LibertyVoter.Org

By Alex Nowrasteh

Alex Nowrasteh

David Brat won a stunning and surprising victory in last night’s primary election in Virginia, unseating House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.). But Brat doesn’t seem to understand the very issue that seems to have dominated his historic upset and propelled him to Capitol Hill.

Brat considers himself a free-market conservative, claiming on MSNBC following his unexpected win that he’s against “any distortion to free markets.” Brat also campaigned against immigration reform, saying that “It’s the most symbolic issue that captures the difference between myself and Eric Cantor in this race.” But it’s impossible to square Brat’s laudable support for free markets and his opposition to immigration reform.

“Brat’s support for free markets, if it is consistent, obligates him to support freer immigration.”

Immigration is an economic issue. Fundamentally, it is about the movement of workers, entrepreneurs and consumers to locations where they can maximize the value of their labor, businesses and purchasing power.

But America’s current immigration system is highly protectionist and restrictive. In contrast to the first 131 years of American history, there is currently no green card for lower-skilled workers. Some highly skilled workers, families and refugees can get green cards, but there is no category for lower-skilled workers unless they are closely related to an American. That severe prohibition on the movement of lower-skilled workers is a deep and destructive intervention into the market economy.

Similarly, the paltry number of highly regulated temporary guest-worker visas allowed for migrants cannot compensate for the lack of green cards. For example, four federal agencies regulate the H-2A visa for temporary farmworkers. Firms have to sponsor migrants, limiting the ability of the migrant to move to better opportunities and the ability of American firms to hire away the best workers from their sclerotic competitors. Minimum wages for guest workers and other rules limit worker and employer flexibility.

These are some of the issues that might have gotten fleshed out in the immigration reform bill that Congress was expected to vote on after the midterm elections. But with Brat’s campaign victory over Cantor, which focused on blasting the prominent Virginia Republican for working with the Obama administration on immigration reform, many are predicting it won’t happen.

Only a lightly regulated economy can determine efficient wages and the optimal allocation of workers to variously demanded tasks, but the government intercedes at every step of the immigration process. Expensive labor certification requirements that seek …read more

Source: OP-EDS

By Nat Hentoff

Nat Hentoff

For years I have been reporting on and learning from ASCD, previously the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Its characteristic challenge to teachers in “The Myth of Student Engagement” (inservice.ascd.org, April. 15) begins:

“Each day that you enter your classroom, are you educating students? Or are you teaching at them?

“Do your lessons only improve their academic knowledge? Or do they foster their personal growth?”

And then: “You could shift your perspective to stop teaching at students and begin learning about them.”

In a few places around the nation, it’s not only ASCD asking and doing something about these questions. Before examining where this is happening, I cannot resist starting with a single teacher who is answering those questions by herself — without the exceptionally knowledgeable and creative ASCD staff.

New York Daily News reporter Megan Monk shows how “a Queens second-grade teacher is cultivating lifelong learners through hands-on activities in her school garden” (“Queens teacher takes learning from the classroom to the garden,” Megan Monk, New York Daily News, June 6).

At Public School 146 in Howard Beach, Jodi Tucci got approval from her school to plant “a garden on the property where the children could learn about plants, bugs, ecosystems and clouds in a real-world environment.”

She tells the Daily News: “This is the best way for them to get excited and motivated about what they’re learning.”

That isn’t all her kids are learning about. Monk writes: “To supplement what they study in school, Tucci’s class takes trips to museums, aquariums and historical sites in Manhattan.”

Remember: These are second-grade students.

Tucci discusses her methods with the Daily News: “When they look at the exhibits we visit, the students remember everything I taught them. I link these trips to what we learn in the classroom to make it a real-life experience.”

Getting back to the garden, she also uses it “as a space for her pupils to read outdoors.”

And dig this: “She allows them to choose their own books based on what they are interested in learning about.”

Wow! That’s how I got so much of my education, from elementary school on.

For instance, at the public library near my home, the librarian, seeing what I was reading, broke the rule that limited the number of books borrowed per visit at certain ages and gave me whatever volumes I chose.

“Inspired by teachers who taught her to value knowledge,” Monk writes, “(Tucci) studied education and anthropology and set out …read more

Source: OP-EDS

By Michael D. Tanner

Michael D. Tanner

It may turn out that the VA scandal and the controversy surrounding the prisoner swap for Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl were actually good news for congressional Democrats. That’s because they’ve managed to keep the media and voters from focusing on the latest bad news about Obamacare.

And that news just keeps getting worse.

For example, according to documents leaked to the Associated Press, roughly 2.1 million people who purchased health insurance through the federal exchange have problems with their enrollment data that could affect what they pay for coverage, or even their legal right to benefits. This only counts the people who signed up through the federal exchange — there could be many more enrollees with discrepancies among the roughly 2.6 million people who signed up through the state exchanges, driving the total number even higher.

“With the bad news still flowing about the law, Dems could almost use another scandal.”

As many as 1.2 million of them could have received subsidies higher than what they were actually eligible for. If so, they would be required to repay the difference. That means a lot of Americans are going to get a bill from the government sometime this fall that will surprise them. Of course, while many of the errors resulted in overly generous subsidies, some didn’t receive the full subsidy that they should have given their incomes, meaning that they are currently paying more than they should. Oops.

In addition, nearly a million enrollees have problems with their citizenship or immigration data. It may turn out that many — perhaps most — of these people are indeed citizens and simply have data errors with their applications. But nobody knows how many of those who have conflicts or other issues with their immigration data are really not entitled to participate in the exchanges. It is likely to be several hundred thousand. Nor does anyone know what will happen to those who enrolled despite being legally ineligible. Will they lose their insurance? What happens if they show up seeking care, thinking they are insured when they really aren’t?

The law does allow for a 90-day grace period during which people can provide additional documentation or otherwise clear up problems with their application. But at least 840,000 enrollees are already outside of the 90-day window. Meanwhile, according to the Washington Post, even if people provide further proof of their eligibility, the government currently lacks the ability …read more

Source: OP-EDS

By David Howden

The British Columbia’s teachers union just voted 86% in favour of an all out strike. If a settlement is not reached with the provincial government before the end of this week, nearly 40,000 teachers could be walking the picket line come Monday.

At stake are the common issues of class size, salary, and benefits.

Strikes by public teachers are unusually disruptive for two reasons. The first is that the vast majority of parents send their children to a public school. Since our tax dollars automatically go to this system, only a wealthy few can afford to send their children to a private school and avoid such disruptive wide-scale strikes. Eschewing the public education system for the private alternative means that parents must pay for their children’s education twice – once in the form of taxes and again in the form of tuition at the school of their choice.

Second, and more importantly, teachers’ strikes are unusually disruptive because school administrators are left with no options to replace them. Nearly 2/3 of all recent education graduates in Ontario are unemployed or underemployed the following year. British Columbia certifies nearly 3 times the number of teachers it needs each year. Even fast growing Alberta has seen many of its school boards laying off teachers in recent years.

As a simple law of economics, when there is a supply of a resource going unused it is because its price is above the market-clearing level. In one common example this outcome can achieved by a poor law, as is the case with those who are unemployed because of the minimum wage. As workers cannot offer a lower price for their labour services, businesses are unwilling to hire them. The result is forced unemployment.

The question of what is a “fair” salary and remuneration package for public school teachers is a difficult one. I don’t have an answer for it either. I do know that the masses of unemployed recent teaching graduates implies that the total remuneration package for teachers is above the market-clearing level. Schools do not want to hire more teachers because they cannot afford them. Incidentally this is one reason why the teachers’ union and school administrators cannot meet eye-to-eye on the issue of class sizes. Teachers want smaller classes, but administrators cannot afford to hire the number of teachers necessary for this at the current remuneration packages.

These fresh graduates – bright eyed and …read more

Source: MISES INSTITUTE