Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia dies

Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia has died at age 92. The New York Times has published a nice summary of his career.

Byrd grow up in poverty in a coal mining camp in West Virginia. My mother also grew up poor, the daughter of a coal miner. She is four years younger than Byrd. As a child, we regularly drove to my grandparents' home on the hillside around the bend from the mine where my grandfather survived an explosion when my mother was a child.

Byrd was his high school valedictorian but never went to college. My mother was high school valedictorian at University High School in Morgantown, WV, in 1939, but because she was a coal miner's daughter, no one at the school suggested that she even consider going to the inexpensive West Virginia University with which the high school was affiliated. (Another clerk at the five and ten cents store where my mother was a sales clerk after high school asked her if she would accompany her to register at WVU. The other clerk's goal was to marry a football player! My mother went to the School of Journalism and became the editor-in-chief of the Daily Athenaeum, the university newspaper, from 1942-43. During World War II, my father was sent by the U.S. Army to West Virginia University, where my parents met.)

After Byrd entered Congress -- I was three years old when he did -- he enrolled in law school and earned a law degree from American University. He wrote four books. He served in the U.S. Senate and the U.S. Congress longer than anyone else ever has.

In the last half of the Twentieth Century, Congress steadily tolerated, if not encouraged, the expansion of Presidential power in the American political system. As a former Congressional staffer, I believe that the Congress makes a mistake when it gives up power. This concern was probably the concern of Senator Byrd's that was most important to me.

Should Byrd have retired long ago? No doubt his frailty limited his ability to participate in the high energy activity of the Senate. But on the other hand, he contributed a wisdom of age, and to someone of my years, he has been a great and inspiring model of the many years of productive activity people like me still have.

Maryland's First All-Vegan Political Fundraiser for Sen. Jamie Raskin

Silver Spring and Takoma Park Musicians
Rock the Senate!

Maryland's outstanding State Senator Jamie Raskin (look at these accomplishments!!)

On THURSDAY, JUNE 10, from 6:00 to 8:30 pm at Pyramid Atlantic Art Center on Georgia Avenue, Silver Spring, the Raskin Re-election campaign will be having some extraordinary local music talent perform at Maryland's first all-vegetarian fundraiser, catered by local gourmet restaurants. Special guests include Wayne Pacelle. We will be releasing more details on the performers over the next few weeks, but you can reserve tickets now by RSVP-ing here.

What might cause the U.S. economy to collapse?

Niall Ferguson writes about empires that have collapsed in the March/April 2010 issue of Foreign Affairs.

The established historical view of the collapse of empires -- Rome, Britain, German, Hapsburg, Ottoman, Russian, Soviet, etc. -- is that the collapses are the result of a long series of events that are intrinsic to a cyclic nature of empire creation and collapse.

Ferguson argues that this approach reflects the prejudice of the historical method of searching for a long chain of causation, and is really absurd.

Empires, he explains, are complex systems, and that all complex systems are unstable. His succinct descriptions of the collapses of these empires -- contrasting the convoluted "historical" explanations with the actual facts -- is fascinating.

More importantly for this post, "most imperial falls are associated with fiscal crises."

"Alarm bells should therefore be ringing very loudly indeed, as the United States contemplates a deficit for 2009 of more than $1.4 trillion--about 11.2 percent of GDP, the biggest deficit in 60 years--and another for 2010 that will not be much smaller."

The key danger is that these numbers "can work to weaken a long-assumed faith in the United States' ability to weather any crisis. . . .But one day, a seemingly random piece of bad news--perhaps a negative report by a ratings agency--will make the headlines during an otherwise quiet news cycle. Suddenly, it will be not just a few policy wonks who worry about the sustainability of U.S. fiscal policy but also the public at large, not to mention investors abroad. It is this shift that is crucial: a complex adaptive system is in big trouble when is component parts lose faith in its viability."

One important factor that could reverse this deficit is the abandonment of drug prohibition in favor of a system of taxation and regulation of drug use and distribution. The U.S. is spending at least $50 billion annually -- federal, state and local -- in enforcement-related costs to combat drugs. The public recognizes that this effort is a waste of money. The public pays about $60 billion annually to buy drugs, but this industry remains untaxed, in effect receiving a government subsidy of $20 billion annually.

As Mark Kleiman stresses in his new book, When Brute Force Fails, punishment is a cost. The millions of persons who have acquired criminal records for using or selling drugs are driven out of the productive economy. Without the ability to work in most industries or occupations, their ability to participate in the consumption side of the economy is lost.

Since the 1970s, the number of persons in prison has grown from 250,000 to 2.5 million. That means that the pool of potential car buyers has shrunk by about two million men. These men with drug convictions were more likely -- for class and cultural reasons -- to have purchased Ford, GM or Chrysler cars than Volvos, Mercedes, or other imports. Unwittingly we have adopted criminal justice policies with profound adverse economic impacts.

On top of these costs, drug prohibition creates street crime. Conflicts in the drug business cannot be resolved by the courts, as other business conflicts are. Violence is a feature of the illegal drug trade because it is illegal, not because it is a trade in drugs. Prohibition is designed to make the drugs hard to afford. Drug users are driven out of legitimate employment, and those who are so defined as outlaws, are forced into an outlaw lifestyle. Crime ceases to be something to be avoided.

These crimes raise the costs of doing business across the country. Every retail establishment has to spend more to protect itself from employee theft, shop lifting and robbery. Security costs are greater. And insurance premiums are much higher.

Of course the neighborhoods in which drugs are openly sold are "blighted." The properties are worthless. The homeowners cannot realize the gains in value that other homeowners can. The major engine of wealth creation for American families is unavailable in those communities. On a day to day basis, there is little reinvestment in these communities. Even a real estate agent who handles the sale of one of these properties earns a smaller commission.

Since real estate taxes are a major component of local government revenue, the undervalued properties depress the total tax base, putting pressure on the financing of schools and other vital public services.

All of this is a consequence of the criminalization of a massive industry.

If we want to pass on the American dream to a grandchildren and great grandchildren, one feature of the world we need to leave them is one without drug prohibition.