Month: July 2007

Fourth Seat for Utah

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The bill to give Utah a fourth seat in the House of Representatives has been hanging around for quite some time. It has not had too much coverage lately because very little has been happening with it. Yesterday I was surprised to see two editorials on the issue in Utah newspapers (Deseret News, Daily Herald). What really surprised me was that both editorials were against the bill. Back when this bill was getting more attention I was constantly disappointed that most of the coverage of the issue was supportive of the bill.

The reasons given for opposing the bill are that the other half of the legislation (giving Washington D.C. a voting member of the house) was unconstitutional. As the Deseret News pointed out, the goal of giving D.C. a voting member of the house is not without merit, but it is outside the scope of legislation. The proper way to accomplish this is to change the constitution, or make D.C. a state or part of a state. These are the same arguments I have been making on blog posts and comment boards ever since the issue was first raised. (Surprisingly, I discovered today that I have never talked about it here.)

The Deseret News offers one other reason to oppose the bill – timing. I have always argued that Utah should just wait until we get a new seat – we’re growing much faster than the country as a whole so we’ll gain new seats as the census gets updated. The editorial argues that the time is getting short enough now (only 3 years or less before we get new seats anyway) that Utah has nothing to gain by pushing legislation for a provisional seat in exchange for a (currently unconstitutional) permanent seat for D.C.

Tags Constitution, Daily Herald, Deseret News, fourth seat, legislation

Stable Title

Post author By David
Post date July 26, 2007
1 Comment on Stable Title

Feeling that “No Working Title” was a disservice to my blog I implemented “Cause of Liberty” for a short period of time. I wasn’t totally satisfied with that and while playing around with words and fielding suggestions, I came to “Pursuing Liberty” and “Pursuit of Liberty.” Based on feedback from my best adviser (Laura) I went with “Pursuit of Liberty.” After letting it stew at the top of my blog for a while I have decided to keep it.

Tags site, title

General

Endorsement Lessons

My series of endorsements for 2008 was very enlightening. I learned a lot about my political leanings and what I thought was required of a president. I hope to capture some of what I learned here.

One thing that I learned was the value of time. When I began the endorsement process I had different expectations for what I was looking for than when I finished. There were a number of candidates who I did not reach the conclusion on endorsement that I had anticipated. I noticed how my own attitudes and perceptions about the political health of our country affected my perceptions about where different candidates stood as far as how I perceived their ability to lead the country. Also, as I continued to look at the candidates I found that my perceptions of them changed over time. I was no longer making judgments based on a snapshot of their positions, but I was also able to determine the trajectory of their positions and adjust my judgments accordingly.

I learned that timing is important. There were a number of candidates I could not endorse simply because they were not a fit for the needs of the day.

My appreciation grew for the work that is required of citizens if they are to make informed choices. making informed choices requires being informed about the candidates and the issues as well as understanding your own assumptions and values.

I have come to believe through this process that the rigors of campaigning are good exercise for a potential president. They are seeking a position that is challenging and unpredictable. The job requires them to consider the present as well as the future, knowing that their decisions can affect the lives of people everywhere. It makes more and more sense to me why we frequently select men (so far) who have been governors and generals, and less frequently select men who have spent time as legislators.

Tags endorsements, learning, national candidates

culture

Heights of Public Discourse

Post author By David
Post date July 23, 2007
No Comments on Heights of Public Discourse

I posted in June about the voucher debate exemplifying the worst of political discourse. Apparently Frank had similar thoughts about the voucher debate while reading The Audacity of Hope. I really liked Frank’s post because it illustrates one of the root causes of our unhealthy levels of partisanship that we currently have in Washington (and around the country). It also serves as a good illustration of why I consider Obama to be a top tier candidate even though I disagree with him on a range of issues. He understands the root cause of our political problems.

Frank has also written a second post about where he, as a conservative, agrees with Barak Obama.

Tags connections, discourse, government, national candidates

General

Funding Mass Transit

I think I recognize one of the major reasons why UDOT leans so heavily on building roads rather than transit. It has to do with perspective:

Why is it that transit funding is a subsidy but highway funding isn’t? Why do some people complain about seeing empty trains or buses in off-peak hours, but they won’t complain about freeways that are empty or nearly empty during the same hours? Why do some people never consider that, by funding highways much more than transit through the years, we are forcing people, even ones of meager means, to buy expensive cars and to fill them with expensive gasoline? Why do we consider Americans to be car-crazy, when they really have few other options? (Deseret News article – Thumbs Up to Funding Mass Transit 7/1/07)

That really makes you take a second look at all the arguments against transit solutions. I still don’t think that government should subsidize fares for mass transit any more than they should send citizens vouchers for gas. However, it may be that building and maintaining a transit rail line should be of equal importance to building and maintaining a road (which government does all the time). Operating costs for a transit system should be covered by fares, but maintenance should be subsidized similar to maintenance on roads. Perhaps a tax on fares that covers the same percentage of line maintenance as is covered for road maintenance by gas taxes.

To conclude from the same article:

Of course we need to keep subsidizing cars through highway construction. But we need to subsidize transit, as well. If one of government’s legitimate functions is to provide the infrastructure to help commerce thrive, this makes sense. It even makes sense from a conservative point of view.

Tags funding, State, transportation

culture life

Fireworks and Personal Responsibility

Post author By David
Post date July 20, 2007
2 Comments on Fireworks and Personal Responsibility

It doesn’t take much thought to realize that a hot, dry summer does not mix well with fireworks. Governor Hunstman called on cities to ban personal fireworks because of our conditions this year. The Deseret News Editorial on the idea notes that legal fireworks seldom create problems. The fact that we make laws which we don’t enforce encourages unlawful behavior. We should not be waiting for the government to tell us what is smart.

This situation, and my personal feelings leave me in a bind. Tomorrow all the cousins are getting together to celebrate and the families decided that we would purchase fireworks jointly instead of individually. None of us take the time to purchase illegal fireworks (which are expensive and pale in comparison to the professional displays anyway) but with the extreme fire season we are having this year I believe that it is irresponsible to act as if personal fireworks are some inalienable right. If it were not for the fact that our family has already agreed to do fireworks together I would choose not to do any personal fireworks this year – I’d just stick to the professional displays.

Tags citizenship, family, holidays, responsibility

General

2008 Endorsements

Endorsed

I believe that Mitt Romney is the best candidate for the country today. He has the experience of leading in both public and private capacities. His life is not littered with evidence of personal instability. He has the support of his family and the attention of the media. My confidence in his ability to be an effective leader for our nation is such that I have even donated to his campaign (a first for me). No other candidate or potential candidate appears to be as well suited for this job in our time.

Top Tier

As much as I like Mitt, I recognize that there are some other top-notch candidates out there. I would feel positive about the prospects of our nation if any of these top candidates were president.

Barack Obama has the charisma to energize people around him. He is intelligent and seems willing to go beyond appearances of what the political establishment endorses and choose to follow what he feels to be the best course on the issues. I believe that his time in the Senate has been enough to expose him to the realities of politics without being long enough to turn him into a jaded insider.

Mike Huckabee seems to be everything that Mitt Romney is except that he does not inspire so many people, nor garner the same media attention. He has the experience as governor to know how to lead and a life that demonstrates his convictions. In a different time he might even be a better candidate than Mitt, but today is not that time.

Tom Vilsack is another candidate who I would endorse as readily as Mitt, but he has dropped out of the race because he could not gather the media attention to keep his campaign afloat. He would make a fine addition to any ticket. In fact, he should be at the top of any ticket if he were still in the race himself.

Second Tier

Second tier candidates are those who I think could make decent but not noteworthy presidents. With some, such as John McCain and Bill Richardson, I had hoped to find top tier candidates. Their weaknesses in campaigning suggest that they are not so well prepared as those in the top tier. Others in this category include Joe Biden, Sam Brownback, Christopher Dodd, Rudy Giuliani, and Tommy Thompson. If he were still running I would have placed Jim Gilmore here as well. This is also where I would expect to place Fred Thompson if he formally entered the race.

Third Tier

Third tier candidates are those who are technically qualified so that I think they could be President, but who would likely be poor presidents. These include John Edwards, Daniel Imperato, Bob Jackson, and George Phillies. I would have included Hillary Clinton here, though as a front runner many would think me biased. Instead I felt that I could not endorse her because her history and the passion that many have against her essentially guarantee that she could not be effective. All the other candidates here would at least have hope of becoming effective.

Not Endorsed

If your favorite candidate is not listed above I would be surprised if they were also not listed among those I could not endorse. Those are Steve Adams, Donald Allen, Alan Augustson, John Bowles, John Cox, Mike Gravel, Jon Greenspon, Bob Hargis, Duncan Hunter, Mike Jingozian, David Koch, Steve Kubby, Dennis Kucinich, Charles Maxham, James Mccall, Ron Paul, Wayne Root, Joe Schriner, Christine Smith, Michael Smith, and Tom Tancredo. My reasons for not endorsing them can be found on their individual posts.

Tags 2008, endorsements, national candidates

Local

That’s My Town

I stumbled across an interesting post about Baby Boomburbs as described in a new book from the Brookings Institute. “Boomburbs” are fast growing cities of more than 100,000 people which get lost in the shadows of their larger neighbors (so, anything within a 20 mile radius of New York City). “Baby Boomburbs” are similar except they have 50,00 to 100,000 residents. Normally I would have thought that this was academically interesting except that I had just read a story where the mayor of Lehi was quoted listing the population here as 45,000 (I had thought it was closer to 30,000). I don’t know how precise that 45,000 is, but it puts us close to the classification of “Baby Boomburb.” With our incessant growth we could reach 50,000 before the next census if 45K is anywhere close.

This makes me even more interested in what they had to say about these cities. I’d like to see what challenges they identify and how much that does or does nto align wtih the challenges that I have identified, or that the residents of Lehi seem tuned to right now.

Tags community, population, questions

culture

Sunsets for Subsidies

I have been thinking a lot lately about the many ways that government has become a provider or enabler of many economic activities. We take it for granted that government should provide for our retirement (Social Security) which is why we have a looming crisis. We hardly consider, let alone actively question, the necessity of having government subsidize the production of various foods (Farm Subsidies). The idea of having a private industry for educating our children sounds like class warfare (Public Education). We think it irresponsible that anyone should have to rely on the support of family, friends, and neighbors – instead we blindly expect them to rely on help administered by complete strangers (Food Stamps and Unemployment Insurance). We can’t imagine that anyone besides the government can fund our exploration for new energy sources and now we are sure that government needs to nationalize our health care system.

I have concluded that, if Social Security and the 1930’s was any indication, the problem that caused this mindset was that we enacted a permanent solution to solve a temporary problem. The result is that our attitudes have changed so that we are willing to preemptively create permanent government solutions to perceived potential problems. The only solution that I can see is to automatically have an expiration date for government programs (excluding the three branches of government) so that they have to be explicitly reauthorized on a regular basis (perhaps every decade as the default and shorter if the authorization specifies a shorter time period). We could then stop looking for ways to make Social Security solvent forever and look at reasonable ways to phase it out, just like Senator Lugar is trying to do with farm subsidies (and he’s a farmer by birth).

Tags government, problems, subsidies

culture

Dependence vs Liberty

I think Scott hit the nail on the head when he talked about the paradox of people distrusting the government while demanding more government services. It is natural that we chafe against intrusive authority whether that intrusion is warranted or not. It is also natural that we turn toward our source of temporal support to fill our needs and wants, especially when we rely on a single source of support. Generally speaking, greater dependence warrants greater intrusion on the part of the supplier.

The paradox here is that individual liberty cannot thrive without personal independence. If we ever hope to be free of government intrusions – and the possibility (probability) that they will be exploited – we must begin to look outside of government for the solutions to the challenges that we face. If I fear that I will get laid off and that I can’t afford that, I will not want to end the government welfare programs. If I have enough savings, or I trust friends and family to help me out in the event that I lose my job, then I am more likely to want those programs terminated so that I keep more of my own money to increase my financial independence. The same holds true for other government programs as well as non-governmental dependence.

Tags government, liberty