Robert Robb works for the Goldwater Instutute

The Arizona Republic really needs to make sure Robert Robb gets out more. So many of his columns refer to reports from the Goldwater Institute you’d think he works for them in marketing.

As usual he and Goldwater are going off the deep end in suggesting the state should invest in post-secondary education much like someone invests in a stock. This is interesting in light of Goldwater’s persistent claims that government doesn’t invest in anything, but that’s another red herring. I’m questioning Goldwater’s investment strategy because wise investors look at other firms and compare what they do, how they attract customers, examine return on investment, etc. If you do that comparison, you’ll be very hard-pressed to find a single, highly respected institution or other state that has made these draconian changes and made it work much less identifying one that has even attempted it.

The Goldwater report makes interesting projections by comparing public to private (including for-profit and non-profit, which is an important distinction) institutions, assumes 2% inflation, ignores new construction and expansion costs due to growth needs, excludes grants and aid to private school students, and winds up proclaiming private school and state-university costs "are comparable." They also pull out research by their favorite "professor-for-hire" Richard Vedder who "finds a primary reason for the rising cost of financing universities is the growth of non-instructional activities such as research."

Aren't colleges and universities supposed to do research? Conducting research doesn't teach anything? Wow. So, where do our new products come from? Where do our new drugs come from? Apparently not from colleges and universities. So Goldwater thinks colleges and universities in Arizona should not conduct research and only teach about research done at other universities because research is "non-instructional."

Based on this, they come away with this idea that if you just give students boatloads of money for astronomical tuition fees it will all net out with $768M is "savings" and provide all of the funding the universities need. Maybe that's true if you don't have those pesky research facilities to develop and maintain. That may be true if you can control where students go to college. That may be true in teenagers comply with certain economic assumptions of economists. And it may be true if you only want to train ideologues (remember Goldwater argued that politicians should be allowed to chose the books and curriculum taught at state colleges and universities), that will reduce educational expenses.

Sure, Arizona can get weird and base university funding on the theories of economists who clearly have too much time on their hands. But while there may be some inefficiency in post-secondary funding, tossing out the baby with the bathwater on an untried theory hardly seems responsible from a market or educational needs perspective.

Goldwater used to be useful in the past. But now they are so theoretically ideological, they do nothing but cloud the debate and create solutions in search of a problem.

Be careful at whom you throw stones

The East Valley Tribune editorial board should be careful where they throw stones. They argue the Governor’s allowing the ELL bill to become law without her signature leaves “her vulnerable to Republican charges that she isn’t faithfully executing the duties of her office” because she sent along a four-page letter describing her dislikes about the bill and that letter could influence the court. Odd, what the Governor did sounds similar to President Bush’s strategy of attaching signing statements to Congressional Bills.

The President’s signing statements tells Congress how he will interpret the law, which more often than not is different from what Congress meant. Why couldn’t that signing statement be interpreted as a message to the conservative judges on the federal courts who may hear lawsuits on those bills how to interpret them? So if you’re going to criticize the Governor for not “faithfully executing the duties of her office” for doing something the President does all time seems a little, well, hypocritical.

Of course, the E.V. Tribune could write an editorial criticizing the President for not faithfully executing the duties of his office for the same reasons. But we’ll be waiting a long time for that one to appear.

Munsil Goes Negative

I don’t know which is worse, Len Munsil’s going negative (in Sunday's East Valley Tribune OpEd Letters Section) on the Governor using debatable assumptions from a Republican-leaning special interest tax group, claiming she is committed to higher taxes when no legitimate proof exists, or that as Governor he would forgo investment in the very things the voters have just indicated they want and are willing to pay for.

Arizona remains the second-fastest growing state in the country with some of the lowest tax rates. But we have poor performing schools, bad roads, lousy tasting water, and increased congestion, clearly indicating specific and immediate needs. Ignoring those needs for the sake of ideological tax cuts isn’t my idea of a fiscally responsible or forward-looking Governor.

Munsil’s criticism of the Governor’s budget submission indicates either questionable knowledge of how budgets are developed or his own desire to mislead. No governor expects they’ll get everything in their budget passed and it’s wrong for Munsil to suggest otherwise. There’s give and take on both sides. That he doesn’t seem to know this indicates a Munsil government would be no more fiscally responsible than the Republican-controlled government in Washington.

One thing’s certain, however. The Munsil campaign will be negative, misleading and fiscally irresponsible.

Family Research Council Convoluted Assessment of Embryo Ruling in Europe

Every once in a while you come across some statement where to read it and you say to yourself "How the hell did they reach that conclusion?" In a March 7, 2006 email to its supporters, the Family Research Council (FRC) makes the following statement:

A Woman's Right to Choose?

Chalk up another victory for "choice." But this ruling, from the European Court of Human Rights meeting in Strasbourg, France, has observers scratching their heads. Natalie Evans of Great Britain appealed to the court for permission to implant one of the six embryos she and Howard Johnston conceived in vitro in 2001. Evans and Johnston have since split up. She wanted to implant an embryo so she could bear a child. But Johnston said no. Johnston was happy when the court ruled in his favor and against Miss Evans: "The key thing for me was just to be able to decide when, and if, I would start a family." Some of us thought he did that when he and his then-mistress brought forth new human lives. So, in this landmark case on human rights, we see the woman has no right to carry the children she conceived, the embryonic children have no right to life, and the father can decide whether or not anyone else in the relationship has any rights at all. Now, what if Miss Evans had won the right to implant but had then decided to have an abortion? Does anyone think the court would have supported Mr. Johnston if he wanted his unborn children to live? Such is the absurdity of the current state of human rights in Europe is employed, all the more reason Americans should be concerned about the U.S. Courts referencing European law.

Let's review what the FRC says. A couple is married in the U.K. and for whatever reason they have some embryos fertilized and stored. The couple splits up and later the ex-wife decides she wants a baby and gets the tubes out of storage and wants to have them implanted. The ex-husband disapproves and goes to court to stop the implantation and the court sides with him. The FRC says the man create the baby before and shouldn't get to stop the ex-wife from using their embryos to conceive their child even though they aren't married. For this, the FRC says, we can blame those dumb courts in Europe (actually it's only the U.K.) and we should all be fearful of our courts referencing European courts.

Here's the actual issue. A married couple decides, that due to a cancer diagnosis of the wife that required removal of her ovaries, that six embryos get fertilized and stored. The wife requested at the time that some of the embryos be fertizied anonymously in case their marriage ended. The husband said that wouldn't happen and they had six embryos fertilized and stored. The marriage ended six months later and the now ex-husband removed his consent to allow the embryos to be implanted, meaning the ex-wife can have no genetically-related children. The clinic that stores the embryos wants to destroy them, so the ex-wife went to court to have that stopped so she could argue for having them implanted.

Read the Court's ruling press release.

Read the Court's hearing announcement.

This is a very sad case it just pains me that the FRC paints this as a "choice" and court issue, but it has zero to do with "choice" as typically used in the context we Americans discuss it. "Choice" in America has to do with terminating a pregnancy in the womb. That isn't this case at all. It's about a mother wanting a baby with her genes in it and an ex-husband who apparently isn't interested in working something out to give his consent to using the embryos. I have people in my life with cancer and I have to say that I feel for Ms. Evans. If I were the ex-husband, I'd be willing to work something out. But for the FRC to paint this as a "choice" and "courts" issue is simply disingenuous and dishonest.

This case has more to do with an ex-husband (somewhat selfishly) denying his ex-wife to her own embryos to conceive their child. My guess is he doesn't want a legal obligation on his part to pay for the child's rearing, which is the selfish part. But again, why not work out an agreement to address whatever concerns he has and allow the poor woman to have her baby? I don't get that.

On the other hand, the FRC would be all over the ex-husband if he decided not to cover his share of the costs for raising the child. The FRC says nothing about their usual morality argument of an unwed mother having a child out of wedlock. They say nothing about their normal morality argument of a child not living in a loving mother/father family environment. That's the disingenuous part of their argument and that just annoys me no end.

This is simply another case of the FRC using a sad situation to feather their own nest by using false arguments to further their cause. Sorry, but that is simply wrong.

Marriage Amendment is a Waste

From the letters printed in the Arizona Republic you would never know same-sex marriage is already illegal in Arizona. Arizona's "Defense of Marriage Act" (ARS § 25-101) became law in 1996 and was upheld by the Arizona Supreme Court in 2003. No one has challenged it since. Not the ACLU. Not gay couples or groups. Nobody. In short, the Marriage Amendment is completely unnecessary as a law banning same-sex marriage is already on the books.

If people need a reason to get worked up about the Marriage Amendment it would be their realization that the proposal does away with rights straight couples have to things like health insurance and other employment benefits. Unmarried couples where one works and gets medical care for kids who would otherwise not be able to obtain insurance can kiss that benefit goodbye. People in long-term common law marriage can watch their rights vanish, too.

So we’re debating the need for a Constitutional amendment to ban something that’s already illegal and harm good people who only want to share their lives or protect their children. Sorry, but I don’t see the point.

Robert Robb Hates Arizona

I am so sick and tired of reading short-sighted, narrow-minded, agenda-tainted arguments coming out of Robert Robb. So sick in tired, in fact, that I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired.

In today's Arizona Republic, he, for the second or third time, makes a dishonest argument for "tax relief" because a single economist studied tax rates and compared that to growth. There are so many problems with this hypothesis that it's nutty to use just it to base statewide policy or tax cuts. For one, it presumes that tax rates alone are the main reason for stimulating economic growth. That's not the problem in Arizona because, as the second fastest growing state in the country, we're growing anyway. Secondly, I have yet to speak with a single person who thinks they're being burdened by taxes, and I ask.

Someone should ask Robert Robb to find more than one economist to support his arguments for a change in Arizona's tax structure. It's interesting that when Arizona falls around the median, Robb paints the state as having high taxes, yet when it comes to educational achievement being at the bottom of the rankings, Robb refuses to advocate for increased financial support for schools.

It seems to me that Robb wants not only to rob our state the resources it needs to handle growth, he also wants to make sure our students are too dumb to be able to figure out what Republicans are doing to them.

Political Gotcha

Reading the opinion section in our two morning papers today it struck me again that there is no discourse in this country anymore. It's nothing but a persistent and annoying game of gotcha. From the editorials to the letters to the editors, we are no longer a people where discussing the issues and reaching a reasonable conclusion is encouraged. We are no longer the type of people who can have honest disagreements. No, we are a people that goes for the jugular and our only mission is to minimize, patronize, and simonize.

Newspapers no longer refuse to print letters that are obviously out of touch with reality. For example, one letter in today's Arizona Republic calls "Democratic talking points (lies)." That's just false on its face. Another Howl(er) states "global warming is a myth." I guess those scientists have no clue, but a guy sitting at a computer in his den does. Another attempts to paint a bond issue as a tax increase, which is like saying a car loan means an increase in income.

This "gotcha" game is everywhere in city, state and federal legislatures. There is political infighting everywhere and on every issue. Whether is the state legislature and the governor arguing over immigration or funding English education for kids, everything is done not with the best interests of the people in mind, but the next election cycle. It's only March and the senatorial race between Jim Pederson and Jon Kyl is already negative.

The bottom line is I don't think too many people these days could sit down in a room, discuss a problem and reach a decision without name-calling or insulting someone's mother or heritage. The result of this the creation of animosity, distrust and division. So much for the pledge of "One nation..."

Extremism is not a virtue - redux

Curtice Mang's response to my letter in the Arizona Republic highlights the problem with rhetoric nowadays. The issue is not what Goldwater meant regarding liberty, but the use of the words and who uses them. Like too many people, Mang expects the world to accept and use his definition and context of “liberty” regardless of anyone else’s circumstances or beliefs. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way.

There is nothing keeping anyone from using the phrase “in the defense of liberty” as justification for terrorist acts regardless of anyone’s opinion. Iraqi extremists have clearly stated their mission is to “liberate” their country from American “occupation.” Pushing the U.S. out or Iraq and Afghanistan would be their liberation. It may not be Goldwater-defined “liberty,” but that isn’t the point.

It doesn’t matter what we think. What matters is the ability of extremists to convince Iraqis and Afghanis their liberty depends on killing Americans. We do our cause serious harm by arguing for extreme measures because whenever we do, we play right into their hands. It makes their claims after Abu Ghraib more believable to the Iraqi people. Extremism may be the macho response, but it’s the wrong response to a serious situation.

It's Not Us, It's the Goldwater Institute That's Stupid

I used to think that the Goldwater Institute believes we're stupid, but with Noah Clarke's latest diatribe on bonds (for God's sake) proves they are the stupid ones. Where they come up with the ideas they espouse is anyone's guess, but the inanity with which they makes their points has gotten to where they are a risk to sound economic policy.

So here's Mr. Clarke's argument: Bonds are bad because they are used to pay for stuff that we can't afford to pay for now and that bonds are a hidden tax on the population. "Phoenix is addicted to bonds because they hide spending increases and the money needed to pay for them." "Although libraries and senior centers are great, bonding to pay for them is not. Bonds are just a hidden tax that grows over time and encourages the city to increase spending, extending its largesse to more and more special-interest groups."

Clarke mixes metaphors that somehow city bonds used to build infrastructure is like a family that cuts expenses to buy a home. They're not even close. The home families build cost about $200,000. The buildings and infrastructure cities build costs tens of millions. Families can get or change jobs. Cities cannot and even if they could it would likely take a referendum to make it happen. The only similarity is that these are a big-ticket expenses that must be paid for with future income. Just as families plan for it in their budgets, cities plan for bond payments in much the same way.

Bonds have been used by cities across the country everywhere to build needed facilities and state law and accounting practices set reasonable limits to the amount of debt cities can take on. Bonds aren't used for current expenses, business trips or salaries. They're used to build stuff like "libraries and senior centers." They are legal tools that allow municipalities to support a growing population. As an economist, Mr. Clarke should know better, but it's pretty clear he doesn't.

Where's Goldwater's complaining about Federal bonds? You know, those little savings bonds we want kids and families to buy? Those things we have China buying in boat loads to keep our economy afloat? Where's their outrage? Nowhere, that's where. What complete hypocrisy.

Jeff Flake's Pederson Deception

Jeff Flake criticizes Jim Pederson in Saturday's Arizona Republic Letters section by trying to link Pederson's support for transportation funds for Arizona to blanket support for pork-barrel projects. Even a quick read of Pederson's comments shows his only interest is in providing for legitimate Arizona transportation needs. That's not pork, that's bringing home the tax dollars Arizonans have sent to Washington to solve real Arizona problems.

It's one thing to use money for bridges to nowhere that only 50 people might use. It's another thing altogether to bring our own money back home to maintain, develop and improve roadways in the second fastest-growing state in the country.

We paid the taxes Congressman. Why not bring those dollars back home? Better here than the Alaska wilderness, don’t you think? Jon Kyl and the Republicans have wasted enough of our tax dollars. If Jim Pederson wants to bring Arizona tax dollars home for legitimate purposes like roads and securing our border, he’s got my vote.