Today's Tabbloid: Club President On ABC News On NY-23 (The Club For Growth)

3 November 2009
Today’s Tabbloid
PERSONAL NEWS FOR craig.kirchoff+webnews@gmail.com
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS tells us Afghanistan is all part of a “global counterinsurgency.” [.pdf]
This, of course, is a somewhat more ambitious job than blowing through
Club President on ABC News on the cocktail circuit in Paris.
NY-23 [The Club for Growth] Just to press the point, as only one of eight “best practices” for
NOV 02, 2009 04:38P.M. counterinsurgents, Kilcullen lists “cueing and synchronization of
development, governance, and security efforts, building them in a
Club President Chris Chocola was on ABC News’ Top Line political show simultaneous, coordinated way that supports the political strategy.”
today to talk about the NY-23 race. You can watch here. Another COIN guru, John Nagl writes [.pdf] that “The soldiers who will
win these wars require an ability not just to dominate land operations,
but to change whole societies…”
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS In short, we probably ought to distinguish between France and
Afghanistan.
Department of Bad Analogies
[Cato at Liberty]
NOV 02, 2009 02:38P.M. FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
If China Jumped Off A Bridge,

Would We Do It Too? [Cato at
Liberty]
NOV 02, 2009 01:58P.M.
Everyone has heard that China is leaving us in its dust when it comes to
producing college graduates, and if we don’t do something drastic to
catch up they’ll crush us economically as well. Indeed, it’s a driving force
behind efforts to ramp up federal higher education intervention.
As President Obama proclaimed when introducing his American

Graduation Initiative, which is now part of the ironically titled Student
Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act:
US Ambassador’s residence, Paris By 2020, this nation will once again have the highest
proportion of college graduates in the world….Already we’ve
In the course of wondering whether it may not be so important that so increased Pell grants by $500. We’ve created a $2,500 tax
few US government personnel speak Pashto, Spencer Ackerman writes: credit for four years of college tuition. We’ve simplified
student aid applications….A new GI Bill of Rights…is
You don’t have to speak French to craft a good U.S. France beginning to help soldiers coming home from Iraq and
policy. Afghanistan to begin a new life — in a new economy. And the
recovery plan has helped close state budget shortfalls…at the
That’s a fair point, although many, many more U.S. diplomats dealing same time making historic investments in school libraries
with France speak French than do the folks dealing with Afghanistan and classrooms and facilities all across America. So we’ve
speak Pashto (or Dari, or…). But the problem is that we don’t have a already taken some steps that are building the foundation for
normal diplomatic relationship with Afghanistan — we’re trying to a 21st century education system…one that will allow us to
transform the entire society. Counterinsurgency guru David Kilcullen compete with China and India and everybody else all around
1
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR craig.kirchoff+webnews@gmail.com 3 November 2009
the world. FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Now, while a college education could furnish important learning that ‘The End of Privacy’ and the
helps drive innovation and economic development, it could also be
as worthless as conferring a bachelor’s degree on a dog. What’s Surveillance-Industrial
important is that people actually learn things of value, not simply that
they get degrees. But a funny thing happened in China… Complex [‘Cato at Liberty]
NOV 02, 2009 01:24P.M.
Yesterday, news broke that China’s top education official has been
sacked. Reports the New York Times: National Public Radio’s All Things Considered ran a series on “The End
of Privacy” all last week that’s worth a listen. They’re primarily
Facing rising criticism over the quality of schools and a crush concerned with the ways private companies have access to vast
of jobless college graduates, China’s legislature announced quantities of information about individuals in the digital age—something
Monday that it had removed the minister of education after that civil libertarians have traditionally been less concerned about than
six years on the job and replaced him with a deputy. government access, for many perfectly valid reasons. But it’s worth
noting how porous that distinction can be. A 2006 survey by the
China has been cranking out college graduates at a breakneak pace, but Government Accountability Office found that just four government
the quality of the education has become highly suspect and, perhaps agencies—the Justice Department, Department of Homeland Security,
more importantly, there haven’t been nearly enough jobs to employ all State Department, and Social Security Administration—spent at least
the newly credentialed. In other words, simply producing more $30 million annually on contracts with information resellers like
graduates — no matter how much it has frightened some people Choicepoint. The vast majority of that data (91%) was used for law
in America – has largely been a waste. enforcement or counterterror purposes. And GAO found that the
resellers weren’t always in full compliance with the privacy practices that
The obvious lesson from this should be that it’s foolish to simply make the agencies themselves are supposed to follow.
massively expanding the ranks of degree holders a national goal. But that
doesn’t compute for many U.S. politicians, despite abundant evidence Choicepoint, coincidentally, is one of the largest clients of the consulting
that we don’t need heaps more graduates anymore than China does. It’s firm run by former Attorney General John Ashcroft. Little wonder given
getting elected that matters most to politicians, and as long as voters the amount of cash at stake: As reporter Tim Shorrock has documented,
keep believing that government is opening the door to the middle class some 70 percent of our vast intelligence budget is channeled through
simply by pushing more and more people to college, politicians will keep private-sector contractors, which means that we need to understand
wasting taxpayer dollars on unnecessary degrees. government surveillance policy in the context of a “surveillance-
industrial complex” that parallels the more familiar military-industrial
So let’s hope that both voters and politicians will learn China’s clear complex known for bringing us $600 toilet seats and other forms of pork
college lesson: Fixating on degrees is not very smart. Failing in camo gear. It’s worth bearing in mind that it’s not just investigatory
that, let’s hope that we at least don’t have any rioting… zeal and public fear driving the expansion of the surveillance state—a lot
of people are making a lot of money off it as well.
2
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Monday Links [Cato at Liberty] Health Care Bill Improves

NOV 02, 2009 01:07P.M.
Lawyers’ Financial Health [Cato
• The “Karzai problem” in Afghanistan: “The U.S. has assisted and
sponsored a corrupt, illegitimate and slightly autocratic regime at Liberty]
there while purporting to advance the values of freedom and NOV 02, 2009 12:42P.M.
democracy.”
The great thing for legislators about a nearly 2000 page bill — such as,
• Did it work? Cato’s Jeffrey Miron debates the effectiveness of the oh, the House’s latest health care salvo — is that very few people bother
Obama’s stimulus plan. to read the whole thing. So it’s easy to bury little gifts to favored
supporters. Or big ones.
• The Democrats’ internal battle: Why they can’t agree on how to
overhaul the health care system. For example, check out section 2531 — that’s pages 1431-33 for those
following along at home — which has gone largely unnoticed in the major
• The limits of American power in Afghanistan. news cycle. These three pages of the bill reward states that refrain from
setting (or repeal) any caps on medical malpractice rewards — and the
• “Peter Bauer and the Economics of Prosperity“ accompanying lawyers’ fees! – by requiring the Secretary of Health and
Human Services to provide them a bribe an “incentive payment.”
As Hans von Spakovsky notes at NRO’s Corner, this “alternative medical

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS liability law” aims to eviscerate cost-saving measures that protect doctors
from frivolous lawsuits that increase the cost of health care to the
Top Obama Advisor Refuses to consumer. So this has nothing to do with providing better or cheaper
care, covering the uninsured, or even eliminating waste and fraud.
Rule out Tax Hike on Working Instead, it’s a pure sop to one of the Congressional Democrats’ key
constituencies: trial lawyers.
Families’ Healthcare
For more information on free market health care reform alternatives,
[Americans for Tax Reform] please visit Cato’s Health Care website here.
NOV 02, 2009 01:01P.M.
Senior White House Counsel Valerie Jarrett on Sunday refused to rule

out tax hikes which will raise the price of healthcare for 46 million FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
working families. Appearing on This Week with George Stephan...
The Bell Curve Mean Business
[Cato at Liberty]
NOV 02, 2009 12:36P.M.
Over the past month, Charles Murray and I have been debating the
proposition that better schools can significantly improve educational
outcomes – can shift the “Bell Curve” substantially to the right. Charles
finds this “touchingly naïve,” while I argue that it is empirically
inescapable.
Ben Chavis, founding principal of Oakland’s extremely high scoring

American Indian Public Charter Schools, has invited Charles to put his
skepticism to the test, and perform research to validate or refute the
achievements of Ben’s inner-city students. But Charles believes he’d find
only a modest (< 0.25 std. dev.) test score effect to AIPCS attendance,
that would, moreover, be evanescent. Charles grants that Ben has
created a very good school, he’s just convinced that even very good
schools cannot have large or lasting academic effects.
3
The evidence simply does not support Charles’ skepticism. FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
I’ve already noted that there are average effect sizes for market Socialism Kills [Americans for
education systems that are much greater than Charles’ threshold. Just a
few months ago, it was reported that three years in private schools under Tax Reform]
DC’s voucher program raises reading achievement by two grade levels NOV 02, 2009 12:27P.M.
(0.42 std. dev.), and effect sizes of even 2/3ds of a std. dev. are not
unheard of. It is a commonly accepted fact that the ideology of communism has been
responsible for over 100 million deaths worldwide. What is less obvious
Those are average effect sizes of competitive education markets over is the tragic cost caused by it’s step-child, ‘democratic...
public school monopolies. Since we agree that Ben’s school is quite
special, there is every reason to expect his school’s effect size to be on the
high end of the range already identified in the research.
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
And what of Charles’ assumption that school effects are necessarily
evanescent, fading to insignificance within a few years after students Fact-checking the DCCC NY-23
leave the school? This, too, is contradicted by the evidence. Numerous
studies have looked at long term effects of consuming market schooling Attack Ad [Americans for Tax
instead of monopoly schooling – particularly on students’ eventual
success in college and their earnings once they’ve entered the labor Reform]
market. Economist Derek Neal has found that urban blacks attending NOV 02, 2009 12:18P.M.
Catholic schools are twice as likely to graduate from college as similar
students attending public schools. That is a large effect several years out, Last Thursday, in the Congressional race for New York’s 23rd district,
and it, in turn, will have an enduring positive effect on students earnings. the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) released an
In fact, of 17 research findings comparing the eventual educational aggressive attack ad on Conservative Party candidate D...
attainment and earnings of market school graduates to public school
graduates, 11 find statistically significant positive effects, and none find
significant negative effects (see Table 3 in the previously linked paper).
The evidence is clear that competitive education markets have
significant, lasting, and often quite substantial positive effects over NY-23 Fact Sheet [The Club for
government school monopolies. So I can see no empirical basis for
Charles’ skepticism. Growth]
NOV 02, 2009 11:57A.M.
What’s more, this should be intuitively obvious. The current mean of the
bell curve of educational achievement is not some inescapable fact of Several media outlets have asked about the Club for Growth and Club for
nature, like the value of pi. It is a symptom of the monopoly school Growth PAC’s involvement in the NY-23 special election. Below are some
systems that have stifled educational efficiency and innovation for more details, and here’s a PDF version:
than a century. Just as establishing the rule of law and liberating
economies from the thrall of central planning have led to dramatic FINANCIAL NUMBERS:
economic growth around the world, so would liberating education from
the thrall of government school monopolies shift the bell curve to the Club for Growth PAC Independent Expenditures:
right. TV/Radio - $376,822
Mail, Phone, Other - $31,940
Subtotal - $408,762
Club for Growth Independent Expenditures:

TV - $184,688
Mail, other - $51,839
Subtotal - $236,514
Club and PAC Total - $645,276

Bundled Club member donations - $363,112 (2,461
donations)
4
GRAND TOTAL - $1,008,388 for Growth) and national muscle (from former House
Majority Leader Dick Armey and Sarah Palin, among others)
that prevented Scozzafava from ever having a chance.
TIMELINE OF SIGNIFICANT EVENTS: — E.J. Dionne, The Washington Post (Nov. 1, 2009)
Sep 24, 2009 - Club releases poll that shows a statistical 3- The anti-tax group Club for Growth, whose endorsement of
way tie in NY-23 Hoffman in September provided the campaign its initial
surge of momentum, also announced it would begin airing a
Sep 28, 2009 - Club PAC endorses Doug Hoffman in NY-23 new TV ad Tuesday in Watertown, Burlington, and Syracuse
highlighting the differences between Hoffman and attorney
Sep 28, 2009 - Fred Thompson is the first of what will much Bill Owens, the Democratic nominee. Scozzafava is not
later become a parade of GOP leaders to endorse Hoffman mentioned.
Oct 1, 2009 - Club PAC launches $250,000 TV and radio ad — Emily Cadei, CQ Politics (Oct. 27, 2009)
campaign (“Four of a Kind”)
[I]ts $275,000 investment in the race has effectively turned it
Oct 1, 2009 - Club PAC responds to Scozzafava’s claim that into one of the highest-profile races in the history of the Club
our ad is false. We call it the Spitzer-Paterson-Scozzafava for Growth, which has taken out centrist House Republicans
budget and waged strong challenges to centrist senators like Arlen
Specter (Pa.) and Lincoln Chafee (R.I.).
Oct 6, 2009 - Club President Chris Chocola pens op-ed,
“Politics and principle in upstate New York,” in the “It’s always possible we’ll spend more money, sure,”
Washington Examiner. Club Executive Director David Keating said.
Oct 19, 2009 - The Club and the Club’s PAC launch $300,000 — Aaron Blake, The Hill (Oct. 3, 2009)
ad campaign (“Tired of Choosing Between Two Liberals?”)
Heavy TV advertising by the Club for Growth, which is
Oct. 26, 2009 - Club releases poll showing Hoffman at 31.3%, backing Hoffman, in all three major media markets has
Owens 27%, Dede 19.7% peeled conservative voters away from the Republican, and
GOP insiders worry that the bleeding will continue.
Oct. 27, 2009 - Club launches new TV ad (“It Comes Down to
Two Very Different Candidates”) — Stu Rothenberg, Roll Call (Oct. 13, 2009)
Nov. 2, 2009 - Club for Growth PAC funds phone calls from PAID FOR BY CLUB FOR GROWTH PAC AND NOT
former Gov. George Pataki to 75,000 people district-wide. AUTHORIZED BY ANY CANDIDATE OR CANDIDATE’S
COMMITTEE. 202-955-5500.
TV SPOT COUNT (# of Ads Show on Broadcast TV in

District from 9/24-10/30):
Candidate/Committee # of Ads Owens: 2,088

Club/Club PAC: 1,597 DCCC: 1,592 NRCC: 1,520
Hoffman: 1,077 Scozzafava: 677 AFSCME: 236 SEIU: 147
Common Sense: 96
PRESS QUOTES:
Hoffman’s success in driving Scozzafava from the race is

being played as a “grass-roots” conservative rebellion in the
district against the imposition of a moderate Republican
nominee by party leaders. But the truth is that it was
national money (notably from the conservative Club
5
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS administration’s lust for power, making Bush look like a
piker, has brought the Goldwater/Reagan revolution back to
NY 23: A Return to Principle? life. But the Wall Street Journal’s sober editorial this
morning got it exactly right: Whether this revival returns
[Cato at Liberty] the GOP to first principles or leads to internecine ruin “will
NOV 02, 2009 11:46A.M. depend on how GOP leaders and conservative activists
respond.” Both could do worse than look to Ronald Reagan
At today’s Politico Arena the editors ask: for guidance.
NY 23 and the GOP: The road to “first principles” or to

“internecine ruin?”
My response:
Vanderhye Stands with Deeds
In important respects, the NY 23 congressional race is
a microcosm of the Goldwater/Rockefeller battle of 1964 — a on Tax Increases [Americans for
battle for the soul of the Republican Party. For years during
the 1950s and ’60s, “Rockefeller Republicans” were not Tax Reform]
simply ”Democrat Lite” but often to the left of Democrats, NOV 02, 2009 11:37A.M.
giving rise back then to the New York Conservative Party,
which nominated Doug Hoffman for the NY 23 seat at Recently, Democratic incumbent Margaret Vanderhye appeared on
stake tomorrow. And the policies those Republicans put in WAMU’s The Kojo Knamdi Show stating she would stand with
place, starting with taxes, were directly responsible for the Democratic gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds in his support of tax
relentless decline of the Empire State. As reported in a recent i...
Empire Center study, “New York’s share of the nation’s
population declined sharply in the second half of the 20th
century, from 19 percent of all Americans in 1950 to less than
7 percent in 2000.” FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Goldwater won that intra-party battle, of course, then lost an On Tonight’s Kudlow Report
election all but foreordained by the Kennedy assassination.
And with Goldwater’s victory for the soul of the Republican [Larry Kudlow’s Money
Party, the parties were at last distinguished by their
principles, even if a remnant of Rockefeller Republicans, like Politic$]
the two Bushes, remained to muddy the waters. NOV 02, 2009 11:31A.M.
The NY 23 situation captures this perfectly. Nominated not in

a primary but by a few party officials, Dede
Scozzafava’s indifference to Republican Party principles was
no better illustrated than by her decision, when it became
clear how badly she was losing, not simply to remove herself
from the race but to endorse the Democratic nominee — in an
apparent back-room deal with state and national Democrats.
We’ll doubtless know in time just what promises were made
for that endorsement. But it reeks already of the lust for
This evening at 7pm ET:
power over principle: Do whatever it takes to stay in the
political game.
AN INTERVIEW WITH FORMER FED CHIEF PAUL VOLCKER
CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo reports.
It’s impossible to predict the outcome of this election, of
course. Some of Scozzafava’s loyalists will probably follow
HAS THE TIME COME FOR THE FED TO JUST DO IT?
her, while others will be moved by a sense of betrayal to go
the other way. The larger question, however, is whether we
*CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo
are going to have two significantly different parties in this
*John Carney, BusinessInsider.com Managing Editor
nation – or simply two parties vying for power, with barely a
*David Goldman, Associate Editor First Things Blog
dime’s worth of difference between them. The Obama
6
hand on the ownership of other media.&nb...

FORD’S FABULOUS BILLION DOLLAR EARNINGS
CNBC’s Phil LeBeau reports.
THE LATEST ON BERNIE MADOFF FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

CNBC’s Scott Cohn will join us.
The World’s Best Tax Haven: In
A CONSERVATIVE REVOLUTION IN NY’S DISTRICT 23?
Is a supply-side revolution at hand? America, but Unavailable to
Chris Chocola, Club for Growth President & CEO will be aboard. Americans [Cato at Liberty]
NOV 02, 2009 08:45A.M.
HAS OBAMA SPENT ALL OF HIS POLITICAL CAPITAL?
Former Massachusetts Governor and Republican Presidential candidate Tax competition is an issue that arouses passion on both sides of the
Mitt Romney will join us. debate. Libertarians and other free-market advocates welcome tax
competition as a way of restraining the greed of politicians. Governments
Please join us. The Kudlow Report. 7pm ET. CNBC. have lowered tax rates in recent decades, for instance, because
politicians are afraid that the geese that lay the golden eggs can fly across
the border. But collectivists despise tax competition — for exactly the
same reason. They want investors, entrepreneurs, and companies to
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS passively serve as free vending machines, dispensing never-ending piles
of money for politicians. So when a left-wing group puts together a
California Stealing From ranking of the world’s “top secrecy jurisdictions” in hopes of
undermining tax competition, proponents of individual freedom can use
Taxpayers. Seriously. that list as a guide to world’s most investor-friendly nations. The good
news is that an American state, Delaware, is number one on the list. And
[Americans for Tax Reform] since being a tax haven is a magnet for investment, this is good news for
NOV 02, 2009 10:47A.M. U.S. competitiveness. The bad news is that American taxpayers are not
allowed to benefit from many of Delaware’s “tax haven” policies. Here’s
To try to address the effects of chronic overspending, the state of what a left-wing columnist in the United Kingdom wrote about the issue:
California has come up with a rather unique proposition: steal from
taxpayers. I mean this quite literally. The State of Califo... You’re a billionaire but you don’t want anyone, least of all the
taxman, to know. What do you do? Head for a palm-fringed
island paradise or a snow-covered Alpine micro-state?
Wrong. The world’s most opaque jurisdictions – the ones that
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS will best shield you and your cash from the light – are mostly
in the heart of the most sophisticated and powerful global
In their own words…Why does financial centres. London, Luxembourg and Zurich are in the
top five most secretive jurisdictions, according the first
the left want “net neutrality” comprehensive index of financial transparency ever
compiled. Yet top of the pile, beating the British Virgin
regulation of the Internet? Islands, Belize or Liechtenstein as the best place to hide
wealth, is Delaware. One of the smallest states in the US, it
[Americans for Tax offers the best protection for anyone who does not want to
disclose their identity as a beneficial owner of a company.
Reform…Why does the left want That is one very good reason why the East Coast state hosts
50% of the US’s quoted firms and 650,000 companies –
“net neutrality” regulation of almost equivalent to one company per Delaware resident.
…Delaware – the political power-base of the US vice-
the Internet?] president, Joe Biden – offers high levels of banking secrecy
NOV 02, 2009 09:40A.M. and does not make details of trusts, company accounts and
beneficial ownership a matter of public record. Delaware also
Marxist Robert McChesney founded the leftist group “Free Press” in allows companies to re-domicile within its borders with
2002 to press for socialist reforms of the Internet, and a heavy regulatory minimal disclosure, and allows the existence of privacy-
enhancing “protected cell” or “segregated portfolio”
7
companies, among many other stratagems useful for

protecting the identity of those who do business there.

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3 November 2009

If China Jumped Off A Bridge,

As President Obama proclaimed when introducing his American

the world. FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

Monday Links [Cato at Liberty] Health Care Bill Improves

As Hans von Spakovsky notes at NRO’s Corner, this “alternative medical

Senior White House Counsel Valerie Jarrett on Sunday refused to rule

Ben Chavis, founding principal of Oakland’s extremely high scoring

Club for Growth Independent Expenditures:

Club and PAC Total - $645,276

TV SPOT COUNT (# of Ads Show on Broadcast TV in

Candidate/Committee # of Ads Owens: 2,088

Hoffman’s success in driving Scozzafava from the race is

NY 23 and the GOP: The road to “first principles” or to

The NY 23 situation captures this perfectly. Nominated not in

hand on the ownership of other media.&nb...

THE LATEST ON BERNIE MADOFF FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS

companies, among many other stratagems useful for

You might also like