Thoughts on Ken Cuccinelli

I would strongly encourage anyone with even the slightest interest in Virginia politics to read The Washington Post Magazine's cover story about Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. It's a memorable profile both because it is well-written and because it sheds light upon the complex history and personality of a man who is rapidly becoming one of the most important legal figures in the country. The takeaway from the piece is that Cuccinelli is a relentlessly hard-working and strictly principled individual with more than a few quirks:

[His] journey from the campus steps of the Rotunda to the courthouse steps in the state capital, which included an eight-year stop as the last conservative GOP state senator from Northern Virginia, was no simple matter of hitching a ride on a movement. Insisting on what he calls principle, even when it might cost him, has earned Cuccinelli a certain reputation for authenticity. It's one of the few points on which Cuccinelli's supporters and detractors agree. With Cuccinelli, they say, what you see is what you get.

By and large, this seems to be a fair assessment. For example, Cuccinelli has remained true to his belief in free speech by refusing to support a military family that is suing the Westboro Baptist Church for picketing their son's funeral. This position has predictably drawn the ire of many mainstream conservatives who, despite their rhetorical support for the First Amendment, care more about the military than about free speech. Cuccinelli has also been a thorn in the side of conservatives attempting to expand the reach of the death penalty. This stance also seems to derive from his instinctive wariness of government.

Yet even with Cuccinelli, there are limits to how far principle goes. Notably, there's this whopper of a quote buried in the middle of the story:

"If you're going to spend money on things, you start at the bottom," [Cuccinelli] says. "And on the human side, as opposed to, say, building roads, that's taking care of those who, through no fault of their own, can't take care of themselves."

Specifically, Cuccinelli is talking about his support for mental health reform. But he might as well be discussing the Affordable Care Act since its fundamental rationale could be described in the exact words that Cuccinelli uses: "Taking care of those who, through no fault of their own, can't take care of themselves."

It's likely that Cuccinelli doesn't sense the hypocrisy. After all, as the article makes very clear, his world is divided into black and white, so he would probably classify lower-middle class Americans whose jobs don't offer them health insurance as being those who are too lazy to take care of themselves. And there's nothing that public policy can do about them, right?

That, in a nutshell, is what makes Cuccinelli so dangerous. He cares passionately about certain social and political causes that he haphazardly deems to be "right" and "true," and he understands how to use the power of his office to promote those causes. It doesn't matter whether there is any logical basis for his beliefs--it's merely enough for him to feel that whatever he is doing stands in virtuous contrast with the rest of the fallen world. This is the same fallacious way of thinking that doomed the George W. Bush presidency to the ash heap of history, and it seems likely that it will eventually do in Cuccinelli as well. The only question is how many innocent lives will he have to ruin before that happens.

Should Kindergarten Teachers Be The New Investment Bankers?

David Leonhardt, also known as the best New York Times columnist not named Paul Krugman, had an excellent piece published a few days ago examining a recent study done by five economic researchers about the long-term effects of kindergarten education on individual outcomes. Although the entire piece is worth reading in order to understand the background to and methodology of the study, the conclusion boils down to this:

Students who had learned much more in kindergarten were more likely to go to college than students with otherwise similar backgrounds. Students who learned more were also less likely to become single parents. As adults, they were more likely to be saving for retirement. Perhaps most striking, they were earning more.

All else equal, they were making about an extra $100 a year at age 27 for every percentile they had moved up the test-score distribution over the course of kindergarten. A student who went from average to the 60th percentile — a typical jump for a 5-year-old with a good teacher — could expect to make about $1,000 more a year at age 27 than a student who remained at the average. Over time, the effect seems to grow, too.

This is truly meaningful stuff, particularly given that the researchers appear to have identified the driving force behind a good kindergarten education:

Class size — which was the impetus of Project Star — evidently played some role. Classes with 13 to 17 students did better than classes with 22 to 25. Peers also seem to matter. In classes with a somewhat higher average socioeconomic status, all the students tended to do a little better.

But neither of these factors came close to explaining the variation in class performance. So another cause seemed to be the explanation: teachers.

Some are highly effective. Some are not. And the differences can affect students for years to come. ...

Mr. Chetty and his colleagues — one of whom, Emmanuel Saez, recently won the prize for the top research economist under the age of 40 — estimate that a standout kindergarten teacher is worth about $320,000 a year. That’s the present value of the additional money that a full class of students can expect to earn over their careers. This estimate doesn’t take into account social gains, like better health and less crime.

Wow. When one considers that the median salary for a kindergarten teacher in the United States is only $50,678 per year, it becomes clear that this study has revealed a severe misallocation of resources in the American economy.

The obvious public policy response, as I have argued before, should be to raise taxes on portions of the economy that are presently overvalued, such as the financial sector, and use that revenue to boost the salaries of kindergarten teachers. Anyone who honestly cares about the general welfare of American society should accept that this is a legitimate function of government power. Unfortunately, there are fewer and fewer American conservatives who believe that overall public prosperity is more important that unrestricted individual attainment. Hence, we're stuck living in a nation where the best and the brightest reject jobs such as teaching that have very well-defined social benefits and instead pursue absurdly profitable but significantly less productive endeavors such as the wagering of large sums of money upon a variety of complex financial products.

Follow the Leader?

One of the things that has occurred to me over the past several weeks as the morning papers have become filled with grotesque examples of political dysfunction in America is that many state and federal policymakers simply aren't very knowledgable about contemporary policy issues. This is an issue that Ezra Klein touched upon in a post last week, but I feel like he stopped short of giving it a full analysis. Toward the end of his post, though, he seems to get at the root of the problem:

When I've asked Hill staff and elected officials about this, I've gotten an interesting answer: Think about what you need to do to become a politician, they say. Rise up in your local party leadership. Raise a lot of money. Get yourself quoted in the media. Campaign effectively. You don't really need to know that much about policy. And so a lot of elected officials simply don't know much about policy. Even if they wanted to become known as problem solvers and thinkers, they don't have the chops for it, and the pace of modern campaigning means they never have time to develop those chops, either. It's a depressing thought.

Depressing, indeed. I see this phenomenon all of the time at college where the upper echelon of students can be broken into two camps: those who pursue leadership positions that garner them visibility and decision-making power, and those who devote themselves to in-depth research and a heavy course-load in order to gain a complete understanding of a specific subject. Rarely does one find an individual who falls into both of these camps. Although it is likely that innate personality differences have something to do with this (extroverts are more drawn to positions that allow them to become public figures, whereas introverts prefer to quietly go about their own work), I think that Klein is correct to point out that part of the problem is structural. Those seeking positions of leadership and authority spend a disproportionate amount of their time building personal connections and navigating social networks, and therefore have much less time for studying and research in a particular field. Those who do spend their time immersed in academic work often lose out on valuable social capital that their leadership-oriented counterparts obtain by attending parties, joining elite social organizations and asserting themselves in the collegiate community. This leads to an unfortunate dynamic where the students who graduate with the much sought-after "leadership credentials" aren't actually the ones who are best qualified to be making decisions about public policy.

Thus, America winds up with folks like John Boehner as the minority leader in the House of Representatives and Mitch McConnell as the minority leader in the Senate. Boehner may have a nice tan and the ability to charm his acquaintances on the golf course, but he has also demonstrated a total ignorance of climate science by comparing industrial carbon emissions to cow farts. McConnell, for his part, may have been a fine student body president at the University of Lousiville and was obviously likeable enough to become a member of Phi Kappa Tau, but he has proven his economic illiteracy by asserting that the Bush tax cuts actually increased government revenue rather than decreased it despite statements and data from Bush's own economic team suggesting otherwise. This problem isn't merely confined to Republicans, either. Democrat Gerry Connolly of Northern Virginia has also staked out several outlandish positions on economic policy in recent months, raising questions about his own competence in that field.

As with many problems, though, this dichotomy of leadership vs. expertise could be largely solved through structural reform. I'm a fan of this idealized political system put forth by Matt Yglesias in which technocratic bodies in the executive branch draw up policies themselves and then send them to elected legislatures to be voted upon (note: I do not support the final step that Yglesias proposes, that of national referendums). There have been a few encouraging steps taken in this direction by the Obama administration, notably the creation of the Independent Payment Advisory Board to handle Medicare cost control, but we obviously have a long way to go. I know, however, that I would much prefer having actual experts like Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke drafting a comprehensive package of financial reform that could sent for an up-or-down vote in the Senate rather than having twerps like Scott Brown messing with it at the 11th hour in order to extract a few final goodies for their special constituencies.

A Little Catching Up

During my hiatus from blogging for much of this month, I wasn't entirely unproductive. Here's a letter to the editor that I had published in my local newspaper in which I point out that the decision of my county's board of supervisors to lower the price of water at the onset of a drought was utterly devoid of economic logic. Also, I've been working on my cooking a little bit and so I've decided to share a few recipes that I've enjoyed lately:

Sichuan Chicken Stir-Fry
I made this recipe with the dry sherry rather than the rice wine, since I had the former on hand and not the latter. I also added Mung bean sprouts and served it over fettuccine. The only other difference was that I used House of Tsang's bottled Szechuan sauce rather than prepare my own. This worked out well, although I'd recommend using a little more sauce than what they suggest on the back of the bottle.

Grated Carrot and Avocado Salad
As I was scrambling to come up with some lunch before heading into work on Sunday, I remembered seeing a version of this recipe a few days earlier when I was scouting out preparation options for my avocados. Since I had some carrots sitting around in the fridge, I decided to give it a shot.

The prep only took about 15 minutes and then I cooled it in the fridge for another 15 minutes, which gave me plenty of time to eat and then drive to work. Since my father had been kind enough to prepare hard-boiled eggs that morning for Sunday brunch, I diced two of them up and added them to the salad instead of the suggested protein supplements, tofu or chicken. The only note I would make is that with the Tobasco sauce and egg (or tofu/chicken), it really isn't necessary to add salt. One of my friends also pointed out that this is a rather mushy, non-fibrous dish (particularly if you leave out the seeds, which I did). This can be easily solved by serving it as a sandwich filling or by having some toast on the side, which I found provides a nice complementary taste to the zesty salad.

Zucchini Bread
This is a very traditional zucchini bread recipe, as I discovered when everyone who ate a piece said that it was exactly like the type that their mom/sibling/friend makes. It's a winner, though, and the only thing that I would point out is that you will almost definitely need to bake it for longer than 40 minutes--think closer to 60 minutes, or perhaps even a little longer if your oven is weak. Also, brown sugar adds a little depth and the walnuts add some crunch, although neither is necessary for the bread to be moist and delicious.

Democracy and Security

Usually Saturday is a fairly quiet time on The Washington Post's opinion pages, but this morning featured an interesting pair of arguments about the Obama administration's decision to resume military ties with Indonesian special forces, known as Kopassus, which have a checkered history of human rights violations. The position taken by an Indonesian human rights activist named Suciwati is that such ties amount to a betrayal by the United States of its democratic ideals since many members of Kopassus still haven't been held accountable for crimes and atrocities that took the lives of thousands of Indonesians during the country's dark days of autocracy:

[T]he Obama administration, seeking to improve ties with Indonesia, has agreed to allow training to resume if the government will ensure that those convicted of abuse would be moved out of Kopassus.

Promises to shift abusers out of Kopassus and into other military units are simply not enough. Members of Kopassus have no fear that they will be prosecuted for serious wrongdoing. The special forces protect members who are implicated in such abuses. Even the few who have been convicted by military courts are largely still serving. This will not change until members of the security service who have committed abuses are brought to justice.

The paper's editorial board, however, argues that Suciwati and other activists are missing the bigger picture:

Accountability for past crimes is essential, and Mr. Gates said the United States will continue to press for that. But the critics lose sight of the enormous changes in Indonesia since the fall of dictator President Suharto in 1998. Indonesia has held multiparty elections and witnessed peaceful transfers of power. The world's most populous Muslim-majority nation, with 240 million people, it remains mostly hospitable to its Hindu, Christian and other minorities. It has fought Islamic extremism and intolerance. And its military is under civilian control. The prospects for human rights in such a situation flourish as long as democracy progresses -- and the United States has every reason to strengthen its alliance and help, as much as possible, democracy to become more entrenched.

I'm really left scratching my head at the editorial staff's position. Throughout their piece, they stress the importance of aiding a large, fledgling democracy like Indonesia without ever explaining how, exactly, resurrecting ties with Kopassus furthers that objective. After all, it would seem to me that providing resources and training to a ruthless, unaccountable, and politically powerful military group might be the least helpful thing that one could do for a young democracy. Why not continue to shun such dangerous and corrupt quasi-political elements and instead boost support for health, education and infrastructure development?

Obviously those writing the editorials for The Washington Post are much more neoconservative than I am and they would probably retort by hyping Kopassus's ability to combat Islamic radicalism, but I think that speaks to a broader problem with the paper's argument. The editorial staff writes under the assumption that because Indonesia is now a democracy and its military is under civilian control, it is immune from ever having to worry about human rights abuses and subsequent cover-ups. But as America knows from both personal experience and from the example of countries such as Brazil, that simply is not the case--liberal democratic regimes are still vulnerable to violent excesses when it comes to matters of national security as well as blatant dishonesty when it comes to matters of personal loyalty. The neoconservative bloc consistently underestimates these threats when contemplating U.S. involvement in international affairs, which is particularly frustrating given that so much evidence exists in support of the belief that rogue and corrupt internal elements pose a much greater threat to the survival of a democratic state than do fringe extremist movements.

What If the US Balanced Its Budget And Nobody Noticed?

Due to a combination of general lethargy and a mid-week trip to Charlottesville, I haven't gotten around to posting my thoughts on this excellent column by Tyler Cowen until now. I think that much of his analysis is spot on, but there's a small oversight included in the column that I feel is representative of a broader problem with the country's present perspective on political economy:

If any financial policy idea is taking a major place on the American and global stages, it is fiscal austerity. It is not that fiscal conservatives have won a grand battle of ideas, but rather that governments realize that the bills are coming due. In the United States, we face rising health care costs and pension problems in state governments, with no clear long-run solution for bringing the books into balance.

As Ezra Klein has pointed out, however, the US Congress has already taken two very important steps toward eventually reining in health care costs: With the passage of the Affordable Care Act earlier this year, an independent Medicare payments commission and a tax on high-value insurance plans and have been scheduled for implementation in 2018.

Now, these two policies in and of themselves will not solve America's long-run budget problems, but as anyone who follows American politics knows, progress is incremental. Once consumers respond to the insurance excise tax by demanding thriftier policies and Congress is forced to take up-or-down votes on Medicare savings measures, it is likely that there will be noticeable downward pressure on health care costs. Upon witnessing that effect, future congresses will work to improve and strengthen the cost-control measures that were included in the Affordable Care Act.

Of course, the natural retort is that Congress won't follow through on these policies. Instead, this line of thinking goes, the Medicare advisory commission and the excise tax will simply be overridden by successive legislation in a similar manner to the Sustainable Growth Rate (i.e., the Doc Fix). But if the private investors who Congress is trying to appease by passing deficit reduction measures choose to ignore those steps, then what is the point of fiscal austerity? America should just go ahead and run-up deficit spending now, while interest rates are low, since it will at least boost the short-run economy while leaving investors no more skeptical than they would've been anyway.