Archives: Reg Murphy Pubs

Democracy diluted when threats of violence become the norm

Written by Heather Farley on . Posted in Heather Farley, Reg Murphy.

Liberty and democracy are fundamental values upon which our country was founded and they remain central to the architecture and function of our government. Though both definitions are endlessly debated, our Constitution uses liberty to describe freedom from arbitrary and unreasonable restraint upon an individual. Furthermore, freedom from restraint is not just physical restraint, but also the freedom to act according to one’s own will. And though the word ‘democracy’ does not appear in the Constitution, the Federalist Papers give us plenty of clues as to the fundamentals of what they meant to establish when they set up a democratic republic – a system by and for the people.

Recently, however, both values have been put at risk as a growing number of Americans feel emboldened to use threats of violence and intimidation when elected (and in some cases non-elected) officials make decisions or have opinions that are contrary to one’s particular perspective on an issue.

Last week, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland ordered the FBI to investigate harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence aimed at school boards in Georgia (one of several states)  over objections to mask mandates and critical race theory. The Attorney General’s order came after he received a letter from the National School Boards Association citing the need for immediate assistance to protect our students, teachers, staff, and school board members. In response to mask mandates in several Georgia communities, parents and community members have used threats and intimidation in counties such as Gwinnett and Cobb as a form of protest.

Last year, we saw spikes in death threats and plots against those running for office, such as Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock and even elections officials such as Republican Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger. These threats were not aimed at a single political party – Republican and Democratic figures alike have been subject to these acts of intimidation. Now, a Georgia state oversight panel is rethinking its position on whether home security systems should qualify as a legitimate campaign-related expense. Let that sink in for a moment. In order to run for elected office, it is now expected that you will likely need to invest in additional security to ensure you are not harmed during your campaign.

There are many fine lines in our country when it comes to what we allow under the law. Free speech? Yes, but with exceptions. Protest? Absolutely, but with limitations. Our legal system has dealt with the interpretation of our rights and liberties through cases that have, over time, come to draw the lines for our society as to what is and is not acceptable. But threatening one’s life as a method for extracting your own will? Not acceptable. Inducing fear suppresses free speech and dialogue, it does not foster it. Intimidation keeps people who would otherwise run for office from doing so, thereby constricting the ability for democracy to operate.

Last week Chuck Williams, a reporter with WRBL in Columbus was a panelist on NPR’s Political Rewind discussing this issue of increased threats of violence. During the discussion, he stated that, “people…either have forgotten or don’t know where the line is…and they chose to run for the job, nobody should feel sorry for them, but there needs to be – people need to know where the line is…”. While I concur on his central point, I must disagree with at least part of his statement. When people run for office, they are choosing to run for the job, not threats on their life or the lives of their family. This cannot be a part of how we the people get what we want from our political system. Perhaps the U.S. Attorney General is aiming to remind us of where those lines are that we seem to have forgotten.

Dr. Heather Farley is Chair of the Department of Criminal Justice, Public Policy & Management and a professor of Public Management in the School of Business and Public Management at College of Coastal Georgia. She is an associate of the College’s Reg Murphy Center for Economic and Policy Studies. 

How the U.S. Labor Force Got Well-Educated

Written by Don Mathews on . Posted in Don Mathews, Reg Murphy.

Generally speaking, American workers are well-educated. We got that way through a uniquely American process that began long ago.

Education was valued in America even before there was an America. The colonists valued education. Before the war for independence, schools were present in most communities in every colony.

With independence came a more urgent sense of the importance of education. John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and many others argued passionately that a republic must have well-educated citizens if it is to survive. Most Americans agreed.

Historians often note that the American ethos has always been an odd and sometimes conflicting mix of individualism and egalitarianism. Early American education manifested both streaks.

Our individual streak showed itself in the organization, control and financing of education. From the beginning, American schools were organized, controlled, and financed locally. The federal and state governments had their roles, but their roles were quite limited. Americans must have wanted it that way, because local organized, controlled and financed public schools spread rapidly.

Our egalitarian streak showed itself in who education was intended for. In virtually every other country at the time, education was the exclusive privilege of the elite. It was centrally controlled, expensive and, with an occasional exception, restricted to males.

Early American education stands in sharp contrast. From the start, Americans wanted education for the masses – the free masses, at any rate. They designed local public schools to be free of charge and coeducational, and they stayed true to the design. 

How did this uniquely American innovation turn out? By the mid-1800s, school enrollment rates in the U.S. far exceeded those in any other country. The gap would not be closed until the mid-1970s.

By the 1880s, free local public education was ubiquitous in the U.S. – even in the south, and even for blacks, though southern schools were segregated.

The 1900s brought another uniquely American innovation: the high school. The public schools that spread at such a rapid rate in the early decades of the 1800s were “common” schools, what we today call primary or elementary schools. The U.S. had secondary schools well before 1900, but they varied considerably from place to place. Many were private and almost all were designed to prepare select students for college. Educators across the land prescribed a standard structure for high schools in 1902, but the institution continued to evolve over the next 18 years.

In 1910, locally controlled and financed public high schools, also free of charge and coeducational, began to spread. They spread even more rapidly than local public primary schools had decades before, and with even less involvement from federal and state governments. The American “high school movement,” as it has come to be called, was an uncoordinated, decentralized effort from below, executed simultaneously by local people in 125,000 independent school districts across the country.

The primary force behind the spread of high schools was another uniquely American innovation: the modern business enterprise. Producing increasingly sophisticated products in increasingly sophisticated ways, and getting those products to a growing population spread far and wide requires sharp, well-educated people. Lots of sharp, well-educated people.

The “high school movement” was a spectacular success. Between 1910 and 1940, the high school enrollment rate increased from 18 to 73 percent, while the graduation rate increased from 9 to 51 percent. 

The success continues. Among Americans age 25-29 years today, 95 percent have graduated from high school, while 39 percent have graduated from college with a bachelor’s degree.

The U.S. is an extremely wealthy country for a number of reasons. Its education history is one.    

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It’s the Federal Reserve, Stupid!

Written by Skip Mounts on . Posted in Reg Murphy, Skip Mounts.

James Carville, as head of Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign, made famous the phrase ‘It’s the economy, stupid’. His purpose was to keep campaign workers, volunteers and probably even Bill Clinton focused on what mattered to the campaign at the time —– the state of the economy. I have paraphrased this today to have us focus on what is, and what is not, important if we are to worry about inflation in our future. Here is some data: the year-to-date change in the Consumer Price Index is 5.4 percent; for just 2021 so far, the CPI has increased by 7.1 percent, while the Producers Price Index increased 10.6 percent between January 2021 and June. In my opinion, we should be concerned, but let’s be concerned about the right things.

Inflation is defined as a continual rise in the general level of prices. In introductory economics, we teach that a price rises when the quantity demanded exceeds the quantity supplied —- when there is excess demand. As the price rises, excess demand diminishes and, eventually, the price stops rising. Inflation requires that excess demand is everywhere and continual even as prices rise.

At present, spokesmen for Fed and others are saying that current inflation is only temporary. They argue that the pandemic reduced supply by disrupting supply chains and that supplemental unemployment compensation discouraged people to return to work. In addition, federal government pandemic relief packages increased demand in many sectors of the economy. With such things going on, demand should be greater than supply and prices should rise. However, with time, supply chain issues will be corrected while enlarged unemployment payments will end along with pandemic relief spending. This will bring excess demand to an end, and prices will stop rising.

For the attentive reader, this is not inflation. The underlying argument is popular in use, but it is wrong. Excess demand is correcting itself, not all prices are rising, and temporary does not mean continual.

Next, contrary to the opinion of many, excessive government deficit spending is, in and of itself, not inflationary. Deficits bring government borrowing. If the Treasury sells new deficit-required debt to private individuals and institutions, then these entities must spend less. So, spending is offset, and prices will not rise, and most certainly, not continually. Some prices may change temporarily as spending moves between the private and public sectors, but not continually.

Inflation requires that there is continual excess demand everywhere, not just somewhere. Reaching back to graduate school, Walras Law (not the relative of the sea lion and ignore the ‘s’) states that excess demand can be everywhere in every market only if there is an excess supply of money. Drawing on Milton Friedman, inflation is purely and simply only a monetary phenomenon.

Thus, worries over inflation need to be aimed at Federal Reserve policies, the associated changes to the monetary base and other monetary aggregates, and the issues that are driving central bank policymakers. Here is some more data. Concurrent with the start of the pandemic and continuing today, the Fed is buying $120 billion in Treasury securities and in mortgage-backed securities every month. Since then, the Fed has added $4 trillion to its balance sheet. The Fed is supporting Treasury borrowing and, no doubt, will continue doing so with the proposed $1.5 trillion in new infrastructure spending and the $3 trillion spending in new human infrastructure (whatever that is).

The Fed is in a tight spot. It is using monetary policy to finance unprecedented fiscal policy spending. This has added to the monetary base which is slowly leading to an excess supply of money and to our inflation potential.

So, if you are worried about inflation, worry about the Federal Reserve. Fed Chairman Jay Powell is up for reappointment by the President (with advice and consent in the Senate) and I bet he wants reappointment. What incentive does this create for him? Does the Fed have the courage to lean against the wind of rapidly expanding government deficit spending and stop budget accommodation? Until they do, the words of former Nobel Laurette Thomas Sargent (paraphrasing Milton Friedman) are very appropriate when he said, “Persistent high inflation is always and everywhere a fiscal phenomenon.”

 

Dr. Skip Mounts is the Dean of the School of Business and Public Management at the College of Coastal Georgia, professor of economics, and an associate of the Reg Murphy for Economic and Policy Studies.

Are Markets Correcting Their Own Failures?

Written by Melissa Trussell on . Posted in Melissa Trussell, Reg Murphy.

Two weeks ago for this weekly column, our newest Murphy Center writer, Dr. Roscoe Scarborough, wrote about two conflicting moralities that are dominant in our culture—collectivistic morality and individualistic morality. According to Dr. Scarborough, progressives tend toward collectivistic morality and conservatives tend toward individualistic morality.

Then last week, Dr. Heather Farley wrote about an interesting case in which markets are emerging to help offset carbon emissions by paying firms not to cut down trees.

These two columns by my colleagues are related in a fascinating way.

The standard, modern take on market economics is that markets generate efficient outcomes when players behave in their own self-interest. It is no surprise, then, that American conservatives, with their individualistic morality, are often the loudest opponents of government regulation of markets.

On the other hand, collectivistic American progressives often argue that government intervention in markets is necessary to promote the common good. Their arguments often focus on what a Principles of Economics textbook might call “market failures,” or situations in which individuals’ behaving in their own self-interest do not produce an efficient outcome or, more commonly, do not produce an outcome that is equitable for all groups or individuals.

In this new market that pays firms to leave trees, we see a clash of the two moralities. According to The Journal podcast’s August 23 episode, the carbon offset market got its start due to government regulations, but the market has really begun to soar recently because of pure, free-market pressures. Firms have found that it is good business (good press) to promise to reduce their carbon footprint. This is likely because more Americans have begun to think collectively about sustainability and climate change. As consumers care more about the process by which goods are produced, businesses also begin to care.

And this is the type of situation that makes an economist’s heart flutter! The market is doing something traditional theory says it would never do on its own—internalizing an externality. Environmental impacts are classic examples of negative externalities, or negative impacts of market transactions on individuals not directly involved in that transaction. When everyone involved in a transaction behaves in their own self-interest, the market ignores the interest of third parties, and externalities cause markets to fail to reach an efficient level of production.

But, market demand is derived directly from consumer preferences. And, the fallacy of the standard view of market behavior is that it assumes market participants hold an individualistic morality, so that their preferences are for self-interested behavior.

When individuals begin to think collectively, their preferences change, and market magic takes over! The market Demand curve now shifts to reflect preferences that consider environmental impacts to be important. When Demand shifts, producers maximize profits with a pivot to meet the new consumer preferences. And, without government action, the market begins to consider trees more valuable planted than cut.

Dr. Farley makes a compelling case that, while carbon offset markets are a move in the right direction, they do not do enough to combat climate change, as they do not reflect systemic improvements in sustainability.

But, even this relatively small change for sustainability is a big deal for how we view the power of free markets. Is it possible that markets are now beginning to correct their own “failures” in environmental externalities? I am on the edge of my seat!

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Dr. Melissa Trussell is a professor in the School of Business and Public Management at College of Coastal Georgia who works with the college’s Reg Murphy Center for Economic and Policy Studies. Contact her at mtrussell@ccga.edu.

Not Cutting Down Trees is Good Business

Written by Heather Farley on . Posted in Heather Farley, Reg Murphy.

In the state of Georgia, we are very familiar with the economic engine that is created by the lumber industry. Our state has the most commercially available, private timberland in the country at 22 million acres. In 2019, the industry had an economic impact estimated at over $36 billion and employed over 141,000 Georgians. Recently, however, a colleague of mine in the Murphy Center sent me a podcast from the Wall Street Journal in which the host explains the economics of the carbon offset market – that is, not cutting down trees and getting paid for it.

Historically, the best way to profit from a forest was to cut down its trees and sell it. Today, the carbon offset market is changing that paradigm and landowners can make money from trees by keeping them planted and healthy. This is because some of America’s largest corporations are eager to purchase these offsets created by the carbon absorption capacity of forests. It allows a company that cannot avoid certain emissions to offset them instead by purchasing credits, or offsets, from a landowner. Thus, this carbon offset market both reduces CO2 in our atmosphere and keeps trees standing.

So, problem solved? Maybe not. If we look just at the question ‘Do carbon markets reduce the number of trees cut down and thus reduce carbon intensity?’ the answer is, yes. But, where I have a problem with the carbon offset market, along with any market that purports to produce more stuff with less environmental inputs (also referred to as eco-efficiency), is that it ignores system-thinking.

If we want more sustainable systems and economies, we can’t just offset carbon (ie. reduce the carbon intensity of a product) – though this is an important part of the equation. We also have to reduce overall consumption. For example, in this case, it’s important to reduce the number of trees being removed from the system, but if that ultimately just passes the buck so that we produce more stuff, the impact does not change much.

I think Ehrlich and Holdren’s 40+ year-old IPAT equation is still the most elegant model for understanding environmental impact.

I = P*A*T

I – impact

P – population

A – affluence (GDP per capita)

T – technology (a measure of the amount of resources required to produce a unit of GDP)

So, if we think about carbon reduction as a technological reduction method – it reduces the amount of resources per unit of GDP – the rate at which we reduce the carbon and bring down the “T” variable is only useful if we also reduce “A” and “P” (the rate of emissions growth that stems from population and per capita income growth). In short, overall environmental impact does not change much by changing the rate of only one of your variables; they have to be considered together.

I love the idea that carbon offsets are booming. The more trees the better as far as I’m concerned. But, if the result of a carbon offset is simply to allow a company or individual to feel better about behaving in the same way that they always did without changing habits of consumption, is the impact really changing in any meaningful way? Probably not. More likely, it just encourages business as usual.

Dr. Heather Farley is Chair of the Department of Criminal Justice, Public Policy & Management and a professor of Public Management in the School of Business and Public Management at College of Coastal Georgia. She is an associate of the College’s Reg Murphy Center for Economic and Policy Studies.

An Educated Labor Force? We’ve Got One

Written by Don Mathews on . Posted in Don Mathews, Reg Murphy.

If you find good news boring, you should probably skip this column.

Changes in the characteristics of a population of a country, state or county tend to be gradual. For instance, changes of any significance in the median age or racial composition of a population typically require a generation or longer.

But there are exceptions. A surprising exception – at least it’s surprising to me – is the increase in the level of educational attainment of the populations of the U.S., Georgia and Glynn since 2000.

According to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey data, of people age 25 years or older in the U.S. in 2000, 52 percent had at least some college, while 48 percent had at most a high school diploma. Twenty-four percent had a bachelor’s degree or higher, while 20 percent had not graduated from high school.

Of people age 25 years or older in the U.S. today, 62 percent have at least some college, 38 percent have at most a high school diploma, 33 percent have a bachelor’s degree or higher, and 11 percent have not graduated from high school.

That’s quite a change. Yes, it happened over 20 years, but it takes a good bit of time to produce an educated person, and it takes unrelenting persistence and dedication over a good bit of time to significantly reduce the high school dropout rate. Reducing the percentage of the 25 years or older population without a high school diploma from 20 percent to 11 percent in 19 years is a remarkable achievement.

Georgia is part of this national success. In 2000, of Georgians age 25 years or older, 50 percent had at least some college, 50 percent had at most a high school diploma, 24 percent had a bachelor’s degree or higher, and 21 percent had not graduated from high school.

Of Georgians age 25 years or older today, 60.5 percent have at least some college, 39.5 percent have at most a high school diploma, 32.5 percent have a bachelor’s degree or higher, and 12 percent have not graduated from high school.

How about hometown? Glynn is in on the success, too.

In 2000, 53 percent of Glynn residents age 25 years or older had at least some college, 47 percent had at most a high school diploma, 24 percent had a bachelor’s degree or higher, and 18 percent had not graduated from high school.

Today, 62 percent of Glynn residents age 25 years or older have at least some college, 38 percent have at most a high school diploma, 28 percent have a bachelor’s degree or higher, and 10 percent have not graduated from high school.

What’s more, this trend is going to continue for a while. Within the 25 years or older population, the level of educational attainment varies inversely with age. That is, in aggregate, the level of educational attainment is highest among younger people and lowest among older people.

 Today, while 33 percent of Americans age 25 years or older have a bachelor’s degree or higher, 39 percent of Americans age 25 years to 29 years have a bachelor’s degree or higher. And while 11 percent of Americans age 25 years or older have not graduated from high school, only 5 percent of Americans age 25 years to 29 years have not graduated from high school.

Of course, the past 20 years is just the most recent stretch of the trend in American educational attainment that began long ago. But in case you’ve now had enough good news for one day, we’ll save the long-term trend for my next column.

The Contested Morality of Mandating Masks

Written by Roscoe Scarborough on . Posted in Reg Murphy, Roscoe Scarborough.

Many Georgians have strong opinions about mask mandates. Savannah and Atlanta are mandating masks again. Gwinnett and other metro Atlanta schools are requiring students and staff to mask, while Glynn County is not. Governor Kemp maintains a rigid stand against statewide COVID restrictions. Pro-maskers and anti-maskers both contend that they hold the moral high ground. These attitudes toward face-coverings amid the COVID-19 pandemic reflect divergent moral worldviews on the left and on the right.

Progressives tend to hold a collectivistic morality. Many on the modern left pursue social justice and strive to achieve equitable outcomes as an ultimate goal.

Progressives declare that it is morally imperative to wear a mask to safeguard our collective well-being. Wearing face-coverings during a pandemic reflects concern for protecting high-risk populations: the elderly, the immunocompromised, essential workers, and the unvaccinated. Progressives’ pursuit of equity extends to communities of color, indigenous groups, and the poor. These populations tend to be underinsured, have insufficient access to healthcare, and experience high rates of preexisting health conditions. Progressives contend that the healthy, asymptomatic, and vaccinated should bear the minor burden of wearing a mask if it can have even a marginal impact on health outcomes. This emphasis on requiring face-coverings reflects a collectivistic morality and pursuit of equity that dominates the public policy of progressives.

Conservatives tend to hold an individualistic morality. Justice is equal opportunity and equal treatment under the law. Those on the right valorize individualism as an American virtue. This individualistic moral worldview encourages personal responsibility and celebrates rights and freedoms.

Many conservatives assert that wearing a mask should be a personal choice. Requiring anyone to wear a face-covering is a new instance of governmental overreach that infringes on civil liberties guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. Much like stay-at-home orders and other restrictions, compulsory face-coverings represent an expansion of governmental control over the lives of citizens. This erosion of personal freedom threatens to persist beyond the pandemic. Perceived through an individualistic moral lens, it should be an individual’s decision to wear or not wear a mask.

Depending on one’s worldview, mandated masking is either a moral obligation to protect others or an instance of governmental overreach that threatens liberty. Folks in each camp view the world from their own moral vantage point, unable or unwilling to appreciate an alternative moral perspective on face-coverings. Collectivistic and individualistic moralities produce different policies on masking, vaccine “passports,” placing restrictions on indoor dining, and numerous other policy issues.

Not all of those on the left share these progressive attitudes, while not all those on the right embrace these individualistic, libertarian ideals. Morality is always contested among and within groups. Those with power will impose their morality on others through policies that have real-world consequences.

Most of us live in moral echo chambers. We consume media and journalism that reinforces our ideological worldviews. We cultivate a social network of peers with a common morality. In our contemporary moment of hyperpartisan politics, these moral differences are exacerbated and politicized. Unfortunately, understanding the moral worldview of “the other” has fallen out of favor. These divergent moralities reinforce real-world moral and social boundaries between progressives and conservatives.

Roscoe Scarborough, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at College of Coastal Georgia and an associate scholar at the Reg Murphy Center. He can be reached by email at: rscarborough@ccga.edu.

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Number 200

Written by Skip Mounts on . Posted in Reg Murphy, Skip Mounts.

Many of you know Dr. Don Mathews. Don, excuse me. Dr. Mathews is a professor of economics at the College, a beloved teacher, the comedian at the UGA/Terry School of Business economic forecast given every January at the Jekyll Island Convention Center, and our faithful leader of ‘From the Murphy Center’ columns. However, I think he has a mean streak. Don, oops…Dr. Mathews, told me that my column today is number 200 from all the Murphy Center associates. After telling me this he said, in his loving tone, “So, don’t mess up.” So, here it goes.

Classes begin at the College next week on Monday the 16th. In partial preparation, we have been holding new student orientations over the summer. Here, we talk about procedural things like financial aid, dorm residency, grants, loans, bookstore hours, etc. We also begin to talk about the ‘Mariner way’ —– the culture of our learning environment and campus life.

As Dean of the School of Business and Public Management, I have some time to talk with our future students during orientation. I think it is important to ask our incoming scholars, “Why are you here?” I hear many things: ‘to prepare for a job’, ‘a step toward law school’, ‘I was told to come’, ‘I don’t know’, and ‘I want better.’ All are right in some way, for each student has their own unique situation at that moment in time.

I ask them to consider another reason. They are here to prepare to receive a gift, a gift of a new path for their lives that offers them more choices compared to the number of choices offered on the path they are now on. They come to college to prepare for a world with more choices.

Choices, alternatives, are good things. The ability to pick one from many is cool. What is cooler is to have the ability to say no to a choice when you think that there is no other way. Choices are basic to our freedom and to our control over our lives. Choices force others to stop thinking of themselves and start thinking of others. Back in the day, under the regime of the Soviet Union, Russian women had many choices for shoes so long as they liked black T-straps. That is the only style that shoe manufacturers made. The Russian shoe manufacturer only had to think of themselves and the payout the government offered if the manufacturer was efficient in making black T-Straps. However, with the opening of the Russian economy, more than black T-straps were available. Shoemakers had to start to think of their female customers and stop thinking of themselves. Choice changed the focus of what matters.

Choice is also the key to the civil rights issue of our time —— the quality of the education offered in public schools. To me, a quality school focuses on students and their futures. They think of more than just themselves. Choice gives families the right to walk away or to stay. Milton Friedman said that ‘choice gives an individual the ability to vote with their feet’. Choice can take many forms and one can see its local impact in many positive ways. Yet, one just needs to look at Baltimore-City schools to see where limiting choice can lead and the failure that it produces.

We also talk about entrepreneurs and choice. Entrepreneurs create choices for us as we face the problems of day-to-day life. Successful entrepreneurs think of others and rarely think of themselves. A world of choices is the goal of an entrepreneurial ecosystems.

Another way to say all this, is that we are preparing our students for the competitive marketplace where choice thrives. They will lead, they will follow, they will create, and they will live with the freedom to choose.

So, this brings #200 to an end. Don, are you good?

Thank you Buff for the space every Wednesday. Thank you Buddy for the freedom to write about ideas and for correcting my bad spelling. And thank you, Golden Isles, for all you do for us at the College of Coastal Georgia.

Dr. Skip Mounts is the Dean of the School of Business and Public Management at the College of Coastal Georgia, a Professor of Economics, and an associate of the Reg Murphy Center for Economic and Policy Studies.

The Need to Recreate a Law-abiding Ethic in Georgia’s Child Welfare System

Written by Melissa Trussell on . Posted in Melissa Trussell, Reg Murphy.

I am finally listening to a book my colleague Dr. Don Mathews has been recommending to me for a couple years—Bourgeois Equality: How Ideas, Not Capital or Institutions, Enriched the World by Deirdre Nansen McCloskey. The book is very long, and according to my Kindle, I am only 17% into it.

In an early chapter, McCloskey argues that ethics matter more than institutions in making a country or community successful. The most obvious example she gives is of a legal system. Laws and institutions of justice only work if societal norms value adherence to those laws.

This discussion from McCloskey reminds me of one of the least efficient systems I have ever been part of—Georgia’s child welfare system. I have been a licensed foster parent for over three years.  I have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly of this system. First, let me say, there really is a lot of good. I have worked with caseworkers, lawyers, judges, and other advocates who have extraordinary hearts for children and who work hard every day to achieve happy, healthy, and safe permanency for our kids.

Unfortunately, there also is a lot about the system that should be improved.

I have often thought about lobbying legislators in Atlanta for better laws to protect Georgia’s children. But, the more I observe, the more I realize that in many cases, the inefficiencies are not due to poorly-designed laws or policies. Most of the inefficiencies I have witnessed are due to a lack of knowledge of the rules or, alarmingly often, needless foot-dragging accompanied by excuses not to follow the rules.

In my experience, it’s the foot-dragging that causes the most harm, both human harm and economic harm.

According to Georgia law, if a child has been in foster care for 15 months and their biological parents have not made significant progress toward establishing a safe environment for the child to return to, then DFCS should begin the process of terminating parental rights (TPR) so that the child can be adopted into a stable and permanent family—often either another biological relative of the child or the foster family with whom the child has been placed for much or all of their time in foster care.

Even with this law in place, Georgia DFCS’s own annual progress report for 2021 states that TPR was filed with appropriate timeliness in only 27% of applicable cases, and they cite departmental failures as the most frequent cause of delay.

These delays are concerning because of the trauma they cause to children and families, but they are also concerning because of the tremendous financial cost to the state of keeping a child in foster care. In 2018, DFCS reported having spent an average of over $16,500 for each child in foster care. Children in care also receive other benefits from the state such as Medicaid, the WIC food program, and state-funded daycare services.

It gets worse! If a child is in foster care for over two years, they qualify for what the state calls adoption assistance. Adoption assistance comes with state-paid adoption fees. And, until the child turns 18 years old, they are eligible for both Medicaid and a monthly stipend of at least $400, regardless of the adoptive family’s income. As of July 1 of this year, these same children also will receive a free college education from any public college or university in Georgia.

From a moral standpoint, I have no problem with granting these privileges to our kids who have experienced the trauma of foster care. In fact, I sometimes argue for expanding some of these services to include all former foster children, not just the ones who have been in care longest.

But, under current law, this is unnecessary government spending. My son’s story is his to tell, not mine, but I will tell you this much—he was in foster care WAY longer than he should have been. He and I both experienced significant trauma because DFCS ignored the 15-month law. Through this trauma, he earned the adoption assistance he now receives. But, if the state had not failed him, he could have been spared the trauma, and taxpayers could have been spared the expense.

We owe it to our children and ourselves to recreate a child welfare system that embodies a cultural ethic for following established laws and policies. Then, we can work on making those policies better.

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Dr. Melissa Trussell is a professor in the School of Business and Public Management at College of Coastal Georgia who works with the college’s Reg Murphy Center for Economic and Policy Studies. Contact her at mtrussell@ccga.edu.

The Jones Act and the Future of U.S. Wind Development

Written by Heather Farley on . Posted in Heather Farley, Reg Murphy.

Have you ever had the experience of meeting someone, and then suddenly you see them everywhere around town? Or, you learn something new and almost immediately application of this new knowledge pops up repeatedly? This is the case for me with The Jones Act.

Never heard of it? Neither had I until I met the School of Business and Public Management Executive in Residence, Bill Carter. The Executive in Residence program gives our School the unique opportunity to learn from a highly successful individual in our community who holds office hours on our campus and opens him or herself up to mentorship and guest lectures for our students. Bill Carter is our current Executive in Residence and when he came aboard a little over a year ago, I wasn’t immediately sure how his expertise in the telecommunications industry (undersea cables specifically) would be applicable to my Public Management program, but that all became clear quite quickly.

One of the first conversations Mr. Carter and I had was related to the Jones Act and the way this protectionist legislation often hindered business in the U.S., despite the fact that it was designed to protect our national shipping industry. In short, The Jones Act states that ships carrying cargo between two American ports must: 1) be built in the United States, 2) be 75 percent owned by U.S. citizens, 3) be 75 percent manned by a U.S. citizen crew, and 4) fly the U.S. flag. This sounds great for U.S. seafarers and shipbuilders.

Unfortunately, it has a number of unintended consequences. For instance, it drives up the prices of goods for island states like HI, AK, Guam, and Puerto Rico by restricting the number and types of vessels that can legally deliver goods. It’s a supply and demand issue – low supply of eligible ships versus constant or increasing demand for the goods delivered by the ships. Additionally, a cruise ship must put a foreign port between two American ports to ensure compliance with this act. That can make Alaskan cruises very tricky for cruise companies. In the context of the undersea cable industry (and other industries, no doubt), the Jones Act means that companies will simply hire foreign crews, do repairs in foreign countries, and operate work-arounds in their shipping schedule (avoiding U.S. port to U.S. port schedules) to both save money and avoid complications of the Jones Act.

Recently, another instance of the Jones Act acting in an obstructionist rather than protectionist manner popped up in a radio story I was listening to about renewable energy expansion in our country. The story discussed off-shore wind power development and how this industry might expect to expand in the coming years. One of the major challenges that was identified was the Jones Act. Not surprisingly, the parts required to build an off-shore wind turbine are extremely large and require special hydraulic systems to be installed on the ocean floor. According to the Washington Post, there are presently no Jones-Act-compliant ships that fit the installation requirements of these turbines which are being developed in the U.S. So, once a turbine is built in the United States, it can only be transported to the U.S. offshore site on a U.S. ship. Since no such ship exists, a company must then spend a tremendous amount of additional money to either stop off in a foreign port first, or build a compliant vessel. This makes offshore wind energy production much less price competitive and hinders the Biden Administration’s goals for renewable energy development.

While I am still learning about this policy myself, I can safely say it is not an elegant law. It seems to be creating many more economic problems for the U.S. than solutions and directly hurts many U.S.-based companies and even island states; It is ripe for repeal or at least reform.

Dr. Heather Farley is Chair of the Department of Criminal Justice, Public Policy & Management and a professor of Public Management in the School of Business and Public Management at College of Coastal Georgia. She is an associate of the College’s Reg Murphy Center for Economic and Policy Studies.