Cato on the fiscal cliff sidestep

Here's a cut and paste from Cato. Quick and easy read:

Grading the Fiscal Cliff Deal: Terrible, but Could Be Worse

By

Daniel J. Mitchell

 

 

The faux drama in Washington is finally over. The misfits in Washington reached a deal on the fiscal cliff.
Republicans and Democrats managed to come together and decide that they should get a bigger slice of what the American people earn. Gee, what a surprise.
First, the good news:
…
…
Oh, wait, there isn’t any.
Now for the bad news.

• The top tax rate will increase to 39.6 percent for entrepreneurs, investors, small business owners, and other “rich” taxpayers making more than $400,000 ($450,000 for married couples). This is Obama’s big victory. He gets his class-warfare trophy.
• The double tax on dividends and capital gains climbs from 15 percent to 20 percent (23.8 percent if you include the Obamacare tax on investment income).
• The death tax rate is boosted from 35 percent to 40 percent (which doesn’t sound like a big step in the wrong direction until you remember it was 0 percent in 2010).
• The alternative minimum tax will still exist, though it will be “patched” to protect as many as 30 million households from being swept into this surreal parallel tax system that requires people to use a second method of calculating their taxes – with the government getting the greatest possible amount.
• Unemployment benefits are extended, ensnaring more Americans in joblessness.
• Medicare spending is increased as part of a “doc fix” to increase reimbursement payments for providers.

This is sort of like a late Christmas present, but we must have been naughty all year long and taxpayers are getting lumps of coal.
That being said, I was expecting the final outcome to be even worse, so this deal almost seems like a relief.
Sort of like knowing that you were going to have your arm amputated, but then finding out that at least you’ll get some anesthetic. You’re not happy about the outcome, but you’re relieved that it won’t be as bad as you thought it would be.
But let’s not delude ourselves. This deal is not good for the economy. It doesn’t do anything to cap the burden of government spending. It doesn’t reform entitlement programs.
And we may even lose the sequester, the provision that was included in the 2011 debt limit that would have slightly reduced the growth of government over the next 10 years.
What a dismal start to 2013.

Why did John Key change his mind?

 What will be happening with welfare in 2013?

The major event that springs to mind is changes to the names  of all main benefits. I still consider this a major waste of time and resources. And in August 2008, before John Key became Prime Minister, so did he:

Labour's pursuit of a "single core benefit" has ended in a complete farce. The different benefit types will still exist, and will be different from each other, but will all be simply called "income support". The Labour Government is going to issue a directive telling case managers and government officials that they are forbidden from using use terms such as "DPB" and "invalids benefit".
Ruth Dyson has one opinion about this. She says this will "remove the stereotyped language and bureaucracy of a bygone era [and] will ensure that Work and Income responds to people as individuals rather than as categories".
I have another opinion. I say that is a load of politically correct rubbish, it will waste money in rewriting everything, and it will not help beneficiaries in a single way. National will not be making those changes.

Well actually in July 2013 National will be making those changes:

Three new benefit types will replace the seven current benefit categories, in addition to the new Youth Payment and Young Parent Payment introduced in August. The new categories included in this Bill are:
• Jobseeker Support for those actively seeking and available for work
• Sole Parent Support for sole parents with children under 14 years
• Supported Living Payment for people significantly restricted by sickness, injury or disability.

Just for a moment reflect on the ongoing problems that the government has had with their IT data systems  - ACC, Education, Work and Income and Corrections. 300,000 plus people will have to be recategorised and  transferred from one benefit to another. The data recording systems all change; the continuity of data will be lost. There's a Census running this year. Information about income sources will be collected in February which by July will be meaningless. There will be confusion, challenges from people unhappy with their new categorisation, and given the teacher salary debacle, it wouldn't surprise if benefits go under/over or un-paid.

It's all going to distract from what WINZ should be concentrating on. Getting people into jobs.

Ashley Mundee - a life worth living

By coincidence I had backed the horse Ashley Mundee was riding on December 30 so was watching the race. Elleaye was around mid-field when he suddenly went down. I thought he'd broken down but later learned he'd clipped heels with another horse. It was a horrible spectacle watching the jockey go under the hooves of those following and a further jockey fall from her mount. I drew a very sharp intake and must have made some sort of sound because the dog start barking.

When I heard she had later died I shed tears for the sheer misery it will cause her family and friends for the rest of their lives. What I can't get out of my head is whether, as her mother, I would want to watch the footage of Ashley before the race. Milling around behind the gates, happy and chatting with the other jockeys and handlers as the horses loaded. Because that's what I would want imprinted in my mind. The pleasure and pride she would have taken in her abilities; the sheer exhilaration of riding along on the back of an animal reaching speeds of 50 mph; the wonder of getting paid for what you love doing most.

Her life was cut short but what a life it was.

Hauraki became crap

New breakfast host Martin Devlin says Radio Hauraki is "crap".

It's been crap since they dumped Nick, Deano and Mel from the morning slot. They were genuinely funny and ran some great competitions like 'Scar Wars Wednesday' which asked listeners to ring in and describe how they got their worst scar. That resulted in outrageous tales like testes being caught in girls' bicycle chain as a  child and a whole host of strange down on the farm antics often related by not very bright people. Driving the kids to Uni and high school we'd often laugh till we cried. The music was what you'd expect on Hauraki but the in-between stuff was better. Then sometime during the middle of the year the threesome vanished.

So what to listen to? In Wellington The Breeze is so PC and safe, even though Sam and I can tolerate their play list, we can't stomach the simpering DJs. Think Wiggles. One morning we were behind a bus advertising The Sound. So we switched and are  permanently parked there. The music is brilliant and they promote themselves as "no silly BS chatter" although Geoff Bryant's news-reading interjections are often very wry. So, no, I won't be tuning in to Hauraki even out of curiosity.

(Though it has to be said, if I'm by myself of a morning, walking the dogs, I might have Mike Hosking in my ear.)

Devlin says, "It's bitterly competitive, and there's a lot of money at stake, and there's a lot of pride and ego at stake."

Somehow trying not to lose money and not to lose face don't seem like very good starting point to me. So a New Year's prediction. Devlin won't save Hauraki.

John Key finished?

That's what Matt McCarten says in his Herald column today:

This year has finished him. His evasiveness over Kim Dotcom, his shonkiness over the SkyCity casino deal to give more pokies for a convention centre, his weakness managing his ministers and his forgetfulness on details of his job is starting to form real doubts that he's on top of his job. We like nice guys but we expect them to know what they're doing. This is the year he became a two-term prime minister.

All this prediction  reveals is McCarten's  left bias and according wishfulness. Let's try and analyse Key's chances objectively.

1/ Who else? 

Like it or not most New Zealanders are middle-of-the-road moderates. When it comes to matters political, they think at a superficial level employing emotion over reason. But occasionally the 'wisdom of the masses' asserts itself as when Green co-leader Russell Norman suggested printing money. Without understanding economics too deeply people just instinctively knew this was a stupid idea. Sometimes good ideas are the most simple ones - but not in this case. And people aren't going to accept a leader with radical ideas, even sound ones. That's why Key doesn't do radical.

Neither will people accept a leader with NO ideas. Well, to be fair, no new ideas. And anyway, Labour is too ramshackle at present to give swing-voters any confidence that they can govern.

2/ Better the devil you know. Key is still in this ballpark. When Clark went, she'd stepped outside it. People were saying any devil is better than her. National has upset large  groups of people. Teachers for example. But mainly they have upset the leftists which is their job.

They have pissed off people like me in many ways BUT not enough that I would vote for more redistribution of wealth from the productive to the non-productive; more punishment of effort and reward for fecklessness; more economic regulation and welfare reform reversal.

3/ Key appeals to both males and females. That sort of appeal is reasonably rare.

4/ Key is still looking like a solid family man. Also reasonably rare and something we admire I think.

5/ Key has a winning leadership style. While McCarten says Key is weak at managing his ministers, the other side is, he doesn't over-manage.  My preference is for the second style. Most of us want a boss who gives us space and respect.

So barring startling developments - Labour recruiting Richie McCaw as a potential future leader - voters are going to go into the 2014 election prepared to accept the status quo. The reality is most people's lives are ticking over satisfactorily despite the recession and they will entrust another three years of management to National.

When Masterton went dry

When there is no current news, perusing papers from the past is sometimes entertaining. The Truth had the best articles. Here's one about what happened when Masterton "entered into the land of Wowserdom".

People drank even more as secret bingeing occurred causing "absence from work...lying and deceit..."

"There is more now solid and systematic 'silent'  sosselling going on now than ever before in the history of the district."

The writer also describes the hypocrites who voted for the "no" licence status in order to line their own pockets through sly-grogging.

Charmingly written. And a lesson for today's prohibitionists.

Meerkats breed at Xmas

It's been a somewhat strange Xmas here. The weather has see-sawed between intense heat and considerable chill, for the first time we put up a fake tree and it didn't seem to matter and my meerkats bred. When I went up the hill on Xmas morning I found two babies hiding amongst the long grasses I've planted.

But the highlights have been the generosity of my son spending all of his first ever pay-packet on his father to buy him something very special, and my daughter presenting me with a handmade teddy bear. For some reason he is 'Trent'. He's made from linen and some other brown fabric and is just gorgeous. The only thing in life I get sentimental over is my family and my few close friends. Sadly one called for help on Boxing Day night. Drunk, suicidal and lost - literally. This is someone I've only ever seen stoicism and humour from. I tried to talk her up and we cried together, fat lot of use that I am. Then she stopped answering my repeated calls to her mobile. But I knew she was receiving texts. Eventually she told her sister what bus she had taken which might indicate what park she was in. Her family got her home but I can hardly finish happily by saying all's well that ends well. Underlying troubles need to be resolved.

A trip to hospital to visit another elderly friend who'd suffered a stroke, a visit to an old folks home to leave a package for an ex neighbour who won't see me (or anyone else) and I was most grateful to return to my 'normal' happy home.

I hope you are all enjoying Xmas. For many it's not a happy time at all.  Christmas is for copers. Thank your lucky stars if you are one.

Truth column December 20

(My December 20 Truth column isn't on-line yet no doubt due to Xmas break. Below in full.)

Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia has announced she'll retire in 2014. She'd previously publicised leaving parliament in 2011, so this latest promise might be taken with a pinch of salt. The decision to exchange a ministerial salary for Super must be tough.

Nevertheless it's perhaps timely to look back on a couple of Turia's more interesting statements. When TV3's John Campbell asked what she meant about welfare being bad for Maori she replied, "We’re talking Maori unemployed. We’re not talking about Maori women on benefits."

At a reproductive health conference, about the high Maori teenage birth rate being framed as problematic, she said she was "intolerant of the excessive focus on controlling our fertility...Maybe one of our policy goals in the Maori Party should be to go forth and multiply."

In 2010, 46 percent of Maori females aged 20 - 29 were dependent on welfare - mainly the DPB. Tariana does not view this as being "bad". By implication, she doesn't associate over-dependence on welfare with Maori children's poor health and educational outcomes or heightened risk of abuse and neglect.

When CYF manager of Maori Strategy, Peter Douglas suggested at-risk Maori children be removed beyond whanau, Turia responded, "I am totally opposed to children being raised outside whakapapa links.” Being Maori, and growing the Maori population count, matter more to Turia than children's prospects.

She's previously complained that Maori are the only ethnicity in New Zealand that cannot grow their share of the population through immigration. (Perhaps if the 100,000+ Maori living overseas weren't beleaguered by the treaty and tribalism at every turn, they'd come back.)

It'd be fascinating to know how Turia views her parliamentary career. A tale of great achievement? Personally, I'm struggling to identify any major gains for Maori attributable to her particular ideology - racism. If a successor can't be found, and the Maori Party disappears, good. New Zealand does not need racially divisive politics.

Explaining politicians

Light blogging due to Xmas rush; still finishing and framing commissions due for delivery Xmas eve. But this is worth a wider read. Again from the Future Freedom Foundation, one of the few daily newsletters I always look at:

With government controlling more and more of our economy, the fact that crooks have to go where the money is causes more and more of them to turn to government employment. However, there is probably an even stronger reason for individuals to become politicians. That is the power which accompanies political office. Many idealists think they know better than the ordinary person what is good for that person. They consider themselves a cut above the ordinary individual who just isn’t smart enough to know what he or she should do. Idealists seek government power to impose their ideas upon the rest of us. They may be personally honest insofar as not thinking of lining their own pockets with money but have little compunction about bolstering their egos with government power. This attitude explains the environmentalists, the do-gooders, and others whose ego causes them to seek government power to impose their ideas upon those of us who just want to make our way in a free market in open competition with everyone else. They don’t believe in a free market or voluntary actions. They do believe in controlling others by means of government power.
 

– Harry Hoiles

(Harry Hoiles passed away in 1998, former owner of Freedom Publications)

Truth column December 13

My December 13 Truth column is now on-line

I wish I knew if my sympathy for Brendan Horan, sacked NZ First MP, is warranted.
Anyone who has been dealt to by NZ First leader Winston Peters has my commiserations. 
The party is not referred to as ‘Winston First’ without good reason.
Saving his own skin is the name of the game.
But most of us aren’t privy to the details surrounding Horan’s family dispute so can only speculate on the injustice or otherwise of his dismissal from the party.

More

Other Truth columns here

Ever more influential people question the war on drugs

...like Richard Branson, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.

Sir Richard Branson has never sat on an idea. A frenetic 40-year career in the public eye has seen him launch Virgin Group, with its 400 companies, while juggling time between world record attempts, Hollywood cameos and humanitarian drives. Lately, Branson has embarked on a new adventure, one no less challenging than attempting to circumnavigate the globe in a balloon. As a member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, Branson is sharing the spotlight with the burgeoning movement to end the U.S.-led war on drugs.

That crusade brought him to New York this week for the premiere of Breaking the Taboo, a documentary film asserting that the 40-year-old drug war, centered on prohibition rather than rehabilitation, has failed on all fronts. Narrated by Morgan Freeman, the film splices images of brutal violence with interviews with global leaders, including former U.S. Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, who lambast the $1 trillion global war for overcrowding prisons while doing little to curtail drug use among an estimated 230 million people around the world. “Obviously, if the expected results were that we would eliminate serious drug use in America and eliminate the narco-trafficking networks, it hasn’t worked,” says Mr. Clinton during the film.


More

Hat-tip Future Freedom

Advocating parental responsibility is a "crass" opinion

Yesterday I blogged about an unusually sensible editorial from the DomPost.

Today back to collectivist, failed, ideology in the letters column. (I wrote in support of the editorial but wasn't published.)

DomPost on child poverty report

Excellent editorial here stating the obvious but so often ignored principle that children are essentially their parent's responsibility.

Poverty harmful to children. No-one will dispute the central tenet of the child poverty report released this week by Children's Commissioner Russell Wills.
Kids who go to school hungry struggle to learn. Kids who live in damp, cold, crowded homes get sick. Kids  who grow up poor are more likely to struggle as adults.
Where readers may be inclined to part company with the commissioner's expert advisory group is over how to tackle the problem.

Would you want your rates spent on this?

The Palmerston North City Council is running a campaign to persuade those approached by beggars to consider giving to a charity rather than to the beggar.

Give Wisely – Pedestrians encouraged to give to charities not beggars

A campaign aimed at encouraging pedestrians to give to charities that look after beggars as opposed to giving money directly to beggars is being undertaken by the Palmerston North Safety Advisory Board and Palmerston North City Council.


The campaign is called “Give Wisely” and has a number of aims:

· Encouraging beggars to make positive choices.
· Educating pedestrians as to how they can best help beggars.
· Creating a more vibrant Broadway for pedestrians to enjoy.


Begging occurs in every metropolitan city in New Zealand and from time to time causes issues for both pedestrians and retailers. Begging is not illegal in New Zealand and Palmerston North City does not have an anti-begging bylaw. Regulatory solutions have not worked in other centres and hence a more collaborative community orientated approach has been taken. 

Community development officer Maria Prangnell says Palmerston North is lucky to have so many social services that are able to help by providing support from accommodation and food to psychological needs. “We, along with other agencies, work closely with beggars to ensure they have access to benefits, housing and health services.”


“Giving to those in need is something that should be encouraged especially when it’s to charities that offer a hand up to those on the bottom rung of society.”


Senior Sergeant Brett Calkin says while the campaign will not solve the issue of begging it will help draw attention to the issue. Which he says from time to time leads to those who participate in aggressive forms of begging being arrested. "The city has about ten regular beggars who tend to position themselves in key locations along Broadway Avenue but from time to time haunt other parts of the CBD".


The campaign will run over the summer months. Retailers will be asked to display posters in windows and flyers will be handed out to pedestrians asking them to give to the charities that offer a hand up.

Senior Sergeant Brett Calkin say aggressive forms of begging are not tolerated and anyone who feels intimidated should call the police immediately.

It amuses me that the council (which does worse than beg; it steals your money) then turns around and tells you how to spend the rest. Or perhaps I should view this initiative as an innovative way to deal with a nuisance rather than legislation.

If it works....

Truth column December 6

My December 6 Truth column is now on-line:

Even a deaf person watching Parliament would be left in no doubt what Social Development Minister Paula Bennett conveyed to Labour MP Jacinda Ardern as she made ‘zip it’ motions with her fingers, and condescendingly winked with the word ‘sweetie’.

More

More Truth columns here

Xmas card 2012

Long time readers of my blog might remember I make a Xmas card each year. Whatever is new in our day-to-day lives usually features. Lexie fits the bill perfectly. I sketched her in pastels for the front and put the following photo on the back. She just exudes contentment. How lucky we are.

Children's Commissioner recommends cutting welfare to the childless

This particular report has so many different 'costs' for tackling child poverty it's hard to make a reasoned response .

Does the Children's Commissioner want "$50 million to $60 million", "$159 million" or "$1.2 billion a year"?

Whatever it is, his suggestion for finding the extra money is ill-considered.

He suggested that the accommodation supplement could be cut for people without children to help pay for it. The report says 58 per cent of accommodation supplements are paid to people without children, 21 per cent of whom are boarders.

On principle, why is it fair to punish those who don't have children to reward those who do?

In practice, many of those "boarders" are paying board to a sole parent on a benefit. The very people the Commissioner wants to give more money to.

Born onto a benefit

I expect child poverty to be topical again today as the 2012 Childrens Social Health Monitor (link is to 2011 version) is released. There's a fair bit about it in the press already by journalists who have a pre-release. The TV is reporting Jacinda Ardern complaining about one in 5 children being in homes supported solely by a main benefit. It was barely any better under Labour. Even when the unemployment rate had dropped to it's lowest point around 18 percent of children were still on benefits. That's because the DPB is entrenched.

The following is an article I wrote for The Truth which was published the week before last. It's not on-line so reproduced in full below.

BORN ONTO A BENEFIT

A huge amount is said about child poverty, but bugger all about what causes it.
By the end of last year 13, 634 of the babies born in the previous 12 months had a parent or caregiver relying on a benefit. Data supplied under the Official information Act reveals that 48 percent of these caregivers were Maori. Assuming the ethnicity of dependent children generally matches the ethnicity of their caregivers, 37 percent of all Maori children born in 2011 were on welfare by the end of the same year. The corresponding figure for non-Maori was less than half at 16 percent.
Most of these babies are born directly onto a benefit - usually the domestic purposes benefit. Some are first births. It's not unusual for their mothers to initially be dependent  on either the sickness benefit for pregnancy or the dole, then transfer to the DPB with the newborn in tow. But according to a Cabinet Paper publicly released earlier this year, in 2010 4,800 births were second (or subsequent) children being added to an existing  DPB. This happens most commonly in Whangarei, Whakatane, Rotorua, Kawerau and Wairoa, and the rate at which children are added has also been increasing.

The high rate of  NZ children born onto welfare  gives rise to numerous health and social problems down the line, not least abuse and neglect. We now know thanks to a recent Auckland University study that 83 percent of substantiated child abuse and neglect cases concern children who appear in the benefit system before the age of two.

There is an especial problem with Maori children. Not only are they more likely to be born onto a benefit, but they are more likely to have a very young mother who will have difficulty raising her child away from the sort of environmental risks that result in teenage parenthood in the first place; a dysfunctional family life, alcohol and drug abuse, family violence, transience, and crime. A strong correlation exists between the over-representation of Maori children on welfare and their marked predominance in many other negative statistics surrounding poor health and low educational achievement. Being born onto a benefit does not set them up for life.

Some of these children are going to be a cost to society for their entire lives. There isn't any equivalent NZ research but American studies into the backgrounds of prison inmates find many had very young mothers, were raised on welfare, or in foster care or other state institutions. That the NZ prison population is half Maori is almost certainly associated with the very high Maori rate of teenage birth; almost four times higher than non-Maori. Sadly, it isn't just the first-born children whose lives are affected, but those who follow as well.

Back in 2006 New Zealand Medical Association deputy chairman Don Simmers told a conference that too many women were contemplating pregnancy on a benefit. It's taken a long time - too long - but the government has now officially recognised the problem.

Minister for Social Development Paula Bennett believes that work has both social and economic benefits for parents and their children. Last month new rules were introduced to require people on the DPB with a youngest child aged 5 or older to look for and be available for part-time work. The Minister understands however that some mothers will try to avoid this new rule by having another baby. As a consequence, she says, "Sole parents who have another child while on a benefit will be exempt for [only] one year, in line with parental leave, before work obligations resume."

Unfortunately, this measure alone leaves loopholes. Cabinet illustrates the lengths some will go to when identifying children, "who are moved between households to avoid work expectations." There is currently no rule that prevents a parent from going off the benefit for a short period, having another baby, and returning with the clock starting afresh. This situation could have been avoided by adopting the US approach which simply time-limits the benefit. Federal law permits a maximum of 60 months over a lifetime of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (though individual states can deviate using their own funds). That regime unequivocally puts the responsibility firmly on the parent to limit their family size without totally dumping a safety net.

The other unthinkable work-dodge would be to produce a child annually. Ironically this outcome would be the exact opposite of what the government is trying to achieve. Again time-limiting the amount of welfare available would remove any incentive to go down this track.

Some favour capping the amount of money available to subsequent children born onto a benefit. Paula Rebstock's Welfare Working Group considered this option but was persuaded by the Ministry of Social Development that adverse affects on the child or children might outweigh any favourable effect on child-bearing patterns amongst beneficiaries.

Beneficiary advocates have reacted to Paula Bennett's new rule with hostility. Auckland Action Against Poverty spokesperson Sue Bradford says, "We believe that women in this country have the right to control their own reproduction." This encapsulates the conflict between the so-called rights of women and the rights of children. Knowingly bringing a child into the world with no ability to raise him independently or adequately is hard to justify at any level.

The Norm Kirk government of 1973 which bowed to pressure to provide statutory assistance for mothers who'd lost the support of a partner, would have been aghast if afforded a glimpse of a future in which supposedly single woman were allowed, and even encouraged by some, to breed on a benefit. Twenty two percent of all babies born in 2011 were on welfare by Xmas. But even pre-recession, when  NZ briefly enjoyed the lowest unemployment rate in the world during 2007,  the percentage only dropped to eighteen. Having babies on a benefit is part of the NZ culture. That's what's primarily driving this country's child poverty scandal. In a word, irresponsibility; irresponsibility of the people who produce the kids, but arguably worse, irresponsibility of the society that sanctions it.

What's $300,000?

How much compo should we pay Susan Couch?

Dunno. What's 11 years on the DPB living in Auckland worth?

$300,000.

Righto.

Home schooling - a right we take for granted

I'm shocked. Germany hates home-schooling apparently.  The Welfare State We're In has linked to a New American article about the persecution parents face in Germany and Sweden if they want to home school their children - THEIR children.

Earlier this year I made comment about how rules-bound and obedient Germans are in my experience. Perhaps the insistence on 'state education only' is part of the picture.

In October of 2005, the Neubronner family (pictured) decided to homeschool. In America, that would have been the end of the story. The Neubronners, however, lived in Germany, where government has taken an extreme hardline stance with the aim of eradicating home education altogether. The loving German parents applied for permission to educate their two young sons, Morris and Thomas, at home. Unsurprisingly, their application was rejected.

Over the next few months, the battle seemed interminable. They sued for permission to homeschool and lost. Then they appealed. Again, they lost. Finally, in the summer of 2006, the Neubronners struck a deal with school authorities: The boys could be homeschooled provided they were tested regularly. Like the vast majority of homeschoolers, the kids did great on the government’s tests.

Despite the high marks, or perhaps because of them, eventually, authorities decided to put an end to the successful home education scheme. The Neubronner parents were threatened with massive fines, and like many other homeschoolers in Germany, even a potential jail sentence was put on the table if they refused to comply. During that time, the family appealed all the way up to the German constitutional court.

As the fight was unfolding, the family’s story became national news, with mother Dagmar, a biologist and publisher, becoming the face of the secular homeschooling movement in Germany. The media coverage ranged from friendly to neutral because the family seemed — aside from the homeschooling, at least — like a rather “normal,” well-integrated, intellectual family without any particular ax to grind against government schools; they simply wanted to exercise their right not to use that particular government “service.”

When the family refused to pay the exorbitant fines, officials burst into their home and ransacked it, searching for something, anything, to take with them. They found nothing worthwhile, but the horror was just getting started. Finally, officials froze the family’s bank accounts. They even threatened to arrest both parents and auction their home to pay the fines.

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