishers of a magazine that can't justify its existence in the world of voluntary action?

And here is Axiom Two: Bad government projects never occur in isolation. How did John Murtha get the rest of Congress to go along with this pork? He went along with theirs. Every bad project, every overreach of government necessarily begets hundreds more.

And now a theorem for you geometry buffs: Government spending at all levels and in all ways must be opposed. Here is the proof: Governments will always overreach (Axiom One) and their costs will always fall on the taxpayer (Axiom Two). So, if only in self-defense, each of us has a moral obligation to everywhere and always oppose government spending. Q.E.D.

The opinions and ideas expressed in this essay are those of John D McGinnis and should not be considered representative of WRTA.com, any institution with which McGinnis is associated, or anyone else.  He can be contacted at john@wrta.com.

Perhaps it's unfair to infer an economic outlook from a single quotation, but John Eichelberger left me uncomfortable in his start as the new state senator from the 30th District.  When he announced his new team on Wednesday, Mr. Eichelberger said the following: "A lot of people say jobs are their primary concern, so it will be one of ours."
 
I really did think John Eichelberger understood freedom better than that quotation implies, but like almost all politicians apparently he doesn't understand the first thing about it.  And the first thing about freedom is that it's short for freedom from government coercion.
 
A popular term of the past year has been RINOs--Republicans in Name Only.  Maybe the real Republican party is a party for pretenders.  What Eichelberger is doing with his focus on "economic development" and jobs is the same as what George Bush is doing with education--socializing it.  Sure, the Republican party has claimed that the Department of Education should be done away with, but Mr. Bush saw fit to expand its budget dramatically and expand its involvement in education.  And the loudest complaint in the campaign this past year (often made by none other than John Eichelberger) was that state government is strangling our economy.  Apparently, Mr. Eichelberger now thinks we ought to continue government oversight and direction of the economy here in PA.
 
Real economic development (not the phony government kind) is actually about producing goods and services that people prefer more than other goods and services.  Anybody can take money, buy something with it, and then claim he is engaged in economic development.  The issue isn't whether you can spend money, it's what you buy with it.  All history indicates that private investors have a better track record than government when it comes to economic development.  The logic is simple: Private investors bear the full costs of their decisions, while reaping all the benefits, so they are very careful with how they spend their money.  Government officials bear none of the costs of their decisions. They are, after all, spending the money that you and I earned.  And the benefits they seek are not economic benefits, but political ones.  They seek to curry special interests and laden their supporters with subsidies and special deals.
 
Nothing is more basic in economics than the dictum that "Incentives matter."  For authentic economic development, the private sector has the right incentives, whereas the government has very poor incentives.  Expecting sound economic development decisions by government is equivalent to expecting sound decision-making by drug addicts.  It's expecting what never was and never will be--that our elected officials are more knowledgeable, more moral, and more selfless than the rest of us.  

Rule number one for government in a free society is that government should NOT do anything that the private sector can do better.  Economic development is Exhibit A of what the private sector does better than government as the socialist countries of the past 100 years have taught us.  Mr. Eichelberger's move should be to abolish all involvement by state government in economic development instead of hiring a director of economic development and espousing a mission for himself of job creation.
 
The elections of last May and this past November were supposed to be about changing the course of political economy in our state from the back room deals of Robert Jubelirer and his ilk to a move toward freedom.  Instead, recent developments in Harrisburg and the comment above by John Eichelberger suggest that the best we can expect ahead is Jubelirer-Lite.  The worst is that Ed Rendell will complete his mission of making every citizen of Pennsylvania beholding to him.


The opinions and ideas expressed in this essay are those of John D McGinnis and should not be considered representative of WRTA.com, any institution with which McGinnis is associated, or anyone else.  He can be contacted at john@wrta.com.

In one of the memorial pieces I read about Milton Friedman, an author recalled a debate in 1970 between General William Westmoreland and Professor Friedman on whether or not there should be a draft.  The general, in favor of continuing the draft, said he didn't think it appropriate to staff the army with a bunch of mercenaries.  The great professor replied that he didn't think it appropriate to staff the army with a bunch of slaves.  The general then said he resented patriotic draftees being called slaves to which Friedman retorted that he resented patriotic volunteers being called mercenaries.  It was one of the million or so debates that Professor Friedman won--there is no record of him ever losing to anyone.  That rather impressive debating record probably had something to do with him always having truth and freedom on his side.
 
It seems like just last month the draft was a long discredited idea just like the minimum wage.  Well, it was last month, but suddenly both of these bad ideas are getting play nationally and getting support from so-called conservatives like Michael Savage.  Apparently we all need to be reminded that coercion is a bad thing and particularly with regard to military service.
 
A military that is dependent on draftees almost certainly is going to have morale problems and morale is a huge factor in military success.  It's also likely that soldiers will be greatly underpaid since it's unnecessary to entice them away from other pursuits.  And this is the point that Charles Rangel and others in favor of a draft always miss--all people, especially poor people, are better off with options rather than without options.  A volunteer army provides options for every potential enlistee and those options are likely to be more valuable to poor people than to rich.  Rangel's proposal of a draft is not the first idea of a politician's whose intention to help poor people would make them worse off.
 
One thing I don't understand is how we've ever had a draft in this country after the passage of the 13th Amendment, since it expressly forbids involuntary servitude.  What else can a draft be except the implementation of a system of involuntary servitude?  Apparently the people arguing for a draft think it's okay to ignore the Constitution.
 
Related to this topic, I have a suggestion--Scrap the G.I. Bill.  Why should people who serve their country be limited to educational and other specified benefits upon discharge?  Let's figure out what these future benefits for veterans are worth and simply give those who have served their country a tax-free lump sum distribution.  (I would also suggest that any investments they make with the money retain tax-free status. Of course, I would recommend tax-free status for all our incomes--wasn't that what the War for Independence was all about?)  If our veterans want to use that money for education, fine; but if they want to use it for other things, then that should be fine too.  What's the harm in expanding options for our veterans?  And if the worst happens and a soldier dies in service to our country, then the heirs of the soldier can receive this distribution.  Let's make sure fair compensation is provided for all our heroes, especially the ones who make the ultimate sacrifice.
 
The G.I. Bill was created in 1944 because the government, in typically bad economic thinking, believed that returning servicemen from World War II would overwhelm the economy.  One of the aims of the bill was to keep veterans out of the job market during the transition period from war to peace.  Even if there was some validity to that thinking then, it certainly holds no merit now.  The truth is that by giving money and options directly to our veterans, politicians curry favor only with the veterans and their supporters.  By restricting benefits to education, the politicians gain favor, not just with veterans, but with the education bloc as well.  For politicians, it's all about how to get the most mileage of the goodies they have to distribute, even if it means shortchanging those who have so honorably served in the military.



The opinions and ideas expressed in this essay are those of John D McGinnis and should not be considered representative of WRTA.com, any institution with which McGinnis is associated, or anyone else.  He can be contacted at john@wrta.com.

Let's say you are taxed $30 a month to cover some government service like disposal of your sewage. Then the government gets the idea to form a public-private partnership (sounds like Mussolini to me), by which it means that it will lease the rights to the sewage service to a private company. In other words, you will now pay the private company directly to take care of your sewage. But instead of reducing your taxes by $30 since it offloaded the service it was providing while insisting you pay the private provider directly for it, the government keeps taxing you $30 for other projects it deems fit. The government then claims that they've expanded and improved your sewage service without raising your taxes. How wonderful of them! But if you check your bank balance at the end of each month you will find it just as depleted as if there had been a tax increase.

That's the nonsense that's going on with the proposal from the PA Transportation Funding Commission for public-private partnerships, often referred to as P3. The Philadelphia Inquirer tells us that the commission was created the same day Governor Ed Rendell stole $400 million dollars marked for highway improvement and gave it to Philadelphia for its mass transit system known as SEPTA. And even the usually sensible and skeptical Commonwealth Foundation has fallen for the gimmick in its November 16th press release. [commonwealthfoundation.org]

A little Public Choice theory is appropriate here. If legislators and governors confined their activities to those projects that benefit the general welfare, they would simply be stewards of the public trust with little to do in managing a small and limited government. But since these people are desirous of power and wealth, they don't confine their activities for the general welfare, but systematically curry special interest. They try to buy the farmers' votes with agricultural subsidies, the educators' votes with school subsidies, the environmentalists' votes with regulations, the manufacturers' votes with economic development grants, etc. But even legislators and governors are not capable of creating a free lunch. When it comes to spending tax revenues, they have to choose between using the tax revenues for buying votes or for legitimate projects, like transportation infrastructure, that benefit the entire Commonwealth. Obviously the former will get more of their attention than the latter.

The Commonwealth Foundation seems to be supportive of this new way to drain our pockets for infrastructure. Really, what difference does it make if we pay the extra $1.7 billion a year for highway improvement as a tax or as a toll? The whole problem is that the government is spending way too much. It can pursue its illegitimate functions more easily by offloading its legitimate functions to the private sector. The government has historically said that it has to build and maintain highways and that's why it started taxing us in the first place. Now it says it has other purposes for those taxes so we will have to pay for the highways via tolls, while the government takes our hard-earned money to fund its vote generating programs.

This is like the call for a national sales tax--do not accept the fair tax until the income tax is Constitutionally forbidden. Do not accept the offloading of government services to the private sector until there is a commensurate decrease in our tax burden. We must insist that our state government abide by the following three principles:

Principle One: Our state government is already too big and spends too much of our money.

Corollary of Principle One: No increase in taxes is warranted. State government needs to prioritize its activities, giving more focus to its legitimate duties such as tending to transportation infrastructure and away from redistribution. This may require a restructuring of its budget by moving more appropriations from welfare (such as economic, education, agriculture, and other subsidies) to those functions that promote the general welfare, such as justice and infrastructure.

Principle Two: Our state government is already too big and spends too much of our money.

Principle Three: Always remember Principles One and Two.
 


The opinions and ideas expressed in this essay are those of John D McGinnis and should not be considered representative of WRTA.com, any institution with which McGinnis is associated, or anyone else.  He can be contacted at john@wrta.com.

It could have been worse, I guess, although it's hard to see how.  In any case, the lesson of Tuesday's election is that if you lie to yourself, you'll have a pretty stiff price to pay at some point.  For the conservatives who have been lying to themselves that George Bush is one of them, the settlement day is November 7, 2006.
 
Let's see.  The Democrats will be in control of both houses; Nancy Pelosi will be Speaker of the House; Harry Reid will be senate majority leader; Patrick Leahy will be chair of the judiciary committee.  That line-up means that there won't be another conservative on the federal bench for at least two years and probably a good deal longer.  The War on Terrorists is for the time being lost.  Smaller government (W did promise that didn't he?) has no chance and taxes and tax rates will be raised.  Spending will increase at Bush-like rates, but not for anything but liberal, that is failing, programs that undermine personal responsibility.  
 
It seems like just last month Arlen Specter was telling us he is next in line for Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee--wait a minute, it was last month!  Is this the silver lining in Tuesday's results?  Will Evil Arlen have incentive to retire now that he is back in the minority and is near powerless?  I know it's wishful thinking, but give me a bone here, okay?
 
Of George Bush's many sins, the one that has cost his party and this country the most is his lack of faith in democracy and capitalism.  I can accept that he really did believe that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat to the United States.  The latter, of course, does not necessarily follow from the former and is preposterous if you think about it.  But after finding no weapons, what rationale did Mr. Bush give for remaining in Iraq?  To spread democracy and capitalism.  Truth to tell, Mr. Bush never uses the word capitalism, but democracy without capitalism is what subjugated Eastern Europe from 1945 to 1989.  I'm hoping that democratic socialism is not what Bush is intending for the Mid-East.
 
It seems to me that trying to spread democracy and capitalism through military occupation is pretty much the textbook definition of cognitive dissonance.  People who think that way have a tendency to ignore important little details such as their oaths to uphold the Constitution of the United States, which gives no power to the president to invade another country, let alone occupy it in the hopes of spreading democracy.
 
I can also accept Bush at his word that the whole reason for spreading democracy is to render terrorism obsolete.  Trouble is that for the terrorists, the wahhabis, it is democracy which they seek to make obsolete.
 
Basically, Mr. Bush lacks faith in the fundamental goodness and popularity of democratic capitalism.  He thinks it has to be forced on people.  In truth, capitalsim is the regime most consistent with social harmony.  "People will come, Ray," says the character Thomas Mann in the movie "Field of Dreams" about the attraction of baseball.  The same is many times more true of capitalism.  All one needs is a little faith in freedom to understand that people don't need to be forced into capitalism at the point of a gun.  Our President has no such faith and now his party and our country will pay the price for his infidelity.
 


The opinions and ideas expressed in this essay are those of John D McGinnis and should not be considered representative of WRTA.com, any institution with which McGinnis is associated, or anyone else.  He can be contacted at john@wrta.com. This essay also appears at the Penn Patriot blog. 

A week ago the Republican Party was set for its biggest defeat since 1964. Then John Kerry reported for duty. Was that enough to save the GOP?

The short answer is, "No," but thanks for trying your best, Mr. Kerry.

The Democrats need a pick-up of 15 seats to take control of the House of Representatives and to anoint Nancy Pelosi as Madame Speaker. That is a done deal. My prediction is that they'll pick up at least 20 seats despite the cheerleading you hear from Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, John from Sinking Valley, and others who, shall we say, are not particularly disinterested observers.

Voting closes in Indiana at 7 PM and the race to watch there is in Indiana's 2nd Congressional district. Incumbent Chris Chocola will likely lose and that's a shame and not just because he has the best last name in Congress. (Why didn't his parents name him, Choo-Choo?) But if Chocola wins, and he does have a chance, that could bode well for the Republicans, but still not well enough to stop them from becoming a minority party.

In Pennsylvania, there are two Congressional races to watch early. In the 8th district, Republican Mike Fitzpatrick should win against Patrick Murphy, but if he doesn't that will likely signal a very bad night for the GOP. On the other hand, if Republican Jim Gerlach retains his seat in the 6th Congressional district over Lois Murphy, that could mean the Republicans will lose fewer than 20 seats in the House and maybe even, though this is a very long shot, fewer than 15, which would keep them the majority party. It would also mean that Democrats would be filing lawsuits across the fifty states insisting that they were robbed.

In the Senate, I'm predicting a net pick-up of five for the Democrats, which will make it 50-50 in the new Senate, leaving it to Dick Cheney to decide who the majority party will be. I'll leave you in suspense by saving my prediction on that decision for another day.

Rick Santorum is toast and I mean the burnt black, butterless kind. That's a sad fact, but not as sad as realizing that Bob Casey Jr. is the new junior senator from the Keystone state. I'm guessing Rick Santorum's concession speech won't be like the famous chess grandmaster, who upon losing a match to an inferior player said, "I can't believe I lost to this idiot," and then promptly urinated on the chess board. But I wouldn't blame him if it came to that. Santorum, however, should take consolation in the fact that, despite being from a blue state, he has been the most conservative member of the Senate for two terms. Yes, he has compromised his principles a few times, but remarkably few given the nature of politics. To Mr. Santorum, I say thank-you, and wish him an even better career outside of politics.

The toss-up senatorial races are Maryland and Virginia. I think they'll both go democratic. Republican Steele in Maryland has waged a flawless campaign, but faces an overwhelmingly democratic state. He could pull it out, but the call here is that he won't. A similar result will occur in Virginia where George Allen ran on the opposite strategy of Mr. Steele--a really, really bad campaign making as many missteps as a millipede on drugs. Personally, I never much cared for Mr. Allen or any other politician "drawn" to office on daddy's name. That list is a long one, I know, but I just don't feel de facto primogeniture has a place in American government.

So when the dust clears in the morning, expect to hear a few hundred renditions of "Happy Days are Here Again." For the Democrats, the gains are just the beginning as full control of the Senate and occupancy at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is theirs for the taking in 2008. Perhaps even better news for the Democrats are their pick-ups in state offices and governorships, which will give them the power of redistricting in 2010.

For my Republican friends, don't despair. Remember that out of the ashes of the 1964 massacre was born the political career of the greatest president of the 20th century. Remember also that politics is a process and long-run success can only come about by having sound principles and acting on them every day. That's the strategy that brought Ronald Reagan to the Presidency in 1980 and the Republican Party to House Majority in 1994.  It can do it again.


The opinions and ideas expressed in this essay are those of John D McGinnis and should not be considered representative of WRTA.com, any institution with which McGinnis is associated, or anyone else.  He can be contacted at john@wrta.com. This essay also appears at the Penn Patriot blog.

This isn't exactly a news flash, but Robert Casey Jr. is pretty light between the ears. Witness his four point take on Social Security.

Point one he makes is that we have to squelch any crazy privatization plan that people like Rick Santorum are suggesting. Point two he says is to quit raiding the surplus paid into Social Security. But isn't that what creating private accounts is all about? The whole idea of private accounts is simply to take the overpayment and instead of letting the government spend it however it wants, we create instead secure ownership rights for the taxpayer and future retiree. To borrow a phrase from another Democrat: Think lock-box.

Even if such action costs $1 trillion today as Mr. Casey suggests, it will save us many trillions in the future. Can't we at least let the actuaries let us know if that is a good deal?

Effectively, Mr. Casey is arguing against himself on points one and two. There is probably no better solution to the bait-and-switch element of Social Security than mandating that the surplus taxes become again the property of taxpayers, which is what private accounts would accomplish. Yes, it would be more sensible to just let people keep their own money and manage their own retirements, but I doubt Mr. Casey is ever going to see the wisdom in that.

Casey's point three is to tax the rich, which is the preferred solution of socialists everywhere for every problem. Yet, which socialist paradise is swimming in wealth thanks to progressive taxation? Since the rich are the ones who create jobs and produce and augment capital, taxing them is a very counterproductive thing for a government to do.

Point four of Casey's, and this is the most sure sign of the deficit between his ears, is that a growing economy will make the Social Security shortfall less of a problem. But even if there weren't a problem with the demographics of the imminent huge retirement population, a growing economy means worse problems for Social Security. That is because Social Security's promises are based on what one earns--the more you earn, the more you are entitled to receive. At the margin, for each dollar someone earns, his benefit goes up by either 32 cents or 15 cents; but the Social Security Tax (Please don't call it a contribution!) is only 12.4 cents per dollar. Even a public school grad ought to be able to do that math--the more the economy grows and the more people earn, the greater the outflows of Social Security compared to its inflows.

It seems very likely the Mr. Casey will become the next U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania. He will be either 99th or 100th in terms of seniority among the 100 senators and a member of the minority party. As a result, he will be either 99th or 100th in terms of power. Given his substantial intellectual impairment, we can all be thankful for that.
 

The opinions and ideas expressed in this essay are those of John D McGinnis and should not be considered representative of WRTA.com, any institution with which McGinnis is associated, or anyone else.  He can be contacted at john@wrta.com.

Some quotations from a prominent national journal of opinion:

"Not for the first time, we are left to wonder: Does the Bush administration truly believe Iraq is as important as it says it is?"[i]
 
"Our civilian instruments of national power remain lethargic and expensive.  We have failed to deliver on our promises to the people of Iraq."[ii]
 
"Although in guerrilla war control of territory guarantees little, after three and a half years we are not even safe in the Green Zone."[iii]
 
"The war is being lost on the homefront, but it is also being lost in Iraq."[iv]
 
"I supported the invasion of Iraq and also warned of chaos if we did not secure the country fast.  Are we losing?  Yes."[v]
 
"If our object was merely to topple a dictator whose continuation in office embodied pre-9/11 America's lack of will, then the war's already won.  On the other hand, if the purpose was to demonstrate such strength of will as to deter future troublemakers, then clearly Iraq's been a flop: Assad and the mullahs had far more sleepless nights in the spring of 2003 than they do today."[vi]
 
"By just about every measure, our strategy is not succeeding."[vii]
 

If this sounds like more bluster from the MoveOn.org crowd, think again.  These were the opinions in the most recent issue of National Review, a publication that has been a staunch supporter of George Bush and the American invasion and occupation of Iraq.  The title of the piece where you can find these quotations is "Last Chance for Iraq?"[viii]  They are not selective quotations, but represent the consensus in the piece that the Iraq War is now pretty much a disaster for America.
 
When such Bush loyalists as the National Review's opinion makers are ready to throw in the towel, one probably should admit that the war is lost.  There's no sense kidding ourselves about it and there's no sense losing any more American lives.  Crazy John Murtha is beginning to look sane.
 
If there's any consolation in losing the war in Iraq, it's that winning it doesn't matter anyway.  There are at least 50 million militant Muslims wishing us evil and most of them are NOT in Iraq.  If we woke up tomorrow and everything were calm, peaceful, orderly, and democratic in Iraq, we'd be no more secure against the terrorists than we were on September 10, 2001.  That is the flip side of the argument that we fight in Iraq so we don't have to fight at home--when the Iraq venture is over, successful or not, then it will be time for the terrorists to bring their evil to American shores again.
 
But why do the militant Muslims wish us evil?  Because they hate us.  Why do they hate us?  There seem to be two possible answers to that question.  One choice is that they hate America because of our government's involvement in the Middle East, which includes our support of Israel and our military presence on Arab soil.  The war in Iraq has not only exacerbated that hate and made it more convenient for our enemies to attack us, but it is also al-Qaeda's top marketing asset.  
 
But there are some, and George Bush and Tony Blair fall into this camp, who say they hate us because of what we are: free, democratic, and secular.  If that's the case, exactly how is making Iraq a free, democratic, secular country going to assuage their hatred?  This was a war begun with bad intelligence, but worse, with bad logic.  There is no upside to America's involvement in Iraq and there probably never was.  And the downside is plain: Iran, Syria, and their mullahs are more influential and more emboldened now than ever before.  Bush's intention to export democracy to the Middle East to combat Islamofascism has succeeded only in spreading and empowering Islamofascism.
 
At best it was wishful thinking to believe that Iraqis were pining for freedom and democracy and were willing to be an American outpost in the war on terrorism.  Sure, we removed a tyrant, albeit one who was particularly ineffective in his antagonism towards America.  He's been replaced in the short-run by chaos, which is more harmful to America than anything Saddam Hussein was up to; in the long-run, he'll be replaced by Iranian and Syrian fanatics.  The ultimate effect of the war will have been to expand the opportunity of the Islamofascists to do us harm.
 
Given the increased danger to the world due to American involvement in Iraq, it could well be that now the prudent course of action is invasion of Iran and the destruction of its entire nuclear program.  Such a course of action, however, is not feasible given the reputational capital (not to mention the costs in American lives and treasure) that George Bush has squandered on his pipedream of an Arab democracy in the Middle East.
 
Yes, getting out of Iraq will result in civil war (if it hasn't begun already), but what exactly is to be gained by staying?  If there ever was the possibility of an upside to this venture, it is long since gone.  Don't take my word for it--read what George Bush's staunchest defenders are saying.
 

[i] David Frum, author of The End of Evil: How to Win the War on Terror.
[ii] Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House.
[iii] Mark Helprin, senior fellow at the Claremont Institute.
[iv] Lawrence Kaplan, senior editor at The New Republic.
[v] Robert Kaplan, national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly.
[vi] Mark Steyn, columnist for National Review.
[vii] Bernard Trainor, Lt. General, U.S. Marine Corps (retired).
[viii] National Review, September 11, 2006, pp.26-31.
 

The opinions and ideas expressed in this essay are those of John D McGinnis and should not be considered representative of WRTA.com, any institution with which McGinnis is associated, or anyone else.  He can be contacted at john@wrta.com.

I'm sure I'm guilty of a lot of things, but abstruse writing is not one of them.  Unless, of course, you find two syllable words like "abstruse" abstruse. In a recent letter to the editor at WRTA.com ("Forest Gump and the Economy"), a certain educator accuses me of writing with "big words" and "length", by which I think he means too many big words.  
 
The facts are that I used 1,014 words in my essay, "Chairman Tim and the Socialist Economy," with an average of less than 4.8 letters per word.  I think those facts pretty much rule out the complaint that I use too many "big words."  
 
Regarding the length of that essay, I would agree that shorter would be better.  But when the task is to address the multitude of economic fallacies in Professor Slekar's essay, I should think I am due praise for brevity.  The good Professor describes himself as the Wal-Mart of opinion pieces, because he "offers more for less."  But he omits quality in his metaphor.  His opinion pieces are more like K-Mart and as Raymond Babbitt would say, "K-Mart sucks."
 
Still, I have to admit that 1,014 words is 25% longer than the standard essay in Newsweek.  But those writers have a week (and sometimes three or four) to re-write their pieces to fit the 800 word limit.  Since I earn a bit less for my opinion pieces at WRTA.com than, for example, George Will does at Newsweek, I think I deserve a little slack.
 
As it turns out, certain objective measures of my essay suggest that it's not difficult reading at all.  On the Flesch scale of reading ease, my essay rated a 49.4.  The scale runs from 0 to 100, with higher numbers representing easier reading.  So my score is right in the middle, which incidentally is exactly where Newsweek and Time are.  On the Flesch-Kincaid grade scale, my essay rates an 11.0, which means that a high school junior should be able to read it without any trouble.  If a professor of education is having difficulty with 11th grade reading, I think that might send off some alarm bells among his students.
 
But as always, the main argument of Tim's is wrong.  It's not long, carefully crafted essays that bamboozle people, but short ones encompassing platitudes such as "the common good" and "social economy."  One can invoke such empty expressions at will, turning them into slogans that incite passions and cause riots and revolutions.  History is littered with such examples of demagoguery.  Yes, I appreciate pithiness as much as the next person, but I'd rather err on the side of perspicuity.  (For those of you who can't read on the 11th grade level, what I just wrote was that I'm willing to spend a few extra words to make my argument clearer so that the reader can be assured he is NOT being fooled.)
 
I do agree with Woody Allen that short, funny lines are better than long, serious ones.  And Churchill was right too when he wrote, "Short words are best and old, short words are best of all."  Would that I had the eloquence of either man!  But while I aspire and work to achieve such craftsmanship, in the meantime I must settle for  maintaining a careful and clear approach in presenting my arguments.  
 
They are, after all, as Tim has admitted elsewhere, simple arguments.  That doesn't mean they are easy to appreciate or even easy to grasp.  It just means that if you work hard enough at understanding economics and justice, you will at some point come to understand the necessity of private property and the capitalist system.  Isn't that worth a few extra words of reading?
 
P.S.  This essay rates at the 9th grade level on the Flesch-Kincaid scale.  I've dumbed it down a couple of grades for those of you who are challenged by my usual style.
 


The opinions and ideas expressed in this essay are those of John D McGinnis and should not be considered representative of WRTA.com, any institution with which McGinnis is associated, or anyone else.  He can be contacted at john@wrta.com.

Certain articles are too rich not to comment upon. In the Altoona Mirror on August 13th, there appears the usual weekly column titled, "Politics in Brief." I refer to this column as the "Stolen Property Report" for obvious reasons. There are five separate articles in this column wonderfully ordered from top to bottom.

First, State Senator Wozniak is trying to make it possible for drivers to go on-line so they can donate their organs. He's doing nothing to allow you to get fair value for your organs, but he's willing to make it easy for you to give them away for nothing. Not only is he complicit in the robbery of donors, but he is complicit in the terrible shortage of available organs. All economic studies show that the shortage would disappear and tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of lives could be saved every year if donors were allowed to get market value for their organs.

Article two informs us that $25 million in state grants (that is, stolen taxpayer money) will be awarded to boost public safety. Thank heaven that we have people in Harrisburg who are more interested in our own safety than we are. No doubt we'd all be dead now if it weren't for the geniuses in Harrisburg.

Article three concerns state grants (let me repeat: stolen taxpayer money) for senior transportation. Sometimes it seems like the entire purpose of government in Pennsylvania is to rob from the young to give to the old. No wonder this state is losing so many young people and is becoming disastrously top-heavy when we speak about age demographics.

Article four says that Bud George has been at work to get subsidies (did I mention this is stolen money from you and me?) for mining companies. Exactly where is that clause in the Pennsylvania Constitution that Mr. George has sworn to uphold?

Article five is the perfect closer: "Former six-term state Representative Jeff Habay is out of jail and is at an alternative facility …" What was the crime that sent Mr. Habay to the pokey? He used legislative staff to campaign on state time. Let me get this straight. Those in Harrisburg can take people's organs without compensation and give them to others; they can take taxpayers' money without compensation and give it to senior citizens and mining companies; and they can assume they know better than you or I how to effect our safety and use that as an excuse to take our money and spend it as they see fit. But using their own staff to try to get re-elected instead of stealing results in a term in jail. I guess that's justice.


The opinions and ideas expressed in this essay are those of John D McGinnis and should not be considered representative of WRTA.com, any institution with which McGinnis is associated, or anyone else.  He can be contacted at john@wrta.com.