As the Vice President of my university’s Young Americans for Liberty chapter, I had the distinct pleasure of attending several portions of the YAL National Convention in Washington, DC. The experience was outstanding. Not only was I  able to hear speeches and discussions from some fantastic champions of liberty; I’ve was also able to meet some truly remarkable students who are pushing for substantial changes to the status quo of U.S. politics.

One of my favorite features of these national conventions is the huge diversity of students that are drawn to Washington, DC from all over the country. For example, I spoke with chapter leaders from New Jersey, Florida, California, Washington, Texas, and many other states. Students had different levels of knowledge of drug prohibition policy in the U.S., but their conviction that the War on Drugs needs to be brought to an immediate end seemed to be unanimous. In my capacity not only as a YAL member but as a Students for Sensible Drug Policy intern, I’ve collected the following thoughts from other YAL leaders on U.S. drug policy:

Haley Sinklair, from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, stated that she is against drug prohibition because she believes our criminal justice system is inherently flawed. Haley explained, however, that fixing the criminal justice system will not justify prohibition: “Prohibition never works, it never has and it never will.”

On the same issue of prohibition, Barbara Sostaita from Salem College feels strongly about the inherent racial discrimination that occurs in the Drug War. She believes that prohibition “not only destabilizes (U.S.) communities, but is also just bad foreign policy.” Speaking on the subject of incarceration for drug crimes, 

The vote on the anti-NSA Amash-Conyers bill was a huge win for the liberty movement.

Sure, we may not have won in the conventional sense of the word, but the establishment is definitely running scared. It wasn’t so long ago that we were all watching Ron Paul stand alone in front of congress advocating for liberty and fighting against the tyrants in Washington. It may not have been all that long ago, but it is remarkable how much of a difference we have made in so short a time. 

Justin Amash valiantly stood before congress yesterday to propose an amendment that would block funding provided to the NSA for the collection of phone records from every American Citizen. “Do we oppose the suspicionless collection of every American’s phone records?” Amash asked his fellow House members. 

Several representatives who were opposed to the proposed legislation made the argument that “metadata” do not equate with phone records. True, metadata do not give the government access to the content of your actual phone calls, but they are still able to see what numbers you called and when you called them. Regardless of whether or not you have anything to hide, the government has absolutely no business involving itself that far into the personal lives of Americans.  

In fact, the concept of privacy rights was so important to the founding of this country that our Founding Fathers decided to include it in our Bill of Rights.

A recent Bloomberg piece brings up an agency of especially sore repute among libertarians (not to say that there are many agencies of good repute) and looks into a Republican Party "solution" in dealing with some problems facing that agency.  

The agency is the TSA.  The problem is theft; or, "sticky fingers" as Bloomberg puts it.  The "solution" is privatization.

First created in late 2001 as a reactionary effort to simply "do something" immediately following the September 11 attacks, the TSA has rightly been the topic of much outcry among libertarians, and other liberty lovers across the political spectrum.  Perhaps my favorite blogger on all things TSA is the ever-enthusiastic Becky Akers, who writes over at the Lew Rockwell Column.

We hold that the TSA should not exist. It is completely beyond the jurisdiction of the United States federal government to involve its bureaucratic police force in every single airport in the United States. The Bloomberg piece notes that the problem the TSA faces recently is large quantities of charges for theft.  

This is not the problem. This is the result of the problem.

Human nature being what it is, it’s no surprise to me that local, state, and federal entities across our country continue to largely ignore the looming crisis of our public sector pensions. More often than not, politicians delay addressing this pressing issue to avoid potentially losing the support of voters. Afterall, it's always easier to kick the can down the road.

Unfortunately for the Motor City the day of reckoning has begun after an initial effort to block the efforts.

Let’s begin with a brief background on what a public sector pension is and how it operates. For this post, we will ignore private sector pensions which are similar, but are guaranteed by the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation, and whose shortfalls do not theoretically fall on the taxpayer. Pensions are offered to public sector employees as part of a package of retirement benefits to be received in the future. The employing government agency sets aside (or should set aside) ample funds to cover these future obligations.

However, as is the case for many things that can be put off, funding frequently is, or is not made in large enough amounts. The liability is an actuarially calculated value based upon the total liability less total funding to date. Total funding is easy to pin down, the liability is more nebulous and takes into account factors such as life expectancies, salaries, compounded growth on funded assets, etc. A recent PEW study found a fiscal 2009 shortfall of $217.2 billion in unfunded municipal retiree liabilities including pensions, health care, and other across 61 of the most populous cities in the U.S. Bear in mind this is for local municipalities only and does not include State and Federal obligation.