4 December 2009
Today’s Tabbloid
PERSONAL NEWS FOR craig.kirchoff+fisccon@gmail.com
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
CBO, the Wizard of Oz, and the
Keynesian Fairy Tale [Cato at
Liberty]
DEC 03, 2009 09:05P.M.
The Obama Administration said that the so-called stimulus was
necessary so that the unemployment rate would not rise above 8 percent.
Indeed, the White House warned that the joblessness rate would climb to
9 percent if lawmakers did not approve the $787 billion package. Critics
responded by explaining that making government bigger would divert
resources from the productive sector of the economy and hurt growth.
These skeptics also noted that nations using “Keynesian” policy, such as
the United States in the 1930s and Japan in the 1990s, did not generate
good results. And since the unemployment rate is now above 10 percent,
it certainly seems like opponents were correct.
But now the supposedly non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has
jumped to the defense of the White House, estimating that the spending
bill actually generated beween 600,000 and 1.6 million jobs. How can
that be, you may ask, when the number of jobs has fallen by more than 3
million? The CBO neatly sidesteps that real-world concern by moving the
goalposts, using a slightly more sophisticated version of Obama’s “jobs
created or saved” alchemy. Their jobs-created estimate is compared to a
make-believe baseline of how many jobs there would be “without the
law.”
CBO estimates that in the third quarter of calendar year 2009, an
additional 600,000 to 1.6 million people were employed in the United
States, and real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP) was
1.2 percent to 3.2 percent higher, than would have been the case in the
absence of ARRA. …CBO’s current estimates differ only slightly from
those CBO prepared in March 2009. At that time, CBO projected that in
the third quarter of 2009, U.S. employment would be higher by 600,000
to 1.5 million people with ARRA than it would be without the law, and
real GDP would be 1.1 percent to 3.0 percent higher. CBO’s new
estimates reflect small revisions to earlier projections of the timing and
magnitude of changes to spending and revenues under ARRA.
…Economic output and employment in the spring and summer of 2009
were lower than CBO had projected at the beginning of the year. But in
CBO’s judgment, that outcome reflects greater-than-projected weakness
in the underlying economy rather than lower-than-expected effects of
ARRA.
Needless to say, this means there is no objective benchmark. The
1
unemployment rate could jump to 15 percent and total job losses could
reach 10 million, but CBO would continue to say, for all intents and
purposes, that the results from their Keynesian model are more
important than any real-world numbers. This is the fiscal policy version
of the Wizard of Oz, and we’re supposed to ignore reality just as Dorothy
and friends were supposed to ignore the man behind the curtain.
To be fair, there is nothing inherently wrong with CBO’s methodology.
Economic analysis frequently requires people to make assumptions
about how the world would behave with or without a certain policy. So
the real question is whether Keynesian economics makes sense from a
theoretical perspective, whether there is any suppporting evidence, and
whether there are more compelling alternatives. Click the links and
decide for yourself.
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Cato’s Legal Arguments Worry
U.S. Government [Cato at
Liberty]
DEC 03, 2009 05:03P.M.
Last month, Cato (joined by Cato senior fellow Randy Barnett) filed a
brief in United States v. Comstock, a case regarding the constitutionality
of a law authorizing the federal government to civilly commit anyone in
the custody of the Bureau of Prisons whom the attorney general certifies
to be “sexually dangerous.” The effect of such an action is to continue the
certified person’s confinement after the expiration of his prison term,
without proof of a new criminal violation.
As I wrote in a previous blog post, “the use of federal power here is
unconstitutional because it is not tied to any of Congress’s limited and
enumerated powers.” Moreover, the government’s reliance on the
Necessary and Proper Clause (Article I, Section 8), “is misplaced because
that clause grants no independent power but merely ‘carries into
execution’ the powers enumerated elsewhere in that section.” The
commitment of prisoners after their terms end simply cannot fit into one
of the enumerated powers.
While we of course hope that the Supreme Court pays attention to our
brief, we know that Solicitor General Elana Kagan, at least, is concerned
enough about our arguments to spend several pages of the government’s
reply brief addressing them (see pages 5-9).
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR craig.kirchoff+fisccon@gmail.com
For more on Comstock, see its case page on SCOTUSwiki, which now has
all the briefs and will around the Jan. 12 argument date be populated
with argument previews and reviews, as well as links to media coverage.
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Schumer Fouls Out [Cato at
Liberty]
DEC 03, 2009 04:50P.M.
Chuck Schumer is perhaps my favorite U.S. Senator because of his
endless capacity to make me laugh. He often reminds me of Inspector
Clouseau, the earnest but bumbling detective from the Pink Panther
movies.
Through an excellent post by Scott Lincome today, I learned not only
that official NBA jerseys (those worn by the players) are made for Adidas
in upstate New York, but that Senator Schumer is attempting to thwart
the company’s decision to move production to Thailand.
I share Scott’s assessment of the absurdity of Schumer’s efforts, but more
importantly, I wanted to share this humorous footage of Schumer’s
awkward nativist appeal that basketball is an American-centric
game….conducted in front of German-born NBA Star Dirk Nowitski’s
jersey.
Classic!
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
New Website Alert! [Americans
for Tax Reform]
DEC 03, 2009 04:00P.M.
Today, Property Rights Alliance unveiled a new website and blog. I
encourage everyone to head on over to check it out and to keep doing so
over and over again to stay up to date on the latest ...
2
4 December 2009
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Is Trade Policy Obsolete? [Cato
at Liberty]
DEC 03, 2009 03:57P.M.
That is one of the conclusions in my new paper, “Made on Earth: How
Global Economic Integration Renders Trade Policy Obsolete.”
For hundreds of years, trade policy has been premised on the
assumptions that exports are good, imports are bad, and the interests of
domestic producers are tantamount to the “national interest.” Though
that mercantilist worldview has never been accurate, its persistence as a
pillar of trade policy into the 21st century is especially confounding given
the emergence and proliferation of disaggregated production processes,
transnational supply chains, and cross-border investment. Those trends
have blurred any meaningful distinctions between “our” producers and
“their” producers and speak to a long chain of interdependent economic
interests between product conception and consumption.
Still, trade policy places the interests of domestic producers above all
else even though the definition of a domestic producer is elusive and
even though actions on behalf of producers often harm interests along
the product continuum, which include engineers, designers, financiers,
processors, assemblers, marketers, shippers, retailers, consumers, and
others.
In 2008, foreign nameplate automobile producers, employing American
workers, paying American taxes, and supporting American businesses,
communities, and charities, accounted for almost half of all U.S. light
vehicle production. The largest “U.S.” steel producer, Arcelor-Mittal, is a
majority-Indian-owned company with headquarters in Luxembourg and
Hong Kong. The largest “German” producer, Thyssen-Krupp, is
completing a $3.7 billion green-field investment in steel production
facilities in Alabama, which will create an estimated 2,700 jobs in that
state.
So, who are “we”? And who are “they”?
Are these foreign-named or –headquartered companies not “our”
producers because some of the profits they earn are repatriated or
invested in operations outside the United States? If so, then shouldn’t we
consider U.S. Steel Corporation, which earned 25 percent of its revenue
last year on steel produced in Slovakia and Serbia, and General Motors,
which has had success producing and selling cars in China, to be “their”
producers? Why should U.S. Steel, General Motors, and the unions that
organize workers at those companies dictate the parameters of U.S. trade
policy, while Toyota, Thyssen and their non-union workers have no
input? Why should trade policy reflect a bias in favor of producers—or
worse, particular producers—at all? That bias hurts other interests—both
foreign-based and domestic—in the supply chain.
Global commerce isn’t a competition between “us” and “them.” It is
instead a competition between entities that defy national identification
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR craig.kirchoff+fisccon@gmail.com
because of cross-border investment or because the final good or service
comprises value added from many different countries. This reality
demands openness in both directions, which flies in the face of
conventional trade policy wisdom, which seeks to maximize access for
domestic producers abroad while minimizing access for foreign
producers at home.
It is only for simplicity’s sake that a container full of iPods shipped from
China and unloaded in Seattle registers as imports from China. But the
fact is that only a few dollars of the $150 cost to produce an iPod is
Chinese value-added. The rest is mostly value attributable to Japanese,
Korean, Singaporean, Taiwanese, and American components and labor.
Then iPods retail for about $300 and most of the mark-up accrues to
Apple, which uses the profits to support innovation and higher paying
jobs in the United States.
From a trade policy perspective, each iPod imported from China adds
$150 to our bilateral deficit in “high tech” goods. It is regarded as a
problem to solve. The temptation is to restrict.
But from a commercial perspective, each imported iPod supports U.S.
economic activity up the value chain. Without access to lower-cost labor
abroad—if rudimentary component manufacturing and assembly
operations were required to take place in the United States—ideas
hatched in American labs would be far less likely to make it beyond the
white board. Much higher costs would make it far more difficult to create
these ubiquitous devices that have, in turn, spawned new ideas and
industries.
Essentially, the factory floor has broken through its walls and today
spans borders and oceans, making Chinese and American labor
complementary in this and many other industries. Yet, despite all of this
integration, despite the reliance of producers in the United States and
abroad on imported raw materials, components, and capital equipment,
trade policy still pretends that access to the domestic market is a favor to
grant or a privilege to revoke. Trade policy is officially ignorant of
commercial reality.
Openness to trade in both directions is an imperative in the 21st century.
Policies that do not try to channel incentives for the benefit of specific
groups but rather provide the greatest opportunities for citizens to
participate most effectively in our increasingly integrated global
economy are the ones that will maximize economic growth and national
welfare. People in other countries should be thought of more as
customers, suppliers, and potential collaborators instead of competitive
threats.
In the 21st century, instead of serving the exclusive interests of domestic
producers, trade policy should be about welcoming investment and
attracting and cultivating the human capital necessary to make the
United States the location of choice for the world’s highest value
economic activities.
3
4 December 2009
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
White House Admits to its Own
Incompetence [The Club for
Growth]
DEC 03, 2009 03:44P.M.
With today What a joke.
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Lying and the Federal
Government [Cato at Liberty]
DEC 03, 2009 03:11P.M.
Speaking of White House gate-crashers Tareq and Michaele Salahi (as
we were trying to think of an excuse to do, to increase blog traffic), Slate
says they might be guilty of a federal crime. What crime? Well, possibly
trespassing on federal property. Or maybe the “broad prohibition on
lying to the federal government.” Title 18, section 1001 of the U.S. Code
can be used to prosecute anyone who “knowingly and
willfully … falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick,
scheme, or device a material fact” or “makes any materially
false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation” to
the government. That could include lying about your arrest
record on a government job application, claiming a fake
deduction on your taxes, or telling someone you’re on the
White House invite list when you’re not.
I can’t help wondering, is there any equally broad prohibition on lying by
the federal government? If the federal government, or a federal agency,
or a federal official “knowingly and willfully … falsifies, conceals, or
covers up” information or “makes any materially false, fictitious, or
fraudulent statement or representation” — about the costs of a new
entitlement, or how a candidate for reelection will act in his next term, or
case for going to war — is that prohibited? Or are the rules tougher on
the ruled than the rulers?
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR craig.kirchoff+fisccon@gmail.com 4 December 2009

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS on the unemployment rolls.

Today’s White House ‘Jobs

Summit’ [Cato at Liberty‘Jobs FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

Summit’] College Students to Taxpayers:

DEC 03, 2009 01:15P.M.
Today’s Politico Arena asks:
The WH Jobs Summit: “A little less conversation? A little more
action? ( please)”
My response:
Today’s White House “jobs summit” reflects little more, doubtless, than
growing administration panic over the political implications of the
unemployment picture. With the 2010 election season looming just
ahead, and little prospect that unemployment numbers will soon
improve, Democrats feel compelled to “do something” — reflecting their
general belief that for nearly every problem there’s a government
solution. Thus, this summit is heavily stacked with proponents of
government action. This morning’s Wall Street Journal tells us, for
example, that “AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is proposing a plan
that would extend jobless benefits, send billions in relief to the states,
open up credit to small businesses, pour more into infrastructure
projects, and bring throngs of new workers onto the federal payroll — at
a cost of between $400 billion and $500 billion.” If Obama falls for that,
we’ll be in this recession far beyond the 2010 elections.
The main reason we’re in this mess, after all, is because government
– from the Fed’s easy money to the Community Reinvestment Act and
the policies of Freddy and Fannie — encouraged what amounted to a
giant Ponzi scheme. So what is the administration’s response to this
irresponsible behavior? Why, it’s brainchilds like ”cash for
clunkers,” which cost taxpayers $24,000 for each car sold. Comedians
can’t make this stuff up. It takes big-government thinkers.
‘Rent Now, Oppressors!’ [Cato
at Liberty‘Rent Now,
Oppressors!’]
DEC 03, 2009 12:46P.M.
Inside Higher Ed reports today on growing college student acitivism.
And what are the young scholars suddenly so active about? Not unjust
wars, racism, or anything else so high-minded. No, today the “no justice,
no peace!” chants are all about the injustice of students being asked to
pay for more of their hugely taxpayer-subsidized educations.
There’s a word for this kind of activism, and it’s not “idealism” or
anything else so complimentary. It’s “rent seeking.” Or, if you want to
put it more bluntly, “freeloading.”
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
ATR Will Rate Any and All
Votes To Kill the Death Tax
[Americans for Tax Reform]
DEC 03, 2009 12:29P.M.
This afternoon, the House will be voting on a bill to permanently create a
death tax with a 45 percent rate and a $3.5 million exemption. This bill
has many challenges, and will not be supported...

Americans will start to find jobs not when government pays them to
sweep streets or caulk their own homes but when small businesses get
back on their feet. Yet that won’t happen as long as the kinds of taxes and
national indebtedness that are inherent in such schemes as ObamaCare
hang over our heads. Milton Friedman put it well: “No one spends
someone else’s money as carefully as he spends his own.” Yet the very
definition of Obamanomics is spending other people’s money. If he’s
truly worried about the looming 2010 elections (and beyond), Mr.
Obama should look to the editorial page of this morning’s Wall Street
Journal, where he’ll read that in both Westchester and Nassau Counties
in New York — New York! — Democratic county executives have just
been thrown out of office, and the dominant reason is taxes. Two more

4
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR craig.kirchoff+fisccon@gmail.com
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Thursday Links [Cato at
Liberty]
DEC 03, 2009 11:37A.M.
• A few questions for Ben Bernanke: “Perhaps the most important
question Bernanke should answer is: how will he re-build and
maintain an independent Fed?”
• Before considering Bernanke’s role in containing the financial
crisis, Congress should investigate the role of Fed policy in allowing
the housing bubble to grow.
• Prepare to pay more: Today, an average insurance policy can cost
about $2,985 for an individual or $6,328 for a family. Under the
Senate bill, those premiums will increase to $5,800 for an
individual worker and $15,200 for a family plan by 2016.
• Why the White House “jobs summit” is unnecessary.
• Made on Earth: How global economic integration renders trade
policy obsolete.
• Podcast: “ObamaCare the Budget Buster.” More, here.
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
No Solid Gold Performance
from Bernanke [Larry Kudlow’s
Money Politic$]
DEC 03, 2009 11:35A.M.
Fed head Ben Bernanke got hammered today during his reconfirmation
hearing in front of the Senate Banking Committee. Jim Bunning was
Bernanke’s toughest critic, followed by Richard Shelby, Jim DeMint, and
yes, Chris Dodd, the beleaguered committee chair who in all likelihood
will be defeated in Connecticut next year.
But unfortunately no one directly asked Bernanke why the current gold
price has surged to over $1,200, and what that might mean for future
inflation and the U.S. economy.
The Wall Street Journal editorialized this morning that “the country
needs a new Fed chief.” The editors went on to say that while the Fed
chair knows how to ease money, there’s no evidence during his tenure as
Fed chief (or formerly as Alan Greenspan’s copilot) that he knows how to
make money sufficiently scarce in order to protect the dollar and prevent
inflation.
5
4 December 2009
Surely the steadily depreciating dollar and the surging gold price are bad
omens for the future economy. In fact, inflation rates have been edging
higher in recent months and will likely continue upward in the months
ahead. Import prices channeled through the weak dollar have been
rising. So while many of us hoped the Fed chair would be forced to
address the gold question, he never did.
Bernanke did respond to questions on the declining dollar exchange rate,
but as he always does, he insisted that it doesn’t matter as long as
inflation is low. Huh? If you print more dollars than the rest of the world
requires, surely this means too much money chasing too few goods. And
as Art Laffer has pointed out, the exchange-rate mechanism is itself a
transmitter of higher domestic prices.
Time and again Bernanke argued that the Fed was not to blame for the
ultra-easy money that created the housing and commodity bubble which
got us into this soup in the first place. He insisted that bankers were to
blame for their “risky” lending policies, and he acknowledged that the
Fed should have been tougher as a bank regulator.
But the point that escapes Bernanke is that negative real interest rates
and excess money-creation trigger a chain of consequences throughout
the financial system. Mistakes were made left and right that might never
have been made had the dollar been sound and the inflationary bubble
never appeared.
In effect, you get what you pay for. The Fed paid for easy money, and we
all got the recessionary credit-crunching consequences of the Fed’s
mistake.
By failing to heed the message of financial and commodity prices, future
Fed decisions are likely to be just as flawed as past ones. It isn’t that
Bernanke lacks the brains. It’s that he’s employing the wrong monetary
model. Targeting the unemployment rate means always erring on the
side of ease. On the other hand, targeting market-price signals would get
us back to the financial and economic stability of most of the 1980s and
1990s.
The economy is improving, however slowly. And market-price indicators
are telling the Fed to curb its balance sheet and let its target rate float
upward. Regrettably, until the dollar and gold vigilantes punish the
central bank even more, Bernanke will continue to stubbornly resist this
message.
Heck, even Tiger Woods fessed up and came clean. Now it’s time for the
Fed chief to do likewise.
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR craig.kirchoff+fisccon@gmail.com 4 December 2009

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

*Robert Reich, Fmr. Labor Secretary; Author, “Supercapitalism”; CNBC
Thursday’s Daily News [The Contributor; Univ. of CA., Berkeley, Prof. of Public Policy
*Steve Moore, Sr Economics Writer for the Wall Street Journal Editorial
Club for Growth] Board; “The End of Prosperity” Co-Author
DEC 03, 2009 11:20A.M.
TIGER TROUBLES
National Review has an online symposium on Obama new poll shows The price of being in the public eye
Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) losing to all Republican challengers.
Daily Beast Chief Investigative Reporter Gerald Posner will join us.

Please join us. The Kudlow Report. 7pm ET. CNBC.

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

On CNBC’s Kudlow Report

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Tonight [Larry Kudlow’s Money
Another 1,000+Page Bill [The
Politic$]
DEC 03, 2009 10:29A.M. Club for Growth]
DEC 03, 2009 10:26A.M.

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA) By

comparison, the ugly Medicare drug bill of 2003 proposed by the big-
spending Republicans was 747 pages.

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

This evening at 7pm ET: Three Keys to Surveillance

A 2ND TERM? BERNANKE IN THE HOT SEAT
CNBC’s Hampton Pearson reports.
Success: Location, Location,
*Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) Banking Cmte. Ranking Member will be
Location [Cato at Liberty]
DEC 03, 2009 10:14A.M.
aboard.

The invaluable Chris Soghoian has posted some illuminating—and

BERNANKE: SHOULD HE STAY OR SHOULD HE GO?
sobering—information on the scope of surveillance being carried out
with the assistance of telecommunications providers. The entire panel
Panel:
discussion from this year’s ISS World surveillance conference is well
worth listening to in full, but surely the most striking item is a direct
*Peter Navarro, “The Coming China Wars” Author; University Of
quotation from Sprint’s head of electronic surveillance:
California - Irvine Business Professor
*Andy Busch, BMO Capital Markets; CNBC Contributor
[M]y major concern is the volume of requests. We have a lot
*Lyle Gramley, Former Federal Reserve Governor; Stanford Washington
of things that are automated but that’s just scratching the
Research Group Senior Economic Advisor
surface. One of the things, like with our GPS tool. We
turned it on the web interface for law enforcement
OBAMA’S JOBS SUMMIT
about one year ago last month, and we just passed 8
NBC’s Steve Handelsman reports.
million requests. So there is no way on earth my
team could have handled 8 million requests from
*Rep. John Boehner will join us with his perspective.
law enforcement, just for GPS alone. So the tool has
just really caught on fire with law enforcement. They also love
DEBATE: WHAT’S THE RIGHT WAY TO GET AMERICA BACK
that it is extremely inexpensive to operate and easy, so, just
TO WORK?
the sheer volume of requests they anticipate us automating

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Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR craig.kirchoff+fisccon@gmail.com 4 December 2009

other features, and I just don’t know how we’ll handle the information sought was more extensive than what could be obtained
millions and millions of requests that are going to come in. using a National Security Letter, which requires no judicial approval.
That makes it quite likely that it’s become legally easier to transform a
To be clear, that doesn’t mean they are giving law enforcement cell phone into a tracking device even as providers are making it point-
geolocation data on 8 million people. He’s talking about the wonderful and-click simple to log into their servers and submit automated location
automated backend Sprint runs for law enforcement, LSite, which allows queries. So it’s become much more urgent that the Justice Department
investigators to rapidly retrieve information directly, without the burden start living up to its obligation to start telling us how often they’re using
of having to get a human being to respond to every specific request for these souped-up pen/traps, and how many people are affected. In
data. Rather, says Sprint, each of those 8 million requests represents a congressional debates, pen/trap orders are invariably mischaracterized
time when an FBI computer or agent pulled up a target’s location data as minimally intrusive, providing little more than the list of times and
using their portal or API. (I don’t think you can Tweet subpoenas yet.) phone numbers they produced 30 years ago. If they’re turning into a
For an investigation whose targets are under ongoing realtime plug-and-play solution for lojacking the population, Americans ought to
surveillance over a period of weeks or months, that could very well add know about it.
up to hundreds or thousands of requests for a few individuals. So those 8
million data requests, according to a Sprint representative in the If you’re interested enough in this stuff to have made it through that
comments, actually “only” represent “several thousand” discrete cases. discussion, incidentally, come check out our debate at Cato this
afternoon, either in the flesh or via webcast. There will be a simultaneous
As Kevin Bankston argues, that’s not entirely comforting. The Justice “tweetchat” hosted by the folks at Get FISA Right.
Department, Soghoian points out, is badly delinquent in reporting on its
use of pen/trap orders, which are generally used to track
communications routing information like phone numbers and IP
addresses, but are likely to be increasingly used for location tracking. FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
And recent changes in the law may have made it easier for intelligence
agencies to turn cell phones into tracking devices. In the criminal Club Statement on White House
context, the legal process for getting geolocation information depends on
a variety of things—different districts have come up with different Jobs Summit [The Club for
standards, and it matters whether investigators want historical records
about a subject or ongoing access to location info in real time. Some Growth]
courts have ruled that a full-blown warrant is required in some DEC 03, 2009 10:01A.M.
circumstances, in other cases a “hybrid” order consisting of a pen/trap
order and a 2703(d) order. But a passage from an Inspector General’s v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
report suggests that the 2005 PATRIOT reauthorization may have made w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape
it easier to obtain location data: {behavior:url(#default#VML);} Normal 0 false false false false EN-US X-
NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-
After passage of the Reauthorization Act on March 9, 2006, style-name: ###
combination orders became unnecessary for subscriber
information and [REDACTED PHRASE]. Section 128 of the
Reauthorization Act amended the FISA statute to authorize
subscriber information to be provided in response to a pen
register/trap and trace order. Therefore, combination orders
for subscriber information were no longer necessary. In
addition, OIPR determined that substantive amendments to
the statute undermined the legal basis for which OIPR had
received authorization [REDACTED PHRASE] from the FISA
Court. Therefore, OIPR decided not to request [REDACTED
PHRASE] pursuant to Section 215 until it re-briefed the issue
for the FISA Court. As a result, in 2006 combination orders
were submitted to the FISA Court only from January 1, 2006,
through March 8, 2006.

The new statutory language permits FISA pen/traps to get more

information than is allowed under a traditional criminal pen/trap, with a
lower standard of review, including “any temporarily assigned network
address or associated routing or transmission information.” Bear in
mind that it would have made sense to rely on a 215 order only if the

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Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR craig.kirchoff+fisccon@gmail.com
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Palmer and Cowen on
Libertarianism [Cato at Liberty]
DEC 03, 2009 09:48A.M.
On Tuesday I hosted a Book Forum for Tom Palmer’s new book,
Realizing Freedom: Libertarian Theory, History, and Practice. You can
see the video here. I thought Tyler Cowen’s comments were very astute,
so I reproduce an abridged version here:
The first question is, “What do I, as a reader, see as the
essential unity or unities in the book?” And I see really two.
The first is I see this as a construction and articulation of a
vision of what I call reasonable libertarianism. I think we’re
in a world right now that is growing very partisan and very
rabid, and a lot of things which are called libertarian in the
Libertarian Party, or what you might call the Lew Rockwell /
Ron Paul camp, are to my eye not exactly where
libertarianism should be, and I think Tom has been a very
brave and articulate advocate of a reasonable libertarianism.
And if I ask myself, “Does the book succeed in this
endeavor?” I would say, “Yes.”
The second unity in the book, I think, has to do with the last
thirty years of world history. I know in the United States now
there is less liberty. But overall, the world as a whole, over the
last thirty years, has seen more movement towards more
liberty than perhaps in any other period of human history.
And I suspect most of these movements toward liberty will
last. So there have been these movements towards liberty,
and they have been motivated, in part, by ideas. The question
arises, which are the ideas that have been the important ones
for this last thirty years? And I view Tom’s book, whether he
intended it as such or not, as a kind of guide to which have
been the important ideas driving the last thirty years. And a
lot of the book goes back into history pretty far – the
eighteenth century, the Levellers, debates over natural rights
– and I think precisely because it takes this broader
perspective it is one of the best guides – maybe the best guide
– to what have been the most important ideas driving the last
thirty years (as opposed to the misleading ideas or the dead-
end ideas). So that’s my take on the essential unities.
Another question you might ask about a collection of essays
is, “Which of them did I like best?” I thought about this for a
while, and I have two nominations. The first one is “Twenty
Myths about Markets,” which is the essay on economics. I
don’t know any piece by an economist that does such a good
job of poking holes in a lot of economic fallacies and just
laying out what you hear so often. You would think an
economist would have written this long ago, but to the best of
my knowledge, not.
8
4 December 2009
The other favorite little piece of mine is called “Six Facts
about Iraq,” which explains from Tom’s point of view – and
Tom has been there a number of times – what’s going on in
Iraq and why. It is only a few pages long, but I felt that I got a
better sense of Iraq reading this short piece than almost
anything else I’ve come across.
I’m not sure exactly what’s the common element between the
two I liked best – they both start with a number – but I think
the ones I liked best reminded me the most of Tom when he
is talking. I had the sense of Tom being locked in a room, and
forced to address a question, and not being allowed to leave
until he had given his bottom line approach. And I think what
he’s very good at through out the book is just getting directly
to the point.
There’s more to Tyler’s comments, and lots more from both of them in
response to questions, so check out the video.
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Fact Sheet on the Death Tax
[The Club for Growth]
DEC 03, 2009 09:20A.M.
The Heritage Foundation just came out with a great fact sheet on the
Death Tax.
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Not So Intelligent Mail [Cato at
Liberty]
DEC 03, 2009 09:13A.M.
In 2003, the U.S. Postal Service initiated the Intelligent Mail program,
which would integrate thirty different barcode systems used by
commercial mailers into a single system. Ideally, the new barcode system
would improve efficiency, reduce costs, and improve timeliness of
delivery. However, a new report from the Government Accountability
Office details numerous problems with the program’s implementation
that are all-too-common in government:
• Delays. The entire program was supposed to have been deployed
by January 2009. Now it’s being done in phases, with the second
phase completed by the end of November. Key components of the
program have been “deferred,” including performance
measurement capabilities required by law. Greater automation of
the business mail verification process, which was one of the key
justifications for the program, has also been left out.
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR craig.kirchoff+fisccon@gmail.com 4 December 2009

• Cost Overruns. To incorporate all the components as originally

planned, the USPS will need to spend more money on a third
phase. However, the GAO says that program managers aren’t sure
money will be made available given the USPS’s poor financial
condition. The GAO also found that program managers didn’t
include all the costs associated with the program, and they
therefore “lack an accurate total cost estimate.”

• Poor Performance. The first phase is already being plagued by

operational problems. As of June 2009, 73 issues had been
identified by mailers and the USPS.

• Mismanagement. The GAO sensibly recommended that the

USPS define the program’s core requirements and use them as a
basis for developing reliable cost estimates. But in a prime example
of bureaucratic chutzpah, the USPS responded: “Any attempt to
define the ‘entire program’ and the cost associated is a waste of
funding and resources.”

• Fraud. There is no evidence of fraud yet, but the GAO notes that
“a conflict of interest exists because the prime contractor for the
development of the program also manages program management
office activities.”

Let’s rid ourselves of these problems and open mail delivery to

competition and eventually privatize the USPS. As President Obama
himself said in August, “UPS and FedEx are doing just fine…It’s the Post
Office that’s always having problems.”

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

Intelligence Squared Debate:

America, Mexico, and the Drug
War [Cato at Liberty]
DEC 03, 2009 09:03A.M.

Kudos to Jeff Miron, Andres Martinez and Fareed Zakaria for their
decisive win in the Intelligence Squared Debate, Is America to Blame for
Mexico’s Drug War?

For related Cato work, go here and here.