Edit on SB 81

http://www.heraldextra.com/news/opinion/editorial/article_ef530bd2-f33b-57f4-a1bc-1a53c568d657.html

It's been about two weeks since a major immigration law went into effect in Utah. So now we can see what SB 81 has actually done.

Depending on which partisans you ask, jackbooted storm troopers are making mass arrests of decent, law-abiding immigrants across the state, or crime is plummeting and business is booming in the wake of deportations.

In truth there has been no major upheaval.

What will happen in the long run? It might help to look at the key parts of the law:

• The law requires a sheriff to make a reasonable effort to determine a jail inmate's citizenship and to consider an illegal immigrant a flight risk. These seem fairly obvious.

• Illegal immigrants can't get a liquor or private club license. But considering the obstacles Utah still places before people who want to serve legal beverages, why would an illegal immigrant want to get into this business?

• The law creates identification documents for U.S. citizens, nationals or legal permanent resident aliens and places time restrictions on documents when immigration status is in question. However, people have shown they are willing and able to forge documents, or to ignore the legal mandates.

• Public employers are required to use the Status Verification System for new employees. With the recession, however, public employers shouldn't be hiring anyone anyway.

• The law also bans public employers from firing a lawful employee while still employing an illegal immigrant. How does a public employer come to hire an illegal immigrant in the first place? Bureaucrats constantly harp on the stringent standards applicants must meet.

• Agencies must verify citizenship before providing federal, state or local public benefits. So if an illegal alien with no money shows up at an emergency room bleeding copiously, the hospital won't stitch up the wounds? Seems unlikely.

• Procedures have been set up for making state and local officers eligible to enforce federal immigration laws. But the great majority of Utah law enforcement agencies claim have they don't have the money, time or manpower to handle an added job. Some apparently have no desire to do this job, and the law can't make them.

• Makes transporting or harboring an illegal alien for financial gain a Class A misdemeanor. It's hard to see that a misdemeanor will deter anyone hardened or desperate enough to smuggle people across the border and into Utah.

In light of all this, SB 81 may not accomplish much. The legal aspects are limited. As for economics, the continuing recession is having a much bigger impact than this state law ever would.

The law doesn't really address the issue of private businesses that, knowingly or not, hire illegal aliens. Nor does it address widespread sympathy for the many people who came here to improve their lives and who have contributed positively to the state.

If the law is unlikely to have a huge impact on the streets or in the job market, it nevertheless is having some effect in the political world.

State Rep. Chris Herrod, R-Provo, has engaged in a running debate with Salt Lake Police Chief Chris Burbank and Mayor Ralph Becker about the impact of illegal immigration on crime, with the Sutherland Institute and other politicians chiming in.

But even this limited slice of the issue has problems. Some observers hope the law would at least allow the authorities to find out how many illegal immigrants there are in jail. That, however, will require "reasonable" efforts by law agencies, and there's no guarantee that will be forthcoming.

Nor is it likely that someone languishing in the slammer will willingly pipe up, "Oh, by the way, I sneaked across the border in 2005. Just thought you'd want to know."

Identifying how many illegals are in custody won't end the questions in any case. Since nobody really knows how many illegal immigrants there are in Utah, it's hard to know whether the number of aliens in jail reflects a disproportionate impact.

Anyway, the number incarcerated only shows suspects who have been apprehended. Maybe illegal immigrants have a tougher time dodging the law or making bail.

Finally, no matter how many illegals are in jail, most illegal aliens cause no trouble. The crime issue is only one a small part of the legal, political and social quandaries attached to this issue.

All in all, the activation of Utah's biggest immigration law in years may have little effect. There's a limit to what a state law can do, and SB 81 may be at that limit.

Say vs. Keynes

The real battle in politics and economics isn't between liberals and conservatives, it's between the theories of Jean-Baptiste Say and those of John Maynard Keynes.

Until Republicans understand this, they're going to keep losing political battles. And the American economy will keep tanking.

The fundamental idea of Say's ideas is that it is production (with its siblings investment and saving) that creates wealth.

Say's Law has been expressed various ways, including that "aggregate supply creates its own aggregate demand." He himself wrote, "... a product is no sooner created than it, from that instant, affords a market for other products to the full extent of its own value. ... (T)he mere circumstance of creation of one product immediately opens a vent for other products."
Consider the automobile. When various mechanics and tinkerers began making horseless carriages, they created first a demand for this revolutionary form of transportation. Then their factories hired workers and bought raw materials and other items — creating wealth.

Of course, as today's auto industry makes extremely clear, production and demand can get out of synch. But according to Say and the dominant stream of classical economics, prosperity is based on production. Indeed, a corollary is that consumption destroys wealth.

The Keynesian view, of course, takes the opposite tack: It claims that consumption and spending are the basis of prosperity.

The current recession could be a fine model to test these theories. It could be argued that an orgy of consumption in the United States eventually ate away at the nation's vast wealth. Meanwhile government policies encouraging loose money and housing undercut saving and fueled an oversupply of houses and autos. Right now, the Keynesian solution of pumping money into the economy looks like a flop.

But it remains irresistible to the media and politicians. Sadly, most Republicans buy into it too.

When the Obama administration opened the money spigot, Republican politicians dove right in. Only a few governors even hesitated. And they were unable to convincingly say why they should balk at accepting money from the government.

That's even true here in Utah, one of the most conservative states. Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert (who is virtually governor while Jon Huntsman Jr. awaits confirmation as ambassador to China) has eagerly accepted the money, and is even thinking of pumping more state money into housing.

But this way lies ruin. If it is spending and consumption that have gotten out of whack, only when the U.S. makes production (and savings and investment) primary will the recovery start.

And until then, Republicans will keep getting hammered politically. After all, If spending and consumption are the mainsprings of the economy, then the more spending the better. After all, if spending is good, voters draw the logical conclusion and back the party that spends most enthusiastically.

So Republicans have to fight back. Not to be irreverent, but they must recite Say's Law when they get up in the morning and when they go to bed all night; it should be on their lips and in their hearts: Supply creates demand.

If the liberal/Democratic mantra is "tax and spend," for Republicans it has to be "save, invest and produce."

That will take guts and political skill, however. Transitioning to a savings and production-based economy, and away from the consumption model, will be painful. Taxes on consumption might have to rise.

Other painful political steps await. They have to come out against government spending, but far more intensely than ever before. This doesn't mean fighting just "pork" or "waste," it means fighting all spending. If the feds want to spend money on a Home for Widowed Mothers of American War Heroes, Republicans in Congress have to vote "no."

Then, if Congress, in its current insanity, passes another bailout, the "red" states have to say "no."

Here in Utah, for instance, we're fighting to keep various kinds of nuclear waste out. If classical economics is right, Republicans ought to be fighting to keep federal cash out too, for it's just as toxic.

Transformation would include such touchy issues as free trade. If the U.S. is going to focus on making things, not just buying them, it will have to have places to sell them. Free trade right now can be a tough sell.

Yet there could be selling points too, if understood correctly. Yes, capital gains and corporate taxes would have to go down. But so should payroll taxes. The important thing, however, is that taxes wouldn't be cut to "put money in pockets." They would be cut to help productivity. From the viewpoint of classical economics, payroll taxes are insane. They penalize people for working, and companies for hiring workers.

Republicans could help ordinary Americans by lowering the tax burden on savings, once a backbone of the American economy, but which now seems as outmoded as typewriters and slide rules. That too can help all Americans -- but Republicans have to sell it: "You don't have to be a Wall Street insider to profit from saving money. Just go down to the bank and open an account. And we will make sure you get to keep the interest it earns."

So it can be done. All that's required is sustained intellectual effort, party discipline, imagination and courage. It should be heartening that Ronald Reagan and the GOP had those qualities once, so it's not impossible Republicans could get them again.

But until they do, the party and the economy are destined to flounder.

The biggest danger

End of this highlights the greatest danger of socialism: the infantilization of the people.

Matheson becomes a player

Jim Matheson could play a key role in health care debate. But what will it be? Will he and other blue dogs just water the bill down enough to get it by?

Or do enough to create real reform?

What if he wins

More on Palin: of course, can she be a competent executive?

Look at FDR. Even admirers should admit his erratic and chaotic style hurt the nation.

Ditto for Clinton and JFK. Chaos in White House hurts.

Palin: guerrilla warfare and Reagan as a thinker

Joe Pyrah makes good points. Why didn't she do a better speech? Doesn't she owe it to people who voter for her?

Is she just a charismatic figure without the backbone to stick to something?

Or is she something different?

GUERRILLA FIGHTING

Here's a hypothesis, offered in the scientific spirit; it may be wrong; but, just as an idea:

If she runs a conventional campaign, she will lose, as a revolutionary army cannot win a conventional war against regular forces.

That's what she found in the Alaska governor's office. She was pinned down, and exposed to air and heavy armor attacks by the media and political establishment.

She has to go guerrilla. She has to attack when the conventional forces least expect it -- July 4th weekend, for instance.

She has, as it were, gone into the hills. She will sally out at times and places of her choosing -- speeches for conservative candidates, perhaps gigs on Fox News or talk radio, writing a book — then retreat before the conventional media can bring all their firepower to bear.

It also may be that her personality, even the many shifts, are suitable for our age. This isn't to give our age any medals. It's just to say that in the age of Twitter and multi-tasking, her style may fit in.

Maybe she just is a flake. But here's the thing: a politician challenging the establishment by definition will look flaky too.

She just connects to people. Nobody can explain it. It isn't fair. But she does.

Of course, that is indeed her weakness. A populist can be blown along by the people. And there's little sign the people won't want bigger government, in the end, if not led well.

RONALD REAGAN

I am not one of those conservatives who fawn over Reagan. I volunteered for Ted Kennedy in '80, so I have no nostalgia for him. No personal tie; I find him cold and odd as a human being.

But I grudgingly acknowledge his accomplishments.

Also, he's an interesting comparison to her. Eureka College, then an acting career. But

1. He had to learn. He changed. He went from FDR liberal to a conservative. He had to think about it. He had to find out about conservatism.

Palin, in contrast, comes to conservatism naturally. So, does she really understand it?

In this case, she is no different from 99 percent of Republicans. They scream about deficit spending -- but take the money. They say Obama spends too much -- but can't say how much.

They don't have the theory. That's why they can't say no, in the end, to almost anything.

Palin has to pick up the knowledge. I'm not sure books are the way in our post-book age. I'm not hailing that, just seeing it.

But she has to talk to a lot of smart people, she has to grasp the ideas, and incorporate them into her life.

2. Reagan got the ideas. I'm not saying he was a modern academic thinker. But he thought about all these ideas. He got to the core. And he understood it.

Plenty of politicians can parrot the conservative slogans in, say, Austin or Provo. But can they keep it up, even in Washington?

Reagan had the intellectual grounding. He gave speeches year after year, he did all those radio talks. It's possible to exaggerate what this means; but it's also possible to miss the significance. Maybe he didn't get the nuances. So what? He got the core.

And, as someone who worked in Hollywood and lived in California, he must have taken the heat. As president, he took the heat?

Can she? Right now, now.

On the other hand, she's just a baby politician. As one pundit pointed out, she could be around for decades. She could change and grow. Or flame out.

On Palin

This noted professor and farmer gets it right:

Yes, she needs to read more, find out more, learn more. But she also knows a lot that the intellectuals don't.

Reagan did read, did learn. More important, he made those ideas fundamental to his life.

More later.