Think Tank Wrap-up

WASHINGTON, Nov. 1 (UPI) -- The UPI Think Tank Wrap-Up is a daily digest covering brief opinion pieces, reactions to recent news events, and position statements released by various think tanks.

The Acton Institute

(The Acton Institute works to promote a free and virtuous society characterized by individual liberty and sustained by religious principles. Its goal is to help build prosperity and progress on a foundation of religious liberty, economic freedom, and personal moral responsibility.)

WASHINGTON--Balancing Emergency Measures and Prudent Policies

By David W. Hall

" 'Sovereign is he who has the power to declare an emergency,' wrote Carl Friedrich Schmidt. Here Schmidt warns that in times of crisis, good legislative sense goes out the window, if the threat of an emergency is grave enough.

"If Schmidt's aphorism is true, we might need some legislators to protect liberties from a stampede of ill-conceived and hasty policy. In less than two months, our well-meaning Congress has approved hundreds of billions of dollars in bailouts for ailing industries.

"Most Americans tacitly approve. Obviously, no one wants to see airlines, insurers, producers, or the economy collapse. And in a time of war-which is probably the best analog for this period-unusual measures have to be adopted. That may even require the suspension or temporary curtailment of certain civil liberties.

"I, for one, think it is legitimate to have reasonable temporary suspensions of liberties amid grave threats. A state of war jumbles the normal calculus of liberty. Who among us, for example, would not endure a longer line at an airport to try to ensure that a plane is not hijacked and used as a weapon?

"However, it is one thing to suspend liberties temporarily; it is another altogether to create an even larger state apparatus, while under the cloak of emergency. The Democratic measures, for example, have attempted (wisely, I think) to delimit some tax breaks to one year. Although smaller taxation, in general, should be a goal for our nation, there are times that prudence calls for a temporary interruption of that goal. This is one of those times.

"What concerns me, though, is that legislation can often take on a life of its own. Once we create new cabinet departments, provide specified bailouts, add economic stimuli, and so forth, each of those measures has the potential of becoming an institution that is as tenacious as a mad Afghan leader who hides in caves.

"So we might propose three things for consideration:

"1. If our current situation is an emergency, have Congress define the emergency. Are we in a state of war? Urban assault? Economic recession? If it is war, let it be defined (even though this is difficult with a "state less" enemy) and also define when the war will be over. It seems that in order to gain maximum support for emergency measures, the nation needs to know it is at war.

"2. If it is a war-like emergency with a limited duration, then let legislation clearly be designated as permanent or temporary. While we may cede some temporary sovereignty to the declarer of the emergency, it is doubtful that we wish to cede permanent sovereignty. That is a prescription for tyranny.

"3. Even if we are in a war-like emergency and experience a temporary suspension of prudential policies, we shouldn't forget the best lessons of the past fifty years. We ought to recall how prudence has taught us the best government is the one that does not assume the prerogatives of other spheres. The government, even in emergencies, may not be the best sphere to do certain things for the family or the individual.

"John Willson of Hillsdale College has astutely explored the dramatic expansion of American policy under wartime emergencies. American welfare statism itself arose only after and under certain conditions.

" 'World War II was a godsend to American liberals. The New Deal had been dead in the water since 1937, torpedoed by its fundamental failure,' Willson explains. 'A coalition of interest groups pestiferously frustrated President Roosevelt's attempt to grow the state. Ultimately, Roosevelt was able to triumph because the emergency of Europe and Pearl Harbor altered the political landscape.'

"The result in that case was a swelling state apparatus, which could possibly be justified during the war. However, long after the war ceased, that apparatus only continued to grow.

"Might we be in the process of over-feeding our own government under the guise of granting sovereignty to politicians during an emergency? It is a question worth considering.

"All of this, however, should also balance the need for security. At the same time, it is not always wrong to curtail certain liberties. Liberty, as September 11th has taught us, should not be unreasonably absolutized, for evil doers would have carte blanche if that were the case.

"What I am saying is this: Give balance a chance. Several deep breaths may be needed, and legislation might be better if it isn't rushed . . . lest we find that we have only built a more massive political edifice in this time of real need."

(David W. Hall is a senior fellow at the Kuyper Institute and a member of the Journal of Markets & Morality editorial board.)

Institute for Public Accuracy

(The IPA is a nationwide consortium of policy researchers that seeks to broaden public discourse by gaining media access for experts whose perspectives are often overshadowed by major think tanks and other influential institutions.)

WASHINGTON--United We Stand? Detainees, Tax Breaks, Postal Workers, Public Health

-- Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies.

"We do not live in a country where the government can keep secret who it arrests, where detainees are being held, or the charges against them. The secret detention of more than 1,000 people over the past few weeks is frighteningly close to the practice of 'disappearing' people in Latin America." Ken Gude is a policy analyst with the group, which is demanding information from the government on the detainees under the Freedom of Information Act.

--Betsy Leondar-Wright, communications director for United for a Fair Economy.

"Under the House plan, 14 profitable corporations such as IBM and General Motors would get $6.3 billion in rebates of their Alternative Minimum Tax payments back to 1986. These companies had in 2000 a net worth of over $217 billion and $43 billion of cash in the bank. In contrast, the bottom 60 percent of Americans (making under $75,000) only get 7 percent of the benefits this year."

--Richard Perl, president of Pacific Partners International Investments.

"I'd be embarrassed to take a tax cut at a time like this.... It is not just ineffective; it's unpatriotic."

--David Swanson, communications coordinator for ACORN, an organization advocating for low and middle income Americans.

"We're headed in exactly the wrong direction with the Bush plan. What's needed both to help the people who are suffering the most and to actually stimulate the economy is to get money into the hands of low income people who need it the most and who are more likely to immediately spend it in a variety of sectors of the economy."

--Jill Nelson, editor of the recently released book "Police Brutality: An Anthology."

"We want to believe in the facade of national unity that has been hastily constructed in the wake of the terror attacks. We want to believe that as American citizens, we are all in this together, as equals.... It is tempting at this point to succumb to a defensive patriotism and the desire to believe government assurances that they know what they're doing and will do the right thing. Sadly, the circumstances surrounding the deaths of (postal workers) Thomas Morris and Joseph Curseen tell us otherwise."

--Vanessa Dixon, member of the Healthcare Now Coalition and union organizer for the Committee of Interns and Residents, Dixon presented the paper "Communities in the Wake of Public Hospital Closures" at the recent American Public Health Association conference.

"In the aftermath of the anthrax outbreak, officials told postal workers to go to D.C. General Hospital to have tests. The problem is that D.C. General is no longer a hospital. It was privatized last year and is now a level two emergency unit. They actually covered up the 'hospital' sign at the entrance. It's a shell of a public facility. While some are treated at top-notch facilities, the rest of us are left at the mercy of overcrowded private hospitals and disappearing public hospitals."