Thursday, September 8, 2005
Courtesy of RightWing Nuthouse, here's a most excellent timeline of events in the Katrina disaster. This is a key resource for anyone trying to make up their own mind about what happened in the aftermath of Katrina. All information presented on this timeline was culled from public media, so its accuracy is independently verifiable.
Tip of the hat to the authoritative and brilliant political observer Michael Barone for the pointer.
Mart Laar is a former prime minister of Estonia, and is widely credited with being the "father" of the flat tax in Estonia. In turn, that flat tax is widely credited (by businessmen and economists) for being one of the primary drivers of Estonia's booming and very healthy post-Soviet economy.
I've known these facts, and some more detail, for quite some time — but then, I have been accused of having an unnatural interest in the country of Estonia, which I have visited many times. Most Americans don't even know that Estonia is a country, much less where it is or what they've accomplished in the past 15 years.
So imagine, if you can, my surprise and delight to discover that in this morning's Wall Street Journal there is a commentary piece by Mart Laar! Titled "A Failure of Leadership", it's about Mr. Laar's promotion of the flat tax for all the European Union members. I hope the WSJ will forgive my extensive excerpting — the full article ($subscription) is here:
While giving a speech this summer at a Center for Policy Studies conference in Copenhagen supporting the introduction of a flat tax in Denmark, I was asked why I would encourage other European countries to adopt a better tax system. Would that not make my home country of Estonia, which already has a flat tax, less competitive?
My answer was short: "I am doing this because I am European." We are all sitting in the same boat now. "New Europe" will not succeed if "Old Europe" isn't competitive enough to meet the challenges of the global economy. It is in the interest of the new European Union member states is to make all of Europe new.
During the recent EU summit, the new member states looked with astonishment at how Old Europe fought each other on the question of the EU budget. It has not been a problem for New Europe to give away part of their financial supports when a compromise has been achieved. They were quite surprised to see how, for Old Europe, national interests were put clearly above European interests.
This is especially sad because Europe is already in the middle of a quite serious crisis. The rejections of the EU constitution by France and the Netherlands sent shockwaves around the Continent. Some people have even declared that the Europe is dead.
The problem for Europe, however, is not the failed referendum but the failure of its leaders to understand why that happened. The people did not vote against the constitution because of Polish plumbers or Estonian gardeners. They voted against their own unpopular governments that haven't created jobs or economic growth. The referendums failed not because there has been too much reform in Europe; they failed because there hasn't been enough of it. European politicians over the years have created bogeymen that guaranteed their success in national politics -- bad Brussels bureaucracy, bad new member states, bad neoliberalism. And during the referendums these ghosts came back to haunt them.
The failure of the French and Dutch referendums showed everyone that, as in the famous fairy tale, the emperor has no clothes. Unfortunately, European leaders are still trying to convince everyone otherwise. They want to continue as if nothing has happened.
It is really time to understand that there is no reason to continue discussing whether the constitution was good or bad. The constitution is dead, and there is no way to revive it. To try to win the referendum, France stopped all necessary but unpopular reforms. When other European leaders try the same, all Europe will fail.
So let's calm down and start to work, because there is enormous amount of work to do. The coming autumn will be crucial for the future of Europe. The people of the Europe are looking to their leaders and asking: Will they deliver? If they don't, the trust will be completely gone.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair has set out a large and bold agenda for his country's EU presidency. It is important that he is not left alone in this work. During the coming year Europe must take real steps at least in four directions:
• Continue European integration. The new constitution is not crucial for this. Existing treaties provide enough latitude for the creation of institutions, such as a common foreign and security policy -- when all member states agree, of course.
• Continue with enlargement. European leaders must not scare their people, but rather explain that the costs of not proceeding with enlargement -- both political and economical -- are actually higher than the possible costs of enlargement. At the same time, real criteria must be followed. Special attention must be given to the Balkans, and the door must be kept open for both Turkey and Ukraine.
• Continue with real reforms and forget the discussion on the "dangers of neoliberalism." It is really interesting to see how the conservative government of France is accusing Britain's Labour government of Britain for being "neoliberal." It must be remembered that some of the most radical labor-market reforms are actually made in social-democratic countries, for example in Denmark. So the question is not whether the governments are on the right or the left -- the only question is whether they are delivering growth and jobs. Europe in the coming months must pass the necessary reforms to open its services market and stop overregulation. Without these steps -- mentioned in Mr. Blair's presidency agenda -- all talks about real reforms will be nonsense.
• Give real attention to Europe. The real test for a united Europe will be the compromise on the budget. When it will be connected with the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, Europe will take really positive step forward.
In other words, Europe must not stop reforms but start with real reforms; not stop enlargement but speed it up; not disintegrate but integrate; not build integrated Europe over the heads of people but act with the consent of the people. Don't blame Europe for all possible problems; give it a chance. Europeans have for too long asked what Europe can do for them. Now it is time for them to ask themselves what they can do for Europe.
It's very nice to see an Estonian politician occupying this stage...
