The Bloated Public University Bureaucracy

In a must-read expose this past weekend, the Wall Street Journal examined the level of administrative bloat at the University of Minnesota.  By the Journal's reckoning, based on U.S Department of Education data, our state University is the most bloated large research university in the nation.

To be fair, the Journal detailed efforts of the current University President, Eric Kaler, and his immediate predecessor, Robert Bruininks, to reduce the bureaucracy at the state's flagship institution of higher education.  The biggest hurdle to reform was the lack of good data on administrative costs.  As one version of the old saw goes, you can't manage what you don't measure.

Minnesota's Green Energy Follies, Part 1

More than most people, I understand the reality that elections have consequences.  The fallout from last month's result--which gave Minnesota's version of the Democrat party (DFL, Democrat-Farmer-Labor) complete control of state government for the first time in a generation--has already begun.

For reasons that I will get into in Part 2, Minnesota's energy policies are likely to see some of the biggest changes as the result of moving to one-party rule.

Minnesota's Competing Narratives

A brief excerpt from the perpetually forthcoming book:

One way to view Minnesota's political battles over the last ten years is in the context of a longer-running conflict over the dominant narratives of the Minnesota story--the rugged individual of the Frontier vs. the mass collective of the Minnesota Miracle. 

An older narrative of Minnesota grounds our history in the pioneer families (think Little House on the Prairie)—having left the stasis of the Old Europe, or moving from “back East”—building  new lives in a new land.  Of course, this story tends to leave out those who came even earlier:  the native tribes and the French explorers and trappers who left their place names across our landscape.

"A Great Deal of Ruin"

On alternating days, it seems, a piece of economic news emerges that either gives the optimists cause for joy or reinforces the gloom of the pessimists.

Truth be told, our reality lies somewhere in the middle.  One remarkable aspect of our economy (and by extension, our society) is its resilience.  In the teeth of recession, new businesses open.  Almost defying the headlines, new investments are made, risks are taken, and plans are made.

Scottish economist Adam Smith recognized the phenomenon more than two centuries ago.  When a young man decried the alleged decline of the age, "If we go on at this rate, the nation must be ruined," Smith replied: “Be assured, my young friend, that there is a great deal of ruin in a nation.”[1]

In the perpetually forthcoming book, we speculate on just how much more ruin our nation can withstand.

No Man is Safe While Congress is in Session

"No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the Congress is in session."

The above quote easily could be extended to any government agency.  At no time has the sentiment been more true than today.

The venerable magazine The Economist took on the issue of America’s regulatory state early this year in an excellent cover story on “Over-regulated America.”[1]  Writing chiefly about our environmental regulations and after listing a few hilarious examples of other regulations, The Economist’s editors argue,

But red tape in America is no laughing matter.  The problem is not the rules that are self-evidently absurd.  It is the ones that sound reasonable on their own but impose a huge burden collectively.  America is meant to be the home of laissez-faire.  Unlike Europeans, whose lives have long been circumscribed by meddling governments and diktats from Brussels, Americans are supposed to be free to choose, for better or for worse.  Yet for some time America has been straying from this ideal.

Walter Russell Mead on the meaning of Advent

Once again this Holiday Season, Walter Russell Mead is blogging about the meaning of Advent and Christmas in an excellent series of essays.  His 2012 efforts are must reads,

• Part 3: the Grand Entrance
• Part 2: the Coming
• Part 1

Saving the Middle Class

[A repost of a book excerpt from earlier this year]

Is America's middle class in danger?  In October 2011, Anne Applebaum wrote an opinion piece in the U.K.’s Daily Telegraph— “Can America survive without its backbone, the middle class?”—and put forward this thesis,

I would argue that the growing divisions within the American middle class are far more important than the gap between the very richest and everybody else.  They are important because to be “middle class”, in America, has such positive connotations, and because most Americans think they belong in it.  The middle class is the “heartland”; the middle class is the “backbone of the country”.  In 1970, Time magazine described Middle America as people who “sing the national anthem at football games – and mean it”.[1]

Unfortunately, so much government policy is aimed at helping lower income families—through social welfare programs—and upper income people—through subsidies for the “Creative Classes” and outright crony capitalism, that the middle class, the middle-middle, ends up getting squeezed out.

On the Wireless Tonight!

Listen to radio AM1130 tonight.  I'll be a guest on the Late Debate with Jack and Ben at 9 pm.

Avoiding "Sherpa Conservatism"

[Prototype for "The Column"]

Over the next few months, in the wake of the recent elections, Republicans and conservatives at every level (national, state, local) will (and should) be engaged in a big rethink of who we are and what we are about.  Clearly, the current approach is not working well enough.

Those on the other side, in an uncharacteristic bout of apparent helpfulness, suggest that Republicans need to return to the halcyon days of the "moderate Republican."  This political creature was quick to compromise and always looking for ways to split the difference.  I'm all for improving the tone and working constructively, but limits need to be set.

Columnist Jonah Goldberg has coined a phrase for this "moderate" approach to politics:  Sherpa Conservatism.  Writing in National Review, Goldberg describes Sherpa Conservatism as follows,

"Good conservatives... should know their place and gladly serve as Sherpas to the great mountaineers of liberalism, pointing out occasional missteps, perhaps suggesting a slight course correction from time to time, but never losing sight of the need for upward 'progress' and happily carrying the extra baggage for progressives in their zealous but heroic quest for the summit."

The Perpetually Forthcoming Book

Before my recent adventures in electoral politics, I was rolling out parts of a book on government reform under the nom de guerre "Private Citizen."  So far, I have reissued three excerpts that can be found here

• "More Admirals Than Ships" explores the bureaucratic animal
• "Education" more money is not the answer
• "The Reform Agenda" whatever can't go on forever, won't

Why Don't The Streets Get Plowed Anymore?

My latest essay is posted above under the tab "Let is Snow."  Large urban centers in the North depend on timely snow removal to stay open for business during the long winters.  Unfortunately, such mundane tasks no longer hold the attention of our leaders.

More Admirals Than Ships

[Editors Note:  Late last winter, before embarking on my adventures in electoral politics, I started the process of excerpting sections of my book over at the still slumbering Private Citizen Media site.  As a public service, I will bring over those items, piece-by-piece, for temporary housing here, until a more permanent location can be found.]

Back in March, The American Interest's Walter Russell Mead took Midwestern (specifically Minnesota) Republicans to task in a blog post for failing "to turn voters’ urgent concerns...into a politically sustainable program for deep change."  Mead observed that,

"Rather than propose innovative new ideas toward a vision for the future, the Midwestern GOP is projecting a message about what they are against.  Those who want to get beyond blue need to think more creatively about the next steps."

Thus chastened, over at Private Citizen we offered this except from our perpetually forthcoming book as a partial down payment on that program for deep change.

“The nearest approach to immortality on earth is a government bureau"

--South Carolina politician James F. Brynes

Count us in favor of both government reform and reduced spending.  Simply voting less money is the easy part.  How to change business as usual is more difficult, especially when government is part of the problem.  Quoting Walter Russell Mead,

Government is inevitably going to be part of the solution for these problems—if only by correcting so many of the misguided policies that in many cases make existing conditions worse. [1]

So reform, yes, but what kind of reform?  To answer that question, we need to go back to the beginning and cover a little economic theory.

A government program, once created, develops its own constituencies—the direct recipients who want to continue getting benefits, bureaucrats whose careers depend on the program’s existence, not to mention the lobbyists and advocates who will go to bat for a program, if it were threatened.

Carousel of Regress

I've posted a new essay above about the future of energy policy.  Enjoy!