David Boaz

In a feature story about left-wing stand-up comics (news flash!), the Washington Post finds one who isn't:

One of the few right-leaning comics is Nick Di Paolo, who has written for “Saturday Night Live.” Di Paolo, who is socially liberal but economically conservative, has a one-hour special, “Nick Di Paolo Raw Nerve,” airing Saturday on Showtime, in which he takes swipes at favorite targets, such as President Obama and labor unions.

If that sounds like fun, then your Saturday night is planned. And if you're more interested in fiscally conservative, socially liberal voters, check here or here or indeed this lament.

On NPR, Mara Liasson tells Melissa Block that we're in a "libertarian moment" in politics:

BLOCK: And Ron Paul appears to be running. Again, he got a lot of devoted followers on the Internet last time during the 2008 bid, not so many votes in the primary. So this time around, is he a significant addition to the Republican field or more of an asterisk? LIASSON: Well, I don't think he's a huge factor in terms of the nomination. In the 2008 GOP primary, he got only about 6 percent of the Republican vote. However, as you said, he does have a devoted following, lots of libertarian-leaning young people. He can raise millions of dollars online in a single day in one of his famous money bombs. So he brings energy to the party, and the Republican Party base seems to have caught up to him on the issues. The GOP is in a real libertarian moment right now, and Paul has always been all about the debt and the deficit and taxes and spending. You could call him the godfather of the Tea Party.

Of course, Paul may have to split the libertarian Republican vote with former two-term governor Gary Johnson. Johnson also was "a Tea Partier when tea-partying wasn’t cool," according to the Capitol Report of New Mexico. He vetoed 750 bills in eight years, not counting line-item vetoes. And since today's libertarian moment goes beyond spending and health care to include rising support for gay marriage and marijuana legalization, Johnson might be better positioned to ride that wave and attract younger and independent voters. Footnote: Two weeks ago NPR speculated about an Ayn Rand moment building from the financial crisis to the opening of Atlas Shrugged.

Talking about royal weddings on NPR, Tina Brown says that there's high unemployment in Britain, as there was in 1981, because of Conservative governments' budget cuts (transcript edited to match broadcast):

Of course, the wedding of Prince Charles and Diana occurred three decades ago, but Brown points out that there are plenty of similarities between the two eras. "2.5 million are out of work right now with the budget slashes and all the economic austerity that's happening in England," Brown says. "There were actually the same amount of people exactly out of work at the time of Charles and Diana, when Mrs. Thatcher came in and began her draconian moves."

I know that Tina Brown is a journalist, not an economist, but surely she's heard of the recessions of 1979 and 2009, both of which may have helped to usher in a new government pledged to economic reform. It isn't budget cuts that have increased British unemployment, it's the recession. The unemployment rate started rising in early 2008 and kept right on rising during the world financial crisis, which featured not budget cuts but massive spending by governments around the world.

That's what Michael Gerson, former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, writes in the Washington Post. I take a different view in my new column at the Encyclopedia Britannica Blog:

Libertarians want to live in what Adam Smith called the Great Society, the complex and productive society made possible by social interaction. We agree with George Soros that “cooperation is as much a part of the system as competition.” In fact, we consider cooperation so essential to human flourishing that we don’t just want to talk about it; we want to create social institutions that make it possible. That is what property rights, limited government, and the rule of law are all about.... The American, and libertarian, belief in freedom is not a “mania,” nor is it “selfishness.” It’s a philosophy of individual rights, the rule of law, and the institutions necessary for social cooperation. Read Locke, Hume, Smith, Tocqueville, Hayek—and yes, Rand—if you seriously believe that the philosophy of freedom can be summed up as “selfishness.”

Much more at the Britannica.

Dennis Cauchon reports in USA Today on a massive program of business subsidies in Ohio, started by Republican governor Bob Taft and expanded by new Republican governor John Kasich:

Ohio has launched what appears to be the biggest intervention in the private economy by a state government since at least the Great Depression, according to a USA TODAY review of historical data. The state is preparing new industrial parks and high-tech office buildings, loaning money and giving grants to businesses, and subsidizing clean energy, websites, nanotechnology and warehouses, among other things. The state will spend $1.4 billion on economic development this year. Indiana, by contrast, will spend $37 million; Florida $11 million. California has 25 people working full-time on economic development. Ohio: more than 400. Ohio’s attempt to revive its economy is a real-life case of how states act as a laboratory of democracy. This industrial state is testing a provocative economic question: Can government direct the economy into the future, or is that best done by a free market?... It’s unclear whether Ohio’s gamble will pay off. A USA TODAY review of two dozen of Ohio’s state-funded projects found many behind schedule or failing to deliver the jobs or investment returns promised.

Economists are skeptical of such projects:

Ohio State University economist Mark Partridge says government efforts to plan an economic revival seldom work. “Politicians and economic development officials overestimate their ability to forecast the future — to predict the next Silicon Valley or even to know beforehand that a Silicon Valley is going to occur,” Partridge says. Government’s poor record of picking winners and losers means that even well-intentioned programs can hurt more than help, he says. “A tax incentive for one firm means I have to raise taxes on everyone else or cut services,” Partridge says.

But the businesses looking for subsidies are more enthusiastic:

“We’re looking to get industry up and moving again,” says Andrew Doehrel, president of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce. “We’re not saying pick Company XYZ because it has a chance of success. We’re saying pick Company XYZ because they’re into plastics and Akron is successful in that field. It’s targeting that is necessary and useful."

And what of Governor Kasich, once a budget-cutting House Budget Committee chairman and opponent of corporate welfare, who was once pictured on 60 Minutes with the Cato Handbook for Congress sitting on his desk? Kasich would stop this nonsense, right? Well, not quite:

Kasich, the new governor, has moved some programs into a quasi-private operation called JobsOhio that he hopes will be faster and more effective. This new approach positions the government to act more like a risk-taking investor, [Kasich's economic development director Mark] Kvamme says....  [More here.] Kasich is expanding Ohio’s tradition of large-scale, government-directed development programs. His new budget proposes spending an extra $100 million a year in liquor profits on economic development. That amount alone dwarfs economic development spending in almost every other state.

What have you done with John Kasich, Ohio? Is this like the movie Dave, where you've found an actor to stand in for the actual governor? If not, then I hope Governor Kasich will decide to add government-directed economic development to his list of needed budget cuts.

"Bijan Pakzad, an extravagant fashion designer and boutique owner who happily and unabashedly made wealthy men look rich, feel rich and smell rich," has died, reports the Washington Post. Mr. Pakzad explained that he catered to customers who “normally aren’t concerned about inflation.”

His slogan — “the costliest men’s wear in the world” — helped his opulent clothing store become known as the West Coast’s one-stop Savile Row. While drinking champagne presented by white-gloved butlers, customers could shop for $2,500 silk pajamas, $1,500 cologne, a $24,000 mink-lined topcoat, a $19,000 ostrich vest, $55,000 crocodile luggage or even a $120,000 Mongolian chinchilla bedspread lined with silk.

Who could afford such clothes? Warren Buffett and Bill Gates? Yes, but they don't look like they spend so much money on clothes. The Post names a few customers:

From the moment in 1976 when Mr. Pakzad first opened Bijan, his Rodeo Drive emporium, three words bedecked the entrance: “By appointment only.” The locked-door policy made clear that Mr. Pakzad exclusively catered to men who had money, power or fame — and usually all three. His clients included President Obama, Frank Sinatra, Cary Grant, Stevie Wonder, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Michael Jordan.

Wait, President Obama? That's not the same Barack Obama who told college graduates not to "take your diploma, walk off this stage, and chase only after the big house and the nice suits and all the other things that our money culture says you should buy," is it?

Public television stations in Washington and elsewhere will be broadcasting live the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton for several hours on Friday, April 29. And if you need more background on the happy couple, they will also broadcast a documentary, "William and Kate: The Royal Wedding," in the weeks leading up to the big day. Now some churlish republicans might say that our ancestors fought and died just so we didn't have to pay attention to the comings and goings of royalty. But I say it's just this sort of live, breaking-news, current affairs coverage for which we need public broadcasting. Without PBS, where could Americans watch the handsome young prince take the beautiful commoner to be his wife? I mean, other than ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, Fox, MSNBC, TLC, BBC America, and YouTube? As they used to say, If PBS doesn't do it, who will?

The District of Columbia pays outside lobbyists hundreds of thousands of dollars, but its top in-house lobbyist, who heads a staff of nine, doesn't know about them:

The District pays outside lobbyists, who were hired when Adrian M. Fenty (D) served as mayor, but their work has attracted little notice. U.S. Senate records show that Mitch Butler — a former Interior Department official in the Bush administration — has lobbied on behalf of the District since October 2009 on “public lands issues” and “land development.” Through the end of 2010, the city paid Butler at least $100,000 for his efforts. Separately, the D.C. Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning & Economic Development has paid the firm Van Ness Feldman $200,000 since November 2009 for “Anacostia Waterfront Initiative appropriations, St. Elizabeths development matters and federal land transfers,” according to registration forms. Neither [Del. Eleanor Holmes] Norton nor Janene D. Jackson, the director of the District’s Office of Policy and Legislative Affairs, was aware the city had lobbyists on the payroll until they were informed by a reporter.

Maybe if nobody knows about them, the city could save a few bucks by terminating their contracts. But then again, maybe the best lobbyists are the ones who slip money silently out of the appropriations process and then melt away in the night, drawing no attention to themselves.

Back in 2008 Time depicted President-elect Obama as a new FDR, delivering the country a "new New Deal." This week National Review takes a different approach, portraying House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan as the architect of a new deal. (Hat tip to Charlie Spiering.) In today's Britannica column I have some thoughts of my own about Ryan, the Republicans, and the New Deal state:

In 1960 Sen. Barry Goldwater called the policies of the Eisenhower administration “a dime store New Deal”—a promise to deliver to the voters everything the Democrats promised, but at a discount. And that has been a fundamental dividing line in the Republican party ever since: Should the GOP challenge the Democrats’ fundamental commitment to an ever-bigger federal government, or only promise to deliver services more efficiently and at lower cost to taxpayers?... Paul Ryan’s budget doesn’t really eliminate anything the federal government does. He’d still have the federal government taxing us to pay for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, farm subsidies, and troops in a hundred countries. (He does propose to privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, so that’s one actual reduction in the scope of the federal government.) As big-government conservative David Brooks writes, “it is a serious effort to create a sustainable welfare state.” But some of us don’t want to live in a “sustainable welfare state.” We don’t just want to “bend the cost curve.” We want a free society, a society in which people are free to make their own decisions and bear the responsibility, a society in which each of us is the owner of his or her own life....

More here.

The Wall Street Journal reports on a heated battle in Florida over whether to deregulate commercial interior designers -- that is, to allow just anyone to hang out a shingle and seek customers looking for office design. It turns out the question is fraught with more danger than one might have realized. Herewith, the opening of the Journal's comprehensive report:

MIAMI—Interior designers may seem to inhabit a genial world of pastel palettes and floral motifs. But right now in this state, their industry is locked in an indecorous pillow fight over who has the right to design. Florida is one of only three states that require commercial interior designers to become licensed before they hang a single painting in an office building, school or restaurant. A bill making its way through the state legislature, however, would deregulate the occupation, along with more than a dozen others, including yacht brokers and hair braiders. That possibility has the state's licensed interior designers ruffled. They've hired Ron Book, one of the state's most influential lobbyists, to fight the bill. And they've stormed legislative hearings to warn of the mayhem that would ensue if the measure passes. Among the scenarios they've conjured: flammable carpets sparking infernos; porous countertops spreading bacteria; jail furnishings being turned into weapons. The thought of "someone in my position that thinks they know what they're doing because they watched HGTV for two weeks scares me," licensed interior designer Terra Sherlock said at a hearing in March. Another licensed designer, Michelle Earley, argued that use of the wrong fabrics in hospitals could spread infection. By deregulating, she told lawmakers, "what you're basically doing is contributing to 88,000 deaths every year," citing a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on deaths from hospital-acquired infections. Though the CDC study doesn't mention interior design as a cause of infections, Ms. Earley says that bacteria can spread if moisture-resistant fabrics aren't used on things like chairs and mattresses. That, in turn, can lead to urinary tract infections, staph and other life-threatening conditions, she says. Interior design "sounds like this simple hanging curtains on a wall," said Ms. Earley in an interview. But "it only takes a couple things to go wrong for people to lose their lives."

Scary. For a more skeptical look at the need to protect the public from unlicensed hair braiders, ballroom-dance-studio owners, and interior designers, see this column by Cato chairman and Floridian Bob Levy. In February the Wall Street Journal reported that occupational licensing is actually spreading, despite decades of criticism from economists.