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DC’s mandatory blood tests for kids

By Kevin R. Kosar

October 19, 2011, 10:57 am

Recently, the Washington Post called out the District of Columbia for its draconian policy of jailing drivers with expired tags. Sadly, this is not the only problematic DC law.

The Childhood Lead Poisoning and Screening Act of 2002 demands that every child in DC be subjected to two blood tests before age six. The law comes with a slew of regulations, and “any person” who fails to comply with it may be fined $5,000. (Whether anyone ever has been fined is unclear.) Remarkably, the DC government has also added lead testing to the health form that parents must submit when they enroll their kids in school. (The “Lead exposure risks” box is right below the “tuberculosis” box in Part 3.)

Lead paint is the primary cause of lead poisoning, and high levels of lead in a child’s blood can do serious damage to a child’s brain and vital organs. Yet DC’s policy is difficult to justify.

For one, it targets a vanishing problem—lead poisoning caused by living in homes with interiors painted with lead paint. Lead paint was banned in 1978. So, not surprisingly, lead poisoning is pretty rare today. According to the CDC, nationwide 250,000 children aged five or under have dangerous levels of lead in their blood. That’s about 1 percent of the 20+ million kids born in the United States in the past five years. Here in DC, the most recent CDC data (2006) indicate that 1.8 percent of children tested have high levels of lead in their blood. Which means that 98.2 percent of DC children tested were needlessly subjected to two blood tests.

For another, DC parents largely are flouting the law. CDC data indicate that a mere 6.4 percent of children born in DC were tested. (Other states’ compliance and poisoning rates may be found here.)

The DC council and mayor should amend this law. Forcing parents to choose between following the law and having their toddlers stuck in the inner-arm with a needle is grotesque. And driving up healthcare costs by mandating needless tests is inane.

A more sensible policy would encourage doctors to inform parents about lead poisoning, why it might be worth testing a child for it, and then leave the decision to parents.

Kevin R. Kosar is a researcher and writer in Washington, DC.

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The DC Earthquake: A Government Over-Reaction?

By Kevin R. Kosar

August 24, 2011, 8:53 am

I was standing outside a government building on Capitol Hill when the quake hit. It felt a bit like I was surfing—my body shimmied a bit left and right, the flag pole clattered, and the building lurched forward a little bit. Then it was done.

Thousands of government workers were ordered to evacuate their buildings. After mulling about in the hot sun for an hour or so, the word began to spread that nobody was going to be allowed to re-enter the buildings. Some laughed and happily strode off; others agonized. For those who drove to work, their cars were inaccessible—locked up in government garages. Some had left personal belongings inside—cell phones, wallets, and more. I heard one woman lament that her house keys were in her office. Even if she managed to make it home, how was she to get in her house?

I felt especially bad for those ill-equipped to handle the situation—the very pregnant women, the mobility-impaired, and the aged. Walking home or standing waiting hours for public transportation was going to be brutal on them.

Whole blocks between government buildings were shut down by the Capitol Police. Why couldn’t weary pedestrians walk up 1st St NE from Constitution Avenue? The officer guarding the block could offer no answer.

The cost of this mass evacuation was gridlocked roads, massive loss of government work productivity, and incalculable misery. Why exactly nobody was permitted to go back to work was not clear. Most government buildings are hulking, stone heaps—none that I saw looked damaged or dangerous.

Meanwhile, private businesses near the Capitol were bustling. While the cops kept me hundreds of feet from a federal building, an employee at Starbucks opened the door for me when I arrived. Although they are housed in century old brick structures, these businesses saw no peril in continuing operations.

The contrast between government’s response and the private sector’s was striking. For the former, it is all about risk management; for the latter, risk is balanced against cost. (Had the Hawk n Dove tavern closed, it would have lost boku bucks—needlessly.)

One hopes that in the coming days the feds explain why they did what they did, and whether they might respond differently the next time there is an incident of this magnitude.

Kevin R. Kosar is a researcher and writer in Washington, DC.

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Let It Flow: Chipping Away at the Three-Tier Alcohol System

By Kevin R. Kosar

August 18, 2011, 2:46 pm

This summer Catoctin Creek Distillery opened a sales room where the public can buy its terrific whiskeys. This is good news, and not just for the Purcellville, Virginia distillery and its visitors.

This is yet another chip in the nation’s antiquated, three-tier alcoholic beverage distribution system, which has fleeced consumers for decades. Under the three-tier system, beer, spirits, and wine producers cannot sell directly to the public. Instead, they must sell to distributors, who then sell to retailers who may sell to the public. It is a grossly inefficient system, one that adds to the price of drink at each step. The three-tier system produces patently ludicrous scenarios—distillery visitors can see how the whiskey gets made and bottled, but then must schlep to a liquor store to buy it.

The Virginia legislature finally recognized the insanity of this and changed the law. Other states, including Maryland (wine), Minnesota (beer), Illinois (beer), and North Carolina (liquor), have removed three-tier system impediments between producers and consumers.

A few factors seem to have nudged states to act. First, consumers have complained loudly that the three-tier system is an impediment to choice. They do not appreciate government telling them, for example, “No you cannot buy this wine online from the winery. You must ask a retailer to order it for you, and then go pick it up at the store.”

Second, the economic downturn has states itching to find ways to grow employment and tax revenues. Many states long ago changed their laws to permit wineries to sell directly to the public, fueling wine tourism. The same thing is happening with breweries and distilleries—they are becoming destinations.

Third, and relatedly, distilleries and breweries have been popping up like daisies. Distributors frequently refuse to carry their beverages, leaving these small businesses shut out of the retail market. Politicians do not like seeing these small businesses croaked in the cradle; hence they are freeing them to sell directly their customers.

Whether the economy is up or down, alcohol sells, so sweeping away costly post-Prohibition regulations on commerce is a no-brainer.

Kevin R. Kosar is the author of ‘Whiskey: A Global History.’

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‘Rioting Mainly for Fun and Profit’

By Kevin R. Kosar

August 8, 2011, 11:00 pm

“Rioting mainly for fun and profit”—these words recur in my mind as the reports pour forth from London. Some of the early reporting spoke of the poverty of Tottenham, racial bias, and callous police. These reports attributed the civil unrest (to use a politically polite term) to repressive social conditions and the Cameron government’s cuts to social welfare. Driven by a collective will of anger, the argument goes, the people have risen up and lashed out at their oppressors.

That sort of thinking, Edward C. Banfield long ago showed, is both naïve and utterly at odds with the facts. In short, it is patently fallacious to attribute a single motive to rioters. People instigate and join riots for any number of reasons. Social conditions can be a factor; so too political extremism—witness the Anarchist assault on Seattle in 1999 during the World Trade Organization meeting.

Often, though, people riot “mainly for fun and profit,” as Banfield put it in The Unheavenly City. Riots, as he reminded us, have been around as long as there have been cities. “In Pittsburgh in 1809 an editor proposed satirically that the city establish a ‘conflagration fund’ from which to buy twelve houses, one to be burned each month in civil celebration.”

Young males are particularly prone to rioting. Witness the football and basketball riots at fine U.S. universities, or the recent Vancouver hockey riot. Indeed, the photographs here and elsewhere make painfully clear what is happening in Tottenham and now other parts of London—young men are flooding the streets looking to have some fun. This is no spontaneous group reaction to a perceived injustice; before leaving home these able-bodied lads are dressing up in hoodies, covering their faces in bandanas, and checking Twitter and the like to see where the action is. They want to get drunk, mix it up with the police, and grab all the liquor, pricy sneakers, snazzy clothes, and electronics they can.

Fortunately, media and political opinion quickly is coming to see the rioters are yobs with nothing but the lowest motivations. Prime Minister David Cameron has sharply criticized them, and Home Secretary Theresa May condemned their “sheer criminality.” The police are taking a tougher line, although they could hit back harder. As more and more photographs and videos show innocent people having their homes and businesses torched, one hopes that sufficient public outrage will compel the government to arrest every last one of the Hell-raisers. For one sure accelerant to riots present and future, Banfield explained, is the widespread belief that one can get away with it.

Kevin R. Kosar is a researcher and writer in Washington, D.C.

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Federal Education Spending Grows and Grows

By Kevin R. Kosar

April 20, 2011, 12:18 pm

Thirty years ago, Ronald Reagan took up a lance and began a charge against the Department of Education. Reagan wasn’t anti-education, as many of his critics claimed. He was a believer in the U.S. Constitution and limited government. Reducing the federal role in schooling was part and parcel of his larger devolutionary program.

Reagan, to the surprise of many, had initial success. In his first two years he managed to take 44 small federal education programs and turn them into block grants, thereby sending policy discretion to the states. Under President Jimmy Carter, the Department of Education spent $17 billion. Reagan hacked that to $14.7 billion and $14.4 billion in the two succeeding years.

After that, however, Reagan’s education largely stalled, and education spending began its seemingly inexorable rise upwards (Figure 1). Reagan could not surmount a Congress opposed to education spending cuts.

Figure 1. Department of Education Outlays (Billions of Dollars)


In fiscal 2010, the Department of Education spent nearly $93 billion. Even accounting for inflation, that is nearly three times as much as was spent in the first Reagan budget. Student achievement, meanwhile, has not improved much, and Secretary Arne Duncan has declared that America continues to have an educational crisis.

Kevin R. Kosar is the author most recently of Ronald Reagan and Education Policy.

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First We Kill All the Policy Wonks

By Kevin R. Kosar

January 20, 2011, 6:40 am

congressWhat is a problem worthy of government attention? Certainly, the U.S. Constitution identifies some problems, such as counterfeiting and armed invasions, and requires the federal government to handle them. Mostly, though, the answer to this question has been tautological, “Whatever gets government attention constitutes a problem.” Thus, 92 years ago the alcohol consumption problem led to Prohibition. More recently, the vacation-liner problem (Who knew?) prompted the Cruise Vessel Safety and Security Act of 2010.

Lurking beneath this tautology of problems and government attention is an interesting question, “How does government attention get focused on an issue?” Plenty of research has chewed this question over, and nearly all of it identifies two obvious factors—media attention and political leadership. When television cameras show people swamped by flood waters, government acts. When Nancy Pelosi took over for Denny Hastert as Speaker, the House of Representatives took on different “problems.”

Mike Konczal, a smart liberal and fellow at the Roosevelt Institute recently appears to have detected a third factor—policy wonks. Konczal writes:

I can … state that right now approximately 15 million people are unemployed, and that just four years ago only 7 and a half million people were unemployed…. But that’s not just a statement of fact, it’s a call to action. It creates the problem that needs to be solved, and solved through government action.

For this insight, Konczal offers a belated and grudging thanks to Edward C. Banfield (1916-1999), late Harvard professor and author of the 1977 AEI paper, Policy Science As Metaphysical Madness.

Banfield turned upside down the commonplace notion that wonks were politically neutral problem-solvers.  Rather, he wrote, wonks tend to contribute problems not solutions to the political process.  From their perches in academia and the upper echelons of government, social scientists and policy analysts identify “problems” in need of government  attention.  Regrettably, wonks’ solutions tend to be politically infeasible.  The presidency and the Congress are contentious political institutions that rarely translate wonk ideas into neat policy solutions.

Banfield viewed this situation as a recipe for the endless growth of government and public cynicism as “problems” were declared but never got solved. He encouraged a healthy skepticism toward the wonk-problem-government-solution complex. Government, he thought, needed fewer wonks and more statesmen who would “foster a public opinion that is reasonable about what can and cannot be done to make the society better.” He was right.

Kevin R. Kosar is a researcher and writer in Washington, D.C.

Image by Cliff1066.

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