Clinton Link To Rudy Hit Piece

Not content with simply going after Fred Thompson this weekend, the MSM via the Washington Post took out after Rudy in this piece, the unmentioned background of which points, interestingly enough, at inside DC big government politics and the Clinton administration. The WaPo apparently didn't feel compelled to tell you it was your tax dollars via a Clinton initiative that financed Nevin's work and the funding agencies appear to have then increased their own budget as a result of the work - HUD and EPA, I believe.

Rudy Giuliani never misses an opportunity to remind people about his track record in fighting crime as mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001.

"I began with the city that was the crime capital of America," Giuliani, now a candidate for president, recently told Fox's Chris Wallace. "When I left, it was the safest large city in America. I reduced homicides by 67 percent. I reduced overall crime by 57 percent."

Fairfax economist Rick Nevin has spent more than a decade researching and writing about the relationship between early childhood lead exposure and criminal behavior later in life. 

Although crime did fall dramatically in New York during Giuliani's tenure, a broad range of scientific research has emerged in recent years to show that the mayor deserves only a fraction of the credit that he claims. The most compelling information has come from an economist in Fairfax who has argued in a series of little-noticed papers that the "New York miracle" was caused by local and federal efforts decades earlier to reduce lead poisoning.

Bottom-line, based upon nothing but a theory, the WaPo suggests Rudy didn't stop crime, a lessening in lead exposure did. And just forget that crime continues to rise in other urban environments. But how did this research come to be? We can thank Bill Clinton for that. And it isn't news, it's several years old. It was written up already here three years ago but goes back to a Clinton initiative in 2000 when his administration paid, guess who, to do it and write it up? You guessed it ... the WaPo source and his consulting group were working for Clinton's administration. In fact, on page 60 of the pdf, you'll see Nevin's company actually prepared the formal report.

Economic consultant Rick Nevin, hired by the Department of Housing and Urban Development to do a cost benefit analysis of removing lead paint from public housing, said he was stunned to discover a strong relationship between the use of leaded gasoline and violent crime.

And the result? Why more money for HUD and related government groups. And how do Nevin and ICF make money? In part, at least, they consult for government agencies, of course. More HUD and EPA dollars for Nevin and ICF at previous link. I believe the outside the beltway terminology we sometimes use for this non-science fueling bigger government with our tax dollars, is circle-jerk.

Nevin also touts green solutions to increase home value as an alternative to the stock market - again, research being funded by our tax dollars.

"The implication for home buyers is that they can profit by investing in energy efficient homes even if they do not know how long they might stay in their homes," says says Rick Nevin, vice president of ICF Consulting, a Fairfax, VA-based international consulting firm that conducted the research with funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

What the WaPo touts as a series of little-noticed papers appears rooted in a 91 page multi-colored government document we paid to produce. The question is, if the work was so unworthy of notice, why did we get hosed into paying for it in the first place? And why aren't Nevin's ties to big government and the Clintons being disclosed?

(pdf) About the President's Task Force on Environmental Health Risks and Safety Risks to Children

In recognition of the growing body of scientific information demonstrating that America's children suffer more than adults from environmental health risks and safety risks, President William Jefferson Clinton issued Executive Order 13045 on April 21, 1997, directing each federal agency to make it a high priority to identify, assess, and address those risks. In issuing this order, the President also created the Task Force on Environmental Health Risks and Safety Risks to Children, co-chaired by Donna E. Shalala, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and Carol M. Browner, Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The Task Force was charged with recommending strategies for protecting children's environmental health and safety....

The workgroup acknowledges the contributions of Peter Ferko, Rick Nevin, Eric Oetjen, and Kim Taylor of ICF Consulting, Inc.

HUD 1999. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Lead Hazard Control, Economic Analysis of the Final Rule on Lead paint: Requirements for Notification, Evaluation and Reduction of Lead paint Hazards in Federally-Owned Residential Property and Housing Receiving Federal Assistance, ICF Consulting, Washington DC, September 7, 1999.

Comments

[splashtc]

Seems the writer of the article has his own personal agenda and likes to link everything to psychology.
Rudy took on the mafia and cleaned up Times Sq. and the Bowery. There's your lower crime stats.
I'd love to see what he could do as president!

[David M]

Trackbacked by The Thunder Run - Web Reconnaissance for 07/08/2007
A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention updated throughout the day…so check back often. This is a weekend edition so updates are as time and family permits.

[Fred Beloit]

The Sunday cartoon "Opus", a liberal propaganda cartoon but very cute and cleaver, took a slap at Fred T. today. On what grounds? Because he doesn't look physically as good as Reagan did. Really.

[jong]

Fred T. hasn't put the abortion lobbying story to rest. Asked about it yesterday, instead of simply saying "No, I didn't do it", he provided the somewhat bizarre answer below.

"Thompson gave an oblique response when asked about the matter, first reported by the Los Angeles Times.

"I'd just say the flies get bigger in the summertime. I guess the flies are buzzing," said Thompson, who is considering running for president as a social conservative. He refused comment on whether he recalled doing the work."

[Phoenix]

So what? He's talking about the media 'flies' and it's apparent he has no use for them. Good.

How a man feels about abortion has zilch to do with how he will govern this country, so his answer is perfect.

[seekeronos]

Fred was a lawyer at that time. If he was employed by a law firm and tasked with representing a client to lobby for a particular issue, then as a condition of employment at that firm, he may have represented that lobby without necessarily agreeing with that lobby's position as a matter of personal preference.

And even if he did support that lobby then, he seems to not be a flagrant supporter of pre-term baby killer at present... so I'll take the left's attempts to dirt-dig at Fred with a grain of salt. 'Tis the season for obfuscation and mudslinging, eh?

[jong]

Right. Per this site: John Edwards is a hypocrite because he's rich but wants to help the poor. But Fred Thompson, who says he opposes abortion but lobbied for it, is just a lawyer trying to make a living.

[PBH]

Rudy Giuliani or Vampire Ghouliani?

http://www.prosebeforehos.com/government_employee/06/19/rudy-giuliani-or-vampire/

[ohwilleke]

I'd hardly call it a "Rudy hit piece."

The article suggest that Rudy's policies reduced crime in NYC by 10%-20%. It says nothing disparaging about him. It simply suggests, as a matter of criminology, that some of the decline in NYC may have had a cause other than the Mayor. Also, the focus Rudy in the first place comes from the WaPo author, not from Nevin.

Just what exactly is wrong about scientists discovering harms caused by pollution at the expense of a government agency whose job is to reduce harms caused by pollution? We've known since at least the 1960s that lead is bad for people, particularly children. What should the EPA do? Be indifferent to its mission and simply not hire anyone to find out where lead is a problem?

It isn't as if anyone at the EPA is going to get paid more because the EPA gets more funding.

Also the "nothing but a theory" line in this post sounds very much like the description ignorant people give to evolution. Nevin does have a hypothesis, but that hypothesis is backed up by lots and lots of lots of data showing the kinds of corollations that make a social scientist's mouth water. The strong corrolation between lead exposure and violent crime rates nineteen years later in different locations is no theory, it is an ironclad fact. Does corrolation imply causation? No. But a very strong corrolation, plus a scientifically established possible mechanism for causation, suggests that one should look much more closely at the matter, particularly when you have more direct evidence -- like lead levels in the blood of people who commit crimes, to support the theory.