President Obama's Strange Critique of Michigan's Right to Work Law

 Wolverine Fiercely Protecting the Right to Work (Finally)

Michigan has the nation's highest rate of unionization and one of the nation's highest rates of unemployment.  Many in the state and elsewhere believe that this correlation is not accidental, that is, that the state's union-friendly environment unduly raises wages and other labor-related costs and deters business investment and resulting employment opportunities.  See George J. Stigler, The Theory of Price, 279 (4th Ed. 1987) ("The labor union is for the labor market the equivalent of the cartel for the product market.").   (See this previous post discussing some data on the question.)  Indeed, as previously discussed on this blog, Michigan and other union-friendly states are losing population to states such as Texas, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina and Utah, as businesses and the jobs they create migrate to states with tax and regulatory environments that are more friendly to productive economic activity. 

Just yesterday the Michigan Legislature added the Wolverine state to the growing list of states known as "right to work states."   In so doing, Michigan followed the lead of Indiana, which passed similar legislation in February of this year.  To precise, the legislature banned so-called "closed shop agreements," and "agency shop agreements."  Such provisions in collective bargaining agreements require a firm's employees to join a union (closed shop agreements) or, in the alternative, to pay dues to support the union's collective bargaining activities (agency shop agreements).  As a result of such legislation, Michigan workers may now choose to work wherever they wish, free of any compulsion to support unions they oppose.  Governor Rick Snyder signed the legislation into law last evening.

Support for Michigan's right to work legislation was not unanimous, with some on the Progressive Left decrying the legislation.  Chief among the detractors was President Obama, who flew to Detroit to denounce the pending legislation earlier this week, in a speech otherwise devoted to fiscal policy.  The Huffington Post reported the President's remarks as follows:

"And by the way, what we shouldn't do -- I've just got to say this -- what we shouldn't be doing is trying to take away your rights to bargain for better wages and working conditions," he added to loud applause from the audience. "We shouldn't be doing that. The so-called 'right-to-work' laws -- they don't have to do with economics, they have everything to do with politics. What they're really talking about is giving you the right to work for less money."

President Obama's attempted and failed intervention in Michigan politics is perplexing on several levels.  For one thing, the Taft-Hartley Act, which authorizes states to ban closed shop and agency shop agreements is the Supreme Law of the Land and expresses national policy of the subject.  As previously explained on this blog, that policy encourages states to decide for themselves whether compelled support for unions will enhance growth and economic opportunity within their borders.  As President, Mr. Obama must, according to Article II of the Constitution, "take care that [Taft-Hartley] is faithfully executed."       President Obama may well believe Taft-Hartley was a bad idea.  Moreover, he is perfectly free to introduce legislation repealing Taft-Hartley if he wishes.  Absent such a repeal, however, he should embrace the legislation and respect Michigan's choice.

Moreover, the President's account of the Michigan legislation is, simply put, false.  The legislation in no way limits "rights to bargain for better wages and working conditions."  On the contrary, the legislation leaves each and every Michigan worker perfectly free to affiliate with a union and thus bargain collectively for higher wages and better conditions.  All the legislation does is prevent unions and the firms with which they bargain from compelling individuals to subsidize a union as a condition of pursuing his or her chosen vocation.

Finally, the President's claim that "right-to-work" legislation  is about "politics" and not "economics" does not withstand even cursory scrutiny.  According to economists who have studied the question, rampant unionization of American industry during the mid-late 1930s hampered economic recovery and lengthened and deepened the Great Depression.  (See here and here for previous discussions of these data.)  To put a finer point on it, federal imposition of labor cartels distorted the allocation of the nation's resources and reduced employment, as many predicted at the time.  Millions of Americans became poorer as a result.  While coercive imposition of trade unions on American business raises the wages of some workers, other workers and, ultimately society at large,  suffer. 

Update (4:50 PM, December 12):  Over at CNN, William Bennett has penned an Op-Ed praising Michigan's choice of Right-to-Work status.  In so doing, Bennett echoes some of the arguments made above.  In particular, Bennett offers an effective rebuttal of President Obama's claim that right to work laws are all about politics and not about economics.  According to Bennett:

"[C]ontrary to President Obama's thinking, right-to-work laws are directly related to economics. Right-to-work laws give employers the freedom to hire non-union workers and negotiate contracts with more than one party. For this reason, right-to-work states are more attractive to private business than non-right-to-work, and could increase private-sector wages.  For example, on CNBC's annual list of the best states for business, nine of the top 10 states are right-to-work states. It's no coincidence that foreign automobile manufacturers often build new plants in right-to-work states like Tennessee and Alabama, rather than Detroit -- the "Motor City."  Perhaps Michigan's new right-to-work status will unlock employers from burdensome union contracts and attract new private enterprise to Detroit, which is predicted to go bankrupt by the end of this year. After all, Gov. Scott Walker's union reforms in neighboring Wisconsin helped eliminate the state's budget shortfall."

 

Conservatives Embracing Science, While the Left Balks

Accepts Science 

Ditto

Rejects Science/Thinks He Knows Better

Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida) and Pat Robertson, both pictured above, have made news recently, both embracing the scientific consensus that the earth is 4.5 Billion years old.   As Senator Rubio, a Roman Catholic,   put it:  "Science says (the earth) is about 4.5 billion years old.  My faith teaches that's not inconsistent. . . . God created the heavens and the earth, and science has given us insight into when he did it and how he did it."   Mr. Robertson, a Southern Baptist and the Chancellor of Regent University, put things this way:

"Bishop Ussher [who opined that the Earth was created in 4004 BC] wasn't inspired by the Lord when he said that it all [creation of the Earth and Man] took 6,000 years. It just didn't. You go back in time, you've got radiocarbon dating. You got all these things and you've got the carcasses of dinosaurs frozen in time out in the Dakotas.  They're out there. So, there was a time when these giant reptiles were on the Earth and it was before the time of the Bible. So, don't try and cover it up and make like everything was 6,000 years. That's not the Bible."

Mr. Robertson's remarks won the praise of national luminary "Bill Nye the Science Guy," who expressed hope that Mr. Robertson would continue to press his view on the age of the Earth.  Previously Mr. Nye had argued that the belief that the Earth is 6,000 years old "threatens science."

Unfortunately, some public officials still reject basic scientific teachings.  For instance, as previously explained on this blog, President Obama's repeated claim that tax cuts caused the recent "Great Recession" contradicts basic economic science of the sort taught to thousands of college freshmen each year in the United States and around the world.  More recently, Vice President Biden (pictured above) joined the anti-science chorus, claiming, again contrary to basic economic science, that tax cuts and increased spending during the G.W. Bush Administration caused the Great Recession.  Here's what the Vice President said, during his debate with Congressman Paul Ryan.  According to the Vice President:

"And, by the way, they [Republicans] talk about this Great Recession [of 2008-2009] as if it fell out of the sky, like, 'Oh, my goodness, where did it come from?' It came from this man [Congressman Ryan] voting to put two wars on a credit card, to at the same time put a prescription drug benefit on the credit card, a trillion-dollar tax cut for the very wealthy. I was there. I voted against them. I said, no, we can’t afford that."

Like President Obama's claim about tax cuts, Vice President Biden's claim that deficit spending caused the recent recession is economic nonsense, akin to a claim that the Earth is flat or the center of the Universe.  Just as there is a scientific consensus that the Earth is 4.5 Billion years old, there is a longstanding scientific consensus that increasing the deficit, whether by tax cuts, increased spending or both will stimulate aggregate demand, increase employment and increase the nation's real economic output.  See e.g. N. Gregory Mankiw, Macroeconomics, 296 (7th Edition 2010) (explaining how tax cuts increase the budget deficit and thus aggregate demand and national output); Rudiger Dornbusch and Stanley Fischer, Macroeconomics, 73-83, 401-11 (2d Edition 1981) (explaining how tax cuts and spending increases can increase aggregate demand and thus national output).  The only exception is for cases in which the economy is already at full employment.  In such cases, deficit spending cannot increase output but can only result in inflation.  However, so far as I know, no one contends that the economy was at full employment when, say, Congress enacted the so-called Bush tax cuts in 2001.  In the same way, the economy was at less than full employment when President Kennedy proposed across-the-board tax cuts in an effort to "get the economy moving again."

Of course, there are other reasons to oppose budget deficits and the resulting increase in the national debt.  For instance, government borrowing to encourage consumption can crowd out private investment, thereby partly (but only partly) offsetting any resulting increase in national output.  A nation could decide to forgo higher GDP in the short run in the hopes that, in the longer run, increased private investment will increase national productivity and thus potential national output.  But it bears emphasis that this argument against increased deficits assumes that such deficits increase national output, contrary to Vice President Biden's assertion.

Oddly the economics profession has been relatively silent in the face of this Administration's rejection of basic economic science.  To be sure, hundreds of economists endorsed Mitt Romney in the recent general election.  Six of these individuals were past recipients of the Nobel Prize in Economic Science.  However, so far as I know, no such economist has called out President Obama or Vice President Biden for their rejection of basic science.  This is surprising, because the rejection of economic science can have serious real world consequences for millions of ordinary Americans.  (Imagine if, instead, the President and Vice President claimed that vaccinations do not work or that smoking does not harm your health.  Surely the relevant scientific professionals would (properly) be up in arms.)

Perhaps the economics profession needs its own "Bill Nye the Science Guy" to shame public figures who reject basic economic science. 

Is our Navy Too Small?

Not a Ship, But Can Sink One

Ditto 

 Victim of  Land-Based Bombers

Over at the "Monkey Cage," Political Scientists Brian Crisher and Mark Souva have published a guest post evaluating Governor Romney's claim, made during the third and final Presidential debate, that projected defense cuts will leave America with a dangerously small navy of fewer than 300 ships, smaller than any time since 1916.  (Some will recall that Congressman Ryan made a similar claim during the Vice Presidential debate.)  Crisher and Souva invoke a paper they have co-authored, which measures the relative strength of various national navies during the 19th, 20th and early 21st centuries.  As they put it:

"In 1916, the US controlled roughly 11% of the world’s naval power. This is an impressive number that ranks the US third in naval strength behind the UK (34%) and Germany (19%), and just ahead of France (10%). What about the US navy in 2011? In 2011, the US controlled roughly 50% of the world’s naval power putting it in a comfortable lead in naval power ahead of Russia (11%).

The US Navy has decreased in absolute size as Governor Romney argues (although this decline has been ongoing since the end of Cold War). U.S. warships are more powerful now than in the past, as President Obama implied. However, neither the number of warships nor the power of our ships is what is most important for understanding military and political influence. It is relative military power that matters most. In this respect, the U.S. navy is far stronger now than in 1916."

In so arguing, Crisher and Souva echo similar but less scholarly arguments to the effect that the modern U.S. Navy could defeat the U.S. Navy of 1917, with the result that the size of the modern Navy is beside the point.

This analysis is incomplete, to say the least.   For one thing, the fact that our modern navy could defeat the navy of 1917 is irrelevant and "proves too much."  After all, a single modern U.S. Aircraft carrier could defeat the Navy of 1917.  Does that mean one such ship would suffice for our current needs?  Of course not.

Moreover, comparing the size and composition of different navies is a good start, but it's only a start.   One also has to define our Navy's mission and determine what non-naval capabilities our potential adversaries possess that might thwart that mission.  Three examples --- two historical and one current --- help make this point.

1.  In 1940, the British Navy was far superior to that of Germany.  In 1840, such naval superiority would have prevented any invasion of Britain.  It did not in 1940.  Why?  Because Germany had a large and effective air force capable of sinking any British vessels that ventured into the English Channel.  Only the British Air Force, combined with the "untested" tool of radar, prevented Germany from gaining air superiority over the Channel and thus executing "Operation Sea Lion," Hitler's plan to invade and conquer Britain.     In short, a comparison between the British and German Navies in 1940, while important, ultimately provided a misleading assessment of the balance of power between the two countries.

2.  During the 1980s, the U.S. Navy was tasked with maintaining open sea lanes between the continental USA and Europe, so as to facilitate the re-supply of Europe in the event of a Soviet invasion.   Crisher and Souva conclude that the U.S. navy, built around more than a dozen aircraft carriers at the time, was more than a match for the Soviet navy, including the Soviet submarine fleet, during this period.  Probably so.   However, the Soviet surface and submarine fleet was not the only threat to American carriers during this era.  Instead, the Soviets deployed hundreds of land-based bombers, such as the TU-22M Backfire (pictured above), each carrying anti-ship cruise missiles with a range of several hundred miles and designed to destroy aircraft carriers, their escorts, and, ultimately, troop ships.  (Those who have read Tom Clancy's "Red Storm Rising" will recall how TU-22M's devastated a joint French-American convoy early in that fictitious war.)  Thus, even if the U.S. Navy could have sunk each and every Soviet surface ship and submarine in the Atlantic Ocean, it might still have failed in its objective to maintain open sea lanes between the U.S. and Europe.  The British learned this type of lesson the hard way when, on December 10, 1941, Japanese land-based bombers sank the battleship HMS Prince of Wales (pictured above) as well as the battlecruiser Repulse.

3.   The U.S. Navy is currently tasked with the possible defense of Taiwan in the unlikely event of a forcible invasion of that island.  Indeed, during his Presidency, Bill Clinton ordered the U.S.S. Nimitz to sail through the Taiwan Straits to demonstrate American resolve.  No one doubts that the U.S. Navy is vastly superior to any other navy in the world at this moment in history.   However, China has other military capabilities that could thwart the U.S. Navy's ability to perform its assigned mission.   For instance, as previously discussed on this blog (see also here), China has developed and deployed an intermediate range ballistic missile designed to strike large ships such as aircraft carriers from over 1,000 miles away.  Indeed, according to one source, China has produced 80 such DF-21 "carrier killer" missiles, which are also capable of striking U.S. bases in the region, along with other missiles.  Moreover, China deploys a large air force, including hundreds of H-6 bombers modeled on the Soviet TU-16 Badger.  Like the Badger, the H-6 can be armed with anti-ship cruise missiles.  Moreover, Russia has recently agreed to license the production of TU-22Ms to China, which plans to produce 36 such planes in its first production run.  In short, in addition to its growing navy, China has numerous land-based assets that could make a U.S. defense of Taiwan quite difficult.

To be sure, the fact that a navy cannot perform the mission assigned to it "on its own" does not thereby establish that the Navy is too small.  Doubling the size of the British Navy in 1940 would not have prevented a German invasion, unless, perhaps, the increase took the form of more aircraft carriers.  Instead, Britain needed more land-based Hurricanes, Spitfires and the pilots to fly them.  However, in some cases, only a navy can "do the job" required.  For instance, during the 1980s, land-based air power could not have fully countered the threat to our shipping from Soviet bombers and submarines, with the result that only aircraft carrier, defended by escorts, could do the job.  In the same way, a robust naval presence in the Pacific, for instance, may be the only way this nation can accomplish its objectives.

President Obama Won't Pardon Ohio State

Can't Pardon Ohio State and Won't Try

Would Agree

 Ditto

NBC Sports is reporting that Ohio State fans have petitioned President Obama unilaterally to lift the NCAA's ban on post-season play by the Buckeyes, who are currently 11-0 and ranked number 4 in the Associated Press poll.  (See also here for an earlier story by FoxSports).  In particular, the fans' petition includes the following language:

         “The Ohio State University football team is one win away from an undefeated season. However, due to imposed sanctions, they are not allowed to participate in their conference’s championship game or the following bowl season. While a punishment for past indiscretions is to be expected, a bowl season ban is too harsh for a few young men trading memorabilia for tattoos and some change. The offending players and coach who covered it up are no longer part of the program. Please exercise your executive power to pardon the NCAA’s excessive sanctions placed on The Ohio State Buckeyes to enable a rightful, satisfying culmination to the college football season for the American people.”  (emphasis added)

Unfortunately for Buckeye fans, it seems highly unlikely that President Obama will intervene.  To be sure, the President has shown great interest in the NCAA post-season Bowl structure, even going so far as to encourage an unwarranted antitrust investigation of the BCS.  However, the President has no authority to intervene.  Article II of the Constitution merely empowers the President to "grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment." (emphasis added).  The Buckeyes committed no offense "against the United States."  Instead, the NCAA, a private organization, found that Ohio State violated certain standing rules of the organization.  These violations were not criminal offenses but were instead analogous to breaches of contracts between Ohio State and other members of the NCAA.

To be sure, Article II also confers upon the President the "Executive power," which the petition also invokes.  From the beginning, scholars and pundits have disagreed about the nature and scope of the power conferred by this provision.  According to some, this power merely includes the authority to execute pre-existing laws passed by Congress, in addition to the express grants of power included in Article II, such as the power to serve as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed forces and the power to negotiate treaties.  James Madison, pictured above, was an early proponent of this view.  Others, however, contend that the "Executive power" includes, in addition to the powers just described, all authority that is inherently "executive" in nature, particularly the power to conduct foreign affairs.  Alexander Hamilton, also pictured above, was an early proponent of this view.  Indeed, Madison and Hamilton debated the question, albeit through pseudonyms, during the early 1790s, in the context of President Washington's 1793 Neutrality Proclamation.  (See here for a summary of that debate, including the primary documents.)  

In this blogger's view, Hamilton probably got the best of this particular argument, and history has vindicated the Nation's first Secretary of the Treasury.  For one thing, the text itself seems to support Hamilton's view.  While Article I confers upon Congress all legislative power "herein granted," Article II's grant of the Executive power is plenary and unqualified.  Moreover, from the beginning, Presidents have entered "Executive Agreements" with foreign powers, without obtaining the Advice and Consent of the Senate, relying upon their "Executive power" to do so.  Finally, as Madison himself advocated while a member of Congress, Presidents have from the beginning exercised the power to remove executive officers, a power that does not expressly appear in Article II.    Thus, Presidents have apparently derived this authority from Article II's grant of "the Executive power." 

Still, neither Hamilton nor Madison articulated a view of the "Executive power" that is broad enough to empower the President to nullify a sanction that a private organization has imposed on one of its members, even if that organization has a substantial effect on interstate commerce.  Such power instead would reside in the Congress, which the Constitution authorizes to regulate commerce "among the several states."  Any Presidential effort unilaterally to nullify such a sanction would quite properly suffer a fate similar to President Truman's unlawful effort to seize the Nation's private steel mills during the Korean War.  See Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer,  343 U.S. 579 (1952) (rejecting this seizure as an unlawful exercise of Presidential power).

Vice President Biden's Selective Imposition of His Religious Views

Imposed Their Religiously-Informed Views on Others

At last night’s debate Vice President Biden repeated the assertion that, although he is Pro-Life and personally opposed to abortion, he will not seek to impose that view on individuals who do not share that position. He also repeated his endorsement of Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), which held that states cannot ban abortion during the first trimester of a pregnancy and can only ban the practice in the second trimester if necessary to protect the health of the mother.  Thus, Vice President Biden endorsed a more robust right to abortion than recognized by the Supreme Court, which partly overruled Roe in 1992, holding that states may adopt provisions such as waiting periods that discourage abortions so long as such provisions do not "unduly burden" the practice. See Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992). The Vice President also promised that a second Obama Administration would appoint Justices to the Supreme Court who agreed with Roe.

The Vice President’s claim that imposing religiously-motivated views on others is inappropriate in a democratic society is perplexing to say the least and contrary to the Vice President's own statements.  After all, in the very same answer, the Vice President endorsed what he called “Catholic social doctrine” as a guide to legislation. Moreover, the Vice President defined this doctrine as “taking care of those who, who can’t take care of themselves, people who need help.”  (He did not explain why the unborn can "take care of themselves.")  These views were on display throughout the debate, as the Vice President repeatedly called for higher taxes on the wealthy and opposed raising the eligibility age for Medicare, for instance. (Whether Catholic social doctrine actually requires such positions is an entirely different question, of course.  See here.) Put another way, the Vice President repeatedly expressed a desire to employ coercive legislation, including higher taxes, to impose his religiously-informed economic policies on individuals who might strongly disagree.  Ditto for other Catholic politicians who have, over the years, invoked religious beliefs to justify coercive minimum wages, mandatory collective bargaining, and other forms of economic intervention.

Civil rights legislation provides another example. During the 1960s religious leaders like The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Father Theodore Hesburgh (then President of Notre Dame), marched in support of Civil Rights legislation. (Both men are pictured above at a Civil Rights rally at Soldier Field in Chicago in the summer of 1964.) Indeed, as a member of the nation’s Civil Rights Commission, Father Hesburgh helped draft the 1964 Civil Rights Act.  Among other things, the Act banned racial discrimination in privately-owned public accommodations such as motels, restaurants and theaters, over the vehement objection of segregationists. Put another way, Dr. King, Father Hesburgh and numerous other Americans advocated legislation that coercively imposed their religiously-motivated views on others. Fortunately these great men and the men and women who followed their lead did not share Vice President Biden’s selective aversion to “imposing their views on others.”  Religion has informed our Nation's public debates since the founding, and we are stronger for it. 

Obama "Recovery" Still Fizzling

This morning the Labor Department reported that the economy added a mere 114,000 jobs in September.  (See here for the story)  That's less than half the number of jobs the economy added in September, 1984, during the Reagan Recovery, when employment increased by 240,000.  (Go to this website and insert the appropriate dates to obtain the September, 1984 figures.)    This poor showing is no surprise, given that real GDP is growing at a snail's pace: annual rates of 2.0 percent and 1.3 percent in the first and second quarters of 2012, respectively (see this Department of Labor Press Release for the GDP figures), compared to real economic growth of 6.8 percent in 1984.

Moreover, as previously explained on this blog with respect to prior months (see also here and here), the actual jobs gap between the Reagan and Obama recoveries for this most recent month is even larger than these data suggest.  After all, the 1984 labor force was significantly smaller than it is today, with the result that the addition of 240,000 new jobs reflected a larger rate of employment growth than would a similar increase today.  Thus, to replicate the September, 1984 rate of job grow, the economy should have created over 300,000 jobs in September, 2012.  (See here for an example of such a calculation in a prior month.)  Thus, the jobs gap between the Obama and Reagan recoveries, which stood at 1.7 million for the months of April through August, is still growing.