* defeat of the crime bill
Topics: Crime, Subsidy
12 Aug 1994
From: ervan
Even if the reasons were poor, it was refreshing to see the
crime bill defeated (now, if only the criminal, Bill, could be
defeated ;-) There was not a good thing in this bill. About half of it was
pure and shameless pork having no meaningful relation to law enforcement.
It was not even pork that some could get at least some benefit from (however
non-cost effective it might be). Instead, it was all foolish social
programs, late basketball courts being the now famous example.
Even the part actually related to crime (more police, more prisons, three
'strikes you are out') was bad. Clinton defended it with the usual
platitudes about Amiercans wanting to do something about crime. That leaves
open the question, at what cost? Does it makes sense to spend $10G to
prevent $1G worth of crime? And, here, I mean the full cost of crime,
emotional as well as financial. I claim that this bill definitely failed
that test. The evidence is that communities are already able to raise their
taxes for more police. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don't. At the
local level, it is much easier to see that extra taxes actually go toward
law enforcement. The fact that communities are to continuing to raise their
taxes for police demonstrates that people are already paying as much as
think is cost effective for the prevention of crime. The crime bill must
therefore necessarily make a bad tradeoff.
As an aside, one could argue that there is external value to preventing
crime that extends to the region in which a given criminal would have
operated. Yes, that's true. There are some crimes that are appropriately
federal. There is some minimum size beneath which the efficiency of police
would probably shrink. However, this bill does not address either of these
issues. The money was merely to be poured into already existing localities
and my argument directly applies.
Then there was there was the regulation part of the bill. Many of those
aspects have already been discussed.
None of this, of course, deterred Clinton from proclaiming that
"This was a vote against law and order." Such slippery reason is a liberal
favorite. It does not matter what a bill actually says. Even if it address
the problem, it does not matter if can succeed at what it desires. Even if
can succeed, it does not matter what it costs. All that matters is intent.
The drafters of the bill intended to do the right thing, therefore any vote
against it is a vote against the intention.
On a different tack, Clinton also said that some representatives had
exchanged what 'Americans really need' for their own political advantage.
In other words, democracy does not work. It does not represent people's
interest. Now, I happen to agree, but Clinton is being hypocritical as he
as often proclaimed his own mandate (based on a minority of even the people
who actually voted).
---Ervan
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