Social Promotion

The Denver Public Schools, in other words, teachers's union, is using the media to hype the fact that this past year it graduated the most students ever. Whoopee! This represents the triumph of social promotion over learning. 

As any employer or college admissions officer will confirm, a large percentage of these students are seriously deficient in achievement levels. One-third of incoming college freshman require remedial courses to prepare them for college-level work and employers have been complaining for years that many high school graduates can not adequately express themselves or read instructions.

The union-run public schools are operated for the benefit of the union members, i.e. teachers and administrators, not for the benefit of students and parents, who are the customers. A county's economic prospects are dependent on the quality of its workforce. The product quality of public school output does not bode well for the future.

Immigration and Prosperity

Immigration is the dominant story in the news these days. It's an emotional issue: many are understandably afraid of cultural erosion and of Non-Hispanic whites becoming a minority. There is also concern of immigrants taking jobs from native-born Americans.
I am not by any means an open borders advocate, so don't shoot the messenger. But I like to think I'm a realist and there are some hard facts that need to be considered in determining what our immigration policies should be.

A nation's wealth is determined by two factors: the number of people working and the productivity of those workers. Most of us have had the good fortune of living through an extraordinarily fruitful period, roughly from the end of WWII to the early 2000s. Our population more than doubled from 140 million to 320,000. Also, we saw tremendous growth in productivity due to many factors from the GI Bill for returning WWII vets, to increased opportunities for women, to the incredible computer/infotech explosion of the 1980s and 90s.

But today the fertility rate (births minus deaths) has dropped to .4% and is still declining.
And for the past ten years, according to the US Dept. of Labor, the productivity growth rate has averaged 1.1% per year, the lowest in the past seventy years. (I believe the key to reversing that is total reform of our public education system.)

For the past 50 years the number of Americans 65 and older per 100 workers has been in the mid 20s. According to Pew Research that number will climb from 27 this year to 42 in the next 15 years, an increase of 55%, and continue increasing for years after that.

My point is that unless Americans suddenly start reproducing a lot faster (all indicators say not gonna happen) or the productivity rate increases dramatically (a major, new tech breakthrough), the we are going to need immigrants for sustained productivity growth.

So, along with better border control, we need an immigration policy that makes it easier for workers to come here legally, including expansion of the H-1b visas for skilled workers.

Vote NO on Amendent 69

I am writing to urge you to vote NO on Amendment 69, also know as ColoradoCare. This law would add an additional 10% tax on ALL Colorado income, more than tripling our state income tax and making it the highest of any state, in one stroke.

For employed persons, 1/3 would be paid by the employee and 2/3 by the employer. For many businesses, an additional 6.7% payroll tax could put them out of business. Also, since the employer can't give the same dollar to the government and to the employee, this is money that the employee will never see in the form of a raise. The employer is simply a conduit through which the employees money is funneled to the state. So the net effect is a 10% tax on everyone including employees.

This law would be a disaster for our state for the following reasons. There would be an exodus of businesses and jobs that are not location-dependent. Rental properties and retail stores can't move, so they are stuck with the tax. But infotech, biotech, and others can be anywhere. Would they move to or stay in a state with the highest state taxes?

But other people would move here. We would instantly become a magnet for the sick and poor; "free" healthcare and no state income tax because they have little or no income. The people who pay the taxes will be in the same queue with everyone else.

There will be fewer health providers because of the tax and because a state-run commission will be setting their fees. Fewer doctors and more patients. If it passes, it will take another constitutional amendment to repeal it, which will happen, but not soon enough to avoid serious, long-term damage to the Colorado economy.

Please vote NO on 69.

Socialism and Economic "Sustainability"

At the John Stossel luncheon I recently attended, I picked up a book entitled "The Morality of Capitalism," a collection of essays edited by Tom Palmer of the Atlas Network, a Libertarian organization.

 One of the essays is by a Black, South African economist named Temba A. Nolutshungu. It contains a paragraph that should be the talking point of every Republican presidential candidate:

 "Job creation is not the role of the state. For jobs to be sustainable(*), they have to be created by the private sector. Government generated jobs are at the taxpayer's expense and amount to subsidized employment. Being unsustainable, they have no positive economic consequence. The private sector is the main creator of wealth, and the state sector a consumer (of wealth)"

 * That's the kind of "sustainability" we should be talking about.

 As evidence of the proposition that prosperity is the result of economic freedom, Mr. Nolutshungu sites what happened in China when, in 1992, Deng Xiaoping pushed through broad economic reform. (Do you remember his famous remark, "It is glorious to get rich"?) Then he quoted economist Bertel Schmitt: "the United States picked up the socialist economic playbook that Deng Xiaoping was smart enough to throw away."

 God help us if this election leads to the adoption of even more of that playbook.

Children are the Future

Remember the lyric, "I believe that children are our future...." Unfortunately for America, it's true. I was shocked to learn recently that 58% of all first births in the US today are to unmarried women. And 83% of those mothers lack a high school diploma. Forty-one percent of all births are to unmarried women. Combine that with the fact that American children rank near the bottom academically among all industrialized countries. If children are the future we are facing serious problems. Of course it's not the kids' faults. I believe there are three reasons for this sad state of affairs: a culture that devalues traditional marriage, a government that incentivizes illegitimacy and an education system run for the benefit of teachers and administrators instead of children.

Population

Although you still hear a lot about over population, the real problem is just the opposite. Even the U.N. says that within 60 years +/-, the world population will start to decline. Ninety-seven percent of the worlds population lives in countries with declining birthrates. Even the U.S. would have a declining population right now were it not for immigration. And we can't depend on immigration for much longer. I believe we will never see another wave of immigration across the Mexican border like we saw between 1990 & 2005. Why? Because the economies of Mexico and many other Latin American countries are growing faster than ours while their fertility rates are rapidly declining. This means there will be plenty of jobs in those countries. So the problem isn't going to be too many people putting a strain on our resources. The problem is going to be too many old people and not enough workers to pay for costly senior entitlements. Another problem will be economic stagnation due to a lack of innovation. Look at who the innovators have been. Gates, Jobs, Zuckerberg, young people. Same as years ago, Ford, Edison. Fewer young people, less innovation, hence less economic growth. So stop worrying about overpopulation and start thinking about how to get people to make more babies. Yes, everybody know HOW, but we need the right incentives.

Free Speech Under Assault

It is a principle of Constitutional law that rights are not absolute. Sometimes one person's right conflicts with another person's right. This leads to a balancing of interests. Hence, the saying, "your right to swing your fist stops at my nose." And, more on point, O.W. Holmes' famous dictum re: free speech, "freedom of speech does not extend to a right to shout 'FIRE!' in a crowded theatre." Having said all that, I totally reject the thesis of the Slate.com article suggesting in the wake of the Middle East "unrest" that our First Amendment rights should be abridged so that we don't offend Islamists. First, the Muslim-mocking Internet film was, as even The White House finally acknowledged, the excuse for, not the cause of, the terrorist attack on our embassy and other violence in Africa and the Middle East. Did you hear about the mob of Mormons blowing up a theater which was showing the play, "The Book of Mormon," which ridicules Mormons and their religion? Of course not, because it didn't happen. Where were these high-minded, liberal hand-wringers then? Remember Piss Christ? The same moralists who defended a crucifix in a jar of urine as "art" have suddenly developed this sensitivity to offending religions. What started us down this dark road was the ominous discovery about twenty years ago of a whole new class of crimes - Hate Crimes. Anglo-American criminal law had always been about punishing behavior. Mental state was relevant only for establishing guilt of the crime charged. But now you can be punished for your thoughts and words. In the beginning political correctness was merely an annoyance: now it is a threat to our freedom.