Obama’s Educational Waivers: Toward the Political Consolidation of an Empire

A decade after the No Child Left Behind federal law was enacted, “President Obama freed 10 states from some of its crucial provisions.”[1] The states’ freedom from a deadline for bringing all students to proficiency in reading and math by 2014 came with strings—accepting Obama’s own educational agenda, which focuses on accountability and teacher effectiveness and includes higher standards than the ones set in NCLB. Many state education officials have criticized the 2014 deadline as “an impossibly high bar” that “did not take into account the needs of some of the most disadvantaged children.”[2] In announcing the waivers from the deadline, Obama said that the goals of NCLB should be met “in a way that doesn’t force teachers to teach to the test, or encourage schools to lower their standards to avoid being labeled as failures.”[3] However, if the standards are to be even higher, might even fewer schools wind up passing—even if the deadline is extended?

In assuming that the setting education policy is one of the enumerated powers of the Federal Government, Obama was applying a “one size fits all” approach over what is essentially an empire of differing republics. Furthermore, having so much power over the states on education policy, the Obama administration was compromising the check and balance feature of federalism wherein the states are to act as a check on federal encroachment just as the federal government is to act as a check on states violating the rights of, or not providing for, their respective citizens. In other words, the significance of NCLB and the Obama administration’s own attempt to standardize education policy in the states through the spending clause of the U.S. Constitution (which alone is a stretch) goes well beyond education policy. The viability of the system of government in the United States can be seen to be severely compromised just in the president’s attitude toward the states—as if they were children and he was daddy.

Ken Wheare argues in his text, Federal Government, that state governments need be autonomous of federal authority in only one area for modern federalism to work. Wheare also extolls the mutual check and balance feature of federalism (as distinguished from a confederal alliance). The point I would like to make is that if the states of a federal system are “free” only in one domain, they do not have a sufficient basis of power on which to act  as a viable check against the encroachment of federal power over that of the states.

Where the federation is on the empire scale, such as the E.U., Russia, and the U.S., the consolidation that comes with federal encroachment means that inherent differences across the lands within the federation are stifled or ignored. Built-up pressure is not good for ongoing political stability. Policy itself tends to be of compromise that no one would independently want, rather than tailored to the particular political societies within the federation. As of at least the beginning of 2012, Europe has seemed more aware of the need of particular states to legislate for their respective polities  than has America.

As Justice Sandra Day O’Conner once said, “Congress is acting like a state legislature.”[3] Such a significant category mistake cannot be good for the viable of a republic of republics—what Montesquieu referred to as wheels within a wheel. If all of the wheels within the wheel of the whole cannot operate at least partially independently, then any problem in the mechanism can quickly bring the entire mechanism to a quick stop. Like genetic diversity with respect to health, semi-sovereign diversity is necessary for political stability where the federation is on the empire-scale (i.e., inherently heterogeneous). We focus only on the substance of education policy at the expense of the impact of  the “how” on our system of public governance at our own peril. As long as it has interlarded itself into the classroom, perhaps the Federal Government should mandate that federalism be taught in Civics. It is more than a little disconcerting that the White House staff and their boss might need to attend such a class before being able to grasp the importance of the topic.

1. Winnie Hu, “10 States Are Given Waivers from Education Law,” The New York Times, February 10, 2012. 
2. Ibid.
3. Personal Correspondance. 

Conflicts of Interest and Paradigm-Shifts: The Case of Financial Regulation

It is perhaps all too easy to perceive a sea-change in perception when the reality of societal change is much more gradual. There is something to the argument that John D. Rockefeller’s reputation was salvaged in the 1930s not because the old man was passing out dimes, but, rather, simply because he had outlived his critics. Similarly, Thomas Kuhn, in his text on paradigm changes in scientific revolutions, bemoans that the advocates of a default theory must finally die off before their darling can finally be replaced by a new one. In other words, any given person is not apt to shift paradigms. The culprit, I suspect, is pride, which Augustine suggests in his writings is inherently self-idolatrous. I believe the human brain is capable of accepting inter-paradigmatic change, just as a person can be humble. That this is not the norm does not mean that we ought not raise our expectations to it.

The full essay is at Institutional Conflicts of Interest, available in print and as an ebook at Amazon.

Windfall Oil Profits

Conoco Phillips reported a 66% increase in earnings for the fourth quarter of 2011, “attributed to high crude prices and asset sales.”[1] With the prices of most crudes above $100 a barrel, the company gained a windfall that vastly made up for a drop of nearly 3% in its refining and marketing business. Chevron, on the other hand, reported a 3.2% decline in fourth-quarter earnings due to “poor refining results” that “overwhelmed higher revenue from oil sales.”[2]

Meanwhile, Exxon Mobil reported net income of $9.4 billion for the fourth quarter, up from $9.25 billion the year before. The company’s revenue of $121.6 billion was up 16 percent. The improved earnings reflected the $100 plus prices for many benchmark crudes, which resulted from “continuing unrest in the Middle East and North Africa and strong demand from China and other developing countries.”[3] To be sure, the company’s purchase of XTO Energy for $25 billion in 2010 meant that the plummet in natural gas prices also had a significant impact on the company. Even so, a company making nearly $38 billion on an annual basis raises questions on the sheer size alone, and whether any market can be competitive with such a giant.

Furthermore, the legitimacy of the windfall profits coming from political instability rather than any merit on the company’s part should also be questioned, as well as why Congress balked on a windfall profits tax for the industry in 2011. In other words, the market power is not the only kind of power we should be concerned about in looking at Exxon Mobil. Such a concern could extend to why George W. Bush decided to invade Iraq, given that that that country’s ruler had kicked American oil companies out in 1993 after the U.S. intervened to move the Iraqi army out of Kuwait. We could even ask whether the oil companies, or their agents in government, have had anything to do with the inciting some of the political stability behind the astronomical crude prices.

To be sure, Chevron shows us that even a big oil company can manage not to benefit from a $100-plus crude-price windfall. Moreover, oil executives could argue that windfalls are “necessary” as “cushions” against the prospect of a glut in natural gas, for example, or the need to do major work on aging refineries. Even with the inevitable vicissitudes that come with dealing with raw material markets, however, that the prices of crudes have gone so much higher than the costs of getting oil out of the ground suggests that the market mechanism has not been functioning as Adam Smith would have predicted—meaning an oligopoly has replaced a competitive marketplace.

John D. Rockefeller, whose effort to coordinate the refining industry in the U.S. via a huge monopoly called Standard Oil (of which Exxon Mobil is a descendant), could point to all the bankruptcies amid the “excessive competition” in the 1860s as justifying even a monopoly in place of any competition at all. He used means that would be considered very unethical today to get competitors to “agree” to be bought out by the combination so there would be no “destructive competition.” Even if it was necessary in the early years of the oil industry, we ought not assume that huge oil companies are necessarily the legacy we must pass on to the next generation.

1. Clifford Krauss, “Higher Oil PricesRaise Earnings at Exxon Mobil,” The New York Times, February 1, 2012. 
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.