November 6, 2007 by Tom Armstrong.

I sent a letter (I have posted it below) to the WSJ today, Nov. 6, stating that the Founders did not support a “living” constitution, at least not one easily changed by judges or Congress; they provided a means of alteration–amendments. Some people suggest that the Founders would support judicial activism because the Constitution must change quickly with the times, and the Founders would never seek to bind future generations to previous laws and customs.

After a search, I have found what one Founder, Hamilton, had to say about the subject in Federalist No. 78:

“Until the people have, by some solemn and authoritative act, annulled or changed the established form, it is binding upon themselves collectively, as well as individually; and no presumption, or even knowledge, or their sentiments, can warrant their representatives in the departure from it, prior to such an act.”

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November 6, 2007 by Tom Armstrong.

Let me say thanks to all those readers who have helped make this blog grow (for which I receive no compensation–it’s done out of my interest in the subject matter). Less than six months ago, when I started this blog, I had no readers; on Sunday, I had nearly 2,000 readers. I thank everyone for their support, and I’ll try to keep it up on my end.

Here is Krugman’s response (on his blog) to Mankiw’s NY Times article that I linked to here a few days ago:

I’d add that the Democratic nominee for president has to hope that Greg’s line is the basis of the GOP campaign — there’s nothing like saying “Hey, what’s the fuss? Being uninsured or underinsured is no big deal” to make you seem completely out of touch with the real concerns, sometimes bordering on terror, that people have about health care.

I’ll have more on Mr. Krugman tomorrow.

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November 6, 2007 by Tom Armstrong.

This opinion in today’s WSJ begins:

Throughout the 1980s and ’90s, Congress prodded, even strong-armed, banks into making more mortgage loans to low-income and minority families. Washington enacted anti-discrimination and community lending laws with penalties against lenders for failing to issue riskier mortgages to homebuyers living in poor neighborhoods or with low downpayments and subpar credit ratings. And so it was that the modern subprime mortgage market was born.

Now, and for a variety of reasons, some two million of those loans have gone sour, and the same politicians are searching for villains. Leading the charge is House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank, who is accusing banks of “predatory lending” — by which he means making loans to the very group of borrowers that Mr. Frank and his colleagues urged banks to serve.

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November 6, 2007 by Tom Armstrong.

Here’s a letter I sent to the WSJ yesterday:

Don Gooding opined in the November 5, 2007 edition that the U.S. Founders desired a “living” Constitution. His conclusion that we need a living Constitution, while correct, neglects to mention the Founders provided a means of change in the founding document.  

He quotes Thomas Jefferson, who said “laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times.” 

From this, he concludes that the Founders would be content with judicial activists, who alter the original intent of the Founders. I recall, however, that the Founders provided a means of altering the law of the land in Article V of the Constitution. 

Jefferson and others would never seek to bind subsequent generations to their laws and customs; that’s why Article V is in the Constitution. The Founders, after vanquishing the British, sought to establish a limited government, one that had a written constitution which required substantial public support to alter.  

Judicial activists changing the Constitution to fit their world views would not fly with the Founders; they provided a specific means for changes in the founding document itself, making it a “living” document. A limited, constitutional government will not remain limited for long if one person, or a single court, has the power to alter the meaning of its constitution, and the Founders recognized this, thus we have the amendment process. 

Incidentally, Mr. Jefferson also said, “The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.”

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November 6, 2007 by Tom Armstrong.

George Will writes on the school choice issue in Utah. Here’s the part that troubles me:

The teachers unions’ usual argument against school choice programs is that they drain money from public education. But the vouchers are funded by general revenues, not the two sources of public school funds, which are local property taxes and the Uniform School Fund. Every Utah voucher increases funds available for public education. Here is how:

Utah spends more than $7,500 per public school pupil ($3,000 more than the average private school tuition). The average voucher will be for less than $2,000. So every voucher that is used — by parents willing to receive $2,000 rather than $7,500 of government support for the education of their child — will save Utah taxpayers an average of $5,500. And because the vouchers are paid from general revenues, the departed pupil’s $7,500 stays in the public school system.

The idea of vouchers in education is to create competition, which tends to improve the performance of all competitors. Those that cannot compete fail, freeing up resources for other competitors. So, competition works best when it rewards and punishes. Notice in the case in Utah that competition is not allowed to hurt any of the competitors. In fact, the losers–the poor schools–are rewarded for their poor performance. I do not like this voucher design in Utah; it will not work because true competition is not being introduced into the system. Nevertheless, I would support the program–at least it’s a start.

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