Showing papers in "Policy Review in 1995"

Arresting ideas -- tougher law enforcement is driving down urban crime /

Abstract: Serious crime is declining in many big cities across America. That's the good news. Meanwhile, the country's largest and most violent cohort of young males will soon reach its crime-prone years. That's the bad news. But demography is not fate. Smarter law enforcement and tougher sentencing policies explain much of the recent drop in crime, and can minimize the damage from the next crime wave. Between 1993 and 1994, the violent crime rate declined by 10 percent or more in eight of the 10 cities with the highest violent-crime rates (Miami, New York City, Los Angeles, Tallahassee, Baton Rouge, Little Rock, Jacksonville, and Pueblo, Colorado). In many cities, a sizable reduction in homicides accounts for much of the fall in these rates. For example, the number of murders in Atlanta, Chicago, and New Orleans together plummeted by 17 percent during the first half of 1995 compared with the same period a year ago. New York City and Houston have enjoyed truly phenomenal drops in serious crimes, including murder. In 1992 and again in 1993, more than 1,900 homicides were committed in the Big Apple. But in 1994 New York City's murder count fell to 1,581. Through July 1995, it suffered fewer than 700 murders, and it continued to show declines of 10 percent or more in robberies, burglaries, and most other serious crimes. Likewise, the number of people murdered in Houston declined by 32 percent during the first half of 1995 compared with same period a year ago. Rapes in Houston decreased by 21 percent, robberies by 15 percent, and the overall violent crime rate by 7 percent. While New York City and Houston are leading the pack, other cities are catching up. During the first half of 1995, for example, the overall crime rate was down by more than 16 percent in San Francisco, 10 percent in San Antonio, and 6 percent in both Los Angeles and Philadelphia. And the number of murders declined by more than 6 percent in Philadelphia and Los Angeles, 9 percent in Detroit, and 10 percent in Boston and St. Louis. What is going on here? Some criminologists dismiss the recent improvement in the crime rate as a mere statistical fluke. But it is hard to imagine that these downward trends, occurring in consecutive years in given jurisdictions, could have happened by chance. Others insist that the slide in crime rates is greased by a dwindling population of teenage boys. There is something to this claim, but it ignores the inconvenient fact that Houston and some other places with growing populations of at-risk youth have nonetheless experienced sharp reductions in clime. Finally, a few criminologists have rushed to relate the dive in crime rates to everything from a sudden surge in the efficacy of gun control laws (which is patently absurd) to changes in the patterns of drug use (for example, the decline in crack-cocaine use which, they insist, has had nothing to do with anti-drug law enforcement). One much-quoted criminologist has even declared, "What goes up must come down." BRATTON's LAW: ENFORCEMENT COUNTS In many cities, the decline in crime rates can be explained at least in part by law-enforcement efforts that capitalize on community crime-fighting initiatives and take bad guys off the streets. I call this explanation Bratton's Law in honor of New York City's police commissioner, William Bratton. Like most veteran professionals in the justice system, Bratton understands perfectly well that crime rates are not determined solely by what cops, courts, and corrections agencies do. But his impatience with criminological cant about the inefficacy of policing practices and sentencing policies on crime rates is both ennobling and enlightening. Three brief examples illustrate Bratton's Law in action. Jacksonville. In July 1991, Harry L. Shorenstein became state attorney for the Fourth Judicial Circuit in jacksonville, Florida. At that time Jacksonville was besieged by violent crime, much of it committed by juvenile offenders. …

Cross Purposes: Will Conservative Welfare Reform Corrupt Religious Charities?

Abstract: Welfare reform, says Governor John Engler of Michigan, is not "just about reforming a broken system, but about reforming what is broken in the human character." Engler is one of a growing number of policymakers who seek to shift responsibility for helping the poor from government bureaucracies to civil institutions-particularly religious ones--that can address the underlying moral and cultural aspects of chronic welfare dependency. Indeed, amidst the flurry of federal and state initiatives to scale back the welfare state, religious nonprofits are becoming the new provider of choice for funding and delivering social programs. Engler has approved a multimillion-dollar contract with the Salvation Army to care for the state's homeless population. Mississippi governor Kirk Fordice has established a "Faith and Families" project in which state social-service agencies work with churches to "adopt' welfare families. The federal government provides some 350 grant programs for social-service nonprofits, many of them with religious roots. U.S. Senators John Ashcroft and Dan Coats have proposed legislation allowing individuals a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for donations made to charities, including religious groups, that serve the poor. The enthusiasm for religion-based providers is well-deserved. Christian-based substance-abuse recovery programs, for example, reportedly boast a 70 to 80 percent success rate, whereas secular therapeutic programs report an average success rate of 6 to 10 percent. Research by Roger Freeman of Harvard University shows that black inner-city youth who attend church are 47 percent less likely to drop out of school, 54 percent less likely to use drugs, and 50 percent less likely to engage in criminal activities than those without religious values. Columnist William Raspberry of the Washington Post recently asserted that the most successful social programs "are those that are driven-even if only tacitl--by moral or religious values." So it's beginning to look like the secular state wants some old-time religion. But what impact will increased state funding have on religion-based programs? Will more money allow them to help more needy people, or will it dilute-or pollute-their ability to exert the moral and spiritual influence that makes them uniquely successful? In Michigan, where Engler has aggressively collaborated with religious nonprofits, the results are mixed. State agencies tend to treat these nonprofits not as equals, but as subcontracting functionaries doing the government's bidding. State contracts almost always come with conditions-regulations that sometimes diminish a religious group's best assets: its personal involvement, its credibility with the community, and its commitment to addressing not only physical needs but spiritual ones as well Moreover, religious nonprofits that contract with the state may, as a result, shift their purpose from the transformation of lives to the mere delivery of services. The most effective groups challenge those who embrace faith to live out its moral implications in every significant area of their lives, from breaking drug addictions and repairing family relationships to recommiting themselves to the value of honest work. But state social-service contracts aren't necessarily concerned with such outcomes; they focus on meals served, beds available, and checks cashed. ENGLER CALLS IN THE ARMY The aim of his welfare-reform efforts, Engler says, is to smash the entitlement mentality, promote the idea that aid entails responsibility, and empower the private sector (particularly the religious community) to deliver welfare services. To accomplish the first two goals, Michigan in 1992 began requiring recipients of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) to sign a "social contract" with the state that committed them to work, job training, or volunteer service for at least 20 hours per week. To accomplish the third goal, Engler has increased collaboration with and funding of religiously based social-service groups. …

How Green Was My Balance Sheet: The Environmental Benefits of Capitalism

Abstract: Profit and the environment are supposed to be enemies. Remember that the next time you visit Yellowstone National Park, one of the crown jewels of the national park system and a popular attraction for tourists, backpackers, and amateur botanists, zoologists, and geologists. Yellowstone boasts some of the most breathtaking sights in all of North America. It also boasts an interesting capitalistic pedigree. It was the Northern Pacific Railroad, a private corporation, that funded early expeditions to the Yellowstone region and helped establish the Yellowstone National Park in 1872. "Because it provided the main form of transportation to the region," report economists Terry Anderson and Donald Leal, "the railroad could profit from preservation of this scenic wonder and therefore had an incentive to preserve it." Many other Western parks were promoted and protected by private railroad and development companies for the same reason. More recently, some private timber companies have found that, by exploring other uses of the forest lands they own, they can increase their profits. In International Paper's commercial forests in Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas, company biologist Tom Bourland implemented a fee-based recreation program to make money from not harvesting trees. His program charged hunters for access and leased small tracts of land on which families could park their motor homes and enjoy the woods. After three years, International Paper saw its revenues from the program triple, constituting 25 percent of its total profits from the area. Since this valuable use of private land relied on beauty and diverse wildlife rather than ease of harvest, the company had an incentive to preserve habitat for white-tailed deer, wild turkey, fox, squirrel, quail, bald eagles, and red-cockaded woodpeckers. Deseret Land and Livestock pursued a similar strategy when its cattle ranch fell on hard times. The firm's managers decided to invest in wildlife habitat, charging hunters for the right to hunt elk and other animals. Herds of elk and mule deer--now a valuable commodity--on Deseret land actually grew, and the company thrived. The 1,289-square-mile King Ranch in south Texas now makes 60 percent of its income from business activities other than cattle-including revenues from hunters and nature lovers. Within the corporate social-responsibility movement, there is no more important issue than environmentalism. Often, the call for corporate responsibility and the exhortation to "save the planet" from a host of environmental problems seem virtually to be the same thing. The firms most often honored for their responsibility--such as the Body Shop, Patagonia, and Ben and Jerry's--usually exhibit some sort of (highly publicized) commitment to environmental goals. "Corporations, because they are the dominant institution on the planet, must squarely face the social and environmental psoblems that afflict humankind," states Paul Hawken, a founder of Smith and Hawken catalog company. "How," he asks, "does business face the prospect that creating a profitable, growing company requires an intolerable abuse of the natural world?" The notion that profit and ecology must be at loggerheads, and that businesses must place environmental obligations above economic ones, is but one viewpoint among social-responsibility, advocates. A different notion, championed most famously by Vice President Al Gore, is that doing business in an "environmentally friendly" way is also to increase the profitability of firms. "We can pros per," he wrote in his book Earth in the Balance, "by leading the environmental revolution and producing for the world marketplace the new products and technologies that foster economic progress without environmental destruction." When you think through the complex issue of corporate environmental responsibility, however, neither Hawken's "win-lose" proposition nor Core's "win-win" proposition ultimately satisfies. …

Caveat Emptor: The Case against the National Sales Tax

Abstract: One of the most refreshing feelings in the new Washington is the growing sense that our current tax system is not long for this world. Only days after the November election, Congressman Bill Archer, the chairman of the House tax-writing committee, boldly declared his desire to "tear out the income tax by its roots." House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole have since formed a commission to consider entirely new alternatives. Presidential candidates Phil Gramm, Richard Lugar, and Arlen Specter want to scrap the system. A half dozen congressional panels are holding hearings on the subject. Even Congressman Richard Gephardt, the House Democratic leader, has floated a major rewrite (albeit without details). The question is no longer whether America will get rid of its burdensome tax system; the question is, what new system should we replace it with? It is a question that will likely dominate our politics through the next election. The Contenders There are three main contenders: One is a plan advanced by Senators Sam Nunn and Pete Domenici. They were among the earliest to call attention to the most economically lunatic feature of the current tax code -- the highly destructive double taxation of savings -- and develop a way to fix it. Called the "USA Tax," their proposal, while fairly complicated, defers taxation on income that is saved, while taxing income that is used for consumption. It is a sincere and innovative effort to encourage the savings necessary for continued economic growth. The second contender, which I strongly favor, is the flat tax. Designed to make the tax system as neutral and simple as possible, the flat tax would sweep away all loopholes, deductions, and exemptions, and replace them with a single generous personal allowance. All other income would be taxed at one low rate of 17 percent. As the plan's authors, economists Robert E. Hall and Alvin Rabushka, have pointed out, a flat tax would allow Americans to figure their taxes on a form the size of a postcard. The use of the tax code by would-be social engineers would end. Like the USA Tax, the flat tax would also end the double taxation of saving. While support for the flat tax is soaring -- almost 60 percent of Americans appear to favor a version of it, if polls are to be believed -- the Nunn-Domenici plan may have been overtaken by events. Conceived at a time when it appeared to many that the redistributionist Democratic Party would control Congress indefinitely, the plan contains sharply progressive tax rates that would kick in at surprisingly low income levels. It addresses the disincentive to save quite well, but it may make the other problems in the code, high rates and complexity, even worse than the current system. With the new politics in Washington and across the country, superior alternatives are now clearly within political reach. Then there's choice number three: the national sales tax. This is a sweeping plan to wipe away the current system and replace it with an unprecedented federal tax on retail purchases. Although it's not as widely discussed as the flat tax, it has substantial support among many far- thinking conservatives, including Archer and Lugar. Indeed, there are few conservative hearts that could not be at least a little warmed by its central promise to end the income tax altogether. This last choice demands serious examination at the moment. Although well-intentioned, the sales-tax option has several serious flaws. Before getting into that, though, we must remember that supporters of all these plans are allies in a fight to end America's single greatest impediment to achieving its possibilities: the IRS code, circa 1995. Any American tax system should meet three basic criteria. It should be fair, simple, and pro-growth. The current system fails miserably on all three counts. Is it simple? Not by a long shot. In 1990, American workers and businesses spent 5. …

Natural Born Killers? Preventing the Coming Explosion of Teenage Crime.

Abstract: From 1985 to 1991, homicides committed by boys in the 15- to 19-year-old age group jumped 154 percent. From 1982 to 1991, the juvenile arrest rate for murder rose 93 percent, for aggravated assault 72 percent, and for forcible rape 24 percent. If these statistics scare you, brace yourself. A breath taking rise in juvenile crime is occurring even as the national rate of violent crime has leveled off, and the nation's population of juveniles has fallen. The greatest danger lies ahead. In the final years of this decade and throughout the next, America will experience an "echo boom"--a population surge made up of the teenage children of today's aging baby boomers. As today's five-year-old children become tomorrow's teenagers, America faces the most violent juvenile crime surge in its history. The warnings of this coming storm are unmistakable. More violent crime is committed by older teenagers than by any other age group. Teenagers from fatherless homes commit more crime than teenagers from intact families. Put these two demographic facts together, and we are in for a catastrophe in the early 21st century. KIDS AND CRIME Teenagers account for the largest portion of all violent crime in America. Offenders under the age of 21 commit more than one-fourth of all violent crime. Older teenagers (ages 17 to 19) are the most violent of all age groups: More murder and robbery is committed by 18-year-old males than any other group, and more than one-third of all murders are committed by offenders under the age of 21. No population poses a larger threat to public safety than juvenile and young adult criminals. This violence is getting worse. While the teenage population in America has declined over the past decade, violent crimes committed by juveniles have risen sharply. According to the FBI, from 1988 to 1992 juvenile violent crime arrests increased by 47 percent. More juveniles were arrested for violent crime in 1991 and 1992 than in any other two-year period in U.S. history; the number of serious crime cases handled by juvenile courts rose nearly 70 percent between 1988 and 1992. Perhaps most disturbing, the number of 13- to 15-year-olds arrested for murder jumped from 390 in 1982 to 740 only 10 years later. By the time the courts finally lock up an older teenager on a violent crime charge, the offender often has a long rap sheet with arrests starting in his early teens. And actual lock-ups are rare. Nowhere does the revolving door of justice spin faster than in the juvenile court system. Nearly one-quarter of all juvenile arrests are dismissed immediately, and only 10 percent result in detention of the offender. A 1987 justice department Survey of Youth in Custody reported that 43 percent of juveniles in state institutions had more than five prior arrests, and 20 percent had been arrested more than 10 times. Approximately four-fifths of these offenders had previously been on probation, and three-fifths had been committed to a correctional facility at least once in the past. A large majority of teenage criminals are from broken and single-parent households; many teenage boys are growing up without fathers as moral guides and role models. The Survey of Youth in Custody reports that some 70 percent of offenders did not live with both parents while growing up, and more than half reported that a family member had served time in prison. Another study found that 75 percent of teenage criminals came from single-parent homes. These numbers are consistent with surveys of adult offenders in state prisons. Only 43 percent of these inmates grew up in homes with both parents. The single most reliable predictor of violent crime in a neighborhood is its proportion of single-parent families, according to the Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency. The last thing America needs is a population surge of teenage boys growing up in single-parent homes. Yet by the turn of the century, that is exactly what the country will face. …

"What I Need Is a Mom": The Welfare State Denies Homes to Thousands of Foster Children

Abstract: John, 10, is one of America's children who waits. He waits for a home, and he has been waiting nearly all of his life. When John was a toddler, his drug-addicted mom lost her parental rights, and claimed not to know who the father was. John has been legally free to be adopted since he was three, but instead has lived in state-run foster homes and group homes. While his childhood slips away, John's social workers debate his best interests and the programs they hope will address them. But this skinny kid who loves baseball knows better: "I'm all wrapped up in programs," he says. "What I need is a mom." Across the country, there are 50,000 foster children like John, who no longer live with their mother or father and have been declared by courts as free to be adopted, but who languish for months or years in state-run, state-funded substitute care. On any given day, nearly 400,000 other children -- none of them eligible for adoption -- can be found in government foster homes, group homes, and shelters. Many of them are kept there by absentee parents clinging to the legal rights to their children. Foster care and adoption in America have sunk to a state of near- catastrophe. According to the American Public Welfare Association, the population of children in substitute care is growing 33 times faster than the U.S. child population in general. During each of the past 10 years, more children have entered the system than exited. Every year, 15,000 children "graduate" from foster care by turning 18 with no permanent family; 40 percent of all foster children leaving the system end up on welfare, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. What was for most of America's history an entirely private endeavor has become a massive, inefficient government system. State agencies consistently fail to recruit enough families for the children eligible for adoption every year; potential parents often are turned down because of racial considerations, or turned off by protracted and unnecessary waiting periods; cumbersome state regulations extend to private adoption agencies and can even prohibit private attorneys from handling adoptions. The result is that tens of thousands of children are now free to be adopted but have nowhere to go. This is the dirty little secret of the welfare state: Every child is adoptable, and there are waiting lists of families ready to take in even the most emotionally troubled and physically handicapped children. Government adoption policies are utterly failing in their most basic purpose -- to quickly place children who are free to be adopted into permanent homes. The problem lies not with the children. What keeps kids like John bound to state care are the tentacles of a bureaucratic leviathan: a public funding scheme that rewards and extends poor-quality foster care; an anti- adoption bias that creates numerous legal and regulatory barriers; and a culture of victimization that places the whims of irresponsible parents above the well-being of their children. I can identify with these kids. I was a foster child in a family that cared for 110 children. That family -- my family -- adopted me in the early 1970s. Years later, as a student at Harvard, I happened upon a book of statistics on children in state care. I was stunned to learn that decades of research, policymaking, and government funding had only intensified the system's failures. I was one of the lucky ones, but luck will not stem the tide of parentless children. By the year 2000, well over a million children will enter foster care, and tens of thousands of kids will become eligible for adoption. Unless the government apparatus of foster care and adoption is dismantled, these children could spend their childhoods wishing for what most people take for granted: stability, a family that will last longer than a few months, a last name. Subsidizing Failure For years the rallying cry of many children's activists has been: "More money! …

100 Days That Shook the World: The Historical Significance of the Contract with America

Abstract: Big Government was consolidated in America in the First Hundred Days of the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. By promising that the House would enact the Contract With America in the First Hundred Days of the 104th Congress, Speaker Newt Gingrich deliberately invited the history books to compare the work of the House Republican leadership with the New Deal of FDR. Policy Review asked nine students of American politics to assess the historic significance of Gingrich's First Hundred Days, and the principal achievements and errors of the House Republican leadership during this "rendezvous with destiny." John J. Pitney, Jr. At first glance, it seems that the House GOP's First Hundred Days compare badly with FDR's. Although all the items in the Contract With America reached the House floor, only two of them (congressional compliance and unfunded mandates) became law before the hundredth day. By contrast, FDR signed bushels of bills during the Hundred Days of 1933. His emergency banking measure went through introduction, passage, and signature on the very first day of the congressional session - - and in less than eight hours. It is unfair, however, to judge today's House Republicans by the Roosevelt standard. Crisis is the great lubricant of the legislative process, and the economic calamities of FDR's early days briefly suspended Capitol Hill's normal friction. And odd as it may sound, many aspects of public life actually moved faster in 1933 than in 1995. Take justice, for instance. Shortly before FDR took office, a man named Giuseppe Zangara fired five shots at the president-elect, missing him but killing one person and wounding four others. Zangara was tried, convicted, and executed within 33 days. In the 1990s, jury selection alone can take longer than that, and capital offenders can stay out of the electric chair for years by filing endless habeas corpus petitions. Government has become tangled in its own red tape -- which is precisely why the Republicans put so much emphasis on procedural reform. They started with the House itself, recognizing that the institution would work more efficiently with fewer committees and smaller staffs. The best symbol of their commitment to renewing Congress came with the congressional-compliance bill, which cleared both chambers faster than any peacetime domestic legislation since Roosevelt's banking bill in 1933. In other ways, the Republicans strove to make government leaner and less cumbersome. Proposals such as block grants would eliminate layers of bureaucracy and miles of red tape. And the GOP crime bill would restore rationality to the appeals process in capital cases, thereby ensuring swift justice for the Zangaras of the future. House Republicans are pushing the federal government to match the pace of 62 years ago. Ironically, that is high praise. John J. Pitney, Jr., an associate professor of government at Claremont McKenna College, is the co-author of Congress' Permanent Minority? Republicans in the U.S. House. William A. Rusher The First Hundred Days of the new House Republican leaders will deserve that well-worn adjective "historic" even if relatively few of the measures listed in their Contract With America ever become law in a form they would recognize. For the central achievement of the First Hundred Days was to change the whole terrain and direction of American politics. Last year, the most that could be conceived, let alone hoped for, in the field of tax reform was a modest reduction in the rate of income taxation. Today -- whether or not major changes occur in the first session of the 104th Congress -- the serious talk among congressional leaders is about imposing a flat tax, or even tearing up the tax code by the roots and replacing the income tax with a broad-based tax on consumption. Similarly, "welfare reform" in 1994 meant, at best, doing a little nipping and tucking on Aid to Families with Dependent Children. …

Did Your Mom Eat Your Homework? Schools Shift the Blame for Academic Failure to Parents.

Abstract: Parents and politicians tend to blame the education establishment for the sorry state of learning in American public schools. The educrats are not taking this lying down. They've found their own scapegoat: parents. Public-school boosters have decided that lax parental involvement is the reason children fail. And so some have begun turning the schools into Big Mother. The newest trend in education "reform" is the inclusion of parental-education programs and curricula that require parental involvement in student activities. President Clinton's Goals 2000, enacted last year, includes an entire section on "parental assistance," also called "parent training." Some schools even require parents to sign a pledge that they will perform assigned, pseudo-educational tasks, which could include playing "Simon Says" or rolling cookie dough with their third-grader. Of course parents should be involved in their children's education. And, of course, problems at home--messy divorces, absent fathers--can cause problems for children at school. But the "parent education" movement seeks to blame all parents for academic failure, not just parents who are neglecting their kids or destroying their own families. The movement does not seek to make parents more demanding of their children, nor, no surprise, of the schools. To the contrary, new curricula urge parents to be nurturing and uncritical--sort of the way public-school officials would like parents to treat them. This philosophy is becoming institutionalized in California. Consider the math curriculum rated most highly--a perfect 100 percent--by a state education panel that chooses which textbooks should qualify for state subsidies. "Investigations in Numbers, Data and Space," from the Dale Seymour Publications Series, appealed to the panel because it included home assignments that require parental involvement. NEW NEW MATH Under this curriculum--call it New New Math--which eschews rigorous memorization of multiplication tables, teachers send home periodic "Dear Family" missives to third-grade parents with the following advice: * "Don't worry if your child doesn't use a ruler accurately yet--it's a skill that will develop over time, with more and more opportunities to measure." * "Children have very interesting ways to figure out these problems. You can help by asking your child to tell you how he or she got an answer. There are many ways to do these problems--and no single 'right' way. What's important for your child to know is how his or her own way works." * When your child has an assignment to do at home--such as collecting data about the ages of pets and oldest relatives--offer your help, and ask your child about what he or she is doing in class." * "There is one thing we ask you not to do. We won't be using some of the step-by-step methods of addition and subtraction in this unit that may be familiar to you--nor will we be teaching borrowing or carrying. All too often, we have found that children this age memorize these step-by-step procedures and do not learn how to apply the processes of addition and subtraction. This year we will support students in developing several strategies for adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing, and we prefer that they do not memorize a single set of procedures." EDUCATIONAL RELATIVISM This New New Math adds up to a new way of letting schools off the hook for not teaching children. It's not enough that we have moral relativism in English and Social Studies. Now we have it in math, too. The Dale Seymour third-grade program instructs parents to "make roll-out cookies with your child" to explore shapes, include children in family math decisions (such as how many floor tiles to buy) and explore "fair shares," which is politically-correct educratese for "sharing food." Clearly the intent of these instructions is to force parents to spend quality time--at least as defined by educrats. …

Clinton's Cocaine Babies: Why Won't the Administration Let Us Save Our Children?

Abstract: Nothing could be more heart-breaking than the sight of a baby born with an addiction to cocaine There is very little doctors and nurses can do to ease the pain of these innocent newborns, whose mothers' use of hard, illegal drugs during pregnancy constitutes nothing less than blatant child abuse Walk into the neonatal unit of any hospital in America, and you will see crack-cocaine babies Some cry and shake uncontrollably They refuse to take food Many die And those who survive are far more likely than other children to be sentenced to lives of behavioral problems, birth defects, and learning disabilities Nationwide, one in 10 children born has been exposed to cocaine in the womb This condition affects 350,000 babies a year Our society can address this problem effectively We can significantly reduce this type of child abuse Unfotunately, the policy of the Clinton administration is to protect, not the children, but the "rights" of the mothers to escape the consequences of their actions Several years ago, when I was serving as a circuit solicitor in South Carolina, I became aware of the growing problem of crackcocaine babies at Charleston's Medical Unversity of South Carolina (MUSC) My office worked with the hospital to aggressively confront pregnant women with the consequences of their drug use Over a five-year period, we presented all pregnant mothers who tested positive for cocaine use with a choice: Either seek drug treatment or face arrest and jail time This became one of the first "crack-baby" prevention programs in the nation And the program worked Scores of women agreed to enter rehabilitation and stayed off drugs for the remainder of their pregnancies Before-and-after statistics present a clear picture Before the sanctions took effect, 24 pregnant mothers a month tested positive for cocaine Virtually none of them was willing to seek help voluntarily Then, beginning in 1989, when we launched a tough amnesty program, the number testing positive for cocaine dropped to five or six a month Prenatal visits as well as live births at the hospital stayed the same Other states were looking at our success as a model Tragically, the cocaine-baby program, which was clearly saving lives, was effectively shut down by the Clinton administration Under the president's direction, a swarm of federal officials came to Charleston making unfounded allegations of discrimination and accusing the hospital of violating the "privacy rights" of the addicted mothers The Clinton administration warned us that a private civil-rights suit was pending, and threatened to cut off $54 million in federal assistance, or about 60 percent of the facility's annual budget Last year, the hospital finally relented, ending the successful intervention program Now, once again, the babies cry out in agony And once again, hospital staff with no legal recourse must watch pregnant women knowingly cause neurological damage to their unborn children MUSC nurse Shirley Brown expressed the frustration eloquently: "You just have to sit around with your hands tied and watch them destroy a baby" Indeed she is right If this is what President Clinton has in mind when he calls for a return to individual and community responsibility, then this administration faces a profound moral crisis Administration officials and representatives of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) called the cocaine-baby program punitive, discriminatory, and invasive In fact, it was none of the above By the late 1980s, nurse Brown and her staff noticed an increasing number of pregnant women coming to the hospital--not for prenatal care, but because of hemorrhaging or other acute problems related to their pregnancies In the course of treatment, many of these women tested positive for drug use, usually cocaine Thus the program grew out of a deep concern among the hospital staff for the welfare of both mother and child …

Hire Education. An Affordable College Sets the Standard for Career Training.

Abstract: Speaking in Galesburg, Illinois, in January, President Clinton proposed a federally funded job-training program "to keep the American Dream alive in the 21st century." Cost to American taxpayers: $3.5 billion a year. If he had driven about an hour north, Clinton could have visited a college campus that proves his program is unnecessary. DeVry Institute of Technology, headquartered in Oakbrook, Illinois, makes a handsome profit by offering a first-rate technical education to working-class students. This little-known school shows how private businesses outperform government in providing good job training. On 13 campuses from Atlanta to Los Angeles, more than 15,000 students--35 percent of whom are black or Latino--are earning their bachelor's of science degrees at DeVry. Ninety-four percent of the school's graduates land jobs in their fields of study within six months, with an average starting salary exceeding $24,000 a year. DeVry's alumni enjoy cutting-edge technical careers. At Hughes Communications, the nation's largest satellite company, 22 of the 30 engineers responsible for orbit maintenance are DeVry graduates. KLA Instruments, which designs quality-control systems for the manufacture of microchips, boasts that a fifth of its 1,000 employees graduated from DeVry. All this at an annual cost per student of $2,500 less than similar staterun programs. And DeVry posted a $12-million profit on revenues of $211 million last year to boot. SELLING JOB OPPORTUNITY Since its founding in 1931 by Herman DeVry, the inventor of the portable motion-picture projector, the institute has specialized in technical training that leads to lucrative careers. DeVry, which grants accredited bachelor's degrees, is a for-profit venture whose stock trades on the NASDAQ exchange. In short, it sells job opportunity. Five years ago, when Zaneta Rizzo graduated from a small high school in rural Louisiana, she "knew less than nothing" about computers, thought DOS was pronounced "dose," and was terrified of automatic-teller machines. After two years of bouncing among jobs in fast-food restaurants, Rizzo enrolled at DeVry's Dallas campus. Recently she graduated with a bachelor's degree in computer information systems and is deciding between several job offers with computer-training firms. Before DeVry, Rizzo's salary peaked at $760 a month. Her current offers are for $25,000 a year--a 275 percent pay hike. When Jeri Gomez graduated from high school near Fresno, California, she enrolled in a local community college to study the health sciences and dance, but classes were constantly being canceled, so she enlisted in the army. After serving in Desert Storm, Gomez enrolled at DeVry's Pomona campus. She is now deciding among several job offers in software programming that pay more than $30,000 a year. Rizzo's and Gomez's stories are typical of DeVry students, many of whom field multiple job offers before their commencement. In fact, more than 95 percent of engineering and accounting majors are placed in their fields within six months of graduation--a success rate many of the nation's top schools never approach. How does DeVry do it? By running the college like a business. Unlike most colleges, DeVry receives no direct government money or alumni gifts. Nearly all revenues, and therefore profits, come from tuition. And DeVry has found that the best way to attract more students--over half of whom are the first in their families to attend college--is to secure high-paying jobs for graduates. Dennis Keller, DeVry's chief executive officer, says the school avoids anything that doesn't help students find careers. To this end, DeVry maintains an enormous placement system with more than 100 staffers and a database of thousands of employers. While most other schools in the country assign placement officers to handle a broad spectrum of careers, DeVry has found that employers prefer to communicate with staffers who understand their particular needs. …

The beat generation -- community policing at its best.

Abstract: We must restore a balance between citizen and police responsibilities, [for] effective social control cannot possibly be achieved by hired hands alone. --Herman Goldstein, Policing a Free Society Americans live in fear. We live in the most criminally violent times in our nation's history. The level of street crime is between three and four times what it was in 1960, and the rate of violent crimes quadrupled between 1966 and 1990. People no longer feel safe walking to the corner store or letting their kids bike to the local park. In healthy communities, individuals establish and enforce codes of conduct, both formal and informal. Litterers get a lecture. Speeders get yelled at. Unruly youths get a tongue-lashing. But in unhealthy communities, the fear of crime keeps people shut up in their homes (especially the elderly), cuts off commercial activity, alienates individuals from each other, and surrenders the streets to the very kind of disorderly activity that fuels crime in the first place. Community is eroded, and because individuals are afraid to maintain order, the community loses its lawful environment. Until neighborhoods are safe again, they will not thrive economically or socially. Waiting for the government to make it all better is a losing strategy. People have to become more involved in ensuring their own security. It is said that for every complex problem, there is a simple and elegant solution that is wrong. For crime, the simple answer is, "We need more cops and we need more prisons." Though extremely popular right now with politicians, this approach will ultimately do little to improve public safety. The best police force in the world cannot make safe a community in which people have no regard for the lives or property of others. Without question, swift and sure punishment of criminal activity is an important component of an effective crime policy. But the best defense against crime is not a thin, blue line, but a community of individuals respectful of others. There is a great deal that the government can and should do to improve public safety, but first it must recognize that it needs help. Restoring public safety demands a renewed partnership between the police and the community. Police must reacquaint themselves with the people in the communities they serve, and communities must recognize that the brunt of the task of policing a free society does not lie with the police, but with citizens themselves. COMMUNITY POLICING From the time of America's founding, law enforcement has had a strong neighborhood foundation. In the early years of the Republic, male citizens in large U.S. cities were required to stand watch at night with no pay. Throughout most of America's history, in fact, citizens were expected to police their communities themselves--at least part time--as they went about their daily lives. The job of police officers was to support the community in keeping the peace. Alexis de Tocqueville, who was particularly impressed by this, wrote, "In America, the means available to the authorities for the discovery of crimes and arrest of criminals are few... Nevertheless, I doubt whether in any other country crime so seldom escapes punishment.... During my stay in the United States I have seen the inhabitants of a country where a serious crime had been committed spontaneously forming committees with the object of catching the criminal and handing him over to the courts. In Europe the criminal is a luckless man fighting to save his head from the authorities. In America he is an enemy of the human race and every human being is against him." Direct community involvement doesn't mean vigilantes stringing up violators. Urban anthropologist Jacobs Jacobs explains, "The first thing to understand is that the public space--the sidewalk and street peace--of cities is not kept primarily by the police, necessary as police are. Rather, it is kept by an intricate, almost unconscious, network of voluntary controls and standards established and enforced by the people themselves. …

An Offer Too Good to Refuse; Americans Put out a Contract on Big Government

Abstract: In the Spring of 1993, Policy Review predicted that "1994 will be the most important year in American politics since the 1980 race between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan." At least we got that one right. "If the Democratic Party maintains its overwhelming majority in both Houses of Congress in 1994," Policy Review went on to say, "then the Reagan Revolution truly will be over, and the federal government will likely grow in size and intrustiveness into American life. If, however, the Republican Party makes substantial gains, then there is a good chance that the Clinton presidency will be just a temporary interruption in the downsizing of central government. These choices were muddied in 1992 because Mr. Clinton ran to the right of President Bush on many taxing and spending issues. In 1994, the choices will be clearer." The choices certainly were clear in 1994, and so was the message of the voters. Thanks mostly to President Clinton's health care plan, but also to his crime bill, his tax increases, and his regulatory excesses, the party of the donkey was openly identified with liberalism and the cause of bigger government, especially in Washington. In sharp contrast, the party of the elephant stood more strongly for smaller government at all levels--federal, state, and local--than at any time in over a generation. When voters were given this clear choice, the result was an elephant stampede. The magnitude of the GOP victory was a tribute to many of its leaders. To Bob Dole and the Senate Republicans, whose guerrilla warfare and united resistance to Clintonism blocked many of the administration's worst initiatives. To Haley Barbour, one of the greatest chairmen in Republican National Committee history, who brought his party back to conservative ideas and to Politics 101--grass-roots organizing and candidate recruitment. To governors such as Christie Whitman of New Jersey, John Engler of Michigan, and Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin, who showed, after the Bush Betrayal of 1990, that at least some Republicans keep their promises to cut taxes and reduce the size of government. The number of states with a Republican governor and GOP control of both houses of the legislature rose from three to 15, as voters took a gamble that Republican promises of tax and spending cuts were not simply the cynical political gestures they have often proved to be before. Above all, the Republican sweep was a tribute to Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey, and their Republican House colleagues, whose Contract With America did something the GOP should have done long ago--show clearly what difference it would make if Republicans instead of Democrats controlled the House. In Winter 1992, Policy Review asked then House Minority Leader Robert Michel to write an article on what House Republicans would do if they took charge. His only answer was congressional reform--cutting congressional staff, reforming internal House rules, applying to the House the same regulations the Congress applies to everyone else. Michel's answer, in short, was what Gingrich promised for Day One of Republican control. He left out the other 99 days! What a difference new leadership made! The Gingrich-Armey contract made 41 pages of concrete promises to the American people on tax relief, a balanced budget amendment, welfare reform, crime control, defense readiness, and other leading issues. No one can deny that this is what the American people voted for: The Democrats spent millions publicizing the GOP Contract in what turned out to be one of the most issues-driven campaigns of recent decades. SOLEMN OBLIGATION The GOP Contract, though, was more than just a platform. It was a solemn obligation. It was the genius of Gingrich, Armey, and their House Republican colleagues to recognize that the American people want not only smaller government, they want accountability. The citizens are furious over broken promises--not only by Presidents Bush and Clinton but by most of the political class. …

The Courage of Our Convictions: The Abolition of Parole Will Save Lives and Money

Abstract: On Father's Day 1986, Richmond Police Detective George Taylor stopped Wayne DeLong for a routine traffic violation. DeLong, recently released from prison after serving time for murder, shot and killed the policeman. Leo Webb was a divinity student at Richmond's Virginia Union University who liked helping people. One of those he helped was a man named James Steele, on parole for a malicious wounding. One day in 1991, Steele entered the bakery where Webb worked part time, shot him to death, took his money, and went out partying. Tragic as such stories are, what makes these two particularly disheartening is that both could have been easily prevented. Both killers, jailed earlier for violent crimes, spent only a fraction of their sentences in prison. We are now paying the dividends of a liberal justice system that refuses to take punishment seriously: Virginia has witnessed a 28 percent increase in criminal violence over the last five years. Three out of every four violent crimes--murder, armed robbery, rape, assault--are now committed by repeat offenders (see page 5). [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] This is why my administration pushed through legislation, which took effect on January 1, 1995 that will impose penalties for rape, murder, and armed robbery more than twice the national average for those crimes. We have abolished parole, established the principle of truth-in-sentencing, and increased as much as fivefold the amount of time that violent offenders will actually spend in jail. Experience vindicates what commonsense has always told us: The only foolproof crime-prevention technique is incarceration. Our new system is attempting to unravel 30 years of paper-tiger laws based on the questionable philosophy that people can change, criminals can be rehabilitated, and every violent criminal--even a murderer--deserves a second chance. The new law in Virginia will prevent thousands of crimes, save lives, save money, and restore trust in the criminal justice system. Despite this, we now face entrenched opposition from liberals in the General Assembly, who hope to thwart reform by withholding funds to build the minimal number of prison facilities needed to house Virginia's most violent inmates. A few weeks after taking office in January 1994, I created the Commission on Parole Abolition and Sentencing Reform. It was a bipartisan commission of prosecutors, judges, crime victims, law-enforcement officers, business leaders, and legal scholars. William Barr, a former attorney general of the United States, and Richard Cullen, a former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, co-chaired the commission. They had a daunting task. I called for a special session of the General Assembly in September 1994 to focus the public's and the legislature's attention on this issue. I gave the commission six months to demonstrate the need for change, develop a detailed plan, and explain its costs and implementation. We were quickly able to show why a complete overhaul was necessary. Convicted felons were serving about one-third of their sentences on average, and many served only one-sixth. Violent criminals were no exception. First-degree murderers were given average sentences of 35 years, but spent an average of only 10 years behind bars. Rapists were being sentenced to nine years and serving four. Armed robbers received sentences averaging 14 years and served only about four (see page 6). [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Amazingly, a prior conviction for a violent crime did not affect this phenomenon. Even murderers, rapists, and armed robbers who had already served time for similar offenses were receiving the same sentences and serving the same amount of time as first offenders. Statewide, the violent crime rate had risen 28 percent in five years, even though the crime-prone age bracket (15 to 24 years) was shrinking. Criminologists widely regard trends in the size of this demographic group as the best predictor of criminal activity. …

Safety Inc.: Private Cops Are There When You Need Them

Abstract: Every day, hundreds of travelers and visitors to New York City arrive at 42nd Street, across from Grand Central Station, after a disorienting bus trip from Kennedy or LaGuardia airports. Most of the passengers stepping out onto the sidewalk have a single goal: to find a taxicab. Meanwhile, beside each idling bus awaits another group, equally intent on their own mission: to steal from the disembarking travelers. These are Grand Central's "bag hustlers," the muggers, swindlers, and con men drawn to the area by the steady stream of bus passengers, as well as by the half-million or so commuters who pass through Grand Central each day. To these men, a confused tourist is like a limping gazelle: slow, defenseless, and tasty. Early one afternoon, a middle-aged visitor from Austria arrives at 42nd Street. Bags in hand, he scans the street for a cab. Before his eyes can even adjust to the light, he is approached by a bag hustler. The hustler, a stocky man in his late 30s, is confident, aggressive, and talks quickly. He offers to carry the man's bags and find a cab. His $20 fee, he explains, will cover the cost of the ride to the man's hotel. The man assents, unaware that the hustler has no intention of paying for the cab with the $20. Instead, he plans to take the money -- and perhaps the man's entire wallet -- and run into the crowd. As the two walk together to the curb, a third man appears, dressed in what looks like a policeman's uniform. "Excuse me," he says to the tourist, pointing to the hustler, "do you know this man?" The tourist, looking confused, shrugs. "Then why is he carrying your bags? He's a thief." Soon, other tourists are looking on, and the policeman repeats his charge to the crowd. "This man is a thief," he says in a loud voice, "stay away from him." The hustler drops the bags, and the cop escorts the now thoroughly confused but grateful tourist to a legitimate taxi stand down the block. In less than a minute, and with little fuss, the policeman has saved the tourist from one of New York's oldest scams. Except the man in uniform is not a policeman. He is a private security guard, hired by local property owners, and possessing no legal powers beyond those of an ordinary citizen. He is a member of a security detail employed by an organization called the Grand Central Partnership. In less than 10 years, this man and several dozen of his colleagues have helped transform the area around the train station from a chaotic maze of threatening streets into one of the safest sections of Manhattan. They have done it without wholesale arrests -- and without the use of public money. Traditionally, security guards have been employed almost exclusively by businesses: either companies whose assets are so valuable that they require extra protection, such as banks and jewelry stores, or those whose size or physical structure renders police patrols ineffective against crime, like hospitals and railroads. But the role of private security is expanding. Increasingly, civilian guards are providing protection in places where only sworn police officers have walked beats: in public parks, central cities, and residential neighborhoods. And increasingly, the salaries of these guards are being paid not by businesses to protect goods, but by citizens hoping to protect their families and neighborhoods. The history of private security may be nearly as old as crime itself. The earliest security guards may have been the temple priests in the ziggurat at Ur, enlisted by wary Sumerian moneychangers in the third millennium B.C. to protect their lucrative banking operations. In the United States, where businesses have always assumed a large degree of responsibility for protecting themselves, private security guards predate police departments by more than 200 years. Allan Pinkerton, a Scottish immigrant and barrelmaker-turned-detective, started the country's first guard-for-hire service in 1860. His first job: dispatching uniformed civilians to protect meat-packing plants in Chicago. …

Coming after U.: Why Colleges Should Fear the Accrediting Cartel.

Abstract: A tiny "Great Books" college in California, tucked away in a mountain meadow, would seem an unlikely minuteman in a struggle for the academic liberty of America's colleges, universities, and professional schools. But so it is. Thomas Aquinas College, named for the 13th-century Italian saint and patron of Catholic education, was among the first to resist the imposition of non-academic standards by regional accrediting agencies. Now the accreditors, who grant a scholastic seal of approval--and with it, access to federal assistance--are hoping to consolidate and centralize their power over dissident institutions. Armed with an agenda that includes politically correct notions of "diversity," an alliance of accreditors and Washington-based educrats is trying to establish a national accrediting body that would oversee every institution of higher learning in the country. No school that receives federal money would be immune from attack: By threatening to withhold accreditation, and thereby close off millions of dollars in government loans and other assistance, a centralized body could impose a political agenda at will. This is precisely the lesson in the recent flap over the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, which insisted that medical schools require training in abortion procedures or else forfeit accreditation. If the move toward a centralized accrediting body succeeds, the private, collegial character of the review process will be in peril. Advocates of diversity and multicultural standards instead will be pitted against institutions striving to preserve high academic standards along with their own distinctive missions. The autonomy and quality of these institutions will be put in jeopardy. This is not a hypothetical fear. The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, a nationwide agency, recently voted for ideological reasons to deny accreditation to any obstetrics and gynecology program that fails to provide mandatory training in abortion procedures. A similar imposition of ideological mandates could occur if accreditation of colleges were centralized in one monopolistic organization. Accreditation has long been a valuable process in higher education. Until recently, it has involved private, professional peer review to make sure that colleges and universities actually provide the quality of education they claim to provide. Now proponents of "diversity" are using the process to impose politically correct educational standards on institutions striving to preserve their distinctive missions. In the name of advancing diversity within each institution, they are imposing their own version of conformity and threatening true diversity among institutions. At stake is America's historical commitment to the integrity, quality, and independence of its colleges. THE AQUINAS MODEL Since its founding in 1971, Thomas Aquinas has offered only one kind of degree: a bachelor of arts in liberal education. Our curriculum is composed of the seminal books of Western civilization, and we are unabashedly Catholic. There are no majors, minors, or electives. There are no textbooks; we rely only on the original works of those who have thought deeply about man, nature, and God. There are no lectures; we hold seminars in which professors guide students toward an understanding of the authors before them. With its clear and distinctive academic vision, the college offers an exemplary version of a classical liberal education. We pursue no "affirmative action" for persons or texts. We look for the best teachers, the best books, and students willing and able to undertake the life of reason. As Catholics, we hold that one intellectual tradition is superior, and we ask our students to study in that tradition, as well as to read prominent critics of that tradition such as Marx and Nietzsche. We are not about the study of "culture," as the word is used today; we will not base our curriculum on authors consciously selected for their race, gender, or sexual orientation. …

Split Personality: Why Aren't Conservatives Talking about Divorce?

Abstract: Buried deep within one of the many articles that sought to account for the tragic suicide of Kurt Cobain last year was a most surprising revelation. According to Village Voice writer Sarah Ferguson, the grunge-rock pioneer's favorite television shows included Leave It to Beaver and Mayberry, R.F.D. That a cutting-edge cultural icon married to alternative rock's premier feminist (Courtney Love, of the band Hole) could have such retrograde, politically incorrect viewing tastes was, in Ferguson's mind, "odd." But it was also revealing. Grunge rock "is music for kids who grew up too fast," Ferguson says. "It engages in a kind of mournful nostalgia for a childhood without violation." Cobain was certainly no stranger to violation. Every significant examination of his life regards the divorce of his parents as a major turning point. In fact, so painful were Cobain's memories of the divorce that he once held a gun to his head and told his wife, "I'd rather die than divorce." Clearly, one does not have to regard Mayberry as nirvana in order to believe that Cobain and many members of his generation would have fared far better if they had grown up in something resembling Beaver Cleaver's neighborhood. Yet, few people today -- even conservatives -- are prepared to confront the problem that first sent Cobain's young life reeling. Indeed, when Dan Quayle returned last year to the San Francisco club where he gave his famous 1992 Murphy Brown speech, he was quick to point out that when he spoke of the problems surrounding single-parent families, he wasn't referring to "households where the father has died, or even where he is separated by divorce." Rather, Quayle said, he was referring to "those households that have never known a father." Now, in fairness to Quayle, he also noted that "the ideal situation for our children is to be born and raised in an intact family." Nevertheless, by suggesting that divorce has more in common with death (which is almost always involuntary) than with illegitimacy (almost always voluntary), Quayle's remarks contribute to the trivialization of divorce at a time when social scientists are increasingly likely to agree that the impact of divorce on children is almost always negative and often devastating. Indeed, as Barbara Dafoe Whitehead argued in her celebrated article on family break-up in the Atlantic Monthly, divorce -- like illegitimacy -- is strongly linked to a wide variety of negative outcomes for children, from child abuse and neglect to serious juvenile crime. A 1994 study of juveniles in the Wisconsin correction system found that 1 in 3 came from divorced or separated homes. Several studies show that unmarried girls whose parents divorce are much more likely to engage in premarital sex and get pregnant out of wedlock than girls from intact households. A 1994 study by researchers at Duke and North Carolina State University reported that family dissolution is a stronger predictor of suicide for young males than such factors as unemployment. Despite the clear impact of family break-up on children, "some people aren't comfortable talking about divorce and adultery," former Education Secretary William Bennett told a Christian Coalition conference last year. "But it seems to me we have to talk about them. They are before us, and they have great consequences." Great indeed. The number of children directly affected by divorce has more than doubled in a generation, from 463,000 in 1960 to 985,000 in 1991. Until political and cultural leaders give proper attention to the link between divorce and many of our nation's most serious social problems -- crime, poverty, educational decline -- we stand little chance of reversing these trends. Too Close to Home One of the obvious reasons there is less public handwringing about divorce than illegitimacy is because divorce hits closer to home in middle America. As Chester Finn of the Hudson Institute recently observed, "Whereas illegitimacy happens mostly among people who live on the other side of the tracks, much divorce and separation takes place in 'our' own neighborhoods, indeed among our friends and relations, and sometimes even ourselves. …

Legal Disservices Corp.: There Are Better Ways to Provide Legal Aid to the Poor

Abstract: The Legal Services Corp. (LSC) exists ostensibly to provide legal counsel in civil matters to people who cannot afford it. Since it was set up as a quasi-independent government corporation in 1974, it has weathered accusations that it promotes an activist, ideological agenda at the expense of its poor clients, and it has survived numerous attempts at abolition or reform. Now the House Budget Committee, under the leadership of its chairman, Congressman John Kasich of Ohio, has proposed to phase out its annual appropriation, currently at $400 million, over the next two years. American Bar Association President George Bushnell has defended die program and has called LSC critics "reptilian bastards." Numerous defenders of the LSC have taken to the floor of Congress to denounce proposals to trim funding for the agency on the grounds that without it, America's poor will be deprived of civil legal representation. We offer a twofold answer. First, Americans should realize that the LSC is not the noble bulwark of the rights of the poor that its supporters claim. Its effectiveness at serving the poor has always been marred by its pursuit of a political agenda that wastes effort and money and at times works to the long-term detriment of the poor. Second, alternatives to the LSC do exist. Private legal-aid societies predated federally-funded legal services by almost 90 years, and would be thriving today had the lure of federal money not ensnared many of them. Other alternatives flourish in spite of the hostility of groups such as LSC grantees and the organized bar. On a political level, the legal-services "movement," as it styles itself, is a 30-year success story. Since its founding as part of Lyndon Johnson's "War on Poverty," it has pursued its agenda virtually unimpeded. It has withstood budget cuts and a challenge to its existence in the Reagan years, when it waged an extensive "survival campaign." During the 1990s, it has enjoyed increasing appropriations. Its grantees receive an additional $255 million per year (as of 1993) from state and local governments, money from interest on many accounts that lawyers hold in trust for their clients (known as IOLTA funds), and private sources. Its biggest achievement, however, has been securing astronomical amounts of money for recipients of government programs. The movement, however, must face up to a crisis even greater than Republican opposition in Congress: The entire rationale for its existence is flawed: Misunderstood needs. The LSC was created to provide help in civil cases. Most legal problems that poor people face fall into several basic categories: family law, including divorce, custody, guardianship, and child-support issues; housing, including disputes between landlords and tenants; financial issues, including bankruptcy, wills, estates, and credit problems; employment law; public benefits; prisoner rights; and immigration. LSC supporters say that if it were not for the LSC, the 1.6 million poor people it assisted last year would be without any legal recourse whatsoever. The LSC itself proclaims its inadequacy to meet the needs of the poor by asserting that demand for its services vastly outstrips the $400 million provided by the federal government. The agency pleads for ever-increasing amounts of money on the basis of studies conducted by the American Bar Association (ABA) and in several states. These studies purport to show that only a minority of the legal needs of the poor are being met. The state studies asserted that the range was 14 to 23 percent of need. Their methodology appears defective, however, because they fail to distinguish between "unmet" and "unrecognized" legal needs. Poor people were contacted randomly by phone, mail, or in person and asked whether they had problems in various areas, such as housing. If they responded that they had a problem with roaches, for instance, it was counted as an unmet legal need, even if the person had no intention of involving a lawyer in solving the problem. …

Magna Charter? A Report Card on School Reform in 1995

Abstract: Two competing paradigms of education reform have emerged in the United States in recent years, and the differences between them are growing sharper. One, commonly termed "systemic reform," assumes that reform efforts should be led by government and imposed from the top down. Its advocates believe that state (or federal) authorities must set standards not only for student learning, but also for teacher training, pupil assessments, textbooks, and school resources. Though undertaken in pursuit of higher standards and better results, systemic reform relies on uniform strategies to ensure that "inputs" everywhere are equal and all schools undertake similar activities. Government resources and bureaucratic regulation are, of course, its preferred mechanism for making this happen. Much of Goals 2000 embodies this approach. The second reform paradigm, which we call "reinventing education," embraces decentralized control, entrepreneurial management, and grassroots initiatives, all within a framework of publicly defined standards and accountability. Under this approach, public officials establish standards, make assessments, and hold schools accountable for meeting performance goals but do not themselves run the schools. Public officials also retain the power to cancel charters and school-management contracts on grounds of consistently poor performance, but they do not directly supervise or control the means by which schools pursue those ends. Under this paradigm, education may be delivered through charter schools (licensed by public authorities such as a state, city, or local school district), "opt out" schools that secede from their local education agencies and run themselves with what amounts to a "block grant" of public funds, "contract schools" (in which a performance contract is negotiated between private educational managers and a public agency), and "choice" programs (in which students use scholarships or publicly-funded vouchers to attend the schools of their choice). In all such situations, the continuing responsibility of public authorities is to establish standards for educational and fiscal performance and monitor progress in relation to those standards. (Those who reject this degree of public accountability may, of course, turn to wholly private schools or home schooling.) The "reinvention" approach welcomes diverse strategies and schools organized and run by various entities such as teacher cooperatives, parent associations, private corporations, religious institutions, and community-based organizations. It assumes that students and families are different and should be free to match themselves to the schools that suit them best. It requires little bureaucracy and few regulations because it rejects the proposition that schools must be centrally managed according to a single formula. We strongly favor the "reinvention" paradigm, provided that it contains one key element borrowed from the "systemic" approach: standards and accountability. It is our conviction that only clear and high standards for performance will ensure accountability, both to the marketplace (that is, to families making informed choices among schools) and to whatever public body authorizes the schools to operate. These standards need not be national, they need not be highly detailed, they should not prescribe pedagogy or resource use, and they need not cover the entire curriculum. (Indeed, the ability of schools to add their own features to the "core" described in the standards is part of what will make them different from one another.) But only when such standards are in place--and accompanied by good tests and a steady flow of performance information--can parents make informed choices among schools and public authorities determine which schools deserve to retain their "charters," contracts, or accreditations. These two approaches are now competing with each other, not only in Washington, D.C., but also in the states. …

Black Flight: Years of Liberal Government Drives Away D.C.'S Middle Class

Abstract: Washington is a city of monuments. Its grandest and most expensive is a work still in progress, but nearing completion: the District of Columbia itself, which commemorates the ruin of American liberalism. The D.C. government is bankrupt today because liberal policies have decimated its tax base. Washington is a hollow community of extreme rich and poor. Landlords and private employers have fled by the thousands, followed by nearly the entire middle class of taxpayers. Although Washington is the center of one of the most dynamic information-based economies in the U.S, it has a declining population and a growing number of people below the poverty line. This year, twice as many households as in 1988 lack phones. In no other laboratory of democracy has the liberal experiment taken such pure form. Nowhere else have the results been so damning. The District is perhaps the most liberal city in America. Nine of every 10 registered voters are Democrats, and the Socialist Workers Party fields more candidates for local office than the Republican Party. Conceived at the high tide of American liberalism, the District government is a product of its times, more concerned with the rights of groups than with the responsibilities of individuals. Many of the original office holders, political activists with no experience in private enterprise, are still in power today. The results are tragic. Among all U.S. states, the District has the highest percapita murder and violent-crime rates, the highest percentage of residents on public assistance, the highestpaid school board, the lowest SAT scores, and the most single-parent families. The political activists have built a government they can't afford. Although the city takes in an astounding $8,950 in revenue for every man, woman, and child in its jurisdiction (compared with $4,100 and $3,700 in nearby Maryland and Virginia, respectively), the District still manages to spend $1,000 more per person than it receives. The result is a budget deficit edging closer to $1 billion with each new audit. The victims of this ferociously progressive government are not the wealthy and privileged, but the middle class and beleaguered. Today, in some parts of the city, it seems entire neighborhoods are for sale. In places like Shepherd Park, Lincoln Park, Marshall Heights--communities once redolent of African-American pride and history--there are lonely streets whose only splash of color appears on the real-estate signs that seem to sprout from every other garden plot. At the end of one of these streets stands the Florida Avenue Grill. From behind the counter of the often-crowded restaurant, Lacey Wilson Jr. has seen the District of Columbia ebb and flow. These days, it's mostly ebbing. Back in 1944, when Wilson's father opened his soul-food restaurant on the corner of Florida Avenue and 11th Street, near the LeDroit Park section of Northwest Washington, the city was a thriving community of educated descendants of freed slaves, flourishing family businesses, and urban sophistication. It was also a magnet of opportunity for blacks seeking to escape rural poverty. At mid-century, wartime Washington offered stable, well-paying white-collar jobs in the federal bureaucracy. People came and put down roots. Eighteen years ago, when Lacey Wilson Jr. began working at the Grill full time, the neighborhood brimmed with well-kept houses and children playing. Today, the Grill stands alone in an otherwise vacant lot. In the short time since the District was granted home rule in 1974, Washington has gone from promised land to no-man's-land. "Most of the families who lived here have moved out to Maryland," says Wilson, himself a refugee to "the peace and quiet" of suburban Virginia. Those who stayed in the neighborhood, according to Wilson, are trapped in houses that have lost 30 percent of their value in the last eight years. Business used to be better, says Wilson. The vacant lot next door means more taxicabs can park at lunch time, but the crime that holds this city hostage each night has cut his after-dark dinner traffic by half. …

Lead Us Not into Temptation. A Christian Case against School Prayer.

Abstract: If God truly answers prayers, then politicians, lawmakers, and religious activists may soon have Him working overtime: Speaker-elect of the U.S. House of Representatives Newt Gingrich promises a constitutional amendment allowing voluntary, student-led prayer in public school; President Clinton says "there is room" for such prayer in public education; over the last 18 months, school prayer initiatives have passed or appeared in at least 10 state legislatures. Not everyone, of course, is ready to invoke a hearty Amen. Strict church-state separationists cite constitutional objections, while religious minorities and secularists worry about coercive prayers in class. But more surprisingly, a growing number of conservative, evangelical Christians are raising deep concerns about the difficulties that even student-led prayer creates in matters of faith, conscience and civility. And the doubts and criticisms are coming from some of the most influential quarters of this faith community--including academics, seminary leaders, and legal scholars and activists. "It's a diversion," says Steven McFarland, director of the Christian Legal Society's Center for Law and Religious Freedom. "It's a diversion of our legal energies, it's a diversion of our spiritual focus, and it anesthetizes the churches." NEW WAVE OF SUPPORT Ever since the Supreme Court declared prayer in the public schools unconstitutional, religious conservatives have been longing--and lobbying--for its return. In the 1970s, school prayer was one of the issues that helped propel conservative Christians into national politics. One evangelical Protestant leader called the Court's ban on prayer "the darkest hour in the history of the nation." By 1980, invigorated evangelicals helped elect Ronald Reagan on a platform endorsing a constitutional amendment to restore voluntary school prayer. Such bills were proposed, but never cleared Congress, and by the mid-1980s, states were limited to passing moment-of-silence laws. Then came the 1992 U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision allowing "non-sectarian" student-led prayers at graduation ceremonies. The Supreme Court declined to review the ruling, and several lower federal courts have issued conflicting decisions in similar cases. Since then, attempts to reintroduce either school prayers or a "moment of quiet reflection" have hit a new crescendo. At least six states--Maryland, Virginia, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Alabama--now allow prayer or quiet reflection in class. Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Florida, and Oklahoma have considered similar laws. Gingrich has anointed Representative Ernest J. Istook Jr., (R-OK) to oversee hearings on school prayer in all 50 states, anticipating a floor vote by the fourth of July. Student prayer has always been popular with the majority of Americans: At least 75 percent consistently favor returning prayer to the schools. What is new about the latest surge in interest is the growing support from liberal politicians and black urban leaders and clergy. Prayer legislation recently was supported by the majority of Democratic council members in the District of Columbia, including Mayor-elect Marion Barry. Democrats like Florida state Representative Beryl Burke and Georgia state Senator David Scott have pushed similar measures. THE CASE FOR PRAYER One of the primary arguments for school prayer is historical: American society always has been religious, and public prayer seems an appropriate reflection of the nation's emphasis on faith and religious freedom. The modern exclusion of prayer from public schools, say proponents, reveals a deep-seated and historically inappropriate hostility to religious belief. "Right now there's almost a total absence of religion in the schools," says Robert Dugan, director of the public affairs office for the National Association of Evangelicals. Court rulings that remove the Ten Commandments from school walls, textbooks that delete the religious motivations of the American Founders, prohibitions against graduation prayers--all are seen as attempts to purge the public schools of America's religious roots. …

OSHA's Trivial Pursuit

Abstract: It was a horrible tragedy, as much for the mental images it generated as for the death toll. On September 3, 1991, at around 8 a.m., a fire broke out at a chicken plant in Hamlet, North Carolina. As the grease fire started on a chicken fryer and spread quickly inside the Imperial Foods Products building, workers tried desperately to escape the smoke and flames, clawing at locked exit doors in panic. Twenty-five Imperial employees didn't make it. Fifty-six more were injured in the blaze. The event made national headlines and attracted everyone from network news reporters to Jesse Jackson, who visited in an attempt to link the chicken- plant tragedy to the national civil-rights movement. "I see the same faces here that I saw in Memphis, Tennessee, with Dr. [Martin Luther] King," he said. "Just basic, humble people who want to work and get a fair day's wages for a fair day's work." Furious voices denounced state and federal safety inspectors, as well as the state's business community. During 1992 and 1993, the Hamlet fire became the cause celebre of politicians and activists seeking tougher workplace-safety laws in Congress, including a greatly expanded Occupational Safety and Health Administration and new mandates on businesses. As Hamlet became a national symbol for corporate irresponsibility in workplace safety, one small but significant detail escaped the notice of many in Congress and the media. Those exit doors that sealed the deathtrap had been ordered closed and locked by the federal government. The problem with the Imperial plant, a U.S. Department of Agriculture poultry inspector had said the previous June, was flies. "Both doors at the [trash] compactor was [sic] open when I arrived at 8:45 p.m.," the inspector wrote in a deficiency report. "Several flies [were] observed in all areas of the plant." Imperial's response, also written into the deficiency report, was to promise that the outside doors "will be kept locked." The inspector verified that corrective action had taken place. Imperial Foods was hardly blameless in the tragedy -- various safety problems existed at the time of the fire -- but heavy-handed government regulation was also partly responsible. The chicken plant was one of the few employers in a poor, rural community. It ran on a very thin margin, using an old building and struggling every week to keep production going. Installing state-of-the-art alarm doors at the side and rear of the plant was an expensive proposition. When forced by federal edict to make a tradeoff between food quality and worker safety, plant managers chose the former, with disastrous results. Fast forward to 1995. A new Republican majority in Congress, intent on balancing the federal budget, has targeted the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for cuts. In an attempt to defend OSHA, the Clinton administration announced a plan in May to make compliance less onerous to business and to judge safety inspectors on the basis of safety records for companies they oversee, not on the number of citations by write. "This is the new face of OSHA," said Elaine Kamarck, senior policy advisor for Vice President Gore and director of his "reinventing government" initiative. But a Congress committed not only to budget savings but also to sound policymaking should go far beyond redesigning OSHA's inspection program or, as some GOP lawmakers have suggested, simply cutting its budget in half. There is no need for the federal government to inspect American workplaces, issue regulations, and fine employers for violating federal safety rules, and the attempt to do so has accomplished virtually nothing for American workers except burden their employers with regulations. A 1991 study by Wayne B. Gray of the National Bureau of Economic Research found that OSHA regulations have "significantly reduced productivity growth in the U.S.," even more than those from the Environmental Protection Agency. Some OSHA standards have put a search for completely risk-free workplaces above common sense. …

The Readiness Trap: The U.S. Military Is Failing to Prepare for the Next Big War

Abstract: During the 1992 presidential race, the Fleetwood Mac song "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow" became the official anthem of the Clinton campaign. Once in office, the new administration lost little time infusing every facet of its domestic agenda with concern about the future. But its defense agenda has been curiously immune to long-term thinking. Rather than planning for tomorrow, the administration's defense policies reflect a disturbing preoccupation with the concerns of the moment. This is a dangerous flaw. The record of the 20th century suggests that the present period of diminished global tensions will not last, and that major new threats to national survival may emerge in the near future. However, the Clinton administration seems to assume that the end of the Cold War meant the end of history, at least as far as great-power threats to national security were concerned. The result is a U.S. defense budget that exhibits high levels of consumption and very low levels of investment. Both in their rhetoric and in their resource allocations, senior Pentagon executives and many congressional Republicans have been preoccupied with "readiness"--the ability to fight effectively on short notice. Readiness is a notoriously nebulous concept, but in economic terms it translates into consumption: Money is spent to preserve and enhance current capabilities rather than prepare for the future. Like other forms of consumption, readiness tends to be bought at the expense of procurement of new weapons. In inflation-adjusted terms, Pentagon procurement accounts now stand at the lowest levels since 1950, the year the Korean War began. The $39 billion requested by the Clinton Administration for weapons procurement in fiscal 1996 constitutes only 16 percent of a defense budget that itself has shrunk to a mere 15.5 percent of overall federal expenditures. In other words, the Pentagon's planned spending on all types of equipment for military services in fiscal 1996 adds up to only 2.5 percent of the federal budget--an amount of money equal to about four months' of sales by the Ford Motor Co. The Clinton administration contends that this low level of investment is justified by a diminished threat and the huge inventory of weapons accumulated during the Cold War. It also claims that a planned increase in procurement will lead to "recapitalization" of the armed forces toward the end of the 1996-2001 Future Years Defense Plan. However, the Pentagon's current predictions for 2001 may not be any more reliable than those of science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke. It is possible that spending on procurement will remain depressed. If that occurs--while high levels of readiness are sustained--the armed forces will suffer continued depletion of their weapons inventories. LESSONS OF THE PAST Unfortunately, the depletion of capital stocks could coincide with the reemergence of threats abroad and a revolution in military technology, creating a situation not unlike that of the 1930s. The current debate over national-security needs presents a rather distressing spectacle in historical amnesia. The struggle with communism for the past two generations has so strongly influenced policymakers that they exhibit little apparent capacity for interpreting that experience in a broader context. The Cold War was the third occasion in this century when the U.S. mobilized to prevent anti-democratic forces from dominating Eurasia. The century began with the challenge posed by German imperialism, and barely a generation later the U.S. was at war again, this time to defeat fascism. The outcome of WWII then set the stage for the anti-communist crusade of the post-war period. Note that the same pattern repeated itself with each new danger. Regional powers gradually accumulated land and resources while the United States was distracted; early warnings that a great-power threat was emerging were greeted with widespread skepticism; when the threat became urgent, U. …

Pride and Prejudice: Black Business Leaders Ask: Is It Time to Set Quotas Aside?

Abstract: During the coming year, Americans will begin a serious debate over the meaning and value of affirmative action. Among the early signs: A proposed ballot initiative in California aims to amend the state constitution to prohibit preferential treatment in public policy based on race, sex, ethnicity, or national origin. In Georgia, the state legislature considers a bill to end preferences for women and minorities in landing county contracts. Senator and presidential hopeful Phil Gramm (R-TX) promises that, if elected, he will end major set-aside programs on his first day in office. President Clinton orders an "intense, urgent review" of all aspects of government affirmative-action policy. Veteran Democratic strategist Susan Estrich says that as far as affirmative action is concerned, "now is truly the time to move on to some other approach." The Supreme Court may oblige her. In agreeing to hear Adarand v. Pena, the Court threatens to reform, restrict, or undo federal set-asides for minority-owned businesses. Policy Review asked several black businessmen to describe the impact of race-based government contracting on entrepreneurship, and to offer their own insights into establishing successful businesses in an increasingly competitive market. Here are their stories: WARD CONNERLY Of all the terms used to describe America, none is more descriptive (and it is my favorite) than "the land of opportunity." Opportunity, the chance to advance in life, is the centerpiece of our value system. It is this concept that separates us from the rest of the world. For opportunity to have meaning, there must be entrepreneurs, people who are willing to take chances in order to succeed. True entrepreneurs are created not by government, but by God, and their natural talents are stimulated by the marketplace. In recent years, our nation has begun to debate the effects and consequences of "affirmative action." Affirmative action comes in many forms; some are acceptable, even desirable, such as advertising the availability of contract opportunities in minority communities, and adopting strong measures to ensure that racial and gender discrimination have no place in our society. Other forms of affirmative action, however, are very damaging to the nation and to those whom such programs and practices are designed to benefit. One of the most odious forms of affirmative action is the concept of awarding contracts on the basis of racial, ethnic, or gender preferences. There are many variations on this theme, but the approach taken in California is fairly representative and instructive. Several years ago, the California state legislature passed a law requiring every state agency to award 15 percent of all contracts to firms owned by minority business enterprises (MBEs), 5 percent to firms owned by women-owned business enterprises (WBEs), and 3 percent to firms owned by disabled veterans (DVBEs). Minorities are defined as "socially and economically disadvantaged" groups and include blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and Native Americans. What are the effects of this policy? First, the prospect of getting government contracts, as a result of belonging to a protected group, is sometimes a false inducement for people to go into business without being adequately prepared to be in business. They often are undercapitalized and lack the business acumen to remain in business without government contracts. This is not itself a sin, but these businesses tend to become an extension of the government agencies themselves. Consequently, the agencies often create contract opportunities to sustain these businesses rather than acting to meet their needs or those of the taxpayers. Second, the costs and headaches associated with administering the MBE and WBE programs are significant. A bureaucracy of MBE/WBE coordinators has been established in virtually every department of California's state government. …

Nixon's Ghost: Racial Quotas - May They Rest in Peace

Abstract: A generation has passed since the Nixon administration established racial quotas in hiring, promotion, college admissions, and government contracting. Affirmative-action policies, both public and private, have opened many economic and educational opportunities for African Americans, and have played an important role in one of the most encouraging developments of recent decades: the emergence of a large and growing black middle class. But supporters of government-mandated racial preferences have always been uncomfortable about policies that judge Americans by the color of their skin, not the content of their character -- the opposite of Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream. Even if racial preferences have been justified on a temporary basis, they surely cannot be justified for more than a generation. Citizens and politicians are beginning to roll quotas back. Senators Bob Dole and Phil Gramm both have promised that, if elected president, they would repeal President Nixon's executive order requiring all government contractors to submit detailed "goals and timetables" for the hiring and promotion of minorities and women. Governor Pete Wilson has abolished some racial hiring quotas established by California law. Even President Clinton is reviewing the issue. Perhaps the most dramatic movement is the California Civil Rights Initiative, which will be on the ballot next year and enjoys overwhelming support in public-opinion polls. The brainchild of two scholars, Glynn Custred and Thomas Wood, the initiative is based on the color-blind language of the Civil Rights Act of 1964: "Neither the State of California nor any of its political subdivisions or agents shall use race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin as a criterion for either discriminating against, or granting preferential treatment to, any individual or group in the operation of the State's system of public employment, public education or public contracting." Gaining Ground There are six reasons why the repeal of government-mandated racial quotas is gaining the support of the American people: Racial preferences are discriminatory. It is just as wrong for the government to discriminate in favor of blacks and other minorities as it is to discriminate against them. Preferring one race to another is a violation of the Declaration of Independence, which holds that all men are created equal; of the 14th Amendment, which guarantees all citizens the equal protection of the laws; and of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which explicitly forbids government-mandated reverse discrimination. This discrimination has real victims, such as the Asians denied admission to the University of California in spite of spectacular records, and would-be policemen and firemen who lose jobs to applicants who are substantially less qualified. Racial preferences violate the principles of American citizenship. Americans come from all races, all religions, all nationalities. What unites us as a nation is not a common origin, but a common commitment to our political institutions: the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; the Constitution; a self-governing republic. Martin Luther King Jr. brought Americans together -- by speaking of what Americans have in common, by showing how the civil-rights movement fit into the American political tradition. Racial preferences do the opposite; they balkanize our country by emphasizing our differences. Racial preferences foster dependency on government. Ronald Reagan used to say that "the success of welfare should be judged by how many of its recipients become independent of welfare." So, too, the success of affirmative action should be judged by how many businesses become independent of set-asides, by how many individuals become independent of quotas in promotion and hiring. Unfortunately, all too many businesses have become part of a permanent affirmative-action industry. Racial preferences restrict freedom. …

We Aren't the World: An Exit Strategy from U.N. Peacekeeping

Abstract: Just the other day, it seems, the national debate about the U.S. role in the United Nations turned for the most part on the issue of money--on U.S. contributions and U.N. waste, and how reducing the former might diminish the latter. That issue remains. In 1994, the U.S. spent no less than $3.5 billion on a largely dysfunctional U.N. system--with scant returns as measured by U.S. national interests. (See sidebar, next page). But the debate has a scary new dimension. The U.N. is reinventing what used to be called "peacekeeping." In the last several years, that do-good concept has been stretched to encompass a range of U.N. operations that typically involve the use of force, even the waging of war. Moreover, President Clinton's U.N. representatives are willing collaborators in developing a one-size-fits-all justification for multilateral interventions that bear only the most attenuated relation to U.S. interests--if any at all. And that, along with peacekeeping's mounting bills, adds up to serious business indeed. It is now the business of the 104th Congress. As a component of its Contract with America, the House of Representatives already has passed the National Security Revitalization Act, which reins in the wild proliferation of U.N. peacekeeping, limits U.S. participation in these operations, and imposes some controls on U.S. contributions to the U.N. generally. The next orders of business are to fend off efforts in the Senate to weaken these provisions--which constitute only a minimal package--and then to be vigilant about implementation. The question still to be answered is what the U.N. is worth to us--whether, that is to say, the U.S. gets back in national priorities anything commensurate with its $3.5 billion annual investment. Ten years ago, there was a consensus in the United States that radical surgery was called for. Numerous studies and investigations, many of them instigated by the U.N. itself, had revealed a pattern of waste, mismanagement, and duplication (see sidebar, page 66). The U.N.'s socioeconomic agenda called for the redistribution of wealth from the industrialized democracies to the less-developed countries of the Third World. On the political side, national-liberation movements (good) and colonialism (bad) were the buzzwords of choice. As a result, a Democratic-controlled Congress in 1984 overwhelmingly approved the Kassebaum-Solomon Amendment to the authorization of the U.S.'s 25 percent share of the U.N.'s administrative budget. The terms of the amendment seemed unambiguous: Shape up, impose fiscal discipline on yourself, and move toward some form of weighted voting on the U.N. budget in the General Assembly, with "bonus" votes for big contributors in rough proportion to their contributions, or else suffer an annual 20 percent withholding of the U.S. payment. Now, let the record show that Senator Nancy Kassebaum (R-KS) and Representative Gerald Solomon (R-NY) had the right idea then--that the U.N. had to be reformed if ever it were to become a useful agent of world order--and it is the right idea still. But for the most part, Kassebaum-Solomon failed. Congress is now back at work on the problems of a dysfunctional U.N., using the power of the purse as one lever of reform. The problems have deepened, however, both in complexity and in their deadly import. The U.N. has recently engaged in the promiscuous use of force under the authority of resolutions that may violate its own charter, and the Clinton administration has been willing, even eager, to plunge into the resulting swamp. THE PEACEKEEPING TRAP Kassebaum-Solomon redux is embodied in the new House act; and, in the Senate, a companion bill covers some of the same ground. Both are reasonable first cuts at shaping a long-term policy. U.S. costs and U.N. waste are still at issue. But these bills focus on U.N. peacekeeping--which is itself a misnomer, and a dangerously misleading one. The U. …

Original Thomas, Conventional Souter: What Kind of Justices Should the Next President Pick

Abstract: The 1994 term of the Supreme Court cast into stark relief the performances of Justices Clarence Thomas and David Souter. Justice Thomas emerged as the boldest member of the Court in half a century--a jurist committed to seeking the original meaning of the Constitution in lengthy and learned opinions that survey the vast scope of American constitutional history. On the other hand, Justice Souter, while continuing his move to the Court's liberal wing, tended to write jejune opinions seemingly intent on avoiding the central issues of the case. It is as if Thomas and Souter keep alive in the public sphere the paradoxical qualities of the president who appointed them both. Thomas re resents the bold and fearless George Bush who prosecuted the Gulf War and stood by Thomas in his contentious confirmation hearings, while Souter represents the reticent George Bush who was inattentive to conservative principles in many areas of domestic policy. Given the excellent prospects in 1996 for a new president inclined to appoint conservative justices, it is appropriate to analyze the differences between these justices to aid the new president in choosing nominees in the mold of Thomas rather than Souter. I then propose a few criteria for choosing the next nominee that will maximize the chances of selecting an outstanding justice who will help ensure principled constitutional governance into the next century. Liberal and conservative commentators alike agree on one proposition about the most recent Supreme Court term: Thomas became a force to be reckoned with. Tony Mauro, a liberal Court watcher, wrote of Thomas's "bold and searching" opinions. Burt Neuborne, a professor at New York University Law School and the former director of the ACLU, was struck by Justice Thomas's "vigorous tone" in his many "interesting and important opinions." James Kilpatrick wrote of his "masterly" work. George Will gave what may be a conservative's highest accolade for a judge: Thomas's opinions, he wrote, were "Borkean." Indeed, the most striking characteristic of Thomas's opinions was one he shares with Judge Robert Bork--a willingness to go back to first principles to uncover the meaning of the Constitution. In case after case where the original meaning of the Constitution was put in issue by the litigants or other justices, such as those involving term limits, the extent of Congress's authority under the Commerce Clause, and the protection afforded anonymous pamphlets under the First Amendment, Thomas wrote magisterial opinions that investigated the original understanding of the Constitution in detail. To be sure, not all of his opinions investigated all possible originalist angles of a case. But this is only to be expected, given the way issues are framed on the Court. Thomas is not a law professor, completely at liberty to approach every case without reference to the framework in which his colleagues or the litigants are operating. Nevertheless, his opinions undoubtedly represent the most impressive set of originalist opinions ever written by a Supreme Court justice within a single term. Thomas's opinion in U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton was emblematic of his approach. The issue in the case was whether the states could preclude individuals who had served a certain number of terms as a senator or member of the House of Representatives from again appearing on the ballot for that office. The Constitution sets out certain qualifications for both representatives and senators. For instance, as to members of the House of Representatives, the Constitution provides, "No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen." The analysis in the majority opinion in Thornton rested on the proposition that these qualifications were exclusive. It held that term limits were unconstitutional because state law could not add qualifications relating to the number of terms a candidate had previously served. …

Smoking Them out; How to Close Down a Crack House in Your Neighborhood

Abstract: "I'll tell you how powerful it is," says Manfred, a former crack user in Washington, D.C., of the drug he once used daily. "When I first started, I had a girlfriend. Sex doesn't even compare to getting high. You can have the finest woman on the face of this earth in front of you with no clothes on begging you for it, and you'd tell her to put her clothes on and go home. You'd tell her, 'Get dressed, honey, because here's my girlfriend, right here inside this bag.'" Though he has since quit using drugs and found a job, Manfred still sounds like an addict when he recalls the lure of crack cocaine. A few years later, the memory of his hunger for the drug remains fresh. Manfred says that during the time he smoked crack, he never had much interest in victimizing his neighbors or causing disorder in his community. His greatest desire--often, he says, his only desire--was to smoke more crack. Individually, crack addicts often seem more pathetic than menacing. Desperate, confused, filthy, the typical addict poses little threat to his neighbors. He is more likely to beg change than rob a liquor store to support his habit. But when a group of heavy users gathers in a house, ordinary citizens have reason to fear. Together, the users' addiction can dominate not only their lives, but the life of an entire neighborhood. PARTY ANIMALS Most crack houses evolve slowly. Initially, a crack house may consist of several friends meeting periodically to smoke cocaine. Their use of drugs may be purely recreational, and not at all disruptive to the surrounding community. Neighbors living down the street from the house may not notice its existence. Over time, and almost imperceptibly, the atmosphere in the house may change. As their addictions grow, so too does the amount of time the crack users spend inside. After a while, they seldom leave. The building begins to fill with strangers. Other users come, as do dealers and assorted hangers-on--prostitutes and addicts, trading what they can for crack, burglars fencing stolen goods, the destitute looking for a place to sleep. Suddenly, the street outside is choked with cars, with people yelling and fighting late at night. The yard is littered with food wrappers and empty bottles of malt liquor. Addicts fire guns into the air and sometimes into each other. The neighbors become afraid to leave their porches. What was once a party between friends has become a crack house. What was once a quiet neighborhood has become dangerous. Roger Conner knows how crack houses start, and about how hard they are to close down. In 1991, the Washington, D.C. lawyer co-authored The Winnable War: A Community Guide to Eradicating Street Drug Markets. Three years after he published his book, Conner's neighborhood is still afflicted. The author of The Winnable War lives down the street from four crack houses. "It's an affront," says Conner of the drug trade that still flourishes in his neighborhood, despite years of legal battles and calls to the police. "It's like someone urinating on your lawn on a regular basis. That's what it feels like." NO 'DRUG DEALING HERE' There were not always crack houses in Roger Conner's neighborhood. For years, drug dealers congregated around the corner from his house, in front of a reggae bar on Georgia Avenue. Conner and his neighbors took the owner of the bar to court and shut down the business. The drug dealers scattered. But they did not go far. Instead of selling their wares on the street, they moved inside, into houses in the neighborhood. Once out of public view, the dealers became less conspicuous, and harder to dislodge. "A police car driving through my neighborhood--even a very watchful police officer--would not know that there's a drug market operating here," says Conner. "They don't hang signs out that say, 'Drug Dealing Here.'" But neighbors know. Conner says crack buyers routinely show up at the wrong house late at night. …

A Madisonian Compromise; Term Limits for the House, but Not the Senate

Abstract: In the summer of 1787, the delegates who gathered in Philadelphia to reform our nation's Congress were deeply divided on matters both of principle and of prudence. Those from the larger or more ambitious states sought to make the Congress a genuinely republican body of the kind already known in the states, a bicameral legislature, whose popular house would consist of representatives chosen in proportion to population, and whose second house would be chosen by the first. Delegates from the smaller or more diffident states insisted on maintaining the status quo under the Articles of Confederation, according to which each state delegation had a single vote in a unicameral Congress, in recognition of the independence (they said "sovereignty") of their separately constituted political societies. The impasse, which threatened to disband the Federal Convention or thwart meaningful reform, was overcome, of course, by what has come to be known as the Great Compromise: Congress would consist of a House of Representatives, elected directly by the people with members distributed among the states in proportion to their populations, and a Senate, made up of two senators elected by the legislatures of each state. Except that the Seventeenth Amendment gave election of senators to the people of the states in 1913, this arrangement has held into the present. POPULAR REFORM In the winter of 1995, Congress will convene in Washington with a clear mandate to reform itself, and while many proposals are on the agenda, one that is sure to receive much attention is the call for a limit on the number of terms, or at least consecutive terms, that a member of Congress can serve. Though this reform has proven highly popular among voters in many states in recent years, and a substantial part of the new congressional majority stands pledged in its favor, there is reason to doubt whether its success is ensured. The party most supportive of term limits has, by its very victory, deprived its members of the strongest partisan motive for that reform. Although Republicans have a healthy fear of betraying the voters who have given them a chance to rule, one may wonder whether a sustained rather than symbolic effort on behalf of term limits is forthcoming. Moreover, the GOP leadership is in the awkward position of exceeding in its tenure the very limits it proposes. Most importantly, among conservatives (and, for that matter, liberals) there is considerable disagreement about the genuine value, as opposed to the popularity, of the reform, and when amendment of the Constitution is at issue, this must give pause. BRINGING HOME THE BACON The arguments for and against the limitation of congressional terms have been widely rehearsed, not least in this journal, so I will content myself with a bare summary. Proponents of term limits argue that the professionalization of Congress since the New Deal has undermined its representative character. The career legislator makes an art of bringing home bacon to his constituents and of responding to the troubles they have with the federal bureaucracy he has helped impose upon their lives, but he is unresponsive to their political concerns and unable to dismantle the system of favors upon which his incumbency seems to depend. Term limits, it is argued, will break the back of careerism and so change the structure of incentives that congressment face, freeing them from the temptation to raid the treasury in order that they may concentrate on legislating for the public interest--not least in removing wasteful subsidies, taming the deficit, and offering tax relief. Term limits opponents, at least among conservatives, while agreeing on diagnosis of the illness in the current system, think that the move to limit terms distracts from the cause of genuine fiscal reform. The people can easily enough limit the careers of their congressmen with the switch of a lever, once they are persuaded that the other party means business when it promises to reduce government--as perhaps we have just seen. …