On Oct. 8, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law SB 300, which approves the forthcoming national science-curriculum standards and lays out the path for California to put them into effect beginning in 2013.

It is hard to think of something that could be more important than teaching the subject-matter of science well. California and American K-12 students need to learn science content that is the most rigorous in the world, and teachers need to teach K-12 science in the most effective way possible.

If Americans are going to create feats of engineering, invent cutting-edge technologies, make scientific discoveries, and work in a scientific-technological workplace, our students will need a science curriculum with a rigor and effectiveness as good as or better than that of top-performing foreign countries.

The brand-new law says that California’s science standards are to be based on those being created under the auspices of the federal government’s National Research Council (NRC) – but are as yet sight unseen.

I see three problems with the policy contained in California’s new law. The first is that the law would replace California’s top-rated current science standards instead of updating them.  The second is that the National Research Council has a history of promoting “fuzzy” science. The third is that the law furthers the nationalization of curriculum that is currently taking place across the country — but under the radar of most parents and taxpayers.

California’s current science-curriculum standards were written under the supervision of nuclear scientist Glenn Seaborg.  Seaborg was a Nobel Laureate in chemistry, chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley, chair of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (predecessor of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission), member of the “Nation at Risk” commission, president of the American Chemical Society, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, discoverer of 10 elements, and adviser to 10 presidents, from Harry Truman to Bill Clinton.

Governor Brown wants to discard Seaborg’s standards for pig-in-a-poke standards written behind closed doors by as-yet-unnamed science educators — who are not going to be as knowledgeable and expert as Seaborg.

California’s science standards were given an A-rating (on an A-F scale by) by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.  California got 97 out of 100 per cent, according Fordham’s reviewers, and its score was the highest rating of any state science standards in the country.

The Fordham review summed up by saying: “California has produced an exemplary set of standards for school science; there was no question among readers about the “A” grade.”

So the question naturally arises, why not just update the matters that need updating after a dozen or so years. The answer lies in the yearning of Progressive educators for “fuzzy science” and the drive under the administration of President Barak Obama to nationalize the public-school curriculum.

“Fuzzy science” is also called “discovery-based”or “inquiry-based” instruction, though it might better be termed excessively inquiry-based. The notion is that students will make scientific discoveries and construct scientific theories and ideas of their own with minimal guidance.  This view of learning is sometimes called “constructivism.”

Contrary to those who hold this view, it is in fact crazy to expect K-12 students to reconstruct the scientific knowledge that scientists have accumulated over thousands of years. This is a method of teaching that objects to acquiring knowledge based on facts, disdains memorizing formulas and definitions, and resists mastering standard problem-solving techniques.  In essence, inquiry-based instructions is the old Progressive Education approach of learn-through-play and follow-what-interests-the-student dressed up in new jargon.

The NRC has a long record of promoting fuzzy science. In 2000, the National Research Council published “Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards,” which – as the title suggests — promoted “inquiry” as the best way to teach K-12 science.

Back in 1996, the NRC had published the “National Science Education Standards.” Bruce Alberts, president of the National Academy of Sciences, said at the time: These standards are “science as inquiry-based learning. And that’s a major revolution.”

Inquiry, as laid out the NRC’s 1996 science standards, may only be inquiry “into authentic questions generated from student experiences.” Hence, such NRC-style inquiry, as physicist Alan Comer wrote, is “very different” from traditional laboratory-based science, in which “students learn to systematically use methods and equipment appropriate to ends determined by the curriculum.”  Here in the NRC’s earlier standards, we see an example in a new guise of the idea that teaching must follow-what-interests-the-student.

One has to conclude that the NRC has a history of proposing science curriculum that is based on discovery-learning and against learning facts and formulas.  This method of teaching is not only wrong-headed; it has never been proven to be better than traditional subject-matter content and traditional teaching methods.

What are these new NRC new national science-curriculum standards that Governor Brown has committed California to? They don’t exist yet and will surely be somewhat different from the NRC’s 1996 standards.  But there is evidence that the same spirit of “inquiry-based” Progressive Education will persist.

University of Virginia biologist Paul Gross has reviewed (for the Fordham Institute) the new NRC framework for its national science standards. He wrote that the new framework frequently writes about “scientific inquiry” and overlapping concepts. Gross notes that according to the NRC framework students will be taught that inquiry is an aspect of science to be distinguished from scientific facts.

But Gross asks what is “the evidence for [inquiry’s] separability (pedagogically speaking) from facts”? His answer: Such evidence is “thin to nonexistent in modern cognitive psychology.” In its devotion to Progressive Education’s inquiry-based learning, the NRC wants to impose on America’s classrooms an approach that isn’t backed by research psychology.

Gross criticizes the NRC framework for – like the NRC’s 1996 standards – not letting go of the subjectivist, “postmodern” view of how science really works.  The 2011 framework relies on postmodern works of the 1980s and ‘90s that argue that scientists (and science as a community of scholars) cannot discover truth (that is, what really exists and is going on).

Instead, according to postmodernists (whom the new NRC framework references), “truth” is what influential people and power-wielders have imposed on society and enforced as culturally acceptable. The new NRC framework suggests that how-science-works should be taught to students not as a search to find out reliable truth about nature, but instead as power-brokerage and influence-peddling.

Judging by the framework for the new national science-curriculum standards, they will shun the concept of objective scientific truth and will instill Progressive Education teaching methods.  To add insult to injury, the framework also promises teaching of science without using analytic mathematics.

Ze’ev Wurman, who worked on the California Mathematics Framework and the California Standards Commission, reviewed the new NRC science framework and zeroed in on the difficulty:  The framework does not expect students to use analytical math in any K-12 science problem.

Brown University biologist Michael McKeown writes: “Only one formula or equation in [the NRC framework’s] 280 pages? So much for physics at even the simplest level. Chemistry is out. Imagine making solutions, doing dilutions, doing pH changes with out basic math skills.”

Why is the NRC science framework (and hence the forthcoming national standards) mathless? Math teacher Barry Garelick suggests that Progressive Educators believe that the quantitative aspect of science is “inauthentic,” so they don’t think it is valuable and won’t include it.

The result is, Wurman says, that the NRC science framework “simply teaches our students science appreciation, rather than science.” It expects America’s students to become “good consumers of science and technology,” rather than teaching them what is necessary for them to be the “discoverers of science and creators of technology.”

Having established that the forthcoming national science standards are going to deprecate mathematics, will be unfriendly to the idea of scientific objectivity, and will be locking in Progressive Education – we can turn to why these standards are “national.” (Previous curriculum standards have been developed and put into effect at the state level.)

What has happened is that some people have thought that America should have a European-style Ministry of Education at the national level, where the national government sets curriculum for all public schools and tests all public-school students.  These people have been working to accomplish this for a long time. They reflexively believe that civic problems are best managed at the national level, and loss of local control is an insignificant price that citizens should happily pay.

These national aggrandizers pay lip service to social science, but the evidence does not show that countries with national curriculums do better that those with regional or state curriculums.

The NRC is part of the federal government, and its creation of the science framework and its sponsorship of the national standards themselves are welcomed by advocates of nationalization of K-12 schooling.  Federally-sponsored national science standards, like the national math and English standards, are a big step toward full nationalization in the European mode.

This nationalization is proceeding apace, under the radar of state legislators, members of Congress, taxpayers, and parents.  It’s important, it deserves to be better known, and it deserves a broad public debate.

Bill Evers is a research fellow and member of the Koret K-12 Education Task Force at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and served as U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education for Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development (2007-2009).

I want to welcome this groundbreaking scientific expedition to the savage lands of the Left Coast.  You are here in California to answer an important theoretical question and now you have your answer.

Yes, this is what Barack Obama’s second term would look like.

Study it.  Fear it.  And then go home and make sure that it never happens to the rest of the country.

Of course, in spite of all of its problems, California is still one of the best places in the country to build a successful small business.  All you have to do is start with a successful large business.

Laugh if you will, but as you whistle past this cemetery, do heed the medieval epitaph:  “Remember man as you walk by, as you are now so once was I; as I am now so you will be.”

Mark that well, because if we lose this struggle for the future of our country, you too someday will live in a California – only without the nice climate.

Bad policies.  Bad process. Bad politics.  Those are the three acts in a Greek tragedy that tell the tale of how, in the span of a single generation, the most prosperous and golden state in the nation became an economic basket case.

When my parents came to California in the 1960’s looking for a better future, they found it here.  The state government consumed about half of what it does today after adjusting for both inflation and population.  HALF.  We had the finest highway system in the world and the finest public school system in the country.   California offered a FREE university education to every Californian who wanted one.  We produced water and electricity so cheaply that some communities didn’t bother to meter the stuff.  Our unemployment rate consistently ran well below the national rate and our diversified economy was nearly recession-proof.

One thing – and one thing only – changed in those years: public policy.  The political Left gradually gained dominance over California’s government and has imposed a disastrous agenda of radical and retrograde policies that have destroyed the quality of life that Californians once took for granted.

The Census bureau has reported for the better part of the decade that California is undergoing the biggest population exodus in its history, with many fleeing to such garden spots as Nevada, Arizona and Texas.  Think about that.  California is blessed with the most equitable climate in the entire Western Hemisphere; it has the most bountiful resources anywhere in the continental United States; it is poised on the Pacific Rim in a position to dominate world trade for the next century, and yet people are finding a better place to live and work and raise their families in the middle of the Nevada Nuclear Test Range. [Read more…]

Unfortunately, they are in the wrong city, targeting the wrong enemy.  The “Occupy Wall Street” protesters should have focused  on Washington, D.C., rather than New York from the beginning; pushing to replace crony capitalism with capitalism rather than attacking capitalism, the only real hope for progress.

The protestors have only a semi-coherent set of complaints.  Some objections focus on big business; others on the government bailouts they (particularly financial institutions) have received; still others on greed.  And there is some validity in their objections (I too object to the massive government bailouts and takeovers). But the common catch-all term for what they object to—capitalism–is incorrect, and therefore their “solution”—more political control, just of the “right” kind, would  actually be a move in the wrong direction.

The protestors seem to miss the irony of their position—they object to others being bailed out, but not themselves, and to what they consider other people’s’ greed, but not their own.  They are also misled by a major Marxian confusion about capitalism. The result is that they don’t want to eliminate the crony capitalism system of special government favors at others’ expense; they just want to become the cronies who control those favors.

These thoughts struck me because, yesterday morning, I went from reading an article about the self-styled “99 percent” to the introduction to The Morality of Capitalism (2011) , a slim book of essays edited by Tom G. Palmer.  Even though it was written before the protests began, Palmer seemed to capture the essence of what the protestors fail to understand about capitalism and, therefore, why their calls for more government control are misguided.

Palmer does an excellent job of correcting misunderstandings about capitalism.

“Far from being an amoral arena for the clash of interests, as capitalism is often portrayed…capitalism rests on a rejection of the ethics of loot and grab, the means by which most wealth enjoyed by the wealthy has been acquired in other economic and political systems…[where]  those who are rich are rich because they took from others…because they have access to organized force… Such predatory elites…feed at the state treasury and they benefit from state-imposed monopolies and restrictions on competition.  It’s only under conditions of capitalism that people commonly become wealthy without being criminals.”

“Capitalism is about creating value…The market—and not arrogant mercantilist politicians—shows us when we are adding value, and without free markets we cannot know.”

“Capitalism is…about adding value through the mobilization of human energy and ingenuity on a scale never seen before in human history, to create wealth for common people that would have dazzled and astonished the richest and most powerful…of the past…It’s about the replacement of force by persuasion.  It’s about the replacement of envy by accomplishment.  It’s about what has made my life possible, and yours.”

Palmer also locates the source of people’s confusion about capitalism in a failure by Marx to distinguish between it and crony capitalism.

“In some texts Marx used [capitalists] to refer to those innovative entrepreneurs who organize productive enterprises and invest in wealth creation, and in others he used it to refer to those who cluster around the state, who live off of taxation, who lobby to prohibit competition and restrict the freedom to trade; in brief, to those who invest, not in creating wealth, but in securing the power to redistribute or destroy the wealth of others…[He] confused productive entrepreneurship and market exchange with living off of taxes taken from others…’capitalism’…was used equivocally to refer to both free market entrepreneurship and to living off taxes and government power and patronage…”

“’free-market capitalism’ should be clearly distinguished from ‘crony capitalism’…

“Sadly, ‘crony capitalism’ is a term that can with increasing accuracy…be applied to the economy of the United States, a country in which failed firms are routinely ‘bailed out’ with money taken from taxpayers, in which the national capitol is little more than a gigantic pulsating hive or ‘rent-seeking’ lobbyists, bureaucrats, politicians, consultants, and hacks…[who] take it on themselves to reward some firms and harm others.  Such corrupt cronyisms shouldn’t be confused with ‘free-market capitalism,’ which refers to  a system of production and exchange that is based on the rule of law, on equality of rights for all, on the freedom to choose, on the freedom to trade, on the freedom to innovate, on the guiding discipline of profits of losses, and on the right to enjoy the fruits of one’s labors, of one’s savings, of one’s investments, without fearing confiscation or restriction from those who have invested not in the production of wealth but in political power.”

““People create relationships based on choice and consent.…Embracing free-market capitalism means…accommodating change and respecting the freedom of others to do as they please with what is theirs…embracing the freedom to create wealth which is the only means to the elimination of poverty…celebrating human liberation and realizing human potential.”

The Occupy Wall Street protestors justifiably object to abuses our government has imposed on the rest of us for its favored cronies.  But they are mistaken to blame the cronies rather than the government that “rents out” its power to use on their behalf. The abuses would disappear without government’s coercive backing.  Further, they are incredibly naïve in calling for more government intervention, with them as the new cronies, because those who aren’t well-informed, don’t vote, don’t contribute to politicians or mobilize resources on their behalf, and aren’t organized into an effective lobby, will not win political control over crony capitalism.

As Tom Palmer points out, if America was actually allowed to be capitalist, the fact that all such relationships are based on mutual consent, and are therefore mutually beneficial, would prevent all the abuses of some by others.  The legitimate claims of the protesters would be addressed.  As a result, the solution is not to try to redirect crony capitalism in their preferred direction, stealing for them rather than from them.  The solution is to reestablish capitalism, and once again unleash its now hamstrung cooperative miracles to improve all of our lives.

(Gary Galles is a professor of economics at Pepperdine University)

Steve Jobs had the vision thing.  He imagined products of which no one else had ever conceived and he had the ability to drive highly creative people to turn his visions into reality.

For example, Jobs didn’t create the iPod.  Instead, he gave his team a seemingly impossible brief:  create a device smaller than a pack of cigarettes that could hold more than 1,000 songs.  And make it aesthetically pleasing, by the way.  And let’s have it for Christmas.

Some of the design was created at Apple; some of the elements were licensed, such as the dial on the front, which came from England.  But no one had the idea to combine those elements into a device that could, indeed, hold more than 1,000 songs and remain smaller than a pack of smokes.

For all the adulation Jobs received for the brilliance of his consumer products, he was a controversial figure within the hardcore computing community, who identified more with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.  The reason, or at least one reason had to do with the original Apple II, which came with slots allowing enthusiasts to enter their own programs.  Eventually, Jobs closed those slots, taking control from the computer geeks and centralizing it at Apple.  This sat poorly with the enthusiasts, who viewed Jobs as a sell-out.

Yet even the hardcore computing types must be mourning the loss of an individual who transformed computing, telephony, the music industry, and pretty much everything else.  Had there not been an Apple, would there have been an Amazon?  Would as many people have bought in as quickly, or at all, to the Internet?  Would there be a Google?  Or would Microsoft have enjoyed a Soviet-style hegemony over the computing world to this day?

For Jobs brought not only innovation to the world of personal computing; he brought style.  In his famous address to a Stanford commencement class, he told of dropping out of school and sitting in on his girlfriend’s calligraphy class.  He fell in love with what he saw and multiple fonts became a hallmark of Apple computers, and eventually, everyone else’s, too.

Imagine a world of computing devices and portable phones without Jobs’ influence.  Just go back in your mind, if you’re old enough, to the first and second generations of cell phones and recall how clumsy and clunky they were, especially compared with the sleek, museum-quality design of the iPhone and all the phones that sought to emulate it.

Jobs wasn’t just smart; he was also lucky.  An investment in a then-struggling animation studio called Pixar turned into an astonishing success, bringing the world Toy Story, Cars, Up, Wall-E, and A Bug’s Life.  Pixar came along just when Disney’s animated films had been in a multi-year slump; Disney’s acquisition of a majority stake in Pixar landed Jobs on the board of Disney.

Perhaps Walt Disney is the innovator most comparable to Jobs.  Disney reinvented the delivery of entertainment in the form of cartoons, movies, and eventually theme parks just as Jobs reinvented the delivery of information, entertainment, music, and just about everything else.  Like Jobs, Disney died relatively young, not living to see the launch of Walt Disney World.  And like Jobs, Disney created and defined a company that all but deifies him, and asks, “What would Walt do?” to this day.

Ironically, tens of millions of people most likely learned of Jobs’ passing from devices he created—iPads, iPhones, MacBooks, and so on.  Can Jobs’ successors keep his company, and his vision alive?  Disney’s did.  We’d wager that Apple will do likewise.

 

(New York Times best selling author Michael Levin runs www.BusinessGhost.com.)

The recent California Republican Party convention in Los Angeles was by and large a pleasant affair.  The Presidential straw vote kept interest high and the zeal of the Paul and Perry campaigns to buy registrations for their supporters made the event a profitable one for the state party.

The one real item of business – and contention – was consideration of the moderates’ attempt to water down the state party platform.  The moderates essentially want to remove all social issues, but specifically abortion and traditional marriage, from the platform.  In its place they suggest a platform of room temperature jello, at least on social issues, which they consider “controversial and divisive”.

The moderate faction that wants to bleach Ronald Reagan’s “banner of bright, bold colors” is lead by Charles Munger, Jr., a zillionaire from the San Francisco bay area.  He has spent considerable time and money trying to change the party platform. Some of that money, or at least money supporting the moderate platform positions, was promised to conservative members of the platform committee if those members would vote to change the platform.

I have spoken with a platform committee member who was told that “up to $100,000” would be made available to that member’s local central committee if the member would speak and vote for the moderate positions. This platform committee member held fast to principle and opposed watering down the planks, but was told by at least two other committee members that they had received similar offers of large donations to their committees if the members would support changing the platform.

Happily the platform committee was more interested in presenting a true picture of Republican beliefs to voters than exchanging those beliefs for moderate cash, even $100,000 of it. That begs the question though of just where the moderates would take the party.

Their argument is that pro-life and pro-traditional marriage positions are what make it difficult for Republicans to win in California. We only have to look to the last election to see that their argument is hogwash.  The top of the GOP ticket was occupied by Meg Whitman and Abel Maldonado, two politicians who never met a principle they wouldn’t change for political advantage.  The face of the California GOP for the past 7 years had been Arnold Schwarzenegger, the ultimate political shape changer and prominent supporter of higher taxes, abortion and gay marriage.

Hey Charlie and you other moderates – we tried it your way in 2010 and got shellacked while the rest of the country, including states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, were electing hundreds of Republican candidates who were real conservatives. The California GOP candidate who ran on the most traditional conservative platform in 2010 was U.S. Senate nominee Carly Fiorina. Fiorina outpolled Whitman by 150,000 and Maldonado by 400,000. Voters were given clear choices of Republican candidates who waffled on the social issues and one who stood firm. They preferred the candidate who stood by principle by a wide margin. So Charlie, put that in your pipe and smoke it.

If Munger, et. al. really want to help the party they will stop trying to buy platform committee votes and devote their dollars instead to building GOP infrastructure in key counties.  Those counties would include not only the Southern California and Sacramento area conservative bastions but also the moderate to liberal GOP “collar counties” surrounding San Francisco Bay.   Voter registration, fund raising and “gotv” are inherently non-ideological.  A rising Republican tide in these areas would lift the boats of GOP nominees of all ideological views.

We can only hope the moderates now understand that the California Republican platform is not for sale, and that bleaching to a pale white the Reagan banner of bold colors that lead to so many GOP victories is not a road the Golden State’s GOP will follow – at any price.

(Bill Saracino is a contributing editor to the California Political Review)

Almost exactly one century ago, almost 2/3 of California voters approved Governor Hiram Johnson’s progressive reform amendments introducing the initiative, referendum and recall, allowing voters to override special interest dominance in Sacramento. Now, Democrats are seeking to restrict initiatives, supposedly in the interests of voters. 

Exhibit A is SB 202. Originally raising raised the filing fee for ballot initiatives, an end of session “gut and amend” transformed it to only allow ballot initiatives at November general elections and explicitly delay consideration of ACA 4 until 2014. Then rammed through with virtually no scrutiny, it now sits on Governor Brown’s desk.

Sponsor Loni Hancock said “Low turnout elections do not represent the needs, priorities and desires of the larger electorate.” State Senate leader Darrell Steinberg claimed that the intent was to making the results more representative of Californians by assuring the highest voter turnout.  However, there are several reasons to question that claim.

First is the fact that SB 202 was a last-minute gut and amend bill, designed to evade the usual legislative procedures and prevent virtually any input by Californians.  Bills commanding the necessary consensus can pass in the light, allowing accountability to voters.  When legislative power brokers so blatantly abuse the legislative process, preventing diligent deliberation, it is not to better represent Californians.

Second, SB 202 includes a provision clearly at odds with “we just want initiatives to work better” claims.  A proposed state spending cap and reserve fund measure (ACA 4)  Legislative Democrats agreed to place on the June 2012 ballot, to get enough Republican support for the recent budget deal, was delayed until at least November 2014.  You would not delay voters their chance to vote two years past the 2012 general election if you wanted to better represent their interests. That only guarantees that the Legislature can ignore their preferences two years longer. And allowing one party to renege after the fact on legislative agreements does not make government work better for Californians.

Third, besides stalling ACA 4 and keeping an initiative to curb union political donations off the June ballot, which might affect 2012 elections, SB 202 is part of series of proposed curbs on the initiative process. Journalist Michael Mishak reports that “One measure would allow the Legislature to propose changes that would appear on the ballot alongside an initiative even if its sponsor rejected them.  Another would give the Legislature the right to amend or repeal initiatives that pass, after four years have gone by.” Such “reforms” cannot be defended as enabling Californians’ will to be done more effectively.

Fourth, “justice delayed is justice denied.” Say the frenzied end of the 2012 legislative session generates an egregious abuse they want to overturn. Given the filing deadlines and the time required for initiative campaign, under SB 202, It could not be reversed until November of 2014, more than two years and an entire legislative term later. Even then, other proposed restrictions could let the Legislature reverse it four years later.

Fifth, while Democrats claim higher turnouts from restricting initiatives to November elections would better represent Californians’ will, the effect may be in the other direction.  It would create very long ballots, which create real problems.  Dan Walters writes that It would “make it hard for each initiative to get the attention and scrutiny it needs,” which would make things worse. It would also increase the proportion of “low information voters,” who are least informed and most easily swayed by misleading campaigns.

Hiram Johnson argued that “nearly every governmental problem…has arisen because some private interest has intervened or has sought for its own gain to exploit either the resources or the politics of the State.” SB 202 shows that, a century later, Californians have at least as much to fear from the Democrats who dominate Sacramento as any private interest.

(Gary Galles is a professor of economics at Pepperdine University)

The rising GOP interest in New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has triggered fat jokes and discussions about whether an overweight person could be president.  Ever since the Nixon-Kennedy debates (where radio listeners thought Nixon won but TV watchers thought Kennedy won), it is clear that appearance could be a distinct disadvantage.  However, if Christie would emulate one of his “heavy” predecessors—Grover Cleveland—he would be a striking improvement.

While Cleveland was unique in many ways, his character was his most important strength.  “Honest politician” was not an oxymoron.  His reputation was so positive that he was elected Governor of New York without making a single campaign speech. Accused of fathering an illegitimate child during one campaign, his told his staff: “Tell the truth.” But most important, rather than ignoring the Constitution’s limitations on federal government power, he took his oath to defend it seriously.

Cleveland realized that “Officeholders are the agents of the people, not their masters.” Therefore, he opposed paternalistic government policies financed by imposing tax burdens on others, since “the theory of our institutions guarantees to every citizen the full enjoyment of all the fruits of his industry and enterprise, with only such deduction as may be his share toward the careful and economical maintenance of the Government which protects him…exaction of more than this is indefensible extortion and culpable betrayal of American fairness and justice.”   

 Cleveland fought to eliminate government waste throughout his public career, since “waste of public money is a crime against the citizen.”   He pushed to restore honesty and impartiality to government, particularly by cutting government favors (including for his own party), because “danger confronts us…[in] popular disposition to expect from the operation of the Government especial and direct individual advantages.” 

Cleveland recognized that “The public Treasury…should only exist as conduit conveying the people’s tribute to its legitimate objects of expenditure,” and so studied every bill Congress passed.  He vetoed over 300 of them–more than double all the Presidents before him.  One veto message reveals a central reason: “I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution.”  Instead, he insisted that “The lessons of paternalism ought to be unlearned and the better lesson taught that while the people should patriotically and cheerfully support their Government, its functions do not include the support of the people.”

Cleveland tried to eliminate burdensome and inefficient tariffs, “the vicious, inequitable, and illogical source of unnecessary taxation.”  He also resisted political pressures to inflate, even when facing a serious recession, since “nothing is more vital to…the beneficient purposes of our Government than a sound and stable currency.”

Unlike modern politicians’ attempts to evade accountability, Cleveland insisted that everyone in government be carefully monitored, since “Every citizen owes to the country a vigilant watch and close scrutiny of its public servants and affairs…[as] the price of our liberty…”

Grover Cleveland’s last words were “I have tried so hard to do right.”  But respecting the Constitution’s limitations on legitimate federal activities, he didn’t find government to be every answer, regardless of the question (“discrediting an abject dependence upon government favor, we strive to stimulate those elements of American character which support the hope of American achievement”). America would do far better if we remembered that insight and the dangers of ignoring it. 

Fittingly, Grover Cleveland dedicated the Statue of Liberty, because he truly aspired to its dedication: “We will not forget that Liberty has made her home here, nor shall her chosen altar be neglected…A stream of light shall pierce the darkness of ignorance and man’s oppression until Liberty enlightens the world.”  We could use a man like Grover Cleveland again. Could Chris Cristie be such a man?  I don’t know.  But as writer Tom Purcell put it, “A fat president and a lean government are suddenly looking better than a lean president and a fat government.”
(Gary Galles is an economics professor at Pepperdine University.)