September 30, 2003

Should the Journalists Talk?

Reports on the Plame Affair say six journalists - two print, four broadcast - were shopped the story that Bob Novak eventually printed, the one that reveals the identity of a woman said to be a covert CIA operative of some sort. Glenn Reynolds, who is a lawyer, says Novak and the others ought to be subpoenaed and asked to name the source (or sources).

Subpoena him and the other reporters. Find out what happened. If somebody leaked, fire 'em. It's easy and it's fast, and it's legal. What's wrong with this idea? Why have a special rule for the press? Who else is allowed to go around saying that they have knowledge of a crime but won't talk?

You can't have a special rule on this for journalists, because journalists don't have special First Amendment rights, and anyway everyone is a journalist now, thanks to the Internet. This will be disturbing to professional journalists, but I don't see an alternative. And this is a national security leak, in wartime, right?

But here's the flip side of the issue: Should those six journalists voluntarily come forward and tell what they know - and burn the source? It's an interesting question. On CNN tonight, the insufferable Aaron Brown was asking the unavoidable David Gergen why the journalists hadn't already done stories about how someone was shopping the Wilson/Plame story around. But Brown assumes that all six of the reporters (or seven? - it isn't clear if Novak is one of the six) knew that other reporters also had been offered the story. If you are one of the six reporters, but you don't know about any of the others, there's just no way credible way to write the story. You can't write that the administration (or whoever-I'm guessing the CIA has dirty hands) is leaking a story that criminally blows a CIA covert operative's cover because you have no proof. All you have is your word that someone leaked the information to you. If you name the source, in a story accusing them of a crime, they can deny it - and sue you for libel. Unless you have tapes or an email - and I can't imagine the leaker was that stupid - you have no proof.

And if you don't name the source, all you have is a zero-source, first-person accusation with no evidence to back it up. No editor in their right mind would allow it to be published.

Now, though, the six reporters all know they aren't alone. The dynamic has changed. If the six work for six competing news organizations - I'm betting they do - then there is intense competition under way right now to break the story by finding the secondary sources and confirming evidence to expose the leaker. The problem is, the confirming sources are the other, rival, journalists. I suspect that, right now, there's a delicate dance going on in the executive suites of two major newspapers (NYT? WaPo?) and four news networks (CNN? Fox? NBC/MSNBC? ABC? CBS?) as each seeks to convince two of the others to collaborate on breaking the story and exposing the leaker.

Of course, the "leaker" could be merely a talkative idiot who didn't know Plame was a covert operative. As Jonah Goldberg remarks, "Wilson's wife is a desk jockey and much of the Washington cocktail circuit knew that already." If, as Goldberg and Clifford May assert, Plame's identity and work were already well known, there may really be no big story to tell.

The 'Apolitical' Ambassador at the Heart of the Plame Affair

Below are some excerpts from a speech given June 14 by retired Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV at a forum sponsored by the left-wing anti-war Education for Peace in Iraq Center. I transcribed them from the audio, which you can listen to here. (In case EPIC ever removes the ever-more-embarrasing audio file, I've downloaded it. If the link doesn't work, email me and I'll upload the file.)

Regarding the "16 words" controversy, Wilson talks about himself, weirdly, in the third person::

I can assure you that that retired American ambassador to Africa, as Nick Kristof calls him in his article, is also pissed off and has every intention of assuring that this story has legs. And I think it does have legs.

It may not have legs over the next two or three months, but when you see American casualties moving from one to five or to 10 per day and you see Tony Blair's government fall, because in the UK it is a big story, there will be some ramifications I think here in the United States. So I hope that you will do everything you can to keep the pressure on because it is absolutely bogus for us to have gone to war the way we did.

Of course we didn't find any terrorists when we got to Iraq, just as we haven't yet found any weapons of mass destruction, though on that score I remain of the view that we will find biological and chemical weapons and we may well find something that indicates that Saddam's regime maintained an interest in nuclear weapons - not surprising if you live in a part of the world where you do have a nuclear armed country, enemy of yours, that's just a country away from yours."

Wilson likens the "Shock and Awe" bombing of selected military and regime targets in Baghdad, done with great care to avoid civilian casualties as much as possible, to the firebombing of Dresden in World War II, and then says Iraqis had a reason to not greet American and British troops as liberators.

One should have assumed from the very beginning that they were not going to like being conquered by a couple of countries that were at the forefront of maintaining economic sanctions on the population for 12 long years, which economic sanctions devastated the middle class, the glue that holds a society together. This a proud people that we had already brought to its knees over 12 years.

Wilson says our swift and overwhelming military victory in Iraq "will come back to haunt us" as the Arab world now hates us and terrorist groups will find it easier to recruit new members.

Then, Wilson lays out an elaborate and startling prediction: that developments in Iraq and the Middle East and here at home will motivate President Bush to launch another war in 2004 in order to get re-elected. What follows is quotes and paraphrases of that prediction:

Next year I fully expect that you will see, next year at this time when we're four or five months out from the election, it's gonna be 120 degrees in Baghdad and you're going to see essentially the south will have been consolidated under Shia control and the question is whether that control will extend all the way up through Baghdad or will sort of stop at Baghdad's doors. I suspect it will be up into at least parts of Baghdad.

American casualties in these areas, particularly in the Sunni area, will grow from one or two a day to about ten, 15, 20 a day. You might well see a Beirut style bombing of a barracks or something like that.

The only thing the three groups will agree upon is their desire to have the United States out of there and out of the way because the presence of 100, 150, 200,000 American troops impedes their ability to do what the next step is for them.

The pressure here in the United States will begin to build because by that time Ariel Sharon will have made life so miserable for the Palestinians that you'll either see a de facto transfer occurring, the movement of Palestinians across into Jordan, or you will just see a lot of bloodshed. You will see Hamas just doing things every day, you'll see Israeli gunships... It will be not very pleasant for the President in the run-up to the campaign. So you'll have ten Americans dying every day in Iraq and you'll have the Middle East peace process in tatters, and the president who will find that it is increasingly difficult for him to run for reelection as Commander in Chief.

And of course at the same time you'll still have the American economy that is weak, unemployment will be up by perhaps another percent and people will be pretty unhappy. And we'll be looking at $500 to $600 billion deficits and we'll still be looking at tremendous trade deficits and all that will start to make people wonder about things like tax cuts and all that stuff we ought to be wondering about anyway. The President wants to run away from that. He doesn't want to run as President. He wants to run as Commander in Chief. so if the Commander in Chief stuff isn't working very well for him and the President stuff isn't working very well for him, what's he gonna do? Start another war.

He's lying.

UPDATE: Old link to speech audio doesn't work anymore. Here is the new link.

"I really am apolitical in all of this."

So says Joseph Wilson, the former ambassador who blames the White House for leaking information about his wife, supposedly a CIA covert operative of some sort.

Apolitical?

Wilson, writing in the March 3, 2003 edition of the leftist journal The Nation, parroted perfectly the anti-war crowd's views:

The upcoming military operation also has one objective, though different from the several offered by the Bush Administration. This war is not about weapons of mass destruction. The intrusive inspections are disrupting Saddam's programs, as even the Administration has acknowledged. Nor is it about terrorism. Virtually all agree war will spawn more terrorism, not less. It is not even about liberation of an oppressed people. Killing innocent Iraqi civilians in a full frontal assault is hardly the only or best way to liberate a people. The underlying objective of this war is the imposition of a Pax Americana on the region and installation of vassal regimes that will control restive populations.

What's the point of this new American imperialism? The neoconservatives with a stranglehold on the foreign policy of the Republican Party, a party that traditionally eschewed foreign military adventures, want to go beyond expanding US global influence to force revolutionary change on the region. American pre-eminence in the Gulf is necessary but not sufficient for the hawks. Nothing short of conquest, occupation and imposition of handpicked leaders on a vanquished population will suffice. Iraq is the linchpin for this broader assault on the region.

In the speech, Wilson says the Bush administration may well launch another war in 2004 to boost Bush's reelection changes.

Here's the transcript of an interview of Wilson by the ultra-liberal Bill Moyers on the eve of the recent Iraq war. And here is a Q&A with Wilson by Truthout, a left-wing publication. Funny - for an 'apolitical' guy, he seems awful quick to give interviews to left-wingers.

Here's the PDF-file transcript of an interview he gave to Lefty blogger Joshua Micah Marshall. Excerpt:

The older I get, the less conservative that I become, in my view. That I do think that government has a distinct role to play to level the playing field. I do believe that the Declaration of Independence creates essentially a meritocracy, and that it is the government's responsibility to ensure that all of its citizens have an opportunity to advance on merit. Where that puts you in the political spectrum is anybody's guess, but I am against the abolition of the estate tax. [Laughter] ... I believe that the Republican party has been betrayed. Its core values have been betrayed by this coalition of cultural conservatives and neoconservatives that now run the party...

UPDATE: Sparkey over at Sgt. Strkyer's Daily Briefing calls the whole thing "a manufactured smear job," notes several contradictions in the story, and remarks, "Mr. Wilson has a major problem keeping his lies straight." Read the whole link-filled thing. Also don't miss Donald Luskin's latest post on the Plame game and the emerging news that she's not really a covert op, just an analyst.

MORE: Backcountry Conservative has a good round-up of links to Plame-related coverage on various blogs.

STILL MORE: Daniel Drezner weighs in. with a Plame round-up, and remarks, "I don't see a fire just yet." In the reader comments under the post, the first commenter, Michael Parker, has some astute observations:

My take: Novak's piece did *not* say that the administration sources claimed she was CIA undercover. Novak mentioned her maiden name and that she "is an agency operative on [WMD]", and in the next sentence makes only the claim that the two admin officials told him that Wilson's wife recommended him for the mission. He does not claim that he got the "agency operative" info from the administration sources, and he does not claim in the article that she is an undercover operative.

Wilson and the various lefty bloggers have been running around screaming scandal, but that don't make it so. It certainly seems plausible to me that if Clifford May's take is correct, then all Novak was doing was providing background for his slightly-less-informed readers on why her recommendation of Wilson would have carried weight at the White House.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: John Hawkins has a long, link-filled round-up of the Plame affair and says Wilson "has now climbed most of the way down from his original story." He also notes a Drudge report that Wilson recently donated $1,000 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. (I can't find the link for that on Drudge.) But remember, Joseph Wilson is "apolitical in all this." Because he said so.

UPDATE: Old link to speech audio doesn't work anymore. Here is the new link.

September 28, 2003

TABOR Update

Steve Carithers of the Tennessee Tax Revolt organization writes to announce that there is going to be a town hall meeting in Newport, Tennessee, to present a proposed Taxpayers Bill of Rights for Cocke County. The meeting is scheduled for 5 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 14, at the Newport high school gymnasium. Taxpayers Bill of Rights legislation typically includes a cap on the growth of government spending, a requirement that excess revenue be returned to taxpayers via a tax cut or rebate, and a requirement that tax increases be submitted to a public vote. Carithers says state Sen. Jim Bryson and state Rep. Glen Casada, sponsors of TABOR legislation in the state legislature, are going to be at the Newport meeting as will the mayor of Spring Hill, Ray Williams. Spring Hill recently adopted a local TABOR law.

Meanwhile, here's a story from the Columbia Daily Herald on Sen. Bryson's speech to the Spring Hill Chamber of Commerce last week about his legislation to enact a Taxpayers Bill of Rights for the state of Tennessee. Excerpt:

State Sen. Jim Bryson told members of the Spring Hill Chamber of Commerce Thursday the best way to stop the epidemic of government overspending is an amendment to the state constitution similar to Spring Hill's "Taxpayer Bill of Rights."

The Franklin Republican noted that while, in recent years, there has been a 5.5-percent average annual increase in Tennesseans' income, state spending has increased by 7.3 percent each year.

While Bryson did not give specific details or formulas he will include in the amendment, he said his plan will cap the growth of state spending. Allowing state spending to grow only as fast as inflation and the state's population growth. If the state General Assembly needed more money, legislators would have to put the request before voters in the form of a referendum.

"We need to do the same thing in the state as we do at home and in our businesses, living with the revenue that's coming in," Bryson said.

With the spending cap, lawmakers would have to prioritize and stop spending when the money runs out, Bryson said.

"It forces the government to communicate to the people ... It's all about setting up priorities and making government accountable," he said.

Also read A Decade of TABOR, a review of the impact of Colorado's landmark Taxpayers Bill of Rights, by public policy analyst Fred Holden, published by the Independence Institute, a non-partisan Colorado think tank.

September 26, 2003

Timing is Everything Seven elderly

Seven elderly people died in a fire at a Nashville nursing home late last night and 20 were critically injured from burns and smoke inhalation. The building had no sprinklers because it's an old building that was built before sprinklers were required by law. Okay. But what I want to know is: Why would a company that operates nursing homes put frail elderly people to live in a building without sprinklers? What were they thinking?

The fire story also made me think of this story which I found two days ago thanks to Les Jones's blog, about an initiative in Tennessee to install 24,000 smoke alarms in "day-care centers and other places where the young and elderly are most at risk."

Smoke detectors are a good idea. But sprinklers are a better idea. And not housing frail elderly people in a building without sprinklers would be the best idea of all. Otherwise, all those smoke detectors will do is wake up granny so she can be a part of a scene like this:

Robert Burks, of Franklin, who had been passing by, described what he called ''a nightmarish scene'' of watching frail residents banging on windows from the inside trying to get out. Burks said he felt absolutely helpless. He said the frantic residents were in smoke-filled rooms banging on the windows for at least 25 minutes.

If they'd only cared enough to either install sprinklers or move the residents to a safer place.

September 23, 2003

Iraq & al Qaeda: The Evidence Mounts

I missed this yesterday, but here is a very thorough examination of the evidence of the links between Saddam Hussein's regime and the al Qaeda terrorist organization, courtesy of the Wall Street Journal. Excerpt:

One of the more interesting pieces of postwar evidence was uncovered in Baghdad by reporters for the Toronto Star and London's Sunday Telegraph. The February 19, 1998, memo from Iraqi intelligence, in which bin Laden's name was covered over with Liquid Paper, reported planned meetings with an al Qaeda representative visiting Baghdad. Days later al Qaeda issued a fatwa alleging U.S. crimes against Iraq. At about the same time, a U.S. government source tells Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard, Iraq paid bin Laden deputy Ayman Zawahiri $300,000.

It's also worth remembering there's a mountain of evidence pointing to the possibility that Saddam was involved in the April 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City that killed 168 Americans. There's also evidence Saddam was involved in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.

Economy Update: No Housing Bubble

It looks like the much-hyped "real estate bubble" isn't a problem after all. USA Today:

Gluts of unsold new homes have been earmarks of every big real estate bust in the last quarter century. But tighter inventory control by builders and the people who finance them, coupled with high demand, has squeezed the availability of finished homes just about everywhere. It's not a guarantee against disastrous overbuilding in the future. But housing economists say for now the lean inventory is a strong prop for high home values. "It's an unequivocally good thing," says Amy Crews Cutts, economist at mortgage investor Freddie Mac.

Sky-high demand may be enough to knock down the number of available new houses. But, says Carl Reichardt, industry analyst at Wachovia Securities in San Francisco, the hot market is masking a fundamental change that will linger long after things cool: less speculative construction. "Finishing a new house before it's sold is in decline," says Reichardt.

The most recent Census Bureau numbers show one key measure of new homes available for sale as low as it's been at any time in the last 40 years — a 3½-month supply at the current sales rate.

Homeowners can take some comfort from that. The biggest regional housing busts of the last 25 years — Texas in the 1980s and Southern California and the Northeast in the early 1990s — shared a common characteristic: a huge number of unsold new homes that depressed home values for everyone. As the Texas real estate market was about to tank, for example, the supply of unsold new homes nationally stood at a record high — nearly 12 months' worth.

Today's ultralean supply "ought to mean more stability in current home prices, and it ought to cushion price declines in the future," Reichardt says.

Home builders don't typically make public the number of homes they sell before construction. But Reichardt estimates that eight publicly traded national companies will presell 45% of their output this year, vs. 26% in 1994.

For home builders who have managed to eliminate or reduce speculative building, the payoff can be considerable. Preselling leaves open the possibility of enticing the customer with profit-increasing upgrades. By closing the sale the moment construction is complete, interest charges on the money borrowed to build don't cut into profit.

September 19, 2003

The Future of Journalism

This report, We Media: How audiences are shaping the future of news and information, looks interesting. I'll read it and blog on it later. I found it via The Weblog Blog on the American Press Institute's website, which looks to be a fairly strong source for news on blogging as journalism. UPDATE: Chapter 3 covers blogging. The whole report will eventually be online here in HTML.

September 18, 2003

Colorado TABOR Updates

No suprise: The Denver Post, which has never liked the Colorado constitutional amendment known as the Taxpayers Bill of Rights, blames it for the city government of Denver's fiscal mess in this editorial.

But this is a surprise - the Rocky Mountain News favors the taxing-and-spending limitation known as TABOR, but this story quotes only people who wish the change that amendment and water it down. How about some balance in the coverage, guys? Surely you could find one TABOR supporter to quote?

TABOR limits the state to keeping only revenue growth up to a level determined by inflation and population growth, with surpluses returned to taxpayers via tax cuts or rebates. Opponents, like the Denver Post, like to claim the amendment has a "ratchet down" effect that, during recessions when revenue doesn't grow even that fast, "locks" the state into lower spending levels in future years. The Post in its editorial says "the state needs to be allowed to return revenue collection and spending to pre-recession levels to restore basic programs. ... TABOR - the amendment will lock in today's depressed spending levels into the indefinite future." But it's a smokescreen for a campaign to render TABOR toothless. As Jon Caldara, president of the Independence Institute think tank in Colorado, explains

If the economy heats up again, TABOR has a built-in mechanism that allows government to keep all the excess tax revenue it wants, even if there is budget "ratcheting." All they have to do is ask you if they can keep it. That's it. TABOR-haters were disappointed that when they asked you to keep surplus tax money before, you sometimes said no. So they don't want to you to have that choice anymore. They are afraid you might say no again. And they don't think no should mean no. They want to legalize fiscal date rape.

Meanwhile, the Vail Daily has a good explanation of how TABOR works at the local level with this story about some local ballot issues involving taxes.

Thanks to readers Ben Cunningham and Jason Currey for sending me the links to the Post, RMN and Vail Daily stories.

September 15, 2003

A Hyped Poll Says Nothing Surprising

Reader Jason Currey emailed me the link to an interesting story from today's Rocky Mountain News about a poll of Coloradans' attitudes about the state's Taxpayers Bill of Rights amendment, which forces tax cuts or rebates if tax revenue growth exceeds the growth rate of inflation and population.

According to the story:

Coloradans like the money that ends up back in their pockets when the state is flush with revenue, but a surprising number might be willing to give up some of it. In a recent poll, 46 percent of respondents said they like the TABOR Amendment, which mandates those taxpayer refunds, the way it is. They don't want it changed. But a surprising 43 percent would let the government keep the surplus - provided they would still get to vote on tax increases, according to the random telephone sampling of 402 Coloradans. The poll, taken for an unidentified client by Talmey-Drake Research and Strategy Inc., has a plus or minus error margin of 4.9 percentage points.

Because of recent tough economic times that have forced state lawmakers to trim or shift more than $2 billion in tax spending from this and last year's budget, a number of people are looking at changing the Taxpayers' Bill of Rights and other budget-restrictive laws. State Treasurer Mike Coffman, the Bell Policy Center, the Bighorn Institute and state lawmakers all are studying the interaction among TABOR, school funding under Amendment 23, and residential property tax restrictions under the Gallagher Amendment. TABOR, approved by voters in 1992, lets voters decide on tax increases and limits government spending. The government itself can increase spending only by inflation and growth - and all excess taxes collected must be returned to taxpayers.

That amounted to $927.2 million in 2002, based on surplus money in the 2000-01 fiscal year - an average return of $207 per person. There is no surplus to return this year or next, however, because of the state's tight fiscal situation. 'We don't expect to have refunds going out again until 2007, based on our most recent fiscal estimates," said Nancy McCallin, chief budget officer for Gov. Bill Owens.

... Wade Buchanan, president of the Bell Policy Center, a research and advocacy group that has studied TABOR, said the poll shows people are willing to consider changing TABOR.

The RMN story is much ado about nothing, 'cept there are those in Colorado pushing to "reform" TABOR to the point of meaninglessness, so that state government can resume its profligate ways.

One more point. The RMN story says "recent tough economic times ... have forced state lawmakers to trim or shift more than $2 billion in tax spending from this and last year's budget," and blames it largely on the $927.2 million rebate. But that's not exactly true. Two years ago. the Colorado legislature was supposed to return $927 million in surplus tax revenue to taxpayers - but the legislature instead delayed the rebate one year and spent the money on a list of capital construction projects.

Colorado then had to refund that $927 million to taxpayers in fiscal year 2002, but the economy had slowed and revenue growth had slowed. The legislators had gambled that the economy would produce enough revenue growth to fund the delayed rebate, and they were wrong. That $927 million delayed rebate to taxpayers made up most of Colorado's billion-dollar revenue shortfall in fiscal year 2002. Had the legislature rebated the money a year earlier instead of spending, the FY 2002 shortfall would have been negligible.

Are Blogs Journalism? One Reporter's Answer

Today's Rocky Mountain News has a good report on blogging in Colorado, and the story manages to mention a lot of Colorado blogs rather than the usual big-name blogs. The story also considers the question of whether weblogs are journalism, and comes down firmly on the side of "maybe."

David Slayden, associate professor of journalism and mass communications at the University of Colorado comments on blogging:

"It's not pretending to be objective coverage of issues. I think everybody knows that going in. Maybe they're columnists. When we have a very large quotient of news filtered through PR agencies, what is news, anyway?

"The value of blogging, for journalists, is to look at this and say, 'Why?' It's very hip to say, 'We don't trust the mainstream media,' especially the 18- to 24-year olds. It's very interesting to see what they're interested in, what's their traction, what do people respond to, not as competition for news but an insight into the audience."

September 12, 2003

Are Blogs Journalism? They Should Be

Editor & Publisher columnist Steve Outing says it's time for newspapers to blog hard news on their websites

One of the most common criticisms of newspaper web sites is that they aren't timely enough. Sure, we're long past the days when newspapers held on to news till the presses rolled for the print edition rather than publishing right away online. But most newspaper sites still don't treat breaking news with a publish-right-this-minute mentality. The thinking remains rooted in a print-based past - a story is published only when it's completely finished. OK, now combine that thought with the concept of the weblog, or blog. It's time for increasing the speed of news sites - to that of television news - and weblogs are the way to do it. And it's time to stop thinking of blogs mostly in the realm of feature and opinion content, and move the concept into breaking news.

By now, I hope it's accepted by most everyone in the news industry that weblogs are not a fad. The blog is a legitimate form of online content with many useful news applications. Till now, the few news web sites that have experimented with weblogs have used them more for "feature" content than for hard news. But it's time to push the envelope to blogging hard news.

September 10, 2003

Digital Freedom Update

Jody Leavell files this report from today's Tennessee legislative hearing on legislation that will limit your digital freedoms. Here it is:

The Cable Industry and BellSouth lobbyists were attending prominently. Some of them are:

Curtis Person, III (son of Senator Person)
Tony Thompson (MPAA lobbyist)
Stacy Briggs (representative for Cable Industry Association)
Anne Carr (lobbyist for cable industry)
Jim Spears (lobbyist for BellSouth)
Barry Counts (lobbyist for Sprint)

The Tennessee Digital Freedom Network had three members present with Scott Kozicki speaking.

David Mills was representing Vanderbilt University.

Senator Person chaired the initial organization of the committee which selected Senator Trail as the official Chairperson and Senator Odom as the Vice-Chair. The Senate Rules were adopted to govern all proceedings.

A review of what the bill was about and what the conflicts were was discussed. Senator Trail recalled that he felt like he needed a translator when listening to all those college kids who opposed the bill. Stacy Briggs was asked to reiterate the goals of the Cable Industry. Scott Kozicki was asked to present the objections of consumers represented through TNDF. Senator Trail asked that Scott and Stacy prepare a list of those things they couldn't work out in the last session to avoid covering ground they already agreed upon. Some mention was made among the committee that the original form of the bill should be thrown out and everyone start from scratch. Representative Briley commented that the style of the original bill was intended to keep up with the evolving technology so they don't have to amend it every two or three years. Some mention of a schedule for this fall was made but not formally decided upon. The next meeting I believe was scheduled. The meeting was adjourned and the various players set about discussing ideas off the record. The state's legal counsel was present and spent several minutes speaking with Anne Carr and Tony Thompson.

From what I heard the Cable industry is still the lead proponent of the same legislation introduced this past session commonly referred to as the "Telecommunications Theft of Service Bill". But BellSouth, Sprint, and the MPAA were sitting in their camp. The legislators still do not see that it is about more then preventing cable service theft. Stacy Briggs presented nothing new, which indicates the industry hasn't changed its mind on the issue at all. I do remember Senator Trail commenting several times about the similarity to what they want and what the record companies are doing[suing] to young kids they accuse of theft of music. TNDF will get together to list the issues they will not budge on, including(most likely) that the wording of the bill not contain any of the original language. It is definitely time to get organized again to oppose the industries attempt to legalize anti-competitive business practices and usurp basic civil rights.

Now my two cents worth: The legislators need to be made aware of the larger debate surrounding new communications technology and the regulatory framework they operate in. They need to see how consumers rights must be placed first in the discussion, ahead of the industries need to protect itself. As long as monopolies are granted to the industry they will have to live with the quid-pro-quo of the regulatory world. What the state legislators do today may conflict with what the federal regulators do in the future, which is uncertain right now. It is a short stretch to link the industry attempts in the Super DMCA laws to their attempts to have the FCC grant them rights to dominate local media markets. We all know what a hot potato that has become. The overall threat to freedom from such strategic moves is real and the people are quickly catching on.

September 9, 2003

Digital Freedom Update

The folks intent on making it legal for the cable television industry to control what digital video recorders you connect to your cable outlet, and bar you from using a wireless hub to share your cable Internet connection with more than one PC in your house, are still trying to pass their lousy legislation in Tennessee. Sidelines, the student newspaper at Middle Tennessee State University, has the details

The penalties for stealing Internet service will be debated in a joint committee of the Senate and House of the Tennessee General assembly, at their first meeting Wednesday. The special study committee was formed after House Bill 457 and Senate Bill 213 received more criticism than expected.

Much of the controversy surrounding the bill comes from its ambiguity. Its opponents have said that in its original form, it specifically limited the types of devices one could use to connect to the Internet. Even the amended bill allows Internet service providers to specify what devices can and cannot be used with the Internet service, according to its opponents.

'It's not about theft of service, it's about control,' Jay Kosturko of the Tennessee Digital Freedom Network said.

Advocates of the bill say the opponents just don't understand the purpose of the bill, but they have been quick to offer amendments to satisfy these opponents. "We're trying to protect communications service providers," said Stacey Briggs, executive director of the Tennessee Cable Telecommunications Association. The intent of the bill has been misunderstood, and there is a lot of misinformation about the bill, Briggs said.

"It's a felony to use an unauthorized access device," Kosturko said. The service provider could make virtually any device unauthorized and therefore dictate what hardware the user connected to the service and what software they used over that service, he said.

I'll keep you posted, as I did earlier this year on the progress of the same freedom-destroying legislation. You can find a complete list of all my earlier coverage of HB 457 and SB 213 here, courtesy of the Tennessee Digital Freedom Network, which is leading the good fight against this very bad legislation. TDFN guys: If you're reading this, please keep me posted on developments and I'll be sure to link to them here.

September 3, 2003

Colorado TABOR: The Results Are In

The Independence Institute, a Colorado think tank, has recently released the results of a study of the impact of the Taxpayers Bill of Rights a decade after it was adopted by voters in that state. Here is the summary:

Pre-TABOR, government jobs grew slightly more than business or total employment. After TABOR, business job growth nearly doubled that of government job growth.

The TABOR surplus rebate mechanism returned to taxpayers some $3.25 billion over five years, fiscal 1997 to 2001, amounting to about $800 per capita-$3,200 for an average family of four. TABOR is a success. It passed its own test to reasonably contain growth of Colorado government, taxing and spending.

Here's a link to the whole report. And here is its conclusion:

For the first three years after passage of the TABOR amendment, the state did not exceed the revenue limitation so no surpluses were available, therefore no tax rebates. “In Fiscal Years 1996-97 through 2000-01, state revenues exceeded the TABOR limitation by $139.0 million, $563.2 million, $679.6 million, $941.1 million and $927.2 million, respectively.” This totals $3.25 billion returned to taxpayers, or a rough per capita estimate of a little over $800 - $3,200 for a family of four, during those five years.

Unfortunately, the legislature and the governor resorted to accounting gimmicks on the TABOR refund. As TABOR began to produce a surplus in 1997, to be distributed back to Colorado taxpayers, the General Assembly passed and Governor Romer signed HB98-1414, to postpone “this year’s excess.”

Apparently the legislature expected to use the next year’s excess to make the required refund. Using next year’s revenue to pay for this year’s refund worked fine until 2002-2003’s serious revenue downturn, when a refund was due, but there was no excess revenue. The 2002-2003 fiscal squeeze was a direct result of the 1998 legislature’s irresponsible decision to use an accounting trick so that spending could be increased. The 2003 legislature would have had a much easier budget session if the 1998 legislature had acted responsibly.

The TABOR Amendment of 1992 has worked well to achieve its stated intention to “slow government growth.” What TABOR really did was stop excess government growth. TABOR did not stop reasonable government growth; as we have seen, government continued to grow at the rate of population-plus-inflation. TABOR is simply undoing the spending spree of the 1980’s, not shrinking government to unrealistic levels. TABOR encourages elected officials to better set priorities and resist heavy special interest lobbying pressures. TABOR frees up capital in the private sector to create more wealth-creating jobs that boost productivity and output. Here are the TABOR results:

• Private sector job creation more than doubled while government job growth held steady.

• An average Colorado family paid about $16,700 less in state taxes during TABOR’s first decade.

• Per capita state taxes and spending growth had been growing far faster than inflation-plus-population. That extreme growth rate was halted.

• State government growth was very much in line with population-plus-inflation.

TABOR has succeeded. TABOR did not wreck the state economy or the state government, as its opponents had predicted. Instead, private-sector job creation and the state government were able to grow at a reasonable pace. Colorado families were able to retain much more of the fruits of their labor.

UPDATE: Independence Institute President Jon Caldara comments on the Taxpayers Bill of Rights:

The Taxpayer's Bill of Rights enjoys a love-hate relationship in Colorado. Taxpayers love it, and those who like to spend other people's money hate it.

You see, there is a well-funded effort, made to look like "consensus building," to dismantle TABOR. That's why you are going to hear a lot more TABOR- bashing in the next year or so.

And they're going insult you by saying that you didn't really understand what you were voting on back in 1992.

But, in fact TABOR did exactly what it promised to do. It limited the growth of government to population and inflation. Over the last decade inflation and population grew by 63 percent in Colorado. The size of state government grew by about 64 percent.

During the overheated late 1990s, the TABOR rebate mechanism returned $3.25 billion in state tax overpayments; that's about $800 for every man, woman and child, or $3,200 per family of four.

And if the economy heats up again, TABOR has a built-in mechanism that allows government to keep all the excess tax revenue it wants, even if there is budget "ratcheting." All they have to do is ask you if they can keep it. That's it.

TABOR-haters were disappointed that when they asked you to keep surplus tax money before, you sometimes said no. So they don't want to you to have that choice anymore.

They are afraid you might say no again. And they don't think no should mean no. They want to legalize fiscal date rape.

So why are we in a budget squeeze? In 2000 voters passed Amendment 23, which mandated increases in K-12 educational spending, even in slow economic times when there aren't any tax surpluses, squeezing out all other programs like higher education, corrections and health care. It's no wonder why the state budget is in trouble.

And TABOR had nothing to do with it.

September 2, 2003

Taxing Stuff

I'm catching up on some reading and found an interesting post from Donald Sensing about a Christian's duty vis a vis taxes, and whether the governor of Alabama ought to "be allowed to shape tax policy explicitly upon Christianity."

It's true that Alabama Gov. Don Riley is pushing his tax reform plan - which is also a massive tax increase - as a Christian plan. And it's true that University of Alabama law professor Susan Pace Hamill has written a law review article supporting the view that tax policy must be based on Christian theology. (I wrote about her before here and here.)

Some more observations: While spending the Labor Day weekend in Gulf Shores, Alabama, this weekend, I learned that Gov. Riley's tax proposal is trailing badly in the public opinion polls. And that's important because the tax plan is up for a public vote in a statewide referendum scheduled for, I think, Sept. 9. Now, I don't know the particulars of the Riley tax reform/increase plan. I don't know if it is more or less fair, or will be good or bad for the state's economy. I don't know if it violates the state's constitution. I do know, however, that it is right that the people of Alabama get to vote on it.

For four years, Tennesseans faced the threat of the imposition of a state income tax, pushed by then-Gov. Don Sundquist, even though the state constitution does not authorize the legislature to tax incomes (and in fact explicitly lists it as a tax that neither the legislature nor local governments may impose.) I thought the governor's specific proposals also did not meet the fairness test, and would be economically damaging to the state - but also wrote newspaper columns (here and here) suggesting a way to reform the Tennessee tax code and create an income tax that would be fair, constitutional, and not damaging to the state's economy. One key part: a referendum, which in fact would be required to amend the state constitution to allow an income tax.

One other facet I pushed for, regardless of the tax structure: a Taxpayers Bill of Rights, which would give the people of Tennessee the right to vote on all future tax increases and creation of new taxes.

Having pushed for that right for Tennesseans - an unfinished battle, by the way - I can't fault the people of Alabama if they vote for Riley's plan, regardless of what I may think about the flimsy theology of it. Given the latest opinion polls, I suspect the Riley tax reform/increase plan will fail spectacularly, but if it passes, that's okay too, because it is what the people of Alabama will have chosen.

MEANWHILE, in a related item, reader Jason Currey sends this link to a story out of Colorado about how the elected officials there are trying to convince their constituents to give up their Taxpayers Bill of Rights protections.

UPDATE: The link Mr. Currey sent appears to be dead now, but here's a link to a letter-to-the-editor prompted by that article.