1963 And Now

Some perspective for David Brooks, from Charles Murray:

You don’t increase spending by those amounts without changing the role of government in ways that go to the heart of the American project. That truth is reflected in the qualitative record. In 1963, 30 years after the New Deal started, the federal government still played little role in vast swathes of American life, from K-12 education to the way people went about providing goods and services to their fellow citizens. We can argue about which of the subsequent interventions were warranted and which were not, but not about this: The way that presidents and Congresses see their power to intervene in American life in 2010 is profoundly different from the way they saw it in 1963. In 1963, among mainstream Democrats as well as Republicans, it was accepted that an overarching purpose of the American Constitution was to limit the arenas in which government could act. Now, the recognition of that purpose has all but disappeared—in the executive branch, in the Supreme Court, and in Congresses controlled by Republicans as well as by Democrats. There has been big change, reflected in big government.

And that, not racism, is what the Tea Party is about.

19 thoughts on “1963 And Now”

  1. That, and …

    1. The commercse clause, aka, the “regulate damn near anything” clause.

    2. The spending clause, aka, the “pork for the privileged and use extortion to regulate everything the commerce clause can’t reach” clause.

    Any serious reform of the Federal government has to address these two issues, Constitutionally. With them as currently interpretted by SCOTUS, the 10th Amendment is literally useless.

  2. On the other hand, in 1963 trucking, railroads, airlines, natural gas and communications were far more heavily regulated by the Federal government than they are today.

  3. I’m old enough to remember that the expression “why are you making a federal case out of this?” meant that you were making too big a deal over it.

    Now, everyghing is a federal issue, no matter how trivial.

    Why would that trigger a reaction, eh?

  4. Yes, Will, but a case can be made that interstate trucking, airlines, natural gas pipelines, and communications are within the purview of the Federal government. They’re interstate, right? They’re very clearly all about interstate commerce. It would be a problem if 50 states set up 50 different regulatory regimes for any of those.

    What Murray is talking about is the fact that so much that was considered entirely private (health care, marriage), familial (education), or at most a state-level responsibility (education again, crime) is feeling the heavy foot of the Feds. Wholly different story.

  5. Will,
    I grew up around both airlines and trucking.

    Between years spent at Eastern Airlines, Dobbs House Airline Catering, and a regional caterer here in NC, my father spent over 25 years in the airline industry.

    When the airlines were de-regulated Pop told us we were seeing the beginning of the END of most of the American air carriers. He also predicted the ticket pricing craziness via either expensive tickets through the carriers or outfits like Orbits, charging for luggage, elimination of meals, and ultimately mostly foreign owned “traditionally American named” carriers.

    He didn’t know exactly how the ticket situation would work,but he did say prices would be so high, or in short supply or both and a clearing house would pop up to fill seats or eliminate union airline jobs.

    He thought the luggage costs would be defrayed by weight or on a per piece basis and it would be pushed off on non-union contract labor.

    He got out of catering because he knew those jobs would dry up.

    (and don’t say good riddance to airline food…did you ever try making a meal…hold it cooled for 12 hours…then serve it at 300 mph at 27K feet of altitude in a pressurized, flying, aluminum tube? well then…shaddap)

    Did he miss anything?

  6. It would be a problem if 50 states set up 50 different regulatory regimes for any of those.

    Only if the need for common standards went unrecognized. We need to remove the commerce clause from the constitution. It’s common in most areas for different states to have different standards. This is a feature, not a bug. By homogenizing laws you remove a reason for people to vote with their feet, reducing a dynamic that makes things better for everybody.

    I have no problem with national standard committees. I have a huge problem with national standard laws.

    We need competition much more than we need national standards, as much as we do need standards.

    Consider how air traffic is controlled. You might imagine this is a perfect area for centralized control since it’s such a complicated network with lives hanging in the balance. But that’s not how it works. It’s a bucket brigade. As a matter of fact, it’s very common to give aircraft instructions that would send a plane crashing straight into a mountain. It happens hundreds if not thousands of times every day. How’s that? Well, that mountain is not in the controlled airspace of the guy currently talking to the plane… that’s the next ATCS persons problem and handled in a totally decentralized way.

    An ATCS can even give instructions to an aircraft that is not in there own airspace. How? The pilot gets a handoff to a new ATCS before they leave the last controllers airspace. The new controller can then provide instructions but only to take place once the aircraft has entered the new area of control. In a sense, because each airspace has it’s own restrictions, each has it’s own laws applied (although FARs apply everywhere state regulations would work as well. If this means some aircraft can’t cross a state line, so be it until rectified, which would happen very quickly.)

  7. Not sure that he got the sky-high ticket prices right. Ticket prices are a lot lower (the first page google brought up says 44% lower). They may be in shorter supply–planes are flying near capacity instead of half capacity, so it’s harder to get a flight on short notice.

    I guess you didn’t ask what he got wrong, but if he missed anything. How about the evolution of the hub and spoke model?

  8. don’t say good riddance to airline food

    40 years ago my mother managed sky harbor. The airline food was good back then. Airline executives passing through Phoenix all went to visit the kitchens, including all the NY execs.

  9. Well….ken, I don’t violently disagree. But a reasonable case can be made for what the Founders intended, which was to put the Feds in charge of interstate commerce (much of what you’re talking about in your “50 laboratories of democracy” argument is intrastate commerce).

    Otherwise, it is relatively believable that, say, Arizona might take revenge on California for…well, just for existing, I guess, at this point…and embargo its electricity exports, or more usefully put a stiff export tariff on them if they go to California, and perhaps put a stiff import tariff on California goods. South Carolina might tax the hell out of whatever industrial good from Virginia domestic manufacturers are competing against. And so on.

    No doubt these things could be worked out, but I don’t think they were wrong to put in the Commerce Clause. The error is in the absurd way it’s been interpreted by the Supreme Court — and there’s your problem. In short, Marbury v. Madison was wrong, and the Jeffersonian and Jacksonian principle that each branch of government is co-equal in its power to interpret the Constitution is right.

  10. “We need to remove the commerce clause from the constitution.”

    I disagree, but the intent of the “commerce clause” is so far from the modern “interpretation” that an amendment clarifying it would be in order.

    The original intent was to have the federal government make sure that *state laws* did not set up barriers to interstate commerce. As such, it was intended solely for use against rogue states. The regulation of business was a fantasy concocted by Progressives in the late 1800s, and foisted on the United States by FDR’s packed SCOTUS. Surprisingly, this fact is well known even among leftist and Progressive constitutional scholars. They’re just relieved that they got away with a favorable SCOTUS ruling. It was almost overturned a couple of years ago, and should have been….

  11. P.S. The Constitution is written in plain English, and is almost completely unambiguous. I take exception to the use of various conjugations of the word “interpret” when it comes to the Constitution.

    It isn’t written in a dead language, or a secret code, or so obscurely that a barely literate person couldn’t understand it completely. What’s there to “interpret?”

    But the idea that such rich nuance exists that words like “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude…shall exist within the United States” and the draft can both be regarded as compatible.

    The philosophers muddy their waters to make them appear deep. So do Constitutional “scholars.”

  12. The “Interstate Commerce” clause wasn’t a problem for over a century. it was only when power grabbers gained control in DC and started reading in it what it does not say that it became a problem.

    The direct federal taxation of citizens, allowing the federal government to bribe states with money taken from the citizens, is far more an enabler to unlimited government.

  13. The error is in the absurd way it’s been interpreted by the Supreme Court

    We all seem to agree on that point. So if you take it out they can’t cause any mischief with it at that level. What about state mischief? Having 50 states is the best mitigator of that.

    States can do foolish things. People can do foolish things. I even defend the right of people to be wrong. Without that right, they have none at all.

    The point is that foolishness enacted is foolishness exposed. Which tends to make it short lived if there are any options at all. Light is the best disinfectant.

  14. A major part of the problem regarding Constitutional limits on government was that it was written in a considerably different era. That, combined with the rise of the national level corporation, allowed the Progressives to begin demanding a more powerful Federal Government to deal with the more powerful corporations.

    The larger Federal Government didn’t just come about in a vacuum.

  15. Der Schumpety,
    Airline ticket prices today are several times cheaper today than they were in 1963. I haven’t paid more than $350 for a coast to coast two way coach fare in literally decades. Adjust the prices for inflation, and the savings is even greater.
    I do agree that the quality of service has suffered. I used to love to fly Delta’s old L-1011’s because the coach seats were as roomy as todays business class, and airline meals really were airline meals, not snack packs. Then again, back in ’63, my father could still fly armed… The US never had a successful hijacking until after the FAA prohibited passengers from flying armed.

  16. Airline regulation included a lot of mandatory service to small communities. Regulated airlines operated on a cost-plus basis, similar to regulated electric utilities. The costs of doing this were distributed onto other tickets. With deregulation, unprofitable service disappeared and competition flourished.

    Railroads were regulated to the point of bankruptcy, and when five Northeast railroads died, the Feds created Conrail. The Staggers Act deregulated railroads, and they are now healthy companies that provide real service. Conrail has been purchased and is back in private tax-paying hands (Norfolk-Southern and CSX). I remember when a common utterance was “We have trucks, we don’t need trains” and “Why should we bail out the railroads?” Deregulation erased the need for bailouts.

    I leave it to others to comment on what would cell phones and the internet be like if Ma Bell still had her monopoly on communications.

  17. The larger Federal Government didn’t just come about in a vacuum.

    Unless you include the government endorsed vacuum between the ears.

    Obama just created another government department to be ‘directed’ by Liz Warren. So rather than an educated society exercising caviet emptor, you have more growing government employment and spending and more litigation on behalf of idiot consumers being taken advantage by eeeevil business people that don’t warn them of every possible risk (even though that is impossible.)

    Does Obama know the first rule of holes? He seems intent to destroy this country.

  18. Alan K Henderson,
    Your example is why, despite using the same copper lines, congress has treated the internet as “not telecom” for many years.

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