The Earth-Based Initiative

Dug up from the Frankford, Texas Sharia Cemetery

2010-11-20T01:40:00.004-05:00

Via TPM

Order from the Catfood Commission's Chinese Menu!

2010-09-01T22:49:00.002-04:00

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Shakira addresses Oxford Union

2010-06-04T22:02:00.003-04:00

...from December:

Libertarian Vacation Zone!

2009-05-10T18:16:00.001-04:00

Via Crooks and Liars:

Reggaeton remix still pending...

2009-04-09T00:04:00.009-04:00

Via Atrios

Another Giant Leap...

2008-11-04T23:12:00.006-05:00

Keith Olbermann calls Obama's election the social and political equivalent of a moon shot...

Kentucky Fried Movie 2

2008-10-28T13:23:00.001-04:00

Auditions beginning!
(Via TPM)

The Divider

2007-11-05T23:57:00.000-05:00

Via Paul Krugman, veteran political journalist Tom Edsall has the scoop on Rudy Giuliani's readying the race card as the G.O.P. continues its ongoing Philadelphia Mississippi Experiment to cling to power.

As the late New York City journalist Jack Newfield told us a few years ago, this is nothing new for Rudy:

Giuliani's lowest moment as Mayor came in March 2000, when the unarmed Patrick Dorismond was shot and killed by undercover narcotics police in midtown Manhattan. Dorismond, 26 and black, an off-duty security guard, was standing outside a bar when a plainclothes cop, part of a narcotics detail patrolling the area, tried to buy crack from him. "What are you doing asking me for that shit?" Dorismond asked.

A fight developed, and one of the cops killed him. The shooting came just three weeks after a jury had acquitted four white police officers in the death of another unarmed black man--Amadou Diallo--who was shot forty-one times on his Bronx doorstep. The cops claimed they had mistaken his wallet for a gun. So Dorismond's shooting occurred in an atmosphere of tinderbox racial tension.

At first Giuliani called for calm, asking the city to withhold judgment until all the facts were established. But the next morning he ignored his own counsel and started demonizing the dead man. Instead of trying to be fair-minded and reassuring, Giuliani made a series of prejudicial and venomous remarks about Dorismond--even before his funeral. The Mayor seemed unable to express any human sympathy for the dead man's mother, or to grasp the fact that this was a citizen of his city who was killed--by police--for saying no to drugs.

Giuliani authorized the release of Dorismond's sealed juvenile arrest record, which contained nothing more serious than a violation punishable by a summons, to discredit him. Juvenile arrest records are supposed to be kept confidential, and Giuliani violated legal ethics by breaking the seal without getting a court order. Dorismond was 13 at the time his arrest was entered into a police computer. At a press conference Giuliani argued that the dead man's conduct at age 13 was "highly relevant." Dorismond, he sneered, was "no altar boy." But Dorismond had actually been an altar boy. He had even attended the same elite Catholic high school as the Mayor--Bishop Loughlin in Brooklyn.

A few nights later television journalist Dominick Carter asked Giuliani about his "no altar boy" comment. "This is not a fair question," the Mayor complained. He declared that Dorismond had "spent a good deal of his adult life punching people," and that he had a "propensity" for violence.

The Mayor's defense for opening the records was that Dorismond had no privacy rights because he was dead.

In 1993 Giuliani had run on the positive slogan "One Standard, One City." But in practice he treated the black community by a different standard. He actually argued that by ignoring New York's elected black leadership, he had been able "to accomplish more for the black community." He defended his boycott of black leaders by claiming that most of them have "a philosophy of dependence" that keeps their constituents "enslaved." On another occasion he argued that it wasn't productive to "engage in dialogue" with "political leaders that pander." But he had no trouble at all engaging in dialogue with white Republican leaders who could pander with the best of them.

Moderate black leaders like State Comptroller H. Carl McCall say they had only one or two meetings with Giuliani during his eight years in office, and those were only "for show" after the Diallo shooting, with no follow-up. McCall told me that Giuliani ignored his requests for a meeting for five years. Respected Queens Congressman Gregory Meeks says he didn't have a single meeting or even phone conversation with Giuliani in eight years.

The volatile combination of the questionable police shootings of Dorismond and Diallo, plus the police precinct torture of Haitian immigrant Abner Louima, plus the brutal blitz of insults of Dorismond by the Mayor, plus the absence of any channel of communication between City Hall and the black community, all help explain why under Giuliani blacks felt that New York was a city with a double standard.

The Philadelphia Mississippi Experiment

2007-11-03T05:20:00.001-04:00

In the ongoing TPMCafe discussion of Paul Krugman's new book The Conscience of a Liberal, Bruce Bartlett claims Krugman is calling Reagan a crypto-racist for his 1980 call for states rights in the infamous locality of Philadelphia, Mississippi which despite Bartlett's protestations is pretty much generally known only for the murder of three civil rights workers in 1964 and Reagan's infamous invocation a scant 16 years later:

The only way he could have avoided such a charge would have been by not campaigning in the South and ceding that region once again to Carter.

"The only way" if we don't count invoking states rights.

"The only way" if we don't count invoking states rights in Philadelphia, Mississippi.

For example, Michael Dukakis spoke there on August 4, 1988. According to press reports, he made only a passing reference to civil rights and, like Reagan eight years earlier, basically gave a standard stump speech. Yet no one has ever suggested that Dukakis was winking and nodding to local racists by speaking in Neshoba and not giving a strong pro-civil rights speech.

Yet no one has ever suggested "not giving a strong pro-civil rights speech" is somehow equivalent to "I believe in state's rights."

This question of the Conscience of a Conservative does not rest on any premise of crypto-racism but rather in the willingness to campaign on race, to exploit anti-minority animus in the electorate.

And the question of the resulting social and political-economic impact as exemplified by the 1990 chart [AFDC Monthly Maximum vs. Percent Black By State] on page 55 of the Alberto Alesina paper Krugman mentions,
Why Doesn’t the US Have A European-Style Welfare System?[PDF], literally graphically demonstrating the inverse correlation between AFDC benefits voted by state electorates and the percentage of black population and the whole question Krugman gets into on the role of anti-black animus in the paucity of American social democracy.

Where we're going we don't need roads to have Doc set the odometer from Philadelphia to Philadelphia when it comes to witnessing Ronald Reagan's exercise of that ol’ Philadelphia Mississippi Freedom to articulate and embody the diminishment and debasement of the American spirit.

And not just of that ol' Philadelphia Pennsylvania Freedom…

Now, as history has grievously demonstrated, this is a reality that conservatives have been shown to want to walk out from.

But it's not something that they can walk away from.

The time has arrived in America for the Democratic party to get out of the shadow of states' rights and to walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights. People -- People -- human beings -- this is the issue of the 20th century. People of all kinds -- all sorts of people -- and these people are looking to America for leadership, and they’re looking to America for precept and example.

Hubert H. Humphrey
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, July 14,1948

I believe in states rights. I believe in the people doing as much for themselves at the community level and the private level. And I believe that we have distorted the balance of our government by giving powers that were never intended in the constitution to the federal establishment.

Ronald Reagan
Philadelphia, Mississippi, August 3, 1980

Iraq Backstory: Josh Marshall on the CIA vs. Chalabi

2007-07-31T21:48:00.000-04:00

From an August 2003 Talking Points Memo post :

Bob Drogin article in Thursday's Los Angeles Times put me in the mind of something I came across a year and a half ago when I was researching my first long article on Iraq -- a murky moment from Ahmed Chalabi's past, which played a key role in making him an object of deep distrust and animosity for many at the CIA.

In case you haven't read the earlier posts, Drogin's article says that US intelligence has concluded that a number of defectors with stories about Saddam's WMD programs were probably either double-agents or dupes who unwittingly passed on disinformation from Saddam. (One might also suppose they simply saw the rewards in store for any Iraqi defector who told the Americans what they wanted to hear ...) The piece went on to say that the Agency was applying renewed scrutiny to many of those defectors and implied that that scrutiny would also be applied to the man who was the conduit and handler of many of those defectors: Ahmed Chalabi.

Here's the incident I'm talking about ...

In the Iraq hawks' version of the events of the last dozen years, a key turning point was the failed CIA-backed coup attempt against Saddam in 1996. The coup was run out of Amman, Jordan; it centered on a group of Iraqi army defectors. And it came apart in a particularly humiliating manner: Saddam's agents used the radios the Agency operatives had given the plotters to radio them back and tell them they'd foiled the coup and that the plotters would be executed.

From any perspective it was a pretty low moment.

But, again, back to the Iraq hawks' version of events.

In early 1996 - a few months before the plot unraveled - Chalabi came to Washington to warn the US that the CIA's coup plot had been compromised and should be called off. Chalabi went to Richard Perle - already the eminence grise behind the INC's shadow war in Washington - who arranged a meeting with then-CIA Director John Deutsch, his then-deputy George Tenet, and the CIA's Director of Operations for the Near East, Steve Richter.

According to the INC, Chalabi warned the three of what he had discovered --- that the plot had been compromised. But his warnings went unheeded. That meant the CIA brass was doubly responsible for the plot's eventual failure: Not only was the operation poorly run, but they refused to call it off even when they'd been warned that the plot had been compromised.

In September, a couple months after the coup attempt went bust, Deutsch was called to testify on Capitol Hill about whether Saddam had bested the United States with the thrust into northern Iraq he had just made. (This move back into northern Iraq came after a series of US setback earlier in the year and came after Saddam was able to sow division between the two main Kurdish factions.) Before Deutsch went to testify, Perle went to him and put that earlier meeting to good use, bullying
Deutsch into, in essence, breaking with the administration on Iraq. "Richard Perle got a hold of him and really busted him up," one source familiar with both meetings told me. With the knowledge of the earlier tip-off meeting, this source told me, "Richard had even more ammunition come September."

When Deutsch appeared before the Senate he broke with the administration's position and agreed that Saddam was, in fact stronger, than he had been before the thrust North.

INC sources tell this story as an example of how they used the CIA's incompetence as a tool to advance their own agenda in Washington.

In any case, that's their version of events.

The CIA had a very different take on what had happened with the 1996 coup debacle. Many at the Agency thought that Chalabi, rather than warning that the plot had been compromised, had in fact been the source of the compromise.

The key thing about the 1996 coup attempt, after all, was that it didn't include Chalabi --- but rather the rival umbrella group, the Iraqi National Accord, an assortment of Sunni military defectors. And Chalabi had a history of scuttling anti-Saddam plans that didn't involve him.

Most believed that Chalabi had intentionally compromised the plan, though some thought he might have unwittingly done so or that his group had been infiltrated by Iraqi agents.

Let's make clear that the CIA also wasn't an unbiased observer to all this. The plot had gone south. It was their operation. And they weren't crazy about Chalabi to begin with. It's not unreasonable to question whether these operatives were just looking for a convenient person to blame the whole mess on.
Without all sorts of security clearances, it's almost impossible to judge the basis of their suspicions, though senior people at the Agency implied that their evidence was more than circumstantial.

However that may be, the fact that many folks at the Agency believed Chalabi had leaked word of their plot and gotten a number of US assets executed helps explain why their distrust and animosity toward him runs so deep.

If the CIA is now taking another look at Chalabi's organization, suspecting it may have been infiltrated by or used by Iraqi double-agents, will this earlier incident come in for more attention?

It certainly should be. And given the hostility between the CIA and Chalabi, you'd expect they would if for no other reason than bureaucratic payback.

But according to one former Agency employee, quite the opposite might happen. The CIA, this source told me recently, is in full circle-the-wagons mode. They've got their hands full a) trying to find some WMD and b) investigating why so many points in their pre-war intelligence analysis seemed to be wrong. Looking back to the mid-1990s might drudge up some facts
that would sully Chalabi's reputation. But it would probably bring up many of the Agency's errors too. At the moment, they're trying to keep the self-examination and investigation limited to only the most recent events.
They've already got more problems than they can deal with...

Secular Non-Insularity

2007-06-30T23:48:00.000-04:00

A year ago January, I linked to an extract from Garry Wills' 1990 book Under God accusing mid-twentieth century American historians Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. and Henry Steele Commager of ignorance of religious trends and influences in American history.

Now I've found a response from Conservative historian John Patrick Diggins to a New York Review of Each Other's Books review:

In his review of Garry Wills' Under God [NYR, February 14], C. Vann Woodward missed an opportunity to set the record straight. According to Wills, Henry Steele Commager and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. are two eminent historians "for whom much of American history simply does not exist" because they allegedly ignore the important role of religion. Curiously, these two historians were among the first secular liberal scholars to recognize that role. Commager's Theodore Parker: A Yankee Crusader (1936) is nothing less than a tribute to a transcendentalist as a Christian hero. Schlesinger's Orestes A. Brownson: A Pilgrim's Progress (1939) offered a brilliant, sympathetic analysis of America's greatest Catholic social philosopher. But these matters of omission are minor compared to the author's conviction that religion and skepticism are incompatible and that in America religion has its most powerful expression in evangelical fundamentalism. Could it be that Wills has written a book prefaced by the assumption that religion is absent in American historiography only because he failed to perceive its true presence?

Wills seems to assume that because a historian sees the American mind as "skeptical,pluralistic, irreverent, and relativist" (Schlesinger), that historian cannot account for America's religious sensibility. Yet anyone who has read Perry Miller or Reinhold Niebuhr will appreciate what Edmund Burke was forced to recognize in the eighteenth century: American Protestants love nothing so much as to "protest" and "suspect," and thereby challenge authority and interrogate philosophy, even in full awareness that reason may be corrupt and the will decayed. The New England Calvinist "Augustinian strain of piety" (Miller) gave America what George Santayana called "an agonised conscience," a religious mentality haunted not only by guilt but by the thought that we may not really know how we know what we think we know. A Calvinist sense of sin enabled humankind to understand its own finitude and the contingency and relativity of all knowledge. "Sin," Niebuhr reminds us, "is the refusal to admit finiteness." Precisely what Wills' righteous fundamentalists refuse to admit...

Federal Budget Archive 2000 - 2020

2007-05-30T23:34:00.002-04:00

Debate Chronology

2000

10/1
A Citizen’s Guide to the Federal Budget
For 2001.

2001

3/1
Thinking About a New Economy
Economist Timothy Taylor subjects “New Economy” hype to some basic knowledge of productivity history.
11/5
Supply-Siders Go to War
Robert McIntire writes in the American Prospect on the Bush Administration’s wartime tax-cutting strategy. A “decelerated appreciation for accelerated depreciation.”
Full Employment at Risk
Jared Bernstein and Dean Baker of the Economic Policy Institute assess the threats and challenges of maintaining “full employment.”

2009

6/25
The Long-Term Budget Outlook[PDF]
Courtesy of your friendly local CBO.

Federal Budget Archive 1980 - 2000

2007-04-30T22:44:00.005-04:00

Online Resources

The Budget
Archive maintained by The Atlantic Online.

Debate Chronology

1991

The Roots of the Public Sector Fiscal Crisis [PDF]
A paper by Max Sawicky of the labor-funded Economic Policy Institute.

1992

11/1
A Program for Economic Policy Watchers
Then-Harvard economist Brad DeLong tells what to watch for in economic policy in Clinton’s first term.

1994

11/3
Where Does the Deficit Come From?
A Lloyd Bentson Wall Street Journal op-ed drafted by Brad DeLong outlines the causes.

1996

2/21
Clinton Policy Accomplishments
An assessment by Brad DeLong.

1997

6/11
The Market, the State and the Dynamics of Public Culture
Kevin Phillips outlines and updates his cyclical economic thesis from his 1990 book Politics of Rich and Poor.
7/15
Reaganomics: What Worked? What Didn’t?
Former Reagan Deputy OMB Director Lawrence Kudlow attributes the 1980s deficits to the reduction of inflation:

Moreover, I believe the single largest cause of the deficit was the sharp reduction of inflation, from a zone of 12-15% in 1980 and 1981, to a zone of 2-3% in 1986. The government had been living on inflated revenues and inflated personal income revenues for over a decade, from LBJ through Nixon and Ford, to Jimmy Carter. The government’s appetite for inflated revenues was virtually insatiable, and it supported, nourished, and ultimately overfed the rise of the entitlement state. Reagan inherited that.

Rising inflation was a huge effective tax increase on the economy on top of the already high actual tax rates. So, getting inflation down was a huge tax cut, though it probably resulted in a loss of nominal GDP income of, I would say, by 1986, close to a trillion dollars from what might have been the case if the inflation had continued at a 10-12% annual rate. If the choice is to finance a deficit in order to lower inflation and improve the economy, or to oppose a deficit and maintain the inflation that was destroying our economy, I would take the former any time. I believe Reagan made a brilliant economic and political decision to give Volker the green light to do what he had to do.

1998

1/1
The End of Federal Deficits
Brad DeLong outlines the events leading to the end of deficits.

1999

1/1
Meeting Challenges and Building for the Future
Eugene V. Kroch on business cycles and public finance.
3/4
Economic Growth Through Tax Cuts
William Gale of Brookings surveys challenges in a potential tax-cutting environment.

2000

1/1
Clintonomics: A Report Card [PDF]
Economist Timothy Taylor reviews and critiques the Clinton administration’s economic policy choices.
4/
Formation of Fiscal Policy:The Experience of the Past Twenty-Five Years [PDF]
Economist Alan J. Auerbach writing in the FRBNY Economic Policy Review.
9/15
How Much Credit Does Clinton Deserve for the Economy?
Brad DeLong’s take.
11/14
The Federal Budget and Interest Rates
Analysis by Richard J. Keating of the Small Business Survival Committee.

2002

11/18
Wile E. Coyote Explains Bush Administration Fiscal Policy
Brad DeLong examines whether deficits constrain spending, looking at the 1980-2000 time period.

Those silly Europeans

2007-03-09T14:52:00.000-05:00

Robert Kagan, Of Paradise and Power, 2003:

American policymakers have found it hard to believe, but leading officials and politicians have worried more about how the United States might handle or mishandle the problem of Iraq--by taking unilateral and extralegal military action--than they ever worried about Iraq itself and Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

Since then, neocon Kagan has hit upon the solution of treating China primarily as a problem, while the rest of us--given the neoconservative stewardship of the size of the Iraq problem--are onto the problem of treating neoconservatism as any kind of a solution.

Shifting balances of terror

2007-03-06T01:19:00.000-05:00

Daniel Drezner reports he is off to a conference entitled "Nuclear Weapons in a New Century: Facing the Emerging Challenges."

Reminds me of the classic Harvard (or was it National?)Lampoon parody of Newsweek, unforgettably entitled "Nuclear Arms and Terrific Legs: The Atomic Threat to America's Cover Girls."

Social Security, in Ecolanguage

2007-02-28T13:19:00.000-05:00

Frequent econoblog commenter Lee Arnold's presentation is up on YouTube:

Who Was Milton Friedman?

2007-01-31T23:56:00.000-05:00

Mark Thoma links, as Paul Krugman asks (and answers) in The New York Review of Each Other's Books:

What's odd about Friedman's absolutism on the virtues of markets and the vices of government is that in his work as an economist's economist he was actually a model of restraint. As I pointed out earlier, he made great contributions to economic theory by emphasizing the role of individual rationality—but unlike some of his colleagues, he knew where to stop. Why didn't he exhibit the same restraint in his role as a public intellectual?

The answer, I suspect, is that he got caught up in an essentially political role. Milton Friedman the great economist could and did acknowledge ambiguity. But Milton Friedman the great champion of free markets was expected to preach the true faith, not give voice to doubts. And he ended up playing the role his followers expected. As a result, over time the refreshing iconoclasm of his early career hardened into a rigid defense of what had become the new orthodoxy.

In the long run, great men are remembered for their strengths, not their weaknesses, and Milton Friedman was a very great man indeed—a man of intellectual courage who was one of the most important economic thinkers of all time, and possibly the most brilliant communicator of economic ideas to the general public that ever lived. But there's a good case for arguing that Friedmanism, in the end, went too far, both as a doctrine and in its practical applications. When Friedman was beginning his career as a public intellectual, the times were ripe for a counterreformation against Keynesianism and all that went with it. But what the world needs now, I'd argue, is a counter-counterreformation.

What do Bush and Iraq have in common?

2006-12-12T23:28:00.000-05:00

They both need interventions.

Josh Marshall:

...There's a very bleak irony here that's worth noting. Because of the unipolar world we now live in, when anarchy and genocide break out in the world, only the US is really in a position to halt it. I don't mean alone. But rather with other countries acting in concert and probably with some NATO or UN mandate. That was the lesson of the Balkans in the 1990s. Only the US has the mix of military, diplomatic and financial muscle to make it happen. Or did.

I don't pretend it would be easy in the middle of Iraq. It might not even be possible. But we're simply not available because as the authors of the catastrophe we simply have no standing or credibility to bring it to a halt. Or even to lead others in doing so. Add to that the fact that the last four years of twiddling our thumbs has sharply depleted our military capacity, diplomatic influence and financial flexibility.

It's worth stepping back for a moment and realizing that if we weren't the ones who had started this a lot of us would be calling for the US to intervene to prevent what looks to be coming down the pike. But, as I said, we're not available...

pop prescience

2006-11-05T17:18:00.000-05:00

Then you have the nerve to tell me you think that as a mother I'm not fit.
Well, this is just a little Peyton Place and you're all Harper Valley hypocrites

Harper Valley PTA

[songwriter Tom T. Hall for Jeannie C. Riley, 1968]

You strut around and you flirt with disaster
Never really carin' just what comes after

Golden Country

[songwriter Gary Richrath of REO Speedwagon, 1972]

Sheri Berman seminar at Crooked Timber

2006-10-31T23:09:00.000-05:00

Via Brad DeLong, a virtual seminar on Sheri Berman's book, The Primacy of Politics: Social Democracy and the Making of Europe’s Twentieth Century over at Crooked Timber.

Alicia Munnell on Social Security research

2006-09-30T21:58:00.000-04:00

From her December 2000 survey:

Not only do studies show conflicting conclusions or different interpretations of existing information, but the sheer weight of the evidence makes it difficult to move. Any dramatic change in a large and important program is fraught with difficulties, and the more research that emerges the more the difficulties become apparent. Research also eliminates some of the simplistic arguments that would make privatization appealing. For example, work by Geanakoplos, Mitchell, and Zeldes (1998) carefully distinguishes between privatization, prefunding, and diversification and debunks the notion that privatization alone can lead to higher returns. My sense is that at least one if not more of the authors of that study may favor individual accounts, but their work demonstrates clearly that this preference has to be based on something other than an improvement in returns.

[Added to the 2000 Social Security Chronicle.]

Vial Mendacity

2006-08-31T21:25:00.000-04:00

ob·fus·cate ( P ) Pronunciation Key (bf-skt, b-fskt)
tr.v. ob·fus·cat·ed, ob·fus·cat·ing, ob·fus·cates
1. To make so confused or opaque as to be difficult to perceive or understand: “A great effort was made... to obscure or obfuscate the truth” (Robert Conquest).
2. To render indistinct or dim; darken: The fog obfuscated the shore.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=obfuscation

David Kay, 2 October 2003:

Discussions with Iraqi scientists uncovered agent R&D work that paired overt work with nonpathogenic organisms serving as surrogates for prohibited investigation with pathogenic agents. Examples include: B. Thurengiensis (Bt) with B. anthracis (anthrax), and medicinal plants with ricin. In a similar vein, two key former BW scientists, confirmed that Iraq under the guise of legitimate activity developed refinements of processes and products relevant to BW agents. The scientists discussed the development of improved, simplified fermentation and spray drying capabilities for the simulant Bt that would have been directly applicable to anthrax, and one scientist confirmed that the production line for Bt could be switched to produce anthrax in one week if the seed stock were available.
A very large body of information has been developed through debriefings, site visits, and exploitation of captured Iraqi documents that confirms that Iraq concealed equipment and materials from UN inspectors when they returned in 2002.One noteworthy example is a collection of reference strains that ought to have been declared to the UN. Among them was a vial of live C. botulinum Okra B. from which a biological agent can be produced. This discovery - hidden in the home of a BW scientist - illustrates the point I made earlier about the difficulty of locating small stocks of material that can be used to covertly surge production of deadly weapons. The scientist who concealed the vials containing this agent has identified a large cache of agents that he was asked, but refused, to conceal. ISG is actively searching for this second cache.

Matthew Yglesias, 17 October 2003:

EVEN MORE BOTULISM. About a week and a half ago I noted that the botulism discovered by David Kay in an Iraqi scientist's refrigerator -- and since discussed in speeches by the president, Dick Cheney and Colin Powell -- was more hype than threat. Today Bob Drogin of the Los Angeles Times is on the case with a few more key points:

The single vial of botulinum B had been stored in an Iraqi scientist's kitchen refrigerator since 1993. It appears to have been produced by a nonprofit Virginia biological resource center, the American Type Culture Collection, which legally exported botulinum and other biological material to Iraq under a Commerce Department license in the late 1980s.
. . .
But Dr. David Franz, a former chief U.N. biological weapons inspector who is considered among America's foremost experts on biowarfare agents, said there was no evidence that Iraq or anyone else has ever succeeded in using botulinum B for biowarfare.
"The Soviets dropped it [as a goal] and so did we, because we couldn't get it working as a weapon," said Franz, who is the former commander of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Ft. Detrick, Md., the Pentagon's lead laboratory for bioweapons defense research.

Long story short: There's no threat here. This raises the question of why, exactly, Kay's team and the gang at the White House are trying to convince people that there is. Politically speaking, obfuscation is an effective strategy on this subject, since it's easy to get confused between the botulinum B bacteria (not dangerous, found in Iraq) and the botulinum A neurotoxin (dangerous, not found in Iraq). I myself made this mistake, but I'm not a biologist and I'm certainly not a biowarfare expert. This tactic -- saying things that are true in such a way as to get people to believe things that are false -- has become a prominent feature of the administration's public relations strategy on a number of fronts and, frankly, it stinks.

--Matthew Yglesias

George W. Bush, 3 October 2003:

The report states that Saddam Hussein's regime had a clandestine network of biological laboratories, a live strain of deadly agent botulinum, sophisticated concealment efforts and advanced design work on prohibited longer-range missiles

Richard Cheney, 3 October 2003:

Next item, reference strains of biological organisms concealed in a scientist's home, one of which can be used to produce biological weapons.

Colin Powell, 7 October 2003

Lo and behold, Kay and his team found strains of organisms concealed in a scientist's home, and they report that one of the strains could be used to produce biological agents

Press Briefing by Scott McClellan, 6 October 2003

Q The administration is now asking for an additional $600 million. What exactly is the $600 million for? And what will you say to the arguing from some that --
MR. McCLELLAN: We went through this --
Q -- you're throwing good money after bad?
MR. McCLELLAN: We went through this last week. In the wartime supplement, there is a classified section, just like there is any budget appropriation. And I'm not in a position to confirm or deny what's in there, or to get into a position of discussing what's in that classified section. And I'm sure no one in this room wants me to discuss classified information.
Q What about the argument, though, that it would appear to be throwing good money after bad?
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, let me mention that the Iraq survey group does continue to do its work. Dr. Kay pointed out over the weekend a lot of what they have found was not the focus of the initial coverage, and now I think it's important to look at what they have found, as well. Dr. Kay summarized in his report that was made public that -- and I quote that the report discovered what the report calls: dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002.
He talked about the strain of botulinum toxin that were found. He talked about -- yesterday, about how a scientist was asked to keep a large amount of anthrax and turned that down. So there's a lot of work that continues. And it's important that the Iraq survey group continue to move forward on its work so that we can uncover the full extent of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction programs.

Brad DeLong, 17 December 2003:

I'll stop calling the Bush administration "Orwellian" when they stop using 1984 as an operations manual.

[Added to the Iraq Chronicle]

Social Security Meta-Archive: 2006

2006-07-31T23:29:00.003-04:00

[Part of The Earth-Based Initiative: Social Security Meta-Archive]

Social Security Meta-Archive: 2005

1/3
TIME TO PRIVATIZE SOCIAL SECURITY
Economist Dean Baker writing at MaxSpeak:

How would privatizing Social Security help? Well, I don’t mean the personal accounts idiocy, I mean making Social Security a private corporation that does the exact same thing the current program does, except have the organization that administers the program be a private company operating on contract with the government.

Then, when David Walker, Thomas Friedman, Peter Peterson, the Washington Post editorial board etc. make some outlandish claim about Social Security devastating the country, the company could sue them for libel, just as Microsoft would if they made an equally outlandish claim about that company’s impact. One or two lawsuits like this and these people would adhere much more closely to the truth, as would the newspapers and television stations that wholesale this tripe across the country.

1/4
DeanSpeak
Economist's View links to Dean Baker's response to Tom Friedman.
1/7
Goldilocks and the Three Social Security Bears
Bruce Webb at MyDD.
1/9
Private Pensions and Social Security "Reform"
Brad DeLong keys off of New York Times coverage of the decline of defined benefits packages to discuss the increasing value of social insurance.
1/10
Chile Confronts Problems Caused by Social Security Privatization
Economist's View links to New York Times coverage of problems with Chile's system.
1/16
Demography Is Not Destiny
Economist's View samples Paul Krugman and LA Times coverage of demography's impact on the budget.
1/20
The Rise Of Blogs
The National Journal on blogging's impact on the Social Security debate:

With such active readers, it made sense for bloggers to turn their attention to Washington -- and for more people inside the Beltway to awaken both to the influence of bloggers and the potential of blogging technology. That is exactly what happened after the 2004 election.Issues such as Social Security reform drove the interest in blogging and demonstrated the technology's power. George Washington University's Farrell said that blogs were very effective at "creating outrage and creating a groundswell" against Bush's plans for Social Security. Experts -- such as economics professor Brad DeLong of the University of California (Berkeley) and Max Sawicky, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute -- used their blogs to create a "testing bed for interesting arguments," Farrell said.

"We began to see those arguments being taken up by op-ed people ... and change the conventional wisdom in the media" about the Bush plan, Farrell said. Although the blogosphere alone did not push Social Security off the short-term agenda, it was a factor, he contended.

Andrew Roth, the government-affairs director at the conservative Club for Growth and the group's blogger, agreed -- to an extent. He said that Social Security reform is dead in Bush's second term not because of opposition from liberal bloggers but because Republican leaders lack the will to "force moderates to vote on it." Yet he also said that liberal bloggers "were far better organized and ready to fight than conservatives were."

The Club for Growth launched a group blog called Social Security Choice, and Roth expected more like it. "In fact, I was worried that somebody else was going to beat us to the punch. But that never happened, and the other blogs never materialized. I don't know why it didn't happen, but it was frustrating."

With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility
Brad DeLong responds:

Let me be more skeptical. The Bush administration did the heavy lifting, through failing to come up with a Social Security plan that anybody liked. You can get Congressmen to vote for tax cuts for the rich because the rich like tax cuts--and give campaign contributions. But who liked Bush's never-spelled-out Social Security plan? There is something to the idea that weblogs are contributing to the creation of a public sphere of debate and discussion at a more elevated level than the somewhat stylized, hieratic, and chronically-underbriefed-on-matters-of-policy-substance traditional media and opinionate. But there is not very much.

In comment, Barkley Rosser responds to DeLong:

think that Max deserves the prime place here. Certainly your blog is more read than his. But you must admit that for all your criticisms of the Bush non-plan, you have continued to argue that "something should be done," and have not ultimately gone back on those folks from the Clinton administration who really got all this nonsense going with their hysterically ridiculous projections as Social Security Trustees back in the late 1980s. What was with all that anyway? Those projections provided the base for the Bush nonsense.

The first to point out in print that those projections were ridiculous were the late Robert Eisner and then Dean Baker and his coauthor, Weissbart. Max and those on his blog, including Dean, were probably the first to give those a serious airing in public as Bush began his push. It is good that people like you and Krugman picked up on all that and helped get it out to the broader public.

So, Brad, you deserve some kudos, but please recognize that in fact nothing really needs to be done to social security. Do not provide ammo for a future Dem prez to come back with another round of this stuff.

...with follow-up by Bruce Webb:

Josh deserves full credit, and Matt and Kevin were relatively early adopters. But the real credit goes to the numbers. The entire Bush plan required all players to get on board the train before the release of the 2005 Social Security Report. March 23, 2005 was the day the music died for the Cato Institute. None of their plans survive encounter with the economic numbers.

The "No Economist Left Behind" contest settled one end of the logic fork that impaled privatizers. You don't get 6.5% returns across the boards with the productivity numbers of Intermediate Cost. And the business pages settled the other end of the logic fork. The economy will not perform down even to the level of fully funded Low Cost.

President Dole might have had a good shot in 1997, you had to be pretty optimistic about the economy to expect that we would beat a pretty good 1996 productivity number year in and year out. But we did. President Bush might have had a fair shot in 2001, you could squint and still make out "crisis". But at that point the economy had to seriously underperform to sustain "crisis". It didn't. Despite a worrisome disconnect between productivity and real wages by historical standards, the overall economy has continued to grow.

You can argue whether the 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 Reports were deliberately manipulated. I believe they were, others are free to disagree. But there is no question about the 2005 Report. The 2004 Report predicted 2.7%, the real economy returned 3.3%, then the 2005 Report set 2.1% as the "optimistic" number. You don't even have to know what that number refers to, the Trustees expected us to believe that under the best case scenario it would shrink to 66% of the 2004 number. That's optimism?

In the event the relevant number is productivity as defined by the Trustees (somewhat different from productivity as defined by the BLS and reported in the papers). Nobody could defend the numbers in table V.B1 (Principal Economic Assumptions), no one even tried, not once.

The blogosphere and Congress can dislocate their shoulders patting themselves on the backs for delaying the departure of the Privatization Train until March 23, and good on them and us. But the real juice in the Third Rail of American Politics came in the form of a 216 page government report.

2/7
Stitching a New Safety Net
The Wall Street Journal's Econoblog features an exchange between Andrew Samwick and Mark Thoma.
2/8
This Week In Entitlement Reform
A quick survey by Dave Altig at macroblog.
2/9
Night of the Living Policy Proposal
Matthew Yglesias on the never-ending GOP impetus to pop-up zombie proposals.
Zombie Reforms, Zombie Arguments
Will Wilkinson of CATO says if Republicans won't "reform" Social Security, Democrats eventually will.
2/21
Daily Policy Digest
"Policy Notes" from the Pete du Pont-founded National Center for Policy Analysis.
3/31
Ramesh Ponnuru Is Off Message!
DeLong chastises NRO apparatchik for spilling the beans.
4/3
The Missing Social Security Trustees Report
Michael Hiltzik's Golden State blog.
4/17
Is There a Social Security Crisis?
zFacts.com
4/20
Defining the Social Security Privatization Debate
Mark Thoma links to an Economist's Voice article enumerating the seven attributes of privatization.
4/28
REFORMING SOCIAL SECURITY SOONER RATHER THAN LATER:
FACT AND FICTION
Jason Furman of the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.
5/1
Social Security Report Released
Mark Thoma links to Angry Bear, triggering a long discussion of productivity.
5/2
The Trust Fund
More from Economist's View on the 2006 report.
5/13
Social Security
DeLong links to an announcement of an Andrew Samwick Social Security reform presentation, Samwick responds to Bruce Webb in comment:

Bruce writes:

"Will Andrew take table IV.B6 "Unfunded OASDI Obligations for 1935 (Program Inception) Through the Infinite Horizon" (2005 Report p. 59) to front a 3.5% payroll gap like he did on this site in November 2004 (thanks Brad I kept the e-mail) to sell his then solution?"

Answer: Yes. The 3.5% uses the intermediate assumptions to make a projection of the unfunded obligations that does not set an arbitrary stopping point that is 75 years in the future. A 75-year average is an inadequate summary of a series that has a trend.

Bruce writes:

"... there may be a alternate reality where a professional economist might decide to stop at IV.B6 on page 59 and not examine the numbers of V.A1 (Principal Demographic Assumptions) on pages 75-76 and ignore V.B1. But that would be sloppy at best and thoroughly dishonest at worst."

Answer: Obviously, projections for a less rapidly aging population or higher productivity growth would make Social Security more solvent over the projection period. I have discussed on my blog that I think the demographic assumptions (mortality) are too favorable and the economic assumptions (productivity) too unfavorable for Social Security's projections. See the following posts:

http://voxbaby.blogspot.com/2004/12/more-from-max-on-framing-social.html

http://voxbaby.blogspot.com/2005/01/more-on-life-expectancy-projections.html

http://voxbaby.blogspot.com/2005/01/victor-does-heavy-lifting.html

Bruce writes:

"Professor Samwick is not sloppy. Pretty damn slick in selling privatization, but not sloppy. Which still does not make the graph in Figure II.D7 go away."

Answer: I don't find the assumptions of the "low-cost" scenario reasonable, and so it is of little consequence that the trust fund is not projected to run down to zero in that case.

If I thought of myself as "selling" something, it would be this:

http://voxbaby.blogspot.com/2004/10/how-to-reform-social-security-part-i.html

and this:

http://voxbaby.blogspot.com/2004/10/how-to-reform-social-security-part-ii.html

Barkley Rosser responds to Samwick:

I have not looked at this year's report, but I looked pretty closely at last year's and have been following this ever since the Trustees first began issuing their goofy projections in the late 1990s. My understanding is that the numbers are not all that different from last year.

So, basically ever since these projections first appeared in the late 1990s, the intermediate projections have been for the economy to start growing at about half its historical rate in the near future. However, that near future never seems to arrive, except for the occasional recession year like 2001. I know this year the year of "bankruptcy" moved forward a year, but in most years these "crisis" dates have kept being pushed off.

I do note that you agree that the economic projections are probably too pessimistic. It may be true that the length of life projections are too "optimistic" (in the sense that people are predicted to die sooner than they will). But my memory is that there was also a projection of a drastic slowdown in immigration that was to occur in the near future, which also has not shown up yet. Well, who knows? Maybe this anti-immigration movement will really kick in, walls will get built, and we'll get the expected demographic crisis after all.

I basically have two observations (aside from noticing that medicare is in far worse shape and that is where the focus should be; it is already running a deficit).

1) There are quite a few countries out there that have the demographic ratios we are forecast to have three decades from now. Many of these countries have earlier retirement ages, longer life expectancies, and in some cases, much larger government paid old age pensions (nearly twice as high as ours in Germany, last time I checked). In none of these countries has the system "gone bankrupt" or are old people not getting their pensions.

Now, I am not suggesting that we should have Germany's system or some other country in Europe (most of those countries are trying to reduce the generosity of their systems and having trouble doing so). But it does seem that those selling "crisis" stories are simply way overexaggerating things.

2) Even if the more pessimistic scenarios do eventually come to pass. I do not see why we should be running out to "do something now." We are at least a decade away from the system even beginning to run a deficit (as medicare is doing right now, not to mention pretty much the entire rest of the US government). Why not wait and see if the more pessimistic trends emerge and then do something?

Given what happened over the last decade, it looks to me like the probability is very high (certainly higher than you think) that we will wake up a decade from now and find out that it has resembled this past one. That if we do nothing, we will find a cottage industry of people like you running around like Chicken Little warning about how the system will be going into deficit in 2027 and will be bust in 2050 and how we need to have a conference at this or that think tank to...

Greenspan and his crew fixed it in 1982, and so far it is very far from being broke.

Bruce Webb responds to Samwick:

"Answer: I don't find the assumptions of the "low-cost" scenario reasonable, and so it is of little consequence that the trust fund is not projected to run down to zero in that case."

Which ones are unreasonable? And why?

Low Cost has been a much more reliable predictor than Intermediate Cost in the ten years I have been following the numbers. Blithely waving that away by saying you don't find them "reasonable" buys you nothing. Bring numbers, explain which numeric series of Low Cost is too optimistic.

[Changes in trustees' projections over time]

Year in and year out the real economy has been outperforming Intermediate Cost, indeed it has been outperforming Low Cost. Why is the assumption that it will continue to do so, particularly when Low Cost calls for productivity growth no greater than 2.2% in any future, unreasonable?

Webb continues:

The 2006 Report presented 2.0% as the productivity number for 2005. The Trustees did not explain why productivity slumped from a reported 3.0% in 2004 or why this mysterious slump occured and yet did not have an effect on any number series that would cause someone to comment on it. They simply present the number.
[ECONOMIC ASSUMPTIONS AND METHODS] And then add this rather peculiar footnote:
"3. Historical data are not available for the full year. Estimated values vary slightly by alternative and are shown for the intermediate alternative."

One is left scratching one's head. Why on earth were "historical data" "not available"? Never seemed to be a problem before. Note that this does not equate to "productivity figures are subject to revision as more data comes in". This has always been true and merits no special recognition now.

What is the real function of footnote '3'? My only explanation is that it is meant to enter some dusty foggo into what should be a rational examination of actual economic numbers.

Barkley Rosser follows up:

I fully endorse Bruce's questions and comments to Andrew.

For the rest of you, be careful. Note that Brad put this up without snide or critical commentary. He has been part of this cottage industry for some time.

Dean Baker has pointed out that the Monica Lewinsky affair may have saved us from Clinton actually following through in the late 1990s on what we now know were off the wall pessimistic projections. It was people Clinton appointed to the SSA who started this baloney of overly pessimistic projections. This is a bipartisan hysteria, with Dem presidents the real danger. A Dem, especially Bill's wife, might feel the "need to show responsibility" and appeal to Wall Street money by pushing some garbage on this through.

The real irony of Bush's disastrous tour last spring for two months is that he did increase the number of people who agreed with the phoney baloney claim that "social security is in crisis," even as support for his plan, and for him more generally, went down. Dems will oppose any social security change while he is in office. But, if we have Hillary, or Mark, or Al, or John, or Wesley, or Russ, or another "showing responsibility" and backed by Brad DeLong and heavens knows who else from the Dem part of this ridiculous Cottage Industry, Wachet Auf!

5/22
Greg Mankiw Criticizes Lieberman, Bush, and Krugman...
DeLong links to Mankiw and cites Jason Furman in response.
SUPER-ANNUATED
MaxSpeak's take.
5/23
GOING ONCE, TWICE,A PENSION AT A PRICE
Tabloid story of Wall Street lawyer attempting to sell his Social Security benefits decades ahead of time on ebay.
6/19
Social Security Reform: A Bipartisan Proposal
AEI Webcast of presentation of Liebman-MacGuineas-Samwick Social Security plan.
Jason Furman x 2
Libertarian Arnold Kling living in The Furman Century.
6/26
Social Security Private Accounts: Add-ons and Carveouts
DeLong links to a presentation of Samwick's latest plan.
The Tree of Tax Hikes and Social Security Privatization
DeLong on the benefits of add-on accounts.
CATO GUY FOR HIGHER TAXES
MaxSpeak:

The dilemma of the privatizers is that current law favors the status quo, and eventually the use of income tax revenues, backed by the political clout of retired Baby Boomers, to maintain the program.

They've already lost. The might have lost in 1983, betrayed by one of their own -- Crazy Al and Ronald Reagan. Their reform commission may have been the last plausible chance to radically remake the program.

Now if you want reform, you have to accede to tax increases. Give us some revenue, and maybe we'll give you some itty bitty reform. Roll over and we'll rub your tummy too.

6/27
Talking Points Memo
Josh Marshall on Bush's latest phase-out attempt.
Can Social Security Reform Be Saved?
Capital right-wing outlet American Spectator on the Liebman-MacGuineas-Samwick "bipartisan" plan:

Since the LMS plan is a sincere effort at compromise, and since much of the left would still oppose it were Congress to seriously consider it, it would be worthwhile for those of us on the political right to contemplate just how much we would be willing to give up to achieve reform. Of most concern would be the increase in the earnings cap, a tax increase that would fall hard on small businessmen and women, some of conservatives' biggest supporters. Could we, say, accept a plan with only an add-on personal account in exchange for only a minimal rise in the earnings cap and the rest funded via debt? Or should we demand a carve-out in exchange for any increase in taxes?

7/2
Social Security Confusion from the American Spectator
Delong responds:

An increase in contributions coupled with diverting some of those contributions to private accounts is indeed "a carve-out... [plus] an increase in taxes." But the short way of describing "a carve-out... [plus] an increase in taxes'" is "an add-on." Hogberg's second question is essentially "should we accept an add-on?" The answer is yes.

Conversely, an unfunded add-on--a "personal account... funded via debt" that doesn't raise the resources devoted to funding the Social Security system--the short way to describe that is as a "carve-out." Hogberg's first question is "should we demand a carve-out?" The answer to that is no.

But should I be surprised that writers for the American Spectator are hopelessly confused, and call a carve-out an add-on and an add-on a carve-out? I think not.

Given how confused they are, why don't we good guys reframe the debate. An increase in contributions to the Social Security system is to require that current workers accept some of the responsibility for funding their own Social Security benefits, and not push it off onto future generations. Taking responsibility is supposed to be something that responsibility-loving Republicans favor, isn't it?

7/19
Stagnation Celebration
Dean Baker on the promise of productivity and demographics.
7/26
Pulling on Liberal Heartstrings
Economist's View on Social Security's purported threat to the world's poor.
Does Your Social Security Check Perpetuate Global Poverty?
Angry Bear's PGL tracks the argument.
Talking Points Memo
Josh Marshall on the latest instance of Social Security bamboozlement by GOP candidates remaining at large.
7/31
"We're Going to Get Serious"
Economist's View on the latest threats from John Boehner and Hank Paulson among others.
8/11
President Remains Eager to Cut Entitlement Spending
Michael Abramowitz's Washington Post coverage.
More "Entitlement" Nonsense at the Post
Dean Baker responds at his American Prospect Beat the Press blog:

Yet again the Post reports on the threat posed by “entitlement” spending, referring to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. To quickly repeat myself, this is dishonest. There are modest and manageable increases in projected Social Security spending due to the aging of the population. There are unmanageable projected increases in Medicare and Medicaid expenditures due to a projected explosion in health care costs. If the projected explosion in health care costs proves accurate, then it will devastate the economy, and cause serious budget problems.

Honest people respond to these projections by examining ways to prevent the explosion in health care costs. Less honest people talk about the need to cut entitlement spending, including Social Security.

11/18
Who Needs Social Security?
Mark Thoma links to a Kotlikoff paper on high-earning households' dependency on Social Security.

Signs of the crimes

2006-07-26T18:22:00.000-04:00

Via TPM Muckraker, Arlen Specter's bill "regulating" the use of presidential signing statements appended to signed legislation.

So if this bill ends up passing and Bush signs it, what would his signing statement say?

Taxes then and now

2006-06-28T20:41:00.000-04:00

THEN...

"Well before the [civil] war, the wealthy of America had begun holding a dramatically large portion of the nation's wealth. According to the economic historian Lee Soltow, 37 percent of the nation's wealth was held by 2 percent of the people, and the top 5 percent held 50 to 60 percent of the nation's wealth in the 1850s. This inequality was tolerated, according to Soltow, because the average person was gaining wealth and saw the system as making it possible to get more."

Steven R. Weisman, The Great Tax Wars:Lincoln to Wilson - The Fierce Battles over Money and Power That Transformed the Nation.

NOW...

But when all federal taxes were thrown together, the share of the lowest quintile was 1.6%, while the share of the highest quintile was 60.2%. Karl Marx, call your office.

- The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, January 20, 2003.

Well, if "all federal taxes thrown together" includes taxation of wealth it may behoove us to note that as of 1998 when all marketable wealth - defined by economist Edward Wolff as "the current value of all marketable or fungible assets less the current value of debts" were "thrown together," the share of the lowest two quintiles (bottom forty percent) was 0.2%, while the share of the highest quintile (top 20%) was 83.4%.

Andrew Mellon, Line One.

Charts based on 1998 figures analyzed by economist Edward Wolff.

How the pie is sliced

"At least the surface evidence suggests that equality and growth are complementary. The high growth rates of the 1950s and 1960s occurred during a period of low inequality. The slowdown in growth that began in the 1970s was accompanied by rising inequality in both income and wealth. High levels of inequality put better training and education out of the reach of more workers and may breed resentment in the workplace. Analyses of historical data on the U.S. as well as comparative international studies confirm a positive association between equality and growth."

Brad DeLong's favorite Paul Krugman Essay:

"A particularly striking statistic in Wolff's book should put an end to the still widespread tendency to discuss the growth of inequality in America by tracking the fortunes of the top 20 percent, or of college-educated workers. Between 1983 and 1989, while the wealth share of the top 20 percent of families rose substantially, the share of percentiles 80 to 99 actually fell. In other words when we say that America's rich have gotten richer, by the " rich " we did not mean the garden variety yuppies-we mean true plutocrats."

The Rich Get Richer

"Despite the overall gains in stock ownership, fewer than half of all U.S. households had any stake in the stock market by 1998--and many of those had only a minor stake. In 1998, while 48 percent of households owned some stock, only 36 percent had total stock holdings worth $5,000 or more and only 32 percent owned stock worth $10,000 or more. Moreover, the top 1 percent of households accounted for 42 percent of the value of all stock owned in the United States; the top 5 percent accounted for about two-thirds; the top 10 percent for more than three-quarters; and the top 20 percent for almost 90 percent (see table 2)."

[Added to the Chronicle of the 2003 Tax Cut]

2003 Tax Cut Archive

2006-05-30T18:18:00.001-04:00

[Part of the Taxation Survey]

Taxes then and now

Chronology

1992

January
Integration of the Individual and Corporate Tax Systems: Taxing Business Income Once
Glenn Hubbard’s 1992 paper on integrating taxes.

2002

10/31
Do Lower Taxes Mean Faster Economic Growth?
Jeff Madrick, writing in The New York Times, surveys the empirical evidence against long-run stimulative effects of tax cuts.
12/4
Hey, lucky duckies!
Paul Krugman responds to The Wall Street Journal.
12/8
If Tax History Is a Guide, the Poor Are in Trouble
Roger Altman surveys the Republican Party’s historical antipathy to tax relief for those with lower incomes, and notes that a Brookings study by Joseph Pechman in the 1980s indicated that the totality of the American tax system does not effectively change the state of income distribution.
12/15
ARE TAXES TOO CONCENTRATED AT THE TOP?
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities responds to The Wall Street Journal’s infamous editorial, “Lucky Duckies.”

2003

1/7

Talking Points for KQED Forum 1/8/2003 9:00 AM PST
Former Clinton economist J. Bradford DeLong organizes enumeration of the probable effects of the Bush tax cut in preparation for a radio appearance.
It's Time for Glenn Hubbard to Quit as CEA Chair
DeLong calls for Hubbard’s resignation in view of Hubbard’s pejorative use of the phrase “Rubinomics” in direct contradiction to the spirit of his own text.
1/8
After Action Report: KQED Forum 1/8/2003
“Post-game summary.”
1/11
Two Defenses of Glenn Hubbard
Brad DeLong responds to defenses of Glen Hubbard.
1/15
GREENSTEIN ASSESSES BUSH PLAN
A concise press release from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities on the ramifications of the Bush tax cut.
1/17
Off the Wagon
Paul Krugman on tax cuts and deficits.
1/18
Gale and Orszag Provide an Informed View
Brad DeLong introduces Brookings analysis of the tax cut.
1/19
What Every American Wants
Milton Friedman, writing in The Wall Street Journal, tells us:

Tax cuts may initially raise the deficit above the politically tolerable deficit, but their longer-term effect will be to restrain spending.

1/20
Comments: Tax divide
A discussion from Jane Galt’s Assymetrical Information in response to Friedman’s column.
Glen Hubbard
Brad DeLong reviews the inconsistencies of the Bush administration economist’s statements in office from his prior textbook passages.
Lucky Duckies Again
The Gamma Quadrant holdouts at The Wall Street Journal editorial board throw their hands up in horror at the alleged benefits to the poor of the Bush tax cut.
1/21
A (Very Short) Guide for the Perplexed
Paul Krugman on the motivations behind the tax cut.
A Touch of Class
Paul Krugman on the motivations behind the tax cut.
The Administration's Economic "Stimulus" Proposals
Peter Orszag’s testimony.
1/22
Meme Watch: Follow the Money
Chatterbox’s Timothy Noah on the true beneficiaries of the Welfare State.
1/23
Do Budget Deficits Raise Interest Rates?
Brad DeLong introduces an article in The Economist on fiscal profligacy’s impact on interest rates.
Where's the Bang for the Buck?
Jeff Madrick on the cut’s effect on investment.
1/27
The President's Tax Proposal: Second Thoughts
Gale and Orszag revisit the proposal.
1/30
Testimony of R. Glenn Hubbard Chairman, Council of Economic Advisers [PDF]

The Bush administration’s chief economist on the tax cut.
1/31
Where Is the Beef Supposed to Be?
Brad DeLong examines the fiscal and economic logic of the tax cut vis a vis its probable impact on interest rates.
Doing Corporate Tax Integration the Right Way
Brad DeLong quotes Len Burman on taxing income once with a bit of subsequent debate of the total American tax burden.
2/3
An Interview with R. Glenn Hubbard on the Fundamentals of Tax Reform
From The Library of Economics and Liberty.
2/4
Huh?
Brad DeLong on a Glenn Hubbard assertion on deficits and interest rates.
2/5
Deficits and Interest Rates Once Again
Brad DeLong on Glenn Hubbard, Bill Gale, and interest rates.
3/3
Do We Really Need More Stimulus?
Economics blogger Arnold Kling introduces Eugene Steurle’s essay questioning whether any stimulus is needed at all.
3/11
A Fiscal Train Wreck
Paul Krugman on the potential threat to fiscal solvency created by the accumulated Bush tax cuts.
3/19
THE ADMINISTRATION’S TAX CUTS AND THE LONG-TERM BUDGET OUTLOOK
Peter Orszag, Richard Kogan, and Robert Greenstein, writing for the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, calculate that the Bush administration’s accumulated tax cut proposals cost more than “three times the Long-term Deficit in Social Security and Larger than the Long-term Deficits in Social Security and Medicare Combined.”
3/21
Who Lost the U.S. Budget?
Paul Krugman on the tax cut’s threat to Social Security and Medicare.
3/26
Dynamic Scoring Is Zero...
CBO says tax cut will not pay for itself.
4/1
Alan Murray Reports on Dynamic Scoring
4/26
It's an Industrial Sealant! No, It's a Dessert Topping!
DeLong introduces Krugman on the many uses of the tax cut.
4/27
Deficits and Interest Rates
Brad DeLong on Glenn Hubbard’s tricking of a newswire reporter.
4/28
Tax Gamble
Jonathan Rauch, writing in the libertarian Reason magazine, on Bush’s tax cut as a pre-emptive fiscal strike.
4/30
Alan Greenspan Undercuts Bush Tax Cut
An AP report on Greenspan’s testimony calling for the tax cut to be paid for.
4/30
Notes: Mankiw: Charlatans and Cranks
DeLong finds an introductory economic text’s treatment of supply-side assertions.
5/4
Notes: Budget Deficits and Economic Growth Once Again
DeLong introduces Gale and Orszag once again on interest rates.
5/12
NEW CBO DATA SHOW DEFICIT WILL BE HIGHER THAN EARLIER FORECAST AS REVENUES
CBPP on the tax cuts effects on revenues.
5/22
The Distribution
The Tax Policy Center’s chart showing who pays under the plan.
5/27
Stating the Obvious
Paul Krugman on snuffing out the Welfare State. Bobby’s synopsis:
“Radical conservatives are intentionally creating huge deficits so that the
government cannot finance its spending and so that there will be a radical downsizing of government programs for the middle class and poor”
5/28
An Email From the United States Treasury
Brad DeLong on the paucity of support for the tax cut from Republican economists.
Fiscal Facts
Paul Krugman on the excellence of CBPP and the Brookings/Urban Tax Policy Center.
The Tax Cut with William Gale
An online chat transcript.
5/30
Eight Million
The Tax Policy Center’s chart showing the eight million income taxpayers whose taxes aren’t cut.
6/2
Taking the Voodoo Out of Tax Cuts
Tax-cuts don’t stimulate demand, says Brian Wesbury. Throw away your reputable economics textbooks!
Wesbury on Tax Cuts
Arnold Kling initiates a discussion on Wesbury’s article.
Why Are We Ruled by These Idiots? CXII
The New Republic points out the Republicans’ child credit shell games.
6/4
Distribution Tables
“The studies included all federal taxes (although its not clear what assumptions they made as to the incidence of the corporate income tax). In short, they both conclude "that a broad swath of lower-middle, middle- and upper-middle-income people, as well as some rich Americans, will carry a greater share of the federal tax burden after the laws passed in the past three years are fully implemented. While taxes are scheduled to decline for all income groups, those earning more than $28,000 but less than $337,000 will end up paying a greater share of the taxes than they did before the changes."
6/25
Bill Gale on JGTRRA
“The Brookings Institution's Bill Gale on the economic effects of the recent Bush tax cut”
6/27
Budget Blues
Tax Policy center on the tax cuts budgetary effects.

2006 Social Security Trustees Report

2006-05-01T20:13:00.000-04:00

Links are now live at The Bruce Web...

Social Security Meta-Archive: May 2005

2006-04-30T23:50:00.003-04:00

[Part of the Social Security Meta-Archive: 2005]

Social Security Meta-Archive: April 2005

FIXING SOCIAL SECURITY [PDF]
Former Social Security Commissioner Robert Ball writing for the Century Foundation.
The Regressive Impact of the Progressive Indexation of Social Security Benefits [PDF]
Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research

5/1
Warren Buffett and Charles Munger on Social Security
DeLong links to coverage of Buffett's opposition to privatization.
In Praise of Bush's Honesty (Honest)
Michael Kinsley.
SNATCHING DEFEAT FROM THE JAWS OF VICTORY WATCH
Max Sawicky responds.
5/2
Universalism and Social Security
Mark Schmitt at the Decembrist:

One fascinating aspect of the Bush campaign to privatize Social Security has been the desperate attempt to find some constituency, somewhere, for whom Social Security is a manifestly bad deal. And it's amazing how hard it has been for them to do it:

First there was the claim that it's a bad deal for African-Americans. That was one that you didn't know whether to laugh at or be offended by. (My colleague Marcellus Andrews probably did the best job of combining the two emotions.) Then there was the claim that it's a bad deal for younger workers, but that depends entirely on the premise that the government will chose to default on the Treasury bonds.

Finally, as you could see in Bush's press conference Thursday night they've identified a constituency that supposedly doesn't get a good deal from Social Security: It's a widow or widower whose spouse dies shortly before retirement. The surviving spouse would get either his/her own benefits, or the spouse's, whichever is higher, "but not both," as Bush points out. And that's true. Of course, if the spouse dies and leaves children under 18, survivor benefits under Social Security will be a lifesaver for the family. (As Hans Riemer of Rock the Vote points out, young people are familiar with Social Security and like it, because they think of it as the program that helped Johnny's family when his dad died.) And if the widow didn't put in at least ten years in the workforce herself, or didn't earn as much money, the benefits through her husband's Social Security are much more than she would get on her own. So, to summarize Bush, the person for whom Social Security is a raw deal would be a widow or widower whose spouse dies at, say, 60, after the kids are grown but before retirement, and in a household where both spouses worked for much of their adult lives at relatively comparable incomes. The system is "unfair" to that widow or widower, according to Bush, because she only gets Social Security benefits for one person, not two.

It's a pretty cool social program that's a good deal for everyone except a person in that particular situation. And what's so bad about one person's getting benefits for one person anyway?

(Of course, as was finally pointed out in the Senate Finance Committee hearing last week, the forced annuitization feature of private accounts means that they're not really inheritable either, at least not after the annuitization has occurred.)

A Gut Punch to the Middle
Paul Krugman on the effects of Bush's version of progressive indexing.
Krugman Clarifies Liberalism
A response at the blog JustOneMinute, triggering an extended comment thread.
Social Security's Progressive Paradox
Julian Sanchez of the libertarian magazine Reason disputes the insurance aspect of Social Security.
5/3
Talking Points Memo
Matthew Yglesias responds.
My Socks are Cold Feet Insurance!
Will Wilkinson, another libertarian, responds to Yglesias at The Fly Bottle:

Now, yes, it turns out that we don't know exactly how long we're going to live, and so there's some chance we might outlive our savings. Or we might face some kind of financial catastrophe that guts our retirement nest egg. You don't know how long you'll be able to be a productive contributor to the economy, etc. But the point that Matt fails to address is that insofar as Social Security "insures" against these contingencies, so does means-tested welfare, and to a very great extent, so do personal accounts. Means-tested benefits are much MORE like insurance in the sense they kick in only upon the occurrence of some kind of loss or hardship. An annuity from a personal retirement account is exactly like a stream of Social Security checks, except that you actually own something. If Social Security is insurance, then so is a personal account annuity. The reason why Feldstein, in his presidential address to the APA, "Rethinking Social Insurance" discusses the current system, personal accounts, and means-tested benefits as alternative forms of "insurance" is simply that if the current system counts as social insurance, then so do the alternatives.

Regular commercial insurance works by subsidies across the risk pool. (And is by its very nature "social.") Premiums are actuarially determined on the basis of bunch of variables like the probability of the occurrence of loss and the likely cost of reimbursing it. It's a kind of bet. The premiums of people who get lucky, and don't experience the relevant kinds of losses, reimburse people who get unlucky and do experience them.

Social Security isn't like this at all. It "reimburses" everyone who turns 65 (or 62 or 67). Like I said, this event isn't a loss; it is in fact correlated with being rich. A system that pays everyone--Warren Buffet, Tom Cruise, etc.-- is conspicuously un-insurance-like. It's sort of like a system of home-owners insurance where everybody's house burns down ten years after you move in. There's nobody who gets lucky, so no way to transfer risk across the pool. Rather than being structured at all like regular insurance, Social Security is a system of chained intergenerational transfers -- a chain letter, a Ponzi scheme -- which is not what insurance is.

If you insist on calling non-insurance insurance, then Social Security is like insurance in the way that any stream of income is like insurance. It makes it possible to pay for stuff that you wouldn't otherwise be able to pay for. But that's not what insurance is, except in the loosest possible sense. You don't think that you have insurance because you have a salary. You don't think you have disability insurance because you walk around with a helmet on. Most people who receive Social Security are perfectly able to "self-insure." And Social Security improves their ability to self-insure largely because it's replacing income that the government took away in the first place.

The point is: A system that pays everyone benefits upon the occurrence of a near-universal, non-loss event by means of a system of intergenerational wealth transfer just isn't insurance in the paradigmatic sense. If "insurance" just means "making sure that people don't suffer when they don't have enough money," then ANY system that makes sure that people have enough money is insurance. Inter-family transfers, churches, charities, clubs, etc. count as insurance in this sense. And so do means-tested old age benefits and personal retirement accounts.

In comment "Gareth" responds:

Libertarian: It's not an insurance system because people want to live to be old. That's not a risk.

Socrates: But outliving your savings is a risk. And an actuarially predictible one. So it makes sense to pool that risk. Which is what insurance is.

Libertarian: OK. I can imagine a private company providing that kind of service. But they would have to fund their future liabilities.

Socrates: Dude, Social Security funds its liabilities for years and could do so in perpetuity using slightly more optimistic assumptions. Anyway, if that's your problem, we can tinker a bit and solve it.

Libertarian: But Social Security can't have real assets...

Socrates: US Government Bonds aren't real assets? Would it bother you if the insurance company was 100% invested in US Government Bonds?

Former Libertarina, now anarcho-capitalist crazy: Beer funds! Repudiate the debt and give bondholders a share of Yellowstone!

...Expanded upon by R.J. Lehmann:

"Socrates: US Government Bonds aren't real assets? Would it bother you if the insurance company was 100% invested in US Government Bonds?"

In fact, most insurers are invested overwhelmingly in government bonds, and many invested solely in them.

I find the entire line of argument somewhat strange. Like most traditional pension systems, Social Security takes the form of an annuity, which is itself a form of insurance. Risk (in this case, the risk of outliving one's retirement savings) is transferred to a pool, and like most annuities, payouts then proceed from a given starting date until death.

In terms of long-term solvency, Social Security is not a particularly well-structured annuity plan, since the price is not rated according to the size of risk. If it were, then smokers would pay less than non-smokers, men pay less than women, etc. Although arguably, since payout adjustments are progressive with respect to income even without indexing, and the rich tend to live longer than the poor, that's at least one risk factor that is partially accounted for.

But that Social Security is a poorly structured annuity program doesn't mean it is NOT one. Most insurers, including life insurers who offer annuities, hedge against the risk of insolvency by way of reinsurance. The Social Security program's reinsurance is the American taxpayer...

PROGRESSIVE IS
Mad Max contrasts "liberal" and "social democratic" approaches to Social Security.
Pozen Pill
Brad DeLong, in Slate, on Pozen's ideas and what the Bush Administration may do with them.
Screwing the Very People Who Gave Him the "Mandate"
The Decembrist on the combined fiscal impact of Bush's SS and tax cut plans on the middle class.
5/4
Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
Audio and video of presentation by Peter Orszag and John Shoven.
Slashing Social Security: Bush Plan Cuts Benefits
Moving Ideas' page on the Bush Plan.
5/5
Let's Not Save Social Security
Mickey Kaus, writing in Slate, says keeping the option to slash Social Security deeper later this century is the top priority.
5/9
The Personal 'Lockbox'
John Fund of The Wall Street Journal proposes Treasury bill accounts.
Bush May Destroy Social Security, Not Fix It: John M. Berry
Bloomburg columnist on the ultimate political ramifications for Social Security implied by the rate of returns of progressive indexing.
The White House Mounts a Feeble Defense of Its Social Security Plans
Brad DeLong.
Give Us the Real Thing on Social Security
Will Wilkinson of the CATO Institute says Social Security is risky to its beneficiaries.
5/10
THE IMPACT OF THE PRESIDENT'S PROPOSAL
ON SOCIAL SECURITY SOLVENCY AND THE BUDGET
Jason Furman of The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Index Fun
Matthew Yglesias in The American Prospect.
Progressive Price Indexing is Not Means-Testing -- It's Arbitrary
Peter Ferrara: Too Busy Being a Hack
The Decembrist.
5/11
Dems’ Plan
Stanley Kurtz of the National Review constructs a critique of Diamond-Orszag and Democratic stewardship thereof singularly lacking in, um, productivity.
5/12
Statement of C. Eugene Steuerle, Senior Fellow, Urban Institute, Codirector, Tax Policy Center, and Columnist, Tax Notes Magazine Testimony Before the House Committee on Ways and Means
Radio host Michael Medved's privatization meltdown
Media Matters coverage.
5/13
Statement on Social Security Reform
Brad DeLong testifies before the Democratic Policy Committee, followed by subsequent comment on the implications of assumptions of the distribution of returns from productivity for privatization in DeLong's blog by Bruce Webb:

From Michael Cain
"Is there a chance that, deep down, the Trustees realize that the portion of national income that goes to the capped wages and salary base for the SS taxes will be a shrinking one in the future? And that the "productivity" growth that they assume is actually that portion of the overall growth rate that will show up in that tax base?"

Well sure, but that is not the number they report in "productivity". The effect you mention would show up in other columns like Real Wage Differential. Productivity is the overall pie, the size of the slices depends on other factors. Lowballing the size of the pie because you know the people cutting the slices are rogues is to make a mockery out of the whole model.

We are talking about a spreadsheet. Intermediate Cost and Low Cost are nothing more than an Excel table. You change your initial assumptions and the changes ripple right through to the end. Productivity is just one assumption, though the driver, there are others and anyone if free to challenge them and show how they might offset productivity. But these tables are math and not psychology, they don't measure the evil that is in the hearts of men, they are not a scorecard on the Masters of Capitalism. They simply show that if you input a set of economic and demographic assumptions we can label A you get outcome X. If you input a different set of assumptions we label B you get outcome Y.

What you suggest here is that initial numbers are being distorted in an effort to hide the thuggery needed for Capital to extract all the gains of likely productivity over the next 75 years at the total expense of Workers. (Which was the outcome of the "No Economist Left Behind" challenge. You can save 6.5% stock returns with 1.6% productivity by putting 90% of America into perma-poverty). Well no thanks.

I assume that workers will extract some share (not necessarily a fair share) of the gains in productivity over the next years. Because despite the flaws both exhibit on a daily basis we still have some capital letter players called Democracy and Markets. And you can only game the latter so much before the former bites you in the ass.

Social Security insolvency requires one) that some future US government openly proclaim themselves to be thieves and liars and two) that corporate America will simply feel free to grind down American wages into the dirt. There are plenty of people who believe that, read any comment thread at dKos. But it is an uncomfortable starting position for privatizers. "Sure we will default on the bonds, and no you will never get a raise ever, but trust me with that 4% of your check"

You can only get to Social Security "crisis" by trashtalking the American economy and the whole concept of market wages. Ask the next privatizer you meet why he hates America so much.

Senate Democratic Policy Committee Hearing:"An Oversight Hearing on President Bush's Social Security Privatization Plan: Will You and Your Family Be Worse Off?"
5/16
"I Want My Safety Net"
"Why so many Americans aren't buying into Bush's Ownership Society" BusinessWeek cover story.
5/17
HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON SOCIAL SECURITY OF THE COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION
5/19
Pozen Blasts Bush Privatization Plans
The Center for American Progress reports on Pozen's opposition to "carved-out" accounts accompanying progressive indexing.
5/20
SOCIAL SECURITY, WHEN “NEVER” IS DEFINED AS "2042"
Team Bush propaganda methods dissected at the blog BE-THINK.
5/22
No Old-Age Security in the Private Sector Either
Joseph Stiglitz on dismantling public pensions and subsidizing private ones.
5/25
What Is the Social Security Trust Fund, Anyway?
Economist Andrew Samwick:

Think of the Trust Fund as a line of credit that the Social Security system extends to the rest of the government. The balance in the Trust Fund is simply the current value--principal plus interest credited at the Treasury bond rate--of all the withdrawals that the rest of the government has made historically on that line of credit to pay for things other than Social Security. Its projected balance at the end of the year is $1.85 trillion. Under current law, that balance is projected to peak at $3.61 trillion in 2022 before declining to zero in 2041. During those 20 years, the Social Security system will be calling in the loans that it has made to the rest of the government.

Keeping track of the total amount outstanding on these loans is the accounting purpose of the Trust Fund balance. It also has a legal purpose. Specifically, as long as the the Trust Fund balance is positive, then the system can pay the benefits implied by current law. It would require the Congress and the President to execute a new law to interrupt this process. When the Trust Fund hits zero, then it would take a new law to get full benefits paid on time--they would be paid only as tax revenues flow into the system.

Options for Social Security: Budgetary and Distributional Impacts[PDF]
CBO testimony before the Senate Finance Committee.
Retirement Income: The Crucial Role of Social Security
"An EPI news conference
Wednesday, May 25, 2005, 10 AM (ET)
National Press Club, Washington, D.C.

Co-authors Christian Weller and Edward N. Wolff discuss their new book, Retirement Income: The Crucial Role of Social Security
5/30
MORE MATH PROBLEMS AT THE POST
Dean Baker responds to a Washington Post editorial.
5/31
Privatization's Unintelligent Design
Greg Anrig, Jr. of TPMCafe on the "dynamic scoring" projections of Feldstein and Samwick.

Social Security Meta-Archive: 2005

Social Security Meta-Archive: April 2005

2006-04-30T23:46:00.003-04:00

[Part of the Social Security Meta-Archive: 2005]

Social Security Meta-Archive: March 2005

April 2005
What is Progressive Price Indexing?[PDF]
Alicia Munnell of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.
4/1
A Proper April Fools Day!
Brad DeLong responds to Donald Luskin.
Stepford Town Meetings
EJ Dionne on Bush's employment of Secret Service as pep rally bouncers.
4/2
Asset Returns and Economic Growth
DeLong links to Mankiw's response to his paper with Baker and Krugman.
The Need for Social Insurance
Mark Thoma.
4/4
Prefunding and Private Accounts
DeLong quotes Andrew Samwick quoting Alex Tabarrok and responds.
4/5
Rove Says Social Security Overhaul Must Have Private Accounts
Bloomberg coverage.
4/6
The Commander Is on Deck
DeLong:"Gene Sperling issues marching orders on Social Security reform"
4/7
April Fools Day Continues!
DeLong:

Donald Luskin:
NRO Financial April 4, 2005: The actuaries, as noted earlier, assume about 1.9 percent annual real GDP growth over the coming 75 years.... At the same time, the actuaries assume 6.5 percent annual real total returns to stocks.... What’s the complaint, then? Where’s the inconsistency?..
Donald Luskin:
NRO Financial February 2, 2005: Krugman does make one good point... stock returns in the neighborhood of 6.5 percent will not be possible over the coming 75 years if economic growth is as low as the 1.9 percent rate used by the actuaries of the Social Security Administration in their solvency estimates...
There is one thing that puzzles me: Is Luskin genuinely too dumb to remember what he wrote two months ago? Or does he just think that National Review's readers and editors are too dumb to remember what he wrote two months ago?

Mark Thoma in comment:

Your reponse shows an admirable amount of restraint given the baseless hatchet job Luskin tried to do on your paper with Baker and Krugman, and the uncalled for personal attacks. He even pulled out the "Brad DeLong (the former Clinton administration official who is the self-confessed most-Marxist-leaning economist on the U.C. Berkeley economics faculty" which shows you just how scared you guys have him. Too bad he doesn't understand the point about social arrangements and modes of production you are trying to make in the post he links, and that what you write there is critical of, not supportive of, what most people think of as Marxian tenets.

A more honest link would have been to the comments on the transformation problem where Marxists are not happy with you...

George W. Bush's $1.7 Trillion Grand Larceny Spree
DeLong quotes Max Sawicky.
The Bush Administration Clown Show Continues...
DeLong articulates the implications of one of White House spokesman Chuck Blahous's talking points:

If you go to the real Republican economists, you will find the argument going something like this, where I have turned the frankness-and-blunt-speaking-o-meter up from its usual level of 3 to the Spinal Tap level of 11:
Currently, the U.S. government is running a Social Security surplus--taking in more in Social Security taxes than it spends in benefits.

When the baby-boom generation retires, the U.S. government is going to be spending more on Social Security than it will take in in taxes--so the government is going to have to borrow a lot of money in order to cover the deficit.

The government will only be able to borrow if creditors think (i) the debt is not already too high and (ii) the government will have the will to levy taxes to pay us off when our bonds come due.

Thus it's important that now--when Social Security is in surplus--that the government be not running up but running down the debt.

If the government takes the current Social Security surplus and spends it--doesn't run a big current surplus and buy back debt now--then it will be unable to borrow when the baby-boom retirement payments come do because the debt level from which we will then start will be too high.

The U.S. government--especially Frist, Hastert, Delay, and Bush--have a demonstrated incapability to not spend the Social Security surplus: there is no a snowball's chance in hell that a government run by them will buy back debt.

So we are in big trouble.

If only we could keep Frist, Hastert, Delay, and Bush from knowing that they have a Social Security surplus to spend, they would be forced to raise taxes or cut spending, and then the government would be able to borrow in the future to meet its Social Security obligations to the baby boomers.

So let's set up private accounts. That will cut government revenues now--and so eliminate the Social Security surplus. Frist, Hastert, Delay, and Bush will be forced into fiscal sanity, and so we'll have a lower debt when we really do have to borrow in the future. And we won't have to borrow any more in the future as a result of our private accounts plan because we will cut normal benefits by an amount that is in present value equal to the amount that we're diverting to private accounts.

"Battlepanda" in comment:

Alan Greenspan in '83: Let me put this cookie away for you so you can have it for dessert later instead of ruining your dinner.

Al Gore in 2000: I wouldn't keep the cookie jar right out in plain sight if I were you.

George Bush in 2005: Oh uh! Somebody ate your cookies! Or perhaps your cookies never existed in the first place.

American people: Why preznit hand in cookie jar?

GB: To make sure this terrible terrible thing never happens again, next time we're going to keep the cookies in a jar with your name on it!

American people: (...)

4/8
The Bush Administration Social Security Clown Show Continues
DeLong links to Judd Legum and resumes bashing Blahous.
4/9
Losing the Social Security Battle
Stephen Moore, longtime libertarian think-tank operative, lays longterm plans for the destruction of Social Security in the Weekly Standard:

Finally, to put the Democratic obstructionists in an especially uncomfortable position, it would make sense to start proposing fallback positions that at least get personal accounts started. One idea would be to defuse the fatuous "risky stock market" argument by simply offering a plan where workers can have a private account, but are permitted to purchase only Treasury bills. Take the stock market out of the equation and there is not even the odor of risk with personal accounts.

THE COMMONWEAL
STRIKES BACK
Max Sawicky responds:

But . . . but . . . I thought Government bonds were "just IOUs"?!?

Steve and his boyz are in it for the long haul. Let's back up and see where we are.

At the least, the privatizers have helped to back the public into the Dems' position: there is a problem but not a crisis. So we are still ripe for misguided efforts to close deficits that are decades in the future.

4/14
A Note: Returns, Growth, and Financing Social Insurance
DeLong follows up on his paper on asset returns with Krugman and Baker.
4/15
"Asset Returns and Economic Growth": The Econ 1 Version
DeLong continues...
4/19
The focus groups speaketh
The Carpetbagger Report on "privatization" morphing into "personal accounts" morphing into "modernization."
Live Blogging from Heritage, III: The Demographics of the International Pension Situation

"This session is led by Richard Jackson, Director, Global Aging Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He's going to put the SS reform debate here in international perspective..."

4/22
Jackie Calmes on Chuck Blahous
DeLong links to Wall Street Journal coverage and comments:

A Social Security reform plan that does not preserve a defined benefit component, does not offer a good deal to the non-rich choosing private accounts, and does not boost national savings is not a Social Security reform plan worth proposing. There are no reasons for anybody to support this thing.

4/24
Matt Miller: Why Are Republican Economists Averse to Raising National Savings?
DeLong links to a discussion of the White House refusal to pay for private accounts.
4/26
FDR's Card Trick
A conservative attack on Social Security by William Voegeli of the Clairmont Institute writing at OpinionJournal.com
Social Security Reform
Peter Orszag testifies before the Senate Finance Committee.
Personal Accounts Are Not A Certainty
Washington Post coverage.
4/28
Press Conference of the President
Remarks on Social Security:

Congress also needs to address the challenges facing Social Security. I've traveled the country to talk with the American people. They understand that Social Security is headed for serious financial trouble, and they expect their leaders in Washington to address the problem.

Social Security worked fine during the last century, but the math has changed. A generation of baby boomers is getting ready to retire. I happen to be one of them. Today there are about 40 million retirees receiving benefits; by the time all the baby boomers have retired, there will be more than 72 million retirees drawing Social Security benefits. Baby boomers will be living longer and collecting benefits over long retirements than previous generations. And Congress has ensured that their benefits will rise faster than the rate of inflation.

In other words, there's a lot of us getting ready to retire who will be living longer and receiving greater benefits than the previous generation. And to compound the problem, there are fewer people paying into the system. In 1950, there were 16 workers for every beneficiary; today there are 3.3 workers for every beneficiary; soon there will be two workers for every beneficiary.

These changes have put Social Security on the path to bankruptcy. When the baby boomers start retiring in three years, Social Security will start heading toward the red. In 2017, the system will start paying out more in benefits than it collects in payroll taxes. Every year after that the shortfall will get worse, and by 2041, Social Security will be bankrupt.

Franklin Roosevelt did a wonderful thing when he created Social Security. The system has meant a lot for a lot of people. Social Security has provided a safety net that has provided dignity and peace of mind for millions of Americans in their retirement. Yet there's a hole in the safety net because Congresses have made promises it cannot keep for a younger generation.

As we fix Social Security, some things won't change: Seniors and people with disabilities will get their checks; all Americans born before 1950 will receive the full benefits.

Our duty to save Social Security begins with making the system permanently solvent, but our duty does not end there. We also have a responsibility to improve Social Security, by directing extra help to those most in need and by making it a better deal for younger workers. Now, as Congress begins work on legislation, we must be guided by three goals. First, millions of Americans depend on Social Security checks as a primary source of retirement income, so we must keep this promise to future retirees, as well. As a matter of fairness, I propose that future generations receive benefits equal to or greater than the benefits today's seniors get.

Secondly, I believe a reform system should protect those who depend on Social Security the most. So I propose a Social Security system in the future where benefits for low-income workers will grow faster than benefits for people who are better off. By providing more generous benefits for low-income retirees, we'll make this commitment: If you work hard and pay into Social Security your entire life, you will not retire into poverty. This reform would solve most of the funding challenges facing Social Security. A variety of options are available to solve the rest of the problem, and I will work with Congress on any good-faith proposal that does not raise the payroll tax rate or harm our economy. I know we can find a solution to the financial problems of Social Security that is sensible, permanent, and fair.

Third, any reform of Social Security must replace the empty promises being made to younger workers with real assets, real money. I believe the best way to achieve this goal is to give younger workers the option, the opportunity if they so choose, of putting a portion of their payroll taxes into a voluntary personal retirement account. Because this money is saved and invested, younger workers would have the opportunity to receive a higher rate of return on their money than the current Social Security system can provide.

The money from a voluntary personal retirement account would supplement the check one receives from Social Security. In a reformed Social Security system, voluntary personal retirement accounts would offer workers a number of investment options that are simple and easy to understand. I know some Americans have reservations about investing in the stock market, so I propose that one investment option consist entirely of Treasury bonds, which are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government.

Options like this will make voluntary personal retirement accounts a safer investment that will allow an American to build a nest egg that he or she can pass on to whomever he or she chooses. Americans who would choose not to save in a personal account would still be able to count on a Social Security check equal to or higher than the benefits of today's seniors.

In the coming days and weeks, I will work with both the House and the Senate as they take the next steps in the legislative process. I'm willing to listen to any good idea from either party.

Too often, the temptation in Washington is to look at a major issue only in terms of whether it gives one political party an advantage over the other. Social Security is too important for "politics as usual." We have a shared responsibility to fix Social Security and make the system better; to keep seniors out of poverty and expand ownership for people of every background. And when we do, Republicans and Democrats will be able to stand together and take credit for doing what is right for our children and our grandchildren.

The Bush Social Security Clown Show Continues
DeLong responds.
4/29
It's the Circular Firing Squad of Flying Attack Monkeys!
More from DeLong in response to the press conference.
HOW WOULD THE PRESIDENT’S NEW SOCIAL SECURITY PROPOSALS
AFFECT MIDDLE-CLASS WORKERS AND SOCIAL SECURITY SOLVENCY?
Jason Furman of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
INDEX THIS
Max Sawicky on the implications of progressive indexing.
Has Bush gone Commie?
The conservative blogger ProfessorBainbridge riffs off of the Voegli attack on Social Security to rub his hands in glee at the thought of subverting the "universalist" principle behind the implementation of Social Security in the US.
NOT DEMOGRAPHY
Max Sawicky links to a report by EPI's Josh Bivens.

Social Security Meta-Archive: May 2005

The answer to Helen Thomas's question...

2006-03-22T18:00:00.000-05:00

...has already been provided to us by Texas sports biographer Mickey Herskowitz, as Russ Abrams wrote a year and a half ago...

Two years before the September 11 attacks, presidential candidate George W. Bush was already talking privately about the political benefits of attacking Iraq, according to his former ghost writer, who held many conversations with then-Texas Governor Bush in preparation for a planned autobiography.

“He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999,” said author and journalist Mickey Herskowitz. “It was on his mind. He said to me: ‘One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.’ And he said, ‘My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.’ He said, ‘If I have a chance to invade….if I had that much capital, I’m not going to waste it. I’m going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I’m going to have a successful presidency.”

Herskowitz said that Bush expressed frustration at a lifetime as an underachiever in the shadow of an accomplished father. In aggressive military action, he saw the opportunity to emerge from his father’s shadow. The moment, Herskowitz said, came in the wake of the September 11 attacks. “Suddenly, he’s at 91 percent in the polls, and he’d barely crawled out of the bunker.”

That President Bush and his advisers had Iraq on their minds long before weapons inspectors had finished their work – and long before alleged Iraqi ties with terrorists became a central rationale for war – has been raised elsewhere, including in a book based on recollections of former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill. However, Herskowitz was in a unique position to hear Bush’s unguarded and unfiltered views on Iraq, war and other matters – well before he became president.

In 1999, Herskowitz struck a deal with the campaign of George W. Bush about a ghost-written autobiography, which was ultimately titled A Charge to Keep : My Journey to the White House, and he and Bush signed a contract in which the two would split the proceeds. The publisher was William Morrow. Herskowitz was given unimpeded access to Bush, and the two met approximately 20 times so Bush could share his thoughts. Herskowitz began working on the book in May, 1999, and says that within two months he had completed and submitted some 10 chapters, with a remaining 4-6 chapters still on his computer. Herskowitz was replaced as Bush’s ghostwriter after Bush’s handlers concluded that the candidate’s views and life experiences were not being cast in a sufficiently positive light.

...And...And...A PONY!... With a SHINY NEW COAT!

2006-02-20T18:32:00.000-05:00

Well, I don't know if it's the "best weblog post ever", but this Belle Waring post from a couple of years ago is good enough to reproduce here until Echelon enables "neutralize" or Blogger eats it, whichever comes first:

I think Matthew Yglesias' response to Josh Chafetz' exercise in wishful thinking was about right, even if Brad DeLong's is more nuanced. I'd like to note, though, that Chafetz is selling himself short. You see, wishes are totally free. It's like when you can't decide whether to daydream about being a famous Hollywood star or having amazing magical powers. Why not -- be a famous Hollywood star with amazing magical powers! Along these lines, John has developed an infallible way to improve any public policy wishes. You just wish for the thing, plus, wish that everyone would have their own pony! So, in Chafetz' case, he should not only wish that Bush would say a lot of good things about democracy-building and fighting terrorism in a speech written for him by a smart person, he should also wish that Bush should actually mean the things he says and enact policies which reflect this, and he should wish that everyone gets a pony. See?

John came up with this "and a pony" scheme during a discussion we were having about crazy libertarians. (He was bathing Zoë as I told him about the article I'd read, and Zoë chimed in that she wanted to get a pony too. Duly noted.) Reason recently published a debate held at its 35th anniversary banquet. The flavor of this discussion is indescribable. In its total estrangement from our political and social life today, its wilfull disregard of all known facts about human nature, it resembles nothing so much as a debate over some fine procedural point of end-stage communism, after the state has withered away. Child-care arrangements, let's say. Position A: there will be well run communal creches! Position B: nonsense! the amount of work required from each individual to maintain a perfectly functioning society will be so small that people can care for their own children and those of others on a spontaneous basis, as the need arises!

Allow me to summarize.

Richard A. Epstein: even in the libertarian utopia, some forms of state coercion will be required. If we must assemble 100 plots of land to build a railway which will benefit all, and only 99 owners will sell, then we may need to force a lone holdout to accept a fair price for his land. Similarly, the public enforcement of private rights and the creation of infrastructure will require money, so there will have to be some taxes. [Note to self: no shit, Sherlock.]

Randy Barnett: Not so fast! Let's cross that bridge when we come to it rather than restricting liberty in advance. We'll know a lot more about human liberty in the libertarian utopia, and private entrepreneurs will solve these problems somehow without our needing to grant to governments the dangerous ability to confiscate our property in the name of some nebulous "public good." And as for rights enforcement --look it's Halley's Comet!

David Friedman: Epstein places too much confidence in his proposed restrictions on government power. Rights could be enforced privately, and imperfect but workable solutions to the holdouts in the railway case could also be found. "To justify taxation we need the additional assumption that rights enforcement cannot be done by the state at a profit, despite historical examples of societies where the right to enforce the law and collect the resulting fines was a marketable asset."

Now, everyone close your eyes and try to imagine a private, profit-making rights-enforcement organization which does not resemble the mafia, a street gang, those pesky fire-fighters/arsonists/looters who used to provide such "services" in old New York and Tokyo, medieval tax-farmers, or a Lendu militia. (In general, if thoughts of the Eastern Congo intrude, I suggest waving them away with the invisible hand and repeating "that's anarcho-capitalism" several times.) Nothing's happening but a buzzing noise, right?

Now try it the wishful thinking way. Just wish that we might all live in a state of perfect liberty, free of taxation and intrusive government, and that we should all be wealthier as well as freer. Now wish that people should, despite that lack of any restraint on their actions such as might be formed by policemen, functioning law courts, the SEC, and so on, not spend all their time screwing each other in predictable ways ranging from ordinary rape, through the selling of fraudulent stocks in non-existent ventures, up to the wholesale dumping of mercury in the public water supplies. (I mean, the general stock of water from which people privately draw.) Awesome huh? But it gets better. Now wish that everyone had a pony. Don't thank me, Thank John.

UPDATE: John wants me to point out that he got the idea from a Calvin and Hobbes strip in which little Susie first wishes that Calvin was nicer, then realizes she might just as well wish for a pony while she's at it. So, thank that Calvin and Hobbes guy, or something.

2ND UPDATE: Thanks to Ben Wolfson for alerting us to the miracle of searchable Calvin and Hobbes! (Now get to work on your abandoned wasteblog, Ben.) Here is the original 'might as well wish for a pony' strip. I humbly submit that it deserves to be a catch-phrase. Just say 'plus a pony' on suitable occasions and watch your opponents whither away like the state itself.

...But you'll have a SHINY NEW COAT!

2006-02-19T22:43:00.000-05:00

Friedman's 'heresy' hits mainstream
A brief San Francisco Chronicle profile of Milton Friedman from last June:

President Bush's proposal to incorporate private accounts in the giant retirement program is easily traced to Friedman.

"He's the originator of it and all the discussion can be traced back to him," said the Cato Institute's Michael Tanner, a leading advocate of partial privatization.

"I've always been opposed to Social Security," Friedman said in a recent interview at his home in San Francisco. "I think it's a very unethical program. "

This link NOT sponsored by ALPO.

[Added to the 2005 Social Security Meta-Narrative]

Doin' the Supply-Side Glide when the ice is thin...

2006-02-19T21:15:00.000-05:00

Bruce Bartlett, longtime supply-sider and analyst for a plutocratic Dallas think-tank, has written a new book about America's Supreme Leader innocuously entitled Impostor : How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy and, as a result, will be "spending more time with his family." As Robert Wilonsky writes in the Dallas Observer:

"Just in the past few months, I think a light has gone off for people who've spent time up close to Bush: that this instinct he's always talking about is this sort of weird, Messianic idea of what he thinks God has told him to do. This is why George W. Bush is so clear-eyed about Al Qaeda and the Islamic fundamentalist enemy. He believes you have to kill them all. They can't be persuaded, that they're extremists, driven by a dark vision. He understands them, because he's just like them...This is why he dispenses with people who confront him with inconvenient facts. He truly believes he's on a mission from God."

Keep in mind it wasn't Ted Kennedy who said this. It was a Republican who'd been on Bush's daddy's payroll. A Republican who wrote two very sober-minded books on economic policy, 1981's Reaganomics: Supply Side Economics in Action and 1983's The Supply-Side Solution. A Republican who has pushed for tax reform and small government in his syndicated column and in op-eds that have appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and other more right-leaning publications. And a Republican who, since 1995, had been on the payroll of the conservative Dallas-based think tank called the National Center for Policy Analysis, which counts among its board members and contributors Dallas' Fred Meyers, the Aladdin Industries executive who raised more than $200,000 for Bush's 2004 campaign and chairs the Republican National Committee's Presidential Victory Team.

As it turned out, Bartlett's boss at the National Center for Policy Analysis wasn't too thrilled with the Suskind piece. Bartlett says now he thought his conversation with Suskind was an off-the-record chitchat among friends, but like a kid caught hurling spitballs at the teacher, he was called into the principal's office and reprimanded by John C. Goodman, the NCPA's founder and president, and former governor of Delaware Pete Du Pont, chairman of the NCPA's board of directors.

"John called me the day after the article appeared and told me that Karl Rove had called him to complain about it," Bartlett says from his home in Great Falls, Virginia, where, from all accounts, most rooms are filled with ancient bookshelves and file cabinets filled with reams of tax-related documents. At 54, he boasts of having no wife or children to interfere with his self-proclaimed Spartan lifestyle.

"And that was really when they started to really pressure me to tone down my criticism," Bartlett recalls of that meeting at the NCPA's Washington, D.C., offices. "I know that there was contact [with the White House], and I know that Rove knows John Goodman, because the one time I met Rove and talked to him, he asked me what John was doing, and they know each other from Texas politics."

Dwight Eisenhower on the Texas challenge to social democracy

2006-02-08T23:40:00.000-05:00

Letter To Edgar Newton Eisenhower, November 8, 1954
From the Presidential Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower:

Now it is true that I believe this country is following a dangerous trend when it permits too great a degree of centralization of governmental functions. I oppose this--in some instances the fight is a rather desperate one. But to attain any success it is quite clear that the Federal government cannot avoid or escape responsibilities which the mass of the people firmly believe should be undertaken by it. The political processes of our country are such that if a rule of reason is not applied in this effort, we will lose everything--even to a possible and drastic change in the Constitution. This is what I mean by my constant insistence upon "moderation" in government. Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.

[Associated Snopes coverage]

[Added to the Social Security Meta-Archive]

Garry Wills on secular innocence

2006-01-31T23:46:00.000-05:00

The Secularist Prejudice

In an excerpt from his 1990 book Under God: Religion and American Politics in the Christian Century, Garry Wills highlights the innocence of mid-twentieth century secular thinkers like Henry Steele Commager and Arthur Schlesinger of the impact of religion on the national psyche:

For Commager, religion is clearly as irrational as modern art, but he is comparatively benign in his description of it. It puzzles him, by its anomalous perdurance in a people as rational and secular as those who possess the authentically American Mind. But religion does not disturb him as much as dirty poems. He decides, to his relief, that people do not really mean it when they say they believe in the old creeds: "For three hundred years Calvinism had taught the depravity of man without any perceptible effect on the cheerfulness, kindliness, or optimism of Americans."

If it seems strange that Commager can get so worked up about an assault on reason mounted by e. e. cummings while remaining, tranquil about religion’s "flight from reason," that is because he cannot imagine that anybody would take a preacher as seriously as a poet. For him, "no American could believe that he was damned." All real Americans have "preferred this life to the next," so their religious professions. are a cover for something else -- luckily, for something quite useful: "The church was, on the whole, the most convenient and probably the most effective organization for giving expression to the American passion for humanitarianism." When the church is not being useful, it is neutered; so support for it is harmless: "The church was something to be ‘supported,’ like some aged relative whose claim was vague but inescapable." A meaningless religion is a rather nice thing to have, since it does not interfere at all with dam-building, and it gives people something to do with their spare time.

Almost 40 years after Commager defined the American mind, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., returned to the task and found the same qualifying traits. In a widely publicized inaugural address at Brown University, Schlesinger argued that secularity is the leading characteristic of Americans: "The American mind is by nature and tradition skeptical irreverent, pluralistic and relativistic." Yet Schlesinger, unlike Commager, is nervous about religion, which some people in 1989 were taking altogether too seriously. Schlesinger sets the canons of Americanism in an exclusive way. We are told who are "the two greatest and most characteristic American thinkers" -- Emerson and William James. We are told who was the "most quintessential of American historians" -- George Bancroft (no doubter of American virtue, like Henry Adams) We are told what is the (one and orthodox) "American way" -- "Relativism is the American way." We are even told what is "the finest scene in the greatest of American novels"-- the point when Huck Finn decides to help Nigger Jim escape. In fact, we are told that this last scene "is what America is all about."

Like a nativist facing immigrant hordes, Schlesinger multiplies the defining (and excluding) social signs of "our sort." Our sort have no truck with "reverence." We are committed to "our truth." Even relativism helps us to keep up standards here: "For our relative, values are not matters of whim and happenstance. History has given them "to us." They are like descent from the Mayflower. "People with a different history will have different values. But we believe that our own are better for us." How lucky, then, that history did not give us religious values. It is not enough that pragmatic, irreverent relativism be a high ideal for Americans to aspire to. It must be a "given," like the liberalism Louis Hartz, the consensus historian, said was the American situation (rather than its creed). It is something one need not argue for, since one cannot escape it in any event: Our values "are anchored in our national experience, in our great national documents, in our national heroes, in our folkways, traditions, standards."

Schlesinger obviously has a different understanding of America’s "folkways" than did the author of "the finest scene in the greatest of American novels." Twain’s novels, and especially the one Schlesinger cites, are filled with folk superstition, religion, prejudice and dogmatism. Even in the scene offered (rightly) to our admiration. Huck does not escape the presumptions of the entire culture around him. In fact. Huck at his supreme moment performs an act Professor Commager called impossible for any real American -- Huck not only believes in hell, but believes he is going there now that he is helping Jim. He defies, while still believing in, "the American way" of everyone around him, the way of sin and damnation.

[Added to the Chronicle of Church & State]

Church & State Archive

2005-12-20T01:00:00.001-05:00

Wikipedia: Separation of church and state
Wikipedia: Pledge of Allegiance

1785

Memorial and Remonstrance
James Madison attacks state provision of funds to teach Christianity:

Because Religion be exempt from the authority of the Society at large, still less can it be subject to that of the Legislative Body. The latter are but the creatures and vicegerents of the former. Their jurisdiction is both derivative and limited: it is limited with regard to the co-ordinate departments, more necessarily is it limited with regard to the constituents. The preservation of a free Government requires not merely, that the metes and bounds which separate each department of power be invariably maintained; but more especially that neither of them be suffered to overleap the great Barrier which defends the rights of the people. The Rulers who are guilty of such an encroachment, exceed the commission from which they derive their authority, and are Tyrants. The People who submit to it are governed by laws made neither by themselves nor by an authority derived from them, and are slaves.

Whilst we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess and to observe the Religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we cannot deny an equal freedom to those whose minds have not yet yielded to the evidence which has convinced us. If this freedom be abused, it is an offence against God, not against man: To God, therefore, not to man, must an account of it be rendered.

1878

October Term
REYNOLDS v. U.S.

Amongst others, Mr. Madison prepared a 'Memorial and Remonstrance,' which was widely circulated and signed, and in which he demonstrated 'that religion, or the duty we owe the Creator,' was not within the cognizance of civil government. Semple's Virginia Baptists, Appendix. At the next session the proposed bill was not only defeated, but another, 'for establishing religious freedom,' drafted by Mr. Jefferson, was passed. 1 Jeff. Works, 45; 2 Howison, Hist. of Va. 298. In the preamble of this act (12 Hening's Stat. 84) religious freedom is defined; and after a recital 'that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion, and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency, is a dangerous fallacy which at once destroys all religious liberty,' it is declared 'that it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order.' In these two sentences is found the true distinction between what properly belongs to the church and what to the State.

In a little more than a year after the passage of this statute the convention met which prepared the Constitution of the United States.' Of this convention Mr. Jefferson was not a member, he being then absent as minister to France. As soon as he saw the draft of the Constitution proposed for adoption, he, in a letter to a friend, expressed his disappointment at the absence of an express declaration insuring the freedom of religion (2 Jeff. Works, 355), but was willing to accept it as it was, trusting that the good sense and honest intentions of the people would bring about the necessary alterations. [98 U.S. 145, 164] 1 Jeff. Works, 79. Five of the States, while adopting the Constitution, proposed amendments. Three-New Hampshire, New York, and Virginia-included in one form or another a declaration of religious freedom in the changes they desired to have made, as did also North Carolina, where the convention at first declined to ratify the Constitution until the proposed amendments were acted upon. Accordingly, at the first session of the first Congress the amendment now under consideration was proposed with others by Mr. Madison. It met the views of the advocates of religious freedom, and was adopted. Mr. Jefferson afterwards, in reply to an address to him by a committee of the Danbury Baptist Association (8 id. 113), took occasion to say: 'Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God; that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship; that the legislative powers of the government reach actions only, and not opinions,-I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore man to all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.' Coming as this does from an acknowledged leader of the advocates of the measure, it may be accepted almost as an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect of the amendment thus secured. Congress was deprived of all legislative power over mere opinion, but was left free to reach actions which were in violation of social duties or subversive of good order.

1940

5/20
U.S. Supreme Court CANTWELL v. STATE OF CONNECTICUT, 310 U.S. 296 (1940):

Freedom of conscience and freedom to adhere to such religious organization or form of worship as the individual may choose cannot be restricted by law. On the other hand, it safeguards the free exercise of the chosen form of religion. Thus the Amendment embraces two concepts,-freedom to believe and freedom to act. The first is absolute but, in the nature of things, the [310 U.S. 296, 304] second cannot be. Conduct remains subject to regulation for the protection of society. 4 The freedom to act must have appropriate definition to preserve the enforcement of that protection. In every case the power to regulate must be so exercised as not, in attaining a permissible end, unduly to infringe the protected freedom. No one would contest the proposition that a state may not, be statute, wholly deny the right to preach or to disseminate religious views. Plainly such a previous and absolute restraint would violate the terms of the guarantee. 5 It is equally clear that a state may by general and non-discriminatory legislation regulate the times, the places, and the manner of soliciting upon its streets, and of holding meetings thereon; and may in other respects safeguard the peace, good order and comfort of the community, without unconstitutionally invading the liberties protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.

1943

6/14
WEST VIRGINIA STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION v. BARNETTE

If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us. 19

We think the action of the local authorities in compelling the flag salute and pledge transcends constitutional limitations on their power and invades the sphere of intellect and spirit which it is the purpose of the First Amendment to our Constitution to reserve from all official control.

1947

2/10
U.S. Supreme Court EVERSON v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF EWING TP., 330 U.S. 1 (1947):

The New Jersey statute is challenged as a 'law respecting an establishment of religion.' The First Amendment, as made applicable to the states by the Fourteenth, Murdock v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 319 U.S. 105 , 63 S.Ct. 870, 872, 146 A.L.R. 81, commands that a state 'shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.' These words of the First Amendment reflected in the minds of early Americans a vivid mental picture of conditions and practices which they fervently wished to stamp out in order to preserve liberty for themselves and for their posterity. Doubtless their goal has not been entirely reached; but so far has the Nation moved toward it that the expression 'law respecting an establishment of religion,' probably does not so vividly remind present-day Americans of the evils, fears, and political problems that caused that expression to be written into our Bill of Rights. Whether this New Jersey law is one respecting the 'establishment of religion' requires an understanding of the meaning of that language, particularly with respect to the imposition of taxes. Once again,4 therefore, it is not inappropriate briefly to review the background and environment of the period in which that constitutional language was fashioned and adopted.

A large proportion of the early settlers of this country came here from Europe to escape the bondage of laws which compelled them to support and attend government favored churches. The centuries immediately before and contemporaneous with the colonization of America had been filled with turmoil, civil strife, and persecutions, generated in large part by established sects determined to [330 U.S. 1, 9] maintain their absolute political and religious supremacy. With the power of government supporting them, at various times and places, Catholics had persecuted Protestants, Protestants had persecuted Catholics, Protestant sects had persecuted other Protestant sects, Catholics of one shade of belief had persecuted Catholics of another shade of belief, and all of these had from time to time persecuted Jews. In efforts to force loyalty to whatever religious group happened to be on top and in league with the government of a particular time and place, men and women had been fined, cast in jail, cruelly tortured, and killed. Among the offenses for which these punishments had been inflicted were such things as speaking disrespectfully of the views of ministers of government-established churches, nonattendance at those churches, expressions of non-belief in their doctrines, and failure to pay taxes and tithes to support them. 5

These practices of the old world were transplanted to and began to thrive in the soil of the new America. The very charters granted by the English Crown to the individuals and companies designated to make the laws which would control the destinies of the colonials authorized these individuals and companies to erect religious establishments which all, whether believers or non-believers, would be required to support and attend. 6 An exercise of [330 U.S. 1, 10] this authority was accompanied by a repetition of many of the old world practices and persecutions. Catholics found themselves hounded and proscribed because of their faith; Quakers who followed their conscience went to jail; Baptists were peculiarly obnoxious to certain dominant Protestant sects; men and women of varied faiths who happened to be in a minority in a particular locality were persecuted because they steadfastly persisted in worshipping God only as their own consciences dictated. 7 And all of these dissenters were compelled to pay tithes and taxes8 to support government-sponsored churches whose ministers preached inflammatory sermons designed to strengthen and consolidate the established faith by generating a burning hatred against dissenters. [330 U.S. 1, 11] These practices became so commonplace as to shock the freedom-loving colonials into a feeling of abhorrence. 9 The imposition of taxes to pay ministers' salaries and to build and maintain churches and church property aroused their indignation. 10 It was these feelings which found expression in the First Amendment. No one locality and no one group throughout the Colonies can rightly be given entire credit for having aroused the sentiment that culminated in adoption of the Bill of Rights' provisions embracing religious liberty. But Virginia, where the established church had achieved a dominant influence in political affairs and where many excesses attracted wide public attention, p ovided a great stimulus and able leadership for the movement. The people there, as elsewhere, reached the conviction that individual religious liberty could be achieved best under a government which was stripped of all power to tax, to support, or otherwise to assist any or all religions, or to interfere with the beliefs of any religious individual or group.

The movement toward this end reached its dramatic climax in Virginia in 1785-86 when the Virginia legislative body was about to renew Virginia's tax levy for the support of the established church. Thomas Jeffer- [330 U.S. 1, 12] son and James Madison led the fight against this tax. Madison wrote his great Memorial and Remonstrance against the law. 11 In it, he eloquently argued that a true religion did not need the support of law; that no person, either believer or non-believer, should be taxed to support a religious institution of any kind; that the best interest of a society required that the minds of men always be wholly free; and that cruel persecutions were the inevitable result of government-established religions. Madison's Remonstrance received strong support throughout Virginia, 12 and the Assembly postponed consideration of the proposed tax measure until its next session. When the proposal came up for consideration at that session, it not only died in committee, but the Assembly enacted the famous 'Virginia Bill for Religious Liberty' originally written by Thomas Jefferson. 13 The preamble to that Bill stated among other things that
'Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments, or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are [330 U.S. 1, 13] a departure from the plan of the Holy author of our religion who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either . . .; that to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical; that even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor, whose morals he would make his pattern ...'
And the statute itself enacted
'That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened, in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief. . . .'14
This Court has previously recognized that the provisions of the First Amendment, in the drafting and adoption of which Madison and Jefferson played such leading roles, had the same objective and were intended to provide the same protection against governmental intrusion on religious liberty as the Virginia statute. Reynolds v. United States, supra, 98 U.S. at page 164; Watson v. Jones, 13 Wall. 679; Davis v. Beason, 133 U.S. 333, 342 , 10 S.Ct. 299, 300. Prior to the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, the First Amendment did not apply as a restraint against the states. 15 Most of them did soon provide similar constitutional protections [330 U.S. 1, 14] for religious liberty. 16 But some states persisted for about half a century in imposing restraints upon the free exercise of religion and in discriminating against particular religious groups. 17 In recent years, so far as the provision against the establishment of a religion is concerned, the question has most frequently arisen in connection with proposed state aid to church schools and efforts to carry on religious teachings in the public schools in accordance with the tenets of a particular sect. 18 Some churches have either sought or accepted state financial support for their schools. Here again the efforts to obtain state aid or acceptance of it have not been limited to any one particular faith. 19 The state courts, in the main, have remained faithful to the language of their own constitutional provisions designed to protect religious freedom and to separate religious and governments. Their decisions, however, show the difficulty in drawing the line between tax legislation which provides funds for the welfare of the general public and that which is designed to support institutions which teach religion. 20

The meaning and scope of the First Amendment, preventing establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, in the light of its history and the evils it [330 U.S. 1, 15] was designed forever to suppress, have been several times elaborated by the decisions of this Court prior to the application of the First Amendment to the states by the Fourteenth. 21 The broad meaning given the Amendment by these earlier cases has been accepted by this Court in its decisions concerning an individual's religious freedom rendered since the Fourteenth Amendment was interpreted to make the prohibitions of the First applicable to state action abridging religious freedom. 22 There is every reason to give the sam application and broad interpretation to the 'establishment of religion' clause. The interrelation of these complementary clauses was well summarized in a statement of the Court of Appeals of South Carolina,23 quoted with approval by this Court, in Watson v. Jones, 13 Wall. 679, 730: 'The structure of our government has, for the preservation of civil liberty, rescued the temporal institutions from religious interference. On the other hand, it has secured religious liberty from the invasions of the civil authority.'

The 'establishment of religion' clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a person to go to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion. No person can be punished for entertain- [330 U.S. 1, 16] ing or professing religious beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or non-attendance. No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever from they may adopt to teach or practice religion. Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa. In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect 'a wall of separation between Church and State.' Reynolds v. United States, supra, 98 U.S. at page 164.

1962

6/25
The Supreme Court strikes down organized prayer in public schools:
U.S. Supreme Court ENGEL v. VITALE, 370 U.S. 421 (1962)

We think that by using its public school system to encourage recitation of the Regents' prayer, the State of New York has adopted a practice wholly inconsistent with the Establishment Clause. There can, of course, be no doubt that New York's program of daily classroom invocation of God's blessings as prescribed in the Regents' prayer is a religious activity. It is a solemn avowal of divine faith and supplication for the blessings of the Almighty. The nature of such a prayer has always been [370 U.S. 421, 425] religious, none of the respondents has denied this and the trial court expressly so found:

"The religious nature of prayer was recognized by Jefferson and has been concurred in by theological writers, the United States Supreme Court and State courts and administrative officials, including New York's Commissioner of Education. A committee of the New York Legislature has agreed.

"The Board of Regents as amicus curiae, the respondents and intervenors all concede the religious nature of prayer, but seek to distinguish this prayer because it is based on our spiritual heritage. . . ." 4

The petitioners contend among other things that the state laws requiring or permitting use of the Regents' prayer must be struck down as a violation of the Establishment Clause because that prayer was composed by governmental officials as a part of a governmental program to further religious beliefs. For this reason, petitioners argue, the State's use of the Regents' prayer in its public school system breaches the constitutional wall of separation between Church and State. We agree with that contention since we think that the constitutional prohibition against laws respecting an establishment of religion must at least mean that in this country it is no part of the business of government to compose official prayers for any group of the American people to recite as a part of a religious program carried on by government.

It is a matter of history that this very practice of establishing governmentally composed prayers for religious services was one of the reasons which caused many of our early colonists to leave England and seek religious freedom in America. The Book of Common Prayer, [370 U.S. 421, 426] which was created under governmental direction and which was approved by Acts of Parliament in 1548 and 1549, 5 set out in minute detail the accepted form and content of prayer and other religious ceremonies to be used in the established, tax-supported Church of England. 6 The controversies over the Book and what should be its content repeatedly threatened to disrupt the peace of that country as the accepted forms of prayer in the established church changed with the views of the particular ruler that happened to be in control at the time. 7 Powerful groups representing some of the varying religious views of the people struggled among themselves to impress their particular views upon the Government and [370 U.S. 421, 427] obtain amendments of the Book more suitable to their respective notions of how religious services should be conducted in order that the official religious establishment would advance their particular religious beliefs. 8 Other groups, lacking the necessary political power to influence the Government on the matter, decided to leave England and its established church and seek freedom in America from England's governmentally ordained and supported religion.

It is an unfortunate fact of history that when some of the very groups which had most strenuously opposed the established Church of England found themselves sufficiently in control of colonial governments in this country to write their own prayers into law, they passed laws making their own religion the official religion of their respective colonies. 9 Indeed, as late as the time of the Revolutionary [370 U.S. 421, 428] War, there were established churches in at least eight of the thirteen former colonies and established religions in at least four of the other five. 10 But the successful Revolution against English political domination was shortly followed by intense opposition to the practice of establishing religion by law. This opposition crystallized rapidly into an effective political force in Virginia where the minority religious groups such as Presbyterians, Lutherans, Quakers and Baptists had gained such strength that the adherents to the established Episcopal Church were actually a minority themselves. In 1785-1786, those opposed to the established Church, led by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, who, though themselves not members of any of these dissenting religious groups, opposed all religious establishments by law on grounds of principle, obtained the enactment of the famous "Virginia Bill for Religious Liberty" by which all religious groups were placed on an equal footing so far as the State was concerned. 11 Similar though less far-reaching [370 U.S. 421, 429] legislation was being considered and passed in other States. 12

By the time of the adoption of the Constitution, our history shows that there was a widespread awareness among many Americans of the dangers of a union of Church and State. These people knew, some of them from bitter personal experience, that one of the greatest dangers to the freedom of the individual to worship in his own way lay in the Government's placing its official stamp of approval upon one particular kind of prayer or one particular form of religious services. They knew the anguish, hardship and bitter strife that could come when zealous religious groups struggled with one another to obtain the Government's stamp of approval from each King, Queen, or Protector that came to temporary power. The Constitution was intended to avert a part of this danger by leaving the government of this country in the hands of the people rather than in the hands of any monarch. But this safeguard was not enough. Our Founders were no more willing to let the content of their prayers and their privilege of praying whenever they pleased be influenced by the ballot box than they were to let these vital matters of personal conscience depend upon the succession of monarchs. The First Amendment was added to the Constitution to stand as a guarantee that neither the power nor the prestige of the Federal Government would be used to control, support or influence the kinds of prayer the American people can say - [370 U.S. 421, 430] that the people's religious must not be subjected to the pressures of government for change each time a new political administration is elected to office. Under that Amendment's prohibition against governmental establishment of religion, as reinforced by the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment, government in this country, be it state or federal, is without power to prescribe by law any particular form of prayer which is to be used as an official prayer in carrying on any program of governmentally sponsored religious activity.

There can be no doubt that New York's state prayer program officially establishes the religious beliefs embodied in the Regents' prayer. The respondents' argument to the contrary, which is largely based upon the contention that the Regents' prayer is "non-denominational" and the fact that the program, as modified and approved by state courts, does not require all pupils to recite the prayer but permits those who wish to do so to remain silent or be excused from the room, ignores the essential nature of the program's constitutional defects. Neither the fact that the prayer may be denominationally neutral nor the fact that its observance on the part of the students is voluntary can serve to free it from the limitations of the Establishment Clause, as it might from the Free Exercise Clause, of the First Amendment, both of which are operative against the States by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment. Although these two clauses may in certain instances overlap, they forbid two quite different kinds of governmental encroachment upon religious freedom. The Establishment Clause, unlike the Free Exercise Clause, does not depend upon any showing of direct governmental compulsion and is violated by the enactment of laws which establish an official religion whether those laws operate directly to coerce nonobserving individuals or not. This is not to say, of course, that [370 U.S. 421, 431] laws officially prescribing a particular form of religious worship do not involve coercion of such individuals. When the power, prestige and financial support of government is placed behind a particular religious belief, the indirect coercive pressure upon religious minorities to conform to the prevailing officially approved religion is plain. But the purposes underlying the Establishment Clause go much further than that. Its first and most immediate purpose rested on the belief that a union of government and religion tends to destroy government and to degrade religion. The history of governmentally established religion, both in England and in this country, showed that whenever government had allied itself with one particular form of religion, the inevitable result had been that it had incurred the hatred, disrespect and even contempt of those who held contrary beliefs. 13 That same history showed that many people had lost their respect for any religion that had relied upon the support of government to spread its faith. 14 The Establishment Clause [370 U.S. 421, 432] thus stands as an expression of principle on the part of the Founders of our Constitution that religion is too personal, too sacred, too holy, to permit its "unhallowed perversion" by a civil magistrate. 15 Another purpose of the Establishment Clause rested upon an awareness of the historical fact that governmentally established religions and religious persecutions go hand in hand. 16 The Founders knew that only a few years after the Book of Common Prayer became the only accepted form of religious services in the established Church of England, an Act of Uniformity was passed to compel all Englishmen to attend those services and to make it a criminal offense to conduct or attend religious gatherings of any other kind 17 - a law [370 U.S. 421, 433] which was consistently flouted by dissenting religious groups in England and which contributed to widespread persecutions of people like John Bunyan who persisted in holding "unlawful [religious] meetings . . . to the great disturbance and distraction of the good subjects of this kingdom . . . ." 18 And they knew that similar persecutions had received the sanction of law in several of the colonies in this country soon after the establishment of official religions in those colonies. 19 It was in large part to get completely away from this sort of systematic religious persecution that the Founders brought into being our Nation, our Constitution, and our Bill of Rights with its prohibition against any governmental establishment of religion. The New York laws officially prescribing the Regents' prayer are inconsistent both with the purposes of the Establishment Clause and with the Establishment Clause itself.

It has been argued that to apply the Constitution in such a way as to prohibit state laws respecting an [370 U.S. 421, 434] establishment of religious services in public schools is to indicate a hostility toward religion or toward prayer. Nothing, of course, could be more wrong. The history of man is inseparable from the history of religion. And perhaps it is not too much to say that since the beginning of that history many people have devoutly believed that "More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of." It was doubtless largely due to men who believed this that there grew up a sentiment that caused men to leave the cross-currents of officially established state religions and religious persecution in Europe and come to this country filled with the hope that they could find a place in which they could pray when they pleased to the God of their faith in the language they chose. 20 And there were men of this same faith in the [370 U.S. 421, 435] power of prayer who led the fight for adoption of our Constitution and also for our Bill of Rights with the very guarantees of religious freedom that forbid the sort of governmental activity which New York has attempted here. These men knew that the First Amendment, which tried to put an end to governmental control of religion and of prayer, was not written to destroy either. They knew rather that it was written to quiet well-justified fears which nearly all of them felt arising out of an awareness that governments of the past had shackled men's tongues to make them speak only the religious thoughts that government wanted them to speak and to pray only to the God that government wanted them to pray to. It is neither sacrilegious nor antireligious to say that each separate government in this country should stay out of the business of writing or sanctioning official prayers and leave that purely religious function to the people themselves and to those the people choose to look to for religious guidance. 21 [370 U.S. 421, 436]

It is true that New York's establishment of its Regents' prayer as an officially approved religious doctrine of that State does not amount to a total establishment of one particular religious sect to the exclusion of all others - that, indeed, the governmental endorsement of that prayer seems relatively insignificant when compared to the governmental encroachments upon religion which were commonplace 200 years ago. To those who may subscribe to the view that because the Regents' official prayer is so brief and general there can be no danger to religious freedom in its governmental establishment, however, it may be appropriate to say in the words of James Madison, the author of the First Amendment:

"[I]t is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. . . . Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects? That the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute three pence only of his property for the support of any one establishment, may force him to conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever?" 22

William O. Douglas, concurring:

My problem today would be uncomplicated but for Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1, 17 , which allowed taxpayers' money to be used to pay "the bus fares of parochial school pupils as a part of a general program under which" the fares of pupils attending public and other schools were also paid. The Everson case seems in retrospect to be out of line with the First Amendment. Its result is appealing, as it allows aid to be given to needy children. Yet by the same token, public funds could be used to satisfy other needs of children in parochial schools - lunches, books, and tuition being obvious examples. Mr. Justice Rutledge stated in dissent what I think is durable First Amendment philosophy:
"The reasons underlying the Amendment's policy have not vanished with time or diminished in force. [370 U.S. 421, 444] Now as when it was adopted the price of religious freedom is double. It is that the church and religion shall live both within and upon that freedom. There cannot be freedom of religion, safeguarded by the state, and intervention by the church or its agencies in the state's domain or dependency on its largesse. Madison's Remonstrance, Par. 6, 8. The great condition of religious liberty is that it be maintained free from sustenance, as also from other interferences, by the state. For when it comes to rest upon that secular foundation it vanishes with the resting. Id., Par. 7, 8. Public money devoted to payment of religious costs, educational or other, brings the quest for more. It brings too the struggle of sect against sect for the larger share or for any. Here one by numbers alone will benefit most, there another. That is precisely the history of societies which have had an established religion and dissident groups. Id., Par. 8, 11. It is the very thing Jefferson and Madison experienced and sought to guard against, whether in its blunt or in its more screened forms. Ibid. The end of such strife cannot be other than to destroy the cherished liberty. The dominating group will achieve the dominant benefit; or all will embroil the state in their dissensions. Id., Par. 11." Id., pp. 53-54.

MR. JUSTICE STEWART, dissenting.

A local school board in New York has provided that those pupils who wish to do so may join in a brief prayer at the beginning of each school day, acknowledging their dependence upon God and asking His blessing upon them [370 U.S. 421, 445] and upon their parents, their teachers, and their country. The Court today decides that in permitting this brief nondenominational prayer the school board has violated the Constitution of the United States. I think this decision is wrong.

The Court does not hold, nor could it, that New York has interfered with the free exercise of anybody's religion. For the state courts have made clear that those who object to reciting the prayer must be entirely free of any compulsion to do so, including any "embarrassments and pressures." Cf. West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 . But the Court says that in permitting school children to say this simple prayer, the New York authorities have established "an official religion."

With all respect, I think the Court has misapplied a great constitutional principle. I cannot see how an "official religion" is established by letting those who want to say a prayer say it. On the contrary, I think that to deny the wish of these school children to join in reciting this prayer is to deny them the opportunity of sharing in the spiritual heritage of our Nation.

The Court's historical review of the quarrels over the Book of Common Prayer in England throws no light for me on the issue before us in this case. England had then and has now an established church. Equally unenlightening, I think, is the history of the early establishment and later rejection of an official church in our own States. For we deal here not with the establishment of a state church, which would, of course, be constitutionally impermissible, but with whether school children who want to begin their day by joining in prayer must be prohibited from doing so. Moreover, I think that the Court's task, in this as in all areas of constitutional adjudication, is not responsibly aided by the uncritical invocation of metaphors like the "wall of separation," a phrase nowhere to [370 U.S. 421, 446] be found in the Constitution. What is relevant to the issue here is not the history of an established church in sixteenth century England or in eighteenth century America, but the history of the religious traditions of our people, reflected in countless practices of the institutions and officials of our government.

At the opening of each day's Session of this Court we stand, while one of our officials invokes the protection of God. Since the days of John Marshall our Crier has said, "God save the United States and this Honorable Court." 1 Both the Senate and the House of Representatives open their daily Sessions with prayer. 2 Each of our Presidents, from George Washington to John F. Kennedy, has upon assuming his Office asked the protection and help of God. 3 [370 U.S. 421, 447]

The Court today says that the state and federal governments are without constitutional power to prescribe any particular form of words to be recited by any group of the American people on any subject touching religion. 4 One of the stanzas of "The Star-Spangled Banner," made our National Anthem by Act of Congress in 1931, 5 contains these verses:
"Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land

Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserved us a nation!

Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto `In God is our Trust.'"
In 1954 Congress added a phrase to the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag so that it now contains the words "one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." 6 In 1952 Congress enacted legislation calling upon the President each year to proclaim a National Day of Prayer. 7 Since 1865 the words "IN GOD WE TRUST" have been impressed on our coins. 8 [370 U.S. 421, 450]
Countless similar examples could be listed, but there is no need to belabor the obvious. 9 It was all summed up by this Court just ten years ago in a single sentence: "We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being." Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U.S. 306, 313 .

I do not believe that this Court, or the Congress, or the President has by the actions and practices I have mentioned established an "official religion" in violation of the Constitution. And I do not believe the State of New York has done so in this case. What each has done has been to recognize and to follow the deeply entrenched and highly cherished spiritual traditions of our Nation - traditions which come down to us from those who almost two hundred years ago avowed their "firm Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence" when they proclaimed the freedom and independence of this brave new world. 10

I dissent.

1963

6/17
The Supreme Court strikes down readings from scripture in public schools:
U.S. Supreme Court ABINGTON SCHOOL DIST. v. SCHEMPP, 374 U.S. 203 (1963)

The wholesome "neutrality" of which this Court's cases speak thus stems from a recognition of the teachings of history that powerful sects or groups might bring about a fusion of governmental and religious functions or a concert or dependency of one upon the other to the end that official support of the State or Federal Government would be placed behind the tenets of one or of all orthodoxies. This the Establishment Clause prohibits. And a further reason for neutrality is found in the Free Exercise Clause, which recognizes the value of religious training, teaching and observance and, more particularly, the right of every person to freely choose his own course with reference thereto, free of any compulsion from the state. This the Free Exercise Clause guarantees. Thus, as we have seen, the two clauses may overlap. As we have indicated, the Establishment Clause has been directly considered by this Court eight times in the past score of years and, with only one Justice dissenting on the point, it has consistently held that the clause withdrew all legislative power respecting religious belief or the expression thereof. The test may be stated as follows: what are the purpose and the primary effect of the enactment? If either is the advancement or inhibition of religion then the enactment exceeds the scope of legislative power as circumscribed by the Constitution. That is to say that to withstand the strictures of the Establishment Clause there must be a secular legislative purpose and a primary effect that neither advances nor inhibits religion. Everson v. Board of Education, supra; McGowan v. Maryland, supra, at 442. The Free Exercise Clause, likewise considered many times here, withdraws from legislative power, state and federal, the exertion of any restraint on the free exercise [374 U.S. 203, 223] of religion. Its purpose is to secure religious liberty in the individual by prohibiting any invasions thereof by civil authority. Hence it is necessary in a free exercise case for one to show the coercive effect of the enactment as it operates against him in the practice of his religion. The distinction between the two clauses is apparent - a violation of the Free Exercise Clause is predicated on coercion while the Establishment Clause violation need not be so attended.

Applying the Establishment Clause principles to the cases at bar we find that the States are requiring the selection and reading at the opening of the school day of verses from the Holy Bible and the recitation of the Lord's Prayer by the students in unison. These exercises are prescribed as part of the curricular activities of students who are required by law to attend school. They are held in the school buildings under the supervision and with the participation of teachers employed in those schools. None of these factors, other than compulsory school attendance, was present in the program upheld in Zorach v. Clauson. The trial court in No. 142 has found that such an opening exercise is a religious ceremony and was intended by the State to be so. We agree with the trial court's finding as to the religious character of the exercises. Given that finding, the exercises and the law requiring them are in violation of the Establishment Clause.

1967
Civil Religion in America
Robert N. Bellah's influential essay.

1968

11/12
U.S. Supreme Court strikes down Arkansas's ban on public school teaching of evolution:
EPPERSON v. ARKANSAS, 393 U.S. 97 (1968)

The antecedents of today's decision are many and unmistakable. They are rooted in the foundation soil of our Nation. They are fundamental to freedom.
Government in our democracy, state and national, must be neutral in matters of religious theory, doctrine, [393 U.S. 97, 104] and practice. It may not be hostile to any religion or to the advocacy of no-religion; and it may not aid, foster, or promote one religion or religious theory against another or even against the militant opposite. The First Amendment mandates governmental neutrality between religion and religion, and between religion and nonreligion. 12

As early as 1872, this Court said: "The law knows no heresy, and is committed to the support of no dogma, the establishment of no sect." Watson v. Jones, 13 Wall. 679, 728. This has been the interpretation of the great First Amendment which this Court has applied in the many and subtle problems which the ferment of our national life has presented for decision within the Amendment's broad command.

Judicial interposition in the operation of the public school system of the Nation raises problems requiring care and restraint. Our courts, however, have not failed to apply the First Amendment's mandate in our educational system where essential to safeguard the fundamental values of freedom of speech and inquiry and of belief. By and large, public education in our Nation is committed to the control of state and local authorities. Courts do not and cannot intervene in the resolution of conflicts which arise in the daily operation of school systems and which do not directly and sharply implicate basic constitutional values. 13 On the other hand, "[t]he vigilant protection of constitutional freedoms is nowhere more vital than in the community of American schools," Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U.S. 479, 487 (1960). As this [393 U.S. 97, 105] Court said in Keyishian v. Board of Regents, the First Amendment "does not tolerate laws that cast a pall of orthodoxy over the classroom." 385 U.S. 589, 603 (1967).

The earliest cases in this Court on the subject of the impact of constitutional guarantees upon the classroom were decided before the Court expressly applied the specific prohibitions of the First Amendment to the States. But as early as 1923, the Court did not hesitate to condemn under the Due Process Clause "arbitrary" restrictions upon the freedom of teachers to teach and of students to learn. In that year, the Court, in an opinion by Justice McReynolds, held unconstitutional an Act of the State of Nebraska making it a crime to teach any subject in any language other than English to pupils who had not passed the eight grade. 14 The State's purpose in enacting the law was to promote civic cohesiveness by encouraging the learning of English and to combat the "baneful effect" of permitting foreigners to rear and educate their children in the language of the parents' native land. The Court recognized these purposes, and it acknowledged the State's power to prescribe the school curriculum, but it held that these were not adequate to support the restriction upon the liberty of teacher and pupil. The challenged statute, it held, unconstitutionally interfered with the right of the individual, guaranteed by the Due Process Clause, to engage in any of the common occupations of life and to acquire useful knowledge. Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923). See also Bartels v. Iowa, 262 U.S. 404 (1923).

For purposes of the present case, we need not re-enter the difficult terrain which the Court, in 1923, traversed without apparent misgivings. We need not take advantage of the broad premise which the Court's decision [393 U.S. 97, 106] in Meyer furnishes, nor need we explore the implications of that decision in terms of the justiciability of the multitude of controversies that beset our campuses today. Today's problem is capable of resolution in the narrower terms of the First Amendment's prohibition of laws respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

There is and can be no doubt that the First Amendment does not permit the State to require that teaching and learning must be tailored to the principles or prohibitions of any religious sect or dogma. In Everson v. Board of Education, this Court, in upholding a state law to provide free bus service to school children, including those attending parochial schools, said: "Neither [a State nor the Federal Government] can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another." 330 U.S. 1, 15 (1947).

At the following Term of Court, in McCollum v. Board of Education, 333 U.S. 203 (1948), the Court held that Illinois could not release pupils from class to attend classes of instruction in the school buildings in the religion of their choice. This, it said, would involve the State in using tax-supported property for religious purposes, thereby breaching the "wall of separation" which, according to Jefferson, the First Amendment was intended to erect between church and state. Id., at 211. See also Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962); Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203 (1963). While study of religions and of the Bible from a literary and historic viewpoint, presented objectively as part of a secular program of education, need not collide with the First Amendment's prohibition, the State may not adopt programs or practices in its public schools or colleges which "aid or oppose" any religion. Id., at 225. This prohibition is absolute. It forbids alike the preference of a religious doctrine or the prohibition [393 U.S. 97, 107] of theory which is deemed antagonistic to a particular dogma. As Mr. Justice Clark stated in Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, "the state has no legitimate interest in protecting any or all religions from views distasteful to them . . . ." 343 U.S. 495, 505 (1952). The test was stated as follows in Abington School District v. Schempp, supra, at 222: "[W]hat are the purpose and the primary effect of the enactment? If either is the advancement or inhibition of religion then the enactment exceeds the scope of legislative power as circumscribed by the Constitution."

These precedents inevitably determine the result in the present case. The State's undoubted right to prescribe the curriculum for its public schools does not carry with it the right to prohibit, on pain of criminal penalty, the teaching of a scientific theory or doctrine where that prohibition is based upon reasons that violate the First Amendment. It is much too late to argue that the State may impose upon the teachers in its schools any conditions that it chooses, however restrictive they may be of constitutional guarantees. Keyishian v. Board of Regents, 385 U.S. 589, 605 -606 (1967).

In the present case, there can be no doubt that Arkansas has sought to prevent its teachers from discussing the theory of evolution because it is contrary to the belief of some that the Book of Genesis must be the exclusive source of doctrine as to the origin of man. No suggestion has been made that Arkansas' law may be justified by considerations of state policy other than the religious views of some of its citizens. 15 It is clear [393 U.S. 97, 108] that fundamentalist sectarian conviction was and is the law's reason for existence. 16 Its antecedent, Tennessee's "monkey law," candidly stated its purpose: to make it unlawful "to teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a [393 U.S. 97, 109] lower order of animals." 17 Perhaps the sensational publicity attendant upon the Scopes trial induced Arkansas to adopt less explicit language. 18 It eliminated Tennessee's reference to "the story of the Divine Creation of man" as taught in the Bible, but there is no doubt that the motivation for the law was the same: to suppress the teaching of a theory which, it was thought, "denied" the divine creation of man.

Arkansas' law cannot be defended as an act of religious neutrality. Arkansas did not seek to excise from the curricula of its schools and universities all discussion of the origin of man. The law's effort was confined to an attempt to blot out a particular theory because of its supposed conflict with the Biblical account, literally read. Plainly, the law is contrary to the mandate of the First, and in violation of the Fourteenth, Amendment to the Constitution.

1971

6/28
LEMON v. KURTZMAN
Supreme Court establishes "Lemon test":

Every analysis in this area must begin with consideration of the cumulative criteria developed by the Court over many years. Three such tests may be gleaned from our cases. First, the statute must have a secular legislative purpose; second, its principal or primary effect must be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion, Board of Education v. Allen, 392 U.S. 236, 243 (1968); [403 U.S. 602, 613] finally, the statute must not foster "an excessive government entanglement with religion." Walz, supra, at 674.

1985

6/4
U.S. Supreme Court strikes down Alabama's implementation of a moment of silence [but not the moment of silence in principle:]
WALLACE v. JAFFREE, 472 U.S. 38 (1985)

Just as the right to speak and the right to refrain from speaking are complementary components of a broader concept of individual freedom of mind, so also the individual's freedom to choose his own creed is the counterpart of his right to refrain from accepting the creed established by the majority. At one time it was thought that this right merely proscribed the preference of one Christian sect over another, but would not require equal respect for the conscience of the infidel, the atheist, or the adherent of a non-Christian faith such as Islam or Judaism. 36 But when the underlying principle has been examined in the crucible of litigation, the [472 U.S. 38, 53] Court has unambiguously concluded that the individual freedom of conscience protected by the First Amendment embraces the right to select any religious faith or none at all. 37 This conclusion derives support not only from the interest in respecting the individual's freedom of conscience, but also from the conviction that religious beliefs worthy of respect are the product of free and voluntary choice by the faithful, 38 [472 U.S. 38, 54] and from recognition of the fact that the political interest in forestalling intolerance extends beyond intolerance among Christian sects - or even intolerance among "religions" - to encompass intolerance of the disbeliever and the uncertain. 39 [472 U.S. 38, 55]
As Justice Jackson eloquently stated in West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 642 (1943):
"If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein."
The State of Alabama, no less than the Congress of the United States, must respect that basic truth.

Justice Rehnquist constructs a dissent designed to lay the groundwork to tear down the wall of separation between Church and State:

Thirty-eight years ago this Court, in Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1, 16 (1947), summarized its exegesis of Establishment Clause doctrine thus:
"In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect `a wall of separation between church and State.' Reynolds v. United States, [98 U.S. 145, 164 (1879)]."
This language from Reynolds, a case involving the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment rather than the Establishment Clause, quoted from Thomas Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptist Association the phrase "I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should `make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation [472 U.S. 38, 92] between church and State." 8 Writings of Thomas Jefferson 113 (H. Washington ed. 1861). 1

It is impossible to build sound constitutional doctrine upon a mistaken understanding of constitutional history, but unfortunately the Establishment Clause has been expressly freighted with Jefferson's misleading metaphor for nearly 40 years. Thomas Jefferson was of course in France at the time the constitutional Amendments known as the Bill of Rights were passed by Congress and ratified by the States. His letter to the Danbury Baptist Association was a short note of courtesy, written 14 years after the Amendments were passed by Congress. He would seem to any detached observer as a less than ideal source of contemporary history as to the meaning of the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment.

Jefferson's fellow Virginian, James Madison, with whom he was joined in the battle for the enactment of the Virginia Statute of Religious Liberty of 1786, did play as large a part as anyone in the drafting of the Bill of Rights. He had two advantages over Jefferson in this regard: he was present in the United States, and he was a leading Member of the First Congress. But when we turn to the record of the proceedings in the First Congress leading up to the adoption of the Establishment Clause of the Constitution, including Madison's significant contributions thereto, we see a far different picture of its purpose than the highly simplified "wall of separation between church and State."

During the debates in the Thirteen Colonies over ratification of the Constitution, one of the arguments frequently used by opponents of ratification was that without a Bill of Rights guaranteeing individual liberty the new general Government [472 U.S. 38, 93] carried with it a potential for tyranny. The typical response to this argument on the part of those who favored ratification was that the general Government established by the Constitution had only delegated powers, and that these delegated powers were so limited that the Government would have no occasion to violate individual liberties. This response satisfied some, but not others, and of the 11 Colonies which ratified the Constitution by early 1789, 5 proposed one or another amendments guaranteeing individual liberty. Three - New Hampshire, New York, and Virginia - included in one form or another a declaration of religious freedom. See 3 J. Elliot, Debates on the Federal Constitution 659 (1891); 1 id., at 328. Rhode Island and North Carolina flatly refused to ratify the Constitution in the absence of amendments in the nature of a Bill of Rights. 1 id., at 334; 4 id., at 244. Virginia and North Carolina proposed identical guarantees of religious freedom:
"[A]ll men have an equal, natural and unalienable right to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience, and . . . no particular religious sect or society ought to be favored or established, by law, in preference to others." 3 id., at 659; 4 id., at 244. 2
On June 8, 1789, James Madison rose in the House of Representatives and "reminded the House that this was the day that he had heretofore named for bringing forward amendments to the Constitution." 1 Annals of Cong. 424. Madison's subsequent remarks in urging the House to adopt his drafts of the proposed amendments were less those of a dedicated advocate of the wisdom of such measures than those of a prudent statesman seeking the enactment of measures [472 U.S. 38, 94] sought by a number of his fellow citizens which could surely do no harm and might do a great deal of good. He said, inter alia:
"It appears to me that this House is bound by every motive of prudence, not to let the first session pass over without proposing to the State Legislatures, some things to be incorporated into the Constitution, that will render it as acceptable to the whole people of the United States, as it has been found acceptable to a majority of them. I wish, among other reasons why something should be done, that those who had been friendly to the adoption of this Constitution may have the opportunity of proving to those who were opposed to it that they were as sincerely devoted to liberty and a Republican Government, as those who charged them with wishing the adoption of this Constitution in order to lay the foundation of an aristocracy or despotism. It will be a desirable thing to extinguish from the bosom of every member of the community, any apprehensions that there are those among his countrymen who wish to deprive them of the liberty for which they valiantly fought and honorably bled. And if there are amendments desired of such a nature as will not injure the Constitution, and they can be ingrafted so as to give satisfaction to the doubting part of our fellow-citizens, the friends of the Federal Government will evince that spirit of deference and concession for which they have hitherto been distinguished." Id., at 431-432.
The language Madison proposed for what ultimately became the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment was this:

"The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext, infringed." Id., at 434. [472 U.S. 38, 95]
On the same day that Madison proposed them, the amendments which formed the basis for the Bill of Rights were referred by the House to a Committee of the Whole, and after several weeks' delay were then referred to a Select Committee consisting of Madison and 10 others. The Committee revised Madison's proposal regarding the establishment of religion to read:
"[N]o religion shall be established by law, nor shall the equal rights of conscience be infringed." Id., at 729.
The Committee's proposed revisions were debated in the House on August 15, 1789. The entire debate on the Religion Clauses is contained in two full columns of the "Annals," and does not seem particularly illuminating. See id., at 729-731. Representative Peter Sylvester of New York expressed his dislike for the revised version, because it might have a tendency "to abolish religion altogether." Representative John Vining suggested that the two parts of the sentence be transposed; Representative Elbridge Gerry thought the language should be changed to read "that no religious doctrine shall be established by law." Id., at 729. Roger Sherman of Connecticut had the traditional reason for opposing provisions of a Bill of Rights - that Congress had no delegated authority to "make religious establishments" - and therefore he opposed the adoption of the amendment. Representative Daniel Carroll of Maryland thought it desirable to adopt the words proposed, saying "[h]e would not contend with gentlemen about the phraseology, his object was to secure the substance in such a manner as to satisfy the wishes of the honest part of the community."

Madison then spoke, and said that "he apprehended the meaning of the words to be, that Congress should not establish a religion, and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any manner contrary to their conscience." Id., at 730. He said that some of the state conventions had thought that Congress might rely on [472 U.S. 38, 96] the Necessary and Proper Clause to infringe the rights of conscience or to establish a national religion, and "to prevent these effects he presumed the amendment was intended, and he thought it as well expressed as the nature of the language would admit." Ibid.

Representative Benjamin Huntington then expressed the view that the Committee's language might "be taken in such latitude as to be extremely hurtful to the cause of religion. He understood the amendment to mean what had been expressed by the gentleman from Virginia; but others might find it convenient to put another construction upon it." Huntington, from Connecticut, was concerned that in the New England States, where state-established religions were the rule rather than the exception, the federal courts might not be able to entertain claims based upon an obligation under the bylaws of a religious organization to contribute to the support of a minister or the building of a place of worship. He hoped that "the amendment would be made in such a way as to secure the rights of conscience, and a free exercise of the rights of religion, but not to patronise those who professed no religion at all." Id., at 730-731.

Madison responded that the insertion of the word "national" before the word "religion" in the Committee version should satisfy the minds of those who had criticized the language. "He believed that the people feared one sect might obtain a pre-eminence, or two combine together, and establish a religion to which they would compel others to conform. He thought that if the word `national' was introduced, it would point the amendment directly to the object it was intended to prevent." Id., at 731. Representative Samuel Livermore expressed himself as dissatisfied with Madison's proposed amendment, and thought it would be better if the Committee language were altered to read that "Congress shall make no laws touching religion, or infringing the rights of conscience." Ibid.

Representative Gerry spoke in opposition to the use of the word "national" because of strong feelings expressed during [472 U.S. 38, 97] the ratification debates that a federal government, not a national government, was created by the Constitution. Madison thereby withdrew his proposal but insisted that his reference to a "national religion" only referred to a national establishment and did not mean that the Government was a national one. The question was taken on Representative Livermore's motion, which passed by a vote of 31 for and 20 against. Ibid.

The following week, without any apparent debate, the House voted to alter the language of the Religion Clauses to read "Congress shall make no law establishing religion, or to prevent the free exercise thereof, or to infringe the rights of conscience." Id., at 766. The floor debates in the Senate were secret, and therefore not reported in the Annals. The Senate on September 3, 1789, considered several different forms of the Religion Amendment, and reported this language back to the House:
"Congress shall make no law establishing articles of faith or a mode of worship, or prohibiting the free exercise of religion." C. Antieau, A. Downey, & E. Roberts, Freedom From Federal Establishment 130 (1964).
The House refused to accept the Senate's changes in the Bill of Rights and asked for a conference; the version which emerged from the conference was that which ultimately found its way into the Constitution as a part of the First Amendment.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

The House and the Senate both accepted this language on successive days, and the Amendment was proposed in this form.

On the basis of the record of these proceedings in the House of Representatives, James Madison was undoubtedly the most important architect among the Members of the [472 U.S. 38, 98] House of the Amendments which became the Bill of Rights, but it was James Madison speaking as an advocate of sensible legislative compromise, not as an advocate of incorporating the Virginia Statute of Religious Liberty into the United States Constitution. During the ratification debate in the Virginia Convention, Madison had actually opposed the idea of any Bill of Rights. His sponsorship of the Amendments in the House was obviously not that of a zealous believer in the necessity of the Religion Clauses, but of one who felt it might do some good, could do no harm, and would satisfy those who had ratified the Constitution on the condition that Congress propose a Bill of Rights. 3 His original language "nor shall any national religion be established" obviously does not conform to the "wall of separation" between church and State idea which latter-day commentators have ascribed to him. His explanation on the floor of the meaning of his language - "that Congress should not establish a religion, and enforce the legal observation of it by law" is of the same ilk. When he replied to Huntington in the debate over the proposal which came from the Select Committee of the House, he urged that the language "no religion shall be established by law" should be amended by inserting the word "national" in front of the word "religion."

It seems indisputable from these glimpses of Madison's thinking, as reflected by actions on the floor of the House in 1789, that he saw the Amendment as designed to prohibit the establishment of a national religion, and perhaps to prevent discrimination among sects. He did not see it as requiring neutrality on the part of government between religion and irreligion. Thus the Court's opinion in Everson - while correct in bracketing Madison and Jefferson together in their exertions in their home State leading to the enactment of the [472 U.S. 38, 99] Virginia Statute of Religious Liberty - is totally incorrect in suggesting that Madison carried these views onto the floor of the United States House of Representatives when he proposed the language which would ultimately become the Bill of Rights.

The repetition of this error in the Court's opinion in Illinois ex rel. McCollum v. Board of Education, 333 U.S. 203 (1948), and, inter alia, Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962), does not make it any sounder historically. Finally, in Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203, 214 (1963), the Court made the truly remarkable statement that "the views of Madison and Jefferson, preceded by Roger Williams, came to be incorporated not only in the Federal Constitution but likewise in those of most of our States" (footnote omitted). On the basis of what evidence we have, this statement is demonstrably incorrect as a matter of history. 4 And its repetition in varying forms in succeeding opinions of the Court can give it no more authority than it possesses as a matter of fact; stare decisis may bind courts as to matters of law, but it cannot bind them as to matters of history.

None of the other Members of Congress who spoke during the August 15th debate expressed the slightest indication that they thought the language before them from the Select Committee, or the evil to be aimed at, would require that the Government be absolutely neutral as between religion and irreligion. The evil to be aimed at, so far as those who spoke were concerned, appears to have been the establishment of a national church, and perhaps the preference of one religious sect over another; but it was definitely not concerned about whether the Government might aid all religions evenhandedly. If one were to follow the advice of JUSTICE BRENNAN, concurring in Abington School District v. Schempp, supra, at 236, and construe the Amendment in the light of what particular [472 U.S. 38, 100] "practices . . . challenged threaten those consequences which the Framers deeply feared; whether, in short, they tend to promote that type of interdependence between religion and state which the First Amendment was designed to prevent," one would have to say that the First Amendment Establishment Clause should be read no more broadly than to prevent the establishment of a national religion or the governmental preference of one religious sect over another.

The actions of the First Congress, which reenacted the Northwest Ordinance for the governance of the Northwest Territory in 1789, confirm the view that Congress did not mean that the Government should be neutral between religion and irreligion. The House of Representatives took up the Northwest Ordinance on the same day as Madison introduced his proposed amendments which became the Bill of Rights; while at that time the Federal Government was of course not bound by draft amendments to the Constitution which had not yet been proposed by Congress, say nothing of ratified by the States, it seems highly unlikely that the House of Representatives would simultaneously consider proposed amendments to the Constitution and enact an important piece of territorial legislation which conflicted with the intent of those proposals. The Northwest Ordinance, 1 Stat. 50, reenacted the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 and provided that "[r]eligion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged." Id., at 52, n. (a). Land grants for schools in the Northwest Territory were not limited to public schools. It was not until 1845 that Congress limited land grants in the new States and Territories to nonsectarian schools. 5 Stat. 788; C. Antieau, A. Downey, & E. Roberts, Freedom From Federal Establishment 163 (1964).

On the day after the House of Representatives voted to adopt the form of the First Amendment Religion Clauses which was ultimately proposed and ratified, Representative [472 U.S. 38, 101] Elias Boudinot proposed a resolution asking President George Washington to issue a Thanksgiving Day Proclamation. Boudinot said he "could not think of letting the session pass over without offering an opportunity to all the citizens of the United States of joining with one voice, in returning to Almighty God their sincere thanks for the many blessings he had poured down upon them." 1 Annals of Cong. 914 (1789). Representative Aedanas Burke objected to the resolution because he did not like "this mimicking of European customs"; Representative Thomas Tucker objected that whether or not the people had reason to be satisfied with the Constitution was something that the States knew better than the Congress, and in any event "it is a religious matter, and, as such, is proscribed to us." Id., at 915. Representative Sherman supported the resolution "not only as a laudable one in itself, but as warranted by a number of precedents in Holy Writ: for instance, the solemn thanksgivings and rejoicings which took place in the time of Solomon, after the building of the temple, was a case in point. This example, he thought, worthy of Christian imitation on the present occasion . . . ." Ibid.

Boudinot's resolution was carried in the affirmative on September 25, 1789. Boudinot and Sherman, who favored the Thanksgiving Proclamation, voted in favor of the adoption of the proposed amendments to the Constitution, including the Religion Clauses; Tucker, who opposed the Thanksgiving Proclamation, voted against the adoption of the amendments which became the Bill of Rights.

Within two weeks of this action by the House, George Washington responded to the Joint Resolution which by now had been changed to include the language that the President "recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness." 1 J. Richardson, Messages and Papers of [472 U.S. 38, 102] the Presidents, 1789-1897, p. 64 (1897). The Presidential Proclamation was couched in these words:
"Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquillity, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted; for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

"And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations, and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and [472 U.S. 38, 103] us; and, generally, to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best." Ibid.
George Washington, John Adams, and James Madison all issued Thanksgiving Proclamations; Thomas Jefferson did not, saying:
"Fasting and prayer are religious exercises; the enjoining them an act of discipline. Every religious society has a right to determine for itself the times for these exercises, and the objects proper for them, according to their own particular tenets; and this right can never be safer than in their own hands, where the Constitution has deposited it." 11 Writings of Thomas Jefferson 429 (A. Lipscomb ed. 1904).
As the United States moved from the 18th into the 19th century, Congress appropriated time and again public moneys in support of sectarian Indian education carried on by religious organizations. Typical of these was Jefferson's treaty with the Kaskaskia Indians, which provided annual cash support for the Tribe's Roman Catholic priest and church. 5 It was not until 1897, when aid to sectarian education [472 U.S. 38, 104] for Indians had reached $500,000 annually, that Congress decided thereafter to cease appropriating money for education in sectarian schools. See Act of June 7, 1897, 30 Stat. 62, 79; cf. Quick Bear v. Leupp, 210 U.S. 50, 77 -79 (1908); J. O'Neill, Religion and Education Under the Constitution 118-119 (1949). See generally R. Cord, Separation of Church and State 61-82 (1982). This history shows the fallacy of the notion found in Everson that "no tax in any amount" may be levied for religious activities in any form. 330 U.S., at 15 -16.
Joseph Story, a Member of this Court from 1811 to 1845, and during much of that time a professor at the Harvard Law School, published by far the most comprehensive treatise on the United States Constitution that had then appeared. Volume 2 of Story's Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States 630-632 (5th ed. 1891) discussed the meaning of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment this way:
"Probably at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, and of the amendment to it now under consideration [First Amendment], the general if not the universal sentiment in America was, that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the State so far as was not incompatible with the private rights of conscience and the freedom of religious worship. An attempt to level all religions, and to make it a matter of state policy to hold all in utter indifference, would have created universal disapprobation, if not universal indignation.

. . . . .

"The real object of the [First] [A]mendment was not to countenance, much less to advance, Mahometanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity; but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects, and to prevent [472 U.S. 38, 105] any national ecclesiastical establishment which should give to a hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government. It thus cut off the means of religious persecution (the vice and pest of former ages), and of the subversion of the rights of conscience in matters of religion, which had been trampled upon almost from the days of the Apostles to the present age. . . ." (Footnotes omitted.)
Thomas Cooley's eminence as a legal authority rivaled that of Story. Cooley stated in his treatise entitled Constitutional Limitations that aid to a particular religious sect was prohibited by the United States Constitution, but he went on to say:
"But while thus careful to establish, protect, and defend religious freedom and equality, the American constitutions contain no provisions which prohibit the authorities from such solemn recognition of a superintending Providence in public transactions and exercises as the general religious sentiment of mankind inspires, and as seems meet and proper in finite and dependent beings. Whatever may be the shades of religious belief, all must acknowledge the fitness of recognizing in important human affairs the superintending care and control of the Great Governor of the Universe, and of acknowledging with thanksgiving his boundless favors, or bowing in contrition when visited with the penalties of his broken laws. No principle of constitutional law is violated when thanksgiving or fast days are appointed; when chaplains are designated for the army and navy; when legislative sessions are opened with prayer or the reading of the Scriptures, or when religious teaching is encouraged by a general exemption of the houses of religious worship from taxation for the support of State government. Undoubtedly the spirit of the Constitution will require, in all these cases, that care be taken to avoid discrimination [472 U.S. 38, 106] in favor of or against any one religious denomination or sect; but the power to do any of these things does not become unconstitutional simply because of its susceptibility to abuse. . . ." Id., at *470-*471.
Cooley added that
"[t]his public recognition of religious worship, however, is not based entirely, perhaps not even mainly, upon a sense of what is due to the Supreme Being himself as the author of all good and of all law; but the same reasons of state policy which induce the government to aid institutions of charity and seminaries of instruction will incline it also to foster religious worship and religious institutions, as conservators of the public morals and valuable, if not indispensable, assistants to the preservation of the public order." Id., at *470.
It would seem from this evidence that the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment had acquired a well-accepted meaning: it forbade establishment of a national religion, and forbade preference among religious sects or denominations. Indeed, the first American dictionary defined the word "establishment" as "the act of establishing, founding, ratifying or ordaining," such as in "[t]he episcopal form of religion, so called, in England." 1 N. Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language (1st ed. 1828). The Establishment Clause did not require government neutrality between religion and irreligion nor did it prohibit the Federal Government from providing nondiscriminatory aid to religion. There is simply no historical foundation for the proposition that the Framers intended to build the "wall of separation" that was constitutionalized in Everson.
Notwithstanding the absence of a historical basis for this theory of rigid separation, the wall idea might well have served as a useful albeit misguided analytical concept, had it led this Court to unified and principled results in Establishment Clause cases. The opposite, unfortunately, has been [472 U.S. 38, 107] true; in the 38 years since Everson our Establishment Clause cases have been neither principled nor unified. Our recent opinions, many of them hopelessly divided pluralities, 6 have with embarrassing candor conceded that the "wall of separation" is merely a "blurred, indistinct, and variable barrier," which "is not wholly accurate" and can only be "dimly perceived." Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 614 (1971); Tilton v. Richardson, 403 U.S. 672, 677 -678, (1971); Wolman v. Walter, 433 U.S. 229, 236 (1977); Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668, 673 (1984).

Whether due to its lack of historical support or its practical unworkability, the Everson "wall" has proved all but useless as a guide to sound constitutional adjudication. It illustrates only too well the wisdom of Benjamin Cardozo's observation that "[m]etaphors in law are to be narrowly watched, for starting as devices to liberate thought, they end often by enslaving it." Berkey v. Third Avenue R. Co., 244 N. Y. 84, 94, 155 N. E. 58, 61 (1926).

But the greatest injury of the "wall" notion is its mischievous diversion of judges from the actual intentions of the drafters of the Bill of Rights. The "crucible of litigation," ante, at 52, is well adapted to adjudicating factual disputes on the basis of testimony presented in court, but no amount of repetition of historical errors in judicial opinions can make the errors true. The "wall of separation between church and State" is a metaphor based on bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned. [472 U.S. 38, 108]

The Court has more recently attempted to add some mortar to Everson's wall through the three-part test of Lemon v. Kurtzman, supra, at 614-615, which served at first to offer a more useful test for purposes of the Establishment Clause than did the "wall" metaphor. Generally stated, the Lemon test proscribes state action that has a sectarian purpose or effect, or causes an impermissible governmental entanglement with religion.

Lemon cited Board of Education v. Allen, 392 U.S. 236, 243 (1968), as the source of the "purpose" and "effect" prongs of the three-part test. The Allen opinion explains, however, how it inherited the purpose and effect elements from Schempp and Everson, both of which contain the historical errors described above. See Allen, supra, at 243. Thus the purpose and effect prongs have the same historical deficiencies as the wall concept itself: they are in no way based on either the language or intent of the drafters.

The secular purpose prong has proved mercurial in application because it has never been fully defined, and we have never fully stated how the test is to operate. If the purpose prong is intended to void those aids to sectarian institutions accompanied by a stated legislative purpose to aid religion, the prong will condemn nothing so long as the legislature utters a secular purpose and says nothing about aiding religion. Thus the constitutionality of a statute may depend upon what the legislators put into the legislative history and, more importantly, what they leave out. The purpose prong means little if it only requires the legislature to express any secular purpose and omit all sectarian references, because legislators might do just that. Faced with a valid legislative secular purpose, we could not properly ignore that purpose without a factual basis for doing so. Larson v. Valente, 456 U.S. 228, 262 -263 (1982) (WHITE, J., dissenting).

However, if the purpose prong is aimed to void all statutes enacted with the intent to aid sectarian institutions, whether stated or not, then most statutes providing any aid, such as [472 U.S. 38, 109] textbooks or bus rides for sectarian school children, will fail because one of the purposes behind every statute, whether stated or not, is to aid the target of its largesse. In other words, if the purpose prong requires an absence of any intent to aid sectarian institutions, whether or not expressed, few state laws in this area could pass the test, and we would be required to void some state aids to religion which we have already upheld. E. g., Allen, supra.

The entanglement prong of the Lemon test came from Walz v. Tax Comm'n, 397 U.S. 664, 674 (1970). Walz involved a constitutional challenge to New York's time-honored practice of providing state property tax exemptions to church property used in worship. The Walz opinion refused to "undermine the ultimate constitutional objective [of the Establishment Clause] as illuminated by history," id., at 671, and upheld the tax exemption. The Court examined the historical relationship between the State and church when church property was in issue, and determined that the challenged tax exemption did not so entangle New York with the church as to cause an intrusion or interference with religion. Interferences with religion should arguably be dealt with under the Free Exercise Clause, but the entanglement inquiry in Walz was consistent with that case's broad survey of the relationship between state taxation and religious property.

We have not always followed Walz' reflective inquiry into entanglement, however. E. g., Wolman, supra, at 254. One of the difficulties with the entanglement prong is that, when divorced from the logic of Walz, it creates an "insoluable paradox" in school aid cases: we have required aid to parochial schools to be closely watched lest it be put to sectarian use, yet this close supervision itself will create an entanglement. Roemer v. Maryland Bd. of Public Works, 426 U.S. 736, 768 -769 (1976) (WHITE, J., concurring in judgment). For example, in Wolman, supra, the Court in part struck the State's nondiscriminatory provision of buses for parochial school filed trips, because the state supervision [472 U.S. 38, 110] of sectarian officials in charge of field trips would be too onerous. This type of self-defeating result is certainly not required to ensure that States do not establish religions.

The entanglement test as applied in cases like Wolman also ignores the myriad state administrative regulations properly placed upon sectarian institutions such as curriculum, attendance, and certification requirements for sectarian schools, or fire and safety regulations for churches. Avoiding entanglement between church and State may be an important consideration in a case like Walz, but if the entanglement prong were applied to all state and church relations in the automatic manner in which it has been applied to school aid cases, the State could hardly require anything of church-related institutions as a condition for receipt of financial assistance.

These difficulties arise because the Lemon test has no more grounding in the history of the First Amendment than does the wall theory upon which it rests. The three-part test represents a determined effort to craft a workable rule from a historically faulty doctrine; but the rule can only be as sound as the doctrine it attempts to service. The three-part test has simply not provided adequate standards for deciding Establishment Clause cases, as this Court has slowly come to realize. Even worse, the Lemon test has caused this Court to fracture into unworkable plurality opinions, see n. 6, supra, depending upon how each of the three factors applies to a certain state action. The results from our school services cases show the difficulty we have encountered in making the Lemon test yield principled results.

For example, a State may lend to parochial school children geography textbooks 7 that contain maps of the United States, but the State may not lend maps of the United States for use in geography class. 8 A State may lend textbooks on American colonial history, but it may not lend a film on [472 U.S. 38, 111] George Washington, or a film projector to show it in history class. A State may lend classroom workbooks, but may not lend workbooks in which the parochial school children write, thus rendering them nonreusable. 9 A State may pay for bus transportation to religious schools 10 but may not pay for bus transportation from the parochial school to the public zoo or natural history museum for a field trip. 11 A State may pay for diagnostic services conducted in the parochial school but therapeutic services must be given in a different building; speech and hearing "services" conducted by the State inside the sectarian school are forbidden, Meek v. Pittenger, 421 U.S. 349, 367 , 371 (1975), but the State may conduct speech and hearing diagnostic testing inside the sectarian school. Wolman, 433 U.S., at 241 . Exceptional parochial school students may receive counseling, but it must take place outside of the parochial school, 12 such as in a trailer parked down the street. Id., at 245. A State may give cash to a parochial school to pay for the administration of state-written tests and state-ordered reporting services, 13 but it may not provide funds for teacher-prepared tests on secular subjects. 14 Religious instruction may not be given in public school, 15 but the public school may release students during the day for religion classes elsewhere, and may enforce attendance at those classes with its truancy laws. 16

These results violate the historically sound principle "that the Establishment Clause does not forbid governments . . . to [provide] general welfare under which benefits are distributed to private individuals, even though many of those individuals [472 U.S. 38, 112] may elect to use those benefits in ways that `aid' religious instruction or worship." Committee for Public Education & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist, 413 U.S. 756, 799 (1973) (BURGER, C. J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). It is not surprising in the light of this record that our most recent opinions have expressed doubt on the usefulness of the Lemon test.

Although the test initially provided helpful assistance, e. g., Tilton v. Richardson, 403 U.S. 672 (1971), we soon began describing the test as only a "guideline," Committee for Public Education & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist, supra, and lately we have described it as "no more than [a] useful signpos[t]." Mueller v. Allen, 463 U.S. 388, 394 (1983), citing Hunt v. McNair, 413 U.S. 734, 741 (1973); Larkin v. Grendel's Den, Inc., 459 U.S. 116 (1982). We have noted that the Lemon test is "not easily applied," Meek, supra, at 358, and as JUSTICE WHITE noted in Committee for Public Education & Religious Liberty v. Regan, 444 U.S. 646 (1980), under the Lemon test we have "sacrifice[d] clarity and predictability for flexibility." 444 U.S. at 662. In Lynch we reiterated that the Lemon test has never been binding on the Court, and we cited two cases where we had declined to apply it. 465 U.S., at 679 , citing Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783 (1983); Larson v. Valente, 456 U.S. 228 (1982).

If a constitutional theory has no basis in the history of the amendment it seeks to interpret, is difficult to apply and yields unprincipled results, I see little use in it. The "crucible of litigation," ante, at 52, has produced only consistent unpredictability, and today's effort is just a continuation of "the sisyphean task of trying to patch together the `blurred, indistinct and variable barrier' described in Lemon v. Kurtzman." Regan, supra, at 671 (STEVENS, J., dissenting). We have done much straining since 1947, but still we admit that we can only "dimly perceive" the Everson wall. Tilton, supra. Our perception has been clouded not by the Constitution but by the mists of an unnecessary metaphor. [472 U.S. 38, 113]

The true meaning of the Establishment Clause can only be seen in its history. See Walz, 397 U.S., at 671 -673; see also Lynch, supra, at 673-678. As drafters of our Bill of Rights, the Framers inscribed the principles that control today. Any deviation from their intentions frustrates the permanence of that Charter and will only lead to the type of unprincipled decisionmaking that has plagued our Establishment Clause cases since Everson.

The Framers intended the Establishment Clause to prohibit the designation of any church as a "national" one. The Clause was also designed to stop the Federal Government from asserting a preference for one religious denomination or sect over others. Given the "incorporation" of the Establishment Clause as against the States via the Fourteenth Amendment in Everson, States are prohibited as well from establishing a religion or discriminating between sects. As its history abundantly shows, however, nothing in the Establishment Clause requires government to be strictly neutral between religion and irreligion, nor does that Clause prohibit Congress or the States from pursuing legitimate secular ends through nondiscriminatory sectarian means.

The Court strikes down the Alabama statute because the State wished to "characterize prayer as a favored practice." Ante, at 60. It would come as much of a shock to those who drafted the Bill of Rights as it will to a large number of thoughtful Americans today to learn that the Constitution, as construed by the majority, prohibits the Alabama Legislature from "endorsing" prayer. George Washington himself, at the request of the very Congress which passed the Bill of Rights, proclaimed a day of "public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God." History must judge whether it was the Father of his Country in 1789, or a majority of the Court today, which has strayed from the meaning of the Establishment Clause.

The State surely has a secular interest in regulating the manner in which public schools are conducted. Nothing in [472 U.S. 38, 114] the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, properly understood, prohibits any such generalized "endorsement" of prayer. I would therefore reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

1990

10/24
The Secularist Prejudice
In an excerpt from his book Under God: Religion and American Politics, Garry Wills highlights the innocence of secular thinkers like Henry Steele Commager and Arthur Schlesinger of the impact of religion on the national psyche:

For Commager, religion is clearly as irrational as modern art, but he is comparatively benign in his description of it. It puzzles him, by its anomalous perdurance in a people as rational and secular as those who possess the authentically American Mind. But religion does not disturb him as much as dirty poems. He decides, to his relief, that people do not really mean it when they say they believe in the old creeds: "For three hundred years Calvinism had taught the depravity of man without any perceptible effect on the cheerfulness, kindliness, or optimism of Americans."

If it seems strange that Commager can get so worked up about an assault on reason mounted by e. e. cummings while remaining, tranquil about religion’s "flight from reason," that is because he cannot imagine that anybody would take a preacher as seriously as a poet. For him, "no American could believe that he was damned." All real Americans have "preferred this life to the next," so their religious professions. are a cover for something else -- luckily, for something quite useful: "The church was, on the whole, the most convenient and probably the most effective organization for giving expression to the American passion for humanitarianism." When the church is not being useful, it is neutered; so support for it is harmless: "The church was something to be ‘supported,’ like some aged relative whose claim was vague but inescapable." A meaningless religion is a rather nice thing to have, since it does not interfere at all with dam-building, and it gives people something to do with their spare time.

Almost 40 years after Commager defined the American mind, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., returned to the task and found the same qualifying traits. In a widely publicized inaugural address at Brown University, Schlesinger argued that secularity is the leading characteristic of Americans: "The American mind is by nature and tradition skeptical irreverent, pluralistic and relativistic." Yet Schlesinger, unlike Commager, is nervous about religion, which some people in 1989 were taking altogether too seriously. Schlesinger sets the canons of Americanism in an exclusive way. We are told who are "the two greatest and most characteristic American thinkers" -- Emerson and William James. We are told who was the "most quintessential of American historians" -- George Bancroft (no doubter of American virtue, like Henry Adams) We are told what is the (one and orthodox) "American way" -- "Relativism is the American way." We are even told what is "the finest scene in the greatest of American novels"-- the point when Huck Finn decides to help Nigger Jim escape. In fact, we are told that this last scene "is what America is all about."

Like a nativist facing immigrant hordes, Schlesinger multiplies the defining (and excluding) social signs of "our sort." Our sort have no truck with "reverence." We are committed to "our truth." Even relativism helps us to keep up standards here: "For our relative, values are not matters of whim and happenstance. History has given them "to us." They are like descent from the Mayflower. "People with a different history will have different values. But we believe that our own are better for us." How lucky, then, that history did not give us religious values. It is not enough that pragmatic, irreverent relativism be a high ideal for Americans to aspire to. It must be a "given," like the liberalism Louis Hartz, the consensus historian, said was the American situation (rather than its creed). It is something one need not argue for, since one cannot escape it in any event: Our values "are anchored in our national experience, in our great national documents, in our national heroes, in our folkways, traditions, standards."

Schlesinger obviously has a different understanding of America’s "folkways" than did the author of "the finest scene in the greatest of American novels." Twain’s novels, and especially the one Schlesinger cites, are filled with folk superstition, religion, prejudice and dogmatism. Even in the scene offered (rightly) to our admiration. Huck does not escape the presumptions of the entire culture around him. In fact. Huck at his supreme moment performs an act Professor Commager called impossible for any real American -- Huck not only believes in hell, but believes he is going there now that he is helping Jim. He defies, while still believing in, "the American way" of everyone around him, the way of sin and damnation.

2000

6/19
SANTA FE INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT v. DOE
The Supreme Court strikes down student-led prayer at football games:

School sponsorship of a religious message is impermissible because it sends the ancillary message to members of the audience who are nonadherants "that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to adherants that they are insiders, favored members of the political community." Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U. S., at 688 (1984) (O'Connor, J., concurring). The delivery of such a message--over the school's public address system, by a speaker representing the student body, under the supervision of school faculty, and pursuant to a school policy that explicitly and implicitly encourages public prayer--is not properly characterized as "private" speech.

2002

6/26
The Ninth Circuit strikes down the Pledge of Allegiance.
Newdow v. U.S. Congress[PDF]:

In the context of the Pledge, the statement that the United States is a nation “under God” is an endorsement of religion. It is a profession of a religious belief, namely, a belief in monotheism. The recitation that ours is a nation “under God” is not a mere acknowledgment that many Americans believe in a deity. Nor is it merely descriptive of the undeniable historical significance of religion in the founding of the Republic. Rather, the phrase “one nation under God” in the context of the Pledge is normative. To recite the Pledge is not to describe the United States; instead, it is to swear allegiance to the values for which the flag stands: unity, indivisibility, liberty, justice, and — since 1954 — monotheism. The text of the official Pledge, codified in federal law, impermissibly takes a position with respect to the purely religious question of the existence and identity of God. A profession that we are a nation “under God” is identical, for Establishment Clause purposes, to a profession that we are a nation “under Jesus,” a nation “under Vishnu,” a nation “under Zeus,” or a nation “under no god,” because none of these professions can be neutral with respect to religion. “[T]he government must pursue a course of complete neutrality toward religion.” Wallace, 472 U.S. at 60. Furthermore, the school district’s practice of teacher-led recitation of the Pledge aims to inculcate in students a respect for the ideals set forth in the Pledge, and thus amounts to state endorsement of these ideals. Although students cannot be forced to participate in recitation of the Pledge, the school district is nonetheless conveying a message of state endorsement of a religious belief when it requires public school teachers to recite, and lead the recitation of, the current form of the Pledge.

The Supreme Court recognized the normative and ideological nature of the Pledge in Barnette, 319 U.S. 624. There, the Court held unconstitutional a school district’s wartime policy of punishing students who refused to recite the Pledge and salute the flag. Id. at 642. The Court noted that the school district was compelling the students “to declare a belief,” id. at 631, and “requir[ing] the individual to communicate by word and sign his acceptance of the political ideas [the flag] . . . bespeaks,” id. at 633. “[T]he compulsory flag salute and pledge requires affirmation of a belief and an attitude of mind.” Id. The Court emphasized that the political concepts articulated in the Pledge6 were idealistic, not descriptive: “ ‘[L]iberty and justice for all,’ if it must be accepted as descriptive of the present order rather than an ideal, might to some seem an overstatement.” Id. at 634 n.14. The Court concluded that: “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.” Id. at 642.

[5] The Pledge, as currently codified, is an impermissible government endorsement of religion because it sends a message to unbelievers “that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to adherents that they are insiders, favored members of the political community.” Lynch, 465 U.S. at 688 (O’Connor, J., concurring). Justice Kennedy, in his dissent in Allegheny, agreed:
[B]y statute, the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag describes the United States as ‘one nation under God.’ To be sure, no one is obligated to recite this phrase, . . . but it borders on sophistry to suggest that the reasonable atheist would not feel less than a full member of the political community every time his fellow Americans recited, as part of their expression of patriotism and love for country, a phrase he believed to be false.
Allegheny, 492 U.S. at 672 (Kennedy, J., dissenting) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted).7 Consequently, the policy and the Act fail the endorsement test.

[6] Similarly, the policy and the Act fail the coercion test. Just as in Lee, the policy and the Act place students in the untenable position of choosing between participating in an exercise with religious content or protesting. As the Court observed with respect to the graduation prayer in that case: “What to most believers may seem nothing more than a reasonable request that the nonbeliever respect their religious practices, in a school context may appear to the nonbeliever or dissenter to be an attempt to employ the machinery of the State to enforce a religious orthodoxy.” Lee, 505 U.S. at 592. Although the defendants argue that the religious content of “one nation under God” is minimal, to an atheist or a believer in certain non-Judeo-Christian religions or philosophies, it may reasonably appear to be an attempt to enforce a “religious orthodoxy” of monotheism, and is therefore impermissible.

The coercive effect of this policy is particularly pronounced in the school setting given the age and impressionability of schoolchildren, and their understanding that they are required to adhere to the norms set by their school, their teacher and their fellow students.8 Furthermore, under Lee, the fact that students are not required to participate is no basis for distinguishing Barnette from the case at bar because, even without a recitation requirement for each child, the mere fact that a pupil is required to listen every day to the statement “one nation under God” has a coercive effect.9 The coercive effect of the Act is apparent from its context and legislative history, which indicate that the Act was designed to result in the daily recitation of the words “under God” in school classrooms.

President Eisenhower, during the Act’s signing ceremony, stated: “From this day forward, the millions of our school children will daily proclaim in every city and town,every village and rural schoolhouse, the dedication of our Nation and our people to the Almighty.” 100 Cong. Rec. 8618 (1954) (statement of Sen. Ferguson incorporating signing statement of President Eisenhower). Therefore, the policy and the Act fail the coercion test.

FACT CHECK ANN COULTER!: SHOOTING BLANKS ON CROSSFIRE.
TAPPED:

We missed this gem, but reader R.L. passed it along:
I will guess that the judges who said the Pledge of Allegiance violates the constitution were appointed by Democrats and not Republicans. I haven't looked at the decision. I haven't even heard about the decision because I've been busy today, but that's a wild guess I'm going to make....Oh, I'm just waiting to see if anyone will take any bets on me on whether the judges who wrote the decision were appointed by a Democrat or Republican.
We think we can safely assume the implication here. In actuality, of course, only one of the two judges was appointed by a Democrat -- Judge Stephen Reinhardt, a Carter appointee. The other was Judge Alfred T. Goodwin, who was appointed by that great liberal, Richard Nixon. This really speaks volumes about just what a hack Coulter is; it requires no elaboration on our part. But perhaps now the chat shows will stop billing Coulter as a "constitutional lawyer." No wonder the profession is held in such low regard.

6/28
The Pledge of Allegiance: Why we're not one nation "under God."
David Greenberg in Slate

2003
What's Conservative about the Pledge of Allegiance?
Gene Healy at CATO.

2005

9/14
Unites States Senator Lindsey Graham at the Roberts hearings:

GRAHAM: Well, we have before us today, Judge Roberts, a legal opinion just issued, hot off the presses, that says the establishment clause of the Constitution apparently is violated if an American recites the Pledge of Allegiance.

You will be on the court, I hope, and you will use your best judgment on how to reconcile the 9th Circuit opinion. And I'm not asking you to tell us how you might rule, I'm making a personal observation that this is an example, in my opinion, of where judges do not protect us from having the government impose religion upon us, but declare war on all things religious.

And that is my personal view and opinion. That's why most Americans sometimes are dumbfounded about what's going on in the name of religion. No American wants the government to tell them how to worship, where to worship or if to worship. But when we exercise our right to worship, it bothers me greatly that judges, who are unelected, confused the concept between establishment and free exercise.

And I will move on.

I think it is one of the cases that is undermining the confidence in the judiciary. And I'm glad that you're sensitive to that.

9/18
Forgetting Reinhold Niebuhr By ARTHUR SCHLESINGER JR.
An essay in the New York Times on the different presumptions underlying current religiousity and that of the mid-twentieth century.
10/4
Allegiance to a Pledge
A Suite101 article by Gina Gibson.

2006

2/18
The 11th Article of the Treaty of Tripoli
Mark Thoma at Economist's View asks a historical question.
6/28
'Call to Renewal' Keynote Address
Illinois Senator Barack Obama.
9/10
Spokesman Speaks: Right to Dissent from "under God"
The blog International Libertarian questions the need for the pledge.

Social Security Meta-Archive: 1999

2005-11-26T18:39:00.003-05:00

[Part of The Earth-Based Initiative: Social Security Meta-Archive]

Winter

Will aging baby boomers bust the federal budget?[PDF]
Ronald Lee and Jonathan Skinner.

January

SOCIAL SECURITY PRIVATIZATION: EXPERIENCES ABROAD
CBO analysis.
1/20
State of the Union address
Bill Clinton discusses his plan:

With the number of elderly Americans set to double by 2030, the baby boom will become a “senior boom.” So first and above all, we must save Social Security for the 21st century. (Applause.)

Early in this century, being old meant being poor. When President Roosevelt created Social Security, thousands wrote to thank him for eliminating what one woman called the “stark terror of penniless, helpless old age.” Even today, without Social Security, half our nation's elderly would be forced into poverty.

Today, Social Security is strong. But by 2013, payroll taxes will no longer be sufficient to cover monthly payments. And by 2032, the trust fund will be exhausted, and Social Security will be unable to pay out the full benefits older Americans have been promised.

The best way to keep Social Security a rock-solid guarantee is not to make drastic cuts in benefits; not to raise payroll tax rates; and not to drain resources from Social Security in the name of saving it.

Instead, I propose that we make the historic decision to invest the surplus to save Social Security.

Specifically, I propose that we commit 60 percent of the budget surplus for the next 15 years to Social Security, investing a small portion in the private sector just as any private or state government pension would do. This will earn a higher return and keep Social Security sound for 55 years.

But we must aim higher. We should put Social Security on a sound footing for the next 75 years. We should reduce poverty among elderly women, who are nearly twice as likely to be poor as our other seniors — and we should eliminate the limits on what seniors on Social Security can earn.

Now, these changes will require difficult but fully achievable choices over and above the dedication of the surplus. They must be made on a bipartisan basis. They should be made this year. So let me say to you tonight, I reach out my hand to all of you in both houses and both parties and ask that we join together in saying to the American people: We will save Social Security now.

Now, last year, we wisely reserved all of the surplus until we knew what it would take to save Social Security. Again, I say, we shouldn't spend any of it, not any of it, until after Social Security is truly saved. First things first. Second, once we have saved Social Security, we must fulfill our obligation to save and improve Medicare. Already, we have extended the life of the Medicare trust fund by 10 years — but we should extend it for at least another decade. Tonight I propose that we use one out of every six dollars in the surplus for the next 15 years to guarantee the soundness of Medicare until the year 2020.

But again, we should aim higher. We must be willing to work in a bipartisan way and look at new ideas, including the upcoming report of the bipartisan Medicare commission. If we work together, we can secure Medicare for the next two decades and cover the greatest growing need of seniors — affordable prescription drugs.

Third, we must help all Americans, from their first day on the job, to save, to invest, to create wealth. From its beginning, Americans have supplemented Social Security with private pensions and savings. Yet today, millions of people retire with little to live on other than Social Security. Americans living longer than ever simply must save more than ever.

Therefore, in addition to saving Social Security and Medicare, I propose a new pension initiative for retirement security in the 21st century.

I propose that we use a little over 11 percent of the surplus to establish universal savings accounts — USA accounts — to give all Americans the means to save. With these new accounts, Americans can invest as they choose, and receive funds to match a portion of their savings, with extra help for those least able to save.

USA accounts will help all Americans to share in our nation's wealth, and to enjoy a more secure retirement. I ask you to support them.

Fourth, we must invest in long-term care. I propose — I propose a tax credit of $1,000 for the aged, ailing or disabled and the families who care for them. Long-term care will become a bigger and bigger challenge with the aging of America — and we must do more to help our families deal with it.

I was born in 1946, the first year of the baby boom. I can tell you that one of the greatest concerns of our generation is our absolute determination not to let our growing old place an intolerable burden on our children and their ability to raise our grandchildren. Our economic success and fiscal discipline now give us an opportunity to lift that burden from their shoulders and we should take it.

Saving Social Security and Medicare, creating USA accounts — this is the right way to use the surplus. If we do so — if we do so — we will still have the resources to meet critical needs in education and defense. And I want to point out that this proposal is fiscally sound. Listen to this: If we set aside 60 percent of the surplus for Social Security and 16 percent for Medicare, over the next 15 years that saving will achieve the lowest level of publicly held debt since right before World War I, in 1917.

So With these four measures — saving Social Security, strengthening Medicare, establishing the USA accounts, supporting long-term care — we can begin to meet our generation's historic responsibility to establish true security for 21st century seniors.

1/25
Washingtonpost.com: Social Security Special Report
2/2
Conservatives Should Stop Complaining and Liberals Should Start
[Suite101 discussion]
Discussion of the inescapable burdens of funding the retirement of future generations whether there is a Social Security or not.
2/5
New Economists' Petition
Economist Max Sawicky posts a petition to the Post-Keynesian Thought discussion list:

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS
50 MEMORIAL DRIVE
CAMBRIDGE MASSACHUSETTS 02142-1347

2 February 1999

Dear Fellow Economist:

We would like to invite you to join us in support of President Clinton's proposal to save the projected federal budget surplus. Economists have been arguing for decades that increased national saving is the only way to prepare for the retirement of the baby boom, and we believe that it would be helpful for economists to endorse the President's major saving initiative.

If you are willing to add your name to the list, please sign the attached statement and fax it to Jennifer Cloherty at (617) 552-1750.

Sincerely,

Robert Solow

Peter Diamond

Alicia Munnell

The text of the proposed open letter is:

PRESIDENT CLINTON'S PROPOSAL TO SAVE SURPLUSES IS GOOD ECONOMICS

President Clinton has made the correct decision in his budget proposal, namely, to save most of the $4.4 trillion of the net budget surpluses projected by the Administration of the next 15 years. Instead of using this money for tax cuts or unproductive spending, the government will use the bulk of it to buy back government debt, reducing debt in the hands of the public from 44 percent of GDP today to about seven percent in 2014, according to Administrative estimates. This will free up trillions in the hands of private investors who will be able to lend the money to businesses for investment in new plant and equipment.

Saving and investing now is the only real way to prepare for the retirement of the baby boomers. Saving now will increase the ability of the economy to produce food, shelter and clothing in the future. Although no one can predict how large the budget surpluses will turn out to be, we can be sure that saving them by reducing outstanding government debt is an excellent way to ease the burden on future workers of supporting an aging population.

Please add my name to the list of economists supporting the President's initiative to save the projected budget surpluses.

Name (please print)

Signature

Date

Signers of Open Letter Regarding President Clinton's Proposal to Save the Budget Surplus as of 11:00 AM Feb. 5, 1999.

Name and Affiliation
Aaron, Henry, The Brookings Institution
*Arrow, Kenneth, Stanford University
Baily, Martin Neil, McKinsey and Co., Inc.
Basu, Susanto, University of Michigan
Blinder, Alan, Princeton University
Bosworth, Barry, The Brookings Institution
Burtless, Gary, The Brookings Institution
De Long, J. Bradford, University of California at Berkeley
Diamond, Peter, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Dornbusch, Rudiger, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Duesenberry, James, Harvard University
Froot, Kenneth, Harvard University
Griliches, Zvi, Harvard University
Gruber, Jonathon, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Haveman, Robert, University of Wisconsin
Ibbotson, Roger, Yale University
Joskow, Paul L., Massachusetts Institute of Technology
*Klein, Lawrence R., University of Pennsylvania
Levy, Frank, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Munnell, Alicia, Boston College
Perry, George L, The Brookings Institution
Rose-Ackerman, Susan, Yale University
*Samuelson, Paul, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Shapiro, Matthew, University of Michigan
Shiller, Bob, Yale University
*Solow, Robert, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Summers, Anita, University of Pennsylvania
Summers, Robert, University of Pennsylvania
*Tobin, James, Yale University
Tyson, Laura D., University of California at Berkeley
Wolfe, Barbara, University of Wisconsin

*Nobel Prize Winner

Re: New Economists' Petition
Paul Davidson, of the JOURNAL OF POST KEYNESIAN ECONOMICS, drafts a response:

Mr. President:

One of the most astute students of the Social Security system, Robert Eisner (former President of the American Economic Association) published an article debunking many of the false claims made by those who proclaim themselves to be Saviors of the Social Security System. just a few weeks before he died in the Fall of 1998. In this open letter we take urge you to listen to this intelligent voice that has unfortunately been stilled.

Eisner stated:
Social Security faces no crisis now or in the future. It will not "go bankrupt." It will "be there," not only for those of us now enjoying it or looking forward to it in the near future, but for the baby-boomers and the "Generation-X" following them. All this is true as long as those who would nibble away at Social Security or destroy it ... do not have their political way.
The proposed nibbling away of Social Security, including that by some of its presumed friends, is disingenuous and misleading. Even some of its defenders seem all too ready to accept "minor" cuts in benefits to achieve prospective fund balance.

The notion that Social Security faces bankruptcy begins with a fundamental misconception, that payment of benefits somehow depends upon the OASDI (Old Age and Survivors and Disability Insurance) trust funds. The trust funds are merely accounting entities.

Social Security payments are an obligation under law of the U.S. Government. Our government and its Treasury will not, indeed cannot go bankrupt. As Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has recently put it, "...[A] government cannot become insolvent with respect to obligations in its own currency."

For those concerned, nevertheless, about the "solvency" of the trust funds there are simple, painless remedies for this accounting problem.

The whole problem, though, is trivial. That projected shortage in the trust funds in 34 years--aside from the uncertainty of any such long-run projections--is purely a matter of accounting, with any number of easy accounting solutions.

It was not God but the Congress and the Treasury that determined the interest rate to be credited on the non-negotiable Treasury notes of the fund balances. As Alan Greenspan has pointed out, this would merely change the identity of those who hold government bonds as against stocks, with little or no real effect on the economy. .

If we want Social Security to share in whatever earnings investors are receiving, why not award balances in the Trust funds, instead of the current 5.9 percent interest rate on long-term government bonds, the higher returns that might be earned in equity investment? Barry Anderson, until recently top civil servant in the Office of Management and Budget, has calculated that crediting the balances with a 10.4 percent interest rate, which is close to the long-run return on stocks, would keep the funds in balance indefinitely, on the basis even of those pessimistic "intermediate" projections. This would again be merely a matter of accounting, with no real effect on the measured budget deficit, the Federal debt held by the public or the economy. But it would solve that presumed problem of a future shortage in the Trust funds. Then, if we really cared about the welfare of Social Security contributors, we would increase their benefits to match these higher earnings.

The fears and cynicism regarding Social Security, misguided as they are, though, should be met as fully as possible. Here is a way to do it and truly, in President Clinton's words, "Save Social Security first." It is immediate, effective and painless! And it will entail no cuts in benefits, no new taxes and no use of the developing budget surplus.

1. Convert all of the balances of non-marketable Treasury securities currently in the funds' accounts, now over $600 billion, into marketable Treasury securities, guaranteed like all others by the full faith and credit of the United States Government. Set the interest rate on these securities at 10.4 percent, sufficient to guarantee long-run solvency according to the Intermediate-Cost projections, and not inappropriate in view of past long-run market returns on equity.

2. Have the trust funds make all payments to beneficiaries and receive all revenues currently credited to them. These would include the interest on their existing balances. The funds' assets of marketable securities would continue to grow as long as funds' incomes exceed their outlays.

3. Have the trust funds sell securities to meet any cash shortfall if, or whenever, income becomes less than outgo. According to those Intermediate-Cost projections, this would begin to become necessary in 2019, when the funds' balances would be $2.9 trillion.

The legitimate concerns of millions of Americans that their retirement income may not prove adequate can be met by adding to Social Security, not cutting it or substituting the vagaries and--for most--the confusions and costs of private investment. I have proposed adding to the Social Security system a program of voluntary additional contributions.

Privatizers do have a point though. Average Social Security benefits are too low, coming now to only about $10,000 for a family with a retired worker. Millions of middle-class Americans are concerned that their retirement income will be inadequate.

There is a way to meet their needs and aspirations, a way that would take not one penny from Social Security but would offer all the promised benefits of privatization. I would propose what might be called "publicization."

I would offer all participants in the Social Security system--which I would hope would encompass virtually the entire population, including those who earn their income from capital without working--the chance to make additional, entirely voluntary contributions to Social Security. These would be credited to their individual Social Security accounts. And they would be invested, by choice of the participant, in: a) a passive, indexed stock fund; b) a passive, indexed bond fund; or c) Treasury securities. Contributions could be made not only by the self-employed and employees themselves, but by employers on behalf of their employees; employers might find offering such fringe benefits a cost-effective way of recruiting and retaining workers.

The contributions would be tax-deductible, like current IRAs and 401(k)s but ultimate benefits would be taxable. The contributors' accounts would be credited with the income and capital gains on their investments, whatever they were, both up to retirement and afterward. They would, on retirement, receive actuarially fair annuities with cost-of-living adjustments or, better, adjustments related to changes of wages of those working.

We would then have the best of all worlds. Most important, the retirement benefits of tens of millions of Americans would be increased. We would preserve fully the social insurance of our existing Social Security system. We would encourage private saving and investment.

That burden can be eased, now and in the future, by adding to the total wealth of our nation. It means providing for more workers and making them more productive. It means provision of quality child care, permitting reasonable immigration, maintaining full employment, and investing in research and the human capital of education and health of our people. These measures, and not decimating or destroying Social Security, are the ways to advance our future.

Paul Davidson
Holly Chair of Excellence in Political Economy
Editor, JOURNAL OF POST KEYNESIAN ECONOMICS [JPKE]

2/8
The Real Threat to Social Security
Robert Dreyfuss, in The Nation, on the movement behind privatization and the Clinton administration response.
2/11
The Biggest Ponzi Scheme on Earth
Milton Friedman argues there's no better reason to socialize risk for retirement security than for housing or transportation.
5/1
Two Cheers for Clinton's Social Security Plan
Dean Baker.
5/11
Risk and Returns of Stock Market Investments Held in Individual Retirement Accounts
Economist Gary Burtless of Brookings Institution testifies before Task Force on Social Security Reform, House Budget Committee, on returns from stocks and their implication for Social Security reform.
5/26
Should We Retire Social Security?[PDF]
Henry Aaron and Robert Reischauer in Brookings Review
6/12
Shameful Moments in Economics I: The Social Security Debate
Economist Dean Baker witnesses to his own experience in the Social Security debate.
September
The Changing Economics of Social Security and Retirement Plan Sponsorship
Social Security's historic impact on defined private benefit plans from Watson Wyatt Insider partially based on the book by Sylvester J. Schieber and John B. Shoven, The Real Deal: The History and Future of Social Security.
11/18
Subway Tokens and Social Security
An analogy by L. Randall Wray of the Center for Full Employment and Price Stability
12/22
Republican Candidates Debate Social Security
Bruce Bartlett defends Steve Forbes from Gary Bauer.

Social Security Meta-Archive: 1996

2005-11-21T23:27:00.002-05:00

[Part of The Earth-Based Initiative: Social Security Meta-Archive]

5/1
The Biggest Deal
Robert Dreyfuss, in The American Prospect, on the funding behind lobbying the drive to privatize.
7/12
Making Social Security Secure
Slate "committee of correspondence" including Herb Stein, Henry Aaron and others.
9/13
The Choice[PDF]
Economist James K. Galbraith in The Texas Observer:

Here is what the President said:
“Let us proclaim to the American people we will balance the budget, and let us also proclaim we will do it in a way that preserves Medicare, Medicaid, education, environment, the integrity of our pensions, the strength of our people.”
Does this sound like a promise to protect Social Security to you? To me, it sounds like a promise to “reform” it.

The financiers have been ogling the Social Security Trust Fund for years now. Privatize it! they say. It will be more efficient! Earn a higher return! What they mean is: let us get our sticky fingers on the cash flow.

In simple terms, privatization of Social Security probably means that some part of your payroll tax gets dumped into a mutual fund. You will pay a manager to invest it for you. He will make a fantastic income for some of the easiest work on the planet. Political scientist Thomas Ferguson has recently written, in Le Monde Diplomatique, that Clinton and the Democrats have been losing investment bank political contributions since 1994. This giveaway would almost surely get them back.

Ah, but isn’t the Social Security System in crisis? Isn’t tottering on the edge of bankruptcy? It absolutely is not. As the great economist Robert Eisner wrote in the Wall Street Journal last week, just a few accounting changes, long overdue, could end such talk for decades.

The problem is greed, pure and simple. Social Security is a rich target. I am not making this up: there is other evidence that preparations for a bipartisan Social Security “rescue” after the election are underway. That sly euphemism, “the integrity of our pensions,” was not accidental.

In some ways, Social Security might be safer under Bob Dole. Dole is, after all, an elderly, disabled man. He is a conservative Republican, but he has an honorable track record on Food Stamps and other safety net issues. More important, if Dole became President, the Democratic Party might come back into existence. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin from Goldman, Sachs would leave office. Social Security would have real defenders once again.

10/16
The Second Clinton-Dole Presidential Debate

MR. FLECK: President Clinton, my name is Jack Fleck. I'm retired Air Force pilot. Sir, it's officially forecast that our annual Medicare and Social Security deficits are measured in the trillions of dollars next century. Depending on who you listen to, Social Security will be bankrupted in either or . I feel this is grossly unfair, especially to our younger generation who are losing faith in the system. My question is this: Assuming you agree that our entitlement programs are on an unsustainable course, what specific reforms do you propose?

CLINTON: First of all, there are two different things. Social Security and Medicare are entirely different in terms of the financial stabilities. Let's talk about them separately. Social Security is stable until, as you pointed out, at least the third decade of the next century. But we'd like to have a Social Security fund that has about 70 years of life instead of about 30 years of life. What we have to do is simply to make some adjustments to take account of the fact that the baby boomers, people like me, are bigger in number than the people that went just before us and the people that come just after us. And I think what we'll plainly do is what we did in 1983 when Senator Dole served, and this is something I think he did a good job on when he served on the Social Security commission and they made some modest changes in Social Security to make sure that it would be alive and well into the 21st century. And we will do that. It's obvious that there are certain things that have to be done and there are 50 or 60 different options, and a bipartisan commission to take it out of politics, will make recommendations and build support for the people. Medicare is different. Medicare needs help now. I have proposed a budget which would put ten years on the life of Medicare trust fund. That's more than it's had a lot of the time in the last years. It would save a lot of money through more managed care, but giving more options, more preventative care and lowering the inflation rate and the prices we're paying providers without having the kind of big premium increases and out-of-pocket costs that the budget I vetoed would provide. Then that would give us ten years to do with Medicare what we're going to do with Social Security; have a bipartisan group look at what we have to do to save it when the baby boomers retire. But now we can, we ought to pass this budget now and put ten years on it right away so no one has to worry about it.

DOLE: Well again, if you're somebody thinking about the future, I think it's fair to say that it'll be -- we'll work it out. This is a political year, and the President is playing politics with Medicare. After this year is over, we'll resolve it just as we did with Social Security in `83. It's a nonpartisan commission. Ronald Reagan got together with Tip O'Neill and Howard Baker, two Republicans and one Democrat. They appointed a commission I was on that commission. We resolved, we rescued Social Security. We suggested -- I think it has been over a year ago now -- we do the same with Medicare, and the White House called it a gimmick. Now last week I guess it was Donna Shalala said well we'll cut Medicare a hundred billion and appoint a commission. It will probably have to be done by a commission. Take it out of politics. I think if I were a senior citizen I would be a little fed up with all these ads scaring seniors, scaring veterans and scaring students about education. When you don't have any ideas, you don't have any agenda, and all you have is fear, that's all you can use. We have ideas in the Dole-Kemp campaign and we will rescue Medicare as we did Social Security.

MS. SIEFERT: Iris. Senator Dole, we talked about Social Security for us baby boomers. But shouldn't we be saving and investing for our own retirement as well? Are you planning any incentives to encourage us to take care of ourselves rather than to rely on the government and on Social Security when we retire?
DOLE: Well, we have in our economic pack, -- individual retirement accounts where we think it will encourage savings. You can also use those accounts for health care or education or a first home. We're doing that precisely, and I think one thing sooner or later we're going to have to consider is take a look at the Social Security system. Because we've got a lot of people advocating we don't want to put our money into Social Security. You have to be very careful of that because you have to protect the people who are already in the pipeline. It's something you might consider. I'm not suggesting it will be done, but at least we ought to look at it. It's been looked, When I was chairman of the finance committee which handled Social Security we looked at all these options, and one thing we've got to make certain, when I used to go home my mother would tell me all I've got is my Social Security, don't touch it. And we didn't touch it. We preserved it. And I'm an optimist. Your your Social Security is going to be there when you retire. We will fix it. It will probably happen in the year 2012 or 2015. In 1983 we thought we had a 75 -year fix. It didn't work. Much, much less, but at least we fixed it for some time and 37 to 40 million people get their checks on time. So we need to preserve the system. And we need to make it stronger. But we also need to look at some options, whether or not we -- depending on what the options are. In fact, they have got a commission right now in Congress, a bipartisan commission, looking at all the different options they will present to the next Congress. so I think we will wait, see what they present, take a look at it.

CLINTON: Iris, this is one where we have some agreement, I think. Only about half the people in this country have pension plans. And Social Security is not enough for a lot of people to live on, or at least is not enough for them to maintain anything like their previous lifestyle. So we've got to figure out how are we going to have more people with pension plans, and pension coverage has been declining as more and more people work for small businesses and fewer people work for big businesses. So what, what is in my plan and I think it's almost identical in Senator Dole's plans is we make more people eligible to save in an IRA and let couples, married couples save more and then they could withdraw from it tax-free if they needed to, for medical emergencies or buy a home or education, also save to supplement retirement. In addition to that, we just passed a sweeping business reform that makes it easier for small business people to take out 401 K plans for themselves and employees and much easier for employees to carry it from job to job. My best friend from grade school is a computer software salesman and he told me last time he changed employers it took him nine months to figure out how to transfer his 401K plan. Now none of that will happen anymore. I hope over the next ten years you will see a big increase over the percentage of people that have pension plans, plus a secure Social Security system.

November
The Great Social Security Scare
Jerry L. Mashaw and Theodore Marmor write in The American Prospect.
The end of Social Security as we know it?
Robert Dreyfuss, in Mother Jones, on the drive to privatize.
Déjà views
In the same Mother Jones issue, Theda Skocpol asserts conservatives unsuccessfully fought for a more poor-centric version of Social Security in a bid to pre-empt its long-term middle-class appeal.
12/1
Local Solutions to a National Problem
Local prototypes for Social Security reform.
12/14
Social Security: From Ponzi Scheme to Shell Game
Michael Kinsley in Slate.

Plan A from Outer Space

2005-11-21T17:06:00.000-05:00

Josh Marshall's November 26, 2003 post on the firing of Tom Warrick of the State Department's prescient Future of Iraq Project - the government's best expertise shelved to facilitate contemplation of One Giant Cakewalk For Mankind - was put into devastating context by George Packer's extensive November 1993 New Yorker article on the Bush administration's post-war "planning:"

Erdmann’s view that rebuilding Iraq would require a significant, sustained effort was echoed by the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. Throughout 2002, sixteen groups of Iraqi exiles, coördinated by a bureau official named Thomas S. Warrick, researched potential problems in postwar Iraq, from the electricity grid to the justice system. The thousands of pages that emerged from this effort, which became known as the Future of Iraq Project, presented a sobering view of the country’s physical and human infrastructure—and suggested the need for a long-term, expensive commitment.

The Pentagon also spent time developing a postwar scenario, but, because of Rumsfeld’s battle with Powell over foreign policy, it didn’t coördinate its ideas with the State Department. The planning was directed, in an atmosphere of near-total secrecy, by Douglas J. Feith, the Under-Secretary of Defense for Policy, and William Luti, his deputy. According to a Defense Department official, Feith’s team pointedly excluded Pentagon officials with experience in postwar reconstructions. The fear, the official said, was that such people would offer pessimistic scenarios, which would challenge Rumsfeld’s aversion to using troops as peacekeepers; if leaked, these scenarios might dampen public enthusiasm for the war. “You got the impression in this exercise that we didn’t harness the best and brightest minds in a concerted effort,” Thomas E. White, the Secretary of the Army during this period, told me. “With the Department of Defense the first issue was ‘We’ve got to control this thing’—so everyone else was suspect.” White was fired in April. Feith’s team, he said, “had the mind-set that this would be a relatively straightforward, manageable task, because this would be a war of liberation and therefore the reconstruction would be short-lived.”

This was the view held by exiles in the Iraqi National Congress, led by Ahmad Chalabi. The exiles told President Bush that Iraqis would receive their liberators with “sweets and flowers.” Their advice led policymakers to assume that Iraqi soldiers and policemen would happily transfer their loyalty to the Americans, providing a ready-made security force. “There was a mistaken notion in certain circles in Washington that the Iraqi civil service would remain intact,” Barham Salih, the Prime Minister of the Iraqi Kurdish administration and a strong advocate for the overthrow of Saddam, said. A week before the war, he discussed the problem of law and order with a senior member of the Administration. “They were expecting the police to work after liberation,” Salih told me. “I said, ‘This is not the N.Y.P.D. It’s the Iraqi police. The minute the first cruise missile arrives in Baghdad, the police force degenerates and everybody goes home.’”

In the Pentagon’s scenario, the responsibility of managing Iraq would quickly be handed off to exiles, led by Chalabi—allowing the U.S. to retain control without having to commit more troops and invest a lot of money. “There was a desire by some in the Vice-President’s office and the Pentagon to cut and run from Iraq and leave it up to Chalabi to run it,” a senior Administration official told me. “The idea was to put our guy in there and he was going to be so compliant that he’d recognize Israel and all the problems in the Middle East would be solved. He would be our man in Baghdad. Everything would be hunky-dory.” The planning was so wishful that it bordered on self-deception. “It isn’t pragmatism, it isn’t Realpolitik, it isn’t conservatism, it isn’t liberalism,” the official said. “It’s theology.”

On January 20th, President Bush signed National Security Presidential Directive No. 24, which gave control of postwar Iraq to the Department of Defense. At the end of the month, the Pentagon threw together a team of soldiers and civilians, under the leadership of retired General Jay Garner, in the newly christened Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance. orha would administer Iraq after the end of hostilities. The war was only seven weeks away.

In 1991, at the end of the Gulf War, Garner had led the largely successful effort to save Kurdish refugees in northern Iraq. Garner and his inner circle of generals and ambassadors essentially used the same template for the war in Iraq. orha was divided into three “pillars,” as Garner called them: humanitarian assistance, reconstruction, and civil administration. Garner’s experience in northern Iraq led him to focus on the potential for a humanitarian disaster: displaced populations, starvation, outbreaks of disease, prisoners of war, and, above all, chemical-weapons attacks. The U.N. was warning of the possibility of half a million deaths. orha thoroughly prepared for each of these nightmares—and if any one of them had come to pass Garner’s foresight would have been applauded.

But in concentrating on possible emergencies he failed to consider the long view. On February 21st and 22nd, some two hundred officials gathered in an auditorium at the National Defense University, in Washington, for a “rock drill”—a detailed vetting of the plans that had been made so far. The drill struck some participants as ominous.

“I got the sense that the humanitarian stuff was pretty well in place, but the rest of it was flying blind,” one orha member recalled. “A lot of it was after hearing from Jay Garner, ‘We don’t have any resources to do this.’” Plans for running the country’s ministries were rudimentary; orha had done little research. At Douglas Feith’s insistence, his former law partner Michael Mobbs was named the head of the civil-administration team. According to Garner and others, Mobbs never gelled with his new colleagues. Yet this “pillar” would turn out to be the one that mattered most.

During the rock drill, Gordon W. Rudd, a professor from the Marine Corps’s Command and Staff College, who had been assigned to Garner’s team as a historian, noticed that a man sitting four rows in front of him kept interjecting comments during other people’s presentations. “At first, he annoyed me,” Rudd said. “Then I realized he was better informed than we were. He had worked the topics, while the guy onstage was a rookie.”

It was Tom Warrick, the coördinator of the State Department’s Future of Iraq Project, and his frustrations had just begun. Two weeks after the rock drill, after a meeting at the Pentagon, Rumsfeld asked Garner, “Do you have a guy named Warrick on your team?” Rumsfeld ordered Garner to remove Warrick from orha, adding, “This came from such a high level I can’t say no.” Warrick, who had done as much thinking about postwar Iraq as any other American official, never went to Baghdad.

The war between State and Defense continues: For months, Feith’s office has held up the appointment of other senior State Department officials to the C.P.A., even as the organization remains fifty per cent understaffed. The reports of the Future of Iraq Project were archived. In Baghdad, I met an Iraqi-American lawyer named Sermid Al-Sarraf, who had served on the project’s transitional-justice working group. He was carrying a copy of its two-hundred-and-fifty-page report, trying to interest C.P.A. officials. Nobody seemed to have read it.

The Administration was remarkably adept at muffling its own internal tensions. On only two occasions did dissenting views become public. The first was on the subject of money: a reporter from the Wall Street Journal quoted Lawrence Lindsey, the President’s chief economic adviser, floating a figure of up to two hundred billion dollars for the war and the reconstruction. This was at odds with the Administration’s projection—stated publicly by Vice-President Cheney and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz—that the cost of reconstruction would be largely covered by Iraqi oil revenue. By April, the White House had requested only $2.4 billion for postwar rebuilding.

The second rift was over troop deployment. In February, General Eric Shinseki, the Army’s chief of staff, testified before the Senate that the occupation of Iraq would require several hundred thousand troops. This prediction prompted Wolfowitz to get on the phone with Thomas White, the Army Secretary. “He was agitated that we in the Army didn’t get it,” White recalled. “He didn’t give arguments or reasons. Their view was that it was going to go the way they said it was going to go.” Two days later, Wolfowitz appeared before the House Budget Committee and said that so high an estimate was “wildly off the mark.” He explained, “It’s hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam’s security forces and his Army. Hard to imagine.”

[Added to the Iraq Chronicle]

Social Security Meta-Archive: 2000

2005-11-19T19:15:00.006-05:00

[Part of The Earth-Based Initiative: Social Security Meta-Archive]

Social Insecurity
Economist John Shoven of Stanford says Social Security is doomed, and proposes a two-tiered reform.

A Ponzi Problem: The U.S. Dependency Ratio, Social Security Solvency, and the False Panacea of Immigration
2000[PDF]
The Federation for American Immigration Reform

March
SOCIAL SECURITY: THE PHONY CRISIS
Excerpts from Dean Baker and Mark Weisbrot's book appearing in The Washington Spectator.
3/1
What Social Security Trust Fund?
Michael Kinsley on the politics of paying for the Trust Fund
3/6
Making the Rich Richer
American political philosopher Richard Rorty laments the fact that Social Security is not means-tested.
Re: Richard Rorty and social security
In a discussion list, economist Max Sawicky responds:

a basic feature about Social Security that seems to be under-appreciated is that it is already 'means-tested' to a degree. It's not an either/or proposition. First of all, the benefit formula is redistributive, which is the same thing for practical purposes as 'means-tested.' It just happens that "means" is defined as past earnings, not present earnings or present income. Second, SS benefits are taxed under the progressive personal income tax. Third, although nobody here may believe it, the payroll tax is progressive up to the ninth income decile, according to CBO estimates of past years (when CBO was a more reliable institution than presently). Fourth, we have an Earned Income Tax credit, the base for which is the same as that for the payroll tax, so there is already an offset to the payroll tax for those with incomes below $30K or so. Fifth, Medicare is 'super-progressive' in the sense that the same substantial benefit package goes to all who qualify, irrespective of their past earnings.

Getting rid of the earnings limitations has not been a major part of the debate, it has nothing to do with privatization, and it has been a bi-partisan cause. It is wrong to depict this as some reactionary idea that the Dems are caving on. The late Robert Eisner, our most staunch mainstream liberal in defense of Social Security (author of "Social Security: More, Not Less"), argued strongly the earnings test. Any implication in the Rorty column that Soc Sec should be means-tested is weak at best.

I am glad to see everybody against means-testing. But consistency would dictate that you should then stop criticizing the 'regressive' payroll tax. It's not as if high-income people can't see the commonality between means-testing benefits and taxing salaries over the $76,200 cap.

Another fact is that the SS estimates arise from the economics profession, not from politicians. The Repugs were scarcely aware of these until relatively recently, when they thought they could use the projected shortfalls to attack Medicare. They failed miserably. Clinton used "protecting Medicare" (i.e., paying down unrelated public debt) as a weapon against big tax cuts. Big tax cuts are dead, at least for the time being. The source of these projections is the Brookings/Urban Institute/AEI combine. In other words, mainstream neoclassical macro-economics. It is from these economists -- centrists like Henry Aaron and Charlie Schultze -- that the deficit panic first arose. The only cross-current in this has been the Brookings opposition to privatization (arguably on the grounds that it would reduce net national saving, their be-all and end-all).

4/5
What Social Security crisis?
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, says Merrill Goozner.
4/17
latimes.com: On key issues, Bush sounds more like a centrist Democrat than Gore
5/18
LOOKING BACK AT SOCIAL SECURITY
Online NewsHour discussion with Doris Kearns Goodwin and Haynes Johnson.
6/20
RETIREMENT SAVINGS
Newshour with Jim Lehrer transcript.

"Bush and Gore advisers talk about the candidates' Social Security and retirement savings plans."

7/1
Securing Social Security
Transcript of a Think Tank broadcast featuring Larry Lindsey, Alan Blinder and Alicia Munnell.
August 2000
How should we insure longevity risk in pensions and social security?[PDF]
Jeffrey R. Brown, writing for the Center for Retirement Research.
8/24
Bush's Shaky Retirement Plan
Alan Blinder in the Washington Post.
Fall 2000
A Simple Exposition of the Social Security Trust Fund
William L. Holahan and Mark C. Schug in the JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC EDUCATION.
9/7
Letter to Governor George W. Bush
Alicia Munnell, Professor
Henry J. Aaron, Senior Fellow, Economic Studies
Robert Ball, Former Social Security Commissioner
9/25
Inequality and Social Security
Richard C. Leone in The American Prospect.
10/3
The First Gore-Bush Presidential Debate:

MODERATOR: I thought we cleared this up a while ago. New question on Social Security. Both of you have Social Security reform plans, so we could spend the rest of the evening and two or three other evenings talking about them in detail. We won't do that. But --

GORE: Suits me.

MODERATOR: Many experts, including Federal Reserve Chairman Greenspan, Vice President Gore, say that it will be impossible for either of you, essentially, to keep the system viable on its own during the coming baby boomer retirement onslaught without either reducing benefits or increasing taxes. You disagree?

GORE: I do disagree. Because if we can keep our prosperity going, if we can continue balancing the budget and paying down the debt, then the strong economy keeps generating surpluses. Here is my plan. I will keep Social Security in a lockbox and that pays down the national debt. And the interest savings I would put right back into Social Security. That extends the life of Social Security for 55 years. Now, I think that it's very important to understand that cutting benefits under Social Security means that people like Winifred Skinner from Des Moines, Iowa, who is here, would really have a much harder time. Because there are millions of seniors who are living almost hand to mouth. And you talk about cutting benefits. I don't go along with it. I am opposed to it. I'm also opposed to a plan that diverts 1 out of every $6 away from the Social Security Trust Fund. Social Security is a trust fund that pays the checks this year with the money that is paid into Social Security this year. The governor wants to divert 1 out of every $6 off into the stock market, which means that he would drain a trillion dollars out of the Social Security Trust Fund in this generation over the next ten years, and Social Security under that approach would go bankrupt within this generation. His leading advisor on this plan actually said that would be okay, because then the Social Security Trust Fund could start borrowing. It would borrow up to $3 trillion. Now, Social Security has never done that. And I don't think it should do that. I think it should stay in a lockbox, and I'll tell you this. I will veto anything that takes money out of Social Security for privatization or anything else other than Social Security.

BUSH: I thought it was interesting that on the two minutes he spent about a million-and-a-half on my plan, which means he doesn't want you to know what he's doing is loading up IOUs for future generations. He puts no real assets into the Social Security system. The revenues exceed the expenses in Social Security until the year 2015 which means all retirees are going to get the promises made. For those of you who he wants to scare into the voting booth to vote for him, hear me loud and clear. A promise made will be a promise kept. You bet we want to allow younger workers to take some of their own money. That's the difference of opinion. The vice president thinks it's the government's money. The payroll taxes are your money. You ought to put it in prudent, safe investments so that $1 trillion over the next ten years grows to be $3 trillion. The money stays within the Social Security system. It's a part of the Social Security system. He claims it will be out of Social Security. It's your money, it's a part of your retirement benefit. It's a fundamental difference between what we believe. I want you to have your own asset that you can call your own. That you can pass on from one generation to the next. I want to get a better rate of return for your own money than the paltry 2% that the current Social Security Trust gets today. Mr. Greenspan I thought missed an opportunity to say there's a third way, and that is to get a better rate of return on the Social Security monies coming into the trust. There is $2.3 trillion of surplus that we can use to make sure that younger workers have a Social Security plan in the future. If we're smart and if we trust workers and if we understand the power of the compounding rate of interest.

GORE: Here is the difference. I give a new incentive for younger workers to save their own money and invest their own money, but not at the expense of Social Security, on top of Social Security. My plan is Social Security plus. The governor's plan is Social Security minus. Your future benefits would be cut by the amount that's diverted into the stock market. If you make bad investments, that's too bad. But even before then the problem hits because the money contributed to Social Security this year is an entitlement. That's how it works. And the money is used to pay the benefits for seniors this year. If you cut the amount going in 1 out of every $6, then you have to cut the value of each check by 1 out of every $6 unless you come up with the money from somewhere else. I would like to know from the governor -- I know we're not supposed to ask each other questions -- but I'd be interested in knowing, does that trillion dollars come from the trust fund, or does it come from the rest of the budget?

BUSH: No. There's enough money to pay seniors today in the current affairs of Social Security. The trillion comes from the surplus. Surplus is money -- more money than needed. Let me tell you what your plan is. It's not Social Security plus, it's Social Security plus huge debt. That is what it is. You leave future generations with tremendous IOUs. It's time to have a leader that doesn't put off tomorrow what we should do today. It's time to have somebody to step up and say look, let's let younger workers take some of their own money and under certain guidelines invest it in the private markets. The safest of federal investments yields 4%. That's twice the amount of rate of return than the current Social Security Trust. It's a fundamental difference of opinion here, folks. Younger worker after younger worker hears my call that says I trust you. And you know what, the issue is changeing. Seniors now understand that the promise made will be a promise kept, but younger workers now understand we better have a government that trusts them and that's exactly what I'm going to do.

GORE: Could I respond to that, Jim? This is a big issue. Could we do another round on it?

MODERATOR: We're almost out of time.

GORE: Just briefly. When FDR established Social Security, they didn't call them IOUs, they called it the full faith and credit of the United States. If you don't have trust in that, I do. If you take it out of the surplus in the trust fund, that means the trust fund goes bankrupt in this generation within 20 years.

BUSH: This is a government that thinks a 2% rate of return on your money is satisfactory. It's not. This is a government that says younger workers can't possibly have their own assets. We need to think differently about the issue. We need to make sure our seniors get the promise made. If we don't trust younger workers to manage some of their own money with the Social Security surplus, to grow from $1 trillion to $3 trillion, it will be impossible to bridge the gap without it. What Mr. Gore's plan will do causing huge payroll taxes or major benefit reductions.

10/5
The Lieberman-Cheney Vice Presidential Debate

MODERATOR: This question is for you, Senator. We all know Social Security is the backbone of the retirement system in our nation. Can either of you pledge tonight categorically that no one will lose benefits under your plans?

LIEBERMAN: Yes, indeed. I can pledge to the American people categorically that no one will lose benefits under our plan for Social Security as far forward as 2054. And let me come back and say, Bernie, that Al Gore and I view Social Security as probably the best thing the government did in the second half -- the last century. It has created a floor under which seniors cannot fall, and so many of them depend on it for their basic living, for their livelihood. It's critically important to protect it. That's why Al and I have committed to putting that Social Security surplus in a lockbox, not touching it. That's what allows us to keep Social Security solvent to 2054. Our opponents have an idea for privatizing Social Security that will jeopardize Social Security payments to recipients. And I looked at this idea. If I may use an oil industry analogy, which is to say that sometimes as you know, Dick, better than I, you have to dig deep whether there's oil in a well. For a while I was drilling into this idea of privatization of Social Security. It requires taking as much as a trillion dollars out of the Social Security fund. The independent analysts have said that would put the fund out of money in 2023, or if it's not out of money, benefits will have to be cut by over 50%. That's just not worth doing. Al Gore and I are going to guarantee Social Security and add to it the retirement savings plan that I mentioned earlier which will help middle-class families looking forward. They will have not only Social Security, but a superb extra retirement account as well. Social Security plus with us. With all due respect, Social Security minus from the Bush-Cheney ticket.

CHENEY: You won't be surprised if I disagree. The Social Security system is in trouble. It's been a fantastic program and been there for 65 years that has provided benefits for senior citizens over that period of time. For my parents. It means a great deal to millions of Americans. And Governor Bush and I want to make absolutely certain that the first thing we do is guarantee the continuation of those payments, those benefits and keep those promises that were made. But if you look down the road, you say you're 30 years old today, and I have two daughters about that age. They seriously question whether or not there will be any system left for them. That's because the demographics that work out there, it's almost an iron law. They know how many people there are, we know when the baby boom generation is coming along it will drive the system into bankruptcy unless we reform and deal with it. The reform we would like to offer is to allow our young people to begin to take a portion of the payroll tax, 2% of it, and invest it in a personal retirement account. That does several things. First of all, it gives them a stake in the Social Security system. That becomes their property. They own it. They can pass it on to their kids if they want. They don't have that kind of equity in Social Security today. Secondly, we can generate a higher return off that investment than you get in the existing system. You get about a 2% return of what you pay into Social Security. We can generate at least 6%. At least three times what we're able to get now. And long-term by generating a bigger return, we'll put additional funds into the system that will help to survive that crunch that is otherwise going to hit in the future. Bottom line is there's a choice here. With respect to Al Gore and Joe's plan, they don't reform Social Security. They add another huge obligation on top of it that future generations will have to pay. They don't reform it and don't save it. We have a plan to do that and a plan to give our young people a choice and more control over their own lives.

December 2000
SOCIAL SECURITY AND RETIREMENT RESEARCH:FROM RESEARCH TO POLICY
Alicia H. Munnell.
12/27
Privatize Social Security - bad idea?
Paul Farrell on John Bogle's critique of mutual-fund operated privatized/private/personal/individual accounts.

The campaign finance imperative

2005-11-17T02:06:00.000-05:00

Josh Marshall:

As I've said before, this is for a new TPM blog dedicated to wall-to-wall coverage of the various threads of public corruption, self-dealing and sundry shenanigans afflicting Washington today -- Abramoff, Safavian, Reed, Norquist, the Duke, DeLay, Pombo, Ney, Burns. Ahh, the list goes on and on.

Hopefully this will pave the way for an even greater effort to push for more sweeping election finance reform.

Iraq Archive

2005-11-12T00:42:00.001-05:00

Online Resources

Iraqanalysis.org
Morbidity and Mortality Among Iraqi Children from 1990 Through 1998: Assessing the Impact of the Gulf War and Economic Sanctions
Brookings Institution:Iraq
C-SPAN Iraq Coverage

Blogs that Discuss Iraq

Back to Iraq 2.0
Daily Howler
Brad DeLong
Political Animal/Kevin Drum
Talking Points Memo/Joshua Micah Marshall
Nouriel Roubini's Global Economics Weblog
MaxSpeak,You Listen!
TAPPED

Debate Chronology/Meta-Narrative

2002

9/7
White House: Bush Misstated Report on Iraq
An MSNBC article mysteriously taken down recovered by The Memory Hole.
10/22
For Bush, Facts Are Malleable
Dana Milbank enumerates several Bush falsehoods in the Washington Post.
10/25
Dead Parrot Society
Paul Krugman expands on Milbank’s emphasis on Iraq to recapsulate mendacity going back to the election of 2000.
11/6
Malleable Facts
The Dubya Report goes so far as to chart the Bush falsehoods from the Milbank article.

2003

4/17
Where Are Saddam's Weapons of Mass Destruction?
Brad Delong asks.

4/29
Matters of Emphasis
Paul Krugman on the Bush Administration’s hype of the Iraqi threat.
5/1
All the President’s Lies
Contrasts Bush’s rhetoric with the actual content of his policies.
5/13
The Say-Anything School
EJ Dionne updates Bush Administration misinformation.
5/14
Intelligence Designed
Harold Meyerson details Bush Administration end-runs around bureaucratic channels to derive the desired intelligence product.
5/15
WMD? MIA
David Corn of the Nation decries what he sees as the Bush Administration’s dangerously lackadaisical search for WMD.
6/1
Bush Remarks Confirm Shift in Justifying War
Dana Milbank on Bush’s downshifting claims on Iraq. From the Washington Post.
6/3
The Truth About Bush’s “Lies”
Byron York of the National Review defends Bush.
6/10
Who's Accountable?
Paul Krugman on the failure of the Bush Administration to account for previous claims.
6/19
The Selling of the Iraq War. The First Casualty.
A cumulative accounting of the Bush Administration’s ministrations of intelligence regarding Iraq by Spencer Ackerman and John Judis in The New Republic.
6/24
Denial and Deception
Paul Krugman on the response – or lack thereof – to the Bush Administration’s spin on its case for war.
6/26
Pants on fire...
The Likely Story compiles Bush lies about Iraq.
6/27
Was Bush Lying About WMD?
Fred Kaplan makes a case for misreading of the evidence.
6/29
Is Bush Lying About Iraq?
Orcinus makes a case.
6/30
The War Against Bush
Stephen Hayes of Rupert Murdoch’s Weekly Standard responds to the Ackerman/Judis piece.
10/1
Unilateralism Disgraced
In the American Prospect, Ivo H. Daalder of Brookings and James M. Lindsey of the Council on Foreign Relations on Bush's wrong unilateral assumptions on Iraq.
11/17
WAR AFTER THE WAR
George Packer in The New Yorker on the chaos which led to the chaos.

2004

2/8
Vial Mendacity [originally posted at Suite101.com]
8/7
Who Parses the Parsers?
Paul Krugman writes in to Matthew Yglesias.
10/26
Security in Iraq
Ivo Daalder, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Max Boot on The Diane Rehm Show.
10/29
Lancet Report 'Mortality before and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq'
The Lancet study and related links at Iraqanalysis.org

2005

5/1
Blair hit by new leak of secret war plan
London Times reporting on how the war decision preceded justification.

The secret Downing Street memo:

SECRET AND STRICTLY PERSONAL - UK EYES ONLY

DAVID MANNING
From: Matthew Rycroft
Date: 23 July 2002
S 195 /02

cc: Defence Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Attorney-General, Sir Richard Wilson, John Scarlett, Francis Richards, CDS, C, Jonathan Powell, Sally Morgan, Alastair Campbell

IRAQ: PRIME MINISTER'S MEETING, 23 JULY

Copy addressees and you met the Prime Minister on 23 July to discuss Iraq.

This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made. It should be shown only to those with a genuine need to know its contents.

John Scarlett summarised the intelligence and latest JIC assessment. Saddam's regime was tough and based on extreme fear. The only way to overthrow it was likely to be by massive military action. Saddam was worried and expected an attack, probably by air and land, but he was not convinced that it would be immediate or overwhelming. His regime expected their neighbours to line up with the US. Saddam knew that regular army morale was poor. Real support for Saddam among the public was probably narrowly based.

C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.

CDS said that military planners would brief CENTCOM on 1-2 August, Rumsfeld on 3 August and Bush on 4 August.

The two broad US options were:

(a) Generated Start. A slow build-up of 250,000 US troops, a short (72 hour) air campaign, then a move up to Baghdad from the south. Lead time of 90 days (30 days preparation plus 60 days deployment to Kuwait).

(b) Running Start. Use forces already in theatre (3 x 6,000), continuous air campaign, initiated by an Iraqi casus belli. Total lead time of 60 days with the air campaign beginning even earlier. A hazardous option.

The US saw the UK (and Kuwait) as essential, with basing in Diego Garcia and Cyprus critical for either option. Turkey and other Gulf states were also important, but less vital. The three main options for UK involvement were:

(i) Basing in Diego Garcia and Cyprus, plus three SF squadrons.

(ii) As above, with maritime and air assets in addition.

(iii) As above, plus a land contribution of up to 40,000, perhaps with a discrete role in Northern Iraq entering from Turkey, tying down two Iraqi divisions.

The Defence Secretary said that the US had already begun "spikes of activity" to put pressure on the regime. No decisions had been taken, but he thought the most likely timing in US minds for military action to begin was January, with the timeline beginning 30 days before the US Congressional elections.

The Foreign Secretary said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.

The Attorney-General said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC authorisation. The first and second could not be the base in this case. Relying on UNSCR 1205 of three years ago would be difficult. The situation might of course change.

The Prime Minister said that it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors. Regime change and WMD were linked in the sense that it was the regime that was producing the WMD. There were different strategies for dealing with Libya and Iran. If the political context were right, people would support regime change. The two key issues were whether the military plan worked and whether we had the political strategy to give the military plan the space to work.

On the first, CDS said that we did not know yet if the US battleplan was workable. The military were continuing to ask lots of questions.

For instance, what were the consequences, if Saddam used WMD on day one, or if Baghdad did not collapse and urban warfighting began? You said that Saddam could also use his WMD on Kuwait. Or on Israel, added the Defence Secretary.

The Foreign Secretary thought the US would not go ahead with a military plan unless convinced that it was a winning strategy. On this, US and UK interests converged. But on the political strategy, there could be US/UK differences. Despite US resistance, we should explore discreetly the ultimatum. Saddam would continue to play hard-ball with the UN.

John Scarlett assessed that Saddam would allow the inspectors back in only when he thought the threat of military action was real.

The Defence Secretary said that if the Prime Minister wanted UK military involvement, he would need to decide this early. He cautioned that many in the US did not think it worth going down the ultimatum route. It would be important for the Prime Minister to set out the political context to Bush.

Conclusions:

(a) We should work on the assumption that the UK would take part in any military action. But we needed a fuller picture of US planning before we could take any firm decisions. CDS should tell the US military that we were considering a range of options.

(b) The Prime Minister would revert on the question of whether funds could be spent in preparation for this operation.

(c) CDS would send the Prime Minister full details of the proposed military campaign and possible UK contributions by the end of the week.

(d) The Foreign Secretary would send the Prime Minister the background on the UN inspectors, and discreetly work up the ultimatum to Saddam.

He would also send the Prime Minister advice on the positions of countries in the region especially Turkey, and of the key EU member states.

(e) John Scarlett would send the Prime Minister a full intelligence update.

(f) We must not ignore the legal issues: the Attorney-General would consider legal advice with FCO/MOD legal advisers.

(I have written separately to commission this follow-up work.)

MATTHEW RYCROFT

(Rycroft was a Downing Street foreign policy aide)

5/6
British memo indicates Bush made intelligence fit Iraq policy
A Knight Ridder report of Bush administration tailoring of intelligence to fit policy.
11/7
Who Is Lying About Iraq?
Norman Podhoretz writing in Commentary.
11/9
MARKETING THE WAR....
Kevin Drum responds....
11/10
The Case For War
Tom Bevan of RealClearPolitics responds.
11/11
President Commemorates Veterans Day, Discusses War on Terror
White House transcript:

While it's perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began. (Applause.) Some Democrats and anti-war critics are now claiming we manipulated the intelligence and misled the American people about why we went to war. These critics are fully aware that a bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community's judgments related to Iraq's weapons programs.

They also know that intelligence agencies from around the world agreed with our assessment of Saddam Hussein. They know the United Nations passed more than a dozen resolutions citing his development and possession of weapons of mass destruction. And many of these critics supported my opponent during the last election, who explained his position to support the resolution in the Congress this way: "When I vote to give the President of the United States the authority to use force, if necessary, to disarm Saddam Hussein, it is because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a threat, and a grave threat, to our security." That's why more than a hundred Democrats in the House and the Senate -- who had access to the same intelligence -- voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power. (Applause.)

The stakes in the global war on terror are too high, and the national interest is too important, for politicians to throw out false charges. (Applause.) These baseless attacks send the wrong signal to our troops and to an enemy that is questioning America's will. As our troops fight a ruthless enemy determined to destroy our way of life, they deserve to know that their elected leaders who voted to send them to war continue to stand behind them. (Applause.) Our troops deserve to know that this support will remain firm when the going gets tough. (Applause.) And our troops deserve to know that whatever our differences in Washington, our will is strong, our nation is united, and we will settle for nothing less than victory.(Applause.)

Instapundit:

The White House needs to go on the offensive here in a big way -- and Bush needs to be very plain that this is all about Democratic politicans pandering to the antiwar base, that it's deeply dishonest, and that it hurts our troops abroad.

And yes, he should question their patriotism. Because they're acting unpatriotically.

Why Oh Why Are We Ruled by These Liars?
Brad DeLong:

History Is Written By the Mission Accomplishers - Wonkette:
In a Veteran's Day speech today, Bush came out with the administration's official policy on criticizing the war in Iraq: "While it's perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began."
Yes. It is. Impeach George W. Bush. Impeach Richard Cheney. Do it now.

11/12
Asterisks Dot White House's Iraq Argument
Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus provide Washington Post coverage.
Talking Points Memo
Josh Marshall enumerates talking points of the Bush administration's bad faith on Iraq:

1. Longstanding effort to convince the American people that Iraq maintained ties to al Qaida and may have played a role in 9/11. This was always just a plain old lie. (And if you want to see where the real fights with the Intelligence Community came up, it was always on the terror tie angle and much less on WMD.) The president and his chief advisors tried to leverage Americans' horror over 9/11 to gain support for attacking Iraq. Simple: lying to the public the president was sworn to protect.

2. Repeated efforts to jam purported evidence about an Iraqi nuclear weapons program (the Niger canard) into major presidential speeches despite the fact the CIA believed the claim was not credible and tried to prevent the president from doing so. What's the explanation for that? At best a reckless disregard for the truth in making the case for war to the American public.

3. Consistent and longstanding effort to elide the distinction between chem-bio-weapons (which are terrible but no immediate threat to American security) and nuclear weapons (which are). For better or worse, there was a strong consensus within the foreign policy establishment that Iraq continued to stockpile WMDs. Nor was it an improbable assumption since Saddam had stockpiled and used such weapons before and, by 2002, had been free of on-site weapons inspections for almost four years. But what most observers meant by this was chemical and possibly biological weapons, not nuclear weapons. Big difference! The White House knew that this wasn't enough to get the country into war, so they pushed the threat of a nuclear-armed Saddam for which there was much, much less evidence.

4. The fact that the administration's push for war wasn't even about WMD in the first place. Scarcely a week goes by when I don't get an email from a reader who writes, "I always knew that Saddam didn't have WMDs. How is that you, with all your access and reporting, didn't know that too?" Good question. They were right. And I was wrong. But like many things in this reality-based universe of ours, this was a question subject to empirical inquiry. No one really knew what Saddam was doing between 1998 and 2002. And US intelligence made a lot of very poor assumptions based on sketchy hints and clues. But the solution, at least the first part of it, was to get inspectors in on the ground and actually find out. That is what President Bush's very credible threat of force had done by the Fall of 2002. But once there the inspectors began making pretty steady progress in showing that many of our suspicions about reconstituted WMD programs didn't bear out, the White House response was to begin trying to discredit the inspectors themselves. By early 2003, inspections had shown that there was no serious nuclear weapons effort underway -- the only sort of operation which could have represented a serious or imminent threat. From January of 2003 the administration went to work trying to insure that the war could be started before the rationale for war was entirely discredited. They wanted to create fait accomplis, facts on the ground that no subsequent information or developments could alter. The whole thing was a con. It wasn't about WMD.

11/15
Another Set of Scare Tactics
EJ Dionne:

There is a great missing element in the argument over whether the administration manipulated the facts. Neither side wants to talk about the context in which Bush won a blank check from Congress to invade Iraq. He doesn't want us to remember that he injected the war debate into the 2002 midterm election campaign for partisan purposes, and he doesn't want to acknowledge that he used the post-Sept. 11 mood to do all he could to intimidate Democrats from raising questions more of them should have raised.

The big difference between our current president and his father is that the first President Bush put off the debate over the Persian Gulf War until after the 1990 midterm elections. The result was one of most substantive and honest foreign policy debates Congress has ever seen, and a unified nation. The first President Bush was scrupulous about keeping petty partisanship out of the discussion.

The current President Bush did the opposite. He pressured Congress for a vote before the 2002 election, and the war resolution passed in October.

The bad faith of Bush's current argument is staggering. He wants to say that the "more than a hundred Democrats in the House and Senate" who "voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power" thereby gave up their right to question his use of intelligence forever after. But he does not want to acknowledge that he forced the war vote to take place under circumstances that guaranteed the minimum amount of reflection and debate, and that opened anyone who dared question his policies to charges, right before an election, that they were soft on Hussein.

By linking the war on terrorism to a partisan war against Democrats, Bush undercut his capacity to lead the nation in this fight. And by resorting to partisan attacks again last week, Bush only reminded us of the shameful circumstances in which the whole thing started.

Veterans Day

2005-11-11T23:14:00.000-05:00

Brief Wikipedia write-up.

Falling through the cracks?

2005-11-10T22:06:00.000-05:00

In the aftermath of Hurricane Stan...

BBC: Guatemala faces hunger 'timebomb':

Parts of Guatemala are facing a starvation "timebomb" in the aftermath of Hurricane Stan, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has warned.

Hundreds of people were buried by landslides after a week of intense rains in early October.

But Trevor Rowe of the WFP says there are fears even more may die from malnutrition unless they get help soon.

"We suspect that by the end of the year most people's food will have run out," he says.

"We're talking about subsistence farmers, who live a hand-to-mouth existence."

[Via Donlan News Wire]

Kerry On, My Wayward Son?

2005-11-10T18:45:00.000-05:00

Dallas Morning News Washington, D.C. mainstay Carl Leubsdorf discusses the rise of outgoing Virginia Governor Mark Warner and his presumed fellow presidential "dark horse" aspirants:

He would be one of many dark-horse candidates in a field likely to be dominated by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, assuming she runs. But one of them – Govs. Bill Richardson of New Mexico or Tom Vilsack of Iowa; Sens. Joe Biden of Delaware, John Kerry of Massachusetts, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin or Evan Bayh of Indiana; former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina; or Mr. Warner – is likely to emerge as Mrs. Clinton's main rival

Ouch.

Social Security Meta-Archive: March 2005

2005-10-04T22:29:00.002-04:00

[Part of the Social Security Meta-Archive: 2005]

Social Security Meta-Archive: February 2005

Basic Facts on Social Security and Proposed
Benefit Cuts/Privatization[PDF]
Dean Baker and David Rosnick.

Social Security, revisited
Doug Henwood in the Left Business Observer.

Be Not Afraid: Personal Accounts Are No Radical Idea
Stephen Moore and AEI friends...

3/2
The Importance of Raising National Saving
"Speech by [Federal Reserve] Governor Edward M. Gramlich At the Benjamin Rush Lecture, Dickinson College, Pennsylvania"

While there are as yet not a great number of feasible ideas for significantly reducing the cost of Medicare, there are a number of proposals to reform Social Security. The President is touting a proposal, and ten years ago as chair of another Presidential advisory council on Social Security, I devised a proposal of my own.6 This is not the place to get into a full discussion of Social Security reform proposals, but one aspect of Social Security reform is important. Given the low national saving rates, and the fact that many American households do not save enough to avoid a big cut in their standard of living in retirement, it would seem desirable to have Social Security reforms that also raise national saving. One obvious and immediate way to do that would be to raise payroll taxes; another obvious, and perhaps less painful, way to do that would be to have individual accounts on top of Social Security. If these "add-on" individual accounts were to be mandated, as I proposed, those households who already save amply could reduce their other individual accounts while those who do no private saving for retirement would be forced to do more. Hence national saving would be increased, and increased for just those households who presently do little saving.

Other types of Social Security reform seem less promising from a national saving point of view. If, for example, the individual accounts were to be "carved out" of present payroll tax payments, as President Bush has recently proposed, household saving would go up but government saving, in the first instance, would go down by the same amount, meaning that the initial impact on overall national saving would be nil. But carve-out individual accounts might eventually reduce saving because households getting individual accounts who are already saving for retirement might cut back on their pre-existing saving. Hence carve-out individual accounts seem more likely to reduce than increase national saving. This is not the only criterion for judging between add-on and carve-out individual accounts, but I think it is an important one.

There may also be some way to compromise between mandatory add-on individual accounts that raise national saving but could be a tough sell politically, and carve-out individual accounts that are not likely to raise national saving. Some have suggested raising employee pension contribution rates by automatic default options for employer defined-contribution account. Under such a plan employees would be automatically enrolled in the employer's plan and would have to "opt out" to reject participation. Moreover, firms could be forced to carry employer defined-contribution accounts, as is done in Ireland.

The Hassle Factor
Thomas Geoghegan in Slate on the aversion to personal management of private accounts.
3/3
Social Security, Generational Justice, and Long-Term Deficits[PDF]
Faculty paper by Neil H. Buchanan of the Rutgers School of Law
*Sigh* Greg Mankiw
DeLong on Mankiw and privatization's possible effects on national savings.
3/4
Bruce Webb in comment:

Obviously we are getting to these guys. But time to hold their feet to the fire. It is one thing to claim that stocks can return historic rates even given flat productivity, it is quite another to simply accept that flat productivity. The real point of the "No economist left behind" challenge, at least in my eyes, is that no one is actually predicting that the economy will slow down at the drastic rate implied by Intermediate Cost or making the case that growth at 3 and 4 percent a year won't have the clear results suggested by Low Cost. Mankiw and others are trying to win this battle on points. It won't work.

Because their fundamental battle is not with some theoretical model of the economy, it is with the actual economic results reported in the business pages. The real question is not the spread of economic models that can produce 6.5% returns, but the specific economic outcome you invisage over the next two to five years and its impact on Social Security solvency.

The "No economist left behind" challenge is proving useful in flushing out intellectual dishonesty and willingness to sell integrity for political gain, but ultimately it is a sideshow. In the end this battle is not going to be won by economists, it is going to be won by accountants and honest spreadsheets.

Economic Debate
Arnold Kling at EconLog joins in, triggering extended comment.
Savings and Social Security
The blog Dead Parrot Society tries to track the argument and assess "liberal" and "conservative" positions on privatization's impact on national savings.
Copied ‘kissing’ photo ignites furor
The Portland Tribune finds one of its pictures swiped to make an ad attacking the AARP as pro-gay and anti-family as a result of its anti-privatization stance.
3/5
National Savings and Social Security
DeLong responds to Dead Parrot, discussing Greenspan's latest intervention.
The Crisis Last Time: Social Security Reform
Paul C. Light of Brookings on the 1983 reform.
Is the Social Security System in need of reform?
University of Oregon economist Mark Thoma commenting in his blog, Economist's View.
3/6
Robert's Stochastic thoughts
Robert Waldmann responds on the comparative effects of different types of forced savings.
Robert Waldmann's Thoughts on Social Security and National Saving
DeLong responds on assumptions of political behavior with regard to deficits.
3/7
Looks Like Bafflegab To Me
JustOneMinute weighs in on asset returns.
National Savings and Social Security, Part Deux
The Dead Parrot continues...
When Congress Killed Private Accounts
The 1930s proposal of voluntary annuities killed by the insurance industry.
3/9
WH admits it has no idea what W is talking about
A Daily Kos diary on the White House's flip-flops on add-ons and carve-outs.
3/10
George W. Bush: Liar or Fool?
Brad DeLong links to an AP story on Bush's bogus "75-year fix" talking point, Mark Thoma discusses the poverty annuity.
President's social security plan will worsen situation
Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich.
3/11
The Perfect World >> Politics >> The Battle over Social Security
"pseudoerasmus" in an online forum:

An ideal social security reform would leave current benefits unchanged without raising payroll taxes. This would require, amongst other things, that individuals receive zero net gains from private accounts, because what ever returns are realised in private accounts (whether 5% or 7% or 15%), the government would reduce traditional benefits proportionately. In other words, there is an improvement in social security's cost basis (because payroll taxes are invested under privatisation), but no one's retirement finances are improved (except insofar as they won't be paying higher taxes to fund an unreformed social security). There can still be other benefits from privatisation, if the economy grows faster as a result of it.

The above is another way of saying that the government is lowering the costs of social security by transferring the risks associated with retirement saving from society as a whole to individuals.

3/12
Talking Points Memo
Josh Marshall responds to Mankiw on the Democrats approach to Social Security.
Mankiw 0, Liberals 3
DeLong.
Mankiw on Privatization
Matthew Yglesias.
I'll Stop Calling This Crew "Orwellian" When They Stop Using 1984 as an Operations Manual
Delong follows up Yglesias, focusing on James Glassman and Kevin Hassett
3/13
Whichever Way We Go, Some Get Left Behind
Eugene Steuerle, writing in the Washington Post.
3/14
Brad DeLong comment thread
Joe "Let Me Endorse Some Phony Republican Numbers" Lieberman
DeLong on Krugman's attack of Joe Lieberman's use of Republican numbers; Sam Williamson questions another Bush talking point.
3/15
The Conservative Welfare State
Social Security decried as right-wing socialism at libertarian LewRockwell.com
'Above All, Try Something'
John Fund of OpinionJournal.com contrasts his take on the 1930s debate over "private accounts" with that of "supporters of Social Security."
Blocking Move
Jonathon Chait, writing in The New Republic, on political and principled reasons for Democrats to oppose Bush's privatization.
3/16
Collision course:The Bush budget and Social Security
Analysis by Max Sawicky.
Public Finance and Public Policy
Alex Tabarrok at the blog Marginal Revolution discusses a textbook by Jonathan Gruber:

Gruber is especially good at discussing empirical research. What is the effect, for example, of social security on private savings, on the living standards of the elderly, on the incentive to retire? What do we learn from the international evidence?

(Quick answers: Social security crowds out about 35 cents of private savings for every social security dollar. As a result, social security has reduced the eldery poverty rate although not quite as much as naive trends would suggest. Social security does reduce the labor force participation rates of the elderly but less so in the United States than in most European countries where there are huge disincentives for working beyond the normal retirement age. (Get the book or this powerpoint presentation for more details - note you need to view the PP in SlideShow mode to get the full effect.)

3/17
Social Security - Obstruction's Defender
A conservative response to Chait from the blog Logical Meme.
A Positive Program for Social Security
A draft of a plan by DeLong, with extended discussion.
Heads in the Sand or a Winning Hand?
Economist Mark Thoma at Economist's View:

There are, perhaps, small to moderate issues to address as time passes and we should take corrective action if needed, but I do not see the evidence needed to support radical reform. If people have an ideological reason for wanting privatization they should be honest about that and not hide behind concocted evidence of potential system catastrophe.

3/18
Social Security - Obstructionism’s Opponent
Logically, the blog Logical Meme follows up its attack on Chait with a defense of Mankiw.
3/19
The Life-Cycle Personal Accounts Proposal for Social Security: An Evaluation
Robert Shiller's paper on asset returns.
Retirement Accounts Questioned
Jonathan Weisman's Washington Post coverage of Shiller's paper:

A new paper by Yale University economist Robert J. Shiller found that under Bush's default "life-cycle accounts," which shift assets from stocks to bonds over a worker's lifetime, nearly a third of workers would bring in less in benefits than if they remained in the traditional system. That analysis is based on historical rates of return in the United States. Using global rates of return, which Shiller says more closely track future conditions, life-cycle portfolios could be expected to fall short of the traditional system's returns 71 percent of the time.

Both the White House and the Social Security Administration have relied on historical returns in estimating the earnings of proposed personal investment accounts. Shiller used 91 computer simulations to analyze the past performance of stocks and bonds in a variety of portfolios. He measured the returns in 44-year increments, beginning in 1871, to approximate a worker's lifetime contributions to personal accounts.

The results "showed a disappointing outlook for investors in the personal accounts relative to the rhetoric of their promoters," concluded Shiller, a leading researcher in stock market volatility who gained fame in the late 1990s for his warnings of a stock market bubble.

Yes, Bush Private Accounts Are a Bad Deal
DeLong:

The 3% real interest rate on the clawback of contributions to private accounts is too high to make them a good deal. Shiller's right.

Shiller: Private Accounts a Bad Deal
DeLong samples from Shiller's paper:

Key Findings:

Using historical returns, the life-cycle portfolio loses money 32% of the time (i.e., 32% of the time the internal rate of return is less than the 3% real return required to break even in the proposal). The median rate of return is 3.4% annually.

Using more realistic adjusted returns, the life-cycle portfolio loses money 71% of the time and has a median rate of return of 2.6%.

Discussion: These rates of return are considerably below the 4.6% that the Social Security actuaries have assumed for. In addition there is considerably more risk than one would generally associate with previous discussions of “lifecycle portfolios.” The most important reason this happens is that the life-cycle portfolio is invested in higher-yielding assets in early years and lower-yielding assets in later years. Because contributions are made annually, the returns in later years matter much more (i.e., the return in the first year only affects the first contribution but the return in the last year affects all 44 years of contributions). This effect is heightened because the typical worker reaches peak earnings in his or her fifties.

Other Findings:

The optimal portfolio for a worker choosing the personal account as a replacement for much of the guaranteed Social Security benefit is considerably different from the optimal portfolio for a worker investing a 401(k) in addition to Social Security. If you have a Social Security benefit that is not subject to market risk, then you can invest your additional savings in a higher return/risk portfolio. But in the President’s proposal, the investments are replacing a large fraction of the existing Social Security benefit. Thus you would not want to invest them in as risky a portfolio.

A worker that has the correct balanced portfolio of stocks and bonds should not even participate in the accounts. Conditional on participating, he or she should invest entirely in bonds in order to avoid changing their current portfolio. Other psychologically constrained workers might benefit from shifting their portfolios more into equities. Social Security design has to take seriously psychological barriers to enlightened saving and investing; workers not subject to these barriers are very different from workers who already do things right. Overall, any proposals to encourage savings and investment should be designed with a variety of different types of workers clearly in mind.

3/20
Paul Krugman on the "$600 Billion a Year" Number
DeLong links to an argument on the opportunity cost of not changing Social Security at a particular point in time.
3/22
April Fool's Day Comes Early This Year!
DeLong:

My scheduled once-every-three-months surf over to Donald Luskin's website was supposed to happen on April 1...

3/23
DOING THE MATH
Matthew Yglesias, in TAPPED, on the Trustees' assumptions over recent years and the implications for productivity and immigration.
The 2005 OASDI Trustees Report
...Or, the 2005 Annual Report.
HOW FUNDED ARE THY OBLIGATIONS
Yglesias, in TAPPED, after the release of the report:

...Now the 2005 report is out and once again past projections were too low. The actual 2004 number was 3.3 percent, and the '05 projection has been boosted to 2.0 percent.

Nevertheless, the long-term projection is unchanged. Why? Because the method used to generate the long-term projection deliberately excludes all this new data. Instead, they come up with 1.6 percent because "The annual increase in total productivity averaged 1.6 percent over the last four complete economic cycles (measured from peak to peak), covering the 34-year period from 1966 to 2000. The annual increase in total productivity averaged 2.2, 1.2, 1.3, and 1.6 percent over the business cycles 1966-73, 1973-78, 1978-89, 1989-2000, respectively." So far, productivity growth in the current cycle has been much higher than 1.6 percent. As a result, there's every reason to believe that, as long as the methodology is held constant, the long-term number will shoot up once we reach the next economic peak. The productivity figure, meanwhile, is absolutely crucial to the entire enterprise, which means that the program's fiscal health will look far better once the current expansion comes to an end.

Social Security Trustees Report
Blogger Ezra Klein:

What's really amazing here is that, even with the tweaked assumptions and the "see no, hear no, speak no" approach to productivity gains, the long-term balance of the program has actually improved from last year to this year. Despite fiddling with some numbers so the president can yell "Crisis!", Social Security is actually healthier down the road than it was last year. Go look at the graph Brad's got, it's all there.

Despite all this, the LA Times' headline blares "Social Security going broke in 2041". Sigh. The article, interestingly, shows that Social Security is not the problem, it's Medicare that matters. Medicare, after all, started paying out more than it's taking in last year (as opposed to Social Security's date of 2017), and total bankruptcy for the program is projected for 2020. Spending so much time worrying about Social Security is like a doctor worrying about early signs of Parkinson's while his patient has a heart attack on the table. Not so bright. Weird note -- the article calls 2041 the date Social Security goes "broke", but 2020 is when Medicare faces "insolvency". Same meaning, but the sense of urgency is drastically different.

So bottom line, things aren't too bad. Politically, the report helps Bush, but the slight changes should blunt its effectiveness. Moreover, Bush himself has begun admitting that private accounts don't do anything for the program's solvency, and since the report is dealing with Social Security's fiscal condition, it shouldn't give any momentum to privatization. Oh, and Medicare is going to kill us all.

The 2005 Social Security Trustees Report
DeLong on the improvement on the outlook despite Bush administration assumptions:

...That's six thumbs on the scales, and still the long-run deficit shrinks.

The Social Security Trustees Explain Their Productivity Assumptions
DeLong:

One would think that the fact that productivity growth has averaged 3.0% per year in the four years since 2000 would be worth a mention. One would expect some reason for completely throwing away the last four years' worth of data on productivity.

But it isn't there.

With subsequent commentary by Paul Krugman.
Social Security fund may run out sooner
CNNMoney coverage.
3/24
Asset Returns and Economic Growth: Full Draft
Delong on his paper with Baker and Krugman.
Four Reporters, Four Different Stories
Columbia Journalism Review coverage of the coverage.
The White House Thinks About the Clawback
DeLong links to WSJ coverage and comments:

It really does look as if they chose 3%, and then never ran the numbers--never ran the numbers at all to see what the distribution of private account returns would be.

One underlying problem, of course, is that private accounts shift risk onto beneficiaries, and that beneficiaries are more averse to risk than the government. Thus it is genuinely hard to make private accounts both attractive to those non-rich beneficiaries who are most averse to risk and also fiscally neutral.

Fire Insurance is not Welfare and Neither is Social Security
Mark Thoma.
3/25
Justifications for the Long-Run Productivity Growth Forecasts in the Trustees' Reports
Memo from DeLong to Baker and Krugman.
Insuring Against the Inevitable
Will Wilkinson at CATO says Social Security should be thought of as an unfairly implemented retirement supplement.
Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps? (Insurance-Ain't-Welfare Department)
DeLong links to a Mark Thoma rebuttal of Robert Samuelson, with subsequent comment by Lee A. Arnold:

Fire insurance is insurance in case of fire. Retirement insurance is insurance in case of retirement.

Some systematic thinking is in order:

Social Security gives a small payout to EVERYBODY, thereby helping-out the neediest in an incidental, and discreet, way.

By including everybody, we keep it simple, keep management and transactions costs low, and minimize gaming the system. The fact that you once paid into it, gives you a right and an expectation, like a social agreement. Since it is paid out late in the summer of life, moral hazard is at a minimum.

Indeed Social Security is enjoyed and relied-upon by many conservatives who obsess fetishistically about other welfare costs and psychologies.

Without Social Security, about 50% of retirees would be below the poverty line. They would not be in better shape if they'd gambled the money in the markets. Go ask them.

It's hard to think of a better system. If the President succeeds in ruining it, we will have to reinvent it.

And Bruce Webb:

The fundamental difference between Social Security and European Welfare State systems is funding. Social Security always has been, and given current numbers always will be, 100% funded by Workers. Welfare is paid through taxes levied across the whole society/nation, heirs to great wealth who know to a certainly that they will never be standing in line at the welfare office still have to pay in. Social Security is different, if you emerge from college with a big trust fund that allows you to leverage that inheritence into billions (the Trump model - he started with a substantial real estate stake from his father) then great. You never pay a penny in to Social Security, you never take a nickel out.

And that really is the issue here. Capital's only moral claim to control the outcome of Social Security was the almost universal belief that it would be called to bail out Social Security at some point in the future. Well as it turns out Workers don't need Capital on this one, the Trust Fund is not going to run out and privatizers can get the hell of our lawn.

It's not welfare and it isn't broke.

3/27
The 2005 Report
The Bruce Web on the implications of the report.
3/28
Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps? (Richard Stevenson Takes Another Dive Edition)
DeLong expands upon the commentary of Matthew Yglesias, followed by an extended thread on clawback.
3/30
Why Oh Why Are We Ruled By These Liars? (Assistant Secretary Rob Nichols, This Is Your Life! Department)
DeLong links to Josh Marshall readers' reactions to a Bush official's talking points and reacts:

"They hadn't run the numbers" for what happens in the second decade of Bush private accounts? Do they really think the press corps and the people are dumb enough to believe that? And why do they think it's to their advantage to set out such transparent lies? Would anyone support a long-run plan proposed by people who haven't "run the numbers" beyond the first ten years?

Asset Returns and Economic Growth
DeLong ruminates over economic models.
John Snow Is Genuinely Embarrassing...
DeLong links to Pandagon's coverage of Snow's job of defending Bush's proposal and responds.
Another Snow Job on Privatization
A fisking by Mark Thoma.
3/31
Ed Andrews Writes About Asset Returns and Economic Growth
DeLong links to New York Times coverage and comments.
GUNFIGHT AT THE BROOKINGS CORRAL
Baker and Krugman present their paper, Mankiw responds, Sawicky witnesses.

Social Security Meta-Archive: April 2005

The Cutting Edge of Social Security

2005-10-02T23:20:00.000-04:00

The papers of Peter Diamond, a leading economist dealing with social insurance, via Dynamist Blog.

[Added, along with Martin Feldstein's papers, to the Social Security Meta-Archive]

Tonight in Manhattan

2005-09-11T23:23:00.000-04:00

Washington Post

It's like, a Portal.

2005-09-10T15:47:00.000-04:00

Via Abu Aardvark, the Council on Foreign Relations has a new main website.

Don't worry, the Portal is user safe.

Response timelines

2005-09-09T12:15:00.000-04:00

Kevin Drum has compiled a list of Hurricane response timelines from around the web, including his own relatively concise one.

Katrina

2005-09-06T18:53:00.000-04:00

Via Mark Thoma, CNN's extensive relief and information links including to the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army.

Globalization Archive

2005-08-30T13:02:00.001-04:00

Online Resources

Unofficial Paul Krugman Archive:Global
Unofficial Paul Krugman Archive: International Trade
Articles mostly from the 1990s.
Globalization FAQ.
Survey of issues surrounding global economic development, emphasizing challenges to emerging markets.
IMF(International Monetary Fund)
OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development)
Penn World Tables
Country by country comparisons.
World Bank
BIS (Bank for International Settlements)
The "central bank of central banks."
Wikipedia:Globalization
Commanding Heights
Website of the PBS broadcast.
Far Eastern Economic Review
Institute for International Economics
Project Syndicate
BrinkLindsey.com

Debate Chronology

1998

11/2
The Global Fix
In The New Republic, economist Dani Rodrik formulates a plan to save the world.
12/18
Please DON"T Save Me Kathie Lee!
Suite101 discussion.

1999

4/26
Criticisms of the Index of Economic Freedom
Mike Huben compiles criticism of the right-wing Heritage Foundation’s propaganda initiative pertaining to the level of governmental intervention in emerging markets.

2002

1/1

How to Judge Globalism.
In the American Prospect, Economist Amartya Sen deals with the promises and perils of globalism.
Globalism’s Discontents.
Economist Joseph E. Stiglitz, writing in the American Prospect, critiques the IMF’s one-size-fits-all policies.
9/4
Globalization Will Continue
Brad DeLong links to Martin Wolf in the Financial Times.

2003

9/4
Brink Lindsey Is Very Good Indeed
Brad DeLong on Brink Lindsey's book, Against the Dead Hand.

2004

9/9
Paul Samuelson's outsourcing "bombshell"
Daniel Drezner links to New York Times coverage.
9/9
Globalization, slow down!
Christian Science Monitor reporting on the Samuelson paper.
9/27
On Point: Paul Samuelson: Rethinking Free Trade
Radio interview.
12/6
Shaking Up Trade Theory
BusinessWeek coverage of recent events.
12/7
Shaking Up Trade Theory
Aftermath on the blog Dvorak Uncensored.

2005

9/15
BUSH AND THE MILLENNIUM....
Kevin Drum of Washington Monthly decries Bush's description of his stewardship of "millenium" goals.
10/17
Paul Krugman: The Big Squeeze
Discussing a Paul Krugman column, economist Mark Thoma offers education as a main response to the pressures of outsourcing.
10/19
The Future of American Manufacturing
Mark Thoma discusses a column by Robert Samuelson of the Washington Post.
10/20
Dallas Fed President Fisher: Cost-Pull Disinflation from Globalization
Fisher's views presented by Mark Thoma.
New York Fed President Geithner on Global Imbalances
Mark Thoma continues his series of globalization posts at his blog, Economist's View.
11/9
Progressives should be for progress
Economist Alan Blinder at TPMCafe:

People sometimes forget that international trade is just one of many forces that are changing the world--and certainly not the most important one. No one doubts, for example, that technology is more powerful, more pervasive, and more disruptive than trade. The microchip has probably displaced more American workers than China ever will. But whether driven by trade, technology, or something else, economic change typically has casualties; and we ought to have robust policies and institutions to help people over the rough spots. I think both pro- and anti-trade progressives can agree on that.

What's the alternative? We could to stop economic change--or rather to try to stop it, for such efforts almost always fail. But that is surely not the route to progress. With sufficiently rigorous (and ridiculous) policies, the U.S. could have preserved the industrial structure of the 1950s, a time when super-America was super-dominant on the world stage and international trade was a vastly smaller share of our GDP, right to the present day. In this counterfactual experiment, GM and US Steel would be bigger companies today, while Microsoft and eBay would be based in some other countries. But at what cost to U.S. standards of living? And do we really think this would have saved the jobs of all those auto and steelworkers? It has long been a mystery to economists why so many people view creative destruction that stems from technology as okay, while similar creative destruction that stems from international trade is something to be opposed.

Social Security House Calls

2005-08-26T04:25:00.000-04:00

Carl P. Leubsdorf: Bush's Social Security plan may hinge on the House
The Dallas Morning News on the continuing privatization offensive:

Mr. Rove, speaking to college students and lobbyists before Congress went on its current recess, said the House would act next month and the Senate soon after, according to the congressional newspaper The Hill .

And Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Calif., chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and one of his party's canniest operatives, said without giving details that his panel would introduce a retirement security bill in September.

[Added to the 2005 Social Security Meta-Narrative]

It's back...

2005-08-16T23:23:00.000-04:00

The Official Blog of the Ancient and Hermetic Order of the Shrill has resumed operation...