The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/1469332
C-2 Wednesday, June 1, 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 The state of Black America I am so pleased and proud that the first annual edition of The State of Black America (Encounter Books), published by my organization, CURE, Center for Urban Renewal and Edu- cation, in conjunction with the Clare- mont Institute has just been released. CURE was founded to provide a platform for an alternative vision of what "Black America" is about and what the real challenges are for our citizens of color. Heretofore, the left has dominat- ed the discussion concerning Black Americans. The left has dominat- ed the discussion to such an extent that too many Americans of all back- grounds believe that the view from the left captures all chapter and verse of who Black Americans are and what ideas and policies will best serve them. Too few understand and appreciate that even the term "Black America" is no more an accurate depiction of the realities of individual Black Amer- icans than the term "white America" captures the realities of individual white Americans. The politicization of race, and the formal incorporation of racial and eth- nic labels in American government and law, is itself a victory of the left. Reducing any human being to a ra- cial and ethnic label, even under the guise of helping, results in the treat- ment of a disease amounting to a con- tinuation of the disease itself. Now, with the publication of CURE's first annual edition of The State of Black America, conservatives push back and move to recapture the high ground in the policy discussion regarding Black Americans, who they are and what they need. This collection of essays and anal- yses, compiled and edited by Dr. William B. Allen, resident scholar at CURE, professor emeritus of political philosophy at Michigan State Univer- sity and emeritus dean of James Mad- ison College at Michigan State Uni- versity, starts with ideas and moves on to data that strike at the heart of left-wing conventional wisdom about Black Americans and their role in and relation to our nation's history. There are few of any political orien- tation who do not agree that problems of race continue to plague us. Where left and right part company is defining what those problems are and how best to address them. Most fundamentally, concerning our nation, the difference of opinion is whether our nation is a vessel in need of repair, or whether the vessel itself is fundamentally flawed and needs to be replaced. And left and right part company on the question about the extent to which the vessel, the nation, is even relevant and whether today the issues lie with individuals taking responsibility for their own lives. In CURE's State of Black America, leading scholars from academia and policy institutes take on these hard questions regarding our nation's his- tory and examine with rigor the strug- gles from a nation founded on the ide- als of freedom that permitted slavery to the Civil War and the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution — dealing with equal protection and forbidding of slavery — to the welfare state and today's attacks on our cul- ture and policing. The annual surveys from organiza- tions of the left, like the National Ur- ban League's "State of Black Ameri- ca," seek more government in every area of the lives of Black Americans as the answer to what will improve their lives. As conservatives, we see the secret and success of America in its found- ing as a free nation under God and see the ongoing task as perfecting this ideal rather than departing from it. Fix our national institutions to con- form to our ideals of freedom, and ap- preciate that eternal truths — the re- sponsibility of every individual for their personal choices and the sancti- ty of life, family and property — tran- scend race and ethnicity. This is the important bottom line of CURE's first annual State of Black America. Get the full story and de- tails; it is recommended reading. Star Parker is president of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education and host of the weekly television show "Cure America with Star Parker." Government delays flights Planning to fly this summer? Good luck. Delays are up. Cancellations, too. Why? Because of the pilot short- age. A pilot shortage? How can this be? Flying is a popular job. Some people fly small planes just for fun. Why ar- en't there enough commercial pilots? Because the government passed another dumb law. In 2009, after a Colgan Air crash near Buffalo, New York, killed 50 people, Congress decided that air- lines could only hire aspiring com- mercial pilots who already had lots of flight time. Instead of 250 hours, now they have to have 1,500 hours! "That never made any sense," says current commercial airline pilot Tra- cy Price in my new video. The sixfold increase wouldn't have prevented the Colgan crash. Those pilots had many more than 1,500 hours of flight time. The pilot had 3,379 — the co-pilot, 2,244. That didn't matter to the politi- cians. "We need to improve pilot training, address flight crew hours and service," said Sen. Frank Laut- enberg. Demanding more pre-hire flight time discouraged people from trying to become pilots. It had "the effect of pulling up the ladder," says Price. Few people have the time or mon- ey to get 1,500 hours in the air be- fore they can even apply for a job. The number of certified pilots fell even as flight demand increased. The pilots unions didn't object. "Fewer applicants means higher pay," explains Price. I say to Price, "This rule is good for you! " "Great for me (and other) profes- sional pilots," he replies. "If you be- lieve in freedom though, it's a bit of an issue." The union blamed the pilot short- age on poor pay at regional airlines, so I push back at Price, "Some of these regional airlines were paying pilots as little as $21,000 a year." "(But) there was no shortage of applicants! " Price responds. "Plen- ty of people were willing to take fair- ly low pay and live with roommates for a year or two to gain that really valuable jet experience." Today's required 1,500 hours doesn't even create better pilots. Actual pilots get trained in simula- tors today. The computerized cockpit gives them more useful experience than unsupervised hours of hobby flying. In fact, those hours may leave pi- lots less prepared. "Flight time does not equal experience," Faye Black of the Regional Airline Association told Congress. "We waste a lot of time in training, breaking bad habits pilots acquire while trying to quickly get to 1,500 hours." The politicians ignored her. That's not surprising. Once gov- ernment creates new rules, those rules tend to live forever. Many are just unnecessary. Air- lines don't want to kill their custom- ers, and pilots don't want to kill them- selves, so they self-regulate. The last fatal commercial airline crash was 13 years ago. Flying is much safer than driving, biking, and taking a bus or train. "Safer than any mode of convey- ance ever, including walking," says Price. But politicians believe that if they're not passing more rules, they're not doing their job. So expect more flight delays this summer. "I spend a lot more time than I want to making announcements to people apologizing for being late," says Price. "We should be looking for ways to expand the availability of airline travel to more people so more people can take advantage of this amazingly safe way to get from A to B." John Stossel is creator of Stossel TV and author of "Give Me a Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media." For other Cre- ators Syndicate writers and cartoon- ists, visit www.creators.com. In this administration, it's always someone else's fault. Inflation is now the No. 1 concern of voters, so the White House first blamed COVID. Then Donald Trump's tax cuts. Then Vladimir Putin. Then meatpackers and the poultry industry, Big Oil and pharmaceutical companies. Now, Democrats have identified a new inflation scapegoat: plastic. Vi- sa, Mastercard, American Express and other credit cards hidden away in your wallet. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) has had it out for credit cards for almost two decades, even though over that period, credit cards, which were once reserved for the rich, are now nearly ubiquitous in our society. Ma- ny stores don't even take cash any- more in the post-COVID world. The benefits and conveniences of paying with a plastic card are easily in the tens of billions of dollars to retailers and shoppers. Stores benefit because shoppers don't have to have cash on hand to make purchases. They also benefit from not having to deal with the exchange of cash, which can lead to theft by unscrupulous employees at the register. Credit cards are convenient for consumers because we don't have to walk around with hundreds of dol- lars in our wallets. But Democrats allege that the in- terchange fee that credit card com- panies charge retailers and mer- chants for their service on transac- tions is excessive. This interchange fee typically ranges between about 1 percent to 3 percent of the retail price of the transaction. If retailers don't want to pay the cost because they think it is exorbitant, they don't have to accept cards and can take cash only. Few retailers don't take plastic every day to avoid paying the fees. It's a free country. But the vast majority of retailers see the bene- fits far exceeding the costs. Durbin, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, doesn't see it that way. Instead, he blames Visa, Master- card and Discover for making food and gas more expensive. At a re- cent hearing, Durbin fumed: "To- day, we're going to talk about a hid- den fee that fuels the fires of inflation across America every day. What they may not know is this swipe fee is con- tributing to the problem of inflation." But for this to be true, interchange fees would have to be higher than before Joe Biden became president and before inflation surged to 8.5 percent. But the fees aren't rising. Indus- try sources report that over recent years, the average merchant fee (for debit, credit and prepaid cards) has fallen slightly. By the way, merchants and re- tailers get concrete benefits in ex- change for the fees they pay to ac- cept credit cards. Those fees cover the cost of security and fraud protec- tion, infrastructure improvements and consumer benefits programs such as cash back and rewards. What Durbin and the Democrats want is government price controls on credit card companies. They say there isn't enough com- petition, but there are at least five major credit cards the public can buy. There is plenty of compe- tition in the industry. Nor is there any evidence that cutting the fees to the re- tailers will lead to lower prices paid by consum- ers at the gas pump or the grocery store check- out line. Today, about 70 percent of retail transactions take place with credit cards in part because nearly every- one, except those with terrible cred- it histories, has a credit card these days. Projections say in the next de- cade, more than 80 percent of pay- ments will be made with plastic as we move inevitably to digital trans- actions and a cashless society. The significant impact of Durbin's price controls will not be to tame in- flation but to restrict who can get ac- cess to credit cards. In other words, the poor will get hurt the most. Isn't that turning out to be the case with nearly every liberal policy these days? 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." If someone can't manage his or her own financial affairs, it's a good bet they'd manage other people's financ- es badly, too. Given that the federal government has racked up an enormous $ 30 tril- lion of debt— $ 6 trillion in just the past two years—nobody should trust that federal legislators know the first thing about sound investing. Case in point: As congressional committees continue to debate dif- ferences between the House and Senate versions of the America COMPETES Act, the so-called Chi- na bill, some lawmakers are pushing to include tax laws that would bla- tantly subsidize unprofitable private investments. On top of the $50 billion of di- rect subsidies for semiconductor companies already packed into the 3,000 -page, $ 350 billion omnibus package, the Senate Finance Com- mittee's chairman and ranking mem- ber—Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Michael Crapo, R-Idaho, respective- ly—want to add another massive sub- sidy disguised as a tax credit to build semiconductor manufacturing facil- ities. The federal government would off- set every $100 a company spends on the purchase or construction of semi- conductor facilities with $25 in tax credits. So, after receiving the cred- its, firms would be as well off losing 15% on a semiconductor investment as earning a 10 % profit investing in other manufacturing facilities. That type of narrow preference is a textbook case of bad tax policy. Supposedly, the tax preference is meant to strengthen U.S. semicon- ductor manufacturing. However, by driving companies into unprofitable investments, the government would make the industry weak- er, not stronger. While the domestic semiconductor industry might grow in the short term, it would grow reli - ant on continuing corpo- rate welfare to stay afloat. Tax subsidies for semi- conductor investments would make every oth- er industry weaker, too, by starving them of the capital they need to make sound investments. To justify the tax subsidies, sup- porters point to supposed vulnerabil- ities in global supply chains, which they claim are too reliant on foreign manufacturing of computer chips. There are several problems with that line of reasoning. First, similar arguments could be made with respect to countless oth- er industries. Americans also rely on food, oil and gas, medicine and medi- cal devices, metals, lumber, trucking and shipping, and innumerable other goods and services. But our debt-rid- den nation simply can't afford to sub- sidize bad investments in every in- dustry that policymakers consider important. Indeed, right now, Americans face a more pressing shortage of ba- by formula. The baby formula crisis has nothing to do with overreliance on foreign markets. If anything, the opposite is true. Imports account for only 2 % of baby formula consumed in the United States. The baby formula crisis stems from the closure of a single manu- facturing plant in Michigan, along with some harmful government in- terventions, including protectionist tariffs and quotas. Government interfer- ence causes far more economic crises than it solves. Chances are, by the time the semiconduc- tor legislation has time to have any real ef- fect, the private econ- omy will have largely resolved the computer chip shortage, independent of mas- sive government intervention. By then, lawmakers may well be focused on "solving" a wholly differ- ent supply chain issue. The econo- my will inevitably face future sup- ply shocks, and lawmakers are ill- equipped to predict beforehand which products will be affected. So, instead of looking forward, they look backward to the most recent crisis. A better way for Congress to re- duce the risk of future supply chain issues would be to focus on remov- ing the artificial barriers to invest- ment that the government places on U.S. businesses. That doesn't require legislators to have any special foresight of fu- ture events, though it might require a shift in mindset. Instead of view- ing government as a rescuing sav- ior, Congress must acknowledge that government is usually the problem, not the solution. The tax code is filled with artifi- cial barriers to investment. Indeed, investment routinely faces double or triple taxation. When business- es—at least those in industries that don't get sweetheart tax deals—in- Race for the Cure By Star Parker Give Me a Break John Stossel Eye on the Economy By Stephen Moore Democrats' latest phony inflation scapegoat Heritage Viewpoint By Preston Brashers Proposed amendment to 'China Bill' would reward unprofitable investments See 'FREEDOM' on page 2 See FORMULA on page 3