The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/1468615
C-2 Wednesday, May 25, 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 'New birth of freedom' Recent remarks by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, noting the institutional damage caused by the leak of Justice Samuel Alito's opinion on Roe v. Wade, have gotten exhaus- tive coverage in the press. But, not surprisingly, the venue where Thomas made these remarks has gotten little attention by these same journalists. The event was a convening of the nation's leading Black conservative intellectuals — from academia, pol- icy institutes, media — to focus on, as explained in a press release from one of the institutional sponsors, the American Enterprise institute, why "despite decades of affirmative-ac- tion programs, wealth-redistribution schemes and other well-intentioned government efforts, racial gaps in ed- ucational achievement, employment, income, family formation and crime persist." The venue, Old Parkland in Dallas, was provided through the generosity of Texas businessman Harlan Crow. The Old Parkland Conference was inspired as a reconvening of a similar effort organized by economist Thom- as Sowell in December 1980 at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco — a pioneering effort, the first of its kind. At that time, in 1980, Sowell was already making his mark challeng- ing what had become conventional wisdom that it was essential for gov- ernment to play the central role in dealing with challenges facing Black Americans. Sowell, who began his career see- ing the world from the perspective of the left, changed. He was once asked in an interview what drove his trans- formation in perspective from left to right, and he answered, "Facts." The Old Parkland Conference was organized by four of the nation's lead- ing conservative Black thought lead- ers — Brown University economist Glenn Loury, Jason Riley of The Wall Street Journal, Ian Rowe of the American Enterprise Institute and Shelby Steele of Stanford Universi- ty's Hoover Institution. Three days of speeches and pan- els covered the gamut. Why do the gaps persist? Speakers assess the current realities in education, law enforcement and crime, govern- ment programs such as affirmative action, and the role of culture and the persistence of social inequality and claims of racism. Sowell, now 91 years old, did not attend this reconvening of his effort of 40 years ago. Looking over those who presented at the 1980 Fairmont Conference, we see greats who no longer are with us. Greats like the late economist Walter Williams and economics Nobel lau- reate Milton Friedman. The topic of Friedman's presenta- tion then says it all. "Government is the problem." However, one attendee of both events — last week's Old Parkland Conference and the Fairmont Con- ference in 1980 — is Clarence Thom- as, who attended in 1980 as a young congressional aide. I was honored to be invited to par- ticipate and reconnect with admired friends with whom I have worked toward common goals over many years. It reinforced my own sense of mis- sion. The analysis and conclusions of Sowell and others 40 years ago at the Fairmont Conference were cor- rect. They saw then that human lives are not liberated by government pro- grams and politics, and they saw then that this approach would make lives worse, not better. This is indeed what happened. I began my work in the 1990s in- spired to bring the success of a cap- italist America to the failures in low-income communities caused by socialism. What we have today, unfortunate- ly, is the reverse. Mainstream Ameri- ca is looking more like our poor com- munities destroyed by socialism than the other way around. The work must continue. The special responsibility of Black Americans, with their unique and troubled history, is to show that evil occurs because men sin. Not be- cause the vision of American free- dom is flawed, as we hear almost dai- ly from progressives. In many ways, the country is in worse shape today for everyone than where things stood in 1980. Pumping up prices The price of gas keeps rising. "The reason for that is because of Putin's war," said President Joe Biden. But that's impossible. Most of the price rise came before Putin attacked Ukraine. So some politicians simply blame "corporate greed." Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse accus- es the oil industry of collecting "ex- cess profit." Sen. Elizabeth Warren even intro- duced a bill to ban "price gouging." This is just economic ignorance, as my new video explains. "If big oil could raise prices any- time they wanted and get away with it, then why were they so cheap in 2020, 2019, 2018? " asks the Compet- itive Enterprise Institute's Ben Lieb- erman. Lieberman points out that compa- nies are always greedy. Greed didn't just start now. They were just as greedy when gas prices fell in 2019 and early 2020. "It all comes down to cutting back on supplies," says Lieberman. It's not complicated. Prices change because of supply and demand. During the COVID-19 pandemic, fewer people drove, and demand for gasoline dropped. So did its price. Oil drillers then did less drilling. Now de- mand is up because people are driv- ing again. But it takes time for producers to adjust. "It takes months, not days, for a company to increase production," says Biden. I'm relieved that the president un- derstands that, but he ignores how his own policies reduce production and raise the price of gas. He didn't mention that when he canceled a long-planned sale of offshore oil rights this week. Activists want Biden to also kill a pipeline that would bring oil from Canada to Wisconsin. They've al- ready delayed it five years. They de- layed the Keystone Pipeline for 16 years, until Biden killed it altogether. This is so dumb. Stopping pipe- lines doesn't even help the environ- ment. Oil still gets shipped, but by truck, train and barge. That leads to more oil spills. At least one congressman is as fool- ish as the activists. Last fall, at a congressional hear- ing titled "Exposing Big Oil's Disin- formation Campaign to Prevent Cli- mate Action," grandstanding Califor- nia Rep. Ro Khanna scolded oil ex- ecutives for producing too much oil. "Are you embarrassed as an Amer- ican company that your production is going up? " Khanna said to Chevron CEO Michael Wirth. "Demand for energy is going up in the world," Wirth responded, rea- sonably. "Would you commit to reducing the production of oil? " Khanna asked ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods. "We're committed to lowering our emissions," Woods answered. "I'll take that as a 'no,'" sneered Khanna. Hilariously, now that gas prices are up, Khanna goes on T V to com- plain that oil companies don't pro- duce more oil. "They're still not in- creasing the production! " he whines. I tried to interview Khanna about his hypocrisy, but he won't talk to me. "It's amazing what $4 a gallon gas- oline in an election year will do to cause some people to change their minds! " says Lieberman. Still, the environmental activists aren't totally crazy. "We have to protect the Earth," I say to Lieberman. "Sometimes the market isn't the best director." "There is pollution, and there is a reason to address it," Lieberman re- sponds, "But we have to be realistic ... these threats are repeatedly exag- gerated." They sure are. "(But in) the public debate, you're losing. They're winning," I point out. "At $4 a gallon gasoline, I think we're seeing a rethinking of the cli- mate agenda," Lieberman replies. Biden, at his State of the Union ad- dress, did say his top priority would be "getting prices under control." But he can't get gas prices under control without more use of those hat- ed fossil fuels. "The Biden administration either has to choose between affordable en- ergy or the climate agenda," says Li- eberman. "It can't do both." The evidence shows that school closures during COVID were an ep- ic public policy blunder. The school lockdowns in many states were argu- ably the most significant episode of government-sponsored child abuse in American history. You don't have to take my word for it. Last week, the liberal New York Times came to the same conclusion after an extensive investigation. The New York Times found: "Extended school closures appear to have done much more harm than good, and many school administra- tors probably could have recognized as much by the fall of 2020. In plac- es where schools reopened that sum- mer and fall, the spread of COVID was not noticeably worse than in places where schools remained closed." The New York Times also found that the primary victims were the lowest-income children. Wealthy families found education alterna- tives for their children either in their homes or private schools. Children from low-income families barely par- ticipated in online lessons. "This will probably be the largest increase in educational inequity in a generation," said Thomas Kane, an author of a Harvard study on the disparate impact of the COVID lock- downs. The study also found that most of these school closures occurred "in major cities, which tend to be run by Democratic officials ... Republi- cans were generally quicker to re- open schools. High-poverty schools are also more likely to have union- ized teachers, and some unions lob- bied for remote school- ing." And all this time, you probably thought Democrats were the party that cares about children. But there are oth- er villains as well that need to be exposed. Who did this to our children? The teachers unions were probably the most shameful player, the worm in the education ap- ple. Even after months of evidence that in-class instruction posed virtu- ally no danger to children or teach- ers, they wouldn't teach. They treat- ed COVID as a paid vacation, even as private and Catholic schools down the street were open. In September of last year, nearly 90 percent of the Chicago teachers even voted to go on strike after not teaching for six months. They weren't the only ones in on the crime against our nation's chil- dren. Let's not forget about the inex- cusable role of the American Acade- my of Pediatrics. This group of chil- dren's doctors originally called for entire school openings for the 2020 - 21 school year. That was based on science. But then, politics intervened. Two weeks later, the group did a sudden 180 -degree reversal and joined in solidarity with the teachers unions calling for closing schools. They even signed joint statements with the unions. It's not hard to understand why the pediatricians pulled the rug out from beneath our children. Every study has shown that pediatricians are politically liberal and more so than any other medical group. Pediatricians were reg- ularly on T V or elsewhere in the news, falsely spook- ing parents about the dan- gers of sending children to school. It was propaganda — the big lie. What is so chilling and unforgiv- able about this tale is that teachers and pediatricians are the people en- trusted by parents and society at large to care for and educate chil- dren. They are supposed to have our sons' and daughters' best inter- ests at stake regarding their health and well-being. But they selfishly put politics and paychecks ahead of child welfare. So Democratic politicians, teach- ers unions and pediatricians formed an alliance to deny our children schooling. These are the people who sanctimoniously lecture us about the necessity of "following the science." Yet they ignored it. They peddled fear, not facts, and perhaps Biden's new ministry of "misinformation" might want to investigate them. Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at Freedom Works. He is also author of the new book: "Govzilla: How The Re- lentless Growth of Government Is De- vouring Our Economy." As too many American families know from firsthand experience, there's a baby formula shortage in the United States. While some politicians will sure- ly view the situation as "not letting a crisis go to waste," this is a time for immediate and thoughtful solutions that address the actual problems. There isn't a magic bullet to ad- dress the shortage, but if govern- ment at all levels (federal, state, and local) remove harmful government intervention that's exacerbating the problem, that would go a long way to- ward solving the problem. It certainly doesn't take long to identify the government interven- tion in the baby formula market be- cause its scope is unusual. That in- cludes about 50 % of the baby formu- la being purchased through the fed- eral WIC program. It also includes trade barriers that block baby formu- la imports that otherwise could help create increased competition, lower costs, and provide American fami- lies greater choices. Before identifying solutions, though, it's helpful to have some context about the current situation. According to data from the company Datasembly, in the first half of 2021, baby formula out-of-stock levels were normal, well under 10 % . However, that started to change with national out-of-stock rates reaching the dou- ble digits in the second half of 2021, and most recently reaching 43% for the week of May 8. There has been significant atten- tion paid to a Feb. 17 voluntary re- call of baby formula by Abbott Nu- trition (a major baby formula man- ufacturer). The Food and Drug Ad- ministration forced an Abbott plant in Sturgis, Michigan, to shut down due to safety concerns. While that's certainly contributing to the short- age, the out-of-stock rates were starting to increase dramatically at the end of 2021 and were already at 26 % the week before the recall. Now to some solutions. And the first place to start is in- flation, which is driving up costs for industries across the economy, in- cluding those within the baby for- mula supply chain. From the war on energy to policies that are making labor shortages even worse, elimi- nating policies that increase rather than reduce inflation should help to alleviate the shortages. Turning specifically to baby for- mula-related issues, the federal gov- ernment should be creating as much short-term flexibility and removing as many regulatory obstacles as pos- sible for baby formula manufactur- ers, retailers, WIC state agencies, and anyone who helps get baby for- mula into the hands of American families. For a limited time, individuals participating in WIC should also be given greater flexibility in their purchases, including being able to buy formula from any manufacturer available. Each state awards a con- tract giving one company the right to be the only WIC baby formula pro- vider in the state in exchange for sig- nificant rebates. That policy limits the options WIC benefi- ciaries face during this shortage. As for baby formula regulations generally, they should be waived if they have little or nothing to do with safe- ty. For example, that would include labeling regulations and regula- tions that unnecessari- ly delay the manufacture and sale of baby formula. Then there's the recall and plant shutdown. Abbott Nutrition claims the Michigan plant could be up and running again in two weeks, and it now appears that the FDA is on board with that timeline. However, even if the plant does become oper- ational in two weeks, it still may take six to eight weeks for the baby formu- la to reach store shelves. Therefore, policymakers and reg- ulators need to look beyond just the production of baby formula and re- move regulatory obstacles, such as unnecessary trucking regulations (e.g., hours of service limits), which slow down the supply chain once the baby formula is ready to leave the Michigan plant, and for that matter, when baby formula is ready to leave any plant. The baby formula shortage is al- so being exacerbated by some of the most protectionist policies for any domestic industry. Only about 2 % of baby formula consumed in this Race for the Cure By Star Parker Give Me a Break John Stossel Eye on the Economy By Stephen Moore When the people tasked with protecting our children are the villains Heritage Viewpoint By Daren Bakst How policymakers can address baby formula shortage See 'FREEDOM' on page 3 See FORMULA on page 3