The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/1447470
D-4 Wednesday, Feburar y 2, 2022 The Press-Dispatch OPINION Submit Letters to the Editor: Letters must be signed and received by noon on Mondays. Email: editor@pressdispatch.net or bring in a hard copy: 820 E. Poplar Street, Petersburg Universal Pre-K: Another bad progressive idea With Democrats' multitrillion dol- lar Build Back Better initiative hit- ting a wall in the U.S. Senate, Pres- ident Joe Biden has suggested that components of the bill be advanced separately. One of these components is a plan for government funded universal pre-K schooling. It would fund school for some 6 million children ages 3 and 4. Federal funds would be provid- ed for six years, the first three fund- ed 100 % by the federal government, with the share provided by states in- creasing up to 40 % by year six. Total cost estimate generated by the bill's sponsors is $200 billion. But like the entire Build Back Bet- ter Plan, the cost estimate is far be- low reality. Who will believe that the plan will die after six years? American Enterprise Institute an- alysts suggest a more realistic price tag should be around $500 billion. We're talking here about adding hundreds of billions of dollars of new pre-K education infrastructure, re- quiring, by some estimates, around 50,000 new teachers, plus class- rooms, etc. It is an indication of either the quality or the honesty of thought go- ing on that Democrats want to spend hundreds of billions at a time when the nation is already deeply in debt for a massive new, basically untest- ed concept, to which, on paper, the federal government is only commit- ted for six years. What exactly are the merits of the idea? Research indeed shows benefits from a well-structured pre-K pro- gram. But absent are solid conclu- sions of lasting benefits. Most likely to benefit are low-income, disadvan- taged children. But providing pre-K investment and then sending these children off to the broken K-12 pub- lic schools in these same neighbor- hoods is ridiculous. Let's turn to Nobel Prize-winning University of Chicago economist James Heckman, a highly regard- ed expert on the importance of ear- ly child development. When asked about universal pre- K in a recent interview, Heckman's reply was: "I have never supported universal pre-school. ... Public pre- school programs can potentially compensate for the home environ- ments of disadvantaged children. No public preschool program can provide the environments and the parental love and care of a function- ing family and the lifetime benefits that ensue." Heckman observes: "The fami- ly is the source of life and growth. Families build values, encourage (or discourage) their children in school and out. Families — far more than schools — create or inhibit life op- portunities. ... Schools can only par- tially compensate for the damage do- ne to the children by dysfunctional families." But even if we accept Heckman's observations, we're still left with big questions. What is our understanding now of family and what is deemed to be dys- functional? Woke culture will con- demn any defense of traditional val- ues and therefore our traditional idea of family. Recently Pew Research surveyed displacement of the traditional fami- ly with alternative lifestyles, such as cohabitation, increasing number of Americans delaying marriage, sin- gle-parent households and same-sex marriage. When Pew pollsters asked whether the growing alternatives to the traditional family are a good or bad thing, in 2010, 32 % said it made "no difference." By 2019, 45% said it made "no difference." The one option for 3- and 4-year- olds to receive education in a tradi- tional framework is church schools. But this one option is not available through the Democrat pre-K mega- funding program. Democrats are just interested in options that are ba- sically extensions of public schools. Facilities that are used primarily Sick city San Francisco's liberal mayor de- clared a "state of emergency" to try to deal with the city's "nasty streets." How did it get so bad? Journalist Michael Shellenberger's new book, "San Fransicko," argues that it happened because of progres- sive ideas. "The town I love is sick," says Shel- lenberger in my new video. He came to San Francisco when he was in his 20s to support social jus- tice causes. He still supports those ideas, but "it just went too far." In 2014, California politicians de- cided to end mass incarceration. It's a noble goal. America locks up a higher percentage of its people than any other country. Jails are over- crowded. People in jail are more like- ly to learn to be better criminals than to be rehabilitated. So California converted many nonviolent felonies to misdemean- ors. People who steal less than $ 950 worth of items are no longer jailed. Proponents said this would divert money from prisons that could go to mental health and drug treatment programs. But not jailing people who break laws had nasty unintended conse- quences. Shoplifters steal right in front of security guards. Police look the oth- er way. They know if they make an ar- rest, they'll face hours of paperwork and the person arrested will just re- turn to the street. Cars are broken into 74 times a day. "None of us want mass incarcer- ation," says Shellenberger, who vot- ed for the law to stop jailing people. "But that was a recipe for disaster." Because no one is arrested for camping on the street, San Francis- co is now filled with tent cities that supposedly house the "homeless." But most campers are the mental- ly ill and drug users who choose life on the street. They shoot up or light up in public, confident no one will in- terfere. In my video, one crack addict said she stays in San Francisco because it is "more lenient." In other cities, she said, she'd be in jail. Other cities, like Miami, do treat the homeless differently. "They don't let people use drugs in public, and they built sufficient homeless shel- ters," says Shellenberger. In San Francisco, new homeless shelters are blocked by progressive activists who argue that everyone deserves an apartment. Yet it costs $700,000 to build one apartment in San Francisco. A few years ago, I made a vid- eo suggesting that the high cost of apartments was a major reason for San Francisco's tent cities. Califor- nia's excessive regulation discour- ages new construction, so there's a housing shortage. That keeps rental prices high and leads people to live on the street. "It's not true," says Shellenberger. "If it were true that expensive plac- es made for homelessness, why don't we see large open-air drug scenes in Carmel? Why don't we see large open drug scenes in many fancy neighbor- hoods? Homelessness is just a func- tion of whether or not you allow peo- ple to camp in public or not." But if people are homeless, should the government arrest them? The Constitution gives us the right to peaceably assemble. "People have a right to be out- doors," I tell Shellenberger. "We don't have a right to force them off the street if they aren't directly threatening anybody." "We should defend those rights be- cause that's part of our freedom," he replies, "but you don't have a right to shoot heroin at the public park." There need to be "consequences for people's behaviors." A fter researching his city's prob- lems, Shellenberger decided he could no longer identify as progres- sive. "Progressivism has become the abdication of personal responsibili- ty." I think it's always meant that. But now parts of San Francisco have become such a sewer that even liberal politicians have changed their positions. The mayor of San Francis- co, London Breed, recently declared it's time to end the "reign of crim- inals who are destroying our city! " Not long ago, when protesters shouted, "Defund the police," Breed cut San Francisco's policing budget by $120 million. Now she says her town will be "more aggressive with law enforce- When I came to Washington, D.C., in 1985, Ronald Reagan was presi- dent. I was working for the Reagan budget office. We did something we weren't very proud of at the time. We introduced the first $1 trillion budget in American history, which was un- thinkable. One trillion dollars. There are 12 zeroes in a trillion. A trillion is a million dollars times a million. The budget deficit hit $200 billion and 6 % of our entire GDP. Again, unthinkable. Now, fast forward 37 years later. The budget today is nowhere close to $1 trillion. In 2021, President Joe Biden's first year in office, the fed- eral spending came in at just under $7 trillion ($ 6.81 trillion, to be ex- act). So, in less than four decades, the budget has grown sevenfold. Much faster than inflation. Much faster than the economy. The govern- ment is now gobbling up the econo- my, spending up to 30 % of our nation- al output. Add state and local spend- ing, and we are close to 40 % . We have spent hundreds of bil- lions of dollars on unemployment insurance programs with no quality controls, so more than (SET ITAL) $100 billion (END ITAL) was doled out to fraudulent claims. Billions of dollars went to criminals living in Nigeria, South A frica and Mexico. That's some stimulus to the econo- my. The Wall Street Journal found that we spent tens of billions of dol- lars on the New York subway sys- tem even though ridership is down by two-thirds. We could practical- ly be giving every rid- er a free limousine ser- vice, which would be cheaper for taxpay- ers. According to the Wall Street Journal, more money has gone to the New York sub- way system than all of the federal money for COVID-19 treatments. We spent so much money on welfare programs that many families with two unemployed parents collecting all the govern- ment payouts could get $100,000 or more from taxpayers and not work a single hour. We continue to provide billions of dollars a year to subsidize wind and solar power, which accounts for about 7% of our total energy produc- tion. Much of the $100 billion for schools remains unaccounted for. No one seems to know where the money went, and nobody seems to care or wants to do anything about it. The $ 6.8 trillion the government spent in 2021 was $2.4 trillion more than the government spent in 2019 before the pandemic started. The feds have spent close to $4 trillion in two years to contain COVID, which hasn't been contained. Gee, that's been money well-spent! Could things with the virus be any worse if the government had spent nothing and there had been no shutdowns? This might be the most epic failure of big govern- ment in world history. Yet Biden is saying with a straight face that the problem with the econo- my and inflation and run- away energy prices is that we didn't spend $5 trillion (SET ITAL) more (END ITAL) for his Build Back Better mon- strosity. So, we have a House Budget Committee chairman, when asked about the wisdom of running $2 tril- lion deficits each year, saying: "We can spend and borrow whatever we want." No worries. They're spending money like it's M&Ms. Even the New York Times admit- ted that Biden's spending schemes offer Americans "cradle to grave gov- ernment." Is that what Americans want? Are we like Linus, the "Pea- nuts" cartoon character who carries his blanket like a security vest every- where he goes? Biden's solution to the budget and borrowing blowout is to tax, tax, tax. But in 2021, Americans paid $4 tril- lion in federal taxes. That was 18 % of our GDP, which is above the re- cent historical average. There is not a revenue problem today in Wash- Although he did not heed the myri- ad calls for him to step down by liber- al groups at the end of last term, Jus- tice Stephen G. Breyer, 83, reported- ly will retire from the U.S. Supreme Court at the end of this term, leaving a vacancy for President Joe Biden to fill as Democrats maintain a slim ma- jority in the Senate. Breyer, of course, would remain an active member of the high court un- til the end of the term, participating in all its cases, including those involv- ing abortion, the Second Amendment, and the constitutionality of racial pref- erences in university admissions. The calls for Breyer's resignation were anything but subtle; in the press and on every form of social media, lib- eral pundits began demanding that he do so as soon as Biden took his oath of office. In April, the group Demand Jus- tice sent a billboard truck to drive around the Supreme Court building with a sign saying, "Breyer, retire: It's time for a Black woman Supreme Court justice." Biden has stated publicly that his first Supreme Court appointment would be a black woman, leading to inevitable speculation as to who that would be. Breyer has been a low-key presence on the nine-member court, where along with Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor he is a member of the so-called liberal bloc. He does not have the charismatic flair of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, nor does he share the public adulation accorded his fellow Clinton appointee, the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, even though he and Ginsburg often agreed on the issues. Breyer is, by all accounts, a gentle- man and a scholar: quiet, cordial, and reserved—except during oral argu- ments, where his penchant for posing long, odd hypothetical questions fre- quently set Supreme Court advocates off balance. Born in 1938, Breyer grew up in San Francisco, a child of upper-mid- dle-class parents. His father spent most of his career as legal counsel for the San Francisco Board of Educa- tion. His mother was an ardent Dem- ocrat who worked for various politi- cal causes, including the League of Women Voters. Breyer received his undergraduate degree in philosophy from Stanford University in 1959, then attended Ox- ford University as a Marshall Scholar. Upon returning to the United States, he earned his law degree from Har- vard Law School, graduating in 1964. Following a Supreme Court clerk- ship with Justice Arthur Goldberg, Breyer worked at the Justice Depart- ment as a special assistant to the head of the Antitrust Division. In 1967, he began teaching at Harvard Law, which he has continued to do in var- ious capacities ever since. His wife, Joanna, the daughter of a British vis- count, is a psychologist. Breyer also served on the Water- gate Special Prosecution Force and as counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee during Jimmy Carter's presidency. Carter appointed Brey- er to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Ap- peals in 1980. In 1993, after Justice Byron White retired, Breyer interviewed for that vacancy. An avid cyclist, Breyer had been hit by a car while crossing Har- vard Square a few days beforehand and was hospitalized with a punctured lung and fractured ribs. Still in a significant amount of pain, Breyer traveled to Washington for the interview with President Bill Clinton. Although the nod for that vacancy ul- timately went to Ginsburg the follow- ing year, Clinton went on to nomi- nate Breyer to succeed retiring Jus- tice Harry Blackmun. He was con- firmed easily by a Senate vote of 87-9. Breyer often describes his own ju- dicial philosophy as pragmatic, pre- ferring, as he recently put it, "a func- tional approach, which considers pur- poses and consequences" rather than a "highly detailed judicial-rules-based approach." Reflecting this approach, his opin- ions almost invariably reject bright- line rules and express concern about the impact of legal decisions on the people who must abide by them, rath- er than downplaying or ignoring the consequences in favor of "language, history, tradition, and precedent." At his 1994 confirmation hearing, Breyer explained: I always think law requires both a heart and a head. If you do not have a heart, it becomes a sterile set of rules, removed from human problems, and it will not help. If you do not have a head, there is the risk that in trying to de- cide a particular person's problem in a case that may look fine for that per- son, you cause trouble for a lot of other people, making their lives yet worse. A reliable vote with the liberal wing of the court—especially on issues such as same-sex marriage, abor- tion, and campaign finance issues, but more of a centrist on criminal justice issues—Breyer values consensus and compromise, and has referred to dis- sents by justices as a "failure." Brey- er is also an unapologetic "living con- stitutionalist." As he explained, speaking of the Constitution: In this document there are values that do not change … the values are permanent. But how they apply, that's a different matter because life chang- es. So we have to apply permanent val- ues to changing circumstances. That keeps this Constitution protected and meaningful for people who are alive today. On that subject, Breyer willingly engaged in some memorable public debates with Scalia, a staunch origi- nalist. During one such debate, Brey- er said: Most judges, appellate judges in particular, when they face a difficult question of statutory or constitution- al interpretation, … normally start with six tools. They have the text, they can look to the history—how do those words get there, they can look to the Race for the Cure By Star Parker Give Me a Break John Stossel Eye on the Economy By Stephen Moore The most dangerous virus today is runaway government spending Letter Heritage Viewpoint By John Malcolm What Justice Breyer brought to the Supreme Court See VIRUS on page 5 See SICK CITY on page 5 See PRE-K on page 5 See BREYER on page 5 Court