Congressional Clunkers

It was supposed to help jump-start the auto industry, as well as help the environment.

The big-budget Car Allowance Rebate System—“CARS” in governmental acronymic; “cash for clunkers” in the vernacular—was a billion-dollar system intended to last through October. Low-mileage but otherwise perfectly operable cars were to be cashiered—literally crushed out of existence—in exchange for a $4,500 rebate. This rebate would be redeemed at car dealerships, and used to encourage customers to buy new cars from an auto industry in such serious trouble that much of it is owned by the Goverment.

It started last week, on July 24th.

Of course, destroying all those perfectly usable cars means that the price for a used car is likely to skyrocket—meaning that people needing to buy a cheap car (such as college kids, or the poor), may well be priced out of the market.

It also means that a lot of cheap used parts that used to be available to fix cars in need of repair won’t be available—driving up the cost of maintenance.

And as far as I know, nobody has studied whether destroying a quarter-million cars and replacing them with brand new ones, built in pollution-emitting factories, results in a net benefit to the environment.

Now, a week later, the program is out of money—possibly leaving dealerships holding the bag for all those now-destroyed cars. That probably won’t be much of a help for any of them. Or, for that matter, for the auto industry...unless all those customers who were rushing for all that free cash actually were new customers who materialized out of thin air, rather than people who just moved their purchase ahead by a few months to try to pick up some of the "free money" that the Government was tossing around.

Maybe it’s just me. But it seems funny that the geniuses in Washington couldn’t anticipate that giving away "free money" wouldn’t result in people making a mad rush to claim it. (Of course, I keep thinking that the money isn't really free: it comes from taxpayers---many of whom would probably rather just keep it in their own pockets. Of course, I'm not looking at it from the lofty perspective of Congress).

And...I guess maybe it is just me. But the fact that a program designed to last four months ran out of money in less than a week doesn’t exactly make me anxious to see just how accurate the cost projections for health care reform turn out to be.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Self-Interest and the Public Good

There is always much talk about the "public good." Unfortunately, those doing the talking are often talking in code...and somehow the code usually involves spending lots of money.

The "public" doesn't just include the poor. It includes all of us...including Wall Street, agri-businesses, tobacco farmers, and everyone else with their hand out, or looking to accept the pork barrel spending of Congress, and willing to "ante up" for the privilege. But while everyone was quick to point to the abuses and failures in the welfare system, few people noticed that exactly the same effect was being produced further up the ladder. It's just a lot more expensive---and, until now, it was largely hidden from view.

If we're dealing with a small group---a family, a tribe, a town---we don't have the same problems. When everyone knows everyone else, there are fewer opportunities to shaft your neighbor, since there is a human face to the person you're cheating, and it's impossible to avoid detection, anyway. Once we move to larger communities, or big countries like the modern United States, then "taking" from someone else becomes an anonymous act. And if you can structure the law in such a way as to make theft of other people's money completely legal, it can become all too tempting to rationalize away any moral dilemmas about doing so. When legalized theft becomes the norm---and, I think, much of what we've seen on Wall Street and Capitol Hill qualifies---then the country is in big trouble. It leads to a sense of entitlement to the fruits of other people's labors, and crossing that threshold is a dangerous step for any country...especially a democracy.

There is nothing wrong with helping the poor, or trying to structure the government in such a way as to assist those in need. But when the system needs saints to work properly---presuming that no one would ever try to claim by right what they haven't really earned, and everyone is honest and honorable in their dealings with others---then it can't work on a large scale. That's why primitive communism can work in a family setting---or perhaps in a religious setting, where people are bound collectively together by a common faith---but it can never work as a basis for a complex society.

Any civilized nation needs to strike a balance between collective action and personal liberty. But there has always been a cycle to the lifespan of any democratic society in the past. And I'm afraid that without some far-sighted and resolute action, of a kind we haven't seen since our Founding and which I don't see on the horizon today, we may be nearing a major turning point...away from liberty, and toward dependence on a beneficent and all-knowing government. Sixty years ago, we called it "Big Brother," and it seemed a chilling portrait of a way of life that could never be; today, I'm not so sure.


JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

The Curse of Interesting Times

America is facing turbulent times and major challenges these days. Facing hostile enemies abroad, and economic and social challenges at home, we are faced---as in the ancient Chinese curse---with the prospect of living in "interesting times."

To be honest...and I hate to say this...but many of our current problems just reflect the reality that our country---or, at the least, the "elites" that define our country for us---has become. When Society started deeming it more important to protect "self-esteem" than to be concerned about accomplishments, I think we entered a very dangerous stretch of history.

Among the critical moments in a democracy is when the public realizes that it can vote itself money from the public treasury. For us, that moment came during the Great Depression, when we first turned to the Government to rescue us from an internal crisis. Over the last 75 years, we've seen the role of government gradually expanding, at the same time that cultural influences were undercutting our traditional notions of personal responsibility. Now, I think we're facing yet another critical moment...and it's not looking pretty.

At heart, I remain a hopeless romantic, and so I'm still not convinced that things will end in disaster. I hope, instead, that the public will recoil from the spectacles we see in Washington and Wall Street...cashier the lot of them...and start anew, having been chastened about being too trusting when it comes to spending public money. But I've also read about the various stages of development in a democracy---from Despotism to Liberty and back again---and we do seem to be a bit more than half-way through the cycle. And just as Rome collapsed as a result of its own excesses (and was promptly overrun by barbarians), I don't think America is immunve from the same fate, if we let ourselves be guided by our greed and passions, rather than our ideals and principles.


JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Symptoms of the Times

As the American republic was taking shape, the Founders conceived of the primary purpose of Government to be the protection of Liberty. This is why they placed strict limits on the central government, and were highly suspicions of centralized power. They wanted power close to the people, figuring that it would be easier to keep the government within its proper constraints. They also deemed "power" to be the enemy of liberty, and warned that people had to be constantly vigilant to ensure that "tyranny" never took root on American soil. For this reason, the federal government was consigned to duties that were "national" in scope---mostly defense and interstate commerce. Most important issues of public concern---including questions of public safety, welfare, and morality---were deemed the province of state or local government. And it was assumed that the fruits of one's labor belonged to the one who earned it.

Today, many of us seem to view the primary purpose of Government to be providing services to its citizens. The centralized Federal Government has largely taken over most issues of public importance, with the non-elected judiciary assuming an ever-greater voice in settling questions of public policy. And we are standing on the verge of a massive expansion of the Federal Government: having now largely taken over the auto and financial services industries, it is asserting a claim to take over and centralize the health care industry as well. Rather than looking to themselves to solve their problems, raise their families, and set their destiny, more and more people are looking to the Government to provide answers and solutions to whatever seems to be going wrong in society.

This trajectory of events bodes ill for the entire country. It tends to foster ever-greater dependence on the Government. And once the majority comes to view the power to tax as the power and means to redistribute wealth, it's a small step to Big Brother...where the Government controls every aspect of our lives.

Today, the current Health Care proposals seem to be shaping up as critical indicators: if our reforms move us more toward reestablishing the connection between the consumer (ie, the patient) and the provider (ie, the doctor)—moving to restore some semblance of a market, where decisions are made based on individual need and professional judgment—then we may be able to stave off disaster for another few generations...and let them carry the ball when they come of age. If, on the other hand, we move in the direction of centralized control, bureaucratic decision-making, and bean-counters in charge of medical decisions, then we may be seeing the beginning of the end for the American experiment in democracy.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Exceptionalism and American Politics

There is much talk these days about American "exceptionalism"---the notion that America has been, throughout her history, different than other countries. While it's possible to overstate the differences, for more than two centuries this has been true...though, sadly, the differences are becoming harder to see.

The notion of "American exceptionalism" doesn't imply that the Founders were perfect. It merely recognizes that there was something unique about America---or the American experience---that made it different from Europe. It may have been the fact that people had to pull together to survive on the frontier; or the unique blend of Enlightenment thinking, frontier life, traditions of English liberty (such as they were circa 1700), and the chance for a fresh start an ocean away from the problems of the Old World. It's why America offered hope for the rest of the world...and why we often tend to look at things differently than most other countries.

Today, though, it often seems that we're becoming what we rebelled against: power is concentrating, abetted by corporate interests, who have their own reason for wanting a strong central government(it's easier to deal with than strong, innovative, and rising competitors), our politicians are becoming corrupted by it (a notion well known to the Founders...and one of the things that drove them crazy about being governed by England), and in some ways we're starting to become "just another country," rather than remaining true to our core principles, and the things that made us so different.

Of course, principles are often in the eye of the beholder. At the time of the Founding, English law drew distinctions between natural rights (eg, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness), civil rights (eg, owning property, being able to contract), and political rights (eg, the right to vote, or sit on a jury), and a citizen's standing in the community determined how many of these rights he enjoyed. The Bill of Rights was intended to protect us from encroachments by the Federal Government, by imposing strict limits on Federal power, and up until the Supreme Court effectively rewrote the constitution in the 1960s, we made similar distinctions: while the "natural rights" were deemed part of every American's political heritage, the rest were deemed to be matters under state control. Unfortunately, the same problems that led to the Civil War also led to problems there: the South refused to grant full citizenship to blacks, which caused problems two hundred years ago, and vestiges of those problems remain today. In addition, the modern world presents its own challenges, the leaders we elect aren't always the wisest among us, and the world keeps pushing us along the path of least resistance---ie, the tendency to put problems off until later, and to elect politicians who make the biggest promises. As a result, things are a bit muddled today, as we sort through the proper relationships between state and federal power...and this has presented fertile grounds for mischief for the ambitious.

There are, however, dangers arising from trusting to a strong central government to protect us from strong, centralized corporate power. In the end, their common interest in controlling their environment is likely to make them allies, rather than antagonists...viewing the people more as pesky whiners rather than the people the Government is supposed to serve. And with the corruption rampant in Washington, I don't think we can really trust Congress to look out for our interests: regardless of party, they're mostly out for themselves...and even with the best of intentions, the concentration of power there is too seductive for most of them to resist.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

And That's the Way It Was

There are many things we take for granted in this world. And many things that, when they are no longer, makes us feel old, or dated.

Walter Cronkite died yesterday.

He was the voice of the news for most of my earlier years---from when I was a kid, through law school, and on into my early days with the Prosecutor's Office in the 1980s.

He was honest, objective, dripping with integrity...all things that we're sorely lacking in our news media these days. But beyond this, he was a link to our past---to the days of radio and World War II, the Space Program and Edward R. Murrow, to a time when everything seemed possible, and America's greatest days seemed still to come.

We'll miss you, Walter.

JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.

Used Car Salesman in Chief

Perhaps it's just me, but I'm getting sick and tired of being pushed into hasty decisions.

Over the past several months it seems that there has been a race to pass legislation through Congress without much thought. Last year, the TARP bailout was raced through in weeks---ostensibly because waiting to give us a chance to think about what we were doing would mean than any action in ridding the country of the "toxic assets" that the TARP funds were to buy up would come too late to stave off the disasters that were looming in the shadows.

Of course, once the bill passed, the Bush Administration got a few better ideas...and we still haven't spent all the money appropriated. Well...not to buy any toxic assets, at least. We still haven't gotten around to that...though that $700 billion dollars sure came in handy for Congress and the new Obama Administration, since they now had a ready source of funds to hand out as they saw fit.

As the new adminstration was about to take office, there was another push---this time for another $787 billion or so---which was passed less than a month after President Obama took office, before anyone in Congress had the chance to read it. Recently, the "Cap and Trade" bill passed the House---with 350 pages or so of amendments added in the wee hours of the morning after Michael Jackson died. That, too, had to pass immediately, before anyone could read it---this time, one presumes, so that the members of the House could attend to more important matters. Like watching the wall-to-wall, 24/7 coverage of the death of Michael Jackson.

Now, amid talk of a few more trillion dollars or so in various bailouts---to prepare the way for the Health Care Reform package that the President insists is needed to save us from imminent bankruptcy---there is a push by Congressional leaders and the Administration to enact the plan...NOW, before it's too late. Today, in the wake of a Congressional Budget Office report confirming what most people instinctively thought---that current health care proposals will cost an awful lot of money---there seems to be a renewed push to get this done in a hurry. The President insists that waiting will result in a catastrophe for this country and future generations...and only quick, bold action can save us.

It strikes me that we've been down this path before. Quite a few times in recent months.

And it's starting to sound more and more like the typical pitch from the local used car salesman---that we need to decide now, because if we stop to think about what we're doing, we'll miss this golden, once-in-a-lifetime chance, and spend the rest of our lives regretting it.

Again...perhaps it's just me. But despite the glowing rhetoric, and the loft notions advanced by the current crop of politicians, it's starting to sound more and more like the high-pressure tactics of the used car lot.

These tactics didn't save the auto industry from disaster.

I doubt that they'll lead the rest of the country to anything but grief, either.


JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.