Arne Duncan’s Mixed Message on Education Reform

By
Sam Norton
Published: April 22, 2011Posted in: Events, NationalTags: ,

Yesterday afternoon, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan came to campus to speak about education policy under the Obama administration. I won’t bother attempting to recount everything that Duncan said– for a comprehensive summary, you can check out the Daily Princetonian’s article on the event. Rather, I would like to provide a critical analysis of the vision of the American education system that Duncan presented, which, we infer, is indicative of the viewpoint of President Obama himself. For conservatives, Secretary Duncan’s talk had a lot of positive aspects, but also left much to be desired.

Let’s start with the good. Duncan was unflinchingly honest in his portrayal of the abysmal state of public schools in the United States today. He framed this problem as one that has moral, economic, and national security dimensions. His frank acknowledgement of the educational challenges we face as a nation represents the first step along the path to reform. Duncan’s favorable assessment of efforts to inject accountability and competition into schools through initiatives such as Race to the Top should also resonate strongly with conservatives.

While Duncan was admirably candid about the condition of our education system, however, he hesitated to explain just how this dire situation had arisen. He seemed to imply that achievement gaps and dropout factories came out of nowhere, when, in fact, they are the inevitable product of the way public education in the U.S. is structured. Similarly, he expressed shock at state codes prohibiting merit pay for teachers, and district policies that forbid after school tutoring programs, wondering aloud how it is that such laws came to exist. The obvious culprits, of course, are the teachers unions.

It is not surprising that Duncan– who, after all, serves in a Democratic administration– would be reluctant to criticize teachers unions. It was disappointing, however, to hear him actually praise unions as a force for change in education while disparaging efforts to rein in their disproportionate political influence. Additionally, while Duncan resisted the familiar liberal habit of suggesting more government intervention as the solution, he did heap praise on the recent federal takeover of the student loan industry (for a description of the drawbacks of this so-called “reform,” see this column published in the Daily Princetonian last spring).

Taking on the entrenched interests who stand in the way of education reform is certainly a step in the right direction, but what I’d really like to see is for politicians to start talking about vouchers. Encouraging higher standards within public schools is all well and good, but such efforts are unlikely to prove sustainable in the long run. Once the pressure is off, it will be all too easy for teachers and administrators to fall back into the dysfunctional routine of the old status quo. If parents are empowered to make decisions about their children’s education, however, market incentives will drive schools to develop systems that encourage excellence in teachers and students without inflating costs. By subsidizing privately-run educational institutions, we can maintain our commitment to providing all of America’s children with educational opportunities while getting the government out of the business of running schools itself, a task for which it is clearly unsuited.

Implementing a vouchers plan on a national scale is still a pipe dream, and is sure to remain one so long as the Democrats control the White House and the Senate. But Secretary Duncan’s vociferous advocacy of education reform makes future progress toward this goal more probable by shifting the debate. It is the duty of Republicans in the House of Representatives, as well as prospective presidential contenders, to offer an even stronger alternative that takes education out of the dominion of bureaucrats and teachers unions and puts it under the control of families and communities.

James Capretta on Repealing and Replacing Obamacare

By
Sam Norton
Published: March 3, 2011Posted in: Events, HealthcareTags:

Yesterday, former associate White House budget director James Capretta came to campus to speak about health care. His discussion tied together various themes that have been percolating throughout the ongoing health care debate while bringing out new information. Perhaps his most interesting point was how the inevitable politicization of government-run health systems leads to a diminished quality of care. This is an argument that most conservatives understand intuitively, but Capretta provided substantive examples of how this works in practice. He notes that under Medicare, efforts to reward healthcare providers who deliver the best results are rebuffed by political intervention; doctors are a powerful interest group, so if one practice is denied access to the massive pool of Medicare-eligible patients, they can lobby their elected representatives. As a result, it is impossible to make decisions about how to allocate Medicare funds on the basis of merit, so instead cuts are made across the board, reducing the quality of care for everyone. This lack of accountability ensures that the U.S. healthcare system will remain inefficient and health spending will continue to soar without a corresponding improvement in outcomes.

These problems, Capretta shows, will be magnified under the government-run health exchanges that form the core of Obama’s plan for universal health access, driving providers out of business and creating a segregated, two-tiered health system. Additionally, because of the bill’s hidden costs, ignored in the widely cited CBO analysis of its fiscal impact, it will contribute to the nation’s crippling debt problem. Relying on President Obama’s own budget projections, the nation’s debt will hit $19 trillion by 2021, and the crisis will only worsen in the ensuing decades as the retiring baby boom generation strains entitlement programs. Finally, there is a more philosophical argument against Obamacare– the radical reversal of the relationship between the citizen and the state that it would affect.

Having laid out the case against Obamacare, Capretta proceeded to stress the need for a Republican alternative. In the past, he says, Republicans largely ignored the issue of health care, dismissing it as a natural advantage for the Democrats. But with health care such a pressing concern for the American public, Republicans cannot cede the debate to proponents of socialized medicine, but must present a plan to increase access, reduce costs, and improve quality. He views the proposal offered by John McCain during the 2008 presidential campaign to replace tax deductions for health benefits with a tax credit for purchasing insurance as a good starting point. Of course, as Capretta reminds us, Obama pummeled McCain for that suggestion. Capretta’s solution is a shift in marketing from doom-and-gloom to portraying the positive aspects of market-based health care reform. His advice is worth taking into consideration by potential Republican contenders for the presidency, especially since, as he warns, 2012 represents the last, best hope for eliminating Obamacare.

William Voegeli on the Expansion of Government

By
Sam Norton
Published: February 23, 2011Posted in: EventsTags: ,

William Voegeli, the author of Never Enough: America’s Limitless Welfare State, gave a lecture this afternoon on the subject of government spending. Aided by several useful graphs, he showed that, while overall spending levels have not changed significantly in the past 60 years, the distribution of spending has shifted dramatically. Defense spending has declined since the early days of the Cold War, while spending on Voegeli dubs “human resources,” which includes entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, has soared. At the same time, however, by all objective metrics, these programs have failed to meet their goals; poverty rates have remained at roughly the same level for the past several decades.

Voegeli is not alone in attempting to sound the alarm bell over rising entitlement spending; many commentators and politicians have noticed this problem. His solution– means testing– is also a fairly common one, figuring prominently in the Bowles-Simpson deficit commission report as well as Representative Paul Ryan’s Roadmap. In fact, as he notes, reducing benefit payments to the wealthy should be a goal that conservatives and liberals alike can agree upon. He does caution that means testing must be done properly, citing the rapid increases in spending on programs that currently have means testing provisions. He seems fairly optimistic that a bipartisan agreement can be reached on such a plan, since the “blue model” (a term he credits to Walter Russell Mead) has proven unsustainable.

For my part, I am not persuaded that Democrats and Republicans can unite around the goal of reforming the welfare state. Both sides have a clear vision for how America’s social contract should be revised. For conservatives, this involves cuts in government spending; for liberals, tax hikes on the wealthy and the middle-class. Both sides also know that, at this moment in time, any effort to address the nation’s fiscal situation will require compromise, while if the situation worsens, they might be able to achieve their goals more fully. If the nation is on the verge of bankruptcy, extreme measures of either a liberal or a conservative variety will prove more palatable than they currently are.

If it could be determined with absolute certainty whether conservatives or liberals would prevail in a budget crisis, an acceptable deal could be obtained. However, since it is impossible to know the outcome of such a scenario, both sides have an incentive to gamble on the possibility of winning outright. It’s a classic prisoners dilemma.

Moreover, as events in Wisconsin and elsewhere have shown over the course of the past few weeks, Democrats are heavily dependent upon the status quo, and unlikely to prove willing to accept an arrangement that would curtail the influence of public employee unions, their most generous campaign contributors. Republican motives for alleviating the deficit, by contrast, are less self-interested– though a partial privatization of entitlement programs could, as Karl Rove argued during the Social Security debate of 2005, help to enlarge the investor class, a group that is more disposed to favor the Republican Party. Because the Democrats are more enthusiastic about preserving big government than the Republicans are about dismantling it, they have an inherently superior bargaining position, and thus could extract disproportionate concessions from the Republicans during a hypothetical negotiation process.

Collectively, these impediments suggest that the debt problem will get worse before it gets better. Throughout history, the fervor of the American public has proven hard to incite, yet relentless once roused. During World War II, for instance, we ignored the rise of fascist aggression for too long, but once alerted to the dangers it presented, devoted ourselves completely to its defeat. One can only hope that this pattern will repeat itself with regards to the national debt, an adversary that appears just as menacing as Hitler and Tojo did in 1940.

Mary Ann Glendon on Cicero and Burke on Politics as a Vocation

By
Sam Norton
Published: February 7, 2011Posted in: EventsTags:

Mary Ann Glendon is the former US Ambassador to the Holy See and a distinguished professor at Harvard Law School. This afternoon, she came to campus to speak about two men– Cicero and Burke– who come from very different time periods yet faced similar challenges in their political careers. Incidentally, both men came to be known more for their philosophy than for their political careers, in large part because they largely failed to achieve their stated political objects.

As Glendon notes, Cicero and Burke were convinced that politics ought to be the profession of the best men society has to offer, but observed that this is often not the case. Rather, the field of politics attracts men prone to venality, corruption, and demagoguery, while the intelligent and morally righteous are dissuaded from entering public service for precisely these reasons.

Cicero and Burke each faced a series of dilemmas in their careers that forced them to choose between adhering to their ideals and accepting a compromise. For Cicero, his goal was the preservation of the Roman Republic; for Burke, the extension of political rights to oppressed British subjects in Ireland, the American colonies, and India. These were unpopular positions, rendering complete success impossible. As Glendon shows, both men were willing to modify their stances and acquiesce to a more limited approximation of their objectives. For this reason, they are often criticized in retrospect, even though no preferable alternative to their course of action has been proposed.

Glendon draws the parallel between the examples of Cicero and Burke and the choices faced by modern politicians. She encourages us to think of negotiation and settlement not as signs of weak-willed cowardice, but rather as the epitome of statesmanship. Certainly there are instances in which a principle is at stake that is so inalienable that no compromise can be tolerated, but most of the time, the approach of Cicero and Burke is the correct one. This is a lesson that we ought to bear in mind as we evaluate the leadership of our elected representatives.

Barack Obama Still Doesn’t Get It

By
Sam Norton
Published: January 26, 2011Posted in: NationalTags: ,

President Obama’s State of the Union address was a remarkable change, in both style and substance, from what we’ve come to expect from him during his two years in office. Gone were the exhortations to increase spending and develop new entitlement programs, along with the cavalier attitude toward the massive debt incurred by such policies, replaced by a frank acknowledgement that our current fiscal situation is unsustainable. Much has been made of Obama’s alleged shift toward the center since the midterm elections, beginning with the lame-duck session of Congress and continuing with the appointment of several new pro-business advisors. What these analyses miss, however, is that Obama’s embrace of the free market comes without a newfound understanding of the pitfalls of government intervention in the private sector.

The limits of Obama’s reinvention are demonstrated by his repeated reference to “investment.” The examples he cites are telling. He talks about how Sputnik spurred the U.S. to get involved in the space race, and in the process created new jobs and new industries, ignoring the fact that NASA would later become a byword for cost overruns, delays, and visionary drift. In addition, he conflates three distinct government infrastructure projects– the transcontinental railroad, rural electrification, and the interstate highway system. In the first case, the federal government gave private companies the resources they needed to get the job done, and then backed off; in the second, by contrast, the government established enterprises like the TVA that competed with, and ultimately bankrupted, private corporations like Wendell Willkie’s Commonwealth & Southern. The government’s strategy for building the interstate highway system consisted primarily of providing states with money for road construction, while Obama’s drive for high-speed trains uses coercion to force states to design rail networks in accordance with federal guidelines or else risk forfeiting the money, as Governors Scott Walker of Wisconsin and John Kasich of Ohio recently did.

This kind of government meddling in the economy naturally gives rise to corporate welfare, rent-seeking behavior, and subsidies to unproductive industries. Chris Horner, writing in the Daily Caller, makes this point with regards to the so-called “green jobs” that Obama and his fellow Democrats have spent the past several years touting. The always excellent Wall Street Journal editorial board also chimes in.

I wish I could say that conservatives have latched onto this criticism of the Obama, but by and large, Republicans in Washington have focused on the consequences that profligate spending has on the budget deficit. At a time when our debt is ballooning out of control, this is certainly a strong argument, but one that is open to the rejoinder by Krugman types that temporary deficit spending is necessary to boost the economy in the long run. The reality is that the effect of government appropriations on the nation’s economic conditions will be marginal at best and detrimental at worst. Paul Ryan, in his rebuttal to the State of the Union, makes this point, saying that “government shouldn’t pick winners and losers,” although he is referring specifically to health care reform, not the overall federal budget. A more comprehensive portrayal of the negative repercussions of government spending seems like it must wait for now, even as the validity of this critique becomes increasingly evident.

George Will on How James Madison Can Save Us From Woodrow Wilson

By
Sam Norton
Published: December 18, 2010Posted in: Events, NationalTags: , ,

Princeton University has, over the course of the past year, had the distinct pleasure of welcoming George Will to campus on three occasions. Will is one of our nation’s foremost public intellectuals, as well as a Princeton grad school alum and current trustee. On Wednesday, he gave an address at a celebration of the 10th Anniversary of the James Madison Society. It was a wide-ranging speech, stretching from the 1700s to the present day, but focusing in particular on the conflicting doctrines of the Founding Fathers, as exemplified by James Madison, and the Progressives, typified by Woodrow Wilson.

Will’s choice of these two figures as a means of illustrating the dynamic currents of American political thought is merited not only by the connection of both men to the University, but by their prominence in developing and expounding two divergent approaches to governance. Madison, in his famous Federalist 10, sought to dispel the classical notion that democracy was possibly only in small city-states, and instead argued that a diverse continental republic like the United States was uniquely suited to avoiding the problem of tyranny of the majority. The competing interests of various factions, Madison argued, would prevent one group from dominating above all others, and instead require building coalitions and building consensus.

Wilson and the early 20th century Progressives, by contrast, were openly critical of the Constitution and its system of checks and balances, arguing that such braking mechanisms created gridlock, impeding the resolution of the problems of the modern age. The solution to this dilemma, argued Wilson and other proponents of this theory, including Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, was a strong executive branch headed by a president who used his bully pulpit to circumvent Congress and appeal to the American people. This development represented a stark reversal from traditional practice; during the 19th century, presidents rarely, if ever, engaged directly with the public, relying on surrogates in the media to convey their messages. The result was an expanded presidency with nearly unbounded powers.

As Will notes, concerns about the Wilsonian project has arisen out of the Tea Party movement, whose adherents advocate a return to the principles of the Founders. While he cautions that the prospect of rolling back the administrative state is likely to involve a protracted struggle, he finds cause for optimism in the reaction against the excesses of Barack Obama’s first two years in office. Perhaps, he suggests, after electing a man who once promised to “heal the planet… slow the rise of the oceans,” voters will replace him in favor of a modest, unassuming candidate. Such an outcome would certainly be a refreshing change from recent history, which has witnessed a bipartisan trend toward presidential self-aggrandizement, from Bill Clinton’s repeated professions of empathy to George W. Bush’s vow to “rid the world of evil.” If this happens, the credit will be due in large part to the national rediscovery of the ideas of James Madison.

Princetonians for Holt

By
Sam Norton
Published: October 6, 2010Posted in: Campus Life, NationalTags: ,

Here is a list of Princeton professors and administrators who have donated money to Representative Rush Holt (D-NJ) in this election cycle. Not a single faculty member have contributed to Holt’s opponent, Scott Sipprelle. All of this information is part of the public domain, and is available at http://www.opensecrets.org/.

Jeanne Altman, EEB Professor– $250

Mary Bauer, Associate Dean of the Faculty– $1,250

Bruce Draine, Astrophysics Professor– $500

Thomas Espenshade, Sociology Professor– $250

Alan Gelperin, Molecular Biology Professor– $250

Andrew Golden, Manager of Princeton’s endowment– $2,400

Jeremy Goodman, Astrophysics Professor– $500

Hendrik Hartog, History Professor and Director of the Program in American Studies– $1,000

Lincoln Hollister, Geoscience Professor– $500

David Huse, Physics Professor– $500

Karen Jezierny, University Director of Public Affairs– $500

Stanley Katz, Wilson School Professor– $500

Russel Kulsrud, Astrophysics Professor– $500

Douglas Massey, Wilson School Professor– $750

Richard Miles, MAE Professor– $500

Deborah Nord, English Professor– $250

Lyman Page, Physics Professor– $1,000

Elaine Pascu, History Professor– $250

David Redman, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, Office of the Dean of the Graduate College– $250

Daniel Rodgers, History Professor– $500

William Russel, Dean of the Graduate College– $1,000

Jean Schwartzbauer, Molecular Biology Professor– $250

Eldar Shafir, Psychology Professor– $500

Paul Sigmund, Politics Professor– $500

Robert Socolow, MAE Professor– $500

Frank Von Hippel, Wilson School Professor– $2,400

Henry Olsen on the Tea Party and Populism

By
Sam Norton
Published: October 5, 2010Posted in: Events, NationalTags: , ,

It is rare to find thoughtful, well-educated people defending the Tea Party, but that is exactly what Henry Olsen of the American Enterprise Institute did in a lecture today. He argues that the fear of the Tea Party that is endemic among many both on the left and the right is unfounded. Olsen claims that American elites confuse American populism with populist movements in other countries, leading them to unjustified suspicion. American populism is unique, he notes, in that it views its adversaries as potential converts, seeks to allow people to achieve their goals free from interference, and offers a positive agenda beyond the desire for revenge. By and large, according to Olsen, every successful political force in American history has contained these elements, and the future of the Tea Party is dependent on whether they veer from this course.

The model that Tea Partiers should follow is not Barry Goldwater, who alienated voters with his adamant opposition to federal programs not explicitly authorized by the Constitution, but Ronald Reagan, who made peace with the New Deal and the Great Society while continuing to advance his vision of limited government. Olsen expresses admiration for the maturity of Tea Party activists who have been willing to support candidates who don’t agree with them on every issue, while noting that there are exceptions to this rule, most notably in Delaware. He sees the Tea Party as a major force in the 2012 Republican presidential primary, observing that all of the leading contenders have attempted to display their Tea Party bona fides.

It is a testament to the broad appeal of the Tea Party that it has quickly grown to occupy such a prominent place in American politics. No matter how the November election turns out, at least a few Tea Party representatives will be heading to Congress next January, putting them on a collision course with the Washington establishment they loathe.

Scott Sipprelle: A Worthy Candidate For Congress

By
Sam Norton
Published: September 29, 2010Posted in: Events, NationalTags: , ,

Scott Sipprelle, the Republican running to represent New Jersey’s 12th district (which includes Princeton), spoke to an audience of students in Whig Hall this afternoon. Given that the event was co-sponsored by Tigers for Israel, he focused a lot on his views regarding Israel, insisting that the Jewish state has a right to defend itself against terrorist threats, urging efforts to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, and noting his opposition to U.S. micromanagement of peace negotiations with the Palestinians. However, he also found ample time to discuss his ideas on a variety of other issues. He centered his comments around a theme that has become common in this election cycle– dissatisfaction with the Washington status quo. He was unafraid to criticize his fellow Republicans, saying that they are “part of the problem.” In particular, he bemoaned the rising levels of government spending and debt, which he claimed are choking the entrepreneurial spirit that has made America the greatest nation in the world. The solution to the current morass, according to Sipprelle, is to return to the Founder Fathers’ vision of “citizen legislators” with real world experience in place of the career politicians currently running the country. He himself pledges to serve only three terms if elected to the House, saying that this will allow him to remain independent and make decisions without constantly worrying about his re-election prospects.

Sipprelle is articulate, and an accomplished businessman. Unfortunately, even in an anti-establishment year like this, defeating an entrenched incumbent is no easy task. Still, if he were to win, Sipprelle would be a significant improvement over the current representative, Rush Holt. Holt is one of the more liberal Democrats in Congress– and, as Sipprelle explained, has a record of tepid support for the U.S.-Israel relationship, as evidenced by his ties to J Street and his remarks characterizing Israel and Hamas as morally equivalent. Here’s hoping that Sipprelle succeeds in sending Holt packing come November 2nd.

The Ground Zero Mosque and the State of American Liberalism

By
Sam Norton
Published: September 27, 2010Posted in: EventsTags: , , , ,

At a discussion panel today, three of the University’s leading experts on issues relating to Islam, the Middle East, and religious freedom gave their perspectives on the planned Islamic Community Center in lower Manhattan (also known as Park51 or Cordoba House). The participants– provost Christopher Eisgruber, POL associate professor Amanay Jamal, and NES professor Mark Cohen, each provided a different take on the issue, but all came out in favor of the mosque and against its opponents. In doing so, they exhibited a pattern common among left-of-center intellectual elites; distrust of, and disdain for, their fellow countrymen. This trend is by no means limited to the debate over the ground zero mosque– witness the constant charges of racism levied at supporters of the Tea Party movement– but the mosque controversy is a particularly illustrative example of the phenomenon.

Cohen offered a historical background on the relation between Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, mentioning how, during the Middle Ages, these monotheistic faiths cohabited peacefully in areas such as Spain that were under Muslim rule. Islamic rulers, he said, promoted tolerance and pluralism, in contrast to the repression of religious minorities that occurred within Catholic jurisdictions. As a matter of fact, Cohen’s statements appear to be correct, but their relevance is dubious. Modern Muslims should not be excused for instances of extremism because of their past legacy of accommodation any more than modern Christians should be blamed for elements of their past.

Jamal cited a variety of statistics purporting to show that a large majority of Americans mistrust Muslims, including 75% who support profiling of Muslims, and the 43% who claim they have unfavorable attitudes toward Muslims. Additionally, she noted that many mosques have been subject to FBI surveillance since 9/11. She failed to draw the connection between legitimate concerns about national security and irrational Islamophobia, which are distinctly different. Further, she mentions that persistent rumor that President Obama is a Muslim, and the Democratic Party’s aggressive campaign to discredit it, as evidence that Muslims are marginalized in America.

In response to questions from the audience, Professor Jamal extended her critique of ordinary Americans who object to the ground zero mosque. Explaining that U.S. foreign policy goals center on winning the hearts and minds of Muslims around the globe, she said emphatically, “the debate is not helping us.” Not only is that allegation empirically dubious, imposing a gag rule on dialogue over subjects of concern to the American public seems to fundamentally contradict the basic tenets of our democracy. Additionally, Professor Jamal dismissed concerns about the man behind the mosque– Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who has made comments supporting the Iranian Revolution and terrorist groups like Hamas while accusing the U.S. of inviting the September 11th attack with its behavior– saying he is “as liberal as we’re gonna get” among Muslim clergy. Leaders of the Muslim community, she said, have frequently denounced acts of terrorism, but no one is listening.

Professor Eisgruber made the most serious attempt to understand and empathize with the opponents of the ground zero mosque, but he too ultimately came down on the side of the facility. Examining the legal issues underlying the mosque, he concluded that their was no question of the right to build the mosque– a point that few have disputed. He entertained the idea that culturally significant places such as ground zero deserve respect, an argument made by opponents of the mosque, who draw an analogy between ground zero and Auschwitz, where a convent was relocated in response to Jewish sensitivities. However, he declared that this case ought to be an exception to the rule since opposition to the mosque is motivated solely by prejudice.

Given the hostile reaction that Cohen, Jamal, and Eisgruber have toward Americans who reject the ground zero mosque, it is no wonder that their position has failed to gain traction with the public. One can hardly expect Americans to be persuaded by people who call them bigots. If the professors and others of like mind truly want to engage the nation in a discussion about Islam, and not just indulge in self-righteous pontificating, they should put forth a greater effort to appreciate alternatives to their point of view.

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