Policy Proposals
Five good ideas you won't hear on the campaign trail this fall
PI Editorial

1. Charge for global warming

As Al Gore has told us ad nauseam, global warming is certainly a real danger to the world and its inhabitants. But unlike most problems, the political solution is not as simple as outlawing the cause. The cause in the case of climate change is human pollution, which also happens to be the general result of the very industrial progress that sustains our lives. As we've noted, this progress cannot and should not simply be extinguished by the utopian decree of environmentalists. The causes of global warming must be reduced, but not at the unnecessary expense of the indispensable human benefits of industry, transportation, and power generation.

The best solution for the America and the world is to monetarily quantify the total cost of global warming (the cost of prevention combined with the cost of foreseeable damage) and tax citizens directly for producing the pollutants that contribute to it. Not only would the endeavor to set this cost encourage global scientific study and cooperation as to the tangible and foreseeable effects of climate change. It would also preserve economic growth and progress, while the dangerous byproducts of said progress (the side liberals tend to notice, global pessimists as they are) would be simultaneously both discouraged (with the higher cost of pollution) and protected against (with the tax revenues of those who still pollute).

Europe's and America's emission trading systems have the right idea, as they encourage market-based responses to pollution. But effective environmental controls should charge all citizens for the damage they directly cause, not simply the businesses and industries that have been given a specific emissions limit by the federal government. As such, Congress, as well as governments around the world, should institute a Pigouvian Tax on the most environmentally heinous activities performed by American citizens and business. Unlike emissions trading, such a tax will also allow the government to gain revenue from the pollution, which it can then use to better protect against the effects of pollution. Points of taxation could include gasoline sales, factory production, and many others. All proceeds from the tax should be put into a special fund to help combat and prevent the potential harmful effects of global climate change.

2. Intelligent, market-based immigration reform

The current immigration debate seems to have two basic sides. The conservatives, on one hand, are worried sick about either national security or cultural invasion, and thus have espoused various proposals to duly restrict human entry into the United States. But they are ignoring the economic benefits of immigration, both in the increased labor supply and competition as well as the demonstrated entrepreneurial proclivities of recent immigrants, especially highly skilled and educated ones.

The liberals, on the other hand, mostly oppose restrictions on immigration, but generally only because they just think as many people of different cultural backgrounds should be in this country as possible. Unfortunately for the feasibly of this position, Robert Putnam has recently demonstrated the social strains of cultural diversity, and it also happens that the "cultures" in this American border-hopping melting pot too often can include jihadists and other undesirables.

In this environment, America's policy should be to secure the border as much as possible while the economic benefits of immigration are still maximized. America should reform its immigration system so that a legitimate offer of employment is the prerequisite to entry into the U.S., and that said entry can be efficiently achieved once a job is secured.

With this system, law and order is restored, highly skilled immigrants enter the country with ease, the immigrant welfare drain is non-existent, legitimate workers are not forced to ford the Rio Grande, and the economy as a whole benefits.

And with this policy, communities can address the social impact of immigration by instituting local taxes or incentives on the employment of immigrants. This way communities can address social concerns (need for diversity, overcrowding, low wages, etc.) without directly banning entry or otherwise distorting the labor market. Everyone wins, from the parading Mexicans to the parading Minutemen.

3. Education: Increased competition and economic assistance

School vouchers are quite simply the best method of immediately addressing the current woeful lack of quality in many American public schools. Every American family of limited means should be granted a direct subsidy sufficient to afford them the ability to send their child to the K-12 school of their choice. While some public schools will be able to handle the added competition of private alternatives, it is certain that many low-quality institutions will not. Vouchers are likely to have the biggest impact in poorer areas, where parents can't afford higher quality private schools and monopolistic public schools are rife with crime and violence.

The concern of public policy should be for the children who are being denied a high quality education that they deserve, not the potential future travails of the miserable institutions in which these children are currently enslaved. Vouchers only give students and parents the choice of a way out. Many public schools will lose enrollment, but nowhere are they precluded from being reformed to effectively compete with the higher-quality schools. The argument against vouchers is logically self-defeating. If public schools will be destroyed by vouchers, then it is because no parents find public schools worthwhile for their children. What possible humanitarian reason can we have for denying parents something they find superior and beneficial for the education of their kids?

The public policy decisions in crafting a specific voucher program are of course complex and the actual implementation should be unique to each community. But the inauspicious early performance of this great new idea in places like Milwaukee or Cleveland should not inspire the reactionary avoidance of school vouchers entirely, lest America follow an ignorant line of reasoning that would have banned airflight after the first time the Kitty Hawk plunged into the sandy shores of North Carolina.

The expanded smorgasbord of educational choices that vouchers will create will follow the same blueprint that makes America's universities the best in the world. America's universities are indeed living proof that competition in education can give students exceptional quality, wide diversity, and convenience and affordability. For this reason, the quasi-voucher equivalents in higher education, Pell Grants and subsidized loans, should be expanded. They a far smaller burden on the state (loans are repaid) than vouchers, but perform an equally important service.

Education is the single greatest determinant and guarantor of future success. Just like the right to an attorney, it is a right that should be afforded every American. At the same time, we should ensure that it is of the highest quality - and competition and choice are the proven methods of doing exactly that.

4. The negative income tax

Too much of America's welfare state is piecemeal - food stamps here, public housing there. But economic theory and common sense both dictate that the poor are better off getting a base income where they can decide what they need to spend their money on, instead of having to rely on numerous hand-outs from various inefficient, impersonal bureaucracies. The principle of "more federal agencies equal better social welfare" was originally forwarded by the New Deal and its rampant disregard of economic reality. America's War on Poverty has failed because it has since institutionalized unemployment instead of softening its temporary blow.

These problems can be addressed, however. America's tax code should be redesigned, replacing all welfare programs with a direct income subsidy to America's poor. The amount of the subsidy should be determined by Congress, at a rate appropriate to serve as a safety net without unnecessarily discouraging employment. Such an amount could likely be easily figured as the total value of all current welfare provisions, but of course the current system is rife with inefficiency, and thus its costs are likely grossly distorted. It should also be easily adjustable for current circumstances, affording the poor quick and efficient assistance when economic conditions worsen, and allowing quick reform if free riders become a problem.

America's Earned Income Tax Credit is a step in the right direction. However, such proposals should not be garnishing accoutrements on a bloated welfare state. They should instead completely replace our current hodgepodge system with a completely means-based negative income tax delivering a guaranteed income.

5. Unilateral free trade legislation

Much is made of global free trade summits like the Doha Round. But few should be surprised when political quibbles invariably cause them to collapse as every country weakly capitulates to its wheedling agrarian special interests.

The benefits of free trade include lower prices for consumers in the West, and increased economic growth in poorer countries, increasing relative wealth for both. But the receipt of neither benefit requires the unanimous assent of the world's governments. America can and should unilaterally remove its protective barriers to free trade, opening up its market to the world. We don't need the rest of the world to do so simply in order to engage in mutually-beneficial commerce with our own trading partners.

Free trade seemingly has been brushed off the political table since the embarrassing failure of Doha. But the issues has been has been losing political momentum ever since President Bush lamely squeaked a barely-relevant CAFTA through a supposedly pro-market Republican-controlled legislature. The incompetence of the Republican leadership, coupled with the reactionary intransigence of our European allies, make a grim future for multilateral free trade agreements.

But there's nothing stopping us from going ahead and reaping the benefits of globalization ourselves. We should remove our barriers to open up our markets and wallets to the developing world. What do we care if the French, et al., choose to wallow in their stagnant bubble of economic isolationism?

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